Godfellas

by Rachel Caine

  "Two more," I said. "That right?"

  Ed nodded. Which was not good news for me. Chances were that I’d end up just like my surfer buddy, discorporated for long enough that mountains would disappear and, if I was lucky, disco might finally be dead.

  "Shit," I snarled. Ed looked grave. "Let me just say this once: after tonight, I take a break. Capische? A nice, long break. Someplace with a beach, and I don’t mean friggin’ Jersey."

  "Whatever you’d like," he said soothingly. I noticed he wasn’t watching me anymore. He was watching the hooker.

  She’d made it to the hallway and was punching buttons on the Coke machine. It clanked and clattered and died. I could feel her desperation all the way across the room.

  Ed gave me one of those puppy looks.

  "Fine. Let me take another one for the team," I said, and Translated over to the Coke machine. Reached inside, wiggled metal things until a lukewarm can of cola rolled out for her. My good deed for the day.

  "Fuck," she muttered, and picked up the can. "I wanted diet."

  Which just went to show where good deeds got you. I Translated back over to where Ed was drifting along and said, "She wanted diet. Let’s go kill some demons."

  "You know, we’re not actually killing them, we’re altering their aetheric – "

  "Actually, Ed, I don’t give a rat shit."

  Upstairs was, well, Hell. Now you got to understand, this is not unusual. Hell exists in little cancerous pockets all over the place, it breaks out like syphilis wherever two or three Demons manage to stake a claim – you know, wherever two or three are gathered together ... Like the clap, it’s hard to get rid of; it usually takes some radical treatment.

  Like me.

  Living people saw the Magellan as just another fleabag, probably seedier than most. When they checked in, they drank too much and drugged too much and about one in four of the permanent residents never left, or got carried out feet first the way I had. They jumped from windows, slashed veins, caught nasty transmittable diseases and coughed out their guts. To keep things lively, sometimes they offed each other, too, I was the poster child for that.

  The Magellan was pain. A great big howling stinking cesspool of pain. What gave humans the creeps and headaches and depression was the ethereal sound of screaming, which wasn’t even coming from the same level they lived on. Go up – well, down – one aetheric level and you couldn’t walk the hall without stepping on the damned, couldn’t get away from their grabbing hands and flailing feet. The Magellan was a big roach motel for souls, and they were stuck on the floors, the walls, the ceilings. It was the biggest damn piece of Hell I’d ever come in contact with.

  I kept thinking, as I stepped on those screaming mother-of-pearl faces on my way down the hall, there but for the grace of God …

  The Jersey shore was looking better and better.

  "In there," Ed said. The door looked just like all the others, except it had a different number on it. I Translated through the door to get to the first of my enemies. Ed, of course, held down the rear. In the hall. Fucking pansy-ass Archangel.

  "Be careful," he said, which, had we been on the same side of the wall, might have earned him a pop in the mouth. But I had bigger problems.

  Like the Major Demon sitting in the corner of that little smoky anteroom of Hell. Oh, sure, he looked like an old guy, like maybe he sold cannoli down in the old neighborhood, probably dandled babies on his knee and went to Mass every Sunday.

  That’s how I knew he was a Major Demon. They don’t look to impress anybody.

  "Vic," he said, and it sounded like my Grandpa Vito, who’d bet on a sure thing at Aqueduct and lost his entire life savings, including his wife Nona, and ended up eating the wrong end of a shotgun. Yeah, he sounded exactly like Grandpa Vito, even down to the wheezer’s cough at the end. "Vic, I’ve been waiting to see you. How are you?"

  "Fine," I said, and stood with my hands folded together, the posture of respect I’d learned long ago in the Sonny Caparelli family. You showed respect to power. It was just the way things were done. Shoot ‘em in the back later, but always, respect to their faces. "Nice place."

  He waved that away like a fly. There were some flies buzzing around, and they liked him, of course, they kept circling him like moths around a flame. I caught of whiff of him and figured out why. He smelled like week-old road kill. Chanel No. 5 for maggots.

  "Vic," he said – and he was starting to piss me off with this first name crap – "Vic, a bright boy like you should look after his future. There’s no advancement where you are. You’re, what, some low-grade errand boy? Forget about the wings, they’re just a cheap suit. You’re never gonna get ahead up there, kid. Now, if you come to work for me – "

  No, you know what? He didn’t sound like my Grandpa Vito. He sounded like Milton Berle doing my Grandpa. Or maybe Jack Benny doing Milton Berle doing my Grandpa. With a little Brando thrown in, ‘cause everybody, even in Hell, has to do Brando. Stellllllllaaaaaaa!

  I looked him over real good while he laid it all out for me – my own private circle in Hell, lots of space, all the fringe benefits you couldn’t get upstairs, like booze and broads. He looked like about an 8 to me.

  I went for the Number 8 cross, gilded, some rubies at the base, a little modest scrollwork. See, some kinds of crosses work better with some kinds of demons, don’t ask me to explain why, it’s part of that mysterious ways thing.

  "Vic," he said. "Vic, again with the distraction? I’m trying to give you a future, here! What about the lake of fire swimming pool? What do I have to do, rip out my heart for you? All right! A membership in the second circle gambling casino, but I swear, you’re killing me."

  I took the Number I and tossed it in his direction, like a hand grenade, only I didn’t have to duck. He reached up to catch it. I waited for the big finale. Usually it was real messy.

  Nothing happened. He opened his hand and looked at the cross, held it up to the light, picked a jeweler’s loupe out of his pocket and checked out the stones. Shrugged.

  "Not bad," he said. "You need to work on your metabolizing, you know? This third ruby’s got a flaw. Nothing terrible, though. So, kid, that all you got?"

  I held up one finger. Index finger.

  "Hang on a second," I said, and stepped back out through the wall to where the damned screamed and wiggled like maggot architecture. Ed was hovering in mid-hall, looking anxious. "Number 8 didn’t work."

  He looked grave. Folded his hands. Looked angelic.

  "What? All of a sudden I’m on my own?"

  "Vic – "

  "Again with the first names, what is it with you guys? Listen, you want this smelly old bastard dead, you do him yourself."

  "Not all truths are true – "

  "—for all, yeah, that’s real – "

  Grandpa Demon reached through the wall, ripping apart two screaming souls in the process, and yanked me back through into the room. It hurt. It hurt real bad.

  Not all truths are true for all. Jesus Christ, what did that mean? I kept hearing it. It rang in my head like a bell. Battering against my thick skull, trying to tell me –

  The demon shoved his hand into me. I tried to counterpunch, and my hands sank into him, and he wasn’t Grandpa Vito anymore, he was a black stinking thing out of the pits and he was going to eat me, trap me inside that heavy slick darkness like a pearl inside an oyster, digest me a little at a time while I screamed.

  Not all truths are true for all.

  I went for crosses again. I might as well have been pelting him with candy corn.

  Aw, come on! Not like this. Not like this.

  NOT ALL TRUTHS ARE TRUE FOR ALL!

  The demon said, in a voice like slime bubbling out of an open wound, "You Catholics, you’re all the same. No imagination you’ve got."

  I don’t know where it came from, don’t know how my head finally put it together, but all of a sudden in my hand clenched, and when I opened it I was holding a Star of David.

 
; I threw it like a ninja toy.

  It sliced across his throat in a shaft of pure white light.

  It cut his head off.

  That was it. The two halves of him fell, one east, one west, and the ugly black blob that was his head bumped across the floor until a table leg stopped it. It started melting into the carpet like superheated black plastic.

  I metabolized another Star of David, just in case. I was thinking seriously about a menorah, too, in case I had to beat him into slime with it.

  Behind me, Ed said, with genuine surprise, "Oh. You finally got it."

  "Not all truths are true for all," I said. "Yeah. Thanks for being so totally fucking clear."

  "Demons aren’t all Christian, you know."

  "No kidding."

  "You got lucky this one was Jewish."

  "Oh, yeah, I’m buying some lotto on the way home."

  Oh, no. Here was that stupid tender look again. Shit. There was still one more, I’d forgotten all about it.

  I was pretty much exhausted. Almost being discorporated a couple of times will do that to you.

  "You know what?" I said. "I’m done. Finito. Discorporated out. You take the Buddha or whatever comes next and go beat that sucker into slime without me, because I am done for the day."

  "I’m afraid that’s impossible." He was shaking his head. "One more, and I promise we can – "

  "What? Kick back and have a brew? Watch the Jets get the crap kicked out of them on the tube? You know what, I’m not in the mood for heaven right now. Just leave me the hell alone."

  "You don’t mean that." He sounded just a little nervous about it. I glared and wished myself real elsewhere.

  I didn’t have any clear idea where I was going when I Translated, but I shouldn’t have been surprised to end up where I did.

  Room 409.

  My final resting place.

  "Shit," I sighed, and dropped into the same chair where I’d watched myself die.

  Don’t know why it came as a surprise, but my room was rented out. I mean on a human level. The battered dresser had clothes spilling out of it, the cracked mirror was draped with scarves and feather boas and had a couple of pictures taped up in the corner. I stepped over to take a look and saw a nice looking kid, kind of on the skinny side, long brown hair and eyes that could have been either gray or green. It had the geeky charm of a junior high photo. The same kid was in the second photo, this time with her arms around a tired-looking older woman who had to be Mom.

  Sweet. I took another look at the feather boas. Ratty, threadbare, the kind of cheap fantasy props that professionals used.

  The hooker from downstairs came in the door and slammed it behind her, sank down on the unmade bed and took a long sip of the Coke I’d knocked out of the machine for her. Her eyes were closed, and in that second I saw the resemblance to the kid in the pictures, only about a million years older, the innocence scrubbed away with steel wool and despair.

  I probably should have ducked out of the room. Hard to be sentimental about your death when there’s somebody going about their business and not giving a crap. But I was tired, and the demon waiting for me down the hall wasn’t going anywhere and anyway, I was having a labor dispute.

  Her eyes opened, and just for a second I had the bizarre feeling she was staring at me. Seeing me. But then I heard the noise at the door, heard a one-knuckle knock, and she sighed and said, "Yo. Inside."

  He could have been me. Oh, sure, he wasn’t as good looking or nothing, but he had the eyes, the old cold eyes. Burly guy, mostly muscle. Bulge under his coat where he kept his insurance policy. I knew him just like dogs know each other, by smell.

  "Hey, baby," he said. It wasn’t personal. None of this was going to be personal. He took off his jacket and tossed it on the chair, took his gun and put it on the nightstand, stripped off suspenders and started unbuttoning his shirt. The kid stood up, put the Coke on the dresser, and reached out to help him.

  He slapped her hands. Then he slapped her, just to get the point across. Tossed a twenty on the dresser and said, "Get on the bed."

  Ed was behind me. I felt him there, like sun on skin that wasn’t even there. I heard him say, "Perhaps we should go."

  "Where’s her guardian?" I asked. Silence from the Angel gallery. "Hey, pinhead, I’m talking to you. How come there’s nobody here?"

  "I don’t know," Ed whispered. "We should go now. This isn’t our business."

  "Whose business is it? What, he’s out getting a paper? Grabbing a movie? She’s supposed to be watched!" I watched the girl unzip her plastic top and fold it back. Her breasts looked pale and small and cold. She got on the bed and lifted her knees. The guy, all business, unzipped his fly.

  "Vic, we really need to go now. This isn’t our place."

  Maybe not, but it was my place. I had rights to this room. And nobody was slapping around teenage hookers in it while I was standing around.

  I reached out with one hand and touched the guy, right in the center of his chest, and let him feel it. Really feel it, rippling cold like ice in his veins. He shivered and stepped back.

  "Vic – " Ed was exasperated.

  "Leave the twenty," I said, my lips close to the guy’s ear. His eyes went blank. Blank and scared. He couldn’t hear me, exactly, but he was definitely Getting The Message. "Don’t forget your gun."

  He reached over and grabbed it up. Didn’t even bother with his jacket.

  The girl watched him go with a frozen look on her face that turned into relief when he passed up the Jackson on the dresser. She flopped back on the bed, blinked at the ceiling, and said, "Well, shit. Thanks."

  "Don’t mention it," I said. "Zip up. You’re gonna catch a cold."

  She didn’t seem to hear me, but she zipped up anyway, still staring at the ceiling.

  Ed, with just a slight edge in his voice, said, "Vic."

  "I’m coming." But I wasn’t, not just yet. Maybe it was that she was lying there where I’d died, maybe it was just that she was the first actual person I’d really noticed since they’d carted my corpse off to the morgue. I don’t know what made me sit down on the edge of the bed and look at her.

  Her eyes were green. Not gray. Green like cool marble.

  "You’re gonna be okay," I said, and reached over to put my hand over hers. It was lying wrist-up, and there were scars there, lots of scars. A couple of suicide attempts, some johns who liked wire instead of ropes. "I’ll be back."

  "Why?" she asked. The green eyes moved and came to rest on my face.

  She could see me. That flashed over me hot and cold and hot again. I slowly leaned left to see if her eyes followed me.

  They did.

  "I’m not afraid," she said. "I see things sometimes. Like you. But they don’t scare me anymore."

  Behind me, Ed made a noise I’d never heard out of an angel, like all the air had just been poked out of him. I heard him sink into a chair.

  "Why not?" I asked. The kid just smiled. "What’s your name, kid?"

  "Harley."

  "Harley what?" She shrugged. Didn’t matter. "This doesn’t bother you? Talking to the air?"

  "You’re not air," she said. She reached out and touched the side of my face. This time I was the one who felt cold, thrown off stride by the unexpected contact. She couldn’t really touch me, of course, but it felt like she did. She acted like she had. "Did you die in here?"

  "You don’t want to hear about it, trust me."

  She smiled and rolled over on her stomach, stared at the headboard. After a few seconds she turned her head and pillowed her cheek on her arm. Her eyes weren’t quite focused on me anymore. Her pupils were blown wide open – heroin, I guessed. She had that kind of sunshine glow. It took heroin to make Room 409 look like someplace you’d want to hang around talking to the dead.

  "Vic," Ed hissed. "We have to go. I mean it."

  "Yeah, okay," I said. "Listen, sweetheart, I gotta split. You take care, okay? I’ll check back."

  "Okay," she m
urmured, and closed those agate-green eyes. She was asleep in the time it took Ed to grab my arm and Translate me the hell out of there.

  Took me a second or two to recognize that Ed wasn’t looking all Ed anymore. He had gone up a level, out of anything like human form, into a harsh white blinding light with those damn wings and a face like cold marble. Ed with the Flaming Sword.

  "You will never," he said in a voice that might’ve shattered glass, "never do that again. It’s not your place."