The Getaway God (37 page)

I try to kick-­start the bike, but my body has had about as much as it can take tonight. On the third try, I get lucky. The engine rumbles to life and I take off. My half-­hour lead time is probably up by now, but the hounds have cleared out of Hollywood Forever by now. I'll let them clean up the last of the chop shops for a while before herding them back Downtown.

I take off on the bike, but as I swing onto Hollywood Boulevard another cop car makes the turn with me, its blinking light bar turning the empty street into the world's saddest rave. But I'm not about to let any more vigilantes get their hands on me and there's no way I'm leading them to Max Overdrive.

I gun the bike, blowing by Musso & Frank's and the Egyptian Theatre. Wouldn't you know it, right at the corner of Hollywood and North Highland there's a familiar naked guy in the street. I try to go around Shaky. As I swing past he looks like a granite monolith, a tangle of thorns, a pulsing black hole. Just as I'm about to pass him, the bike sputters, coughs, and stops. The asshole did it. The asshole killed my bike. I put down the kickstand and head for him.

“Just who the fuck do you think you are?”

“The wronged returned for retribution,” he says.

The squad car fishtails to a stop fifty feet from us. The cops get out and hunker down behind the doors. They don't bother with pistols. One has a shotgun and the other an HK rifle.

“Put your hands on your head,” shouts the woman cop.

Shaky looks at me. I shrug.

“I'm not doing it. But you can do what you want.”

He looks at the cops and says, “Die, God's favorites.”

The cops evaporate, like ice dropped into boiling water.

“I could have used that trick five minutes ago.”

Shaky turns back to me.

“Give me the Qomrama. I won't ask again.”

“No.”

“Do you doubt who I am?”

“I know who you are, but it's in my best interest not to give a damn.”

Shaky walks to the corner, by the old Hollywood First National Bank Building. Like a lot of L.A. buildings, it can't decide what it wants to be when it grows up. A weird mix of Gothic, Art Deco, with a little Spanish thrown in, it's the perfect place for Shaky to duck into—­an empty eleven-­story hulk, way past its sell-­by date. Just like him.

Only he doesn't duck inside. Shaky strolls into a wall, softens, spreads out like mist, and merges with the concrete.

I hear his voice in my head.

“Perhaps my godly power will not hurt you as long as you possess the Qomrama, but that does not mean you cannot be hurt.”

The building shakes like we're having another quake, but the street stays perfectly still. It's just the bank that's moving.

The sidewalk around it cracks and splits open. Water pipes burst. Parked cars roll over on their sides. Buildings all up and down the block shatter and collapse.

Slowly, the bank rises up off its foundations. It twists, like an animal shaking a pest off its fur. Then it stands. Yes, the building can stand because it has a kind of human shape now. A grimy concrete, steel, and plate-­glass body. I-­beam and ductwork limbs. On top is a billboard for a new reality-­TV series featuring five freakishly attractive teens. Their ten vacant eyes blink in unison as Shaky surveys his domain.

His voice whispers in my head.

“Die, God's Abomination.”

Shaky swings his massive body, slamming a concrete and rebar fist into the street just a few feet from me. For about two seconds I consider standing my ground and throwing some hoodoo back at him. Instead my ribs throb and I cough a little blood into my mouth and remember that running away is also a good strategy.

I run across the street, and when I turn I see the only thing that might be stranger than a building ready to stomp me into apple butter. It's Mr. Muninn, standing in the middle of the intersection calmly looking up at Shaky like he sees sentient buildings every day of the week.

Only this isn't a Muninn I've seen before. He's yellow, and a little trimmer than the Muninn I know. His face is badly scarred, and when he scans the street with his dead eyes I know who it is.

Fuck this guy. Of course Ruach would show up now that Shaky is going GG Allin all over Hollywood. Better to wreck L.A. than muddy Heaven's golden streets. And lucky me, I'm right in the middle of it all.

Ruach cocks his head this way and that. Blind, he's listening for Shaky, but Muninn said he's half deaf too, so his moves are slow and tentative. But that doesn't mean he's helpless.

Shaky reaches for him and the whole street rumbles and shakes. Ruach swings his arms in Shaky's direction and lets go with a thunderbolt that leaves me blind for a few seconds. When I can see again, Shaky is flat on his back. He slams his concrete-­and-­steel fists into the street, crushing cars and knocking over streetlights, hauling himself back onto his feet. He roars, blowing out windows up and down the boulevard. I put my hands over my ears and watch him lunge at the small figure of Ruach.

The God brother doesn't move as the bank lands on top of him, leaving a deep crater in the intersection. Shaky stands with Ruach in his giant mitt. He raises his arm and slams Ruach into the crater.

For a moment there's only the sound of the rain. Then another thunderbolt explodes from the crater, hitting Shaky full on, shattering the windows in his chest. Plate glass cascades like a shower of diamonds into the street.

This fight has been a long time coming. How long has it been since Ruach and Shaky have seen each other? A few billion years ago when God was still in one piece and he gave the Angras the bum rush out of town. That's a long time to nurse a grudge. It must be the way I feel about Sylvester Stallone after he remade
Get Carter
.

Shaky staggers as Ruach steps out of the crater. He makes a sweeping gesture and the crushed cars and trucks all along one side of Hollywood Boulevard rapid-­fire launch themselves at the bank. Concrete shatters. Steel snaps. But Shaky is still standing, batting away the last few cars with the back of his hand.

He wrenches a huge slab of asphalt from the street and slams it down on Ruach. Stomps it down with his huge foot, buckling the boulevard for a block in each direction.

This could go on all night and wreck half the city. Two partial Gods, duking it out and neither quite strong enough to take the other. Maybe I can do something. Maybe no one needs to sacrifice himself tonight.

I pull Traven's box from my pocket and get out the 8 Ball. The Shonin said it wants to please me, and it's killed for me before. I stare at it, trying to will it to do something, but it just sits there in my hand.

Then shit gets extra interesting.

I don't know if the 8 Ball has a smell or a glow or does a little dance that only Gods can see, but whatever it is, it gets Shaky's attention. He takes a step in my direction. When he does, the ground opens up under him and Ruach pulls him down. He crashes into the street, his body crumbling down one side. Ruach looks like he's heading in for the kill when he stops. The bastard must have picked up the 8 Ball's scent because now he heads my way. But Shaky grabs him and drags him back. I head back up the street, hoping that with them distracted, I can get the bike started again.

A woman staggers up the street in my direction. What's a goddamn civilian doing around here? I head for her, ready to grab her and throw her on the back of the hog.

I get hold of one of her arms and yell, “Come with me.”

She bites me. I push her away and she comes back harder this time, shattered teeth chattering like I'm the last drumstick at Thanksgiving.

If I wasn't trying to dodge a ­couple of angry Gods, I might have looked her over before I got too close. The Eater in her chop-­shop body doesn't appreciate my dime-­store chivalry and lets me know by trying to gnaw my arm off.

I'm hurt and I don't have time for this noise. I shove the 8 Ball in her face. The moment it touches her she screams. I pull the Qomrama back, drawing the Eater out of her body. As it dies, the woman face-­plants in the street.

I head back for the bike, but Ruach is headed there too. I'd bet that, even blind, he saw the 8 Ball light up like a flare and he knows exactly where to find me. He runs toward me, his scarred yellow body glowing into holy fire. I hold up the 8 Ball and it just seems to make him angrier. There's nowhere for me to run.

“Father.”

Ruach slows and looks around.

“Father, what are you doing wasting time with this mortal? Your enemy is behind you.”

Samael walks calmly across the shattered boulevard to stand beside me.

Ruach points.

“He used the Godeater.”

“Not on you.”

Ruach starts to say something else when a concrete hand the size of a truck grabs him and pulls him away.

“This might be a good moment to leave,” says Samael.

“Hold on a second. I have an idea.”

I grab the Hellion hog and roll it off the street, hiding it in a flooded restaurant, between the broken furniture and the islands of rotting arugula.

“Come on,” I say. “And grab her.”

Samael frowns.

“Where are we going and who is this?”

“Just grab her.”

I head for where the cops went down. There's no trace of them and no keys in the car. I pull out the black blade and jam it into the ignition. Turn it hard. The engine revs loud and strong.

Samael trots to the car with the woman's body in his arms. I open the passenger door.

“I don't have a key to the backseat.”

“Please,” he says, a little disgusted.

He touches the door and it pops open. Right. Locks. An easy trick for angels. He tosses the chop-­shop body into the back and settles on the passenger seat.

“This is fun,” he says. “Are we on a scavenger hunt?”

I throw the car into reverse and floor it. Water geysers on both sides as I twist the car into the clumsiest one-­eighty in the history of car theft, pop it into drive, and head back across town. Ruach and Shaky are still throwing
kaiju
kung fu in the rearview mirror as I break every speed law in L.A. county.

“Are you going to tell me where we're going?” says Samael.

“You're about to save the world. But give me a minute, I have to make a call.”

I get out my phone and thumb Candy's number.

“Hey. Where are you?” she says.

“How are you feeling?”

“A lot better. Is anything wrong? You sound out of breath.”

“Everything's fine. I just wanted to check in on you.”

“That's sweet. Do you have my ice cream?”

“Not exactly. But I have a corpse and a few hundred hellhounds. And I stole a cop car.”

“That's fun. Pick me up. We'll toss a coin to see who gets the handcuffs first. A car will be harder to break than furniture, but maybe more fun.”

“Sounds great, but I'm sort of busy right now. I did mention the corpse and hellhounds, right?”

“Fine. Be a drag. But come home soon. I don't want to spend my last hours on Earth drinking peppermint tea with Kasabian.”

“Peppermint tea?”

“I'm still a little dizzy. Peppermint helps.”

“I'm living with a hippie.”

“Shut up, thief. For once don't forget to wipe your prints off the car before you ditch it.”

“Anything else, dear?”

“Seriously, if it looks like things aren't going to work out, come home.”

“They're going to work out.”

“But if they don't.”

“I'll be there.”

“What's the corpse for?”

“A long shot. Got to go.”

“Don't forget the handcuffs.”

“I know. And ice cream.”

I hang up. I don't have the heart to tell her that the handcuffs disappeared with the cops.

I
DITCH THE
car across from Vidocq and Allegra's apartment, remembering to wipe down the steering wheel on the off chance that the world doesn't end.

“Let's go,” I say.

“Where to?”

“The Room of Thirteen Doors.”

I leave the headlights on and take Samael in through a shadow.

He takes a long look around the place.

“Thirteen doors. How charmingly literal. But it's a bit dreary, don't you think? I thought you might have brought in a carpet or at least a table with some flowers on it by now.”

“When you fêng-­shui Hell, I'll call you for decorating advice.”

He points to something near the Door of Drunken Eternity.

“What are those?”

“Those are mine.”

He walks over and peers down at them.

“One is the Singularity, isn't it? I don't recognize the other.”

“It's the Mithras.”

He nods, impressed.

“So that's where it went. Planning on having a cookout?”

“Only if I have to.”

“I'm glad all our fates are in the hands of someone whose decisions are so nuanced and well thought out.”

Samael walks around the entire room, touching each door as he goes.

I say, “You know how you opened the cop-­car door? I need you to do the opposite here. Seal these doors. Use whatever powers you have to lock them tight so they can never be opened again.”

He raps on the last door with his knuckles.

“This one is already sealed.”

“That's the Door to Nothing. I sealed it, but I didn't know what I was doing. I need it done right.”

“Why?”

“It's where the Kissi lived.”

He makes a face.

“You did us all a favor locking them out. What's that door?”

“The Door to Fire. Listen, we don't have time for a full tour.”

“This is probably the last chance I'll get to see the place.”

“Me too, so stop whining.”

I check the time on my phone. It's nine thirty.

“Make sure you bring Mr. Muninn and Chaya to Pershing Square by ten.”