Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

She wants to stop me from taking Johnny. The Stark part of me understands her wanting to protect someone she cares about. The not-Stark knows how easy it would be to kill her and Tracy and how simple it would be to justify. What are their silly lives worth versus a whole city? But it won’t come to that. They won’t try to stop me. The resignation is in their eyes and body postures. Their breathing. It’s hard for them. They’re both brave and they want to be heroic, but they know they’ve already lost. Johnny said he wants to go and they know I can take him. The gun is just a gesture. More for their benefit than mine. It’s something Stark would do. Use a prop and bluster to cover up for what he knows he can’t do.

“I’m ready to go.”

Johnny is standing by his door in clean sweats and sneakers. He has a wool skullcap pulled down almost to his eyebrows. He looks like an emo kid who went off his meds.

“You look good, Johnny. I’m glad you’re coming.”

“Me, too. I haven’t seen the Backbone since they took me out.”

“You remember the way?”

He laughs.

“I remember where Beverly Hills is. Do you have a car?”

“I can get us one.”

“Great.”

He turns to Fiona and Tracy.

“How do I look? Will I pass?”

“You look good, Johnny,” Fiona says. “Stick close to Stark, especially if there are people around. And don’t talk to anyone. If anything happens, you come right back here. Okay?”

Tracy looks at me.

“He hasn’t been outside without us since he’s been here. I don’t know if he’s ever been outside without one of his minders. You’ll take care of him, right?”

“We’re going to his territory, so he’ll be fine. In between here and there I’ll look after him.”

Tracy gets close and whispers.

“As far as I know, Johnny’s never seen one of his kind get put down. If you gut a zed in front of him, I don’t know how he’ll react.”

“I don’t think it’ll come to that. I’m getting better at talking to Drifters.”

“I hope so.”

I try to ignore them as they say their sappy good-byes. I look out the window and listen to corpses digging L.A. out from under our feet. Maybe we’ve been lied to all these years. The San Andreas Fault doesn’t exist. Maybe earthquakes are just the dead turning over in their sleep.

Johnny is next to me.

“Should we go?”

I nod.

“Sure.”

He follows me outside. A moment later the door closes and someone throws the dead bolt. I take Johnny downstairs and boost a Hummer parked in the lot by McQueen and Sons. Normally, I hate these suburban G.I. Joe land barges, but tonight seems like a good night to be surrounded by three tons of metal.

“Where to?”

He gives me an address on West Pico at the edge of Beverly Hills. I pull out into traffic and head for the Jackal’s Backbone.

THE FIRES AREN’T just to the south anymore. They’re spreading all over the city. LAPD chopper searchlights rip up the sky. I turn on the radio. It’s exactly what you’d expect at the end of the world. Panicky chatter about mass murder. Something new and bad running wild in the streets. Is it a CIA experiment gone wrong—super crack seeded into “undesirable” neighborhoods—or a new strain of Book of Revelation rabies? The freeways are bumper-to-bumper. Nothing’s moving. Just one big box-lunch buffet for flesh eaters. Cop cars and ambulances tear through the city like speed-freak banshees. I turn off the radio. People sprint through the traffic in ones and twos. Sometimes small groups. They aren’t going anywhere. They’re just running.

My cell rings. I know it’s Kasabian or Lucifer, so I don’t bother checking the ID.