The Kill Society Read online

  “No. But I’ve been wrong before. And we are in Hell.”

  Back in the world, I can usually tell when someone is lying. I can hear their heart, watch the pupils of their eyes and micro-expressions on their face. But most of that doesn’t work on the dead. No heartbeat. Micro-expressions dulled by death. And it’s too dark in here to see the Magistrate’s eyes.

  I down whatever’s in the glass, though, because at this point I’d drink paint thinner out of a hobo’s galoshes.

  What I swallow seems like water. There’s no weird aftertaste and my eyes don’t start spinning. So far so good.

  “Feeling better?” he says.

  “Okay. But I’d feel great if you had something stronger.”

  The Magistrate moves his head from side to side. “We shall see,” he says. “Now that you’re feeling better, are you still Mr. Pitts in here or can we start off on a friendlier footing?”

  “Are you still the Magistrate in here?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I’m still Mr. Pitts.”

  Traven gives me a look, but I give him one right back.

  “As you wish,” says the Magistrate. “What were you doing on the mountain?”

  His speech is clipped, like English isn’t his first language. But I can’t identify his accent.

  I say, “I have no idea.”

  He cocks his head.

  “You weren’t spying on us?”

  “Until you stopped I thought you were a dust devil come to pick my bones clean.”

  “Who else is on the mountain?”

  “No one that I know of. I told you that when I fried your friend.”

  I hear Daja move behind me, but she stops when the Magistrate holds up his hand.

  “How did you get onto the mountain? Where did you come from?” he says.

  “I was busy getting murdered on Earth.”

  “You’re dead?” blurts Traven.

  I hold up my left arm to show him that it’s my old human arm again and not a biomechanical Kissi prosthetic.

  The Magistrate looks to him, then me, then back to Traven and his big goddamn mouth.

  “Why would Mr. Pitts being dead surprise you, Father?” he says. “Hell is a place of the dead.”

  Traven mumbles, “It’s just that . . .”

  “This isn’t my first time in Hell,” I say.

  The Magistrate leans back.

  “I see. Another mortal foolish enough to make a deal with the Devil. Did he send you back with promises of immortality? How did it feel when you realized you’d been tricked?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I say. “In fact, Lucifer and me are pretty simpatico these days. The old Lucifer. The retired one. He’s the one who thought it would be funny to leave me on the fucking mountain.”

  The Magistrate continues to lean back, but he doesn’t look so smug anymore.

  “You mean the Lucifer who has become Death?” he says.

  I upend the glass and get a few more drops of water.

  “Do you know a bunch of other Lucifers?”

  He leans forward and rests his arms on the table.

  “You are friends with Death. My, how special you must be.”

  “We don’t go to karaoke or anything, but we’ve had a cocktail or two.”

  “I find it hard to believe you, Mr. Pitts.”

  I push the glass back to his side of the table.

  “I don’t give a single fuck what you believe. Unless it means I don’t get a drink later. Then I care a lot.”

  The Magistrate takes the glass and puts it back on the small table.

  “Why would your ‘friend’ Death leave you here in the middle of nowhere?” he says.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” says Traven.

  “No. It is not. Why do you think he was there?”

  Traven opens a hand to the Magistrate and then to me. “For this. This moment. This meeting. This is why Mr. Pitts was on the mountain. Death wanted us all to meet.”

  “To what end?” says the Magistrate.

  “To help with the work, of course.”

  “You’re so sure?”

  Traven leans forward, speaking quietly, but intensely.

  “Death could have left him in Pandemonium or at the gates of Heaven with the other refugees. He could have left him in the wilderness where no one would ever find him. But no. He left him right here in the Tenebrae, directly in our path.”

  “Perhaps Death left him so that we could dispatch him to Tartarus,” says the Magistrate.

  “Perhaps he has something we need.”

  “Or perhaps Death was having a joke on all of us.”

  “I vote for that,” I say. “Death loves a joke. Pull my finger he says and poof, you’re gone.”

  Traven lays his hand on the table.

  “I’m telling you. Death has sent us a gift. This man is useful to the cause. I don’t know exactly how, but it will reveal itself.”

  “How do you know that he isn’t lying about everything?” the Magistrate says. “From where he came from to his alleged friendship with Death?”

  “Because I knew him.”

  “When you were alive.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know he is the same man you knew then? Perhaps he’s gone mad. Perhaps he’s a spy.”

  “Excuse me,” I say. “What time does the buffet start? The service here it terrible.”

  “Stop it, Pitts,” snaps Traven.

  The Magistrate shakes his head.

  “Yes. Stop it, Mr. Pitts. We will know everything when Mimir gets here,” he says.

  Fuck. The oracle. I’d forgotten about her.

  “But for my own curiosity,” the Magistrate says, “what is the new Death like?”

  “Is this part of the interrogation or are we just dishing?”

  “It is simply a question.”

  I look at him for a minute. He didn’t poison me and he could have. He also hasn’t let Daja shoot me and I know she’d love to.

  I say, “Death is pretty much like he was when he was Lucifer. He didn’t much like that job either, but he was good at it. Truth is, I haven’t seen him much since he’s become Death. It’s like being a cabby. Long hours.”

  “You were friends, then?” says the Magistrate. “Confidants?”

  “Why not? I’m a people person.”

  The Magistrate aims a finger at me.

  “The Devil had many secrets. What was his greatest?”

  “Now it’s twenty questions? Fuck you,” I say. “That’s his secret and mine.”

  Daja moves again. I’m getting really tired of this.

  “Please answer the question,” says the Magistrate.

  “Please answer,” says Traven. There’s something in the bastard’s eyes. It takes me a while, but then I recognize it: now that he’s seen a familiar face, he doesn’t want to be alone again. I can’t blame him.

  “There are a couple of things it could be,” I say. “But what I think you mean is the wound. The one Dad gave him during the war in Heaven. The one that never healed. Until recently, at least.”

  “You are saying the wound is healing?” says the Magistrate.

  “Healed. It started getting better when he went home.”

  The Magistrate stays silent for a minute. Then he whispers, “Interesting,” and looks at Daja.

  When no one else says anything, I say, “Now I have some questions for you.”

  “I am sure you do. Father, would you bring in Mimir?” the Magistrate says.

  “Of course.”

  He gets up and goes outside. I lean my head back and look up at Daja. She doesn’t look any better upside down. Her dark, dusty hair is long and she wears it tied back. Her leathers are light and worn. She’s strong. She could wear heavier leathers, but she likes the light ones because they let her move faster, so she’s down for a gunfight, a knife fight, or fists. I smile up at her wondering which one she’d like to start with on me. She scowls back.

  Trav
en comes back in with Mimir in tow. She’s still in her ratty fur coat, but she’s taken the bandanna off her face. Turns out it was hiding a respirator attached to a small oxygen tank under her coat. She sits across the table, next to the Magistrate. I can hear her labored breathing all the way over on my side.

  The Magistrate gently takes her hand.

  “Thank you for coming, Mimir.”

  “Of course,” she says, her voice muffled by the oxygen mask. “How can I help?”

  The Magistrate looks at me.

  “Mimir, I am concerned that Mr. Pitts here might be a spy or intend to harm us in some other way. He says that he found himself on the mountain and that he was placed there by Death himself. Is he telling the truth?”

  “Do you mean, did Death leave him or that he believes Death left him?”

  “How did he get onto the mountain, Mimir?”

  She opens a canvas Safeway shopping bag (Have I mentioned recently that they bootleg a lot of our stuff in Hell? They steal cable, too. Don’t tell anyone.) and lays a whole spook show on the table. At the center is a bowl made from the skull of a Hellion with three horns that make three perfect little legs for it. She pours in powders, a few drops of a potion, a seed pod, and a lot of other crap I can’t identify. As she grinds it all together, I wish Vidocq was here. I bet Vidocq wishes he was here. The alchemist in him would be going nuts right now. He’d know what kind of moonshine Popcorn Sutton here is brewing. All I know is that I don’t want to drink it when she’s done. Things might get tense soon.

  When she’s finished, I put my hands on the table, ready to push back and try to knock Daja off balance before she can shoot me.

  But Mimir doesn’t come up with the glass. She pulls a match from her bag and lights the mess in the bowl. Just as it starts to stink, she unhooks her respirator from the oxygen tank and puts the tube over the Dumpster fire she’s started.

  I start to say something stupid, but Traven’s hand closes on my arm in a goddamn death grip.

  Mimir sucks in the smoke and suddenly I want another Malediction. Her eyes roll back in her head. She begins to shake. She mumbles something unintelligible, like she’s chanting or speaking in tongues. It’s your basic oracle carny act. I’ve seen a million of them. They always look like they’re about to have an aneurysm. If they didn’t, the rubes wouldn’t think they were getting their money’s worth.

  After a long moment, Mimir pulls out the tube and puts a lid on the skull bowl. She blows a long trail of smoke from out of the tube, clearing her wheezing lungs, and hooks her respirator back to the oxygen tank. She takes several long, deep breaths.

  “What did you see?” says the Magistrate. He looks at me. “Is he telling the truth, Mimir?”

  I get ready again to bash Daja.

  Mimir takes one more long breath and nods her head.

  “He is not a spy?”

  “He is not,” she rasps.

  I hear a rustle of leather behind me and the quiet click of a small hammer being lowered onto a small gun. Daja was playing me all along. She knew what I’d do if things went bad. I was ready for her to pull her pistol, but she had a little pocket gun—a Derringer or something—on me the whole time. Suddenly I hate and like her even more all at the same time.

  “How did he make his way up the mountain?” says the Magistrate.

  “Death placed him there,” says Mimir.

  “Why?”

  “Death’s reasons are his own. To look too closely is to risk having his gaze fall upon you.”

  “I understand,” the Magistrate says.

  He pats Mimir’s shoulder as her breathing returns to its normal wheeze.

  “I have one more question for you,” he says, and looks at me. “The gentleman that Death so graciously brought us calls himself Mr. ZaSu Pitts. Is that, in fact, who he is? And if not, who is he really?”

  I tense again. This time Daja pulls her big pistol. The barrel brushes my ear. It tickles, which pisses me off. I don’t want to go to Tartarus giggling.

  Traven looks at me and I look back at him. I’m stuck between a witch, a dime-store desert prophet, and a gunslinger who wants me extremely dead. And I can’t even reach my cigarettes.

  Mimir takes the bowl and tosses the burning herbs outside. She comes back to the table and, lucky me, begins mixing a whole new brew that this time is going to reveal that not only am I a big fat liar, but so is Traven. I wonder if I should tell the Magistrate who I am. But that would make us liars. We’re fucked either way. Better keep quiet and play this out.

  When she gets her hoodoo herbs piled up nice and high, Mimir sets them on fire. A dull yellow smoke drifts from the bowl, filling the camper with a smell like boiling cabbage in scorched motor oil. I start to say something when the contents of the bowl flare up, sucking the smoke back inside. An orange flame rises from the bowl, kicking up sparks. When it’s about a foot high, the flame begins to turn until it’s a miniature tornado, twisting and writhing above the upturned skull.

  I say, “If you’re trying to make fondue, you’re doing it wrong.”

  Mimir waves a hand in my direction. I stare at her.

  “What do you want? Applause?”

  “She wants you to put your hand in the fire, asshole,” says Daja.

  “Yeah. That’s not happening.”

  “I am afraid you must,” says the Magistrate.

  I look at Traven.

  “What do you say, Father?”

  “You were brought here for a reason,” he says. “Do as they say.”

  I shake my head. “You people have a shitty way of treating guests. I’m never staying at this hotel again.” But I put out my left hand. The heat hits me at the edge of the bowl. I hesitate.

  “Daja. If he does not put his hand into the flame, please shoot the father.”

  I hear her pull back the hammer on the pistol.

  I push my hand forward.

  “Mr. Pitts,” says the Magistrate. “I believe that you are right-handed. Please use that hand.”

  I look at him.

  “Is Magistrate your real name? Why don’t we both put our hands in the fire?”

  Daja grabs my shoulder.

  I put out my right hand.

  “At least I’m not going to die in Fresno.”

  And in I shove my mitt into the tornado.

  I’ve been burned before. I’ve been shot, stabbed, poisoned, beaten, chewed on, and called rude names. I want to say that because of my vast experience in getting my ass handed to me that the fire is no big deal. But that would be a lie. This fire is a big deal. A huge deal. A giant, flaming, goddamn, piece-of-shit, agonizing, I-want-to-rip-my-own-head-off deal.

  I lower my head. Close my eyes and grit my teeth. I’m sweating like a hog tap-dancing in a sauna. I want to scream the paint off the fucking walls. But I don’t make a sound. If I’m going to end up Captain Hook at the end of this, at least they won’t get that little piece of satisfaction.

  I open my eyes. The flames are more intense than before and have changed color from a deep orange to a pale blue.

  I lock eyes with Mimir. She nods and waves her hand again. I start to pull my hand back, going slow because I’m not looking forward to the sight of my charred stump. The moment I move, the Magistrate leans across the table, grabs my wrist, and shoves my hand back into the flames.

  I’m close enough that I could lunge across the table and shove his smug face into the tornado until his eyes burn out. But Daja has the gun on Traven. I really want to do something, but I don’t know what. The pain is really getting to me and I think about Candy and everything I’ve lost and left behind, and it’s all so goddamn sad it’s like a Roy Orbison song, so I do the only logical thing.

  I start singing “In Dreams.”

  The Magistrate’s face shifts to somewhere between pissed and puzzled. But I keep singing, staring into the fire. Mimir sees an opening and snatches the bowl off the table. She douses the fire and slams the bowl down hard. The Magistrate lets go of my
wrist and sits down, staring at Mimir. Fuck ’em both. I pull back my hand and look it over. Not a scorch mark or even a blister. The Magistrate’s oracle has some good hoodoo.

  Mimir slaps the table. “If you wish to keep my services, do not interfere with my work again,” she shouts at the Magistrate.

  He holds up his hands.

  “My apologies, Mimir. It will not happen again,” he says. “But what did the flame tell you?”

  The oracle gets up and dumps everything outside again. When she sits down she looks at me.

  “He is who he says he is.”

  I feel Daja shift her weight. I don’t have to look to know her pistol is now pointed at me.

  “He is Mr. Pitts?”

  “Yes.”

  That was unexpected. Leave it to lunatics like this guy to hitch himself to a third-rate seer. Still, it’s nice for me. I don’t have to start killing people right away.

  “Thank you, Mimir. Again, my sincere apologies.”

  I take a big breath and let it out, happy me and Traven are still in one piece.

  The oracle gathers her gear, wheezing in the respirator. As she gets up, she gives me a look. I have no goddamn idea what it means or why she lied or why Traven and I are still alive. When she leaves I look from Daja to the Magistrate.

  “I think your pet monkey is getting tired. Why don’t you throw it a banana and send it home?”

  Daja smacks me on the side of the head with the gun barrel.

  “Daja. It is over,” says the Magistrate. “Put your gun down. Mr. Pitts has passed his first test. He will be staying with us for the time being.”

  I rub the side of my aching head and raise my eyebrows.

  “First test? I am going to crucify you people on Yelp.”

  Traven gets up.

  “Pitts passed the test. May we go?”

  The Magistrate shakes his head.

  “No. Mr. Pitts I would like to leave. You I would like to stay,” he says. He looks up at Daja and frowns. “And I would like a word with you as well.”

  Traven pulls me to my feet. I’m a little light-headed from the pain and it’s hard to stop rubbing my hand. The father gives me a little shove to the door. I look back at the Magistrate.

  “What’s under the tarp, Roy Bean?”

  “The future,” he says. “Ours and now possibly yours.”

  “I’ve got my own future. I don’t need yours.”