Kill City Blues. Richard Kadrey

an idiot. Lamia looks like a little girl, nine or ten years old, wearing a blue party dress. She also has a knife as big her forearm. And the only thing keeping her from sticking me with it is that I have the 8 Ball. It’s the only thing that’s ever seemed to scare her.

      But this isn’t right. This isn’t how I met Lamia. It wasn’t in the arena. It was in the Tenebrae, the limbo land of lost and desperate ghosts too afraid to move on to Heaven or Hell.

      Lamia was there, radiating crazy like a Chernobyl straitjacket and stalking the place like a Sherman tank in kneesocks. She knifed ghosts in the Tenebrae and killed people back on earth, laughing the whole time.

      When I asked who she was and what she wanted, all I got was schizobabble about the world before it was the world. Eventually she told me her name.

      “I’m Lamia. I breathe death and spit vengeance.”

      Try having a ten-year-old tell you that and knowing they mean it. It’s a Hallmark moment.

      Father Traven is our resident mystical trivia expert. He used to translate books for the Church, but then he translated the wrong one. The Angra Om Ya’s bible. He got the boot for that. Excommunicated. A one-way ticket to Hell.

      Father Traven thinks Lamia is a demon. A “Qliphoth,” he calls them. Not a little imp with a pitchfork and anger-management issues. A real demon is a broken thing. A mindless fragment of the old gods, the Angra Om Ya. But demons are basically morons, with about as much brainpower as an underachieving maggot. Some eat. Others dig. Others curse. But none of them choose it. It’s what they’re programmed for.

      What makes Lamia special is that she’s relatively smart and chatty. You might think that’s a good thing, letting us get into a demon’s mind so we can see how the gears work and all that forensic horseshit. But it’s not good news at all.

      You don’t want to get anywhere near a smart demon. A smart demon is a bigger, more powerful piece of the Angra. Lamia means that more of the old gods are leaking into our universe. How long until other smart demons break through? How long before a complete Angra?

      And even though I know it’s wrong, Lamia and I are back in the arena, only she’s not slashing me. She’s slashing Candy. But I can’t protect her because even though I have the 8 Ball, I don’t know how it works. I’m helpless and useless.

      I really want to ask Mr. Muninn about Lamia, but I haven’t figured out where to even start a question like that.

       “Hey, Mr. Muninn, back when you were one big God, did you steal the universe from another race of older gods, lock them away somewhere, then pretend that you created everything and proceed to screw it all up for the next few billion years? Was that your plan? ’Cause if it was, mission fucking accomplished.”

      CANDY IS STILL asleep when I wake up. I say her name and shake her, but she doesn’t budge. She gets like this sometimes. Some combination of being exhausted and her Jade metabolism. It’s more like she’s hibernating than sleeping. This can go on for hours. I’ll go out of my mind if I sit around that long.

      I turn on the light and put on new leather pants and boots. No more button-down shirts for me. I don’t dress up for anyone. The only clean T-shirt I can find has a winking Japanese schoolgirl on the front over “I TENTACLES.” Guess who gave me that. I also grab my coat. It’s still too hot for it, but after the party at Garrett’s room I’m not going anywhere without my na’at and a gun.

      Going to Manimal Mike’s place is a no-sweat trip I can do without anyone holding my hand. I leave Candy a note telling her where I am. She’ll be pissed if she wakes and finds me gone, but it’s better than lying around in the dark or watching Kasabian walk around on all fours like a Hellion windup toy.

      I take the fake 8 Ball and go out through the grandfather clock. Take the elevator down to the lobby and wait for a second before going any farther.

      The lobby feels all right. No hostile vibes aimed my way. The concierge nods in my direction. I nod back. Still, polite staff doesn’t mean I’m off the hook. They might be playing possum while calling security. There’s only one way to find out if the hotel still thinks that I’m Mr. Macheath, the Devil himself, and the rightful occupant of his gratis suite.

      I pull out a Malediction and light it. In California, this is the equivalent of pissing into the pope’s minestrone. But aside from a few dirty looks and make-believe coughs from a family of red-faced tourists going up in the next elevator, nothing happens.

      I’m safe. For another day. I’ll think I’ll order lobster and a T-bone tonight.

      Time to press my luck one more time.

      I go into the bar and tell them to give me a sealed bottle of Stoli. The bartender hands it over without blinking.

      “Thanks. Put it on my tab.” Why not? Nothing actually ever gets charged to the Devil’s room.

      When the Chateau throws us out one day, will they try to stick me with the charges for the suite and the miles of food and booze we’ve put away? Good thing I’m broke.

      Even with a shower and clean clothes, I still feel a little rough around the edges. Candy was right about one thing. Sleep was a good idea even if it brought on fucked-up dreams. The blisters on my side are mostly healed, but the skin is still sensitive. It’s really putting me in the mood to punch something. Where’s a skinhead when you need one?

      I go into the garage and spot a cherry-red ’68 Charger. Jam the black blade into the door and it pops opens. Jam it into the ignition and the car starts right up. I drive out into the early-evening L.A. sun, all thought of pain, the Angra, and eviction gone. Nothing improves my mood better than stealing a really nice car.

      MANIMAL MIKE LIVES and works in a piece-of-shit garage in Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley. Mike does his Tick-Tock Man work in the back while his cousins, a couple of straight-off-the-boat Russian muscleheads, try to look like they know what they’re doing by pretending to fix the same cars that have been sitting in the garage for years. Mike’s cousins are vucaris. Russian beast men. Kind of like what civilians call “werewolves.” Like beast men, they’re not too bright, but with the right motivation they can be trained to fetch or just get out of the way.

      Mike’s cousins wanted to gnaw my hide the first time I came here. Now I’m their best friend. I toss them the Stoli on my way in and get a couple of quick spasibas before they have the cap off and are arguing over who gets the first jolt. I leave them to work that out for themselves and head for Mike’s workshop in the back.

      The first time I met Mike he was committing slow-motion suicide, getting blind drunk and playing a game called Billy Flinch. It’s basically playing William Tell only you’re trying to shoot a glass off your own head by ricocheting a bullet off the opposite wall. Good thing Mike was such a lousy shot.

      Nowadays Mike’s office looks less like a grease monkey’s alcoholic crash pad and more like a professional workshop. I take a little credit for that. I think promising Mike his soul back gave him the kick in the ass he needed to pull himself out of the bottle and do real work. Now I just have to figure out how to wrangle his soul out of damnation so I can give it back to him.

      “Hey, Mike. How’s tricks?”

      Mike must have been lost in his work. He lurches up from his seat like he wants to jump out of his own skin and into whatever kind of animal he’s building. It looks like a Nerf ball with spikes. Mike has always been high-strung. It takes him a second to catch his breath.

      “Shit. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

      Then he remembers he’s talking to the guy he thinks is the Devil.

      “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

      I shake my head.

      “No worries. It’s about the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today.”

      Mike’s