The Perdition Score

Bill and I climb up into the engine.

  “Do you know anything about trains?” he says.

  “Nope.”

  “Then how are you planning on running it?”

  “Magic, Bill.”

  “Show me.”

  The train’s drive panel looks like the interior of a rocket to the moon. There are enough gauges, dials, and knobs to make Neil Armstrong blush. With a little luck, I don’t need 99 percent of them.

  I point to a lever on the side.

  “That’s probably the throttle. Help me find something that might be a brake.”

  Bill looks over my shoulder.

  “All these buttons and whatnot are labeled in Hellion gibberish.”

  “Fuck it. I’ll stop it with hoodoo too.”

  “Not if I’m driving it.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “You’d be more convincing without all them scars.”

  I look out the side of the train at the Orc party over Tartarus.

  “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to stay here in the train. I’m going back to Monster Island and get them to follow me. When they do, you drive the train right up to Tartarus. I’ll open it and let the souls on board.”

  “What if the beasties don’t all follow you?”

  I look around the cabin and spot a button.

  “See that? That’s the air horn. Push it a few times. Maybe it will scare the rest off.”

  Bill looks at the button.

  “I’d prefer a cannon.”

  “Me too, but it’s what we have.”

  Bill looks out the window.

  “You know, if I get eaten, I’ll be down with them others in the dark.”

  “If I can’t pull the hellbeasts off or they come back or won’t leave, you just hit the throttle and keep going.”

  “And leave you behind?”

  “Exactly.”

  He takes a breath.

  “Damned stupid thing to say.”

  “Well, none of this is going to happen if I can’t start the train.”

  “Try it now.”

  I look at the control board. If I use Hellion hoodoo I’ll probably blow up the whole thing. But I’ve always been pretty good at improvising spells. Good, but not perfect.

  “Here we go.”

  I whisper a few words. Nothing happens. A few more. Some of the panel lights come on. Another little whisper. The panel lights blink a few times and the engine rumbles to life.

  “Dammit,” says Bill.

  I pat him on the back.

  “Remember. You don’t do anything until you see them back off.”

  He points. “That’s the throttle thing and that’s the horn. Where’s the brake?”

  “I think it’s this thing.”

  “You think.”

  “If it doesn’t work, just pull back the throttle all the way. You’ll stop eventually.”

  He stares at the controls.

  “How do you plan on getting them beasts to follow you?”

  “Dance a can-can.”

  “Lord preserve us from your brilliance.”

  “See you soon, Bill.”

  I go back to the Corvair and manifest my Gladius. Slicing the roof off is easier than I expected. Once it’s out of the way, I get in and fire it up. Gun the Corvair and head straight for the herd. The trick isn’t to find the head of the pack. I need the one that’s dumber than me.

  I hang back far enough that I can make a run for it if things don’t work out, but I have to get close enough that one of the morons can see me. The problem is, they’re all concentrating on the tasty treats below.

  Fine. I’ve got to do everything myself.

  Hanging around the edge of the herd is a sort of giant crab/spider creature. A full-grown adult male. About twenty feet tall and dumb as a sackful of pudding. They’re fierce bastards in a fight, but I’ve killed their kind before. Of course, I’ve almost been cut in half by those claws, so that’s on my list of things to avoid.

  As quietly as I can, I pull the Corvair right under its belly and honk the horn.

  The thing quivers and its big armored legs scuttle around so that it can see me with all five of its black, hairy eyeballs. I’ll admit it. My fight-or-flight instinct kicks into full run-home-to-mommy mode. But mom is dead and I don’t have enough gas to get to L.A., so I throw the car into reverse and floor it before I get skewered by one of those legs.

  I have mixed feelings at this point. On the one hand, the plan seems to be working, and on the other, I’m being pursued flat out by around thirty tons of angry stupid.

  I head straight for the riverbank and stop. Honk my horn again to make sure it can find me. No problem there. It heads straight in my direction. I hop out of the car and start running, waving my arms and shouting.

  This is where I really start to have mixed feelings. Before they were only kind of mixed feelings. But once I’m running, everything comes back to me. The smell of the arena. The screaming crowds. Multicolored blood pools in the dirt. Sometimes other hellbeasts and sometimes other fighters around me. I’ve imagined being back in the arena so many times since I crawled out of Hell, and here I am, my wish finally fulfilled. And part of me is enjoying it. I swear, if I could import a few of these hungry freaks back home, I’d never get a Trotsky headache again.

  But that’s not what I should be thinking about. Right now it’s all about looking delicious without letting them find out if I am.

  Crab Cakes follows me along the river to where an enormous drainpipe dumps blood into the tributary. The pipe is a few feet below me. I jump and slide down the riverbank, landing right next to the metal inlet.

  Behind me, my new best friend runs at full speed.

  Interesting fact: Most crabs don’t have even a basic grasp of physics. I don’t either, but I know that thirty tons running at full speed is going to have a lot harder time stopping than me.

  Sure enough, Crab Cakes sprints right to the edge of the river, skitters, and falls, rolling onto its spiny back before sliding into the flowing blood. Its legs wave in the air as it tries to right itself, but it’s wedged in tight.

  From the pipe, I climb up onto Crab Cakes’ belly and look for one particular break in its shell. It’s midway between its front set of legs and its moving mandibles. When I find it, I extend the na’at to its full length and plunge it as hard and as deep as I can between the armor plates.

  It bellows like a foghorn and its legs twitch like it’s running the hurdles in the Olympics. With luck, the bellow got the attention of the other hellbeasts. All I have to do now is make sure they don’t lose interest.

  Wet with river blood, I climb back up the bank. Shout some Hellion hoodoo while I run for the car.

  Crab Cakes’ belly explodes in a foul-smelling shower of fish guts. Some thumps on me and into the car, but this isn’t the time for tidiness. I jump into the Corvair and peel out as the other hellbeasts get a whiff of the jumbo fillet-of-fish sandwich waiting for them in the river.

  A moment later, the herd turns and lumbers and slithers toward the river.

  I fucking hope Bill sees what’s going on. Revisiting the arena for a few minutes was fun, but like the fight pit back home, I don’t want to like it too much. I made and broke too many promises to Candy to let myself drift back into old habits.

  When I’m far enough from the feasting dino bastards, I pull up near the train yard. The area around Tartarus is almost clear. Only a couple of extra-slow and dumb beasts remain, pawing at the ground.

  The train starts to move. Picks up speed as it heads straight for Tartarus. Steam billows from the skull on the front of the train. Bill lays on the air horn. The last beasts turn toward the sound, but stumble back as the giant metal fire-breathing monstrosity thunders toward them. One of the beasts runs off into the train yard while the other heads for brunch at the river. Tartarus is clear.

  I hit the accelerator and speed along the tracks, bouncing over ruts and tracks. The Corvair creaks and g
rinds as I completely fuck up the undercarriage. I’m never going to get my deposit back.

  I reach Tartarus just after Bill hits the brakes and the train screams to a stop.

  Guess he found the right lever.

  The exit to the pit is a circle of Hellion steel, sort of like a big manhole cover. I manifest my Gladius and cut away a section big enough for people to get through, but not too big for me and Bill to move.

  The crowd below must be pretty shocked. Most haven’t seen even Hellion daylight in a while. It takes a few minutes before the first faces nervously appear in the hole.

  We help about ten of them out, then give them people-pulling duty while I run around asking everyone if they happen to know how to drive a train. I get a lot of funny looks, but most of them are so dazed and happy that they don’t waste time asking stupid questions. While I play Alex Trebek, Bill hustles the crowd onto the train.

  We get several hundred people out of the ground before I recognize the first Wormwood face. I don’t know his name, but he’s one of the pricks I killed back in Griffith Park. He gets it that he’s persona non grata when I wave my Gladius in his face. Other souls and Hellions come out while he crawls back into the dark.

  I must have asked a couple of hundred damned souls about trains when one of them says, “I can.”

  “You can drive a train?”

  “Sure. When I was alive I was a conductor on the Norfolk Southern line.”

  “Congratulations. You just got your job back.”

  He looks at the Hellion engine.

  “I don’t know if I can run that.”

  “Sure you can. Anyway, you’re not going far.”

  “How far?”

  “Around Long Beach. Basically, you keep going south until you see a shitload of souls and Hellions. It’s like Woodstock, but instead of a stage, you’ll see Heaven.”

  His expression brightens.

  “You mean we can get in?”

  “Not quite yet, but you’ll want to be there when the gates open, right?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Then get up there, Casey Jones. Once we get everyone out, you’re in charge.”

  He seems a little confused by the whole thing, but he heads for the train engine and that’s all that counts. Me, I hang around Tartarus, happily kicking every Wormwood face back into the pit. It takes hours to clear everybody out.

  Me and Bill are pushing the metal slab back into place when one last face appears.

  “Hello, James.”

  “Hello, Mason.”

  “I don’t suppose . . .”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “You always were the smart one.”

  “Who are my new roommates?”

  “They’re from a group called Wormwood. You’re going to love them.”

  He looks past us at the train, then back into Tartarus.

  “Well, lovely seeing you.”

  “Good-bye, Mason. Enjoy eternity.”

  “Eternity is a long time, James. Who knows? Maybe we’ll meet again.”

  “Nope.”

  We shove the metal back into position and I weld it in place with the Gladius.

  The conductor runs back to me and Bill.

  “I can do it,” he says. “The controls are a little different, but I can handle them.”

  “Then get moving. Those hellbeasts are going to be finished eating soon.”

  He looks at the river.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good-bye,” he says. “By the way, who are you people?”

  “That’s Wild Bill Hickok,” I say, hooking a thumb at Bill.

  He points at me.

  “That’s Sandman Slim right there.”

  Casey Jones looks at me.

  “Funny name,” he says.

  “Tell me about it. Now get going.”

  He runs back to the engine. The air horn howls twice and the train starts moving.

  I stand there watching them go. I know I did the right thing, but I’m still not entirely happy.

  I wish there was time to tell them about Hesediel and how she sacrificed herself for them. But none of these people will have heard of black milk or probably the new war in Heaven. Hesediel’s death would just be an abstraction to them. A Sunday school homily you tolerate because you know there’s juice and graham crackers later. Hesediel deserves more than that.

  Sometime down the road, when the rebels are gone and Heaven’s gates finally open, someone will tell them about her. They’ll get it then. And someone better build a statue and have a holiday where the banks close and some asshole does a movie about her and it plays all day like It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmas. If they don’t, I promise to make my one and only trip to Heaven and put my boot severely up someone’s ass.

  As the train disappears Bill says, “We should get going. I think some of them behemoths are still hungry.”

  He’s right. A few of the hellbeasts are wandering back in our direction.

  “You sure you don’t want to hop on that train, Bill? I think I can still catch it.”

  “Don’t ask fool questions. Take me home.”

  We get back in the Corvair and speed back to the city.

  The bugbite doesn’t itch anymore. Now my whole right arm is numb. But I don’t tell Bill that.

  WE FIND AN abandoned liquor truck on the way. Bill selects a bottle of good Hellion whiskey and we head to the bar. The Corvair runs a little rough on the way back. Something is out of alignment and we’re leaking oil. Still, it gets us back to Bill’s before coughing its last.

  He leads the way in and uncorks the whiskey while I go around lighting candles. When I sit down, Bill has laid out several shots in a row.

  “What all we drinking to?”

  “First, making it back to hearth and home in one piece.”

  We down a shot.

  “Second, to a good day’s work, even if you smell like the innards of a trout.”

  We have another.

  “Third, to a fine angel and friend.”

  Down it goes.

  “Last, to seeing the backside of you for a while. Vaya con Dios.”

  I raise my glass, hoping he’s not going to keep pouring.

  “Same to you, Bill.”

  We drink.

  He leans his elbow on the bar.

  “Is there anything left for us to do down here? Any demons to smite? Bears to wrestle?”

  I cork the whiskey.

  “Can’t think of a thing, except wondering what you’re doing next.”

  He thinks for a minute.

  “I might wander south in a bit. That is, unless you think you’ll be sending some Wormwoods down here soon.”

  I flex my arm a few times, hoping to feel something. There’s nothing at all.

  “It will be a while, I think. They’ve run off in a dozen different directions. I have to find out where and then get to them.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll wait a little while, then. Maybe set up camp at whatever’s left of the house in the park. If no one wanders up in the next week or so, I’ll take it as a sign to be moving on.”

  I scratch my arm.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  He straightens his mustache.

  “That bite still bothering you?”

  “Just itches a little.”

  “Be sure to get it looked at. Don’t go playing a hard-ass.”

  I nod.

  He holds up the bottle.

  “One more for the road?”

  I hold up a hand.

  “I’m done for now. I have to walk a straight line if I’m getting home.”

  “Then let’s get you started.”

  We take our time walking back to the sushi bar.

  Bill frowns at it.

  “I don’t think I want anything to do with fish for a good long while.”

  “Do I really smell?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  I take off
my coat. Hang it on a loose nail outside the restaurant. Maybe it won’t stink when it dries and some wandering soul can use it.

  The na’at I put in my back waistband where I usually keep the Colt. The black blade I slip into my boot.

  I turn to Bill.

  “You sure you’re going to be okay on your own?”

  “I’ve been in Perdition a good while, son. I know how to take care of myself. And thanks to you, I have plenty of firepower if anyone gets ideas.”

  “Okay, then.”

  I hold out my hand.

  Bill grabs me in a brief bear hug. Nods as he steps back.

  “Safe travels. Be sure to give Candy my regards.”

  “I will. Bye, Bill.”

  He holds up a hand.

  I go into the restaurant. Keep going until the light changes.

  And walk right into a wall of cornstalks.

  Great. The maze. I’m halfway home.

  Now I just have to figure out the other half.

  A HALF HOUR in here and I’m sweating. My right arm has gone from numb to throbbing.

  Wait. Has it been a half hour?

  I get out my phone.

  The battery is dead. No chargers in Hell. Got to remember that the next time I go down.

  The next time . . .

  That won’t be for a while, not if I have to haul my sorry ass through this hayseed labyrinth. I keep waiting for Minotaurs or Victorian floozies to come running by, high on ether and absinthe. Now that I mention it, I wouldn’t mind some of that myself. It would make the time pass faster. Or pass at all. How long have I been here? Right. No phone. No clock.

  I’m really starting to feel a little ragged. Maybe I should have crashed at Bill’s a little longer. No. That’s dumb. If this bugbite is anything, then I have to get home and see Allegra.

  Man, it’s hot in here.

  Candy and I got to Hell by turning left the whole way. Logically, I should get back by turning right. Wait. Does that make sense? You turn left to get through a maze. Maybe right is wrong. Ha. That was funny. Right it is, then.

  Are the rows narrower going back? I swear they are. I keep bouncing off the sides.

  Shit.

  Just fell through one of the walls into a different row. Does that mean I turn left or right from here?

  Right. Keep turning right. I’m sure of it.

  Fuck.

  Look for something familiar.

  Hey, it’s more corn. That helps.