Kill City Blues

“Threats don’t help.”



“That’s not a threat. A threat is when I say if I have to dangle you over the side and drag you across like a sack of dirty laundry, I’ll do that too.”



“Stop it,” says Brigitte. “Can’t you see you’re making it worse?”



“If you can pep-talk him across, be my guest. But we can’t wait around here all night.”



Brigitte talks to Delon quietly. He nods but doesn’t look up from the floor.



I say, “Hattie, you and your boys have done this before. You head across and show us how it’s done.”



“Of course,” she says.



She waves to Diogo and the others and they start across, going one by one. Even for them it’s not an easy crossing. The cables were probably tight once upon a time, but over the years they’ve stretched and the whole bridge has started to go slack. The crossing looks like it’s all about a slow and steady pace, checking your balance with each step. Lean to one side or the other and the whole bridge tips with you. Diogo shows off by tipping both ways during his crossing, righting himself easily each time. It makes my stomach clench each time he does it.



Then it’s my turn. I look across the chasm at the Mangarms. I can’t tell if the bridge is fifty feet long or a mile. I put my right foot on the two cables that form the walkway and test my weight. They hold. I’m kind of disappointed. If the whole thing fell down, I wouldn’t have to go across. Now I have to pretend to be brave. I grab the two side cables and start across.



Each step is a new adventure in bullshit. What kind of sadist invented bridges like this? I’ve seen pictures of them, so I know they exist other places in the world and that people use them every day, scurrying across like squirrels on a telephone line. I’d like to see one of them try it in Kill City over a bottomless pit. There’s no way the other team came this way. With any luck, that means we’re ahead of them. Unless Hattie is taking us the long way around for a laugh, which I wouldn’t put past her.



I don’t know if it’s taken two minutes or a lunar month, but finally I make it across. Hattie’s boys grab and pull me the last couple of feet onto the concrete ledge. I turn back to the others and wave like it was nothing at all, hoping I don’t piss myself before the rest of them come over.



Candy is next. She puts out a foot, grabs the side cables, and crouches like a tiger, getting a feel for the bridge. She stays that way for several seconds. Long enough that I think she’s frozen in place. Then she sprints forward. The bridge wobbles and sways under her, but she doesn’t miss a step. What took me minutes to do, she does in a few seconds. Hattie’s boys reach for her on our end, but she ignores them and jumps the last few feet onto solid ground herself. Cheers start up from the other side of the chasm. Candy waves and bows.



I put my arm around her shoulders.



“Show-off.”



“Scaredy cat.”



Father Traven is next. Except for Delon, he’s the one I’m most worried about. I’m not convinced his footing is all that good on flat ground. While a moving walkway doesn’t seem like suicide, it’s still extremely stupid. There’s nothing we can do but see what happens.



Vidocq and Brigitte shout encouragement as Traven plods across step-by-step. He’s fine until he hits the middle, where the slack in the cables is worst. His feet wobble. He gets a death grip on the two side cables, and teeters, trying to right himself. Each time his balance starts to come back, he loses it again. He’s stuck there, unable to go forward or back.



I’m so focused on Traven that I don’t see Brigitte start across. She’s almost as fast as Candy. When she reaches Traven she stands behind him, moving her weight back and forth, trying to counteract his movements and balance the cables. Gradually it works. Her added weight and sense of balance settle the cables into place. They come across together, a step at a time. When they’re close enough, I pull Traven off the wires to clear Brigitte’s path while Candy grabs her.



Traven walks to the nearest wall and collapses there. Brigitte collapses next to him. He takes her hand and they sit together in the dark.



Delon is next. Vidocq practically has to shove him onto the cables. Delon stands at the end, petrified, looking down into the chasm.



“Paul,” yells Candy.



He tilts his head up slightly.



“Look at me,” she says. “Don’t look down. Just at me.”



After a couple of minutes Delon takes an actual step forward. Then another. Every time he stops moving, he looks down, so Candy yells to him.



“You’re doing fine. Look up at me. Keep looking here.”



He makes it all the way to the middle of the bridge before one of the cables breaks. One of the two walkway cables comes loose with a metallic snap, coiling back to the far end and slamming into the wall. Delon goes down on one knee, desperately holding on to the side cables as the whole bridge bucks and sways. The sound of strained bolts and wires echoes off the cavern walls. After several minutes the bridge stabilizes enough for Delon to stand.



Candy starts to call to him again, but I put a hand on her shoulder. At this point I don’t want anything to surprise or confuse him. Step by uncertain step Delon gets a little closer to our end. Finally he’s close enough for Diogo and the boys to grab. They pull him off the wires and he pukes over the side, down into the chasm like he’s trying to get even with it.



Vidocq is last to cross. He’s not a big man but he’s not petite and he’s wearing a heavy greatcoat. Not standard issue for the Flying Wallendas. He tests the cables before he steps across, shaking the two side cables and gently putting his weight on the walkway. Satisfied, he steps back into the door and opens his coat. I don’t have to see him clearly to know what he’s doing. He’s drinking a potion. Then another. And a third. He shudders. Breathes in and out a few times and steps onto the bridge. And sprints like a goddamn madman all the way across, not touching the two side wires and, from the way it looks, barely touching the bottom one. The wires are letting out sharp metallic screams, straining under him. He jumps the last few feet. I don’t know if he felt it or if he just got lucky, but just as he launches himself, one of the two side cables breaks. Vidocq ducks as it snaps back a few inches over his head. He’s shaking and his face is slick with sweat when he reaches our side.



“Not bad, old man,” I tell him.



“Thank you,” he says, pulling another potion from inside his coat. He downs it and tosses the bottle away. A few seconds later his breathing and heartbeat head back to normal.



“So, what did you take back there?” I ask. “Some kind of bat juice that let you float across?”



He shakes his head.



“No. One potion for balance. One for bravery. And a third to not give a damn about the other two.”



Hattie’s boys huddle at the edge of the chasm examining the wires. Diogo hawks up phlegm and spits it over the side. He and his brothers watch it drop like they’re watching the Super Bowl.



“I don’t suppose anyone following us will be able to come this way,” says Traven.



I take out the black blade and slice through the remaining cables so that the bridge collapses into the chasm. There’s silence and then a huge metallic rattle as it hits the far wall.



“Do you people intend to completely destroy my home?” says Hattie.



“You got paid,” I say.



“We’re really sorry,” says Candy.



“No one ever leaves Kill City, so whoever built the bridge is still around,” I say. “If it’s that important, they’ll come back and fix it.”



“And how long will that take?” says Hattie.



I say, “From the way you talked, it sounded like you didn’t come down here too often, so what do you care?”



“It’s the principle.”



“I doubt that. You’re not the chamber of commerce. You don’t give a damn about anybody else but your clan. If you did you would have said something when I stopped those guys from stomping the kid back there. I think you just want to shake us down for more gifts. We might have another bauble or two but not until we actually get somewhere. And if there are any swamps up ahead or giant spiders or fire-breathing fan dancers, you better say so before we get there. No more surprises.”



She laughs and claps her hands once together.



“No surprises? In Kill City? Boy, you couldn’t have chosen worse if you’re looking for a place with no more astonishments.”



Her sons laugh along with her. Hattie goes to the wall and takes an oil lamp down from a nail. Diogo gives her a match, which she strikes against the rough concrete. It sparks and she holds the flame to the lamp wick. It catches and yellow light fills the chamber. You can feel everyone’s mood lift in the warm glow of the lamp. Our LEDs and flashlights made Kill City look like a broken-down space station. Seeing the place lit by fire, I feel like we’re back on planet Earth.



Hattie opens another door and holds the lamp high.



“With all the noise you fools made, half of Kill City probably knows where we are. But I want to make sure those ahead see us coming. Don’t want to spook anyone.”



She leads us down another level, where the feel is different. Like we’ve moved into a ragged zone outsiders weren’t meant to see. Bare cinder-block walls. Exposed ductwork and steam pipes overhead. We slosh through a couple of inches of dirty water from leaking pipes. No one talks. Hattie is out front, leading us like Moses through the desert. Her boys are spread out around her, as nervous as she is fierce.



The passage narrows ahead. We’re getting into areas with heavier wreckage. Slabs of the upstairs floor lie on either side of us. Looking up through the hole, I can see the night sky. It’s a flat, gray-black slate, all the stars washed out by the lights of Santa Monica. In the dim pools of light from the lantern and our flashlights, the rusted rebar and rows of workers’ coat hooks along the walls look like props from a Roger Corman torture chamber.



Ahead is a narrow tunnel under the wreckage.



“It’s hands and knees here,” Hattie says.



She doesn’t miss a step. Gets right down on her belly, sets the lantern in front of her, and crawls, pushing the light ahead. Her sons follow.



I shine my light into the tunnel and lean my weight on the debris. Nothing moves. The pile is solid and the passage ahead looks clear. Still, I can’t see what’s at the far end.



“You want to take point on this one, Paul?” I say.



“Sure.”



“You’re not claustrophobic?”



“Not at all.”



“Great. Scream if you see dragons.”



“Very funny.”



Everyone takes off their bags and packs. All I have is a flashlight, so I go through next. I don’t want to stick around and watch Candy trying to maneuver her Kekko Kamen bag so it doesn’t get scratched up.



The tunnel is maybe twenty tight feet from end to end. Crawling on my elbows takes a minute or so to come out the other side. We’re a long way from the world now. Dug down into the earth like bugs. Even if the bridge was still intact, there’s no going back. The team following us could be around the first corner. Until I know who they are, I don’t want to take a chance on running into them. That means we have no choice but to follow wherever Hattie wants to take us, and she knows it. On our hands and knees it feels like we’ve crossed a new barrier. We’re moving forward but I don’t like it.



Candy comes through the tunnel next, followed by Vidocq, Brigitte, and Traven.



The new room looks a lot like the last one, probably just an extension of it. The same rough walls and unfinished feel.



“Where to next?” I say.



“We’re about there,” says Hattie.



There’s a grunt and a whirring sound from the other end of the room, then the growl of a generator coming to life. Bright halogen work lights come on all around us. I go blind for a few seconds.



When I can see again, there they are. I have to give it to the Shoggots. They know how to make an entrance.



The passage opens onto a wide concrete room with a metal catwalk overhead. At least twenty members of the Shoggot tribe are lined around the walls and on the walk. And they are dead-dog ugly.



Hattie and the boys pull up short. We stop behind them.



All of the Shoggots, the men and the women, are in looted designer suits. High-end stuff. But the silks and expensive wools are covered in grime and dried blood. Probably the Shoggots’ own. They’re definitely human, but they’ve been holed up down here working on their bodies for so long that at first glance they look like some peculiar flavor of Lurker. Their teeth have been filed to points. Some have split their nostrils. Others have cut off their noses or lips. Their cheeks are adorned with ritual scars and metal. Most have similar body mods on their throats, arms, or chests and many of the cuts are held open with metal hooks embedded in their skin. Some of the cuts look fresh. Others are old and infected. I see maggots in more than a few of the deeper cuts. I wish I’d quizzed Hattie on how crazy these crazies were before we came down here.



A tall Shoggot in the middle of the catwalk rests his hands on the top of the rail.



“Hattie. Lovely to see you. And you’ve brought friends.”



“Hello, Ferox. These aren’t friends. They’re travelers looking for the old Roman.”



“And what good is that old madman to anyone?”



Delon pushes his way up beside Hattie.



“If it’s a matter of payment, I have things to trade for information.”



Ferox stands up straight, scowling.



“Who was talking to you, traveler? What you want couldn’t matter less to us.”