“But you helped.”
“Russian roulette is a hell of a game. Second place sucks as much as, well, there isn’t anything worse than second.”
“You cheated, didn’t you?”
“I’m not stupid enough to play Russian roulette with Mason for real.”
Up ahead, it looks like a small nuke went off. A deep crater is spread over four square blocks. Buildings and the remains of cars and street signs lie in heaps on the edge of the blast zone.
“What’s Hell like?”
“It’s not as bad as this. Normal people would rather be inconvenienced by Hellions than be this bored for the next billion years.”
“They don’t have any imagination. We make our own fun. Did you ever lie on your back, look up at the sky, and make garbage angels? It’s very cathartic.”
“You tunnel in the dirt and play in garbage. You’ve come a long way since the Lollipop Dolls.”
“I miss the old gang. I wonder how they are.”
“I’m dating someone with an anime and manga fetish. I’ll ask her.”
The crowd behind us keeps growing. It’s officially a throng on its way to becoming a mob. Off to the side are groups of kids in dirty rags—eight, nine, and ten years old—standing off by themselves.
“Who are they?”
Cherry doesn’t even look at them.
“They’re lost kids. Ones that all died badly.”
I think she’s telling the truth. The kids look worse than I do. They’re crisscrossed with knife slashes. Long straight cuts along their throats. More slashed and crescent-moon marks on their arms and faces.
“Does anyone do anything for them?”
“They’re not exactly chatty. Little savages. They keep to themselves and we leave them alone.”
Cherry stops and points down into the crater.
“There she is.”
Our ghost escort backs away from the hole and keeps going to the end of the block.
The only things in the bottom of the crater are the Imp and the burned and rusted chassis of a school bus. She sits on the bumper in her blue party dress, idly stabbing the ground with the knife.
I start down the steep crater wall, walking sideways to keep from sliding. Pieces of broken pavement and loose dirt tumble down around me. The Imp looks up and screams. A full-on animal scream, nothing held back. She raises the knife and rushes me. I get down to level ground as fast as I can and pull the 8 Ball from my coat.
She freezes in her tracks. Takes a couple of steps back. I stay frozen. In a few minutes, she decides I’m not going to charge her, so she goes back to the bus bumper and stabs the ground harder than before, digging up fist-size clods of packed dirt.
When I get close enough to hear her, she says, “Are you here to kill me?”
“You think that because of the 8 Ball. The 8 Ball kills you?”
She looks at me.
“Qomrama Om Ya.”
“What is it?”
“It’s not yours.”
“I know. It’s Aelita’s.”
“No. She had it but it’s not hers either.”
“Is it yours?”
She shakes her head.
“You’re not one of his. Who are you?”
“One of who’s?”
“The cruel one.”
“King Cairo?”
She jams the knife angrily into the ground. It goes in up to the hilt. I forgot how strong she is.
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“You can tell me. I’ll make sure the cruel one doesn’t hurt you.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell me which who and I’ll stop it.”
“The old one. He watches through the dark.”
“Lucifer? Is it the old Lucifer’s?”
She gets up and walks away. I follow her.
“If it’s not Lucifer who watches you through the dark . . . Another ghost? God?”
The crowd of spirits spreads out around the rim of the crater. They back away from whichever direction the girl faces like she’s a four-foot-tall icebreaker.
“It’s God, isn’t it? I’m Lucifer, so I’m not one of His. That’s what you meant. That’s why you didn’t hurt me.”
“Why would I?”
“Is that who you kill? Anyone who isn’t damned? Kid, even in L.A. that’s a lot of people.”
She shrugs.
“Them first. Then the others.”
A rotten telephone pole lies lengthwise, half buried in dirt. She swings the knife, knocking out a chunk of wood the size of a basketball.
“Mostly I do what I’m told. Mostly that’s all I do.”
“Someone sends you to kill the dreamers.”
She nods, digging into the pole and prying the metal rungs out of the side.
“And sometimes other bad people.”
“Who tells you to kill them?”
“He does.”
Talking to ghosts is like pulling eels out of a tank of motor oil. Pointless. And anything firm you grab onto is hard to hold. Most aren’t as direct as Cherry. Most have brains dustier and more barren than the shittiest parts of Death Valley.
“He? Okay. What man tells you to kill?”
She stares at the ground for a minute.
“The one with the flowers.”
I’m looking for a homicidal florist. Sure. Why not? Getting stuck with rose thorns all day. And the height of your day is sticking a Mylar balloon on a basketful of daisies. That will make you moody. Then it hits me. Not a florist. A gardener. Cherry said it. She’s just one of the “pretty flowers in his garden.” Teddy Osterberg. My favorite freak. Color me shocked. But there’s a problem.
“You’re not his ghost. I know that for a fact. How can he tell you what to do?”
She stands up. Hair has fallen across her face. She brushes it off with the back of her hand, leaving a dirty smear across her cheek.
“He just does.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Should he? I don’t know.”
“You’re killing the whole world, you know.”
She nods. Giggles.
“It’s fun. I like the funny skies.”
Talking about destroying the world has changed her mood completely. She comes over, takes my hand, and leads me to another school bus buried on its side. Hands claw at the windows. Faces scream silently. Ghosts that weren’t able to get out when she did whatever she did to blow open this crater. If I was a betting man, I’d say she fell from the sky and landed here like a meteor.
“My name is Stark. What’s yours?”
She leads me past the bus and lets go of my hand. She kicks up clods of dirt with the heel of her Mary Janes. Picks up a stone and throws it. It looks like she’s thinking.
“Lamia.”
“Hi, Lamia. What kind of name is that?”
“Mine.”
“I mean where is it from? Where are you from?”
“I’m not really me. I used to be but I’m not. I lived here.”
“Do you mean Spain? Or here in the Tenebrae?”
“No!” she yells. She’s angry now. “It was a long time ago. It was dark and there wasn’t anywhere to stand.”
“Were the streets broken? Was there an earthquake?”
“I don’t remember any streets. I floated.”
She puts out her arms and twirls around like she’s a toy balloon.
“Sounds like fun. Were you on a boat?”
She stops. Gets on her knees and stabs the windows along the side of the bus. The ghosts inside shriek and crowd to the other side.
“All I remember is the cold and the wind and stars twinkling.”
She’s really worked up now. She turns to the ghosts at the edge of the crater. Screams and charges at them. She’s only run a few yards and they’ve all disappeared. She turns on the first bus, stabbing the metal. Kicking it. Crushing the roof and sides. This kid is pure power stuck in a broken mind. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for her or to run like hell.
She turns and looks at me like she forgot I was there.
“Are you here to kill me?”
“You already asked me that.”
“You’ll kill me later.”
“Only if I have to.”
“Mostly I do things because I have to.”
“Does someone tell you to kill other ghosts?”
“No. They’re mostly his and don’t run too fast, so I just do it. But the people. I like killing them. The ones that deserve it.”
“How do you know they deserve it?”
“I just do. I feel it inside when the man gives me their names.”
“Teddy?”
“The cruel one tried to kill me, you know. You’re not going to kill me now?”
“Not now.”
“I’ll only kill you if I have to.”
“Thanks. You know, cruel ones tried to control me and make me do bad things. Maybe I can help you get free and you can stop killing.”
She holds out her hands and spins.
“I’m Lamia. I breathe death and spit vengeance.”
She drops her arms and sits in the dirt. She rubs her eyes, suddenly a tired, dirty little girl.
“I’m sleepy. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“Are you going to kill more people?”
She curls up on the ground in her party dress.
“Oh yes. Lots. The sky will be all sorts of funny colors.”
Along the edge of the crater are the gangs of murdered kids. They’re cut up but they’re not scared of Lamia. Whatever happened to them, she didn’t do it.
Cherry is waiting when I climb back up to the street. She runs over and grabs my arm. I keep walking.
“You didn’t kill her. Why not?”
“I’m not ready. I know a part of what’s going on but not enough. Until I do, I’m not killing the only thing that might be able to give me answers.”
“And what about us? What happens when she comes for us?”
“Has she ever attacked you personally?”
“No.”
“Then you’re safe.”
“How do you know?”
“ ’Cause ghosts like you aren’t on her hit list and it’ll be a while before you are. Long enough for you to wise up and move on.”
“How do you know?”
“Drop it.”
Cherry gets in my way.
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re not one of His, which means you’re one of mine. That means you’re definitely damned. And she’s not after the damned yet.”
Cherry takes a couple of steps back. Puts a hand over her mouth.
“You bastard.”
“You don’t have to wait around for her. Get out of here and save yourself.”
She leans against the ruins of the Chinatown arch, resting her ridiculous cartoon face in her hands.
“Go away, James. You let me down again. You’re no better than Parker.”
“Take care of yourself. Think about what I said.”
I head back to Tenebrae Station. The crowd follows me to the stairs but none of them follows me down.
“Any of you can leave too. You don’t have to live like this.”
I climb down into the tunnel and walk back into the dark.
And open my eyes, flat on my back in my room in the Chateau. Kasabian limps away from the circle with my shirt in his hand. There’s a smeared spot on the tile where he broke the bloody circle.
I sit up. There are clots of blood on my arms and in my hair. I stink from sweat. But there’s one nice surprise. The wound the Imp gave me is completely closed. There isn’t even a scar.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“Best news I’ve heard all day,” he says. “Now here’s some for you. The rope and poison industries are way up in Hell. Suicide looks like the new thing with the cool kids. Those demonic sad sacks don’t need back into Heaven. They need a teddy bear, a warm glass of milk, and some Prozac.”
I take a hot shower and go back to the living room. Kasabian has the news on with the sound turned down. The shots are fast and jittery, like whoever has the camera is running.
“Do you know about the Mile High Club?”
He doesn’t look up from the big plate of fried shrimp he’s shoving into his face.
“Sure. Mason talked about them sometimes.”
I’m so out of the goddamn loop.
He points to the flat-screen with a shrimp in one of his metal doggie hands.
“Did you see when you came in? Big Bill Wheaton is dead. Laid low by the crazy little ghost not five minutes ago at a press conference he called to—you’ll love this—announce a special serial-killer task force. Is that fucking funny or what?”
He eats half the shrimp in one bite.
“They sure it wasn’t a volcano or dinosaur?”
“Nah. That stuff seems to have calmed down some.”
If that’s your doing, Patty, thanks.
“If you know something about that stuff, keep it to yourself. I’m working on some serious denial over here,” says Kasabian.
I button another of Samael’s dark shirts over the armor.
“A while back you said that spending all that time alone at Max Overdrive, you’d developed some nefarious computer skills.”
“Yeah. You looking for missile-launch codes now?”
“No. Child murders. Maybe ritual killings. Not beaten or abused, just cut up. See if you can find anything.”
He frowns.
“What, the mayor getting murdered by a ghost isn’t interesting enough for you?”
