Big Bill’s bloody mug fills the TV screen. One clean slash across his throat. A long defensive wound across both arms. The cuts are deep red valleys in his skin. They almost look fake, the way violent death often does. The camera stays on Bill for a long time. Somewhere in L.A., a news director thinks he’s going to win an Emmy but all he’s really going to get are bad dreams.

“You think the dead kids have something to do with the Spirograph sky and the girl?”

“Look for possessed children too. The village murdered the Imp because she was a monster. Maybe there are other monster tots.”

“This shit’s depressing, man.”

“Try to squeeze it in between looking for Brigitte’s videos. Pretty please with shut-the-fuck-up on top.”

Ain’t this the funniest thing since corn beef hash? Here I am looking for big bad King Cairo and scary Aelita, and Captain Beige has been running the girl all along. I’m still going to kill the other two but now I have to pay Teddy a visit and make him tell me his deepest darkest secrets. It’s great timing. I really need to hit someone.

Hell looks better and better the longer I’m here. I knew there was no one to trust and no one I could count on besides Wild Bill. One guy in a land of billions. I bragged to Saint James about people who’d watch my back in L.A. but who’s that now? Allegra and Vidocq won’t be inviting me over for whist anytime soon. Candy is Switzerland. Neutral territory between hostile nations. Kasabian is a half-broken whiner. Maybe I should have sucked up my pride and merged or whatever it is I was supposed to do with Saint James. At least I’d have the Key. Then I’d be able to walk away from this veil of shit. But I had to shoot my mouth off. And Saint James is right. I’m usually the one backing us into corners. He was the smart one who got us out. I got us out too sometimes but mostly by shooting out the windows, jumping, and hoping there was something besides dead air on the other side. If he shows up again and doesn’t want me to grovel, maybe I’ll give merging a shot. What I’m doing now isn’t doing me any good.

My phone rings. This time I check the caller ID.

“Father. Nice to hear from you but this is a bad time. Can we talk after I beat the holy hell out of someone?”

“We really should talk now. I think what’s happening is bigger than a ghost and a few murders.”

“A lot of murders. The girl. The Imp. She’s the center of it. Someone is controlling her.”

“How do you know?”

“I went to the land of the dead and asked her.”

“You can’t stay away from dark places, can you? Please. We really need to talk.”

“I’m on my way to Malibu.”

“Good. I’ll drive you. We can talk in the car.”

“Okay. Come to the Chateau Marmont and call me from out front. If anyone gives you trouble, tell them you’re here for Mr. Macheath.”

“Like Mack the Knife Macheath?”

“Yeah. If you’re good, I’ll do my Bobby Darin for you. Call me when you get here.”

I’m checking my guns when someone pounds on the other side of the grandfather clock. Suddenly I’m in Grand Central fucking Station. The knocking gets louder.

“Hey, Old Yeller, can you get off your fat ass and let whoever that is in? I’m trying to get dangerous.”

I hear Kasabian grumbling and thumping across the living room and opening the door. He says a few words to someone and thumps back.

“Hey, you.”

I swing around.

“Candy? What are you doing here?”

She looks a little pale and worn. She still has on her torn shirt. Underneath it are fresh bandages stained with Betadine. She has a Cowboy Bebop backpack slung over one shoulder. Comes into the bedroom, where I have all my guns laid out. She drops the backpack on the floor. Winces as she sits down.

“Do you mind if I crash here for like ever? Allegra just fired me. And I think Rinko and I just broke up. It was hard to tell with all the screaming and her throwing things. Did something happen with you two?”

“She just wanted to unstitch my seams is all. I already have a roomie,” I say, nodding to Kasabian. “But it’s a big place. I think we can squeeze you in.”

She smiles and lies back next to the guns.

“This is a big bed. Think maybe I could stay in here with you? I promise to be good.”

“Good people end up on the couch. Only the bad ones get an all-access pass.”

“I’ll do my evil best to stay off the couch, sir.”

I lie down next to her. She slides against me.

Someone knocks on the bedroom doorframe.

“We’re out of beer,” says Kasabian. Then, when he sees us, “Oh Christ. Is this turning into a domestic bliss situation? I can’t stand that It’s a Wonderful Life crap. Take me back and let me die at Max Overdrive.”

“Be nice, Kas, and I’ll loan you my hentai discs,” says Candy.

Kasabian frowns.

“Schoolgirls and tentacles? No thanks. I prefer my porn mammal-only.”

“Hot cow-on-cow action. I like it,” Candy says.

Kasabian puts his hands up in an “I’ve had enough” gesture.

“I’ll leave you degenerates to work out whatever it is you’re working out. Just remember that I claim the bedroom at the far end of the place. It has the second biggest TV.”

I look at Candy.

“As much as I’d like to give you a proper naked welcome, I have to go and see a man about a ghost. You know where the food is. Please make Kasabian watch whatever you think will annoy him most.”

“Where are you going? Can I come along?”

“You got knifed a few hours ago, so no.”

“She just got skin. She didn’t even hit muscle.”

I put on my boots and check my ammo.

“No.”

She sits up.

“Seriously, we talked about this. When you run off somewhere you might not come back from, I go with you. No more stoic monosyllabic bullshit.”

I set aside the Glock and put the .45, the knife, and na’at in my coat. I hate that Candy is right. We made a deal and I don’t want to be an overprotective liar right off the bat. There’s plenty of time for that later.

“Okay. But you stay behind me if the things heat up. No going Jade and eating people. It’s my circus and I’m the ringmaster. Got it?”

“What does that make me?”

“You’re the head clown. You get out of the little car first while the others are still crushed inside.”

“And when they’re out, you know what we’re doing?”

“What?”

“Clown-car sex.”

I hope Traven gets here soon.

Traven calls twenty minutes later. Candy and I go down and meet him out front.

She brings the folding pistol with her. She’s already covered the case with InuYasha and Samurai Champloo stickers. I’m not sure if that’s technically low profile but the case looks more like an eighth grader’s lunch box than a gun tote, so I guess it works.

Traven is in the car when we get there. He’s uncomfortable in the presence of the last few beautiful people fleeing the hotel. Their opulence and generic decadence must be like seeing Martians to a cloistered brainiac like him.

“Thanks for the ride, Father.”

“I’m glad to help. You picked a good day to go to the ocean. Most sensible people—”

“Let me guess. Are hunkering down because the sky is plaid and Godzilla is fighting with Paul Bunyan in the Scientology building parking lot.”

“I’ll drive and you’ll see.”

“Hi, Father,” says Candy.

He smiles to her in the rearview mirror.

“It’s good to see you.”

Traven drives west on Sunset and I do see. The sky isn’t a bad color but the light pulses like a slow strobe. It’s the kind of thing that could give you a migraine if you stared at it long enough. Farther down Sunset, it gets more interesting. Sometime during the night, cars, mailboxes, stoplights, and telephone poles sank a foot into the roadbed like someone turned on a hot plate below the street. Traven’s Geo Metro bounces over asphalt frozen into low waves. Cop cars block side streets that have collapsed into sinkholes. A few look like they’re floating several feet in the air. The PTSD Hell flashbacks are coming on strong. At least there’s not much traffic.

“Do you still want to go all the way to Malibu?”

“I have to but you don’t,” I say. “Drop us off and I can steal something.”

He shakes his head.

“No. I want to tell you a story and I’d like to tell it now. It has to do with the Qomrama Om Ya and it ties into all this madness.”

“The ghost girl too. She’s scared to death of it.”

“You showed it to her?”

“I hit her with it. It’s the only thing that stopped her. And she has a name. Lamia.”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?”

Traven sounds about like someone just read him the winning Lotto numbers and he thinks he hit the Mega Millions.

“It’s two syllables. Even I can remember that.”

“So what is the Qomrama?” asks Candy.

Traven looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Remember you once asked me where I thought the old gods, the Angra Om Ya, had gone?”

“Yeah. You said you thought they hadn’t left but you didn’t say what that meant.”

“Well, I was wrong. They are gone. But not for much longer.”

“How soon is longer? I mean the world is coming apart.”

Traven picks up a book from the dashboard. It’s an old one I once saw in his apartment. There are rust-colored stains on the front that are probably blood.

“Lamia is the name of an avatar of one of the Angra Om Ya.”

“I pistol-whipped a goddess?”

He shakes his head.

“I think what you encountered was a kind of demon. An incomplete piece of one of the Angra.”

“But she’s the ghost of a real little girl. She was born in Spain.”

“How will lost deities enter our universe from the outside? They’re creatures without form. Maybe they have to do it through the mortal bodies to gain substance. What kind of a girl was she? Was she considered holy? Did she perform miracles?”

“She was a monster. Her own village killed her and buried her in an unconsecrated cemetery.”

Traven is quiet for a minute.

“I wonder if she brought the Qomrama Om Ya with her or came to retrieve it?”

“Forget the girl. What’s the Qomrama?”

Traven slows and steers us around a sinkhole that’s swallowed part of a sandwich shop and auto-parts store. Cops on the side streets look worn and shell-shocked.

“In the first language, ‘Om Ya’ simply means ‘God.’ ‘Angra,’ depending on how you say it, means ‘great’ or ‘grievous.’ ‘Qomrama’ is a bit murkier but it means something like ‘devourer.’ The Qomrama Om Ya is the Godeater. A weapon designed by gods to kill other gods.”

I check the side mirror.

“Father, did you come straight to the Chateau from your place?”

“Yes. Why?”

Candy looks out the rear window. I keep an eye on the mirror.

“There’s only one car back there and it’s been with us for several blocks. Speed up.”

The car falls back for a few seconds then speeds up and stays on our tail. It’s a Charger, not that that matters. In a flat-out chase, a skateboarder with a broken ankle can outrun a Geo Metro. The Charger is overkill. It accelerates and comes up behind us.

“Take it up to forty and keep it there.”

“The car will shake apart on this uneven pavement.”

“Yeah, but it’ll make it harder for them to shoot at us.”

“Oh,” says Traven. He hits the gas.

The Charger doesn’t even notice. It pulls up alongside and King Cairo rolls down the front passenger window.

“Switch places with me,” I say to Candy.

I squeeze into the backseat and she gets in the front.

Flame hits the side of the Metro.

“Don’t slow down.”

Traven nods. Steers around the bumps the best he can.

Cairo is hanging out the window of the other car. Rolling his eyes and making faces. He tosses another fire hex at the Metro. It hits hard enough to shake the little car.

Candy is turned around in the front seat looking at me.

“Remember when I told you I was going to take you shooting?”

“Yeah.”

“Congratulations. Consider this your first lesson.”

I take a 9mm clip from my pocket and hand it to her. She grins like a wolf. Hits the release and the gun case opens like a metal flower. She shoulders the gun, slides in the clip, and chambers a round.

“Don’t get too excited. You don’t shoot until I say to and you only shoot at what I tell you to. Got it?”

She nods. With the gun in her hands, she can’t stop smiling. Traven isn’t. Flames are hitting his car, blistering the paint and turning the driver-side window black. And now there’s an armed amateur in the seat next to him.

“Aren’t you glad you came along, Father?”

“I wanted to do more than read books. I guess this is it.”

“Welcome to le merdier. Does this back window roll down?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Too bad.”

I put my fist through it. It catches around my wrist like a big glass bracelet. I pull it off and throw it at Cairo just as he’s about to toss more fire our way. The glass shatters in Cairo’s face. He slides back into the car, covering his eyes. The Charger slows down.