Mythbreaker

by Stephen Blackmoore

  Fitz sits on the elevator floor, staring at the looming Cherub, frozen in fear. The guns hang from limp hands and all he can seem to do is make a low-pitched whining sound.

  Red tendrils appear on the edge of his vision. Fine filaments like spiderwebs encircle Zaphiel’s hand, his arm, cover his head and soon his whole body. Each strand, Fitz knows, though he doesn’t how he knows, is a separate control, a different switch. Like the strings on a puppet: a twitch on one will make the puppet walk, a twitch on another will make the puppet dance.

  And a yank on all of them...

  “You aren’t here,” he says, and that same wave of nausea and pain that hit him in the casino hammers at him. He doubles over, his body shaking, and dry heaves.

  Zaphiel flies out of the elevator, blasted across the lobby by an unseen force. He hits the marble floor, carving out a crater of stone shards and digging a furrow ten feet long until he slams into a support column, shattering it at its base.

  The elevator doors close on the Cherub shaking its head and roaring a cacophony from all four mouths.

  “Down,” Amanda says, her breath a raspy whisper. “Garage.” She reaches up with a blood covered hand toward the buttons. Fitz hits the button for the parking garage.

  “I’ll get you out of here,” he says. “I promise.”

  She shakes her head, pupils dilating as she bleeds out on the elevator floor. She starts to say something, but it only comes out as a wheezy breath and then her eyes roll into the back of her head and she’s gone.

  Fitz stares at her body, hands shaking. Distantly he knows she isn’t dead, but his brain is screaming that he’s got a fucking body right here.

  His phone buzzes in his pocket. He digs it out and looks at the screen. BLUE CADILLAC CTS SEDAN THREE SPACES FROM ELEVATOR KEYS IN POCKET, it says.

  “Nice to see you, too,” he says. “You’re dead, you know.”

  YES IT HAPPENS

  Fitz rifles through Amanda’s pockets and finds a key. He also finds a loaded .45 and a couple of extra clips. He grabs them and ditches his two empty pistols. He wipes the blood from his hands onto his jeans, where it soaks in, making the cloth dark and stiff.

  The elevator opens onto the parking garage and he sees the Cadillac right where she said it would be. He thumbs the button on the key, the car chirping as it unlocks, and bolts for the car, gun at the ready.

  He gets behind the wheel, starts the car and guns the engine. If Zaphiel finds him down here, he’s fucked. But if he gets out onto the open road, he might have a chance.

  “What the hell happened?”

  THERE WAS A HOLE IN THE SECURITY THAT BIG WAS ABLE TO EXPLOIT. I’VE PLUGGED IT. I HAVE SECURED THIS LINE. THERE WILL BE NO MORE INCURSIONS.

  “Your fucking brother,” Fitz says. “How do I know you’re you? What did you say to me when Zaphiel was coming for us and I wouldn’t get in the car?”

  There’s a pause, and then, WHAT’LL IT BE SPARKY RIDE UP FRONT LIKE A BIG BOY OR IN THE TRUNK LIKE A BITCH?

  “Okay. I’m convinced. So what the hell happened? Zaphiel said someone tipped him off.”

  BIG REMOVED ALL OF HIS GUARDS AND EMPTIED THE HOTEL.

  “Did anybody get killed?”

  JUST ME

  “Oh, well that’s something.” Fitz speeds up the ramp toward the garage entrance. The barrier arm at the entrance is down, but he isn’t planning on paying the parking fee. He guns the engine, closes his eyes and rams it. The wooden arm shreds from the impact and he hits Century Boulevard with a thud, sparks flying from the car’s undercarriage. No sign of Zaphiel.

  “Where to now?”

  CALCULATING ROUTES TAKE CENTURY TO COMPTON AVENUE

  “That’s gonna take forever,” he says. “What’s down there?”

  HAVE CALLED IN SOME FAVORS. WILL BE SAFE UNTIL I CAN GET ANOTHER AMANDA TO YOU

  “Oh. Good. You’re a lot easier to talk to when you’re an actual person.”

  I’LL TRY NOT TO BE YOUR BULLET SPONGE NEXT TIME

  He winces. “Yeah, I deserved that. Thanks, by the way.”

  YOU’RE WELCOME

  “About that, why was Zaphiel trying to kill me? I thought he needed me alive.” Was he trying to kill him? Did he know Amanda would be there? Maybe he’s just pissed off at what Fitz did to him before and he’s decided he doesn’t care about Fitz after all.

  UNKNOWN

  “You know when you say it like that it’s kind of creepy. And the all caps? It’s like you’re yelling at me. Can you, I dunno, not say it like that?”

  I have no fucking idea, the screen reads. Better? Maybe he’s just reading too much into that one word, but he swears it’s dripping with sarcasm and she’s rolling her eyes at him.

  “Much, thanks.”

  There is a tremendous thud and the roof of the car buckles inward. Claws punch through the metal and, with a terrific shriek, a section of the roof peels back. Fitz looks up to see Zaphiel, the shredded piece of roof gripped in his clawed feet. The Cherub drops the roof piece to clatter on the road behind them, narrowly missing a taxi.

  “This is not good,” Fitz yells over the sudden noise of traffic and wind invading the car.

  What’s going on?

  “The angel’s back. And he looks pissed off.” Fitz stomps on the gas, zips through the late-night traffic coming off the airport. Above him, Zaphiel tears through the sky in full-on beast mode. His head is screaming from all four mouths and his four wings beat upon the air, causing a draft that knocks down a motorcycle behind Fitz and sends it crashing into the sidewalk.

  “How do I lose him?”

  I don’t know, yet, the phone reads. Stay on Century. I’m on my way.

  Zaphiel dips lower, his clawed feet dropping through the opening in the roof. Before the angel can grab him, Fitz yanks the steering wheel hard to the left, clipping Zaphiel’s feet and sending him careening into the side of a building.

  “How far are you?” Fitz says.

  Close. But I’m going to be a little sketchy. I didn’t have time to download everything.

  “Okay, what does that mean?”

  It means when she gets there she might not be very smart.

  “That didn’t work out so well the last time.”

  This time she has very explicit instructions.

  “What are they?”

  Fitz doesn’t get a chance to see the answer because that’s when Zaphiel changes tactics and gets out in front of him. The angel hits the street in front of the car so hard that his feet embed in the pavement. He leans forward, arms held out to catch the car.

  Fitz brakes hard and spins the wheel to avoid him, but he’s going too fast. Instead of hitting him head on, Fitz skids into the angel, plowing into him at a good sixty miles an hour.

  He doesn’t budge.

  The front end of the Cadillac accordions into a crumpled mess, the windshield shatters and the airbag deploys in Fitz’s face. His seatbelt bites into his skin and he feels his left shoulder pop out of joint. Pain engulfs him. His insides feel like they’re on fire.

  The phone goes flying through the destroyed windshield to skid across the pavement and explode into a thousand fragments. His vision swims in and out of focus. He blacks out. It’s only for a second, but when he comes to, Zaphiel is tearing through the car like it’s made out of paper. He throws the engine block into traffic, snaps the axle in two, rips apart the dashboard and steering column in an effort to get to Fitz. All the while, he’s screaming from those four inhuman mouths.

  Fitz fumbles with his right hand and unbuckles his seatbelt. His left arm hangs at a weird angle by his side; he’s trying not to think about it.

  Zaphiel finally gets through all that metal as Fitz gets what’s left of the door open. He flops over partway through the door, lands on his shoulder and screams.

  Zaphiel stands where the front end of the car should be, surrounded by stripped wires and hoses and debris. He stretches to his full height, easily ten feet tall, reaches up to the sky and bello
ws loud enough to shatter glass. It is a roar of absolute triumph.

  It cuts off pretty quickly when a dump truck plows into him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE TRUCK NARROWLY misses the rest of the Cadillac and continues down Century for a good block and a half, the angel trying to get purchase on the front and get out of its way. Fitz sees Zaphiel’s wings unfurl around the edges of the truck as he prepares to take flight.

  The dump truck slams into a billboard, putting the kibosh on that plan as it wedges the angel between the truck and the pylon. The metal pylon, crumpled from the impact, groans and buckles with the strain, the weight of the sign atop it slowly bending it in half.

  Amanda jumps out of the driver’s side door with a couple of green messenger bags that she wedges between the truck and Zaphiel’s growling, screaming face. Even from across the street Fitz can hear the angel shrieking profanities. He watches as Amanda takes a step back, pulls a small box out of her jacket and thumbs a button on its front.

  The satchel charges shoved in Zaphiel’s face explode, vaporizing the cab of the dump truck and Amanda along with it. The explosion brings the billboard pylon crashing down onto the truck while a shockwave tears across the street, rocking the Cadillac.

  Fitz feels it punch through him, a heavy, rolling feeling that jerks his dislocated arm, sending a flare of pain through his body. The air is hot against his skin and his hearing disappears into a high-pitched whine as a column of flame shoots up into the night sky. He stares up at the towering flames and billowing black smoke while all around him traffic is piling up, trying to avoid the chaos.

  “Come on,” Amanda yells, hauling on Fitz to get him all the way out of the car. “That’s not going to keep him long, and when he finally gets moving he’s gonna be real pissed.”

  Fitz stares at her. “But you—how did you—” She was just vaporized in the blast. He’s sure of it. Did he black out and miss something? She’s not on fire. She’s not even smoking.

  “Clone, remember?” she says. “What, you don’t think I can have more than one of me around at a time?” Fitz decides that that is the most disturbing thing he has learned about her so far. She looks him over, and before he can stop her, she grabs his wrist and shoves her foot into his armpit. He screams as she yanks on his arm, wrenching the bone back into its socket.

  “Goddammit,” he says, as she helps him to his feet. “You could have warned me.” Aside from the arm, and some cuts and bruises, he thinks he’s mostly okay. Thank God for good American steel and Federal safety standards.

  “You would have just tensed up,” she says. “Come on.”

  He hobbles after her, looking behind him at the inferno raging down the street. Nothing but flames and smoke. “How did that work? You can kill angels?”

  “Not dead. Just really not happy right now. Those satchel charges had a thousand pieces of parchment with his name written backward in Enochian. When they went up in flames, so did he. He’s gonna be out of commission for a little bit.”

  “Neat trick,” Fitz says. “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m not driving.” A van pulls up to the destroyed Cadillac with an Amanda at the wheel. The side door slides open and two more help Fitz inside.

  “This is really weirding me out,” he says.

  “You’ll get used to it,” two of the Amandas say in unison. “Sorry.”

  “Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Fitz says, lowering into one of the seats as one of the Amandas closes the door. He’s still having trouble moving his left arm, but at least it doesn’t hurt as much. “What about the police? Why aren’t I seeing any cop cars?”

  “They’re responding to a dozen robberies in progress right now,” the Amanda who’s driving says, as she hits the gas and speeds the van down the street. “Also there’s someone claiming to have a bomb at the airport and a woman standing in the middle of Sepulveda Boulevard blocking traffic, and all of their communications are currently glitched.”

  “What about police helicopters?”

  “Oh, I know this one!” one of the Amandas in the back with him says, clapping her hands like a five-year-old. “It’s ’cause it’s an airport.”

  “Airspace is restricted, this close to the airport,” the driver says. “LAPD helicopters aren’t allowed here. And by the time they know about us, we’ll be long gone.”

  Fitz gives a low whistle. “Man, where were you people when I was running drugs? So where are we going?”

  “We need to get that other Chronicler,” one of the Amandas says.

  “Who?” says another.

  “Jake something?” says a third. It’s weird for Fitz to see them trying to muddle through like this, and he’s suddenly afraid they’re going to get him killed the way she almost did coming back from the museum.

  There’s a sigh from the front of the van. “Jake Malmon,” the driver says to the others. “Janitor at a strip club in the Valley. We need to grab him before Zaphiel regroups. We may not have another chance at this.”

  “How do you know he’s going to come willingly?” Fitz says. He doesn’t like this idea. After spending the last day being hunted, kidnapped and almost murdered, he really doesn’t want to put someone else through that, too.

  “It’s for his own safety,” the driver says.

  “How the hell does being with us make him safe?”

  “You’re being talked about,” the driver says. “It’s not just Bacchus and Zaphiel and the Man you have to worry about anymore. They’re just the most immediate threats. Eventually they or another god will figure out that you need someone to talk to about this. Someone who understands what you’re dealing with. Chances are Big has already spread the word that you need help, and eventually someone’s going to piece together that he’s the closest Chronicler you can talk to.”

  “If we don’t grab him, somebody else will,” Fitz says.

  “Exactly.”

  “Fuck. Fine. Let’s get him. But wherever we go, can you make sure it’s actually safe this time?”

  THE BLUE MONKEY is a strip bar like most of the ones in the Valley: plain, industrial brick with no windows and only a single sign out front. There’s a sincerity to its lack of flashing lights, its dearth of style. This is a place of pure transaction, the most crystallized of entertainment. The patrons are there to see some tits, the dancers are there to get some cash. Sure, it’s all an illusion inside, from the bad lighting to hide the dancers’ acne scars to the way they pretend to want to talk to you. But at least everybody’s in on it.

  The drive up into the Valley was grueling. They took side streets, doubled back, went through back alleys and avoided police. Fitz popped a few oxys and one of the Amandas got his arm in a sling. The painkillers are helping dull the edge of his dislocated shoulder, but whenever he moves his arm, his hand goes all numb and tingly.

  “How long do I have to have this thing on?” he says as they get off the freeway. The constraint of not being able to move his arm, even if it is for his own good, is maddening.

  “Couple weeks,” one of the Amandas says. They’ve gotten more intelligent, more aware. Fitz thinks they must be getting an upload while it’s still safe to do so. No telling what they’ll run into inside the club.

  “That’s not gonna work,” he says. He pops another oxy, wincing as he pulls the sling off.

  “You’re gonna regret that.”

  “Yeah, well, add it to all the other things I regret.”

  Driver Amanda pulls the van into the alley behind the Blue Monkey. It’s one a.m. and the parking lot is full. They stop serving alcohol at two, but they’re open until four.

  “What does this guy look like?” Fitz says.

  “Like a burnout,” Driver Amanda says.

  “It’s a strip bar,” Fitz says. “That’s at least half the clientele.”

  She passes a photo of him. It’s a mug shot from a few years ago. Eyes haunted, skin sallow. Hair too thin and skin too gray, like a
ll of the color’s been sucked out of it. Fitz hands the picture back, shaken. That man could just as easily be him.

  “He’s probably wearing coveralls and pushing a mop,” she says. “The trick is finding him.”

  “That’ll be easy,” Fitz says, popping the sliding door open with his good hand. “He’ll be in the bathroom, mopping up jizz. How do you want to do this?”

  “You and I will go in,” Driver Amanda says. “The others will watch the front and back.”

  “Who’s driving the car?”

  In answer the headlights flash without the driver touching anything.

  “Oh,” Fitz says. “Handy.”

  Fitz and the clones get out of the car and he follows the driver to the back entrance. “So, what happens when you’re, you know, done with a body?”

  “They...” Amanda pauses. “They go into storage?” she says. A momentary look of panic and confusion crosses her face, then clears. “I don’t have that information downloaded,” she says.

  “Well, where do you come from?”

  She shrugs, already dismissing the question. “Don’t know, don’t care.” Fitz gets the feeling there’s more to that, but he lets it go.

  The back door—thick security steel rattling to the pounding bass on the other side—is locked, of course. No bouncer. Not even a parking attendant for the lot. It’s not that kind of place. As long as nobody gets shot in the lot, the owners don’t care. Amanda pulls a lock pick gun from her jacket, fits a pick into the grip and jiggles it into the lock. It pops open in less than a second.

  “Is there anything you can’t do?” he says.

  “Probably not.” And she says she’s not a god.

  The music is so loud when they open the door that Fitz can’t even recognize the song. The sound system is so bad, and the speakers so defective, that there’s more popping and crackling than actual music. They head through a narrow, badly lit hallway past a couple closed doors, an office and a dressing room, and then into the club itself.

  Well, club is being generous. It’s a cramped, dark space with a lone bouncer napping on a stool at the front and women half-clad in cheap lingerie on a couple of raised platforms that can only be called stages because of the badly-secured stripper poles on them. One of the women is making a half-hearted attempt at actually doing some spinning and the pole wobbles dangerously from her efforts.