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“What’s this?”
“Alice said it was me in a former life. ”
Candy smiles.
“I think we have a winner. ”
“Eleusis,” says Traven.
I look at him.
“What’s Eleusis?”
He raises his eyebrows.
“I thought you’d be the one to know. It’s a region of Hell. ”
“Never heard of it. ”
He comes over and hands me the sheet of paper. It’s just chicken scratches and his calculations.
Traven says, “Dante wrote about Eleusis in the Inferno, though he didn’t call it by that name. Some translations described it as the woods given to the virtuous pagans. Dante described it as a green and pleasant place for pre-Christian men and women who weren’t sinners but couldn’t get into Heaven because they weren’t redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice. ”
“Wait, Heaven is punishing those for being born too early?”
“It’s not punishment. It’s like Limbo. A work-around invented by the Church centuries ago. If humanity can only be redeemed by Christ’s death, what happens to the virtuous prophets of the Old Testament? Eleusis in Greece was the site of ancient mystery rites and therefore a vaguely mystical region as good as any to dispose of the pagans. ”
I hand the paper back to him.
“Then Eleusis is where Mason has Alice. ”
“From what I recall, it’s a long way from Pandemonium. Halfway across Hell in fact. ”
“Does going across Hell get me frequent-flier miles?”
I take my coat off the bed and load in the na’at, the knife, and the other gear.
It’s still two hours until sundown.
“We can sit here and stare at each other or we can have a drink and send for some food. ”
“Food,” says Vidocq, and the others agree.
Kasabian turns around. Suddenly we have his attention.
“What kind of food?”
“Chicken and waffles,” says Candy.
“From Roscoe’s?” says Allegra. “I don’t think they deliver. ”
“Everyone delivers if you pay them enough,” says Kasabian. He types something into the computer and a phone app opens on the screen. “Watch. I’m the king of overtipping. ”
I say, “As long as you’re wasting my money, get Donut Universe to send over a wheelbarrow-ful of whatever’s fresh. ”
Traven is staring at the paper with the angelic cipher.
“What’s up, Father? Not a waffle fan?”
He says, “I’m horrified by what you’re about to do, but I’m also a little envious. Hell is waiting for me when I die, but I don’t know what it is, and that scares me. But you can walk its streets without being afraid. I’d give anything for that. ”
“If anyone ever makes you that offer, don’t take it. It’s a sucker’s bet. And I told you. I’ll show you around if you end up Downtown. ”
Traven taps the pen against the paper nervously. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He’s picturing flames and oceans of boiling blood. If I tell him it’s not like that, he won’t believe me. No one ever really believes what you tell them about Hell.
“You and your friends have shown me more of the universe in the last couple of days than the Church did in years. I wish I could do more to show my gratitude,” he says.
“Do you have a car?” I ask.
“Yes. ”
“Is it insured? Like, well insured?”
“It was my late mother’s car. She was a careful driver and had every kind of insurance there is. ”
“f y00">Ên I borrow it?”
Traven takes out his keys and hands them to me.
“How long will you need it?”
“Just tonight. ”
TWO HOURS GOES a lot faster with whiskey and food than it does without either.
By the time the sun’s gone down, everyone is pretty much acting like a person again and not a mourner in training. Candy catches me looking out the window.
“You probably need to get going soon. ”
“Yeah, I do. ”
We get up from where we’ve been eating on the floor and I put on my jacket. I’m very aware of its weight on my body. Nervousness is all about heightened senses.
Traven is the closest to me. I shake his hand and he nods. Vidocq grabs me in a massive bear hug.
“No good-byes. I’ll see you soon. ”
“Sooner than that. ”
Allegra comes over and pecks me on the cheek. It’s sweet and she means it, but I don’t think she’s ever quite forgiven me for working for Lucifer a couple of months ago.
Candy loops her arm in mine and walks me to the door.
“Do you want me to walk with you to the car?”
“You should stay here with the others. From here on out, I need to not be Stark. I need to be Sandman Slim and a very bad person. ”
“You mean more so. ”
“Yeah. That’s what I mean. ”
Candy puts the plastic rabbit in my hand and we kiss.
Before I go outside, I look at Kasabian. He’s gone back to the beginning of the DVD and the opening credits for The Wizard of Oz are playing.
“See you soon, Alfredo Garcia. ”
He doesn’t look up.
“Shut up. The movie’s starting. ”
I open the door and look at Candy.
“Three days. ”
She nods.
“Three days. ”
I close the door and get out the car keys.
TRAVEN’S KEYS ARE for a Geo Metro, a glass-enclosed gum wad of fiberglass that’s like a car the same way movie-theater nachos are like food. Holding the keys out in front of me like the world’s most pathetic magic wand, I push the lock button. Something a few cars up chirps. The Geo is exactly like the kind of car that a preacher’s mother would drive. It’s blue and looks like something that should come free with a kid’s meal at a burger joint. This isn’t how I imagined I’d be leaving this world, but I don’t have time to hunt and kill a real car. The only thing worse than driving a car like this is having someone see you driving a car like this. Naturally, that’s when I see Medea Bava strolling over from across the street. I already have the door open, so I can’t even pretend I was going to steal something else. I get the Maledictions out and light one. Going back to Hell may be the worst thing I ever do, but at least I’ll be able to get decent cigarettes.
“Why are you bugging me, Medea? I’m leaving town and may not be coming back. Go buy yourself a new crown of thorns. You win. ”
Medea stops in the street so that cars have to drive around her. She just looks at me, her face sweeping through the phases of the moon, turning her from a beautiful young woman to an old crone and back again.
“You’re as constant as the stars in a few things, Sandman Slim. For example, your stupidity and selfishness. ”
“I also steal cable. What’s your point?”
“What you’re planning is reckless beyond belief. War is coming from below and above. And you plan on inserting yourself into the middle of it? And for what? A personal vendetta. You’ve even involved the Kissi. That alone has made the situation a thousand times worse. ”
“What I’m doing is a lot more than a vendetta. ”
A minivan full of frat boys goes around her, hooting and flipping her off. Medea flicks her head at them and the van’s windows explode inward. You can hear the frat boys screaming as the van rolls to a stop at the corner.
“The last time we met, who were you with? Ah yes, the Czech whore. ”
“Watch your mouth. Her name is Brigitte and the proper term you’re looking for is ‘porn star. ’ You’re just jealous of her because you never had a three-way with a cosmonaut. ”
“And now you’re debasing yourself with that rabid dog in your room. ”
“Candy and I
are only at the shoc Yo at thek and awe stage. Debasing is penciled in for next Thursday. ”
Medea glances up the street as the bloody frat boys stumble out of the van. She turns and looks at me.
“Now you’re sacrificing yourself for dear sweet Alice. ”
“You already know that, and I want to be dead before one, so I’m leaving. Have a nice time playing pranks on civilians. ”
I get into the car, but suddenly she’s next to me with her hand on the door.
She says, “Are you really going to sacrifice yourself to save your great betrayer?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You and Alice didn’t find each other by chance. We sent her to you. ”
She lets that sink in for a minute. It doesn’t. It just sits there staring at me, ugly and cold.
Medea says, “Do you think the Sub Rosa is so blind that it wouldn’t notice a child as powerful as you being raised by ordinary parents? You were dangerous when a child and became more so as you grew. Then you chose to distance yourself from the Sub Rosa, its codes and bylaws. ”
“Codes and bylaws? What are you? The Rotary Club? Fuck off. ”
Medea leans in closer. A faint smile plays around her mouth as it morphs from a young woman’s full lips to a crone’s, as dry and cracked as a desert plain.
“When you left us we needed to know what you were up to. A simple spell wouldn’t do. You would have broken it. So we sent something you would accept wholeheartedly. The girl. ”
“Alice wasn’t Sub Rosa. She didn’t have any magic. I would have known. ”
“You’re right. Poor Alice was an invalid. But her parents had the gift. They’re Sub Rosa, which makes her Sub Rosa, too. Alice’s infirmity is what made her the perfect operative. With no magic of her own, you would never suspect her. And keeping watch over you was the one way she could contribute to her people’s welfare. ”
Alice flashes in my memory. A thousand snapshots of her face. Her hands. Her body. There’s nothing that reads as magic or lies.
“I don’t believe you. ”
“The truth doesn’t require your belief. Alice was never yours. She belonged to us. ”
“Did Mason put you up to this? Aelita? Maybe both of them. What did they promise you, Baba Yaga? Your owdivaga? Yon Kentucky fried-chicken-leg house?”
Medea laughs. Up the block frat boys are pulling glass fragments out of each other’s faces. One sits on the curb staring at the phone in his hand. He can’t think of who to call.
“I’m the Inquisition and the Inquisition is beyond the sort of desires that make bribery possible. ”
Medea takes something from an inside pocket of her coat and tosses it into the car with me. Wolf teeth and crow feathers bound in linen with horsehair. An Inquisition death sign. She even went to the trouble to dribble a bloody X on top.
She says, “You’ve used up your nine lives. Go back to your room and be with that animal you rut with. Be happy and ruin yourself quietly the way you should have done years ago. If, however, you continue on the course you’re planning, the Inquisition will deal with you permanently. This is your last chance for redemption. ”
I toss the death sign over my shoulder and take a puff of the Malediction.
“Redemption? I want redemption about as much as I want to be one of the blue-blood Ren Faire masters of the universe you report to. Lucifer chose me to deal with this. Not the Sub Rosa or you or the Golden Vigil or Mickey Mouse. Me. I’m the one who can stop Mason. You get in my way and he wins. That will be the end of everything and it’ll be your fault. So why don’t you go back to your gumdrop house in the forest and eat some lost children, witch?”
Medea walks to the curb and swings out her arm like a maître d’.
“I won’t stop you, but remember this. When your final judgment arrives, I won’t come for you. You’ll be the one who comes to me, and of your own free will. ”
“So no hug good-bye?”
I pull the door closed and turn the ignition. The Geo coughs a few times, but the engine finally catches. Medea knocks on the passenger window and I push the button to lower it.
“We’ll see each other much sooner than you think,” she says.
“Super. You bring balloon animals and I’ll hire clowns. It’ll be a party. ”
I steer the Geo around the wrecked van. The frat boy on the curb finally figured out someone to call. Blood runs down his forehead and drips onto his phone, but he looks relieved. There’s a siren in the distance.
I turn right at the corner and steer the Geo onto the freeway.
THINKING ABOUT DEATH makes a ride go by fast. Thinking about your own death—even if it’s supposed to be temporary—makes it fly by like a cheetah with a jet pack>
You’d think that with all my connections to the celestial sphere, I’d have a better handle on death. But I don’t know anything. I didn’t die in Hell and since then I’ve lived through every kind of attack, abuse, and humiliation Hellions, humans, and hell beasts could pile on. After you’ve been shot, stabbed, slashed, burned, and almost zombified and survived it all, death gets kind of abstract. It’s like valentines and diplomas. Something other people have to deal with. But now it’s my turn to ride the pale horse and I have serious reservations about it.
Every day I walk down Hollywood Boulevard and see civilians making themselves crazy worrying about the meetings they’re late for or did they put the rent check in the mail or is their ass starting to sag and I think, “I’ve seen the creaky clockwork that turns the stars and planets. I’ve gotten drunk with the devil and body-slammed angels. I’ve seen the Room of Thirteen Doors at the center of the universe. I know the taste of my own blood as well as you know your favorite wine. I’ve seen so much more than you’ll ever see. I know so much more than you’ll ever know. ” And then it hits me like a runaway semi. I don’t know anything that matters. Here I am thinking how much better and smarter I am than all the stuffed-shirt meat puppets wandering L. A. and I remember that there’s a billion people who haven’t done a tenth of the things I’ve done but who know the big answer to the big question: What happens when you die? I’ve seen fragments of it. I stood in the desert of Purgatory with Kasabian after he died and before Lucifer brought him back. But that doesn’t count. That was someone else’s death and Purgatory was just a projection of the afterlife created by my spell. Not the real thing. I’ve seen death a thousand times, and almost snuffed it myself, but I’ve never made it through all the way, and that scares me.