The Dirty Streets of Heaven

who had just staggered out of a liquor store and right into the street. I don’t know what happened to them when the ghallu went past, and I didn’t want to look back, but I did hear screams. I accelerated, but I could still see that immense shadow loping along the rain-slicked streets behind us at a terrifying clip. And now brake lights were going on in front of me-a big back-up of cars ahead at the Camino Real. “It’s still right behind us. Where are we going to go?”

“Office or The Compasses,” said Sam. “They’ve both got wards that should keep that thing out. Nothing else will.” He was loading my gun again. “You get these from Orban?”

“Yeah. But they don’t seem to be doing much good.”

“Nice work, though.” He squinted, then bit down on one of them. “That’s good silver.”

“It better be. I’ve shot off about four hundred bucks’ worth already, and I haven’t killed fuck-all except some of Eligor’s assault squad guys.” I gave Sam a quick rundown on what had happened inside Islanders Hall. By the time I’d finished I could see the Camino Real in front of us and not only was the light still red, the road between us and the Alhambra Building, home of The Compasses, was gridlocked.

“Turn right before we get there,” Sam said. “Shit, I just remembered-they had the parade tonight! The whole downtown is going to be like this.”

I slalomed the Pontiac right onto Adams, fishtailing so widely that I almost lost control of the car, sending a group of costumed pedestrians shouting and leaping for the stairs of the Victorian houses that lined the street. Once I was clear of them I risked a glance back and saw the ghallu digging around the corner behind me like a hound after a rabbit.

I don’t like being the rabbit.

When I got to the T-junction with Oak Avenue at the end I yanked us back toward the Camino Real, cutting the corner so sharply that we went up over the curb at about fifty miles an hour, the two left side wheels off the ground for a couple of seconds before we slammed down again, bouncing like a low-rider. The barriers were still up at the Camino Real end of the street but only a few cars were in the intersection, so I crashed the yellow caution gates at speed and dragged the emergency tape out into the wide street, the ends flapping like pennants behind me. For about a second and a half it looked like a power surge had hit a bumper car ride as I pinballed between vehicles, damaging a couple badly but mercifully not hurting any of the drivers or passengers as far as I could tell. We smashed through the barrier on the other side and zigzagged over to Main Street before heading toward the heart of downtown. I knew we’d never get around the whole parade route before the thing caught us, and I didn’t want to risk crashing the barriers again. I was just grateful the parade itself was over.

Downtown was crawling with post-parade revelers. Most of them reeled in drunken groups, but others were in their cars now, cruising slowly up and down the streets that hadn’t been blocked off, still looking for amusement or action even at one in the morning. San Judas combines several carnival traditions-I saw rainmakers in Mayan hats and the Elders of Guymas in their long robes and pointy beards as well as the Knights of Numa and the Ravenswood Krewes and all kinds of other Mardi-Gras-inspired partiers. Just by the mess and the merrymakers still swarming the downtown streets, it looked like it had been a hell of a parade. I wish I’d been there instead of being shot at in Islanders Hall.

I nearly killed a pair of stiltwalkers as I crossed the railroad tracks at speed, but though I missed them the ghallu didn’t, tearing the legs right out from under them and sending them flying.

What I saw in my rear-view mirror was getting increasingly hallucinatory, but the view ahead wasn’t much better. We were coming up fast on the downtown barriers, and that was where the serious mayhem was going to start-cop cars and firetrucks were lined up everywhere, red and blue lights spinning, and even the armored Bonneville wasn’t going to crash through them without hurting a lot of people, not to mention what would happen to Sam and me if we got tangled up in a wreck long enough for the ghallu to catch us. We were going to have to ditch the Bonneville and try to get to The Compasses on foot.

But even as I thought this, the monstrosity did catch us: a ghastly hollow thumping as it leaped up onto the trunk was followed by the most painful groaning, gnashing sound I ever heard-the sound of a very large demonic summoning trying to yank the top off an armored sedan to get at the fleshy treats inside. I was counting my blessings: if we’d been in my Matador not only would the creature have reached us by now, it would have really screwed up the paint job, too.

The aluminum oxynitride driver’s side window, which was meant to resist anything up to armor-piercing rounds, shattered into a spiderwebbed hole as a hot black claw smashed through, intent on yanking my head out of the car whether or not it was still attached to my body. I ducked even as I slammed on the brakes so that I bashed my face against the hard old steering wheel, then realized stopping with the monster on top of the car had not been my best idea. The ghallu was trying to rip through the reinforced metal of the roof while still trying to catch my head in its other great taloned hand and pop it like a boiled grape; even as I strained my neck to stay out of its reach I could see little wisps of smoke or steam dancing on the thing’s carbon-black skin. Sam still had my gun, and I was beginning to lose faith in the idea of silver bullets anyway, at least for this particular horror, so instead I did what they taught me at Leo the Loke’s Emergency Driving School: When something’s on your roof, knock if off. Still holding my head at an absurd and extremely painful angle, I floored the car and steered straight for the nearest building.

“What are you…?” was all Sam had time to shout before we hit the curb, bounced into the air and hurtled into the wall of the Main Street branch of Wells Fargo Bank like a runaway missile, sending bricks and plaster flying everywhere (and not treating us passengers much better). A huge piece of rebar came through the windshield like Van Helsing’s money shot and passed neatly between Sam’s head and mine as we bounced around with the impact, the pointy end of it lancing the back seat like a tuck-and-roll boil. I prayed fervently that the ghallu’s head had been bashed in, but I doubted it; if close to a dozen silver rounds in the torso couldn’t stop it then a little thing like a bank building wasn’t going to do the job.

There is nothing quite so terrible as fleeing something that you know is more than a match for you. The helplessness, the way the strength just runs out of your limbs like sand…you feel yourself getting colder and slower by the moment. Your worst fears rise in triumph.

I didn’t bother to check on Sam-I could hear him struggling to get out on his own side. I just kicked my door open and sprinted in the direction of Beeger Square, shouldering my way through inebriated and oblivious revelers. There was no chance to look back, nor did I want to. I knew the fetch would be right behind us like a distorted, smoldering shadow, eyes narrowed to slits, mouth like a hole torn in a curtain. I knew it was only a few moments until our weak earthly flesh finally let us down.

Sam pulled abreast of me, his overcoat flapping crazily as he ran. I’d never seen him move so fast, like a big farm horse on a steep downhill slope-everything was moving at the same time, and there was no way it was going to stop by itself.

“Garage!” he gasped. He was holding something out in front of him. For a moment I thought it was a gun and that he was going to shoot some of the drunken idiots blocking our way, but it was a remote door-opener, and he was pressing that button over and over as if he were a rat left too long in a gratification experiment. We leaped and scuttled between two deserted police cars and under a wooden barrier, then sprinted down Main toward the Alhambra Building at the end. Beyond it, Beeger Square was still packed with people, and I had a momentary, nightmarish vision of leading the monstrous thing into the crowd where it would rip up all those innocent folk like a power mower going through a brood of Easter chicks.

“Driveway!” Sam shouted. He skidded into a sharp right turn and pelted down the cement ramp of the Alhambra’s garage. To my immense relief the remote had worked: the gate was open and the way clear. Even as we reached it, Sam thumbed the remote again and the gate started down.

As we scrambled through the closing gap I risked a look back and saw the ghallu reach the top of the driveway. It hesitated for a moment, visibly confused, then realized we were no longer running in front of it. It whirled and leaped down the sloping concrete after us like a giant black frog. To my immense relief it slammed against the metal gate and bounced back, then lowered itself like a cringing dog and stared at the bars with a hiss that sounded of frustration and, of all things, pain.

“The wards,” Sam said as he bent double, gasping for air. “The wards are holding him. God really does love us.”

I could no longer see out to the city lights-the ghallu was blocking the whole of the metal fence and it didn’t look like it was planning to go away. “Yeah-for how long? Come on. Let’s get upstairs.”