Kill the Dead

God said, “Let there be Light, and cheap take-out Chinese,” and the Grand Central Market appeared. The place has been on South Broadway since before the continents divided. Some of the meat they use in the burritos and Szechuan beef is even older. I think I once saw Fred Flintstone’s teeth marks on some barbecued ribs.

Inside, I’m facing down tacos and pizza. There’s a liquor store to my left and ice cream against the far wall. Every spice known to man is mixed with the smell of sweat and cooking meat. Not too much of a crowd at this time of day. Some of the shops and kiosks are already counting up receipts. I don’t see Eleanor down the central walkway or either of the side ones. I start down the middle of the place, cut to the right, and walk by a fish stand. I’m reaching out. Listening, smelling, feeling the movement of the air, trying to pick up any tiny vibrations in the aether. I’m getting better at this kind of hunting. Ambush predator stuff as opposed to my old Tyrannosaurus-with-a-hard-on moves that don’t go down quite as well in the streets of L.A. as they did in the arena.

Subtle hunting, acting like a grown-up, I really miss Hell sometimes.

A tourist dad asks me how they can get back on the freeway to Hollywood from here. I ignore him and he mumbles something about his taxes and how come we don’t have more cops to clear out these drug addicts.

Six months after the New Year’s bash at Avila and I’m still not used to this place, these people. In a lot of ways civilians are worse than Hellions because at least Hellions know they’re miserable sacks of slaughterhouse shit. More and more, I want one of these mortal types to have to face down a vampire, a Jade, or a bat-shit demon elemental. Not a ghost glimpse in the dark, but having to stare straight into a beast’s red meat-grinder eyes hungry for the souls of the terminally clueless.

Be careful what you wish for.

A long orange jet of fire rains from overhead and there’s Eleanor, standing on top of the glass-and-chrome cases at a spice kiosk. The business end of the flamethrower is a little thing, no bigger than a .45 semiauto. A tube runs from the pistol to an Astro Boy backpack, where the gas and propellant are stored.

Eleanor moves her arm in a wide arc, torching produce, signs, and the backs of a few slack-jawed market workers. She’s smiling down at us. Annie Oakley and Charlie Manson’s demon baby, jacked up on that sweet and special prekill adrenaline.

Then she’s down and running with a small bubbling laugh like a naughty six-year-old. I take off after her, running deeper into the market. She’s small and fast and a second later she cuts left, down the far aisle, and doubles back toward Broadway.

I can’t catch her or cut her off, but there’s an empty utility cart by a produce stand. I give it a kick and send it through the empty dining area. Tables and chairs go flying. The cart slams into her legs at the end of the aisle, knocking her through the counter of Grand Central Liquor. Suddenly it’s raining glass and Patrón Silver. Right on cue, people start screaming.

Eleanor is back on her feet a second before I can grab her. She’s not smiling anymore. Her left arm is bent at a funny angle and a chunk of bone the size of a turkey drumstick is sticking out just below her elbow. She has the flamethrower up, but I’m moving flat out. No way I can stop. Instead, I go faster. She pulls the trigger and I’m drowning in fire.

I hit her a millisecond later. I can’t see anything, but I know it’s her because she’s the only thing in the store light enough to fly like that. My vision clears, but even I don’t want to see this. When she pulled the trigger to hose me down, all the liquor on her clothes and the floor went up. Eleanor is an epileptic shadow puppet pirouetting around in a lake of whiskey fire.

Vampires don’t scream like regular humans. I don’t know how they scream at all without lungs, but when they let loose, it’s like a runaway train meets the screech of a million fighting cats. You feel it in your kidneys and bones. Tourists pee and puke at the sound. Fuck ’em. Eleanor still isn’t going down. And the fire is starting to spread. Grease on the grills of nearby food stalls starts going up. A propane tank blows, setting off the sprinkler system. When I look back, Eleanor is sprinting out of the market back onto Broadway, still covered in flames.

Chasing a burning girl down a city street is a lot harder than it sounds. Civilians tend to stop and stare and this turns them into human bowling pins. Slow, whiny bowling pins. You’d think that on some basic animal level they’d want to get the hell out of the way of a burning schoolgirl screaming loud enough to crack store windows and the stupid son of a bitch chasing her. Not that I’m doing this for them. I’m doing it for the money, but they still stand to benefit from it.

When Eleanor runs across Fifth Street she isn’t burning anymore. She’s a black beef-jerky Barbie doll running on charred stick insect legs.