by Tad Williams
“No, I mean where are we? This is crazy stuff, and obviously there’s a lot we’re not even discussing, like how you know what you know and why I wanted to go there in the first place.”
“I trust you, Bobby. And I hope you trust me.”
“Of course.” I trusted nobody.
“Good.” He put his arm through mine. We continued walking, me and the tiny little Hispanic lady with the invisible halo. “I think we should leave everything just like this for now,” Temuel began, just as a car pulled up alongside us and screeched to a halt.
This time I did have the butt of my Belgian automatic in my hand and halfway out of my jacket when I recognized the vintage blue Camaro; a moment later I saw the driver’s head and the insane, expansive crest of hair that clinched the deal.
“Hey, Bobby!” yelled Young Elvis. “Who’s your girlfriend?”
He gunned the engine, which rumbled like a drug dealer’s powerboat. It was a pretty car, even I had to admit, with twin racing stripes down the front. Young E. may be kind of a twit, but he’s the only angel I know who really gets cars.
“What the hell are you doing in this part of the world?” I asked him, discreetly letting go of Temuel.
Young Elvis looked the archangel’s human disguise up and down and made an amused face. “Seriously, Dollar,” he said as I reached the curb, “are you dating your cleaning lady or something?”
“You’re the funniest racist I know.” I leaned into the open passenger side window. “Got a client?”
“Just finished with one. Nice enough guy. Fell off a roof. Half the neighborhood was standing around crying. What are you doing here? And, really, who is that?”
“The woman? She’s just some poor old homeless lady who started talking to me.”
“Seriously?” Young E. grinned. “You weren’t hitting on her? You two look close.”
Normally when he got this annoying I’d have spent some time explaining to him why he was a serious candidate for Heaven’s Biggest Asshole, but right now I just wanted him to leave. “Yeah, right. I reminded her of her son, or that’s what she said. I’m being nice. You might want to look that up in the official handbook. I believe that’s what angels are supposed to be.”
“Angels who are pussies, maybe.” He shook his impressive quiff of hair and revved his engine. “Well, didn’t mean to interrupt your good works. I’ll tell everybody back at the Compasses we may not see you for a while, since you’re busy ministering to the poor, fat, and horny.”
He roared away, waving. He’s not as bad as he seems, honest. Well, he is, but he doesn’t really mean to be such a dick, God just drew him that way.
By the time I got back to Temuel I could tell he was a bit nervous. He told me we’d talk again soon, and that we should never discuss any of this stuff in Heaven, only here, and only when we were sure nobody could hear us. Then he just kind of slipped away.
It wasn’t until I got back to my apartment that I realized my phone had been off all this time. A voicemail had come in from Sam, suggesting where we should set up the exchange with Eligor. By the time I finished listening to it, my phone was ringing again. The number was blocked, so I answered and said, “Yeah, I got your message.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” said Eligor, Grand Duke of Hell. “Especially since I didn’t leave one. Do you have what I need?”
Stopped me dead. The last time I’d heard that voice, its owner had just finished torturing me in pretty much every conceivable way, and was throwing me out to run for my life from Niloch and his hellhounds. You won’t be surprised to learn that my heart sped up a bit, and I could taste blood in the back of my mouth. “Yeah, I have what you need. I already told your secretary. When do you want to meet?”
“What is it, one in the morning? I’ll meet you an hour from now. Just tell me where.”
“An hour?” As much as I was aching to get Caz away from him, I didn’t know if I could get hold of Sam in time, and I couldn’t retrieve the feather without him. “That’s going to be difficult.”
“Really? I’d have thought you’d be in more of a hurry to get your hands on the . . .” he paused for effect, “. . . merchandise.” He laughed. I wanted so badly to reach through the phone and hit him in the face. “Well, you’re the boss, Dollar, if you want to wait . . .”
“Never mind. I’ll be ready. Meet me on the top floor of the parking structure opposite Pier 40. That’s the one—”
“Next to the ferry port, yes, I know. I’ll be waiting. Ciao!”
Yes, I know I let myself get hustled, but other than getting hold of Sam, I didn’t really have anything else to do to get ready. See, I was hoping that if I let Eligor think he had the upper hand, it would make things easier.
What’s that you say? That Eligor really did have the upper hand, and I was a fucking idiot to let him hurry me? Sorry, I didn’t catch any of that. You’d better tell me later when I’m not ignoring you so hard.
To my massive relief, Sam picked up when I called him, and he was still on my side of the funhouse mirror, so I wouldn’t have to cancel the meet. He promised he’d be there.
“Are you really sure Pier 40’s a good place to do it?” I asked.
“How could anyone be sure about something like this? But I think it’s our best bet. Just think clean thoughts and I’ll meet you in the parking lot down the street by Wimpy’s Steamers about ten minutes to two.”
“Right,” I said and hung up. I was so nervous I really needed to piss. What a piece of work is Man, my ass. Brain too big, bladder too small, and only the most boring bits are immortal.
But even before I hit the bathroom, I filled my pockets with speed-loaders full of silver bullets in case shit went south at the exchange. Not that they’d do me much good against the grand duke himself. In fact, if the swap did go fuckity-boom somehow, the only thing that might save me from Eligor would be if he started laughing at me so hard that he gave himself a rupture.
Still, there was just a chance, the tiniest, most unlikely chance, that it would all work and in a few hours I’d be bringing Caz back here to my apartment.
I remember wishing I had time to tidy up the place a little.
forty-seven
almost on the waterfront
BY THE time I made it to Wimpy’s Steamers, a hamburger fetish restaurant in an old-fashioned silver diner car on Parade Street, Sam was just coming out with a bag full of tiny burgers. The burgers didn’t bother me so much—even angels have to eat, at least on Earth—but he had Clarence the Junior Angel with him, which bothered me a lot.
“Oh, come on! Does everybody talk to everybody behind my back?”
Clarence smiled a little, but he had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Pretty much, Bobby.”
“Pardon me for being difficult,” I asked Sam, “but didn’t he,” I pointed to Clarence, “try to arrest you? And isn’t he still supposed to?”
“Don’t be so black and white about everything, B.” Sam took a cupcake-sized burger out of the bag and pretty much inhaled it. “Yes, in other circumstances, our friend here might think it was his duty to turn me over to his superiors, my ex-bosses.” He licked his fingers and then wiped them on the leg of his pants. I always hated when he did that. Dogs used to follow him in the park. “But like any sensible angel, he’s capable of understanding that sometimes changing circumstances require more flexibility.”
“What he’s saying is that I’m here for you, Bobby,” Clarence told me, sincere as someone delivering the wrap-up on an Afterschool Special. “I don’t care what you might have done, you’re still an angel, and we’re still on the same side. No way I’m going to let some pitchforking high-hat take you out without a scuffle.”
I groaned. “Jesus, Sam, that sounds like something you’d say. This sucks.” My problem wasn’t with a potential skirmish; I thought the kid would probably do okay. He’d had some training, and he could shoot pretty well. My problem was what Clarence would do if we all survived the night. “I can’
t risk it, Junior, sorry,” I said at last. “Can’t take you along. Can’t risk you learning too much about my personal business.”
“Why? I already know pretty much everything,” he said. “I mean, I know all about your girlfriend from Hell. I’ve known that for a while and didn’t tell anyone, so what’s the problem now?”
“You know?” I turned to Sam. I could feel a vein in my temple throbbing like it was going to pop loose and start spraying high-pressure blood everywhere, like a fire hose. “He knows?”
“Don’t blame me,” said my best friend, absorbing another tiny burger. “Man, these are good. He already knew about Caz. Didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Come on, Bobby!” the kid said. “What was I supposed to believe? That you left your body behind for three weeks so you could holiday at Sandals in Puerto Vallarta? Or, what did you actually come up with? Seattle? Yo, man—Hendrix museum and the Space Needle!”
I glared at him, and I pretty much meant it. “I liked you better when you were the village idiot. Okay, you can hang around, I guess. And I guess I appreciate it. But you don’t get to do the jokes.”
He didn’t look particularly chastened. “Right, Bobby. Whatever you say.”
It was just turning two o’clock as we walked down Parade toward Pier 40. I told them what I thought might happen and what I wanted them to do, whether things went as expected or not. When we reached the parking structure across from the pier, we found the chain, usually stretched across the entrance ramp at night, had been cut and left in two tangled piles like a pair of really depressed snakes.
It was a cool night, and the wind off the bay made it seem more like February than July, but I had hope to keep me warm. We made our way up to the top floor, talking quietly but making no other effort to disguise our arrival. Two figures were waiting in the far corner, next to Kenneth Vald’s long black car, no doubt an armor job of Orban quality. Hell, the ancient Hungarian bastard might have actually customized Vald’s car, for all I knew.
One of the pair was extremely tall, and the other was Eligor himself. I had to suppress a sudden flood of anger and panic. Where was Caz? Was she in the car? Was she even here?
Eligor’s companion was more than just lengthy, he was also pretty strange: nearly seven feet tall and reasonably muscular, but his hands and feet were way too big for the rest of his body, and his head was too small, giving him the look of (I really can’t find a nicer way to say it) a titanic pinhead. But the eyes in that sloping skull were sharp and focused, and I was quite sure those serving-plate hands were as strong as they looked.
“Mr. Dollar.” Eligor wore his Kenneth Vald body and his most earnest leisure clothes, as if about to go yachting with his old prep-school chums. He looked at Sam, pausing just long enough to show that he recognized him, then flicked a glance to Clarence before turning back to me. “So we meet again! Congratulations on escaping. Oh, and those of us who find Commissar Niloch rather tedious would like to thank you for dropping his head down the Outer Gorge. It should take him a few thousand years to tongue his way back up.”
“Where’s the Countess?” It was all I could do not to shout.
Eligor shook his head. “No appreciation for the art of conversation. That’s the problem with this tough-guy model of yours, Dollar—it’s all terse quips and sour replies. What’s wrong with Holmes or Hercule Poirot, heroes who could string a few words together?” He lifted an eyebrow at the involuntary growl that escaped me. “Oh, very well then, if you insist.” He waved to the tall guy. “He wants to see the Countess, Fiddlescrape. Would you do the honors, please?”
The bodyguard opened the back door of the long car and bent over. He helped Caz get out, although “helped” isn’t really the word I’d use unless fishermen “help” gaffed fish onto a boat. She was not her usual graceful self because her hands were tied behind her back. She was also gagged. I forced myself to take deep breaths so I didn’t just shoot somebody.
“Now let her go, and you’ll get the feather,” I told the grand duke.
“This is the part Sam didn’t really explain,” said Clarence into my ear. “What’s he want the feather for . . . ?”
“Shut up,” I advised him. “Send her over, Eligor.”
Eligor chuckled. “Oh, no, no. Feather first, then I promise you get the woman. You have my word.”
“Great! I was so hoping I could get the sworn promise of one of Hell’s biggest fixers,” I said. “Because then I’d feel really secure.” But I knew that he couldn’t just cheat me. The lords of Hell have a curious love-hate relationship with the truth, and if you’re smart enough, you can take advantage of that. “Go ahead, Sam. Get it.”
Sam took out the thing he called the God Glove, the powerful article Kephas had given him when Sam first agreed to work for the Third Way. It was going to be pretty damned ironic that the glove Anaita had given Sam was going to help me again, I thought—my only cheerful reflection at that moment. The wispy nothingness flared white in the dark garage, bright as a road flare but with more colors. Once Sam had pulled it over his hand, he reached into my pocket and produced the feather. Clarence gaped, so fascinated by this display of heavenly magic that I was very glad I didn’t need anything from him at that moment. Caz stared at me helplessly from behind the gag. I did my best not to get lost looking at her, but just seeing her out of the corner of my eye was like something sharp poking me in one of my ventricles.
Eligor eyed Sam’s incandescent fingers. “My, you have been a busy little bee, Sammariel. Doloriel told me you could do that, but I didn’t entirely believe him.”
Sam gave him the fish-eye. “There’s lots of things you don’t know about, Your Grace. What do you want me to do with the feather, Bobby?”
“Give it to Clarence.”
The kid looked at me like I’d just started speaking in tongues. “Huh? Why me?”
“To hold onto it,” I said and eased my gun out of my pocket. “Because in a second things are going to start getting complicated. Take it.”
Clarence did, wide-eyed. I could tell that just holding the thing was making him nervous. To be fair, if you ever saw it yourself, you’d be nervous too. Even an idiot would have known that it was a feather from a powerful angel. It was just . . . obvious.
“Now, go check Caz to see if she’s all right, Sam,” I said. He and I had discussed this, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous. I flipped the safety on my pistol.
“Really, Dollar, this is insulting,” said Eligor, but he was still grinning. “That’s the problem with you Heaven people, you think you’re the only honorable ones.”
I met Caz’s eye as Sam approached her. She looked strangely flat and hopeless, an expression I hoped would soon be explained. Sam passed his glowing hand over her head and in front of her, hovering for just a moment above the bodice of her white minidress. Caz stared at Sam’s hand in what almost looked like terror.
“Not real, Bobby.” Sam put his God Glove hand in his pocket. “She’s an illusion.”
I leveled my gun at Eligor’s face. I was about fifteen feet from him and felt confident I could put at least two or three silver slugs into his earthly body before he could get me, no matter how fast he was. That ought to at least change the equation a bit, give me time to decide what to do next. I had assumed he’d play games, so I wasn’t too surprised. “So, that’s how it is, huh? Really?”
Eligor rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Just having a little fun. You cloud-huffers need to lighten up a little.” He gestured offhandedly and the false Caz vanished, leaving Fiddlescrape standing by himself in front of the open limo door. There was nobody else to be seen inside.
“You said you wanted an exchange, Eligor. I came to deal fairly. Now are you going to produce the Countess or am I going to turn your face into ground chuck? I owe you that and a whole lot more.”
For the briefest moment the Kenneth Vald face shimmered and ran like water sheeting down a rock. Beneath it was something much, much worse, a mask
of dark rage, a head shaggy with snaky hair and a pair of curving horns, one long, one oddly dwarfish and misshapen, like something that had melted in great heat. Then the genuinely terrifying anger-face dissolved back into the Vald smirk again. “Really, little angel?” he said. “You’d draw down on me?”
The grand duke didn’t give any visual signal, but I heard Clarence gasp as Fiddlescrape shook a sawed-off shotgun out of his wide sleeve and into his hand, then pointed it at my head. It looked like a derringer in his massive fist. “Drop it or I’ll drop you,” the pinhead suggested.
Click. Click-click-click. Now Sam and a far-too-excited Clarence had their weapons out and cocked too, both of them sighted on Fiddlescrape. That added up to all of us except Eligor with our guns drawn, in a small, confined area. A lot depended on what the Horseman did next. I stared at him.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, what?” Eligor was enjoying himself, or at least that’s how it looked. “Are you doing Phillip Marlowe? Because if so, you’ll have to make sure and end up sadder but wiser at the close of this evening.”
“Just get on with it,” I said. “I want Caz, like you promised back at Flesh Horse. I want her released, I want her healthy, and no reprisals, like you promised. For that, you get the feather. After that, you and Kephas can work out your own arrangements. I don’t care about any of this political bullshit.”
“Fine, fine. You’re quite a whiner, aren’t you? ‘I want, I want . . .’ Where did they find someone like you?” Eligor made a sarcastic show of sticking his hands in his pockets and looking around like he was really thinking things over. “All right, you win. Enough time wasted on this.” He reached out to the side and suddenly there was a Zipper there, or at least the hellish version, a red glare traced like a vertical slash wound in the air. He reached through the red glare and pulled out another Caz, bound and gagged like the last one, but where the previous model had been strangely passive, this one was fighting to get free.