Jen calls after us.
“What can we do?”
“Stay by the phone,” I yell over my shoulder.
WHEN WE GET to Allegra’s car, I say, “I’m driving,” and Vidocq doesn’t argue.
We get in and I tell the other two, “Get out your cells. You’re going to make calls.”
I start the car and back out of the driveway. I’m driving slow. Concentrating. I know what to do and I want to get to doing it, but I need to set it up right.
We head for the Golden State Freeway, but it’s bumper-to-bumper, so I turn the car and we head to the city on surface streets.
I tell Candy, “Call Allegra. Tell her to clear out all the diaper-rash and splinter patients. We’re bringing in a special case.”
“You’re that sure Hunter is at Avila?” she asks.
“I’d bet the pope’s red shoes. Tell her to get out every piece of Kinski’s hoodoo medical gear she has. The demon’s been working over Hunter for days. He’s going to be in bad shape.”
I don’t have to tell Vidocq what to do.
“I’ll call Father Traven,” he says.
I nod.
“Tell him to get his picnic basket together and be ready. I don’t want to give whatever’s in Avila the chance to know we’re coming.”
I get out my phone and dial the number Vidocq gave me for Julia. She answers on the second ring.
“Stark? How are things going?”
“I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“What’s the good news?”
“I know where Hunter is. We’re on our way there right now.”
“What’s the bad?”
“Aelita is involved. It might be a trap and we all might die.”
“Do I need to tell you to be careful?”
“It’s always good to be reminded. I’ll call you when it’s over. If we’re dead, I’ll call collect.”
I DON’T KNOW what to expect when we pick up Traven. How much bread do you need to bum-rush a demon out of Ferris Bueller? A baguette? A dump-truck-ful of biscuits?
Traven is waiting on the curb when we get to his place. He’s all in black, with an old-fashioned high-collared coat that makes him look like Johnny Cash’s stunt double. He’s holding a battered canvas duffel bag. It’s big, but he hefts it easily. I guess not that much bread after all.
I hit the brakes at the corner and say, “Let Traven sit up front. I want to talk to him.”
Vidocq gets out of the car and takes Traven’s duffel. He slides into the back with Candy. Traven gets in the front. I’m moving before he has the door closed.
“I understand you’ve found the boy. How’s he holding up?”
I steer the car back toward the Hollywood Hills.
“We haven’t seen him, but I know where he is. It was a place called Avila. In your line of work, you wouldn’t have heard of it. They called it a gentlemen’s club. Basically it was a casino and whorehouse for a very select group of über-rich assholes.”
“Avila? After Saint Teresa of Avila?”
“Who’s that?”
“Saint Teresa experienced an intense encounter with an angel. She describes it in sublimely intimate terms. The angel stabs her in the heart with a spear and the pain she describes is intense, but also beautiful and all-consuming.”
“I didn’t know saints went all the way on a first date.”
He nods and purses his lips. He’s heard it all before.
“A lot of people choose to interpret her description of religious ecstasy in simple sexual terms.” He shakes his head. “Goddamn Freud.”
“At least the name makes sense now. You see, Avila was a huge secret. A real Skull and Bones kind of operation. If you were one of the handful of people in the know, one of the politically anointed or rich enough to use the same accountant as Jehovah, you got access to the club inside the club. You go to see what the club was really built for.”
“And what was that?”
“They didn’t keep human hookers in the inner sanctum. For the right price and a few blood oaths, you could fuck an angel.”
Traven turns and looks at me, his face a blank mask.
“I’m not joking,” I say. “No one knows who started the place or what kind of hoodoo they used to capture and keep them. L.A.’s a major power spot, so for all anyone knows, it might have been here in some form forever.”
“And you think that’s where the boy is being held?”
I nod.
“I knew the last angel that got dragged up there. Her name is Aelita. She ran the Golden Vigil. God’s Pinkertons on earth. Real turbocharged assholes.”
“Yes. I know about the Golden Vigil. You think this Aelita was taken there to become another prostitute?”
“No, she and the other angels were going to be sacrificed to open the gates of Hell. You see an old buddy of mine, Mason, has ambition the size of King Kong’s balls. He wants to knock off Lucifer and take over Hell. Then he wants to stick a fork in God and grab Heaven. He’s hard-core enough that he might be able to pull it off. You still with me, Father?”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Traven squinting. He doesn’t know what to believe. I guess it’s a lot to absorb when you’ve spent your life in church libraries, reading the books, learning the stories, and then finding out you have no idea how the universe really works. All these years he’s been thoroughly shielded from everything but writer’s cramp. Now he finds out that a real-life low-down biblical horror show was going on across town from where he brushed his teeth in holy water every night before bed. I can’t blame him if his mind is a little blown.
“You want a cigarette?”
“That’s would be nice,” he says.
I hand him Mason’s lighter and the pack of Maledictions from my pocket. Listen to him rustle the pack and spark the lighter. He coughs at the first puff but keeps smoking. Maledictions are easier to take when you’re doomed.
“You were talking about a man named Mason trying to open Hell. I gather you stopped him.”
“Something like that.”
“And we killed an ass load of devil minions and dark magicians along the way,” says Candy.
Traven turns in his seat to look at her.
“You were there, too?”
She smiles.
“Stark invites me to all his massacres. Isn’t that right?”
She kicks the back of my seat. I look at her in the rearview mirror.
“You’re not helping.”
She smiles and settles down in her seat.
Traven puffs quietly on the Malediction, staring out the window as I steer us into the hills.
“So, because you stopped the sacrifice, you think that Hunter is in Avila?”
“Yeah. Mason and Aelita are behind this whole thing. They set the Qlipuffs on Hunter.”
“Qliphoth. Why not send the demon after you?”
“Because Mason has a truly fucked-up sense of humor. I knew Hunter’s brother and Mason would bust a gut using the kid to get me back up here. Aelita is helping just because she generally hates my guts.”
“I thought you said you saved her.”
“Yeah, when she found out I’m not exactly human, she got testy. A real racist.”
“You know, yesterday if someone told me I’d be driving to an exorcism with a nephilim I would have been surprised. Today, though . . .”
He trails off and smokes the Malediction.
I wish I could read minds like Lucifer. I can hear Traven’s heart beating fast. He’s feeling the mixture of cold and fear that’s excitement. He half knows what’s coming and he’s not sure if he can handle it. That’s me in the arena, waiting for the gates to open to see what I’m going up against in this episode of Kick Stark’s Ass. After a while you learn to live with the fear and ignore it, but it’s never a hundred percent gone. But some kinds of fear can make you more than you are. You face down something bigger than yourself and maybe come out of it with scars, but you’re a little stronger for it
. There are other fears that are like a hole in your center where pieces of your soul go down the drain. That kind of fear has nothing to do with the knock-down-drag-out in the arena. That’s the horror of finally knowing how things really are. Who has the power and how they love tossing it around at everyone who doesn’t have it.
Every one of us, human and monster alike, lives with an angelic boot on our throats. But we don’t see it, so we forget about it and limp along doing the stupid little things that make up our stupid little lives. Then the boot comes down on your gut, squeezing the air out of your lungs and cracking your bones like old matchsticks. And you know the only reason it’s happening is because you’re not one of the celestials on high. You’re suffering with the worst curse of all. You’re alive. We’re just bugs on God’s windshield. That’s all we are. Annoying. Disposable. A dime a dozen.
Traven says, “You toss it all off so easily. Men enslaving angels. Humans challenging both Lucifer and God. And you say you’re a nephilim, something I don’t even know if I believe in.”
“Don’t worry, Father. I believe in you.”
He’s talking about me, but it’s not what he means. I can hear it in the almost inaudible tremors in his voice.
“Ask the question, Father.”
“What do I have to look forward to in Hell? Do they have special amusements for ex-priests?”
I should have gone easier on him. The poor guy is ex-communicated. To him that means he already has one foot in the coal cart to the hot country.
“Don’t sweat Hell, Father. There are Hellions down there and damned souls that owe me favors. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
The window is down a little on his side of the car. He pushes his hair back with a hand as lined and creased as his face. He does a little grunting laugh.
“I’ve read the most powerful and harrowing demonic texts you can imagine, and this conversation is still the strangest thing I’ve heard. You really think you can make deals with fallen angels?”
“There are Hellions down there with more honor than half the humans I meet.”
“That’s not terribly comforting, but I suppose it will have to do.”
“That pretty much sums up Hell.”
The road smooths out as we near the top. I can just see Avila’s blackened roof through the trees.
I say, “Too bad guys like us can’t apply for unemployment. You think they have special forms for being fired by a deity?”
“I heard you worked for Lucifer. Lucifer isn’t God.”
“You don’t spend enough time in Hollywood.”
Traven looks up through the trees. He’s spotted Avila, too. Candy is kicking the back of my seat again, bored with the talk and the drive. She wants to get her teeth into a demon. My kind of girl.
Traven says, “You’ve told me some of what you know about the universe; now let me tell you something. If you want to know why the world and all of Creation is so broken and afflicted, look up the word ‘demiurge.’ ”
Traven turns to look at Vidocq.
“If I’m killed today, I want you to take my library. I trust you to take care of my books.”
“I would be honored,” Vidocq says. “But there will be no dying today.”
“Demiurge?” I say. “That sounds like it has something to do with God, and not in a good way. Hell, I’ve burned so many bridges with the celestial types, I’d probably be better off cozying up to your Angra Om Ya pals than to any of the local celestial types.”
“Then I think all you’ll have to do is wait.”
“I was joking. The Angra Om Ya are dead.”
“What does death mean to a god?”
“You think the old gods are coming back?”
“I don’t think they ever left.”
I SWING THE car into the big circular driveway out front and park. We get out and Traven takes the duffel bag from Vidocq.
Avila has seen better days. Most of the roof has fallen in, leaving charred wood overhead, a puzzle palace of broken beams. The place has been thoroughly looted, trashed, and tagged by waves of squatters and skate punks. Moldy leather armchairs and silk-covered love seats surround the remains of a fire pit someone has chopped out of the driveway with who knows what improvised tools. A broken roulette wheel is almost lost in the grass that grows wild on all sides of the building. The ground glitters like a disco ball from all the broken glass. Even the walls are ripped open and the copper pipes inside are long gone.
“So this is what the gates of hell looks like,” says Father Traven.
“No,” says Vidocq. “Le palais de merde.”
Even with everything that’s been thrown at it since New Year’s, the front door is still standing, like Avila’s last dying gesture was giving the finger to the world. Maybe when we’re done, I’ll let Josef and his bunch loose on the place.
I gesture for the others to stay back, and push open the door. I’ve never walked into Avila through the front before, only out, and that was just the one time. I mostly went into the place through shadows, and then only to kill people. The good old days when things were simpler.
I have the na’at and knife in my coat and the .460 cocked and locked up and ready to kill any spooky sounds or scary shadows.
Even though much of the roof is gone, it’s dim inside, so I let my eyes adjust and then sweep the room. Nothing moves. Nothing makes a sound. It’s as quiet as a pulled-pork-rib joint next to a synagogue.
I wave the others inside.
“It’s safe to go in?” asks Traven.
“It’s clear. I don’t know about safe. I don’t hear rats or even roaches in the walls. That’s not a good sign.”
“What does that mean?” asks Traven.
Vidocq says, “When even vermin abandon a building, it means that sensible people will stay out, too.”
“Right now we’re officially dumber than rats and roaches,” says Candy.
“Welcome to our world, Father.”
Traven starts to cross himself, catches himself halfway through, and drops his hand. Old habits die hard.
“Let’s go. I’m pretty sure I know where the kid is, so I’m up front. Vidocq and the father in the middle. You okay watching our asses, Candy?”
“What do you think?”
“Here we go.”
I lead them around the circular front room. We stay close to the walls. The place used to be full of antique furniture and Persian rugs. Now I can see down to the rock and grass of the hill where the floor has partially collapsed.
A couple of turns down a hall and the ceiling is intact. All of a sudden I’m missing the holes in the roof and their spooky shadows. With no lights back here, the place is pitch-black. As much as I hate it, I let the angel take the lead. Its vision is built for darkness.
The moment I ease back and let it run the show, Avila lights up like Vegas. I grab Vidocq’s sleeve and tell Traven and Candy to hold on to each other. Then I walk them slowly around the circular corridors toward the sacrifice chamber.
It doesn’t take long to find it. All roads lead here, the black nasty heart of the place. This is where I should have killed Mason. It’s the room where I rescued Aelita. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for saving her. Maybe her thank-you note got lost in the mail.
The chamber’s double doors are still open, still full of bullet holes and shotgun slugs from the New Year’s Eve raid. Around here is where Candy and I had that first kiss on New Year’s, shot up and covered in other people’s blood. Good times.
A pale light comes from the room. I leave the others and step inside, sweeping the Smith & Wesson back and forth over debris from the partially collapsed roof. Going slow, I let my senses expand and fill the place, feeling for anything with lungs or a heartbeat. I feel something. I step lightly around bowling-ball-size chunks of marble that have fallen from the walls. A shaft of sunlight cuts down from a hole in the ceiling onto the stone sacrifice platform, and there’s Hunter, stretched out like a boiled lobster, r
eady for the butter and claw crackers.
I wave Traven and the others in. They spread out around the platform. Traven goes right for the kid. We hang back, letting the father do his thing. Hunter is lying on his back. He’s very still. His chest hardly moves. He looks like he’s been beaten, left under a heat lamp, and dragged behind a truck. Patches of blackened skin are peeling away from his arms and face. The skin that isn’t black or raw red is the greenish blue of tainted meat. Hunter’s clothes would make any self-respecting wino jealous. Worn and splitting at the seams, they’re covered in dried blood, shit, and vomit. He looks like he’s been wearing the rags for weeks instead of a couple of days.
Traven leans in right over Hunter’s mouth, listening for something. I’m waiting for the demon to take the bait and gnaw his ear off. But Hunter doesn’t move.
Traven goes back to his duffel, unzips it, and lays out a bag of sea salt and bread on the floor next to him. Next he takes out a battered wooden box. Inside is a bottle of black sacred oil and a yellowed bone pen shaped kind of like a short, thick hockey stick. He dips the pen in the oil and scrawls symbols along all four sides of the sacrifice platform. He’s creating a binding hex to keep the demon locked on the platform and away from us. I recognize most of the symbols. There’s Hebrew and Greek. Some angelic script and even some Hellion cuneiform script. It’s the last set of symbols that are the most interesting. Chicken scratches from some obscure heretical cookbook. I’ll lay you odds they’re from that Angra Om Ya book. Fine by me. Whatever hoodoo will keep Hunter and his demon on that side of the room and us over here in the cheap seats is fine by me. Now that I think about it, we should all be wearing body armor. Damn. Next exorcism for sure.
Traven’s bread is a disappointment. It looks like an ordinary round loaf of French or sourdough. I was hoping for something belching fire and spinning like lowrider rims.
Traven rips the bread apart, setting a piece down every few inches from Hunter’s throat to his crotch. He scoops up a handful of salt from the bag and drops a little mound of salt between each piece of bread. He sets the salt bag back in his duffel and moves it to the side of the room. He does it all in slow, practiced moves. A kind of moving meditation gearing up for the next step.
Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim) Page 14
