“You know too. So I’m the only ignorant one here. Why is that?”
“Because of how you’re acting now,” I say. “You said that all that stuff that happened between us before was over and forgotten, but it’s not. You liked it when I showed you how there was real magic in the world. But you couldn’t handle it when it got down to the hard stuff. Magic and Lurkers were fun and sexy, but Heaven and Hell? You never even tried to deal with them and they’re part of everything that’s happening.”
Allegra is quiet for a minute. She looks out the van’s window at the sky.
“Is that why the sky keeps changing colors? Or the sinkholes?”
“I hadn’t heard about sinkholes. And I don’t know anything about the sky. I was talking about my current employment situation. I’m half a person with half the universe on my back, and if you think that makes me a monster, then you can go to Hell yourself, princess. The door handle’s there and there’s a bus stop at the corner.”
She sits for a minute looking at the floor, then slides the van’s side door open hard enough that it almost comes back on her. She gets out and walks away.
Vidocq gives me a look he’s never given me before. Like he actually wants to hit me.
“Well handled, boy. As graceful as always.”
“You better hurry. Make sure she doesn’t fall and crack her halo.”
Vidocq gets out and slams the door closed.
Candy and I sit in silence for a minute.
“Well, that just happened,” she says. “I have a big mouth. I’m sorry I said anything.”
“Forget it. It was going to happen sooner or later. Wait here.”
Lula Hawks, tattoos and scarred face, is walking our way. I get out and go around to her.
“Are you stalking me? You could have just asked for an autograph.”
She takes a startled step back.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“I asked first.”
She nods toward Cairo’s place.
“You know King lives over there, right?”
“Yeah. When he comes back, I’m going to kill him.”
She pushes her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket. Takes a breath. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“How is it you know him and want to sell him out to a bad person like me?”
“We went out for a while,” she says. Shakes her head. “I don’t like what he’s become since Aelita arrived. He’s out of control.”
“He’s always been out of control.”
“Not like nowadays.”
“Why did you send me to that stiff, Manimal Mike? He was pretty much useless.”
“What does ‘pretty much’ mean?”
“It means I have important questions and he didn’t know shit.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the girl tried to cut Saint James and that he ran off somewhere called Blue Heaven but he didn’t know where it was.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing. I had to twist his greasy arm to do some Tick Tock work for a guy I know. That’s all.”
She nods like she’s deep in thought. “So, he told you where this Saint James is and his motives for going there. And that the ghost girl attacked him specifically, not randomly. He also agreed to do tens of thousands of dollars of Tick Tock work for, I’m guessing, free. You call that nothing?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds like something, but I’m telling you, the way it came out of his whiskey hole, it sure seemed like a lot of nothing.”
“I’m glad I could help you take a second look. Now I’d like to go before anybody sees me talking to you.”
“What happened to your face? Did Cairo do that to you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I know but I’m uncouth, so I thought I’d ask.”
“And I answered.”
There’s something about her.
“Have we met before? I mean before Blackburn’s.”
“Why did I even bother talking to you? You’re as bad as King. Leave me alone.”
She takes a couple of steps back and detours around me, heading the way she’d been walking when I stopped her.
I’m making all kinds of friends today.
When I get back to the van, Candy says, “Who was that? Another one of your porn stars?”
“Someone who tried to help me but then I asked a dickheaded question.”
“She’s the one who told you about Cairo?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like she told you the truth. There he is. Who’s that with him?”
“No idea.”
Cairo is walking on the other side of the street screaming and waving his arm like a windup gorilla. A few feet in front of him is a pretty dark-haired girl in a long sweater and boots over a tiger-print dress. He gets up right behind her, shouting loud enough that people turn to look. He curses at them too. Tiger Stripe Girl keeps walking, trying hard to ignore him. The leather bag on her shoulder slips and slides down her arm. Cairo puts a hand out and grabs the strap. Tiger Girl turns and shoves him hard with both hands. He grabs her arms and shouts in her face. Tiger Girl’s face switches from disgust to fear. She bends back at the waist to keep some distance between her and Cairo.
I get out of the van and start across the street.
Horns honk. Growling engines pass behind me. Most cars stop. I squeeze between them and wave on the rest.
Cairo turns to check out the noise and sees me. He smiles. Gives me the finger. Tiger Girl tries to pull away but he has her tight and he’s dragging her to his door. She swings one of her heavy boots out and roundhouses Cairo in the shin. He screams a stream of cryptic ’Bama curses and drops her arm, holding his leg. He lunges at Tiger Girl but pulls up short. Now it’s his turn to look scared. He backs away and fumbles keys from his pocket. Opens the steel door to his building and slams it shut.
Tiger Girl stands there with the strap in her hand and her bag on the ground, having no idea what just happened. I do. The little ghost girl is behind her. Maybe twenty feet away and walking fast. She’s laughing that high childish tinkling laugh. Finally Tiger Girl hears her and turns around. She just stands there. She knows who the girl is, and like most normal people when confronted with flat-out evil, her brain vapor locks and she freezes in place. Me, I pull the Sig and start shooting.
Cars skid. People scream and dive for cover.
All the noise snaps Tiger Girl out of her trance. She dives for cover and I keep firing. When I reach the sidewalk, I get between her and the ghost. The Spiritus Dei–covered bullets punch holes in the little girl. She stretches like warm taffy every time one hits but the hole snaps back and closes by the time the next bullet reaches her. She doesn’t come any closer but she sure as hell doesn’t leave.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Candy jump from between two cars.
I yell “No!” but it’s too late.
Candy heads straight for the girl, probably thinking she’s wounded. She’s not. The little girl turns, and even though Candy is moving Jade fast, the girl’s knife blurs the air and she slashes Candy across the stomach. Candy falls. The momentum carries her a few feet away, where she lies on the pavement tucked up in a little ball. Ghost Girl gets over her with the knife held in both hands. I’m wearing a long, deep-pocketed coat I found in Samael’s closet. I reach into a pocket and whistle. The girl looks at me. I do a Dizzy Dean windup and throw the Magic 8 Ball at her as hard as I can.
She screams when she sees it, a long, high-pitched wail like a giant’s fingernails scraping over miles of blackboard. She shrieks louder when the 8 Ball hits her, tearing a hole in her side. There’s no blood or bone. It looks like someone ripped a piece out of a photo in a magazine. The girl’s face turns dark like she’s about to start crying. She disappears.
I run to Candy. Pick her up in my arms and lean down to grab the 8 Ball. When I turn to get Tiger Girl, the little girl is there. She slashes at Candy again. I pivot away fast enough to protect Candy but the girl slices my arm. I hold the 8 Ball like a rock and slam it into her face. She turns dark again and this time her scream is loud enough to crack the glass in nearby cars. When she disappears, I grab Tiger Girl’s arm.
“Come on. She might come back.”
“That was the ghost.”
“No shit.”
I slide open the van’s side door and put her and Candy in the back. Grab the big Chateau towel we were using as a tablecloth and have Tiger Girl hold it to Candy’s stomach. Candy moans and tries to curl into an even tighter ball.
“What the hell . . . ?” she says.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m taking you to the clinic.”
Cairo lives in Silver Lake and Allegra’s clinic is right on the edge of the neighborhood. It’s a short drive and even shorter through three red lights. Each one explodes when I throw hard, fast hoodoo to turn it back to green. Not having the Key to the Room of Thirteen Doors was a pain in the ass before, but now this is Candy’s life. I never really thought about killing Saint James, but if Candy doesn’t come through this, I might have to.
Someone inside must hear the van screech to a stop in the parking lot. Fairuza, the Ludere girl, opens the door and she and Rinko come out. Candy is awake and wobbly, but on her feet. Rinko guides her inside without even looking at me and Fairuza closes and locks the door.
Candy’s blood is all over me and the back of the van. I pour the last of the sake on my hands and the knife slash on my arm. The burning feels good. I get back in the van and wrap Candy’s towel around my arm. Toss the other towel to Tiger Girl.
“Your dress is messed up.”
She looks down and sees streaks of blood. There really isn’t that much but she lets out a panicked moan.
“No. Shit. Goddamn.”
I’m tempted to tell her that even if God cared, He isn’t in a position to do anything about it, but I keep my mouth shut. It’s done enough damage today.
“Calm down,” I say. “None of it’s your blood.”
Tiger Girl pats herself down enough to see that I’m right.
The sky shifts between blue, pistachio green, and the kind of deep purple I remember from when Downtown was on fire. Clouds turn to metal and burst into flame before going white and puffy again.
“We can’t stay here and I can’t drive this van across town.”
I dial the Chateau.
“Can you send a limo for me right now?”
“Certainly, Mr. Macheath.”
I give the clerk the address.
“Make it fast. Tell the driver I’ll keep his or her ass out of the fire forever if they get here in ten minutes.”
“I’ll drive it myself.”
“I don’t care who. Just drive fast.”
Tiger Girl’s breathing is almost back to normal but her heart is still going Mach 5. Mild shock. She’ll be fine. My adrenaline is off the charts. I want to kick the clinic door in and find Candy but I don’t want to slow Allegra working on her.
My goddamn arm won’t stop bleeding.
“What’s your name?” I ask Tiger Girl.
“Patty Templeton.”
I wrap the towel around my arm and hold it out to her.
I say, “Tie the ends together, Patty.”
She takes the ends of the towel and pulls them tight.
“I’m Stark. You can ride with me unless you want to get out and walk home.”
“No fucking way.”
“Good. Now we’re friends and we’re going to talk to each other, and no bullshit, right?”
I fire up the van and pull it into a corner space behind some delivery vans. I’ll come back after dark and ditch it somewhere.
“Yeah. Okay. Just keep her away from me.”
“No problem. I know somewhere she’ll never find us.”
The limo pulls up with thirty seconds to spare.
“What about your friend inside?” Patty asks.
“She’s in good hands.”
Patty and I get in the limo.
“Looks like you got yourself a ticket to damnation paradise,” I say to the driver.
He turns the big car around.
“What if I’m not damned?” he says. I recognize the voice from the phone.
“Trust me, pal. If you weren’t before, you are now.”
As we pull into traffic, I glance back at the lot. The hole Cherry dug yesterday is closed up good as new. Cherry works harder dead than she ever did when she was alive.
If you ever need to pull a girl into a secret room through a grandfather clock and not have her make a big deal about it make sure she’s attacked by a knife-wielding ghost first.
I leave Patty on the couch and go to the bathroom for a new towel. This one is soaked through. When I come out, she’s sniffing the open bottle of Aqua Regia.
“You might want to skip that. There’s regular wine with the food.”
She sniffs again and pours herself a little in a wineglass. Tosses it back and makes a face.
“I told you.”
She pours more. I sit down across from where she was. She shrugs and brings the glass over. Yesterday’s food is gone and there’s a fresh spread laid out buffet-style.
“I’ve had worse,” she says. “Some kind of akvavit?”
“Some kind.”
“I’ve never seen it red before.”
“It’s pretty rare.” I don’t want to tell her that the red is semipoisonous Hellion herbs and a few drops of angel’s blood. She’s had a rough enough day.
