I'm stalking through the party, trying to catch a trace of Jayne-Anne, when I walk straight into someone, knocking his drink all over his $10,000 suit. The guy gets up and starts to call me an asshole, but only gets out, "Assh-" before he chokes.
It's Brad Pitt. Not the actor, but my favorite crackhead from the outside cemetery when I first got back.
I say, "Where you been, man? I've missed you."
"Security!" he yells.
"I've been meaning to give this back to you."
I pull his stun gun from my pocket and zap him in the ribs, just for old times' sake. He goes down like a sack of lug nuts and I drop the stun gun on top of him. It won't do much good against what I know will be here in a second.
I'm not entirely stupid. I start back for the office when security comes tearing around the corner before I can get very far. Five or six of them. Buzz-cut heads and necks as wide as manhole covers. They look as stupid in their suits as I do. But they have more guns. They all draw down on me, but don't make a move. A woman walks around them and heads right for me. She has no idea who I am. Until she does.
"You're dead," she says.
"Not as dead as you're about to be."
Jayne-Anne backs off, yelling, "Kitty! Bennett!"
A starlet-skinny blonde in an off-the-shoulder designer schmata and a fop who looks like Ziggy Stardust in a purple velvet suit come around from behind the guards.
They reek of magic. It comes off them like heat ripples over desert asphalt.
So, to recap: we have five or six guns, a couple of hoodoo hipster killers, an old friend who wants me dead, a lot of drunks and naked showgirls, and me in a borrowed suit. I'd duck through a shadow, but with the crazy lighting in this place, there's nothing dark or deep enough for me to dive through.
Even my stupidity has its limits. I turn and run.
Fire and lightning explode behind me. Burning golden sparks rain down on me like a thousand lit matches, burning through the suit and into my skin. Best of all, ducking and bouncing off the walls to keep from getting hit is making the bullets in my chest very angry. They scrape my ribs and prod my lungs. I can already feel blood in the back of my throat. I'm never going to outrun these idiots.
I drop to my hands and knees, breathing hard through the froth in my throat. Blondie and the fop stop and look at each other, a couple of good hunting dogs who just ran down the fox and are about get their reward.
I've got their reward.
I shout guttural Hellion syllables, coughing up blood with every word. I push every ounce of power I have down through my arms and legs. I spit and my blood soaks into the expensive carpet that lines the hallway. Then it's gone. So is the floor. But I knew that was going to happen. Jayne-Anne's magicians and her armed linebackers didn't. They fall straight through where the hall floor used to be, roll down the hillside and into the trees. Jayne-Anne's and my eyes meet just long enough for me to give her a little wink. Then someone grabs me from behind and drags me back into the office that I wasn't supposed to leave in the first place. Plenty of shadows in here. I grab Vidocq's shoulder and we walk out through a photo of Jayne-Anne glad-handing the pope.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
WE STEP OUT of a shadow and into Muninn's cavern. Vidocq turns and punches me in the gut. I go down on one knee.
"You fucking child! You could have gotten us both killed."
This isn't the first time Vidocq has been mad at me, but it's the first time he's ever gotten physical. Good job. I'm about to lose one of the few friends I have on this rock.
When I don't get up he says, "Don't play with me. I didn't hit you that hard." Then he must see the blood. "What happened to you?"
"You hurt me bad, Pepe LePew," I say.
"You child," he says, and helps me to my feet. The bullets are rattling around inside me like gravel in a tin can.
Muninn looks like a little kid on Christmas morning when Vidocq hands him a small golden box with what looks like delicate grasshopper wings on top.
"Perfect. Beautiful," he says over and over. He takes the box over to what looks like solid rock. But with a few touches and turns to specific stones, the rock face swings away, revealing an enormous vault in the side of the cavern. Muninn takes the golden box inside, comes back out, and seals the vault so that it's invisible again.
"You've done a splendid job, gentlemen." He gives me an indulgent smile. "Well, one of you has been splendid. The other has ruined his suit. Don't worry. I have a million of them. Literally."
"You didn't tell us that they were using magicians as security at Avila," I say.
"Are they? That's new. But you rose to the challenge and completed your mission. I look forward to doing more business together."
"What else do you know about Avila? You know what they're hiding in that blank spot in the blueprints. Don't you?"
Muninn looks troubled.
"You don't want to know about these things. I don't want to know about them and I've seen whole civilizations turned to salt or buried in ice."
"What's in there?"
Muninn shakes his head.
"A bordello. The secret one. A celestial bordello full of creatures seldom seen here on Earth. But the real reason those so inclined go there, risk their lives and their souls, is for the pleasure of abusing captive angels. These are the injured ones who fell to Earth during Lucifer's uprising and new ones that they've captured since, though I have no idea how one goes about capturing an angel." Muninn looks at me. "There. Are you happier knowing? Will you sleep better tonight? Young man, there are some things in the world so profane that their only real value is in not knowing about them."
I wipe blood off my lips with my tuxedo sleeve while Muninn brings over a bottle dusty enough to have been on Noah's Ark. He pours three drinks in three crystal glasses. When he raises his, Vidocq and I follow.
"To God above," he says, and tosses the drink over his right shoulder. Vidocq and I do the same. He pours three more drinks.
"To the devil below." He tosses the drink over his left shoulder. So do we.
Muninn pours three more drinks, each twice as full as the first two.
"To us. The ones who did real work tonight while those other two were off playing tiddledywinks with poor fools' souls." He raises his glass and knocks the whole thing off in one gulp. The stuff burns like rose-flavored battery acid, but I don't taste blood anymore.
Muninn sets down his glass, takes a blue bottle from the end of the table, and sets it in front of Vidocq.
"Spiritus Dei, my friend."
Vidocq beams. "Thank you. That's more than I was hoping for."
"If you have extra, can I have some?" I ask. "I want to put it on my bullets. I might have to shoot things that don't die easy."
Muninn goes to a shelf and comes back with a smaller version of the bottle he gave Vidocq.
"On account," he says.
"Thanks."
"And I owe you some cash, too, I believe."
"That would be nice. Do you have an ATM down here under all these clocks and bones?"
Muninn walks to a corner of the room piled twenty-feet high with boxes of bills and chests overflowing with gold and silver coins. The little man pokes through the pile like an old codger trying to choose just the right ripe peach at the grocery store.
"Ah." He pulls down a box marked u.s. treasury and hands me a neatly banded stack of brand new bills. I riffle the stack, enjoying the feel of money in my hands. The bills are all hundreds. Next to the counter girl at Donut Universe, it's the most beautiful thing I've seen since coming back to Earth.
Over Muninn's shoulder there's a glass decanter with a small blue flame, not much more than a match head, hovering at the center.
"Is that what it looks like?" I ask.
"What does it look like?"
"It looks like the Mithras. The first fire."
"Right you are. The first fire in the universe. And the last. There are many in this world, and others, who believe that at the end of time the Mithras will escape and grow until it has burned down all of Creation. The ashes of our existence will fertilize the soil for the universe to follow."
"How much is something like that worth?"
"It's not for sale. And if it were, not in this lifetime or with the accumulated wealth of your next thousand lifetimes could you afford it. Don't be too ambitious too quickly, my friend. If we're able to do business more regularly-and I think that we can-then your payment will increase and become considerably more interesting."
I put the bills Muninn gave me into the inside pocket of the tuxedo jacket.
"Who were we working for tonight?" I ask.
"That's confidential."
"Not even a hint?"
"Answers are easy, but hints cost money. Save yours for now. You're going to need a new suit," he says, fingering a hole in my sleeve where some of the golden sparks have burned through.
We say good night and start back up the steps to Muninn's store.
"Would you mind picking up those coins you dropped?"
I wave to him and pick up each one as we pass. When we reach the shop, I drop them in the bowl I'd stolen them from.
In the elevator, Vidocq asks, "Why do you care who Muninn's client is?"
"That's was a big coincidence walking into Jayne-Anne's place tonight. It's the second time since I've been back that I happened to stumble into a member of the circle. I want to know if I'm being set up."
"Muninn will never tell you. It's a matter of honor for men like him. We must be more careful."
The elevator reaches the ground floor and Vidocq slides the brass gate open.
"This is going to get worse, you know. That run-in with those goons tonight? That's nothing."
"Inter urinas et faeces nascimur. We are born between piss and shit," he says. "Many wanted to kill me back in my day in France. The criminals I sent to prison. The local police who never believed I was anything other than the rogue and thief I was in my youth. Even the Surete, the special police force I built for Paris, one based on true scientific principles-even they were corrupted by those in power and turned against me. Most of what I've built or had has been taken away from me by liars and curs, so if you're going to tell me to go away or that I don't have to stay for what's coming, kiss my arse. The things that Mason and his friends do-they are the things of men. Mason has power, maybe more power than any magician in history, but he is still a man. I am not afraid of any man."
"Let's go get drunk."
"And piss on our enemies from a great height."
I'M SITTING AT the bar in the Bamboo House of Dolls, playing with the Barbie-size keyboard on my new phone. Phones are like toys now. They fit in your pocket, light up and vibrate like joy buzzers. Plus, you can get-I mean, "access"-the Internet and find anything you want. Music. Maps. Porn. Anything. If cell phones came with a cigarette dispenser, they'd be the greatest stupid invention ever.
"Googling yourself?" asks Carlos.
"What's that?"
"Searching for yourself on Google. Find out how famous you are. How many places you're mentioned. They call it 'ego surfing.' Just put in your name."
The first thing that comes up is an old L.A. Times Article on Alice's murder. It's just a filler piece with no details because who cares about one more dead punk? It's kind of insulting, but I'm grateful not to know too much about exactly what happened to her. I'm still not ready for that.
Carlos is right. I'm on Google, too. Apparently, LAPD is looking for me as a "person of interest" in Alice's murder. So much for ego surfing.
I put in Mason Faim and get another L.A. Times article on the fire at his house-the first one. Not the one Vidocq and I started. There's a sketchy obituary, too. Sounds like they found a body in the mansion; it was so far gone that they couldn't check dental records and get a decent DNA sample. My guess is that the body was the Circle's resident hippie, poor, dumb TJ. Mason isn't the type to let a perfectly good corpse go to waste if he can use it to convince people that he's dead.
Another search and I find Jayne-Anne's name mentioned in about a million places. Mostly society-page party and charity events, political fund-raising, and movie premieres. Anywhere she can get up close and personal with the masters of the universe.
I put in Cherry Moon's name and get a link to a Web site. Click on the link and there she is, in perfect Sailor Moon drag, a rhinestoned cell phone in one hand and a pink teddy bear backpack in the other. She looks even younger than she did before I went Downtown. When I left, she could pass for twelve or thirteen. Now she looks like she's eleven, tops. I hope it's done with makeup, but I have a feeling it's something else.
I click the enter button and go to her site. It's the same thing inside. A pretty little girl's pretty little diary, full of gossip about her cool friends and the neat things they do together. Plus pages and pages of pictures of her in maybe a hundred different Gothic Lolita outfits, everything from Shirley Temple pinafores to pirates to a kimono-clad vampire with fake fangs. It's a pretty convincing little girl's site, only Cherry is about my age. If I didn't know her better and know that this was all an act, I'd think she was retarded.
There's a links page with buttons that lead to you to the sites of the rest of her prepubescent coven. At the top of the page is a big link to a site called Lollipop Dolls. That was the name of the creepy girl gang she hung out with while we were in the Circle. Now Lollipop Dolls seems to be an expensive store on Rodeo Drive selling imported Japanese anime and monster-movie toys, games, and custom Gothic Lolita clothing. Now I know what Mason gave Cherry as her reward. I check the address one more time, go the bathroom in the back of the bar, step through a shadow, and come out on Rodeo Drive.
