Devil Said Bang ss-4

by Richard Kadrey

  His arm is still in a sling but it’s not his pouring arm, so who cares?

  “Not yet,” Candy says.

  “I have a feeling Mr. Muninn has something to do with it. I don’t know how long the ride will last but I’m ready to go till the wheels come off.”

  Candy brightens.

  “You ought to take a night off and come over,” she says to Carlos. “I’ll make dinner. And by ‘make dinner,’ I mean I’ll call down for enough food to sink the Titanic.”

  “It’s a date,” says Carlos, and he pours us another round of Jack.

  Father Traven pushes his way inside. He looks a little overwhelmed. I wonder if he thinks every bar is like Bamboo House. Will he be disappointed the first time he goes to a civilian one?

  “Hey, Father. Damned anyone today?”

  He smiles.

  “Not a single soul.”

  “The night is young. How are you holding up?”

  He shrugs. Takes a sip of red wine.

  “Fine. Still processing it all. The newspapers are saying that the Osterberg family had investments in the defense industry and that his death is being investigated as a possible instance of domestic terrorism. Apparently Homeland Security is involved.”

  I put my Kissi arm around his shoulders. I have long sleeves and a glove on so he doesn’t have to look.

  “Don’t sweat it. I used to do jobs for them. They’re looking for guys in ski masks, not a priest and some monsters. We’re not even on their radar.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  He turns and looks over the crowd.

  Blue-skinned Luderes are gambling at a table near the jukebox. Manimal Mike and his vucari cousins sit with a bunch of Nahuals trading shots of expensive tequila and cheap vodka. Shape-shifters, gloomy necromancers, and club kids dressed like electric peacocks slow-dance to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys doing “Blues for Dixie.”

  “What if someone got my license-plate number coming down the hill?”

  “When would they do that? When they were being knocked stupid by rocks or buried under flying sharks? Relax and have a drink.”

  He takes another sip of wine.

  “So your angel, Aelita, seems to be behind everything that’s happened. How tragic that she chose that particular vengeful ghost.”

  “I don’t see it that way.”

  Carlos looks as happy as I’ve seen him in a long time. His brother-in-law is helping out while he’s healing. He seems to like having a partner.

  “There’s nothing tragic or bad luck about it. Aelita doesn’t make mistakes like that. She knew who the Imp was.”

  “She deliberately let loose a piece of the Angra Om Ya in this world? Why?”

  “To help her kill God. I figure that she can’t do it on her own. Why else would she leave the Qomrama in Hell? She got lucky when she killed Neshamah, but she doesn’t really know how to use it. The Angra do.”

  Traven picks up a single peanut from the coconut bowls full of them.

  “Why would she invite entities that can destroy the universe? Presumably, she’d be destroyed too.”

  “You said it yourself. God made an offering that tricked the Angra into another dimension. Maybe she has that or knows how to do it. She brings the Angra in, uses them, and sends them on their merry way. It’s exactly how she likes to work.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  I shrug. I don’t want to tell him that Saint James and I are dating again and that he’s probably the one who figured it out and I’m just taking credit.

  “It’s the only logical thing.”

  “So this isn’t over.”

  “This is just getting started.”

  Brigitte wobbles by. She’s more than a little drunk. She opens her mouth in exaggerated silent-movie surprise when she sees me. “I couldn’t find you in this madhouse. I heard that you took care of Teddy once and for all.”

  I nod.

  “He’s dead, burned, and gone. Hallelujah.”

  “Thank you,” she says.

  She looks at Traven.

  “Who is your friend? You haven’t introduced us.”

  “This is Father Traven. He saved my ass when we were at Teddy’s. Father Traven, this is Brigitte Bardo.”

  He puts out his hand. She smiles at his politeness and how he obviously has no idea who she is.

  “Very nice to meet you. Please call me Liam.”

  “A father, eh, Liam? I’ve played nuns in many of my movies.”

  “Really? You’re an actress. Can I find your movies in stores? I’ve just started watching movies.”

  I shake my head at him.

  “Stick to musicals and John Wayne for a while. You’re not ready for Brigitte.”

  I whisper in Brigitte’s ear.

  “Be nice. He was for real. Not one of your Hollywood hoodoo Holy Rollers.”

  She touches his arm.

  “A past-tense priest? What happened? Did you fall in love with a beautiful woman? A handsome boy?”

  “He fell for giant-tentacle bastards from another dimension who want to eat us.”

  “They sound charming. You must tell me all about them.”

  The father’s eyes shift back and forth between us. I’ve revealed his darkest secret and he’s still standing.

  “It’s okay, Father. She’s one of us. She’s probably taken out more monsters than you and me put together.”

  I nod at Brigitte.

  “Ask him about the Via Dolorosa.”

  She smiles brightly.

  “The Stations of the Cross? I did a movie about that too.”

  “Please tell me about it.”

  She loops her arm in his and leads him away.

  Vidocq is coming my way. Allegra isn’t with him. When he reaches me, he clamps me in a big bear hug.

  “I hear that I have you to thank for this sore jaw.”

  “You came at me with a knife and I had to defend my new shirt.”

  “I don’t remember any of it.”

  At a table, a couple of civilian card sharks are going broke trying to hustle psychics at poker.

  “And you won’t. That’s how it’s set up. Bastards get in your head. Play around and pop out and you never have a clue. They tried doing it to me.”

  “Did it work?”

  I shake my head.

  “The tinfoil hat I had installed saved me.”

  He raises a glass of whiskey.

  “To the madness we choose. Not the madness others choose for us.”

  “Is Allegra with you?”

  He pats me on the shoulder.

  “Give her some time.”

  “I’m drunk enough to apologize sincerely.”

  “I’m sure she’d appreciate that. But give her some time.”

  A succubus slaps a vampire when he bites her throat and makes a face at the taste of her blood. The Bewlay twins are loaded enough that they’re transforming other pretty boys into clones of themselves. There’s going to be a very confusing orgy somewhere tonight.

  “I’m not Lucifer anymore. I did to some poor slob what Samael did to me. Backed him into a corner so he had to take the job.”

  “And who was this innocent youth?”

  “God.”

  He nods.

  “May He learn well how the rest of us feel.”

  “I need to go out and grab a smoke.”

  Candy is talking to Brigitte and Traven. I kiss her as I go by and head out the door.

  The street is crowded with civilians and Lurkers. I go around the side of the building far enough that there’s no streetlight and fire up a Malediction. I feel a little earthquake under my feet. A hole opens in the concrete a few
feet away.

  “Hi, Cherry,” I say. “Thanks for helping out with Teddy.”

  I go to the edge of the hole and look down. Cherry is a mess. She’s lost an arm and a lot of teeth. There are a couple of bullet holes in her skull.

  “Thanks for whatever you did to the Imp. She’s gone.”

  “I didn’t do anything to her. I set her free and let her make her own choice. My guess is she went home.”

  “As long as she’s gone.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Are you fishing for compliments?”

  “No. Just thinking about things. Back in Hell, Great-Great-Great-Granddad told me to pick and choose my fights. I agree with him but sometimes it’s hard to pick which fights because you don’t know what they are until you start. I thought I was Elvis on Ice when I stopped Mason’s war with Heaven. But I left all those Hellions worse off because they thought they were going to get free from Hell. Then I come back to L.A. to find Candy off with someone else, Aelita is back, there’s a murdering ghost on the loose, and a scar-faced skinhead’s looking to kill me all because I cut off a Kissi’s head a year ago. He deserved it but that doesn’t matter in the big picture. What matters is everything down the line that killing him triggered. But how do you know what bad juju you’re shaking loose before you start shaking things up?”

  Cherry turns her hollow eye sockets up at me.

  “And the point of your eloquent speech?”

  “I don’t exactly know. Maybe we need to be more careful about the messes we leave behind. Try to tidy things up a bit when the bullets stop flying.”

  “Maybe you could cut off fewer heads.”

  “That too. Muninn told me to forgive part of myself, and as much as I hate that healing-your-inner-child yammer, I’m trying. You need to let go and move on. Look at you. You were a sad sight when you were in one piece. Now you’re not even a skeleton. Just a sack of random bones. Come out of there. Even if you don’t want to pass on entirely, have a little dignity. Be a ghost and not a burrowing bug.”

  “I am a ghost.”

  “I mean a real ghost. Ditch the skeleton and do a regular haunting. How about the Lollipop Dolls store? Think of it. A high-end J-pop place with its own ghost. It’ll be like Kwaidan with pigtails.”

  She’s quiet for a minute. If she had a face, she’d look lost in thought.

  “I couldn’t just move in. I’d have to ask the girls.”

  “I hardly know anything about that anime stuff but Candy has a Ph.D. I bet she’d talk to them for you.”

  “Why are you going out of your way to help me?”

  “Because you and me have a past too. You thought I could save you when you were alive and I didn’t. I figure getting you out of that hole might make up for that a little.”

  “Maybe it will,” she says. “Have your friend talk to the girls.”

  “I will. See you around, Cherry.”

  But she’s already gone.

  I throw the rest of the cigarette into the hole and start back inside when my phone rings. It’s a blocked number. Sure, why not?

  It’s a man voice this time.

  “I haven’t seen it myself but I hear you ruined Lucifer’s armor.”

  “God dinged it with a thunderbolt. I put a few bullet holes in it. It gives it character. Like scars.”

  “From what I hear, you must have some new ones. Did striking yourself with the Gladius leave a mark? Did King Cairo shoot you in the face? Are you terribly disfigured?”

  “I’m not Lucifer anymore. I thought that would get me off the hook with your bullshit.”

  “You hurt me. You’re not on the hook. These are fireside chats while I bring you news from far away.”

  “Thanks, but you can shove your news. I’m done with Hell. I don’t care anymore.”

  “I hear you broke the priest. Poor thing. They’re so delicate, aren’t they? So confident in your world but they come apart so quickly down here. Still, it’s nothing for you to worry about. A mad priest. It’s like a gothic romance. Add his to the list of lives you’ve ruined. But the priest is still walking the Earth, isn’t he? So he’s only half a demerit. God must be very proud of you. You keep filling our houses with new playmates.”

  “Here’s my final thought to you. Kill yourself. All of you Hellions should kill yourselves. Or murder each other. You’re Muninn’s problem now.”

  “How long will it take you to break your new girlfriend? What’s her name? Something sweet and simpleminded. Does she know how gruesome you can be?”

  “I told her all about what happened in Hell.”

  “And she’s still with you? She must be an exceptional woman.”

  “She is.”

  “So was Alice, I suppose. You do seem to go through a lot of them. Exceptional women. Murder isn’t your greatest sin. It’s being as careless with others’ lives as you are with your own. You need to watch that or sooner or later all that will be left are women who’ll run from the very sight of a monster like you.”

  “If you’re calling to threaten me, hurry up. I’m going inside and I won’t be able to hear you being scary.”

  “I’m getting better with bodies in your world. I can do more than talk now. Soon I’ll walk and drive and look just like anyone else and I can pay you a visit.”

  “You better get to it, Merihim. When the Angra come back, you’re as fucked as the rest of us.”

  “Clever guess.”

  “That’s exactly what it was. Don’t make me tattle on you to Muninn.”

  I hang up and head back inside.

  Candy is dancing to Les Baxter’s “Balloon Waltz” with Vidocq. I cut in and he graciously takes a powder just like a real Frenchman. I have no idea how to waltz but I can count to three and I can rock back and forth, and with the bar so packed, that’s pretty much what everyone else is doing too.

  It’s been raining on and off for the last couple of weeks. Not fish rain. The regular stuff. Between the storms, the sky is even blue sometimes. Catalina is back and no one has reported any floating streets or volcanoes in days.

  Sometimes I step back and look over everything and wonder how the hell I got here. According to Uriel, my real father, I was always destined for this land of bloody laughs. I’m not human or angel or Lurker or demon. I’m just a natural-born killer. What I don’t know is if I’m attracted to places where the worst things are happening or if I bring the shitstorm with me. Until I know, all that matters is that I’m still breathing and I’m dancing with a pretty girl.

  The world is going to end when the Angra Om Ya come back. They’ll eat the planets and stars. When they hit L.A., they’ll get a movie deal with points and a percentage of the merchandising. They’ll learn to surf and practice Transcendental Meditation. One of them will OD in the bathroom at the Whisky a Go Go and another will be on the cover of People, caught having an affair with the new mayor. The others will develop depression and go home to their gloomy universe. One more set of suckers. One more one-hit wonder. It’s a nice little universe you built but what have you done lately? Leave your head shots and our people will call your people. This is L.A. There are so many Apocalypses around here that most don’t even make the paper, so be happy yours got any press at all. By the way, Strawberry Alarm Clock is a cool name. Angra Om Ya sounds like a brand of Chinese dog food.

  With luck, the Angra won’t pass through these parts for another million years. I don’t usually get that lucky but I’ve got Candy, a place to crash, food, and the Key. L.A. might be a tourist-trap province on the outskirts of Hell, but that’s okay. At least in this Hell, I’m not alone.

  Acknow
ledgments

  Thanks to Patty for the art and Wil for being an excellent guy. Thanks to Elsabeth Hermens for anime advice and to Tim Holland for French guidance. Thanks to Dino, Martha, and Lorenzo for letting me tag along. Thanks to Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, Jessie Edwards, Will Hinton, and the rest of the team at HarperCollins. And thanks as well to everyone on Twitter and Facebook who sent in song suggestions. As always, thanks to Nicola for everything else.

  About the Author

  RICHARD KADREY has published seven novels, including Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha from Hell, Butcher Bird, and Metrophage, and more than fifty stories. He has been immortalized as an action figure, and his short story “Goodbye Houston Street, Goodbye” was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award. A freelance writer and photographer, he lives in San Francisco.

  www.richardkadrey.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Richard Kadrey

  Aloha from Hell

  Kill the Dead

  Sandman Slim

  Credits

  Cover design by Richard L. Aquan

  Cover illustration by Craig White

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEVIL SAID BANG. Copyright © 2012 by Richard Kadrey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-06-209457-5

  Epub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062094582