He trails off and smokes the Malediction.
I wish I could read minds like Lucifer. I can hear Traven’s heart beating fast. He’s feeling the mixture of cold and fear that’s excitement. He half knows what’s coming and he’s not sure if he can handle it. That’s me in the arena, waiting for the gates to open to see what I’m going up against in this episode of Kick Stark’s Ass. After a while you learn to live with the fear and ignore it, but it’s never a hundred percent gone. But some kinds of fear can make you more than you are. You face down something bigger than yourself and maybe come out of it with scars, but you’re a little stronger for it. There are other fears that are like a hole in your center where pieces of your soul go down the drain. That kind of fear has nothing to do with the knock-down-drag-out in the arena. That’s the horror of finally knowing how things really are. Who has the power and how they love tossing it around at C;Yt arouneveryone who doesn’t have it.
Every one of us, human and monster alike, lives with an angelic boot on our throats. But we don’t see it, so we forget about it and limp along doing the stupid little things that make up our stupid little lives. Then the boot comes down on your gut, squeezing the air out of your lungs and cracking your bones like old matchsticks. And you know the only reason it’s happening is because you’re not one of the celestials on high. You’re suffering with the worst curse of all. You’re alive. We’re just bugs on God’s windshield. That’s all we are. Annoying. Disposable. A dime a dozen.
Traven says, “You toss it all off so easily. Men enslaving angels. Humans challenging both Lucifer and God. And you say you’re a nephilim, something I don’t even know if I believe in.”
“Don’t worry, Father. I believe in you.”
He’s talking about me, but it’s not what he means. I can hear it in the almost inaudible tremors in his voice.
“Ask the question, Father.”
“What do I have to look forward to in Hell? Do they have special amusements for ex-priests?”
I should have gone easier on him. The poor guy is ex-communicated. To him that means he already has one foot in the coal cart to the hot country.>“Not particularly. He liked the big construction machines when he was little.”
Fucking fascinating. This family is in training for the Tedious Olympics.
“Are you developing anything new? Anything unusual?” asks Candy. Nice. She has good instincts for this Sherlock Holmes stuff. Me, I’m about ready to take her back to the hotel and break more furniture.
“What do you mean ‘unusual’?”
“You’re the builder,” I say. “We don’t know a dump truck from the Batmobile. You tell us.”
K.W.’s eyes unfocus. Make microscopic movements back and forth in their sockets. It’s an involuntary thing. The brain trying to access memories. If he was lying, his eyes would favor his left side, but they don’t.
K.W. shrugs.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. We’re finishing a housing development. Upgrading the fixtures in a strip mall. We’re about to break ground on an office park near the 405.”
“Okay, the jobs are boring. Are your clients? Any eccentrics? Odd requests? Anyone paying you in magic beans?”
He thinks again. His eyes stop and hold steady.
“There’s only one thing I can think of and it’s not really odd. It’s just not something that happens every day.”
“Tell us,” says Vidocq.
ight="0" width="12" align="left">“A client called for a fix-up on a business property. What was unusual was that I never met her or a rep in person. We did everything on the phone. It was like she was one person handling everything herself. That’s unusual in this business.”
“What was her name?” I ask.
He frowns.
“I can’t remember. My secretary would know.”
“What did she hire you to do?”
“She wanted us to renovate and restore an old commercial site in the Hollywood Hills. It was a big job, too. There was extensive fire damage, but she wanted us to fix it rather than tear it down. It was something historic. An old gentlemen’s club. That I remember. It’s not a phrase you hear too often these days.”
I put down my coffee and Vidocq picks up his. Candy and I look at each other.
“Did she tell you the name of the club?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Was it Avila?”