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“I can’t believe it.”
“I’ll see you in L.A. soon.”
I go back upstairs and Samael takes me to where I left the Hellion hog in Hollywood. I just want to go home, but I have to go and see Julie. We have a lot to talk about.
I SLEEP THE whole next day with Candy curled beside me. When I dream it’s about stars and churning clouds of gas and things moving through the void, shaping the new universe as they go. Sometimes I dream about the arena and how I’ll never see it again, and in a strange way it makes me sad. But mostly, I don’t dream at all and it feels good.
When I wake up, I open the curtains. The rain hasn’t come back. The sky is still mostly clouds, but they’re starting to break up. Patches of boring, flat blue L.A. sky flash by every now and then, looking great. The street in front of Max Overdrive is still wet, but the floodwaters are gone and it doesn’t feel like we’re riding steerage in Noah’s ark anymore.
By the time I make it downstairs, Kasabian has cleared up his mountain of delivery- and frozen-food boxes and deposited them outside in the overflowing Dumpster. We don’t talk to each other, just nod because it’s too strange to talk and risk that this is a dream and that it’s still pouring outside and talking will wake us. I take the wet towels away from the bottom of the door, bring them upstairs, and hang them over the shower rod. At some point, all this silence is going to get old, but for now it suits me just fine.
A half hour later, Candy comes sleepily out of the bedroom in one of the silk shirts left over from when I was Lucifer. I’m on the couch. She sits on my lap and wraps her arms around me like she’s going to fall asleep again. W
e stay that way for a few minutes, but I have to break the clinch when the pressure of her on my chest grinds bullets against bone.
She gets off me and says, “You should go see Allegra.”
“Yeah.”
“Today.”
“Sure.”
She goes into the little kitchen and does whatever magic people do to make the coffeemaker work. I suppose learning how to use it is one of the things she meant by not acting like I’m just passing through. I’m probably going to have to learn a lot of new things now that I don’t have the Room anymore. At least the bike worked when Samael brought me back to Earth. It was a relief to be back and away from Mr. Muninn. I kept waiting for him to change his mind and smite me good, but I guess he’s tied up organizing bus schedules to ferry a few billion souls and angels north. Good. A busy God is a happy God and it means I’m not on his mind. I’m going to give him a lot of space when he gets back to L.A. Maybe I’ll send him a card next Christmas and see if I get a lump of coal back.
It’s sometime in the late afternoon when Candy and I manage to get dressed. I pick up my clothes I dropped when I got back from Downtown. Put the body armor, the na’at, the Colt, and the black blade on top of the dresser. I don’t know what I’m going to do with them now. I’m not fighting Qliphoth or elder gods or Hellions or High Plains Drifters anymore. What am I supposed to do with myself? Am I really just going to be a schmuck running a video store? At least the government money should be coming in soon. I solved their little end-of-the-world problem. I should have asked for a half million in pennies so Candy and I could go surfing on it. But I’ll happily take a check. Oh shit. I’m going to have to get a bank account. I hadn’t thought of that. I wonder if my Vigil ID will be enough for a bank to believe I’m true blue or if I’ll have to get one of Vidocq’s crooked friends to set me up with a new identity. I should ask him anyway. Cindil will need one.
I check my watch. It’s going to be a long day and I’m not looking forward to it.
There’s a knock on the downstairs door around three. The sky is closing up again but it doesn’t look like rain. I go downstairs and open the door. It’s Julie and a whole football team of Vigil agents.
“Agent Sola. I thought it was a snow day and I could pick up my homework tomorrow.”
She doesn’t crack a smile.
“This isn’t about you, Stark. It’s about Candace Jade. Remember her? The prisoner you helped escape? Don’t tell me she isn’t here because I know she is. Go and get her or I’ll have her extracted by force.”
I look over her stone-faced Pinkertons.
“You’re fucking kidding me. I do your job for you, clear out the chop shops myself and stop the goddamn Angra, and you pull this?”
“She’s an escaped prisoner. There are rules.”
“The Shonin wouldn’t be happy with any of you right now. And he was a fucking monk. A holy man.”
“Stop stalling.”
“I asked him once if he worked for the Vigil or the world. He gave me the right answer. You loafer-wearing shitbirds don’t have a clue what the right answer is.”
Julie unbuttons her jacket. Puts a hand on her Glock.
“Now, Stark.”
The video-shop door slams open. Candy comes running out in one of my coats. It’s too big and she looks ridiculous. She has my Colt in her hand.
She yells, “Fuck,” but before she gets “you” out, Julie pulls her gun and puts six shots into her.
Candy drops the Colt and doesn’t move. Blood pools under her. A lot of it. It drips over the curb and into the street. Flows away with the rainwater down into the sewer. Julie takes a couple of steps toward the body. I get in front and stick a finger in her face.
