Killing Pretty (37 page)

A swirling coil of wind reaches down and knocks me over the packed earth. When I get up I feel something scraping in my injured shoulder. I run for the circle. McCarthy reaches down again, but I see him coming and shout some hoodoo, shattering the coil with an air burst of fire. McCarthy bellows and I keep running.

I don't know if he's playing games or if I get almost lucky, but I'm right on the edge of the circle when he comes at me again, throwing down a bolt of lightning that knocks me over. Then a cone of wind settles over me, crushing me into the desert floor. I can't get up. Can't breathe or see. All I can do is lie there while McCarthy grinds me down to my bones.

Then I'm moving again, dragged across the packed ground. The wind lets up enough for me to open my mouth and shout a stream of black Hellion magic at the sky. Old arena stuff, each phrase a killing curse.

I don't know which one did it, but McCarthy rears a little. I open my eyes and see Vincent, covered in grime, his skin cut and bleeding from the blowing desert grit. He's pulled me back into the edge of the circle.

He helps me up and there's blood on his hands. I turn him around, checking for where he's hurt.

“It's not my blood,” he says. “It's yours.”

I look down at myself.

Yeah, it's mine all right. My plugged shoulder has opened up, along with a thousand little cuts on my arms and face. Fuck it. I want to tell Vincent it's all right, that I've bled before, but he's too scared to listen. He's never had someone else's blood on his hands before. The poor slob is getting hit with a whole lot of firsts these days, but I can't exactly buy him a drink and talk it over. McCarthy has surrounded the circle again and we can't stay like this forever. I manifest my Gladius, figuring that if I sliced off a little piece of his form before, maybe I can take off enough to hurt him. I start back to the edge of the circle when Vincent runs around in front of me.

“You'll die if he pulls you out there again.”

“Me? I'm fine. I was just playing possum.”

“You're lying. Help
me
fight him.”

“How?”

He holds up his bloody hands.

“I can't do anything. You gave me my heart, but I'm still trapped in this flesh.”

“What do you want me to do about that?”

“Free me from this body. Kill me.”

“How do you know that won't destroy you?”

“Neither one of us has a choice. You can't go back out there and I can't fight him like this. Please. I can't watch you die and I can't live like this.”

“This could be a really bad idea.”

“What alternative is there?”

I look up. The sky is bottom-­of-­the-­ocean black. When McCarthy sends out lightning bolts, the thousands of dead in the sky glow like ornaments on a Hellion Christmas tree. Vincent is right. We might be in the land of the dead, but the two of us are still meat. McCarthy can starve us and stomp us if we try to leave.

“What if this doesn't work?” I say.

“Then no one is worse off than they were before. McCarthy already controls life and death. I'm the only thing that can stop him, but not like this.”

I picture Alice, the girlfriend I came back from Hell to avenge. Cindil, the donut-­shop girl who was murdered to teach me a lesson. Father Traven, who died saving our lives in Kill City. All the ­people who, one way or another, died for me or who I let die. Even Johnny Thunders, the sweetest zombie you could ever hope to meet. I got revenge for some of them and did what I could for the others, but they still went through hell because of me. Am I going to add one more name to the list?

“Stark, we need to act. Don't die to protect someone who isn't afraid to die because he is Death. Free me.”

I look at Vincent one last time.

“Vincent, I don't say this very often, but you're an okay guy for an angel.”

“Don't worry about me. We'll see each other again someday.”

“Not for a while, I hope.”

“So do I.”

Vincent closes his eyes.

I swing high and fast so maybe he won't feel it, and catch him at the base of the throat. Vincent's head rolls away across the packed ground. His body falls. There's no blood. The Gladius cauterized the wound. He's just in two dead pieces of useless skin. It's as simple as that. I let the Gladius go out.

The wind pauses for a second, as if McCarthy is trying to figure out what he just saw. When the gusts pick up again, moving even faster and wilder than before, I swear I can hear the fucker laughing over the din.

I sit down on the hard ground, lie back, and stare up into the sky. The earth is warm against my back. My shoulder hurts and I'm starting to lose energy. Guess the fight took a little more out of me than I thought. I wish Vidocq had left me more of that baneberry juice. That or a line of coke. I could use a pick-­me-­up right now.

The wind blows and there's nothing else.

I get the black blade out of my boot and crawl to the edge of the circle, cutting into the ground, repairing the place where Vincent dragged me back inside. I wonder how long I can keep this up. The wind wears away the perimeter of the circle and I repair it. In theory I can stay safe and cozy in my dust pied-­à-­terre indefinitely. But I'm going to fall asleep sometime. Soon probably. How much damage will it take for McCarthy to snake an arm through a crack in the circle and drag me back into the open desert? Doesn't really matter. There's nothing else I can do. Vincent is gone. There's no one to spell me. I look over at his corpse. There's nothing left of him. It's just Townsend's dead meat now. The worthless skin of a Nazi coward who thought he could buy his way out of the party with a blue yonder and got trapped like everybody else.

So long, Vincent.

As I lie down again, a roar thunders down at me. The kind of sound you feel in your bones as much as hear. McCarthy is still perched above me, but the perfect cone of his body begins to distort. It stretches and pulls thin around the middle.

He howls again as a hand the size of a Sherman tank punches through the stretched spot. As it pulls out, it rips some of McCarthy's swirling body out with it.

The dust devil shoots away from me, out into the open desert. McCarthy isn't alone now. Vincent is there too. He's almost as tall as McCarthy, his head scraping the bottoms of the black, rolling clouds. His eyes are blood and silver. His body is a bluish white, like polished stone. His arms are buried deep in McCarthy's whirling body, and he rears back, ripping out pieces of it. They fall, tiny tornadoes that skid across the ground and fall to dust. McCarthy howls and Vincent rips him apart.

Lightning flashes into Vincent's eyes. He stumbles back, blinded. McCarthy lunges for him, tearing away chunks of his skin. Vincent's bones glow from the open places, but he charges back into the storm, ripping at McCarthy's face. The storm returns the favor, slashing at Vincent's belly, ripping him open. His glowing blue flesh blows away like sheets of burning canvas into the distance.

It goes on and on like that. Two Deaths slicing each other apart. They fly to pieces. Small tornadoes skittering across the sand. Huge sheets of angel flesh lifted into the air and disappearing.

They begin to shrink. No longer as high as the sky. They drop below the clouds. Then the mountains. Wind and flesh fly in every direction. Roars like thunder shake the ground.

Vincent and McCarthy lose form faster and faster. Become transparent. A thin wisp of swirling sand and a glowing collection of bones, shredded skin, and muscles. They beat and howl until all at once they stop.

Neither moves for a few seconds. McCarthy comes apart first. The big bag of wind blows away like dust on the breeze, scattering to nothing. The black sky begins to clear to a purple twilight.

Vincent's glow fades. His torn body takes a few painful steps backward. He goes dark and falls to his knees. His body sways, then falls, shattering like glass. And it's dead quiet for a long time. I sit on the ground and look at what I've done.

We've gone from two Deaths to exactly zero.

The souls hanging in the sky are going to hang there forever. How many million more will join them because I couldn't think of anything better to do than kill my friend?

After a while I drag myself to my feet and start walking. I need a drink and a smoke and a shave and a three-­hour shower to get this grit off me.

I'm moving slow. It takes maybe an hour to get back to the city, then another half hour through it to get to Tenebrae Station. I sit on the edge of the platform and wait. Soon I lie back and go to sleep.

I wake with a sharp pain in my side. I open my eyes and see Samael. He's poking me with a stick.

“Oh good. You're alive,” he says.

“What's with the stick?”

“You're a bit . . . well, filthy and as bloody a mess as I've ever seen you—­and I've seen you in bad shape.”

“You here to take me home?”

“That was the deal.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“Yes. So does Father. He's not happy.”

“If he was so concerned, why didn't he do anything about it?”

“You know how he is. Standing up for noninterventionist deities everywhere. Hip hip hooray.”

“So, what happens now?”

“I have no idea. We've never been without a Death before. I guess we'll play it by ear.”

“That's a great idea. I'm sure all those semidead ­people won't mind while you get your shit together.”

“Don't get snippy with me. I'm not the one who broke the universe . . . Again.”

I nod.

“Can you take me home?”

“Of course.”

“Great. I have more good news for you.”

He tosses the stick away onto the tracks.

“And what's that?”

“I don't think I can walk. You're going to have to carry me.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“You're going to ruin my suit.”

“I'll get you a new one.”

“You can't afford my tailor.”

“I'll buy him off with a bottle of Aqua Regia.”

“What makes you think he'll accept it?”

“It's all I have. Unless he wants a set of Nazi brass knuckles.”

Samael looks down at me.

“No. I don't think that's quite his style. Can you at least get on your feet?”

I struggle up onto my knees and Samael pulls me the rest of the way.

“You're sure you can't walk? I love this suit.”

“Sorry.”

Samael isn't a huge man, but he picks me up like I'm a toddler and walks like I weigh nothing at all. I guess even ex-­devils have secrets.

“Don't ever tell anyone I agreed to this.”

“My lips are sealed.”

It's a long walk down the tracks and through the station.

“What kind of aftershave is that?” I say.

“What? I don't wear aftershave.”

“You smell nice.”

He stops for a second.

“Say that again and I'll throw you in a ditch.”

“Some ­people can't take a compliment.”

I have him leave me off in front of the hotel. As usual, one of his endless number of limos appears from nowhere and a driver opens the door for him.

“I assume you can make it the vast expanse of twenty feet from here?” he says.

“Yeah. I'm good. Thanks.”

He goes to the car. Takes his dirty jacket off, folds it, and hands it to the limo driver.

Before he gets in he says, “This is going to end badly, you know. There not being an Angel of Death and all.”

“Any ideas what kind of bad?”

“Yes, but nothing I can talk about now. I'll be in touch.”

“Take it easy.”

He smiles.

“You might want to consider the same.”

“That's the plan.”

I go across the parking lot and knock on our door.

It opens and everyone else is still there. I look at Candy.

“Is that pizza I smell?”

“Kasabian got hungry,” she says.

“I got hungry,” says Kasabian.

Candy pulls me inside and I drop down onto the couch. I must look bad. Candy is the only one who wants to get near me.

“You're bleeding, you bastard,” she says.

“I missed you too.”

“What happened over there?”

What the hell can I say to them?

“McCarthy is dead.”

“Did you kill him or Vincent?”

“Vincent.”

“Good for him.”

“Yeah. Good for him.”

Allegra dive-­bombs for my bleeding arm. I get her to hold off on the Dr. Kildare scene until after I take a shower.

The sun is coming up outside and I wish I could say that everything is right with the world, but it isn't. It severely isn't. But I'm not about to tell anyone. They'll just freak out and I won't get any pizza.

I
SLEEP MOST
of the next day, waking only for the occasional Malediction and shot of Aqua Regia—­soothing Hellion Bactine for all your wounds.

In the afternoon, I turn on the TV for a few minutes. It comes on to CNN. No surprise that the lead story is how ­people have stopped dying again. The fucked part is that a lot of usually solid citizens are taking it worse than before. Riots. A stock-­market dive. Prime ministers, potentates, and other assorted high-­and-­mighties deposed. It's an old story. Taking ­people's candy away is always worse than there being no candy at all.

Julie calls around four. Wants to know what's going on, if Vincent won the rumble in the desert. I tell her that, after being trapped in a body, Vincent is still getting his sea legs back. I'll have to come up with a better excuse soon, but right now I can't think of anything else and, really, I just want to go back to sleep.

Allegra comes by in the evening, changes my bandages, and gives me lovely, mind-­numbing drugs. I can see how Vincent might fall in love with his pills. If Aqua Regia didn't burn so good going down, I might get a crush on the stuff too.