The Perdition Score by Richard Kadrey Page A

strange thing about this stuff. In tiny amounts it has restorative powers.”
    â€œBut if you add just a touch too much, it destroys the tissue. Any kind,” says Vidocq.
    â€œIt happened with the bacon too. It was still wiggling around when I got home. Then we added a little more milk, and the strips dissolved into a black sludge like the roach leg.”
    I glance back at the stuff in the device.
    â€œThat’s all swell, but what is it?”
    â€œWe don’t know.”
    â€œBut we have some ideas,” says Vidocq. “While Allegra studied the milk itself, I spent the night with my books and papers. I found references to something like it in a twelfth-century treatise on rare hermetic poisons. The document had been suppressed because it references various heretical biblicalgospels. It definitely identifies the substance as angelic in origin and said that it’s been seen on Earth before. Athanasius Reuchlin, a German mystic, was said to have been given a small amount by a divine spirit and told to guard it. That’s not so different from what happened to you, is it?”
    â€œSo, what happened to it? And what happened to him?”
    â€œHe found results similar to ours,” says Allegra. “Microscopic amounts of the milk heal, while larger amounts are toxic.”
    I look at one of them, then the other.
    â€œYeah, but what’s it for?”
    Vidocq says, “Reuchlin believed it was used by warrior angels in battle.”
    â€œYou mean they went around melting other angels?”
    â€œHere is where it’s frustrating. The treatise is incomplete. However, Reuchlin believed that while the base materials of the black milk were of angelic origin, it was refined here on Earth.”
    This is when I want to be back home drinking.
    â€œHow? By who?”
    Vidocq shrugs.
    â€œI’m afraid the answer to that is among the missing sections.”
    â€œCan you at least say if this stuff is medicine or poison?”
    â€œBoth maybe,” says Allegra. “Without knowing how the angels used it, we might never know.”
    She gets all starry-eyed at me.
    â€œCan you get more?”
    â€œHey, I almost died for this bottle. I don’t want any more.”
    â€œAll you all right? What happened?” she says.
    â€œYou two haven’t watched the news today, have you?”
    â€œNo. We’ve been working since last night,” says Vidocq.
    â€œThe short version is, an angel came to see me last night and words were exchanged. She did this to me.”
    I take off my coat and show them my fried arm.
    â€œDammit,” says Allegra. “Why didn’t you tell me? Let me get you something for that.”
    â€œThanks.”
    While she hunts around for some hoodoo Bactine, Vidocq looks concerned.
    â€œI’m sorry about your injury, but how is it that your angel would be on the news?”
    â€œThe spat was kind of public. We broke part of Hollywood Boulevard.”
    â€œYou fought an angel in public?”
    â€œShe started it. That armored asshole about murdered my car.”
    â€œMerde,” says Vidocq. “James, you are a reckless soul.”
    â€œHey, I’m the victim here.”
    Allegra comes back with a salve that smells like cinnamon and roses.
    â€œLeave him alone, Eugène,” she says, smearing the stuff on my arm. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”
    â€œYeah, Eugène. Can’t you see I’m hurt?”
    Whatever supernatural goo Allegra puts on my arm, it cools my skin and cuts the pain immediately.
    â€œThat feels great.”
    â€œI found it in one of Doc Kinski’s books. It smells nice too, doesn’t it?”
    â€œVery nice. Something I could give Grandma for Christmas.”
    I look over at Vidocq and he’s frowning.
    â€œSay whatever you’re going to say,” I tell him.
    â€œIf you say that fight was unavoidable, I believe you. But what is your employer