Killing Pretty. Richard Kadrey
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Copyright
HarperVoyager an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015
Copyright © Richard Kadrey 2015
Cover designed by Crush Creative (www.crushed.co.uk)
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Richard Kadrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008121006
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008121013
Version: 2015-06-30
Dedication
To all the writing teachers who told me to quit.
I’m still not listening.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my agent, Ginger Clark, and my editor, David Pomerico. Thanks also to Pamela Spengler-Jaffe, Jennifer Brehl, Rebecca Lucash, Kelly O’Connor, Caroline Perny, Shawn Nicholls, Dana Trombley, Jessie Edwards, and the rest of the team at Harper Voyager. Thanks also to Jonathan Lyons, Sarah Perillo, and Holly Frederick. Big thanks to Martha and Lorenzo in L.A. and Diana Gill in New York. As always, thanks to Nicola for everything else.
Epigraph
“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”
—CHARLES BUKOWSKI, Ham on Rye
“This isn’t America, Jack. This is L.A.”
—LT. MAX HOOVER, Mulholland Drive
Contents
I BREAK HIS wrists so I don’t have to break his neck.
He falls to his knees, but I don’t think it’s the pain, though I make sure there’s plenty of that. It’s the sound. The crack of bonesx as they shatter. A sound that lets you know they’re never going to heal quite right and you’re going to spend the rest of eternity drinking your ambrosia slushies with two hands.
I’m surprised to see an angel down here right now, considering all the cleanup going on in Heaven after the recent unpleasantness. Still, there are sore losers and bad winners in every bunch. I don’t know which one this guy is, but I caught him spray-painting GODKILLER on the front of Maximum Overdrive, the video store where I live. I might have let him off easy if all he wanted to do was kill me. I’m used to that by now. But this fucker was ruining my windows. Do these winged pricks think I’m made of money? I’m about broke, and here’s this high-and-mighty halo polisher setting me up for a trip to the hardware store to buy paint remover. I give his wrists an extra twist for that. He gulps in air and makes a gagging sound like he might throw up. I take a couple of steps back and look around. No one on the street. It’s just after New Year’s, the floods have receded, and people are just beginning to drift back into L.A.
“What exactly is your problem?” I ask the angel. “Why come down here and fuck with me?”
He rests his crippled hands on his thighs and shifts around on his knees until he’s facing me.
“You had no right. You killed him.”
“I didn’t kill God and you know it. He’s Uptown right now putting out new lace doilies in Heaven.”
What really happened is a long story. Truth is, I did fuck over Chaya, a weasely fragment of God who, if he’d lived, would have ruined the universe. But I also left one good God part, Mr. Muninn, fat and happy and back in Heaven. But that’s the problem with angels. They’re absolutists. I clipped a tiny bit off their boss and now I’m the bad guy. Once angels get an idea in their head, there’s no arguing with them.
Like cops and people who listen to reggae.
The angel narrows his eyes at me.
“Yes, a part of the father yet remains. But you didn’t have the right to kill any of him, Abomination.”
Damn. This old song.
“See, when you start calling me names, it really undercuts your argument. You’re not mad because I got rid of Chaya. You’re mad because you know you should have done it, but you didn’t. And what happened was a mangy nephilim had to step up and do the deed for you.”
The angel staggers to his feet and sticks his hands out in front of him, pressing his mangled wrists together.
“You must pay for what you’ve done, unclean thing.”
“Go home, angel. My store is a mess, and looking at the big picture, I’m more afraid of Netflix than I am of you.”
To my surprise, the crippled creep is able to manifest his Gladius, an angelic sword of fire. He has to hold it with both hands, but he can move it around by swinging his shoulders back and forth. Maybe this guy is more trouble than I gave him credit for. A badass will try to break your bones, but someone crazy, who knows what they’ll do? Mostly, though, I’m glad the neighbors aren’t around so I have to explain the gimp with the lightsaber in my driveway.
The angel comes at me hard and fast, all Seven Samurai, ready to send me to asshole Heaven. In his present condition, he’s still quick, but far off his game. I sidestep the