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He points at my eye.
“Your boss give you that for mouthing off?”
“It’s still noticeable?”
“Like a glazed ham at a bris.”
“Don’t say anything when you see Candy.”
I take the bag and head upstairs.
“Hey. What about the tamales?”
“No one eats until Candy gets home.”
“I admire her work ethic, but tell her to get a day job. I’m hungry now.”
“Didn’t someone say that suffering was good for the soul?”
“Only preachers and insurance salesmen.”
“We’re still waiting. I’ll put these in the oven to stay warm.”
I go upstairs, stash the tamales, and go into the bathroom. In the bathroom mirror, I stare at my face. Yeah. There’s no way she’s not going to notice the bruise. It will be gone by morning, but right now I’m fucked. For a second, I think about more ice, look at myself again, and see how stupid and desperate that is.
I take the angel’s box out of my coat and put it on the bedroom bureau. Maybe Vidocq will be able to tell me what this is. He’s an alchemist. Even if he doesn’t know what black milk is, maybe the box will be in one of his books.
What was it Abbot was talking about at the meeting? The end of the world. Climate change. Charities. Blah blah. Then through the memory of the headache it comes to me: Wormwood. Something is up with them. Those Wormwood creeps I met a few months back hinted they had a branch office in Hell run by Norris Quay. He used to be the richest man in California, but he was dumb enough to follow me into Kill City. Now he’s the richest corpse.
I go downstairs. Kasabian is still putting returned discs back in their cases. I go over and put a few in myself, but he takes them away when I mix up the DVDs and Blu-rays.
As casually as I can I say, “How’s your view of Downtown these days?”
He raises his eyes to me for a second, then goes back to putting away discs.
“You haven’t asked about Hell in a while. Since you went white collar, I thought you’d forgotten about the place.”
“It’s depressing not being able to see the place for myself.”
“You’re the only person who thinks it’s depressing they can’t see Hell. Why do you care all of a sudden?”
“I met an angel tonight. Karael. He said that Heaven is fucked. If it is, that usually means Hell is double-fucked.”
“That’s a distinct possibility,” Kasabian says.
“You still have access to the Codex and the peeper I gave you?”
The Daimonion Codex is basically Lucifer’s Boy Scout manual on running Hell. Once he let Kasabian look inside, he could sneak looks all over Hell. I gave Kas the peeper. It’s a magical eye you can look through and see remote places. Sort of Hellion security cams.
He scratches his nose with a metal claw.
“Your angel is right. Pandemonium is falling apart. Like Berlin after the blitz falling apart. Nothing works anymore but the sewers. The buildings are falling apart. Gangs of ex-Hellion soldiers and some of your less savory damned souls run protection and control everything from weapons to food. Basically, anyone who isn’t going Wild Bunch in the city is going batshit at Heaven’s gates. You said they’re supposed to be open, but I haven’t seen it.”
“I know. Goddammit. I wish I could see into Heaven.”
Kasabian raises an eyebrow.
“You never said that before.”
