“Thank you,” says the man on the Charger.
I point at the pickup truck.
“I want that prick’s water. And his ammo.”
After a slight hesitation, he says, “That’s fair.”
“No, it’s not,” someone shouts. I look around and spot a leather-clad woman on a tricked-out Hellion Harley. I can’t see her face, but she has her goggles pushed up to her hairline. “That’s not how things work. He’s not one of us. He obviously doesn’t know anything. Just kill him.”
Doesn’t know anything? Doesn’t know what?
She kicks her Harley to life and revs the engine. I raise the rifle again as she gets ready to charge me.
From behind her, a man riding a small hellhound cuts her off. She pulls her gun and sticks it right in his face. The man puts his hands up. Like her, he’s wearing goggles, but he also has a rag around his nose and mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing?” says the woman.
“Don’t kill him,” shouts the man. “I recognize him. He can be useful.”
I get to my feet and squint in the hellhound rider’s direction. I can’t make out a goddamn thing through his bandanna and goggles.
The man with the megaphone says, “You’ll vouch for him as a reasonable man?”
“I will,” says the rider.
I put the rifle back to my shoulder. “Reasonable? Call me that again and you’ll do it without a head.”
The rider turns to me, pushes up his goggles, and pulls down his bandanna.
I almost call out to him, but catch myself in time.
The man riding the hellhound is Father Traven.
I lower the rifle.
“Ah. So, you do know the father,” says Charger Man. “What’s your name, friend?”
I look at him.
“ZaSu Pitts.”
That gets some laughs. Traven doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t give me away either.
I look back at Charger Man.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“He’s the Magistrate,” says Traven. “He leads the havoc.”
“Havoc? You assholes sound like more fun every minute.”
“Are there others with you?” says the Magistrate. “Back on the mountain from where you came down?”
So they could see me. They knew I was here all along. That makes them more than a pack of Hellion one-percenters. And then there’s Father Traven. He wouldn’t throw in with a useless group no matter how bad things were.
I shake my head.
“No one I know about.”
The Magistrate nods.
“Then that is where we will camp.”
“You can’t be serious,” says the woman on the Harley. “He’s killed two of us and burned another.”
“Yet Father Traven says he’s reasonable and I’m inclined to believe him.” The Magistrate glances off in the directing of the mountain. “A lone traveler out here, confronted and attacked. What would you have done, Daja? Personally, I’d like to talk to Mr. Pitts.”
Daja. Got to remember her. She backs down, but I can see it in her body language and hear it in her voice. No matter what the Magistrate says, she’s not done with me.
“Just talk?” says Daja.
“Of course. And he will be judged just like anybody else,” says the Magistrate.
“And if he’s found guilty?”
“Then his fate will be that of all the ignobles.”
Cheers. Fists pumps. It’s a goddamn pep rally. All we need are cheerleaders.
The group around the burned Hellion steps back as he dies and his body pops out of existence. They all look in my direction. That’s me. Making friends wherever I go.
The Magistrate points.
“We will camp at the base of the mountains. He said no one is there. That will be his first test.”
I raise my hand like I’m in the third grade.
“Excuse me. What if I’m not in the mood to get tested?”
I prop the rifle on my hip, but Traven calls out, “Pitts. Calm down. It’s going to be all right.”
“Is it?” I say to the Magistrate.
He opens his hands.
“I cannot guarantee that. But consider this: Father Traven has vouched for you. That means he, too, will be judged. If you are not a reasonable man, if you are a stupid man, he will die with you.”
Slowly, I let the barrel of the rifle drop so it’s pointing at the ground.
The fucker called my bluff. He points to the half-burned pickup truck.
“Can you drive that vehicle?” says the Magistrate.
“I usually steal better, but yeah.”
“Then ride with us when we make camp tonight. If you try to leave the havoc or attack anyone else, I will personally kill the good father. Understand?”
“Yes.”
Daja looks around at where her dead friends used to be. “And what about the two, now three, dead?”
“We will have a memorial service tonight,” the Magistrate says.
He calls to a patched-together ambulance.
“Mimir, come and ride with me. I will need an oracle tonight.”
A woman in a ratty fur coat, with some kind of plastic mask over the lower part of her face to filter out the dust, steps from the ambulance and goes to the Magistrate’s Charger. Without another word, he points to the mountains and the vehicles rumble to life.
I walk to the charred pickup truck as Traven rides his hellhound up beside me. Dressed in boots and a ragged leather duster, he gives me that sad smile of his and I shake my head at him.
“It’s good to see you, ZaSu,” he says.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” I tell him.
“So do you.”
I start the truck.
“Do those bastards have anything to drink?”
“Of course.”
“And food?”
He nods.
“Good. At least I’ll get a last meal.”
He takes off the rag that was covering his face and wipes the blood from some of my worst wounds.
“Don’t talk like that,” he says. “It’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah? If Ahab up there has a real oracle, he’s going to find out I’m lying about who I am.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Have a little faith.”
I look at him.
“When you died, faith got you sent to a frozen gulag at the ass end of Hell, remember?”
He nods.
“And it got me rescued. By you. You’re who I have faith in.”
Some riders nearby signal us forward.
“These days, Father, I’m not worried about dying. I’m just worried about doing it hungry.”
Traven and I pull out, joining the havoc convoy heading for the mountains. The only thing I’m wondering about besides what time they’re going to kill me is the thing at the back of the havoc. It’s under a giant tarp and being hauled by the construction equipment on a double-length sixteen-wheeler bed. People like this, they don’t take anything with them that they don’t need. So, what do a bunch of Hellions and damned souls need with something the size of a Saturn V rocket? Maybe I’ll live long enough to find out. The way the day is going, though, I’ll be lucky to make it through the appetizer course.
We drive to the base of the mountains, a herd of lumbering, smog-belching dinosaurs. Maybe ten yards away, Daja is riding parallel with me on the Harley. I’d rather be on the bike than this trashed pickup, but I don’t think she’d trade me.
When we reach the mountains, the vehicles fan out in a semicircle, forming a defensive perimeter. That means they know what they’re doing and they’re worried that someone out there might be gunning for them. Whoever thinks they’re hard enough to take on this crusty bunch, I don’t want to meet. I stay put in the jeep while the others set up camp. It’s a cruel joke. This thing was on fire a few minutes ago, but now I can’t find a damned thing I can use to light a Malediction.
Father T
raven leaves me and disappears into a small teardrop-shaped camper being hauled by a rusty tow truck. I wonder if I hopped on his hellhound and headed straight up the mountains, how many of these assholes could follow me? Hellhounds can climb like goddamn apes and go places no ordinary vehicle would dare. On the other hand, I spotted plenty of Hellion Legionnaires on the drive over. All it would take is one good sniper and off I’d go to a time-share in Tartarus. No thanks. Mason is still down there and I couldn’t stand his gloating if we ended up roommates. I’ll stay put, play dumb, and see what happens next. Besides, being murdered made me hungry. If these clowns are going to stone me in the public square, I’m going out with a full stomach.
While they set up camp, most of the mob goes out of their way to ignore me. I wave my unlit cigarette to a couple of the ones that dare look at me, but I get the finger, not a light. I settle back looking bored, but watch them while they work. They’re fast and efficient setting things up. Everybody knows their job. That means they’ve been doing this for a while. Daja doesn’t do any heavy lifting, but moves from group to group answering questions and moving people around when there’s a group that needs help. We lock eyes for a second and I give her a little wave. She turns away and gets back to work. Okay, she’s smarter than I was hoping. Not so easy to provoke. That means I’ll have to go for someone else.
Everyone in the camp is armed. While that sounds bad, it works in my favor. It means all I have to do is find someone weak enough, hurt enough, or stupid enough that I can kill them and grab their gear. While I’m scoping out the rabble for easy pickings, Traven comes over. He smiles like he can read my mind.
“Relax,” he says. “You have business with the Magistrate. No one is going to bother you.”
“Meaning, I won’t be stuffed like a turkey and cooked until afterward. That’s a comfort.”
“No one’s resorted to cannibalism, yet.”
“Unless that’s why they’re in Hell.”
Traven smiles.
“True. But as long as they’re part of the group, there are rules of conduct that everybody follows.”
“Even the Magistrate?”
“Even him.”
I nod and look back at his trailer.
“I never took you for a ramblin’ man. When did you decide you didn’t like Blue Heaven?”
Traven glances at the ground. The last time I had seen him, I was hiding him in a funny little burg called Blue Heaven. It isn’t Heaven or Hell, but exists in a funny limbo zone between each. It’s a kind of sanctuary for people with nowhere else to go.
“It’s gone,” he says.
“Blue Heaven? What do you mean it’s gone?”
Traven looks around the mob like he’s nervous about someone listening.
“The Magistrate and the havoc appeared there a few weeks ago. They told the ruling council they were looking for something he called the Lux Occisor.”
“I learned a little Latin when I was in Lucifer’s library. I know lux is ‘light.’ What’s the other word?”
“‘Slayer.’ ‘Killer.’ Take your pick.”
“Fun. Do you know what it is?”
Traven runs a hand through his hair. I swear he has a few gray ones he didn’t have before.
“If we did, maybe we could have given him . . . something. The Magistrate doesn’t talk about it in specifics.”
“And when Blue Heaven couldn’t come up with the light killer?”
“The havoc killed anyone who ran. Then they burned Blue Heaven to the ground.”
So much for my former life as a savior. A lot of the people I try to save have a bad habit of not staying that way.
I look over my shoulder and across the camp.
“This all has to do with whatever is under the tarp, doesn’t it?”
“That would be my guess,” Traven says.
“Do you know what it is?”
“‘Salvation.’”
I give him a look.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s all the Magistrate will say about it.”
“You’re hauling around a ten-ton leap of faith.”
“Isn’t a leap of faith what salvation is?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
I feel stupid holding an unlit cigarette, so I put it back in the pack.
“Let me see if I have this straight,” I say. “The Magistrate and his party boys show up in Blue Heaven and have a barbecue. So, how is it you ended up joining them?”
He looks back at the tarp, too.
“When the Magistrate found out I was the librarian and Blue Heaven’s historian, he strongly encouraged me.”
“And who’s going to say no to King Kong?”
He draws a breath.
“I wish I could say that I was brave enough to refuse. I took some of the most important books, my pens and ink, and I’ve been with the havoc ever since. The Magistrate wants a record of the crusade. He thinks it will be important. So do I, but not for the reasons he thinks.”
I’m still bleeding and my left leg hurts. Horned Toad got my quadriceps and the meat isn’t healing fast enough for my taste. I shake blood off my boot onto the sand.
“They don’t have Nuremberg trials in Hell, Father.”
“No. But perhaps they do in Heaven.”
“Always the optimist,” I say, and he shrugs. “As for the other thing, I would have joined him, too.”
He turns his head toward me.
“That’s nice of you to say, but I know you wouldn’t.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. When a tidal wave washes out the luau, you surf it and look for land.”
“Thank you,” he says. “I’m sorry. I know this is a strange moment for you, but I have to ask . . .”
I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Brigitte is fine. She’s working. Doing auditions. She got a part on some cable-TV series.”
He puts his hand over mine for a minute.
“Thank you.”
“She misses you.”
He takes his hand away.
“It’s mutual.”
Brigitte Bardo and Father Traven were an item back in the world. A defrocked priest and an ex-porn-star zombie hunter. A Hollywood love story if there ever was one.
“And how are the others? How’s Candy?” he says.
Now it’s my turn to get awkward.
“Everyone is fine. Candy’s doing good. But she goes by a different name now. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Of course,” he says.
We stand there in awkward silence, and I think about all the life leaking out of me. There’s only one thing that’s going to take my mind off all this blood.
“I don’t suppose you have a light, do you?”
Traven goes to his camper and comes back with a match. I take out a Malediction and he lights it for me. Breathe in a big lungful of the beautiful poison.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“Then you’ll fit in just fine around here,” he says.
He nods to the camper.
“I have some work to do. I’ll come back when the Magistrate calls for you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I bet I’m the only one here with cigarettes. The rest of these assholes are smoking locoweed and pocket lint.”
Traven gives me a small smile and then heads back to his camper.
“Enjoy the smoke,” he says.
I sure as hell will. It might be my last.
I cool my heels in the burned-out pickup for an hour. Smoke one Malediction and light a second off it. But I stop there. Got to ration myself, which isn’t in my nature, but these are weird times.
The good news is that while I was bleeding when I started the first cigarette, I’ve pretty much stopped by the time I flip the butt of the second away. That’s means I still heal quickly. Good news there.
The cigarette arcs through the air in the direction of the mountains and almost hits Daja, who’s headed my
way. She doesn’t even flinch. Just tracks the flying smoke’s flight with her eyes and watches it miss her by a couple of inches. Nice.
She crooks a finger at me.
“Let’s go,” she says.
“Where to?”
“The Magistrate wants to see you.”
“That’s okay. I like the view right here.”
She rests her hand on the grip of her pistol, cop-style. She’s packing a Colt 1911. Not a new gun, but it still blows nice holes in things.
“The Magistrate wants you with a clear head, so I’m not going to shoot you anywhere that’ll kill you. Just where it hurts.”
“Fine. I’ll go to prom with you, but you’re paying for the limo.”
I swing my legs down out of the truck and yell, “Father! We’re up.”
Traven comes out of his camper, putting on the ragged duster.
We follow Daja to a Hellion motor home. It looks less like something your grandparents would drive to the Grand Canyon and more like a Gothic mansion on wheels—one designed by insects and decorated by something with more tentacles than taste. Hellion chic. Daja opens the door and we go in.
The light inside comes from glowing glass globes that seem to float above the furniture. A cramped sofa along one wall and a small table with chairs in the center of the claustrophobic room finish off the nightmare.
The Magistrate sets down a book he was reading when we come in. He points to chairs at the table for me and Traven, then sits down across from us. Daja doesn’t sit. She stays behind me doing her best to loom. At another time and place I’d say it didn’t work and I’d mean it. But right here and right now, I’m a little off my game and I don’t like her and her gun behind me.
The Magistrate says, “Thank you for coming without causing any more trouble. I somehow think it’s not in your nature to so graciously respond to a summons.”
I shrug. “It beats bleeding in a truck. Do you have anything to drink around here?”
The Magistrate turns around, takes a glass off a small table, and sets it in front of me.
“I had a feeling you might be thirsty.”
I sniff it. No smell.
“Water?” I say.
He nods.
I squint at him.
“You wouldn’t try to roofie a guest, would you?”
“Do I strike you as that sort of man?” says the Magistrate.