There’s rubble everywhere, but we’re not in the worst of the wreckage. The big concrete slabs were probably dumped there during the time when the construction crew was looking for bodies. In the dim light, the random piles of stones make the place look like a haute couture Pompeii. We’re moving in a single small pool of light. Our footsteps echo off the walls. Insects buzz around our heads.
We go through a food court the size of a football stadium. The place hasn’t been looted. It’s been ripped to pieces by people looking for every spare corn dog and chicken wing they could find. Farther on are the dried remains of an old water park. Slides, fountains, and indoor surfing with an artificial wave machine. Nails and hooks have been driven into the walls, and clothes, all rotten now, hang in the dark. Crushed cans and plastic bottles litter the floor. People used to wash and haul water to their little fiefdoms from here. A desiccated body lies in the bone-dry fountain. The skull is crushed. Dried blood spray on the fallen concrete and in patches on the floor. I bet this was where they used to hold bazaars and where someone broke the truce big-time. I have a bad feeling I know who did it and we’re strolling right to them.
Paper crunches under our feet. Images torn from books and magazines are glued to the floor in patterns. The pages have bubbled up, are slick in the humid air, but a clear path is laid out through them. A long straight line, then a tight turn to the left. The path doubles back on itself several times in smaller and smaller curves. The pattern stretches out all round us in a circle thirty or more feet across. It’s a complex maze with a kind of cloverleaf at the center. A labyrinth. A meditation path, like you see in some old churches. The path of this labyrinth is paved with photos of the world outside Kill City. Hollywood. New York. Paris. Mountains. Someone doesn’t want to forget where they came from. The world as a holy relic. It’s funny to think of L.A.’s short con streets as some poor slob’s idea of Heaven, but there it is.
Father Traven’s light dips as he trips and almost goes down. Brigitte, right beside him, grabs him before he falls. I should have looked him over better when we got out of the van. He might be sleep-deprived, coming off the booze. Also, this is a pretty odd place to drag someone who’s spent his life in libraries. Was it a mistake bringing him? Brigitte never gets too far from him and I don’t think she would have let him come if she thought he couldn’t handle it. Still, I need to keep my eye on him.
I move the beam of my small LED flashlight over the empty storefronts as we move beyond the food court. They look ancient. Like caves for Neanderthals. This is the part of town the Flintstones don’t come to after dark.
Sofa cushions lashed together are makeshift beds for whoever lived there. Pits for cook fires are gouged out of the linoleum floors. Gray piles of ash dumped outside the folding-glass doors.
Scuffling sounds and a whisper come from a derelict high-end stereo store. Something glitters inside. Eyes. I look around at the other stores. Lots more eyes in there. I pull the Colt and cock the hammer, holding it up so everyone can see.
“Sit back and watch the show, folks. Do nothing more.”
We walk for over an hour, sticking to shadows when we can. We only move out into the open when there’s no other way around piles of rubble. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can hear footsteps keeping pace with us one or two floors up. I walk closer to Hattie.
“Friends?”
She shakes her head.
“No one to be worried about. A mongrel Lurker pack. Bunch of softies. We’ve put them in their place before.”
Diogo and some of the other boys throw stones up into the dark. They bounce off the walls and shatter already broken windows. You can tell from the sound that they never hit whoever’s following us.
One of Hattie’s other sons, a tall boy she called Doolittle, drops his pants and moons the upper floors. A second later, a stone flies down from the dark and hits him in the ass. He screams and curses. Hattie cuffs him on the ear.
“That’s what you get when you act a fool.”
Up ahead comes the unmistakable sound of skin slamming into skin. Boots colliding with something soft. Heavy, short breaths. Three gulping air hard. One grunting and coughing as each kick threatens to collapse bruised lungs. I run toward the sound.
The three on their feet look like extra-hard-luck street people. Layers of filthy coats and patched pants give them the look of bears in wino costumes. Whoever is on the floor is trying to fight back, throwing kicks and punches, but from that angle they don’t have enough power to make the grizzlies back off.
Still running, I kick the closest one in the small of the back and he goes down on his face, teeth or something else important clattering across the tile floor. The one on my right swings a wedge of scalpel-sharp glass mounted on the end of a chair leg. I punch him in the throat, take the homemade hatchet, and slam the wooden grip into his knees, knocking him off his feet. The last of the guys is smaller than the other two. He has a butcher knife, and by the way he moves, it looks like he knows how to use it. I point the Colt between his eyes.
“Put it on the ground.”
He does it.
“Now scoot before I get a finger cramp and this thing goes off.”
He backs away slowly until he’s out of the light. I hear someone running away and put the gun back in my pocket.
Whoever was taking the beating is still on the floor, but at least his eyes are open. He’s skinny. Young-looking and small. Not much bigger than a kid. He’s dressed from head to toe in dirty, loose gray clothes that look like heavy pajamas.
“You okay?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“I don’t think they’ll be back for a while. You can get up.”
The kid struggles to his feet, holding his left elbow tight to his side. His face is bruised and bloody, his upper lip swollen.
“You got a name?”
He moves slightly to his right. Hesitates. That’s when I see the sword lying a few feet away. The kid dives for it, rolling more gracefully than I would have expected with his injuries. The blade is beautiful. Perfect, polished steel. It glints in the harsh LED light. Maybe the kid knows that. He flashes it, making several passes, light shining from the flat of the blade and leaving trails in the air. For a second I’m blind and I put my hand in my pocket for my gun. By the time I can see again, the kid is gone. Quiet little bastard. I didn’t hear a thing.
From behind me Candy says, “Friend of yours?”