Текст книги "Devil Said Bang"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

Соавторы: Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Allegra waves her chopsticks like shaking her head.

“You didn’t teach me that magic. You gave it to me.”

“Fair enough. But there are some kinds of old hoodoo that even civilians can do if they learn the right spells and make the right sacrifices. Which is the problem. They didn’t grow up around real magic and they don’t understand the power they’re playing with.”

Vidocq says, “Plus, much of the most common old magic is Baleful. That’s what Father Traven used.”

“What’s Baleful magic?” says Candy.

“It’s what Sub Rosas call black magic,” I say.

Vidocq says, “The Sub Rosa believe in four systems of magic. The Aethereal, which describes psychic abilities, scrying, telekinesis, and the like.”

“In other words, standing-there magic,” I say.

“There’s Corporeal magic. Physical magic.”

“Touchy-feely magic.”

“Magic with the hands,” says Vidocq. “Potions. Healing. Charm making. The reading of objects. And there’s Baleful.”

“Which is the most popular. Especially with kids. That’s why even owning most of the old Baleful books is illegal and Traven has piles of them.”

“What’s the fourth kind of magic?” asks Candy.

Vidocq says, “Theoretical magic.”

“What’s theoretical?”

“God,” I say. “The angels. The stuff that holds the universe together and makes it run. It might not even be magic the way we understand it. That’s why it’s theoretical.”

Candy punches me lightly on the arm.

“Why don’t you tell me these things?”

“I don’t think about them. Why should I bug you? If you want to know more, talk to the Frenchman or borrow one of his books.”

Vidocq makes a small bow, his mouth full of chicken. He swallows and says, “I’d be honored to loan you one or two.”

“Just history. Nothing practical,” I say.

Allegra laughs like she just got something over on her little sister.

“You can learn some magic after you learn to shoot,” I say.

“Thanks, Daddy. You going to get me that two-wheeler for my birthday?”

“For that, I thought I’d teach you how to steal cars.”

“I’m glad to see that this relationship is keeping you both out of trouble,” says Allegra.

Candy puts her hand on Allegra’s arm.

“Did he tell you where he’s crashing?”

“Later. I’ll tell her about it myself.”

“Lucifer’s private suite in the Chateau Marmont,” Candy says.

Allegra looks at her food, moving it around the container with her chopsticks.

“You two must still be tight if he’s loaning you his apartment.”

Allegra had a tsunami-size freak-out when I was Samael’s bodyguard while he was in town working on a movie. We barely spoke for a while. I didn’t even say good-bye when I went back to Hell.

“I don’t know how they’d be tighter,” says Candy. She laughs.

“Shut up.”

Candy looks at me, then at Allegra.

“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry.”

She puts down her food.

“That’s why I wanted to tell her,” I say.

“Tell me what?” Allegra says.

I sit there like an idiot. My mouth won’t open. I know what will happen when it does.

Vidocq says, “Darling, things have changed a great deal while Stark was in Hell.”

Allegra’s hand moves halfway to her mouth. A gesture of fear or concern or maybe she’s just stifling a burp.

“My God. You didn’t sell him your soul to get out, did you?”

“No,” I say.

I keep looking across the street at Cairo’s place.

“I am Lucifer.”

I turn and Allegra is looking at me like I answered her in Urdu.

I say, “I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it. Lucifer, the one you know about, dumped the job on me. I had to protect Alice and the other souls down there. I didn’t have a choice.”

She sets down her chopsticks.

“So now you take souls and lead people into sin.”

“Mostly I just handle paperwork.”

She looks at Vidocq.

“You knew about this?”

He nods.

“It wasn’t my place. He wanted to tell you himself.”

She looks at Candy.

“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.

“Was Cairo trying to kidnap you back there?”

She sips and rolls her eyes. Just holding a glass in her hand relaxes her.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m King’s girlfriend. If you can call it that. When he’s not playing Gene Simmons and trying to fuck every other girl in the room. I think he’s doing that Aelita bitch.”

I wasn’t expecting that. Her face is smudged with a moderate amount of sin signs but nothing special. A lot less than I’d expect from someone involved with Cairo.

“What were you arguing about?”

She shakes her head. Stabs the air with one finger.

“Fuck him and all his coked-up crew. They’re disgusting. Have you met them? They’re like animals.”

“They can’t help it. He’s taking a drug that drives them insane. What were you and Cairo arguing about?”

“My job. What drug?”

“It’s called Dixie Wishbone. Try to concentrate.”

She finishes the glass and gives a little shiver.

“Sorry. I might be in some kind of shock, you know? Post-traumatic stress. That prick saved his own skinny ass and left me hanging, didn’t he? Fuck that guy. Okay. Ask me anything you want. If it’ll hurt that feather-wearing pussy dickbag, I’ll tell you. You know, he has the tiniest balls of any guy I ever dated. Isn’t that weird? Tiny balls.”

“That’s not really the information I was looking for. What were you arguing about?”

“I told you. My job.”

“What’s your job?”

“I’m a dreamer.”

“What is that?”

She looks at me.

“You’re that Sandman Slim guy, aren’t you? I’ve seen you at Bamboo House of Dolls.”

Blood trickles down my arm. I rewrap the towel and lean on the wound. It really should have started healing by now. Goddamn ghost wounds.

“You’ve been to Bamboo House? Do you like the jukebox?”

“Yeah.”

“Who do you like better, Martin Denny or Arthur Lyman?”

“Martin Denny.”

“Yeah. I’m Sandman Slim. What’s a dreamer?”

“I thought you were supposed to be some hot-shit rock-star superhero. How is it you don’t know about us?”

“Just because you know my name doesn’t mean I’m on the Sub Rosa clubhouse mailing list. I spent my whole life running from that world.”

“Looks like it did you a lot of good. You’re bleeding and you don’t have a clue how anything works.”

“Figuring out Hell was easier than figuring out L.A. What’s a dreamer?”

She waves her hand. Picks up her glass and goes back for more Aqua Regia. It’s impressive.

“Stuck-up old people call us a real, real old name. Surgeons of the Night Sky. You know what we call ourselves?”

“Tell me.”

She flops down on the couch, grinning. The Aqua Regia is hitting her hard.

“The Mile High Club.”

“That’s great, but I still don’t know what you do.”

“We dream. We make reality with our dreams.”

Outside, smoke is blackening the sky from what I swear is the cone of a small volcano. Ash falls from the sky like dirty snow.

She raps her knuckles on the table. She pats the couch.

“See this? And this? We did this. There wouldn’t be anything here without us.”

“You’re telling me you’re God.”

“Don’t be stupid. Okay. We don’t actually make reality. We just dream the forms and give them substance so they don’t blow away.”

A jet turns from the volcanic plume, heading out to sea, trailing thick smoke from one engine.

“You’re telling me that the world is run by a bunch of catnapping party girls and club boys?”

She sets down the glass and lets her head loll back.

“Not all reality. And some of the dreamers are old. There’s houses all over the world. But ours is the biggest. Duh. Hollywood. The big dream machine. This is where the world’s imagination lives. The power spot for collective unconscious. All that crap. Anyway we’re here and it works, so why fuck with it, you know?”

“I’ve never heard of you. Does everybody know?”

“Of course not. Just the right ones.”

“How long have you been around?”

“How many birds on a wire? That long.”

I hate these grade school history lessons. They’re embarrassing and they’re my fault. I didn’t want to know how the world worked when I was young. Didn’t want to know about the Sub Rosa or anything they cared about. Then, when I wanted to know, it was too late and I was busy just trying to stay alive Downtown. I’ve been playing catch-up ever since. Probably always will be.

“Okay. You’re a dreamer and there’s other dreamers and the whole nondreamer world will lose its Rice Krispies if you stop dreaming. Why were you arguing with Cairo about the job?”

“ ’Cause we’re dying. That crazy little ghost bitch has something against us.”

“The Sub Rosas being killed are all dreamers?”

“Mostly.”

“You’re why the sky is like a broken kaleidoscope and Catalina went AWOL.”

She rolls her eyes, trying to be sarcastic, but she just looks drunk and scared.

“Now you get it. Murder is a downer and people get scared. Sometimes there aren’t enough of us in any one place to hold reality together right.”

“Does Cairo blame you for reality breaking down? Is that what the fight was about?”

“No.”

She gets up and goes for more Aqua Regia. I cut her off and pour regular wine into her glass.

“Ooh. A gentleman.”

“I don’t want you to melt your brain too soon.”

“Whatever, dude.”

She drops onto the couch.

“King wants me to quit or leave town. I tried telling him what I do isn’t a job. It’s like a vocation. It’s what I am. I dream. That’s it. But he says he’s working for people who want to get rid of us regulars. Take over and put in their own dreamers. I thought he was just talking big. He does that sometimes.”

What do you know? Cairo isn’t a complete monster after all. Just a coward.

“Maybe he was trying to protect you by telling you to get out of town. If someone is using a ghost to kill dreamers, when the little girl appeared, he probably knew he couldn’t fight her.”

“He knew she was going to kill me and he left me to that little bitch? That fucker.”

“Who runs the dreamers?”

“Big wheels in the Sub Rosa. Who else?”

“What happens if you stopped dreaming? If all of you in L.A. stopped completely.”

“If we go down, the dominoes start falling. Ping. Ping. Ping.”

She flicks her fingers, knocking over imaginary dominoes in the air.

“I don’t know that the other houses can keep the whole world together without us. Next thing you know, nothing is what it used to be and then I don’t know. Maybe we all just disappear. No one knows because it’s never happened.”

“Who in the Sub Rosa is in charge? Blackburn?”

“Do I look like Google? Go buy a fucking laptop.”

My arm is starting to hurt. I get my own glass of Aqua Regia and walk around until I find some Maledictions. I take the pack back to the table, tap one out, and try to light it one-handed. Patty snickers at me. Takes the cigarette, puts it in my mouth, lights it, and hands it back to me.

“Thanks.”

“No worries. I’d’ve done it for a dog.”

My head is spinning a little. Not with pain or liquor but with all that’s going on. Not to mention worrying about Candy. I check the time. Too soon to call the clinic, goddammit.

“So someone is trying to replace the current dreamers or kill them off. Cairo is working with them but he can’t use his muscle because that would bring down the heat and whoever is running him knows he’d squeal like a piglet. That means whoever is behind all this also controls the girl. You can’t arrest or kill a crazy ghost. She’s a good cover. And maybe you kill a few nondreamers to make the killings look random. It’s all for the greater good, right?”

“If you say so.”

“I say so because I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind this. The question is why does an angel care about our reality? Tell me this. If you’re walking around with your boyfriend, then dreamers must work in shifts, right?”

“Yeah. Two days on and three days off so we get our heads back together.”

“Where do you do your dreaming?”

She sits up, almost spilling her wine. She points to what she thinks is north. It’s not.

“There’s a place in Universal City. Near the movie studio. It looks like a regular office building. Really boring on the outside. Like camouflage, you know? The tour buses go right by it. We’re in there.”

“Has anyone been attacked around there?”

“No.”

Good. That means the building has good protection against spirits.

“You should go there and stay and get the others to do the same. As long as you’re inside, the girl can’t get you or she would have done it already.”

“Anything you say, Sir Galahad.”

“Goddamn arm.”

I need both hands to tie the towel tighter, but if I hold the cigarette between my lips, the smoke goes straight up my nose and I can’t set it down now because the towel will come off completely.

Patty comes around the table.

“Let me help you. Goddamn men. They can tie you to a bed but you can’t do up your own shoes.”

“Thanks. I’m usually a fast healer. It should have stopped bleeding by now.”

“Shoulda woulda coulda,” she says. “Since like you said we’re all BFFs now and I can ask things I always wanted to know, what the hell kind of name is Sandman Slim?”

“Well, I’m not fat.”

“I grasped that.”

She gets the knot good and tight. Then sits back to admire her handiwork.

“They used to watch a lot of old movies in Hell before the cable went out. A Sandman is an old B-movie word for ‘hit man.’ ”

“Oh. Okay. Wait. They have cable in Hell?”

“Now they do. It was out but we got it working again.”

Patty doesn’t hear or has lost interest in what we’ve been talking about.

She says, “This looks like a nice hotel. Don’t they have a doctor or something?”

That’s what happens to you when you spend eleven years in the arena tending your own wounds. When you’re hurt, you look around for rags and string to hold whatever part of you is falling out on that particular day. A doctor is way down on the list of things you think about when you’re a gladiator slave. Lucifer, on the other hand, wants a whole team of neurosurgeons flown in from Switzerland and he wants them now.

I dial the hotel phone.

“Yes, Mr. Macheath.”

“I need the hotel doctor. Do you have one?”

“Not one to tend your, um, special needs.”

“I’ll take a seamstress and a nurse right now. Send up whatever you’ve got. Tell them to keep their eyes closed. I’ll bring them in the clock.”

“Very good, sir.”

I’m bleeding all over the nice furniture and Candy is hurt and L.A. is being buried in volcanic ash. I wonder what’s going on in the rest of the world. I’m formulating a new mantra. WWWBD. What Would Wild Bill Do? I can’t burn down Cairo like I did when I set Josef and the skinheads on fire. I’ll have to kill him later. And I don’t know where Aelita is. The little girl is the only clear line to anything I’ve got, and if she isn’t out slicing and dicing, I know where she’ll be. That’s what Bill would do. If he couldn’t find the head of the bad guys, he’d find the arms and break them. It’s time to say hola to the Imp of Madrid.

“When the doctor leaves, we’ll get you to the dreamer safe house.”

“Okay. Is it all right if I take a nap while we’re waiting?”

“I’ll get you some aspirin. You’re going to need them.”

After the hotel doc stitches me up, I take Patty downstairs and we catch a cab just like regular schmucks. No limos today. I don’t want anyone at the hotel knowing where we’re going. All the cabbie will see is me taking my half-tanked squeeze to Universal to throw up on the big plastic shark.

The hotel is practically empty. Even in L.A., the Apocalypse is bad for business.

The freeway north is a joke. Angelinos and tourists are fleeing the city, locking traffic in a snarl of bumper-to-bumper traffic like a university experiment demonstrating just how impossible it is to flee L.A. And it’s not like the sky is any closer to normal up here. Clouds shoot overhead at double speed, like the whole sky is on fast-forward. The volcano and ash have disappeared as cleanly and thoroughly as Catalina but it seems to have made an impression on the unwashed. If that wasn’t enough, the cabbie’s radio explains how as part of its clever plan to panic even the nonpanicked population, the powers that be have shut down both LAX and the Burbank Airport.

I have the cabbie drop us off by the office buildings at the edge of Universal City. Instead of heading back in to town, the cab gets on the freeway north with the other abandon-the-ship types.

Patty leads us into the heart of Universal City, past huge glass buildings and to a squat four-floor building hidden behind a row of trees, just off the regular tourist route. There’s a guard station but it’s empty. I get the feeling the big office towers are deserted too.

Patty takes a pass card from her purse and lets us in. She seems perfectly sober now. The girl can hold her liquor. I’ve never seen anyone mix Hellion and civilian booze before. I hope she doesn’t explode and destroy the rest of the world.

The first floor of the dreamers’ building looks like any unfinished office space. A big open area with cable for DSL and phones. A couple of offices roughed in at the back. Walls a neutral shade of suicide beige. How could you work in one of these places and not seriously consider going apeshit postal at least once? An optional murder-suicide pact ought to be part of the hiring agreement right next to the 401(k) plan.

The stairway to the second floor is locked. Patty waves her card again and the door clicks open.

It’s dark inside and smells faintly of asphodel and belladonna. Forgetting and stimulation. Sounds like a party to me.

A cobweb brushes my face. I start to push it away but Patty says, “Don’t touch it. Don’t touch any of them.”

Through the dark I see more of the webs. They grow thicker the higher we climb. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I see that they’re not webs. They’re long, almost invisible filaments, like fishing line. Only they seem to hum and whisper.

“It sounds like they’re talking to each other.”

Patty glances back over her shoulder.

“Good ears. They’re alive. When we’re asleep, our nervous systems merge with the Big Collective and these nerves broadcast our dreams.”

The second floor is a neural obstacle course. Most of the nerves are bundled along the walls like computer cords but the densest bunch run out from a twelve-sided wood-and-brass enclosure in the middle of the room.