Hollywood Dead. Richard Kadrey

a word.

      Finally, Sinclair blurts, “It’s a ritual. A magic ritual.”

      Sandoval whirls around and slaps him hard enough to leave a mark on his cheek.

      I say, “What kind of ritual?”

      Sandoval stares at Sinclair, breathing hard. Sinclair touches his face where she hit him. Despite things, he says, “When you joked about a nuclear launch you were closer than you realize.”

      “The other Wormwood has a bomb?”

      “They might as well have,” says Sandoval. She turns from Sinclair and looks at me. “The splinter faction are in possession of a ritual that will utterly destroy Los Angeles.”

      Sinclair says, “It will trigger similar destruction all over the world. Berlin. Tokyo. Sydney. Anywhere we, the true Wormwood, are concentrated.”

      “They hope to wipe us out in one massive action,” Sandoval says.

      I listen to their hearts. Check the microtremors on their faces. They’re telling the truth.

      Well … fuck.

      I say, “With all due respect to Berlin, Tokyo, and wherever the fuck else, I don’t care. Let’s talk about L.A.”

      “They’re out to destroy our entire infrastructure,” says Sinclair.

      Sandoval says, “Then they can pick off the stragglers one by one.”

      I look over at the roaches.

      “Any of you have a cigarette?”

      “There’s no smoking in the house,” says Sandoval.

      “I wouldn’t think it matters, seeing as how you’re all going to die.”

      “What do you mean?” says Sinclair. “You won’t take the job?”

      “Not if you keep lying to me.”

      He frowns.

      “What do you mean?”

      “I mean you’re Wormwood. Why do you need a dead man to do your dirty work? You’re global and yet you can’t find one single asshole who can handle this job for you?”

      “I think you might overestimate us at the moment,” says Sandoval quietly.

      “The other faction took many of our best and brightest,” says Sinclair. “Or killed them.”

      “Besides, you have a unique set of skills,” Sandoval says.

      It’s making more sense now.

      “That’s why you gave me back the Room of Thirteen Doors. You don’t just need someone who can stop the ritual. You need someone who can get to it.”

      “Exactly.”

      “That means you don’t know where it will happen.”

      “Correct.”

      “But you’re absolutely sure it will happen Sunday.”

      “On the new moon, yes,” says Sinclair.

      I look at them both. They’re still telling the truth.

      “What day is it now?”

      “Wednesday evening.”

      “Wednesday? Why didn’t you bring me back sooner?”

      “You don’t just snatch a soul from the afterlife willy-nilly,” says Jonathan Howard, their necromancer. “It needs to happen at the right time.”

      He’s taller than me. British, with wire-rim glasses. He carries the weird smell of death that all necromancers have. Rotting flesh. Nasty hoodoo potions. They try to cover it up with cologne, but that just makes it worse.

      I walk over to him.

      “What about fixing my body? Does that need to happen at some super-special time too?”

      He leans back from me a little.

      “No. That can happen anytime.”

      “You sure?”

      “Completely.”

      I pat him on the arm.

      “You better be, Johnny, ’cause I’m not going back to Hell alone.”

      I turn back to Sandoval.

      “Let’s hit the fucking road. Where do we go? Who do I kill first?”

      “I have no idea,” she says. “We thought we’d leave that up to you. You seem to have a knack for these things.”

      I look at Sinclair.

      “Is she serious? You don’t have a where or a who?”

      “I’m afraid not.”

      “Okay. How do you contact the faction? A phone number. A name.”

      “They’ve hidden themselves well. We don’t have anything.”

      “Fuck.”

      I look over at the roaches. They’re no help. Not a flicker of intelligence anywhere in the bunch.

      “Here I was expecting Lex Luthor and what I get is a bunch of runaways picking pockets at the bus station.”

      Sandoval looks at her watch.

      “The clock is ticking, Stark. Your body is already starting to break down.”

      “A cigarette would really help me think.”

      “Tick-tock,” she says.

      I take a breath and lean back on the pool table.

      “Then we have to make them come to us,” I say. “Make them think you have something they want so they’ll come after it. Maybe a counter-spell that can blow up their ritual. Now, here’s the hard part. Someone’s got to take that fake spell and stroll out of here with it. Let themselves get kidnapped, then bring one of them back here for questioning. Any volunteers?”

      I glance around the room knowing the answer but hoping Roger might be enough of a suck-up that he’ll raise his hand.

      No such luck.

      “I think you win the coin toss, Stark,” says Sandoval.

      “I had a feeling I would. I wish you’d told me all this earlier in the day. I can’t really get started until tomorrow, Thursday. That’s cutting things close.”

      “I told you. We couldn’t bring you back any sooner,” says Howard.

      “You’re lucky you brought me back at all. I was one hot second from being double dead.”

      Howard frowns.

      “Dying in Heaven?”

      “Being murdered, technically.”

      “You do find trouble everywhere,” says Sandoval.

      “I was just looking for the buffet line.”

      “Is there anything we can do to get started now?” says Sinclair. There’s the slightest edge to his voice. He doesn’t like all this chitchat. Yeah, he’s scared, but he knows something he’s not telling me. Probably what’s really going on. I believe that these creeps don’t want to get blown to rags, but I wonder what they do want. I’ll put beating information from Sinclair on my to-do list for tomorrow. For now, I just talk to him.

      “Do you have a rat in your organization? Don’t answer. It was a rhetorical question. For things to be this out of control, of course you do.”

      “They’re worse than you think,” says Sinclair.

      “What do you mean?”

      “Assassinations,” says Sandoval. “Slow, but steady.”