I don’t know, maybe all that was just more of my sour mood. I had a lot of reasons besides the gaudiness of its appearance to dread going to the Ralston, and I was probably over-sentimentalizing San Judas’s homey little mission, but as I sat there on my motel balcony watching the nighttime traffic eddy past, listening to the sound of other people’s televisions and conversations and music echoing out over the park, motel sounds and neighborhood sounds mingling together, I felt as if I had found something important in the middle of everything—a reason to keep on doing the strange and frustrating things I do.
thirty
sat on a panda
FOR MOST people, packing for a conference means throwing clothes and toiletries in a suitcase, calling someone to feed the pets, and maybe asking the post office to hold the mail. In the current life of B. Dollar, Angelic Vagabond, the list was more like: Clean gun. Pack gun. Pack extra silver bullets. Consider obtaining second gun.
I did have to choose clothing suitable both for official functions and for being chased by a monstrous soul-sucking creature whose only weakness was a mild dislike of water, which made me wish I had a rubber tuxedo. I settled for my one suit. In my line of work, and with my particular sorts of friends, I don’t go to many funerals (or weddings) so it was fairly clean.
I also decided against getting a second gun because the weekend ahead looked to have one upside—I was not all that likely to be attacked by the ghallu, or even Howlingfell or Eligor, although the last two might well be in attendance. See, one thing about a summit conference in our business; everybody’s walking on eggshells. Nobody wants to spark off the apocalypse so everyone would be cautious. If Eligor was behind the horned monster, as I was pretty certain he was, he wasn’t likely to set it rampaging through the Edwardian decor of the Ralston, especially with infernal royalty like Prince Sitri in attendance, folks even higher up the food chain than the grand duke himself.
I called young Clarence and caught him between clients. He seemed to be in a good mood. What was the deal with him? Why had Temuel asked me to keep an eye on him, then denied it? Could the kid somehow be involved with the heavenly insiders Habari had talked about? Some kind of agent for these mysterious Third Way guys? And was my supervisor in on it too? But if so, why hadn’t the kid been on the scene the day of the first soul-napping? Since it had been Sam’s case it would have been easy for him to be there. It only rolled to me because they were tied up when it went down. If having him present for the Great Walker Extraction was the reason someone had dropped Clarence in our midst, the kid had blown it pretty thoroughly, so why was he still here? Maybe he and his Magian masters were playing some longer, deeper game. But it sure was hard to believe any of that about Clarence while I was talking to him. If his dorky-kid-brother act was an act, it was a brilliant piece of method theater.
“So I hear you’re going to the summit conference,” he said to me, in the exact same awestruck tone as an eleven-year-old talking about the All-Star game. “That’s going to be amazing! Are you excited?”
“Oh, yeah, there’s nothing like standing at a public urinal next to some guy from the other team whose entire mission in the universe is to spread venereal diseases.”
“That’s funny,” he said. “You’re really funny sometimes, Bobby. I heard some of the biggest guys from our side are going to be there. Karael and the warrior angels. I even heard that Eremiel is going to be there! I’ve never seen him but I’ve heard he’s awesome.”
I confess I rolled my eyes. On Heaven as on Earth, fanboys are fanboys. “Yeah, Eremiel’s one of the guys who knows Hell really well, so of course he’ll be there. Angel of the Abyss. I think he’s leading the delegation.”
Clarence started to say something and then laughed. To his credit he sounded embarrassed. “I almost asked you to take pictures.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“But it is pretty amazing. Even you have to admit it, Bobby. How often do you get all those angels and demons in one place?”
“It ain’t easy. They manage it just frequently enough for the occasional world war.”
“Sam says he’s going to be there, too.”
“So he told me. I suggest you don’t ask him to bring back you back a souvenir ashtray. How’s he treating you, by the way? Letting you all the way off the leash now?”
“Oh, he stays in touch.” Clarence went a little vague. “He’s been fine,” he added a second later. “He’s not the most soft-spoken kind of guy, but he’s showed me the ropes and answered all my questions.”
“Barked at you a couple of times, I’m sure. But that’s Sam. He’s old school.” I was feeling the press of time. “I’ll see you around. If I can get you Karael’s autograph, I will.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“Don’t be so sure, Junior. Everyone knows I have no shame.”
All the way out to Sand Point I kept trying to call Caz, but she still wasn’t picking up. It was crazy, I knew. I should have been pretending it never happened, praying no one would ever find out, but instead I was desperate to talk to her. What had she done to me? Or, to be more accurate, what had I done to myself? I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’ve been with more than a few women, angelic and mortal, but I never had a problem moving on. Rather the reverse, as Monica kept pointing out to me: I’m not exactly Mr. Relationship. Too many lone-wolf detective movies, too many crime novels where the woman turns out to be faithless, or maybe I’m just a selfish bastard. Any way you sliced it, though, whenever I stopped actively forcing myself to think of something else, my memory filled up with images of the Countess’s pale body, her fiercely solemn face, the unforgettable feeling of her cold, smooth skin.
It couldn’t be love, though. Who but a teenage metal-head could actually fall in love with a demon? Certainly not a guy whose life work was to thwart and even destroy such creatures whenever possible, right? But every time I listened to her message machine come on, her crisp accent as she repeated the number, followed by the message beep that meant nobody was picking up, I died a little bit inside.
The front walkway of the Ralston was crowded with new arrivals, their luggage, and hurrying bell staff. The parking lot was just as busy. I spent fifteen minutes driving around until I found an empty space on the outskirts of the lot. See, I was already thinking quick getaway, even though it was very unlikely anybody was going to make a serious move at me on neutral ground, especially neutral ground crammed to the rafters with major figures from both sides of our particular struggle. But the idea of trying to dodge the ghallu or his Lordship Eligor while waiting for the valet parking boys to find my car was enough to make sure I left Orban’s Benz out in the open. I only wished I could have parked it closer to one of the exits.
If you had walked into the Ralston’s lobby beside me, no matter how obtuse you might be about things supernatural, I’m pretty sure you’d still have noticed something was strange. For one thing, the guests milling beneath the high, decorated ceilings and the huge, ornate chandeliers all seemed to be either strikingly beautiful or so ugly it made your eyes sting. See, when the higher angels take human bodies, they almost always look gorgeous—androgynous, some of them, but still Hollywood handsome. They may dress like Mormons on Sunday (and most of them do) but it’s hard not to notice that little something extra they all have, the grace of movement and perfection of figure, even under a boring off-the-rack suit. And most of the demon lords like to cut an impressive figure, too…it’s just that among Hell’s officer corps that can go either way. Some of them are as gorgeous as the prettiest angels, so fine to look at that it could make you weep, and the only way you can tell that they aren’t Heaven’s is that they dress better, or at least more extravagantly. Their suits come in colors not found in nature (outside of a tropical orchid forest) and their hair is so fabulous that the coolest club kid would immediately give up, shave their heads, and get a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Rock star glamorous. But the rest of Hell’s repres
entatives seemed to take a fierce pleasure in presenting the most disturbing façade imaginable, as long as it was (barely) within the bounds of human possibility.
Within seconds of stepping into the lobby, I saw a man as white as Foxy Foxy, but seven feet tall, and with abnormally long fingers, drinking from a glass that looked like a thimble in his hand; a burn victim (or at least someone who looked like a burn victim) swathed in bandages like Boris Karloff’s mummy; and a trio of starvation-slender women with smeared mascara and too-bright eyes. These last were the infamous Weeping Daughters, and I’d encountered them before in extremely weird circumstances. I’ll tell you about it someday, but I immediately changed direction so I wouldn’t have to walk too near them on my way to the registration desk.
The tall guy, the mummy, and the Daughters weren’t the only freaky ones by any means: about a third of the people in the lobby were so unusual that I wondered how management explained it to the staff. The Ralston lobby looked like someone was throwing a really dangerous Hallowe’en party right in the middle of a convention of FBI agents.
As I was checking in, relieved that my reservation was in order, so I wouldn’t have to spend too much time in the open where I was liable to be recognized by anyone I wanted to avoid, I saw a flurry of activity at the huge front door, bellboys and porters leaping into action like lifeguards who have just noticed a rich man drowning. They swung both glass doors open at the same time, then half a dozen stout fellows in Ralston’s grey livery began a strange charade of struggle. At first I thought they were trying to wrestle the world’s biggest bundle of luggage into the lobby and I wondered what kind of guest could possibly need so much stuff. But as they laboriously tugged and maneuvered the immense wheeled cart through the doors I suddenly realized that the world’s biggest bundle of luggage was actually the guest. He was huge—five-hundred-pounds-plus huge—and if he had a neck, the weight of his immense bald head had shoved it well down into his torso. He looked like nothing so much as the world’s largest bullfrog wrapped in a beige silk suit the size of a Mini Cooper.
A high-ranking hotel functionary, almost certainly the manager, hurried across the lobby toward the front entrance, managing to make a flat-out sprint look like Astaire easing onto a Rio dance floor. As he approached the monstrous pile of flesh, its dome-shaped head swiveled ever so slightly toward him, turret-like, and the tiny eyes glittered deep within the folds between brow and cheeks. I feared the hotel manager was going to be speared by a huge sticky tongue and swallowed, but instead the manager smiled like seeing this hideous goiter with a face was the nicest thing that had happened to him all month.
“Your Highness!” he cried. “It has been too long! Such an honor to have you with us again!” He clapped his hands and waved at the sweating bellboys who had just dragged this chariot of flabby filth into the lobby. “Please take the prince to the Roosevelt Suite!”
Prince, yes. Of Hell. That must be Sitri, I realized—the one who outranked even Eligor. The one Grasswax had gambled with and lost. And now that I’d seen him in the temporary but generous flesh, he looked even less like someone who’d enjoy being welched upon. Could he be a player in the whole golden feather thing, somehow? I wanted to know. Hell, I needed to know.
I intercepted the prince and his entourage just as they reached the freight elevator, the only thing big enough to carry him and the industrial-grade golf cart that trundled his bulk around. His fleshy fingers were as big as kielbasas, with several shimmering gold rings nestled deep in the folds of each digit. So much light bounced off them that if he had moved his hands around a little more they would have looked like troop transport planes coming in for a night landing, but they stayed folded across the immensity of his belly. Now, bear in mind that since this was only a temporary body, he could have looked like anyone he wanted to: Brad Pitt, Nijinsky, even the Reverend Billy Graham. But he chose to look like that. Chose. If that doesn’t give you a little insight into the monarchs of Hell, I don’t know what will.
Anyway, Sitri was one of the very highest of Hell’s high rollers, and if I’d had any sense I wouldn’t have even gone near him, but you already know I’m a bit deficient in that category. I figured I might never see the guy again outside of the conference room, and I wanted to see if I could shake loose any interesting information. Sometimes a surprise attack is the best way to do that.
“Excuse me!” I shouted, hurrying toward him. “Your Highness!” The bell staff were trying to angle him into the elevator, which required a great deal of stopping and starting of his cart, which someone other than Sitri himself must have been operating, since I never saw him move a single gelid muscle below the topmost of his chins. “Prince Sitri, I’d like a word with you.”
The eyes rolled toward me. They were black, all black, and shiny.
“Bobby Dollar,” the prince said, his voice like a cement mixer full of bowling balls and crude oil, so low that just listening to it made me feel like I was biting down on a manhole cover. “I know you, tiny fellow. But you have my name wrong.” His wide mouth frowned just a little, a downward feint in the center of a rubbery front nearly a foot wide. “I am Prince Sajatapandra.”
I really hated that he knew who I was. “Hey, fine,” I said. “Sat On A Panda, whatever name you want. To be honest, I don’t care if you call yourself Princess Grace of Monaco, I just want to talk to you for a moment…”
“Who are you?” the manager squeaked at me. He looked like he was having a minor coronary. “You cannot bother his Highness!” Two more huge but not at all flabby shapes stepped out of the elevator, luggage-laden bellhops scuttling out of their way like spooked mice, but Sitri only glanced at his bodyguards and they stopped just inside the door of the huge elevator, staring down at me with faces that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Easter Island. Either one of them could have torn me into bite-size pieces with his fingers alone.
“Go ahead, Dollar,” the fat thing said. “You have my attention. Of course, you may regret that at some later point.” Prince Sitri made a noise like a medium-sized brick wall collapsing into the mud; a laugh of sorts. He’d amused himself.
“Just wanted to ask you about a prosecutor named Grazuvac. The extremely late Darko Grazuvac. Or you may have known him better as Grasswax.”
At the sound of that name Sitri rolled his flinty little eyes toward the hotel manager, who was still as pink as a boiled crab. “You. Go away.”
The manager didn’t say a word, but obediently scuttled out of hearing distance and busied himself rearranging a perfect flower arrangement on one of the hall tables. Sitri rolled those gleaming shark-orbs back toward me. “Grasswax is dead. Seriously and thoroughly dead. But you probably knew that. So what about him, little angel?”
I didn’t see a flash of concern or guilt or anything in those eyes, but then I probably wouldn’t have even if he’d squeezed the life out of Grasswax with his own fat hands. You don’t get to be a prince of Hell without having a pretty damn good poker face. “I heard he owed you money, Prince. Or at least owed you something. Gambling debts.”
Again the doughy smile, and this time it was big enough for me to see the teeth behind it, each one filed into a perfect little point. If you ever crossed a piranha and a giant salamander and bombarded it with Gamma rays, Prince Sitri would probably be your first result. And your last. “Grasswax…gambling. Yes, I seem to remember he had a weakness for a flutter. He may even have lost to me a few times at the races. Are you suggesting that I would have him killed over such small change?” Again that titanic, stony chuckle; his chins didn’t stop moving for several seconds afterward. “Oh, my dear fellow, what an idea!” Then the smile vanished. The voice still sounded like a tank idling, but suddenly I could hear the full depth of the hatred his kind feel for my kind. It wasn’t a good feeling—just meeting his eyes made my stomach squirm. Sitri was a very, very old and very powerful demon. “And even if I had, little angel,” he said, the rumbling a notch louder than before, “what business of yours cou
ld it possibly be?”
For the first time, I really felt the breadth and depth of my own impulsive stupidity. Even though we were a little way from the main lobby down a hall, there was still plenty of traffic, most of the folk looking as though they belonged to one side in the great struggle or another. Every single one of them was now staring at us, most with the kind of expression zoo-goers wear when some crazy sonofabitch climbs over the rail into the grizzly bear enclosure. Still, it was too late to pretend I’d fallen in by accident.