Kill All Angels

by Robert Brockway

  I looked to Zang, with his coma-patient face and black shark eyes, standing frozen at the table like he was waiting for input.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” I screamed. I meant to consider the risks more carefully before speaking, but it just exploded out of me. “Bringing that thing here to my house? Are you working with them now? Did you turn on us?”

  Carey tipped his mug back, swallowed once, hard, and blew out fumes I could smell from across the room. He shuddered.

  “Zang is, well, he is and he isn’t one of the Empty Ones. He’s hollowed out like them, but maybe not quite as much. There’s a bit more human left in him than there should be. Now, that doesn’t make him safe. I wouldn’t trust him alone with my puppy, for fear he’d eat it.”

  “I probably would not,” Zang said, emotionlessly.

  “Yeah.” Carey shot him a skewed glare. “If you say so. Anyway, Zang’s a monster, that’s for sure. But he’s good on his word. A long time ago, he told me if I ever needed him, I could find him at the Drunken Monkey Style every Sunday at closing time. When you said we needed to find another angel, I gave the place a call. Turns out the Monkey went out of business fifteen years ago. Terrible bar. Fully deserved it. But the whole neighborhood went yuppie, and the old Monkey is a yoga place now. Zang still showed up every Sunday night and waited until the doors shut.”

  “They tried to make me leave a few times, over the years,” Zang mused. “It did not go well.”

  “This is the bad idea.” Carey shrugged. “I told you it was stupid, and dangerous, and possibly insane. Now, you could say all those same things about Z himself—but whatever he is, he’s not on the side of the angels.”

  “In all of the Empty Ones,” Zang said, “there is a very small remainder of the person we used to be. That remainder is all that remains of our humanity. Much of my mine is rage. Even as I love the angels for what they are, and long for the nothingness they promise, I hate them. They are the things that did this to Jie and I. They must pay.”

  “You want to end this?” Carey asked. “Zang is all the way in, and he’s our best chance at finding an angel.”

  “And so you invited the thing to my apartment? When I was all alone, and without so much as a warning?” I slammed my mug down on the end table beside the couch. Pale brown liquid sloshed over the lip. The little ceramic handle broke off in my hand. I whipped it at Carey. It bounced off of his chest.

  “Well, he was early—” Carey said.

  “I was not,” Zang interrupted him. “I was exactly on time, as I am always.”

  “Well, fuck it, then. I guess I was late. Besides, I figured you could handle yourself.”

  “Against an Empty One?” I laughed, bitterly. I picked my mug back up, the ragged edges where the handle had been attached scraping against my palms. I bolted back the rest of the whiskey.

  “Sweetheart,” Carey said. “Not a week ago I saw you bleed out on a highway and come back to life, then step through time or whatever the hell you call it. I didn’t figure you needed the protection of a crusty old homeless man.”

  “So it’s true, then?” Zang said. “She can devour the angels?”

  “Devour? No, I—” I wanted to protest, but I didn’t have a better word for it. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I do.”

  I felt sick. Maybe it was being confronted with the reality of what I’d been doing, or maybe it was just Carey’s ten-dollar whiskey churning in my gut.

  “And you believe that if you find another, you can kill them all?” Zang’s voice and face were still devoid of humanity, but he’d taken an eager step forward while speaking.

  “Yes,” I said, figuring that this wasn’t the time for hedging. “If you get me near one, I can end all of this.”

  “Well fuckin’ excellent!” Zang exclaimed. “What are we waiting for?”

  The abrupt shift back to humanity startled me. I dropped my mug. It bounced off of the couch cushion and hit the ground, shattering. The piece nearest me was just the fat cat’s face, removed from its body. Its expression was accusatory. “Why aren’t you helping me?” it seemed to be saying. “Can’t you see I’m in trouble here?”

  TEN

  }}}Carey. 1982. Los Angeles, California. Chinatown.}}}}}}}}}

  The Empty One and I just stared at each other very, very awkwardly for the first few minutes. I guess he’d spoken his piece, and I just couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. I felt like if I talked I might break whatever spell we had going here and he’d come after me. I wasn’t in any shape to run yet. So I kept my big mouth shut. For about as long as I could manage that, anyway, which turned out not to be long.

  “What?” I said. “You waiting for me to beg? You should do some stretches before you go fuck yourself. Make sure you don’t pull something.”

  “Me?” The Empty One laughed. “Nah, I’m just not sure what to do in this situation. I’ve never saved a gweilo as ugly as you before. Do I throw you back, or keep you?”

  Holy shit, what? An Empty One with a sense of humor?

  “You’re not gonna kill me?” I asked it.

  “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve let those dudes back there do it.” He smiled and it was almost halfway convincing.

  “So, what, you’re gonna hollow me out and make me one of your groupies? I’d prefer the killing, if it’s all the same to you.”

  He blinked a few times. His mouth twitched and the smile broke. His face went slack and his voice fell flat.

  “You know what I am,” he said.

  I couldn’t tell if it was a question or not.

  “Yeah, are you … do you not know who I am?” I asked.

  “I do not. Should I.”

  Okay, that was supposed to be a question.

  “You’re fuckin’ A right, you should! I’m Carey. I’ve taken down more of you bastards than I can count. I’m like the Lex Luthor to your Superman. Wait, no—the other way around. You assholes are Luthor. I’m Superman.”

  “If you fight the other Empty Ones and their spawn, then you and I are on the same side,” it said.

  Is it fucking with me? What could its game possibly be? Maybe it’s hoping that I’ll lead it back to my base or something, so it can kill all my friends and allies in one fell swoop. If so, joke’s on it. I don’t have any.

  “If you didn’t know who I was, why did you save me?” I asked.

  “I did not,” it answered. “I just killed the spawn attacking you.”

  The spawn?

  “Holy crap,” I said, and slapped myself in the head. “Those guys were Unnoticeables.”

  “You did not know.”

  “Well, no. Normally I can spot the blurry-face shtick from a mile away. But I just figured those guys were Chinese. You all look alike to me, anyway.”

  “Wow, man,” the Empty One said, adopting human mannerisms. “That’s like, super duper extra racist.”

  I laughed.

  “An Empty One that can get offended? I’m not buying it.”

  His human mask fell away again.

  “That was the correct response to your provocation. Was it not.”

  “Yeah, it was. You got me there. So…” I looked around the square, still empty, still pissing fat streams of rain. “What now?”

  “I just saved your ass,” the Empty One said, back to feigning humanity. “I think you owe me a beer.”

  It held out its hand to me, and like a jackass, I took it. It pulled me to my feet and started to walk away. I followed. I was starting to get my wind back a little bit, but I decided to hang back some anyway. I played up a limp and hugged my chest, like I was still in bad shape. If this fucker turned on me, I’d need all the surprise I could get. It turned around and saw me hobbling slowly after it. It walked back toward me and grabbed my hand. I tensed up, ready to fight or flee or at least spit in the bastard’s eye before he tore me apart. Instead it heaved my arm around its shoulders and took my weight off my “bad” leg.

  It’s fucking helping me.


  Everything has gone insane.

  * * *

  The Empty One said its name was Zang. It took me to a dark little hole of a bar behind a Chinese restaurant a few blocks down. It said something to the bartender in their weird language, and they both laughed at me. The bartender ducked down and pulled out a few cans of Old Milwaukee from somewhere below the bar. He cracked them open—one with each hand—and spun them around to face us. Then he retreated to a shaky metal stool and resumed watching his tiny TV set, hidden beneath the cash register.

  The whole place seemed to be carved out of one solid block of wood—all the same deep brown color; over-varnished and heavily abused. A small rough-hewn bar made out of a single scratched slab. Wooden stools with faded and split red leather, secured by brass rivets. Wood paneling on every wall, holding up a couple of liquor posters, a Chinese calendar, and a dart board that in no way left enough standing room to actually play the game. The whole place smelled like fried pork and spices. Wafting through the speakers, so faint you almost couldn’t hear it, wailing, twangy foreign music plinked away. Above that, the canned laugh track of whatever the bartender was watching, and angry ranting from behind a swinging door that led to the kitchen.

  I took a deep swig from my can. However not my style this place might be, they had the only two things that mattered: cheap beer and a working refrigerator. Oh, god damn. Beer. The first tangy slap on the tongue, followed by the carbonated bite, then the soothing cold of the liquid running down your throat, coating your belly in its beautiful, healing beerness.

  Being a bum has some disadvantages. Chief amongst them that you never have any money, so when you do, you gotta prioritize your drunk. Beer isn’t actually that effective. You have to go for the fortified wine, or the rotgut, if you want to sustain an economically feasible blitz. That had been my life for a while. But beer was always my favorite. I hadn’t had a cold one in weeks. Months maybe. I just couldn’t justify paying the money.

  Speaking of …

  “There’s no way I can pay for this,” I told Zang.

  “I figured,” he said. “I’ve got a deal with the bartender.”

  “I don’t even know where to start with you. Whatever the hell you are,” I said.

  He laughed. It was easy and natural, but he carried it on too long and cut it off too abruptly. None of the wind-down of a human laugh.

  “What’s to say?” He sipped from his own can. He savored it, eyes closed, head tilted back, even shivered a little at the end. He looked like he was really enjoying it, until I recognized something in the mannerisms.

  They were mine. Exactly what I had done, just a few seconds ago.

  “If you’ve got a free beer deal worked out in this place, you can start from the very beginning,” I said.

  “All right,” he said, atonally. “I will tell you a story.”

  ELEVEN

  }}}Zang. 1871. Los Angeles, California. Chinatown.}}}}}}}}}

  There was a young man named Zang. Zang was not his birth name, but a name he took later. Zang does not speak his birth name, even in stories.

  His parents were Liu and Fung, and they came from China to America because they had been told it was a magical place of riches. They believed these things because they were poor and uneducated, and did not recognize empty promises when they saw them.

  They arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1860. There were no riches. But there was work. It was bad work. Hard, demeaning, and unceasing. There was no going back. Though to be honest, things were not much better back in China. People like Liu and Fung are not given chances. They can only take them.

  Liu and Fung accepted their situation, because that is what broken people do: They accept.

  They worked hard. They saved what little they could. Zang had been raised by Liu and Fung his entire life. He had been born poor, and uneducated. He should have become accustomed to it. He did not. He longed for things beyond his station. He lied. He swindled. He cheated. He did many things he should not have done. But he did not assault. He did not murder. He did not rape.

  Zang wanted to avoid a life of pointless toil, like Liu and Fung. It was not a stupid goal. It was a worthy goal. But Zang become confused, and mistook status for security. He saw there were some Chinese people in Los Angeles, California, that were doing well. Or at least, better than Liu and Fung. Zang wanted to be like these people, who were called the Tong.

  The Tong were called gangs, but that was not entirely correct. They were everything. They were protectors, exploiters, warriors, murderers, saviors, and salesmen. The Chinese in Los Angeles were not treated like people. They did not have the rights of people. All they had were the Tong. If they did not have the Tong, they had nothing. Zang wanted to have the Tong. He did not want to have nothing.

  Zang worked very hard for a man named Sam Yuen, who ran a Tong. Life became better for Zang. He had to lie. He had to cheat. He had to swindle. But he did not assault. He did not murder. He did not rape. This was enough for Zang. Until one day he met a girl. She was very beautiful. She was very sweet. Zang was never much for poetry. If you asked him, he could only say he loved her, and that he did not know what that word meant before her, and that he would forget what it meant after her. The girl felt the same about Zang. This girl’s name was Jie. Jie was not her birth name, but a name she took after. Zang does not speak her birth name, even in stories.

  For a time Zang and Jie were very happy. They wanted for nothing more than they had. This is not often permitted to last.

  A man from a rival Tong named Yo Hing also thought Jie was very beautiful. He did not lust after her for himself. He lusted after her for the price she would draw. Yo Hing took Jie, and sold her hand in marriage to a man who had the money to buy it.

  Zang did not accept this. He was in love, and that is not what people in love do: They do not accept. Zang went to Sam Yuen and he demanded that they take action. Zang was in no position to make this demand. But Zang was a very good liar. He was a swindler. He was a cheat. He spoke to Sam Yuen about reputation and honor. He said that affronts like the abduction of Jie were bad for business. Sam Yuen agreed with this, though Zang did not. Zang loved Jie, and no longer cared about business.

  The two Tong went to war. Many people died in this war. They were Chinese people in Los Angeles, California. Chinese people in Los Angeles, California, did not matter. And then one day, in a shootout between the Tong, a white person was killed. White people in Los Angeles, California, did matter.

  On October 24th, 1871, five hundred of the white people of Los Angeles, California, gathered together and marched on a place called Negro Alley. Strangely enough, this was where many Chinese people were found. The five hundred white people of Los Angeles, California, (this is said to be one tenth of the city’s population at the time) attacked Negro Alley. They assaulted. They murdered. They raped. They tortured and killed seventeen Chinese people. Seventeen Chinese people dead for one white person dead. Apparently this is the exchange rate.

  On October 24th, 1871, Zang and Sam Yuen were informed that Jie was being held in a saloon in Negro Alley. Sam Yuen gave Zang and four other men permission to raid the saloon in Negro Alley. They did so. There they found Jie. She was tied to a stained mattress, bleeding from every orifice. She had been assaulted. She had been raped. But she had not been murdered. Zang felt two things in conflicting measure, as humans sometimes do. He felt anger at what had been done to Jie, and he felt relief that Jie was still alive. What had been done to her did not diminish her in Zang’s eyes. He untied her wrists and ankles. He wrapped his coat around her shoulders. He sat on the bed with her and held her in his arms.

  From outside, many men began yelling, and there were gunshots. The four other men with Zang went downstairs to the saloon, and found five hundred white people descending on Negro Alley. Yo Hing, of the rival Tong, had made his fortune by being very kind to the white people of Los Angeles, California. He often sold out the Chinese for the benefit of the white people, and this made him
money. This is what he did again, on the night of October 24th, 1871. Seventeen Chinese people would die, and many more would be wounded terribly, both in soul and body, so Yo Hing could send a message to Sam Yuen. That message was: I can do whatever I want. You cannot.

  We are now done with Sam Yuen and Yo Hing. They are history, and are used only to bring Zang and Jie together at precisely the right place, at precisely the right time, for something miraculous to happen.

  As they sat there crying and whispering promises to each other, an angel appeared in that dirty room with its bloodstained mattress.

  This was not an angel in the way that Jie and Zang understood. This angel did not care for humanity. It viewed humanity as a series of problems. The code that dictated their personalities and existences was sloppy, repetitive, and poorly written. This angel could reach inside a human and solve those errors, and the human would cease to exist. The energy that human was using, had used, and would use, would then be freed up, and the angel could take it and use it for a better purpose. To this angel, humans were fuel. This angel needed fuel.

  It looked inside Zang, and it looked inside Jie, and it saw something very unique: Their solutions were intertwined. Much of Zang’s solution lay inside Jie, and much of Jie’s solution lay inside Zang. Now that they were together again, it was a simple matter of shunting bits between them. Zang and Jie were solved.

  Partially.

  In some humans, there is no complete solution. There is always an answer. There is not always a neat answer. Sometimes, there is a remainder left over. Most of what made the person what it was has departed, leaving only a vacant shell. An Empty One. There was one thing the angel could not simplify about Zang and Jie: their love. Their affection did not come from a reasonable place. It could not be traced back to childhood experiences or subconscious fears or basic genetics. In this way, their love was like madness. And madness cannot be solved. Zang and Jie were left with their love.

  It is here that many listeners pause in the story. Here, they issue wistful sighs. They profess opinions on romance. They do not stop to consider what a terrible thing love is, when taken on its own. The Empty Ones that had been Zang and Jie loved each other. But they had no compassion. They had no empathy. They had no loyalty. They loved one another, and nothing else.