“I have a job I think you’d be uniquely suited for.”
“What kind of job?”
“It might be dangerous.”
“I figured that when you wanted me and not Vidocq or one of your marshal buddies. What you want is someone disposable. Someone off the grid who won’t be missed when whatever this is goes balls-up.”
“You’re way off. I want you because I think you’re the only person in L.A. with the skill set needed to handle this particular situation.”
“When someone says ‘skill set’ I get nervous. Just tell me what this is.”
“It’s a demonic possession. An exorcism went wrong and a boy is missing.”
I get up to leave.
“Thanks for getting me here for nothing. I’m gone.”
Candy puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You, too?” I say.
“Just let her finish.”
I look at Sola.
“I don’t do exorcisms or bounty-hunt demons. The Vigil got me mixed up in a demon skip trace and it ended with me and Brigitte gnawed on by a roomful of Drifters.”
She nods.
“I know. But that was Wells and this is me. There are no tricks here. No hidden agendas. Just a kid who needs your help.”
“I don’t think so. I think you’re the one who needs help. You sent the kid a demon jacker, but he blew it and the kid ended up worse than before. Now you want someone to clean up your mess.”
She picks up her coffee, takes a sip, and sets it back down. She doesn’t look at me when she starts talking.
“You’re right. Okay? There. I said it. I need you to fix up my screw-up.”
The muscles in her shoulders and the back of her neck are tight. Her breathing has gone a little shallow and rapid. Her heartbeat’s up. If I trusted her, I’d swear she’s telling the truth.
Sola shakes her head.
“I don’t know what happened and neither does Father Traven. Have you heard of him? The Vigil had him on retainer for freelance exorcisms. He’s the real deal. A genuine old-school demon ass-kicker. Only this time the demon kicked back harder.”
“Why come to me? Why not get another priest? Or a houngan or one of those old nyu wu witches in Chinatown? They love this kind of thing.”
“I tried to get another priest, but when word got out that I was working with Father Traven, none of them would talk to me.”
“Now you’ve finally said something interesting. What’s wrong with your snake handler?”
“He was excommunicated.”
I turn to Vidocq.
“Did you know about this? You were a nice Catholic boy. This is big-time stuff. Is there anything worse than an excommunicated priest?”
“Yes. One who’s not excommunicated.”
I get out a Malediction and light it. I look at Carlos. State law says I’m not supposed to smoke in here, but he gives me a don’t-sweat-it shake of his head.
“What did Traven do? Skim from the collection plate? Oil-wrestle altar boys?”
Julia shakes her head.
“Nothing like that. Father Traven is a p#x2raven ialeolinguist. He specializes in translating ancient religious texts and deciphering dead languages.”
“Let me guess. Instead of collecting stamps for a hobby, he translated a book the Church didn’t approve of and got nailed for it.”
“Something like that. It was one book in particular that got him into trouble, but he won’t talk about it. However, none of that has anything to do with the fact he’s an experienced and extremely successful exorcist.”
“So what went wrong with the kid?”
She sits down on one of the bar stools. Shakes her head and drops her hands to the bar.
“Your guess is as good as mine. The exorcism seemed to be going well, and Hunter—Hunter Sentenza, the possessed boy—was doing well. His color was coming back. The voices had stopped. There wasn’t a trace of fire.”
“Fire?”
“We didn’t actually see it, but there was a symbol burned into the ceiling over his bed. There weren’t any matches or lighters in his room. We think it was done by the demon possessing the boy. His hands and face were blistered.”
“What’s the symbol look like?”
“Old. I didn’t recognize it. Father Traven can tell you more about it.”
“What happened next?”
“It felt like we were reaching the end. Traven was sure that he had the demon under control and almost had it out. Before that, Hunter had been speaking in tongues. But then he seemed all right. He was calm and breathing normally. All of a sudden he grabbed Father Traven and tossed him across the room. Hunter levitated a few feet over the bed and shouted, ‘I won’t be locked in.’ After that, things got weird.”
“After that?”
“Hunter fell back onto the bed and didn’t move. I didn’t know if he was passed out or dead. As I helped Father Traven to his feet, the kid started singing.”
“ ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’?”
She shakes her head, a knowing little smile curling the edges of her lips.
“It was an old Chordettes song. It went, ‘Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream, make him the cutest that I’ve ever seen.’ ”
I can’t help but laugh.
“That’s what this is. You think the demon knows me.”
“Any idea who it might be?”
“I haven’t had much experience with them.” I try to think. Run over all my kills. There are so many. They run together like a dark stinking river.
“I might have killed a demon every now and then, but it’s not like they have distinct personalities. They’re like bugs. Who remembers stepping on a bug?”
“Maybe the song was a fluke, but I doubt it. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
I look her in the eye, take a drag on the Malediction, and blow it out.
“I’m going to Max Overdrive and find an Andrews Sisters musical. Then I’m going to the hotel, put it on, and drink steadily for the rest of the day.”
I stand up to leave, but Vidocq grabs my arm. He might look old, but he’s been using his muscles for over a century. His grip is like a claw lifter at a wrecking yard.
“Give me the folder,” he tells Julia.
Sola pulls a beige manila envelope from a shoulder bag she’d left on the bar.
Vidocq pushes me over to the bar and pulls something out of the folder. It’s a picture of a teenage boy in a school robe. Maybe a high school graduation shot. He’s smiling at the camera. Straight white teeth and messy brown hair under the graduation cap. He looks like the kind of kid who’d be captain of the track team. I hate him. Healthy, happy, popular jock. My natural enemy in school. On the other hand, he’s not someone I’d pick to square-dance with demons.
Vidocq says, “This is the boy we’ve been discussing. His name is Hunter. He’s nineteen. The same age you were when you were dragged to Hell. Tell me, Jimmy, did that experience improve your life? I don’t think so. Are you going to walk away and let what happened to you happen to this boy?”
There’s acid in the back of my throat. A whirlpool of anger and fear in my head as the nineteen-year-old kid I keep buried under the floorboards in my head, way deeper in the dark than the angel, struggles up to where I can’t help but look at him. Total Nam flashback time and I’m feeling things I didn’t know I could still feel. The dry, brittle arms gliding out from under the floor in Mason’s house, wrapping around me and dragging me Downtown. Sensations of falling. Crashing onto a blood- and shit-stained backstreet in Pandemonium. Trying to clear my head and focus as a thousand new smells, sounds, and the perpetually twilight sky hit me. Then the slow realization of where I was and the gleeful looks on the Hellions’ faces.
I toss the photo back onto the bar.
Lying there in that Hellion street, I had a strange sensation, like some primal and essential thing inside me youg insidhad cracked and everything I ever was or ever might have been—my name, my hopes, Alice, my whole ridiculous life—was turning black and falling apart like rotten fruit. When it was done there was nothing left inside me but the numb hopelessness of a corpse. Not much to build a new life on but it was all I had when I realized the Hellions weren’t going to murder me right away. Maybe that’s why killing is so easy for me and why I’ve been hiding with a dead man in one room over a store since I crawled back here. There’s not enough of me left to do anything else.