The Kill Society. Richard Kadrey

      

      

       Copyright

      HarperVoyager

      an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017

      Copyright © Richard Kadrey 2017

      Cover designed by Crush Creative (www.crushed.co.uk)

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

      Richard Kadrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008219062

      Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008219079

      Version: 2017-05-15

       Dedication

       For David Pomerico, who keeps the trains running on time

       Acknowledgements

      Thanks to my agent, Ginger Clark, and my editor, David Pomerico. Thanks also to Pamela Spengler-Jaffe, Jennifer Brehl, Caroline Perny, Shawn Nicholls, Angela Craft, Priyanka Krishnan, Owen Corrigan, and the rest of the team at Harper Voyager. Thanks also to Jonathan Lyons, Sarah Perillo, Holly Frederick, Nicholas J.L. Beudert, and Tess Callero. Thanks also to Genie Casillas for Latin advice. As always, thanks to Nicola for everything else.

       Epigraph

       It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.

      —Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

       I got a paper cut writing my suicide note. It’s a start.

      —Steven Wright

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Acknowledgements

      Epigraph

       The Kill Society

      About the Author

      By Richard Kadrey

       About the Publisher

      SO FAR, BEING dead is about as much fun as a barbed-wire G-string.

      Yes, there is such a thing. They invented it in Hell, which is where I am. I already said I was dead. Where else would I be? Try to keep up.

      Where was I? I was talking about fun. First off, there’s the fact that I’m really, no shit, for sure, not coming back dead. I mean, I’ve been dead before, but now my body is stone-cold back in L.A., I’m in Hell, and I don’t see any angles to play. So, that’s a lot of laughs. As is the view. Up here on this spiky cliffside, Hell stretches out in all directions like the pockmarked belly of a gator with a bad case of just about everything. Acne. Psoriasis. Cancer. From the smell, gangrene and probably gingivitis, too.

      Insult to injury: I’m stuck here with no weapons, no wheels, no fucking idea where exactly I am, and, oh yeah, there’s a dust storm the size of Texas headed straight for me. It rolls and thunders across the hardpack in the valley below. This leaves me with exactly two choices: I can sit up here on this nameless mountain and get ripped to shreds, a speck of chickenshit on the rocky tip of nowhere. Or I can go down into the valley and look this dust devil in the eye.

      Not a lot to think about there.

      I kick a rock down the slope and follow it as it tumbles ahead of me into the valley. As it goes, I spot something on the trail ahead. Bend down to pick it up. Okay, I might not know where I am, but I know I’m being fucked with. What I’m holding is a dusty pack of Maledictions. But no lighter. Someone somewhere is having a good laugh. With luck, they’ll choke on their good time while there’s still a little piece of me left to feel it.

      The dust cloud reaches up into the bruised Hellion sky. It looks miles away, but sand and grit already sting my face. I walk straight at it for a while, then start to run. If Hell is going to shred me, let’s get it over with. I’m not even angry that Audsley Ishii murdered me right in front of Candy. Why would I be angry? I got to see Candy go Jade one last time as she ripped him to pieces. One last glimpse of her being exactly who she is. A gorgeous, perfect monster. My monster.

      Good-bye, Candy. You made a stupid world hurt less and a place worth fighting for. And we broke a lot of furniture, the two of us. When this storm finishes me off and I fall into Tartarus—the only place lower than Hell—you’ll be what keeps me from going crazy in the dark.

      All right, maybe I am a little mad about being taken away from her. But it’s too late now. The dust swallows me and Hell goes from a perpetual twilight to a rusty glow, the color of dried blood. My ghost nose closes with grit and my throat is rasped raw. I close my eyes and they instantly cement together. There’s nothing to look at anyway. I’ve seen my skin peeled off plenty of times in the arena. I know what my bones look like.

      After a few minutes of running, I stop and listen. There’s a rumbling in the storm that’s more machine than wind. I swear, I can smell diesel fumes. And as much as the dust boils and tears at me, it isn’t nearly the storm I thought it was. It’s not a cocktail party, and I’ve been to some bad parties. The storm isn’t even what’s sending the dust into the sky. It’s something inside the storm.

      I do a slow three-sixty. The rumble and smell of fumes get closer. When I’m facing it, I stop. Wipe as much grit from my eyes as I can. I can feel the sound in my chest, a deep shudder like someone running a drag strip through my ribs.

      I’d do all kinds of depraved things right now for a smoke.

      A second later, the rumbling stops. I don’t mean the noise