We fall out of bed and onto the floor. Candy is on her hands and knees and I’m in her from behind. She doesn’t hold the Jade inside anymore. Her body starts its transformation but she holds it halfway. Not quite girl and not quite beast. She moans and snarls as one clawed hand rips the stuffing and springs out of the sofa next to us.

The mirror on the dresser falls and shatters on the floor. I’m not really sure which one of us did that.

We crawl back onto the bed. Candy crawls back on top and thrusts down on me hard enough to crack the San Andreas Fault. I swear I hear plaster falling from the ceiling in the room below us. I don’t care. All that matters is the girl and the monster thrusting down against me.

In the dim distant parts of our brains that can still form thoughts, I know we’re both thinking the same thing.

This has been a long goddamn time coming.

LATER WE LIE in the ruins of the room. We push some debris out of the way and move the bed so it’s at least flat on the floor. We lie down, wrapping ourselves in torn sheets and what’s left of the bedspread.

“I like this hotel. The rooms are simple, but kind of pretty,” says Candy.

“I think we broke this one.”

“Want to do it again?”

“Sure.”

Later, when Candy falls asleep, I put on my pants and boots and go back to the other room to get a new shirt. Kasabian hasn’t moved from the computer. Beer cans are piled under his table.

“Your shoulder is bleeding,” he says. “Let me guess. On the way over you ran into a midget with an armful of razor blades and barbed wire.”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

“You don’t have to. I could hear you all the way over here. The whole hotel could hear you. Everyone was out of their rooms. They thought it was a gang fight. The hoe sight. Ttel manager called 911.”

I find a clean Max Overdrive T-shirt and put it on.

“Cops are coming?”

Kasabian shakes his head.

“Relax. I routed the call to a phone-company all-circuits-are-busy message.”

“You know how to do that?”

“I’m on this computer all day. Making it do bad things is the only fun I have. Did you really think I spent all my time looking at video catalogs and porn?”

“Yeah. I sort of did.”

His eyes narrow at me.

“See. That’s exactly the kind of thing I expect from you. No respect whatsoever. After all the research and information I’ve found for you.”

“That’s not how I meant it. I just never pictured you as the high-tech type.”

“I have to be. All my magic goes into keeping this goddamn skateboard upright. I don’t have extra for anything else, so I have to use machines.”

“That’s actually a real smart way to deal with things. You’re a credit to your race, Alfredo Garcia.”

“Hey, don’t call me that when you’re off getting laid and I’m in here keeping LAPD off your back,” he says, pissed and with a right to be.

“You’re right, man. I owe you.”

“You’re goddamn right you do.” He leans toward me and speaks in a whisper like maybe the CIA is listening. “Is she as cute naked as she is with clothes on?”

“Don’t even start.”

“Come on. I saved you both. And you just said you owe me. Get me a Polaroid.”

I crack a smile at that.

“You know, she just might think that’s funny enough to do. She’s not shy.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m not going to ask her for you. You want it so bad, you do your own begging. And I don’t want to see you Photoshopping her head onto porn stars.”

“What’s her e-mail address?”

“I don’t even know if she has one.”

“You hick. I’ll find it myself.”

I take the Smith & Wesson out of my coat and reload it with special rounds I made with cut-down .410 shotgun shells. I might not need them, but fortune favors the prepared mind that thought to bring a really big gun.

I say, “Don’t crash out on me. I’m looking for information right now and that’ll probably lead to more questions. I might quiz you now, but I need to make a call.”

“You know where to find me.”

IF YOU’VE EVER wondered if your life has run off the rails, here’s a handy quiz.

Is the only person left in the universe you can go to for help someone even God doesn’t want to talk about?

Is the only alliance left to you with a gang that eats and shits chaos?

Are you about to drunk-dial the only guy in Creation who’s probably more despised than you?

If you answered yes to any of these, then you should seek psychiatric help. If you answered yes to all of them, you’re me.

I WALK OUT the front of the hotel and a block down Hollywood Boulevard.

On the way I get out my phone and thumb in a number I’ve had for a while but never dialed before. I let it ring once and hang up without waiting for an answer.

“It’s about time we heard from you.”

I spin around, toward a vinegar stink. When they aren’t trying to pass as regular people, Kissi have a very particular smell.

“Goddamn you’re fast.”

He’s blond, with the kind of sky-blue eyes that don’t happen in nature. His cheekbones look like they were sculpted by a fascist Michelangelo. I don’t know if he was grown in a petri dish or assembled from dead SS rent boys. I can’t stand to look at him.

I say, “I told you I didn’t want to see you wearing that Nazi face anymore.”

“I don’t remember my appearance being part of our bargain,” says Josef.

“Wear your real face next time. It’s easier looking at a burn-victim bug than Dr. Mengele.”

You can’t be subtle when you’re dealit c019;re ng with a Kissi, even their leader. And he’s the least psychotic one of the bunch.

The Kissi and I have one major thing in common. We shouldn’t exist. We’re both part of God’s Misfits of Nature traveling show. When the Big Bopper created angels at the beginning of time, he fucked it all up. The blowback from conjuring all those angels created both angels and their opposite. The Kissi. They don’t live in heaven with Daddy, but way out in the boiling chaos at the edge of the universe.

In their true form Kissi are fish-belly white and have a faint bottom-of-the-ocean-fish glow. They look like a cross between a regular angel and a six-foot-tall grasshopper dipped in wax and left in the sun to melt. If you’ve ever seen one, that’s enough to last a lifetime, and I’ve seen a whole world of them. That was back when I destroyed their Honeycomb Hideout way out in the ass end of Chaosville. Yeah, it’s hard to justify trying to kill off a whole species, but they were collaborating with Mason in his plan to take over Hell and then the rest of the universe. So basically, fuck ’em.

Most of them went spinning off into space and died when I wiped out their home world, but enough survived that Josef has assembled a small army of them. He did it because I asked him to. We made a deal with this particular devil a while back. I wasn’t happy about it then and I’m not happy about it now, but when you’re an Abomination, you can’t trust Hell, and Heaven hates you, so you don’t always get to choose who you dance with at the prom.

“Why are you wasting time chasing drug dealers over a dead boy? That’s not what we agreed to.”

“One, I don’t think the kid is dead. And two, whatever is going on with the kid has to do with Mason and Aelita. You should thank me for finding out what it is.”

When I first got back, the Golden Vigil’s main obsession wasn’t Lucifer, it was monitoring the Kissi. The Vigil saw Lucifer as a gelded pony. More of an annoyance than any kind of threat. The Kissi were the real danger in the universe. The only thing that could tilt all of existence toward total chaos. That’s one more thing I have in common with the Kissi. They hate the Vigil almost as much as I do.

“You promised us a war. We’re tired of waiting,” Josef says.

“I know, but remember, you being impatient is why I beat you last time. When we made this deal, you agreed to wait for my signal before doing anything. My game. My rules. What we’re planning is going to take some time to set up. If you don’t want to play in my sandbox, then fuck off back to Limbo.”

I’m tall, but Josef is taller. He straightens so he can look down his perfect nose at me.

“We’ll wait, but not forever.”

“Calm down. The big plan is still down the road, but I might have some fun for you in the meantime.”

“What kind of fun?”

“Your favorite. Chaos and destruction. Loss of life and property. Burned toast and spoiled milk.”

“I hope you’re not lying to me.”

“Is that a threat? That’s big talk for a guy who ended up with his head and body in separate zip codes the last time we went at it.”

Josef stares at me. Maybe the Nazi face is right for him after all. Like all good goose-steppers, Kissi think they’re better than everybody else. In their minds they’re high-rolling, comped-in-Vegas true angels. God, on the other hand, thinks of them as being like the black sludge that rolls into sewers. When he thinks of them at all.

“We’re done for now. I’m going inside. Keep your phone on,” I tell him, and start back to the hotel.

“The beast in your room is very pretty,” says Josef. “Her true face is, at least. Much better than that human you wasted your time with before. You should thank Mason for getting rid of her for you.”

I head back for him, trying to decide if I should rip out his tongue or stomp his ribs into marmalade. But he’s gone before I even turn around. Like I said, Josef is fast.

I go to Candy’s room, climb over the broken furniture as quietly as I can, and lie down next to her. I’m exhausted from getting up early, fighting the hangover, and torching my hand. A club like Dead Set won’t open its doors until at least eleven and I’m betting Cale won’t be there before one. There’s time to get a few hours of sleep.

Candy stirs when she feels my body hit the mattress. Takes one of my arms and wraps it around her, pulling me onto my side until my front is pressed against her back. It feels strange to be in a bed with another person. Strange in an okay way. The kind of strange a person could get used to.

I don’t even feel sleep coming on, but the room goes soft around me and I’m somewhere else.

I’m making coffee in the kitchen of the old apartment. Alice is on the sofa doing a crossword puzzle. Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, a weird fetish anime version of Alice in Wonderland is on TV with the sound off. X is playing “The World’s a Mess It’s in My Kiss” from a little boom box on the counter.

Alice says, “What’s an eight-letter word for ‘bountiful flora’?”

“I have no idea. You know I hate crosswords.”

“ ‘Genocide,’ ” she says, and fills in the squares.

“What?˭ 1C;What01D;

She doesn’t look up.

“How about a five-letter word for ‘Pinocchio’s kin’?”

“I don’t know.”

“ ‘Sheol.’ ”

I leave the coffee and walk over to the sofa.

“What kind of a crossword is that?”

“ ‘Saints’ bones.’ Seven letters. ‘Armageddon.’ ”

I sit down next to her. On the TV, a dominatrix version of the Mad Hatter is coming on to cartoon Alice.

My Alice looks up, smiles, and kisses me lightly on the lips.

“Here’s one that’s two words for ‘a makeshift mantra.’ ”

I look over her shoulder at the puzzle. It’s completely normal except that she’s filling in all the answers in strange runes or pictograms I’ve never seen before.

“ ‘Orphée.’ ”

“Is this a dream?” I ask her.

She shrugs.

“You tell me. This is in your head. Would you be more comfortable if I was a dancing midget?”

“In another dream, before the Drifters hit the city, you warned me about something that was going to happen to me. Is this one of those dreams?”

“What’s a five-letter word for ‘banker’s holiday’?”

The X song starts up again. She must have it set on loop.

Go to hell see if you like it

Then come home with me

Tomorrow night may be too late

The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss

“ ‘HOLOCAUST,&/font>

“I’m going to make this right, you know. I’m going to make Mason pay for what he did to you and me.”

Alice finishes the puzzle and sets it on the coffee table. I can see it better now. Even though she was coming up with different answers, the puzzle is filled in with the same seven symbols, over and over again.

She leans over and puts her arms around me. Rests her head on my shoulder, watching the TV.

“That’s one fucked-up movie,” she says.

“I don’t know why I picked it.”

“Yeah, why would you possibly pick Alice in Wonderland?”

“Oh. Right.”

She pulls me closer.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you need to stop goddamn obsessing all the time. I’m dead. Boo-hoo. You’re Sandman Slim. Boo-hoo. The universe is a lot bigger than us.”

I shake my head. Reach for a cigarette. She lets go so I can lean forward and grab the lighter.

“I know all that. But a lot of little stuff still hurts like Hell.”