"Kill the dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kadrey Richard)

1. Weasel information out of Cabal.

2. Kill Drifters, zeds, Lacunas, whatever. 3. Get paid. That one's mine and it gets taken care of first.

I'm in no mood to waste time on door monkeys, so I walk through a shadow and out into the Vigil's compound. One of the gate guards sees me and starts yammering into a talkie. I give him a friendly wave and head inside. You might be fast on the button, but don't count on a raise this year, pal.

The warm Jell-O hoodoo barrier at the warehouse door always makes my skin crawl. For the second it takes to pass through it, it's like you've been body-snatched into a German oatmeal-fetish video.

People have seen me here before, so no one bats an eye when I get in. I walk like I'm heading for an appointment in one of the offices at the other end of the building. I almost make it, too.

A gaggle of Vigil hall monitors closes in on me from all sides. They have their guns on me and they mean it, but they're too disciplined to start blasting. Marshal Julie, the newbie from the Springheel house, is part of the posse. I walk over to her. Her heartbeat goes up, but I keep enough distance between us so she doesn't get too twitchy and open fire.

"Good to see you, Marshal. Did they let you see any dead bodies yet or are the boys still making you bring them coffee and play junior high drinking games because tough guys think vomit is hilarious and only pussies die of alcohol poisoning?"

"Why can't you enter a building like a normal person, Stark? It would simplify everyone's life."

"My life is simple and getting simpler by the minute. Did you ever wonder if they haze men as hard as they haze women around here?"

"You're trespassing on a restricted federal site. If you want to get arrested, why don't you go and do something interesting first?"

"I'm a paid consultant to this organization who took a shortcut inside. Mea culpa. Get Wells down here and he can put a nasty note in my personnel file."

"You don't have a personnel file because you're not a person."

It's Wells. He's behind me.

"You're an entity. Not the same thing as a person by a long shot."

"Why don't you have your crew put their guns down? I have a business proposition for you."

"That's funny because I have one for you, too."

He comes around into my field of vision and stops in front of me. He looks tired. Like he's been pulling a lot of late nights. He motions for the G-men to lower their guns.

"We're fine here, everyone. Go back to what you were doing."

He glances at Marshal Julie as she holsters her gun and walks away.

"Don't talk to my people like you know them. Especially the new ones. It confuses them. It makes them think you're on our side."

"I am on your side when I get paid. I've done every job you asked me to do."

"So does my dog when I tell her to. She does a trick and gets a biscuit, same as you."

"Do you take taxes and Social Security out of that? How many biscuits does it cost her a month?"

Wells walks to the edge of the warehouse. I follow him. Gray plastic storage crates marked with diamond-shaped chemical warning stickers are stacked against the wall. He sits down on one and glances at his watch.

"You said you wanted to talk to me about something."

"Yeah. High Plains Drifters and what you want me to do about them."

"In Los Angeles? Not possible. I'd have heard about it."

"You'd think so. It's funny that you don't. I thought you had some supercharged radar that tracked us magic types. Or was that another Vigil fairy tale?"

"It's real all right. I know where you go, who you go with, and what you do."

"Then why don't you know about the dead men who wandered into Bamboo House of Dolls for human sushi?"

"Never. I'd have heard and we'd be on alert."

"I guess omnipotence isn't what it used to be. But I can fix that for you. I've already killed three Drifters. Give me a contract and I'll get the rest. There's probably a lot of them, so I ought to get time and a half on this one."

Wells scowls. He looks around like he's expecting someone.

"If you killed three, then where are the bodies?"

"A friend got rid of them for me."

"And where did this friend put them?"

"I didn't ask. She has people who know how to dispose of people eaters."

"It was just one other person you worked with a minute ago and now it's people. How many people exactly?"

"I couldn't say."

He takes a tired breath and rubs his eyes.

"So, you let someone I don't know call people you don't know to haul away the remains of some of the most dangerous creatures walking the earth. And you want me to hire you to kill a whole pod. How many do you think are left? One? A dozen? Fifty? What are you going to do with those bodies? Maybe your friend's friends can take them down to the Farmers' Market and sell the bones to tourists. You can start a co-op. Make friendship bracelets and wind chimes and share the profits."

"Let me ask you something, Deputy Dawg. If the Vigil isn't onto the Drifters, what's keeping you up nights?"

His frown goes to a smile and back to a frown.

"Things are going to change. In this town and beyond. Far beyond."

"What? You going to raid all the Valley hipsters having ghost swinger parties? Let me know if you need to use condoms with things made of ectoplasm. I've always wondered about that."

"How's the movie business treating you? Have you gotten to hobnob with the stars? Maybe your new best friend can get you an agent and a part in his movie, then you can leave all this behind."

"What's the matter? Getting jealous of Lucifer? Don't be mad, baby. You knew this wasn't an exclusive thing. We agreed we could see other people."

"I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I thought your foul mouth and your shitty attitude were part of a post-traumatic stress reaction to being back on earth. Now I have to ask myself whose side are you truly on? The light or the dark?"

"Why is it you can say 'shit' when you're mad, but I get yelled at for it?"

Two of Wells's men in black wheel in a crystal ball the size of a Volkswagen Bug on a metal dolly. The blurry outline of a demon is just visible inside the ball as it beats itself against the walls.

"Why would you work for an animal like Lucifer?"

I shake my head.

"I've already had this talk once today and I'm not doing it again with you."

"I'm going to tell you something and then I'm going to ask you something. I want to listen to both things carefully, as if your future depends on them, because it does."

"Say it, then."

"Under the provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security has declared Lucifer an unlawful foreign combatant as well as a suspect in a number of terrorist activities around the world. I have a federal warrant for his arrest. You're going to help me serve the warrant."

"I am?"

"I understand that this is a high-risk situation and I don't expect you to do it for free. Work with me. Serve the warrant and help me arrest Lucifer. With your unique experience and abilities, I can offer you a full-time position at the highest government pay grade."

"Does that come with dental and a company car?"

"This is a onetime offer. You can be my friend or you can be my enemy. It's your choice."

"Is this Aelita's idea? If she's that bored, hire me to find what's left of the Kissi and bring them back. She can have fun fighting them."

"Were you even listening? This isn't Vigil business. It's DHS."

"Bullshit. In L.A. they're the same thing."

"Let's say you're right. It doesn't alter your situation. New DHS policy says that we can no longer work with questionable outside vendors."

"I was right. This is all Aelita."

"Lucifer's name is on the national terrorist watch. The classified one. You're not yet, but you'll be happy to know that your friend Kinski is on there, too."

"Why?"

"We can't let fallen angels run around the countryside any more than we can allow terrorists to drive around with vans full of kerosene and fertilizer."

"When do I go on the list?"

"That all depends on whether you're my friend or my enemy."

"It was you who ambushed us after the party the other night, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't the Little Rascals."

"For a while I thought it might be you, but then I remembered what Aelita said. That you don't care about Lucifer. He's past his prime."

"Don't try to think. It doesn't look good on you."

"Ever since then I've been trying to figure out who would be a better candidate. I was starting to think it was Ritchie, the guy who runs the studio. He hires off-duty cops to work security and has the money to throw his own Apocalypse Now ambush. But it was the simple answer all along. Serves me right for trying to be creative."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"I thought you people were all about keeping the universe in balance, not handing the whole thing over to one side. This is definitely Aelita's idea. You haven't got the guts to think this big. So, what's she getting out of this? A shinier halo? A transfer off this rock?"

"Answer the question."

"I gave Aelita my answer six months ago. None of you own me. Go ahead and put me on your list."

His lips tug up in a little smile.

"I've already drafted the memo. I knew you couldn't respond reasonably to a reasonable offer. You're just like my dog. Entirely predictable."

"What happens now? Do you have snipers on me already? Or do the two of us go outside and have a Tombstone showdown? If you'd told me we were going to party, I'd have brought Wild Bill's gun."

"Nothing like that. You just walk on out of here and don't ever walk in again. You and I will settle this in time, but right now the grown-ups have bigger fish than you to fry."

He gets up and nods to someone, then heads back to his office. When I turn around, six of his people are spread out in a semicircle around me. No one is pointing a gun at me, but together they look like little Grim Reapers reincarnated as bouncers at a Beverly Hills yuppie bar.

"Admit it. You used canned olives in your martinis."

Nothing. Tough room.

Maybe Wells is right and it's time to pick a side. If I'd said yes to him, do you think any of these dour cocksuckers would have cracked even a polite smile? I'm not holding my breath. Lucifer wouldn't have laughed either, but at least he wouldn't be morally superior about it.

We're just bugs on God's windshield. No one owns me.

These are the good and righteous people who sat on their fat asses and let Mason and Parker murder Alice and send me to Hell. And then they let him waltz away. I might not have been a good guy before, but I loved someone and I wasn't broken into a million little pieces. I wasn't as hollow and dead inside as a locust husk.

I know whose side I'm on.

Mine.

I walk outside and leave through the front gate, Wells's gunsels trailing behind me like a line of black ducklings. THE PHONE RINGS four times. I'm about to hang up when she answers.

"Hey. What are you doing?"

"Nothing important. I'm reading the Light Bringer script, trying to learn my lines. What do you think it tells us about the world that I have less to say as Eve than I do when I make my pornographic films?"

"Want to go talk to a guy with a rep for using Drifters to do his dirty work?"

"Drifters?"

"Zeds. Golems. The dead boys from last night."

"Ah. Prazdny, you mean."

"Zed has less syllables, so I win. Do you want to meet the guy?"

"Who is it?"

"Cabal Ash."

She spits out something in Czech. I can't understand it, but I don't think it's "yippee!"

"Sure."

"Where are you?"

"At Simon's. Where are you?"

"At Max Overload. I could get a car and pick you up."

"No thank you. Simon told me about you and cars. I'll pick you up."

"Okay. Don't forget to bring the toy you were going to show me. The Drifter de-boner."

"Ah. I was waiting for you to say something sexy. I thought for a moment that all you remembered about the night was the business behind the bar."

"I remember the business inside the bar, too. You always remember losing your virginity."

"Good boy. I'll see you in half an hour."

"I'll be out front."

Kasabian looks up as I thumb the phone off. While I was talking he was pretending to work.

"That was her, wasn't it?"

"Who?"

"Don't be cute. Bring her up when she gets here."

"Next lifetime maybe."

"At least get her to sign these."

He holds up a couple of DVDs he was hiding on his table.

"I found a couple of her movies from when I was bootlegging discs to make ends meet."

"Poor you. Forced to steal porn."

"Hey, there weren't any American versions. They were all European. PAL format. The wrong region code. By reformatting them, I was performing a public service."

"For horny old men and bonehead teenyboppers."

"Who needs more help than them?"

"I'm not bringing her up. But I'll get her to sign your discs."

"Have her make it out to 'Aldous.'"

"You sure you don't want to go with 'Alfredo Garcia'?"

"Fuck you. It's an old family name."

"That'll be our little secret."

"Fuck you twice. I'm not taking name abuse from someone called Sandman Slim. That sounds like a diet shake with roofies."

I look at him perched on the desk, his little legs on his keyboard. He frowns back at me, a defiant head on glorified skateboard.

I hate it when Kasabian is right. I take the DVDs and put them in a Max Overload bag.

"You're a cruel man, you know that, Aldous?"

"I'd give a rat's ass if you weren't running off with the love of my life."

"This week's love."

"That goes without saying." BRIGITTE PICKS ME up in a very new pale blue Porsche Targa. She's wearing jeans and a T-shirt, plus a leather jacket for protection.

She greets me with a deep kiss when I'm inside. I kiss her back, but keep an eye open. I have to admit that after Lucifer and Wells, I'm starting to feel black helicopters circling. Ritchie seems like the kind of control freak who might have Brigitte followed. Or the Vigil could be back there. I can slap Ritchie into shredded wheat or hex him into a bowling trophy, but if Wells gets a bug up his ass, the world will get ugly fast.

Brigitte uses her thumb to wipe lipstick off my lower lip. Maybe Romany are psychic after all because she says, "Relax. No one is watching. You're not the only one trained to look for these things."

"Point taken."

"Where are we going?"

I read her the hospital's address on South St. Louis Street off my phone. She punches it into the GPS on her dashboard and we head out. I always thought those boxes were for losers, but it shows us a quick, direct route through the traffic. I make a mental note that in the future I should only steal cars equipped with the boxes.

There are TV trucks parked across the street from Linda Vista. Can you go ten minutes in this town without seeing some idiot running down the street in a Steadicam rig like he has a giant robot hard-on? I hope the hospital is haunted so when the director has the cinematographer zoom in on a really interesting bloodstain on the floor, he gets a late-night Christmas-carol visit from the blood's owner.

"There will be security if they're filming. How do we get in?" asks Brigitte.

"I found a map of the place online. We can use a trick I have for getting in places without using the door. But you don't get to ask any questions about it."

"Now you absolutely have to show me."

We walk across the street, pointing at the building like a couple of tourists. I get Brigitte to snap pictures with her phone while I look for out-of-the-way shadows. We find some by the old emergency entrance.

"Take my hand and don't let go until we're all the way inside."

"All right."

She resists a little as I pull her into the shadow. And then again when I pull her out of the Room and through the Door of Restless Ardor.

"What was that place?"

"What did I say about questions?"

"You're no fun."

"Yes, I am."

We follow the map to the rear of the hospital, beyond where the crew is filming. We're on a side hall and can see the lights and cameras where they're shooting in the wide central corridor. The director yells, "Action!" A woman screams. Voices moan. A bloody nurse runs by, chased by a mob of filthy, groaning patients. Fuck me. They're making a zombie movie.

One more turn and we're in the morgue. The white tile walls are cracked and streaked with grime. There's a banged-up gurney against one wall. Someone went at the padding with a knife and left it scattered on the floor like white tumbleweeds. I don't want to know what's inside the pullout coolers in the walls.

We head into the big freezer. It's dark inside and-surprise, surprise-the lights don't work. Just as I'm trying to think of some hoodoo that makes light without blowing something up, the place brightens. Brigitte's turned on a small LED flashlight she had in her pocket.

She asks, "What are we looking for?"

"We're not. I am. Unless someone left the door open, you need to be Sub Rosa to find these things."

I feel along one wall and then another. It's between the seams running down one row of tiles. The wall swings open silently.

Brigitte coos.

"I love magic. You must show me more."

"I think you'll see plenty before this is over."

The door swings shut behind us and we're in a low stone passage. Yellow light outlines a curtain up ahead. I go through first and hold the curtain back for Brigitte.

Cabal understands Sub Rosa chic. This location is even shittier than Springheel's shack.

The place looks like the house of the month in Better Homes amp; Monsters. It's all dark stone walls. There's a huge fireplace with andirons the size of parking meters. The furniture is made of old stained mahogany. Most of the varnish has been worn off the armrests on the chairs and they're covered with water stains and glasses and cigarette burns. Traces of half-eaten food and empty liquor bottles are scattered on every surface of the room. There are tapestries of hunting parties and war scenes hanging on the walls. One shows horsemen with scimitars slicing up a village of women and children. The men are already dead, tossed on a bonfire in the lower right corner of the tapestry. Cabal is going for a Vlad the Impaler look, but he's ended up with a Slayer album cover.

Cosima, Cabal's sister or wife or both, comes through a curtain that runs the length of one wall. On the curtain is an image of a Black Sun wheel. Ancient, hard-core hoodoo that supposedly gives dark mystics power over the material world. The Nazis loved the Sun wheel. Of course, things didn't work out so well for them, so maybe they forgot to plug theirs in or something.

"You can't just walk in here without an appointment. Cabal won't like it," says Cosima.

"We met at the Geistwalds' party."

"I know who you are and he still wouldn't like it."

"I don't like having to walk in here and I'll like having to walk out even less, so you can let him know I'm here or I will."

Cosima looks Brigitte up and down and goes back through the curtain. Brigitte and I follow.

The next room is similar to the one we just left, but the furniture is a lot more comfortable. Plush sofas, love seats, and pillows on the floor. At least a dozen people are passed out asleep around the room, some dressed and some not. They were really living it up. Wonder what they were celebrating?

Cabal comes out of a door that looks like it was looted from Lucifer's broom closet. He's wearing a stained floor-length black robe, a little like a cassock. He looks skinny out of his rags and is cleaner than he was at the Geistwalds', but he still smells like he uses sewage for aftershave. He's holding a half-empty wine bottle in one hand. Cabal smiles, showing big yellow teeth, and holds out his hand. He knows I don't want to shake it. I've met guys like this before. Everything is a test with them. Will I shake his hand? Do I get mad when he makes a dumb joke at my expense or weepy when he insults me? Alpha-male bullshit. But I can't get too mad. I've done it plenty myself. I take his hand and shake like we just bought Manhattan for some M amp;M's and a carton of Luckies.

Cabal waves us back into the other room and away from his snoring guests. He stumbles and sways trying to step over them and almost dumps his wine on a naked kid sleeping in golf shoes.

Cabal waves us over to the big table and drops down into the head seat. Brigitte and I sit next to each other. He offers us the bottle.

Brigitte puts up a hand and I shake my head.

"To what do I owe the honor of such an unexpected, but charming visit?"

"I wanted to ask you something."

"Goodie. I love twenty questions."

"You can drop the drunk act. If you were drunk, I could smell it in your sweat. All you did was take a hit off the bottle and swish it around your mouth so your breath would smell of wine."

He gives me a wink.

"Clever boy. Cuts right to it, doesn't be? We can't put anything past this one, can we, young lady? I didn't catch your name."

"Brigitte Bardo."

"Of course. Ritchie's darling. Forgive me, my dear. I only know you from your work and I didn't recognize you without a cock or two in your mouth. It's lovely to finally meet you in the flesh."

"And you."

"If you don't mind me inquiring, do you have just the tiniest bit of Gypsy blood in you?"

"I don't mind you asking. And yes, I do."

"I thought so. You people play some glorious music. Of course, you weren't so appreciated where I'm from. Most likely it was all the stealing."

"If there's anything missing after our visit, send a bill to Simon's and I'll have it taken care of."

He laughs and takes a swig from the bottle.

"Love your Nazi curtain," I say.

Cabal turns in his chair and looks at the Black Sun like he's never seen it before.

"Oh, that. One has to keep up appearances. Clients expect a bit of the scary-scary when they call on me."

"Is that why you have a slaughtered village hanging on your wall?"

He moves his eyes to look at the tapestry.

"Sadly, no. That's more of a family portrait. We're not the ones on horseback but the ones on fire."

He has a pretty strong magic barrier set up around his thoughts, so I can't tell if that's a sad damned story or a pretty effective lie.

"I wanted to talk to you about Drifters."

Cabal shakes his head.

"It breaks my heart to disappoint you, but the resurrected are not within the purview of my business dealings. I toil in the more prosaic fields of demons and elementals."

"But you've used them, haven't you? Maybe you don't use them on a regular basis, but how about in some kind of rent-to-own deal?"

He shrugs.

"As I said, one has to keep up appearances. When a competitor or social upstart oversteps the clearly demarcated boundaries of my sphere of influence, they must and will be dealt with swiftly and in as decisive a manner as it takes so that they might serve as an object lesson to others with similar rash inclinations."

"So, you have used Drifters against your enemies."

"Once or twice. I won't deny it."

"When was the last time?"

"I can't recall with any great clarity. One gets old. Many of the things that were so crystalline clear in one's youth become misty and difficult to plumb from the depths in our later years. Though I work hard to keep up appearances, I'm afraid I'm not the man I once was."

Brigitte says, "In my experience, that's what men say when they're exactly the man they used to be, but hope to deny it with age and excuse it with youth."

Cabal claps his hands in light, quick applause.

"Well said, young lady. You've ensnared me in a petite prevarication. Which, unhappily for you, doesn't alter the fact that I have not consorted with the resurrected, either deliberately or inadvertently, in many, many years."

I say, "It doesn't help Regina Maab that it was a long time ago. Eaten is eaten and dead is dead."

"Regina? What does she have to do with this?"

"Nothing, other than the fact that when she stepped on your toes you sent some Lacunas over with a jar of barbecue sauce and charcoal briquettes."

His eyes narrow and he sits up. All traces of the drunk act are gone.

"Listen to me closely, young man. That's not the kind of thing I'll tolerate being murmured about me, not by you or any other soul in this sunny burg. Regina and I had our differences, yes. And there came a moment when she required the administration of a lesson that she would remember on a molecular level. And yes, I vainly and foolishly employed a gaggle of resurrected in what you might term a professorial manner to deliver said lesson, but when Ms. Maab took leave of Los Angeles, she was most exceedingly and annoyingly alive."

"Why should I believe you when everyone else is positive you had her snuffed?"

He leans back in his chair and takes a box from his pocket, opens it, and pulls out what looks like a wriggling earthworm.

"Do you have a light?" he asks.

I reach for Mason's lighter and Cabal picks up the earthworm, running a grimy finger along the length of its body several times. The worm straightens and stiffens until it looks like a pink chopstick. I hold out the lighter and flick it. Cabal leans in, holds my wrist, and puts the worm's head into the flame. He puffs a few times and the worm catches, the end glowing cherry red. As Cabal smokes, he takes out a small black book and a pencil. He flips through the book, writes something down, and slides the piece of paper across the table to me.

"That is Regina's number in Mumbai. That's far away in a country called India. You might have heard of it. If you adjudge to ring her, please give the old girl my best."

I hand Brigitte the number and she looks it over. I let her hold on to it because her clothes probably don't get destroyed as often as mine.

"What kind of problem did you have with the Springheels?"

He looks genuinely puzzled by that. It caught him off guard and I can feel the edges of his mind sifting through old memories.

"None. They were like water buffalo shitting in the streets of Kathmandu. Like any lifelong resident of that fair city, they were something I neither noticed nor particularly cared about."

"They were an important family once."

"Virgin sacrifice and bloodletting were considered of the utmost importance once, but when they outlived their efficacy they were abandoned along with the other discarded refuse of an earlier, though in some ways more graceful, time."

"You old Sub Rosa families are pretty concerned about your place in the social pecking order. The Springheels were the first family in America. You didn't think that kind of history might overshadow you just a little?"

"The Springheels were a dusty diorama. A museum display illustrating Neanderthal man's first crude efforts to control fire and not shit themselves at every opportunity. The only reason the Springheel family still existed was as a concession to nostalgia and sentimentality. They might have begun their days well in this green and verdant land, but through shrewd planning and incandescent gamesmanship, they managed to metamorphose from ancient royalty into dirt-scrounging hillbillies. They threatened my house as much as this luminous worm."

He holds up his pink cigarette.

"What happened to them?"

"Time. The world. Charles Springheel, the one who repatriated the family to California, designed and constructed exquisite charms, protective objects, talismans, and the like. He was, at heart, a tinkerer. And a brilliant one, but sitting in your ivory tower fiddling with Lilliputian cogs and thingamabobs is no way to maintain one's standing in the world. Many of us purchased Charles's contraptions over the years, both to bolster the old boy's sense of purpose and to add a bit of lucre to the family's dwindling fortune. But there's only so much one can do. A fool determined to saunter off a cliff will find his way around even the most formidable barricades."

I'm learning to really hate Cabal. I don't want to believe the words coming out of his skull-white face, but after seeing the pathetic and maybe deliberate death scene at the Springheel house, I can't argue with what he's saying about the family.

"Since you're our resident demon expert, did Enoch Springheel ever ask you for advice on how to summon or control them?"

"Enoch seldom discoursed with anyone. Certainly not with me. The few times a year he would deign to appear at Sub Rosa soirees, he left the distinct impression of a man marooned in the Sahara of his own psyche."

"Who would we go to if we wanted to learn about Drifters or perhaps hire one?" Brigitte asks.

Cabal shakes his head.

"No one mucks about with the resurrected these days. Too dangerous. You'd be making yourself vulnerable to a veritable avalanche of peril, both from the families and our lovely local Inquisitor, Medea Bava."

"So, there aren't any Drifter experts in L.A.?"

"There are a number; however, by publicly acquiescing to such a dubious practice, they would be aiming a gun to their own precious skulls. To put it in blunt terms that you'll understand, they won't talk to you. I'm not so rude as to call myself an expert, but I have more than a passing knowledge of the resurrected. Is there something specific you wish to know?"

"Unless you know someone in town who runs with them, no."

Cabal drops the last few inches of the burning worm on the floor and crushes it out with his bare foot.

"I'm curious about the depth of your knowledge concerning our hungry friends. If I had a sense of your understanding, perhaps I could speed you along in your investigations."

"Out of the kindness of your heart?"

He smiles.

"To get you off my fucking back."

I look at his eyes. It doesn't look like he's lying. And he's genuinely interested in hearing what I'll say.

"Brigitte is the expert, but she'll talk longer and I'm in a rush, so here's what I know. There are Drifters and Lacunas. One is dumb as dirt and one is maybe as smart as a house-trained poodle. They bite and they won't stop until you rip out their spines."

Cabal looks at Brigitte. She clears her throat.

"I could recite a thousand years of lore and list the anatomical and biological differences of the species, but for the purposes of our mission, James is right."

Cabal kills off the wine and drops the bottle on the floor.

"I see that I can aid you children with your quest, after all. When I place this bauble of knowledge into your greedy hands, I'd be immoderately grateful if you would quietly exit the way you came and leave me to my guests."

"Deal."

"Most Sub Rosa don't have any greater understanding of revenants than you. They memorize a few salient facts and drop them into conversations at cocktail parties to make themselves sound more interesting than they really are. I know this because most people believe that the resurrected are a binary species, but the truth is they are tripartate. You mentioned golems or Drifters, as you call them, and Lacunas. They are a formidable pair but there is also a tertiary species known to those with a deeper knowledge as Saperes and to the man in the street as Savants. The peril with this particular resurrected is that you will often not perceive its true nature until it's eating your guts au gratin. Savants appear to be fully functional members of the brotherhood of man. They can chitchat, hold a job, dress themselves, and they possess, or seem to possess, the power of thought as clearly and intoxicatingly as you or I."

"So, a Savant is a Lacuna that can call for pizza delivery. I don't get it. Why are they so special that no one knows about them?"

"The first, most obvious reason, is panic. Admitting the existence of a strain of resurrected invisible to even adept Sub Rosa would have dire consequences. Human history is strewn with the corpses of those entangled in the panicked slaughter of mobs. This is especially true if the person or people perceived by the general population is different. Wouldn't you agree, little Gypsy?"

"Definitely."

"That was the obvious reason. What's the other?"

"Saperes are special because nature or God or some other entity has chosen to make them so. You see, at any one time there are exactly twenty-seven of them in the world. No more. No less. If one is destroyed, a new one appears somewhere else. It then becomes the burden of those of us, as you say, in the know, to find it. It's not unlike Buddhist monks searching for each new incarnation of a Lama subsequent to the death of the old one."

"Is that all?"

"You're one of those dark souls impossible to satisfy, aren't you?"

He wants to start an argument. I just smile and shrug.

"The number of Saperes appears deliberate. If you add two and seven, you get nine. Nine is a holy number. Three times three. The Trinity times the Trinity. I could go on, but you see the pattern."

"What does it mean?"

"I have no idea. No one does. And that's another reason Saperes are such a closely held secret. We haven't a clue as to how they befit the everyday workings of the world."

"How does knowing any of this help us find last night's Drifters or who's controlling them?"

"We care for Saperes by seeding them strategically around the globe. If one is destroyed in Sumatra, the others remain safe while we scour the globe for its replacement. The three most proximate Saperes are in New York and Mexico City. Can you guess the location of the third one?"

"In Los Angeles," says Brigitte.

"Bellissima. I assure you, the twenty-seven cities were not chosen willy-nilly. Each is a magical crossroads. Each is a power spot, Los Angeles being a distinctly active one."

"You think if we find the Savant, it can help us?"

"If it wants to."

"How can we make it want to?"

Cabal grins like a naughty little boy.

"Give it what it wants. What all the resurrected want."

"You're fucking joking."

"I'm not telling you to gut some hapless soul. Go to an abattoir. Go to a boucher. Their desire is simply for fresh flesh. Human is the preferred fare, of course, but pig is close enough to man-flesh."

"How do we find the Savant?" asks Brigitte.

"Call the number on the piece of paper I gave you."

"You said that was Regina in Mumbai."

"I lied."

"Where is Regina?"

"Well, she's certainly not chained up in my basement. That would be wrong of me. Still, Regina does tend to inspire the desire to lock her away somewhere deep and dark and full of more than an immoderate amount of spiders."

I look at Brigitte. She shakes her head. I look back at Cabal.

"If you're sending us into a trap, it's not going to work. And even if it does work, just because I'm dead doesn't mean I can't get to you."

"I'm exceedingly aware of your reputation, Sandman Slim. The phone number is true and leads to no trap that I know of. You'll want to call soon. If anyone can point you to true north, it's Johnny Thunders."

"The singer?"

"No. The zombie, you dunce. Johnny Thunders is your Savant."

He waves a tired hand in my direction. "Johnny's minders will explain."

If Cabal is lying, he deserves a teddy bear from the top shelf and the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. I've heard world-class whoppers and told a few of my own, but this guy is spinning sable from shit.

Or he's just let Brigitte and me in on one of the world's weirder secrets. If he's lying, it would be a fun excuse to come back and punch holes in Castle Grayskull. But if he's telling the truth, it would make life a lot easier.

"One more thing," says Cabal. "There's someone else you might chat with concerning the resurrected. Rainier Geistwald, Jan and Koralin's son. He's a clever boy, and while a genuine brat, his brains are more acute than he cares to let on. He'll be an important man one day."

Cabal stands up. This time he doesn't offer his hand.

"I could say it's been enchanting, but I've already told you one lie today. I couldn't bear it if you lost all faith in me. You know the way out. Feel free not to linger. Ta-ta."

He turns and disappears through the Sun wheel curtain without looking back.

Brigitte asks, "Do you think he is sending us to people who will try to kill us?"

"I don't know. What would be more fun for him? Killing us right away or watching us bump into things and skin our knees?"

"True. Would you like me to call the number?"

"Let me. It's my town. I should be the first one through closed doors."

"How chivalrous."

"That's French for stupid, isn't it? That's okay. If we have time, I'll give you a demonstration of naked jousting."

We leave through the Room and back to her car. She doesn't ask any questions this time. BACK IN FRONT of Max Overload, Brigitte leans over to kiss me, and this time I'm not shy about kissing her back. Cabal's act sucked the paranoid jitters right out of me. Sometimes annoyance will keep you going when booze and fear and hope are as dead as the Big Bopper.

Brigitte says, "I could come up for a while if you like."

"I would like, but you wouldn't like. I have a roommate."

She smiles.

"Does he like to watch?"

"He'd love it. But he's a kind of a spy and that means Lucifer would be watching us, too."

"What do I care? Lucifer probably has my calendar in his office in Hell."

"It would be awkward for me."

How do you tell someone you want to fuck that you can't do it in front of the devil because you don't want your dad spying on you?

"All right. I should probably be getting back anyway. But you owe me."

"Before I forget, my roommate loves you more than beer and cigarettes. Would you sign these for him?"

I hand her the DVDs. She smiles and takes a pen from the glove compartment.

"Who do I make it out to?"

"Aldous."

"What a lovely old name."

"I'll tell him you said that. It'll make his week."

"There's something for you under the seat."

I reach down and feel along the carpet until I touch a box. I pull it out and open it. Inside is a collapsed metal weapon.

"The gift that keeps on giving."

Brigitte hands me the DVDs.

"I want to go back to Springheel's house and look around soon. Want to come with me?"

"Is there a bedroom?"

"I didn't see one, but you can help me look."

"Then count me in."

She blows me a kiss, pops the clutch, and burns rubber back onto Hollywood Boulevard. KASABIAN IS GOING through online video catalogs when I get back. Death Rides a Horse is playing on the other monitor.

"Did you remember cigarettes?"

"We didn't get to a store. I bummed one off one of the kids working the register."

"Which one?"

"I have no idea. They all look alike to me."

I set the DVDs on his table.

"Don't say I never gave you nothing."

He grabs them in his little metal legs.

"You are my goddamn hero, man."

"One more thing off my bucket list."

The DVDs have him in a good mood and I don't want to spoil it yet. I'll wait to tell him that Wells fired me and either I start knocking over gas stations or we set up shop in the Dumpster next to the hand.

"How was your date?"

"It wasn't exactly a date. We talked to a guy who yammered like he was gangbanged by a thesaurus. It's all a big act, but he's had a lot of practice. I don't think I ever met a human before who could stretch 'pass the peas' into a hundred and fifty syllables. I once killed a Hellion who talked like that just to shut him up."

"When Brigitte dumps you, you might not want to include 'kills people who use big words' in your personal ad."

"What makes you think Brigitte's going to dump me?"

He cocks his head in my direction.

"Gee, I don't know. She dates billionaires and you live in an attic over a video store. She wants to get into big-time movies and you can get her free beer and tacos. You're a monster and she's a person. I can e-mail you a spreadsheet if you want to see the other five hundred reasons."

"She won't dump me."

"Why not?"

"She hasn't told me her real name and I haven't told her what the Room is."

He takes a beer from the fridge under his table and cracks it open.

"So, you're finally done mooning over Alice. About time."

Kasabian's beer flies across the room and hits the wall before I realize it was me who knocked it out of his hand.

"Do not ever fucking say her name. Not now, not ever, unless you want to go back in the closet. And while you're playing spy, tell Lucifer not to pull that shit with me either. People are after him and all I have to do is step out for a sandwich and let it happen."

Kasabian is staring at me, shit scared. A deer head in the headlights. He's quiet for what seems like a full minute.

He says, "I'm sorry, man. I overstepped."

I take the cigarette from where I'd stuck it behind my ear and light it. Take a couple of puffs. Kasabian is still staring at me. I go over and hold the filter end of the smoke out to him. He doesn't move for a second and then takes a tentative puff.

"Thanks."

"Yeah."

We finish it in silence.

I take beers from the fridge, give him one, and take the other to the bed.

Where did that slap come from? I haven't heard Alice's name out loud since I sent Mason Downtown. I'm trying not to think about her every time I close my eyes or make a decision. Not thinking about her is the same as getting over her, right?

"Tell me something. When you were doing Zombie 101 earlier, why didn't you tell me about Savants?" I ask.

"What's a Savant?"

I look at him. He's not lying.

"Just something I heard. It might be a wild-goose chase, but it might not. When you're in the Codex, keep your eyes open for Savant or Saperes."

"Sure. In the meantime, I think I know something that's going to make you feel better."

"What's that?"

"Whatever you said to Lucifer at the studio shot a bottle rocket up his ass. He's been sending me into the Codex all day. Looking at sections I didn't know were there. Digging through footnotes and diaries and commentaries. Some of the writing is old. Like beginning-of-time old. Some of it's written in an angelic script I bet even Mason never saw. I think it might be the first one. The original script. The first writing for the first language in the universe."

"Hallelujah. I'll buy the cherubs a lap dance when this is done. But right now, I'm up to my ass in little fortune-cookie facts and I don't know how any of them go together."

"Here's something. The big man had me do a brain dump on you and he saw the drawing you did of the belt-buckle thing. Know what happened?"

"He ordered one from QVC?"

"He freaked the fuck out. It was so strong I felt it. I mean, we're supposed to have a one-way communication system. I send and he receives. But when he saw that drawing, the blowback out of his brain went all the way up the line and back into me."

"So, what is it?"

"I don't know yet. The writing around the edges is more of that old angelic script. I can't read it yet, but I'll figure it out."

"Whatever it is, this means that Lucifer knows that I know about the belt buckle."

"Yeah, but I can block things from him. All he knows is that you saw the image. He doesn't know you really saw the thing or know where it is. If I were you, I'd move my ass and get it. Whatever it is, the buckle is strange enough to scare Lucifer and it's definitely connected to the zeds."

"Let me finish my beer."

"Of course. The end of the world can wait." NO, I GUESS it can't. I go through a shadow and into the boarded-up movie theater with the bottle in my hand, finishing the last dregs of the beer. The place is dead black when I get inside. The owners must have done a better job sealing the place up after the cops came by. I just hope they didn't clean it. I throw the bottle at the wall and wait for the crash. But there isn't one. Just a dull thud as it hits something soft. I get out Mason's lighter and spark it.

The beer suddenly tries to come back up my throat. It's not like wanting to puke. It's more like the beer is smarter than me and it wants to run away and leave my dumb ass where it's standing.

The bottle didn't smash because it didn't hit the wall. It didn't hit the wall because it hit a zed. Or a Lacuna. I can't really tell the difference, but this would be a good place to learn about them because there are about a hundred Drifters mobbed together maybe twenty feet away.

I lurch halfway back into the shadow when I realize that I don't have to. None of the shamblers are looking in my direction. Not even the one I hit with the bottle. They're just standing in a big circle among the seats. A few moan quietly, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with me. They're all looking down at the same spot on the floor. I think I know what they're looking at.

The gun and the na'at aren't going to do me much good in these close quarters and I don't want to use any hoodoo on the off chance it'll break the buckle's hypnotic hold on these meat sticks. What I really need is about a hundred pounds of C4, but I must have left it in my other coat. I get out the black blade. It'll be hard to use, but better than nothing. If the belt buckle is at the center of the mob, I'll have to put away the knife to get it. But until I'm sure, I'm staying ready to slice and dice.

I take a couple of steps closer to the mob. It's a mixed bunch. Some of the dead are very recent. They look like regular civilians who've missed a night or two of sleep. Others aren't much more than gristle and bones in decaying rags. A lot of the older ones are eyeless, so whatever brought them here must be pretty powerful hoodoo.

I'm right behind them now. I could touch the one in front of me without stretching my arm. He's wearing shorts and sandals and an orange "I'm Not as Think as You Drunk I Am" T-shirt.

I put the knife to the back of his neck. If he so much as twitches, I can take his head off and slice up the nearest ones enough so the others will trip on them when they come for me. But I don't have to do anything.

Slowly and steadily I shoulder my way between the stinking dead, inching toward the center of the room. I keep the knife up, but none of them have the slightest interest in me. They're all hypnotized by what's on the floor.

It feels like it takes a week to get to where they're all looking. And there it is, lying on an altar of broken glass and crushed Mickey's malt-liquor cans. Eleanor's belt buckle.

I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Eleanor. I should have known that the stunt in public with the flamethrower and the mad dash home to the theater weren't accidental. You wanted to get caught. You wanted someone to find you and whatever it was you'd stolen and kill you for it so Mommy and the rest of the Sub Rosa would know what you'd done and what happened to you. That's a lot of pain for a kid to be hauling around. It makes me not mind you frying my arm so much. I know what it's like to want to cook the world. I'm sorry I didn't figure it out sooner, but, for what it's worth, I'm here now, and if I don't end up a Quarter Pounder with cheese in the next few minutes, I'll take your buckle and do something with it. If I do end up eaten, well, I'll buy you a Happy Meal in Hell.

At the center of the crowd, the Drifters are so packed together I have to knock a zed on his face to squeeze through. I freeze, waiting for the crowd to lunge. But the zed on the floor just stands up and goes back to staring. I know they can smell me. I'm sweating like a three-legged racehorse, but even now when I'm about to pick up their holy grail, they ignore me.

I'm in too deep to back off now. I put the knife back in my jacket and hold the lighter close to the floor so I get the buckle without wasting time. Crouching, I touch the edge, ready to back off at the slightest reaction from the Drifters. Nothing. I get my hand around the buckle and slowly lift it a few inches, then a foot off the ground. Still no reaction. Either I was wrong about the buckle or Drifter brains are so slow to process information it'll take them a while to notice that the family jewels are gone. I hope it's the second one.

I slip the buckle into my coat pocket, but keep one hand under my coat. Slowly, I push my way through the Drifters back the way I came. They stay put, though the moaners are getting louder.

Without warning, they all step forward at once. They sense that the talisman is gone and want to get closer to where it was and soak up the residual hoodoo. There's a hundred or more of them trying to squeeze into a space about the size of a phone booth. I lean forward and put my shoulder into them. I have to use all my weight to move forward. I'm getting through, but the farther back I go, the more they press forward.

The mood is changing. The place was a church when I got here. Cool and contemplative. Getting the buckle wasn't much worse that pushing to the front of the stage at a hardcore club. Now the air is getting bad. Jittery with panic and confusion. I've been here before. I know what's coming. Time to de-ass the premises.

Fuck close quarters. I pull the.460 from its holster and pop a shoulder-level shot between two zeds I want to move. The blast knocks one off its feet and rips the other's arm loose, so it's hanging by a few strands of tendon. With just the loose limb in my way, I push past them without slowing down. I need out of here ASAP and get into a rhythm about it. Take a step. Blow open a porthole. Take a step. Fire. Step. Fire. It's working. I'm moving faster now. My only worry is slipping on corpse leakage or a severed arm.

Just as I'm about to step out of the circle, it tightens. Pins me where I am. I can't even raise my arm to shoot.

Then the mob relaxes. The magic in the center of the room is gone and they have no reason to crowd there anymore. I break free of them and head for a wall. It's taken me longer to get out than I counted on. Plenty of time for even these rotten brains to figure out that something is going on and look around for what. I have a bad feeling that if I turn around, a hundred pairs of dead eyes will be aimed straight at me and what's in my pocket.

"Who the fuck are you, motherfucker?"

I know it's stupid, but I can't help it. I turn and look.

So that's what a Lacuna looks like. Cabal was right. I wouldn't notice him in a crowd. He's in a double-breasted gray suit, and if it wasn't for all the dried blood on his jacket from the ragged bite mark in his neck, I wouldn't look at him twice. He's looking at me like a starving wolf. Like he's trying to read the theater marquee through my chest. Blank-eyed shamblers behind him are turning this way.

"I said, 'Who the fuck are you?'"

I take a step back and hold the lighter so he can see my face.

"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man."

He rushes and the mob follows; a tsunami of black, broken teeth and putrid meat crashes down on me.

But chatty and bright as the Lacuna is, he's still a dumb, dead piece of shit. When he rushes me, my back is already to the wall and I'm stepping through it. He's not going to make it in time. He's going to be the smartest deli slice in the slaughterhouse when those other hundred Drifters splatter him against the wall like a car crusher. Good thing he's dead or it might hurt. RITCHIE'S PLACE IS in Laurel Canyon. Back in the sixties, rich hippies, movie moguls, and famous bands lived up here. Between the dope, their biker friends, the Manson wannabes, and all the free love that was never really free, the place turned into The Killing Fields with a Jefferson Airplane sound track. Don't you want somebody to love? They were Khmer Rouge in designer jeans, and when the dope and the money ran out the canyons and deserts bloomed over the bodies they buried there.

I drive up the winding road to the address Brigitte gave me. I'm in a stolen Lexus because I want to be boring tonight. And I don't want to take Brigitte back through the Room if I can help it. Eventually she's going to ask questions I don't want to answer.

It's about 2 A.M. when I stop in front of Ritchie's gates. I can see the house at the end of a long circular drive. It looks like a claw machine in an arcade plucked an Italian villa off a hill in Rome and dropped it down in the middle of the manzanita and coyotes. The place is pretty, but looks ridiculous here. Like something you'd build to win a bar bet.

Brigitte is waiting for me in the shadow of a eucalyptus. She's holding her leather jacket tight around her to keep out the canyon cold. She should have something heavier, but when you're sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night like a teenybopper running off for backseat groping with your boyfriend, you can't exactly take the time to squeeze into Lancelot's armor.

She gives me a quick kiss when she gets in and immediately starts playing with the car heater.

"How does this work?"

"I have no idea. How is Ritchie not going to notice you're gone?"

"I put a powder in his drink. An old family mix and not at all harmful. He'd probably approve if he knew. It's all organic."

I take her down the hill the way we came, then head for Springheel's place. The heater is going and she starts to relax. She opens the glove compartment and pulls out the contents into her lap, like a kid going through her Halloween candy. I spot a pack of cigarettes.

"Score."

"Take them. I quit before coming to L.A. Rich men like their girls pure inside and out."

"Darlin', purity has nothing to do with why Ritchie went for you."

"You know what I mean. Trophy girlfriends have to make you look good in front of your friends. Here that means no smoking. The next place I go hunting, it will be somewhere like France or Japan. Somewhere they don't believe they'll live forever if they give up everything that gives them pleasure."

"Speaking of you hunting, I still don't know much of anything about you. You're like Van Helsing in drag, but you have a whole public life on video. How does your life go that way?"

"What don't you understand? The revenants or the pornography?"

"I understand the porn. Lots of Sub Rosa and Lurkers do it out here. But I've never met a professional Drifter exterminator before. How does that end up the family business?"

"The Hussites ate my grandmother."

"That was going to be my second guess. What are Hussites?"

"Protestants. They were angry over corruption in the Church and the Church rewarded them by burning their leader, Jan Hus, at the stake. My village didn't care. They were all fools to us. But the Hussites and the government went to war, and monsters, which love nothing more than chaos, came with them. One evening, a Hussite band came to our village. They took as much food as they could carry and some goats and left. We cursed them, but would have saved our curses if we had known what was to follow. More soldiers came, but these were different. They were ragged and stank of death. Some were little more than bones and none of them spoke. Grandmother was a carodejnice. A witch. She and the other old women, with nuns from a local convent, went together to drive off the ghost soldiers. They carried Bibles and my grandmother and the old women carried potions and magical objects. None of them ever returned."

"Damn."

"Two days later, a few of the women and the nuns returned, including Grandmother. But it was not really her. She was nude. The flesh from her breasts, her belly, and her legs had been eaten away. Most of her face was gone, but Grandfather recognized her and went to her. She gouged out his eyes and devoured him in the main room of our little house, under the crucifix her mother had given them at their wedding."

"You didn't have to kill them yourself, did you?"

"This happened six hundred years ago, so no, I didn't, but we still remember."

"So your people decided to go after the ghost soldiers."

"The bravest, boldest men went after them that night. They all were eaten or turned into revenants themselves. Other men were able to capture a few of the beasts and, over time, we learned how to destroy them. After that, my family were no longer farmers. We were killers. Like you. And like you, we do whatever we have to do to live and continue our work."

"You don't have to justify anything to me."

"I know. That's why I'll tell you this. Normal people, Simon's sort of people, wouldn't understand."

"You definitely win the deep-dark-secrets competition. I never hid anything that good."

"What about your magic? You must have kept that secret."

"I didn't know any better when I was a kid, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late."

"Poor Jimmy. Full of magic and happy to use it. Doomed to beat the boys at all their games and do tricks for the girls to make them kiss you."

"I didn't have a car. I had to do something."

"I'll light a candle for you."

"Don't waste the wax. They don't take my calls anymore."

I get Brigitte to hold the wheel while I tap out a cigarette, light up, and take a big puff. Instantly, I'm Doc Holliday trying to cough up a lung.

"God. They're menthols."

I toss the rest of the pack, including the one I'm smoking, out the window. I'm doing the Lexus owner a favor ditching those nerve-gas sticks. He'll whine when he realizes they're gone, but sometimes tough love is the only answer.

The street across from the vacant lot on East Sixth is empty. I kill the engine and the lights and we sit for a minute watching the place. In the moonlight the Springheels' hovel looks like a cardboard cutout left out in the rain. I don't see anyone standing guard.

Brigitte leans across me and looks out the window.

"That's the house of an important family?"

"The most important once upon a time."

"I think you Sub Rosa have a different sense of beauty than other people."

"You get used to it. Like herpes or a missing leg."

"I want to see inside."

"Not yet. I need to do something first."

I grab a bag from the backseat, get out of the Lexus, and go around to the passenger side. Brigitte watches as I dump a pile of powders, plants, and the piece of lead I use for certain kinds of circles.

"Lovely. I get to see magic?"

"You get to see magic. I hope these ingredients are still good. They're Kasabian's. My roomie's. He hasn't done this kind of hoodoo in a long time."

"What kind does he do?"

"He shits out of his neck."

Brigitte stares.

"I'll explain later."

There's a mortar and pestle in the bag. I pass them to Brigitte along with a bag of ingredients.

"Take these leaves and seeds and grind them up into a powder. I need to go be da Vinci."

I take the lead and draw a circle in the car's shadow so it will be hard to see if someone wanders by. The image isn't complicated. A pentagram facing north inside a double circle. Outside the circle I scribble words in Latin, Hebrew, and Hellion. Not a spell. More a friendly "hi and thanks for stopping by" kind of stuff. It's pretty random, but better hoodoo than it sounds. If you think it's easy saying anything in Hellion that doesn't come off as a veiled threat, you'd be wrong. I suck at milk-and-cookies magic, but I need to attract as much wildlife as possible without blowing it up.

"Your powder is ready. What kind of magic are we doing?"

"The Vigil will have left an alarm on the house. Probably angelic, and those detect conscious life. That's animals, insects, and us. Anything can go inside or be magically controlled to go inside. We can't turn the alarm off, but we can give it a migraine."

The powder goes into the center of the circle and I lean over it to whisper some bits of greeting magic I sort of halfway remember. Brigitte is smiling, trying not to laugh. I look like I'm whispering sweet nothings to a pile of dirt, not exactly the two-fisted hoodoo she was counting on.

When I get tired of cooing to the pavement, I dump powdered sulfur onto the pile and mix it all together with my hands. Get out Mason's lighter, spark it, and throw the mess up into the air as hard as I can. I touch the flame to the tail end of the cloud and the sulfur catches, igniting a twenty-foot pillar of fire.

The fire is gone as quickly as it came, but by the time the last powder embers hit the ground, I can already hear what I was hoping for.

Around us and above us there's a rustling sound. The birds arrive first, settling into the vacant lot by the house, chirping, cawing, and pecking at the ground. Rats and mice swarm out of the sewers and warehouses, followed by insects. The crawlers cover the ground like a massive undulating carpet and the fliers drop from the sky like a black, glittering fist. Cats and dogs, the smartest animals of the bunch, so the hardest to convince, get there last. They head right for the house, circle it, mark the boards, and climb onto the roof. The birds and insects finally get the idea and head in that direction. As soon as they're moving, I grab Brigitte's hand and we start to run. The animals know we're coming. Yeah, they're dumb, but this is hoodoo and it would be a pretty shit spell if you ended up crushing all the wildlife you'd just called.

The bugs and mice and rats part like the Red Sea and Brigitte and I run through the field to the house. By the time we're there, the walls and roof are a solid mass of feathers, fur, and shiny carapaces. There's no way the alarm can read and separate this much life at once. I pull out the na'at as we go up the steps and slash the lock. The door swings open on its own. It's dark inside. Brigitte gets out her flashlight. I take her back to the kitchen and out through the missing porch. She gasps when she finds herself in the Springheels' sprawling California ranch house.

"This is beautiful."

"If you're Ronald Reagan, I guess."

"The idea of it, I mean. The beauty hidden within the rot."

"Sure. That's what I meant, too."

I find the lights as Brigitte wanders around the living room touching the furniture, then going to the big windows that open out over the desert.

"I'd like to see the desert."

"It's not hard to get to from L.A. Maybe I'll show you sometime."

"Maybe."

There's a big side table against the wall across from the windows. I go through all the drawers. I'm not looking for clues. I'm looking for the half pack of stale Marlboro Lights I find in the middle drawer. I take a long sniff and I'm in love.

"Junkie," says Brigitte.

"I'm not addicted. I just want to be able to inject these directly into my brain."

"We didn't come to the house so you can loot it, did we?"

"No. I did a demon reading where Springheel died. I just want to make sure I was right."

"Why wouldn't you be?"

"It was crowded and noisy. Good distractions if you want to keep someone from finding something."

"Why would you be invited and asked to examine something if you weren't supposed to find the truth?"

"I've been wondering about that. Maybe it was a test to see if a crime scene was covered up well enough. Maybe I'm being set up to be the fall guy if it wasn't demons back there."

"I have tools with me that will tell us if revenants were present."

We go to the room where Enoch Springheel was chewed up like human jerky. I keep an eye on Brigitte when I flip on the light. The Vigil tidied up a bit, but Springheel's sex magic altar is still there and the bloodstain on the floor is as wide as a king-size bed. Brigitte doesn't flinch. Her heart and breathing are rock steady. She's walked into a lot bigger messes than this. That means she's been telling the truth. Also it means that whatever we find, I won't have to babysit her.

"What sort of demons do this damage?"

"Eaters."

She nods.

"This wouldn't be the first time someone has confused demons and revenants. Or used one to cover up the other."

"It would be a first for me and it better be the last."

Brigitte sees Springheel's altar and heads right for it.

"These things are for very dark magic. Do what you are going to do. I want to watch."

"It's not hard, but it's messy. You might want to step back."

She goes and stands by the door. I get out a plastic bag of dry skin I scraped off Kasabian's Hand of Glory and use the black blade to cut my palm and let a few drops of blood fall into the bag. I squeeze the bag to work the blood into the skin, pour the mess into my hand, and then scatter it over the magic hexagon. I take the bottle of whiskey off Springheel's altar, get a mouthful, and spit it onto the Hand of Glory dust and wait. In a few seconds green and black smoke curls up from the floor like miniature prairie fires.

I look over at Brigitte and shrug. "I wasted your time. I was right. There were demons here."

Brigitte takes a glass vial about the size of a lipstick container from her pocket. She shakes it and says, "Turn off the light."

She throws the container as I hit the switch. The vial crashes somewhere on the other side of the room and something begins to glow. Pale blue spots glimmer on the floor like blood spatter. They're all over the hexagon and extend away into the dark room.

"What is that?"

"The essence left behind by a revenant."

"Demons and Drifters were both in here? Can you tell how long ago it was?"

Brigitte kneels beside the glowing pattern and smudges some onto her fingers.

"A few days. Less than a week. That's as close as I can judge."

"Same thing with the demon marks."

I flip the light on.

"I'd like to know which was here first and who came after."

"Does it matter? You have proof now that you were right," says Brigitte.

I take a shot of the smoke with my phone.

"But I was wrong, too. Demons fade to the immaterial world when they're not summoned, but if Drifters were in here, where are they?"

"They could have wandered out or been led away."

"What the hell is going on? None of this makes any damned sense."

"Let's discuss it somewhere else."

"Like where?"

"Somewhere more comfortable. We're done here, but Simon won't be up for hours. Take me home. I want to see where you live."

She reaches down and grabs my cock through my jeans, gets up on her toes, and kisses me. I lean down to her, slip my hand around her ass, and pull her into me.

I see Kasabian's beer bottle crashing into the wall and me yelling, "Don't say her name."

No. I'm not going to feel bad every time I touch another human being. I'm the one who's still alive on this rock. I won't apologize for wanting to feel like a person every now and then.

But this is pretty fucked up even for me, making out in the room where someone was ripped to pieces and eaten a few days ago. We're standing where his blood was pooled like black custard.

"I can't do this here."

"Are you sure you're the man who lived in Hell for all those years? You're awfully delicate sometimes."

"And you're pretty hard core. Does anything get to you?"

"Not this. I was helping my father hunt when I was seven. I've seen bodies in every state imaginable."

"Well, I've been the guy torn up on the floor. I don't want to kiss you here. Let's get out. I'll get Kasabian some beer and smokes and he can spend the night in the closet."

I loop my arm around Brigitte's shoulder and steer her toward the door. We're just about clear when she stops.

"What?"

"I want to see something on the wall."

She swings the door half closed and doesn't move for a moment.

"This is a very old sigil. A revenant clan. People who took revenants into their families with dreams of immortality."

"Let me see."

I step around and there's the sigil. The writing is different, but the design looks a lot like Eleanor's belt buckle. But the paint job isn't right. Everything else in the room, as screwy as it might be, is put together well. The big, toothy monster face on the wall was spray-painted fast and sloppy, like a kid tagging his school at lunch.

"Are you sure?" I ask.

"Definitely."

I push the door closed to get a better look. When it shuts, there's a sharp metallic click. Brigitte gives me a funny look. A thin metal strand leads from the top of the door frame across the ceiling. A tripwire rigged to go off when the village idiot closed the door to look at the wall. This is why I hate working with other people. They see things. I don't look, so I don't set off traps. Curiosity didn't kill the cat. Other people did.

There's a grinding and the floor vibrates as a section of the far wall slides away. Fluorescent lights blink on in the deep black. It's just a basement. Springheel's secret room. The walls look like they're carved out of solid rock. Someone's been working down there. A wall is open and fresh dirt and rocks are scattered on the floor.

I hold up my phone to get a shot of the room, but someone gets in the way and it's not Brigitte.

I don't have to look to know who. I can smell them.

Zeds pour out of the basement like army ants protecting their territory. There's just enough time to get out the na'at and collapse it to a couple of feet, leaving the thorns exposed so that when I swing it, it's like a morningstar.

I catch the first one on an upstroke, crushing its face and jamming its jaw up into the bones around its eyes. The second gets it on a downstroke. One of the barbs catches his skull just above his forehead, his head opens up, and everything inside spills out. After that, I don't notice individual blows anymore. I'm swinging the na'at like a street sweeper, trying to clear some room on the floor so that I can actually fight. With each swing, the na'at sends bone and meat flying.

"Get the door open," I tell Brigitte.

"It is."

There are just too many of them and more pour from the room. I could slash and smash all day and I'd end up right where I am.

I yell, "Get down!" and bark some Hellion arena hoodoo.

All the air in the room gets sucked into a central point above our heads, pulling the Drifters back with it. I knew it was coming, so I leaned the other way, and when the vacuum lets up, I drop to the floor. Brigitte is already down.

"Cover your eyes and hold your breath."

Above us, all the oxygen sucked up to the top of the room explodes. A fireball blows down from the ceiling, frying everything that's more than a couple of feet off the ground.

Even with my eyes closed, the flash leaves me seeing spots. The Drifters are a pile of crispy, twitching Manwich meat. I look around for Brigitte. She's on the floor where she dropped. She shoots me a sooty killer's smile. She never sees the little girl coming up behind her.

The girl looks like she's around five or six. She's in a long pink-and-yellow party dress and there's a wilted pink rose in her tangled hair. When Brigitte pushes herself up to her knees, she's just level with the princess's head.

I'm running, but I know I won't make it. The princess is too close. She opens wide and digs her rotten teeth into the back of Brigitte's neck like a dog trying to break a rat's spine. Brigitte falls and screams with the little girl on top of her.

I swing the na'at like a baseball bat. The princess rears up growling and the na'at slams into her mouth, snapping her head back and shearing it off at the upper jaw. The top of her head rolls away, but the rest of her hangs on to Brigitte. That doesn't work out so well for her. Brigitte braces her legs against the floor and slams her back into the wall, pinning the headless princess. She spins and pulls her CO2 gun, locks the kid's writhing body against the wall with her knee, and fires a bolt straight down into the baby Drifter's spine. Her back blows out and she stops moving.

That's the good news. The bad news is that more Drifters are stumbling out of the basement. Some trip over their friends' burned bodies. Some fall to their knees and gnaw on them. Some of the crispy critters on the floor start to move. Charred arms and legs pull away from the pile of scorched bodies and haul themselves across the floor like spiders. This is why fighting corpses sucks. They're too dumb to know when they've lost and dead enough not to care.

"She bit me."

It's Brigitte.

"She fucking bit me, James. She's killed me."

"We've got to get out of here."

I say it really reasonably, but Brigitte's mind has gone bye-bye. She wades into the Drifters, kicking and pistol-whipping the ones walking point. She catches others as they come out of the basement, blasting bolt after bolt into their heads. I let her blow up a few skulls figuring it'll calm her down, but the falling bodies just make her crazier, so I grab her shoulders and pull her to the door. She shoots until her gun is empty.

I get her as far as the living room before she faints. She's bleeding bad. There's a kind of shawl on the back of an old chair. I tear off a long section, wrap it around Brigitte's neck like a scarf, pick her up, and head for a shadow. But there's no door there. Just wall. Fucking Springheel must have put an antihoodoo cloak on the house. I carry her out through the kitchen.

Extra-crispy and original-recipe Drifters shamble from the back into the living room. Most of them get lost in the furniture and bounce around like pinballs, but some of the smart ones that can follow a straight line stumble after us. Eventually, the pinballs will bounce their way out of the front door, too. Nothing I can do about that now. I get Brigitte to the Lexus, put her in the passenger seat, and buckle her in. I get to the driver's side cursing Kinski for being gone. We could use you and your magic glass right now, you prick.

Maybe a dozen Drifters are wandering around the vacant lot and there are more behind them. This neighborhood is all warehouses and pretty deserted even in the middle of the day, but it won't take them long to wander into populated neighborhoods. Someone left them there like a land mine. It was going to go off sometime and I'm the asshole lucky enough to have set it off. How many more bombs did whoever spray-painted behind the door leave around the city?

Brigitte moans. I hit the gas and point the Lexus in the direction of Vidocq and Allegra's. I BEACH THE Lexus half on the curb outside the building, run to Brigitte's side, and pull her out. The streetlight casts a fat shadow on one wall. I step through and come out in the apartment.

I don't know what time it is. Probably three or four. All the lights are off. In my head, the room is still the same as when I left it eleven years ago, but it's not my place and Vidocq has changed everything. I want to put Brigitte down on the couch, but I keep stumbling over chairs and piles of books. Fuck it. I start kicking anything that makes noise.

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

A light comes on in the bedroom. Allegra wanders out in an extra-extra-large Max Overload T-shirt. Vidocq follows, tying his robe.

"What time is it? What's going on?" asks Allegra, rubbing her eyes.

Now that I can see, I carry Brigitte over to where they're standing.

"She's hurt and she's lost a lot of blood."

"Who is she? If she needs blood take her to an emergency room."

"She isn't hospital hurt. She's Kinski hurt, but he's gone, so you're Kinski tonight."

"What happened to her?"

"There was a metric assload of Drifters. One of them bit her."

"What the hell? What's a Drifter?"

"A High Plains Drifter."

Vidocq clears his throat.

"He means revenants. Zombies."

Allegra's forehead creases in a frown.

"There really are zombies? Why doesn't anyone tell me these things?"

"They're extremely rare. I've only seen an outbreak once in this country and it was put down quickly."

I say, "History later. A chunk of her neck is missing."

Allegra points past me.

"Put her on the kitchen counter."

She and Vidocq grab plates, utensils, and a cutting board and toss them on a nearby table. When there's a clean spot, I lay out Brigitte, facedown. Allegra pushes the hair back from Brigitte's wound. I put a kitchen towel under her so her face isn't right on the tile.

"Eugene, get the first-aid kit from the bathroom. And the pharaoh grubs."

He leaves. Allegra turns on a metal desk lamp she keeps there for reading cookbooks and potions. As she tentatively runs her fingers around the edges of Brigitte's wound, she holds the light by her face.

"Who is she? Is she from the store? I swear I've seen her somewhere."

"She's Brigitte Bardo. You two probably watched some of her movies together."

She pauses for a few seconds.

"Right. That's it." Her tone is slightly embarrassed. "What's she doing here?"

"She's in Lucifer's movie."

"Lucifer is making a porn movie?"

"She's a trained zombie hunter, but she stays dressed for that, so there's not that much money in it."

Allegra hands me the lamp, goes to the sink, and washes her hands. By the time she's finished, Vidocq is back with a canopic jar and a small white metal case stamped with a red cross. She opens a plastic bottle of Betadine and squirts it all over the wound, then takes a couple of big gauze pads from the first-aid kit and gently cleans it out. When she's done she presses her ear to Brigitte's back.

"It looks like the bleeding has stopped, but you're right. By her color and heartbeat she's lost a lot of blood. I can give her a general healing potion for the wound and a restorative for the blood loss."

"She was bitten by a damned zombie. How about something for that?"

Allegra ignores me. She takes the lid off the canopic jar and I get hit with a smell that reminds me of the Drifters at Springheel's. She upends the jar and a pile of fat, wriggling worms falls out. Each one is the size of my thumb.

"What are those?"

"Pharaoh grubs. They're like maggots. They eat dead skin and leave clean, healthy tissue and they're about ten times faster about it than maggots."

Allegra puts several of the grubs on Brigitte's wound. They go right for her discolored flesh. Vidocq puts his hand on my arm and raises it so I'm holding the lamp at a better angle for Allegra to work.

"Thank you, dear."

"Of course."

I look at Vidocq. Lit from below by the lamp, he looks old and tired.

"You've been around two hundred years, man. Tell me you know something to fix this."

"I do know something. But I know that what you want doesn't exist. There is no cure for the bite of a revenant."

"You have all these books. How do you know there isn't something you've missed?"

"I've read all these books many times and more besides. I've traveled the world hoping to cure my own involuntary immortality. I learned from magnificent alchemists, witches, and magicians. The few times the subject of revenants came up, all were in agreement. There is no cure. The best you can do is leave the afflicted in the Winter Garden."

"No way."

"Where's the Winter Garden?" asks Allegra.

I say, "It's not where. It's what. He wants to put Brigitte into a fucking coma. Like suspended animation in a science-fiction movie."

"It will stop the infection from consuming and killing her. It will halt her transformation."

Allegra picks up a couple of the grubs.

"How long can you keep her like that?" she asks.

"In theory, forever. It will give us time to look for other possibilities."

"You just said there weren't any possibilities," I say.

"There aren't. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't look."

"I don't like it."

"No one ever does, but there's nothing else to do. Unless you want to do nothing, wait for her transformation, and release her yourself."

As Allegra packs the wound with cotton, Brigitte opens her eyes. Allegra gently holds her shoulders so she doesn't try to get up.

"James?"

"Brigitte."

"Where are we?"

"With friends. You're all right. They'll fix you up."

"Bullshit. I've been bitten. Kill me, James. You can do it."

"No I can't."

"I would do it for you. Please. Do it before I change."

"No."

"How many people have you killed? I'm going to be much more of a monster than you soon. Kill one more. Please."

"Maybe. But not right now."

Brigitte closes her eyes. I look at Vidocq.

"Do it. Freeze her."

"Stark?"

It's Allegra. Her voice is odd.

"What?"

"You're bleeding."

I look at my hands. Both are bitten and scratched. There's a sliver of skin missing from my left palm. All the wounds are closed and scabbed.

"How 'bout that."

Vidocq says, "Jimmy, we must do it now. Both of you must go to the Garden."

"Look at her and look at me. Her skin's going blue. Her eyes are bloodshot. She's dying. Look at me. Do I look any different from when you saw me earlier?"

"No."

"I feel fine."

"For now," says Allegra. "What if you're wrong and you change later?"

"Then you have my permission to kill me. You've got to kill the central nervous system. You don't have the right tools, so the easiest thing for you would be to cut off my head and burn it and my body."

"That's what's easiest? Great."

Vidocq takes the lamp and shines it in my eyes. Checks my face.

"There might be a simple reason you aren't changing. The Cupbearer's elixir."

"You think it's keeping his body from changing?"

"It's possible. There are accounts of similar occurrences. During the Great Plague there are stories of people who drank the elixir for various ailments. These people survived while whole towns died around them. You might be all right."

Allegra goes to the shelves lined with potions and alchemical mixtures and brings a few bottles back to the counter. She looks at me and shakes her head. I don't know if it's because I won't let Vidocq put me to sleep, because I dropped a half-dead woman in her lap, or because who knows what the devil's kid is really up to?

"My offer still stands. If you think I've gone bad, take my head. But I'm not lying down for this right now. Someone told me that any spell cast can be broken and any spell broken can be put back together. Someone is making all this happen and I bet they can unmake it."

"What if you can't?" Allegra asks. "What if Brigitte is stuck like this forever?"

I look her in the eye.

"What would you want? Would you want to be Sleeping Beauty for the next thousand years until maybe perhaps pretty please someone figures out how to fix you or do you want to get it over with fast?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you think about it. You're a woman and about her age, so you think about it and tell me what you'd do."

"I don't want that responsibility."

"Too bad."

I head back to the wall I came through earlier.

"Allegra, I might need you to come with me later and play Kinski one more time, but just to look. Not cut anyone up."

"Whatever. Eugene and I will plant your friend in the Garden for now."

"Text me when she's under. And don't leave the apartment for anything. It's going to get dangerous outside. I'll talk to you later."

When I'm back on the street I dial Carlos.

"Hola Hula. You've got the Bamboo House of Dolls. Talk to me."

"Carlos, it's Stark. You need to listen to me."

"What's up, man? A buddy just brought me fresh sesos straight from the butchers. Swing by. You gringos don't know shit about food till you've had autentico street-style brain tacos."

"Shut up and listen. Something's happened. Close the bar. I don't know if things are going to completely melt down out here, but there's a real good chance."

"It's the fuckers from the other night, isn't it? Those dead motherfuckers."

"Yeah. There's a lot more of them and I don't know exactly how many. Until I do, stay off the streets. When you close, if any of your friends want to go home, let them. But once they've gone, lock up, barricade the place, and don't let them back in."

"Ay Dios mio."

"Yeah, pretty much." I COME OUT of a shadow by the anime section in Max Overload. It startles two kids pawing through the cutout bin where the used and extra discs get dumped for a couple of bucks each. They look at me, more surprised than scared. I grab a couple of handfuls of movies and give them to each kid.

"Take 'em and go home. Stay there and don't let anyone in. Things are going to get weird."

I walk them to the door so none of the counter people tries to stop them.

"We're closing early," I tell the closest kid working the registers. He's a pale pretty boy with a lopsided haircut that hangs over one eye. He's wearing a T-shirt that says THE GOVERNMENT KILLED TUPAC AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT. I've never seen him before.

"Let these people take the damned movies. Just get them out of here. Then you and the rest of the crew take off. You'll get paid for a full shift. If you're smart you'll go home. If you go somewhere make sure you know where all the exits are. Lock up on the way out."

He just looks at me.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I own the place."

He turns to the guy working the other register.

"Is he for real?"

The second kid glances at me.

"Yeah."

"Cool."

I head upstairs as guy two whispers to guy one. They don't know that my hearing is better than theirs.

"I told you about him. He's Mr. Kasabian's boyfriend. Did you see all those scars? They never leave upstairs. No one knows what they do up there all day, but there's always bloody, torn-up clothes in the trash."

When I'm upstairs I lock the door.

"The revenuers onto you selling moonshine?"

I drag the bedside table over and wedge it under the doorknob. Get my lead out of the top drawer and sketch shield circles on the door and table.

"What's going on, man?"

I open the closet that's Kasabian's bedroom.

"I know that running your board is most of the hoodoo you're into these days, but can you use anything else in here, like a weapon or some antispirit rune stones?"

"What are you talking about? What's going on?"

I sit on the bed, suddenly tired.

"We were ambushed tonight by a load of Drifters. Brigitte got bit. I got her out and over to Vidocq's. But most of the Drifters got out in the streets. I don't know how many, but by morning there are going be a lot more. I'm going to be running around trying to take care of this, which means you're going to have to look out for yourself."

"Fuck me."

I'm hot and my head is throbbing. I toss the coat, the belt, and the gun on the bed and go to the bathroom. Half my face is smeared with soot from the barbecued zeds. I run water in the sink and wash my face. Drying off, I remember the wounds on my hand. I get an Ace bandage from the medicine cabinet and wrap it up. I don't really need to. The cuts are all scabbed over, but I learned a long time ago that hand wounds and scabby knuckles tend to make people nervous. Since it's vaguely flesh-colored, an Ace can keep people from noticing. And it isn't as much trouble as throwing a glamour on the hand and trying to keep it there when you're punching people in the brain.

"What are you doing in there? Talk to me."

I bring a big bottle of Pepto with me and go back to the bed and down half of the pink sludge right away. Then I stretch out and drop the bottle on the floor because I moved the goddamn night table to the door. Rolling over to pick up the bottle, I get dizzy.

"What's that on your hand?"

Kasabian might be dumb, but he's not stupid.

"Oh shit. You got bit, too."

"I'm fine."

"I've got to get out of here."

"Where? You going to call a cab to take you to LAX? Maybe the airline will give you a discount because you can fit in the overhead compartment."

He looks at me.

"That's cold, man. And for your fucking information, I'm going into the closet. You think I haven't been waiting for you to flip out this whole six months, you crazy drunk motherfucker? I've been scratching spells in the walls. And I've been online loading up on protection charms whenever I ordered videos. I'm Fort Knox, man. I'm the goddamn Death Star."

He looks at me. I nod.

"Actually, that's a pretty smart idea. Go and lock yourself in. You have a phone in there?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Stay in there until I give you the all clear."

"What if you don't come back?"

"I'll get Allegra or Vidocq to come and get you if anything happens to me."

"Do they even know about me?"

"Sort of. No."

"Great."

"Don't worry about it. Nothing is going to happen to me. I'm not human, remember?"

"Part of you is."

"Not enough to matter. And all it means is I have a migraine. You don't look any more appetizing to me now than when I first met you."

"You've always been my dream date, too, Penelope. Just stay over there on the bed, dead man."

"Do you remember where I hid the belt buckle?"

Kasabian rolls his eyes.

"You really are in good shape. It's under the mattress at the foot of the bed."

I move the mattress and pull it out. Toss it onto my coat. I don't know what to do with it, but I want it nearby.

"Did you ever figure out what the writing on this thing was?"

"A little. Lucifer can read it and I used the bits and pieces I grabbed out of his head to find more stuff like it."

"What does it say?"

"It's a warning and a blocking curse. It's keeping something from getting in somewhere. But I don't know who or where."

"Drifters?"

"Or Jehovah's Witnesses. Or census takers. Or the Fuller Brush man."

"When you figure it out let me know."

"Sure."

I go to the nightstand and find some aspirin in the top drawer. I pour out four and sit there for a minute.

"Your JD is under the bed, in case you forgot."

I shake my head.

"I don't want that. You have any water in your fridge?"

"Oh shit. You really are dead."

"Do you have any water?"

"I have beer. That's kind of like water."

"No. That's kind of like beer."

I go back into the bathroom, dry-swallow the pills, and drink water out of my cupped hand.

"There. I'll be fine once those kick in."

"That's what Jeffrey Dahmer said when his doctor gave him Valium."

I find my phone and dial the number Cabal gave me.

"McQueen and Sons bail bonds. We can't come to the phone right now. Leave a number and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. If you already have a bond with us, don't even dream about leaving the jurisdiction. Have a nice day."

I go back to the bathroom and drink a little more water. Then I dial the number again. It goes straight to the message.

I go back to the other room and lie down.

"You're going to break the news to Lucifer about this shit," I say.

"Am I?"

"Yeah. I'm Dirty Harry. You're Paul Revere. It's called division of labor."

"It's called having a Martian's grasp of history."

"Just let him know."

"I mean, one of those people isn't even real."

"Of course they're real. I saw them on TV."

I dial the bail bondsman again and get the message. Fuck it. I need to close my eyes.

"I'm going to lie down and wait for a callback. You should go lock yourself up."

Kasabian does his bug thing, crawls down to the floor and over to the closet on his little legs. He stops by the door.

"Seriously, man, are you going to go cannibal crazy?"

I sit up.

"When I dropped Brigitte off, she was already turning. Do I look dead or hungry?"

"I don't want to have to break in a new roommate is all I'm saying."

"Don't open the door for anyone but me. The secret word is 'swordfish.'"

He closes the door and I can hear him throw the lock. He's never done that before. A TV comes on. I'm waiting to hear Lucha Libre or an old movie, but it sounds like the news.

I close my eyes and drift in the dark for a few minutes, letting the Pepto and pills have their way with me. I'm already feeling better, though my head still throbs behind my eyes. That will stop soon. I can tell.

I lied to Kasabian. I can feel myself dying inside, but just the Stark part. He flickers in and out of focus, like a strobe light losing power. The intervals of darkness get longer and longer. Soon the flashes will stop and Stark will be gone.

The phone rings. I ignore it.

Rest in peace, asshole. Maybe someone will miss you, but it won't be me.

The phone stops ringing, then starts up again a second later. I pick it up.

"What the hell is wrong with you, boy? Have you gone full time into the getting-people-fucked-up business? I swear, you could open a goddamn franchise."

I sit up and swing my feet onto the floor.

"Hi, doc. What do you want? I'm just a little busy."

Kinski says, "I'm an archangel, remember? The aether all of a sudden started smelling like blood and it was coming from your direction. Some girl of yours got hurt tonight, didn't she? And it wasn't Allegra."

"It's kind of late to be pulling out your little black bag right now, don't you think? You got secrets you want to keep, that's fine with me. I can respect that. But don't go calling me when you're road-tripping on the dark side of the moon getting all high-and-mighty. I thought you were one of the few people I could count on, but it turns out to be just one more reminder of how I should never trust an angel."

"Did it ever cross your mind that taking off in the dead of night and dragging Candy along was about the last thing I wanted to do? That it would take something pretty important for me to do anything like that?"

"Like what? You need to get your harp restrung?"

"Like someone trying to kill us. Me, mostly, but they seem fine with killing anyone in my vicinity."

"Is Candy all right?"

"We're both all right, but we've been lucky and that's not going to last forever."

He doesn't say anything for a minute. I never heard this kind of stress in his voice before. There's noise on the line behind him. Wind and rumbling. It sounds like he's calling from the side of a freeway.

"Exactly what happened?"

"We were out one night at a Thai joint we like and six masked heavies came in. They make like they want to rob the place, but I could read them and knew they were there for something else. They told the girl at the register to give them the money, but kept getting in her way. They told the customers not to move, but they kept tripping over them. The whole thing was an act to start a fight. When no one took the bait, they got real agitated and just started shooting up the place. These boys weren't thieves. They were a hit squad."

"How do you know that?"

"Street punks don't have Dragon's Breath rifles and quantum street sweepers. All around us people were burning up and gassing out into subatomic particles."

"Shit, that sounds like Vigil gear."

"Or Lucifer's. He has a whole stable of state-of-the-art friends. Though why they'd come after me after all these years, I can't say."

"I know you're Mr. Self-Control, but did Candy do anything to piss them off?"

"When the shooting started she went into full Jade mode and, no, it wasn't easy holding her back. She took down a couple of them before I could stop her. All I wanted was to get both of us out of there while we were still on our feet. The longer we were in there the more civilians were going to be collateral damage."

"Are you safe where you are?"

"We're safe for now because we keep moving. This is a throwaway cell, but I'm still not wild about talking even this long."

"Why did you call?"

"To tell you to get out of there. That city is about to be hit by the shit storm of the century. I can feel it. The dead have wandered out before and the Sub Rosa have always taken care of them, but this feels different. I don't know that they can cork the bottle this time."

"How is it different? What do you know?"

"This isn't going to be a few zeds and Lacunas wandering out of some abandoned mine shaft. This is going to be big. I never felt anything like it before. It's a damn sight too big for you to handle by yourself and don't tell me you're not going to try 'cause that's exactly the kind of thing you do."

"Thanks for the warning, but I have things to do here. There's that hurt girl, remember?"

"Dammit, boy. This isn't the time to be bullheaded. I'm telling you to get Eugene and Allegra and get out of L.A. Bring the other girl along if you need to."

"I'll tell them what you said, but I'm going to stick around."

"You saved the city once already. You don't have to make a habit of it at the expense of dying."

"Trust me, I know. But I'm staying anyway. See, I was bumming a smoke off a zed tonight and got bitten."

There's a long silence this time.

"That when the girl got hurt?"

"Yeah. Her name is Brigitte. She got bitten, too. Vidocq's planted her in the Winter Garden. I got the feeling it wasn't safe to be dragging her around in that condition."

"Okay, but getting bit doesn't necessarily mean anything for someone like you," he says. He says it quietly. I can barely hear him over the noise on the line.

"I was just explaining that to someone. But the truth is I don't want to risk it. And even if nephilim don't start seeing everyone as finger food, I'm feeling sick and not very good company right now. It'll be better for everyone if I stay."

"Maybe Candy and me ought to come back."

"Yeah, the two of you getting shot will fix everything."

"I'm not going to just leave you there."

"Stay the hell out of L.A., doc. This isn't your town anymore. It's mine and I'll burn it to the ground if I have to. You take care of yourself and Candy. Thanks for calling and thanks for the offer. Tell Candy hi for me."

I hang up before he can say something else stupid about coming back. I'm not afraid. I should be, but my head is a little funny, so I'm not.

My head is clear, not clear like before the drinking got out of hand. Clear for the first time in my life. I feel like a blind man who traded up for new and better eyes. The world has never looked like this before. Like deep, bottom-of-the-ocean fish. They're so far down there isn't any light and their skin is transparent. You can see the fish and through the fish at the same time. That's the way the world looks to me. I can see it, but see inside and through it, too. This is how the world looks to angels. Real, but only as real as the souls of the almost-dead waiting to be the completely dead. We're a world of ghosts to them. That's how angels can turn cities to salt and rivers to blood. To them, we're already 90% corpse and the part that's alive is made of glass. And glass is meant to break.

When Stark is gone the angel is all that will be left.

Check me out now, boys and girls. I am become Death. The destroyer of worlds.

I dial the bail bondsman again.

The line clicks.

"Yeah?"

It sounds like a woman's voice.

"Is this McQueen and Sons?"

"Is this the guy who calls over and over in the middle of the night and never does anything but breathe into my voice mail?"

"That was probably me."

"I don't recognize your number and caller ID says you're not dialing from lockup. What do you want?"

"I want to meet Johnny Thunders. Don't say no. I didn't remember your name at first, but I do now because it was on a matchbook I had in my pocket when I crawled out of Hell. We're connected somehow. You're going to get me an audience with Pope Johnny because if you don't this whole city is going to die and I guarantee that you're going to be among the first."

Someone else says something. McQueen and Sons puts her hand over the mouthpiece. More muffled talk. Then she's back again.

"Come to the office at nine-thirty. You know what to bring?"

"I know what to bring."

"Good. Don't cheap out on the jelly beans." I HIT ALLEGRA'S number and she picks up on the second ring.

"Sorry. Did I wake you up?"

"Hell no. With a friend like you, no one expects to sleep more than a few hours a night."

"Is Brigitte under yet?"

"Yeah. Eugene is watching her. Making sure the potion took and she's doing all right."

"Thanks."

"No problem. But you owe me a story about how you hooked up with Pussy Galore."

"Sure. Listen, I need to read someone's meter. Do you have an animascope?"

"A couple of different kinds. But I thought you were off chasing zombies. Why do you need the scope?"

"I'm meeting someone new and I need to know if he's dead or alive. If I have the scope, you don't need to come along. It'll be safer that way."

"Fuck that. You and Eugene are going to protect me to death. If you want the scope, I'm the one who's going to work it. That's the deal."

"Okay, but you have to tell Vidocq. And don't leave out the part where I said you could stay home."

"When should I expect you?"

"I'm supposed to meet the contact in Hollywood at nine-thirty this morning. I'll come by a few minutes before that."

"I'll be ready."

The Grand Central Market doesn't open until nine, which is still a few hours away. I lie back on the bed, close my eyes, and sink back down into the angelic dark. It already feels like home. The place I should have been my whole life. If I'd seen and felt like this when I was a kid, I wouldn't have grown into someone who let Mason play him for such a fool. I wouldn't have lost a third of my life in Hell. I wouldn't be living with a dead man in an attic and covered in scars. Normally, going over all the ways I've fucked up my life turns my brain to swamp gas and bleeds my vision red. I need a cigarette and a drink to keep my heart from gnawing its way out of my chest. But now my heart beats fine. I don't want a glass of the red stuff or a smoke. The world is a perfect white diamond. Transparent. The facets glowing with internally reflected light. And it takes just one tap in the right place to shatter the whole thing. I GET UP a few minutes before nine and walk through a shadow to come out in a corner of the Grand Central Market. I haven't seen the place since that day with Eleanor. It looks a lot nicer when it's not on fire.

I buy a Styrofoam cooler and dry ice at the liquor store where Eleanor torched herself. I have to stop at three different butcher stalls to make sure I have enough pig guts to bribe Johnny. At a Filipino market near the Hill Street entrance, I pick up pork blood to fill out the feast.

Of course, if I'd felt this way earlier and hadn't fucked up in just the right way so I landed exactly where I was at exactly the right time and place, I might never have met Alice. Without that, why would I be doing anything at all?

I pick up a couple of pound bags of jelly beans and step into another shadow.

And out into Allegra and Vidocq's living room.

They're sitting around the kitchen counter drinking coffee. Allegra is dressed, but there's something wrong with her proportions.

"Did you gain twenty pounds since I've been gone?"

"Ask him," she says, and nods at Vidocq.

"I simply want her to be well padded if your friend should try to make a snack of her."

"I'm wearing like three shirts, a sweater, and a coat."

I look at the Frenchman.

"You couldn't have just sprinkled her with holy water or shark repellent or whatever it is that scares off Drifters?"

"I did that, too. But spells can be broken. Potions counteracted. I would rather she didn't look so pretty for a while if it means she comes home."

Allegra smiles and leans across the counter to kiss him on the cheek.

"Where's Brigitte?"

"In the bedroom for now, until I can find a safe and more permanent place for her."

"Thanks."

"None are necessary."

"I'd invite you along, but it's dicey enough bringing one more person. I don't think this guy's handlers would go for two."

Vidocq waves off the comment.

"I should stay and watch your Sleeping Beauty anyway. And, as my dear has explained to me several times this morning, she needs to see and experience the kinds of things that I have experienced to become the alchemist she will someday be."

"Good answer," says Allegra.

"Are you ready to go?" I ask.

She stands and pats a nylon bike-messenger bag slung across her shoulder.

"Got the scope right here."

I hand her the bags of jelly beans.

"What are these for?"

"Tribute."

"What's in the cooler?"

"You'll see soon enough. Then you'll be sorry you asked."

She goes around the counter and gives Vidocq a real kiss. He looks at me.

"You will look after her the way you would Alice, correct?"

"I won't let anything happen to her."

"And you yourself. You're feeling all right?"

"I'm fine. You were right. The Cupbearer elixir is keeping me from changing one little bit."

"Excellent."

Allegra takes my arm. We step through a shadow on the wall and out onto Hollywood Boulevard. MCQUEEN AND SONS Bail Bonds is at the end of the block next to a used medical supply store. Prosthetic arms and legs are hung from a cord and propped up in the window like today's specials in the world's worst butcher shop.

A couple of LAPD cars blast by, lights flashing. Are they heading to grab some gangbangers or to check out the first reports of strange cannibal killings?

The bail bond office is a clone of all the dismal DMV offices and bus stations in the world. It's a wide single room with fluorescent lights and a white tile floor. Dented metal desks piled with papers that the last people who used the desk never bothered to file. There are message boards around the room covered in flyers for classes, cheap moving, and drug counselors who just have 800 numbers and a Web site. Everything else is calendars and wanted posters. If you shot time in the gut, this is where it would crawl off to die.

It looks like the place just opened. Someone in a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up sits at a desk at the far end of the room talking on the phone.

"Get him to give you the money or take his car, Billy. I know it's not legal, but so the hell what?"

I recognize the voice of the woman I talked to early this morning.

"The way to keep a parolee's attention is to threaten to call his PO or to show him that his testicles are soccer balls and you're David Beckham. Beckham. He's a Brit who kicks the holy hell out of things for a billion dollars a year. Look, just get the money he owes or don't bother coming back to the office."

She's wearing a white shirt, black Dickies, and a black tie she might have stolen off Joe Friday's corpse. Her upper body and shoulders are wide, like someone taught her to box when she was pretty young. She doesn't like us strangers in her office. She doesn't like anyone who isn't ready to turn over the title to their car or the deed to their house.

I use the cooler to push some papers out of the way and set it on her desk. Now she really likes me.

"You must be McQueen, but I don't see any sons."

She looks at me steadily.

"McQueen was my dad and he's dead. And there aren't any sons. Daddy was an optimist, but all he got was me."

"I know the feeling."

"I didn't say you could put that there," she says, pointing a pen at the cooler. "It'll leave a ring."

"Then we should get going."

She cranes her head around to look at Allegra, who's hanging a step behind me.

"I invited Bert. I don't remember inviting Ernie, too."

"She's my technical adviser. I don't know you and I don't know your Drifter boyfriend. She's here to confirm that he's what you and Cabal say he is."

She nods.

"Cabal sent you. No wonder my ass started burning the moment you walked in. That guy is one big rectal itch and so are his friends. Why should I let you see Johnny?"

"Haven't you heard? I'm Clark Kent and I'm here to save the world."

"It's not my job to take care of the world. I take care of Johnny."

"Introduce me and maybe I can help with that."

"We don't need your help."

The office is still the abandon-all-hope bunker I saw when I came in, but to my new angelic vision, it's an X-ray of shimmering, vibrating molecules. Everything is made of the same microscopic particles and they're almost weightless.

I turn and hand Allegra the cooler, turn back to McQueen and Sons, hook two fingers under the rim of the desk, and flip it into the air. It goes high enough to graze the ceiling tiles and lands upside down with a deep hollow metal thunk. A snow of bail forms follows it to the ground.

McQueen and Sons looks at me from her desk chair.

"I guess you really are the guy they said would be coming."

"Who said?"

"The rectal itch."

I nod and take the cooler back from Allegra.

McQueen says, "Sorry about the attitude, but you're not the first person to walk in here claiming he was Saint George, the angel Gabriel, or the devil himself and start asking questions."

"I thought Johnny was a secret."

"He's supposed to be. Hence, the attitude."

"I understand. If you want I'll put your desk back."

She shakes her head.

"Let Billy do it. It'll be his penance for the mortal sin of lameness."

"Hi. I'm Allegra."

We both turn.

I say, "McQueen and Sons, this is Allegra. She's an alchemist and my medical specialist."

Allegra frowns at me and turns to McQueen.

"If you don't tell him your regular name soon, I guarantee he's going to call you McQueen and Sons for the rest of all our lives."

"Tracy."

"Hi, Tracy," says Allegra.

Tracy focuses back on me.

"So, you're really that Sandman guy people talk about."

"I don't know. I don't talk to that many people."

"Did you really come all the way back from Hell for a woman?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Shit, man. I do it every day." TRACY LOCKS THE office and walks us around the corner to an apartment building a couple of blocks away. It's one of those peculiar L.A. complexes supported on a series of metal legs, with an open parking area underneath and the apartments above. It's like Hannibal Lecter hired an architect to design something guaranteed to turn into a human trash compactor in any quake higher than a 3.0.

She has a corner place on the top floor. It was probably the old owner or manager's place because it looks like someone knocked down a wall and made two small apartments into one decent-size one.

A small blond woman lets us in.

"That's him? I thought it was just going to be one person coming."

"It's okay, baby. The chick's a doctor and she brought the candy."

Tracy ushers us in and closes the door behind us.

"This is Fiona," she says, going over to the blonde. "Fiona, this is Stark and Allegra."

"Hi."

"Thanks for letting us in on such short notice," says Allegra.

Fiona gives her a nervous smile.

"It's just that Johnny doesn't get a lot of visitors and we know most of the people who come to see him."

"So, why are you here to see Johnny?" asks Tracy.

I say, "Because Johnny may be top of his class, but his friends cut school and they're hungry."

She stiffens.

"There's going to be an outbreak?" asks Tracy.

"There already is, but it's early. Maybe Johnny can help us stop it from getting out of control."

"We haven't heard anything about rogue zeds and we know some important Sub Rosas," says Fiona.

"People have been disappearing for weeks, but just one or two at a time. Last night was the first breakout of Drifters into the streets. If the Sub Rosa isn't being chatty about it, it's probably because someone in the Sub Rosa is behind it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Cabal is my guess. He's got the background, the family chip on his shoulder, and his public drunken crazy act has most of the other families scared. And they should be. Just because Cabal pretends like he might be crazy doesn't mean he's not."

Tracy gets a bottle of blue Mexican soda from the refrigerator, twists off the cap, and tosses it into the sink.

"If no one is talking about escaped zeds, how do you know about it?"

"Because I let them out. They bit a friend of mine and they escaped while I was getting her away."

"You let them out? So this is all your fault."

"They got out when I was trying to save a friend. Someone who came halfway around the world to stop exactly what's happening and save all your asses. You want to start working on whose fault it is those Drifters got out last night, how about finding out who put them there in the first place?"

"I suppose," says Tracy. "Where were they?"

"At the Springheels' place."

Tracy and Fiona exchange a look, but neither says anything.

I hold up the cooler.

"This is getting heavy. Think we could meet Johnny?"

Tracy sets the soda on the counter and gestures for us to follow her to a closed door at the far end of the apartment.

"Don't come in until I tell you to and don't say anything until I tell him who you are. Savants are kind of obsessive-compulsives. Don't take it personally if he ignores you for a while."

"Got it."

She opens the door and says, "Johnny?" like she's talking to a nervous six-year-old. "There are some friends here to see you. Can I let them in?"

I don't hear anything, but Tracy waves us in.

"Johnny, this is Allegra and Stark. They brought you some presents."

She nods at us to put the cooler and jelly beans on the floor near Johnny.

Johnny Thunders is hunched over a metal folding table wearing a magnifying visor on his smooth white head. He's studying something microscopic in his left hand while his right hovers above it with a delicate paintbrush. He's wearing black sweatpants and nothing else. He looks like an albino mantis about to strike. Johnny is beyond skinny. He's Auschwitz thin. You can count each of his ribs. Practically strike a match on them. But he doesn't look sick or weak, more like he's a separate breed of minimalist humans designed to take up as little physical space in the world as possible.

"Can you say hello, Johnny?"

"Just a minute," he mumbles.

His right hand moves almost imperceptibly. I'm not sure Allegra or Tracy saw it. I barely caught it and I can see down to the quarks in his fingernails.

Johnny holds his microscopic object at arm's length, studies it for a second, blows on it, and sets it down in a small upturned box lid. There are dozens of other flea-size objects in the lid. Apparently satisfied, Johnny turns and looks at us. He smiles and for a minute looks sort of human.

"Hi. I'm Johnny."

He stands and puts out his hand. It's reflexive. Something he's learned or remembers from another life. Allegra shakes and I follow. He holds on to my hand and looks at me, cocks his head like a dog listening for a strange sound.

"They brought you some goodies," says Tracy.

Johnny touches the cooler and bags of candy with his toes.

"Thanks."

"Glad to," I say. "Mind if we sit down?"

"Of course not."

Tracy gets us a couple of folding chairs from the closet.

Johnny crosses his long legs and waits for us to start. I heard that the dead are usually patient. What else do they have to do?

Allegra takes an old Polaroid camera out of her shoulder bag.

"Do you mind if I take your picture?"

Johnny smiles and sits up.

"Is this all right?" he asks.

"Perfect," says Allegra. She presses a button and the flash goes off. The camera's motor grinds and ejects the shot. Allegra takes the photo and rests it on her lap while it develops.

I ask, "Do you know about the other dead people in the city, Johnny?"

"Not really."

"Some got out into the streets last night. They're probably going to cause a lot of trouble."

"I'm sorry. But I don't know anything about them. I know I'm one of the twenty-seven, but I don't know much about other revenants."

It was a long shot that the smart ones might have a sense about or a psychic link to the dumb ones.

"What are the twenty-seven?"

"I don't know. It's my understanding that no one knows."

"Do you like being here? Do you ever want to get out of this room?"

"I like it here. Tracy and Fiona are wonderful and the people who come to visit are mostly very nice."

"Mostly, but not always. Who hasn't been nice? Cabal?"

Johnny shrugs.

"He tried to be nice, but I don't think it's in his nature. I think he's a very troubled person."

"Did Cabal want to take you out of here and away from Tracy and Fiona?"

"No. We just talked."

"About what?"

"I don't remember."

Is this how I'm going to end up if the Stark part of me dies off? Like a psych patient drooling on Thorazine. Or will I be something else? I'm already something else, I think. Not that that helps much. The stronger this angel vision gets, the deeper I can see inside things. But I still can't be sure if Johnny is a well-spoken Drifter or a P. T. Barnum scam.

Allegra leans over and hands me the photo. The anima-scope built into the camera can catch the life essence on film. Johnny's isn't there. The photo is a normal shot of a boring room except for the Johnny-shaped black hole in the middle. It's true, then. Johnny is as dead as corn dogs.

What would that camera show if I let Allegra shoot me?

"Did you ever bite anyone, Johnny? Did you ever kill anyone and turn them into something like you?"

"That's completely out of line," says Tracy.

Johnny raises a hand.

"It's all right. The truth is I don't know. I think I was dead for a long time before I woke up and became what I am now. I suppose I might have hurt some people back when I was a zed."

I didn't expect him to even know that word, much less use it.

"No one's taken you out of here recently? Even if it was just for a little while?"

"That I would remember. Why would I go? I have everything I want right here."

"Not free-range flesh. You like Tracy and Fiona and you'd never hurt them, but what about a stranger? What if someone took you out of here and let you loose on someone you didn't know?"

He looks at the floor. Crosses his legs and shifts in his seat like it's suddenly uncomfortable.

"I'm not sure," he says. "But as I said, I haven't left the apartment in a long time."

"Maybe it's time to take a break," says Tracy.

"Just one more thing. If a regular person like Tracy here got bitten by someone like you, or maybe a zed, is there some way to fix her?"

"You mean so she doesn't die and return?"

"Yes."

"No. There's nothing for that."

Tracy comes over and stands between Johnny and us.

"That's it for now. Let's let Johnny have his snack, and if he feels like it, he can answer a few more questions."

As Tracy talks, Johnny takes off the top of the cooler and looks inside. He goes to a dresser and takes a plastic sheet from the top and spreads it on the floor like a picnic blanket. He rips off the top of one of the bags of jelly beans and pours the candy into the pig guts and blood, stirring it with his fingers. He looks at us and grins.

"I have a bit of a sweet tooth."

"Let's go have some coffee and let Johnny eat," says Tracy, shooing us out of the room and closing the door.

"He likes to eat by himself. He knows his food bothers living people. It's his way of being polite."

"He's not what I expected. He's like a kid."

Fiona started the coffeemaker while we were in with Johnny. It smells good. She pours cups for all of us.

"He isn't always like this. None of the undead sleep, but they still have bodies and bodies need rest. Every few weeks, Johnny goes into a kind of fugue state. Sleepy. Vague. Uncommunicative. Like he's suddenly autistic. After a couple of days, he starts coming out of it. That's what he's doing now, so he's a little slower than usual."

"How's his memory?"

"Look, if you still think someone's been sneaking him out, you can forget it. Johnny's tagged with one of those house-arrest ankle bracelets. If he tried to leave here or if someone tried to take him, alarms would go off all over the place."

"Someone could disable it with tools or magic."

"Yeah, but they'd have to know about it. The bracelet isn't on his ankle. It's inside him. Sewed inside his stomach cavity."

Dammit. Cabal using Johnny as a blunt instrument was a nice neat package, but Johnny seems to be off the hook. Cabal, on the other hand, is still homecoming king to me. I just need to connect a few more dots.

Allegra pours cream and sugar into her coffee.

"How'd he get the name Johnny Thunders?"

Fiona smiles like a mother remembering her kid's first step.

"Johnny was in one of his fugues when they brought him here. I think moving when he was zoned out was hard on him. He ignored us and didn't talk for days. He just stared at the wall. We used to leave the TV or music on when we weren't in the room so he'd have company. Usually one of us was in the apartment, but this one night Tracy's car broke down and I had to go and pick her up. When we got back, Johnny was bouncing up and down singing along with the stereo. It was the Murder City Devils song 'Johnny Thunders.'"

I drink the coffee straight. It feels good to have coffee for its own sake and not to cure the night before.

"Why was he staring at his hands with a magnifier when we went in?"

Tracy says, "He wasn't staring. He was working. I said it before, Savants are obsessives. They do something really well and they do it over and over again. They'll do it forever, I guess."

She pours herself more coffee.

"Johnny likes words and he likes geology. He's transcribing the entire Oxford English Dictionary onto grains of sand. The last time I asked, he was up to 'farraginous.'"

I take my coffee, go back to Johnny's door, and open it. He's bent over the cooler on his knees, a fistful of pig guts in each hand. His mouth and chest are smeared with blood and half-dissolved jelly beans. Not exactly a yearbook photo, but I saw plenty worse Downtown. Hell, I did worse. When Johnny notices me he smiles.

"These are really good. Thanks."

"Before Tracy told me to bring the candy, I didn't even know Drifters could taste anything."

"That's what most people think. They bring smelly meat and old, clotted blood. That's zed food. This is better."

"You're welcome. Who comes to see you?"

He shrugs.

"A few Sub Rosas. I think they're important, but they're not very interesting. They always ask about what I remember. I tell them the same thing I told you. I don't remember anything before waking up, but I think they think if they keep asking, I'll remember and they'll win a prize or something."

"Even if you do remember, you don't have to tell them anything. They're your memories, not theirs."

He nods and shoves more pig into his mouth.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to finish my coffee and come back and talk a little more."

"Okay," he says through a full mouth.

I go back to the kitchen and Fiona pours more coffee.

Tracy stares at me.

"You must walk on goddamn water. Johnny never just talks to people like that, especially when he's eating."

"I get along pretty well with monsters."

"Johnny's not a monster," says Fiona in a tone that tells me I'm not getting any more of her coffee.

"Yeah, he is. Look out your window. Johnny's the worst nightmare most of those people will ever have."

"That's only because they don't know him."

"They don't want to know him. Or you. You feed the monster and hide his leftovers in the trash under the pizza boxes. Don't get me wrong. I like monsters. But to people who don't like them, people who help monsters are monsters, too."

"What are you getting at?" asks Tracy.

"How did you end up being Johnny's stepmoms?"

"Granddad was Sub Rosa, but Dad wasn't born with the gift and neither were any of us. After Granddad died, the family kind of went to shit. You heard about Enoch Springheel?"

"Yeah."

"He was a distant cousin. His part of the family used to look after Johnny. When there was just Enoch left, well, he couldn't take care of himself, much less a Savant. That's when we got him."

"I'm going to see if Johnny's finished," says Fiona, and goes to his room.

"A few of the big families kicked in and pay us to look after him," says Tracy. "They make like they're doing us a favor because all us Springheels are such losers. The truth is that none of them want Johnny around. For all their money and power, they're a bunch of pussies."

She looks over her shoulder.

"Don't tell Fi I said it like that."

"We'll keep your secret," says Allegra.

Tracy looks at my coat, then at me.

"Are you packing?"

"Always."

"Can I see?"

I take out the Smith amp; Wesson and hand it to her butt end first. She weighs the.460 in her hand.

"What are you planning on shooting with this?"

"You never know when Hannibal is going to come back with his elephants."

She hands me back the pistol.

"Years ago I was a cop. I'm glad I don't have to carry anymore."

"With Drifters loose, you might want to reconsider that. At least for the next few days."

She shrugs.

"I'll think about it."

Fiona comes back with a plastic trash bag filled with something wet.

"Johnny is finished and cleaned up. You can talk to him for a few more minutes, but then I think that's enough for today."

She means she wants us out of here, but she's too polite to say it.

We go back to Johnny's room and sit down. He looks a lot better than when we first came in. Alert and awake.

"I just want to ask you a couple more things and then we'll leave you alone."

"That's okay. I like talking to you."

"Tracy tells me that you used to live at the Springheels' house. I've been there, too. Did you ever go into the basement behind the wall?"

"All the time. Enoch liked us to play down there."

I seriously don't want to know anything about the games an autophagia freak would play with a zombie.

"Last night a group of Drifters came out of the basement. There was a big hole in one wall. It looked new and like it might have led to a tunnel. Do you know where it goes?"

"A lot of the old family houses were built over the caves in case they needed to run away. Of course, they don't use them anymore. Enoch didn't have much common sense, but even he wouldn't go down there. Live people never go into the Jackal's Backbone."

"Tell me about the Jackal's Backbone, Johnny."

"It's where the dead people live. It's where everybody lives."

"What do you mean 'everybody'?"

"Everybody who dies in Los Angeles goes into the Jackal's Backbone and stays there. Unless they find one of the tunnels that leads out or unless someone comes and gets them, like me. I guess it's pretty crowded down there these days."

A sick, cold feeling rises from my stomach.

"When you say 'everybody' do you mean all the people in the cemeteries? What about the people before that? Before the city was here. Are they there, too?"

"Everybody. The Jackal's Backbone has been around for a long time."

"What if someone wasn't buried? What if they were cremated and their ashes scattered in the ocean?"

He thinks about that for a minute.

"I don't know. I only remember a little of the caves from when I woke up and before they took me away. The rest I learned from people who come by to talk to me."

"Like Cabal."

"He knows a lot about them. He said there's someone else who knows even more and told him about the Backbone after he did something for them."

"Do you remember what he did?"

"No."

"If I wanted to go into the Jackal's Backbone, would you go with me? You could show me where you woke up."

"I don't remember it very well."

"Maybe you will if you go back."

"Maybe."

"Would you go with me?"

"Hey," says Tracy. "You can't ask him that."

Johnny says, "I don't think you should go into the Backbone. It doesn't seem right."

"I have to. Someone is using Drifters to kill people they don't like and now some are loose in the city. I have a feeling more are going to get loose. I need to understand why it's happening. And there's someone I need to look for and see if she's in the Backbone."

"You won't be able to find one person. There's about a million people there."

"I still have to try. Will you go with me?"

Tracy says, "Johnny, don't listen. You don't want to go out there where people will be afraid of you."

"No one will know I'm there if I go into the Backbone."

"You can't leave," says Tracy. "That's final."

She whips around at me and sticks a finger in my face.

"And you, asshole. I knew I shouldn't have let you in. Get out."

"Johnny is one of the twenty-seven. I think if he wants something, he should get it. Including going home."

"Get out."

"It's your choice, Johnny."

"You need to leave now."

I turn around. It's Fiona. She looks very determined. The.45 automatic in her hand is probably helping with that.

I turn to Tracy. "Let me guess. Your old cop gun, right?"

Tracy says, "It's a big bad world out there. A lady needs to know how to defend herself, doesn't she, Fi?"

"Herself and her loved ones. You two need to leave."

Allegra is frozen in her seat. I think it's been kind of a long day for her. I take her arm and pull her to her feet.

"Okay, we're going. You be careful with that."

Fiona cocks it.

"Go to hell."

Allegra tugs on my coat.

"Let's go."

We start for the door, Fiona behind us, an angry righteous mom defending her brood.

"Fi?"

It's Johnny calling.

"Yeah?"

Fiona pushes us the last few feet and throws the dead bolt to let us out.

"I think I want to go."

"No you don't, Johnny. It's dangerous and you can't trust these people."

"I think I want to go."

"Let's talk about it after they're gone."

"I don't think I want to talk about it. I want to go."

Fiona keeps the gun on us. She looks back at Johnny standing in the doorway to his room.

He says, "I want to go."

"You can't."

"Stark's right. I'm one of the special ones. Sometimes I get to say what I do."

She sighs and says, "Johnny, the twenty-seven thing is made up. It's a way to keep you smart ones together and controlled."

"I still want to go. We'll go tonight. It's too bright out now. It hurts my eyes. Come back tonight. When is it dark, Tracy?"

"It gets dark late, honey. And you want it real dark if you go out. Don't go out before eleven."

"Come back at eleven," says Johnny.

"I'll be here."

Johnny goes back into his room and for a second I think that Fiona might shoot us on principle. Finally she puts the gun on the kitchen counter. Tracy puts her arm around her.

"Get the fuck out," she says.

When we get outside, Allegra wants to run but I hold her back. Even with people, running makes you look like prey and we don't want to look like prey to an angry mom with a.45.

"Now you know some of the kinds of things Eugene and I have seen. What do you think?"

Allegra holds a hand over her mouth. I can feel her trembling under all the shirts and sweaters Vidocq made her wear. Get ready for the waterworks. Get ready for her to puke. This is when it always happens. People get away from danger, start to relax, and it all comes out at once.

"What do you think?"

She lowers her hand.

"That was the most awesome thing ever."

She grabs me and hugs me as hard as anyone ever has.

"Let's get home. I want to blow Eugene's mind."

We head back to the Boulevard. I scan the backs of stores and sides of apartment buildings for a decent shadow shielded from the street. The sun is so goddamn bright at this time of day it's bleaching the shadows to frail patches of gray. Those pale shadows are no good to get to the Room, but they're beautiful. I can see each burning photon and trace it all the way back to where it emerged from the sun.

We could call a cab to get home, but in the morning in this part of Hollywood we could wait an hour. I could steal a car, but that might be one colorful adventure too many for Allegra. I'd rather float home through the sewer on a raft made of medical waste than take the bus.

Fuck it. I turn back and forth looking for a likely car. That draws my attention away from the rest of the street until they're right on top of us.

I smell them from ten feet away, but am distracted enough to think it's restaurant trash that's gone ripe. I know what a complete fucking idiot I am when I hear Allegra give a little yelp.

There's two Lacunas. A man and a woman, if you can call them that. They're pretty obviously dead. Their skin looks like bruised sandpaper wrapped around fat and muscle. The male wears a camouflage baseball cap. The female wears wraparound shades. They both have knives and are holding them at Allegra's throat.

Even with it pressed right up to her carotid, I know I could get the knife away from one of them and pry its skull open with it before it could hurt her. But I'm not sure about two. Especially two somethings that feel no pain, are kind of dumb, and aren't afraid of ending up any more dead than they already are.

"You going to do something, tough guy? Save the day, cocksucker," says the female.

"No. I think I'm going to stand right here and admire the view."

"Good cocksucker. Smart cocksucker. First smart thing you've said in a week," says the male.

"Is that it? Did you come by to hurt my feelings or are muggers getting paid by the word these days?"

The female is next to Allegra, pinning one of her arms to her side while pressing the tip of her knife into her throat. The male holds Allegra from behind. He has his arm wrapped around her neck with the side of his blade ready to slice her jugular. He presses the knife harder against her neck.

"Watch your tone, cocksucker. One of us might twitch."

"It's nothing personal. I'm just trying to get the conversation rolling and find out what it is you walking garbage heaps want."

"We want you to go to Disney World," says the female.

"It's called Disneyland, you stupid cunt," says the male.

"No. There's another one. In Florida, I think."

"If you two want to go get a map, we can come back later," I say.

"Shut up," says the male. "You need to take a vacation. Stop everything you're doing and go away. Right now. This goddamn minute."

"I'm kind of booked up. How about Labor Day? We can all go to Hawaii together. Get a cabin on the beach and burn you two for firewood."

The female is jumpy. She really doesn't like not stabbing anyone. When I have to move, she'll go first.

"That's the wrong attitude. For you and her, but especially her. You don't want her to end up in pieces like the Fiddler, do you?"

"I don't know any fiddlers, but I've never been into blue-grass. Either of you ever listen to Skull Valley Sheep Kill? Now, that's music."

"He's too stupid to get it. Cut her," says the female.

I say, "No. Don't. Don't move at all. Stay exactly where you are."

I'm a little surprised and extremely relieved when they do it.

"Put down your knives. Let go of her and move away."

The Lacunas do that, too. I grab Allegra, pull her away, and push behind me.

"Throw your knives into the street."

They toss them.

I turn to Allegra.

"Are you okay?"

She steps up beside me.

"Fine. Who are they? And why are they just standing there?"

"Take a deep breath. Smell that? They're Lacunas, pitbull Drifters. And I think they're standing there for the same reason that Johnny said he'd come with me tonight. Because of this."

I take Eleanor's belt buckle out of my pocket and show it to her.

"What is that?"

"I have no idea, but it's honey to Drifters. They can't get enough of it and it seems to have some control over them."

"So, you didn't know they'd listen to you when you started calling them names?"

"After Johnny said yes so fast, I had a hunch."

"I'm pretty sure I hate you right now."

"But you're not positive. I can live with that."

Allegra goes to the gutter and retrieves the Lacunas' knives. She pockets the male's, but holds the female's, a black KA-BAR. She points the tip at the male.

"What did they mean I don't want to end up like the Fiddler?"

"It's a kind of hoodoo. Titus Eshu is a Fiddler and this maggot pile just told me that he's dead. Titus was looking for some lady's kid and he's been murdered for it. That's one more person fucked up by whatever this is."

"How did they know where we'd be?"

"Good question. You, Dark Phoenix, how did you know where we were?"

The female takes something the size of a matchbox from her pocket and hands it to me.

"What is it?" asks Allegra.

"It's a tracker. This is Vigil tech. It has to be."

I hold up my arms.

"Pat me down. See if there's anything on me."

Allegra stands behind me and runs her hands down my arms and sides and around my boots. She starts one leg, but stops.

"There's something on the bottom hem of your coat."

"Let me see it."

I feel a tug and she hands it to me.

It's the size of my thumbnail. A matte black beetle with six pincer legs. I check the screen on the matchbox the Lacuna gave me. The GPS map shows our exact location. Great. The Vigil is dealing in Drifters now. Are they running this show or just piggybacking on someone else's apocalypse, taking the opportunity to knock off people they don't like and make it look like someone else's fault?

"What are we going to do with them?" Allegra asks.

A garbage truck is moving our way. It looks like it's picking up commercial loads from stores and apartment buildings.

I tell the Drifters, "Come over here," then lead them to the parking lot attached to a self-storage place. There's a double-size commercial Dumpster hidden from the street by a low wood-slat fence.

"Open your mouth," I tell the male Lacuna.

He does. I toss the tracker down his throat.

"Shut your mouth and both of you get into the garbage."

I look at Allegra.

"Go back to the street. Let me know when the truck is close."

She knows I just want her away from here and she's happy to oblige. When she's out of sight I take out the na'at, twist it to expose its sharpest edge, raise it, and bring it down hard, splitting the male Lacuna from head to crotch, making sure to slice his spine in half. The two halves crumple onto the trash bags. Its blood has long since turned to dark sludge, so there's almost no spray from the cut.

I do the same thing to the female, and when both of their bodies are laid out in the garbage, I slice them in half at the waist. Smaller parts are easier to hide and harder to recognize if some citizen happens by. The barbs on the na'at are good for hooking trash bags. I stamp the Lacuna giblets down into the can and camouflage them by piling garbage on top.

Just in case they aren't dead, I lean over the Dumpster and say, "If you don't get crushed and make it to the dump site, you're going to stay wherever you fall. You're not going to bite or scratch anyone. Just lie there and wait for the crows to pick your bones clean."

Allegra and I go across the street to a real estate office. We check our phones. Look around. Check the wrist-watches neither of us owns and generally try to look like we're waiting for someone.

The truck rumbles to a stop across the street. Two bored, sunburned men hop off the back and wheel the Dumpster into place so that the truck's hydraulic lifts can upend it. When it's twenty feet up, the garbage slides into the big compactor. I think I catch a flash of the female Lacuna's legs, but no one else seems to notice. One of the men hits the button that activates the compactor. It grinds through its cycle, stops, and resets. The driver guns the engine and the truck moves on to the next pickup.

I'm sick of regular people who can't see what light is made of. I don't care what they think or what might give them bad dreams. I take Allegra's hand and pull her into a shadow in the real estate office doorway. An agent inside sees us coming and opens the door just as we disappear. AFTER I DROP Allegra back home, I wander the streets for a few hours. I can't go back to Max Overload. Kasabian's fear will leak through the door and give me a headache. Too bad. I'd like to see him. I'm definitely seeing beyond the normal spectrum. I might be able to see in the dark. The streets are made of light. People are the most interesting thing to watch. Their glow is different. Their light doesn't come from the particles of their physical form, but from silver-colored balls of plasma inside each of them. I think it's their souls. I'd like to see if Kasabian has one of those balls bouncing around behind his eyes. I'm careful to avoid mirrors and windows as I walk. I don't want to see my reflection and what might or might not be there.

I walk down to Wilshire and follow it all the way out to Sunset, where it skirts the hills leading up to the canyons and the strongholds of the old super rich.

I hit Lucifer's number on the cell. After a few rings it goes to voice mail.

"The Vigil is using Drifters. I just got braced by two of them. Stay inside and don't let anyone in. If you have to let someone in, make sure it's someone you know a hundred percent. I'll check in later."

If the city falls apart, will the elites be better or worse off in their hilltop mansions than the rest of us down here in the flats? The Drifters will clear us out first, but at least there are possible escape routes on the freeways and even the ocean. When the dead are through with us, they'll wander into the hills and the canyons will fill up with nouveaux Drifters. The civilians up there won't have anyplace to go. The mansions won't hold and the woods will be death traps. Once again the future has screwed us because we never got the jetpacks we were promised as kids.

I dial Kasabian. He won't answer when he sees it's me, but I leave a message about the Vigil and tell him to keep calling Lucifer until he gets through.

I circle back into Hollywood. Bamboo House of Dolls is closed, so I go to Donut Universe.

Someone is smoking in the parking lot. The part of me that isn't Stark smells the industrial processes that created the cigarette, the injected nicotine, the fog of carcinogens. The Stark part of me smells whiskey, music, and pretty girls. He'll be gone soon enough.

"What's fresh?" I ask the counter girl. Everyone on staff at Donut Universe wears springy antennae. Hers bob charmingly as she answers.

"The apple fritters and the bear claws just came out."

"I'll take a fritter and a black coffee."

As she gets my food I wonder if I should tell her what's coming. That she should turn off the lights and close early, but I know what she'd think. The concept of zombie hordes is something regular people have to experience to believe. Maybe she'll be one of the lucky ones who gets to see it from a distance and makes it home in one piece. Maybe I'll be ripping out her spine tomorrow. I hope she makes it home first. It would suck to be killed and reanimated while wearing corporate antennae. Though, it wouldn't be as bad as reanimating dressed like a crab or a taco because you were pimping a new restaurant when you died. There's a difference between a bad death and the universe stopping by to take a great big shit on you.

I pay her and sit in a booth by a window at the far end of the place where it's quiet. I sip my coffee and dial Lucifer again. No answer.

There are sirens in the distance. Cops and fire trucks. Three, then four plumes of black smoke curl into the sky south across the city. The aether twitches and twists, giving off a metallic smell of panic. If I hold my breath and sit very still, I can hear the Drifters moving underground. They sound like ants scratching at the packed dirt walls of their caves, digging out new tunnels, undermining the soil until they pull the whole city down into the Jackal's Backbone.

"Are you okay?"

I look around.

Antenna Girl is standing by the booth.

"What?"

"Are you okay? Do you know you've been sitting here for two hours and you haven't moved? I mean totally haven't moved."

I glance up at the clock over the counter. She's right. Two hours have passed. My coffee and fritter have long since gone cold.

"I got lost. I have a lot on my mind."

"I guess so. I've never seen anybody sit that still that long before. I couldn't decide if you were high or meditating."

I smile.

"Both. Neither. If I told you something unbelievable, would you listen without running away?"

"Okay."

"You hear those sirens? See that smoke? Something is going to happen. Maybe tonight. Maybe sooner. But something is going to happen and it's going to be bad. Go home. Lock the door and turn on the TV. Call your friends and tell them to do the same. Most of them won't listen, but some will and later you'll know you saved them."

She squints.

"Are you a cop?"

"Never."

She curls her lips in a smile.

"Maybe you're my guardian angel."

"Could be. Of course, not all angels are created equal."

"What does that mean?"

"There's those kinds of angels."

I point up.

"And those kinds of angels."

I point down.

She leans her hip against the table.

"Which kind are you?"

"I haven't decided yet. Probably neither. But please don't tell Dad I said that."

"Angels have daddy issues, too?"

You have no idea, Antenna Girl. The silver light inside her glows brightly.

I say, "You think I'm crazy. What else can you think? But being crazy doesn't automatically mean I'm wrong. Stay in tonight and be safe. What have you got to lose? It's one night. By tomorrow night, it'll be done one way or another."

"Are all angels as serious as you?"

"I'm sober and I think I just quit smoking. That'll depress anyone, even an angel."

"Please don't tell me you're vegan, too."

"Even God isn't vegan."

"That's a relief."

She looks at me. The wheels are turning in her head. I can almost hear her thoughts, but not quite.

"Okay, Johnny Angel. Maybe I'll order in Chinese tonight. How's that?"

"Or you could pick some up on the way home. Don't want to put the delivery guy in danger, right?"

"Fine. Go and tell Freddy I said to refill your coffee. The stuff you have is turning to paint varnish."

"Take care of yourself, Janet."

"How did you know my name is Janet?"

"You're still wearing your name tag."

She looks at her blouse. Unclips the tag.

"For a second I thought you were psychic."

"No. I just like donuts."

A helicopter shoots by overhead heading south toward the smoke.

Janet puts on the coat hanging over her arm, gives me a little wave, and leaves. I KNOCK ON the apartment door at exactly eleven.

Tracy opens it and lets me in without a word. Fiona is by the kitchen counter, standing conspicuously close to the gun she held on Allegra and me that morning. I walk over to her.

"I'm not staying long, so if you're going to use that, you might want to get started."

She shakes her head.

"Go to Hell."

She wants to stop me from taking Johnny. The Stark part of me understands her wanting to protect someone she cares about. The not-Stark knows how easy it would be to kill her and Tracy and how simple it would be to justify. What are their silly lives worth versus a whole city? But it won't come to that. They won't try to stop me. The resignation is in their eyes and body postures. Their breathing. It's hard for them. They're both brave and they want to be heroic, but they know they've already lost. Johnny said he wants to go and they know I can take him. The gun is just a gesture. More for their benefit than mine. It's something Stark would do. Use a prop and bluster to cover up for what he knows he can't do.

"I'm ready to go."

Johnny is standing by his door in clean sweats and sneakers. He has a wool skullcap pulled down almost to his eyebrows. He looks like an emo kid who went off his meds.

"You look good, Johnny. I'm glad you're coming."

"Me, too. I haven't seen the Backbone since they took me out."

"You remember the way?"

He laughs.

"I remember where Beverly Hills is. Do you have a car?"

"I can get us one."

"Great."

He turns to Fiona and Tracy.

"How do I look? Will I pass?"

"You look good, Johnny," Fiona says. "Stick close to Stark, especially if there are people around. And don't talk to anyone. If anything happens, you come right back here. Okay?"

Tracy looks at me.

"He hasn't been outside without us since he's been here. I don't know if he's ever been outside without one of his minders. You'll take care of him, right?"

"We're going to his territory, so he'll be fine. In between here and there I'll look after him."

Tracy gets close and whispers.

"As far as I know, Johnny's never seen one of his kind get put down. If you gut a zed in front of him, I don't know how he'll react."

"I don't think it'll come to that. I'm getting better at talking to Drifters."

"I hope so."

I try to ignore them as they say their sappy good-byes. I look out the window and listen to corpses digging L.A. out from under our feet. Maybe we've been lied to all these years. The San Andreas Fault doesn't exist. Maybe earthquakes are just the dead turning over in their sleep.

Johnny is next to me.

"Should we go?"

I nod.

"Sure."

He follows me outside. A moment later the door closes and someone throws the dead bolt. I take Johnny downstairs and boost a Hummer parked in the lot by McQueen and Sons. Normally, I hate these suburban G.I. Joe land barges, but tonight seems like a good night to be surrounded by three tons of metal.

"Where to?"

He gives me an address on West Pico at the edge of Beverly Hills. I pull out into traffic and head for the Jackal's Backbone. THE FIRES AREN'T just to the south anymore. They're spreading all over the city. LAPD chopper searchlights rip up the sky. I turn on the radio. It's exactly what you'd expect at the end of the world. Panicky chatter about mass murder. Something new and bad running wild in the streets. Is it a CIA experiment gone wrong-super crack seeded into "undesirable" neighborhoods-or a new strain of Book of Revelation rabies? The freeways are bumper-to-bumper. Nothing's moving. Just one big box-lunch buffet for flesh eaters. Cop cars and ambulances tear through the city like speed-freak banshees. I turn off the radio. People sprint through the traffic in ones and twos. Sometimes small groups. They aren't going anywhere. They're just running.

My cell rings. I know it's Kasabian or Lucifer, so I don't bother checking the ID.

"Where are you? Why aren't you home?" comes a harsh voice.

"Doc?"

"No. It's Jim Morrison's ghost," says Kinski. "Tell me you aren't running around in that goddamn madness out there."

"I'm not running around in the madness. I'm driving. Tell me you aren't in L.A."

"I could, but I'd be lying. Did you know there's a head living in your closet? And it's pretty pissed off."

"That's Kasabian. Be nice to him. He has a hard enough time just existing."

"He's doing fine. We were chatting about finding him a body so he doesn't have to crawl around this room forever."

"Where's Candy?"

"She's having a beer with the head. He's telling stories about you. He's a real cutup."

"Why are you in town, doc? I told you to stay away."

"Candy and I came back to drag your ass out of here. You can't stop what's coming. This isn't about zombies or the Vigil or Lucifer. It's about the city eating itself. This train's been coming for a long time and you don't want to be here when it crashes into the station."

"Thanks, doc, but a dead buddy and me are on our way to the Jackal's Backbone for drinks and a lap dance."

"Dammit. If you go in there you're never coming out. Do you understand that? You've been bit. You're already halfway to becoming one of them. Come back and we'll see what we can do for you."

"You're wrong and you're wrong. I'll come out of the Backbone and I'm going to stop whatever's going on because whoever's doing it has really pissed me off. You're wrong about the other thing, too. I'm not turning zed. I'm turning into you. Stark's going bye-bye. In another day or so, the angel part is all that's going to be left."

That shuts him up.

"Listen to me. You've got to stop whatever it is you think you're doing and come back here right now. We can fix this and put you back like you were."

"Why would I want that? Get Allegra and Vidocq out of town. If you can't take Brigitte or Kasabian, then hide them someplace safe."

He doesn't say anything.

"Doc?"

"Hi, Stark."

"Candy?"

"You need to come home. Kasabian and I are drinking all your beer."

"Just remember to empty his bucket every bottle or two."

"I've missed you."

"Hobbies are a good way to forget your troubles. I've heard needlepoint is relaxing."

"Doc says you're sick."

"No. I've been sick. Now I'm getting better. Soon I'll be perfect."

"Please come back."

"I can't. We're here."

I park across from the address Johnny gave me. We're in front of a ten-story office building shaped like a cake box sitting on top of a shoe box. The only interesting thing about the place is that it doesn't seem to have any windows.

I say, "Good-bye, Candy," and hang up. Good-bye to everyone. Been nice knowing you.

Johnny leans over and stares up at the building, as curious as I am.

"Do you have a way in?"

"You got us the car. I thought you could do it."

"You're more awake than this morning."

"Yes. Almost back to my old dead self. That snack you brought hit the spot."

"You have a sweet tooth."

"I have a sweet tooth."

I look the building over, wondering about the best way in. I've never tried to take a dead man through the Room and this doesn't seem like the right time to turn Einstein and run experiments.

"I guess you twenty-seven Drifters really are special. How did they put your soul back in when they made you a Savant?"

He shifts his gaze from the building to me.

"What do you mean?"

"I can see souls and you have one."

I point at the ball of light behind his ribs.

"How did they put it back in after you died?"

"No one put it back. It never went anywhere. I told you before. The dead live in the Jackal's Backbone. Everyone who's ever died in L.A. is down there."

"Right. I got that."

"If everyone is down there, where else would their souls be? What's the use of holding on to the bodies if you don't have the souls? The Backbone is here because L.A. is a power spot. We're here because it needs to be fed."

"It feeds on the souls."

"That's what I said."

"What happens to the souls when the city sucks them dry?"

He shrugs.

"They're gone. Poof. Dust in the wind."

"I'll get us inside."

I gun the Hummer, crank the wheel, and hit the gas. The Hummer blasts over the curb and up the stone stairs, and smashes through the glass front doors. Yeah, I just set off a shitload of alarms, but LAPD has more to do tonight than check out a B amp;E. Johnny gets out of the Hummer with his big kid grin plastered across his face.

"Cool."

"You lead the way from here."

We go through an atrium and paneled doors that look like they lead to business offices. But it's not offices on the other side. It's machinery. The interior of the building is hollow and it's full of generators and pipes. Huge fucking pipes that come out of the ground and twist around each other like Gigantor's intestines.

"Where the hell are we?"

Johnny's smile grows wider.

"In the pumping station. Right over the Backbone."

"What's it pump?"

"Oil. I looked it up. This is the largest station, but there's ninety-seven active wells in this field pumping almost a million barrels a year. One of them is right by the football field at Beverly Hills High School."

"I'll call my broker when we get back. Take me to where the dead people are."

"Sure."

He takes us down a couple of levels to the bottom of the place. The stairs and railings are splattered with dried blood. There are bones and shredded clothes on the catwalk above us.

The oil pumps must either be buried deep or soundproofed well. I can feel the machinery through the soles of my feet, but it's quieter on the bottom level. On the other hand, it smells a lot worse. Probably it's all the zombies.

It's like the shift change at Grand Central Dead Guy Terminal. Drifters wander in from every direction. They come out of offices and maintenance rooms. From behind machinery. Lacunas, a little more agile than your regular shamblers, climb up pipes dug deep into the ground. The Drifters shoulder their way up a ramp to a big room at the top. A loading dock. The steel doors are shredded and Drifters pour out into the streets.

None of them even look at Johnny. They don't rush over to rip me apart, but I get checked out every now and then. One stops. Bares its teeth and moans. I hold the belt buckle tighter and say, "Keep moving," and it does.

"That's a nice trick," says Johnny.

"Thanks. Later I'm going to make balloon animals. Let's keep moving."

"The fastest way is down the pipes."

"Is there another way? I like to see what I'm walking into so I can strategically run away if it looks too meat grinderish."

"Sure. You can see where I came out."

I get out the Smith amp; Wesson and follow him into what looks like the shift boss's office. There's a bank of video monitors and a lit-up layout of the place on the wall. A desk in the middle of the room is covered with papers stiff with dried blood. It must have come from the pile of bone and gristle on the floor. I guess we found the shift boss. It looks like he was following safety procedures and had his hard hat on when was eaten. Good news for the company. At least their insurance rates won't go up.

"Here," says Johnny.

He's by a filing cabinet that's been moved a couple of feet away from the wall. There's a hole in the floor. I stay where I am, waiting to see if anything decides to crawl out. When nothing appears, I go over and push the cabinet out of the way. Johnny politely stands aside and waits for me.

"No fucking way I'm going first. You walk point, Lazarus."

Johnny nods, bends over, and drops down into the hole. I don't want to follow, but I do it anyway. Brigitte needs whatever might be down there. And if Alice is here, well, I'll deal with that when and if I find her. But if she is here, it means that from here on out, everyone I have to kill is going to die at half speed so they remember it when they wake up in the Backbone.

There are no lights in the tunnel. It's dark enough that I shouldn't be able to see, but I can. Every swirling electron cloud around every atom of every object in the Backbone gives off a dim neon glow. And there's a hell of a lot of atoms down here. The walls are lit up like New Year's in Time Square. Even the Drifters are made of light. Ugly, smelly, decayed, dry-bone, flesh-hungry light. I hold the buckle and send out a general "be like the Red Sea and split" message and they move out of the way.

I haven't been a hundred percent sold on the whole "we're the magic twenty-seven" thing, but I'm becoming a believer. People pull the new Savants out of the Backbone and there's definitely been a lot of human traffic down through the place. The walls are covered with hoodoo symbols and bone murals. Not something these brain-dead maggot factories could pull off.

A series of leg-bone chandeliers runs the length of this tunnel. There are niches carved in the walls and lined with bones. Some niches hold skulls. Others have vases or burned-out candelabras. There's a huge bone crucifix at the first tunnel junction. The skeleton Jesus is Andre the Giant-size. He has to have been wired together from the bones of two or three bodies. Someone's attached articulated hand bones to skulls and suspended them around Jesus' head like graveyard cherubs.

Most of the Drifters are headed up and out, the opposite of where we're going. There are thousands of them. They fill the tunnels we're in and every other tunnel we pass. The only reason Johnny and I aren't crushed by all the bodies is that there's a lot more room down here than on the pumping-station floor.

Very few of the Drifters even notice us. I relax. Stark's fading away fast. I don't have to keep doing things the way he does. I holster the Smith amp; Wesson.

"I think they brought me up from down here," says Johnny, and starts down a set of stairs cut into the rock.

The steps lead to a metal catwalk bolted to a wall hundreds of feet over what looks like an underground Grand Canyon. Dozens of other catwalks extend below us and dot the far side of the cavern. How far does this place go down? How many people have died in L.A. altogether? Or died along the river before L.A. was a city, a town, or even orange groves? I never thought about it before seeing the Backbone. Tribal people and travelers have probably been dying here for thousands of years. It's a whole sister city of corpses and each one of them has a soul bouncing around inside its leathery hide. There have to be a lot of vacancies in Heaven and Hell. Apartment rents must be great.

Johnny steers us off the catwalk and into another tunnel. There's a strange sharp light ahead. It slices through the cavern's internal atomic glow like a laser beam and plays over the bodies of each passing Drifter. Something is holding and examining them. The outline gets clearer. It's a man wearing an insulated suit to hide his body heat from the shamblers. The sharp light is the infrared beam from a set of night-vision goggles.

I open my mouth to yell when something slams into me. All I see are teeth and nails clawing at my face. It's a Lacuna. Mr. Laser Eyes distracted me from the buckle and the Drifters long enough for one of the smart ones to get ambitious. I smack him against the stone wall with one of the hexes I practiced on Kasabian. It starts to get up, and without thinking about it, I pull the Smith amp; Wesson and blow its spine out its back with three quick shots.

Shit. I guess there's more Stark left inside than I thought.

I look for Mr. Laser Eyes, but he's hauling ass the other way. I grab Johnny and start running.

Laser Eyes has a decent lead on us, but my funny angel vision picks out wisps of his body heat leaking from around the edges of his suit. I keep hold of the buckle with one hand and Johnny with the other. He has a hard time keeping up. I don't think he's run anywhere in awhile, but like everything else tonight, he seems to be enjoying himself.

A couple of minutes later, we emerge into another cavern. Big, but not as big as the bottomless sinkhole I saw from the catwalk. It feels like we've run out of the Backbone completely.

The cavern looks like the back of a museum or the world's biggest junk shop. Johnny wants to stop and stare at things. I have to pull him behind me like a badly trained Chihuahua. We go through a slit canyon made of gargoyles on one side and temple dogs on the other and come around the edge of a stone labyrinth. I let go of Johnny and run for a familiar set of stone steps carved into the rock a hundred yards away.

When I'm in spitting distance of the steps I yell, "Muninn!" and the echo bounces for miles into the distance.

I wait and listen. A sound to my right, coming from behind shelves piled high with melting Mexican sugar skulls.

The little man peeks around the side. He's holding an impressive iron morningstar over his head.

"You planning on tenderizing some steaks? Are we going to have a barbecue?"

He lowers the weapon.

"Stark? What in the name of all the gods living and dead are you doing here? And how did you end up in the Backbone?"

Mr. Muninn is probably the oldest man in L.A. I hope he is. The guy talks about ice ages the way most people talk about lunch. He's a merchant to the stars and connoisseurs of esoterica. He can find you anything old, discarded, or forgotten and a few things from worlds I don't even want to know about.

"I was about to ask you the same thing. Why are you dressed like Diver Dan and giving Drifters physicals?"

Muninn likes silk bathrobes and dapper little suits. Right now he's dressed in a skintight rubber getup, like something a scuba diver would wear. On his round little body it makes him look like a boiled egg with legs.

Muninn shakes his head, tosses the night-vision gear and morningstar aside. He pulls a bottle and glasses from a shelf and pours a couple of glasses of wine. I go over and sit down across from him.

"You scared the devil out of me, young man. In all the centuries I've been looking after the dead, I've never encountered another living being. When you introduced yourself with a gun, I should have known it was you."

"You still haven't answered my question. What were you doing back there?"

Muninn unzips the top of his bodysuit and takes a gulp of wine.

"I was looking for specimens. You know I collect and preserve ephemera from the world outside of here. When I realized that the Backbone might empty completely, I went looking for a few interesting examples of these lost souls to keep for archival purposes."

"So what are you, like a caretaker for shamblers?"

"Something like that. The resurrected are technically dead, but still ensouled beings. Someone should look in on them every now and then, don't you think? Now let me ask you a question or two. How did you find your way into the Backbone and why would you go there? Oh, and there's the small matter of you not being eaten alive."

I sniff the wine. Stark wants to drink it, but not-Stark doesn't and is still annoyed about using the gun. The wine stays put.

"Johnny over there is how I got in."

I nod toward Johnny as he wanders to where we're sitting. He's having a good time looking around. He has a plastic Visible Man model kit in one hand and an old leather-bound dictionary in the other.

Muninn stares at him.

"Hello, my boy. You don't seem to be alive, but those are interesting choices you've made. You wouldn't happen to be a Sapere, would you?"

Johnny nods and grins, but doesn't talk. He's overwhelmed by Muninn's gewgaws.

"I've never really seen one up close before. Saperes, of course, leave the Backbone. They don't come in."

"Johnny's doing me a favor. I'm trying to learn everything I can about Drifters."

"Why?"

"Because someone is using them as a weapon. And one of them bit a friend of mine."

Muninn sets down his glass.

"Oh. I am sorry. Is she…?"

"Turned? No. Vidocq has her in the Winter Garden."

"That's the best thing for her, I'm sure."

I look at the table for a minute. My brain is churning with questions and answers that don't hook up and don't make any sense.

"Mr. Muninn, do you know what's happening in the Backbone or up in the city?"

"I'm afraid not. A few of the dead wander out every now and then, but never before in this number. How did you and your Sapere friend find each other?"

"Cabal Ash sent me to his minders."

"Ah, Cabal," Muninn says. He chuckles.

"What a charmer. He must be feeling generous these days. He paid off a sizable debt recently. It was very unlike him. My impression was that he'd fallen on some hard times."

"Did he say where he got the money?"

"It never occurred to me to ask. Do you think he has something to do with our migrating wildebeests?"

"Definitely. I was thinking that he'd released the Drifters to settle some old scores, but if he's suddenly rolling in cash, maybe he did it for someone else."

"Who would want that?"

"If I could figure out what they wanted, maybe I'd know who's doing it. Releasing all these dead fuckers in the tunnels will make it even harder to tell who had a hit out on them and who just didn't run fast enough. At first I thought this was a Sub Rosa feud that had gotten out of hand, but today I got mugged by a couple of Lacunas and I'm pretty sure the Golden Vigil sent them."

"That is a strange collaboration."

"What's this?" asks Johnny.

He holds up a sculpture that looks like a tarantula with wings.

"That's a spider deity worshipped by natives on a small island lying between Japan and Russia. They used to capture larger spiders, sew wings onto their backs, and toss them off cliffs so they could fly up to the great Spider Mother in the sky. The spiders, of course, didn't fly so much as plummet into the sea. They weren't a particularly bright people and disappeared along with their island in a volcanic mishap."

"Has anyone else who had a debt with you paid it off recently?"

"There was a strange one just the other day. Do you know Koralin and Jan Geistwald?"

"Sure."

"Their son, Rainier, purchased some potions from me a while back. Later, there was some talk that had me concerned about payment, but then he appeared out of nowhere and settled the entire debt with some very lovely Etruscan gold."

"What's so strange about that?"

Muninn finishes his wine and pours himself another glass.

"It's strange because what I'd heard was that the boy was dead."

"Are you sure?"

"Fairly. I'm certain I'd seen young Rainier in the Backbone with my own eyes."

Johnny is moving around behind us. Pawing through Muninn's shelves. Knocking things over and laughing at what he finds. Can you give Ritalin to a corpse?

"What was he buying?"

Muninn shrugs.

"An assortment of potions. A few rare plants and extracts. None of it particularly sinister. I got the impression that he wasn't buying them for himself since he didn't seem to know what any of the substances were for."

"I saw the Geistwald kid at his parents' party just a few nights ago. Are you sure it was him you saw in the Backbone?"

"As certain as anyone can be in the tunnels. The dead appear and disappear so quickly. But I'd met the boy before and I'm sure it was him."

"So, if the kid really is dead, then the Rainier who paid you is impersonating him. If he can fool you and the family, he must be using a pretty potent glamour. That's some tight hoodoo."

"Maybe not so tight as all that. Some of the potions I sold him, when combined with other more common ingredients, could be used to create a very powerful disguise, more powerful than your average young Sub Rosa could conjure up with simple spoken magic."

"I'm going to need to talk to him and Cabal. Making glamour for a con man sounds exactly like the kind of job Cabal would be good for. If he paid you off, he's done some work for someone and it sounds like the fake Rainier has some coin to spare."

Muninn laughs quietly to himself.

"You're becoming quite the gumshoe, aren't you? When Eugene first introduced you, I thought you'd only be good for walking through walls and punching people very hard, but here you are puzzling through clues like a champion. If we were drinking tea, we'd practically be Holmes and Watson."

"I feel like both these days. I had a kind of accident recently, and there's a couple of different me's punching it out in my head. Sometimes it's me and sometimes it's this better, stronger, smarter me, but even more pissed off and with a massive stick up its ass."

"And which one of you am I speaking to now?"

"I'm not always sure, but I'm pretty sure it's not the Stark me putting all these clues together because whenever it starts, I sort of go out for a mental cigarette and let not-Stark talk."

"Fascinating."

There's a loud crash behind us.

"Sorry," says Johnny.

"You know if you break the Holy Grail, you have to pay for it, right?"

"Don't be too hard on him. He's a lovely boy. Much more interesting than the tall, dark, silent types in the tunnels."

"What's driving me crazy is that none of this feels like any of it is getting me any closer to helping Brigitte."

Johnny asks, "Is she the one you said was bitten?"

"That's her."

"Why don't you just cure her?"

"There isn't a cure. You told me so yourself."

Johnny turns and gives me a puzzled look.

"Did I? Wow. I must have really been out of it."

"You're saying there's a cure for a zombie bite?"

"Sure. It's simple. It's my blood. Well, any Savant's blood."

"What do you do with it?"

Johnny drops a papier-mache devil's head he'd been holding and comes to the table.

"It's super easy. You just mix my blood with a little Spiritus Dei and goofer dust-graveyard dirt-and boil it over a fire made from white oak. Scoop off the clear liquid that floats to the top and inject it into her heart."

"Johnny, can I have some of your blood?"

He looks at Muninn and me.

"Sure. I'm not using it."

"I'll get you a jar," says Muninn, heading for the shelves. "I believe you have your own knife."

I get up and let Johnny have the chair. He examines the Visible Man model while I get out the black blade.

"You probably want to cut the femoral artery up here near the thigh."

He points to the Visible Man's upper leg.

"If I remember right, there's a lot of blood in there and the skin is easy to bite through, so it should be easy with a knife."

"Thanks, Johnny. I appreciate this."

"It's okay. You're fun."

Muninn comes back with a smooth pearlescent black flask with a gold stopper.

"That looks like it's worth more than the space program. Don't you have a regular bottle?"

Muninn shakes his head.

"The boy is right. You're a fun addition to our collapsing city. If it makes you feel better, consider the vessel a gift for poor sleeping Brigitte."

I kneel down by Johnny's leg and roll up his sweatpants. He's still studying the model.

"You ready?"

"Sure."

I lay the blade on his inner thigh and press. He doesn't react. I press harder until I break the skin. Still nothing. His surface nerve endings probably died off a long time ago. I shove the blade in until it hits bone, then slice down his thigh until the skin falls open. He doesn't flinch.

Johnny's blood is dark and thick, like black maple syrup. It isn't easy scooping it out, and getting it into the flask is just as hard. I have to sort of trowel it in. I don't want to rip into Johnny's leg too much. He still needs to be able to walk. It's slow going.

"Don't be shy," he says. "I don't know how much you'll need, so take a lot."

I scrape out his arteries and veins until the bottle is almost full. When I'm done I look at Muninn. I have no idea what to do with the dissected leg. Muninn hands me a roll of duct tape.

"Can you hold the skin closed for me?"

Johnny puts down the model and holds the two halves of his thigh together. I run tape around his leg from the crotch to just above his knee. When I'm done, he flexes and nods.

"Good as new."

I stopper the bottle and press it down, making sure it's tight.

"Mr. Muninn, I have a feeling that your handwriting is better than mine. Would you write down what Johnny said to do with the blood?"

"Certainly."

He gets a quill pen, purple ink, and an old Fillmore West flyer and scribbles the formula on the back.

I can barely think. There's something like relief rumbling in my gut, but I push it down. I can't deal with it until I see what happens with Johnny's magic juice. I didn't see Alice in the Backbone and that's both a disappointment and a relief. I don't know what I would have done if she'd been there. I'm not a hundred percent sure I could have survived that. There must be a lot more of Stark left in here than the angel wants to admit, because the guilt and fear and anger and hopelessness are squirming around my skull, making the few seconds of relief I felt earlier easy to ignore. I have to keep it together and keep thinking. I want to kill my way out of all this confusion, but that won't work this time. Going after Mason was simple. Chasing the Kissi was simple. I knew who they were and what they wanted. I'm lost at sea right now, but I have to see this through. Too many people I care about are locked in their apartments hoping they make it through the night. I don't want to lose any more friends. The Kissi killed a waitress at Donut Universe last New Year's to get my attention. I don't want any more dead donut girls on my conscience.

"There you are," says Muninn.

He takes the flask, holds the note against it, and wraps them together with silk ribbon.

He says, "Go and help your friend. And when you finally figure out what all this business is, your only debt will be to come back and tell me the whole story."

"It's a deal."

Johnny puts the Visible Man down.

"Keep it," says Muninn. "We can't send you home empty-handed."

"Thank you."

"Come on, Johnny. I have to get this to Brigitte and take you home."

"No thank you. I'd rather stay down here."

"You sure?"

He puts his hands in his lap and looks down at the floor.

"Yes. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I think I'm tired of being alive. I'll miss Tracy and Fiona and I'll never get to finish the dictionary, but I like it down here. It's quiet. I don't think I want to answer anyone's questions anymore. I want to smell the dirt and be in the dark for a while."

"You're welcome to stay here with me," Muninn says "You'll have access to all my toys and the Backbone is just a stroll away."

Johnny looks around the piles of junk that seem to stretch forever in every direction.

"Do you want to ask me things?"

"I've been down here for a long time and will be here for quite a bit longer. Life and death don't interest me terribly much."

Johnny nods.

"Okay. I'll stay."

He turns to me.

"Will you tell Fiona and Tracy that I'm sorry and that I'll miss them and to not worry about me?"

"Sure. Thanks again, Johnny. When I come back I'll bring you some jelly beans."

"That would be nice."

"Thanks, Muninn. If you don't hear from me in the next couple of days, look for me out in the Backbone."

There's a good shadow by the bottom of the stairs. I step through and leave behind the nicest dead guy I've ever known.

I COME OUT in the old apartment. Vidocq and Allegra are studying a pile of books.

"Jimmy, are you all right?" asks Vidocq. "Allegra told me about what happened with the revenants."

"I'm fine. Everything is fine. This is for both of you, but you in particular."

I hand Allegra the flask.

"You want to be a healer? Here's your chance to be a famous one. Follow the instructions on the paper and you'll be the only person alive who can cure a Drifter's bite."

Her eyes widen.

"What's in here? Where did you get it?"

"I've gotta go. We'll have lunch after the apocalypse. Have your people call my people."

I go back out the way I came in. I COME OUT on the corner in front of the building just to see what it's like in the street. It's not pretty.

I can see a couple dozen Drifters from where I'm standing to the next corner. Most are just doing the dead-guy shuffle, but a couple of dumb-ass civilians are belly-crawling behind parked cars. What is it with regular people? They don't seem to get the idea that extremely bad things can happen to them until they're on fire at the bottom of a ditch or handcuffed in the back of a cop van on their way to central lockup and their first night as a prison bride to a three-hundred-pound crack dealer.

Plus, they don't know how to do anything. These geniuses think they can scuttle along like crabs and not get spotted. A good belly crawl is slow and steady, moving like a tree sloth. Why? Because you're simultaneously moving and fucking hiding from the fucking enemy. Zeds might have kitty litter for brains, but I've seen them in action, and like all predators, they have a good sense of smell and their eyes pick up motion before they see anything else. The moron twins doing the dog paddle from the VW Bug to the Camry are sending out every prey signal in the book. Just ask the Lacuna who's spotted them and is scrambling over the Camry's hood.

Whoever owns the car keeps it in good shape. It must be waxed because the Lacuna is slip-sliding back and forth and lands right on his head between the cars. Even if he's clumsy, he's fast enough to run down a couple of panicky idiots.

When the civilians stand, the Lacuna finds his footing, which alerts the other Drifters, who move in on them. I pull the Smith amp; Wesson and turn the Lacuna's head into a pretty pink-and-bone-colored cloud, which gets everyone's attention.

"Run home, assholes. And don't go out again or I'll feed you to these shit sacks myself."

I don't have to tell them twice.

At this point, I could just use Eleanor's buckle to get the Drifters to lie down, crack each other's skulls, or square-dance. But I don't. I put away the gun, get out the na'at, and let them come at me.

I'm not too subtle, but I'm not too greedy either. I only gut a few of them. The angel inside me is getting impatient, but Stark loves the sound of their spines snapping and watching them fold in half when there's nothing left to support their upper bodies. Seeing a Drifter come at you with just its legs working, dragging everything from the waist up on the ground like a bag of dirty laundry, is a sight I recommend to anyone who gets the chance to see it.

But the angel finally wins the argument and I grab the buckle and tell the Drifters, "Sit," and they do. "Good doggies. Now wait there until someone comes along to burn you like Yule logs."

I step through a shadow under a streetlamp and come out by the hospital that's the entrance to Cabal's place. It's dark enough that I can only make out the hospital's outline with the angel's vision. The darkness extends for blocks in all directions. A blackout. That means no decent shadows to get inside. No problem. This place has glass doors, too.

The locks are strong, but the doors are the usual crap aluminum that most institutional places use. One good kick and they swing open like the saloon doors in My Darling Clementine.

I'm halfway to the morgue when my cell rings. It's Kasabian.

"Druj Ammun."

"Gesundheit. You might want to put the snakes down. You're speaking in tongues."

"Actually, I am. Druj Ammun is from the same old angelic language I saw on your belt buckle. It means 'Sleepless Aegis.' It's a seal of protection that was on the gates of Heaven."

I duck and go around TV cameras and microphone booms the crew left in the hall.

"Protection from what?"

"Who else? Lucifer and the fallen frat boys. God put it there to keep them from sneaking back into Heaven. It mind-fucks any fallen that get near it. Turns them into Muppets."

"You dug all this out of the Codex?"

"Well, Kinski helped. He pretty much knew what it was when I showed him the drawing. I found the rest after."

"So what's the Druj Ammun doing here?"

"You know how the Kissi like a little chaos with their morning coffee? The story is that they stole it off the gates and dropped it on earth just to see what would happen."

"Okay. That still doesn't explain how Eleanor got it or why it affects Drifters."

"I don't know about Eleanor, but the zed thing makes perfect sense. Remember the story that the first zombies were civilians who'd been attacked by the fallen angel that landed on earth? It must be true. Zeds were made by that dying angel's blood and saliva. They have a direct blood link to Hellions, so the Druj affects them the same way it affects any of Heaven's rejects."

I make it to the morgue, but don't go in since I might lose the phone signal.

"Nice work. It's good to know what this thing is. I'd hate to end up gnawed to death because the batteries ran out."

"Hey, man. I don't know if you're zeroing in on the big picture. Not only can you control those coffin jockeys from skull-fucking tourists, but the Druj is kryptonite to Hellions. That means you can stroll into Hell, make one of Lucifer's generals tell you where Mason is, go right up to the son of a bitch, and put a bullet through his head and no one is going to stop you."

I get out the gun, push open the morgue door with my foot, and take a look around. I don't want any surprises when I step inside. The room is empty.

"Speaking of strolling into Hell, have you talked to Lucifer?"

"No. He's not answering his phone. I've left messages, but the way things are, I don't even know if my calls are getting through."

"Okay. Thanks for the spook story. I'll swing by the Chateau Marmont when I'm done making Cabal cry."

I hang up and push open the wall to Uncle Cabal's Haunted Mansion ride.

I don't get more than a few steps inside the front room when my heart is broken. I'm not going to make Cabal cry. Someone has beaten me to it.

Cabal's body is scattered in about fifty pieces around the table where Brigitte and I first talked to him. If Drifters didn't do it, then it was someone doing an A-plus impression. I follow a trail of bones and splintered furniture through the curtain and into the room where Cabal's party guests had been asleep the last time I was here.

It's the same story. Shredded bodies spread across the floor and furniture and splattered up the walls. There's one Drifter left. A female at the back of the room. She's hunched over the body of a naked boy. His chest is cracked open and someone has been gnawing on his exposed ribs. The female has the boy's heart in her hands and she's working on it hard, trying to bite through the tough muscle. A couple of her teeth are embedded in the shiny meat. It's a good few seconds before she sees me and gets up to attack. That's when I see her face. It's Cosima. I hoodoo her back against the far wall and pull out her spine fast with the na'at. Even though I never really knew Cosima, ripping apart someone whose face you recognize isn't as much fun as gutting a stranger. Go figure.

Bottles are scattered around the furniture and bodies. I rescue an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel's from the depths of a beanbag chair and a bottle of wine from a moldering stack of Italian Vogues. Go back to the room where Cabal lies in peace. He was nice enough to die on the other side of the room and not get blood or meat all over my chair.

Stark and not-Stark are going at it inside my skull. Jack Daniel's versus no-name wine. Stark is too weak. Wine wins. I slice off the top of the bottle with the black blade and drink a toast to my dead host.

"You were a prick and a crook, but no one deserves to go out the way you went. I hope it was over quick and that you tasted like ass all the way down. Amen."

So much for suspect number one. Under other circumstances, I might think Cabal ending up a Hot Pocket was just a case of bad juju or karma coming home to roost, but he was too good a magician to let some dumb Drifters wander in here. And he just came into a load of money, which sounds like he'd done some iffy magic for someone. I'm sure he's the one who sold the glamour to Rainier, which makes him suspect number one in Cabal's death.

But Cabal isn't the only Sub Rosa who's been fucked by Drifters. Someone let loose a roomful of eaters on Enoch Springheel. The Vigil sent two after me. I bet whoever sicced them on Cabal and Springheel rented Aelita my pair.

Then there's poor Titus. The guy never hurt anyone. The worst thing Titus ever did was pad his hours when his client had money. And he was small-time. He never had a big-time or dangerous case in his life. He was just doing a back-of-the-milk-carton job. He must have seen something he wasn't supposed to. What was it? Maybe whoever has the local zombie franchise? And now every flavor of Drifter is running-well, stumbling-down every street in the city. Was that the plan all along or is someone making a bigger mess to cover up the mess that Titus found?

Why would anyone bother to kill a loser like Enoch Springheel? And-sorry, Cabal-take out another loser like Cabal? Cabal might mix a good glamour cocktail, but he can't be the only Sub Rosa in town who could do that. Vidocq could do it in his sleep. There have to be others as good as Cabal and more reliable. So, the glamour might have been only half the reason the buyer came to Cabal.

What did Cabal Ash and Enoch Springheel have in common? Nothing except that they were the heads of two important Sub Rosa families. But who fucking cares about that? No wonder Sherlock Holmes did all that coke. Math is hard.

I get out my cell and call Kasabian.

"Listen, is there anything online or in the Codex about old Sub Rosa families?"

"Yeah. What do you need?"

"Spencer Church. Are the Churches a big deal? In the history of L.A.?"

"Wait."

The line goes quiet. I can hear typing and low voices.

"Yeah. The Churches were one of the first four families in the area."

"That's what I thought."

"What are you looking for?"

"Connections. Cabal is dead. So's Springheel. Church went missing and then turned up dead and hungry at Bamboo House. What do they have in common? They're all from heavyweight households. Someone is using Drifters to go after all the original families."

"Why?"

"A grudge? Social climbing? I don't know how those people think. But if I'm right, it means that the Geistwalds could be next. Hell, even without Drifters they're in trouble. It looks like their son is an impostor. A con man. He might be the one behind this whole ballistic cluster fuck."

"You know, sometimes I'm glad I never leave this room."

"I'm going to stop by the Chateau before heading over to the Geistwalds'."

"Don't get eaten, man. Your friends are nice, but they've never even heard of Once Upon a Time in the West or Le Samourai."

"I make no promises." I GO OUT through the broken front doors. There are no shadows and no decent wheels to steal, so I head back toward the city lights on foot. How do regular people ever get anywhere?

I almost do a header into an open manhole in front of the hospital. Another manhole is open farther up the street. And another beyond that. I want to get mad at the teenybopper clever kids who would do something like that, but I can't because it's exactly the kind of asshole move I would have found hilarious when I was fifteen.

The empty streets are getting crowded ahead, but no one is going anywhere. Great. A Drifter block party. They're crawling up out of the sewers, but there's nothing to eat in this part of town but me and I'm off the menu. I broadcast a general "Fuck Off" message through the Druj Emergency Broadcast System. That doesn't leave the shamblers much to do but shamble. They look like little kids at their first dance class, turning in vague circles, swaying back and forth, and bumping into each other. If it wasn't for the murder, cannibalism, and trapped, tormented souls in their rotting carcasses, they'd be almost cute.

I could go around the Drifters, but even the angel part of me is fresh out of reasonable behavior where they're concerned. I follow the white line down the middle of the street, shoving Drifters out of the way, knocking over the slow ones and walking over them.

More open manholes and more Drifters crawling out.

Being a salaryman bad guy must really suck. Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom get to come up with the crazy schemes, but then some poor schmuck has to actually corral the giant radioactive ants or put exactly the right amount of poison in exactly the right water treatment plants at exactly the right time. And an entry-level bad guy probably doesn't even have a helicopter. He has to drive the poison from treatment plant to treatment plant on city streets in his second-hand Civic, hoping there isn't a flock of ducklings or a broken-down minivan blocking traffic.

Case in point is the loser up ahead prying up another damn manhole with a crowbar. Does he have gloves? Is he wearing a lower-back brace like warehouse workers use? Are there OSHA rules for supervillain henchmen?

"Lift with your legs, not your back. Didn't Dr. No teach you anything?"

He looks up and starts running. Right into a wall of wandering Drifters. I catch up in about two seconds. He swings the crowbar a couple of times. I catch it on the third swing, tear it out of his hands, and jam it through the skull of the nearest zed. Yeah, it's a little showy, but a move like that can save you from having to waste time making a lot of boring threats.

He went down on his ass when I snatched the crowbar, so I grab his jacket and haul him to his feet. It takes me a minute to figure out what exactly I'm looking at. There's a face superimposed over another face, like two ghost faces stacked on top of each other. The angel's eyes take over and separate his real face from the glamour. I recognize one immediately. The other takes a few more seconds. I smile, but the Thug Number Six doesn't smile back.

"Nice night, fake Rainier. How's it hanging?"

He doesn't say anything. His hands fumble at his waist. He has another weapon. I let him look for it.

"Is this how you got the Drifters into Cabal's place or did you walk them in yourself? I know you were in there because he put on that glamour you're wearing right now. I couldn't see it back at the party, but now I can see both of your faces."

He finally pulls his backup weapon. A cute little Sig Sauer P232. It's a compact, toylike pistol that will blow substantial holes in you at close range. I let him get it out of his belt, but catch his arm as he's swinging it up to shoot. Fake Rainier is a big bundle of twitchy fear, so when I grab him, the gun goes off and blows a hole in his foot. He screams and I let him fall. I take the Sig and put it in my pocket.

I look around and spot a Drifter bouncing off a chain-link fence across the street. He looks brand-new, like he was bitten and turned tonight. I go over and rip off his shirt and take it back to Rainier.

He's on the ground rocking back and forth, whimpering and clutching his foot in both hands.

"Relax. You've got another foot."

He says, "Fuck you," through gritted teeth.

"You might want to watch your tone with the man who can bandage you or let you bleed to death."

"Get away from me. Do you know who my family is?"

"Yeah, and the Geistwalds aren't your real family, are they, Aki?"

He blinks at me. His hands open and close around his bleeding foot. I tear the Drifter's shirt into strips and wrap them around the wound.

"I remember you at Bamboo House of Dolls. You came over to the bar like a snotty little prince and ordered me to do my portaling trick. When I told you to go away and you wouldn't, there was almost a scene. But it was all an act, wasn't it, Aki? Your mom was there hoping to find someone who could track down her lost boy. Someone told you she was going to be there. You weren't in the bar to impress your friends or get under my skin. You were testing your glamour. You knew if you could walk by your own mother without her recognizing you, you were home free. No one would ever see anything but Rainier Geistwald."

"Keep talking, asshole. You're dead."

I pull the bandage tight and make him wince.

"If Cabal did such a good job with the glamour, why did you have to kill him?"

"Have you smelled the guy? Besides, I never killed anyone."

"Right. You just opened the door and let your friends do the dirty work. I bet you didn't even go inside to watch the fun. You stayed by the door until the screaming stopped and then shooed your friends back out. One thing. I know why Drifters don't eat me, but why don't they eat you?"

The kid shrugs. Hits me with a very professional sneer. I bet he practices in a mirror.

"Maybe I was good in Sunday school and Jesus loves me."

"Or someone threw a protection spell your way."

He shrugs.

"There's so much going on right now, who can remember?"

I flick his bleeding foot with my finger.

"You still haven't told me why you killed Cabal. Mind if I take a guess? Cabal and Cosima had hit some hard times, so when he found a ripe young rube like you on his doorstep asking for illegal hoodoo, he had to say yes. Not for the fee, but so he could blackmail you later. Isn't that what happened? He threatened to let slip that you weren't really Rainier?"

Aki shakes his head.

"You have no goddamn idea what's going on."

"I know you're impersonating the Geistwalds' son and that someone is gunning for the old families. I have to give it to you. Hiding with an old family while you take out the others is pretty slick. You already got Cabal, the Springheels, and Spencer Church's family. Probably others I don't even know about. Tell me, when do the Geistwalds get it?"

"Gee, I don't know. You're the one with experience killing Geistwalds. You tell me."

I look at him and keep looking until he turns away.

"You're not a Geistwald, so don't give me any family outrage over Eleanor. And she was a vampire. She was already dead when I got to her."

"But she was still walking and talking. That's an okay kind of dead. Not the best because she needed blood to keep going, but it's better than nothing. And you had to take that away from her. Were you jealous that for all your supposed powers, you're still going to die like all those anonymous sheep back in town? You should have been smart and let Eleanor bite you. Or do you have something against living forever?"

Interesting question. I hadn't thought about Eleanor's death beyond it being one more thing I regretted. But Aki has a good point.

"I don't have anything against immortality, but I'm not begging for it either. Are you? Is that what this is about? You think you found some way around death? How? As one of these things? Jesus, kid, I hope your brilliant idea isn't to somehow get yourself turned into a Savant."

"You don't understand one damned thing that's going on."

The angel whispers something in my ear.

"Are you sure, Aki? If you're not going to night school to become a Drifter, what was Eleanor doing with the Druj Ammun? Where did she get it? From you?"

"How do you even know about that?"

Aki thrashes around. Almost grabs me before falling back down.

He says, "You're dead. You are so fucking dead. And not like Eleanor. You'll be the kind where your soul is trapped in your rotting flesh while the city sucks it dry. L.A. belongs to the Death Born. It always has and it always will."

That's interesting.

"Who are the Death Born, Aki? Not you. You're just a suburban brat. You learned your magic from watching Bewitched. Who are the Death Born?"

"Your ass is grass, man. I cannot believe how fucking dead you are."

The angel speaks again and things fall into place.

"How's Mutti doing? Not your birth mom. Your fun mom. Koralin. Is she all right? I hope she's somewhere safe and sound."

He blinks, slowly.

"Eleanor wanted me to apologize to her mom for her. To tell her that Eleanor was sorry and she only took the Druj to scare her mom the way Mom scared her and Daddy. Is what Eleanor said right? Did Mutti own the Druj? Was she controlling the Drifters? Is she the one behind this? What does she want? Does she want to join the Death Born, too?"

Aki looks away. He's talked too much and he knows it.

I bark a couple of Hellion words. A Drifter behind Aki bursts into flame. I say the word again and another zed goes up. I tell all the dead in the neighborhood to close in on us. I start burning them all. Aki and I are in the middle of a walking bonfire.

I slap the kid and hold him down on the pavement as the temperature rises.

"She knows you're not Rainier, doesn't she? What is she up to? What does she want? Tell me!"

Aki's head swivels back and forth and he's letting out a kind of high-pitched moan that hurts my ears.

I haul him to his feet and turn him around so he has to look at burning Drifters closing in around us. Thirty more seconds and it's officially un-fucking-comfortable in the circle. The air ripples and greasy corpse smoke hurts every time I suck in a breath. The kid goes limp in my arms and starts screaming.

"It's Mother. Mother runs everything. Who else? Father is useless. Hiding and weeping for poor dead Eleanor. Boo-hoo."

I turn Aki around so I can look at him. His crazy fear has turned just plain crazy. He snarls when he talks.

"We'll own this place soon and the rest of you are going to be gone or you're going to be food."

I could let Aki go and turn the Drifters back, but I don't. I hold him and let them close in. My skin turns red and starts to blister. So does Aki's. Stark likes the pain. The angel doesn't care.

Aki starts doing the panic moan again, so I drop him and shout another Hellion word. The Drifters fall to the ground, sizzle, and ash out. Gray flakes still red-hot at the edges float away like dirty snow.

I nudge Aki with my foot.

"You have a car around here?"

"A block up."

"Get up. I'm taking you someplace safe and then we're going to invite Mommy over for tea."

"She knows who you are. She's not afraid of you, you know."

"Not yet. But if she knows I have her little boy, she'll come over. And if she doesn't, I'll kill you and find her myself. Where's your car?"

He points behind us.

"It's the silver Beamer."

"Give me the keys."

He does. I pick him up and toss him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry.

The BMW is a silver four-door coupe. I open the rear driver's door and toss Aki in so he can straighten out his leg and bleed somewhere that's not on me.

It feels funny to start a car with its own key. Blasphemous almost. Who would want to own something like a BMW? You'd have to take care of it like it's a pet. The whole idea of owning things makes me queasy.

I adjust the mirrors and look back at Aki in case he has another pistol hidden under the seat. If he does, he's not pulling it. He's flat on his back, sweating and bone white.

"I don't want to drive around in a puke-smelling car, so if you need me to stop, say so."

"Okay," he says. "Thanks."

I turn the ignition and we head for the Chateau Marmont. IT'S ONE LONG, wet shit storm from the hospital to the hotel. Drifters and civilians fill the streets. Civilians run and the slow-moving Drifters bring them down in groups, like hyenas. They grab people at gas stations and all-night markets, off buses, out of cars, and chase them off the roofs of nearby buildings.

The pack is the Drifters' real weapon. A motorcycle cop in the intersection manages to get away from one group and runs straight into the arms of another. There are just so damned many of them. I have to drive on the sidewalk and over a few stop signs to get around all the abandoned cars. The Beamer is heavy enough that it makes a pretty good battering ram, so along the way I splatter as many Drifters as I can on the hood. Mostly I go for Lacunas, the vicious little pricks. They're easy to pick out. Zeds lumber like windup toys, but Lacunas can run and climb and hunt specific people. And they're intelligent enough to understand what's happening when I crush their spines and skulls under my wheels. By the time I get to the Chateau Marmont, the front of the car is a slaughterhouse spin-art painting.

Aki moans and whines every time the car bumps into something.

"Aaaah! I'm losing a lot of blood back here."

"If you were losing a lot of blood, you wouldn't be able to talk, so feel free to bleed faster."

I steer us into the hotel parking lot, minus a headlight and with a lot more dents in the hood and skull fragments in the radiator than when we started. Fuck me for having too good a time on the way over. I don't spot the vans following us until I kill the engine and the vans are moving into position to block the only exit to the street.

"The cavalry is here. Want to give yourself up, kid?"

Aki pulls himself up into a sitting position using the passenger-side headrest. He looks outside through the windshield.

"Who's that?"

"That's a law enforcement combo pack. The Golden Vigil and Homeland Security."

"Golden what?"

"God's G-men. If you think I'm bad, see what happens when those feds and sky pilots get hold of you."

"No way, man. No cops and no preachers."

"At least we agree on that. Keep your head down and don't make a sound."

The doors slide open on the sides of the Vigil vans and they make a big show of moving their troops outside. There are a dozen true-blue men in black. None are holding guns, but all have the distinctive jacket bulge that says they're packing. There will be more and heavier artillery in the vans.

I recognize the two guards on the gate from a few days back. I'd taken the Shut-Eye, Ray, on a roller-coaster tour of Downtown. Most of the others I recognize from when Wells tossed me out of his clubhouse and off the Vigil's payroll. Even Marshal Julie is there, though she looks like she'd rather be on an ice floe wrestling polar bears.

Wells stands in front, hands behind his back, a corn-pone Napoleon.

"Hold it right where you are, Stark. Put your hands behind your head and move away from the vehicle."

"Are you arresting me?"

"I sure as shit am, junior."

"For what?"

"General assholery in the face of God and reason."

"You know, just because you're in love with that angel hiding in your van doesn't mean you have to be her monkey on a chain."

He shakes his head.

"You heard stories about Gitmo? We have black prisons over in the Arctic that make Gitmo look like the penthouse at the Bellagio."

"Does that come with a continental breakfast?"

Aelita steps out of the van and into the green fluorescent glare of the parking lot. In the flat light, everyone looks like a corpse. Only Aelita looks alive. The jittery fluorescent light doesn't seem to affect her like the rest of us. It sort of flows around her, leaving her looking more alive and human than anyone in the lot.

"Good evening."

"Good nothing. Did you happen to notice what we just drove through? Why are you people here playing games with me when you should have your troops and firepower out there burning down those Drifters?"

"Los Angeles isn't our concern anymore. These lost souls will be dealt with by God. Or not."

She gives me a conspiratorial wink.

"My guess is not."

"It's every man for himself now? I must have missed that Commandment. Why did you send those Lacunas after me? They almost sliced a friend of mine."

"Whoever the friend was, I'm sure they deserved it. And I didn't send any golems after you. Marshal Wells was good enough to put a tracking device on you, but that's all. Trust me, if I had sent something, it wouldn't have been to frighten you."

She's telling the truth. I can't read angels like civilians, but the angel inside me can and it isn't picking up any lies. So, who would want me to stop what I'm doing? Cabal? Aki? His mother or someone working for her? Maybe. Maybe it's Brigitte's people wanting me to stay out of their business. Hell, Fiona and Tracy might have talked to some of the other zombie minders. They all have reasons for wanting me not to get too close to a Savant. Not that worrying about it really matters. Cabal is already dead. Aki, Koralin, or whoever else it might have been won't get another chance to ambush me. Everything ends tonight. All debts paid. All accounts closed. Tonight is the end of someone's world. If it's mine, it's going to be messy.

Wells turns to someone in his crew.

"Marshal Sola, arrest this man."

Marshal Julie looks even more uncomfortable. But she reaches under her jacket and pulls out a set of handcuffs.

Aelita shakes her head.

"No. We've discussed this. We're not doing that. Not with his type. He's a walking heresy. An Abomination, and anywhere he stays or stands becomes corrupt, even prison. Kill him."

Wells looks at her for a minute, then at me. He turns to his people and gives a small nod. Suddenly I'm looking down the barrels of an awful lot of guns.

"Did you forget what we talked about a few months ago over donuts? The dead man's switch and the Mithras?"

She nods.

"Yes, if you die, the Mithras will be loosed and it will set fire to all creation. I remember. And I know you're lying. You're too attached to this world to let that happen."

"You silly bitch, you're going to kill everyone in L.A. because you're too good to help them? How many Deadly Sins is that? Pride. Anger. Greed. Envy, too, maybe?"

Aelita turns away from me. I take a couple of steps toward her and a bullet rips into my right arm. It's Ray, the Shut-Eye, getting back a little of his own. I look at him and he seems as surprised as anyone else that he fired. Without a verbal order, the other marshals are unsure if they should follow up.

Ray's bullet is just a grazing shot. It ripped off a lot of skin near the deltoid. Surface shots can tear up a lot of nerves and nine times out of ten they hurt more than a killing shot. This one burns like a hot wire pressed against my arm from the shoulder to the wrist. I hate to admit it, but the pain catches me off guard. It comes quickly enough that I close my eyes reflexively when it hits. I don't see Aelita turn to her people, but I hear her voice.

"You are the Golden Vigil. Holy Crusaders on a mission from Heaven. You have no reason or right to hesitate. Kill the Abomination."

It's her voice that hits me, not the threat. Something about the deep and beyond-time certainty of her tone. It's like she's shouting my death from the bottom of a well halfway across the galaxy and a billion miles deep. When she tells the marshals to kill me, she's really giving the order to kill the world. She's an angel. She's seen stars and worlds come and go. We're just mayflies living on this one. Maybe humans really are made in God's image. That makes us harder to kill, but sweeter, too. Angels want revenge. Everything alive wants revenge, even if it's simply for the affliction of existence. The sound of my death sentence and the death of everything I've ever known, cared about, or hated rattles and clangs in my skull, getting heavier every second as the weight of all the aeons it took to get from the Big Bang to my ears drops down on me. God went to all the trouble of creating the universe, the angels, the stars, and this world just to murder us. Alice and me and everyone else.

Even angels want revenge. Everything alive wants revenge.

The moment the thought crystallizes, Aelita wins. The solar winds and deadly vacuum freezing the empty space between the stars blows the last of Stark away. He falls into the dark. He doesn't make a sound. He's not surprised. He saw this moment coming. He fixes his eyes on me as he falls. That's the last I see of him, the light reflected in his eyes as they go from white orbs to pinpoints to nothing. Then he's gone and I'm alone.

Only the angel left in here. No humans allowed.

My eyes are still closed. The world has gone electric. I hear the rustle of fabric and the stretching of muscles and tendons as the marshals adjust their stances. Their heartbeats and breath go from fear to resignation. Ripples spread out like waves in a pond from their fingers as they increase the pressure on gun triggers. Metal shifts against lubricated metal. The muscles in their arms tighten. They're already anticipating the explosions when the guns go off. The sound. Muzzle flash. Recoil. The pleasant reek of cordite.

I'm not angry or concerned. Time is slow and cold and it never stops. What's going to happen will happen and nothing will stop it.

My arm burns and the heat throbs all the way down to the bone.

I hear a rattle of explosions as the marshals fire.

I'm not afraid. I see all this happening from the bottom of a well halfway across the galaxy and a billion miles deep.

The pain in my arm makes me double up. I'm burning alive.

When I open my eyes, the marshals' bullets glide toward me in slow motion. I sweep my arm across them and my arm is made of fire. The bullets glow red, then blue, then white, and disappear like they're made of steam. I swing my arm back and a dozen human faces gape at me. I look at my arm. It's not burning, but it's glowing red from the heat of the flaming Gladius in my hand. An angel's weapon. Something Stark would never be capable of summoning, much less holding, but it's my birthright.

The marshals don't know what to do. They're here for Stark, but Stark shouldn't be able to manifest the sword. They don't know that I'm not Stark anymore. I'd try to explain it to them, but they're busy pulling triggers, filling the air with more slow-motion metal snowflakes. I brush them away like moths and keep moving.

I kill Ray first. He started the bullet party, so he deserves the first dance. His eyes open wide. He expects a high blow, that I'll slice him from above, so I swing the fire blade under and up, taking off his legs. Before his torso hits the ground, I swing again and give him the downward stroke he was looking for. I take two more Vigil agents in the time it takes for a hummingbird to flap its wings. I cut each of them in half at the waist and let them collapse onto each other, the top half of each man trying to hold the other up so he won't follow the other down. I catch the next marshal with a thrust into his gut. He'd already moved into fighting position while I was killing the first three, and when I stab him, his gun goes off by my ear. The ejected shell bounces off my temple. Before it hits the floor, I've pulled the blade up and out through his head. As I kill the others, each gets off one or two shots. In their confusion, most of their bullets hit each other. Ejected shells arc through the air and bounce off my cheeks and chest. The last few marshals all fire at once. The shots I can't sidestep, I vaporize with the blade. When eleven are dead I move in to kill the last one, but when I raise the Gladius my arms stay up. She's not like the others.

I stare at Marshal Julie for a moment and lower the burning sword to my side.

"You're Sub Rosa," I say.

She nods.

"We try to be like them. To have a few eyes everywhere, like them," she says, inclining her head toward Wells and Aelita.

I look down at the gun in her hand. The steel barrel is black and cold. No trace of warmth there. She didn't fire. When she sees that I've seen, she shakes her head.

"I wouldn't hurt you. You're one of us."

"No. I'm not."

That scares her, but it's not what I intended.

"You should go now," I tell her.

"No she shouldn't."

I turn and there's Wells with a big.50 Desert Eagle pointed at my head. He gives me his Clint Eastwood stare. He's scared to death, but disciplined enough that it doesn't matter. He'd kill me without hesitation or regret if I let him.

He says, "If she's a pixie spy, she can rot in prison alive and in Hell right next to you when she's dead. You killed my people and she just stood there. Fuck both of you."

I'm running at him with the Gladius at throat level, but Aelita is already moving to him and she's closer. She's as fast as I am, so while she's a blur to others, to me she looks like a normal woman walking to a man and plucking a gun from his hand. She holds the pistol with the barrel up to indicate she isn't going to shoot. I stop, but keep the Gladius high.

In real time, human time, Marshal Wells looks at his empty hand and starts. He turns, looking for his weapon.

Aelita shows him that she has it. He doesn't say a word. His gaze is as puzzled as it is wounded.

"We're done here," she tells him.

"What?" shouts Wells.

She tosses the gun aside and points at me.

"He can manifest the Gladius. How is that possible? The answer is: it's not. But there he is and there it is. This is a divine sign."

"We can't let him walk away. You said that with the others gone, stopping him was the most important thing."

Aelita smiles. She goes to Wells, puts a hand on his cheek.

"Things have changed. Look at him. He has no purpose. He won't survive what's to come. Soon enough, he'll be back in Hell, where he belongs. The other rogue angels were the dangerous ones and they're being dealt with."

I move with angelic speed and grab Wells. Hold the Gladius in front of his face.

"What about the other angels? What have you done?"

"This day has been a long time coming. I know that the marshal explained it all to you. I heard him tell you the story. The one set in Persia about the troubled man who went away and left his family behind. But his shadow remained and became head of the house and took care of them. I look at you, an Abomination with the Gladius, and I know for certain that our Father has truly abandoned us. But I am the shadow on the wall. I will become the Father and I will never leave my family behind. The troubled Father has lost his way and must be dealt with: mercifully, lovingly, but he must be dealt with."

"Where are Kinski and Lucifer?"

"Alive as far as I know, but they'll both be dead soon enough. One might already be. Who knows? Only one will die by my hand."

I press the Gladius closer to Wells's throat. The flame singes the hair on the side of his head. Instinctively he tries to move away, but I don't let him.

"Which one are you going to kill?"

"Go to your master's room and see for yourself."

I toss Wells across the parking lot and charge Aelita. She manifests her sword, swings it easily, and meets my blade. The jolt throws me back onto the Beamer's trunk, where I leave a Stark-size dent. I roll off onto the ground, seeing stars.

"Just because you have a Gladius doesn't make you a true angel. It merely confirms that you're a freak."

Aelita helps Wells to his feet. He looks like he still wants to put a bullet in my head, but he'd have to be able to stand up on his own to do that and he won't be doing much of anything for the rest of the night.

Aelita says, "Stark, I know you won't believe me when I say thank you, but I mean it sincerely. The scales have fallen from my eyes. You've opened the Glory Road and shown me that it was finally time to act. I'll always be grateful to you for that. Bless you."

She guides Wells back to the lead van and helps him into the passenger seat. He's limping and holding one arm across his chest. I hold on to the Beamer's bumper and haul myself to my feet. My Gladius has gone out, so I pull the Smith amp; Wesson. It's empty, but still looks intimidating.

"I'm not going to let you leave and kill an angel."

Aelita smiles at me. Exactly the kind of beneficent smile you'd want from one of God's chosen ones.

"I'm done with this world, you, and the fallen angels who wallow with you in humanity's filth. Sin, destroy, and corrupt this world to your heart's content. I'm called to something more beautiful than you can imagine. I will become the Father and I will take care of my family. But before I do, I'm going home to kill God."

Aelita closes Wells's door, goes around to the driver's side, starts the engine, and drives away. I DRAG AKI from the BMW and push him ahead of me into the lobby. He limps and whines and I'm seriously thinking of hurting him some more, but the Chateau's lobby shuts him up.

The place is a meat market. The streets looked bad, but seeing the remains of what must be twenty to thirty people in an enclosed space is shocking even by the standards of what I saw Downtown. The scene is made merry because groups of zeds are still working on the human leftovers. They notice Aki and me coming in, drop the femurs and livers and brains they'd been snacking on, and come for us. I send out a "Sit, Stay" order with the Druj and they go back to eating the hotel's guests.

I spot a metal cane by the check-in desk and hand it to Aki.

"Use this and be quiet."

Before we head up to Lucifer's room, I find a janitor's closet in an alcove on the far side of the lobby. I fill a trash bag with duct tape, a gallon bottle of liquid soap, and all the lightbulbs I can find. I push Aki out of the closet and over to the elevators.

I say, "Here, kitty kitty," and the Drifters come to us, but under my control this time. I shove Aki to the back of the elevator, herd the drifters inside, and squeeze in last. I hit the button for Lucifer's floor and look over my shoulder at Aki. He's squeezing his eyes closed so hard, I'm surprised they don't pop.

We get off on the third floor. I leave the zeds in the hall and take Aki through the grandfather clock into Lucifer's room. Even though he's in considerable pain, Aki is impressed. He might be Sub Rosa, but he's only seen hick hoodoo before.

"This is amazing," he says, limping around to look over Lucifer's room.

I point to a sturdy wooden chair with arms.

"Sit."

Aki comes over slowly and sits.

"You don't have to do this. I'm not exactly going to run off. What if those things get in here?"

"Don't worry. They will. But not now."

I take away his cane and toss it across the room. I take my time duct-taping him to the chair, but I'm not thinking about it very hard. I'm wondering why Lucifer hasn't shown up or yelled at us from another room. The suite is big, but I'm not trying to be quiet. He must have heard us come in.

When the kid is secure, I drag the chair into the middle of the room onto the hard marble floor and leave him.

I go into the bedroom carefully. I have the knife in my hand and keep my head low. Even though it's dark, each object is perfectly outlined. Still, the two crumpled piles of something on the floor aren't distinct enough to see in detail. I find the light switch and throw it.

There are two bodies at the foot of Lucifer's bed. The tailor and Dr. Allwissend. Each has been shot three times. Twice in the chest and once in the head. A triple tap. It's a little excessive considering that they're a glorified seamstress and a sawbones. There's no sign of Lucifer except for a bloody patch on the bed.

I sit down and look at the bodies. It hadn't occurred to me until now that Lucifer's attendants would be human. Even though I know none of the Hellions can crawl to earth from Downtown, in the back of my mind I'd always imagined that they'd be Sub Rosa or at least Lurkers. But the two men on the floor are just a couple of common ordinary everyday dead men. Lucifer must have owned their souls. Or maybe they were members of Amanda's devil groupie cult. Whatever they were, they aren't that anymore. I want to feel sorry for them. Stark would have, but from where I sit, they're too small and human to matter.

I go back to the living room. Aki is moaning again.

"I'm really hurting here, man. Can I have a drink or something?"

"Say another word and I'll staple your lips shut. Understand me?"

He nods, biting his lips like they're alien animals stuck to his face and he has to get hold of them before they do something stupid.

I circle the room looking for something, anything that might tell me where Lucifer is. The light on his phone isn't blinking, so he doesn't have any messages. His desk is neat and there's nothing interesting in the drawers. Most of what's in the wastebasket are notes and set sketches for Light Bringer. Someone from the studio was here. And they had lunch. I smell a turkey sandwich and roast chicken. That narrows the suspects down to everyone in L.A. who eats meat.

On the table by the sofa where Lucifer showed me his wounds is an open bottle of wine and his jewelry-store tray full of objects confiscated from people whose souls he owns. The watches, lighters, reading glasses, and rings are laid out in tidy rows. But there's a blank spot. Something is missing. A child's rosary necklace with a gold unicorn charm.

I get the bottle of liquid soap and pour the whole thing around Aki's chair. I toss the lightbulbs next, so Aki is surrounded by a moat of soap and glass.

"I'm leaving for a while, but I'll be back. I don't think you can get out of that chair, but on the off chance you do, with that bad foot of yours you're going to slip on the soap and fall on all the broken glass and end up a bloody mess. Sooner or later those Drifters in the hall are going to find a way in here. I think that you lying on the floor helpless and covered in blood is going to be enough to overpower whatever hoodoo has been keeping the Drifters from eating you. So, you can try to break out, crawl through the soap and glass, slip by the zeds in the hall, and make it home with all your limbs, or you can sit there like a good boy, and when I get back, we'll call your mutti, get her over here, and make a deal to end all this. Do you understand me?"

Aki nods, still biting his lips.

"You can talk now."

"Okay. Yeah, I understand."

"Good."

"You're leaving me here to go after Lucifer? Why would you do that?"

"Because you have to rescue family. Even asshole family."

He starts to say something, but before he can get it out, I tear off a length of duct tape and slap it across his mouth. I don't have to do it. There's no one around to hear him if he starts screaming. I do it because I enjoy it.

I check to make sure he's securely fastened to the chair. When I'm sure he is, I step into a shadow and come out by the studio bungalow where I abandoned the GTO. The Light Bringer soundstage is across a wide parking lot full of construction equipment.

I work my way past the machinery and onto the stage to the little office where I remember the panic room is located. The chair Ritchie pushed out of the way the last time we were in here is on its back across the room. I lean on the wall where it opens and I listen. I can't hear anything, but I can feel something alive just beyond the hidden door. Light throws shadows against the wall. I slip inside and emerge in the panic room.

Lucifer is on his back on the floor. His shirt is open, revealing his seeping bandages and wounds. He looks drugged, but I'm pretty sure that what's keeping him down is the silver athame dagger sticking out from between his ribs.

Ritchie is sitting with his fat cop ass on the lip of the control console and his feet propped on an office chair. He's chain-smoking and covered in flop sweat. The air is thick with Marlboro smoke. He's flicking ashes and dropping his butts on Lucifer. There's an HK assault rifle across his lap. He looks lost in thought. He checks his watch. Shakes his head. He looks like he's expecting someone.

I speak softly so I don't startle him so much he'll start shooting.

"I don't think Aelita's coming."

It doesn't work. Ritchie starts and jumps off the console, spraying the room with the HK on full auto.

I don't have to hit him or grab him or do anything. I just hit the deck and stay there.

The shots that don't embed themselves in the furniture and video monitors ricochet back and forth off the blast-proof walls. Ritchie just invented a new game. Ballistic handball. Too bad that he's the ball.

I keep my head flat against the cool concrete floor as he blows the whole clip. Ritchie is taking the name "panic room" way too literally.

A three-inch chunk of heavy glass is blasted from one of the monitors and into my arm just below where Ray shot me. The coating on the back of the glass itches and burns. The shooting only lasts a few seconds, and then Ritchie is out of ammo.

When he stops shooting, the room becomes unnaturally quiet. My ears ring from the noise of the HK blasting in the confined space. The only thing I can hear is Ritchie's slow and labored breathing. He's on the floor next to Lucifer. Ritchie is full of holes from his own bullets. They must hurt like hell. Most of what hit him ricocheted off the steel-and-concrete walls, so he was slammed with heavy, flattened lead discs the size of quarters and traveling faster than a jet fighter.

I go to where he's lying and take away the rifle. Pat him down and take a.45 from his belt. Then I leave him on the floor, bleeding.

"Brigitte is fine, by the way. She got what she needed. Or did you even notice or care that she was gone?"

Ritchie doesn't say anything and I didn't expect him to. He's on his back, opening and closing his mouth, spitting blood and gasping like a fish.

I pull the monitor glass from my arm and toss it so that it bounces off his forehead before smashing against the wall.

I grab Lucifer's feet and drag him out of cigarette ashes and blood and pull the silver dagger from between his ribs. There's a sudden intake of air as he gasps and coughs, like pulling out the knife kick-started his lungs. When he looks awake enough to sit up, I help him onto the office chair. He picks up the athame from where I set it on the control console.

"Thank you," he says. "That was getting uncomfortable."

He sets the knife delicately back onto the console.

"What was this? Was he waiting for Aelita to come and finish you off?"

"Yes. But she never appeared."

"How the hell did you let this prick do this to you?"

"We were having a nice chat about the movie at the Chateau and he caught me off guard. It's my fault for taking his fear for compliance. Aelita gave Ritchie the athame. It's not exactly an ordinary knife. It's straight from Michael's own armory. She could have killed me with it. Truly killed me. Not just this body. But she missed their appointment and poor Ritchie had been getting steadily more and more panicked."

"Ritchie doesn't strike me as the type to help an angel out of the kindness of his heart."

"Aelita promised him his soul back if he incapacitated me."

I nod, pick up one of Ritchie's cigarette butts from the floor, sniff, and drop it again. It smells like hot tar and cancer. A little echo of Stark's compulsions.

Lucifer cocks his head and gives me a sidelong look.

"What's wrong with you? You sound different, James."

"James isn't here. It's just me now."

Lucifer rolls his eyes.

"I was wondering when this was going to happen. Nephilim are so unstable. Now it's time for you to have a little psychotic break and imagine you're a true angel. How sweet. Sad, but sweet."

"You knew that something awful was going to happen, didn't you?"

I sit down on the console near Lucifer.

"You knew about the Geistwalds. And maybe even that Aelita would use the chaos to pull something, didn't you?"

Lucifer nods.

"You never intended for Light Bringer to get made. The movie was just an excuse to hang around and see it play out. Tell me that you didn't know it was going to be a Drifter shit storm."

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pack of Maledictions, finds one that isn't broken, and lights it.

"Are you interrogating me? Remember who it is you're talking to."

"A half-dead old man who hides his seeping wounds and bloody bandages under dark shirts."

"Playing angel is fun, isn't it? You feel powerful. Omnipotent. Don't let it go to your head. Even if the Stark part of you is gone, it doesn't make you an angel. At best it makes you half. You're a novelty toy like a talking doll or sea monkeys."

I pick up the athame and shove it back between Lucifer's ribs. He doubles over and collapses onto the floor. I leave him there and go to Ritchie's gun cabinet to look for bullets. I find the right ones on the top shelf and reload the Smith amp; Wesson. Take that box and another box of shells and put them in my pocket.

"You knew all about it. You knew about Koralin and Aki and how they were going to murder the city."

From the floor he says, "What if I did?"

"Why? You own half the place. Why would you let that happen?"

Lucifer tries to sit up. It gets annoying watching him flail around, so I pull out the knife. He breathes deeply, leaning on one elbow on the floor.

"Remember when I came to your room after you stopped the angel sacrifice at Avila? I joked that you were my science project."

"Yes."

"You still are."

"You sent Spencer Church into the bar the other night."

"I had to. You'd missed so much in your drunken self-pity these last months. You didn't notice people disappearing or sense the presence of golems in the aether. I sent Spencer to nudge you in the right direction."

"Why me? Why am I your damned project?"

He draws on the Malediction and coughs. Smoke leaks from the wound in his side.

"Weren't you a Boy Scout when you were young? I'm helping you earn a very special merit badge."

"Explain."

Lucifer shakes his head and laughs.

"There's that tone again. You're beginning to sound like Aelita. I don't like you towering over me. Help me into the chair."

"I think you look good right where you are."

"Have your fun, then. However, I might point out that if you don't help me, Mason is going to win and you're going to die and that if you think that tonight is Hell on earth, kiddo, you ain't seen nothing yet."

I holster the gun, take him by the shoulders, and set him on the chair. I can't tell if he's smaller than I remembered or if I'm getting stronger. Maybe both. Lucifer has to lean on his arm to stay upright. He sets the Malediction on the console and lets it burn into the plastic top.

"I'm not the angel I used to be. I showed you my dirty little secret back at the hotel for a reason. The truth is that my wounds are getting worse, not better."

"And you don't want Mason or your generals to see you getting weak. I get that."

"When Father threw us out of Heaven, all he gave us was a hole in the ground. I built Hell out of my sheer will, the same way he created Heaven. But now I'm falling apart."

"And so is Hell."

"The king is the land. The land is the king. The dying king is the death of the land. It's an old story."

"If you want a damned doctor, why don't you go to Kinski? He has God's divine-light punch-bowl glass. Wouldn't that help?"

He laughs.

"Uriel is just sentimental enough to help me. That's why he fell for you people in the first place. But the truth is, I'm not looking for that kind of help. What I want is to go home. But I can't simply abandon Hell. The fallen are my responsibility. I can't leave them to Mason and chaos and self-destruction. When I'm gone, Hell will need a new Lucifer."

"If this is going where I think it's going, then fuck you and every other blackhearted angel in the universe."

"Careful with those curses. Don't forget. You're one of us now."

He laughs at his own joke and stubs out the Malediction.

He says, "Don't get me wrong. I'm not going home to fall on my knees and beg Daddy for forgiveness. I still believe in the argument. Angels shouldn't be slaves to God or man. But I regret how I made the argument before. All the slaughter. I won't ever be one of Father's sycophants like Michael. I'll be the thorn in Heaven's side as much as I ever was. But I'm not a child anymore and I don't want to burn the house down."

"The way Aelita does?"

"You know about that?"

"She told me. She was practically bragging about it. She said I set her on the right path when I manifested a Gladius."

He raises his eyebrows.

"That I hadn't expected."

"So, you want to go home and help out dear old Dad. Who's the sentimental one now?"

Lucifer's lips curl into a weak smile.

"Whatever else happens, I don't want Aelita and the Sisters of Perpetual Smugness taking over. She's such a bore. My war with Heaven had some style to it. You should have seen my golden armor. It was brighter and more beautiful than the sun. So bright that even after Father blasted the golden metal with a thunderbolt, driving us rebels into the dark, I still shone like the morning star. I was the light that the other fallen followed as we plunged from Heaven to the bottom of the abyss.

"Aelita's war, on the other hand, will be drab and vicious, and Heaven will be worse than Hell if she wins. If Mason wins down below, then there will be all-out war between Hell and Heaven, and when it's over there won't be enough of either left to matter. Do you think this fragile world of yours can survive that? Can Alice and all those other helpless souls up there strumming their harps?"

"Thanks for the offer, Dad, but I'm not really interested in going into the family business."

He looks at me, his eyebrows creasing.

"Good lord, boy. Do you seriously think I'm your father?"

"It's obvious. My father is an angel. You've helped me over and over, when I was Downtown and now that I'm here. Now you come back to L.A. and invent some lame excuse that you need a bodyguard just to keep me around. And you've never for one minute stopped messing with my head. That sounds like a father to me."

"First of all, considering that you just pulled a knife from my side, your 'not needing a bodyguard' argument falls spectacularly short. And second, if I helped you it was just to occasionally nudge you in the right direction. You did the rest yourself. If I 'messed with your head,' it was to challenge you to get past any obstacle in your way. You've seen Hell, so you should understand that ruling and surviving there takes cunning, insight, creativity, a little bit of luck, and a fair amount of ruthlessness. You had the kernel of all those qualities, but you lacked focus. You needed training."

"You're my Mr. Miyagi."

"I've been called worse."

"I'm not through with Mason, but I'm not interested in being you."

"Too bad. It's a package deal. Whatever you decide, I'm going home. None of my generals is equipped to run Hell on their own. It will fall apart in months if one of them takes my place. There are only two candidates with the power and knowledge to take over: you and Mason. One of you will live and lead. The other will die. I'm on your side, James, but if Mason is better than you, I won't be able to stop him from taking over."

"If you're not my father…?"

"Uriel is your father, you imbecile. But you always knew that. I know your mind, James. You liked the idea that I might be your father because it fit your image of yourself and would let you continue to cultivate your anger. You have to stop fighting yourself if you're going to survive what's coming."

My mind ices over for a second. I shake it off. Now's not the time to think about any of that.

"If I'm not your son, why does this come down to Mason and me? Is Mason your little monster, too?"

Lucifer winces and touches his side. There's blood on his hand when he pulls it back, thick and so dark it's almost purple.

"Hardly. I've had a million children over the centuries and they're all like Mason. Even when I've had them with good, smart, kind women, they always came out the same. And no, none of them are nephilim. Not the way you are. Whatever the deformity in my blood that produces such little bastards also makes my progeny human. Powerful humans, but nothing more than mad, cruel little Caligulas. They're more the way the Church has painted me than I ever was. Isn't that funny? I wanted to keep this transition in the family, but none of them was ever worthy to take the throne. That was truly humbling. I'd been God's favorite. More than Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, or even your father. But I couldn't produce a single heir who wasn't a miserable piece of scheming human excrement."

"What you're really asking me to do is clean up your mess."

"No. I'm going home to clean up my mess. I'm giving you a chance to save your world."

"This isn't my world any more than it's yours. I've changed and everything is different. Nothing is solid. The world is all motes of light. Random nodes vibrating on long strings of existence. Fireflies in a jar. Who could love that?"

I almost want a cigarette. Stark screams in my head. I have to concentrate to keep him locked in the dark.

"I think about the Mithras more and more. I'd solve everyone's problem by releasing the first fire and burning down the whole universe."

"I tried that with Heaven, remember? Talk to your father before doing anything rash. Unless you want to be exactly like Mason."

I look over at Ritchie.

"What are we going to do with him?"

"Nothing. He's dead."

"And you don't even have his soul. He's on his way to the Jackal's Backbone."

"I'm perfectly happy to let him wander and rot for a while. I'll have his soul eventually."

"You can't go back to the Chateau. I'm using your room to finish things with Koralin Geistwald."

He shakes his head and tries to stand. He doesn't make it.

"I wasn't going back there anyway. I need to return below and ready things for my departure. Do you think you might take me through the Room? It's the quickest way and I'd like to rest before leaving Pandemonium. The elevator is out of service and it's a long walk up to Father's place."

"The Druj Ammun controls the Drifters. Is it true it will control Hellions?"

"I expect so."

"That could be a nice weapon if I decided to take you up on your idea."

"It could be, but don't count on it. Magical weapons have a way of revealing a fatal flaw at exactly the moment you need them the most. The Druj is powerful, but don't ever get dependent on a single weapon. Who knows? You might not be able to keep it."

"What do you mean?"

"You figure it out, nephilim."

"Am I still being trained?"

He pushes himself up and manages to stand this time. I put out a hand to steady him.

"Consider it a last homework assignment before graduation."

"Hold on to my arm and I'll take you through the Room."

He pulls me back.

"Don't leave the athame lying there. Just because you shouldn't rely on weapons doesn't mean you shouldn't have as many as possible."

I get the athame and slip it in my coat next to the black blade.

"That goes for my armor, too. At some point you'll need it. If Mason has it, you'll have to take it from him."

"I'll only need it if I go back to Hell and I'm not. Ever."

"No. Of course you aren't."

"Let's take you home, old man."

"Thank you for this, James."

"I'm not James."

"I know. But I liked James better. I hope I get to see him again someday." I LET HIM through the door, but I don't go in with him. He's on his own Downtown. I honestly don't know if I want him to make it to Heaven or not. Like me, he'll have to rise or fall on his own.

Only one of the angels will die by my hand, Aelita said. She was coming here, so she had to have meant Lucifer, right? But she didn't come.

I dial Kasabian. No answer. I dial Kinski and the call goes to voice mail. Shit. I should feel something more than this. Fear. Rage. But I don't. I just see the microscopic elements of the universe vibrating. The clockwork wheels turning behind the stars.

I can go and look for them or I can go back and deal with Koralin. I suppose Lucifer was right about some of the things he said about me. Especially now with these angel's eyes, ruthlessness seems like good common sense.

I step through a shadow and back into the hotel lobby. A few of the hotel guests, who were bitten but not completely eaten, are awake. Adorable baby zeds. I herd them into the elevator, punch three, and take a few of them into Lucifer's hotel suite with me.

Aki's eyes go wide when he sees us.

I tear the tape off his mouth, cut one of his hands free, and give him my phone.

"Don't worry. The Drifters won't bite. For now. Call Koralin. Tell her where you are and that her prodigal son is going to be tonight's all-you-can-eat buffet if she doesn't get her ass down here fast."

When he's done, I tape him back up and go through a shadow to Vidocq and Allegra's place. I need to get things ready. KORALIN STEPS THROUGH the clock and into the room slowly, like she's expecting a firing squad.

I turned off most of the lights, just leaving on the ones that illuminate Aki and the area by the sofas.

She spots Aki.

"Rainier, darling, are you all right? Has he hurt you?"

"I didn't hurt him, but the genius shot a hole in his own foot."

She starts to go to him, but I cut her off.

"He isn't taking visitors and he isn't Rainier. Don't call him that."

"He's my son. I'll call him whatever I like."

"Your son is dead. So's your daughter. I know. I killed her."

She looks at me for a moment like she doesn't believe me and then turns back to Aki.

"That was a terrible thing for you to do. Still, she was lost to me a long time ago."

"It's funny you should say that. You're the last thing she talked about. She wanted me to tell you that she was sorry. She said that you scared her and her father and she wanted to get you back for it, but now she was sorry. What was she so sorry for? Taking the Druj?"

"She was always her father's daughter. They were just alike. Always weak and worried. Always apologizing."

"But not Rainier."

"Rainier was a good boy. He was strong like his mother. He understood how the world was and what was necessary for the family."

"He was that important and you let him die. Take you off the mother-of-the-year list. What happened to him?"

She walks back and forth, looking past me at Aki. But she doesn't try to go to him.

"It was an accident. Rainier was reckless and headstrong, like all children. He went to a chemical plant and stole a large amount of ammonal, aluminum, and ammonium nitrate. He was going to use it to blow up the Springheel home. Can you imagine? It would have been such a merry thing, ending that ancient family line not with sorcery, but with something so mundane. But Rainier didn't know how to properly handle the material. There must have been a spark or a flame. Perhaps one of his witless friends lit a cigarette. There was an explosion. That was the true tragedy of his death. It was so common and petty as to be obscene. It was a human death."

"That's got to be a bad way to go for you."

She turns to me, looking every bit the ironclad matriarch that frightened Eleanor so much that she'd rather be a bloodsucker than a daughter.

"It's the worst possible way for a Geistwald."

I look at Aki and back at Koralin.

"I see Aki over there and I see a pampered little prince taped to a chair. His heart is beating like a scared rabbit and his soul is bouncing around like a Super Ball in his chest. Then I look at you and I don't see anything. You're hollow and I can't help noticing that you don't seem to have a soul."

"The Geistwald line discarded them centuries ago. They're done away with at birth."

"Are you dead by any chance, Koralin? Are you Death Born?"

She shoots Aki an angry glance.

"Der Todes Geboren. Yes. All Geistwalds are. It's our gift. The source of our strength."

"You're Drifters. Your whole fucking family. That's your secret. Savants might be special, but you're something else entirely. I bet no one even knows there's a fourth kind of Drifter."

"Not many. The few who do either work with us or they die quickly."

"I bet. That's a big secret to hide for centuries. Is that why you came to America? You couldn't stay in the old country without someone finally figuring out what you were? Pretty soon you'd have to wipe out every Sub Rosa in Europe. Not the way to make friends and influence people."

"Something along those lines. But we also came for the same reasons as the Springheels. There was no room for new dynasties at home. Here it was open land and fertile soil. The East already had settled families so we followed the Springheels to the West. It was paradise for many years, but then things changed."

"Other Sub Rosas came and started crowding you out?"

"Of course not. We encouraged them to follow us. You can't build a true dynasty in the wilderness. A dynasty must be appreciated and acknowledged."

"Then why are you doing this? How many old families do you have to kill off to prove you're the best? How much more wealth and power do you need? What the hell is it that you really want?"

"The next million years," she says. Koralin paces as she talks. I've hit a nerve.

"This land is ours. It belongs to Der Todes Geboren. The other families can stay as long as they understand who rules here. But not you. Not your stores or industry or cars or noise. When we came here, the Indians living along the river didn't trouble us. They recognized what and who we were. They respected our privacy and we respected theirs. Then others came. Traders from Mexico. Spaniards on ships. European trappers and settlers. They ran out the Indians. We poisoned the river. We called down the haze from the ocean. We froze and choked them, but they wouldn't go away. They planted trees and brought their stinking cattle. They built their cities and bred like rats. They changed the land completely. We hardly recognized our home."

"But they learned to keep out of your way, so you must have made contact sometime."

"Charles Springheel was a fool. He decided that we should coexist with you people, and being the oldest family, he convinced the others to go along with him."

"So, you decided to kill off everything to get back at Charles for snubbing you. It sounds convincing except that when I look outside I don't see any kind of organized attack. All I see is chaos. I mean, Aki here was running around prying open manholes by hand like some teenybopper playing pranks on Halloween. This isn't how it's supposed to go, is it? This isn't your plan. It's Eleanor's revenge. Stealing the Druj screwed up your timetable and you weren't ready."

"It doesn't matter. Tonight. Tomorrow. This has been coming for a long time and now it's here."

"It's going to end tonight."

"Yes, it is. The golems we've released should make the situation clear. You people can leave now and live, or you can die here and wander the Jackal's Backbone until the stars burn out."

"I wonder what would happen if I held you down and pulled your head off your pretty shoulders."

She smiles and touches a hand to her lips.

"Aelita said that you would make threats when you didn't get your way. She gave me something that's valuable to you. A Jade named Candy."

"Anything else?"

"A head that won't stop talking."

She waits for me to say something. I don't. I stand still.

"Interesting. Aelita told me that this is when you would attack. She said that you would erupt at anything resembling a threat."

"I'm not like that anymore. Getting all theatrical is only about making the attacker feel better."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Then why don't you put down whatever else Aelita gave you and let's figure a way out of this together."

She takes an athame from inside her sleeve.

"Do you know what this is?"

"I have one just like it."

"Good. I'll keep it out where you can see it, but I don't think I'm ready to give it up quite yet."

"Whatever. Here's the deal. I'm willing to give you back the Druj. You use it to put the Drifters back in the Backbone. When you do, you get Aki and I get Candy and Kasabian."

"Why wouldn't I just use the Druj tomorrow and all this would begin again?"

"Once the Drifters are back inside, I'll get Muninn to seal the caves good and tight. The dead will stay put for a thousand years. Assuming you don't blow yourself up like Rainier, you can try your plan again then."

"Let me have the Druj."

"Get my friends over here and I'll hand it over. Do anything stupid and your fair-haired boy is dead and you won't be able to do a damned thing about it."

"This is an angel's knife. It might just kill you."

"I think I can outrun your knife, but I'm positive Aki can't outrun mine. Make the call and everyone gets to go home and sleep in their own bed."

"I don't have a phone."

"There's one on the desk over there."

She goes to Lucifer's desk and dials.

I give Aki a once-over. The tape is still good and tight on his arms and legs. There's a small pool of blood around his foot. Enough to make him light-headed, but not enough to worry about.

Koralin says, "They're on their way. It will be a few minutes. Traffic is a bit heavy tonight."

I go to one of the sofas and sit down.

"Take a load off. The room is comfy enough. For us. Poor Aki must be hurting pretty bad right now."

I look back at him.

"How are you doing, champ? Foot throbbing?"

He garbles something through the tape. Even gagged, I can recognize a sincere "fuck you."

Koralin perches on the sofa opposite me, barely resting her ass on the edge. She holds her knife upright, the point between her breasts.

"Since we seem to have struck a bargain, I'll put down my knife if you lay down all of your weapons."

I take out the Smith amp; Wesson and put it on the table. I set the black blade and athame next to it. I put the na'at at the end, where she can get a good look at it.

"So what was it between you and Eleanor? She must have really hated you to run off with your secret weapon."

"She was a troubled child."

"That's an interesting way to put it because the moment you bring her into your story, it doesn't add up. You Geistwalds are Death Born. But Eleanor was bitten by a vampire and turned. That means she had to be alive."

"Eleanor wasn't Der Todes Geboren."

"I thought so. Was your husband?"

"Of course. He was the patriarch. And Rainier. Eleanor, however, was like you. The family grotesque."

"She was Daddy's girl, wasn't she? It's his fault Eleanor wasn't dead like Mommy."

Koralin doesn't say anything for a couple of minutes. Just stares at Aki. I wait. I count the molecules that make up the pearls in the necklace.

Finally, she says, "Not being alive ourselves, we can't produce our own children. Jan conceived Eleanor with a living woman."

"Was she pretty? Was she nice? Did he fall in love with her?"

A slight smile plays around her mouth likes she's found a pleasant memory.

"Tell me about your father," she says.

"Which one? I seem to have a lot."

"The human one."

I shrug.

"He was all right. I wasn't an easy kid. He tried his best, but he never really took a shine to me."

"What a surprise. And your other father?"

"Until an hour ago, I thought it was Lucifer."

"That would be almost as good a family secret as ours."

"So, Jan was in love with a pretty human and they had a girl. Then what?"

She looks at her hands and then starts.

"Jan was a romantic. He loved the woman and didn't want their daughter to be Death Born. The Geistwald children receive the death bite at birth when the head of the family removes the umbilical with his teeth. Jan refused. He stole the child, and by the time he brought her back, it was too late for her to be reborn."

"So you tortured and tormented Eleanor and her father every day of her life."

"They deserved worse. I would have killed her, but she was still a Geistwald and there would have been talk."

"Rainier was born right, though. And you weren't going to let him get away."

"Rainier was a good boy and I took care of him."

"But he was still too stupid to live. Even with all your torture, I think Eleanor and Dad got the best of that deal."

"My new Rainier will be born properly and become the new head of the family."

She waves to him.

"I love you, dear. Hold on just a little longer. Daddy is on the way."

"You just said you have to be Death Born at birth. Aki is at least twenty-five."

"There are ways around that. Sorcerers who can remove his spirit and put it into the body of a newborn. I'll personally make the child Der Todes Geboren and Rainier will be reborn."

"But he'll still be Aki. You keep choosing fuckups for sons."

She leans forward on her seat.

"Now tell me about your real father."

"I don't know him that well. He's a doctor, but it's a second career. He used to be an archangel."

"Kinski? How funny. And you only just discovered this?"

"If Lucifer was telling the truth. I think he was. It's more fun for him to kill you with the truth than with a lie."

"I wish I'd been there to see your face."

"It wasn't all that dramatic."

"Seeing you in any amount of pain would be a joy."

"I cut my arm on a piece of glass earlier."

"Did it hurt?"

"It stung."

"Good."

The phone rings. Koralin goes to the desk and exchanges a few words with the caller.

"Jan is here."

"Tell him to take the elevator to three."

I pick up my gun and go to the door.

"Our deal is still on, but if you get near Aki while I let them in, I'll blow his head off."

I push open the door just as the elevator arrives.

"In here."

Candy comes through first. She throws her arms around me and holds on tight.

"He's dead. Doc is dead," she says. "That angel bitch Aelita killed him."

"I know. It's all right. We'll get through this."

Jan comes in after her with Kasabian's bowling bag.

I gesture to him with the gun.

"Go over to the table and let him out. Then sit down next to your wife."

Jan unzips the bag and puts Kasabian on the table. Jan sits down at the far end of the sofa, as far from Koralin as he can.

"Fuck you, you Kraut shit."

I set Candy in a chair by the desk.

"You all right, Kasabian?"

"No thanks to these pricks. That bitch stood there while that crazy-ass angel stabbed Kinski."

"Sit tight and keep quiet. This will be over with soon."

"Excuse me," says Koralin. "You have your friends. Please put the pistol down."

I look at Aki and then at her and set the gun on the table.

"We're going to do this slowly and carefully so there aren't any misunderstandings, all right?"

"Of course."

"Good. Koralin, stand up with your hands where I can see them. Come down to the end of the table with me. I'll take the Druj from my pocket and hand it to you."

I stand up while Koralin comes around, put my hand in my pocket, and take out the Druj. I exaggerate my arm and hand movements so she can see what I'm doing. When it's out, I show her the Druj and that I'm not holding anything else.

"Put out your hands."

She does and I set the Druj there. I step back as Koralin smiles and holds it up so Aki can see.

"We have it, darling. It's ours."

She turns to me, all motherly and full of aristocratic outrage.

"You're all dead. I'll call every golem in the city down on you. They'll each get one shallow bite. It will take days for you to die."

Koralin really wants Drifters by her side, so they come to her. The ones I brought in from the hall and lobby stashed around the edges of the room earlier are drawn to her and the Druj. When she sees them she laughs with delight. She's amused just long enough for me to grab the na'at and whip the end of it into her chest like a dagger. There's no time to aim well, but I do all right.

The end slips between her ribs and into her heart. Another flick and the na'at retracts. Koralin falls to the floor grunting like an animal in shock and pain. Her milk-pale skin crawls with patches of red. Her lips fade from deep blue to bright crimson as she draws her first choked and agonized breath since birth.

"Did you know that the cure for a zombie bite is a Savant's blood? I learned that when Johnny Thunders gave me some of his. I used some to help out Brigitte and I put the rest on the na'at. Johnny must have been right because it looks to me like you're breathing again. How does it feel to be alive after all these years? Just another pathetic mortal lowlife. Weird, I bet. Don't worry. You won't feel it for long."

I pick up the Druj from where she dropped it, pull Candy from the sofa, and hand her Kasabian.

The Drifters crowd around Koralin. They move in slowly, a little uncertain of who or what she is. She was one of them a moment ago, but she must be starting to smell human. I wonder what her body temperature has to be before they know she's food.

"If you want to go, you can go," I tell Jan.

He stands there.

"I can't leave her to this."

"I'm giving you a break because of Eleanor."

"Please."

"No."

He grabs the athame from the table and throws it. He's good, too. He's handled a knife before.

I duck it, but Candy is looking at Koralin, so she doesn't see it coming. The knife hits her arm and goes in to the hilt. She drops Kasabian and I flick out the na'at, hitting Jan in the chest. It knocks him back onto the sofa and in a few seconds he's staring through watery eyes filled with the shock and deep-down horror of being alive. A moment later he starts to breathe. As his lungs begin filling with air he reaches for my gun, but his body is still in shock and he's too clumsy to reach it. I pick it up and put it in his hand. I help him steady it under his chin so he'll get it right when he pulls the trigger. The sound of a gun going off inside hurts my ears and the back of Jan's head explodes out in a red spray. The Drifters not heading for Koralin make a beeline for the gore. I take the gun back and put it in my jacket.

I tuck Kasabian under my arm, put my arm around Candy, and help her to the door.

"What about the boy?" she asks.

"He wants to be part of the family. Let him."

We're out in the hall when the screaming starts. I close the door and smash the grandfather clock to pieces, sealing the room. I grab Candy and Kasabian and step through a shadow and back to the old apartment.

I can see Brigitte through the bedroom door. She's propped up on pillows and her eyes are open.

Allegra is coming toward us.

"I'm sorry to always show up with walking wounded. But we don't have anywhere else to go anymore," I tell her.

Allegra takes Candy, lays her out on the sofa, and goes for first-aid supplies.

"You know you are always welcome. Family is difficult, but having none is worse."

Kasabian is still under my arm.

"Oh Christ. Put me back with the zombies, Strawberry Shortcake."

I go back to the bedroom. Brigitte sits up and puts out her hand. I take it, but only to make her feel better. She's still too weak to explain that the man she thinks she's looking at is gone.

There's a blast in the street. Then shouting. I look out the window and see a couple of girls and a young guy running from a pack of Lacunas. They have guns and are shooting. They're getting some pretty good hits, but it's not going to do them any good. They have to slow down when they aim. In a minute or two they'll be out of bullets and the Lacunas will have gained on them enough that it will be over.

I turn to Brigitte.

"I'll be back in a minute."

I climb the stairs to the roof. When I get there I can still hear gunfire, but it's less frequent. They know they're running low on ammo.

From the edge of the roof I can see the whole city. It's a patchwork of light and dead blacked-out areas and the whole thing has turned orange and bleached yellow from dozens of fires.

The shooters are out of bullets and the Lacunas close in.

Koralin must have known something extra about how the Druj works. I could make the Drifters nearby do what I want, but there's no way I can control a whole city. She acted like she could. Maybe I should have asked her about that before letting the Drifters have her.

Even if I could control them all, would that save the day? Lucifer said not to rely on any one weapon. That I might not even be able to keep this one. Maybe that's the point. The fatal flaw that will reveal itself at exactly the worst moment. When would that be? When I sneak Downtown and use the Druj to hunt Mason? Now, when I try to get the Drifters to march back to their caves?

When I was still in the arena, I stole a knife to kill another fighter I didn't like. I tried stabbing him in the tunnel leading to the fighting floor, but the knife's weight was odd and the blade wasn't sharp enough. I found out later that it was a throwing knife, completely wrong for hand-to-hand fighting. It only had power when you threw it. To use it, you couldn't keep it.

I take the Druj out of my pocket and throw it off the roof. It turns over and over in the air like a coin tossed on a bet. It takes forever to hit the ground.

The Lacunas have caught up with the shooters. They're on them. I can hear them screaming.

The Druj hits the pavement and shatters into a million pieces.

The Lacunas freeze. For a moment they're horrible dummies in a Hellion spook house. Then quietly, like wind on a roof, they fall apart. They're dust before they hit the ground. The shooters, both girls and the boy, get up. They stagger, grab each other, and look around. When they see what's happened, they run away as fast as they can. The same thing is happening farther down the street. Drifters are falling apart everywhere. In the distance, civilians are single dots running from packs of other dots. Then the pack disappears and the lone dot stops running.

The fires still burn. Half the city is still blacked out. Sirens scream and helicopters cut up the sky. I go back downstairs. WHEN IT'S LIGHT out, I take Kasabian back to Max Overload to see what condition the place is in.

Downstairs is trashed. It doesn't look like Drifters made it inside, but in the great tradition of all L.A. apocalypses, looters did. The windows and doors are smashed. The cartoons, action movies, and porn sections are pretty much cleared out. The cash registers are gone, too.

Upstairs, the lock on the door is broken, but the place is pretty much intact. There's a big circle of dried blood on the bed.

"That's where that crazy bitch got Kinski. I don't know what happened to his body. Sorry, man. I know you two were tight."

"Not really."

I wad up the sheets, take them and the bed downstairs, and leave them by the curb with the broken glass and burned-out cars. I can't remember the city ever being this quiet. Like a funeral on Christmas morning. I don't see any single people go by. Everyone huddles together in twos and threes and more. Walking wounded. Piles of dust mark the places where Drifters fell. Garbage trucks and commandeered pickups lined with plastic sheets cruise Hollywood Boulevard shoveling up human remains.

I go back upstairs and sit on the bed frame. I don't know what to do. An angel should have some idea of where to go from here. Stark would do something. Something stupid, but something. If I could keep him from drinking, he wouldn't be bad to have around sometimes. But he's gone.

"Are there any cigarettes?" asks Kasabian.

I look around, but can't find any. I go back downstairs and find a half-smoked butt on the counter. I take it upstairs, light it with Mason's lighter, and hold it out for Kasabian. He takes a couple of puffs.

"You don't want any?"

"No."

"You're different, man. Not like depressed different. I've seen that. That bite fucked you all up."

"I'm fine. I'm just not smoking or drinking. I'm better."

"A lot of laughs, too. You usually would have made some stupid joke by now instead of sitting there like you just got electroshock."

"It could have been ten."

"What's that mean?"

"It's a Hellion joke. When God threw them from Heaven, they fell for nine days, so when everything goes to shit you say…"

"…It could have been ten. Nice. Now you're doing some demon's stand-up act. You're going to be a riot clean and sober."

"I wonder if anywhere still has food."

"And beer. You might be Sister Mary Dry County, but some of us are still people and need booze."

"I'll see what I can do."

I pull the door closed and go out through the front.

The boulevard is a ghost town. What a shock. There are patches of blood and a smoldering garage around the corner, but the worst seems to be over. I pass a dozen gutted stores, including some markets, but I can't make myself go in. I'm hungry and not above stealing, but I don't want to trip over any half-eaten bodies inside.

If I was a religious man (and no, knowing there's a Heaven and Hell, God and devil and angels doesn't help being religious one little bit), I might take what I see as a sign. There's a line outside Donut Universe. The windows are shattered and some of the booths have been trashed, but they have power and they're pouring coffee for a long line of shell-shocked civilians. Coffee would be nice, but if I get in line someone might try to talk to me. I keep walking.

"Hey!"

Someone is yelling, but it doesn't sound scared, so I don't turn around. There's a hand on my arm. I turn, ready to punch or shoot.

It's Janet, the donut girl. She's pale and her hair is spiked and messy and her eyes are dark, like she hasn't slept since Groundhog Day.

"You're alive," she says.

"So are you. How was the Chinese food?"

"The chow mein was greasy, but the mu shu pork was good. Here," she says, and puts a bag in my hand.

"We're out of fritters, so it's just an assortment of what we have left. We haven't made any new ones, so they're a little stale. But the coffee is hot."

"I think you just saved my life, Janet."

"We're even, then."

"It's really good to see you."

"You, too."

She kisses me on the cheek and runs back into Donut Universe. People in line glare at me, wondering why I rate special treatment.

I saved your lives, assholes. Let me have a fucking donut. CANDY IS SITTING on the bed frame when I get back.

"Hi."

"Hi yourself. Want a bear claw?"

"No thanks."

"I guess you and Kasabian have met."

"Yeah. We talked about movies and gossiped about you last night."

I put the bags on Kasabian's table and sit down next to Candy.

"I'm sorry about the doc."

It takes her a while to say anything. She's trying hard not to cry.

"Yeah. You know about him, right?"

"That he's my father? Yeah. I heard."

"I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but he wouldn't let me. He wanted to do it when the time was right and it could just be you two for a while and you could talk or fight or whatever it is fathers and sons do."

"I think I'll miss him."

"Yeah. Me, too."

She leans against me. I put my arm around her because the angel knows I'm supposed to at a moment like this.

"I missed you, too," she says. "I know you thought that doc and I were lovers, but it wasn't like that. We were each fucked up in different ways and took care of each other, but doc never forgot what happened to the women he loved and what happened to the kids they had. He just didn't have it in him anymore. You're the only thing of his that survived."

"He kept you alive, too."

"Yeah, he did."

We're quiet for a minute, then she moves away and looks at me hard.

"You're not you anymore, are you?"

"No. I'm not."

"Are you in there somewhere?"

"If you mean Stark, I don't think so. Stark was a drunk and a fool and he's dead. Fuck him."

"Who are you now?"

"No one. Nothing. I don't know if I'm the end of something or the beginning. Let's pretend it's the beginning. You can name me, like a baby."

She looks at her hands and takes a breath.

"Take the cure. Your friends wouldn't want you like this. I don't want you like this."

"Stark is dead. He's gone. Maybe you should do the same. Go away and don't come back."

She loses it and starts bawling.

"I don't want Stark to be gone. Doc is gone and I don't want you to be gone, too."

"He's dead. You don't get a vote on dead."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I get up.

"You should go now."

She stands, but doesn't move.

"I know you're not Stark anymore and none of this means anything to you, but can you please just hold me for a minute before I go?"

This is why angels find it so easy to kill you people.

"All right."

Candy grabs me hard like she's fallen overboard and is holding on to the side of a boat to keep from drowning.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She must have had the knife in her hand the whole time. Like me, Candy is a killer, so she gets me in the heart with the first thrust.

As I black out all I can think is, Oh hell. This again. I PUT THE bowling bag on the bar at Bamboo House of Dolls and unzip it.

"Carlos, meet Alfredo Garcia."

"Fuck you, man. You said you weren't going to say that."

"It was a long walk. I forgot."

"I'm Kasabian. Are you the Carlos who makes the tamales?"

Carlos eyeballs Kasabian like someone seeing his first pickled punk at a sideshow.

"Yeah. That's me."

"They're awesome. They're what keep me from smothering this asshole with a pillow when he's asleep."

Normally I wouldn't inflict Kasabian on a civilian, but Carlos hasn't ever been a regular civilian. And what's a talking head when a few days ago you had dead men in here trying to eat your customers?

"Stark's told me about you, too."

"Yeah? What's he said?"

"Well," says Carlos, looking Kasabian over, "I thought you'd be taller."

"Very funny, beer jockey. Do you have any actual booze back there or is it just Hawaiian Punch and seashells?"

"I think we can find some booze. What are you drinking?"

"Beer. The more expensive the better. Put it on his account."

Kasabian turns to me.

"Put my bucket under me. I haven't been out in six months and I'm not planning on drinking responsibly. You're the designated driver."

I hope Carlos doesn't mind us being here. For the time being, he's pretty much my Plan A for not starving to death. Plan B, C, and D, too. Max Overload is dead and I don't know if it'll ever be back. I don't want to think about how many thousands of dollars fixing the place up and restocking the shelves will be. It's not like we have a dime. The insurance company canceled us after the explosion back in January. The Vigil is gone. And what are the chances that Lucifer will keep paying me a stipend after he goes home to Kansas? I'm too well known to knock over liquor stores and too ugly to be a rent boy. What's minimum wage these days? Maybe Carlos will hire me to clean up after closing.

It's good to see Bamboo House full of drunken monsters and crazy civilians. Maybe Brigitte was right after all. Maybe a little danger will bring in the crowds. The place still doesn't need a velvet rope, but I don't see business slacking off for a while. People need a drink when they survive an apocalypse. Speaking of which.

I look for Carlos to order a shot of Jack and there's already one at my elbow. Who says he's not psychic?

"How's that hole in your chest doing?" comes a voice from behind me.

"I have a nice new scar. I don't know how much of Johnny's blood you put on the knife, but it left a mark on my heart. I might need a doctor."

"We'll stock up on lollipops," says Candy.

She and Allegra squeeze in next to me at the crowded bar.

I say, "Next time you decide to stab someone to cure them from a horrible disease, try using a smaller knife."

"I could have given you the potion in a needle like I gave Brigitte, but no, you had to be a baby about it."

"You shouldn't stab babies either. I'm not even a doctor and I know that."

"We only stab the ugly ones," says Allegra.

Allegra and Candy have been stuck together like Chang and Eng since the night I came back from the Jackal's Backbone. With Kinski gone, we need a new hoodoo doc who can help Lurkers, take bullets out of chests without cracking them open, and juggle those hunks of God's broken glass.

"How's boot camp?"

Allegra does an exaggerated sigh.

"Harder than art school, but more fun than stopping kids from shoplifting Faces of Death at the store."

"She picks up on doc's magic healing gear fast," says Candy. "I never had the head for it, but she zeros right in."

"Eugene's books help with the obscure stuff. Did you know that when necromancers and Houngans are allergic to Mandrake root, their balls can swell up to the size of cantaloupes?"

"I never wanted to know that. Soon you'll be doctor to the stars and monsters. Dr. Kildare with two l's."

"Florence Frightingale," says Allegra.

Candy smiles.

"I told her that one."

Allegra says, "We're going to head back to the clinic. Candy is going to show me fun things to do with leeches."

"It's always a party with you two."

It's good to see Allegra excited. And Candy with something to occupy her mind.

I hold up my drink.

"To Doc Kinski."

We clink glasses and drink.

"And Doc Allegra."

We drink again.

Candy nods at the door.

"We have to go."

"Don't let the leeches push you around."

They go out, talking and laughing. I've never seen two people more excited about golden beetles and fermented goat's blood.

"Be patient."

It's Vidocq.

"Patience isn't my best quality."

"She's not running from you. She and Kinski might not have been lovers, but she still loved him. It will take her some time to get over his loss."

"Yeah. Him dying right then was inconvenient for a lot of us."

Vidocq pats me on the shoulder. The French are like that.

"Don't drink too much."

"When I can spell out your name in shot glasses, I'll stop."

"I'll have to get a shorter name."

"I'll have to forget how to spell it."

Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong. Maybe I should be like Allegra and get a new job. The store closing might be opportunity knocking. I should go across town and see if the skinheads are back in business. I heard somewhere that a lot of skinheads support themselves by dealing meth. I wonder how much cash they keep around? It's not like they can call the cops if someone stops by and takes all their money. How many other gangs and crooks are there in L.A.? Is there a Forbes 500 list of the ones with the most cash? I might be on the verge of a new career.

I see a familiar face heading my way. She'd be hard to miss in a room twenty times this size.

"Hello you. You've been kind of scarce the last few days."

Brigitte nods, takes the glass from my hand, and finishes my drink.

"Yes, I needed some time alone to do what you Americans love most. Process my thoughts. Becoming a revenant wasn't something I'd planned for this trip."

"But you didn't. We stopped it in time."

"But I felt it. I felt the infection burning through me. I felt myself dying, but not truly dying."

"I don't know how many times I've been stabbed and shot. It's part of my job description. Taking a chance on getting bitten has to be part of yours."

"Of course it is. But there's the other thing."

"And what's that?"

She lifts a finger and Carlos brings us a couple of new drinks. She blows him a kiss.

"The way you left the Geistwalds, it upset some people, but I thought it was apt. If I'd been there, I would have helped."

"I know."

"But there's the other thing."

"So I hear."

"Your friend Candy was knifed. Your father is dead. Simon is dead. Lucifer himself almost died."

"Johnny is gone."

"Who was he?"

"Someone I only knew for a little while. A good guy. He had a sweet tooth."

"Light Bringer was canceled, of course. I heard that even the Golden Vigil has disbanded."

I sip the Jack and nod.

"It looks that way. I went by their warehouse to pull out Wells's spine, but he was gone and the place was empty. There wasn't a screw, a nail, or an oil stain on the floor."

"That's the kind of thing I mean by the other thing."

She pushes her way in closer so that we're side by side and leans against me.

"You're a lovely man. Do you know that?"

"I can hear a 'but' the size of the Titanic bearing down on me."

"People get hurt around you. They die. And worse."

"I'm a professional shit magnet. I know."

"You scare me to death, which, on the one hand, makes you more attractive, but you wear death like that long black coat of yours. I think if things had just been a little different, if we'd met at a different moment, I wouldn't feel quite so overwhelmed."

"If you're keeping score, don't forget Alice. I got her killed, too."

"Don't talk like that."

We drink without talking for a minute. She feels good against my side.

"So, where are you headed from here?"

"I'm staying with Gigi Gaston. Maybe you met her at the Geistwald party. She worked at the studio and has taken over since Simon is gone."

"Hooking up with the studio head is a smart move for an actress."

"And for my other work, too. Gigi is one of the ones I meant by 'my people' when I called for someone to take the bodies of the revenants from behind the bar."

"That work is over, you know. The Drifters are gone. They all died when the Druj broke."

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yeah. But worrying about it is a good excuse to go off with Gigi. If I was you, it's what I'd say."

"If you scared me just ten percent less."

"No. You're doing the right thing. Things are going to get strange again soon and I'm afraid I'm going to end up in the middle of it. If Gigi can take care of you, you should go with her."

She pushes away and looks at me, her forehead furrowing.

"You don't hate me? You don't think I'm a coward for deserting you?"

"Never. You were always the smart one."

She takes my head in her hands and kisses me hard.

"Take care of yourself."

"You, too. Go be a movie star. It'll be fun to see you fifty feet tall."

"Just for you."

She starts away and I yell after her.

"You know, you never told me your real name."

She smiles.

"I know. We'll just have to find each other down the road sometime and I'll tell you then."

And she's gone.

"Wow. Going out with you is a real boost to the ego," says Kasabian. "Shot down twice in one night. Even I'm doing better than that with these kinky Goth chicks."

"Drink up, Alfredo. I hope no one starts keeping their dirty socks in your bag."

I get up and start away from the bar.

"Where are you going?"

"To the men's room. You remember those?"

"Funny. When you get back you want to take me outside for a smoke?"

"Why not?"

I get the usual funny looks of recognition and curiosity in the men's room. It's not just civilians. Lurkers are just as likely to stare.

"If any of you want an autograph right this second, I'm going to have to do it in piss."

That usually breaks up the viewing party.

Marshal Julie is waiting for me when I come out of the men's room.

"Don't worry, officer. I washed my hands."

She nods and looks me over.

"You cost me my job, you know."

"Talk to Aelita about that. Or Wells. Besides, I thought you worked for Homeland Security. Just 'cause the Vigil is gone baby gone, why does that affect you?"

"When the Vigil died, Washington panicked and burned our whole operation out here. They cut everyone loose."

"And now you're roaming the countryside like a Ronin. If you're looking for money or sympathy, I'm fresh out of both."

"That's not why I'm here. I don't want us to be enemies."

"I can't play bridge, so don't ask me to be your fourth."

"I'm opening my own investigations agency. My father was a PI, so I have experience. If it pans out, I thought that maybe I can throw you work sometimes."

I listen to her heart and watch her eyes. She means it. Her soul pulses steadily in her chest, a shimmering silver. A good color. Not everyone's is that clear.

"Why not? I'm not doing anything else. But no hits. And I'm not doing any divorce stuff. No peeping in people's windows. But if you have something specific that you think I can do, why not?"

"Okay, then."

She turns and looks around the bar.

"I'd heard all about this place. Some of the other marshals sneaked in here. Some Sub Rosa girls I knew at school. I never really believed them when they said that Lurkers and humans could hang out together like this."

"You ought to see it on bingo night."

"You didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did you?"

"What?"

"You were going to stroll in here with the Druj and put me over your knee like a bad boy? That's funny."

Marshal Julie's mouth is moving, but it's Mason's voice coming out. Her eyes are dead and vacant.

"Yes, it's me. Sorry I can't be there in person. This is the best my little homemade key can do for now."

Then a Nahual beast man steps up.

"Trust me. I'm working on new and better keys all the time. And with Lucifer taking a powder, it makes my work that much easier."

A civilian in a T-shirt with a software company logo on it crowds in.

"I hear you fed a whole family to golems the other night. Good for you. We were always more alike than you and Alice wanted to admit."

The girl in the leather jacket that Spencer Church tried to bite the other night opens her mouth.

"I wish I'd been there to watch you feed Mommy and the boy to the zeds. How long did it take to eat them?"

I grab the girl.

"Druj or not, I'm going to kill you. Hard."

Marshal Julie again.

"You know where I am. I'll leave a light on for you."

They walk away, some to the restroom, some back to the bar, like nothing happened.

"Don't worry. I wouldn't ask you to do something boring and normal," says the marshal.

She smiles at me. I stare into her eyes, looking for Mason. She stops smiling.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I've just had too much to drink. I'm going outside."

"Give me your number before you go."

I tell her and head back to the bar.

"I'll call you if something comes through."

"Do that. Good luck with the agency."

I go to the bar to get Kasabian, but when he sees me he shakes his head and turns his eyes back to the Lamia chatting him up. I leave him to his succubus and go outside.

I bum a cigarette from a couple of young drunk Valley guys with asymmetrical haircuts and fake IDs in their pockets.

"Are you the guy?" one of them asks.

"Which guy is that?"

"The Sandman guy. You're skinny and you've got all those scars."

"So did the neighbor's kid back home. He had an eating disorder and kept falling off his bike."

The Valley boy bursts out laughing, the excited nervous laugh of a kid not sure if he's having a good time or not. The other boy grabs him and whispers something.

"Can we see your knife?"

"We heard it's really big."

That cracks them both up.

"Shouldn't you youngsters be home and in bed? Isn't it a school night?"

The one who gave me the cigarette says, "The school burned down. We're doing classes online."

"I hope it wasn't one of you bad boys who burned it."

"I wish. We'd be heroes."

Neither of the boys notices the small group gathering behind them. Sneaking up silently on civilians is what they do best.

The tallest one, lean and ghostly pale, leans over to one of the boys.

"Excuse me."

The kid starts and smacks into his friend.

"We'd like a word with Mr. Stark."

The one with the cigarettes laughs and says, "But he was going to show us his big knife."

The pale man brings his face down level with the boys. The whites of his eyes flash blood red, and then darken to black. The boys head back inside the bar.

"Don't bite either of them, okay? They're just a little drunk. And I don't even want to have to think about hunting another one of your young ones."

"We appreciate that," says the head vampire. "And we appreciate you handling the recent unpleasantness so quickly. As I'm sure you can imagine, zombies aren't much use to us and we're grateful to have them gone. We, the Dark Eternal, hope that you'll accept this with our admiration and gratitude."

He hands me a brushed aluminum Halliburton attache case. Spies and billionaires carry these cases in Hollywood thrillers with expensive stars and crap scripts. I pop the latches and look inside.

The case is filled with neatly bundled stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

"We also hope that in the future you'll remember who helped you in a time of need."

"Trust me, I will."

"We also hope that you'll use some of the cash to reopen Max Overload. Clarice here likes spaghetti westerns and Ed is a Bollywood fan. Me, I like old Universal horror."

"How do you feel about the Wolfman?"

"Hate the bitchy little whiner."

"Good answer. You just got a free rental."

He high-fives Ed.

"Have a nice night," says the head vampire, and the whole group sweeps away into the night, something else vampires are good at. I DUMP KASABIAN back in our room over Max Overload around 5 A.M. I didn't even bother putting him back in his bowling bag on the way home. Anyone wandering the streets at that hour deserves to see a severed head singing "Good Vibrations." He falls asleep the moment I put him down. I've never seen him drunk before. I didn't even know he could get drunk.

I go into the bathroom and throw some water on my face. Toss my coat on the bed frame and stash my weapons under the towels in the bathroom cupboard behind the door.

Kasabian has an MP3 player with speakers in his bachelor pad in the closet. I put them on the bed frame with the bottle of Jack Daniel's that Carlos gave me and a pack of cigarettes someone left on the bar. I pile all of it on the attache case and step through the shadow and into the Room.

I set the case against the wall. No one's going to steal it there. I take the Jack, cigarettes, and music and go to the Thirteenth Door. The Door of Nothing. I haven't been through it since the night I sent the Kissi drifting out into space and left Mason in Hell.

The battered door still has the distinctive vinegar Kissi reek, but it's quiet. There's no scratching coming through from the other side. The Thirteenth Door used to scare me more than anywhere else in the universe. More than Downtown ever did. Now it's just one more old door with dead bodies on the other side. I open it and go inside.

The holes I tore in the fabric of the Kissi realm are still there. Stars and the flat ovals of galaxies hang overhead. The insect husks of long-dead Kissi crunch under my boots. I spark Mason's lighter and the place lights up. It takes me about an hour to find the ruins of the mansion Mason built here. A dusty reclining chair lies in the rubble on its side. I turn it right side up and sit down. The bottle of Jack goes on one side of the chair and the MP3 player on the other. I light a cigarette and sit in the dark and quiet for a while.

I still feel bad about Johnny and how he probably disappeared when the other Drifters ashed out. And about owing him a bag of jelly beans. I hope he understands how things got a little out of hand that night. At least Fiona didn't shoot me when I told her that I left Johnny underground with Muninn.

I feel bad about Kinski, too. And mad as hell. Couldn't he have said what he had to say? No. More dad bullshit. He had to control the moment and do it his way. There's not going to be a moment now, is there, old man? But thanks for keeping me alive all those times. If I run into you in Heaven or Hell or wherever I end up, I'll buy the first round. After I kick your ass for letting Aelita kill you.

I crack open the bottle of Jack and have a drink to him.

Like most nights, I wonder where Alice is and if she knows or cares what's going on down here. Parking in the afterlife must have gotten really shitty after a million new souls shot up there the other night. She must have noticed that. Maybe one of the Drifters who isn't too pissed at me for ripping out his or her spine will tell Alice it was me who set them free.

Right. And maybe Mason has an ice-cream truck and is handing out Popsicles in Hell.

I wonder if Lucifer made it back to Heaven and if his old man let him in?

Things are going to get bad. I can feel it. The parts of the angel that stuck around after Candy cured me can feel Heaven and Hell twitching, like rabid dogs just starting to foam at the mouth.

I don't want to be the new Lucifer, but I really want to kill Mason, and if I have to wear red underwear and carry a pitchfork to do it, I will.

I wonder if Aelita will come Downtown or if I'm going to have to backdoor my way into Heaven to kill her?

I manifest the burning Gladius and it lights up the Kissi realm for a million miles. What a dump. It looks like someone built the Matterhorn Ride out of fly eggs and shit.

Stars wink overhead. Did they change when I switched on the sword?

I get out another cigarette, light it off the Gladius, and let the world go dark.

I flick ashes into Mason's failed kingdom.

I've talked shit my whole life and, except for Alice and Vidocq, pretty much done everything on my own. Luck and hoodoo pulled me through, but that's not going to work this time. Not if Downtown catches fire and Mason or Aelita bring the heat up to Heaven. I can't bluff and bullshit my way through that. I need backup. But I might have killed off the only things in the universe crazy enough to go head-to-head with the armies of Hell and Heaven.

Or maybe not. A lot of Kissi went spinning out into space when I ripped this place open. Kissi are almost angels, so floating around in the dark shouldn't hurt them. They're probably just shy. Or they found someplace better to feed. I'm not going out after them. They'll come to me eventually. I've got the deal of the century. And even semi-angels want revenge. Everything alive wants revenge.

I hit the MP3 player. Skull Valley Sheep Kill echoes off the walls, doing a burning cover of "Johnny Thunders."

I let the bass rumble in my chest like a second heart.

I smoke the cigarette and then another.

I have a drink.

I listen to the music.

I sit in the dark and I wait.