Every couple of minutes a lone man runs across the street. He’s easy to spot when everyone else is going half speed. When he’s settled somewhere he whistles an all clear. Soon a group of eight or ten Hellions comes up the same way. A mix of men and women, they whoop it up, running into stores, busting the places up, and coming out again with stolen wine and food. The ones with working guns take potshots at cars and store windows.
Jack says, “Raiders.”
He starts running for the back of a half-burned building off to our right. I follow. When he can’t get the rear door open, I push him out of the way, jam the black blade into the door frame, and push. Metal pops and wood splinters. I shove Jack inside and we head to the front of the place. The door is open a crack, giving us a good view of the street.>I look up to where Jack is pointing. There’s something in the distance, but I’m damned if I know what it is.
Venice is shuttered and looks like it’s been that way for fifty years. The only light in the area comes from the fires reflected off the belly of the endless black clouds overhead. Vents in the ground belch geysers of superheated steam. Fire twisters skitter in the distance, tearing up the empty beach houses. We head down to the long tourist walk.
“You’re wondering if I’m lying about who I am, Mr. Stark. Or if I’m a nutter.”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re wondering how someone might go about proving or disproving my claim.”
“Right on the money.”
Even by Hell standards we’ve pretty much pegged the bleak meter. There’s nothing more depressing than a dead beach town. It’s like all the loons and extroverts and dimwit fun in the world has been boxed up and tossed on a bonfire. Of course, this isn’t really Venice. It’s just the Convergence projection of it. Still, something big died here and the sight of it has sucked the wind out of me. Or maybe I’m light-headed from cutting off my face. We move past empty weight-lifting areas and out-of-business tattoo parlors.
Jack says, “It’s impossible for me to prove who I am. Perhaps I’m mad. Perhaps I’m a liar. If you perhaps had a book about old Jack’s comings and goings, you might ask me details of my past. But you don’t have a book and even if you did, Jack is a famous man. His crimes are well known and well documented. I might have read the same books as you.”
“Where does that leave us, Jack?”
“In the wilderness, I’m afraid. I can no more prove to you that I’m happy Jack than you can prove to me you’re Sandman Slim.”
“Excuse me? I just stepped out of a shadow and killed five Hellion military officers. I took a Hellion general prisoner. I manifested a Gladius.”
Jack rubs his jaw and rolls his shoulders, still trying to work out the kinks. I wonder how long he was in Mammon’s cage.
He says, “Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. I’m not a magical sort like you and some of these other folk, so I don’t know how it all works, do I?”
“Use your imagination.”
“You appeared to kill a number of soldiers and to dash through shadows, but it could have been a trick of the eye. I’ve seen stage magicians make furniture dance and spirits float in the air. And I’ve seen this lot make people see all sorts of things. Lovers, friends, parents. Spiders. Snakes. But they were mere phantasms. Trickery meant to fool the eye and terrorize the soul. For all I know, you twiddled your thumbs and tricked Master Mammon’s staff into killing each other.”
“That would still be a pretty good trick.”
“Indeed it would be. I’ve seen demons and devils that could break a man’s bones on the rack or his heart with a single word. But that doesn’t make any of them Sandman Slim.”
“When you get down to it, I don’t really care who you are. If you can get me to Eleusis, I’ll call you Jack the Ripper or Mott the Hoople if you want. Just get me there.”
“Of course. And what will be my payment for this service?”
I stop and look at him. Jack walks on for a few steps before looking back at me. He puts his hands in his pockets and stands up straight. The whole deferential attitude is gone. He’s a killer standing his ground.
“Payment? And here I thought saving you from a tin-can coffin might cover it.”
“Perhaps. Let’s put our minds to it as we go and see what we come up with, shall we?”
He starts walking and I follow, staring at the thick foamy sea that looks more like tar than water. I should have tried to get the car started. But on the road the posse would have caught up with us. So no, leaving it was the smart move.
“Okay, Jack, I’ve got to ask. Assuming you are old Leather Apron, what’s your story? Did the clap eat half your brain? Were you a religious freak? Did a talking dog named Sam tell you to kill all those women?”
“There is no God and I know noandnd I knthing about a talking dog, though I’d surely like to see one.”
“You’re an atheist? You were a fallen angel’s slave. In Hell. And you’re an atheist? Walk me through that, Jack.”
“Why is it necessary for God to exist for Hell to exist? The problem is that when good people imagine Hell, they imagine it as the opposite of the real world and as remote as the stars. That’s their delusionment. Hell and earth are the same thing. Separated by nothing more than a thin shroud of understanding that this is so. I lived in Hell every moment I dwelt on the other earth and I made it my business to bring Hell to all God-fearing souls to remind them that horror is the fabric from which the world was made.”
“You didn’t date a lot when you were alive, did you, Jack?”