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“You’re back in the priest game?”
“I don’t think excommunication counts for a lot down here,” he says.
That actually makes me smile.
“Did you do the other thing?”
A bug-headed Hellion in a sombrero and dirty serape glowers at me. I smile like a dummy and keep walking.
“You want to know if I ate his sins,” Traven says.
“Did you?”
“Of course. It’s always been part of what I do.”
I look at him.
“Even in Hell? What does anyone care about sins down here?”
“It’s an individual thing. The Magistrate’s job is difficult.”
“Believe me, I know.”
Traven looks surprised.
“You know the Magistrate?”
I shake my head.
“I know a killer when I see one and he’s one cold Charlie Starkweather motherfucker.”
“It’s not that simple,” says Traven.
“That isn’t criticism. I’m just trying to figure out how things work down here.”
“I told you. It’s a crusade.”
“Because the Crusades worked out so well back home.”
“I’ve pointed that out, but he isn’t interested in mortal history.”
What a shock.
I look at him.
“But you sound like you believe in this guy’s half-assed jihad.”
Traven puts his hands in his pockets.
“I’ve believed what I’ve had to in order to survive. And even then, I’ve questioned his methods.”
“I’m guessing a guy travels with his own personal havoc isn’t the candy-and-flowers type.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“So, you’re raiders. How bad is it?”
“Bad. When it happens … just don’t try to stop it.”
We reach the camper and Traven opens the door.
“There it is,” I say. “I came all the way to here just to be the biker trash my mom always warned me about.”
“Death does have its fun with us,” he says. “Would you like some food?”
I lean against the side of the camper with the open desert at my back so I can keep an eye on the camp.
“Does that mean I’m not being executed?”
“Not tonight.”
“Food sounds good, but what I really want is another light.”
I take out the Maledictions.
Traven points to the pack.
“Could I have one of those, too?”
“Sure.”
I tap one out and hand it to him. He lights mine, then his.
I say, “I found them on the mountain.”
“A good omen.”
“Or bad housekeeping.”
“Let’s go inside,” he says. “You’re not a popular man around here.”
“I’m getting that impression.”
He hesitates in the doorway.
“You know, I can do it for you, too.”
“Eat my sins?”
“Yes.”
I shake my head.
“Thanks, but sometimes I think my sins are the only thing holding me together.”
“That’s not true. You have a higher calling, Mr. Pitts.”
“I’m God’s special little snowflake. You don’t have to tell me.”
I take a pull on the cigarette. Watch Daja moving smoothly through the havoc, a wolf watching over her flock.
“What’s Daja’s story?”
“Her name is Dajaskinos,” says Traven. “She’s the Magistrate’s second in command. She’s very devoted.”
“They lovers?”
“No. More like father and daughter.”
“Was the guy I fried her lover?”
“I don’t know.”
“She really hates me.”
“She’s suspicious. You didn’t come to us in the usual way. Usually, we pick up new members from volunteers among groups we encounter.”
“The ones that survive the havoc.”
“That’s usually the way it works.”
I watch Daja until she steps into a city bus blaring smoke and music. The smoke from whatever they’re cooking doesn’t smell bad.
I look at Traven.
“Am I going to have to kill Daja?”
“Please don’t,” he says, his eyes going a little wide. “And don’t talk that way around here. She is powerful and respected.”
“I was afraid of that. The worst kind of boss: a good one. Don’t worry. I’m not killing anybody. I’m just making conversation. It would put you on the Magistrate’s shit list and me back where I started.”
“Which is?”
“Dead, lost, and with only half a pack of smokes. The dictionary definition of Hell.”
“Amen to that,” Traven says. He goes into the camper and I follow him.
IN A FEW minutes, he goes out and comes back with a couple of plates heaped with Hellion meat and something that’s sort of like gluey mashed potatoes. The meat is a little gamy, but I dive in headfirst and don’t come up until I’ve finished every scrap on the plate. Traven offers me some of his dinner, but I wave a hand at him.
“I don’t want you eating my sins and I’m sure not eating yours.”
He laughs and goes back to his food.
When he’s through, we smoke and talk. I tell him more about Brigitte. Everything I can think of. Later I explain how we had to fake Candy’s death and how she’s Chihiro now. When Traven asks about my murder I tell him what little I know. Ishii. Me letting down my guard. The funny hoodoo knife he used.
“If Ishii is the lowlife you describe, where would he get a knife like that?” says Traven.
Why the hell didn’t I think of that?
I sit there like a dummy trying to come up with an answer. Did he buy it off some witch with a grudge? Maybe from the White Light Legion? There was also one of the Augur, Thomas Abbot’s bodyguards, who didn’t like me. What was his name? Maybe he could come up with a weapon like that. Then something else occurs to me.
Wormwood.
I lay it out for Traven as simply as I can.
Wormwood is like a mob-run bank if the mob was a Hellion horde and the bank was the world. They make money when the stock market goes up and when currencies collapse and a few million poor slobs starve to death. They make money on terrorist bombs, and where and when the next Ebola outbreak kills the most people. They make money on who is or isn’t damned.
And they make money on me.
Who I kill. Who I don’t. Whether I’m a good boy or bad, they make a profit. And it pisses me off. I can’t say for sure that they’re behind my murder, but I know this: someone just made a fortune off my currently decaying ass.
MY EYES HAVEN’T completely focused yet, but I can make out a silhouette in the door of Traven’s camper. It’s a man and he has a knife in his hand. I kick him with my good leg and he bounces off the camper’s roof and comes down onto me.
The guy stinks. Like a T-bone steak that’s been left out in the sun and gone maggoty. He wheezes while he tries to shove the knife through my throat. He doesn’t feel that strong, but he’s on top of me with all of his weight centered on the blade.
My eyes finally focus, but it’s too dark in the van to see who it is. This seems like as good a time as any to see how strong I am and toss the killer’s ass outside. Of course, if my aim is off, he’s just going to land on me again, and maybe get lucky with the knife and my throat.
I shouldn’t have had that Hellion wine with Traven. Between it and my murder jet lag, my reflexes are all off. There’s nothing subtle I can do from this position, so I just work on pushing the fucker off me.
I’m able to move Mac the Knife’s body without too much effort. Good news. I’m still strong. Bad news. There’s something wrong with the guy’s skin. A big piece of his left arm slides off like a snake shedding its skin and the bastard comes down hard, knocking the wind out of me. While I’m trying to catch my breath, he rears back with the knife, ready to pig-stick me.
Instead, he stays up there and just twitches. A couple of big shudders. Then he sighs and does a backward swan dive out of the camper. By now, Traven is awake.
“What’s happening? Are you all right?” he says.
Mac the Knife is gone. There’s someone else silhouetted in the door, and she’s holding a knife. I’m sure it’s Daja, but instead of attacking me, the silhouette pulls off a respirator mask and says, “Jimmy, you are such an asshole.”
I squint at her through the dark. Something about the voice …
“Cherry Moon?”
She glances around and steps into the camper. Still wrapped in the ragged fur coat, she drops onto her knees and slithers over me like a shaggy snake.
“Seeing as how we’re both dead, can we finally fuck?” she says. “Right here. In front of the preacher.”
I push her off me.
“Thanks, but I’m busy bleeding right now.”
