“Is this Disneyland?” I say. “Are you Mickey Mouse? I always wanted to shake hands with giant vermin.”
Not a peep. Maybe he’s a Daffy Duck fan.
There’s something wrong with his face. I can’t make out any ears and there’s a deep slit where his nose should be, like he’s healed up from third-degree burns. Must be a tough bastard to go through that and still walk.
We both stop about six feet apart, having a Sergio Leone stare-down.
“I don’t know if you’re looking for directions or a date, but we’re fresh out of both. Take a walk and stare at someone else.”
He’s fast for a guy who looks like he just escaped from a deep-fat fryer. He lunges and grabs my arms over the biceps. He’s strong for a cripple, but nothing I can’t handle.
Then my arms are burning. Literally. My coat sleeves smoke and burst into flames where he’s holding me. I have heavy Kevlar inserts in the sleeves, but in just a couple of seconds the heat is almost through and down to my skin.
I step back and bring up my forearms in an outward circle from underneath and hit his arms hard. Standard self-defense stuff every high school kid knows. It doesn’t work. It’s like hitting Jell-O. And now my forearms are burning. Wrestling this guy is like waltzing with lava. I try to form hoodoo in my mind to knock Smokey the Asshole across the street or at least make him let go, but the pain makes it hard to think straight.
I bark some Hellion I learned back when I was fighting in the arena. If you do the hex right, it’s like a garbage-can-size gut punch that hits in a blaze of purple light and bores like an oil-rig drill through just about anyone or anything. I get it just right. The purple explosion, the whirlpool of power. Smokey’s midsection collapses in on itself. And goes through and out his back, dragging a long strip of lava flesh with it like burning taffy. The prick doesn’t even seem to notice.
The guy isn’t a burn victim. His face churns like thick liquid as we wrestle. Stupid. I should have known this asshole wasn’t human.
The heat is down to my skin, cooking my arms. Being hard to kill means a lot of things. I have a high pain threshold, but it’s not infinite. Not when something a volcano shit out is trying to give you an Indian burn. Being hard to kill also means that you don’t go down fast, so whatever’s cutting you, shooting you, or burning you alive is something you get to experience for a good long time.
Being hard to kill isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you, but it sure as shit isn’t the best, and right now it isn’t even fun.
Something clear and hard spins past my shoulder and hits Smokey in the face.ionin the He jerks his head away like I have bad breath. But he doesn’t let go. Another vial flies past. And another. Smokey lets go this time. Vidocq is behind me, limping over and tossing potions like a pitching machine.
Smokey backs away, his arms pulled in close to his body. Something’s hurt him. Good. He starts to shake like someone stuck a vibrator in a bowl of cherry Jell-O. I step back and grab my gun, but before I can use it, Smokey melts like the Wicked Witch of the West, leaving a circle of scorched black earth on the green lawn.
Vidocq grabs my shoulder and pulls me back to the car. He bunny-hops on his good leg into the passenger side and I slide into the driver’s seat, jam the black blade I carried back from Hell into the ignition, and we peel out.
“What the hell kind of burglar alarm was that? Why can’t rich people have rottweilers like everyone else?”
“I don’t think that was an alarm. That was a demon.”
I glance at him. My arms are throbbing now, and between each throb they still feel like they’re burning. I smell something, but I don’t know if it’s the coat or me.
“I’ve never seen a demon like that before.”
“Neither have I, but the potion that hurt the creature was a rare type of poison. A toxin formulated to affect only demons.”
I drive at a moderate speed. I pause at stop signs and obey every light.
“Think it was after us?”
Vidocq shrugs.
“Possibly. But who knew we’d be here tonight? And why would someone attack you now? You’ve been a good boy for weeks.”
I roll down the windows to let out the smell. I’m stinking up the Lexus, but who cares? I hate these luxury golf carts. Gaudy status symbols with as much personality as an Elmer’s-Glue-on-white-bread sandwich.
I say, “Maybe someone was settling an old score. Hell, maybe it was after you.”
Vidocq laughs. “Who would send a demon for me?”
“I don’t know. The few thousand people you’ve robbed over the last two hundred years?”
“It’s more like a hundred and fifty. Don’t try to make me sound old.”
“ ’Course, sending a demon for something like that sounds like overkill. Especially something rare enough that neither of us recognizes it.”
“I’>
“Whiner. Your girlfriend is the best hoodoo doctor in town. She’ll give you an ice pack and conjure you some kangaroo legs. Then you can do your own second-story work.”
Vidocq pats me on the shoulder.
“There, there . . .” like he’s patting a five-year-old with a skinned knee. “I would have thought you’d be happy. You got to have a fight. Draw a little blood. Isn’t that what you’ve been wanting?”
I think it over.
“I suppose. And you killed it, not me, so my not-slaughtering-things record is still intact.”
“Unlike your arms.”
“A little Bactine and they’ll be fine by the morning.”
“Judging by the look of them, they’ll hurt in the meantime. Take this. It will help you sleep.”
He reaches into his coat and hands me a potion.
“No thanks. Dr. Jack Daniel’s is coming by tonight. He’s got all the medicine I need.”
He slips the vial into my pocket.
“Take it anyway. He might be late.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And don’t forget to brush your teeth and say your prayers.”
“Fuck you, Mom.”
WE DRIVE ACROSS town, near what the city fathers call the Historic District, an ironically named area in a city that has no history but has seen more shit go down than a lot of countries. It’s all right to forget all the Mansons, the celebrity ODs, the brain-boost religions, the UFO religions, the tinhorn Satanists, the rock-and-roll suicides, the landgrabs, the serial killers, the ruthless gangs and even more ruthless cops, the survivalists with cases of ammo, cigarettes, and freeze-dried beans in their desert compounds, as long as we remember to bring the family downtown to grab a latte and admire the knockoff Mickey Mouse T-shirts.
We ditch the car in the Biltmore Hotel parking lot and start the four-block walk to the Bradbury Building. This is flat-out stupid, but Vidocq insisted that he could walk off whatever happened to his leg in the fall. I’ve seen plenty of injuries. I know he can’t, but I let him hobble until he grabs my arm, huffing and puffing before falling against a newspaper box full of local porn papers. I didn’t know those things were still around.
“Want to take the shortcut?” I ask. “Please,” he says.
I put one of his arms around my shoulder and lift him off the box. We limp to the corner and around the side of a Japanese restaurant. I pull him into a shadow by the delivery entrance. We go into the Room of Thirteen Doors and I pretty much carry him out the Door of Memory and into Mr. Muninn’s place.
Every good thief needs a fence and Mr. Muninn is Vidocq’s. Muninn’s regular shop, the one he keeps for his vaguely normal clients, is in the old sci-fi–meets–art-deco Bradbury Building on a floor that doesn’t exist. He serves a pretty select clientele—mostly Sub Rosa and über-wealthy L.A. elites. But if you ever stumbled into his store and could afford a Fury in a crystal cage, the seeds from Eve’s apple, or Napoleon’s whalebone cock ring, he’d let you in. Mr. Muninn’s a businessman.
The really interesting stuff he keeps in a deep cavern beneath the Bradbury Building. His secret boutique for only the oddest and choicest items in the world. That’s where we come out.
When he sees us Muninn holds his arms out wide like he’s giving a benediction.
“Welcome, boys. What a pleasure to see you two working together again.”
Vidocq says, “Just like the good old days. I’m limping and he was just on fire.”
Vidocq drops into a gilt armchair that probably belonged to King Tut.
I stamp my foot on the stone floor a few times, shaking loose shotgun pellets that have embedded themselves in the soles of my boot.
“On fire is my best look. Ask anyone.”
Muninn shifts his eyes to Vidocq and then back at me.
“How may I ask did a simple robbery turn into a Greek drama? And were there any witnesses who might make things complicated later?”
I say, “The drama started and ended with demons. One in the house and one in the street.”
“The only witness is the man who owned the scroll you wanted,” says Vidocq. “His residence was badly cloaked and there was a guardian demon in the safe. He’ll be too embarrassed that he paid for a worthless shield to tell anyone. No doubt he knows that leaving a demon mantrap where an innocent party might stumble on it is a serious violation of Sub Rosa precepts. No, I believe he’ll lick his wounds and not tell a soul about tonight.”
Muninn smiles and does his benediction thing again.
“And there we are. An adv he are. Aenture complete with just a few scars to make the memories all the more vivid. And then there’s your reward. Not a bad night’s work, I’d say.”
I take the box out of my pocket, then peel off the charred remains of my coat and drop it on the stone floor. If it was anyone else, I’d stomp him for his attitude, but Muninn doesn’t think like regular people. I don’t know if he’s the oldest man in the world, but I’ll bet there isn’t anyone else within midget-tossing distance who’s seen multiple ice ages freeze and thaw the world. He’s a nice guy for someone who thinks like a Martian. And he’s always fair when it comes to business. If you ask me, we could use a few more like him. You never know what’s going to come out of his mouth and he always pays on time.
He rummages around his endless maze of shelves crammed with books, bones, strange weapons, the crown jewels of kingdoms no one’s ever heard of, and ancient scientific devices. Does even he know what they do? They could be Krishna’s gumball machine for all I know.
He comes back with a handblown green glass bottle and three small silver cups, takes them to his worktable desk, and pours drinks. He hands us each a glass and raises his own.
“To God above and the devil below.”
Vidocq says something pithy back in French.
Great. Now it’s my turn to sound smart. The angel in my head chimes in with something, but I shove Beaver Cleaver back into the dark.
“You owe me a coat,” is all I can think of.
He smiles and nods, pouring more drinks.
“A man of many thoughts but few words. Lucky for us all that it’s not the other way around.”
Vidocq laughs and turns away, pretending he’s looking at the shelves so I won’t see him.
Muninn says, “I hear that when you’re not playing le voleur with Eugène, you’re rebuilding your movie house.”
“Rental place. We don’t show them. We just pimp them. And yeah, Kasabian and I are rebuilding and expanding Max Overdrive with all the Ben Franklins that vampire bunch, the Dark Eternal, gave me.”
Muninn looks down, contemplating his glass.
“I expect they would be grateful for you clearing out the revenants. Zombies can’t have much nutritional value for vampires.”
“According to the news, it never happened. It was mass hysteria. Drugs in the water or weaponized LSD. Between tourists, traffic cams, and private security, there’s a million video cams in L.A., but there’s not one good minute of zed footage andzed fooanywhere, just blurry cell-phone shit. We might as well say we were attacked by Bigfoot.”
It stinks of the feds like ripe roadkill. Like Marshal Wells.
Until I snuffed the zeds, Homeland Security had heavy muscle in L.A. I mean, they had a goddamn angel on staff. Aelita. The meanest celestial rattlesnake I ever met and I’ve partied with Lucifer. Aelita is Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, but not as good-natured. She was the organ grinder and Marshal Wells was the monkey. They’re exactly the kind of bastards with connections to levels of occult and law enforcement power who could make thousands of hours of video disappear overnight.
Washington spanked Wells hard after the zeds got out of control. Aelita strolled away, so he got to be the fall guy. DHS closed him down out here. Who knows, if he plays nice and eats his vegetables, maybe the Men in Black will send him back. They might even let him resurrect the Golden Vigil, his and Aelita’s private jackboot army. Heaven’s Pinkertons on earth.
Muninn waves his hand.
“It was bound to happen. Most ordinary people’s desire to forget what they can’t comprehend is virtually infinite. It’s more comforting to disbelieve their own eyes than accept the possibility that the dead can walk the streets. I can’t say I blame them.”
I raise my glass.
“To reality. The most overrated and underpaid game in town.”
We all drink.
“So, what will you do until your movie palace is complete?” asks Muninn. “Are you considering carrying on as an investigator? You seem to have a flair for it. No one else figured out the nasty little secret behind the revenants.”
“That was a onetime thing. And I got lucky. If Brigitte and I hadn’t been bitten, I wouldn’t have done any of it. I would have taken her and blown out of town.”