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“You said Mason couldn’t attack without Semyazah’s troops. Did he go over?”
Kasabian shakes his head.
“He’s not there, but that doesn’t mean some other general hasn’t been able to turn his troops. Like I said, there’s enough fallen angels in Pandemonium to start a thousand boy bands.”
I get out Muninn’s Singularity and the funny bird egg, Mason’s lighter, and the small white stone Lucifer gave me back at Max Overdrive and set them with the na’at and the knife.
Father Traven says, “If all this is true, then you can’t go down there alone.”
I look at him and then at Kasabian.
“You’re having a weird day, aren’t you?”
Traven’s eyes flicker to Kasabian and away again.
“It’s hard to say. I think I’m becoming immune to weird.”
“Damn. You’re one of us already. Well, welcome to the Grindhouse Rodeo, Father, where it’s monster triple features all the time. The popcorn’s stale and the drinks are watered down, but we’re open all night and deities have to sit in the balcony with the winos and rubber-raincoat types.”
Traven does his half smile.
“Thank you, I suppose.”
“There used to be a secret handshake, but only Kasabian knows it and he’s not talking.”
“Fuck you, Susan Vance,” he calls from across the room.
“One more thing,” I say. “Nobody starts with the you-can’t-go-alone stuff. That subject is dead and buried.”
The angel in my head is telling me to be calm, but it’s not trying very hard. It always wants me to slow down and consider all the angles, but it knows that the clock is ticking on Alice, and now that I’m tying up loose ends on earth, I need to move faster than ever. Momentum is my best strategy. Slowing down and considering the consequences of what I’m doing is doom.
Vidocq and Allegra are holding hands on the small bed. I don’t need to listen to their hearts or breathing. They’re radiating tension like a microwave oven. Kasabian has gone back to his computer, trying to ignore all of this. Traven looks a little lost. Candy’s not much better.
I know carrying a gun is stupid, but I feel naked without one. For sentimental reasons I’d like to take great-great-granddad’s Navy Colt, but it’s too big. I look back at the pile of guns on the bed and find a small-frame .357 revolver. I can’t even hit the ground with the thing if I’m more than ten feet away, but it’s better than nothing. I get a roll of duct tape from a drawer and pull my pants leg up a few inches.
“Want to give me a hand?” I say to Candy.
She comes over and I hand her the tape.
“Wrap it around my ankle a few times to hold the gun. Don’t be shy. Make it tight.”
She squats down in front of me and runs the tape around my leg a few times. Tests to see if the gun is secure and tears off the end with her teeth.
She slaps me on the ankle.
“You’re ready to go, Wild Bill.”
She leans up, puts her hands on my face, and kisses me. It feels good and it’s a relief. I was half expecting a gone-baby gone-death kiss, like the kiss you give a corpse before it rolls into a crematorium. But it’s a normal kiss. A have-a-nice-trip, see-you-soon kiss. For once, even the angel in my head is happy.
“Can you hold on to the stuff in that pile?” I ask her. “The phone and keys and cash and whatever.”
“Sure.”
In the closet there’s a box of Alice’s things that I took from Vidocq’s apartment. I pop the top and start taking things out. What’s the appropriate trinket from a murdered girlfriend to wear to a suicide?
From the bed Candy asks, “What are you looking for?”
“I’m supposed to bring something from a murdered person with me. Alice qualifies there, and I figure if I bring the right thing, it might help convince her it’s really me. I have a feeling they’ll have been messing with her brain by the time I get to her.”
