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He points to a dome on top of a hill that’s mostly mud and dead grass. Huts and lean-tos made of scrap lumber, flattened aluminum cans, and drywall from the asylum flow from the top of the hill and down the sides like junkyard lava. Looks like a lot of the crazies had it together enough to escape, but not enough to cut the apron strings and leave home.
I shake my head. I smoke.
Maybe this jigsaw-puzzle L.A. is God’s payback for burning Eden. In the old days, when I was killing for Azazel down here, I hardly ever thought about the guy. Now I can’t get him out of my head. He’s like the high school sweetheart you moan about whenever you’ve had a few too many highballs. You don’t want to think about her. In fact, you never think about her until you’ve poisoned your brain with umbrella drinks. Then she’s one big whiny question mark in your life. Where did it all go wrong, baby?
Only God and I never went steady. I barely thought of him in the world and only thought of him Downtown because in the brief time Mom sent me to Sunday school, they taught me that he was a God of love and forgiveness. Just what the doctor ordered. Forgive me for all the scams and games and shenanigans and rain down that love on me or at least call me a cab. Even Hitler got to die before climbing into the coal cart. Nothing. Nada. Turns out when I reached into the hat, I didn’t pull out the shiny happy Sunday school God of Love. I got the Old Testament God of wrath. Cities turned to salt. Newborns killed in their cribs. Twin Peaks canceled when it was getting good again. No one came to save my charbroiled ass. Just like Mason. But ever since then I think the big man has had his eye on me, slipping me a rubber cigar every now and then. Like right now.
Where Jack is pointing is the Griffith Park Observatory. James Dean shot part of Rebel Without a Cause there. Any tourist with cab fare can visit the damn place. Back home it would take me an hour to get there and back to the hotel, where Candy and I could break more furniture. But no. I have to dodge sinkholes, earthquakes, Hellions, and serial killers to get somewhere that in any sane universe I could take the bus to. I wish I could say, “No more Mr. Nice Guy,” but the boat sailed on that one a long time ago.
I take a drag on the Malediction.
“Hey, Jack. What were you before you became a monster?”
He pushes himself onto his knees, stands, and tries to wipe the mud and blood off his clothes.
“An upholsterer,” he says.
“Seriously?”
He looks at me.
“Yes.”
“I guess ‘Ripper’ sounds better in the papers than ‘Jack the Ottoman Repairman.’ ”
He ignores me, knocking mud off his feet until you can see his shoes. Maybe he’s right. Who needs Heaven when Hell makes so much more sense?
“Okay, Jack. This is where we part ways. I’m heading straight up that hill. You can go anywhere you like, but I’d stay out of Pandemonium for a while. They’ll have probably noticed they’re down one general.”
“You can’t just abandon me here.”
“I think I just did. You’re in paradise. It’s a world of shit, but it’s better than being in a sardine can for the next million years, isn’t it?”
“Can I at least come with you? You won’t have to take care of me.”
“I just saved you a second time. I don’t care what you do. You want to follow? It’s no skin off my ass, but get in my way once, and I’ll kill you just like I’d kill any Hellion.”
He says, “Understood,” but I’m already moving.
Aloha from Hell
I RUN AT a steady pace, but I don’t sprint. The street is straight, but there’s plenty that can come at me from side streets and the scorched foliage around the old buildings. I let the angel out a little to expand my senses and look for trouble. Even this far off the suicide road, the land under the buildings isn’t stable. Walls sag on old apartment houses and wooden Victorians have their walls held up with tree trunks and wooden power poles cut to length.
The palms that line both sides of the road burn like the ones on Sunset, turning the dark street orange and brighter than streetlights would.
There are more pagan souls on the street as I go deeper into Eleusis, away from the wall and the suicide road. They duck under cars and cower in burned-out buildings when they see me coming and I remember that I’m wearing alef;m wear Hellion face. Thanks for reminding me. It still burns a little and it’s starting to itch as it heals. One more level of bullshit to deal with, but at least it’s clearing the streets.
A block ahead, one of the big apartment buildings has collapsed across the road. I slow down as I get closer. Plenty of places to hide in all that rubble. A Hellion dressed in army-issue pants and a red leather jacket sprints around the corner, sees me, and hauls ass my way. I grab the na’at from my coat. Alice is right up the hill and I’m not stopping now for anyone. I twist my wrist so the blade pops out at the na’at’s tip. The Hellion is female, soon to be a dead female. As she gets closer she barks at me in frantic Hellion. She’s out of breath and her voice is rough. It takes me a minute to figure out what she’s saying and then I get it.
“Run, asshole!”
A second later more of them come tearing ass into the street. Maybe twenty of them. Like the woman in half a uniform, they’re deserters, though they don’t look like they have enough gear or sense to be raiders. Just a bunch of noncoms who’d rather live on what they can steal from empty homes and liquor stores than get stomped by God’s golden hordes. I can sympathize. They’re running straight at me, but from the looks on their faces, they’re not stopping anytime soon.
I sprint toward them, the na’at up and out. I’m not letting a few purse snatchers and shoplifters get in my way. They part like the Red Sea when they see me coming. I pick up speed. If there are more raiders on the other side, they won’t be expecting me. I can see Griffith Observatory from here, so I’m not heading down any streets so God can get his rocks off by dumping me in Malibu or Disneyland.
A metallic roar fills the air and echoes off the buildings. Telltale mechanical clicking after that, like a thousand clocks ticking out of time. A few last deserters make it around the collapsed house just long enough to see freedom before being snatched back by steel claws like a fistful of butcher knives.
They’re bunched together when they make it around the building. All the light shows is a mass of gracefully moving shoulders and flexible backs so they look like a clockwork flood. A Hellion dressed in priest’s robes gives up and stops running. The hellhounds don’t even slow down. The Hellion disappears into a wet spray of bones and thick, clear blood.
