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“I prefer Jack, if you don’t mind,” says Kelly. “That’s what people called me in older, merrier days when I was still alive. Jack the Ripper.”
Some crazy people must stay crazy even after they’re dead. I met dozens of Judas Iscariots, Hitlers, and Jack the Rippers in the eleven years I spent Downtown, but always one at a time. I always wondered if they steered clear of each other out of professional courtesy.
There’s one thing that makes me think Kelly could be for real. Mason chose him. Picking a simple back-alley cutthroat with delusions of grandeur isn’t a mistake Mason would make.
Jack is leading us down the embankment and into the thick woods that line the freeway. The trees stand at crazy, impossible angles. It’s like we’re walking through still photos of the forest in the process of falling.
“Step lightly,” whispers Jack. “And don’t touch anything. Tremors have loosed the land under the trees. They’re barely rooted. They’ll come down on us with the slightest provocation.”
Suddenly I’m sorry I’m wearing big steel-toe boots. I should be in Hello Kitty slippers.
I’ve never seen a real forest in Hell. Not one with trees and plants. I’ve seen places called “forests,” but they’re usually tightly packed mazes of saw blades and spinning pylons studded with needlelike Hydra teeth.
We walk maybe twenty yards until the forest gets tight and dark and wild. Old-growth backwoods. It’s hard not to bump into limbs and the solid trunks of the drunken trees. Each time I hit something, I feel it give, and wonder if it’s going to fall and which way to run and if running will make things better or worse by bringing down even more trees. Tree trunks crack and branches fall around us, but we make it through the forest and come out onto low sand dunes.
Jack points off into the empty distance and says, “There’s Eleusis.”
But I’m looking down. At the bottom of the dune Venice Beach stretches into the distance. Which doesn’t make sense. Venice is west of Hollywood and we’ve been going south. I don’t know what’s going crazy faster, this city or me.
I look up to where Jack is pointing. There’s something in the distance, but I’m damned if I know what it is.
Venice is shuttered and looks like it’s been that way for fifty years. The only light in the area comes from the fires reflected off the belly of the endless black clouds overhead. Vents in the ground belch geysers of superheated steam. Fire twisters skitter in the distance, tearing up the empty beach houses. We head down to the long tourist walk.
“You’re wondering if I’m lying about who I am, Mr. Stark. Or if I’m a nutter.”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re wondering how someone might go about proving or disproving my claim.”
“Right on the money.”
Even by Hell standards we’ve pretty much pegged the bleak meter. There’s nothing more depressing than a dead beach town. It’s like all the loons and extroverts and dimwit fun in the world has been boxed up and tossed on a bonfire. Of course, this isn’t really Venice. It’s just the Convergence projection of it. Still, something big died here and the sight of it has sucked the wind out of me. Or maybe I’m light-headed from cutting off my face. We move past empty weight-lifting areas and out-of-business tattoo parlors.
Jack says, “It’s impossible for me to prove who I am. Perhaps I’m mad. Perhaps I’m a liar. If you perhaps had a book about old Jack’s comings and goings, you might ask me details of my past. But you don’t have a book and even if you did, Jack is a famous man. His crimes are well known and well documented. I might have read the same books as you.”
“Where does that leave us, Jack?”
“In the wilderness, I’m afraid. I can no more prove to you that I’m happy Jack than you can prove to me you’re Sandman Slim.”
“Excuse me? I just stepped out of a shadow and killed five Hellion military officers. I took a Hellion general prisoner. I manifested a Gladius.”
Jack rubs his jaw and rolls his shoulders, still trying to work out the kinks. I wonder how long he was in Mammon’s cage.
He says, “Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. I’m not a magical sort like you and some of these other folk, so I don’t know how it all works, do I?”
“Use your imagination.”
“You appeared to kill a number of soldiers and to dash through shadows, but it could have been a trick of the eye. I’ve seen stage magicians make furniture dance and spirits float in the air. And I’ve seen this lot make people see all sorts of things. Lovers, friends, parents. Spiders. Snakes. But they were mere phantasms. Trickery meant to fool the eye and terrorize the soul. For all I know, you twiddled your thumbs and tricked Master Mammon’s staff into killing each other.”
“That would still be a pretty good trick.”
“Indeed it would be. I’ve seen demons and devils that could break a man’s bones on the rack or his heart with a single word. But that doesn’t make any of them Sandman Slim.”
“When you get down to it, I don’t really care who you are. If you can get me to Eleusis, I’ll call you Jack the Ripper or Mott the Hoople if you want. Just get me there.”
“Of course. And what will be my payment for this service?”
I stop and look at him. Jack walks on for a few steps before looking back at me. He puts his hands in his pockets and stands up straight. The whole deferential attitude is gone. He’s a killer standing his ground.
