The Kill Society by Richard Kadrey
I look at Traven.
“What the hell was that all about?”
He looks at the dog pack. He then looks back to me.
“He watched you rip a man’s spine out.”
“Oh, that.”
“And you should see yourselves.”
I look at Daja then down at me. It looks like we spent a carefree spring afternoon happily running through sprinklers pumping black Hellion blood all over us.
“Not really springtime fresh, are we?”
“You look fine to us,” says Doris.
“But am I still pretty?”
“Ugly as boar’s balls,” says Wanuri.
I lie on my back and bleed for a while. From this distance, the fire is warm and pleasant. I guess we won. Cherry is staring down at me with some of the others. I wonder what she was talking to the Magistrate about earlier. But I pass out before I get the chance to ask her.
When I wake up, I’m wrapped in clean bandages. Someone wadded my shirt and coat and shoved them under my head as a pillow. As I sit up my side hurts like a burning bastard, but it looks like I’ve stopped bleeding.
I’m surrounded by maybe thirty souls and Hellions in bandages and splints, or in worse shape. Legs or arms gone. Bloody bandages over where an eye or two used to be. The Magistrate moves smoothly from body to body doing triage. Of course he’s the havoc’s doctor. He probably also wove the bandages and made a chocolate soufflé while I was out. Carefully, I roll over and get to my feet.
“What are you doing?” says Doris. She comes over from where she was kneeling next to Billy and puts an arm around me, taking some of my weight. “The Magistrate wants you to rest.”
“What’s wrong with Billy?”
“Poor dear. He took one in the belly.”
“He going to be all right?”
She shakes her head and helps me turn to see what a fucking disaster we are.
“Maybe,” she says. “The Magistrate isn’t sure.”
“Who else?”
She sighs.
“Lerajie and Babetta are gone.”
“How’s Barbora taking it?”
“Not so good.”
“Anyone else? ”
She half laughs.
“Johnny took a shot right along the side of his head. If the little shit had ears it would have blown one off.”
“That it?”
“No. We lost the Empress.”
I look at the Magistrate. All I can see is his back.
We’re basically standing in an auto-wrecking-yard-turned-hospital. Bodies and shot to shit vehicles are scattered at crazy angles in every direction. The havoc looks truly fucked.
I lean away from Doris, taking more of my own weight.
“So much for the crusade.”
“Don’t lose heart,” Doris says. “The Magistrate says we’ll be up and around in a couple of days.”
“Until we come to the next town. They’ll wipe out what’s left of us with powder puffs.”
Doris looks around, too.
“It doesn’t look good, does it? But like Mama used to say, ‘Keep a rainbow in your heart.’”
“She sounds like a nice lady.”
“Mother? Oh god. She was a monster. But she was a good cook. She taught me proper cutlery use.”
The panabas and butcher knives tinkle on her belt like slaughterhouse wind chimes. I wonder which blade she used on Mama.
I lean on a burned-out cop car.
“My dad taught me to use guns.”
She says, “My daddy used to take my brothers hunting. Did you hunt with Daddy?”
“Sort of. He took me into the woods and tried to shoot me.”
She pats my arm.
“Families are complicated. I could have been a better mama and wife myself,” she says wistfully.
Now I wonder which knives she used on the rest of her family.
“You’re doing all right now, Doris.”
“That’s sweet of you. Will you be all right if I leave you here? I want to check on Barbora.”
“I’m fine. Go and tell her I’m sorry.”
“I will. Take care.”
Even half dead and bleeding into the dirt, the havoc is busy. Anyone with two legs is looting what they can from the Legionnaire vehicles. Food. Guns. Ammo. Water. They had their own fuel truck. It’s shot up, but didn’t burn. The camp mechanics and a group of townie conscripts push it to our fuel truck to top it off.
I look around to the flatbeds, hoping they’re trashed. That would kill this asshole crusade quick. But I spot the tarp in the distance. It’s dusty, but there isn’t a single bullet hole.
Cherry totters over, still playing the frail oracle. She pokes me in the side with a finger. I slap her hand away.
“You really are hard to kill, Mr. Pitts,” she rasps.
“It’s just us, Cherry. You can drop the feeble act.”
She leans against the car with me and lowers her respirator.
“I told the Magistrate not to stop here,” she says in her normal voice.
“So your oracle act is real, then.”
“I told you.”
“Yeah, but I never believe anything you tell me.”
“We should go behind the trucks and fuck. It might be our last chance.”
“Don’t start that stuff now.”
She pouts.
“You’re never fun anymore. Every time I see you you’re shot or stabbed or something.”
“It’s inconvenient for me, too.”
She gets in front of me.
“Jimmy, seriously. You can’t die. No one else is going to look out for me out here.”
I rub the spot where she poked me.
“Relax. I’m not dying anytime soon. The one time was plenty.”
“You’re a hero, you know. Everyone is talking about how you got the Magistrate out of the motel.”
“I seem to remember Daja being there. Isn’t she a hero, too?”
Cherry waves dismissively.
“Of course. She’s the toast of the town. But it was you everyone saw when you blew a hole in the fire line. Don’t deny it. I know magic when I see it.”
“So what? I have a cover story.”
“Yeah, Daja told everyone that, too. But even she doesn’t believe it. You want to stay incognito? You better come up with something better than the car and truck just happened to fall apart at the same time.”
“I’ll keep my head down awhile. If I fess up who I am, they’ll know me and Traven have been lying the whole time.”
“And me.”
“Yeah. You too.”
“Plus,” she says, “confessing to a lie that big will almost certainly confirm you’re our ghostly saboteur.”
“People still think that?”
“Enough that it matters.”
“Shit.”
I look past her at the camp.
I say, “You know how you can help? You’re the local swami. Tell them it’s all shit. You read my aura or something and I’m just another lost bastard who got lucky.”
She looks back at the camp, too.
“I already did. Some of them believe me. But you know how rumors are. Cool it with the magic and stay away from the trucks.”
“Good idea.”
“And don’t heal so fast. Look hurt. Limp around. You’re everyone’s favorite wounded puppy right now. Just go with it.”
“I’m not good at that.”
She pulls some potions from her pocket and hands them to me. I look them over, a little skeptical.
“What are those for?”
“Officially I’m over here to pray and spritz you with some healing potions.”
I push her hand away.
“Keep them. I’m sick of the Magistrate’s tent revival.”
Cherry stamps her foot.
“This is for both our benefits,” she says. “Besides, if you’re good I have some laudanum.”
I lower my head.
“You talked me
She lays a delicate hand on the back of my head and hits me with what smells like rose water and vinegar.
“That stuff stinks.”
“Shut up,” she says, and hands me a pint of laudanum.
I take the bottle and have a long, deep pull.
She takes it back.
“That’s enough for now, tiger. But you know where to come for more.”
She winks. I start to say something, but the laudanum kicks in and my brain is very soft and slow and the world is a lovely place.
“Feel good?” Cherry says.
“Like I have a rainbow in my heart.”
She rolls her eyes and puts her respirator back on.
“You’re ridiculously stoned,” she rasps.
She puts her arm around my waist. I drape mine over her shoulders and we stagger back to camp.
“Remember. You’re hurt. Play it up,” she says, helping me back onto the ground by my coat.
I give her a wave and she totters away.
Wanuri comes over and crouches down next to me.
“How are you feeling?”
Swaying, I give her a thumbs-up.
She frowns.
“Are you high?”
I squint at her.
“Define high.”
She looks at Cherry.
“Damn witch and her potions.”
“I respectfully disagree.”
“Get on your feet. The Magistrate wants to see you.”
“I’m not really in shape for a philosophical discussion.”
She grabs my arm and pulls me up. Even through the laudanum it hurts.
“Ow. Fuck.”
“You big baby. Move your ass.”
I look at her.
“You get hurt during the shitstorm?”
She folds her arms.
“Babetta got hit on one side of me and Lerajie on the other. I didn’t get a scratch. How does that happen? I don’t understand.”
I do my sodden best to look her in the eye.
“There’s nothing to understand. They died. You didn’t.”
She looks around.
“What if people think I ducked out? Let them die and Johnny and Billy get shot up.”
“You’re the last one anyone would think that about.”
“Still, man . . .”
“We’re just bugs on God’s windshield. Don’t expect anything to mean anything.”
“You know that for sure? How?”
“I’ll tell you a secret.”
“If you want me to be your valentine, no thanks.”
I crook a stoned finger at her. She gets closer.
“I met the Devil. He doesn’t have any more of a clue than we do. Neither does Mr. Muninn.”
“Who?’ she says.
“God.”
She gives me a look.
“An asshole like you met God?”
“I told you. None of this shit means anything.”
She breathes in and out slowly.
“People are talking about you.”
“No autographs, please.”
“Laugh it up. Half think you’re some kind of guardian angel here to look after the Magistrate. The other want to see you on the gallows truck.”
I lean over to pick up my shirt. Wanuri has to grab me to keep me from falling over.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I’m fifty-fifty.”
She doesn’t bother letting me reach for my coat. She grabs it and throws it to me.
“You’re wrong,” I say. “I’m no one’s guardian and I’m not your rat. But I can’t prove either thing.”
Wanuri gives me a shove toward the motor home.
“That’s convenient.”
“Isn’t it just?”
When we get there I say, “If anyone says you ran, point them out and I’ll hit them.”
She grabs my arm.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”
“I’m not fighting for you. I just like punching people.”
She lets go and points at me.
“There’s another half that thinks you’re just crazy.”
“Finally. My people.”
She nods at the motor-home door.
“Get your ass inside. I’m bringing the others, but the Magistrate wants to see Daja and you first.”
“Sounds like a party. I hope there’s cake.”
Wanuri is already yards away and doesn’t hear me.
I start to open the door, but I flash back on the dream. I swear I can hear Wormwood scrabbling around like rats in the walls. If I’m right, someone just made—and someone just lost—a pile of money on the shoot-out. Of course, even if Wormwood is still hiding up in some deep dark hole in Hell, what are the odds of them knowing what’s going on in the Tenebrae?
“My boy,” says the Magistrate.
He comes to the door and helps me inside.
“How is your wound? We are low on some supplies, I am afraid. I did my best with what we had at hand.”
“The side’s good, thanks. Mimir just fixed me up with laudanum.”
“Excellent,” he says, and ushers me to the little table where Cherry did her swami act.
Daja is already there, bandages on both hands and her forehead.
“Did you bring any laudanum for the rest of us?” she says.
I shake my head. “I might go back for seconds. You should come along.”
“I just might do that.”
I look at her bandaged hands.
“You all right?”
“Just a couple of blisters. Some asshole convinced me to run through a furnace.”
“He sounds shady. As your lawyer, I advise you to avoid him in the future.”
“It’s my fondest dream.”
The Magistrate pulls a bottle of Hellion wine from a cabinet and sets out three glasses. I’ve never been that much of a wine guy, but I’m sure it will mix well with the laudanum. But he only pours glasses for Daja and himself. I look at my empty glass.
“If I’m in trouble, why don’t you start the yelling now while I’m still high and won’t care?”
“On the contrary,” the Magistrate says.
He reaches back into the cabinet and comes back with another bottle. He looks at it for a moment.
“We found two cases of this in the Legionnaires’ stores. I understand it is something you enjoy.”
He sets the bottle in front of me and I recognize the sigil on the wax immediately.
It’s Aqua Regia. Who did I tell I like the stuff? Fuck it. I’m too high to care right now.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “It is something I enjoy. I thought I was never going to see it again.”
“There’s plenty more where that came from. Of course, you will have to share the rest. But this bottle is for you. A token of thanks.”
“Thanks,” I say, and for once, Downtown, I actually mean it.
“What is that stuff?” says Daja.
“The greatest invention the Devil ever gave the damned. Aqua Regia.”
“What, some kind of wine or whiskey?”
“It’s Aqua Regia. It’s just itself. Want to try it?”
Her eyes narrow a little.
“You first.”
I pull the cork and pour a glass full. Give it a sniff. There it is. The heady bouquet of gasoline and hot pepper. I sip it and shudder a little. It burns just right going down.
“It’s that good?” says Daja.
“You tell me.”
I hand her the glass. She reaches for it, but then I pull it back for a second. I know I’m going to have to kill her someday, but I don’t exactly hate her.
“What the—”
“Go at it easy. Some people find it an acquired taste.”
“I don’t need drinking lessons from you.”
“I’m just saying.”
She grabs the drink, takes a gulp, and slams down the glass. Her face curdles like she
“Good?” I say.
She nods and with a heroic effort manages to croak, “Great.”
I take the glass back and finish what’s left.
“I told you it was an acquired taste.”
Daja waves for me to give the glass back.
She chokes out, “I didn’t say I was done.”
I don’t say anything. I just pour another glassful and pass it to her.
Daja takes it and drinks another mouthful. She grimaces, but also nods.
“I think I’m acquiring the taste.”
“Have all you want. Just leave me some.”
She swallows her wine in one gulp and pours more Aqua Regia in her glass.
I say, “Really, you should go easy your first time.”
“You’re not Father Traven and I’m not one of your choirboys.”
She drinks more. I pour some in my glass.
“Suit yourself,” I say.
The Magistrate has been watching this whole thing with the quiet amusement of Mike Brady watching his squabbling TV kids. Only this Mike’s kids are killers and Dad’s got a messiah complex.
He reaches out and squeezes each of us by the wrist.
“I wanted to thank you both so much for how you risked yourself for my benefit and the benefit of the entire havoc. I knew you were both brave, but not how wonderfully foolhardy.”
Daja reaches out for him.
“I’m always here. You know that,” she says.
“I do,” says the Magistrate.
He turns to me.
“And you, Mr. Pitts. I’ll admit it now to your face: I have had grave doubts about you, despite what Mimir says. I see that my suspicions were wrong.”
I raise my glass to him.
“Don’t feel bad. It was grave doubts all around.”
He folds his arms and leans on the table.
Smiling, he says, “You have had your doubts about me.”
“Remember the other night in the desert when we played your secrets game?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s play it again.”
“If you wish. Who should go first?”