The Kill Society. Richard Kadrey

sounds bad, it works in my favor. It means all I have to do is find someone weak enough, hurt enough, or stupid enough that I can kill them and grab their gear. While I’m scoping out the rabble for easy pickings, Traven comes over. He smiles like he can read my mind.

      “Relax,” he says. “You have business with the Magistrate. No one is going to bother you.”

      “Meaning, I won’t be stuffed like a turkey and cooked until afterward. That’s a comfort.”

      “No one’s resorted to cannibalism, yet.”

      “Unless that’s why they’re in Hell.”

      Traven smiles.

      “True. But as long as they’re part of the group, there are rules of conduct that everybody follows.”

      “Even the Magistrate?”

      “Even him.”

      I nod and look back at his trailer.

      “I never took you for a ramblin’ man. When did you decide you didn’t like Blue Heaven?”

      Traven glances at the ground. The last time I had seen him, I was hiding him in a funny little burg called Blue Heaven. It isn’t Heaven or Hell, but exists in a funny limbo zone between each. It’s a kind of sanctuary for people with nowhere else to go.

      “It’s gone,” he says.

      “Blue Heaven? What do you mean it’s gone?”

      Traven looks around the mob like he’s nervous about someone listening.

      “The Magistrate and the havoc appeared there a few weeks ago. They told the ruling council they were looking for something he called the Lux Occisor.”

      “I learned a little Latin when I was in Lucifer’s library. I know lux is ‘light.’ What’s the other word?”

      “‘Slayer.’ ‘Killer.’ Take your pick.”

      “Fun. Do you know what it is?”

      Traven runs a hand through his hair. I swear he has a few gray ones he didn’t have before.

      “If we did, maybe we could have given him … something. The Magistrate doesn’t talk about it in specifics.”

      “And when Blue Heaven couldn’t come up with the light killer?”

      “The havoc killed anyone who ran. Then they burned Blue Heaven to the ground.”

      So much for my former life as a savior. A lot of the people I try to save have a bad habit of not staying that way.

      I look over my shoulder and across the camp.

      “This all has to do with whatever is under the tarp, doesn’t it?”

      “That would be my guess,” Traven says.

      “Do you know what it is?”

      “‘Salvation.’”

      I give him a look.

      “What the hell does that mean?”

      “I don’t know. It’s all the Magistrate will say about it.”

      “You’re hauling around a ten-ton leap of faith.”

      “Isn’t a leap of faith what salvation is?”

      “I wouldn’t know.”

      I feel stupid holding an unlit cigarette, so I put it back in the pack.

      “Let me see if I have this straight,” I say. “The Magistrate and his party boys show up in Blue Heaven and have a barbecue. So, how is it you ended up joining them?”

      He looks back at the tarp, too.

      “When the Magistrate found out I was the librarian and Blue Heaven’s historian, he strongly encouraged me.”

      “And who’s going to say no to King Kong?”

      He draws a breath.

      “I wish I could say that I was brave enough to refuse. I took some of the most important books, my pens and ink, and I’ve been with the havoc ever since. The Magistrate wants a record of the crusade. He thinks it will be important. So do I, but not for the reasons he thinks.”

      I’m still bleeding and my left leg hurts. Horned Toad got my quadriceps and the meat isn’t healing fast enough for my taste. I shake blood off my boot onto the sand.

      “They don’t have Nuremberg trials in Hell, Father.”

      “No. But perhaps they do in Heaven.”

      “Always the optimist,” I say, and he shrugs. “As for the other thing, I would have joined him, too.”

      He turns his head toward me.

      “That’s nice of you to say, but I know you wouldn’t.”

      “That’s where you’re wrong. When a tidal wave washes out the luau, you surf it and look for land.”

      “Thank you,” he says. “I’m sorry. I know this is a strange moment for you, but I have to ask …”

      I put a hand on his shoulder.

      “Brigitte is fine. She’s working. Doing auditions. She got a part on some cable-TV series.”

      He puts his hand over mine for a minute.

      “Thank you.”

      “She misses you.”

      He takes his hand away.

      “It’s mutual.”

      Brigitte Bardo and Father Traven were an item back in the world. A defrocked priest and an ex-porn-star zombie hunter. A Hollywood love story if there ever was one.

      “And how are the others? How’s Candy?” he says.

      Now it’s my turn to get awkward.

      “Everyone is fine. Candy’s doing good. But she goes by a different name now. I’ll tell you about it later.”

      “Of course,” he says.

      We stand there in awkward silence, and I think about all the life leaking out of me. There’s only one thing that’s going to take my mind off all this blood.

      “I don’t suppose you have a light, do you?”

      Traven goes to his camper and comes back with a match. I take out a Malediction and he lights it for me. Breathe in a big lungful of the beautiful poison.

      “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

      “Then you’ll fit in just fine around here,” he says.

      He nods to the camper.

      “I have some work to do. I’ll come back when the Magistrate calls for you.”

      “Don’t worry about me. I bet I’m the only one here with cigarettes. The rest of these assholes are smoking locoweed and pocket lint.”

      Traven gives me a small smile and then heads back to his camper.

      “Enjoy the smoke,” he says.

      I sure as hell will. It might be my last.

      I COOL MY heels in the burned-out pickup for an hour. Smoke one Malediction and light a second off it. But I stop there. Got to ration myself, which isn’t in my nature, but these are weird times.

      The good news is that while I was bleeding when I started the first cigarette, I’ve pretty much stopped by the time I flip the butt of the second away. That’s means I still heal quickly. Good news there.

      The cigarette arcs through the air in the direction of the mountains and almost hits Daja, who’s headed my way. She doesn’t even flinch. Just tracks the flying smoke’s flight with her eyes and watches it miss