“It took a while,” says Marshal Larson Wells. “But you finally have the face you deserve.”
I look around the room. I’m surrounded by men and women in sharp business suits. A lot of flag lapel pins and BLUE LIVES MATTER buttons. All of them have little cross tie tacks and the power of the Lord in their hearts. Beyond them are military vehicles and long racks of impressive weapons.
Oh Hell.
The faction really isn’t Wormwood.
It’s the Golden Vigil.
Wells leans down a few inches for a better look at me and says, “How’s my favorite pixie today?”
He says “pixie” the way he always does. The way a redneck says “faggot.”
The Golden Vigil is the first bunch of bastards I worked for. Soon after I crawled out of Hell the first time, Wells and his people picked me up and offered me a job. Didn’t offer it so much as said they’d kill me if I didn’t take it. The Golden Vigil was a secret paramilitary group that, in theory, policed Lurkers, magicians, and all kinds of questionable mystical activity for the government. I don’t know if it was by design or just the kind of volunteers the Vigil got, but they were also psycho religious fruit bats. And I thought they’d been disbanded after Marshal Wells put a bullet through Mason Faim’s head.
I smile at him with my gray teeth and black gums.
“Hi, Larson. I thought you were in jail for murder.”
“Don’t throw my name around like that, son, or you will be sorry,” he says. “And as to your other point, I’m not in jail because you can’t murder someone who isn’t human. It’s in the Constitution.”
“Where?”
“Well, it will be soon enough.”
“Mason was a human—a backstabbing bastard, but human enough. You shot him in front of a hundred witnesses.”
“Wrong,” he says, “and watch your language. The person you refer to as Mason Faim was an unclean spirit possessing the body of a dead man. He had committed a number of gruesome murders and deserved to be shuffled off this mortal coil forever. Amen.”
“But it was still a scandal, Wells. How do you live with yourself over that?”
“Just fine, thank you. Time with like-minded brothers and sisters and solitary prayer brought me back to my senses. A good union kept me in government service. And a keen awareness of Wormwood’s growing power brought me and these good people right to where we are today. Hallelujah.”
“Hallelujah,” say a few of his lackeys.
My head is finally clear enough that I can sit up straight. I swivel around to everyone, giving them a good look at my rotten face.
I say, “The Elmer Gantry act is very convincing, but why pretend you’re Wormwood? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if you think about it, but you’re not a thinking creature, so let me explain. Wormwood is an old organization with invisible tentacles—literally in some cases—in virtually every part of government, business, and the lives of ordinary citizens. Wormwood is a brand as much as an organization. And when we replace it with our new and righteous order …”
“You’ll get royalties on Wormwood sneakers and hand out political endorsement deals to your favorite cross burners and good, down-home lynch mobs.”
“You should be quiet and listen,” says Marcella.
“I was listening to Wells’s line before you ever held a cattle prod. I know him better than you ever will.”
Wells turns to his people. Points down at me.
“Delusions of grandeur,” he says. “The sin of pride and so many others. I’d say all of them, but Stark here cannot be accused of sloth. And I suppose the Lord is grateful for that one small thing.”
The Vigil laughs in that dead way that everyone laughs at their boss’s bad jokes.
I say, “From what I hear, God isn’t taking your calls these days. Wormwood, any version of it, isn’t getting through the pearly gates.”
Wells turns back to me.
“What makes you think we’ve tried to get in touch with the old coot?” he says. “Do you remember Aelita? The angel the Lord sent to guide the Vigil in its early days?”
“I remember you mooning after her. I remember a psycho who ran the Vigil by day and plotted God’s murder by night. Is that the same righteous Aelita you’re talking about? The wannabe god killer?”
Wells points at me like P. T. Barnum showing off the dog-faced boy to the masses.
“That’s her in a nutshell. And I doubted her. Then when she was gone it broke my heart because I thought she’d died in sin. But now I know she was right.”
That I didn’t see coming.
“When I speak to you of the Lord,” Wells says, “I do it in the broadest sense of a wise and righteous ruler of Heaven and Earth. The creature who sits on Heaven’s throne now is a monstrosity who will be brought low. He will be vanquished and he will pay for the crime of sitting on a throne to which he was not entitled.”
“I heard he steals cable too,” I say, struggling to my feet.
Wells says, “That kind of humor only makes clear the debauched ethic of your life. You have nothing to say. Nothing to contribute. And you do it all day long, profane and blaspheming all the while. And so proud of yourself and your transgressions.”
I look past Wells at his Brooks Brothers flock.
“He’s just jealous because I’m more of an angel than he’ll ever be.”
“It’s true,” he says. “This thing before you isn’t just a debased human; he is half angel. Let that be a lesson to you. You might think that you were born into righteousness, but if a celestial being like this can fall so low, so can any of you without eternal vigilance.”
The room goes silent as the idiots let Wells’s warning sink in. I can’t stand it.
“Does anyone have a cigarette? I promise not to kill anyone with a goddamn cigarette. I’m not picky. I’ll even take a menthol.”
Wells punches me. I can tell it’s hard because my head moves. But I can’t feel a thing. I test the duct tape. It’s still in place.
“Where are my artifacts?” he says. “I know you stole them.”
“Which artifacts are those? There are so many of them these days. I blame the Internet.”
“The holy objects you took from our brethren at the Chapel of St. Alexis.”
“Oh, those artifacts. What does everybody want with them? What I saw looked like flea market junk.”
“What they’re for doesn’t concern you. But you don’t really think you stopped anything with your stunt at the chapel, do you?”
“I kind of hoped.”
“Where are they?”
“I forget.”
Wells fiddles with his tie.
“That pixie you travel with. What’s her name this week? Candy? Chihiro? Whore of Babylon? She’s still alive, back where you abandoned her. But that can change at a moment’s notice. It’s nothing at all to send some men to hunt her down like the monster she is.”
One bit of good news, then. Candy is alive. Wells wouldn’t lie about something like that. It would be a sin.
“Your artifacts were shot to pieces by your idiots at the chapel.”
“The scroll too?”
“That I burned.”
He blinks once.
“Is that true?”
“Once I figured out it was a kill list I burned it to keep anyone else from using it.”
“Oh, James,” he says. “What have you done?”
I look at the concern on his face.
“It’s not just a list, is it? There’s something else on the scroll.”
Wells shakes it off.
“A few sacred rituals. Sigils. Invocations. Don’t concern yourself. The scroll is nothing that can’t be replaced,” he says.
I can’t see his eyes, but the microtremors around his mouth tell me that he’s lying when he says not to be concerned. I fucked up something big. He’ll never outright let on what it was, though, so I’m going to have to keep my eyes open.
r /> “What you did at the chapel was a setback and so is this. But delayed is not destroyed. We will prevail. I’d say that with luck you’ll live to see it, but I don’t believe that’s in the cards for you.”
I want to say something, but he’s got me there. And I don’t have time for these games. Without knowing how much longer the energy drink will last, I need every second to find Candy and keep looking for a cure.
Wells starts away from me.
He says, “It’s been delightful catching up, Stark. Maybe we’ll have time to do it again before your demise. Take him to his special accommodations.”
The three masked gunmen perp-walk me to a room across the big facility the Vigil uses for its headquarters. I glance back at Marcella, who trails behind Wells.
My accommodations are a room with a row of three cells. A sleeping man occupies the one closest to the door. The cabbie is my guess. There’s a curtained cell at the end of the block. It’s weirdly bright down there.
I understand why the moment I see the cell. The Vigil pricks take my weapons, put them in a plastic evidence bag, and shove me in the cell.
“Can I have my tape, please? I’m bleeding other places too.”
One of the goons takes the tape from the bag and throws it into the cell.
“Bless you, my son.”
The cell is completely surrounded by lights. There isn’t a single shadow anywhere. If I was as strong as I should be, I might be able to break the cell lock and smash some lights. Create enough shadows to get out before they could stop me. But right now, I’d lose at arm wrestling to a butterfly. I’m not breaking out of anything.
When they’re satisfied I understand how fucked I am, the guards file out with my gear.
There isn’t even a chair or a cot. Furniture might cast enough of a shadow for me to escape. All I can do is sit on the floor.
My first thought is that I might be able to stretch enough tape over the bars to create a shadow on the floor. I hold up my hand, trying to figure out some angles.
Nothing. I could use up the whole roll, but with the way the lights are set up, all I’d get is a dim spot on the floor. Nothing good enough for me to shadow-walk.
I take off my coat and drop it on the floor. I’m bleeding under the cling wrap, so I wrap tape around my arm, body, and leg. The skin on my right hand looks like it’s about to slough off, so I wrap that too. I’m more tape than man at this point. You’d think there would be a tipping point where, if you’re wrapped in enough of this stuff, it would give you super tape powers or something. I could cling to the wall like Spider-Man or seal leaking pipes with a single bound. But nothing happens. I put the tape back in my coat and sit there bleeding.
MAYBE THE TRANQUILIZER wasn’t completely out of my system after all because the next thing I’m aware of is someone whispering my name.
I open my eyes and Marcella is right outside my cell.
I get up and go to her.
“If you’re here to gloat, I can’t stop you. But if you’re here to read me the gospels, fuck off.”
“Neither, you idiot,” she says. “And keep your voice down.”
“Why?”
She holds out the evidence bag and pushes it through the bars of my cell.
I look at the bag but don’t touch it.
“Is this Wells’s trick so he has a reason to shoot me?”
“No. You’re as stupid as the marshal said. Listen: You helped me when you didn’t have to. And I don’t think you’re quite as bad as the marshal does. So, decide what you want to do right now. They’ll realize the cameras are off in a minute and we’ll both be finished.”
I take the bag and start filling my coat with gear.
“What about the lights? I still can’t move.”
“Leave that to me.”
She takes a metal strip from her pocket and goes to a lamp by the side of my cell. Slips it into the back of the lamp. There’s a spark and it goes out. She does it to one more lamp.
“Is that enough shadow?” she says.
“Yes. But what’s going to happen to you?”
“Don’t worry about me. Just go.”
“Come with me.”
She shakes her head.
“I can’t do that. For good or ill, this is where I belong.”
I start for the shadow at the back of the cell.
“If they catch you, say it was my fault. Say I used hoodoo on you.”
“Go,” she says.
I take out Abbot’s gold coin, drop it on the floor, and crush it under my boot. Then I’m gone.
I COME OUT by Hijruun’s tower. He’s still facedown on the trail, his bones broken and splintered by gunfire.
I yell into the forest a couple of times.
“Candy!”
When I don’t hear anything, I open the tower door.
There’s a trail of blood leading up the spiral stairs. I get out the na’at and start up.
Candy is just a couple of turns above me. She’s pale and shaking. Barely conscious.
Blood runs down the right side of her face. There’s a gash across her forehead full of dirt and clotted blood. I brush her hair out of the way to see how seriously hurt she is. As I do, she opens her eyes.
“Yay. You’re not dead,” she says weakly.
“They just took me to the principal’s office and gave me detention.”
“I’m sitting here bleeding. You can at least tell me what really happened.”
“I am. I met the head of the Wormwood faction and he locked me up.”
Candy says, “How did you get out?”
“A friend—or, well, I don’t know what the hell she is—let me out.”
“Are the faction people as crazy as you thought?”
“Marshall Wells runs the faction. You do the math.”
Her eyes widen.
“Shit.”
Then she laughs a little. Points to her bloody face and my duct tape.
“We match,” she says. “Like those old couples wearing ‘I’m with Stupid’ T-shirts.”
“That’s us. Just a couple of bleeding morons. You ready to go home?”
“Yes, please.”
I help her to her feet and take us through the wall, back to the UFO mansion.
WHEN WE GET there we both collapse.
Alessa screams Candy’s name and runs over.
I have a hard time getting to my feet, but hands pull me upright. I look around and see Brigitte and Carlos.
“Hi,” he says. “Want a sandwich? There’s turkey in the fridge.”
Brigitte grabs me in a big hug. I want to hug her back, but in my current state it feels wrong.
She takes my face in her hands.
“Jimmy, what have you done to yourself?”
“Don’t get too close. You might catch something.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she says. “You’re always beautiful to me.”
She kisses me on the lips. Even though I can’t feel it, it’s nice.
I look at Carlos and he puts his hands up.
“Don’t look at me, man. I’m not kissing your ugly ass.”
“Where’s Ray?”
“He’s with Vidocq, looking at old books. Neither of them would come.”
“Tell them not to be stupid and get over here.”
Carlos makes a face.
“No one tells Ray to do anything when his mind is made up. Anyway, he says Vidocq’s apartment is pretty safe.”
“Yeah, I guess so. There’s hoodoo on it. No one can see it unless he wants them to.”
Candy is propped up on the couch. Alessa is next to her, holding her hand. Allegra is there with her medical bag. She’s cleaned most of the blood off Candy’s face and is smearing a clear ointment on her wound. I go over in time to hear, “… after they took Stark, one of the assholes hit me with his rifle butt.”
I look over Allegra’s shoulder.
“Is she going to be all right?”
“She’ll be fine. There’s r
ed mercury in the salve. The wound will be closed in another minute or so. It’s a concussion I’m worried about,” she says. Then adds, “Hi, by the way.”
“Hi to you.”
“When I’m done with Candy I’m going to want to look at you.”
“Forget it. I’m a corpse. You’re not going to have anything in your bag for that.”
“You just might be surprised. Sit down and take off your shirt.”
The look Alessa gives me lets me know not to sit on the couch. I go across the room and drop down into one of the plastic spaceship chairs.
When I get my coat off, Kasabian is in front of me.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing, man. Nothing at all.”
“Did Howard give you any trouble while we were gone?”
He just stares at me.
“You could have gotten Candy killed, you fuck.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“You better stay away from her from here on out.”
I look at him. He’s as mad as I’ve ever seen him and I’ve seen him shooting at me.
“Are you threatening me, Kas?”
“Considering your current state, yeah. I am. Leave Candy out of any of your stupid future plans.”
I say, “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For sticking up for her. You’re not quite the asshole I remember.”
“Well, you are, so watch yourself.”
He heads back to the couch, where Allegra works on Candy.
I go into the bathroom, take off my shirt, and look myself over. I’m bleeding under the cling wrap, but the duct tape is holding me together pretty well. But my skin feels loose, like it might all fall off in one big sheet. My joints ache and feel stiff. The first signs of rigor mortis? I flex my arms and fingers to loosen them up.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” says Brigitte from the doorway.
“No. It’s funny, don’t you think? The two of us used to kill things like me.”
She leans against the door frame.
“You’re not a Drifter, Jimmy. I was the one who was almost a zombie, remember? I know what it feels like. You’re nothing like that.”
It’s true. Brigitte was bitten when we were out Drifter hunting. We found a fix for her, but it was a close call.
“Thanks. But I think Kasabian is right about one thing. I spend a lot of time getting my friends almost killed.”