I hope Neshamah is taking care of you, Alice. This is going to work or it’s not. It’s that simple. I’ve never strung together so many strands of bullshit before. If God won’t save us, maybe tall tales and lies will. Maybe all the crap I’ve pulled my whole life will turn out to be useful for something besides cadging drinks and pulling girls, and my still being alive will mean something. I let the world kill you once and I’m trying like hell not to let it happen again.
I wonder if Neshamah has the crystal out, ready to break it if Heaven burns and Hell cracks open and swallows itself? Be cool, old man. Wait till the credits roll. No twitchy trigger fingers tonight.
We’re heading south toward the port and the refineries. The trucks, APCs, and tanks spread out across the empty freeway, ripping the roadbed to pieces. It trembles and cracks, kicking up a hailstorm of concrete and rebar and tossing it back at the trucks in the rear. I keep up the Testarossa’s speed. I don’t want to end up in that rolling shit storm. The hill fires have rolled down through the city and flames rise up around us on both sides of the road.
A couple of miles ahead, the top deck of the freeway has collapsed and one end is lying on the street below. Semyazah and Josef either don’t care or don’t notice. I do. I’m goddamn concerned that my kidneys don’t end up as hood ornaments. If I stop, the trucks riding my bumper will crush me. There’s no shoulder to pull off on and no detours. Fuck it. I jam the accelerator to the floor. Let’s see how far this little red wagon can fly.
The collapsed slab shudders and pieces of roadbed follow the Testarossa over the edge. It’s not a fall. It’s more like shooting down from the top of a roller coaster. The car plummets and gradually levels out on a pristine lower freeway level a hundred lanes wide. The road is stained with thick patches of solvents and petrochemicals, but in this twisted light they shine like jewels and fallen stars. The Glory Road to Heaven.
It’s not long before we see a glow ahead, like the sun has set the other side of the world on fire. But there’s no sun here, just smoke and the glow, and I know the moment I see it that the light ahead is Heaven. I look around for Semyazah and Josef. We have to stay together for this.
Finally I can see Heaven itself.
It spreads out straight across the whole horizon, a monster parody of L.A.’s southern refineries. God’s little acre in the gleaminck the glg industrial skeleton of a prehistoric beast. Mountainous burn-off towers, catalytic crackers, and soaring distillation units are steel spines along the beast’s back. Heaven’s steel-pipe bones glow gold, illuminated by a thousand sodium-vapor lights. And on every catwalk, crow’s nest, and gantry, armed angels are waiting for war.
I hold my breath and wait for something to go wrong. Slowly let the air out of my lungs. Don’t think too much. Don’t jinx it. Just drive. I tick off the seconds, imagining Heaven’s golden pipes exploding and the place burning. It turns to rivers of molten metal that flow down the Glory Road to flood Hell and then the rest of Creation.
We’re right at the refinery’s gates. I can’t believe how high they are and how close we are to them.
War whoops blare from loudspeakers mounted on the trucks. Fireworks explode overhead. The signal.
Semyazah and I peel off from the point of the attack. It’s like when I spooked the Kissi at the hotel. I crank the Testarossa’s wheel hard, hit the brakes, and use the hand brake to send the car into a hundred-and-eighty-degree spin. Then I floor it, following Semyazah back the way we came, staying close to the edge, inches from the guardrail. The Kissi army blasts straight at Heaven’s gates as the Infernal legions close in behind them.
There’s a noise like a nuke going off. Heaven has opened fire. With the halo polishers in front and the Infernal legions at their backs, the Kissi are the bologna in a death-row sandwich. Adios, Josef. Send me a postcard from the Big Nowhere.
Something slams into my rear bumper, knocking me into the guardrail. I scrape along it for half a mile, peeling metal off half the side of the Testarossa. I’m swallowed in blackness as something huge jumps over the car, heads down the freeway, and turns to face me. It’s one of the giant hellhounds. It bellows and lowers its head until I can see Mason on its back wearing Lucifer’s golden armor. Momentum carries me toward him, and the hellhound raises one of its front feet to stomping position. I hit the accelerator. The hound is strong but it’s not as fast as a Ferrari.
When I’m about to go under the stomping foot, I spin the wheel right, slamming into the other leg. The hound wobbles. When I pull away, the car is making nasty sounds and shudders every time I pick up speed. I think I just broke the frame. I should have bought the rental insurance.
I’m almost clear of the hound when one of its legs kicks the rear end. The car almost stands on its nose and flips. Now it’s making a brand-new bad sound. The rear axle might be cracked. Nothing to do now but see how long this heap holds together.
Every time I try to get up speed, the car shudders like it’s going to fall apart. I can’t get it over sixty. A grinding and thumping comes up through my feet. The rear axle is definitely cracked. No way I can outrun the hound.
It charges me again. When it gets close enough to flatten me, I hit the brake and slide underneath it.
The hound gets one of its paws under the hood and rips the top off. I stick my Kissi arm out the window and slash at the hound’s leg as I go by. Something splashes over the windshield. Hydraulic fluid.
I keep running. Mason’s hound is still in my rearview mirror, but it’s slowing down. The hydraulic line to one of the hound’s front legs spews fluid all over the freeway. It can’t get enough pressure to bend the leg. The hound sways from side to side, looking like it’s about to fall.
As a group of Semyazah’s Heaven-bound hellhounds passes us, Mason throws a hoodoo power bolt, knocking the rider off a medium-size hound. He jumps onto it as his dog stumbles off the edge of the freeway and crashes in a burning ditch. Mason turns the hound around and heads down the freeway back toward L.A.
He pushes the dog hard. I try to catch up, but he’s way ahead of me and soon disappears. I keep the Testarossa pegged at sixty. Metal grinds against metal. Please hold together just a little bit longer, just until we get off this road and I can find somewhere with deep fat shadows.
As the Testarossa closes on the collapsed freeway section, I get a bad feeling. It won’t make it up to the top. The rear end screams and drops. The car is still moving, but suddenly I’m dragging an Italian precision-engineered plow, kicking up sparks and digging a deep furrow as I go. Up ahead is a minefield of broken pavement the trucks kicked up. I can’t steer clear in time. The car’s cracked frame bottoms out and the shudder nearly shatters my teeth. I hit the brake and let the car roll to a stop.
I have to kick the door open to get out. Fires burn along the freeway. I’m back by the furnace in Tartarus again, except this time there’s enough light to make deep fat shadows. I dive in.
At least one thing has gone right today. The Kissi are being taken out of the picture. They did their job. They
