Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel

by Richard Kadrey

  I don’t know if it’s taken two minutes or a lunar month, but finally I make it across. Hattie’s boys grab and pull me the last couple of feet onto the concrete ledge. I turn back to the others and wave like it was nothing at all, hoping I don’t piss myself before the rest of them come over.

  Candy is next. She puts out a foot, grabs the side cables, and crouches like a tiger, getting a feel for the bridge. She stays that way for several seconds. Long enough that I think she’s frozen in place. Then she sprints forward. The bridge wobbles and sways under her, but she doesn’t miss a step. What took me minutes to do, she does in a few seconds. Hattie’s boys reach for her on our end, but she ignores them and jumps the last few feet onto solid ground herself. Cheers start up from the other side of the chasm. Candy waves and bows.

  I put my arm around her shoulders.

  “Show-off.”

  “Scaredy cat.”

  Father Traven is next. Except for Delon, he’s the one I’m most worried about. I’m not convinced his footing is all that good on flat ground. While a moving walkway doesn’t seem like suicide, it’s still extremely stupid. There’s nothing we can do but see what happens.

  Vidocq and Brigitte shout encouragement as Traven plods across step-by-step. He’s fine until he hits the middle, where the slack in the cables is worst. His feet wobble. He gets a death grip on the two side cables, and teeters, trying to right himself. Each time his balance starts to come back, he loses it again. He’s stuck there, unable to go forward or back.

  I’m so focused on Traven that I don’t see Brigitte start across. She’s almost as fast as Candy. When she reaches Traven she stands behind him, moving her weight back and forth, trying to counteract his movements and balance the cables. Gradually it works. Her added weight and sense of balance settle the cables into place. They come across together, a step at a time. When they’re close enough, I pull Traven off the wires to clear Brigitte’s path while Candy grabs her.

  Traven walks to the nearest wall and collapses there. Brigitte collapses next to him. He takes her hand and they sit together in the dark.

  Delon is next. Vidocq practically has to shove him onto the cables. Delon stands at the end, petrified, looking down into the chasm.

  “Paul,” yells Candy.

  He tilts his head up slightly.

  “Look at me,” she says. “Don’t look down. Just at me.”

  After a couple of minutes Delon takes an actual step forward. Then another. Every time he stops moving, he looks down, so Candy yells to him.

  “You’re doing fine. Look up at me. Keep looking here.”

  He makes it all the way to the middle of the bridge before one of the cables breaks. One of the two walkway cables comes loose with a metallic snap, coiling back to the far end and slamming into the wall. Delon goes down on one knee, desperately holding on to the side cables as the whole bridge bucks and sways. The sound of strained bolts and wires echoes off the cavern walls. After several minutes the bridge stabilizes enough for Delon to stand.

  Candy starts to call to him again, but I put a hand on her shoulder. At this point I don’t want anything to surprise or confuse him. Step by uncertain step Delon gets a little closer to our end. Finally he’s close enough for Diogo and the boys to grab. They pull him off the wires and he pukes over the side, down into the chasm like he’s trying to get even with it.

  Vidocq is last to cross. He’s not a big man but he’s not petite and he’s wearing a heavy greatcoat. Not standard issue for the Flying Wallendas. He tests the cables before he steps across, shaking the two side cables and gently putting his weight on the walkway. Satisfied, he steps back into the door and opens his coat. I don’t have to see him clearly to know what he’s doing. He’s drinking a potion. Then another. And a third. He shudders. Breathes in and out a few times and steps onto the bridge. And sprints like a goddamn madman all the way across, not touching the two side wires and, from the way it looks, barely touching the bottom one. The wires are letting out sharp metallic screams, straining under him. He jumps the last few feet. I don’t know if he felt it or if he just got lucky, but just as he launches himself, one of the two side cables breaks. Vidocq ducks as it snaps back a few inches over his head. He’s shaking and his face is slick with sweat when he reaches our side.

  “Not bad, old man,” I tell him.

  “Thank you,” he says, pulling another potion from inside his coat. He downs it and tosses the bottle away. A few seconds later his breathing and heartbeat head back to normal.

  “So, what did you take back there?” I ask. “Some kind of bat juice that let you float across?”

  He shakes his head.

  “No. One potion for balance. One for bravery. And a third to not give a damn about the other two.”

  Hattie’s boys huddle at the edge of the chasm examining the wires. Diogo hawks up phlegm and spits it over the side. He and his brothers watch it drop like they’re watching the Super Bowl.

  “I don’t suppose anyone following us will be able to come this way,” says Traven.

  I take out the black blade and slice through the remaining cables so that the bridge collapses into the chasm. There’s silence and then a huge metallic rattle as it hits the far wall.

  “Do you people intend to completely destroy my home?” says Hattie.

  “You got paid,” I say.

  “We’re really sorry,” says Candy.

  “No one ever leaves Kill City, so whoever built the bridge is still around,” I say. “If it’s that important, they’ll come back and fix it.”

  “And how long will that take?” says Hattie.

  I say, “From the way you talked, it sounded like you didn’t come down here too often, so what do you care?”

  “It’s the principle.”

  “I doubt that. You’re not the chamber of commerce. You don’t give a damn about anybody else but your clan. If you did you would have said something when I stopped those guys from stomping the kid back there. I think you just want to shake us down for more gifts. We might have another bauble or two but not until we actually get somewhere. And if there are any swamps up ahead or giant spiders or fire-breathing fan dancers, you better say so before we get there. No more surprises.”

  She laughs and claps her hands once together.

  “No surprises? In Kill City? Boy, you couldn’t have chosen worse if you’re looking for a place with no more astonishments.”

  Her sons laugh along with her. Hattie goes to the wall and takes an oil lamp down from a nail. Diogo gives her a match, which she strikes against the rough concrete. It sparks and she holds the flame to the lamp wick. It catches and yellow light fills the chamber. You can feel everyone’s mood lift in the warm glow of the lamp. Our LEDs and flashlights made Kill City look like a broken-down space station. Seeing the place lit by fire, I feel like we’re back on planet Earth.

  Hattie opens another door and holds the lamp high.

  “With all the noise you fools made, half of Kill City probably knows where we are. But I want to make sure those ahead see us coming. Don’t want to spook anyone.”

  She leads us down another level, where the feel is different. Like we’ve moved into a ragged zone outsiders weren’t meant to see. Bare cinder-block walls. Exposed ductwork and steam pipes overhead. We slosh through a couple of inches of dirty water from leaking pipes. No one talks. Hattie is out front, leading us like Moses through the desert. Her boys are spread out around her, as nervous as she is fierce.

  The passage narrows ahead. We’re getting into areas with heavier wreckage. Slabs of the upstairs floor lie on either side of us. Looking up through the hole, I can see the night sky. It’s a flat, gray-black slate, all the stars washed out by the lights of Santa Monica. In the dim pools of light from the lantern and our flashlights, the rusted rebar and rows of workers’ coat hooks along the walls look like props from a Roger Corman torture chamber.

  Ahead is a narrow tunnel under the wreckage.

  “It’s hands and kn
ees here,” Hattie says.

  She doesn’t miss a step. Gets right down on her belly, sets the lantern in front of her, and crawls, pushing the light ahead. Her sons follow.

  I shine my light into the tunnel and lean my weight on the debris. Nothing moves. The pile is solid and the passage ahead looks clear. Still, I can’t see what’s at the far end.

  “You want to take point on this one, Paul?” I say.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re not claustrophobic?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Great. Scream if you see dragons.”

  “Very funny.”

  Everyone takes off their bags and packs. All I have is a flashlight, so I go through next. I don’t want to stick around and watch Candy trying to maneuver her Kekko Kamen bag so it doesn’t get scratched up.

  The tunnel is maybe twenty tight feet from end to end. Crawling on my elbows takes a minute or so to come out the other side. We’re a long way from the world now. Dug down into the earth like bugs. Even if the bridge was still intact, there’s no going back. The team following us could be around the first corner. Until I know who they are, I don’t want to take a chance on running into them. That means we have no choice but to follow wherever Hattie wants to take us, and she knows it. On our hands and knees it feels like we’ve crossed a new barrier. We’re moving forward but I don’t like it.

  Candy comes through the tunnel next, followed by Vidocq, Brigitte, and Traven.

  The new room looks a lot like the last one, probably just an extension of it. The same rough walls and unfinished feel.

  “Where to next?” I say.

  “We’re about there,” says Hattie.

  There’s a grunt and a whirring sound from the other end of the room, then the growl of a generator coming to life. Bright halogen work lights come on all around us. I go blind for a few seconds.

  When I can see again, there they are. I have to give it to the Shoggots. They know how to make an entrance.

  The passage opens onto a wide concrete room with a metal catwalk overhead. At least twenty members of the Shoggot tribe are lined around the walls and on the walk. And they are dead-dog ugly.

  Hattie and the boys pull up short. We stop behind them.

  All of the Shoggots, the men and the women, are in looted designer suits. High-end stuff. But the silks and expensive wools are covered in grime and dried blood. Probably the Shoggots’ own. They’re definitely human, but they’ve been holed up down here working on their bodies for so long that at first glance they look like some peculiar flavor of Lurker. Their teeth have been filed to points. Some have split their nostrils. Others have cut off their noses or lips. Their cheeks are adorned with ritual scars and metal. Most have similar body mods on their throats, arms, or chests and many of the cuts are held open with metal hooks embedded in their skin. Some of the cuts look fresh. Others are old and infected. I see maggots in more than a few of the deeper cuts. I wish I’d quizzed Hattie on how crazy these crazies were before we came down here.

  A tall Shoggot in the middle of the catwalk rests his hands on the top of the rail.

  “Hattie. Lovely to see you. And you’ve brought friends.”

  “Hello, Ferox. These aren’t friends. They’re travelers looking for the old Roman.”

  “And what good is that old madman to anyone?”

  Delon pushes his way up beside Hattie.

  “If it’s a matter of payment, I have things to trade for information.”

  Ferox stands up straight, scowling.

  “Who was talking to you, traveler? What you want couldn’t matter less to us.”

  Delon reaches into his pack and pulls out a long, thin knife.

  “This is a Liston knife, once used by Robert Liston himself. Before the days of anesthetic, he was one of the most famous and fastest amputation surgeons in Europe.”

  Ferox takes a step forward to get a better look at the blade. He gestures to a couple of Shoggots on the floor nearby.

  “Bring it to me,” he says.

  While they’re carrying it up to Ferox I get next to Delon.

  “Are you stupid? Giving these psychos a knife?”

  “I’m trying to make us a deal.”

  Ferox takes his time looking over the Liston, holding it from different angles to see how straight it is. Moving it through the light to test its sheen. He makes a shallow cut inside one of his wrists, testing the amount of pressure needed to break the skin. He smiles and looks down at us.

  “Hello, Officer,” he says. “Would you come up here, please?”

  It takes a minute before anyone figures out who he’s talking to. Then Diogo takes a tentative step forward in his mall-cop shirt.

  “Yes. You. That’s right. Please come up and join me.”

  Diogo takes a couple of more steps and stops.

  “Don’t do it, kid,” I say.

  He looks at me.

  “Diogo,” says Hattie.

  He’s frozen in the middle of the room. His dim brain is overloading.

  Ferox looks annoyed.

  “Bring the pig up here,” he says.

  Shoggots grab Diogo and drag him, kicking and screaming, up the catwalk.

  Hattie and the boys don’t do anything. They’re paralyzed. I reach for the Colt but decide to wait it out. Even with hoodoo, I don’t know if I can take on this many crazies at once.

  A couple of Shoggots hold Diogo as Ferox raises the kid’s right arm.

  “If I remember correctly from my reading, the technique was like this. A single deep curved slice, severing the skin and connective tissue in one cut. Let’s see if I’m right.”

  He draws the blade across Diogo’s biceps, digging deeper into the skin until the Liston disappears inside. He draws it all the way around so that both ends of the cut meet. Diogo screams and thrashes in the Shoggots’ arms. When Ferox is finished they let him go. He falls onto his face and vomits over the side of the catwalk.

  Hattie holds on to Doolittle’s arm, whispering over and over, “My boy. My boy.”

  “Not bad for a first time, don’t you agree?” The other Shoggots nod and grin. The ones with lips, at least. “We neglected to bring a saw, so we’ll have to go through the bone later. Tie off his arm so he doesn’t bleed to death. Leave the travelers for now. Bring me the other boys.”

  “No!” Hattie shouts.

  Ferox points at her with the Liston knife.

  “I told you not to come back here, Hattie.”

  I pull the Colt and take two quick shots at Ferox. The first just misses and he hits the deck before the second can get him. Two Shoggots on my level rush me and I put a bullet through their foreheads. Out of the corner of my eye I see vials fly by as Vidocq throws his potions. Candy blasts away with her folding pistol while Brigitte takes careful single shots. Delon has disappeared into the back with Father Traven. It looks like his gun is jammed.

  Ferox whispers an incantation and deflects Candy and Brigitte’s shots into the ceiling. So the Shoggots are Sub Rosa. I was afraid of that. Ferox tosses a ball of white-hot plasma at Doolittle, burning him from the inside like he’d swallowed a pound of phosphorus. A group of Shoggots knocks Hattie down and drags away the rest of the boys as they scream, “Mama!”

  I bark some Hellion and send a stream of fat, needle-sharp projectiles at Ferox. He sees them coming and suddenly his arm looks like a skinny porcupine when he raises it to block the needles.

  This time he throws a plasma ball at me. I deflect it with some defensive hoodoo and knock it into a big Shoggot rushing at me with Diogo’s ax.

  Before I can go after Ferox again, a couple of nearby Shoggots throw their own flashy hoodoo my way. Muscles split open beneath the open cuts in their arms and shoot out at me like quivering pink tentacles. I blast one of the tentacle throwers with the same needles I used on Ferox, catching him in the face. Another tentacle latches on to my Kissi arm and pulls hard enough to knock me off balance. I grab the black blade from under my coat and slice through
the muscle in one blow. The Shoggot screams and is joined by two more.

  All three hammer me with hexes. I can barely throw up enough of my own defensive hoodoo to keep them off me. I can’t see Candy or any of the others anymore. I think they’ve been pushed back behind me to the door.

  I pocket the knife and grab the na’at. Swinging it out like a sawtooth bullwhip, I take out two of my attackers. But three more join the fight. Even in the arena I never went up against this many armed fighters at once.

  On the catwalk I catch a glimpse of Ferox hexing rubble, tossing it at me like hundred-mile-an-hour fastballs. I bob and weave, trying to keep off the nearby assholes, when a piece of brick slams into my ribs. I slip and go down on one knee as more debris hurricanes around me. Another brick slams into the back of my head. The nearby Shoggots keep up a stream of blasts. I can’t catch my breath, trying to keep up with them. Blood runs down the side of my head and into my eye. It burns and blinds me on one side. I turn just in time to see a pipe flying at me. And the world goes dark.

  I’M LOST. I’M not sure if I’m in Hell, L.A., or Kill City. It feels like I’m in the arena. I’m hunting something and I’m being hunted. I’ve seen the water and the smokes they left behind. But this doesn’t look like the arena. Concrete corridors alternate between long straight lines and sharp turns left and right that double back on themselves. Shit. I’m in a maze. I was just in one of these, wasn’t I? Something like it. I was definitely lost, with something on my tail and closing fast.

  Whoever is behind me doesn’t feel human. Even if it was a Lurker, I’d pick up breathing or a heartbeat. Maybe it’s an angel. Maybe Aelita? Maybe Medea Bava has learned some hoodoo to hide her breath and heart so I can’t see her coming.