Richard Kadrey - The Kill Society

Traven looks up from a book. He’s been reading it all night. It looks holy. Probably trying to figure out a loophole in salvation.

“What was that about?” he says.

“Blood money.”

He makes a face and I put the Maledictions on a table well away from me. He goes back to reading and I curl up on the floor. For about five minutes. Then, without getting up, I grab one of the packs and rip it open.

Fuck it. I was headed for Hell the day I was born. A nephilim Abomination and natural-born killer. Where else was I going?

I take one of Traven’s matches and light a cigarette. Hold it out to him. He hesitates, doing calculations in his head. Sins versus cigarettes. How many wheezing angels can smoke on the head of a pin?

Finally he takes it and I light one for myself.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he says.

“Yep.”

“It’s a sin.”

“Smoking is part of God’s great plan, Father.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“I inferred it.”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” he says.

“He forgave Cain for cracking open Abel’s head.”

“No. He didn’t.”

“No? I thought he did.”

“No.”

“Funny. He said he did.”

Traven coughs.

“You knew Cain?”

“Yeah. He was the doorman at Second Death. Nice guy.”

Traven taps some ash into an overturned jar lid.

He says, “Lying is a sin, my son.”

“I’m an angel. Sin washes right off.”

“Half angel. Part of you is still human.”

“Not the fun part.”

“I wish I could say the same about myself.”

“We’ll get through this and you’ll have a billion years to repent.”

“I’m not sure that’s enough time.”

I tap some ash into the lid.

“If Brigitte was here, what would she say?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’d say shut up and smoke.”

He thinks about it.

“Yes. I suppose she would.”

So he does and we do. I lie down on the floor when I finish the Malediction. He blows out the lamp.

In the dark he says, “Do you think we could burn that gallows truck before we leave?”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

WE STAY ON the ley line the Magistrate plotted. It’s nice to be on a bike again.

Travel is like Traven said. What happened in the little town isn’t an everyday thing. Sometimes we travel for days without seeing anything, and even if we find a town, chances are it’s deserted. The Magistrate, Cherry, and Traven check the map each morning, but I think it’s all for show. We’re just going to follow this line until the Magistrate changes his mind or we fall off the edge of Hell into a deep, dark void. Some days, that doesn’t sound half bad.

Then we hit a string of populated ghost towns along a range of mountains so dark they could be piles of black powder ready to explode everything in sight. Not a bad idea.

In some of the towns we even find a few Hellions, fallen angels who’ve run away from the chaos of Pandemonium to the monotony of the desert. But it doesn’t matter who’s there. Each town is the same horror show we had the other day. The Magistrate interrogates a few bigwigs, pulling more languages than I thought possible out of his ass. Then the gallows come up, and someone—sometimes more than one—gets the rope. The only difference is that I don’t have to choose again.

When we camp, the Magistrate has a regular swami session with Cherry. I get the feeling that whatever he’s after, he’s been looking for it for a long time. What the hell could pull someone like him all the way through Hell, Blue Heaven, the Tenebrae, and who knows where else? I need to see what’s under the tarp.

Now that I can walk around more I can get my own food at center camp. Even though I’m theoretically part of the group now, no one seems to want to buddy up to me, which gives me a lot of time alone. Fine with me. It gives me a chance to watch the guards around the tarp truck.

Daja acts friendly enough, but she or the other woman—Wanuri is her name—always seems to be around. I don’t know if they’re spying on me, or now that I can sit at the cool-kids table, Daja wants to draw me deeper into the havoc. I’ll go along with whatever happens for now and see where it gets me.

THE PROBLEM WITH the Tenebrae isn’t just the monotony of the landscape, but how your sense of time evaporates. A few days in, it occurs to me that it might be more than a few days. A week. Two? Hell, months, for all I know. I wonder how long some of these bastards have been riding with the Magistrate. Maybe years and they don’t even know it. Maybe that’s what’s going on with all the funny languages. Some of the townies—and even a few in the havoc—could be goddamn antediluvian.

We pull into a town a lot bigger than the others. Not quite a city, but it’s more than the usual scattering of buildings. Around us are dead neon signs and dusty hotels sporting roulette wheels and slot machines. A post-apocalyptic Reno.

These days, I ride up front with Daja, Wanuri, and some of their dog pack. They don’t talk to me much, but I don’t let it hurt my feelings. I get to see a lot more up here. Some days more than I want to. Like today.

The routine is the same. Round up everyone—not an easy job considering the size of the place—find the leaders or the least brain-dead, then settle in for an afternoon of twenty questions. The Magistrate does a bang-up job today, playing for a larger crowd than usual. His gestures are bigger, his voice louder. He laughs like a hyena and snarls like a Bengal tiger when anybody gets out of line. He practically dances up and down the line of mopey skeletons he’s decided to interrogate.

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