Ballistic Kiss

by Richard Kadrey

  The doom twins are so in love with death I can see them in the rumpus room night after night trying to get the hoodoo right. And they did it without even realizing it, opening a gateway and letting those murderous spooks into this world.

  That all makes sense, but it still doesn’t explain Chris Stein or why the haunting is in Little Cairo. When Juliette and Dan said they didn’t know if he’d been in the Lodge they were telling the truth. I could see it in their eyes and hear it in the microtremors of their voices. So, how did Stein end up as the focal point for all those spooks? There’s one thing I do know. I’m not going to find the answers here. These dummies have no idea what they’re doing. That means someone else called Stein. I’ll take a look at their records, but I have a feeling I’m right back where I started.

  Maybe not right back. Where did those spooks that attacked me in the flying saucer house come from? Me and Kenny weren’t exactly friends. Did he figure out how to control the Stay Belows and send them for me? And did the doom twins know anything about it?

  Janet says, “So? What do you think?”

  “I could have shown you Hell without you killing the bird.”

  “Then do it.”

  “No.”

  “There’s the problem. Kenny is the solution.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “You’re a powerful presence,” says Dan. “And you know more than you say. If things go pear-shaped, you won’t let everyone die.”

  “Just you.”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  Around me, the others are happily speculating on the best way to kill things for Kenny.

  I turn to Janet.

  “You’re okay with the animal sacrifices?”

  They whisper, “Not really. But Kenny is suffering. He said sacrifices would help him escape that terrible place.”

  I consider telling her that sacrifices don’t work that way. They don’t get you out of the House of Knives. I know this from personal experience. I still remember the blades ripping into me for the first time. It didn’t even hurt—at first. The feeling was more an icy kind of shock. But the cold slipped away quickly and there I was with my insides twisting around whirling daggers. It was the first place the Hellions tried to get rid of me. Before the arena, it’s where I discovered that I was hard to kill. But I can’t tell Janet all of that.

  Instead I say, “You can do what you want. I’m not murdering any dogs.”

  They hold on to my hand as I get up.

  “Please don’t make a scene.”

  I pull my hand away and turn to the doom twins.

  “Thanks for the floor show.”

  I check Janet one more time to see if she—they—want to come with me. They turn away.

  When I head upstairs, Dan calls after me.

  “Leaving so soon? The evening was just getting started.”

  I stop by the door and smile at him and Juliette.

  “There’s one thing you should know. I don’t kill animals. I kill people. And if anything happens to Janet, I’ll kill you. Aside from that, stay away from me. All of you.”

  On the way out, I steal as much of the doom twins’ liquor as I can shove into my coat.

  The next afternoon, I sit around with Vidocq at his place, my hoard of stolen booze spread out on his coffee table. I haven’t spoken to Janet since last night, so that might be the end of that. I don’t like to think about it, but then I don’t like to think about being cool with people cutting up poodles for no goddamn reason. I want to think that Janet is better than the rest of the Lodge Within the Lodge crowd. I know it’s a reach at this point, but I want to think that what Janet said was just a momentary bout of dementia. Still, not hearing from them makes me think that they’ve made up their mind about whose side they’re on, and it’s not mine. It’s too bad. I lost Alice and mostly lost Candy but I’m still here. I suppose I’ll get over Janet, but it’s going to be a long, sad process finding a new donut place.

  Vidocq says, “You’re sure they were discussing animal sacrifices?”

  “Dogs. Then a horse.”

  “Mon dieu. I’ve known alchemists who, when struggling with a seemingly unsolvable problem, turned to foul methods to obtain knowledge. But they never truly succeeded. One tainted morsel of information made them hungrier for more. And since it seemed to them that they had found a way of advancing themselves with little work, they turned from fools into monsters.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Vidocq cups his hands like he thinks a hedgehog might fall from the ceiling.

  “They would begin with small animals, eventually moving to larger and larger ones. When single beasts were no longer sufficient, they fell in with criminals, stealing whole herds to satisfy their growing desire for foul knowledge.”

  “Did it work? What happened to them?”

  “The ones not arrested by the authorities turned darker and crueler in their desires. Some went mad. A few, realizing what they’d become, hung themselves. Some, however, simply became ever more monstrous. I remember one winter in particular. A deep cold had settled over Paris. The type that seems endless. Daily, there would be bodies in the street. The homeless. The foolish who walked into a storm after too much wine. It took some time, but contacts of mine in both the criminal and legal worlds told me that the greatest number of dead that winter were children.”

  “That stinks, but is it so strange? Aren’t kids always the first to get hurt?”

  “True. But the heads of children in a flood remained on their shoulders. Their hearts remained in their chests. You couldn’t say the same for the dead children of Paris that winter.”

  “Human sacrifice?”

  “The bodies and blood of children have powerful mystical properties. The younger the child, the more power it has. This is well-known in the world of dark magic. What was equally well-known among circles such as mine was that even contemplating hurting a child would lead you to the guillotine. Or worse.”

  “What’s worse than having a sweaty cop cut your head off?”

  “Us,” Vidocq says.

  He doesn’t speak for a minute, lost somewhere in Paris a hundred years ago.

  Finally, he says, “We were what the monstrous feared more than the police. The legitimate and sane alchemists and magicians of Paris. We did not take madmen and -women lightly. If we found a baleful wizard or witch before the police did, their end would be much slower and more terrifying than a quick death by the guillotine.”

  I take a sip of some expensive Scotch. It tastes like burnt dirt.

  “Dan and Juliette are nuts, but I don’t think they’re baby-stealing nuts.”

  “For now.”

  I watch a seagull fly by the window.

  “Janet wouldn’t put up with it. They’d tell me, even if we were on the outs like we are now. They’re in over their head, but not so deep they’d let the doom twins feed Kenny a kid.”

  “I hope you’re right. But power changes people. It creates a desire for more power. At a certain point it can become overwhelming and after certain acts people can find that there is no turning back.”

  Hearing all this, more than ever, I want to get Janet away from the Lodge crowd. Manimal Mike too. I hope Maria isn’t leading him somewhere he can’t come back from. Of course, I don’t even know Maria, so I can’t write her off yet. Maybe she was just caught up in the moment last night. But the others—Juliette, Dan, turtleneck guy, and the rest—they can’t join Kenny in the House of Knives fast enough to suit me.

  Vidocq says, “Tell me more about Little Cairo. Have you learned anything helpful from your restless spirits?”

  I paw through the bottles on the table, looking for bourbon.

  “A few things. Just not enough to matter. The Sub Rosa Council wants to wipe out the Stay Belows and my money is on that happening.”

  “A slaughter of the innocents.”

  “Not exactly innocent. I saw them kill people.”

  Vidocq rais
es a finger.

  “Don’t judge the dead so quickly. They are lost in our world. What they did could easily have been out of fear. Or for reasons we the living are simply unable to fathom.”

  “That’s how Flicker talks about them. That they’re mostly like lost children. She said that one of them, a guy named Chris Stein, was back because of a woman. A lost angel who’s probably the one who murdered him. Samael wants me to find her too, but I keep running into brick walls.”

  “Love is a powerful force, even after death. It may not be revenge he’s looking for, but forgiveness. For something he or she did.”

  “Does ‘forever yours, forever mine’ mean anything to you?”

  Vidocq gives me a vague smile.

  “I’m afraid not. The workings of the afterlife are more your specialty than mine.”

  “I just wish the fucking Stay Belows would stay below.”

  “You’re a powerful magician, my friend. Surely you can handle a company of lost children.”

  Before I can answer, a firefly dot appears in the air across the room. It quickly expands into the Thurl that I’ve seen so many times lately. What’s worse, the opening is directly in front of Vidocq’s apartment door, blocking the fastest way out. Four armed Stay Belows walk out of the passage. The only encouraging thing about the situation is that they’re all bunched up together.

  Before they attack I yell, “Get behind me.”

  A smart guy, Vidocq does it.

  “I have potions that can help dispel them,” he says.

  “Leave it to me right now.”

  I’m not fucking around with these dead bastards again, so I manifest my Gladius.

  I don’t know if ghosts can learn or there’s a ghost gossip network, but they freeze in place. Then, one by one, they walk back into the glowing ghost gate.

  I turn to Vidocq.

  “What the hell just happened?”

  “You frightened them. Apparently, even specters know about Sandman Slim.”

  “Maybe. Did I show you the ghostbuster kit Flicker gave me?”

  As I pull the bundle from my pocket, something in the passageway moves.

  Correction. Some things. Twenty or thirty Stay Belows charge at us all at once. Even with the Gladius, I can’t handle that many.

  Vidocq grabs a handful of his potion vials and throws them at the mob. As each vial breaks, the spooks fall back. But the effect only lasts a few seconds. Then they’re rushing us again.

  With nothing to lose but our asses, it’s time for a field test.

  I yell, “Close your eyes,” and touch Flicker’s bundle to the edge of the Gladius.

  It bursts into brilliant, shimmering light. The smell of burning metal, sage, blood, and other acrid scents fills the room. I can’t see but it must be doing something, because we aren’t severely dead yet.

  I drop the bundle on the floor, hoping it will keep the Stay Belows away long enough for Vidocq and me to get out of here. Even with his eyes closed, the tough old bastard is still throwing potions at the dead mob. I grab him and pull him into a wavering shadow cast by the bundle’s painful light.

  I lose my footing as we stumble into the Room of Thirteen Doors. When I’m back on my feet I realize that Vidocq is on the floor with half of a Stay Below on top of him, trying to sink its spook teeth into his throat. I can’t use my Gladius without killing Vidocq too, so I bark Hellion hoodoo.

  It knocks the Stay Below across the room, where it bounces off the Door of Dreams. I approach with the Gladius and as I’m about to send the fucker to oblivion, Vidocq shouts at me.

  “Wait—can you hold the creature in place with magic?”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “So that we might learn from it.”

  I’d ignore anyone else, but not Vidocq. I bark a little more hoodoo, pinning the Stay Below to the floor. Now that it’s helpless, it’s kind of a pitiful thing. Half obliterated, cut off at the waist from the light in Flicker’s bundle. What’s with us now was probably saved by being dragged into the Room. Seeing it sliced across the middle like that, I can’t help thinking about how Stein died. What a sad and frightening death it must have been for him. How much longer does he have before the Council and I will have to kill him?

  I say, “Do something or let me put this fucker out of his misery.”

  Vidocq creeps over to the Stay Below and pours one of his potions into its mouth. The thing thrashes and shrieks on the floor. I have to bark more hoodoo to keep it pinned.

  I say, “What the hell was that stuff?”

  “Watch,” he says. “With luck, in a moment we should see the creature’s origin.”

  Something coalesces in the air. It’s a low-res image, like something from an old-fashioned photo projector. Fuzzy, with the colors pale and faded. Over a minute or so the image sharpens enough that we can pick out details.

  “What is that?” Vidocq says.

  “It’s Hollywood Boulevard. Can you read what’s on that sign?”

  Over the street is a wide expanse, like a billboard. It’s covered in lights and blocky black letters.

  “I see the word ‘devil,’” Vidocq says.

  “Me too. I think that’s neon around the edge of the billboard.”

  “That’s not a billboard. It’s a marquee.”

  I squint at the apparition and see that he’s right. As I creep closer to the Stay Below, the words come more into focus. I can see two words clearly now: “Devil” and “Jones.”

  I get even closer.

  “It says The Devil in Miss Jones.”

  “What is that? Some strange exorcism?” says Vidocq.

  “No. It’s an old porn movie. That’s the marquee of the goddamn Pussycat Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  Vidocq frowns at me.

  “How curious.”

  “That’s a word for it. Are you sure your potion is working? That’s the spook’s origin?”

  “I’ve been making this formula for over a century. It’s never failed me.”

  “The lost angel was supposed to hang out there. Maybe this thing knew her? Or was part of the party scene?”

  “How curious.”

  “Is this thing going to tell us anything else?”

  Vidocq shakes his head. “Perhaps if it was intact. However, in its present state, I doubt there’s anything more than this impression.”

  “Okay then.”

  I raise the Gladius and slam it into where the Stay Below’s heart would be. It lets out a small gasp and blips out of existence.

  Vidocq looks at me in wonder.

  “A pornographic ghost. What does it mean?”

  Pieces start falling into place.

  “It means the angel who killed Chris Stein sent it. And I’ve seen that portal enough that I’m sure Dan and Juliette are helping them.”

  “If that’s true, your friend Janet is in great danger.”

  “That’s the problem. They love it.”

  I call their number, but it sends me straight to voicemail. Perfect. They’re blocking me. At least I can leave a message. I tell them everything that’s happened and what I’ve figured out, but before I can get it all out a text from Janet comes through. It’s short and to the point:

  LEAVE ME ALONE

  My first instinct is to go through a shadow, grab Janet, and make them listen to me. But something Candy said comes back to me. “If you want to help people, kidnapping them is a bad start.”

  I try to tell myself this is different. It’s not kidnaping. It’s just talking about something important. But I’d probably have to hold them down to do it, and if that’s not kidnapping—or worse—then I don’t know what it is.

  I put the phone in my pocket and, after checking for spooks, take Vidocq back to his apartment.

  When I get home to the flying saucer house I punch a few holes in the wall. I want to go up into the hills and kill Dan and Juliette, but I can’t do that. Not yet. Then Janet would be lost forever. Instead, I take some of Allegra’s PTSD
pills and turn off the lights. Flop down on the sofa and try to think.

  Janet is in danger. Samael wants his angel. The Council wants their ghosts. Which crisis am I supposed to handle when they’re all part of the same damn shit storm?

  I’m not good with defeat, especially when it feels like there’s a price on my head. But for the first time in a long time I have absolutely no idea what to do.

  A few hours later, my phone buzzes. I grab it, hoping it’s Janet. But it’s a text from Abbot. The Stay Belows are starting to breach the wards around Little Cairo. His people have seen civilians, so they know the place is inhabited. Not that they care. The end of the text reads:

  YOU HAVE 36 HOURS.

  More good news.

  I give Flicker a quick call and ask her to help Abbot’s people reinforce the quarantine around Little Cairo. She agrees, which maybe gives everyone an extra day to live.

  I toss the phone on the coffee table and it buzzes one more time. When I check it, there’s an address in Benedict Canyon and a name: Lisa Thivierge.

  I ride the Hog up winding roads into the hinterlands of Benedict Canyon to a Gothic-style mansion right out of a thirties Universal horror movie. Dr. Frankenstein’s summer home, or where a friendly neighbor chains up Lyle Talbot during the full moon. Even the name Lisa Thivierge is living under—Janet Lawton—is a gag: the name of the ingenue in the old Ed Wood movie Bride of the Monster. I like Thivierge already.

  Thivierge first made her name in the late fifties as one of the few women directors in Hollywood and, along with Ida Lupino, one of the only women allowed to direct action movies. She was successful for years, but then she dropped out of the business and out of sight. No one seems to know why. Now here she is hiding in this monster-movie mansion. It’s like some kind of decades-long practical joke.

  Still, there are two things about the house that aren’t funny. The first is the protective wards and charms around the windows and the front door. I move the doormat a few inches with my boot and find a line of red brick dust to keep out intruders.

  The other peculiar thing about the house is the industrial air conditioner hidden behind a small stand of trees. The damn thing is the size of a pickup truck. Unless Thivierge plays a lot of hockey, the air conditioner makes no sense at all.