Richard Kadrey - Kill the dead

Most Sub Rosa, you'd never notice. They look boringly human, are human, and go out of their way to fit in with other humans, even if they sometimes dress like nineteenth-century dandies or Mayan priests. Others in the bar look like they stepped off a steam-powered zeppelin from Neptune. They're the Lurkers, and good, upstanding Sub Rosa don't like them soiling the furniture at their clubs so they come here. There are succubi and transgendered Lamia. Shaggy Nahual wolf and tiger beast men laughing like frat boys and stacking their beer cans in a pyramid until they knock it over. Again. A group of blue-skinned schoolgirls with pale blond hair and horns peeking out through their pigtails are playing some kind of betting game with ivory cups and scorpions.

Carlos is a big part of the reason Bamboo House of Dolls is still standing. He didn't even blink when the crusty half of L.A.'s magic underground dropped in to get shit-faced. If Jesus was a bartender, He would still only be half as cool as Carlos. With all his newfound lucre, all the man has done to the place is get some new bar stools, a better sound system, and cleaned up the bathrooms so they're a little less like a Calcutta bus station. It's good to have one thing that hasn't changed much. We need a few anchors in our lives to keep us from floating away into the void. Like Mr. Muninn said the one time he came in, "Quid salvum est si Roma perit?" What is safe if Rome perishes?

"Swamp Fire" by Martin Denny is playing on the jukebox. Carlos comes over with a cup of black coffee.

"You didn't have to get dressed up just for me," he says.

"Like the look? It's from the Calvin Klein Book of Revelations line."

"The crispy black arm is nice even if it is shedding dead skin all over my floor, but that burned-up jacket is un pedazo de basura."

"Time to let it go?"

"One of you needs to be buried and my Dumpster has a lovely lakeside view of the alley. Give it to me and I'll get rid of it."

I push the charred pile of leather across the bar.

"Do me a favor and pour some salt and bleach on it when you put it out."

"Is that a magic thing or a cop thing?"

"Both. Bleach for DNA. Salt for any leftover hoodoo someone can use in a hex."

He nods and puts the jacket under the bar.

"I'm guessing since you haven't even looked at that coffee that you want a drink."

"Some of the red stuff."

"You sure?"

"Does the pope live in a nice house?"

"At least have some food, too. I just pulled some pork tamales out of the steamer."

"Maybe that and some rice?"

"You got it."

"City of Veils" by Les Baxter comes on. Crazy trumpets and drums at the beginning, then it slides into old-fashioned strings and Hollywood exotica. I half expect to see Errol Flynn dressed like a pirate in a corner booth trying to get a hand job from Lana Turner. After some of the red stuff, maybe I will.

I haven't heard that Alice song again since the night it came blaring out of the jukebox, like nails being hammered into my ears. I had Carlos check and the song wasn't even on the machine. He had the company bring him a new box, just so I wouldn't sit at the bar getting twitchy, waiting for it to come up again.

Later I knew that the song had never been on the machine. It was one of Mason's hexes. He wanted to watch me go crazy. If he'd pumped me full of LSD and locked me in a spinning mirrored room full of rats, he couldn't have done any better.

That was six months ago. Half a year since I sent Mason to be poached in Hell and waved bye-bye to his Kissi pals as they burned up and blew away on the solar winds. A hundred and eighty days since I watched Alice's ashes drift away like fog into the Pacific. I'm doing fine, thanks. Maybe a little bruised around the edges, but I have all the medicine I need right here in this glass.

Carlos sets down the plate of tamales and pours a double shot of the red stuff into a heavy square tumbler, the way we used to drink it in Hell. Aqua Regia is so red it's almost black, like blood under moonlight. It goes down smooth, like gasoline and pepper spray. It probably saved my life Downtown. When I discovered I could swallow Aqua Regia and keep it down, Hellions starting looking at me differently. I think that's when one of them got the idea of putting me in the arena instead of killing me. Just when my novelty was wearing off, I was interesting again.

"I should have killed him when I had the chance."

Carlos shakes his head.

"You weren't strong enough to kill him."

"How would you know that?"

"Because you told me. We've had this conversation about fifty times before."

"Really?"

"Maybe you should stick with coffee or maybe a beer. You don't need the red stuff."

He reaches for my glass and I slide it away from him.

"Yeah, I really do."

"You couldn't have beaten him. He was too strong. You knew it, so you did what you could."

"Yeah, but sometimes it's not about winning and losing. It's about doing the right thing. I didn't do the right thing. I shouldn't have walked away. Lucifer was right. By leaving Mason in Hell I gave the prick exactly what he wanted."

"You're alive and you're walking around. Long as you can say that, doing the right thing remains an option. Just keep your head down until you figure out the right time and place."

"Thanks, Carlos. You're the best dad a boy could ask for. Will you adopt me?"

"I thought I already did."

Carlos looks past my shoulder and shakes his head. I don't have to look. I can feel them. Behind me are college girls with pens and paper. They want to stand too close and ask for my autograph in breathy voices. If I'm dumb enough to sign, as dumb as I used to be, I'll be able to buy my autograph off eBay in an hour. I sip my drink and dig into the tamales with my fork. Pretend I don't notice as Carlos waves them off.

The real problem with college girls is that they usually have college boys with them.

A second later someone is leaning on the bar to my right.

"You're the superhero who can do the portaling trick, aren't you? Let's see it."

He looks like Ziggy Stardust on a GQ cover. NASA engineers built his three-piece pinstripe suit. It's a work of art.

"Are you talking to me?"

"They say you can shadow-walk. I want to see."

He looks at me with a combination of arrogance and boredom. You never know what a guy like this is going to do. He has one hand in his pocket. What he's holding could be anything from a joint to a water pistol to a box cutter.

"Sorry. I don't speak French. Or is it Chinese? I can't understand a word you're saying."

"You think you're hot shit because you have a cartoon nickname and the Golden Vigil watching your back? Do you even know who I am? Do you know who my father is?"

"Maybe what you need is an asshole-to-English phrase book. I hear they have some fine bookstores in Kansas. You should start walking."

"My family owns this place. This city. L.A. to the Valley and out to the desert."

Carlos gives me a look and I give him one right back. He stays put, but starts cutting up limes so he has an excuse to hold a knife.

"People listen to me when I talk."

"I guess the rich really are different. Most of us come from monkeys, but you're giving off a whiff of rattlesnake."

Ziggy has a friend with him. Not quite as handsome. His suit isn't quite as nice. He's trying to maintain his cool in front of the girls, but he's about sixty seconds from running.

The friend says, "Please just do the trick, man, and we'll get out of your hair."

"I just killed five people. I'll show you that trick if you like."

I go back to my drink and the tamales. Ziggy is about to make another strafing run, not knowing that when he opens his mouth, I'm going to stick my fork into his eye and make him dance like a marionette. But the girls get on either side of him and pull him to the door.