I try to grab him before the light hits, but he disappears in the boiling darkness. I expect him to fight his way out the way he did in a hundred battles during the war in Heaven, but he doesn’t. There’s just the light and Samael is gone. I pull the trigger on the Vigil weapon again and blast the King.
Finally, the light goes out and there’s Samael in the street, covered in blood and the kpinga still in his side. I yank it out and toss it at King Bullet. But he’s facedown, burning and not moving a muscle. I blast him one more time, but nothing changes.
Fuck it. He’s done and not getting up. But I can’t say the same thing for his Shoggots. They’re coming around again, closing the circle around the three of us. I can’t take them all on, especially with an injured Samael to protect. I take one more look at King Bullet—unmoving and sizzling away like a pork chop on the griddle. Then I pull Samael into a shadow and away from the crazies.
We come out in the Room of Thirteen Doors. The air is clear and cool and I take a deep breath before setting Samael down on the stone floor.
I’ve never seen him like this before. Burned and scarred. It looks like whatever lives in the black light went at him like a wood chipper, ripping his skin and breaking his bones. I roll him onto his back and he sputters a couple of times before trying to sit up. And failing.
“Where are we?” he says.
“The Room. Relax. You’re safe here.”
“Are you sure? I know you think it is yours alone, but what if you’re wrong?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Is King Bullet dead?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“He was a goddamn charcoal briquette. Yeah, I’m sure.”
Samael looks up at me.
“Yes, but did you take his head or his heart? I don’t want to rain on your victory party, but until you see him in pieces you can’t trust that you’ve done anything but piss him off further.”
“I didn’t exactly have time to give him a pat down. We were dying.”
“Go back,” says Samael. “Right now, while he’s weak. Go back and take his head. His heart. His limbs. Obliterate him.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“Do it. Do it now or all this will have been for nothing.”
I look at him, his blood pooling behind him on the floor.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Hurry.”
I go back out to Hollywood Boulevard. And right back into the riot, only this time the National Guard is there, fighting Shoggots in the street. The air is full of tear gas and rubber bullets. Then the rifles open up and real bullets start whizzing by. I stay low, trying to be small and nonthreatening to both sides, until I can get back to where I left King Bullet’s body.
Samael was right. There’s nothing there but a scorch mark in the street. The vague outline of a body. A ragged line moves away from them. Maybe from the Shoggots dragging him away. Or maybe from the fucker crawling away on his own? Whatever happened, King Bullet’s corpse isn’t here now, but a shitload of trigger-happy cops and crazies are. I go back to the Room.
Samael is sitting with his back against the wall when I get there. I can tell he’s in a lot of pain, but his ego wouldn’t let him be seen on his back more than once. I’ve seen him hurt before, but never in such bad shape. He smiles when he sees me.
“He wasn’t there, was he?” Samael says.
“No. He wasn’t. But it’s not like he just walked away. Some Shoggots took his body so the Guard or the cops wouldn’t get it.”
“You keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night, but we both know it isn’t true.”
“You’re giving this guy way too much credit. You should be his publicist.”
Samael tries to stand, but his legs won’t hold him.
“I can’t help you now, Jimmy. You’re on your own from here. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll take you to Allegra. She can help.”
“It’s all right,” Samael says. “Just take me home.”
I pick him up and go through the closest door, coming out in Mr. Muninn’s palace in Heaven. Going by feel, I take Samael to what I remember is his room, and lay him on the bed. There’s a phone on a bedside table. I grab it and dial 0. There’s no response. I dial 911. Still nothing. I start pushing buttons at random, hoping for something. At least a damn dial tone. Finally, I hear laughter. It’s Samael.
“If you’d beaten King Bullet the way you’re beating that phone, this would all be over with by now.”
“Who should I call? Give me a phone number or a room to go to.”
“It’s all right. Father knows I’m here.”
“I’ll wait with you.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t. It’s likely to be a father-and-son moment.”
I get up.
“Tell him—tell him I’m sorry.”
“I’ll tell him you’re going to kill King Bullet and not cock it up this time.”
“You’re going to be all right?”
“Yes, but there was something I wanted to tell you. Something important. But I—”
I reach for him just as a frowning Mr. Muninn bursts into the room. He walks with a cane and when he sees me he doesn’t say a word. Just holds up a hand.
And I come out on the floor of the Room of Thirteen Doors like someone kicked me off a moving train.
I stand there for a minute, as alone as I’ve ever felt in my life. Did I just watch Samael die? Did I just see the place where I lost King Bullet? Am I that much of a fuckup that right when I could have ended all this madness I didn’t? At least I hurt the bastard, right? At least Samael is back with Mr. Muninn and the other angels. Those fuckers built the universe. They can fix a few scrapes and broken bones, right? Of course they can. Samael is home and safe and I have a job to do. I have to make sure King Bullet is 100 percent dead and if he isn’t, to rip him apart with my bare hands.
This isn’t a fight anymore. It’s revenge, pure and simple.
I take off the Vigil weapon and when I drop it on the floor some of Samael’s blood splashes onto my boots. There’s a funny sound coming from somewhere. A soft electric tone echoes gently off the walls. I check my phone. Nothing. Then I look at the Vigil weapon. It begins to glow faintly.
Shit.
I dive out of the room and into the apartment just as the explosion hits.
Everybody rushes me at once with hugs and questions and I have to back away and shout “Stop!”
I sit down on a kitchen chair.
“Are you all right?” says Candy.
“Did you kill King Bullet?” says Kasabian.
I feel around in my pockets for a Malediction and say, “Can someone bring me a drink?”
Fuck Hollywood is there a moment later with a tumbler full almost to the top with bourbon. I take a sip and set it down. Light the cigarette. Think.
That’s it then. I’m not just paranoid. The weapon was booby-trapped. I use it and solve the Council’s problem with the King. Then it solves their problem with me. I wonder if Abbot knew. Fuck it. Of course he knew. He’s the goddamn Augur. He had to know. And he gave me everything I needed to get the thing.
After seeing Samael go down, I feel double gut-punched. I mean, I was suspicious of the Council’s games, but I didn’t see Abbot pulling something like this. We’re going to need to have a discussion soon. A little moment over this. Oh, yes, we are. But before that, there’s a room full of my friends who want an adventure story.
What the hell am I supposed to tell them first? I’m sure not going to mention what happened with the weapon. Maybe something about how I might have possibly maybe killed King Bullet or how I most probably got Samael murdered. Allegra saves me the trouble of deciding.
“Stark,” she says. “Where’s Janet?”
“I don’t know. Check the bedroom.”
“They’re not in the bedroom. You called and told them to meet you somewhere. Where? And why are you here?�
�
I get up and push through everybody, going to the bedroom, then pounding on the bathroom door before going in.
I go back to Allegra.
“How long ago did I call?”
She looks at me.
“It wasn’t you, was it?”
“How long ago?”
“Just a little while. Four or five minutes ago.”
I stand there like I did in the Room, feeling vacant and very alone. Janet could be four or five minutes dead now and I’m here helpless because I didn’t finish things when I had the chance.
Candy says, “Stark. What’s going on?”
I sit down on the sofa. My phone rings. It says it’s Janet, but I know it’s not.
“Where are you?”
“Nearby,” says King Bullet.
“Is Janet alive?”
“Is that friend of yours I skewered?”
“Please don’t hurt them.”
He laughs.
“Them? They? Who are you talking about? I see only one dumb bitch. Is that who you’re referring to?”
“Let me speak to Janet.”
“I will if you say it for me.”
“Say what?”
“That she’s one dumb bitch.”
“Never mind. Just tell me where you are and I’ll come without weapons.”
“Nope. I want to hear you say it first.”
“I can’t.”
He sniggers.
“Then you can listen to me splatter the bitch’s brains on the wall.”
“Fine,” I say. “She’s one dumb bitch.”
He laughs so loud I have to take the phone from my ear. Everybody in the room looks at me.
“There. I said it. Now where are they? Where’s Janet?”
The laughter goes on and on. Finally, when it dies down a little I hear “Griffith Observatory. And don’t bring that popgun of yours. It hurt.”
I don’t even wait for him to hang up. I jump through a shadow and come out in the park. Everything around me, every tree and bush in sight, is on fire. I go to the observatory’s doors and push my way inside.
The atrium of the observatory has a circular railing around a pit in which swings a large eternally moving gold pendulum that lets you follow the movement of the Earth. Seeing it still working in the midst of all this madness isn’t so much comforting as it is bizarre. Nothing here is normal. The world isn’t revolving or circling the sun. It’s unmoored and adrift in space. Who’s in charge? No one. Don’t look for any saviors around here. No pilots or train conductors. Most of all don’t waste your breath on prayers. God’s away on business and he’s not returning calls at this time, but if you’d like to leave your number . . .
King Bullet is on the far side of the circular pit with a knife to Janet’s throat. He’s dressed in the scorched remains of the uniform he was wearing when I zapped him with the Vigil weapon.
His skin isn’t burned so much as melted. Like a Ken doll after a kid tortured it in the garage with a hair-spray-can flamethrower. He smells worse than ever. His usual unwashed vinegar reek is there, but now it’s perfumed with overheated flesh. Janet, with the blade to their throat, is wide-eyed with fear. Why did I ever agree to start seeing them? This isn’t their life. The funny thing is that we got together because I saved their life a couple of years ago. Now it might all end because if I don’t play this right, I’m going to get them killed.
I start around the room toward them, when King Bullet pulls Janet tight against him, pressing the knife harder against their throat. Even burned beyond recognition he seems to be having a good time. He laughs.
“That’s close enough, lover boy.”
I hold my hands out to show him that I’m not holding any weapons.
“You got me here. You don’t need Janet anymore. Let them go.”
He ducks his head behind Janet’s, not because he’s scared of me but because he’s having a good time. Playing hide-and-seek.
“No. The bitch stays here. We have a lot to talk about, you and me. Some of it will interest her too. She should know who she’s fucking.”
I say, “Janet knows who I am. I haven’t held anything back.”
“Except that you’re still in love with the other bitch. Candy is her name?”
“Is that what I’m here for? Junior high note passing? Do you like me? Check yes or no.”
He giggles.
“You should be so lucky, Romeo. The problem is the bitch doesn’t know who she’s fucking because you don’t even know yourself. You’re pathetic and ignorant and you’ve wounded everyone around you so many times over. And you don’t even know why. Worst of all—and this is the part that brought me here—you’re lucky.”
I don’t say anything for a minute because I’m waiting for the punch line. When there isn’t one I say, “Lucky? Me? You’re holding the person I love hostage. How is that lucky?”
“Lies. You love the other one.”
I ignore him and move slowly around the edge of the pendulum pit. He moves back with Janet at the same pace.
“Look at me,” I say. “I’m fucking ugly. There isn’t one inch of my body that isn’t scarred. And I still dream about all the fights and wounds. Every night. I take fucking pills for it. I’ve been dead and dragged across Hell and brought back to this world only to find it’s gone on and it’s better without me. How the fuck does any of that make me lucky?”
“Because it happened. Because of all of it,” says King Bullet, only now he isn’t grinning. “You move. You live and die and come back. You have lovers and enemies. You have a life. You have something, unlike others who have nothing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You will.”
“Let Janet go.”
“Say that again and I’ll start tossing you pieces.”
Janet is rigid. Tears run down their face, but they don’t scream or fight back. Good. With luck, I’ll get them out with just a case of PTSD as bad as mine. For me, it’s time to fight back.
I take a step forward. Then another. I don’t look at Janet, but keep my eyes on the creep with the knife.
I say, “King Bullet. Did you make that up? It looks good tagged on a restroom wall, but I bet the bank won’t put it on your checks. Just who the fuck are you really?”
He ducks his head behind Janet’s, then out again. He pushes them away from him, leaving his body open, then pulling them back, just daring me to attack. But I don’t. It’s too early for that. The fire outside won’t hurt the observatory. We’re safe in here and have all the time in the world.
“Well? Who are you?” I say again.
He laughs to himself and with his free hand takes off his mask. The face he reveals is handsome in an unremarkable way, but it bothers me because it looks vaguely familiar. When he speaks, he does it slowly.
“I am the lost. I am the seething. I am the filth God banished to the cesspool of creation. I am pestilence and revenge and the end of everything. And I will drag you to Armageddon with me because quick deaths are mercy and I have none in me.”
I shrug.
“Nice words, but they don’t answer the question.”
With the tip of the blade, he digs into the skin around his neck, working something out of the soft, warped flesh. It’s a thin, barbed silver necklace. Like someone took a length of razor wire and tried to turn it into a teen girl’s prom-night present.
He says, “This belonged to my mother. My father gave it to her. He put it around her throat, and more lengths around her torso, arms, and legs. He bound her to a cross and placed her in the dark, so far away that no one would ever find her—in the farthest reaches of the chaos at the edge of the universe. And no one did find her for millions of years because she’d been shunned and no one was looking. Except for me. And when I found her, dead, desiccated, barely there at all, I took this burden from her and for the first time knew what I had been born to do.”
“And what’s that?”
He dro
ps the necklace back against his skin.
“Kill you. But not before I make you suffer first. Not until I take away everything you love.”
I stare at him, taking in everything he said. Trying to make sense of it. And I can’t. There’s nothing to do now but keep going.
“Look, I’m sorry about your mommy and daddy issues, but what do they have to do with me?”
He looks at me, then Janet. He gives them a quick kiss on the cheek and laughs.
“What was your father’s name?” he says.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Tell me about your daddy.”
“He was Garrison Stark. A salesman and an asshole.”
“No,” shouts King Bullet. He presses the knife into Janet hard enough to draw blood. “Your real father,” he says.
I look at him. What does this fucker know about this?
“Fine,” I say. “Uriel. An archangel. One of the guardians of the Earth.”
King Bullet says, “And he fell in love with a pretty mortal girl and lay with her. Then nine months later, you slithered out of her belly with a little piece of Daddy’s power.”
“That’s no secret. Lots of people know it. I’m a Nephilim.”
“The only one. Alone in the whole lonely universe.”
“Yeah.”
“Wrong!” he shouts, and the sound bounces off the marble walls. “Behold another wretched Abomination. Doesn’t it feel good to know you’re not alone?”
This time there are tears in King Bullet’s eyes too. I don’t want to believe him, but I’m getting a very bad feeling he isn’t lying. Maybe, if I’m lucky, he’s just crazy. But his power. I can’t ignore that. He has both hands again.
I say, “What the fuck are you talking about? Explain it all to me now or I’m going to take Janet away from you and rip you apart.”
The King looks at me, calm again.
“Did it ever occur to you that if Daddy could fall in love once that he could fall in love a second time?”
I was afraid he was heading this way. But it doesn’t make any sense.
King Bullet Page 20
