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I look up to where Jack is pointing. There’s something in the distance, but I’m damned if I know what it is.
Venice is shuttered and looks like it’s been that way for fifty years. The only light in the area comes from the fires reflected off the belly of the endless black clouds overhead. Vents in the ground belch geysers of superheated steam. Fire twisters skitter in the distance, tearing up the empty beach houses. We head down to the long tourist walk.
“You’re wondering if I’m lying about who I am, Mr. Stark. Or if I’m a nutter. ”
“Something like that. ”
“And you’re wondering how someone might go about proving or disproving my claim. ”
“Right on the money. ”
Even by Hell standards we’ve pretty much pegged the bleak meter. There’s nothing more depressing than a dead beach town. It’s like all the loons and extroverts and dimwit fun in the world has been boxed up and tossed on a bonfire. Of course, this isn’t really Venice. It’s just the Convergence projection of it. Still, something big died here and the sight of it has sucked the wind out of me. Or maybe I’m light-headed from cutting off my face. We move past empty weight-lifting areas and out-of-business tattoo parlors.
Jack says, “It’s impossible for me to prove who I am. Perhaps I’m mad. Perhaps I’m a liar. If you perhaps had a book about old Jack’s comings and goings, you might ask me details of my past. But you don’t have a book and even if you did, Jack is a famous man. His crimes are well known and well documented. I might have read the same books as you. ”
“Where does that leave us, Jack?”
“In the wilderness, I’m afraid. I can no more prove to you that I’m happy Jack than you can prove to me you’re Sandman Slim. ”
“Excuse me? I just stepped out of a shadow and killed five Hellion military officers. I took a Hellion general prisoner. I manifested a Gladius. ”
Jack rubs his jaw and rolls his shoulders, still trying to work out the kinks. I wonder how long he was in Mammon’s cage.
He says, “Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. I’m not a magical sort like you and some of these other folk, so I don’t know how it all works, do I?”
“Use your imagination. ”
“You appeared to kill a number of soldiers and to dash through shadows, but it could have been a trick of the eye. I’ve seen stage magicians make furniture dance and spirits float in the air. And I’ve seen this lot make people see all sorts of things. Lovers, friends, parents. Spiders. Snakes. But they were mere phantasms. Trickery meant to fool the eye and terrorize the soul. For all I know, you twiddled your thumbs and tricked Master Mammon’s staff into killing each other. ”
“That would still be a pretty good trick. ”
“Indeed it would be. I’ve seen demons and devils that could break a man’s bones on the rack or his heart with a single word. But that doesn’t make any of them Sandman Slim. ”
“When you get down to it, I don’t really care who you are. If you can get me to Eleusis, I’ll call you Jack the Ripper or Mott the Hoople if you want. Just get me there. ”
“Of course. And what will be my payment for this service?”
I stop and look at him. Jack walks on for a few steps before looking back at me. He puts his hands in his pockets and stands up straight. The whole deferential attitude is gone. He’s a killer standing his ground.
“Payment? And here I thought saving you from a tin-can coffin might cover it. ”
“Perhaps. Let’s put our minds to it as we go and see what we come up with, shall we?”
He starts walking and I follow, staring at the thick foamy sea that looks more like tar than water. I should have tried to get the car started. But on the road the posse would have caught up with us. So no, leaving it was the smart move.
“Okay, Jack, I’ve got to ask. Assuming you are old Leather Apron, what’s your story? Did the clap eat half your brain? Were you a religious freak? Did a talking dog named Sam tell you to kill all those women?”
“There is no God and I know noandnd I knthing about a talking dog, though I’d surely like to see one. ”
“You’re an atheist? You were a fallen angel’s slave. In Hell. And you’re an atheist? Walk me through that, Jack. ”
“Why is it necessary for God to exist for Hell to exist? The problem is that when good people imagine Hell, they imagine it as the opposite of the real world and as remote as the stars. That’s their delusionment. Hell and earth are the same thing. Separated by nothing more than a thin shroud of understanding that this is so. I lived in Hell every moment I dwelt on the other earth and I made it my business to bring Hell to all God-fearing souls to remind them that horror is the fabric from which the world was made. ”
“You didn’t date a lot when you were alive, did you, Jack?”
“I don’t consort with whores, thank you very much. I rip ’em. ”
“Fucking hell. ”
I get out the flask and have a drink. The Aqua Regia burns in just the right way going down. I start to offer Jack a drink because you always offer the other guy a drink, but I screw the top on and put the flask back in my pocket.
We’re off the beach and heading inland, picking our way through the dead neighborhoods. At the corner of one of the main streets, where rows of burning palms converge on it like a weird offering to a glue-sniffing beach god, is an office building with a three-story clown sculpture in front. It’s in white face with dark whiskers and is wearing a top hat, white gloves, and ballet slippers. I know it’s supposed to look whimsical, but whimsy in a place like this is like jerking off at a funeral. Someone might enjoy it, but you wouldn’t want to know them.
“Assuming that you are Sandman Slim, tell me about yourself and your work. I’ve heard your name many times. Hellions talk about you like the bogeyman. ”
“I might be a monster but I never mailed a kidney to a newspaper. ”
“Half a kidney. I ate the other half. ”
“Mom always said it’s a sin to waste food. ”
“How many Hellions have you dispatched, Sandman Slim? How many humans and human souls?”
“No idea. ”
“How many women?”
“I yelled at a meter maid once. ”
Soon we’re in a residential area. People in Venice are sun worshippers and most of the houses have huge windows. Some of the upscale places even have one or two glass walls. The glass is all gone. Shattered by earth tbogd by earemors and fucked over by looters. Houses are tagged with spray-painted Hellion gang signs. Teenyboppers are assholes here, too. I hope Heaven’s teens are idiots. Going joyriding in Dad’s wings and TPing other angels’ clouds.
A dust devil swirls down the street, pelting us with trash and broken glass. I pull Jack behind a burned-out car and wait until the twister passes. It turns at the corner and heads down another street like it’s alive and has a sense of direction. A few doors later, it goes. The neighborhood isn’t completely deserted. I don’t want to know who or what still lives here. I pull Jack to his feet and we get moving.
I hear a different kind of rumble back the way we came. There’s a light in the distance. A spotlight coming down the dunes to the beach. The posse must have circled back and found Mammon’s limo.
“Is there a faster way, Jack?”
“Yes, but it’s more dangerous. ”
“Let’s go. ”
We make a few turns back the way we came and run right into a dust storm. I’m practically blind, but Jack pulls me through it like I’m a poodle on a leash. When we emerge from the storm we’re in a different neighborhood. Winding hill roads. The steep grades and long driveways are chewed-up, ever-widening fissures. Ghost mansions come and go in the settling dust. We head downhill, just like this neighborhood is. If the cracks in the road hook up with other, deeper cracks, one good shake and the whole side of this hill is going to turn into Surf City. Hang ten and ride the m
ansions, Rolls-Royces, and manicured lawns all the way down to the flats and into the Pacific.
Jack looks at me, trying to figure out how we got here.
“You’re navigating with your eyes,” he says. “To navigate these days, you have to think like a worm or mole. You must know what’s underground. This isn’t a land of right angles or streets anymore. It’s purely geologic. The sand back at the beach was probably used as landfill around here to flatten sections of the hills. ”
“I’m lucky I have you, then. ”
“Yes you are. ” He pauses. “You were telling me about how many people you’ve killed. ”
“No. I wasn’t. ”
“Back in London, old Inspector Abberline and the rest of the Met think I only took five. I took plenty more than that, believe you me. There were a few in the country, but south by the coast was best. Like the lovely beach we just left. Do a day’s excursion to Brighton or Portsmouth. I’d find saloon trollops and rip them down by the wharfs. Toss their innards to the birds and fill their bodies with stones to weigh them down. They’d slip into the sea like it was waiting for them. ”
“20100">nough, you twisted fuck. ”
We walk on, Jack staring at his feet. Each step leaves a shallow impression in the thick dust that covers the sidewalk. If the posse is behind us, we’ll be easy to track, but I don’t have time to worry about that now. Each step is a second hand on a clock ticking away the time. Jack said it would take a day to get to Eleusis, but I’ve already lost track of how long we’ve been walking.
“None of this is a coincidence, you know,” says Jack.
“Yeah. You had a great personal ad on Craigslist. ”
“Assuming I’m who I say that I am and assuming that you are who you say you are, do you truly believe that two such infamous killers could cross paths through simple happenstance?”
“Are you talking about divine intervention, Jack? Because that kind of blows your no-God theory. ”
“Not God. Some other, more subtle force that’s thrown us together toward a higher purpose. ”
“Listen, we’re in Hell and there are about fifty billion killers down here, so I was bound to meet someone like you. It could have been the Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, or Freddy Krueger, and every one of them would tell me exactly what you’re telling me now. There’s nothing special about our road movie. It’s nothing more than the flip of a coin. ”
He slowly shakes his head.
“I don’t believe that. There’s a reason for this. We’re fated to do something together. ”
“Yeah. You’re going to take me to Eleusis. When we get there I’m going to shake your hand and we are going to go our separate ways. ”
“There has to be more to it than that. ”
“Trust me, there doesn’t. ”
“Maybe our doing the thing is the payment I need. ”
“It won’t work, Jack. Look at our histories. We’re lone wolves. We don’t work with partners. When we get to town we go our separate ways. I’ll be grateful I’m there and you’ll be grateful you’re not still a Hellion’s paperweight. ”
A steam vent explodes nearby. The blast of heat and vapor knocks me back. I think I hear a rumbling behind us. There might be a truck coming or it might just be the sound of the vent. I push Jack and we break into a trot.
Jack says, “May I see your knife? I have a great fondness for knives. ”
“No. ”gn=201D;
I look back at our tracks in the dust. You could see them from space. Maybe Jack wants us to get caught. We need to get off this street. I take his arm and push him onto a side street that’s clean of dust. The vent spews again and the street moves below us. A palm tree falls and crushes a dusty pickup truck. Jack pulls me back in the other direction.
We run to the street we’d been on before. The air is full of dust and we can’t see where we’re going, but we run anyway. If there are any sinkholes or faults in front of us, we’re fucked. We can barely see each other. But the tremors and the noise die down after a minute and the street goes back to being solid.
Jack looks at me.
“I assume you won’t stray from the path again. ”
“You’re the boss, Jack. ”
“Well put. ”
WE’RE HEADING FOR what looks like low hills, but as we get closer, it’s really an area where the streets have buckled wildly, like black icebergs jutting up from the street. Eleusis is on the other side.
We turned off the dusty street twenty minutes earlier. Most of the signs in this neighborhood are in Spanish, but the residents are the same mix of dazed Hellions and lost souls we saw in Hollywood. They sit in cars and wander between strip malls like sleepwalkers.
Where the hell are you, Alice? What are you doing right now, Candy? I’d rather be having the worst time possible with either of you than having the best with my knife-happy tour guide. I know I told Candy to take the blood cure from Allegra, but I wouldn’t mind letting her show Jack here what a Jade looks like. Try to hurt this woman, you little shit.
Every couple of minutes a lone man runs across the street. He’s easy to spot when everyone else is going half speed. When he’s settled somewhere he whistles an all clear. Soon a group of eight or ten Hellions comes up the same way. A mix of men and women, they whoop it up, running into stores, busting the places up, and coming out again with stolen wine and food. The ones with working guns take potshots at cars and store windows.
Jack says, “Raiders. ”
He starts running for the back of a half-burned building off to our right. I follow. When he can’t get the rear door open, I push him out of the way, jam the black blade into the door frame, and push. Metal pops and wood splinters. I shove Jack inside and we head to the front of the place. The door is open a crack, giving us a good view of the street.