Kill All Angels

by Robert Brockway

  Still … maybe try not being such a dick?

  “Can I take your uh … coat?” Glenn asked Carey.

  Carey’s ancient leather jacket was mostly held together with duct tape and patches for punk rock bands. It was a double-breasted motorcycle-style number, black, with spikes on the shoulder pads. I tried to picture it hanging on their antique brass coatrack. It was like picturing the Pope doing shots. It just wouldn’t work. Carey shook his head.

  “We won’t be staying long,” he said.

  We wouldn’t? Right. Of course we wouldn’t. We were just here to check on Jackie, make sure she was alive and okay, maybe give her a warning, then we were off to …

  What, exactly?

  I never did catch Zang’s plan. I heard that Jackie might be in trouble and we dropped everything to rush out here. Whatever it was, I suppose it was still on the table, supposing things turned out okay here.

  Glenn smiled and motioned for us to head on through to the living room. Carey was closer to the doorway than me, but he still waited for me to go first. A tour guide in hostile territory. I stepped through into an immense space dominated by a huge brick fireplace. More wrought iron all around it—pokers, grates, strange devices with hinges and bellows that clearly hadn’t been employed since the 1800s. The room was divided into tasteful little subsections: a reading nook with leather armchairs and oak bookshelves, each laden with tasteful-looking tomes that I’m sure had never been opened; a few old-world rocking chairs in front of the fireplace; a small couch and lounge combo centered around the main window, looking out onto the front lawn.

  Jackie’s mom, Brin, sat there. Prim to the point of being on edge. Her posture ramrod straight, knees together, hands folded in her lap. She jumped to her feet when she saw me, and went through a strange variety of expressions. Like each feature of her face felt a different emotion at the same time, and it took her a minute to gather them all together under the same banner. Finally, she smiled at me. We were an awkward length away from each other. The hug was expected of us, so we both had to walk like twenty feet with our arms outstretched.

  “Katey!” she said, and I wrapped my arms around her.

  She had the lightweight frailty of the elderly. Somehow felt less solid than younger people, like she was just made of less durable materials. Her sweater smelled like roses.

  “We weren’t expecting you,” she said. Her eyes were full—like she hadn’t been crying, but maybe she meant to.

  “Brin,” I whispered. “Is everything okay? Is Jackie okay?”

  “Just fine, honey,” she said, and took my arm. She walked us toward the dining room. The loose soles of Carey’s Chucks slapped and shuffled behind us. Even his walk felt the need to clarify exactly how unhappy he was to be here.

  “So, uh, Carey, was it?” Glenn asked.

  Carey grunted affirmation.

  “You know my daughter from her improv classes? You must be quite the comedian yourself, then.”

  “I’m a fucking laugh riot,” Carey said.

  Glenn laughed nervously.

  Brin and I rounded the corner into the dining room. It, the kitchen, and the TV room occupied one very long, relatively narrow end of the house, no walls separating them. At the far end of the stretch, the television was on, blaring something I couldn’t quite make out, but could tell, just by the bitchy tone and inappropriate soundtrack, was some kind of reality show. I remembered they had a big fluffy white sectional back there, ultra sleek and low profile. The shitty television programming said Jackie was watching, but I couldn’t see the couch from here. The kitchen was blocking the way. It was a series of tasteful islands; all the appliances were brushed steel and probably made by some company in Italy that had only made toaster ovens for the last six hundred years.

  The dining room, closest to us, was dominated by yet another slab of rough hewn wood. This one was maybe twenty feet long, with a dozen archaic and severe-looking wooden chairs lining the sides. At the head of it sat a Chinese girl with silver hair. She was gorgeous, but in a cold way. Like a statue. Like she’d been carved out of a single block of smooth marble, and never meant to move. She looked up at Brin and I when we walked in, but showed no expression. Not even a nod of acknowledgment. Glenn followed next. He put his hand on the small of Brin’s back. Carey shuffled in last, still gazing at the floor and the walls with disdain and disinterest.

  “Katey,” Brin said. “This is another friend of Jackie’s, she’s staying with us for the weekend. Her name is—”

  “Oh, fuck!” Carey said, from behind me.

  The Chinese girl saw him and smiled. It was the only thing not pretty about her.

  “Run!” Carey screamed.

  THIRTEEN

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

  I didn’t know what the hell to say when Zang finished his story. It sucks, for sure. And I felt bad for the guy in it, but that guy was long dead. And like fuck am I going to console an Empty One, even if he was buying me beer. Hey, speaking of …

  I pointed my beer can at the old Chinese bartender and made a shotgun noise. He looked at me. I shook it, to show him that it was empty. He didn’t move, just looked at Zang. Zang nodded, and the old guy got up to fetch us two more cans.

  “So, what?” I said to Zang. “Now you’re a good guy? You’re like the punk rock Batman, righting wrongs and defending justice and shit?”

  “Nah.” He laughed. “I just want to kill as many of those fuckers as I can.”

  I briefly spun through some monologues about doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and all that garbage, but that would just be me playing devil’s advocate. Lecturing the guy not because I disagreed with him, but because I wished I did. That seemed like it would take a lot of energy that I just didn’t have, so instead I said:

  “Huh.”

  And I raised my beer can. He clacked his against it, and we drank.

  “I gotta piss off soon,” Zang said, fully back into his asshole punk persona. “Places to be, people to kill.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Who and where and do you want a hand?”

  “Seriously?” he asked.

  “Seriously,” I said.

  “I might take you up on that. A little birdy told me about a gathering of mystical shitheads going on tomorrow night. A little birdy who doesn’t have much of a face left anymore. Meet me at the entrance to the old zoo in Griffith Park at midnight if you’re looking to kill some time and some assholes. But not tonight. This business is personal, and besides”—Zang spun his finger at the bartender, in a wrap-it-up gesture—“you’ve got dishes to wash.”

  “What?” I asked. “I think you’ve got your slang crossed, man. You need more practice talking like a human.”

  Zang laughed as he shoved open the door and stepped out in the rain. It swung back inward after him, carrying a watery breeze scented with ozone and exhaust.

  I looked at the bartender. He had one hand on the bar, sweeping away our empties into a bin. The other hand came up with a monstrous cleaver; a few big notches in the blade said it wasn’t for decoration. He motioned toward the gray door to the kitchen, behind which it sounded like some sort of Chinese civil war was starting.

  “Motherfucker,” I said.

  I stood up, pulled my jacket off, set it on the far end of the bar, and clocked into my new temp job.

  You stupid bastard. If you know one thing by now, it’s this: There’s no such thing as a free beer.

  * * *

  That god damn Chinaman had me scrubbing pots until two in the morning. I don’t know what fucking payscale the Chinese work on, but three cheap beers does not equal four hours of hard labor. Unless …

  Son of a bitch, Zang had me paying for his beers, too!

  I wanted to hate him for it, but damned if I wouldn’t have done the same in his situation. He was actually pretty good at passing for a real punk.

  After my shift, the Chinese at least gave me some fried rice and a cup of greenish t
ea. I ate it sitting on a milk crate out back. It had stopped raining, and the air felt lighter. Like the water had grabbed onto some of the particles of bullshit that accumulated in the L.A. air and washed them down the gutter. The bars were closed, and the shows had let out hours ago. The only people left in Chinatown now were the workers, just closing up shop, and the junkies and drunks looking for a dry place to sleep it off. I plucked through my bowl of rice as best I could.

  The rotten sons of bitches had given me chopsticks.

  Chopsticks. For rice.

  How the hell was a man supposed to eat like that? It was like using tweezers to shave your head. One of the chefs came out to eat with me. He squatted down on a milk crate of his own, picked up his set of chopsticks, and plowed through his bowl in a little over a minute. That must be some Zen kung fu shit they all learn at a special monastery or something, because I gave up after about five minutes and resorted to shoveling rice and bits of pork into my face with my fingers.

  I drank most of my tea, dipped my sticky fingers into last warm inch of water to rinse them off, then dumped the rest down the drain. I set my bowl and cup next to the door—my dining partner had locked up behind him—and ventured out into a shut-down Chinatown.

  The place was like a theme park modeled after what a racist assumes China looks like: lots of pagodas and unnecessary archways, neon signs, and cheesy dragons. All dark now, of course, and abandoned. I sidestepped the puddles as best I could, but the holes in my ratty Chucks had my socks swamped in a matter of minutes. It took a good three hours of walking with soggy feet and an uninsulated jacket just to make it back to my crash spot. But the Los Angeles streets were as empty as they ever got, the buildings had been washed as clean as they ever got, and I was about as fed as I ever got, so all told, I’d had worse nights.

  FOURTEEN

  }}}Carey. 1982. Los Angeles, California. Griffith Park.}}}}}}}}}

  I liked Griffith Park at night. You could forget you were in L.A. No people, no cars, no freeway noises—just insulated wilderness. If you turned away from the sprawling metropolis spread out below you like a blanket of light, you could almost convince yourself you were off lost in the wild, untamed woods somewhere. And then you tripped over a broken toaster oven or got a used condom stuck to your shoe and it all came flooding back.

  I found Zang standing utterly motionless at the entrance to the old Griffith Park Zoo. They’d closed the place back in the ’60s when the Los Angeles Zoo opened, and the movers had emptied the place of anything valuable. The hobos disagreed, and ripped it apart even more, until there wasn’t anything left worth trashing. The punks and the teenagers disagreed yet again, and started using the old concrete cages, enclosures, and auditoriums as a combination of party spots, bedrooms, and mass bathrooms. Then the taggers came and covered every visible surface in crudely drawn cocks and obscenities. Now you had to wade through a small ocean of discarded beer cans and used hypodermics to get anywhere. Despite being a mandatory stop on the L.A. homeless tour, I’d only been here once before. This is probably the first, last, and only time you will ever hear me say this: I was just too good for this place.

  Zang was standing ramrod straight, still as a statue, his gaze locked on something deep in the darkened interior of the zoo. I’m sure with his creepy Empty One senses he heard me coming a mile away, but if he did, he didn’t show it. He didn’t move until I physically touched his arm, at which point the spell was broken and he abruptly transitioned to the half-staggering drunken punk persona he spent so much time practicing.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “Good to see you!”

  He reached over to hug me, and I jumped backward so quickly I lost my footing and went sprawling.

  “What the fuck was that?” I said, bracing myself to run.

  “A hug?” He momentarily dropped the human façade. “I read the social cues wrong. It happens often. I will note your distress.”

  “Fucking underline that note, too,” I said, standing up and brushing myself off.

  Just playing the odds, I’m sure I caught a dirty needle to the ass when I fell and had now contracted eight forms of hepatitis.

  “You ready to do this shit or what?” Zang said, feigning normality again.

  “Do what shit, exactly?” I asked.

  “You lucked out, man,” he said. “This is angel night. We’ve got about a dozen Unnoticeables in there, two Empty Ones, and one poor dumb fucking human about to get himself angel-fied.”

  “Holy shit,” I said. Memories came flooding back to me. An underground train station. A crude plywood stage in an English marsh. Screaming light. Death. “What do you expect us to do about it?”

  “I don’t know.” Zang shrugged casually, like I’d just asked him how he felt about the Packers. “Fuck it up?”

  “Listen, man,” I said. “This isn’t my first shitshow. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen twice before and it’s gone south both times. Quickly and dramatically. I know you can’t die and all, but I can die real easy.”

  “And what?” Zang laughed. “You got so much to live for? Last night I told you what I’m all about: hurting them however I can. I don’t care what that costs me. I thought you felt the same way.”

  I wanted to argue, if only by reflex, but nothing came to mind. A few years ago, I could count all of my friends on one hand. Now I could count them on one finger, and I was including beer as a friend. I slept in a filthy bag on the sidewalk between a Korean butcher and some sort of pornographic comic shop. And every night I thought about the time I had to leave my best friend for dead. Watch him get torn apart, from the other side of a chain-link fence that I was too weak to climb.

  There were parts of me still striving for some kind of life, some kind of happiness. But that was just instinct. Some stupid lizard part of my brain that thinks I deserve those things, despite all I’ve done. Survival is a hell of an urge, but it’s got nothing on revenge.

  “Fuck it,” I said. “What’s your plan?”

  “I think you’ll like this,” Zang said. “Step one: We go in there and hit everybody as hard as we can. Step two: We grab the human candidate. Step three: We run away.”

  “I like it,” I said. “Easy to remember.”

  There were no lights in the old zoo, and a hell of a lot of empty beer cans to step on in the dark, giving away our position. Zang, being an inhuman asshole, didn’t bring a flashlight. He didn’t need one. Me, being a broke dipshit, couldn’t afford one. Zang made much quicker progress than me. My process basically consisted of putting my foot down really slowly, and if I felt a crunch, trying again. It was like walking through a minefield made of eggshells. I lost Zang’s silhouette a few times, but he at least seemed to get that, and would do his creepy vacant robot thing while waiting for me to catch up.

  Finally we rounded a corner and saw lights up ahead. A handful of tiki torches—the cheap, disposable kind that suburban housewives buy to decorate their tacky barbecue parties—were laid out around what used to be an amphitheater. The main stage was backed by a concrete slab cut to look vaguely like one of those Mayan pyramid things—two sets of blocky stairs meeting each other at the highest point in the middle. Dead center in the stage area, a chubby kid a few years my junior wept in wide-eyed terror. He was kneeling, his hands bound in front, looking to all the leering non-faces of the Unnoticeables surrounding him for help that would never come.

  A few feet behind the chubby kid stood a god damn mammoth of a man. He was eight feet tall if he was an inch, stocky in a way that tempted you to call him fat, but with so much muscle beneath you’d never survive actually doing it. He had a scraggly, filthy beard that hung down to his waist, his long hair pulled back in an equally long ponytail. He wore a pair of filthy, blood-stained denim overalls, black combat boots, and nothing else. He was holding an honest-to-god fucking battle-axe. Like something out of a fantasy movie.

  Where would you even get one of those things? Is there a murderous giant psychopath store down at the mall?
>
  Zang hissed quietly beside me. I turned to follow his gaze. At the very top of the pyramidal slab, sitting primly on its apex, was a petite Chinese girl. Late teens, early twenties at the latest. Short denim jacket, bright yellow tank top, torn blue jeans, and white ankle boots. Legs crossed at the knee. Her head tilted curiously at the sobbing kid below, taking in the scene like a raptor watching prey. The guttering light from the torches reflecting off her bright, silvery hair.

  The god damn evil bitch that killed Randall.

  “Jie,” Zang said. Somewhere between a curse and an exclamation of awe.

  “That’s Jie?” I whispered. “That’s your fucking star-crossed lover? Your girlfriend killed my best and only friend in the world.”

  I grabbed his arm and dug my fingers in as hard as I could. Zang didn’t even blink. He slowly rotated his head to face me. I’d say he looked me straight in the eyes, but even when they were staring right at you, those eyes never seemed to actually see anything. They looked through you, to a place a thousand miles gone.

  “That is Jie,” Zang said flatly. “And the only human thing left of me is the love I have for her. I have tried to kill her dozens of times. I would crush her skull in an instant if I had the means. If you have any ideas on how to accomplish that, I am listening.”

  Guess everybody’s got a crazy ex. Can’t hold that against the guy, can I?

  “Shit,” I said.

  Probably best to let the subject drop for now.

  “I was more down with this plan before I saw the monster in the overalls,” I said. “What the hell is that bastard? Where do you even buy a battle-axe?”

  “That’s Alvar,” Zang said, adopting his human affectation. “The Empty Ones are immortal, but most of us are pretty recent converts. Just since we picked up the ritual, and started summoning angels more frequently. Back in the day, Empty Ones were rare, but they did exist. That big son of a bitch is the oldest one I know of. He’s had the axe since the Middle Ages, at least. I don’t know anything else about him. I don’t think anybody does. The only time he speaks is right after a kill, to recite a number: the new tally of how many victims his axe has taken. I’m not sure what number he’s on. He says it in German.”