Kill the Dead

I go back to the living room. Aki is moaning again. “I’m really hurting here, man. Can I have a drink or something?” “Say another word and I’ll staple your lips shut. Understand me?” He nods, biting his lips like they’re alien animals stuck to his face and he has to get hold of them before they do something stupid. I circle the room looking for something, anything that might tell me where Lucifer is. The light on his phone isn’t blinking, so he doesn’t have any messages. His desk is neat and there’s nothing interesting in the drawers. Most of what’s in the wastebasket are notes and set sketches for Light Bringer. Someone from the studio was here. And they had lunch. I smell a turkey sandwich and roast chicken. That narrows the suspects down to everyone in L.A. who eats meat. On the table by the sofa where Lucifer showed me his wounds is an open bottle of wine and his jewelry-store tray full of objects confiscated from people whose souls he owns. The watches, lighters, reading glasses, and rings are laid out in tidy rows. But there’s a blank spot. Something is missing. A child’s rosary necklace with a gold unicorn charm. I get the bottle of liquid soap and pour the whole thing around Aki’s chair. I toss the lightbulbs next, so Aki is surrounded by a moat of soap and glass. “I’m leaving for a while, but I’ll be back. I don’t think you can get out of that chair, but on the off chance you do, with that bad foot of yours you’re going to slip on the soap and fall on all the broken glass and end up a bloody mess. Sooner or later those Drifters in the hall are going to find a way in here. I think that you lying on the floor helpless and covered in blood is going to be enough to overpower whatever hoodoo has been keeping the Drifters from eating you. So, you can try to break out, crawl through the soap and glass, slip by the zeds in the hall, and make it home with all your limbs, or you can sit there like a good boy, and when I get back, we’ll call your mutti, get her over here, and make a deal to end all this. Do you understand me?” Aki nods, still biting his lips. “You can talk now.” “Okay. Yeah, I understand.” “Good.” “You’re leaving me here to go after Lucifer? Why would you do that?” “Because you have to rescue family. Even asshole family.” He starts to say something, but before he can get it out, I tear off a length of duct tape and slap it across his mouth. I don’t have to do it. There’s no one around to hear him if he starts screaming. I do it because I enjoy it. I check to make sure he’s securely fastened to the chair. When I’m sure he is, I step into a shadow and come out by the studio bungalow where I abandoned the GTO. The Light Bringer soundstage is across a wide parking lot full of construction equipment. I work my way past the machinery and onto the stage to the little office where I remember the panic room is located. The chair Ritchie pushed out of the way the last time we were in here is on its back across the room. I lean on the wall where it opens and I listen. I can’t hear anything, but I can feel something alive just beyond the hidden door. Light throws shadows against the wall. I slip inside and emerge in the panic room. Lucifer is on his back on the floor. His shirt is open, revealing his seeping bandages and wounds. He looks drugged, but I’m pretty sure that what’s keeping him down is the silver athame dagger sticking out from between his ribs. Ritchie is sitting with his fat cop ass on the lip of the control console and his feet propped on an office chair. He’s chain-smoking and covered in flop sweat. The air is thick with Marlboro smoke. He’s flicking ashes and dropping his butts on Lucifer. There’s an HK assault rifle across his lap. He looks lost in thought. He checks his watch. Shakes his head. He looks like he’s expecting someone. I speak softly so I don’t startle him so much he’ll start shooting. “I don’t think Aelita’s coming.” It doesn’t work. Ritchie starts and jumps off the console, spraying the room with the HK on full auto. I don’t have to hit him or grab him or do anything. I just hit the deck and stay there.