“Have you ever seen one of these before?” he says.
I glance at the box.
“It’s very pretty. If it’s a hope chest, you’re one depressed fuck.”
“Look closer.”
I hold it up to the light coming in from the parking lot lights. The box is lacquered black wood rimmed with gold and ornate flourishes that I recognize instantly.
“It was made in Hell. That doesn’t mean I know what it is.”
“Open it.”
I set the box on the passenger seat, well away from me. Pop the latch and push the top back with the tip of my knife. Nothing explodes. No poison gas or hungry ghosts. Inside the box is a padded compartment holding a glass vial full of a watery black substance.
“Okay. I found it. What is it?”
He leans forward again, groaning.
“They need it.”
“Who?”
“The rebel angels.”
I put the vial back in the box and look at him.
“That makes you one of the good guys. How do I know you’re not gaslighting me?”
“Listen,” he says. “I’m dying. There are many of us loyal angels left, but I’m not sure enough. If we fall, the rebel angels will bar all human souls from entering Heaven.”
“What about the ones already there?”
“I doubt they’ll last long.”
“And this black ink is supposed to mean something to me?”
“Black milk, it’s called. No human will enter Heaven as long as they have it.”
The angel looks at his hands. They’re shiny with blood.
“We’re near a friend’s clinic. You should let me take you.”
“It’s too late for that.”
I’m not going to argue. Angels don’t take it well. “What am I supposed to do with this stuff?”
The angel shakes his head.
“I was hoping you’d recognize it. Find out what it is. Find out how to destroy it.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t get to Hell anymore. I’ve lost the Room. I’m as landlocked as any of these other mortal assholes.”
He frowns at me.
“You can’t travel to Hell. You can’t find the secret of the black milk.” He drops his head. “We were so afraid of you once. Abomination, we called you. Now look at you. When you were a monster at least you were good for something. What good are you now?”
I ask myself that every night I get into bed with Candy. But I’m not going to tell this halo polisher about it. When I look at him, he’s staring straight at me.
“Where are you going tonight?”
“None of your business.”
“You used to be an honest monster. Now you keep secrets from your friends. Your lover. Probably from yourself.”
“If you know me so well you know I don’t take advice from angels.”
“Not advice. Merely an observation. Before I came here, Father—Mr. Muninn—wanted me to tell you to follow your instincts. But do you have any left I wonder.”
The clown is getting to me. I want to kick him out, but I remember being bloody and ready to die in the arena. And I can’t kick an angel out in the street, especially not near a church. For all their God talk, the last people alive who want to meet an angel are church types. Show them that Heaven isn’t all gossamer robes and harp recitals and they’ll hallelujah their lunch right into the toilet.
“Look. I’ll get this stuff checked out, but I don’t know what you or Muninn expect me to do after that.”
But when I look up, Karael is gone. Angels do that when they die. Blip out of existence like they were never there. I look at the box, close it, and put it in my pocket. Asshole angel that he was, he died to bring me this sludge. Black milk. I’ll show it to Vidocq tomorrow. Right now I have to get across town. I’m late and I can’t afford to miss tonight. It’s funny, though. Arguing with an angel, my headache disappeared. Now that he’s gone, I can feel it crawling back behind my eyes.
I need the cure and I need it soon.
For a second, I wonder about Alessa waiting for her cab. Could she be in on this? Was she there to distract me from Karael in the backseat? If there’s something more going on with her—more than playing guitar with Candy—I’m going to find out what. Until then, it’s time to get on the road. I start the car and head back into traffic, hoping that whatever kind of ectoplasm Karael leaked onto my seats will come off with soap. Heaven might be at war, but that doesn’t mean angels get to fuck up my car.
HE COMES AT me low, puts his weight behind the punch, and slams it in under my ribs. I let him do it. I like the feel of the blow, my muscles screaming, the breath rushing from my lungs. I relax into the pain. It’s something real and tangible, and unlike the headaches, these punches, elbows, and kicks deliver a completely different kind of pain. The headaches make me weak at the knees. This Hulk Hogan stuff, I can grab on to and choke the life out of.
The guy coming at me is built like a battleship welded together from fat and blind fury. Whatever he does for a living, he needs a new job. Whoever he’s married to needs to get a ticket back home to Mom because the SS Shithead here is not fit for human company. I guess that’s why he was the only one who wanted to fight me tonight. There are a couple of dozen other guys in the abandoned high school, but none stepped up. I’ve beaten most of the others down here in the fight pit. No one knows who I am down here, but I’ve laid out enough of them that it’s mostly the new guys and the crazy ones who want to go at me. I’m not exactly a big guy—people call me Slim for a reason—but most of the weekend gladiators down here are scared off by my scars. But the ones who step up—the crazy ones—they’re the cure for a sane life. My best friends and the only elixir for a Trotsky headache.
The only thing I worry about is my left arm. The Kissi one, an inhuman prosthetic that looks more like it belongs on a Terminator insect than a person. That’s a problem.
My buddy Manimal Mike makes mechanical-animal familiars, though. He’s good with fake skin and made me a sheath so my freak-show left arm matches my right. As far as anyone here knows, I’m just ugly, scarred meat that, like them, is looking to blow off a little steam.
I let the battleship thunder a right cross into my chin. It’s gorgeous. A work of art. For a second, I see stars and choirs of angels. The harder he hits me, the more he loosens the icepicks behind my eyes.
Unfortunately, right when I’m having fun, the big guy decides to get stupid. I’ve let him hit me enough that he thinks I’m out on my feet and his mean streak is kicking in. When he punches my face he sticks out his thumbs, hoping to gouge out an eye. I shove him back a few feet to get his attention. He thinks it’s just muscle memory. That I’m punched out. I give him one more chance to fight like a human being.
But he does it again. I feel his thumbnail catch skin and tear open a slit over my eye. The sight of blood turns him from asshole into animal and he rushes me, hoping to rip the cut open more so the blood blinds me. It’s a decent strategy, but he’s too big, too dumb, and too slow.
When he swings, I duck his first punch, then block the jab he throws with his other hand. While he’s still surprised I give him a shot in the Adam’s apple. Hit there hard enough and you can collapse someone’s trachea and they’ll choke to death, spitting blood the whole time. But I just hit hard enough so that he won’t be able to breathe for a couple of minutes.
The battleship staggers back and I close on him, jamming a fist into his gut, then an uppercut when the first punch bends him over. He falls to his knees and I hope he’s going to stay down, but the dumb animal doesn’t know he’s beat. He pushes himself up and runs at me like a bull with a bottle rocket tied to his balls. I wait until he’s almost on me, then jump, slamming my knee up into his jaw. This time when he goes down his eyes are pinwheels and his brain is on a train to Cincinnati. He doesn’t get up.