Richard Kadrey - Hollywood Dead

“And who are you, the Salvation Army? You bring down companies like the other Wormwood. You fuck people over when they’re alive and you make money on their damnation when they die. I don’t see much difference between you two.”

She opens her hands wide.

“Because you’re part of the old system. All you see is the method. You don’t consider the reasons. The outcome.”

“Okay. Convince me. What makes you so special?”

She taps the prod against the palm of one hand like a teacher tapping a ruler.

“If the old, diseased Wormwood gets its way, you’ll barely notice a ripple in the world. They want power, money, and influence in the afterlife. We, on the other hand, will overturn existence. When we’re through, this world and the next will be clean and pure. All the old, corrupt systems washed away.”

I lean back.

“Is that supposed to impress me? You sound like every supervillain in every comic book ever written.”

She swings down the prod and gets me in the ribs. Holds it there for a while. This time when she stops I can hear the shooters behind me laughing.

“Forgive me,” she says. “It’s a real problem in this line of work. Broad goals always sound a bit like hollow threats. It isn’t until you get to the specifics that you find the true vision.”

“But you’re not going to share that with me.”

“Do you want to die right here, right now?”

“Goody. I get a choice?”

“Yes, but the window is closing. Do you want to die?”

“Not particularly.”

She rests the cattle prod on my shoulder while she goes on.

“If I let you live, will you deliver a message to Eva for me?”

“That depends on what it is.”

“It’s a warning. The last she or any of her people will receive. Will you deliver it for me?”

“Like I said, it depends. If I think it’s going to get me killed, no.”

“Fair enough,” she says. “Here’s the message: Dies Irae .”

I look up at her.

“Day of Judgment?”

She smiles broadly and steps back.

“Look at you, Miles. An old altar boy, I bet.”

I shake my head.

“Mom worshiped vodka and dad worshiped not being around either one of us, so not really.”

She nods.

“Then I’ll tell you: ‘Dies Irae’ is also ‘Day of Wrath.’ And that’s the message I want you to give to Eva. Judgment day is coming soon. Wrath will fall like fire from Heaven,” she says. “Eva and her people can join us or quit altogether. Just walk away. By this time next week, the Wormwood you know will be gone. There will be only us.”

“And judgment and wrath.”

“Exactly.”

“I think I can remember that.”

She gives me a quick zap in the gut.

“I’m positive I can remember.”

“Good for you, Miles. You get to live for now. But just to make sure you don’t forget, the boys are going to help you remember.”

She kicks me in the chest, knocking me to the floor. The shooters rush over and put the boot in hard. I curl up in a ball, taking their kicks when what I really want to do is peel off their skin and drag them down the Hollywood Freeway behind the van they brought me in.

The things we do just to be alive again.

After a few minutes, the interrogator says, “That’s enough.” A couple of the laughing boys pick me up and toss me back into the van. She sticks her head in after me.

“What’s the message, Miles?”

I get up and sit back down on the wheel well.

“Two parts rye, half a part sweet vermouth, a dash of bitters. Add a cherry if it’s your birthday.”

She nods.

“Good boy. Now get him out of here.”

The six creeps get back in the van. Two sit up front. One sits on either side of me on the floor. The other two are across from me, leaning on the door. The one on the right pulls the blindfold back over my eyes. Each of them has a distinctive bulge under the arm—aside from the rifles, they have pistols in shoulder holsters.

We pull out of the warehouse, crunch across the gravel, and head who the fuck knows where. Goddammit. I need to get back in the warehouse before the interrogator gets too far away.

A moment later I hear lighters flick and matches scrape. This is followed by the smell of cigarettes and weed. I hold my hands out and say, “Think I could have one of those? I promise I’ll keep quiet. And about the fire thing earlier, that was uncool and I’m very sorry.”

There’s silence for a minute, then someone up front says, “If it will shut him up, give him one.”

Someone takes a step toward me. From the sound of it, it’s one of the two across from me. I hold out my hands and he puts a cigarette between my fingers. I hear a lighter flick on and lean into it. My hands are still bound together with plastic cuffs, so this is really going to hurt.

The moment I feel the cigarette spark, I grab his arm and pull him toward me. His head smashes into the side of the van hard enough that I hear his skull crack. I push him back against the far wall, then pull him down on top of me. I’m strong enough that I snap my hands out of the plastic cuffs. My prosthetic left arm doesn’t feel a thing, but it hurts like hell as the cuffs cut into my right wrist.

Still under him, I get the pistol from his holster and fire blindly in every direction until the thing is empty. Then I drop it and yank off my blindfold. The other shooters in the back are all down on the floor. The guy in the passenger seat turns to take a shot, so I kick the guy whose skull I cracked into his face. His gun goes off into the roof.

I spin around to find the other door shooter with his pistol a few inches from my face. I move my head just as he fires. My ear goes deaf, but I get my hands around him so when he tries to fire at me, he ends up spraying the back of the van. The moment he stops shooting, I roll, pull his arm across me, and break it. His pistol falls and slides away. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the goon who was sitting on my right try to get a shot at me. I can’t reach the fallen gun, but the shooter I wrapped around myself has a knife in his belt. I pull it and use him as a battering ram, stunning him and pinning the other shooter against the wall. He tries sneaking an arm around his pal to get a shot at me. I grab the hand. Lean in and jam the knife into his throat, twisting the blade. When I pull it out, arterial spray jets onto the wall and he twitches like a dying bug. My human shield has been working on my back and sides with his one good fist and elbow. I slit his throat and push him at the other shooter on my left. But he’s flat on his back with a bullet in his head. Someone got lucky. Hope it was me.

I grab the pistol that slid into the back of the van. Dive on the floor as the passenger up front fires at me. One of his shots grazes my side and I empty the pistol into the back of his seat. When he falls, he bounces off the dashboard and lands on the driver. The van swerves and slam into something. In the back it’s a water park of blood. The crash sends me Jet Skiing up front. I crash into the passenger seat as the van comes to a stop.

The airbag explodes in the driver’s face, knocking his head back. I hurt like I just climbed out of a cement mixer, and the shot that grazed my side burns like hell. But I don’t have time to whine right now.

I slap the driver until he wakes up. When he sees me, he lurches back against the door. I let him get a good look at the bloody mess in the back before putting the knife to his throat.

“Take me to the warehouse.”

The van is resting against a stop sign on a service road. He doesn’t say a word but hits the ignition. The engine grinds. I press the knife harder.

“You better hope it starts or I’m going to carve off your face and make you eat it.”