At the corner of Sunset the shooter turns and sees me. His chest is heaving like his lungs are going to blow up like Macy’s Thanksgiving balloons. His eyes are twitching in their sockets like he’s maxed out on PCP. He’s definitely on a potion or two. I don’t think anyone has ever caught up with him before. He looks scared.
Then all of a sudden he’s calm. He smiles like a kid whose mom just tucked him in and kissed him good night.
I don’t know what he’s doing until he’s already doing it.
The bus’s engine growls. Without looking, he steps back off the curb, right in its path. It takes the bus another twenty feet to stop, but the shooter has flown forty feet. All around me people are screaming. Traffic in the intersection that was moving a second ago screeches to a halt.
I muscle my way through the crowd forming around him. He’s lying facedown. I kick him onto his back, get out my phone, and photograph him. People yell at me, taking me for a gore freak looking for something hot to put on his blog. There’s a tattoo on the side of his neck. I don’t recognize it. I shoot that too. One of his shoes came off and his wallet is lying a few feet away. I shove my way over and pick it up. More people are yelling. I guess I’ve blown my low profile. For all I know there’s a traffic camera shooting everything I’m doing.
I take out the dead man’s driver’s license and photograph that too. Then toss it and the wallet back on the ground just as a cop car pulls up. They must have been right around the corner.
Voices get shrill behind me. I don’t have to look. Villagers with pitchforks are pointing out the monster to the guys with the badges. I wonder what the penalty is for pickpocketing a corpse. I can’t be the first person who’s done it. This is L.A.
I walk to a guy sitting on a Harley. He’s a big boy. His feet are planted on either side of the bike, but his hands aren’t on the handlebars. I don’t have time for subtle.
With one hand, I grab the front of his shirt and lift him off the seat far enough to toss him off the bike without hurting him too much. With the other hand, I grab the handlebars so the bike doesn’t fall. The keys are still in the ignition. I gun the engine and take off before either of the cops closing in on me can get within grabbing range.
The moment I take off they hoof it back to the patrol car. Which isn’t going to do them any good at all. The accident has turned the street into a solid mass of cars, gawkers, and now, twenty or more amateur paparazzi, phones and cameras blasting. I steer the Harley onto the sidewalk and open the throttle, laying on the horn to clear the way. I turn the corner and head back up to Hollywood Boulevard.
I ditch the bike on the sidewalk behind a pickup truck with a camper shell big enough to hide it from patrol cars rolling by.
There are six more cop cars outside Donut Universe. Patrons are out in the parking lot yammering to the uniformed cops all at once. One takes statements but the others don’t want to hear about it. They just want the cattle to wait for the detectives while putting up yellow tape around the crime scene.
I spot Candy waving to me on the opposite corner, near a Christian Science church. Samael has his hand to his ear, talking on his phone.
Candy squeezes my hand when I reach them. She worries. It’s sweet. A second later Samael closes his phone.
“Did you get him?”
“He got himself. Strolled off the curb and kissed a bus.”
“Why? You’re not that scary.”
“Yes, I am.”
“If you say so.”
“How much do you have to pay a guy to go out like that?”
“You don’t. He chose to do it himself. It’s the mark of a true believer. In what, I don’t know and I don’t care. But you should.”
I thumb on my phone and go to the picture of the shooter’s driver’s license. I read it out loud.
“Trevor Moseley. Either of you ever hear of him?”
I show them his picture.
Candy shakes her head.
“I took a lot of souls back in the day, but I don’t recognize his name or face,” says Samael.
Candy beams at Samael.
“Sam just called some people. He’s getting me a new laptop.”
“Sam?” says Samael.
“Thanks,” I say.
He looks at me.
“Just thanks? Nothing pithy or sarcastic?”
“I’m capable of appreciating when someone does something nice for someone I care about.”
Samael looks at Candy.
“Good lord. What have you done to him?”
“Shocking, isn’t it?” she says. “Pinocchio is almost a real boy.”
I take a bite of my donut.
“Fuck both of you.”
Samael nods.
“Ah. There’s the Jimmy I know.”
He looks at his watch.
“Look at the time. I should be getting back home before I’m missed.”
“How are things Upstairs?” I ask.
“Just don’t die anytime soon. You’ve seen Hell and right now I wouldn’t wish Heaven on anyone. Ruach is more paranoid every day. Imagine Josef Stalin with unlimited resources.”
Ruach is one of the five God brothers and the current God sitting on the throne in Heaven. Unfortunately for both humans and angels, he’s the “troubled child.” A stone son of a bitch. Supposedly he’s cut a deal with Aelita to let her kill the other four brothers if she leaves him alone. She’s already killed at least one, maybe more. Aside from Mr. Muninn and Ruach, no one knows where the other brothers are.
“At least he can’t send you to Tartarus,” I say.
“There are worse things than Tartarus, I’m afraid.”
“Like what?”
Samael just shakes his head.
“If you want to get in touch with me, go through Muninn. Don’t do it directly. Sandman Slim isn’t a name I want on my contacts list right now.”
And he’s gone. Just blips out of existence. Interesting. With all the shit that’s happened—Mason Faim’s attempted war with Heaven, and God fragmenting into warring siblings—I’ve never seen Samael nervous before.
A couple of people in the Donut Universe parking lot are pointing our way. I wonder if the cops have put together that the hero who chased a shooter from the donut shop is the same asshole that desecrated his corpse and jacked a biker a few blocks away. This isn’t the time to find out. I see a tasty shadow by the side of the church and pull Candy inside with me.
We go through the Room of Thirteen Doors and come out around the back of the Chateau Marmont. Our digs these days. Really it’s Lucifer’s penthouse, but until they figure out that I’m not Lucifer anymore, it’s a room-service, clean-towels, and free-cable party.
BACK WHEN I was still the Lord of Flies, I’d walk through the Chateau Marmont lobby like Errol Flynn back in the day. Now that I’m not, I creep through with my head down like a flea-bitten hillbilly trying to sneak out on a bar tab. Sooner or later word is going to get out up here. The local Satanists might be nouveau riche headbangers and trust-fund creeps with a grudge against the world, but they have some good psychics on their payroll. One of them is going to pick up Mr. Muninn’s vibes and start wondering how Lucifer is doing paperwork in his palace in Hell and ordering kung pao shrimp in his Chateau penthouse at the same time.
Lady Snowblood is playing on the giant plasma screen in the living room. Kasabian is at the long table he uses for a desk, surrounded by dirty plates and beer cans. He’s naked, but it isn’t like ordinary naked. Kasabian is a disembodied head. I’m the one who disembodied him. He shot me, so it seemed like the thing to do. He used to scuttle around on a little wood-and-brass skateboard I conjured for him. Now he gets around on a mechanical hellhound body I brought back from Downtown. Only the body has never quite worked right. Manimal Mike is trying to fix that.
Kasabian is bouncing on the balls of his two rear hound feet. His balance looks good. Mike looks up as Candy and I come inside. He points to Kasabian, looking pale and hopeful.
“Can I have my soul back now?” he says.
I watch Kasabian.
“I don’t know. Can Gimpy make it down the catwalk on his own?”
Kasabian takes a step, teeters, and plants his ass on the side of the table to keep from falling.
Mike slumps into a desk chair. Wipes his face with a dirty rag. It leaves a trail of grease on his forehead and cheek. He wheels himself over and uses a delicate tool that looks like a screwdriver crossed with a spider to make adjustments to Kasabian’s legs.
Mike is a Tick-Tock Man. He builds mechanical spirit familiars for the Sub Rosa chic set. He might be a drunk and nutty and a little suicidal, but he knows his way around machines. He also owes the Devil a favor. The idiot sold his soul a few years back. Now he wants it back. He still thinks I’m Lucifer, so I’m making him work off the debt by fixing up Kasabian.
While Mike works on him, I show Kasabian the dead man’s bloody photo on my phone.
“Friend of yours?” Kasabian says.
“He missed, if that’s what you mean.”
“And now you feel guilty for offing him.”
“That’s the problem. I didn’t. He did it to himself. And I want to know why.”
I flip to the guy’s driver’s license. Kasabian squints at it.
“Trevor Moseley. When did he die?”
“Just now,” I say. “Like twenty minutes ago.”
He shakes his head.
“I won’t see him for a day or so. They’re not exactly state-of-the-art when it comes to sorting out the new meat Downtown.”
Kasabian has a few useful skills. He’s a passable computer hacker, he has good taste in movies—he once ran a choice indie video-rental place in Hollywood. Also, he can see into Hell. It’s a gruesome little trick, but gruesome describes 99 percent of his life, so what’s one more percent between friends?
The trick works like this: when I came back from Hell, I brought a jar of peepers with me. Peepers are eyeballs a lot like ours (no, I don’t know where they come from and I don’t want to know), only they work like surveillance cameras. I scattered dozens of them around Hell. Between the peepers and his ability to peek into Downtown through the Daimonion Codex, Kasabian can spyglass a good chunk of Hell. Entrepreneur that he is, he’s even turning his deadeye trick into a business. Setting himself up as an online psychic. When it’s up and running, he’ll track down any of your dead relatives and report back on them—as long as they’re in Hell. Seeing as how that’s where most suckers are headed, he should be in business until the sun turns this rock into one big overcooked s’more.
“Let me know when you spot him. I might just go down and ask Mr. Moseley a few questions.”
Candy says, “Can I go too?”
I should have been ready for that.
“I don’t know,” I say.
Candy tosses down the magazine she was thumbing through.
“We talked about this. If you leave me here and disappear down there again, you better stay down there because I swear I’ll salt your skull and drink you like a daiquiri.”
Candy isn’t exactly human. She’s a Jade. That’s sort of like being a vampire, only Jades dissolve your insides and drink you, kind of like a spider. I know it sounds bad, but she’s off the people juice these days. And it’s kind of sexy when she lets the monster out. I just have to be around to make sure it goes back in.
“What’s the difference between true love and a murder spree?” says Kasabian.
“I don’t know. What?”
He shrugs.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you lovebirds would have a clue.”
He smiles, pleased with his half-assed joke.
I say, “Go bite a mailman, Old Yeller.”
Mike lets go of Kasabian’s leg. He flexes it and it looks like it’s working all right. Mike goes to work on the other one.
“Well?” says Candy. She’s right beside me, her hands balled into fists. She’s not backing down on this.
“You’re right. I promised. But this is only if I actually go. I’m not making any special trips down so you can take snapshots with Stiv Bators.”
“Deal.”
She stands on her toes and kisses me on the cheek.
“I got it,” says Kasabian. “When it’s true love you know why you’re getting stabbed.”
“Kasabian, you romantic fool,” says Candy. “You just got ten percent cuter.”
He smiles at her.
“Kitten, I’ve got romance coming out my ass.”
“And now the cute is gone.”
Mike chuckles to himself. Kasabian shifts his leg, clipping him on the nose.
“Learn to stop while you’re ahead,” I say.
“I haven’t had much practice with women since you turned me into a carnival attraction.”
“I’ll have you tripping the light fantastic in no time,” says Mike.
As casually as he can, Kasabian says, “Stark, you still have Brigitte’s number?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not asking for a hookup, just an introduction.”
“I’ve put Brigitte through enough. I’m not letting you loose on her.”
“You won’t do me one favor, but you want me to look up your dead pal in Hell.”
“Look, Mike gets your legs working, you can come down to Bamboo House of Dolls and ask her yourself. Maybe she’ll say yes just for the novelty of doing a robot.”
“I think she might be seeing someone,” says Candy.
