The Dirty Streets of Heaven

nineteen

As the guns started blazing in the darkened hall it occurred to me that if anyone was the likely target of this raid, it was me; even if these men weren’t Eligor’s, they almost certainly belonged to someone who wanted what I was supposed to have. I needed to get out of there. Sure, I felt bad about the other auction participants getting shot at, but I was even more worried about what was going to happen to Heaven’s least favorite angel.

I fired back at the armed shock troops, then rolled to another spot so they couldn’t get me by aiming at my flashes. More shots crackled out. I reloaded, then returned fire again, cursing all the time that I had to use silver bullets at ten dollars a round on what were probably cheapjack, low-level mercenaries. I’d already wasted something like a hundred bucks just firing into the darkness, and it pissed me off.

“I turn off the lights, Dollar Bob!” a voice whispered in my ear during a brief lull in the gunfire. I admit I squeaked like a startled puppy. It was Fox, who had proved many times over how easily he could sneak up on me. “But they find the switch soon, I think, so maybe you better vamoose, podner.”

“Yeah, this whole auction thing kind of went to hell, didn’t it?”

My crypto-Asian friend laughed quietly. “Hee! Don’t worry, we finish our business another time, Mr. D-Bob. Go now-crawl to the back of the hall, behind the totem poles.”

He was referring to a forest of New Guinea carvings I had noticed earlier, each pole so extravagantly decorated and carefully burnished that they looked like melting psychedelic candles. In the intermittent flashes of muzzle fire I could make out the poles standing a few yards away across no-man’s-land, pale as a copse of birch trees, so I began my commando-crawl, belly against the parquet and extremely grateful that I was wearing dark clothing. Once a line of automatic rifle slugs stitched their way along the floor just in front of me, missing my face by mere inches and showering me with stinging slivers. I also had to crawl over two bodies that were in my way, one of them in stiff clerical robes, but I finally made it into the totem forest without taking a bullet. A couple of seconds later I found the heavy fire curtain at the back of the room and the exit door hidden behind it. It was locked, but I rose to a crouch, waited for another loud burst of gunfire before kicking the door open, then dove through, hitting and rolling on the far side and fetching myself a nasty thump on the head against the iron railings of the hall’s covered back porch. I dragged myself upright in the dim light, swaying and woozy, and realized I was now on the opposite side of the building from my car. I was just about to jump down and try to lose myself in one of the neighboring buildings when I heard voices both behind me from inside the hall and also coming toward me from the front, getting louder.

There was no direction to run where I wouldn’t be out in plain sight for several seconds, an easy kill shot for men with automatic rifles, and although I took a moment to reload my.38, there was no way I was going to try blasting it out gangster-style with a bunch of armed assault troops. Instead I broke the light bulb above my head with my gun butt, then shoved the pistol into my pocket and leaped up to catch the overhang of the porch, which was not much bigger than the top of an old-fashioned phone booth. I managed to swing my legs up and pressed myself belly-first into the dark space above the door just as the first people appeared from around the front of the building. It sounded like some of the auction guests running away, but I didn’t bother to look, since I was busy straining my muscles to keep myself hidden. An instant later the door crashed open beneath me and a trio of armed men lurched out and met several of their fellows coming around from the front of the hall. One of the three beneath me was talking into a headset, but he pushed it away from his mouth to growl at the other four.

“Haven’t found him inside but they’re still sweeping the building. The bastard’s probably running, but we’ll catch him before he gets far. Move out and deploy down the street along either side, and I’ll get you some backup. Go! Go!”

I recognized the leader’s voice-my hairy old chum Howlingfell, who began talking on his headset again as his men hustled off in military quick-step. I waited until the last of the assault team had rounded the far corner before I interrupted his conversation by swinging down and booting him as hard as I could, both heels against his nasty flat head. He was wearing an aramid fiber assault helmet; I didn’t crush his skull but it wasn’t for lack of trying. As he crumpled to the ground I dropped on him, planting my knee on his throat for the second time in a week or so as I shoved my.38 against his belly.

“Remember me, Howly?”

“Fuck you, Dollar,” he gasped, then made a retching noise. I was glad to hear I’d kicked him as hard as I’d meant to. “You’re as good as dead.”

“I already am dead, stupid. That’s how you get to be an angel.” I pushed down harder on his neck. “How many men have you got out there?” He just stared at me so I prodded him with the gun. “Remember our past meetings? I sure do. I treasure every golden minute. Why were you babysitting Grasswax when you work for Eligor? If you’re really his security chief, you’re too high-ranking to be a prosecutor’s bodyguard.”

He stared at me, his single eyebrow drawn down in a scowling V. “I’m not telling you shit, Dollar. I told you, you’re a dead man-the real kind of dead, like Grasswax. The Grand Duke is going to eat your heart.”

“Maybe, but if you don’t tell me what I want to know you won’t be around to enjoy it.” I was bluffing though, and he probably knew it-I didn’t have the time to shake him down for information.

He definitely knew it. “Have a nice ride down to Hell, Dollar,” he rasped past the pressure of my knee on his compressed throat. “Go ahead and kill me-my boss’ll just get me another body.”

“Really?” I straightened up but still keeping my foot squarely on his windpipe. “Do you think he’ll bother if I just blow off your nuts?” I paused to savor the expression on his bestial face briefly, then gave him a couple of silver hollow-points in the general crotch area before I turned and ran toward the front of the building, reloading as I went. Howlingfell’s screams of agony sounded loud as an air raid siren behind me. Every member of his assault team still on the premises would be spilling out the doors of Islanders Hall within half a minute.

Just before I reached the front of the building I veered off and scrambled over the high iron fence, catching my pants leg and ripping it on the spikes at the top. Yanked off balance, I came down tumbling and flailing and crashed right into an angular, painful shadow that appeared out of nowhere, sending both of us flying. I sprang up, revolver in hand and braced to run or shoot, but it was only Edie Parmenter, sprawled in the street with her bicycle lying beside her, its wheels still spinning. Horrified, I leaped forward to lift her onto her feet and give her back her bicycle.

“Edie, get out of here!” I whispered. “Hurry up!”

“It’s okay,” she said, as calmly as if we had met in front of her boarding school instead of while being chased by armed troops. “I live real close. I’ll be fine. They don’t want me.” As she climbed back on her bicycle she asked, “Is it safe? The feather?”

For a moment I didn’t know what she was talking about, then suddenly the light went on. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I didn’t bring it. Be careful!”

“You too, Mr. Dollar,” she said as she pedaled off into the darkness.

I didn’t have much time to savor the revelation that Eligor’s object was apparently some kind of feather, because I could hear Howlingfell screaming orders from the back porch of Islanders Hall and his soldiers’ rapid footsteps getting closer. I jumped up and started scorching leather toward where I’d left my car, doing my best to keep out from under any streetlights as I sprinted out of King and onto Jefferson. I spotted my loaner a few dozen yards down and headed toward it, and although I could hear many voices in the street behind me now, I was thinking I might actually manage to reach it, and had even started to fumble in my pants pocket for the keys-no easy feat when you’re running, looking over your shoulder, and holding a revolver in your other hand-when somebody screamed my name.

“Bobby! Look out!”

Everything that happened next seemed to take place in a single kaleidoscopic swirl of light and darkness, a muddle of flaring streetlights, clawing shadows, and things that shouldn’t exist but did, right where I didn’t want them. A blazing hot blackness snapped past my face with such force that if I hadn’t slowed at the shouted warning it would have knocked my head right off like I was a carnival sideshow game. It was the ghallu. The rotten, burning, bastard thing had been waiting for me and had almost got me. The voice had been Sam’s.

I stumbled as I avoided the creature’s flailing swipe, which missed so narrowly that the hairs on my head crackled and curled from the heat, then I took a few more steps without ever really getting my balance. Finally, surrendering to gravity, I fell and rolled, smacking some part of myself hard against the asphalt with every revolution, until I came to a stop halfway onto Jefferson Avenue and still several yards from the Pontiac Orban had loaned me. There weren’t many other cars on the street this time of night, but they all had to swerve abruptly to avoid hitting me. The drivers only located their horns afterward, blatting indignantly as they straightened out and went on their way, apparently never noticing the huge black shape pounding after me.

I hadn’t dropped my gun until the last roll so it hadn’t gone far, but as I scrambled after it I still doubted I’d reach it in time-the ghallu was right behind me. Then Sam, bless him, leaped out into the street from behind my car and opened fire on the monstrosity, emptying a whole clip from his automatic into the thing. Whatever kind of loads he was packing didn’t seem to hurt it at all, but it startled the creature a little and it hesitated before continuing after me, which gave me time to reach my own gun, roll, and start firing.

I pulled the trigger three times before I hit an empty chamber, and I swear all three silver hollow-points hit that big ugly bastard right in the torso, but the ghallu only stood up straight like an angry bear and bellowed in pain or maybe just irritation. It was the first cry I’d heard it make-a booming roar that made my ears pop and set off car alarms up and down the block. The gunfire must have already awakened everybody in the neighborhood, but now windows started slamming open up and down Jefferson as people peered out to see who was jackhammer-murdering an African lion in front of the Arco Station. The ghallu shook its misshapen, horned head and then started toward me again. Meanwhile, I had already given up on the idea of trying to reload in the street and was sprinting toward my car.

“It’s unlocked!” I screamed at Sam. “Get the hell in!”

I yanked the door open and threw myself behind the wheel even as my buddy came crashing in from the passenger side. I tossed him my.38 and a speed loader as I cranked the ignition, grateful beyond expressing that I hadn’t dropped the keys and equally thankful that Orban’s old bomb had decent plugs. It caught on the first rev and I threw it into reverse, skidding backward just as the thing threw itself onto the armored hood. We crashed into the car parked behind us but the ghallu hung on. For just a moment I could see something of its face through the windshield, a sight I will probably never be lucky enough to forget-insane hatred sketched in fire, features that rippled and ran like a slow liquid, and a beard composed of writhing, headless snakes. It stared back at me like a burning mask of Hammurabi, with just enough human symmetry to make it inexpressibly alien. The ghallu was primitive, I remembered, and that was its power; it came from some even deeper, darker pit than Hell itself.

The beast raised fists like black sledgehammers. I knew it was going to punch its way through the hood and destroy the engine, stranding us, so I gunned the engine and threw the Pontiac into drive, slamming into the car parked in front of me as hard as I could, trying to nutcracker the monster between the vehicles. The thing bellowed and thrashed but didn’t seem badly hurt. I grabbed the gun-butt that Sam was pressing into my hand and emptied my weapon into the ghallu as it scrabbled to tear itself loose. It bellowed again, and I swear I heard some pain in the cry this time, but although I’d knocked it off my hood it was quickly pulling free from the tangle of the other car’s bumper.

“Let’s get out of here!” yelled Sam. I didn’t need to be told.

The Bonneville screeched backward, tires smoking. The ghallu dropped to one knee, then shoved itself upright, pressing down on the other car so hard that the whole chassis collapsed and one of the wheels popped off and skidded across Jefferson Avenue. I didn’t wait around to see what kind of shape the monstrosity was in-I could tell it wasn’t badly hurt. Seven or eight silver rounds in the thing and it was still up and running, as I quickly saw in my rear-view mirror-loping after us like some horrible carbon-black ape, dodging between the honking cars on Jefferson as I pushed the pedal to the floorboard.

Sam leaned out the window and fired a couple of shots back at the thing.

“If those aren’t silver, don’t bother,” I shouted over the roar of the V8. “And even if they are, it probably won’t slow it down much. What the hell happened to you?”

“What happened to me?” he shouted back. “That thing happened to me! I was a couple of minutes late, and it was waiting outside the building. Damn near caught me, but I managed to get down a manhole where it couldn’t follow me. I got back out in time to see you running toward me, so I figured it might be laying for you.”

“Thanks. Shit!” I swerved to avoid a group of merrymakers in Carnival costumes who had just staggered out of a liquor store and right into the street. I don’t know what happened to them when the ghallu went past, and I didn’t want to look back, but I did hear screams. I accelerated, but I could still see that immense shadow loping along the rain-slicked streets behind us at a terrifying clip. And now brake lights were going on in front of me-a big back-up of cars ahead at the Camino Real. “It’s still right behind us. Where are we going to go?”

“Office or The Compasses,” said Sam. “They’ve both got wards that should keep that thing out. Nothing else will.” He was loading my gun again. “You get these from Orban?”

“Yeah. But they don’t seem to be doing much good.”

“Nice work, though.” He squinted, then bit down on one of them. “That’s good silver.”

“It better be. I’ve shot off about four hundred bucks’ worth already, and I haven’t killed fuck-all except some of Eligor’s assault squad guys.” I gave Sam a quick rundown on what had happened inside Islanders Hall. By the time I’d finished I could see the Camino Real in front of us and not only was the light still red, the road between us and the Alhambra Building, home of The Compasses, was gridlocked.

“Turn right before we get there,” Sam said. “Shit, I just remembered-they had the parade tonight! The whole downtown is going to be like this.”

I slalomed the Pontiac right onto Adams, fishtailing so widely that I almost lost control of the car, sending a group of costumed pedestrians shouting and leaping for the stairs of the Victorian houses that lined the street. Once I was clear of them I risked a glance back and saw the ghallu digging around the corner behind me like a hound after a rabbit.

I don’t like being the rabbit.

When I got to the T-junction with Oak Avenue at the end I yanked us back toward the Camino Real, cutting the corner so sharply that we went up over the curb at about fifty miles an hour, the two left side wheels off the ground for a couple of seconds before we slammed down again, bouncing like a low-rider. The barriers were still up at the Camino Real end of the street but only a few cars were in the intersection, so I crashed the yellow caution gates at speed and dragged the emergency tape out into the wide street, the ends flapping like pennants behind me. For about a second and a half it looked like a power surge had hit a bumper car ride as I pinballed between vehicles, damaging a couple badly but mercifully not hurting any of the drivers or passengers as far as I could tell. We smashed through the barrier on the other side and zigzagged over to Main Street before heading toward the heart of downtown. I knew we’d never get around the whole parade route before the thing caught us, and I didn’t want to risk crashing the barriers again. I was just grateful the parade itself was over.

Downtown was crawling with post-parade revelers. Most of them reeled in drunken groups, but others were in their cars now, cruising slowly up and down the streets that hadn’t been blocked off, still looking for amusement or action even at one in the morning. San Judas combines several carnival traditions-I saw rainmakers in Mayan hats and the Elders of Guymas in their long robes and pointy beards as well as the Knights of Numa and the Ravenswood Krewes and all kinds of other Mardi-Gras-inspired partiers. Just by the mess and the merrymakers still swarming the downtown streets, it looked like it had been a hell of a parade. I wish I’d been there instead of being shot at in Islanders Hall.

I nearly killed a pair of stiltwalkers as I crossed the railroad tracks at speed, but though I missed them the ghallu didn’t, tearing the legs right out from under them and sending them flying.

What I saw in my rear-view mirror was getting increasingly hallucinatory, but the view ahead wasn’t much better. We were coming up fast on the downtown barriers, and that was where the serious mayhem was going to start-cop cars and firetrucks were lined up everywhere, red and blue lights spinning, and even the armored Bonneville wasn’t going to crash through them without hurting a lot of people, not to mention what would happen to Sam and me if we got tangled up in a wreck long enough for the ghallu to catch us. We were going to have to ditch the Bonneville and try to get to The Compasses on foot.

But even as I thought this, the monstrosity did catch us: a ghastly hollow thumping as it leaped up onto the trunk was followed by the most painful groaning, gnashing sound I ever heard-the sound of a very large demonic summoning trying to yank the top off an armored sedan to get at the fleshy treats inside. I was counting my blessings: if we’d been in my Matador not only would the creature have reached us by now, it would have really screwed up the paint job, too.

The aluminum oxynitride driver’s side window, which was meant to resist anything up to armor-piercing rounds, shattered into a spiderwebbed hole as a hot black claw smashed through, intent on yanking my head out of the car whether or not it was still attached to my body. I ducked even as I slammed on the brakes so that I bashed my face against the hard old steering wheel, then realized stopping with the monster on top of the car had not been my best idea. The ghallu was trying to rip through the reinforced metal of the roof while still trying to catch my head in its other great taloned hand and pop it like a boiled grape; even as I strained my neck to stay out of its reach I could see little wisps of smoke or steam dancing on the thing’s carbon-black skin. Sam still had my gun, and I was beginning to lose faith in the idea of silver bullets anyway, at least for this particular horror, so instead I did what they taught me at Leo the Loke’s Emergency Driving School: When something’s on your roof, knock if off. Still holding my head at an absurd and extremely painful angle, I floored the car and steered straight for the nearest building.

“What are you…?” was all Sam had time to shout before we hit the curb, bounced into the air and hurtled into the wall of the Main Street branch of Wells Fargo Bank like a runaway missile, sending bricks and plaster flying everywhere (and not treating us passengers much better). A huge piece of rebar came through the windshield like Van Helsing’s money shot and passed neatly between Sam’s head and mine as we bounced around with the impact, the pointy end of it lancing the back seat like a tuck-and-roll boil. I prayed fervently that the ghallu’s head had been bashed in, but I doubted it; if close to a dozen silver rounds in the torso couldn’t stop it then a little thing like a bank building wasn’t going to do the job.

There is nothing quite so terrible as fleeing something that you know is more than a match for you. The helplessness, the way the strength just runs out of your limbs like sand…you feel yourself getting colder and slower by the moment. Your worst fears rise in triumph.

I didn’t bother to check on Sam-I could hear him struggling to get out on his own side. I just kicked my door open and sprinted in the direction of Beeger Square, shouldering my way through inebriated and oblivious revelers. There was no chance to look back, nor did I want to. I knew the fetch would be right behind us like a distorted, smoldering shadow, eyes narrowed to slits, mouth like a hole torn in a curtain. I knew it was only a few moments until our weak earthly flesh finally let us down.

Sam pulled abreast of me, his overcoat flapping crazily as he ran. I’d never seen him move so fast, like a big farm horse on a steep downhill slope-everything was moving at the same time, and there was no way it was going to stop by itself.

“Garage!” he gasped. He was holding something out in front of him. For a moment I thought it was a gun and that he was going to shoot some of the drunken idiots blocking our way, but it was a remote door-opener, and he was pressing that button over and over as if he were a rat left too long in a gratification experiment. We leaped and scuttled between two deserted police cars and under a wooden barrier, then sprinted down Main toward the Alhambra Building at the end. Beyond it, Beeger Square was still packed with people, and I had a momentary, nightmarish vision of leading the monstrous thing into the crowd where it would rip up all those innocent folk like a power mower going through a brood of Easter chicks.

“Driveway!” Sam shouted. He skidded into a sharp right turn and pelted down the cement ramp of the Alhambra’s garage. To my immense relief the remote had worked: the gate was open and the way clear. Even as we reached it, Sam thumbed the remote again and the gate started down.

As we scrambled through the closing gap I risked a look back and saw the ghallu reach the top of the driveway. It hesitated for a moment, visibly confused, then realized we were no longer running in front of it. It whirled and leaped down the sloping concrete after us like a giant black frog. To my immense relief it slammed against the metal gate and bounced back, then lowered itself like a cringing dog and stared at the bars with a hiss that sounded of frustration and, of all things, pain.

“The wards,” Sam said as he bent double, gasping for air. “The wards are holding him. God really does love us.”

I could no longer see out to the city lights-the ghallu was blocking the whole of the metal fence and it didn’t look like it was planning to go away. “Yeah-for how long? Come on. Let’s get upstairs.”

The monster had begun stamping and huffing its way all along the base and sides of the gate as if trying to find a weak spot in whatever charms or holy names held it at bay. Tired as I was, I still had no urge to stand in the cold lights of the garage waiting for the elevator while that unholy thing stared red murder at us, so I led Sam toward the stairs. After a few carefully selected words of disagreement, he followed.

We staggered out onto the fourth floor and down the hallway to The Compasses. A slightly faded sign next to the front door proclaimed, “Tonight-One Night Only! Gabriel and His Hot Trumpet at the Living End!” Chico’s put that sign out every day for years-somebody’s joke from way back when, now a tradition. It’s also a tradition that the front door is always open during business hours.

I ended that one.

“Hey, Dollar, what are you doing?” Chico shouted from behind the bar as I slammed the thing and threw the bolt. “We got fire regulations! The Opposition call in complaints all the time just to get us hassled-!”

“No time. Bad shit outside.” I looked around. There were only a few other people in the place: Young Elvis and Jimmy the Table camped at the bar along with Kool Filter and an angel friend of his named Teddy Nebraska who I didn’t know very well. It wasn’t quite the doomsday survival crew I would have chosen; Jimmy the Table is built along the lines of George from the Seinfeld show, and Kool looks like he’s just stepped off the Duff Breweries tour. Nebraska at least looked like he had some smarts-he was strapped and was already reaching for his piece at my announcement. I allowed myself to wonder for an idle second what he did before he became an advocate.

“What’s going on?” Chico was no slouch either; he was already digging under the bar. “What is it?”

“Demon called a ghallu. Big, hot as hell, and old,” I said. “Holy water won’t work. Silver-a little, maybe. That’s what I’m using, anyway. Beyond that I’m out of ideas.”

“Okay,” Chico said, straightening up. “Sam, you pushing silver or lead?”

“All I got’s Brand X.”

“Then catch.” Chico straightened up and lobbed Sam a pump-action Mossberg and a couple of boxes of shells. Sam caught them and started loading the magazine. Chico bent again and stood up with the ugliest-looking weapon I’ve seen in a while-a massive black shotgun with a round drum like an old-fashioned tommy gun.

“AA12,” Chico said. I think he must have been in the vengeance business too, once upon a time, but he never talks about it. Still, I hadn’t seen him this happy since the Davis verdict riots. “Automatic shottie. This will fuck some supernatural shit up.”

“Oh my God. What are you firing?”

“Silver nitrate-that’s silver salt for you lay brothers,” Chico told me with a very disturbing smile on his usually stoic Aztec face. “Gonna spread some pain.”

His own gun now loaded, Sam had started tipping over freestanding tables and shoving them against The Compasses’ front door. I ran to help him. At just that moment Monica came out of the ladies’ room with Annie Pilgrim, another co-worker I hadn’t seen much of late. For just the barest microsecond I wondered whether they been double-dating with Kool and Nebraska. And then I thought, Who the hell cares?

Monica’s eyes went very wide as they turned from Chico and his monstrous gun to me. “Bobby, what are…?”

“That ghallu thing that was after me? It’s outside trying to sniff its way through the wards. Any idea how strong they are?” Monica was our unofficial historian and knew a lot more about the Alhambra Building than I did.

“Strong.” She thought about it for a moment. “Does it fly?”

“The ghallu? Not as far as I’ve ever seen, but it sure can run-why?”

“Because the wards are strongest around the base of the building, of course, on the doors and windows on the ground floor.” She frowned, thinking. “And I’m pretty sure the roof is warded as well. But I’m not so certain about everything else.”

“What does that mean?” Suddenly I had a cold, cold feeling around my heart. “Monica, that thing can jump like a flea-a giant, two-thousand-degrees-hot, man-eating flea.”

“Push!” Sam shouted at me. We had almost completely buried the front door behind a pile of tables eight-feet high. It might not keep the ghallu out for long but it would keep it exposed as it smashed its way through-enough time for Chico and Sam and me to put a bunch of silver in it, anyway.

“It’s just that I’m not so certain about the upstairs windows…” was all Monica had time to say before the lights suddenly went out, and something huge came through the big glass rectangle behind us like a runaway jet plane, spraying glass and bricks everywhere, its blackness big enough to obliterate the very stars of the sky.