Richard Kadrey - The Getaway God

But it’s not just kicks I want right now. The overcast skies mean there aren’t many good shadows to move through. Plus, I don’t want to spook any of Saragossa Blackburn’s guard dogs by appearing out of nowhere. When I get to his place, I want them to hear me coming.

I kick the bike into gear and it roars like a hungry Tyrannosaurus. At the curb, the water comes up almost to the tire hubs, but the bike doesn’t slow. The engine boils the water around us and every time I stop I’m enveloped in a cloud of steam.

The streets through Hollywood in the direction of the 101 are as snarled as ever, though some of the side streets are starting to be passable. People running for their lives 24/7—hell, even L.A. has to start emptying out sometime. I’d love to collar one of the runners and ask them why they’re going, but I know what the answer would be. Aunt Tilly is sick in Nebraska. There’s a vegan lute hoedown in Portland. Skull Valley Sheep Kill is headlining a nonexistent music festival in Houston. Lies, all lies, and they know it, but do they understand it? It’s animal stuff. Zebras don’t hang around a watering hole when the lions show up.

Maybe this parade of chickenshit civilians knows more than the rest of us Vigil and Sub Rosa types determined to tough it out until the end. I mean, why should the Angra pick L.A. to be their launching pad? Then again, why not? Maybe Zhuyigdanatha wants to do an open-mic night at the Comedy Store. Maybe the Angra want to have a drink at the Rainbow Bar & Grill like real old-time rock-and-rollers. Maybe they want to stomp us into the dirt because L.A. defines reality for three-quarters of the world. Or maybe because Mr. Muninn used to live here and they fucking hate him and the rest of the God brothers.

The brothers make up what’s left of God. See, he had a little nervous breakdown a few millennia back and split into five pieces. He’s weak, and one part of him, the brother called Neshemah, is dead. Murdered by Aelita and cheered on by big brother Ruach. Like the Ramones said, we’re a happy family.

Maybe I’m making too much of it all. L.A. is turning into Atlantis, slowly sinking beneath the waves. If the rain keeps up, those Brentwood blue bloods will be chain-sawing their mansions into arks, loading up the kids, the Pekingese, their favorite Bentleys, and heading for warmer climes. Trust-fund pirates and showbiz buccaneers, sailing the briny to Palm Springs and Vegas, where it never rains and Armageddon can’t get through the guards at the gated communities without an engraved invitation.

WHEN IT COMES to showing off, the Sub Rosa aren’t like the civilian big-money crowd. They like anonymity more than kittens and cotton candy. While civilians compete for House Beautiful trophies, wealthy Sub Rosas like their places to come across as the most miserable shitboxes outside of the town dump. If they could live in a greasy Big Mac wrapper they’d do it.

Blackburn’s mansion is downtown, in an abandoned residency hotel on South Main Street. The bottom floor is boarded up, covered in aeons of graffiti and posters for bands and clubs that haven’t existed for a decade or more. The second and third floors have been gutted by fire. There’s something heroic about the utter devastation of the place. It probably says more about what the Sub Rosa have become than Blackburn ever intended.

The mansion is protected by more hoodoo than the gates of Heaven. So much that Blackburn didn’t have guards for years. Then I broke in that one time, and ever since, he’s stationed a private army outside. To fit in with the look of the street, his mercs are covered in grime and sporting the latest haute couture rags from Bums “R” Us.

Blackburn’s security chief, Audsley Ishii, and a dozen of his crustiest compadres surround me as I pull up outside the mansion. It takes me a second to recognize him under the moth-eaten wool cap and stage-makeup stubble. His raincoat is a plastic trash bag, which he’s cut open at the bottom for his head and the sides for his arms. He doesn’t pull a weapon. Neither does any of his crew, but if I sneeze I’ll have enough bullets and hoodoo thrown at me to knock loose one of Saturn’s moons.

Ishii says, “Stark. Don’t you even know enough to get out of the rain?”

“I like it. Makes this neighborhood smell less like a piss factory.”

“Well, you’d know all about living like a pig, would you?”

“Are you trying to insult me? ’Cause I can’t hear you over the sound of your garbage-bag tuxedo.”

One or two of his crew smile, but sober up when he throws them a look.

“What do you want here?”

“Don’t fuck around, man. You know I’m here to see Blackburn.”

He looks me and the bike over.

“I couldn’t help noticing you weren’t wearing a helmet when you drove up. You’re aware that the state of California has clearly spelled out helmet laws, aren’t you?”

He takes a couple of steps back and spreads his arms wide.

“And there’s no way this, whatever the hell this thing is, is street legal. It doesn’t even have a license plate.”

“So, write me a ticket, Eliot Ness. Just get out of my way.”

Ishii holds up a finger.

“Before I maybe let you in, I’m going to have to search you for weapons.”

“Try it and the last thing you’ll see is me pulling your skull out by the eye sockets.”

That does it. Ishii’s goons go on high alert, guns, hexes, and potions at the ready. It’s kind of fun really. Like a scene from some kind of hobo Power Rangers movie.

“Not smart,” says Ishii. “You know I can have you arrested this fast for making a terrorist threat.”

He snaps his fingers like maybe I don’t get it.

He says, “All Mr. Blackburn has to do is nod and you’ll be buried so far underground you’ll be sleeping on lava.”

“Yeah, but you still won’t have a skull. Your head’s going to look like a jack-o’-lantern a week after Halloween.”

He shakes his head in mock sorrow.

“I’m afraid under the circumstances I can’t allow you to see the Augur. And I’m forwarding your name to the local police watch list.”

“Do it. What are there, like a hundred cops left in L.A.? And they don’t want to be out in the rain any more than you do.”

“Maybe I won’t have to do anything if you turn this circus act of yours around and go home.”

“I’d love to, but I have an invitation from Blackburn himself.”

I reach into my pocket and Ishii’s crew goes rigid. With my fingertips, I slowly pull out Blackburn’s note and hand it to Ishii. He looks it over and crumples it up. Tosses it into a puddle.

“With your criminal associations it’s probably a forgery. Go home, Stark, before you fall on a bullet.”

Ishii’s phone rings. He has to fumble under his trash bag to pull it from inside his tattered coat. He puts it to his ear and listens intently for a few seconds.

“Yes, sir. He’s here now, but he’s not behaving rationally. He’s made threats.”

Ishii listens.

“No. Not to you personally, but this is a highly unstable individual, with a history of violence. As head of security, I have to take these things seriously.”