“What caves are we talking about? Carlsbad Caverns? A salt mine in Louisiana? Lascaux?”
The Shonin pours out the muck he gave me. Puts water and green tea into the pot and places it back on the burner.
“These were California boys, so it will be a California cave that connects, at least on a spirit level, with the Flayed Heart’s dwelling place.”
I start to say something, but don’t. I know some caves nearby, but if the Vigil doesn’t know about them I’m not going to tell them yet. I need to check with someone first.
Candy is slumped on a metal stool on the other of the room, away from everyone. She’s pale and fidgety. I go over to her.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine,” she says. “Just let me sit here.”
“I can take you home if you want.”
“I’m fine. Okay?”
I nod.
“Okay.”
“Stark,” says Wells. “You know lowlifes. Any of your pixie friends like to spend their time underground?”
“What makes you think the Sub Rosa or Lurkers have anything to do with this? Angra worshipers are mostly lily--white civilians.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I look at the Shonin.
“You want to know about underground dwellers? Why don’t you ask the jabber over there?”
Jabbers are ghosts so scared of the afterlife that they won’t even leave their dead bodies. They claw their way through the soil under the city, dried--out bones living in dirt.
“Don’t you dare talk about Ishiro Shonin that way. This is a holy man. Jabbers are cowards. What this man did took years of dedicated training and preparation. Successful self--mummification is incredibly rare.”
I fish around in my coat pocket for a pack of Maledictions. I find them but they’re soggy with rainwater. I crumple up the pack and throw it in a wastebasket.
I look at the Shonin.
“You’re what successful looks like? I’ve met Buddhist monks before. None of them looked like Johann Schmidt’s foreskin.”
“It took a thousand days to purify my body and mind before I could inter myself, preparing to come back when the world needed me. Of course,” he says, looking around, “I didn’t think I was coming back to a world of gaijin, urban y?kai, and whatever it is you are.”
“Angels call me Abomination, but looking at you, I don’t feel so bad about it.”
“What’s ‘urban y?kai’?” says Candy. Her voice is shaky.
“He means Lurkers. Don’t you, muertita?”
The Shonin says, “I knew, for instance, respectable tengu back home. You Los Angeles -people—-humans, and monsters—-you are lost beings.”
“Speaking for all the y?kai in L.A., go fuck yourself,” says Candy.
“Watch the profanity,” says Wells.
I go over to him.
“Exactly what is Mr. Bones doing here?”
“He was a yamabushi back in Japan. A lone mountain monk in Sennizawa. They called them Swamp Wizards. He has a deep background in the mystical arts. He’s going to figure out how to make the Qomrama Om Ya work.”
“I’m supposed to be lab partners with this guy?”
The Vigil has the 8 Ball locked up in a secure clean room all by itself, suspended in a magnetic field. It floats in the air and changes shape as you walk around it.
“Not supposed to,” says Wells. “You are. It’s done and settled. He’ll figure out the Qomrama and you’ll use it.”
“Why don’t you clue me in on these things from time to time so I know what to expect?”
Wells pushes the cooler against the wall with the toe of his highly polished shoe.
“Fine. Here’s your clue for today. I want you to write down everything that happened before the man you brought in died and everything you saw and heard when you went inside his head. Make sure Ishiro Shonin gets a copy and so do I.”
“Now I’m your secretary.”
“For the kind of money we’re paying you, you’re whatever I need. Today you weren’t much of anything at all.”
“Speaking of money, I still don’t have my first check.”
Wells squares his shoulders.
“I wanted a man to question and you bring me back a horror show. This isn’t a good time to complain to management about your salary.”
I look over at Candy. She’s leaning her elbows on the table.
“I’ll write your report, but I’m doing it at home.”
“I want it by nine A.M.”
“Noon, it is.”
Wells is tense. His heart rate is up a little. His pupils are narrow. I head over to Candy.
“Is there something else you have to say? Something you’re not telling me?”
“Yes. Up your game, Stark. These might be the End Times. I don’t want you half--assing your way through them.”
It’s a good party--line statement, but it’s not what he’s thinking about. There’s something else.
“Sure,” I say. Then to the Shonin, “See you around the watercooler, King Tut.”
“Don’t eat too much tonight, fatty. Salads are your friend.”
I grab my coat and Candy and I follow Wells outside. The Shonin stays behind and pours himself some tea.
“What an asshole,” she says.
“He’s just trying to get under my skin. Sounds like he’s getting under yours.”
She shakes her head.
“Maybe. I don’t feel well. I’m going to see Allegra.”
I touch her cheek. It’s cold, but Jades always run a little cool.
“You feel a little colder than usual. Want me to come along?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll see you at home.”
“At least let me take you through a shadow. It’ll take you forever on the street.”
“I’m fine,” she says. For a second she flashes her Jade face. It’s almost subliminal, like she wasn’t in control. “Stop getting all over me.”
I say, “I’ll see you at home.”
Candy doesn’t say anything. Just walks away.
I remember that she still has my gun and I almost go after her. But I don’t. Maybe some space is what she needs right now. Anyway, whatever’s wrong, Allegra’s clinic will fix her up.
I find a good shadow by the lab door and go through, coming out at home. Maximum Overdrive. The video store I run with a not--quite--dead man named Kasabian.
MAX OVERDRIVE IS located on Las Palmas, right off Hollywood Boulevard. It sits midway between Donut Universe and Bamboo House of Dolls, the only junk--food place and bar that matters in L.A.
Kasabian used to run the store. When I came back from Hell I cut off his head. I might have been a little hasty, but he’d just shot me and I wasn’t feeling entirely reasonable at the time.
The trick with the black blade I used on him is that if you hold it just right it cuts, but it doesn’t kill. And that’s what I did to Kasabian. He’s spent most of the last year as a disembodied head and he hasn’t shut up about it.
Lately I started feeling sorry for him, so I had a Tick Tock Man called Manimal Mike attach Kas to a mechanical hellhound. Now he sort of has a body, even if it’s a little wobbly and whirs like a toy train when he moves.
Some Lurkers are in the store. A young Lyph whose denim jacket looks like it was mugged by a Bedazzler. All rhinestones and shiny bits on the back. Jim Morrison’s face in flames. Underneath it says LIGHT MY FIRE. Lyph have horns and hooves and tails just like Halloween devils, but they’re as sweet as peach ice cream when you get to know them.
A -couple of Tykho Moon’s boys are in the shop, dressed to the nines in the best leather and latex you can steal off a dead model.
Tykho is the boss of the Dark Eternal, the biggest, baddest vampire clan in L.A. Yeah, Dark Eternal sounds kind of like an eighties Goth band, but Tykho assures me the name is a lot scarier in Latin. The Eternal have been around for a long time. Tykho’s boys are arguing, bumping shoulders like a -couple of young pups, and whispering to each other.
Kasabian isn’t anywhere in sight, which isn’t a big deal. It isn’t like anyone is going to shoplift any of what we carry. Max Overdrive used to be a regular video store. We rented movies, sold new and used discs. In other words, a money pit. BitTorrent and movie streaming were killing us. Thanks to Kasabian’s obsessive collecting, our impressive porn and horror collections kept us afloat for a while, but we were going down fast. Now we’re a boutique shop catering to a select clientele of Sub Rosas, Lurkers, and a few civilians with money and a taste for something special. Mainly, movies that don’t exist.
The taller of Tykho’s boys turns and spots me. He wears a patch over one eye. Sucks for him. He must have lost it while he was still alive and couldn’t regenerate it when he turned. He gives me a toothy smile and comes over. Leans on the counter, hooking his thumb at the rack of our specialty movies.
“Don’t get me wrong, Stark. I appreciate all the artsy stuff, but don’t you have anything that’s actually fun?”
What we rent mostly now are lost movies. Movies cut to pieces by the studios or lost in fires or time. Movies that literally don’t or shouldn’t exist anymore in this dimension of reality.
“London After Midnight is fun. It’s a murder mystery. Lon Chaney plays a creepy guy with a giant set of fangs and a weird beaver hat, who might be a vampire.”
Eye Patch leans back, frowning.
“Silent movies? Those are as scary as a damp sponge.”
“That means you wouldn’t like Metropolis. I have the only totally complete copy in the world with the original score, you know.”