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The guys are talking and laughing, passing a joint back and forth Not a care in the world I hate the idea of carjacking for one si crime A crime for morons and any little shitsack with the fifty bucks to buy a Saturday-night special Still, I want the Escalade and I want it now I look back at Max Overdrive, but Allegra’s inside and I can’t see her As I turn back to the van, there’s a glint from the rear driver’s sidethat I one Theis broken The van is stolen Hallelujah I’er first He’s so ripped that when I grab hi-doll round if you’re ever thrown-or pulled-from a vehicle Only I toss him about ten or fifteen feet farther than Ijellyfish and Hellions with skin like titaniu humans?
The driver is a pimply scarecroith a Mohawk and a dirty Sex Pistols T-shirt ripped just so He looks like a twelve-year-old dressed up like Sid Vicious for Halloween When his buddy goes flying out of the van, his buzzed brain finally realizes that so in his waistband for his gun, but his pothead reflexes aren’t helping hi oven es to get all his digits working
While he fue of passenger door, and slide across the Escalade’s roof, landing cat quiet on the driver’s side Speed Racer finally has the gun out, cocked and pointed at exactly where I’rab hiun arles, I bounce his head off the side of the van Just once Dazed and docile, it’s easy to flip him over my shoulder, carry hiun I toss down a sewer grate
Back at Max Overdrive, Allegra is on her feet, shaky as a newborn calf I scoop her up in both arms, carry her to the Escalade, open the back, and lay her out flat
"No hospitals," she says
"I know"
"Where are we going?"
"For ice cream What’s your favorite flavor?"
"Fuck you"
"That’s uys I tossed out of the van weren’t co the Escalade’s alarnition I twist a couple of exposed wires together and the Escalade purrs to life Stepping on the accelerator, I cut the van across two lanes of traffic, twist the wheel, and aim the Escalade down Hollywood to where it crosses Sunset
This isn’t a situation where red lights, yellow lights, or anything that slows us down are acceptable But what kind of a spell do you use to change the tihts? If I wasn’t such a freak-show attraction, I’d know so like that Or I’d be able to fake it the way I faked ht now is a Hellion controlling spell, so I’d throw at an opponent in the arena to take control of their body and keep theht turns yellow at the intersection ahead, I bark out the spell Literally bark High Hellion is ether with growling adjective gristle It sounds like a ith throat cancer
I get the spell out as the light goes from yellow to red As I finish the spell, it flips back to yellow Then the light explodes, the housing suddenly white-hot shrapnel that hits the Escalade’s roof like ht’s support pole is pretty one So are the overhead lines that send juice to electric buses below
Sorry, commuters Tell your boss to fuck off tomorrow Sonals
The second and third lights explode, too The fourth just kind of sizzles, spits sparks, and goes out I don’t even look after that It’s flare guns and Roave me is in a strip mall that hadn’t been there before I went Don I pull the Escalade into the parking lot and help Allegra out of the back She insists on walking on her ohich I choose to see as a good sign Doc Kinski’s office is tucked between a fried-chicken franchise and a nail salon with signs in Vietnalish I double-check the address It checks out
The office is a blank storefront with blinds covering all the s and the words EXISTENTIAL HEALING on the door in gold peel-and-stick letters I try the door, but it’s locked I start pounding and the door swings open aly-haired brunette in tattered black jeans and Chuck Taylors stands there
"Candy?"
"Stark?"
Fro blond Judy Holliday type, not Joan Jett’s little sister
"Bring her inside Doc is waiting"
The inside of the clinic is as bare as the outside A couple of junkyard desks, with a not very new-looking laptop on top of one A file cabinet covered in real estate stickers, Half a dozenchairs and a pile of Sports Illustrated and Cosmopolitans, probably pulled from the Dumpster behind the nail salon
This is the office of Vidocq’s angel of ra out of here and to a real hospital, no matter what I promised her Then Kinski walks out of his exairl in here," he tells me I do
Kinski is as impressive as his office isn’t He’s tall A little taller than me Like me, he’d been a lanky boy, but the years have added a few pounds to his middle and etched lines like a desert riverbed around his eyes But he’s still handso he’d been the kind of good-looking that ht and ra is too wobbly to walk anymore I pick her up, follow Kinski into the next room, and set her down on a padded exam table
He touches her head and cheeks Takes her pulse at her wrist and her neck and ra squir?" he asks
"Yeah My head"
"Anywhere else?"
Allegra shakes her head
"Okay I want you to try and relax Just breathe in and out real deeply Can you do that?"
She nods, takes in long breaths, and lets thehtly on her forehead and keeps it there He pats hi like a piece of blackened jerky fro the jerky between her lips
"What is it?" she asks
"You’ll like it It’s dried fruit Tastes good"
She chews and he keeps his hand on her, staring down like he’s listening for so and heartbeat slow abruptly Her body relaxes Kinski shoots lance like he knows that I can hear it, too
"She’s out," he says to Candy, and turns back to me "What really happened to her?"
"I don’t know exactly I cauy nas were uy, really"
"Part of a guy Okay Are you fooling around with stuff over there that’s going to irl’s condition more complicated? Any potions or herbs related to necro with any resurrection rituals?"
"Never"