by Tad Williams
“Just to let you know, whoever you are,” I announced loudly, “I’m tired, nervous, and armed. Let’s avoid a serious mistake, shall we? Come out where I can see you.”
The figure that stepped out of the shadows was so big that for a freaky moment I feared the worst, but I quickly saw this shape was far more human than the ghallu that had chased me. With some relief I recognized my old friend, the Countess’s Bodyguard Number One.
“I wish we had some more time, Dollar,” he said. “I’d love to see you try to stop me with that popgun before I folded you up like a napkin.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame we don’t have time to try that, you big cutie,” I said. “Seriously, if you want to waltz around, come back when I’m not so tired and we’ll do it properly. Because right now I want to go to bed so bad that I’ll just put a few slugs in your skull, which will at least keep you out of my hair long enough for me to get some shut-eye.”
“You talk big, halo boy.”
“Look, what do you want?” I wasn’t kidding-I really was willing to shoot him just to get into bed sooner.
“Somebody wants to talk to you. She’s waiting.”
My heart sped. It couldn’t be good to have an archdemon looking for you in the middle of the night, but for some reason I still found it exciting in a sick kind of way. “All right. One thing, though, Carob? Wait-Cocoa, was it?”
He wasn’t amused. “It’s Candy.”
“Oh, sorry, right. I just wanted to know-where’s your buddy with the porn ‘stache?”
“Cinnamon? He’s driving the car.”
“I hope so. Because please notice where I’m holding my gun. If someone suddenly appears out of the bushes I’m going to blow your dick off on general principles.”
Fortunately for Candy he was telling the truth. As we emerged from the apartment building garage, I saw a long car with black windows idling under a streetlight. The driver’s window was open, and Cinnamon was sitting there in all his cookie-dustered glory. He sneered at me as Candy opened the back door and gestured for me to get in.
I didn’t like turning my back on Candy-didn’t like it at all-so I shoved my gun against his belly as I leaned down to look inside. The Countess gazed back at me. Her eyes were big as a doe’s under the dome light, but none of Bambi’s relations ever had a gleam like that. Satisfied that at least Candy and Cinnamon weren’t on some kind of freelance revenge trip, I slid in. The door thumped shut behind me, making my ears pop.
“Hiya, Countess,” I said. “Or does you following me around at this time of the night mean we’re good enough friends that I can start calling you Ca-”
I didn’t finish my sentence because she slapped me so hard it nearly dislocated my jaw. I stared at her for a moment, stunned. “Hang on…!” I began, then she smacked me again, and this time I felt her nails dig into my cheek like fishhooks. When little lights stopped flashing in front of my eyes I reached up and dabbed at the wetness I felt there. Yep, blood. “What the hell was that for?” I asked.
“I knew you were self-absorbed and self-satisfied, Mr. Dollar.” The dome light was still on; she was showing a little color high on her cheeks, something I hadn’t seen before. You’ll probably think me hopelessly shallow when I confess that I liked it, despite the pain I’d had to endure to see it. “What I didn’t realize is that you were also suicidal.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Oh, I think you do.”
“On the contrary, and I feel like I know less and less every second.” What was with this woman? — no, this demon, I reminded myself. I couldn’t figure her out at all. Most of the denizens of Hell I meet make it very clear they wish they could immediately start killing you in a complex, painful way and are only prevented from doing so by the Tartarean Convention, but I couldn’t figure out what the Countess wanted at all. “Why don’t you ask me some questions next time before you start hurting me?”
“You think that hurt? Believe me, if I ever decide to inflict pain on you, Dollar, you’ll know.”
“Look, just tell me what’s going on.” Bodyguard Two had just climbed out from behind the wheel to share a smoke with Bodyguard One under the streetlight, so we were alone in the car. “Is this something to do with that Foxy character?”
“The little Japanese freak?” She leaned back in the seat. She was wearing a black dress, very short, and showing a lot of long, smooth leg. I dragged my attention back up to her face. It’s not real, Bobby, I reminded myself. Strip away the illusion, and she probably looks like some kind of giant slug. “No,” she said, “this is about you, angel. Word is all over the street that you’ve got hold of something big-and I’m not talking about the street you can see from your cruddy little apartment.”
“Ah. You’ve seen it, then. I’m planning to redecorate-you know, ferns, Scandinavian Modern furniture in natural woods…”
“Shut up. I’m talking about the word on the Via Dolorosa.” Which was one name for the main drag of Pandaemonium, the capital of Hell. “That you’ve got hold of something important and you’re looking for a buyer. A once-in-an-epoch piece of merchandise.”
“But I don’t-!”
“Shut up. And they’re also whispering all over Dis Pater Square and the rest of the city that you got this something important from me. Which means on top of everything else I have Chancellor Urgulap and his investigation poking into all my affairs, making my life miserable. I am not happy.”
That stopped me dead for a second. I looked at her and for the first time saw not an impossibly beautiful temptress or an evil spirit in disguise but somebody who might just be as worried about the current state of play as I was. And I sure didn’t envy anybody who had that horrible melted giant bug I’d met at Walker’s place breathing down her neck.
“Okay, lady,” I said. “You’ve had your say. Now listen to mine.” I held my hand up to forestall an interruption and to my amazement it worked. “I don’t know anything about any special something except that a dancing albino Asian asked me today if I wanted to sell it, and you seem to think I’ve been bragging that I have it. But like I said, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to have, and if I’ve got it, I’m not aware of it. Hang on-I’m not done.” I raised my hand again when she started to speak, but instead of slapping her as she’d done to me I reached forward and gently touched my finger to her red, red lips. I don’t know exactly why I did it, I just did. She knocked my hand aside, but in a strange, uncaring way quite different from the way she’d slugged me just a minute earlier. “Right,” I said. “Now, here’s the next part. You remember the scorchmark I showed you-that handprint something burned into my door? Well, now I’ve seen that something up close and in person. In fact it tried to kill me last night, and nearly succeeded. When you saw that picture, I could tell it meant something to you-you’ve seen something like it before, haven’t you? So instead of busting my chops again, why don’t you show a little good faith and tell me what you know for a change? Something’s got you upset, Countess-let’s see if we can do each other some good. Is all this craziness about the Walker case?”
She stared at me for a long time, and all of a sudden the inspiration that had carried me along deserted me. What did I think I was doing here? I couldn’t trust this tarted-up hellbitch even if she decided to trust me, and she would never trust me. Not to mention what would happen if my bosses found out I was sitting in a car in the middle of the night volunteering to share information with the Countess of Cold Hands, one of Hell’s fixers. The next summons I got would be to a heavenly court martial (if they didn’t just incinerate me without a trial). This kind of shit just wasn’t done without archangelic supervision, and I had already been warned to stay on the straight and narrow. But things had started moving too fast for me, and I was tired of playing blind man’s bluff, weary of trying to figure out the shape of what was going on by feel alone.
“It’s not all about the Walker case,” she said slowly. “But Walker has got my m
asters shaken up.”
“Really? It’s not just something they’ve done to drive Heaven crazy?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t seem to be. As far as I can tell, they’re really worried. And there have been more souls lost since that happened.”
I felt a little chime of reassurance. I knew I was probably crazy for even entertaining the possibility, but maybe she really was being straight with me-or as straight as she knew. “I’ve heard that too. But if both sides are freaking out, where did Walker go? Where did any of them go?”
She pulled a compact from her purse and gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror. “Don’t know,” she said. “And to be honest, I don’t care, even though I’ve been questioned about it nonstop ever since it happened. I’ve got enough problems of my own.”
“Like what?”
Her eyes flashed, and I’m not saying that poetically: something sparked red in the depths. “None of your fucking business, Dollar.”
“Okay, fair enough. But what about the thing that burned the crap out of my apartment door?”
“It’s a ghallu,” she said, sounding like an English Home Counties schoolgirl reciting what she’d learned in a particularly dreary class, “a living piece of Old Night, which is another word for Chaos, in case you crashed and burned your afterlife exams. Expensive to summon, nearly impossible to stop. And, yes, I’ve seen that mark before.”
“Where? And who sent it after me?”
“The answer to the first is, again, none of your business, Dollar. As to the second, I don’t know, but it’s bad news. If you really don’t know what’s going on with any of this, I strongly suggest you get out of the way, as far away and for as long as possible. No good can come of it.”
Now it was my turn to stare. For the first time since the conversation started I didn’t believe what she was saying, at least the part about not knowing who sent the ghallu. Still, she had been amazingly open, so I decided not to push my luck. Well, not too much.
“Okay, then, Countess. Only one more question, I guess. What about us?”
Her eyes opened wide. “What?” But she sounded more surprised than angry. “What’s that supposed to mean, angel?”
“We’re helping each other, right? Well, what if I find out something you should know? I’m not just going to hang around The Water Hole on the off chance you’ll wander in to pick up a couple of pre-meds to go.”
“Is that really what we’re doing?” She was definitely amused in a kind of biting-something-sour way. “Helping each other? As far as I can see, the only person helping anyone is me. What could you possibly do for me in return?”
“Let’s not rush things. Just in case it comes up, how do I get in touch?”
She laughed, suddenly and with apparent sincerity. “You really are a piece of work, Bobby Dollar. You have a very high estimation of your own importance.”
“Beg your pardon, sister, but it’s your car I’m sitting in, not the other way around. You wanted to talk to me. And knock me around a bit.” My jaw was still sore.
“Very well.” She pulled a business card from her purse, wrote something on it with a very nice fountain pen. “Call this in an emergency. Leave a message. I’ll get hold of you.”
“Thank you, Countess.” I still wasn’t quite sure what I had got into, but it was definitely something unusual.
Suddenly a smile, tight and secretive. “Oh, I think you can call me Caz, now,” she said. “Until you get yourself killed, anyway. Sleep tight.”
Which was definitely a dismissal. I slid toward the door, then paused. “I’ve been meaning to ask you-where does your name come from?”
“Casimira? It’s Polish…”
“No, your other name-the Countess of Cold Hands.”
She leaned forward and cupped my face in her slender fingers. The skin was as icy as a fish’s belly. “You know what they say,” she said, and a strange, sad expression crossed her face. “Cold hands-cold heart.” The door opened behind me as if by magic, but it was only big Candy, who helped me out none too gently.
“Goodnight, boys,” I called as he and his plug-ugly pal climbed back into the black car. “Dream of me.”
The long, low car with black windows rolled silently away and I stumbled toward my car and the drive back to my motel.
thirteen
leviathan on a hook
As late as I got to bed, as tired, scared, and pissed off as I was, you’d have thought that just this once the universe might cut me some slack. You’d have been wrong. My phone rang again at five-thirty in the morning and, although I ignored it, kept ringing every two minutes until I gave up and rolled onto the floor, then crawled across the unfamiliar motel room on my hands and knees to answer it. It wasn’t a Heaven-related number, so I was even more certain it couldn’t be anything worth waking up for.
“Who wants to die?”
“It’s me, Bobby.” The pig man.
“It’s really, really goddamned early, George, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Nobody knows that better than me. You want to talk about the time? I got about ten minutes left until the sun’s up and then all you’re going to get is oink, oink, oink.”
“Sorry, George. Go ahead.”
“Okay, first there’s ‘Kephas.’ It’s ancient Aramaic and it means ‘rock.’ It’s what Jesus actually named Peter. You know, ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ There’s tons of mentions on various Bible sites but only in that context. I haven’t found anything interesting or out of the ordinary about Magians yet…but you’re hot as a pistol, Mr. D. Lot of people want to know about you. According to my sources, secondary queries with your name in them have tripled in the last few days.”
“What are ‘secondary queries’?”
“That’s someone other than me asking the questions.”
Helplessness tugged at me, the leading edge of panic, and I did my best to slap it away. “Why me, George? What is it that everyone wants to know? And who’s asking?”
“As to who, it’s mostly folks who operate on the edges between the two sides. Information users, mostly. I can’t figure out yet what’s got people so interested except that some folks have been talking about you and others want to know why. There’s a lot of stuff all over.ky.”
It was too damn early. “Dot K Y? I’m big news on a sexual lubricant site?”
“No, that’s just the domain name-means Cayman Islands. Lot of the paranormal folk use their internet domain because the accounts can’t be traced. Anyway, my business is all about information chasing its own tail, but it’s even harder than usual to get hold of anything substantial on this; I’m chasing a rumor without knowing what the rumor is, see? But I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything specific.”
“Thanks, George. You’re a good man. Anything on the monstrosity that’s after me? Tall, dark and horny?”
“Oh, shit, yeah-of course. I’m really sorry you have to deal with that crap, Bobby.”
“Yeah, George, I am too.” I appreciated him, but I wasn’t at my most patient. “Any helpful details?”
“Again, not very much. They’re not common. ‘Allu’ or ‘ghallu’ is the closest match I can find.”
“I’ve got confirmation on that already. Some kind of hireling spirit. Very old, pre-Christian.”
“Yeah. And it’s bad news.”
“I knew that, too.”
“The problem is, they don’t show up very often, so nobody’s got much real information more recent than the nineteenth century. Only somebody with a lot of clout can put one of those babies to work.”
“Damn it, George, I already heard all this-I need to know what to do about it! How do you kill one, or at least dismiss it?”
“I don’t know, Bobby. The last confirmed sighting was back in the nineteen eighties in Syria.”
“Well, I confirmed one trying to set my ass on fire as it chased me down the Camino Real a couple of nights ago, so I think I need a b
etter answer than that.”
There was a long pause. When he spoke again, something strange had happened to his voice. “I…I’m…”
“George? You okay?”
“Unh. Unh.” He was reduced to grunting now. I peered at my window and saw a gray gleam between the curtains. Daybreak. “Unhhh….” The next grunt had a little squeal in it-I guess the last human part of him didn’t like letting go.
“Well, thanks for calling, George.” I hung up and crawled back into bed, which seemed like as good a place to die as any other.
Just to make sure I didn’t get too much sleep, Alice sent me a client at about eight o’clock. I had to scramble out of the motel without breakfast and hurry down to Sequoia Hospital, where I at least had the luck to represent a lovely elderly lady who had spent most of her life going to church and taking care of her family and also most of her neighborhood, like Mother Teresa without the lust for publicity. Seeing her go peacefully and happily into the light reminded me that a lot of what I do is to make sure good people get the reward they deserve.
When I was done it was almost lunchtime. I hadn’t been to The Compasses for a couple of days and I was feeling nostalgic so I called the place. Chico set the phone out on the bar and made it a conference call with the members of the Choir who were there-Walter Sanders, Sweetheart, Young Elvis, and a few others. No Monica, no Sam.
“What’s happening, Bobby?” Kool Filter asked. He had a voice like Louie Armstrong trying not to cough, and he almost always sounded amused. “Heard some ugly old shit is chasing you around.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Which was an outright lie, but I hate people feeling sorry for me like a cat hates bathwater. “Seen Sam?”
