Shit.
I fired the last two rounds in the corridor upstairs. Brigitte pushes past me and shoots at the mob.
“Go for the legs,” I say.
The crazies start falling, and the fallen ones at the front are trampled by the ones behind. Each fallen body narrows the way and slows them. I reach into my coat and pull out a SIG .45, and while Brigitte shoots at the crazies’ legs, I shoot at their chests. Between the two of us, we’re piling up bodies fast. It’s harder for each new crazy to climb over the body of its fallen, fruit-bat comrade. Soon there are so many bodies that the passage is blocked all the way to the ceiling. We can still hear screaming from behind the all-beef barricade, but no one is coming through.
I shout at Delon, “Find us a way out of here,” and he sprints into the dark.
On the far side of the dead crazies, the live ones are still trying to get through. They pull bodies from the pile, then pass them back and out of the bloody passage. The whole skeleton of the scaffold shakes with their movements. I have a couple of more guns, but we’re going to run out of bullets soon.
I grab Candy and Brigitte and point to a joint in the scaffold’s ceiling halfway between the crazies and us.
“See that? Shoot there. Everything you have.”
They both open up. I put away the SIG and take out the Desert Eagle .50 the Satanists left for me at the Chateau. Normally, I hate pistols like this because they’re more suited for killing tanks and dinosaurs than shooting people. But I might have finally found a use for it.
I join the women in emptying shot after shot into the scaffold joint. Candy runs out of bullets first. Brigitte has more shots, but her CO2 pistol is designed to punch through flesh not metal. I empty almost the whole clip from the Desert Eagle before I hear the first creak. The crazies have pulled enough bodies out of the way to start down after us again. They’re rocking the scaffold so hard it’s bouncing off the walls of the narrow concrete passage. The damned thing is rocking but it won’t fall.
When the mob hits the area with the weak joint, the whole structure moans and bellows like a gut-shot buffalo. And comes crashing down on top of them. As metal, wood, and concrete cascade down, the crazies claw the air and crawl on crushed arms and legs, still trying to get to us. The roar of the collapse bounces around the stone walls until it feels like my eardrums are about to implode. A blinding storm of concrete dust fills the air. We cough and hack like asthmatics running a marathon in a sandstorm.
Soon the air begins to clear. The echoes of the crash and the crazies’ screams fade away. There’s just the gentle sound of Vidocq cursing in French and Brigitte meeting him curse for curse in Czech.
“Who the fuck was that?” says Candy. “More Shoggots?”
“No. It was the construction workers. Some of them still had their hard hats and work shirts.”
“What happened to them?”
“They fucking invoked something on those stairs and then Norris and his boys invoked it again. Maybe they were going to change too, but they didn’t get the chance.”
Traven says, “Is that madness going to happen to us?”
“We didn’t walk straight down, so maybe we got around the hex.”
“Who would build something like that in here?”
“Right now I don’t really care. Let’s get out of here.”
Delon comes back and leads us to another staircase, this one with no amusing markings on it. Sore and bloody, we head down.
Right into a dead end. There’s no wreckage covering a possible exit. No windows or crawl spaces. Just a solid wall ahead and a small pile of debris behind.
“Paul,” I say.
He turns and looks at me. There’s already a trace of panic on his face. He knows where this is heading. I get a hand around his throat and shove him against the wall.
“What have you fucking done to us?”
He looks around like maybe a magic door will descend from Heaven above.
Candy puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Can’t you take us out through a shadow?”
“Take us where? Home? Disneyland? We didn’t come here for that. I want the ghost, and you, Delon, were supposed to get us to him. You’re Tykho’s spy and I went along with that as part of the deal, but you’ve been about as useful as a three-legged elephant. Why should I even explain myself to you? You’re not even a real boy.”
I reach under my coat for the black blade. But it’s not there. Candy grabs my arm.
“Stop. Just stop.”
I look at her, and for a second I see Alice’s face the first time she saw me kill someone. The moment she understood what I’d become. It didn’t feel good then and it doesn’t feel good now. I let go of Delon and he pushes past me and climbs halfway up the stairs.
“You okay?” says Candy.
“Swell. How about you?”
“Just another day in paradise.”
I want to say something more, something dumb and funny and reassuring, but in my head it’s all black and full of the snake-eyed dice and Devil heads. Bad juju. Evil thoughts. I’m not taking Delon apart right now, but that doesn’t make me want to do it any less. The only other thing I can think to do is what Candy said. Leave. Go out through a shadow and what then? Start over? Delon isn’t coming back with us, and without a guide we’ll be right where we were before we started. Maybe I could trade Tykho something for the map. Promise not to burn down her club or stake out all her toadies on the roof at sunrise. Maybe maybe maybe. It’s all bullshit. This city has done its best to keep the 8 Ball from me and I think it might have won. Maybe it’s time to go home, order room service, and wait for the end of the world in luxury.
“We are such fuckups,” I say.
“Relax. It could have been ten,” says Traven. Neither of us laughs, but I want to murder someone maybe 10 percent less. I think about what Mustang Sally said. “When you get lost keep going till you hit the end of the road. There will be something there, even if it’s not what you were looking for.” But there’s nothing here at all. Just a bunch of fools and a lot of ruins.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
“How?” says Delon. “We’re trapped. We’re fucked.”
“Does anyone know what this is?” says Traven. He holds out a blue plastic ball about five inches in diameter.
“Where did you find it?” says Brigitte.
“Back here. There are a lot more.”
We follow Traven back along the bread-crumb trail of plastic balls. It leads to the pile of debris in back. Vidocq goes down and he and Traven pull pieces of concrete and cinder blocks from the wall. Hundreds of colored plastic balls cascade out. Red. Blue. White. Green. Then the balls stop. There are so many of them that they’ve plugged up the hole they were pouring through.
“What are they?” says Candy.
“A way out?” says Traven.
I say, “Let me try something.”
They clear away from the hole. I get down right next to it and stick my Kissi arm into the wall of plastic. Nothing is going to bite the arm off, and if anyone is hiding on the other side, my bug arm will scare them off. But I don’t feel anything except more plastic balls. I pull my arm back.
“The hole is big enough to get through. I’m going in.”
“Like hell you are,” says Candy. “You’re hurt, you can’t do magic, and you’re probably out of bullets by now.”
“Someone has to go through and see what’s on the other side of this wall. And it’s not going to be Vasco de Asshole over there,” I say, looking at Delon.
“I’ll go,” says Brigitte. “My gun has some shots left.”
“Please don’t,” says Traven.
“It’s fine. There’s probably nothing there and I’ll be back in two seconds.”
Traven lets go of her arm. Brigitte gets out her pistol, kneels by the opening, and worms her way inside. More balls pour into the room. When she’s up to her waist, she’s still burrowing. Then only her feet are showing and she disa
ppears.
A whoop comes through from the other side of the wall. Balls begin to fall again. In a few seconds Brigitte has dug back far enough to stick her head back into the room.
“Come through,” she says. “It’s incredible.”
Before I can say anything, Candy dives in after her. I shove Delon through next. I follow him and Traven and Vidocq follow me.
It’s not much of a climb. Only a few feet. I’m suspended in plastic balls for a second when I hear Candy say, “Put your feet down, dummy.”
I shift around until I clear enough balls under me to move my feet down and touch a floor. When I straighten up I find myself waist-deep in the plastic balls. The others pop up behind me.
The room is dark and smells of mold and something sweet. Like old soft-drink syrup spilled and left to go bad in wet carpets. Brigitte has her flashlight on. I can make out shapes under the collapsed ceiling. Booths. Pool tables. Pinball and motorcycle-racing machines against the walls.
“What the hell is this place?” I say.
“It’s one of those family joints,” says Candy. “You know. The family fills up on pizza and the kids get to run around and play games, including climbing around in ball pits.”
She bounces some of the plastic balls off my chest.
“We’re saved by America’s shitty eating habits,” she says.
Brigitte leads the way out of the pit and we follow her through the restaurant. The aluminum doors have long since been knocked down. We step over them and a small sea of broken glass and then we’re back in the main floor of the mall.
I say, “Hallelujah. Back where we started.”
“Not quite,” says Delon.
He’s standing by one of the upright mall maps.
“According to this, we’re one floor above the baths.”
“Lead the way,” I say.
He starts down a long flight of marble stairs. There’s a wet breeze coming from below and the smell of salt. Seawater?
WE COME DOWN into the middle of a whole spa complex. Massages. Manicures. Hair salons. Skin salons. Probably designer blood transfusions too. But it looks more like we landed in Dracula’s forgotten root cellar. Mushrooms sprout from mist-covered cracks in the marble floor. Small, stunted palm trees and bromeliads sprout along the hall. It looks like this entire level of the mall is rotting in the salt air. The walls and ceiling have buckled from the moisture. Dripping vines dangle from the metal grid that once held ceiling tiles. In our feeble lights it looks like no one has been down here in a thousand years.
Underneath the vines and mold on one wall is a sign pointing the way to the Roman baths. As we head down there I move the bones from my pocket into the lining of my coat. Stick the SIG in my pocket. If I can’t throw any hoodoo, I’m sure as shit going be ready to blast every Shoggot and monster Morlock piece of shit in Kill City.
There’s a cool wind blowing between the doors to the baths. Maybe a hole that’s letting in a sea breeze. Thin, dawn light filters through filthy windows in the ceiling several floors above the main bath, turning it into a strange ceremonial space. Somewhere to come for a baptism or human sacrifice after getting a perm.
There’s a fake Roman temple at one end of the bathing area. The main pool is octagonal, with three tiered steps down to a foot of tea-colored water full of loose tiles and broken furniture. Delon heads for the temple. The others circle the pool, staring into the scummy water like maybe the 8 Ball will float to the surface like Excalibur and fling itself into our arms. I sit down on the top step of the pool and take out a Malediction. The flare from the lighter gets everyone’s attention, but when they see it’s just me, they go back to looking disappointed.
“What happens now?” says Traven. “Does anyone know how to summon the ghost?”
All their beady little eyes turn in my direction. I shake my head.
“Don’t look at me. I couldn’t pull a bunny out of a hat right now.”
“Anybody else?” says Traven. “Brigitte. You worked with the dead. Do you know anything?”
She squats at the top of the pool and flicks in a pea-size piece of concrete with her thumb.
“This is the wrong type of dead. I know nothing about ghosts.”
“Vidocq? Do you have any tricks or potions?”
Vidocq raises his hands and drops them to his sides, a gesture of exasperation.
“Rien. Nothing.”
“We can’t have come all this way for nothing.”
Candy comes over and hands me her water bottle. I didn’t even know I was thirsty, but once I start drinking, it’s hard to stop. I hand her back the bottle.
“Any ideas?” she says.
“One.”
“You better act on it before you have a mutiny.”
I take a puff of the Malediction.
“Hey, asshole,” I yell. “Come out, come out, or I’m going to burn Kill City down. Also, Aelita sent us for the Qomrama.”
A gust of wind stirs the water. The light from the ceiling dims for a moment.
“Liar,” comes a disembodied male voice. “Aelita wouldn’t let you pick up her laundry.”
“If I say your name three times, will you show us your pretty face, Bloody Mary?”
“Why? I’m happy this way.”
“Are you afraid of us?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You’re afraid of something,” I say.
“So are you, sonny. Being afraid is one of the realities of existence.”
Delon is back by the pool. He looks around the room, trying to pinpoint the ghost voice. Brigitte and Traven are as wide-eyed as starstruck teenyboppers. Vidocq, Candy, and I have all run into ghosts before. The others have never been in a real haunted house. Welcome to the Loudmouthed Dead Club.
“You know, for someone people keep telling us is a madman, you don’t sound all that crazy. Say something batshit for me so I know it’s really you.”
Silence. The cold wind blows in from a door at the back of the room.
“Samael is back in Hell. I don’t know if that’s exactly crazy, but it’s pretty funny. Also, one of you isn’t what he seems.”
No shit, Casper. It’s a real effort not to look at Delon.
I say, “I know all about that. How do you know about Samael?”
“The same way I know when and where you got that nasty Kissi arm.”
Slowly, he comes into focus, like an image on a video screen. First, the general shape forms and then it finally sharpens.
He’s entirely green—head, hair, and skin. And maybe a little taller than his brothers. Definitely not as round. Calling him buff would be stretching it, but by the family standards, the guy is Captain America.
“Fuck me. I should have known one of you was behind this bullshit. Does Muninn know you’re here?”
The ghost’s face splits into a wide grin. Not ghost. Mr. Muninn’s almost-twin. One of the God brothers.
“The five of us share some thoughts and knowledge in common, but we each have our secrets. This is one of mine.”
I get up and flick the Malediction into the pool a couple of feet from him.
“Hey, Father. Let me make some introductions. Father Traven, meet God. God, meet Father Traven.”
Traven’s eyes narrow at me. He can’t tell if I’m kidding or not. But he’s a smart enough guy and we’ve talked enough and he’s read enough arcana to work out the rest for himself.
“You’re God?” he says.
“A piece of the pie, yes. You look disappointed. Turn that around, multiply it by a million, and you’ll know how I feel about you people.”
I stand next to Traven in case he decides to freak out or faint.
“Remember how I told you that God had a nervous breakdown and broke into little pieces? The Mr. Muninn part is in Hell. Ruach is driving everyone crazy in Heaven. Neshamah is dead. That leaves two. Which one are you?”
“Nefesh,” he says, and mimes doffing a hat. “The smart one. The one no one even lo
oks for because he’s an incorporeal, crazy old spook in a town teeming with them.”
He becomes solid, standing on the water like a lime Jell-O Jesus. He points at me.
“You, pretty boy. Give an old man a cigarette.”
I toss him the Maledictions and the lighter. Nefesh catches one in each hand. He rolls his eyes when he sees the cigarette brand. But he still takes one and lights up. Being a God of love, he tosses me back the lighter and smokes.
“I’m speechless,” says Traven. “I devoted my life to you and now I see you’re nothing but a ridiculous, foulmouthed little man.”
Nefesh raises a finger to Traven. An admonishment.
“You didn’t devote your life to me. You lost your calling a long time ago and hid from me in your books. And then you wrote that one particular book. Naughty, naughty.”
“You’re angry with me for translating a book?” says Traven. “But it was your duplicity that made it necessary for me to do it. No. You don’t get to reject me. I reject you.”
Nefesh lazily puffs the Malediction.
“Too late, priest. I got there first. I win again.”
I say, “You have to admit it’s kind of funny when you think about it. A guy powerful enough to run the universe and sneaky enough to trick the Angra out of it ends up a cabana boy in a drainage ditch. That has to make you smile just a little.”
Traven looks at me. His face is gray. Drained of blood.
“You’ve seen these kinds of horrors before. I’ve only seen them in my worst nightmares. I can’t find the humor in this situation.”
Brigitte puts her arm around Traven’s shoulder and leads him away from the pool.
“This man will give you no satisfaction. Turn your back on him,” she says.
“Do we have souls, Stark and me?” shouts Candy.
Nefesh looks at her like he hadn’t even noticed her before. I pull her away, pointing a finger at him.
“Don’t answer that.”
I pull Candy to the wall.
“Look at that clown. Do you really care what he says? Will knowing make a difference in what we do tomorrow or the day after? Forget the question. Forget him. Let’s just get the 8 Ball and get out of here.”
Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel Page 24