“I’m going to Teddy Osterberg’s. I’m not letting that corpse fucker kill one more person. If you’re going to be part of what I do, you have to understand this is how things are sometimes. I’m used to bleeding and being hurt and they don’t have a damn thing to do with finishing the job.”
She stalks away, spins, and walks back again.
“You’re such a fucking guy. I bet you never stop and ask for directions.”
“If I stopped and asked for directions, I wouldn’t end up in Hell so much and where’s the fun in that?”
Candy gets in the car, which is a good thing because the ground trembles and opens where she was standing. I go to the edge of the hole.
“Not now, Cherry.”
“The girl is on a rampage. You have to save us.”
“Up here too. She’s not going to stop until I get Teddy, so crawl back into your box and hide.”
“If you don’t kill her, I’ll never leave you alone. I’ll pull the floor out from under you and drop you so low you’ll be a cripple . . .”
I get in the Metro while Cherry is still talking. Traven looks a little alarmed.
“You were talking to a hole. Why?”
“Sometimes you need to remind the dead to stay dead. Maybe I hurt her feelings. She’ll get over it.”
“Who?”
“After we deal with Teddy, I’ll tell you all about it. Now please, can we just fucking go?”
Traven starts the car and pulls away from Blackburn’s, aiming us at Malibu.
“Why do we hate Teddy so much that we have to go there now instead of patching you up?”
“Teddy kills people and eats them and I don’t know if he does it in that order. And if he keeps killing dreamers, the world is over.”
Traven nods.
“I understand. But maybe we could stop and at least get you some bandages?”
“Also, Teddy seems to have a real taste for kids.”
Traven stops the car.
“Drive, Father.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t just leave you bleeding. I have towels in the trunk. You can at least staunch your wounds.”
“Fine.”
Traven pops the trunk and Candy grabs a couple of towels. I stuff them under the armor. The pressure feels good but I can’t help wondering a little if Traven doesn’t want me leaking all over the back of his car.
While Traven drives, Candy reaches between the seats and squeezes my bloody hand. I squeeze hers back.
What am I supposed to think about someone like Teddy Osterberg? I want to kill him but I want to understand him. Maybe that makes me weak. Maybe it’s just self-serving. Teddy is a stone-cold son-of-a-bitch killer. I want to look into his eyes and cross my fingers and hope I don’t see myself looking back. Which me would it be? Stark? Sandman Slim? Lucifer?
As much as I hate this guy, I can’t get rid of the image of those Hellion skins hanging loose and limp around the palace in Pandemonium. Maybe that’s the joke and has been all along. I go after a ghoul with all kinds of righteous fury, but looking back at all the things I’ve done, what if I’m there too, gnawing on skulls right along with Teddy? Just another ghoul in love with the dead.
I hid a lot of myself from Alice and I’ve hidden what I did in Hell from Candy. I know the monster part of myself. I love it and I hate it. Sometimes I’m ashamed of it. I don’t want to be Teddy, sitting on a hill by himself with only his ghosts and corpses for company. Being a real monster is easy enough on your own but not so much when you have something to lose. When this is over, I’m taking Candy back to the Chateau Marmont and get good and drunk and tell her a long story about how I spent my summer vacation in Hell. I should have done it earlier. It’s one thing to congratulate yourself for saving Wild Bill and maybe a couple of other souls from torture but it’s another to let someone who thinks they know you in on your dirty secrets about the bodies in gibbets and wet skins flapping like flags on the Fourth of July. That’s how you don’t become Teddy. You lay it all out and let others decide if they want to hang around the graveyard with you or catch the bus back to town.
Thank God for whiskey or the world would be so full of secrets the weight would spin us into the sun.