Richard Kadrey - Kill City Blues

“A lost soul in a hard city. A volatile combination,” says Vidocq.

“I got the 8 Ball and the cash,” I say to him. “You steal anything fun lately?”

He shakes his head.

“Jewelry here and there. A vase for the apartment. Helping look for your weapon puts too many temptations in my path and the old habits are the hardest to break.”

He puffs his cigarette.

“And sometimes stealing a bit helps. Not everyone who comes to the clinic can pay.”

Vidocq’s girlfriend, Allegra, runs a hoodoo clinic for down-and-out Sub Rosas and Lurkers. Doc Kinski used to run it with Candy taking care of the front desk. Then Aelita murdered him. That bothered a lot of people, myself included. Kinski was my father.

“How is Allegra?”

“Well. She has trained two competent assistants.” He looks at Candy. “She misses you working beside her.” He looks at me. “And believe it or not, she misses you.”

Allegra didn’t take it well when she found out that I’d become Lucifer. She accused me of all kinds of nefarious shit. Mostly Sunday school stuff, which I didn’t expect from her. We haven’t spoken much since.

“Maybe we ought to keep it that way,” I say. “Whenever we get near each other, someone says something stupid.”

“Someone?” asks Candy.

“Okay. Me.”

“And yet her desire to see you both remains unchanged,” Vidocq says.

I toss him Garrett’s cash.

“Give her this.”

He nods and puts it in the pocket of his greatcoat.

“We both thank you for this.”

Candy says, “Can I have the clip?”

I say, “Why? We don’t have any money.”

Vidocq takes the clip off the cash and hands it to her. Her eyes light up.

“I just like it,” she says. “It’s shiny. I’ll find something to do with it.”

I take off the robe. The bullet wound stings a little, but the blisters hurt like a son of a bitch. I put on my leather bike pants and boots. Find an old Maximum Overdrive video-store T-shirt that’s not covered in bullet holes or blood and put that on too.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider taking me along,” says Vidocq.

“To Hell? I don’t want to take her. Why would I subject you to it too?”

“I’d like to see the afterlife. With my condition it’s doubtful I’ll ever see it legitimately.”

A hundred and fifty years ago Vidocq made himself immortal. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t trying to do it. Just one of his alchemical experiments took a wrong turn and left him with a condition most people would kill for. Me, I’d rather have X-ray vision. At least it would be fun at parties.

I say, “Forget it. Allegra would truly kill me dead if I took you.”

He sighs, knowing I’m right.

“And she’d be right, of course. You’re a terrible influence on us all.”

He nods to me and blows Candy a kiss. He holds up the cash.

“And thank you for this,” he says before leaving through the grandfather clock, the real entrance to our secret hideaway.

“He’s right. You are a terrible influence,” says Candy.

“I thought that’s why you stuck around.”

“There’s also the free food and movies.”

“Free computers too.”

“And getting blown up and shot at.”

“Yeah. I’ve got to work on my ducking skills.”

“Please do.” She doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “So, we’re really going?”

“You’re the one who wanted to.”

“Yeah, but now I’m a little scared.”

“Good. That means you’re sane.”

“So, we just go there? No spells? We don’t have to sacrifice chickens or pray to any hoary overlords of the deep or something?”

“You can dance naked around a maypole if you want. Me? I’m just walking in.”

She gets up.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Don’t wear anything you really like.”

“Why?”

“You’re won’t be springtime fresh when you get back and I’m not sure the stink of Hell comes out in the wash.”

I WENT DOWNTOWN when I was nineteen. I was thirty when I came out. I’ve only been back on earth for around eleven months. Sometimes it seems as long was the previous eleven years.

Another magician, Mason Faim, sent me to Hell in a deal to supersize his hoodoo power. He also wanted me out of the picture. We were a pair of Sub Rosa golden boys. Way too clever and powerful for our own good. The difference between us was that Mason had to work and study his ass off to stay on top of the hoodoo heap. Me? I could always improvise a spell or hex and have it fly. That was my angel half at work, only I didn’t know that at the time. When Mason got rid of me he was top dog in L.A. He murdered my old girlfriend, Alice. He tried to take over Hell and start a new war with Heaven. You have to hand it to the boy. He knew how to dream big. So I killed him.

But in a way, Mason won. He wanted to destroy me, and the one who went to Hell sure isn’t who came out. I was James Stark going down but Sandman Slim when I left. Eleven years of torture and fighting in the arena to entertain monsters will alter your perspective on life.

Most nights I still dream about Hell. I can feel it inside me. It’s in the stink of my sweat. Flashing on the place even for a second makes me furious and sometimes afraid and sometimes ashamed of both those things.

On the plus side, I got up close and personal with the killer inside me. I learned I was good at taking lives. Doc Kinski called me a natural-born killer, so now it’s what I do. But I don’t always like it, and when I do, I don’t always like myself for liking it. That’s what Hell is. It’s the shithole bottom of the universe, but it’s a place where you’ll learn more about yourself than you ever wanted to know.

I GET A pack of Maledictions from a box under a table in the living room. Maledictions are the most popular cigarettes in Hell. The only brand I really like. The taste is, well, unique. Like a tire fire in a candy factory. With luck, the angel part of me is immune to cancer. If it isn’t I’m going to be a solid two-hundred-pound tumor.

Candy gives me a faint smile as I take her hand and we step through a shadow into the Room of Thirteen Doors. I open the door to Hell but I don’t take her through. I hold her there looking at the place.

“Wow. It really does smell like sulfur,” she says.

“Don’t worry. When you get inside, between the sewers and the Hellion stink, you’ll forget all about the sulfur.”

“You know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Nothing but the best for you.”

“Whoa.”

This is what I’ve been waiting for.

“What do you see?”

“It looks just like L.A. A more fucked-up L.A. but still L.A.”

“It’s called a Convergence. A kind of magical fuckup where one place gets layered on top of another. When I first landed in Hell, it was all dark palaces and cobblestone streets. Now it’s L.A. None of that changes what Hell is. It just makes it easier to get around.”

“Somehow, none of that is very reassuring.”

“That’s Hell in a nutshell. You ready?”

“Yes. No. Yes. I think so.”

“Before we go in, here are a couple of rules. And they’re nonnegotiable. Stay close to me. Close enough for me to grab if things get weird. If anyone starts anything let me handle it. No Jade stuff. You see any damned souls, don’t look them in the eye. They’re used to me but another live human could freak them out.”

“I’m not human.”

“You look human. That’s enough. Also, don’t talk to anyone but Mr. Muninn.”

“Who?”

“The current Lucifer.”

“Right. Mr. Muninn. You told me about him.”

I squeeze her hand. She squeezes back.

“Banzai,” I say, and pull her inside.