Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim)

by Richard Kadrey

  Jen nods and stares, a little surprised at Vidocq’s accent. She relaxes a little. Even in a pile of splintered furniture Vidocq is a charmer.

  Candy and I go inside while Mom and Dad watch from the hall.

  I kneel down, take some packets of salt I lifted from Roscoe’s, and sprinkle a white line across the entrance. Vidocq sticks iron milagros down one side of the door frame with some green hardware-store putty.

  “I have to close the door for a second,” I tell the Sentenzas.

  I get out the black blade and carve a protective rune into the wood on the inside of the door frame.

  Vidocq reaches for my hand like he wants to stop me, but he’s too slow.

  “Why are you destroying their house further? Why not put an ash twig over the door?”

  “Why don’t we send the demon roses while we’re at it? I hate hippie hoodoo.”

  Vidocq rummages in his coat and finds ash powder in one of his vials. He reaches up and sets it on the frame over the door.

  “Okay,” I say to K.W. and Jen when I open the door. “Nothing should get out of here.”

  “Thank you,” Jen says.

  The room is a wreck. It looks like it was worked over by Linda Blair on a crack binge. One of the windows is boarded up. There are holes in the wall where it looks like someone punched through. The place hums with residual dark hoodoo, like there are wasps in the walls. I don’t think the Sentenzas can hear it, but Candy, Vidocq, and I can. Something bad was stomping around in here, but I have no idea what. Vidocq is blowing some kind of powder into the air and watches it settle on the floor and furniture. He looks at me and shrugs. Candy is over by Hunter’s closet. I look at her and she shakes her head.

  Vidocq prowls the room, trying different powders and potions, trying to identify the magic residue. Candy paws through Hunter’s closet and dresser.

  I ask, “How did the whole thing start?”

  “I guess it started with the migraines,” says K.W. “His head would hurt and he’d get real sensitive to light. He said there were ants eating their way into his brain. I get migraines sometimes, too, so I’d give him some of my Imitrex and put him in a dark room. Sometimes it helped, but other times it made things worse. I’d hear him talking and he said it was to the voices in his head. After a week of that, things got really bad.”

  Jen picks up the story.

  “Hunter stopped sleeping. He said he had horrible dreams. Things were chasing him. Not to hurt him, just to have him. He drank coffee and energy drinks to stay awake, but he’d fall asleep anyway. There would be marks on the walls where he clawed them. His hands would be bleeding. It was like Thomas all over again.”

  Hunter’s bed is just a bare mattress. The scene of the exorcism. All four corners are stained with blood. The kid cut himself on the restraints during the ritual. The rest of the mattress is stained with every fluid a human body can produce. There are deep claw marks by the head of the bed. Even some bite marks.

  “Did he ever take anything more powerful to stay awake? Speed? Amphetamines, I mean.”

  K.W. says, “I know what speed is. And no, not that I’m aware of.”

  Candy stands at the foot of the bed looking. It’s the sigil Julia told us about, which was burned into the ceiling. I can’t place it, but I’m sure I’ve seen it before. I snap a picture with my phone.

  Neither parent has moved from the door. Jen has one hand over her mouth as she watches us ransack her younger son’s room.

  “What you’ve told me so far could be anything from a bad batch of acid to a brain tumor. When did you start thinking it was supernatural?”

  Jen says, “There was the time I found him floating in midair.”

  Vidocq stops pouring his potions.

  “Julia didn’t mention that,” he says.

  Jen turns away so she doesn’t have to look at us.

  “Tell us what you saw,” says Candy. She has a good instinct for this kind of work, for knowing when it’s best for a woman to ask another woman a painful question.

  “It was early in the morning. It was still dark out. I couldn’t sleep, so I came by Hunter’s room to check on him and I saw that.”

  She nods at the scorched symbol on the ceiling.

  “You saw him making it?”

  She nods.

  “He was floating there over his bed, smiling like he was the happiest boy in the world. He was digging that symbol into the ceiling with his fingers. There was blood all over his arms. He looked at me and then back at the ceiling. Then his whole body convulsed like he was going to throw up. He opened his mouth and out came a jet of flame. It spread all across the ceiling. I thought it was going to burn the house down. When he stopped, all that was burned was the symbol. After that he fell onto the bed and lay there like he was asleep. That morning we went looking for someone who could help.”

  K.W. squeezes her shoulder.

  “It smells like coffee is ready. Would you go and bring us some?”

  She nods and disappears down the hall, her arms wrapped around herself.

  When she’s out of earshot K.W. says, “Hunter did take drugs. Jen doesn’t know about it. It was Hunter’s and my secret. We made a deal. I’d pay for rehab and we’d never let his mother know. After Thomas, it would have killed her.”

  “What was he on?”

  “Some new thing. Akira, he called it.”

  “I haven’t heard of it.”

  “I have,” says Candy. “It’s a hallucinogen. Real popular with the Sub Rosa cool kids.”

  Vidocq nods.

  “I’ve heard of it, too. It’s supposed to enhance a user’s psychic ability. However, Akira seems to work on anyone, so it’s moving out into the civilian world.”

  Candy says, “A bunch of kids take it together. The high comes from being able to touch other users’ minds.”

  Brilliant. Teenyboppers use condoms to fuck safe and then they bore psychic holes in their heads so that anyone or anything can get inside.

  “Were you here during the exorcism?” I ask K.W.

  “Jen and I were in the living room. We could hear it, but we didn’t see anything until Father Traven got hurt. He was on the floor. Hunter was already gone.”

  He nods to the boarded-up window.

  “We haven’t seen him since.”

  While I talk to Dad, Vidocq examines the smoking patches some of his potions have left on the floor. They spread out in spider legs, each one a different color. I have no idea what it’s telling him, but it looks impressive.

  I give Candy the last packet of salt and she lays down a line beneath the window.

  K.W. gives us a half smile and shakes his head.

  “Seeing you three reminds me of Tommy’s friends. They were into magic. Claimed to know about these kinds of things. Some of them called themselves Sub Rosas. It just seemed silly at the time. You know, kids dabbling in old stuff no one understands to impress their friends and bug their parents.”

  His smile gets broader, like he’s found a memory that doesn’t hurt.

  “You’re not quite like them, though,” he says. “You look like you might have a clue.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I wish we had a fucking clue right now. I go to where K.W. is standing. He’s still in the hall. Hasn’t so much as stuck a toe into Hunter’s room.

  “Let me make sure I have this straight. Thomas, your older son, was heavy into magic with his fashion-victim friends. Did Hunter want to play Merlin, too? Even something small and silly like a Ouija board.”

  K.W. shakes his head.

  “Not after he saw what it did to Tommy. He was just a kid at the time, but he remembers. Hunter’s into sports, Xbox, and girls.”

  “You sure? You didn’t know he was taking drugs.”

  He waves a hand, palm up. A dismissal.

  “That’s different. You can hide drugs. When Tommy was into that stuff, there were magical books, crystals, twigs, and potions all over his damn room. When Jen asked him to cl
ean up, he said his friends were the same way. There’s a picture of him and a bunch of the kids. Would that help you?”

  “You never know.”

  He still won’t come into the room.

  “You, lady,” he says to Candy. “By your left foot, there’s a photo in a frame. Would you bring it to me?”

  She gets it and hands it to K.W.

  He looks at the photo for a minute, not sure he wants to show it to us, an intimate thing he doesn’t want to share. Finally, he hands it to me.

  “See what I’m talking about?”

  There’s a group of six kids. Harry Potter by way of Road Warrior. My neck hurts and my stomach is in knots. I hand him back the shot. Take out my phone and pretend to look at the time.

  “Mr. Sentenza, before we go any further, I think we should talk to Father Traven. Thanks for letting us have a look around.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

  “We’ll know how to proceed after consulting with the father. Don’t want to piss off any spirits by coming at them the wrong way.”

  “That makes sense, I guess. So, you’ll call when you know more?”

  “Exactly. Thanks.” I turn to the others. “Let’s go.”

  Vidocq and Candy look at each other, but follow me out. Vidocq shakes K.W.’s hand.

  “Thank you for your hospitality. Please say good-bye to your wife for us.”

  I’m heading for the door, leaving the two of them to catch up with me.

  “You’ll call back soon, right? Hunter is still out there somewhere.”

  I turn and give him what I hope is a reassuring smile.

  “We’ll call right after we confer with the father.”

  I head back to the Volvo and fire it up. I already have it in gear when the others get in.

  “What’s wrong with you?” asks Candy. “Why are we running out on that family?”

  I don’t answer until we’re down the driveway enough that I can’t see the house anymore.

  “I need to get clear of that place. I’ve got to think.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Vidocq is in the front seat. He’s looking at me hard.

  “Thomas, the older kid in that photo? Hunter’s big brother? He’s TJ.”

  “Who’s TJ?” Candy asks.

  “He was in my magic Circle with Mason. He was there the night I got dragged Downtown. I never even knew his name was Tommy. I was going to kill him with the others when I came back, only Kasabian told me he’d already killed himself.”

  Vidocq nods.

  “It seems more likely now that the demon who sang that ‘Mr. Sandman’ song knows you after all.”

  “Doesn’t it just? But I can’t think of any demons I’ve pissed off. I kill Hellions and hell beasts.”

  “People, too,” says Candy.

  “They usually deserve it most.”

  Vidocq says, “Perhaps at Avila. Or something you did for the Golden Vigil. Perhaps you killed or injured a possessed person, ruining the demon’s host. That might be enough for it to want revenge.”

  “Then why wouldn’t the demon come after me? Or you or Candy or Allegra? Even Kasabian? Someone I give a damn about.”

  “Perhaps the father can answer that question. Let’s hope so.”

  I cut around cars and thousand-dollar mountain bikes cruising Studio City’s quiet, privileged streets, running the Volvo away from TJ’s Haunted Mansion ride and onto the freeway. The exhaust fumes and clogged lanes are like a welcome-home party. The knots in my stomach are getting worse. I feel cold. I hold the steering wheel tight enough I feel it bend and get close to breaking. The angel in my head moves back into the dark. It recognizes this kind of anger and knows it’s not going to talk me down. If it speaks or touches, it might burn up in the heat.

  “This is what I get for going soft. For backing off. I don’t kill anything for a while and the world starts coughing up this shit. Okay. I get the message loud and clear.”

  “You need to calm down if we’re going to talk to the father,” Vidocq says.

  “I am calm. I don’t know what exactly is going on, but what I do know is that someone or something is daring me to find them and maybe this preacher can tell me what. I’ll do it old-school. No bullets. Just the knife and the na’at, like back in the arena.”

  “You scare me when you’re like this, Jimmy.”

  “Not me,” says Candy quietly from the back.

  “Good, because when I get this thing figured out, I’m going to bring down all kinds of Hell on these assholes and this city.”

  I’VE CALMED DOWN a little when we reach Father Traven’s place near the UCLA campus.

  Vidocq’s been playing navigator, running us up and down every little side street in the county. He can read a map as well as anyone, but I think he’s been buying time, hoping that if he drags out the drive long enough, I won’t storm into Traven’s place like it’s D-Day. The plan sort of works, but mostly it’s seeing where the father lives that brings down my blood pressure.

  Traven has an apartment in an old art deco complex from the thirties and the place really shows its age. It was probably beautiful once, back before reality TV, when lynching and TB were the most popular pastimes. Now the building’s best quality is that it stands as a big Fuck You to all the developers who wake up with a hard-on every morning dreaming of plowing the place under and turning the land into a business park or prefab pile of overpriced condos. If I ever find out who owns the place, I’ll buy them a case of Maledictions.

  Father Traven lives on the top floor. In a normal building, that would be luxury central. The penthouse suite. In this one, it’s pretty much a sock drawer with a view. The original architect had the brilliant idea of putting storage and utility areas at both the top and bottom of the building. Maybe elevators didn’t work that well back in the thirties. Maybe he was anal-retentive. Sometime in the long history of the building, someone chopped up those top-floor spaces and tried to convert them into apartments, only they weren’t designed to be a happy place for anything except rats and mops. The ceilings are too low and are at funny angles. The untreated wooden floors are warped. You’d have to call in Paul Bunyan to chain-saw the top of the building off and rebuild it from scratch to make Traven’s bachelor pad into something anyone but a ghost or an excommunicated sky pilot would love.

  We take the elevator up to the floor below Traven’s and walk up a set of bare, uncarpeted stairs. Traven’s apartment door is open a few inches when we get there. I don’t like unexpected open doors. I knock and push it open, my other hand under my coat on the .460.

  Traven is sitting at a desk scribbling away on yellow paper that looks old enough to have Spanish Inquisition letterhead at the top. He stops writing and lifts his head, speaks without turning around.

  “Ah. You must be God’s other rejects. Please, come in.”

  Traven gets up from a long desk piled high with books. Really, it’s the kind of fold-up conference table you see in community centers. I don’t know if he’s getting ready for work or a church bake sale.

  As we come in, Traven extends his hand. He gives us a faint smile, like he wants to be friendly but hasn’t had any reason to be for a long time and is trying to remember how to make his face work.

  “I’m Liam Traven. Good to meet you all. Julia has told me a lot about you.”

  He turns to Candy.

  “Well, about two of you.”

  She takes off her sunglasses and beams at him.

  “I’m Candy, Mr. Stark’s bodyguard.”

  Traven grins at her. He does it better this time.

  “It’s very nice to meet you all.”

  He steps out of the way so we can get farther into the place.

  The apartment is small but neat and brighter than I expected. Whoever cut up the place installed a couple of big picture windows overlooking UCLA. There are books, scrolls, and folded sheets of vellum, mystical codices, and crumbling reference books everywhere. Even s
ome pop-science and physics textbooks covered in highlighter marks and Post-its. Brick-and-board bookshelves line the walls and there are more books on the floor. Vidocq heads right for them and starts eyeballing the piles.

  “I owned many of these years ago. Not here. I had to leave my library when I left France. I haven’t seen some of these texts in a hundred years.”

  He kneels and picks up a bound manuscript from the floor. It’s so old and worn it looks like someone sewed dried leaves together and slapped a cover around them. Vidocq opens it carefully, flips through a few pages, and turns to Traven.

  “Is this the old Gnostic Pistis Sophia?”

  Traven nods and walks over to Vidocq.

  “There it is. I’ve been looking for that. Thank you. And yes, it’s the Pistis.”

  “I thought there were only four or five of these left in the world?”

  Traven gently takes the book and puts it on a high shelf with other moldering titles.

  “There’s more than that if you know where to look.”

  I say, “Maybe there’s one less now that you’re not punching the clock for the pope. I bet that wasn’t a going-away present.”

  Traven glances up at the manuscript and then to me.

  “We do rash things at rash moments,” he says. “Later, we sometimes regret them. But not always.”

  “God helps those who help themselves,” says Candy.

  “Especially the ones who don’t get caught. Don’t worry, Father. We don’t have a problem with rash. The first thing I did when I got back to this world was roll a guy for his clothes and cash. He threw the first punch and I’d recently woken up on a pile of burning garbage, so I figured God would understand if I helped myself to some necessities.”

  Father Traven is in his fifties, but his ashen complexion makes him look older. His voice is deep and exhausted, but his eyes are large and curious. His face is lined and deeply creased by years of doing something he didn’t want to do, but did anyway because he thought it needed to be done. It’s a soldier’s face, not a priest’s. There’s something else. He’s definitely not Sub Rosa—I would have known that the moment I touched his hand—but I can feel waves of hoodoo coming off him. Something weird and old. I don’t know what it is, but it’s powerful. I bet he doesn’t even know about it. Also, I think he’s dying. I smell what could be the early stages of cancer.