The Getaway God

by Richard Kadrey

  “Hands over your head,” one of the cops calls.

  I yell back.

  “I’m with the Marshal Ser­vice. The Golden Vigil.”

  “Hands over your head.”

  I can tell this guy isn’t going to take my word for anything, including that I’m a biped from planet Earth. I put my hands up like the nice man said. The pain in my chest heats up again when I get my hands over my head.

  “Turn around and walk backward toward us.”

  “Come on, guys. We’re wasting time. Let me just show you my ID.”

  “If you do not comply we are authorized to use deadly force.”

  I should have seen that coming. Martial-­law bullshit. Shoot looters on sight and harass stragglers while you’re at it.

  I walk backward to the men in blue. It’s not as easy as it sounds in ankle-­deep water with your hands over your head throwing off your balance. But I make it out of Dixie and into the promised land of the cops’ headlights.

  “The ID is in my back pocket if you want to get it out yourselves.”

  I hear someone splash up behind me.

  “Don’t even breathe,” he says.

  He sounds like the nervous type, so I keep my hands up and my mouth shut while he spelunks in my jeans.

  “What’s this?” he says, pulling the Colt from behind my back.

  “That’s my gun. Like I’ve been saying, I’m with the Golden Vigil.”

  He reaches into my back pocket and comes out with something. It’s quiet behind me for a while. Maybe reading wasn’t his strongest area back at the academy. I’m sure he has other redeeming qualities.

  “Stark,” he says. “James Stark.”

  “That’s me.”

  “The Golden goddamn Vigil.”

  “Can I put my hands down now?”

  “Hey, boys,” he says, calling to the other cops. “Want to meet a real live Vigil agent?”

  The sound of splashing coming up behind me. No one gives me permission, but I lower my hands and turn around anyway.

  Four of LAPD’s finest are going over my credentials under a flashlight. One by one they look at the ID and up at me like they’ve never seen a photo before and are wondering how I got that tiny doppelgänger onto the card.

  A different cop says, “You’re James Stark.”

  “I thought we’d kind of established that.”

  “Just double-­checking,” he says.

  A second later I’m on the ground. I’ve never been Tasered before and I can’t say I enjoy my first taste of it. Still, just to make sure I get the full effect, another cop lights me up. I want to get up and clock someone, but my body would rather stay down and twitch in the gutter, so that’s what it does.

  When they let up on the juice, one of the cops rolls me onto my back and shines a light in my eyes. I think he wants to make sure I’m still breathing because when he sees that I’m basically intact, he kicks me a good one in the ribs. Then his friends join in. I’m beginning to think this isn’t a by-­the-­book group. They might even be the vigilantes who helped burn Allegra’s clinic.

  I try to fight back, but seeing as how I already have a ­couple of bullets in my chest, I’m less Bruce Lee and more Donald Duck. The body armor takes a lot of the punishment, but these are experienced boys and they know how to make it hurt.

  Eventually they get bored or tired or hungry and the kicking stops. One of them, I think it’s the one who first took my ID, pulls me upright.

  “Audsley Ishii says hello.”

  All of a sudden this makes more sense.

  The cop rolls me over and wrenches my arm around to my back. I hear the rattle of cuffs and know that if the bastard ever gets them on me I’m dead.

  I push back with one hand and buck the cop off. Then I have the other three on top of me and I can’t move. Someone else gets their cuffs out. I feel one close on my wrist. Even though I know I’m going to lose, I’m not going to make killing me easy. I kick back and launch one of them off me and get a swift knee to the back of my head. It forces me all the way down under the filthy street water. I have to hold my breath to keep from drowning. I can’t even fight anymore.

  At first, the sound of screams is muffled by the water. It churns around me as one by one the cops disappear off my back. I sit up and gulp in a lungful of air.

  Hellhounds are outlined in the squad-­car headlights. One gnaws on a downed cop’s leg and the others are off chasing the rest. I hear gunshots, but can’t see out into the dark. I don’t have to because I know what’s happening. The cops are losing. Hellhounds are bad one-­on-­one. When they’re in a pack, there isn’t much that can stop them. Sure as hell not a few cop sidearms.

  I crawl over to the downed cop and feel around his belt. Find his keys and unlock the handcuff snapped around my wrist. I get up and look around the scene for my gun and ID. I find both by one of the squad cars. The gun is all right, but the ID is a little waterlogged. I slip it into my pocket and put the Colt in the waistband behind my back. Candy has been on me to get a holster. She says my not using one is part of my just-­passing-­through mentality and that I should get over it. Maybe she’s right. Not necessarily about the holster, but about the passing-­through thing. Here I am half drowned and with bullets in my chest trying to fucking save this piece-­of-­shit world. Again. Maybe that doesn’t qualify as just passing through anymore. Hell. Maybe I really am sticking around. But I’m still not folding towels.

  By the time I’m on my feet, the rest of the hounds have run off after the cops or gone back to chasing down the chop shops. I find my goggles and get back on the bike. Slowly. Every move aches. The body armor might have kept the beatdown from cracking more of my insides, but my ribs took a pounding and the bullets danced a jig all over my insides. I sit still for a minute pulling myself together.

  I try to kick-­start the bike, but my body has had about as much as it can take tonight. On the third try, I get lucky. The engine rumbles to life and I take off. My half-­hour lead time is probably up by now, but the hounds have cleared out of Hollywood Forever by now. I’ll let them clean up the last of the chop shops for a while before herding them back Downtown.

  I take off on the bike, but as I swing onto Hollywood Boulevard another cop car makes the turn with me, its blinking light bar turning the empty street into the world’s saddest rave. But I’m not about to let any more vigilantes get their hands on me and there’s no way I’m leading them to Max Overdrive.

  I gun the bike, blowing by Musso & Frank’s and the Egyptian Theatre. Wouldn’t you know it, right at the corner of Hollywood and North Highland there’s a familiar naked guy in the street. I try to go around Shaky. As I swing past he looks like a granite monolith, a tangle of thorns, a pulsing black hole. Just as I’m about to pass him, the bike sputters, coughs, and stops. The asshole did it. The asshole killed my bike. I put down the kickstand and head for him.

  “Just who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “The wronged returned for retribution,” he says.

  The squad car fishtails to a stop fifty feet from us. The cops get out and hunker down behind the doors. They don’t bother with pistols. One has a shotgun and the other an HK rifle.

  “Put your hands on your head,” shouts the woman cop.

  Shaky looks at me. I shrug.

  “I’m not doing it. But you can do what you want.”

  He looks at the cops and says, “Die, God’s favorites.”

  The cops evaporate, like ice dropped into boiling water.

  “I could have used that trick five minutes ago.”

  Shaky turns back to me.

  “Give me the Qomrama. I won’t ask again.”

  “No.”

  “Do you doubt who I am?”

  “I know who you are, but it’s in my best interest not to give a damn.”

 
Shaky walks to the corner, by the old Hollywood First National Bank Building. Like a lot of L.A. buildings, it can’t decide what it wants to be when it grows up. A weird mix of Gothic, Art Deco, with a little Spanish thrown in, it’s the perfect place for Shaky to duck into—­an empty eleven-­story hulk, way past its sell-­by date. Just like him.

  Only he doesn’t duck inside. Shaky strolls into a wall, softens, spreads out like mist, and merges with the concrete.

  I hear his voice in my head.

  “Perhaps my godly power will not hurt you as long as you possess the Qomrama, but that does not mean you cannot be hurt.”

  The building shakes like we’re having another quake, but the street stays perfectly still. It’s just the bank that’s moving.

  The sidewalk around it cracks and splits open. Water pipes burst. Parked cars roll over on their sides. Buildings all up and down the block shatter and collapse.

  Slowly, the bank rises up off its foundations. It twists, like an animal shaking a pest off its fur. Then it stands. Yes, the building can stand because it has a kind of human shape now. A grimy concrete, steel, and plate-­glass body. I-­beam and ductwork limbs. On top is a billboard for a new reality-­TV series featuring five freakishly attractive teens. Their ten vacant eyes blink in unison as Shaky surveys his domain.

  His voice whispers in my head.

  “Die, God’s Abomination.”

  Shaky swings his massive body, slamming a concrete and rebar fist into the street just a few feet from me. For about two seconds I consider standing my ground and throwing some hoodoo back at him. Instead my ribs throb and I cough a little blood into my mouth and remember that running away is also a good strategy.

  I run across the street, and when I turn I see the only thing that might be stranger than a building ready to stomp me into apple butter. It’s Mr. Muninn, standing in the middle of the intersection calmly looking up at Shaky like he sees sentient buildings every day of the week.

  Only this isn’t a Muninn I’ve seen before. He’s yellow, and a little trimmer than the Muninn I know. His face is badly scarred, and when he scans the street with his dead eyes I know who it is.

  Fuck this guy. Of course Ruach would show up now that Shaky is going GG Allin all over Hollywood. Better to wreck L.A. than muddy Heaven’s golden streets. And lucky me, I’m right in the middle of it all.

  Ruach cocks his head this way and that. Blind, he’s listening for Shaky, but Muninn said he’s half deaf too, so his moves are slow and tentative. But that doesn’t mean he’s helpless.

  Shaky reaches for him and the whole street rumbles and shakes. Ruach swings his arms in Shaky’s direction and lets go with a thunderbolt that leaves me blind for a few seconds. When I can see again, Shaky is flat on his back. He slams his concrete-­and-­steel fists into the street, crushing cars and knocking over streetlights, hauling himself back onto his feet. He roars, blowing out windows up and down the boulevard. I put my hands over my ears and watch him lunge at the small figure of Ruach.

  The God brother doesn’t move as the bank lands on top of him, leaving a deep crater in the intersection. Shaky stands with Ruach in his giant mitt. He raises his arm and slams Ruach into the crater.

  For a moment there’s only the sound of the rain. Then another thunderbolt explodes from the crater, hitting Shaky full on, shattering the windows in his chest. Plate glass cascades like a shower of diamonds into the street.

  This fight has been a long time coming. How long has it been since Ruach and Shaky have seen each other? A few billion years ago when God was still in one piece and he gave the Angras the bum rush out of town. That’s a long time to nurse a grudge. It must be the way I feel about Sylvester Stallone after he remade Get Carter.

  Shaky staggers as Ruach steps out of the crater. He makes a sweeping gesture and the crushed cars and trucks all along one side of Hollywood Boulevard rapid-­fire launch themselves at the bank. Concrete shatters. Steel snaps. But Shaky is still standing, batting away the last few cars with the back of his hand.

  He wrenches a huge slab of asphalt from the street and slams it down on Ruach. Stomps it down with his huge foot, buckling the boulevard for a block in each direction.

  This could go on all night and wreck half the city. Two partial Gods, duking it out and neither quite strong enough to take the other. Maybe I can do something. Maybe no one needs to sacrifice himself tonight.

  I pull Traven’s box from my pocket and get out the 8 Ball. The Shonin said it wants to please me, and it’s killed for me before. I stare at it, trying to will it to do something, but it just sits there in my hand.

  Then shit gets extra interesting.

  I don’t know if the 8 Ball has a smell or a glow or does a little dance that only Gods can see, but whatever it is, it gets Shaky’s attention. He takes a step in my direction. When he does, the ground opens up under him and Ruach pulls him down. He crashes into the street, his body crumbling down one side. Ruach looks like he’s heading in for the kill when he stops. The bastard must have picked up the 8 Ball’s scent because now he heads my way. But Shaky grabs him and drags him back. I head back up the street, hoping that with them distracted, I can get the bike started again.

  A woman staggers up the street in my direction. What’s a goddamn civilian doing around here? I head for her, ready to grab her and throw her on the back of the hog.

  I get hold of one of her arms and yell, “Come with me.”

  She bites me. I push her away and she comes back harder this time, shattered teeth chattering like I’m the last drumstick at Thanksgiving.

  If I wasn’t trying to dodge a ­couple of angry Gods, I might have looked her over before I got too close. The Eater in her chop-­shop body doesn’t appreciate my dime-­store chivalry and lets me know by trying to gnaw my arm off.

  I’m hurt and I don’t have time for this noise. I shove the 8 Ball in her face. The moment it touches her she screams. I pull the Qomrama back, drawing the Eater out of her body. As it dies, the woman face-­plants in the street.

  I head back for the bike, but Ruach is headed there too. I’d bet that, even blind, he saw the 8 Ball light up like a flare and he knows exactly where to find me. He runs toward me, his scarred yellow body glowing into holy fire. I hold up the 8 Ball and it just seems to make him angrier. There’s nowhere for me to run.

  “Father.”

  Ruach slows and looks around.

  “Father, what are you doing wasting time with this mortal? Your enemy is behind you.”

  Samael walks calmly across the shattered boulevard to stand beside me.

  Ruach points.

  “He used the Godeater.”

  “Not on you.”

  Ruach starts to say something else when a concrete hand the size of a truck grabs him and pulls him away.

  “This might be a good moment to leave,” says Samael.

  “Hold on a second. I have an idea.”

  I grab the Hellion hog and roll it off the street, hiding it in a flooded restaurant, between the broken furniture and the islands of rotting arugula.

  “Come on,” I say. “And grab her.”

  Samael frowns.

  “Where are we going and who is this?”

  “Just grab her.”

  I head for where the cops went down. There’s no trace of them and no keys in the car. I pull out the black blade and jam it into the ignition. Turn it hard. The engine revs loud and strong.

  Samael trots to the car with the woman’s body in his arms. I open the passenger door.

  “I don’t have a key to the backseat.”

  “Please,” he says, a little disgusted.

  He touches the door and it pops open. Right. Locks. An easy trick for angels. He tosses the chop-­shop body into the back and settles on the passenger seat.

  “This is fun,” he says. “Are we on a scavenger hunt?”
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  I throw the car into reverse and floor it. Water geysers on both sides as I twist the car into the clumsiest one-­eighty in the history of car theft, pop it into drive, and head back across town. Ruach and Shaky are still throwing kaiju kung fu in the rearview mirror as I break every speed law in L.A. county.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” says Samael.

  “You’re about to save the world. But give me a minute, I have to make a call.”

  I get out my phone and thumb Candy’s number.

  “Hey. Where are you?” she says.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “A lot better. Is anything wrong? You sound out of breath.”

  “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to check in on you.”

  “That’s sweet. Do you have my ice cream?”

  “Not exactly. But I have a corpse and a few hundred hellhounds. And I stole a cop car.”

  “That’s fun. Pick me up. We’ll toss a coin to see who gets the handcuffs first. A car will be harder to break than furniture, but maybe more fun.”

  “Sounds great, but I’m sort of busy right now. I did mention the corpse and hellhounds, right?”

  “Fine. Be a drag. But come home soon. I don’t want to spend my last hours on Earth drinking peppermint tea with Kasabian.”

  “Peppermint tea?”

  “I’m still a little dizzy. Peppermint helps.”

  “I’m living with a hippie.”

  “Shut up, thief. For once don’t forget to wipe your prints off the car before you ditch it.”

  “Anything else, dear?”

  “Seriously, if it looks like things aren’t going to work out, come home.”

  “They’re going to work out.”

  “But if they don’t.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “What’s the corpse for?”

  “A long shot. Got to go.”

  “Don’t forget the handcuffs.”

  “I know. And ice cream.”