As we drag Traven away from the platform, Hunter starts up his Wild Man of Borneo routine. He tries to jump off the platform and follow us, but Traven’s binding hex holds. Hunter punches, claws, and throws his whole body at the invisible barrier, but it knocks him back every time.
Vidocq rushes over, pulling another vial from under his coat. He pours the whole thing down Traven’s throat. Traven coughs. His color goes from asphyxia blue to something human. He sits up and draws in a couple of wheezing breaths. He is alive, but he doesn’t look all that happy about it.
“What’s in there?” he says to no one in particular. “I’ve never seen a demon like this before. If the salt and bread didn’t work, the Spiritus Dei should have paralyzed it.”
Hunter is on his knees prowling back and forth along the platform like a pissed-off hyena waiting for its pack to arrive and kick our asses. The invisible barrier doesn’t bother him anymore. He isn’t even trying to get out. He’s having fun. Licking it with his black tongue, spitting blood on it, and finger-painting with the clotted mess. At first it looks like he’s just doodling, but a shape begins to emerge. In a minute he stops drawing, leans close to the bloody barrier, and opens his mouth. The fire fog that drifted from his mouth earlier flows out again. Flattening against the binding barrier, it spreads out like dozens of burning snakes. When it’s done, he puffs out his chest and inhales the fire back down his throat. Then he collapses on the platform. This time I don’t sense anything coming from him. I can usually feel life, a beating heart, even the shallowest breath, but this kid doesn’t even feel dead. More like a black hole of life. Candy gets up and starts toward him, but I grab her arm. The hex barrier is still intact, but Hunter has burned a symbol into it. Sister Ludi’s, the same symbol he burned over his bed.
And then I feel Hunter alive again. Still on his back, he turns his head and looks at me.
“Do you get it now? Please say yes. Don’t make me embarrass you in front of your friends.”
It takes me a minute to get past the face to the voice.
Hunter sits up. He stands, still a mess, but looking alert and calm.
“So, do you get it?”
I nod.
He’s talking in Mason’s voice.
“You’re coming through loud and clear.”
I reach into the barrier and run my hand through the burning symbol he drew until it drifts apart. Storm clouds and miniature fireworks.
“It’s Sister Ludi’s sigil. A fake goddess for a fake possession.”
Hunter raises his hands and rolls his eyes heavenward in mock relief. He’s a riot. Bob Hope with horns and a tail. But I deserve every bit of shit he serves up. Wells and Aelita foxed me like this once before, covering up a Drifter attack with a fake demon. Would I have fallen for the gag the first time if I was still on my game Downtown? No way. This stupid world is making me weak. Or mayighweak. Obe it’s just reminding me of how weak I’ve always been. No more. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you’re dead.
Hunter—Hunter’s body at least—shakes his head.
“I thought I was going to have to put on that medicine show forever. I mean Julia talked this idiot into exorcising me and it didn’t work. Now you drag him back and it goes tits up again. I thought that would have set off a few alarm bells.”
“It might have if I’d had time to think, but I was kind of busy with not letting your meat puppet kill him.”
Hunter smiles. Black gums and yellow teeth. I flash back on the Drifters and feel the urge to rip out his spine.
“What’s one Holy Roller more or less?”
“I like this one. He unfriended God on Facebook.”
Hunter looks skeptical.
“You sure it wasn’t the other way around? We have a lot of that type down here and I’m betting he’s on the party list. I’m getting a definite whiff of sulfur off him.”
He looks at Traven.
“You know all those suicides your Church condemns to Hell? There’s nothing they like better than having one of God’s defrocked toadies to play with. I’ll tell them to break out the party hats and get something special ready for you.”
Traven is turning white. He’s been through plenty of exorcisms, but having a rational, well-spoken demon threaten him personally is a whole new kind of fun for him.
“Don’t listen to him, Father. That’s no demon. It’s the asshole I was telling you about in the car. My friend Mason, the one who thinks he’s the new holy trinity—God, the devil, and GG Allin.”
“That’s the difference between us, Father. Ambition. He had none, so I had to have enough for both of us.”
Traven is frozen on the floor. Candy’s body vibrates, a low growl building in her throat. I put my hand on her back and shake my head. The last thing we need is for her to go full Jade.
“Don’t be too impressed, Father. He’s done this trick before. Talking through people on earth, but you don’t have any real power here, do you, sunshine?”
Mason raises an eyebrow.
“What makes you think I can’t pull this building down on you right now?”
“Because 9;s01C;Becif you had any real power, you’d have made it through that binding hex by now.”
Mason raps his knuckles on the invisible barrier.
“Good point,” he says. “You’ve got me there. I suppose I’m helpless as a kitten.”
He smooths down his filthy rags like he’s getting ready for a date with Miss America.
“And here I thought you’d be occupied with your fantasy about attacking heaven. But you must have time on your hands to be pulling stupid tricks like this.”
He shakes his head.
“I’m working twenty-four/seven on the big plan. Aelita, too. She came Downtown and brought some tchotchkes. She’s a hell of a girl.”
So it’s true. That’s not a combination I like thinking about. What do they have in common? One wants to kill God and one wants to be him, and I can’t see Aelita approving of Mason taking the old man’s place. Hell. Maybe they both want to be God and are going to do a set-up Pearly Gates time-share.
“You’re bluffing,” I say. “Aelita is a bitch on wings, but she’s not stupid. She wouldn’t have anything to do with a second-rate show pony like yours.”
“Sure she would. We have the same hobbies.”
“Like what?”
His face splits into a big grin. Those teeth again.
“Hating you.”
“I’m flattered.”
Traven grabs my arm and pulls me back a few feet.
“Stop talking to him. The demon is trying to confuse you.”
“There is no demon. There’s nothing in there but a little rich boy who wants to murder the world because some bad men took away his Etch A Sketch.”
Mason clasps his hand over his heart like he’s wounded. He spits some of Hunter’s blood on the sacrifice platform and clears his throat.
“Answer me this, Jimbo. And I mean this sincerely. What you need to focus on right now is the key question of the night: Why is this happening?”
For all I’m bullshitting him, I know he’s consumed with his plans to attack Heaven, so, yeah, I’m kind of wondering what’s really going on.
“Because" w201C;Be you’re trapped,” I say. “Because you got yourself in way over your head. Because you’re not Lucifer and not really in charge down there. You bribed a few generals into coming to your place for catered lunches and cigars. Big deal. Without General Semyazah, you’re never getting close to Heaven. And you haven’t been able to build a key to escape from Hell. You can’t admit you’re stuck down there. That’s why this is happening. Hiding in other people’s skin is as close as you’ll ever come to getting home.”
He stares at me, leaning his forehead on the barrier like a bored kid.
“You’re embarrassing yourself again by thinking small. What’s happening here is a formal invitation, but not from me. Listen.”
Hunter’s body goes slack. Mason has released control. A second later Hunter snaps back up. His eyes brighten and he looks around, but is unsteady on his feet. His lips move as he looks for his voice.
“Jim?” says Hunter.
No. Not this.
“Are you there? What’s happening? Where am I?”
I can’t see anything for a minute. It’s like someone flipped a switch and my vision has gone out. This is what happens to people in deep shock or sudden anger. “Blind rage,” they call it. It’s a real thing.
“Don’t listen. It’s the demon,” says Traven.
“Shut up.”
Alice’s voice comes out of Hunter’s mouth again.
“Jim? I don’t know where I am. An angel took me away and locked me up here. She said it was your fault. That you made her do it. I don’t believe her, but I’m scared.”
Hunter’s body twitches.
“That’s all you get of Little Miss Falling-Down-the-Rabbit-Hole for now.”
“How did you find her?”
“Don’t worry, Jimbo. She hasn’t been here all along. Except for getting mixed up with you, Alice was a good girl and all good girls go to Heaven. But God isn’t what he used to be. You should know that. So while good girls might get to Heaven, they don’t always get to stay.”
“Alice is what Aelita brought you.”
“She dropped poor Alice here like a basket of muffins from the neighborhood welcome wagon.”
“Why?ȁ ThC;Why?&D;
He doesn’t say anything for a long minute.
“Why? Because you made me do it,” he says. “You could have come down here and we could have settled this like men, but you stayed up there with your quilting bee, drinking beer and getting soft. Now you have to come down and face me. Or not. You can always leave poor Alice alone down here with me. I know Kasabian can see us through the Codex, so you can see what happens like watching the Super Bowl in that bar you like.” He smiles and takes a breath. “You thought Downtown was crazy when you were here? You ain’t seen nothing, pal.”
I start for the platform. Candy puts her hand on my shoulder. I shrug her off. She thinks I’m going to charge Hunter. I’m not. I just want to get close to see who I’m talking to.
Mason understands and kneels down so that we’re eye to eye.
He says, “Now you have it. Your invitation. You have exactly three days from when I leave this body to find Alice and take her . . . well, I really don’t care what you do with her. In the meantime, don’t worry. She’s in the safest place in town. The penthouse suite of the big asylum. Most of the inmates escaped weeks ago. The dangerous ones. Of course, the place is home to them, so they tend to wander back.”
I can see him looking back at me through Hunter’s eyes. No demon. It really is Mason.
“What’s it going to be? Are you going to play my game or are you going to stay safe in L.A. playing Gary Cooper and wasting your time saving people who don’t deserve it from things they’ll never understand?”
I lean in close to Hunter’s ear. Mason leans in to listen. I say a word in Hellion and he flies back, bouncing off the shield on the far side of the platform like he was hit with a sledgehammer. Vidocq and Candy get me from behind, throwing their full weight into me. Pulling me down. I let them. I don’t want to kill Hunter because of what’s inside him.
Mason staggers to his feet.
“You got me good, Jimbo. But that’s all right. I’ll take that as a yes. It’ll be good to see you again.”
He twitches.
“Jim? Are you still there? What’s happening? I . . .”
And Alice is gone. Hunter collapses onto the platform. It’s over.
Traven rubs away some of the binding hex marks. He and Vidocq lift Hunter from the platform and lay him out on the floor.
I’m stuck where I am. I feel a sucking sensation in my chest and for a second I can’t breathe. Gradually I feel Candy’s armsowix2019;s around me. I squeeze her hand and she lets me up.
Hunter is breathing. His eyes flicker open and closed. He doesn’t look like he’s going to drop dead this minute, but he’s still pretty Linda Blair. Traven isn’t looking so good either. He’s pale and his neck is dark with bruises and broken blood vessels where Hunter grabbed him.
I pick Hunter up and tell Candy and Vidocq to help Traven.
“We’re going out the fast way.”
They get their arms around Traven’s shoulders and steady him. Vidocq is closest to me, so I grab his arm and walk the few steps to the wall. We disappear into a shadow.
Come out again in the minimall parking lot. Pedestrians pass us on the way to their cars with take-out pizza and new manicures. A few of them stare. They must have seen us. Fuck ’em. The way we look, no one is going to tell anyone about it without a doctor shoving Thorazine down their throat.
We head across the lot for Kinski’s old hoodoo clinic. The place Allegra has taken over. A sign on the door reads EXISTENTIAL HEALING. Vidocq gets out his cell and dials Allegra. I don’t wait. I start pounding on the door.
A few good raps later, someone opens the doors looking pissed. It’s Allegra. She looks at Hunter and her eyes narrow. Then she sees Vidocq and Candy holding up Father Traven.
“Jesus, Stark. You’re like the Antichrist Santa Claus. Bring in the presents.”
We get Hunter inside and on the exam table. Allegra takes over, looking at Hunter’s eyes, shining a light into his blackened mouth. She turns and takes things out of a drawer. She presses one of them to Hunter’s forehead. A silver crucifix. Nothing happens. Then she touches iron. Gold. A mixture of garlic and holy water. Nothing happens with any of them.