The Getaway God Read Online Free PDF

bodies?” says the Shonin.
    â€œHim and his friends, yeah. My guess is those meat piñatas were volunteers. More Angra zealots.”
    â€œThey wanted to be cut up like meat?” says Candy.
    I nod.
    â€œYeah, but they didn’t see it that way. The feeling I got from Hobaica—­that’s your dead man—­is that he and his pals wanted to be hacked up like those bodies. They thought if they sacrificed themselves right they’d be reborn as bouncing baby Angras.”
    The Shonin laughs at that.
    â€œThey’re even dumber than you.”
    â€œDid he actually tell you he cut up those bodies?” says Wells.
    â€œI wasn’t taking a deposition. These are all just impressions I got from a shell-­shocked dead man on his way to Hell.”
    â€œIs that all?”
    â€œSome of the body parts clumped together and made new bodies. There were caves they might have drifted into. Everything was on fire.”
    â€œIt sounds like the realm of the Flayed Heart,” says Shonin.
    â€œIt was.”
    â€œZhuyigdanatha likes underground places,” says Shonin to Wells. “If there’s a larger Angra group, you might find them there.”
    Wells shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
    â€œWhat caves are we talking about? Carlsbad Caverns? A salt mine in Louisiana? Lascaux?”
    The Shonin pours out the muck he gave me. Puts water and green tea into the pot and places it back on the burner.
    â€œThese were California boys, so it will be a California cave that connects, at least on a spirit level, with the Flayed Heart’s dwelling place.”
    I start to say something, but don’t. I know some caves nearby, but if the Vigil doesn’t know about them I’m not going to tell them yet. I need to check with someone first.
    Candy is slumped on a metal stool on the other of the room, away from everyone. She’s pale and fidgety. I go over to her.
    â€œYou all right?”
    â€œI’m fine,” she says. “Just let me sit here.”
    â€œI can take you home if you want.”
    â€œI’m fine. Okay?”
    I nod.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œStark,” says Wells. “You know lowlifes. Any of your pixie friends like to spend their time underground?”
    â€œWhat makes you think the Sub Rosa or Lurkers have anything to do with this? Angra worshipers are mostly lily-­white civilians.”
    â€œYou didn’t answer my question.”
    I look at the Shonin.
    â€œYou want to know about underground dwellers? Why don’t you ask the jabber over there?”
    Jabbers are ghosts so scared of the afterlife that they won’t even leave their dead bodies. They claw their way through the soil under the city, dried-­out bones living in dirt.
    â€œDon’t you dare talk about Ishiro Shonin that way. This is a holy man. Jabbers are cowards. What this man did took years of dedicated training and preparation. Successful self-­mummification is incredibly rare.”
    I fish around in my coat pocket for a pack of Maledictions. I find them but they’re soggy with rainwater. I crumple up the pack and throw it in a wastebasket.
    I look at the Shonin.
    â€œYou’re what successful looks like? I’ve met Buddhist monks before. None of them looked like Johann Schmidt’s foreskin.”
    â€œIt took a thousand days to purify my body and mind before I could inter myself, preparing to come back when the world needed me. Of course,” he says, looking around, “I didn’t think I was coming back to a world of gaijin, urban yôkai, and whatever it is you are.”
    â€œAngels call me Abomination, but looking at you, I don’t feel so bad about it.”
    â€œWhat’s ‘urban yôkai’ ?” says Candy. Her voice is shaky.
    â€œHe means Lurkers. Don’t you, muertita ?”
    The Shonin says, “I knew, for instance, respectable tengu back home. You Los Angeles