The sound of shots comes through the window and we all turn. The two crack kids are on the ground in widening pools of blood, and a powder-blue Chevy lowrider is speeding away. Oh well. It’s like the real estate people say, “Location, location, location.”
“How will you get back?” asks Allegra
“I know a shortcut.” I go out into the hall, step through a shadow next to the door opposite and come out in the alley behind Max Overdrive. I go in through the back and straight upstairs. The morning crew has cleaned the place up pretty well and taped the front-door glass back together reasonably well. Some customers look at me, but I don’t look back.
In my room—this is my room now; that other place is Vidocq’s—I put the box with Alice’s things on a shelf in the closet where I’d kept Kasabian’s head. I wish he was still here. I’d put one of Alice’s T-shirts over his head at night, the way old ladies drape parakeet cages. Sleep tight, moth-erfucker, with my murdered girl’s shirt for a nightcap.
I wonder where Parker has taken Kasabian and what he’s done with him. Only one thing makes sense. Parker has killed him. After I set off the trap back at Mason’s place, he and Parker realized I was back. They checked on the rest of the Circle and found Kasabian was gone. Knowing what a rancid little worm he was, Mason would figure that he’d start blathering secrets sooner or later. It would be simpler and easier just to kill him. Sweet dreams, Kas. I might not have killed you, you know. You were just too damned pathetic. Leaving you to your little store and the dreams of the power the others swindled you out of might have been punishment enough. I could have been happy to see you live another fifty years trying to make lemonade out of your misery.
I take the little magic box from Alice’s things and set it on the table beside the bed. I don’t dwell on it sitting on that crap table in this nowhere room. Let it go. Don’t think. It’s what you’re best at.
I’d picked up the habit of playing movies on the monitor Kasabian used to make his bootlegs. Mostly I watched old Shaw Brothers chop socky stuff. Five Deadly Venoms. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Dirty Ho. Or spaghetti westerns. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Great Silence. Four for the Apocalypse. The sound of fighting, even movie fighting, is weirdly comforting when I’m falling asleep. Something else is playing now, and I don’t remember having left the set on. It’s Fitzcarraldo, a German movie about a crazy Irishman who tries to drag a riverboat over a mountain in the Amazon. It almost kills him. Is this a message? Did Parker leave this playing for me? After he broke in, why didn’t he wait to ambush me?
I take the Veritas off its chain and do something I wanted to do last night. I flip the coin and ask, “Is Doc Kinski for real?” When it I catch it, the Veritas is showing a symbol it’s never displayed before. A calopus. Imagine a flying wolverine covered in porcupine quills dripping with enough poison to give God himself a sore ass. That’s a calopus. Written in Hellion script around the edge of the coin’s face is, If assholes had assholes, Kinski is the shit that would come out of that asshole. I’ve never see the Veritas say that about anyone before, Hellion, angel, human, or beast.
Like every sentient creature in the underworld, the Veritas has strong opinions. Using the Veritas well means being able to separate facts from its horror-show editorials. This is good news. There’s only one reason it would hate anyone like that.
Kinski is one of the good guys. Okay. Time to take the doc’s advice.
I leave Fitzcarraldo running with the sound off and dig around on the worktable until I find a creased AAA map of L.A. After I unfold it on the floor, take out the piece of lead the doc gave me, and start drawing a magic circle around it, I can’t remember any specific locator spells, but the idea is pretty simple and I know I can fake my way through one.
The circle is complex. Hellion magic is always complex—either that or so simple, Fungus could do it. There’s not much in the middle when Hellions are in charge.
When it feels like the circle is done, when the map is completely enclosed and I’ve loaded in every luck, hunting, and eavesdropping charm I can think of, I reach up for more junk off the table. A piece of string and some foil from a burrito wrapper. I wad up the foil and tie it to the bottom of the string, making a pendulum. Then I take my knife and slice across the palm of my left hand. Squeezing hard before the wound closes, I sprinkle blood around and inside the magic circle.
Hell doesn’t run on prayers or promises. Downtown magic is about reaching out and grabbing what you want, and that requires payment. An offering. Blood. Black magic on Earth isn’t so different and it’s why so many dark magicians dress like cashiers at Hot Topic. Black is a good color anytime you’re flinging around blood.
I start chanting, a free-form mix of Hellion and English, ordering whatever Lurkers, spirits, magical pinheads and old, forgotten gods who happen to be nearby to turn down The Price Is Right and listen up. Show me where Mason is. I paid you my blood, now give me what I want. I command you. Give me what you owe me. I have the key to all the doors in the universe. You don’t want to even dream of cheating me.
The foil ball on the end of the string begins to move, making little circles where I hold it over the map. The movement becomes steady and strong, pulling my hand and my whole arm in circles, too. Then it stops. The foil slams onto the map like it’s magnetized. I pull the pendulum away and look at where it landed. Just a little north of Hollywood Boulevard and Las Palmas, right on top of Max Overdrive.
Cute. I should have seen that one coming. Mason stuck a reversal gag on anyone stupid enough to look for him with magic.
On the floor, the map wads itself up and bursts into flame. A lick of fire reaches up like a burning claw and snatches the pendulum from my hand. Both the map and pendulum disintegrate into ashes and drift away on a breeze blowing in from some other part of Creation.
That was an Amateur Hour move. Now I know why Parker didn’t go for me the night he took Kasabian. Why should he bother? I’ve proven that I’m dumb enough to walk into a bear trap marked with a big flashing neon sign that says warning: bear trap. I’m a killer who hasn’t managed to kill anything. And it must be clear to everyone paying attention that I’m not Sam Spade. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m running on instinct and hunches.
Killing is a funny thing. Even if it’s killing a Hellion general, one so psychotic that even other Hellions want him dead, the first time you commit murder, you’re going to get sicker than you’ve ever been in your life and it’s going to last for days. The second time you commit murder, you’re going to get just as sick, but you’re going to be over it the next day. The third time you commit murder, you change into that extra shirt you brought along, the one that’s not covered in blood, and you go out for a drink. After that, killing doesn’t feel like much of anything at all. Of course, I haven’t killed a human yet. I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about it when the time comes.
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that Alice isn’t here to see what I’ve become.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and pick up the magic box, roll it around in my hands, then set it back on the table. On the TV, some poor Indian has just died hauling Fitzcarraldo’s boat over the mountain. The Indian’s friends are gathered around his body, but Fitz is screaming for them to keep pulling his boat. He’s the hero of the story and he’s completely nuts. This isn’t going to have a happy ending.
I lie down for a while, trying to get the kinks out of my back, but I’m too restless, so I walk over to the Bamboo House of Dolls. Carlos says hi, but I just sort of grunt at him. Being a good bartender, Carlos sees all and knows all. He brings me a double of Jack, along with some rice and beans with warm tortillas. Then he leaves me alone. The music isn’t Martin Denny tonight. It’s someone named Esquivel. It sounds like what James Bond’s dentist must play in his waiting room. I try to relax, enjoy the food, and let the ludicrous sound wash around me. After two or three more drinks, Esquivel is really starting to grow on me.
When Carlos comes ov
er to take away the empties, I ask, “What about me on a yacht in a white tux? Could I be James Bond’s stunt double?”
Carlos takes the glasses away before he says, “Only if Bond fell into a wood chipper first.”
He asks if I want another drink. I tell him I need a cigarette more and go outside and light up. It’s around eight. Maybe nine. Ten’s a possibility. Anyway, it’s dark out. Time to get back to Vidocq’s. I head for an alley across the street where I can slip unseen into a shadow. Halfway there, I spot a Ducati parked down the street. The twentysomething hipster TV producers love these sleek Euroracers, but like the Melrose Harley boys, it’s mostly for show. The Ducati’s tires are clean enough to eat off of. Doesn’t anyone in this town actually ride their bike?
It’ll be nice to feel some wind on my face. I take out the knife, jam it in the ignition, and I’m gone.
RULE ONE WHEN you get back from Hell and haven’t ridden a high-performance in eleven years is not to get on the bike after three or five Jack Daniel’s. Rule two is not to try a stoppie—grabbing just the front brake so that your rear end pops up. When you’re drunker than you think you are, which is pretty much always, you’re going to lean too far forward and pull the rear end of the bike up and over onto your dumb ass. Lucky for me, even six or seven sheets to the wind, I still have impressively inhuman reflexes, which means I can jump off the bike before it comes over and snaps my neck. The downside to jackrabbit reflexes is that while they get you out of the way of obvious and imminent danger, when you’re going forty miles an hour on your front wheel, those reflexes will simply launch you into the air like a squirrel on a land mine.
Off to my left, the bike is pinwheeling down the empty street, kicking up, sparking, and shedding its plastic and chrome skin as it flies apart. It’s kind of beautiful, turning from a machine into an ever-expanding shrapnel flower.
Then I hit the street and start tumbling. Then sliding. Then tumbling again. I vaguely remember that there’s a proper way to come down after laying down a bike, but my head is bouncing off asphalt and manhole covers and I’m way beyond technique at this point. I just roll up into a ball and hope that I don’t break anything important.
And I don’t. I just come away with some road rash on my hands and legs. Chalk one up to Kevlar scar tissue. My leather jacket is nicely scarred, which is fine by me. There’s nothing more embarrassing than new bike leather. However, my jeans look like they were attacked by a pack of wolverines. The bike is a total loss. I drag what’s left of it and leave it between a couple of stripped cop cars. I’m only a couple of blocks from Vidocq’s, so I walk the rest of the way.
AT THE DOOR Vidocq hits me with the resigned look of a father who knows that no matter how much he tries, this son probably isn’t going to make it to thirty. He shows me mercy by letting me in without saying a word. Allegra is grinning at me like the little sister who’s thinking the same thing as the father, but finds it funny and not pathetic.
“Are there any of my old clothes around?”
“I think there might be some in one of the cabinets. Wait here and try not to bleed on anything.”
“I showed Eugène that fire magic you taught me,” Allegra says.
“That was barely magic at all. More of a trick. And I didn’t teach you anything. I charmed your hand and gave you about one molecule of what I can do. That’s not the same as learning magic. You need to remember that or you’ll get hurt.”
Vidocq comes out of the bedroom with a familiar looking pair of beaten-up jeans.
“Thanks,” I tell him. I take off my shredded pants, toss them in a corner and put on the clean jeans, then remember that while modesty isn’t in high demand in Hell, you’re not necessarily supposed to do that kind of thing up here. But they’re both still looking at me like I stepped off the short bus, which is pretty much what I just did.
Vidocq leads us into the hall, stops, and looks at me.
“Allegra is with us now,” he says. “She needs to see and understand the things we do. You’re too drunk to safely steal another car tonight, though I know that’s exactly what you’d like to do. Instead, you need to show this girl your true gift and prove to her that you do things besides hurting yourself and other people.”
“Where are we going?”
“Third Street and Broadway. The Bradbury Building.”
I hold out my hand to Allegra. “You ready to do the next thing?”
“What is it?”
“This isn’t an asking situation. This is a doing situation. Either you’re ready or you’re not.”
A moment of hesitation, then she takes my hand. “Show me.”
Vidocq takes her other hand, and I pull them both into a shadow and into the room.
“What is this place?”
“The center of the universe.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can go anywhere you want. Any street. Any room. Anywhere. Across town, the moon or Elvis’s romper room.”
“If you can go anywhere you want anytime you want, why are you always stealing cars?”
“Because ghosts walk through walls. People drive cars.”
“Mr. Muninn is waiting,” says Vidocq. “We should move along.”
I take Allegra’s hand as Vidocq touches her shoulder and we all step out onto Broadway together. We’re right next to the Bradbury Building. It’s late enough that the only people who might see us are a couple of winos and some master-of-the-universe business types so in love with their cell phones that a nuke could go off in their pants and they wouldn’t notice.
Allegra looks around and punches me in the arm hard enough that I can tell she means it.
“You shit! You could have done this last night, but instead you made me stab you.”
“I didn’t think you were ready for it.”
“Like I said, if you want girls to hurt you, there’s plenty of professionals in the phone book.”
The inside of the Bradbury Building is a giant Victorian diorama. It looks like aliens dipped one of Jules Verne’s wet dreams in amber and dropped it in Los Angeles. The place is all open space in the middle, with masonry walls and wrought iron catwalks leading to offices and shops.
We step into an iron elevator that looks like a cage for an extinct bird the size of a horse. A couple of guys get in behind us. Grim expressions. Dark suits. Shades that look like they’ve never been taken off and, in fact, have been soldered to their faces. They wear those things in the shower and when they’re fucking their best friends’ wives. Mostly the guys in the suits bug me because they give off a whiff of bacon—cops earning a little extra money under the table by working as security guards. They might be off duty, but a cop is always a cop and being caged up with them makes me want to chew my way out of this steam-powered rattrap. The funny thing is that while their presence is sending my blood pressure to Mars and back, their heartbeats are rock steady. So is their breathing. Cops make me nervous at the best of times, but when I’ve been ripping off people and cars every couple of hours for days, and I’m packing a Hellion knife and an incredibly unregistered handgun, it brings out the bad side of my personality. Vidocq hits the button for the fifth floor. One of the men in black presses the button for three. If either of these guys even blinks funny, I’m going to be painting the walls with livers and spinal cords.
But nothing happens. The elevator hits three; the cops get out and walk away without even looking back. The fucked-up part is that I’m actually a little disappointed. I was so ready for a fight that now that it hasn’t happened, I feel like I’ve been tricked. Teased and let down. I desperately want to break something. It occurs to me that I might still be a little drunk and that the only thing that will cure me is a cigarette or random violence. Or maybe a glimpse of the ugliest furniture in the known universe.
There’s a home-decor shop right across the elevator. Some kind of high-end Pier I nightmare selling faux-exotic crap for dot-com cokeheads with too much money and no shame. There are life-size
porcelain cheetahs with gilt eyes. Fake antique Chinese furniture. Plasticine Buddhas. Paint-by-number Tibetan thangkas. The sight of the place is the kind of horror that will kill you or sober you up. Fortunately, I’m hard to kill.
Vidocq closes the elevator door and we start up to the fifth floor. Before we get there, he pushes the stop button and the car rattles to a halt. Using two fingers, he pushes the one and three buttons on the elevator keypad.
“What did you just do?”
Vidocq says, “We’re going to the thirteenth floor.”
“There is no thirteenth floor,” says Allegra. “Look at the buttons. This building only has five floors. And if it had more, it wouldn’t have a thirteenth floor. It’s bad luck. No one would move in.”
“If you say so,” he says, and pulls out the stop button. The car begins to move down. It stops at the third floor.
“See? We’re on three again.” Then something moves by the home-decor shop.
The window where the porcelain cheetah stood just a minute earlier is dark and lit only by candlelight. The big window is caked with a century’s worth of dust and impacted grime. In the cheetah’s place is a bell jar at least six feet tall. There’s a woman inside. She’s transparent and drained of color, nearly black and white. Her hair and dress billow around her, blown by some invisible storm. She screams and claws at the glass walls of her prison. When she sees people getting off the elevator, she goes quiet and stares at us like a lion tracking a herd of zebra. A second later, she’s pounding on the bell-jar glass again and showing yellow, sharklike teeth.
The interior of the shop is dark and crowded and has the musty smell of an attic that hasn’t been opened in fifty years. A shadow moves out of the shadows. It’s a man. He’s small, round, and black. Not the way Allegra is black, but black like a raven or an abyss. He’s wearing an expensive-looking silk robe and holding a brass telescope.
“I see you’ve met my Fury,” he says. “She’s a very recent acquisition from Greece. Of course, I’ve had all three Furies at one time or another, but never all at once. That would be a coup.” I look back at the Fury and out the dirty window. Women in business clothes and men in suits and carrying attaché cases pass, completely unaware of the Fury and the strange store.