THE SERMON BREAKS up a few minutes later. Hellions and damned souls straggle back to camp. They’re pretty buddy-buddy for a bunch of torturers and torture victims. I guess there have been weirder alliances Downtown.
Grating Hellion music blasts from a tricked-out Impala lowrider. When you get down to it—mysterious religious services aside—the havoc is like any camp. The cooks start filling dinner plates. Damned souls and Hellions argue, while others laugh or barter. Shooters load up on ammo from a Hellion APC. It has massive bullhorns on top and iron shark teeth welded on the front. Someone strapped broken mannequin parts in between the jaws. Cute gag, but where did they get dressing dummies way out in the Tenebrae? They must make runs into Hell itself, maybe even Pandemonium. That’s good news for me. If I have to make a run for it, I can disappear in ten seconds flat there. All I have to do is survive until then. When I get back to Hell I can start figuring out a way to get back home.
I wonder who Daja has spying on me? No way this bunch is letting an outsider stroll around without surveillance. There’s probably a rifle sighted on me right now. Or am I just being paranoid? Being dead has thrown me off my game. I need some privacy to figure out how much of me is left. I have some hoodoo and I didn’t bleed out. Good news there. But how strong am I? How fast? Is the angel part of me powerful enough to manifest a Gladius? And yet, for all those questions, the one that’s truly bugging me is this: Why the hell did it have to be Audsley Ishii who killed me?
I’ve fought Hellions, slimy monsters, armed-to-the-teeth mortals, scary little girls, and forgotten, pissed-off gods. And it was a third-rate shitbird I got fired from his lousy job who finally did me in. Maybe it was poetic justice. Maybe it was me getting soft. Every time I decide to take things easy or deal with my PTSD, something rotten happens. There won’t be any of that down here. Hell is a Zero Slack zone. No one gets a second chance from me down here. Which means I need weapons. But first I need something to eat and a little sleep. Dying is like the worst jet lag you’ve ever had.
Rubberneckers from the havoc wander by, but none of them will meet my eye. They just want to sniff the new meat. That’s okay. I’d do the same thing. I keep still and look as oblivious as I can. Today’s lesson, kids, is to not look for trouble until I have a better handle on the situation. I’m perfectly prepared to look a little dumb if that’s what it takes.
Just as I’m getting bored and cranky, Traven comes out of the Magistrate’s motor home.
He gestures and we head to his camper.
“You were in there for a while,” I say.
“These things take time.”
“Complaining that no one responded to his birthday Evite, was he?”
Traven nods to someone.
“I was taking his confession.”
“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.