Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel (25 page)

The floor at the end of the hall is buckled like someone squeezed it from both ends like an accordion. Delon is back in the lead. Vidocq follows with Brigitte and Candy right behind. I’m at the back with Traven, stumbling along like a toddler just learning to walk.

“Are you in much pain?” he says.

“Just enough, thanks. Sorry I dragged you into this mess, Father.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been more use along the way. Maybe I should have learned to use a gun.”

I have to lean my arm against the wall to get over the places where the folds in the floor rise above my knees.

“You might have noticed that we have a lot of shooters and it hasn’t kept us out of trouble. You’ll get to show your stuff when we find the Qomrama. You know anything more about it? Where it came from? Who made it?”

Staying back with me, Father Traven has fallen behind the others. I don’t like being the gimp in the group.

“Who made it is an interesting question. Most texts say it was the Angra, as a way to destroy our God. But there was speculation among a group of Byzantine scholars that God himself made it. That it’s not a weapon against the Angra but against himself.”

“God was going to take a bullet for the team?”

“Even that’s disputed. Maybe God intended to sacrifice himself in hopes that it would appease the Angra.”

“That doesn’t make sense. If our God made it, and Ruach let Aelita have it, she’d know how to use it, only she doesn’t. She got lucky killing Neshamah, but she can’t count on getting all the brothers on luck.”

“There’s one more theory. A minority theory, but an interesting one. It says that a high priestess is the only one that can bring the Qomrama into this universe from where the Angra are exiled.”

“How?”

“No one knows, but the theory continues that the reason the Qomrama is hard to control is that it’s not just an inanimate weapon. That it’s a kind of Qliphoth.”

“A demon? Then it’s a piece of one of the old gods. That means it’s alive.”

Traven shrugs. I can breathe again, so we start walking.

“As I said, it’s a minority opinion, but with the Qomrama, I wouldn’t put anything out of the realm of possibility.”

“Neither would I. Ever notice that we live in a very strange universe?”

Traven brushes dust out of his eyes and off his deeply lined face.

“What’s left to believe in? The God in Heaven isn’t to be trusted, and a piece of that very same God is also Lucifer in Hell? How are we supposed to go on knowing these things?”

“Cheer up, Father. It could have been ten.”

He gives me a look.

I say, “It’s a Hellion joke. When God threw the rebel angels out of Heaven, they fell for nine days.”

Traven nods and says, “I get it. Things could always be worse. I suppose that’s true.”

“I won’t tell you any other Hellion jokes. Most sound like the Three Stooges riffing on farts and vivisection.”

“I appreciate that.”

This part of the corridor is all raw drywall with Spackle smeared along the edges where the panels join. I feel woozy. I stop to lean against a section. And I’m falling. Not onto the floor but right through the wall.

I land flat on my back, knocking the wind out of me. It takes me a minute to get my senses back. My stitches hurt from the impact. Faintly, like he’s talking through water, I can hear Traven calling my name. But I’m in no shape to answer.

I came down on a pile of mall trash and building materials. Broken drywall panels, a layer of old cups and napkins, moldy clothes, and broken beanbag chairs. A million gnat-size Styrofoam pellets float to the floor, like I’m lying in a blizzard in a garbage dump. Thin, airy laughs come from the edges of the room. They sound like the wind from the other side of a hill.

“Who’s there?”

The laughter tapers off but no one answers. Looking up, I can see the hole where I fell through. It’s not that far. Shadows move across it. Someone is looking for me.

I shout, “Traven. Down here. Hey!”

“He can’t hear you.”

Another voice says, “None of them can.”

“Who is that?”

More laughs. A bunch of people down here think I’m fucking hilarious.

It’s warm and damp, with the same tropical feel as the mall’s atrium. My eyes slowly adjust to the room. Furred fungus on the walls glows faintly. Eidolon Whiskers. We had something like it Downtown. I look back at the opening in the wall where I fell through. It’s not real. It’s a phantom. A ghost wall like the one hiding the room in Hell where I first found the 8 Ball.

In a few minutes I can almost see my hand in front of my face. Then shapes in the room. I’m in the middle of a maze of improvised graves and tombs built from debris that landed here during the collapse. Someone has cobbled together a cemetery for whoever was trapped here. If this is a boneyard, I have a bad feeling about who’s been laughing at me this whole time.

“Hey, dead guys. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Gray wisps circle me. Faces resolve themselves for a second or two, then break apart into smoke.

“There you are. Why did you grab me? What did I ever do to you?”

“It was fun.”

“We were bored.”

“You were clumsy.”

“You’re alive. That’s offense enough.”

I shake my head.

“Is this one of those ‘we’re-dead-and-that-makes-the-living-our-enemy’ situations, ’cause seriously . . . ? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“It’s not smart to mock us.”

“I’m not mocking you. Hell, I’m on your side. I’ve been dead too. A couple of times. I know how much it sucks. Come on. We’re on the same team here.”

“We will be soon.”

More chuckles from the peanut gallery.

“You will never leave here.”

“You know you’re not the first dead assholes to threaten me, right?”

“No. We’re the last.”

“I see why you were bored before. You’re boring. You’re boring ghosts and that’s just sad. You have all day to figure out spooky stuff and all you’ve come up with is ‘boohoo we’re dead and everyone with TiVo has to die.’ ”

“You’re going to die.”

“Yeah, excuse me while I ignore you.” I see shadows overhead. I shout, “Hey. I’m down here goddammit.”

“They can’t hear you.”

“Stop shouting. It’s annoying.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bad guest. By the way, you know I’m going pee in one of the corners in a few hours, right? I mean, it’s just biology. I can’t help it.”

Ghosts swirl around me again. When the faces resolve themselves this time, they don’t look happy.

I touch the wall to see if I can find any hand- or footholds. My hand comes back wet and slimy, covered in Eidolon Whiskers. The wall is way too slippery. No way I’m climbing out. I can’t see doors or openings of any kind. I take out Mason’s lighter. If I can make enough of a shadow, maybe I can come out to somewhere above and find the others.

“Adios, crybabies.”

I flick it on and get closer to the wall. The room is dark, but even so, the light is feeble. I hold the lighter up higher, looking for the best angle. The next second, the ghosts are all over me, whirling around my head and flying through the lighter flame. It goes out. I spark it again. They come back, blowing through the flame like a fucking annoying breeze, snuffing it out. I try cupping my hand around it, but they squeeze between my fingers and douse it again. I put the lighter back in my pocket. It was never going to work anyway. It just wasn’t bright enough.

The ghosts are cackling up a storm. An easy crowd. And I wasn’t even using my A material.

“You invaded our home and now you’ll die here.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that.”

“You can starve slowly over weeks or you can end things quickly. Use one of the stones or pieces of metal to cut your wrists.”

“I’m going to go with door number three. The year’s supply of car wax and a weekend in Hawai’i away from Spooky Town.”

A rock hits the side of my head. Someone shoves me so hard I almost fall. Pieces of drywall and metal slam into the wall around me. Some of these dead pricks are tougher than others. Not just specters but full-on poltergeists. Some scratch my face, going for my eyes. I duck and get my arms up to block them, but their spectral bodies flow around them like fog with talons. Dropping an arm to my side, I manifest my Gladius, an angelic sword of fire. I swing it in front of me, turn and raise it overhead, bringing it down again right through the thickest part of the ghostly crowd.

They burst out laughing. Big, nasty belly laughs.

“Look, everyone. The mighty wizard is using magic against us.”

“I hope he doesn’t kill us, don’t you?”

The ghosts drift away like they’ve lost all interest in me. They move around the room, full-body specters now, chatting and telling jokes about what an idiot I am. I drop down onto one of the beanbag chairs.

The dead creeps are right, of course. Practically all my hoodoo is about hunting and killing. Not much use against someone who’s already dead. I take out a cigarette, but when I try to light it, they again blow out the flame.

“You are the worst dead people I’ve ever met.”

They go on with their little coffee klatch, hoping I’ll go nuts and off myself.

I put the cigarette away.

“Hey, do any of you spooks know about a crazy ghost? I mean crazier than you. He’s in some kind of Roman bath or something.”

A couple of them nod. One says, “No one talks to him. He’s mad.”

“Yeah, I think I already said that. Thanks for nothing.”

So far, Kill City is living up to its name. I have no intention of letting Casper and company kill me, but I’m seriously stuck here. And I don’t like cemeteries. Not one little bit.

I was around fourteen when it happened. Balthazar Roszak, the spoiled little prince of a powerful Sub Rosa family, decided he didn’t like me. It had nothing to do with family rivalries or magician envy. It was just one of those dog-pack bully-and-victim games that young boys play. Balthazar played harder than just about anyone. His clan was rumored to practice heavy Baleful magic on the sly. Maybe he was out to make his bones in the family or maybe he was just a stone bastard, but when he came after me one night, I knew he was going to kill me.

I had a lot of power even when I was fourteen, but it was mostly show-off stuff. Unfocused tricks to amuse friends or impress girls. It was nothing at all like Balthazar’s hoodoo. He’d been training since he was a goddamn fetus. If he wanted me dead, I knew there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.

I hid in the Golden Hills Cemetery not far from my house. Golden Hills had been a big deal in the fifties, but that was a long time ago and now it was barely hanging on. The grounds were kind of weedy and the place was generally starting to fall apart.

I went inside through a place in the wrought-iron fence where I knew a post was missing. Headed straight for the trees and the big tombs where the families with money had planted Grandma and Grandpa years before. I was hoping if I stayed in the shadows, Balthazar wouldn’t be able to follow me through the wet December grass. But the fucker came right along where I’d run. He wasn’t even moving fast. He knew some kind of tracking hoodoo that I’d never heard of. All I could do was keep moving and hoping that he’d get bored and go home.

After an hour, I was running out of steam. It wasn’t that I was tired. It was that Balthazar was relentless. No matter what I did—running straight, doubling back, climbing trees—he’d always find me. And he’d let me go to run some more. He wanted me to give up and offer myself to him. I wasn’t that far from doing it.

I ran into the hills that gave the cemetery its name. The oldest part of the place. All the families that could afford the view had long since moved to better neighborhoods with better places for their dead. No one ever went up to the hills anymore. The grass was long and slippery. Some of the gravestones were beginning to tilt in the soggy ground. A lot of the mausoleums had cracked foundations and walls. The far end of the hill was a straight hundred-foot drop to the freeway. The other end faced down the slope to where Balthazar was coming. I’d cleverly run myself right into a dead end.

I crept across the top of the hill trying to spot where Balthazar was coming up, but he was nowhere in sight. There weren’t any trees up there, so I climbed on top of one of the tombs.

From somewhere below me, someone said, “Boo.”

It was Balthazar. I was so startled that I started to slide off the slanted roof and only stopped myself by jamming my heels into the raised edge. There was a crack and a crash and the whole tomb seemed to drop a few feet. I thought the roof was going to collapse and take me with it. But it held together. I couldn’t hear Balthazar anymore. It was a perfect moment to finish me off, but nothing happened.

I climbed down and there he was, lying under a marble pillar from the tomb. It had come down across his chest. His head and arms flailed and pushed at the pillar, but his legs were at a funny angle and didn’t move. When he saw me he tried to yell, but it came out rough and wet.

“You. You did this. You’re dead.”

Even hurt, Balthazar was strong. He threw a couple of fireballs at my head. They missed, but only by inches. I was stuck. Terrified of helping him. Terrified of leaving. He tried a spell to raise the pillar. He managed to get it up a couple of feet before it fell back down on his chest with a soft frightening sound.

“Help me,” he said. “Or I’ll kill your whole family.”

I knew he meant it. I couldn’t move. I was so scared of him that I wanted to help him. But I was too afraid to move. Then he started to cry. Big, wet-eyed wails. That was when I understood. I walked away and left him up there on the hill.

There was a Laundromat not too far away that still had a working pay phone. I dialed 911, didn’t give them a name, but I told them that a boy was hurt inside Golden Hills. I didn’t tell them exactly where. I didn’t want them to find him right away. Then I went home.

The next day it was all over the local TV news. The boy who’d died in a tragic accident in a poorly maintained graveyard. When the medics had found Balthazar, they’d taken him to an emergency room at a good hospital. But it was full of civilian doctors. If they’d known to take him to a Sub Rosa clinic like Allegra’s, they might have been able to save him. But I didn’t want that.