Samael checks his watch.
“They’re not going anywhere until Death can lead their souls away again.”
“A guy I know almost died. He said instead of Death he saw something else. Any ideas what that might be?”
“Possibly. There’s something moving on the outskirts of the Tenebrae. A shadow. Imagine an immense dust devil made of lightning and emptiness. Whatever it is, it’s trying to will itself into being, but it doesn’t have the strength yet. That’s why no one is dying. The shadow is struggling. If it’s trying to take Death’s place it’s doing a piss-poor job. I don’t think it knows what it’s doing.”
“That’s good.”
Samael waggles his hand.
“Not really. It has all eternity to figure out how things work. If it got this far, it isn’t stupid.”
“Angels die as easy as people if you know what you’re doing. You and the other halo polishers have a dog in this fight.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“Very much. Once it figures out how to dispose of human souls, there’s no reason to think it will stop there.”
“It could go after Muninn.”
“It’s possible.”
“And you don’t have any ideas on how to stop it?”
Samael blows smoke rings.
“I don’t even know what it is yet.”
“You’ll let me know when you do?”
“Of course,” he says. “How is it these days, not being able to walk between worlds?”
“Hell. So to speak.”
“Do you regret what you did?”
I look up and down the street, wondering why he checked his watch.
“No. I just wish I was smart enough to figure out a way that didn’t cost me the Room.”
“There wasn’t any other way. As I said, no good deed etcetera etcetera.”
“Yeah, but how can you keep getting your teeth kicked in when you don’t have any teeth left?”
“Then they’ll kick your ribs. There’s always something left to kick. Trust me. It used to be my specialty.”
“Trust me. I remember.”
A stretch Lincoln Town Car rolls slowly down Las Palmas.
Samael drops his Malediction, stubs it out with the toe of one exquisite shoe.
“I should get going before the winged pests discover I’m on Earth. They’ll know I’ve been talking to you and I won’t be able to get a decent seat at any of the good restaurants.”
“Know any tricks to get me out of having to drive everywhere?”
Samael walks to the curb, turns around, and looks at me.
“Grow wings, little angel.”
“I’m only half an angel.”
“Then grow one and learn to glide. Squirrels do it. Surely, you can figure it out.”
The limo pulls up. A driver gets out and comes around to the passenger side of the car, opens the door for Samael. I toss my cigarette into the alley beside the store.
“Nice to see how modest you’re living in these uncertain times.”
Samael stops halfway into the car. He puts his hands together like he’s praying.
“Lord, grant me chastity . . . but not yet.”
“See you around, Augustine.”
He drives away and the car disappears into traffic.
I was hoping Marlowe’s threat, saying something knew I was coming, was just a line. Now it sounds like it might be true. But I can’t do anything about it right now. Given a choice between worrying about Death and having breakfast, I’ll take breakfast.
I head inside.
THE STORE IS empty of customers. It’s just Kasabian and Death in a cozy little homespun scene. Kasabian labeling discs. Death putting them in cases and shelving them, sometimes stopping to sniff them. They smile at me as I come in. Domestic bliss. There’s a movie playing on the big screen. An operating room lit up like something on the Discovery Channel, only there are a few too many neat stacks of wet, random organs and body parts laid out like a cannibal buffet to be TV-friendly.
“David Cronenberg’s version of Frankenstein,” says Kasabian, catching me watching. “He tried to make it in the eighties, but couldn’t get the cash. Now we have it. Maria brought it by after you left.”
I nod, remembering what Maria said.
“That ought to bring in some cash.”
“Damn right. People will pay blood money for this one.”
I look at Death. He’s happy with his discs, but ignores the screen. Guess he’s seen plenty of stuff like this before. I scratch the palm of one hand with the top of the Gentleman Jack bottle.
“Cherish it. We might not be getting any more movies for a while.”
Kasabian looks stricken.
“What do you mean?”
“Dash, Maria’s movie hound, took a powder. She asked me to find him.”
“You’re going to do it, right? I mean, this is our livelihood.”
I hold up the bottle to point at Death.
“No. He’s my livelihood right now and he’s the job I’m working on. Dash will have to wait. We must have enough inventory to keep the yokels happy for a while.”
Kasabian thinks.
“Maria’s brought by a few things I haven’t put out yet. I’ve got the Buckaroo Banzai sequel and Pasolini’s Saint Paul movie. I guess I can hold them for a while and bring them out one at a time.”
“There you go. Keep the public hungry.”
“ ‘I’m waiting for my man. Twenty-six dollars in my hand,’ ” says Death.
Kasabian and I both look at him.
“How do you know that song?” I ask him.
“It’s just something I’ve heard somewhere. It’s about hunger, isn’t it? About trying to buy drugs?”
“That’s right. The Velvet Underground’s first album. Nineteen sixty-seven,” Kasabian says.
I go over to where Death is working. He stops when he sees me approach.
“You remember that, but you can’t remember how you got here.”
He nods.
“I like music,” he says. “Everyone thinks I like chess because of that movie.”
Kasabian turns down the sound on the big screen.
He says, “The Seventh Seal. Ingmar Bergman. Nineteen fifty-seven.”
I shoot him a look . . .
“Thank you, Rain Man.”
. . . then turn to Death.
“You want to have a drink with me? Maybe it’ll shake something loose.”
“You really want to get him liquored up?” says Kasabian.
I shrug.
“I figure it’s that or electroshock. What do you say?”
I put down the bottle on the counter. Death looks it over, his forehead creased.
“I don’t know. But if you think it will help.”
“You liked beer the other day. Maybe you’re a whiskey man too. Let’s explore that possibility.”
“All right. When?”
“Give me an hour. I’ll let you sniff the cork and everything.”
Kasabian doesn’t look happy. I’m stealing his help. And keeping him from buttering up the Grim Reaper.
“I’m going to see Candy. When I come back down, we’ll start the party. You know any party songs?”
Death thinks for a moment, then sings, “ ‘Happy birthday to you . . .’ ”
I start upstairs.
“You two have fun. I’ll be back in a little while.”
CANDY IS ON the sofa. A laptop sits on the coffee table, photos scattered around it. I recognize some as the Three Stooges from the other night. Others are new. There’s one of a dour-faced, doughy guy with dark, wavy hair and the White Light insignia on his crisp white shirt. I pick it up.
“Don’t lose that,” says Candy witho
ut looking up.
“Who is it?”
“Edison Elijah McCarthy.”
“Our favorite fascist.”
“That’s him at the height of the White Light Legion’s popularity, in the early fifties. Julie gave me this laptop to do some research for her.”
I sit down next to her on the sofa.
“What happened to kicking down doors with me?”
“I like that, but I like this too. It’s different. I’m learning a lot.”
“Promise you’ll come out and break things with me sometime. I don’t want to be jealous of a machine.”
“I promise,” she says.
I move more of the photos around and she gives my hand a smack.
“Don’t mess those up,” she says. “I need them. Julie has access to all kinds of crazy law enforcement intel.”
“What are you looking at now?”
“A few minutes ago I was in NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Now I’m in the NCIC. National Crime Information Center. It’s an FBI site, but Julie can get into crazy Golden Vigil sites too. Not just DNA and fingerprints, but auras, drone Lurker surveillance, Power Spot monitoring. Congregations of ghosts. There’s even a huge database called ‘Soul Viability.’ ”
“That one’s easy to figure out.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Some kind of computer program that runs odds on if you’re going to Heaven or Hell. Like guys at racetracks set the odds for horses.”
“Cool,” she says. “Who should we look for?”
“Am I in one of those databases?”
She laughs at the screen.
“Yeah. You could say that.”
“Meaning?”
“In Homeland Security’s Extranatural Cryptologic Register—sort of their fanboy Pokémon card collection—there’s two files with a million times more security than the others. Guess who.”
“Karl Marx and Patty Duke.”
“Lucifer and Sandman Slim.”
“Does mine have pictures? I need new head shots for my movie auditions.”
She shakes her head.
“No. But don’t you think it’s just a little cool?”
“I’m not sure if I’d say cool. More like you’ve confirmed all my worst fears.”
“Don’t worry. It says some nice things too. They know how you saved the world and things.”
“They just don’t know why and don’t trust me that I’m not doing it for some nefarious reasons all my own.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Something like that.”
Thank you, Marshal Wells.
“Do we have any food around here?”
“I got burritos on the way home. Yours is in the fridge.”
“You are a goddess.”
“I know.”
While the burrito heats up in the microwave, I get out my phone and call Vidocq.
“Bonjour, James. How are you today?”
“Up to my eyeballs in Nazis and burritos. I had a quick question for you.”
“And what is that?”
“Death is awake, walking around. Want to come over and meet him while he’s conscious?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“Get over here ASAP.”
I sit down next to Candy again.
“What does Julie have you looking for?”
“Where the White Light Legion used to hang out, and places they might have used as a base of operations.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Shut up and eat your burrito.”
“If you get bored, you want to do something for me?”
“What?”
“See what you can find on Tamerlan Radescu.”
“The Dead Head?”
“That’s the one.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I’m not sure. Just general background stuff for now. Who he hangs out with. Where he came from. Is he just a snappy dresser or is he into anything shady?”
“If I have time,” Candy says.
“Sure. I’m not bothering you, am I?”
“Of course not, dear. But why don’t you take your food into the bedroom and watch cartoons until your little friend comes over and you can go out and play?”
“This is a really good burrito.”
“Get out,” she says, so I do. Vidocq gets to the store a half hour after I finish eating.
DEATH, VIDOCQ, AND I go into the storage room. I bring three glasses.
It’s introductions all around, then it’s drinks all around. Vidocq and I down some of the Jack. Death sniffs his, sips, and makes a face.
“I don’t know if this body likes it.”
“You’re not supposed to like it. You’re just supposed to absorb it into your tissues.”
“I think you’re making fun of me.”
I shake my head.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“What he means,” says Vidocq, “is that whiskey, like many of the more interesting things in this world, is an acquired taste.”
“Why acquire a taste for something you don’t like?”
I set the bottle down by my chair leg.
“Do you hate it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, there you go. You try it. Then try it again until you know. Sometimes you find the thing you didn’t like the first time becomes one of your favorite things.”
Death sips his whiskey again.
“I don’t think this is going to be a favorite thing.”
“That’s all right. It just means more for Vidocq and me.”
Death sets down his glass on a box that stands in for a bedside table.
“So here’s the thing: no one is coming for you,” I say. “There’s no cavalry. No golden chariot full of angels. Trust me. I checked.”
Death sighs, unconsciously rubs his chest and the scar over his missing heart.
“I’m not surprised. Someone would have come for me already if they could.”
“For now, you’re just one of us chickens.”
“That might be preferable to being a human.”
“I hear humans taste lousy deep-fried.”
Vidocq clears his throat.
“What is the process of death like? From your perspective, as a being not subject to its laws.”
Death stares at him for a minute.
“That’s an interesting question. You’re not entirely subject to its laws yourself, are you?”
“That’s right. I’ve been, as far as I can tell, rendered immortal. It was an accident, a slip of the hand while performing an experiment in Paris in 1856.”
“Why is it that you want to know? You’ve had ample time to observe the process of death. You must have learned something.”
“Not enough,” Vidocq says. He finishes his drink. “I’ve only seen it from the outside. I want to know what it’s like. The transition from life to unlife. Is it something felt? Is it a journey or the blink of an eye?”
“You’re not asking for yourself, are you?”
Vidocq leans back against the storeroom wall.
“There was a woman I knew in Paris. Liliane. I loved her very much. I want to know what she experienced when she died and went from our world to yours.”
“Oh yes. I know who you’re talking about. She didn’t.”
“Die? Of course she did. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I’m afraid your eyes were wrong.”
“Her heart stopped. Her breathing. How is this possible?”
“It’s not my place to say.”
“All right. I was wrong and she didn’t die then. When did she die?”
Death keeps his mouth shut.
&n
bsp; Vidocq says, “Is she not dead?”
Death looks away.
“Can we talk about something else?”
Vidocq stares down at his hands. I pour him another drink and look at Death.
“I know your name. Your body’s name. It’s Eric Townsend. He was some kind of stockbroker. Does any of that sound familiar?”
“No.”
“He was part of a group called the White Light Legion. That’s what the tattoo on your arm is. Their sigil. I didn’t think about it until this morning, but I wonder if he could have been a necromancer in his spare time.”
“I wouldn’t know. Necromancy has never interested me. And most magicians involved in death magic want to speak to the souls of the departed, not me.”
“But some must have tried to contact you.”
“Of course.”
“What happened?”
“None was powerful enough to compel me and I didn’t have any interest in the weak ones. As you might have guessed, my job is a busy one.”
Vidocq says, “How is it you’re able to be all places at once and carry away a thousand souls all dying at the same time?”
Death drums his fingers on his knee.
“It’s my nature.”
“Who is more powerful, Death or God?”
“All gods die. I do too when each universe dies and I resurrect with the birth of each new universe. But there’s no guarantee it will happen. Who knows what the next universe will bring? Maybe there will be no death there. Can you imagine?”
I sit down on a box of old Mannix VHS tapes. How the hell do we still have these?
“You’ve seen other universes before this one?”
“Dozens. But this one is my favorite. I’ve touched parts of human lives—each soul leaves a tiny echo of itself with me—but I’ve never been flesh before. All these senses are interesting. Except for the pain.”
“That pretty much sums up what we like to call the human condition.”
“How do you live with it?”
I hold out the bottle.
“This helps.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
“Well, we like to think it does.”
“Wishful thinking is also part of the human condition,” Vidocq says.
I sip some Jack, say, “What’s the last thing you remember before you woke up here? When you were still yourself.”
“I was gathering souls to the Tenebrae.”