Kill the Dead

I sit down on the toilet and she follows me in, closing and locking the door behind her. She drops down onto my lap, straddling me, and we’re kissing again. Her skirt is pushed up and she’s moving her hips up and down over the hard-on that’s been tucked away in my pants for eleven years.

Maybe she’s part mind reader because she reaches down, unzips me, and lets my cock flip back against my belly. She reaches down and wraps her hand around it.

“What about your pal Ritchie?”

“You talk too much.”

She lets go of my cock and stands up, reaches under her skirt and slips her panties off, balancing on one leg at a time with the sure and practiced motion of a sniper taking aim.

“You should know I haven’t done this in a long time.”

“Shut up.”

She lowers her hips, grabs my cock, and slides me into her. The feeling is both familiar and strange, in the same way that everything happening is both familiar and strange. The good news is that bodies are bodies, and even if your brain is on overload, sense memory takes over when you feel her body start to move. After a couple of fumbling tries, we fall into a gliding rhythm and our bodies seem to sync up, Brigitte coming down deeper and deeper as I move up into her.

My hands move back up her body, cup her breasts, and pinch her nipples. She leans back, pressing her hands and arms against the stall walls while thrusting down hard with her hips. Every few strokes, I put my hands on her waist and hold her there, deep inside her, then let her go and we fall back to our rhythm.

We’re both panting and covered in sweat. Gutting Drifters was a walk on the beach. This might kill us.

Something blares from across the room, bouncing off the tile walls. It’s a short loop of Johnny Cash singing “Ring of Fire.”

Brigitte slumps for a second.

“Shit.”

She grabs my hair as her hip thrusts come harder and faster. She moans, wraps her hands around my neck, and kisses me hard. Her breathing gets ragged. Her nails dig into my shoulders. Just as Johnny reminds us one last time that it burns, burns, burns in the ring of fire, Brigitte presses down hard onto me and stays there. Her hands shake on my shoulders and she’s about to draw blood. Then she slowly relaxes, letting out a long, breathy “oh,” and starts breathing normally again. We stay that way for a while, her forehead resting against mine. It’s sweet at first. We’re both panting, but sweat keeps running into our eyes and burning. She laughs, brushes my cheek with her palm, and stands, reaching between her legs to slide me out of her.

Brigitte unlocks the stall and goes straight for her phone. I don’t have to ask who has a “Ring of Fire” ringtone. I tuck my softening cock back inside my pants and go to the sink to wash up again.

Brigitte is staring at her phone, reading a text.

“The call wasn’t important, but the text is my people saying that the truck is nearby. We should be somewhere else before they begin their work.”

“Fine by me.”

Brigitte comes to the sink to wash next to me. She bumps her shoulders into mine. I bump back. It’s a very strange sensation, not having seen a naked woman in all these years and now being next to one whose profession is being naked, so she’s completely relaxed and in no rush to put her clothes back on. But she does. Still relaxed. Still content. And I know that half of her fun is knowing she has done and is doing serious damage to my brain.

“Do you always finish off zombie hunts by seducing a virgin?”

She smiles at me in the mirror.

“How long has it been since you’ve done that?”

“Eleven years.”

“My God. Now you can tell your friends at school that you’ve seen a real live naked girl.”

“I don’t talk to most of the people I know. The rest either aren’t human or they’re dead.”

“You can tell Carlos.”

“I kind of think he knows.”

“You didn’t come back there, did you?”

“No.”

She smiles.

“We’ll have to do something about that next time.”

We go into the bar. The chairs are up and the lights are off. The front door is open. Carlos is out front smoking.

I say, “I thought you gave those up.”

“I started again. Tonight. I knew this thing, riding your coattails and making money off you, was too good to be true. I just didn’t think it would end with me almost getting eaten in my own bar.”

Brigitte goes over and puts her arm around Carlos’s shoulders.

“The secret world behind the world is always strange at first, but seeing James’s friends must have been strange, too, yes?”

“That’s true.”

“Don’t be afraid for your business. Customers will be back. By the weekend, you’ll be making more money than ever. People love the exotic, but they love danger even more. And danger they escape is the best of all.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes. You’ll have a line outside. You’ll need a doorman and pretty girl waitresses.”

He looks back at me over his shoulder.

“I never liked the velvet rope thing, but I guess there’s worse fates.”

“Definitely.”

Like ending up in a Dumpster. Seen that twice today. None of the sushi out back is missing any limbs, so someone else lost a hand near Max Overload in the last couple of days. Wonder if it belonged to the eater or the eatee?

“I have to go. Simon is waiting for me.” She turns to me. “I’ll call you. We have a lot to talk about.”

She pecks Carlos and me on the cheek and gets into a cab waiting at a stoplight at the corner.

“Interesting night,” says Carlos.

“That’s one word for it.”

“Don’t forget your burrito.”

He hands me a brown paper bag.

“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

“Don’t get eaten on the way home.”

“That’s my mission statement.”

By the time I make the corner, my adrenaline is dropping and all the pain I felt when I woke up is coming back hard. The bullet wound throbs and I slip into an alcove half doubled up. Even with the pain, I’m thinking straighter than before. I lean against the wall and chant some healing hoodoo. Nothing too heavy. I just want to turn the pain down a few decibels, but not erase it. I don’t want to forget I’m hurt, but I don’t want to be stumbling around like a cripple. It’s stupid I didn’t think to use the spell when I woke up. What is it about me that it takes a massacre to clear my head?

I stop by Donut Universe on the way home and get coffee and a bag of glazed old-fashioneds. Waiting for my change, I remember New Year’s Eve and kissing Candy in the middle of the bodies, blood, and the smell of cordite the night we took down Avila and wonder why I seem attracted only to women who enjoy carnage.

I’M SITTING IN bed with Alice. She’s smoking and flipping through a magazine.

“Something happened last night. There was this woman I met.”

“I know. I’m dead. I’m not blind, dear.”

“That’s the thing. You’re dead, but I still feel guilty. Like I was cheating on you.”

“You’re such an idiot. That’s why I love you. It’s been eleven years since we last touched each other and I didn’t exactly die a virgin queen. I mean, I waited for you and hoped, but after a while it got clear that you weren’t coming back. A girl can’t rely on her Hitachi Magic Wand forever.”

“You always cheated on me with technology.”

“Technology is more reliable than boys or girls.”

“You’re okay with what happened?”

“You’re alive and I’m dead. Of course I’m okay.”

“Thanks. It feels like I’m coming off a six-month bender. Things aren’t straight in my head yet.”

“You are coming off a bender. Want me to tell you the secret of life?” she asks.

“Please, no.”

“Everyone in the world is a Charlie. The trick is to figure out which Charlie you’re going to be. Charlie Manson. Charlie Starkweather. Or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

“Charlie Chaplin.”

“Charlie Parker.”

“Charly.”

“Who’s that?” she asks.

“The retard from Flowers for Algernon.”

“‘Retard’ is not a nice word.”

“How would you know, retard?”

“Whatever you say, Charlie Brown.”

“I am not Charlie Brown.”

“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, Chuck.”

“Did I ever tell you I thought I saw an angel when I was a kid?”

“What happened?”

“I’d left my bike on the lawn again and the old man yelled at me to move it. I went outside and there was a woman staring at me from across the street. Really intensely. She had dark skin and bright green eyes. For a second I thought that I’d died in my sleep and she was there to take me to Heaven, but she just shook her head, turned, and walked away.”

“Why did she do that?”

“I think she knew what I was and was there to tell me that no matter what I do, Heaven isn’t interested.”

Alice shakes her head.

“What a morbid little bastard. Your poor mother.”

“Mom was worse than me. She saw angels everywhere. She looked for them like other women in the neighborhood looked for two-for-one sales at the booze warehouse by the freeway.”

“Charlie’s Angels.”

“Forget it. Charlie’s Angels is three people and none of them are Charlie.”

“I was going to say your girlfriend Mason is Charlie Manson, but that’s too good for him. He’s Charlie Douche-bag.”

“That’s exactly who he is.”

She kisses me. I can taste the cigarette and her lips and tongue.

“When you thought you saw Mason the other night, it wasn’t him. But he’s still looking for you. You should find him first.”

“Am I really talking to you?”

“I doubt it. Not with the whole being-dead thing and all.”

“Yeah.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you real things.”

“Like what?”

“That something bad is coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something really bad.”

“She’s right.”

Brigitte is sitting in the doorway of the bedroom on one of Carlos’s bar stools and cleaning her gun with one of my old T-shirts.

“Something bad is coming,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

Alice says, “Just remember who you are.”

“What the fuck are you two talking about? Why are all dreams and prophecies so goddamn obscure?”

“Because, dumb-ass, if any one of them flat-out told you what was coming, you’d try to stop it or change it. Some things you can’t stop. You just have to go through them. At least with a clue, you’ll be able to recognize it when it gets there.”

“If a bus hits me I’m pretty sure I’ll notice. But it would be more help if you told me when to get out of the way.”

“You ask a lot, James,” says Brigitte.

“Sometimes you need to get run down,” says Alice. “It could keep something worse from happening.”

“Now you’re both trying to piss me off, but that’s okay because I feel a lot less guilty than when this dream started. Thanks for that.”

“See you around, Charlie.”

“Dobrou noc, Sandman.”

I KICK THE sheet down by my feet and roll out of bed the moment I wake up. I’m still naked from the long shower I took last night. Kasabian stares at me from the desk, his little legs poised over the keyboard.

“Morning, sunshine.”

“Do you smell anything funny?”

“No. What’s wrong with you?”

I know it’s in my head, but I swear I can still smell Drifter gunk all over me.

“Nothing. Just a funny dream.”

“Good for you. Get dressed. I don’t need your junk staring at me while I’m trying to work.”

Last night’s clothes are getting burned as soon as I get some lighter fluid. I find a pair of jeans tossed over the back of a chair and one clean and folded T-shirt in the drawer. Thank the gods of laundry for wash-and-fold places.

“You’ve got some donuts left over from the last night, but the coffee is cold.”

The crumpled donut bag is on the floor near the head of the bed. I open it, take out one of the old-fashioneds and take a bite. I can’t taste it. I’m afraid to breathe because I might get a whiff of Drifter. I go in the bathroom, gargle, and wash my face in cold water.

“You didn’t talk much when you got back last night. You’re no fun when you go to bed sober.”

The bullet wound in my side still looks pretty raw. It doesn’t hurt, but it should have faded to just another scar by now. I’ll have to ask Allegra about that. If she’s talking to me.

I sit on the bed and eat the rest of the donut. I can sort of taste it now.

“What happened last night? All you did was grunt when you got back and then you were running a marathon all night in your sleep. Chasing bunnies again, Lassie?”

“There anything in the Codex about Drifters?”

“Lots. Why?”

“I think I killed some with a friend last night.”

“Is that what they’re doing in Hollywood instead of aerobics? Who did you hunt coffin jockeys with?”

“I just met her. Name is Brigitte Bardo. She’s supposed to be kind of an actress in Europe.”

Kasabian looks at me for a minute.

“Are you shitting me? The star of Cosmonauts of Sodom Brigitte Bardo?”

“I have no idea.”

“You’d know her. She has a tattoo of an angel that starts on her stomach and the wings wrap around her and up her back.”

“I wasn’t looking at her stomach.”

“Oh man. She does this scene with these two other chicks.”

“I don’t need to hear about this from you.”

“No, listen. All the chick cosmonauts quit the space program and joined a traveling circus. They’re all dressed like clowns, only their noses are dildos—”

“Stop right there and tell me about Drifters.”

He stares at me. If he had regular hands, he’d give me the finger.

“At least get me her autograph.”

“If you promise not to talk about clown fucking, I’ll get her to Xerox her ass for you.”

“Think I could meet her?”

“Are you crazy? She kills Drifters. What’s she going to make of you?”

“I’m not a zombie.”

“You’re undead. She’ll think you’re a new model Lucifer just invented.”

“Do you know anything about zombies at all?”

“Yeah. They smell like an abandoned slaughterhouse when you pull their spines out.”

“You know about spines. That’s a start. What else do you want to know?”

“Everything. But I don’t need a Ph.D. Just give me the Trivial Pursuit version.”

“Okay.”

He looks at me.

“You’re really going to get me her autograph?”

“Christ.”

“Forget it. Tell me about the zombies last night.”

“They stank. They were stupid. They drooled and grunted and tried to bite us.”

He nods.

“Zeds and zots.”

“What?”

“Zombie shoptalk. They’re zeros. Dumbest of the dumb. Nothing more than a mouth with legs. What most people call golems.”

“It sounds like there’s something besides golems.”

“See? Who says you have a learning disability?”

“Yeah, who says that?”

“There’s another kind of zombie. Lacunas. You don’t want to meet them.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Lacunas have some brain function left. They can talk, walk, and dress themselves. You might not even notice one in a crowd. But don’t get close enough to smell their breath. They can’t really think for themselves, but they can take orders. The other thing is they’re mean. Old-timers called them St. George’s Pet, like all that’s working upstairs is their speech centers and their lizard brains. Because they’re such little shits, they mostly get used for muscle work.”

“Like Mason with Parker.”

“Exactly. You don’t usually see them unless there’s Deadheads having a turf war, but sometimes they make money renting them out or selling them to street gangs. Lacunas are pretty much the perfect thug.”

“How do you kill them?”

“Like the others. The spine.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?”

“Whatever fucks up the nervous system. Run them through a wood chipper. Nuke them. Chase them down the street like an angry mob in Frankenstein and burn them.”

“I wonder if I could mount a wood chipper on the front of a Bugatti?”

“What happened with you and Ms. Bardo last night?”

“You’re talking your way out of an autograph fast.”

“Asshole.”

I offer Kasabian the last donut, but he shakes his head. There’s a half-smoked cigarette butt in the ashtray and I light it up. That he wants, of course. I let him have a couple of puffs and then kill it off.

“Does the Codex say where zombies came from?”

He shakes his head.

“Not really. Hellions have plenty of blind spots and their own tall tales to fill in the missing pieces. Most Hellions say that Cain was Patient Zero. After he killed Abel, God sent him out to wander the earth forever and put a mark on him so no one would stop his wandering and torment. The Hellion smart set think zombieism was the mark. When Cain got into beefs with pushy civilians, he’d just bite them. They became the first golems and Lacunas.”

“The ones who don’t think it was Cain, what do they say?”

“This is bullshit, man. There’s facts and there’s fairy tales. None of this is going to help you kill them any better.”

“Who says I’m going to kill them? I killed those ones last night because they attacked us. I don’t have anything against going on a Drifter safari, but I want to get paid for it.”

“Goddamn it, you don’t get to be a brat when it comes to zombies. They’re like jackrabbits. They make new zombies, eat everything in sight, and then migrate down the road and do it again.”

“What do you care, Alfredo Garcia? You don’t owe this world anything either.”

“No, but I happen to live here and I like beer and burritos and cigarettes. Last time I checked, zombies don’t deliver.”

Alice and Brigitte’s voices come back to me. They’re telling me that something bad is coming. Is this it? I hope not. That would be about the lamest prophecy in history. I don’t exactly need a vision to explain how everyone getting eaten, including me, would be a downer. No, it can’t be this and that’s bad news. It means there’s something even worse coming.

“What’s the other Drifter story?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone. Let it go. Go chase a ball. Hump a stranger’s leg.”

“Tell me the story and I will.”

“The story? You’re the story. You and your kind. You fucked-up angels. The Codex says that when Lucifer’s army was cast out of Heaven, one of the fallen didn’t make it all the way to Hell and landed in a valley on earth instead. It was burned and broken, but humans still recognized it as an angel. The local blue bloods sent their doctors to help it, but the angel was sick and bloated like a tick by then. It attacked anyone who came near it. All of those people ended up turning into zeds. Those zeds attacked their families and friends. The ones they didn’t eat became zeds and attacked other people. The people who lived in the hills saw that things were getting out of control, so they started fires and burned the whole valley. They thought they’d gotten everything, but some of the zeds supposedly escaped into caves. Mostly they stay underground, but every now and then one wanders out or gets summoned by a necromancer. That’s it. They all lived happily ever fucking after. The end.”

I wave him off.

“You were right. This isn’t any help. Might as well say Muppets did it.”

“You asked and I answered. You still owe me an autograph.”

“You’ll get your scrawl. I wonder who’ll pay me more to hunt zeds and zots? Lucifer or the Vigil?”

“You don’t actually have to say ‘zeds and zots’ all the time. You can say one or the other.”

“I’ll stick with Drifters. Those other names make them sound like candy.”

“Lucifer and the Vigil both have a stake in keeping humans in general and L.A. in particular alive. Get them both to pay.”

“That’s what I was thinking. But there’s one thing bugging me.”

“What?”

“When those Drifters came in, I knew one of them. I mean I knew who he was. A guy named Spencer Church. I only heard of this guy the day before when someone said he was missing. I asked a couple of people about him. Then, out of nowhere, the guy shows up at Bamboo House like the place is a zombie salad bar.”

“That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“Isn’t it? And if golems can’t think…”

“It means someone sent him there. Probably walked him right up to the door and pushed him in.”

“Somebody who knew where I was and happened to have a few spare Drifters lying around.”

“You know the most interesting people.”

“Guess I do have a vested interest in this after all. But I still want to get paid.”

“Hell yeah.”

“I need to set up meetings with the Vigil and Lucifer.”

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I pick it up and listen. It’s a short call.

“Cool. See you there.”

“Who was that?”

“Speak of the devil. He’s out at the studio. Wants me to swing by and squint menacingly at the help.”

“Next he’ll have you doing his taxes.”

“I’ve never been to a movie studio. How many guns do you think they’ll let me take inside?”

“You? All you want.”

The .460 pistol is too big to carry in my waistband, so I wear it on my hip in a tool belt I colored black with a Sharpie and modified into a speed rig. I can have it out and cocked before an angel can say “amen.”

The knife and na’at hang snug inside the coat lining.

“Does the Codex say anything about Lucifer having a family?”

Kasabian gives me a curious little smile.

“Like is there a Mrs. Lucifer?”

“Yeah. Or kids.”

“Not that I’ve ever seen, but the Codex isn’t exactly easy to use. It’s all stories and allusions, not a PowerPoint presentation. But I can look if you want. Of course, Lucifer has been fucking around on earth since the Fall, so he probably has a load of sprogs earning their keep as warlords and priests. You looking for a cage match with the Antichrist?”

I shake my head and go into the bathroom. I check myself in the mirror to make sure I look presentable and that the weapons don’t show.

“No. It’s just more trivia. I’m going to go and find a ride.”

I’m closing the door when Kasabian says, “Can you imagine him for a father?”

“Uh. No.”

“He’s such a jerk, it would be torture ninety-nine percent of the time, but, come on, parent-teacher night would be fun. ‘Little Bobby took half the class’s lunch money.’ ‘Only half?’”

I nod at him.

“I’ll pick up some cigarettes while I’m out.”

THERE’S A VINTAGE car lot on North La Brea. Big glass showroom up front. A lot full of classics and a service bay right around the corner. Cars come out of the lot, make a quick right, and are double-parked by the garage until another car pulls out. A situation like this is all about shopping and timing. I don’t love T-birds or Corvettes. However, when a mechanic double-parks a red ’67 GTO, I start across the street.

I mumble a little Hellion spell. There are boxes stacked around the side of the garage waiting for garbage pickup. The oil- and gas-stained cardboard goes up fast. It takes about thirty seconds for the crew to clear the garage, some to gawk and others to hit the flames with fire extinguishers.

The moment they’re out, I’m behind the GTO’s wheel, knife jammed in the ignition and the V-8 engine growling like a Tyrannosaurus rex. I aim the beast out into traffic and take the corner as white smoke from the dying fire drifts into the street.

I pull onto the Hollywood Freeway, heading north toward Burbank. The time on my phone is 3 P.M. Should I give Brigitte a call? There’s a better-than-even chance that she’ll be at the studio with Ritchie, so I wait.

It’s not a long drive. I’m kind of sorry when I see the exit for the studio. For a second I think about not turning. Just hitting on the accelerator and heading north until there’s nowhere left to go. What would stop me first, a moose, an oil pipeline, or a glacier? I’d sit on the shore of the Arctic Ocean and let the snow pile up around me in my GTO igloo. Curl up in the backseat with a radio, turn on a news station, and listen to the world ending.

There’s a guard station at the studio gate. A tired-looking guy in a blue rent-a-cop uniform leans out of the guardhouse as I drive up.

“Sweet ride. We don’t get many V-8s on the lot anymore. It’s all rice-rocket hybrids.”

“L.A. is going to be under water in twenty years. As an American, I figure I should do my bit to help out.”

He eyes me before deciding I’m joking. He takes a clipboard from the wall inside his hut.

“Name?”

I have no idea what name Ritchie or Lucifer gave the guy.

“Stark.”

The guard scans the list and nods. He hands me a plastic parking permit about the size of a hardback book.

“Keep that on your dashboard in plain view.”

He pulls a white paper map of the lot from the back of the clipboard and hands it to me, pointing to landmarks with his pen.

“Follow the outside road around the edge of the lot. The soundstage you want is all the way on the far side. There are some producers’ bungalows nearby. That’s where you can park.”

“Thanks.”

“Looks like there’s a hell of a production going on out there.”

“That’s the idea.”

I follow the road around the outside of the lot. On my left is the freeway. On the studio side, there are forklifts and sweaty guys putting up scaffolding outside soundstages. Men and women in khakis and button-down shirts cruise by them on golf carts. The stages look like blimp hangars, giant humpback Quonset huts with huge posters of the studio’s new releases. The place is about as glamorous as dental surgery.

I park the car outside the bungalows, take the knife from the ignition, and slip it back inside my coat.

There’s a soundstage across the road. Outside, a hundred people are unloading trucks, telling other people how to unload trucks, or sitting in trucks waiting to be unloaded. Ritchie and Lucifer are at the edge of the chaos, with Ritchie pointing at some papers and then at the stage, where they’re building something huge. Old women in elaborately decorated robes carry incense among the workers. Others walk around the perimeter with bottles in each hand. From one they sprinkle sacred oil on the ground. From the other they sprinkle what smells like animal blood.

Ritchie waves me over. He nods at the car when I get close.

“She’s a beauty. How long have you had her?”

“A half hour, give or take.”

“You know, if you leave the windows down like that, the sun is going to bleach the upholstery.”

“That’s okay. I only drive cars once.”

Ritchie looks from me to the car and back. It takes him a minute, but he finally gets it.

“I see.”

“Keep it, if you want. It drives like a dream. There aren’t any keys, but I’m sure someone around here can change the VIN and slap in a new ignition.”

Lucifer watches the old women make their rounds. Ritchie’s eyes flick down to my waist. He’s spotted the gun and smiles.

“Have you ever been on a movie lot before?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Then this ought to be pretty interesting for you.”

“Okay.”

“Let me give you a tour. We’re shooting all the Heaven sequences first, so that’s what’s being built right now. I guess you’ll have to take my word for that since you’re better acquainted with the other place.”

“Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company.”

“Who said that?”

“Mark Twain. Or Jim Morrison. Or Stalin. One of them.”

Lucifer turns to me.

“When did you start quoting Twain?”

“It was in a fortune cookie. I’ve been saving it up.”

Lucifer stops and looks at Ritchie.

“Simon, why don’t you let me show James around. We need to discuss some work details.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“Sure. Good seeing you. Stop by and say good-bye before you take off. I still want to pick your brain about life down in the hot country.”

“Before you go, let me ask both of you something. What exactly is my job right now? Am I here all day every day you’re shooting? How is this going to work?”

Ritchie shakes his head.

“We won’t need you all the time. Mr. Macheath won’t be on set every day. Unless he wants you, you don’t need to be here the whole time. I’m sure you noticed that we’ve brought in a planeload of Chinese nyu wu witches to work special security. Mean old bitches, but they know tricks and charms older than dirt. Stuff most of the local talent has never even heard of.”

“I’m well protected here,” says Lucifer. “Mostly, I want you anytime I’m in public and not at the hotel or the lot.”

“Maybe when you’re not here, you should stay at the hotel. I mean you’re pretty much royalty. People can come to you.”

“Considering the drama after the party, I have to show my face around. I don’t want people thinking I’m Howard Hughes.”

“Okay. Just be smart about when and where.”

Ritchie checks his watch and looks around with a sour expression.

“You two have fun. I need to find someone and see if these goddamn union guys can possibly unload my fucking trucks any slower.”

Lucifer heads for the soundstage and I follow him inside. The Heaven set is pretty skeletal, but it’s still impressive. The floor is fake marble inlaid with complex star patterns. There’s a gold vaulted ceiling encrusted with jewels and subtly shifting lights. In the middle of the fake room is a throne decorated with intricate celestial, animal, and plant shapes.

I ask, “So, is this what it looks like?”

“Not in the slightest. But for the purposes of the movie, it’s uncannily accurate.”

“You trust Ritchie and his imported Golden Girls with security?”

“Simon knows what he’s doing. He’s been protecting himself and his stars for a long time. And he knows that his soul is at stake.”

I follow him as we circle the interior of the stage.

“Did he ever have to protect anyone from Drifters?”

Lucifer raises his eyebrows.

“Zombies here?”

“Last night. Three of them came into the Bamboo House of Dolls. What’s worse is that one of them was Spencer Church, a guy I heard about at your party and had been asking about since. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that wasn’t a coincidence. That means that not only do we have Drifters, but someone is running them.”

“A situation like that right now could be very bad publicity. With something that extraordinary happening while I’m in town, I’ll end up being blamed for it.”

“Then hire me to go after them. Take what you’ve paid me so far, tack on a bonus, and I’ll find them and get rid of them for you.”

“You killed three of them?”

“Actually, I only took out one. A friend killed the other two.”

“Maybe I should hire your friend.”

“Ritchie wouldn’t like that.”

“Why?”

“It was Brigitte. Turns out the aspiring actress and porn things are her playing Clark Kent. The rest of the time, she’s a trained Drifter killer.”

Lucifer nods.

“I noticed that you two were getting along well at the party. When you’re not killing zombies together, you aren’t doing something reckless and stupid, are you?”

“When have I ever done that?”

“You don’t want Simon for an enemy. He has a lot of resources at his disposal and a bad temper. There are bodies buried all over this lot and he’s responsible for more than a few of them.”

“Don’t worry. No one is running to Vegas for an Elvis wedding.”

“Be smart for once. Remember, you’re still under contract to me.”

“About that. What’s really going on? Why did you hire me for the job? Is there something I should know? Or am I still your science project, like Jesus in the desert?”

“Temptations are a bore. I only played that game with the kid and a few of the more annoying saints. Read the Book of Job. One of my jobs was to test self-righteous mortals for Father, but everyone has conveniently forgotten that.”

“That’s what the movie is going to fix.”

“Among other things. I learned early on that tempting you people was unnecessary. How does the song go? ‘I’m waiting for my man, twenty-six dollars in my hand…’ What I have is better than crack, heroin, money, or love. I don’t have to sell it. People come to me to buy.”

“What exactly is it you sell?”

“Same as Father. Hope. For a better life. A brighter future.”

“Only the back ends of your deals are pretty harsh.”

“I can make your dreams come true here and now or you can hold your breath, click your heels three times, and hope that it’s all cruise ships and finger sandwiches when you die. It’s one hundred percent your choice.”

“What about the world? What about wars and famines and AIDS? Watching a million people die is probably a Marx Brothers double feature for you.”

“‘I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.’ That’s Father talking about Himself, not me. And I never started a war except the one I lost with him.”

“That’s pretty hard to believe.”

“I’m not saying I’m an innocent, but on earth I’ve never directly instigated or fired a shot in anger.”

“So, it’s just us, then.”

As we walk down a short staircase to a lower level of the set, Lucifer bumps me with his shoulder. I miss a step and almost fall.

“What the fuck was that?”

“That’s what I do. I nudge. That’s the extent of my vast power in the affairs of mankind. I nudge. I jostle. I whisper.”

“Your nudges have a little more juice behind them than when civilians do it.”

“True. But as I said, it’s always your choice. That’s one rule I’ve never broken. In your old stories, I’m always tricking or cheating you people, but that’s something I refuse to do. Cheating you would be an admission of weakness. I would never give Father the satisfaction.”

There’s a short silence.

Lucifer asks, “When did you decide to become the loyal opposition? Conventional morality isn’t your strong suit.”

“Nothing. It’s just something someone said.”

“Let me guess. ‘Why are you working for Old Scratch?’”

“Something like that.”

“What did you say?”

“That I owe you money.”

“That’s what I’ve been talking about. You made a free choice to take a deal with me. But unlike some people, you’ve chosen to honor your debt. Did it occur to you that accepting responsibility for your actions is in itself a moral act? It certainly makes you a better man than fools like Ritchie who think they can deal and scheme their way out of anything.”

“About how many human women do you think you’ve fucked over the years?”

“That sounds like the old you. Subtle as always.”

Shit. I didn’t mean to blurt that out.

“Forget it. So, how about giving me the Drifter gig? Between Brigitte and me, we can clean up your zed and zot problem fast.”

“You shouldn’t see Brigitte again, even for work.”

“I know, but I’m going to. Give us something to pass the time. Maybe it’ll keep us from doing something reckless and stupid.”

“I’ll think about it.”

An alarm goes off outside. Not an alarm. It’s like fifty sets of truck brakes screaming as they all lock up at once. It takes me a few seconds to figure out that it’s human voices colliding in a terrifying animal wail. The old Chinese witches are screaming and running, converging at one point of the stage perimeter where they’d splashed oil and blood. The sun glares off raised knives and white banners scrawled with ancient spells.

Ritchie sprints onto the stage and right at us. A big man, he looks more like an ex-cop than ever. Without a word, he loops one arm around Lucifer’s shoulders and half drags, half pushes Lucifer to the back of the stage. I get on the other side and push them into a small office in back. Ritchie kicks over an armchair leaning against the far wall revealing a barely visible crease running up the seam between two sheets of paneling. He slams the heel of his hand on a point halfway up the wall and it pops open. Ritchie pulls Lucifer inside. I follow them and Ritchie slams the door closed.

Ritchie huffs his words, winded and bent over.

“You’ll be safe here.”

Lucifer turns in a slow circle. There are comfortable chairs. A stack of five-gallon water jugs. Packets of dried food. Two queen-size inflatable beds. A cabinet against the far wall is marked MEDICAL. I open it. The cabinet is divided into two tall vertical compartments. The left side is stocked with enough drugs and medical junk to open your own hospital. The right side is all guns. Mostly flashy action-movie hardware. HKs, Berettas, and Desert Eagle automatics. There’s a foot-high stack of ammo at the bottom of the cabinet.

I say, “Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff,” but no one gets it.

Lucifer nods. Ritchie drops down into an office chair in front of a bank of video monitors.

“I never took you for the panic-room type, Simon.”

“You weren’t here for the riots in ’92. Hollywood looked like Dresden after the bombs. We kept waiting for the mob to get this far north, but they never made it. Lucky for us. Back then our security was a gate, a few off-duty cops, and a new sprinkler system. All we were safe from was shoplifters and people smoking in the bathroom. I swore that would never happen again.”

“Good for you,” says Lucifer. “I love a take-charge coward.”

Ritchie flips a switch on the console and all the video screens come on, giving a 360-degree view outside and inside the soundstage. The witches are on the center screen. They’re manhandling someone who looks almost human, but not quite. His arms and legs are too long. His skull is too flat. Uniformed security people push through the mob, cuff the Lurker, and perp-walk him away. The old women still yell and slap his shoulders as he goes by.

A couple of minutes later, a phone on the console chirps. Ritchie picks it up.

“Yeah? You’re sure? Take him to one of the special cells downstairs. No one gets in or out until I get there.”

He swings around in the chair and smiles at us.

“Looks like a false alarm. A Lurker maintenance worker, one of the water nixies we keep around to clean the pipes, decided he wanted a closer look at the set and crossed the old ladies’ protection circle. We’ll question him and probably let him go with a warning.”

“At least you know you’re getting your money’s worth out of the old dears,” says Lucifer.

I ask, “What’s to keep a magician or a few of your witches from marching up to the door and lobbing hexes in here?”

Ritchie shakes his head.

“The room is shielded from outside spells. We’re like a roach motel. Magic goes out, but it doesn’t come in.”

“That makes us the roaches,” says Lucifer.

“I guess so,” says Ritchie.

“At least they’re survivors.”

“Are we done in here or do we need to show a permission slip to the teacher?” I ask.

Ritchie nods to the gun on my hip.

“Slow down. Not all of us are packing as much heat as you.”

“That’s why I have it. So I don’t have to drag our boss into Fort Knox every time a pixie farts.”

“Holster your dicks, boys,” says Lucifer. “Everything went smoothly. Everyone did their jobs, and no one had to get shot. Unless you need to wing someone to feel useful.”

He looks at me. I look at Ritchie.

“I wonder how your room would hold up if a few Drifters came knocking. Is it soundproof?”

Ritchie’s eyes widen.

“Zombies? Not the ones at the party. You’ve seen zombies in the streets?”

“Less than a block off Hollywood Boulevard. It was just some shamblers, so don’t pop a cork. Mr. Macheath is hiring me to do a search-and-destroy on the whole glee club, right?”

“We’ll see.”

Ritchie is staring at the monitors. Things are pretty much back to normal outside. The old ladies are laying down a new layer of oil and animal punch where the Lurker smudged their circle. The sweaty guys are back unloading the trucks and the office types who were standing around before snap right back to standing around. Ritchie shakes his head. I didn’t think the news would hit him so hard, but he’s not like my friends and used to this kind of shit.

“We haven’t had any walking dead since I was a kid. Not wandering the streets. It only lasted a few days. They were supposed to have crawled out of an old Pasadena gold mine after a quake.”

“What does ‘not wandering the streets’ mean?”

He shrugs.

“They pop up every now and then, like any dark magic. But they’re always contained, not strolling to Whisky A Go-Go.”

“When was the last time someone used Drifters to settle an argument?”

“The last I heard about was when Regina Maab and Cabal Ash were going at each other. I don’t know about what. It sounded like it was old-world stuff. That’s maybe why it escalated so far. You know how those Europeans get. Some Cossacks stole Grandma’s beets five hundred years ago and they’re still bitching about it.”

“Where’s Regina Maab now?”

Ritchie shrugs.

“Gone. No one’s seen her in years. Whatever the argument was about, I think Cabal won.”

“Ash is into Black Sun hoodoo. You think he’s hooked up with Drifters?”

“Not directly, but chaos magic attracts a lot of freaks. He wouldn’t be above hiring an alcoholic Deadhead who can’t pay his rent. God knows there are enough of them around.”

Lucifer is examining the drugs in Ritchie’s cabinet, pretending he’s not listening to us.

“You ready to hire me to get on this?”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute.

“I’m more interested in who shot at us when we were leaving the Geistwalds’ party. Find me something on that.”

“You’re the ones with cop connections. They do hit men. I do monsters.”

“Who says they’re not connected?”

“Hire me and we’ll find out.”

He slips a bottle of pills into his pocket and puts the rest back.

“Go talk to Cabal and then call me. I’ll decide then.”

“Fine. You want to hang here or do you want me to ride back to the hotel with you?”

“I’ll stay here for a while. You’ll find the Ash clan in the Linda Vista Hospital. You’ll love it. It’s been closed for years, but they still shoot movies and television there. You get into Cabal’s place through the big freezer in the morgue.”

“I’ll come by the hotel after I talk to him.”

“Call first. And take a shower and change your clothes before you come over. Smelling Cabal every decade or so is quite enough. And one more thing.”

“Yeah.”

“Take your new partner with you. Cabal can be difficult, but he’s an important man. Maybe your friend can keep you from shooting his place up.”

“She carries a gun, too, so I wouldn’t count on it.”