Read Online Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey - Free Book Online

two to let the other one know what they need. They’re a nice team. Batman and Robin, but without the rough-trade undertones. For a second, I really hate their guts. I could have been like that with the right partner, but I’m stuck with the Beast That Wouldn’tShut Up. I wonder how smooth these two would be after a week of Kasabian screaming for porn and cigarettes. I should bring him over for a family dinner. Vidocq must have a ball gag around here somewhere.
    Damn. What a childish little prick I am. There they are, working to save my ass, and all I can do is whine about poor, poor pitiful me. I need to go kill something real, not snuff dead cheerleaders, but something alive and nasty, something that deserves it.
    “It’s ironic, isn’t it?”
    I look up into Vidocq’s eyes.
    “You spent all those years in Hell fighting to stay alive, becoming injured and earning your scars. Then you come back home in hopes of destroying both your enemies and yourself, but instead you find yourself healing and becoming your old self again.”
    I get up and glance at my phone. There’s still time to make a couple of stops before I have to be at the Chateau.
    “Fuck my old self. My old self got his life stolen by morons and the person he cared about most killed. If I start turning into that asshole again, I’ll peel these scars off myself and put a shotgun to my forehead.”
    “But how do you really feel?” asks Allegra.
    “Thanks for fixing me up. I’ll see you later.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “I’ve got to buy a prom dress.”
    I MAKE A quick stop at the Bamboo House of Dolls. You don’t want to play into the “do me a favor, I’m a rock star” thing too often, but when you’re being followed around becauseyou’re the celebrity killer of the month, why not use it occasionally, like when you need a human in the paranormal biz and you don’t have time to screw around?
    Mediums, exorcists, and sin eaters at Bamboo House aren’t the big-money kind, so most of them have to do odd jobs to stay afloat. When you’ve been career-counseling ghosts all night, it’s hard to answer phones or sling lattes for yuppies all day. Most human paranormals tend to dabble in things like gambling, sex work, and cream-puff crime. I only have to ask a couple of people to find a well-stocked thief. He sells me a new leather sport jacket and a rifle frock coat for a hundred, which even by booster standards is cheap. Of course, now he can tell his clients that he sells to Sandman Slim and jack up his prices. Let the circle of celebrity be unbroken. Amen.
    There’s still time to kill before I have to head over to Chateau Marmont and I’m restless. I haven’t stolen a car in a month. All death and no play makes Stark a dull boy.
    Hollywood Boulevard is long and the side streets aren’t always well lit. You’d be surprised how cheap rich people can be when it comes to parking. They’d rather leave a half-million-dollar Lamborghini in a drugstore parking lot after hours than pay a valet fifteen bucks. Their car insurance payments are what most people put out for a mortgage, and they pay them for the privilege of being stupid, so they can leave their car on the street alone and unprotected, like a four-wheel Red Riding Hood waiting for a wolf like me. I’m doing people like that a favor when I take their cars. Every time stupid rich people get ripped off, it makes them feel better about hating poor people. All they did was leavethe equivalent of a big pile of cash by a parking meter, and when they came back, they were horrified to find it was gone. Leaving their stuff out for people to steal proves to them that people want to steal their stuff. Fear is like curling up under a warm blanket for some people, especially the rich.
    Something evil and full of testosterone must be smiling down on me tonight. About half a block from Sunset on Cahuenga Boulevard, parked right out in the street like Grandma’s Camry, is a silver Bugatti Veyron