Part 8 (1/2)
Except the Death ( Machine, o' course. Now there's a good bunch of brothers. Old d.i.c.ko and me just i-got back from a San Diego run. You shoulda been there and seen the looks on these f.u.c.ker's faces when thirty Death Machiners come runnin' right through their jr campground, scatterin' picnic baskets and tables all to h.e.l.l and back. Yeah, it was alllllright. Wasn't it, d.i.c.ko?”
”So what about you, Kobra? What's the story?”
”Nothing much to tell,” Kobra said. ”I hooked up with the Nightriders up in Was.h.i.+ngton for a while, started getting road fever, and moved on. I guess I've ridden with nine or ten clubs since I left the Angels.” Viking leaned closer, his eyes glimmering with low beer lights. ”Hey,” he whispered conspiratorially. ”Who'd you waste in New Awleens? What was the action?”
”Couple of Dixie Demons trashed a buddy of mine. I killed 'em as a favor.”
”How'd you do it? Fast or slow?”
Kobra smiled. ”The first one I shot in the kneecaps. Then the elbows. And I tossed him into the mighty Mississippi. f.u.c.ker flopped around like a frog for a while before he went under. The second one I caught in a gas station toilet. I made him lick the Johns clean and then . . . pow! . . . right through the old beanbag. Bled like a swamp.” His gaze clouded slightly. ”Too bad he was working with the cops, about to turn state's evidence on some Demon dirt. All kinds of pigs were hunting me from FBI on down. That's the luck of the draw, right?”
”Right.” Viking leaned back and let out a satisfied belch. Kobra drank his coffee and felt it roiling around in his stomach. He could feel d.i.c.ko's stare on him, like a leech clinging to the side of his face.
”Viking,”
Kobra said after another moment, ”is there any action going on in L.A. I might be interested in? Anything big? You know, maybe some down-and-dirty, or somebody in bad need of an out-of-town shooter?”
Viking looked at d.i.c.ko and then shook his head. ”Don't hear anything. Well, the Knights and the Satan Stompers are having a little war over in La Habra, but it'll blow over in a few days. Why?”
”A feeling I've got. Like something's about to break.” d.i.c.ko's ferret eyes gleamed. ”What kind of feeling? Sorta weird, like you can feel power hummin' inside you?”
”Yeah. Sort of like that. Only it's getting stronger all the time, and a little while ago I thought I heard . . . you guys know of a place something like this-real big, maybe on a cliff, and it's got high towers and stained-gla.s.s windows, could be a church?”
d.i.c.ko looked startled. ”Uh ... on a cliff? Way up over L.A.? Jesus! A castle, maybe?”
Kobra nodded.
Viking barked out a laugh. ”A f.u.c.kin' castle? Sure, old d.i.c.ko knows it! You talkin' about the Kronsteen place? That's where d.i.c.ko and a bunch of freaks stoned out of their gourds on LSD and mesc had a party about . . .”
”Eleven years,” d.i.c.ko said quietly. ”It was eleven years ago we did that.”
”Did what?” Kobra asked. ”What're you talking about?”
”You want to go up there?” d.i.c.ko's gaze was dead again. ”Why?” Kobra said, ”Maybe it's not the place I want to go. I don't know. But I'd like to see it. How far is it from here?”
”It's way up in the Hollywood Hills. But we could make it before sunrise if you want to see it. I hear somebody's moved in up there.”
”Who?” Kobra asked. How do you like that, he said to himself. A castle, not a church.
d.i.c.ko shrugged. ”Some foreign f.u.c.ker. There was a piece in the paper about a month ago. I saved it.”
”Okay. What the h.e.l.l, I got nothing better to do. Let's burn on up to this joint and take a look at it.” Kobra was suddenly eager to get under way. Is my trip over? he wondered. Or has it just started? His blood seemed to be boiling in his veins.
”Let's git gone!” Viking said, and shoved his bulk away from the booth. Out of the dead blue darkness, three moons rose in the hills above the Hollywood Bowl. Kobra rode on d.i.c.ko's left flank, following the twistings of the road with an almost extrasensory knowledge. They had made good time from Millie's, even though Viking-riding on d.i.c.ko's right, his bike wheezing like an old, used-up horse-had to stop and take a beer p.i.s.s every few miles. Now they were climbing at an incredible angle, their engines cracking the silence with pops and growls.
d.i.c.ko, made a quick turn onto a narrower road lined with hundreds of dead trees.
They continued to climb, the wind swirling like whirlpools around them. And then they came to a chain across the road with a sign on it, PRIVATE PROPERTY-NO TRESPa.s.sING.
”Well see about that,” Kobra said; he got off his chopper and moved toward a tree on the left side of the road. The chain had been wrapped around the trunk and secured with the kind of padlock you couldn't even shoot through. Kobra touched the chain and pulled at it. It was tighter than a c.o.c.k ring, and there was no way to go around it either-the left side of the road pitched off into empty s.p.a.ce, while the right was blocked by a boulder as big as a house.
”Gonna have to walk the rest of the way,” Kobra said, and started to step over the chain. He heard a sudden faint click, and the chain slithered to the road.
”Alllllright!” Viking said, revving his engine. ”How'd you do that?”
”I... I don't know.” He backed away a pace and bent to look at the open p.r.o.ngs of the lock. They were polished and new. ”Rusty lock,” he said, and rose to his feet. What's waiting for me up there, Fate or Death? He went back to his bike and stepped on, his knees beginning to shake a little but d.a.m.ned if he was going to show it.
”You sure you want to go up there?” d.i.c.ko asked him; in this faint light there were deep blue hollows beneath his eyes, and his mouth was twisted like a gray worm.
”Yeah. Why shouldn't I?”
”Roads tricky as h.e.l.l higher up. I ain't been here in a long time. I hope I don't take us right over the edge and down to L.A.”
”You want to turn back, d.i.c.ko?” Viking asked with a soft laugh, his eyes mocking.
”No,” d.i.c.ko said quickly. ”I'm able. But . . . you know ... I think about that night a lot. It was a freak named Joey Tagg did the cutting.”
”That's not what I hear,” Viking said, but then he kept quiet. d.i.c.ko roared on across the chain, and Kobra followed closely. Higher up they had to swerve around slabs of rock that had fallen from ledges just above their heads. The road turned at an eighty-degree angle as they neared the top, and through a cut in the trees Kobra could see the whole glittering valley below from Topanga Canyon to Alhambra.
And then there it was, perched at the top like a stone vulture. The thing was enormous, much larger than Kobra had envisioned. He felt doused with ice water.
This was the place, no doubt about it. Black towers jutting into the sky, high pointed roofs like dunce caps, the soft glimmer of a blue window sixty feet off the ground. The whole place was surrounded by a ten-foot-high stone wall with coils of barbed wire strung along the top. The huge wooden slab of a gate hung wide open, and Kobra could see along a weed-infested driveway that led across a barren courtyard to a series of stone steps. At the top of the steps was a front door as big as a drawbridge. Should have a moat with f.u.c.king crocodiles, Kobra thought. ”Who built this b.a.s.t.a.r.d?” he asked d.i.c.ko. d.i.c.ko cut his engine, and the others did the same. In the silence they could hear the wind rippling through the foliage below them; the wind touched Kobra's face like cold fingers exploring his features. ”Crazy old movie star name of Kronsteen,” d.i.c.ko replied softly, getting off his bike and letting it rest on its kickstand. ”He brought this thing over from Europe piece by piece. You ever seen any of his flicks?”
Kobra shook his head.
”Monster flicks,” d.i.c.ko went on, his gaze following the sharp angles of towers and parapets. ”They drove the old dude crazy, I guess. You see all those dead trees we pa.s.sed? Kronsteen hired a bunch of guys to spray them with black paint, just covered 'em with the s.h.i.+t, like something from a horror flick set.”
”How long's it been here?” Kobra asked, stepping off his chopper.
”A long time. I think he built it back in the forties. But it's old. It must've been in Europe for hundreds of years.”
”But old Kronsteen wasn't near as rich as you dudes thought he was, huh?” Viking asked, grinning; he belched and muttered.
d.i.c.ko didn't answer for a long time. Then he said, ”Hardly had a stick of furniture in there. Wasn't no gold statues, wasn't no chests full of money. Wasn't nothing but a lot of empty rooms.” He turned to Kobra. ”You've seen it. Let's go.”
Kobra had taken a few steps along the driveway, gravel crunching under his feet.
”Wait a minute.” What's here? he wondered. What called me?
”Come on, bro,” Viking said. ”Let's git ... HEY! YOU SEE THAT?” He pointed, and Kobra looked up to the right.
In one of the tower windows a candle was flickering, the light made orange by the stained gla.s.s. From the corner of his eye, Kobra saw another candle begin to burn off to the left behind another window. And now there were more candles glittering, from almost every window in the place. The tiny flames glowed green, blue, and white behind colored gla.s.s, candles burning like lanterns to welcome the hunter home.
The front door silently opened. Kobra felt a surge of joy and fear course through him, like a charge between opposite poles. His legs moved slowly, as if he were crawling across flypaper. ”Where are you going?” Viking called behind him. ”Kobra? What you doin', man?”
”It wants me,” he heard himself say, and looked back at Viking and d.i.c.ko standing at the far end of the driveway. ”Come on,” Kobra said, a wild grin rippling across his face. ”Come on with me. It wants us all.” Neither of them moved.
The castle loomed above Kobra, dwarfing him. Through the huge open doorway he could smell the guts of the place-dry, cold, maybe as old as time itself. At the threshold he paused to look back at his friends, and a voice like a cool wind wafted through his brain-COME TO ME. As he stepped into the darkness, he heard Viking shout from a world away, ”KOBRA!”