Chapter Twenty-Two
“Troy.” Philip smiled. “That’s not really my name, you know.” He gestured at the door handle. “Stay put. You’re in no shape to be on your own right now.”
“What do you want?” Vish asked.
“For starters, I’m interested in finding out why Sparky turned on you. And here I thought you two were close.”
Vish laughed. It sounded high-pitched and demented, and it scared the hell out of him. “I really couldn’t tell you,” he said.
“You’ll tell me,” Philip—Troy—said. “You’ll tell me everything, starting with why you’re so important to Sparky.”
“But I’m not,” Vish said. “I haven’t ever been. I’ve been a decoy.” It stank to say it out loud like that. “He was trying to lure you out, so he gave me his phone number, knowing you’d be on to me as soon as I called him. And now that I’m not any use to him, I guess he decided to get rid of me.”
Philip looked at him. “Huh,” he said at last.
They drove in silence. Vish was okay with that. It was difficult to concentrate, what with the way his head kept swimming. He kept his hand on the door handle, and at every red light, he considered swinging it open. He’d leap to the curb, make a break for it, find a cop or anyone who could help him.
No. Bad plan. He was sick and weak. He’d conserve his energy and choose the right moment to make his move, whatever that might turn out to be.
He looked at Philip. “Why’d you choose Troy?” he asked. “Why her?”
“Chance. I made a fast decision when you first encountered her,” Philip said. “The original plan was just to stick with you, but I figured Sparky would never show his face if he knew you were…” He stopped and appeared to mull over the correct way to phrase it.
“Possessed?”
“Possessed, or compromised, or hijacked, or however you want to describe it. Anyway, I thought it’d be more interesting for everyone concerned if I used Troy. I hope you’re not complaining, because you were awfully happy with her. With me, I should say.”
“You seemed to know me pretty well,” Vish said. “You knew exactly how to manipulate me.”
“How to make you fall in love with me, you mean?” Philip smiled. “I’m a quick study.” He reached out and touched Vish’s jawline. Vish flinched away. It was a gesture Troy would have made, before she woke the morning after Kelsey’s party to discover some… creature… had been occupying her body for the past month.
No wonder she’d thought Vish was evil.
The scenery along Wilshire flew by. Miracle Mile blended into Beverly Hills, which blended into Westwood, then Brentwood and Santa Monica, and finally Vish could see the ocean. Philip headed north on the Pacific Coast Highway, past Pacific Palisades, and from there Vish lost track of where they were. This was one of those areas people without cars couldn’t easily reach, out where the Santa Monica Mountains ran into the sea.
Philip turned onto a side street and drove up into the hills, then pulled onto the shoulder and parked. They were at the top of a bluff, a couple hundred feet above the PCH and the sandy beach just beyond it. “Get out,” he said. Vish tried to obey, but realized he didn’t have enough strength in his hands to get the door open. His chest and stomach burned when he tried to move.
He tried again. Damn it, if he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t escape.
Philip huffed out an impatient sigh, then stormed around to the passenger side and opened the door. He grabbed Vish by the arm and yanked him out. Vish tumbled to the gravel and landed on his shoulder. Didn’t hurt much. He wasn’t feeling much of anything, which was surely cause for alarm.
Philip kicked him in the chest once, hard. Okay, he felt that.
“Get up,” Philip said. “Move it, or I’ll really hurt you.”
Vish stared up at the sky, white from the marine layer. This was one of the things he’d liked most about this city when he first moved here, how the beaches looked so beautiful and desolate sometimes, apocalyptic in their wide emptiness, the ocean and sky so obscured by that strange white haze that it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began.
Another kick to his ribs yanked him out of his thoughts. Philip reached down and grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him to his feet.
“We’re going down the cliff,” Philip said. He gestured at a dirt trail leading down through the rocks and dry grasses. “If you can’t walk on your own, I’ll drag you.”
“I can walk,” Vish said. Might even be true. In any case, hiking to the PCH wasn’t a bad idea. Plenty of traffic, plenty of people. Whatever Philip was going to do to him, he’d be hard-pressed to try it in such a public spot.
Philip gave him a small shove. Vish headed down the trail. It was steep and slippery with loose rocks and dirt, but he could manage it. He moved as quickly as he could. Philip was right behind him, within tackling distance, but maybe he wouldn’t dare to attack him with so many potential witnesses around.
He’d never get a better chance than this. Vish picked up the pace. Legs felt unsteady, and he was dangerously close to falling on his ass, but it felt better being in motion. He’d make it to the highway and flag down a motorist. He’d be saved.
He heard Philip shout something, and then a body slammed into him from behind. Vish tumbled forward; someone grabbed his hair and yanked him upright. Vish turned his head and found himself looking at a familiar face. Not Philip. Tommy.
“Going somewhere?” Tommy asked.
Philip slid down the bluff to join them. “Sparky poisoned him. He’s dying. We need to find out what he knows first.”
“My pleasure,” Tommy said.
Tommy had come from nowhere, materializing out of the ether. He hadn’t been at the top of the bluff when Vish and Philip had arrived, and yet he’d attacked Vish from behind. Even as Vish stared at him, though, the mystery cleared up. A head of shaggy fair hair poked out of the side of the bluff, and then another surfer joined their motley little group. “Hey, you got him, huh?”
He’d emerged from a cave in the side of the hill, a small hole, the entrance obscured by scraggly bushes and an outcropping of rock. Tommy marched Vish through the opening and shoved him to the ground. One more surfer was inside, seated cross-legged on the sandy floor. Four against one. Not great odds.
Vish squinted in the darkness at his surroundings and saw craggy rocks and damp sand. Philip crouched in front of him. “Can you move?” he asked.
Vish sat up. Slowly, because everything swam and spun and shifted at every motion. Standing was beyond him, so he leaned his back against the cave wall. The cold dampness seeped through his shirt.
Philip leaned forward and examined him. “You’re dying,” he said. “But before you do, you’re going to tell me all you know about Sparky.”
Vish tried to laugh, but it hurt his chest. “Already done,” he said. His voice was thin and wobbly, no power behind his words. “There’s nothing more to say.”
He took a deep, painful breath. “Sparky wanted to use me to figure out what you’re up to. That’s all.”
“Did he, now?” Philip sat back on his heels and examined him. “Tommy, why don’t you show Vish what we’re up to?”
Tommy grabbed Vish by his upper arms and hauled him to his feet. “This way,” he said. Vish found himself half-pushed and half-dragged down a short, sandy tunnel at the back of the cave.
Before he could see anything, the stench hit him first, a combination of decay and something worse, and Vish knew without having ever smelled this particular odor before that the chamber was filled with corpses.
Philip lit a match, a spark of bright light in the darkness, and touched it to a torch jammed into the sand. Glittering lights dazzled Vish’s eyes. Thousands of sparkly polished stones set into the cavern walls formed intricate mosaics, violent images of great beasts and gigantic figures flickering in the firelight, scenes of some long-forgotten mythology, about which he’d never know more than what could be gleaned from these
fragmented glimpses. There were answers here, clues to the true nature of Troy and Sparky and Isabella, and Vish wished he’d never seen any of it.
And then there were the bodies, close to two dozen of them, all in a pile, limbs tangled, sprawled in a careless heap on the sandy floor. Some recently killed, some nothing more than browning bones draped in rags and scraps of rotting flesh. The missing actors, the ones who’d disappeared, this was where they’d ended up. This was what Philip—Troy, or whoever he really was—had done to spur Sparky into action. Maybe Diego Xavier Gonzales was here, or maybe he’d simply cut his losses and left town after deciding stardom wasn’t in his cards. Maybe Carlotta was here, too, that cheerful and friendly actress who’d been so happy about her bit part on Interstellar Boys. Collateral damage in some tiff between Sparky and one of his many enemies.
“Why?” he asked. He wanted to say more than that, but there was no power in him.
Philip smiled, cold and fleeting. “Which answer would be better?” he asked. “That I enjoyed it, or that I didn’t care?”
He gestured with his chin toward the surfers. “Their doing, most of it,” he said. “They had the enthusiasm. I gave them free reign and told them I could protect them if they got caught.”
He nodded at Tommy. “Care to finish what you started?”
They were on Vish, kicking and grabbing and groping and tearing, and Vish could do little more than lie there and take it. He tried to crawl away or, failing that, protect himself as best he could, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t coordinate his muscles and get his brain to send the right messages to his body.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The blows ceased. The surfers froze. Vish raised his head.
“Oh, hey.” Sparky stood in the entrance to the cavern. “Looks like I finally found you guys.” He nodded at Vish. “Thanks, Vish. How are you holding up?”
Vish couldn’t answer. He concentrated on taking normal breaths. His chest hurt in an ominous way.
Sparky didn’t seem to expect an answer from him. He turned his attention to Philip. “You seemed hell-bent on luring me out of my comfort zone. So here I am.”
“This isn’t your territory, Sparky,” Philip said. “Coming here was a bad idea.”
Sparky just smiled. He glanced at the pile of corpses in mild interest, then turned to look at Tommy and the surfers. He didn’t move, or do or say anything. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
A rush of air, like an errant gust of wind, and then the surfers burst into flames.