The Perdition Score

  “There’s such a shit storm in my head. Vidocq might be in love with Liliane. Abbot’s a liar. I’m a liar. Oh yeah, and some kids ate another kid alive tonight and it might be my fault.”

  She leads me to the sofa.

  “Tell me everything and I mean everything.”

  So, I do.

  And she doesn’t leave me.

  At the end of it, she leans back and says, “Poor kids. Poor Allegra.”

  “Yeah.”

  She takes my hand, still hanging on to the barbed-wire bucket of shit with me. If I came back from Hell for anything, it was for this. Fuck the world. If the whole planet was on fire, I’d stay on this sofa with Candy and let it burn.

  “We’re in it till the wheels come off, you know,” she says.

  “Till the wheels come off.”

  We sit there together like that until she falls asleep against me.

  WHEN I GET to the clinic, Allegra is waiting for me outside.

  She gives me a quick hug and leads me to a café around the corner. When I was dragged Downtown, Silver Lake was still thrift shops, dingy little corner groceries, working-class bars, people cooking on hot plates in garages, and low-level dope dealers. Now it’s Wi-Fi-enabled omelets and gluten-free Vespas.

  The café Allegra takes me to has all kinds of local handicrafts on the walls. Handblown glass sculptures. Elaborate ponchos and serapes. Artsy photos of shadows and empty parking lots. In another life I would have pegged the stuff as hippie junk, but the prices are aimed strictly at people who’ll pay hundreds for vintage Chuck Taylors and ironic children’s watches.

  “Not a word,” says Allegra when she sees me looking around. “This place has good coffee and these people are my neighbors. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “I’m not saying anything. I was just admiring the hundred-dollar doilies. They’d look charming in my gun drawer.”

  She looks at me.

  “What are you drinking, Stark? I’m buying.”

  “Coffee. Black.”

  “I’ll get you an espresso. You can play with the little cup when you’re done.”

  “I’ll get us a table.”

  I find one by the window and settle down. Check my reflection in the glass. The bruises are fading and the gash on my cheek is healing fast. Still, you’d have to be on the space station to miss it. The knot on the back of my head from the concrete throbs, but Trotsky is nowhere to be found. I’ll take a few bruises for that.

  Allegra brings our coffee and sits down, smiling at me.

  “What?” I say.

  “Are you going to tell me about your face or am I going to have to play twenty questions?”

  “It’s nothing. I was in a fight I could have avoided, and got what I deserved.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she says. “No trouble at home, then?”

  “Home is fine. What about you?”

  She picks up a packet of brown sugar and pours it into her latte.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Eugène is playing like nothing is going on with his lady love, but I’m not stupid. It might not be so bad if they didn’t spend half their time speaking French like they don’t want me to know what they’re saying.”

  “I’m sure it’s not that. Vidocq just misses jabbering like when he was in France. He’ll get over it in a couple of days.”

  “He better. I’m about to throw him and Madame Defarge out of the clinic.”

  “They’re there now?”

  She nods.

  “Fairuza is keeping an eye on them for me.”

  I taste my espresso. It’s good. Dammit. How am I supposed to hate people if they make good coffee?

  “You can’t keep doing this. I know you’re trying to be all reasonable, but if they’re bugging you this much, you need to say something.”

  “I know. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to see you. Will you come with me when I tell Her Majesty to hit the road?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  We both drink our coffee. I clear my throat.

  “Listen. This PTSD bullshit everyone wants to talk to me about. Hell. I don’t know.”

  “Chihiro told me about your headaches.”

  “What did she say?”

  She sips her coffee like she’s thinking.

  “Have you ever considered that they’re psychosomatic? One of your PTSD symptoms?”

  I look around the café, hating it more all of a sudden.

  “Even my headaches are crazy? That’s fucking beautiful. So what’s next? Electroshock. Candy’s hoping you can fix me.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Can you? I’m as tired of this as she is.”

  Allegra looks surprised, but tries to hide it.

  “I know a couple of Lurker-friendly psychiatrists I could recommend.”

  I lean my arms on the table.

  “No shrinks. No yoga or positive visualization. I need something that will actually help.”

  “There are some medications we could try.”

  I drop my head onto my arms for a second.

  “I was afraid you would say that. Will that stuff even work on a half angel?”

  She shrugs.

  “Sometimes with psych meds it’s like whacking the side of a radio. You have to keep hitting it until something works.”

  “Or breaks.”

  “That tells you something too.”

  I look around the café. It feels stuffy all of a sudden.

  “Fuck. I’m like some kid who can’t sit still without his Ritalin.”

  “Ritalin and some other drugs actually help people. Look, if civilian medications don’t work, I have some Sub Rosa things we can try.”

  “I like the sound of that. Let’s try the Sub Rosa stuff first.”

  “You’re willing to try then?”

  I finish my coffee.

  “Yeah. I’ll try.”

  She wipes her lips with a napkin.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go get you stoned.”

  “You’re enjoying this a little too much.”

  “I’m usually pulling bullets out of your backside, so, yes, prescribing medication is a welcome change.”

  We get up.

  “Okay, Dr. Frankenstein. Let’s go. And we’ll give Edith Piaf the boot too.”

  “I’m more than ready for that,” Allegra says.

  We go around the corner to the clinic. Fairuza gives me a look when I come in.

  “Nice look, Stark. Did Candy whack you with a rolled-up newspaper for not picking up your socks?”

  “Go play your drums, young lady. You’re not good at comedy.”

  “I’m playing my drums tonight. The whole band is getting together. You should come by.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  Allegra looks at Fairuza and cocks her head at the exam room door.

  “They still in there?”

  Fairuza rolls her eyes.

  “Madame Curie asked me to leave. I was cramping their research.”

  “Fuck that,” says Allegra, and heads for the door. I have to trot to keep up.

  We go through and she shuts it again. Vidocq and Liliane turn around. Vidocq grins when he sees me.

  “James. I have things to show you,” he says.

  “Yes. We’ve learned a lot in the last day,” says Liliane.

  “Great,” says Allegra. “Eugène can tell him about it. You, I want out of here.”

  Vidocq and Liliane look at each other.

  “Allegra. I don’t understand,” he says.

  “No, you don’t and we’re going to have a serious talk about that when Miss Thing leaves.”

  Liliane sets down the forceps she was holding. She says, “I’m sorry if I offended you in any way. That was never my intention.”

  “I don’t care about your intentions. I’d just like you to leave.”

  “But we’ve made discoveries together,” says Vidocq. “We know so much more about the black milk.”

  “Afte
r she leaves,” says Allegra.

  Liliane puts her hands together.

  “Before I go, may I please show you all one thing?”

  “No.”

  “It has to do with James,” she says.

  “What do you mean?” says Vidocq, looking surprised.

  “Please. Let me show you.”

  Vidocq looks at Allegra.

  “Fine,” she says. “But then she goes.”

  “Of course,” says Liliane. To me she says, “May I see the drill for a moment?”

  I bring it over to her. She takes it and opens the mechanism.

  “Stay here so you can see,” she tells me.

  I look at her working. She puts the top on the vial of black milk and holds it up for me to see.

  I nod.

  “Now what?”

  “Watch.”

  She takes the vial and snaps it into place inside the drill.

  “It’s a syringe?” says Vidocq.

  “Yes,” she says. Then lunges at my arm.

  I back up, too fast for her reach.

  Vidocq shoves her against the counter.

  “Liliane. What is this?”

  “Shut up, you oaf,” she says, and stabs the syringe into his throat. “Die like you should have died in Paris.”

  Vidocq collapses, his face turning blue. Allegra screams. While I’m looking at him Liliane comes at me again. I grab her arm and toss her across the room back toward the door. She lands close to Allegra. Liliane swings the syringe at her, but Allegra sees it coming and ducks. She grabs a scalpel off the counter and jams it full force into Liliane’s chest.

  The syringe hits the floor and Liliane goes down with it. She’s hurt, but pulls out the scalpel and throws it away. A stab in the heart didn’t stop her before. Liliane throws herself at the syringe, but Allegra steps on her hand. Grabs the syringe and slams it into the side of Liliane’s neck. She rolls away, gasps, and pulls the syringe out. But it’s too late. She’s turning as blue as Vidocq.

  “Eugène!” Allegra shouts.

  I grab him from the floor and put him on the exam table. His face has gone from blue to black.

  I look at Allegra.

  “What do we do?”

  She scrambles to the cabinets, throwing bottles and boxes onto the floor until she finds what she’s looking for. It’s a bottle full of a pale liquid. With trembling hands, she takes a long heart syringe and sticks it through the top, drawing out a large portion of the liquid. I tear open Vidocq’s shirt and she slams the needle into his chest, hitting the plunger when it’s inside. He convulses a couple of times. Breathes once and falls back onto the table. Allegra is crying.

  I grab her arm.

  “What was that?”

  It takes her a second to get it out.

  “I put him in the Winter Garden.”

  The Garden is a kind of hoodoo coma. It stops all activity in a body pretty much indefinitely. It’s good for poison and zombie bites. Anything where you don’t have a handy antidote in your pocket.

  I check Vidocq’s eyes. They’re all pupil.

  “Is the Garden going to work?”

  “How the hell do I know?” she says. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”

  I go over and put an arm around her. Allegra holds on to my coat.

  The door opens up and Fairuza sticks her head in.

  “Your two o’clock is here.”

  She takes one look at Liliane on the floor, skin turning black and blood on her chest, and almost screams. I grab her and pull her into the room.

  When Fairuza can look up from the floor, she sees Vidocq laid out.

  “What happened to Eugène?”

  I hold her by the shoulders.

  “We can talk about that later. Right now you need to be very cool. Go out there and tell the two o’clock they have to reschedule. Can you do that?”

  She nods and I look at her hard.

  “And try to look a little less like you just saw Darby Crash’s ghost. Got me?”

  She nods again. Takes a couple of deep breaths.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Good. Go out there, tell them the story, and stay there until I come out for you.”

  “Okay.”

  I open the door and push her through.

  Allegra is still by Vidocq with her hand on his chest, which is crisscrossed with blackened blood vessels.

  Allegra isn’t crying anymore. She looks at me. Her voice is raspy when she speaks.

  “What the hell just happened?”

  “I’m so fucking stupid. Liliane is with Wormwood.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She knew the thing wasn’t a drill. Only one way she’d know that.”

  Allegra looks puzzled.

  “They sent her to kill Eugène?”

  “No. Me. But Vidocq was the way in. She could get to me and use him to find out what we knew about black milk.”

  She strokes Vidocq’s brow.

  “She was always going to kill him, wasn’t she?”

  “She came here for me.”

  “Then she just did Eugène for fun.”

  I nod.

  “Yeah. A two-hundred-year-old grudge.”

  Allegra’s hands shake. I look at her.

  “She would have done you too, you know.”

  She ignores me.

  “I just killed someone,” she whispers.

  “You saved both of us. Liliane wasn’t going to stop.”

  She looks up at me.

  “What do I do? Call the police?”

  I go over to her.

  “No. Too many cops are on the take. Let me handle the body. You stay with Vidocq.”

  She looks down at him.

  I put the syringe in my pocket. Straighten Liliane’s body, then grab some paper towels to wipe her blood off the floor. I pile them on her chest and look back at Allegra.

  “I’m going to need some garbage bags and duct tape. Also, your car. Mine is still dead.”

  She goes to her purse and hands me the keys. I pocket them.

  Fairuza knocks on the door. Opens it a crack and sticks her head in.

  “Everyone is gone,” she says.

  She looks at the bodies.

  “Can I go too?”

  “Of course,” Allegra says.

  Before she can go, I take her arm.

  “No one gets to know about this. You’ll put yourself in danger. Understand?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “I want you to go straight home. You’re going to freak out in a while. That’s okay as long as you don’t tell anyone about this.”

  She nods.

  “Normally, I’d say call me, but I’m going to be busy. You can talk to Candy.”

  “We’re supposed to rehearse tonight.”

  “Rehearsal is off. I’m going upstairs to get her.”

  I leave them in the exam room and go up to Julie’s office. Give Candy a quick rundown of what happened.

  “Tell Julie you have a family emergency or something and come downstairs.”

  “Right.”

  I go back to the clinic. I don’t want to leave Allegra or Fairuza alone with a body for too long.

  Fairuza is standing with Allegra by Vidocq when I get back. She’s pale and looks like she wants to throw up, but she’s keeping it together.

  Candy comes in a couple of minutes later. I go to her.

  “Fairuza is in no shape to drive. You’re her friend. You should probably take her home. I’ll stay with Allegra and Vidocq.”

  Candy tells Fairuza she’s taking her home. Fairuza hugs Allegra before she goes. Then it’s just the three of us.

  “What happens now?” Allegra says.

  “We wait until dark. Then I can move the body.”

  She laughs a little. “‘Move the body.’ You’re moving a body for me.” She looks at me. “Hell of a coffee date, huh?”

  “It’s going to be a hell of a night too. You ready for that?”

  ?
??Guess I have to be.”

  “I’m going to fix this. We’re going to get him back.”

  “How?”

  I go over and put a hand on Vidocq’s shoulder. It’s rock hard, like rigor mortis.

  “We don’t know exactly how black milk works, but my guess is regular drugs aren’t going to affect it.”

  “What will?”

  “Angel blood. It’s the only thing I can think of with those kind of healing powers.”

  “Can we use yours?”

  “I’m just a nephilim My blood might make things worse.”

  “What are we going to do, then?”

  I bring a chair to Vidocq’s body so Allegra can sit down.

  “I’m going to find an angel. They’re going to give me their blood or I’m going to take it.”

  “It’s that simple, is it?” she says, shaking her head. “What’s going to happen with Wormwood?”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  “Are you going to hurt someone?”

  “I’m going to do a lot worse than that.”

  She looks at me.

  “Good.”

  Candy comes back an hour later. She sits with Allegra.

  It’s a long wait for sundown.

  THE LA BREA Tar Pits are on Curson Avenue between Sixth Street and Wilshire.

  I wait until three thirty in the morning before taking Liliane to Allegra’s Prius, where I dump the body in the hatchback and drive across town. I stop for all red lights. I drive the prevailing speed of the other traffic. I’m as solid a citizen as L.A. has ever seen.

  I stop the Prius at Curson and Wilshire, out of sight of the streetlights and any security cams at the Tar Pits. After I whisper some Hellion hoodoo, the lights along the whole stretch of Curson blow out. I pop the hatch and grab Liliane’s body. The Prius I leave on Wilshire. There’s enough traffic on the street that the car won’t look too funny if cops come by.

  With the body over my shoulder, I sprint to the Tar Pits. She’s heavy. There are a couple of stolen cinder blocks in the garbage bags with Liliane’s body.

  The fence around the pits is about eight feet high. I toss the body over and climb in. The problem with tar is that bodies sink slowly. You have to toss them far enough out that they won’t get stuck on shallow ground and so they’ll look as inconspicuous as possible until they disappear.

  I spin around like a discus thrower and toss Liliane into the middle of the pit. Before I left the clinic, I sliced a few holes in the garbage bags to let the tar in so the bundle would sink faster. I wait behind a palm tree until only the feet are left showing, then climb the fence and head back to the car. This isn’t the first time I’ve dumped bodies at the Tar Pits, but I hope it’s the last. I wish I could have had a few more minutes with Liliane to talk things over. Maybe I could have followed her into the Tenebrae if I had some Dream Tea, but I didn’t and I thought all the blood from the Metatron Cube ritual wouldn’t be good for Allegra to see. Anyway, I know where I can find more information and it will be more fun to get it that way.