Killing Pretty

I BREAK HIS wrists so I don’t have to break his neck.

He falls to his knees, but I don’t think it’s the pain, though I make sure there’s plenty of that. It’s the sound. The crack of bonesx as they shatter. A sound that lets you know they’re never going to heal quite right and you’re going to spend the rest of eternity drinking your ambrosia slushies with two hands.

I’m surprised to see an angel down here right now, considering all the cleanup going on in Heaven after the recent unpleasantness. Still, there are sore losers and bad winners in every bunch. I don’t know which one this guy is, but I caught him spray-­painting GODKILLER on the front of Maximum Overdrive, the video store where I live. I might have let him off easy if all he wanted to do was kill me. I’m used to that by now. But this fucker was ruining my windows. Do these winged pricks think I’m made of money? I’m about broke, and here’s this high-­and-­mighty halo polisher setting me up for a trip to the hardware store to buy paint remover. I give his wrists an extra twist for that. He gulps in air and makes a gagging sound like he might throw up. I take a ­couple of steps back and look around. No one on the street. It’s just after New Year’s, the floods have receded, and ­people are just beginning to drift back into L.A.

“What exactly is your problem?” I ask the angel. “Why come down here and fuck with me?”

He rests his crippled hands on his thighs and shifts around on his knees until he’s facing me.

“You had no right. You killed him.”

“I didn’t kill God and you know it. He’s Uptown right now putting out new lace doilies in Heaven.”

What really happened is a long story. Truth is, I did fuck over Chaya, a weasely fragment of God who, if he’d lived, would have ruined the universe. But I also left one good God part, Mr. Muninn, fat and happy and back in Heaven. But that’s the problem with angels. They’re absolutists. I clipped a tiny bit off their boss and now I’m the bad guy. Once angels get an idea in their head, there’s no arguing with them.

Like cops and ­people who listen to reggae.

The angel narrows his eyes at me.

“Yes, a part of the father yet remains. But you didn’t have the right to kill any of him, Abomination.”

Damn. This old song.

“See, when you start calling me names, it really undercuts your argument. You’re not mad because I got rid of Chaya. You’re mad because you know you should have done it, but you didn’t. And what happened was a mangy nephilim had to step up and do the deed for you.”

The angel staggers to his feet and sticks his hands out in front of him, pressing his mangled wrists together.

“You must pay for what you’ve done, unclean thing.”

“Go home, angel. My store is a mess, and looking at the big picture, I’m more afraid of Netflix than I am of you.”

To my surprise, the crippled creep is able to manifest his Gladius, an angelic sword of fire. He has to hold it with both hands, but he can move it around by swinging his shoulders back and forth. Maybe this guy is more trouble than I gave him credit for. A badass will try to break your bones, but someone crazy, who knows what they’ll do? Mostly, though, I’m glad the neighbors aren’t around so I have to explain the gimp with the lightsaber in my driveway.

The angel comes at me hard and fast, all Seven Samurai, ready to send me to asshole Heaven. In his present condition, he’s still quick, but far off his game. I sidestep the Gladius and punch him in the throat. He falls. The Gladius turns the pavement molten where it touches. As the angel goes down, I snap up a knee and break his nose. He falls over backward and the Gladius goes out.

I walk around behind him and push him upright. His eyes have rolled back in his head. He’s completely out. I take out a flask full of Aqua Regia, everyone’s favorite drink in Hell, and pour some down his throat. The angel gasps and his eyes snap open. He looks up at me and sputters.

“You’re trying to poison me.”

“You were unconscious. If I wanted you dead, I could have drilled a hole in your skull and tea-­bagged your brain. Now shut up and go home.”

The angel crawls away and lurches to his feet. He’s covered in blood and booze and his hands are sticking out at funny angles, like he just fell out of a Picasso. He takes a breath and hauls himself upright, trying for a last little bit of dignity. I walk away.

“This isn’t over,” he yells.

I open the door to Max Overdrive.

“Yeah it is. See? I’m going inside. Bye.”

I close the door and wait a second. When I open it again, the angel is gone. But he left blood and mucus all over the front steps. Something else to clean up.

Inside, Kasabian is behind the counter. He looks at me as I come in.

“What was that? I heard shouting.”

I wave it away with my hand.

“Nothing. Some idiot rented Bio-­Dome and wanted his money back.”

Kasabian shakes his head.

“Fuck him. We’re not paying for some schmuck’s bad taste.”

“That’s pretty much what I said.”

“Did you say it with your knees? You’ve got blood on them.”

I look down. He’s right. I’m hard on clothes.

“I’m going upstairs to change.”

Here’s the thing. Most angels aren’t like the idiot outside. They’re annoying, but a necessary evil, like black holes or vegans. Most angels are gray-­suit-­yes-­sir-­no-­sir-­fill-­it-­out-­in-­triplicate company men. Someone you wouldn’t remember if they shot themselves out of a cannon dressed like Glinda, the good witch. A few angels, not many, go rogue and have to be put down like dogs. No tears shed for them. Still, as annoying as angels are, they keep air in the tires and gas in the tank so the universe can go on dumbly spinning. The only angels anyone is happy to see take a powder are Death and the Devil, one of whom is currently asleep in the storage room at Max Overdrive.

But I’ll get to that later.

So, the angels are fucking off and God’s away on business. What do the mice do when the cat’s not looking? They drink. And if they’re smart they do it at Bamboo House of Dolls. Candy and me, we’re mice with PhDs. I’ll meet up with her at the bar.

Chihiro, I mean. Not Candy. I have to remember that. Chihiro. Candy is dead. So to speak. Dead enough that the feds and the cops aren’t looking for her, and that’s all that counts. Now she’s Chihiro, with a different face and name and, well, everything. Everything we can think of. I just hope it’s enough. I’m sure we’ve missed a few things. I hope not so many that anyone is going to notice. I might have to kill them.

I change and go back downstairs, my na’at, knife, and Colt under my coat.

“I’m going to Bamboo House. Want to get a drink?”

Kasabian shakes his head, carefully putting discs in clear plastic cases with the tips of his mechanical fingers.

“Nah. I’m waiting for Maria. She’s coming by with a new delivery.”

“Anything good?”

He looks up and shakes his head.

“Don’t know. She said it’s a western.”

“Fingers crossed it brings some goddamn customers into this tomb.”

“Patience, grasshopper. This new deal with Maria is our stairway to Heaven.”

“It better be. There won’t be room for you, me, and Candy in a refrigerator box if this place closes.”

“Chihiro,” he says.

“Fuck. Chihiro.”

“Later, Mr. Wizard,” he says.

“Yeah. Later.”

Outside, I wonder if I can scrape GODKILLER off the windows with the black blade instead of spending money on paint remover.

A week ago I saved the whole goddamn universe from extinction and now I can’t afford the hardware store. I need to have a serious talk with my life coach.

I LIGHT A Malediction, the number one cigarette Downtown, and walk the few blocks to Bamboo House of Dolls, the best punk tiki bar in L.A. ­People are hanging around outside, talking and smoking. I get a few “Happy New Years” on the way in. I give the crowd a nod, not in the mood for chitchat.

Carlos, the owner of the place, is behind the bar in a Hawaiian shirt covered in snowmen and wreaths. The little plastic hula girls by the liquor bottles on the wall still wear doll-­size Santa hats. There’s a lot of this going on in L.A. I feel it a little myself. Hanging on to the last few shreds of holiday spirit after a flood-­soaked, apocalyptic Christmas.

What did I get under the tree? A fugitive girlfriend. An LAPD beatdown. A last dirty trick from Mason Faim. And one more thing: I lost the Room of Thirteen Doors. It’s not gone, but I can’t use it anymore to move through shadows. Now I’m just like all these other slobs. I have to walk or drive everywhere. That’s not such a bad thing considering L.A. is still half ghost town, but what happens when it fills up again? I don’t deal well with things like traffic and other ­people.

Inside Bamboo House, I head straight for the bar. Martin Denny is on the jukebox playing “Exotic Night,” a kind of gamelan and piano version of “Greensleeves,” like we’re on some mutant holly jolly tropical island.

“Feliz Navidad,” says Carlos.

“Same to you, man.”

I look around the place. It’s a nice crowd. A mix of civilians, Lurkers, and even a few brave tourists.

“What do you think? How long do you figure you can get away with the Father Christmas thing?”

Carlos adjusts a piece of holly on a coconut carved like a monkey’s head.

“As long as I want. My bar. My rules. Maybe I’ll do it all year-­round. Crank up the a/c. Rent customers scarves and gloves. It’ll be the holidays twenty-­four/seven.”

“I think you shouldn’t put so much acid in your eggnog.”

He raises his eyebrows and points at me.

“That could be the house drink. ‘El Santo Loco.’ ”

“You and Kasabian, always looking for new business plans.”

“That reminds me. You get anything good over the holidays?”

“Maria is supposed to be coming by today with something. A western.”

“Cool. I’ll stop by.”

I’m not sure I want visitors. Not with the strange guy asleep in the storage room.

“Don’t worry about it. If it’s any good, I’ll burn you a copy and bring it by.”

“De nada,” says Carlos and clears away some empty glasses. He slides a shot of Aqua Regia across the bar to me.

“Can I have some black coffee instead?”

He looks at me, surprised.

“A New Year’s resolution?”

He goes to the pot and pours me some coffee. Brings it back to the bar.

I say, “I don’t know. Just after all the shit that went down at Christmas, I thought I’d start off the new year with a clear head.”

“So, you’re a teetotaler now?”

I reach in my pocket and pull out the flask. Carlos nods approvingly.

“Thank you, Papa Noel. For a minute I thought we’d lost you to the angels.”

“Not much chance of that.”

Carlos leans over and looks past me.

“I believe you’re being summoned.”

I turn and spot Julie Sola at a table in the back corner of the place. I guess she’s sort of my boss now at the PI firm she started when she quit the Golden Vigil. I nod to her and look back at Carlos.

“You don’t mind us using your place for an office?”

“It’s fine with me, but when I turn the place into Christmas all year-round, you’ll have to pay for your mittens just like anybody else.”

“Always a new business plan. Talk to you later.”

“Adios.”

I take my coffee and head over to where Julie is sitting. There are papers scattered on the table. Photocopies of newspaper articles and printouts of what look like police reports and hospital records. How the hell did she get those? She used to be a U.S. marshal and it looks like she’s still got some of those connections.

She smiles and moves some of the papers out of my way so I can set down my cup.

“Afternoon,” she says. “How are you today?”

“I just went three rounds with an angel Ebenezer Scrooge. Do you know any cheap ways to get spray paint off glass?”

“Turpentine? Acetone?”

“No. Those cost money.”

She glances at the coffee in front of me like she’s wondering how much of it is whiskey.

“I thought you could do magic,” she says. “Can’t you just wave a wand and make it disappear?”

“First off, only hillbillies and Harry Potter use wands anymore. Second, I mostly know Hellion magic. Melting faces and killing things. If I try hoodoo at home I’m afraid I’ll just blow out the windows.”

“You really can’t afford paint remover?”

I sip my coffee.

“We have a little money, just not enough to blow on luxuries like cleaning products and food.”

“You know, you could have asked me for an advance on your salary.”

­“People do that?”

“Normal ­people, all the time. I’ll write you a check right now. Will five hundred dollars do?”

“It would do great, but you know I’m legally dead, right? I don’t have a bank account, a passport, or a library card.”

Julie puts down her pen. I can tell she’s rethinking the wisdom of offering me a job.

“Fine, man of mystery. I’ll bring you some cash tomorrow.”

“Appreciate it. I was one day from hanging around with one of those signs. You know, ‘Will Save the World for Food.’ ”

“Panhandling is illegal. I saved you from a life of crime.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to get a bad reputation or anything.”

Here I am again, scrambling for pocket change. Getting screwed out of half a million dollars by the Golden Vigil has left me a little touchy about money. I’m lucky Julie offered me a job. I owe her a lot, more than Candy—­Chihiro—­and I can ever repay.

“So, how’s our guest?” says Julie.

“Our guest? You mean the bum in my storage room? He’s still asleep.”

She frowns.

“Is that good? Maybe we should take him to a doctor.”

“And tell him what when he sees the guy’s heart is gone, but he’s still alive?”

“Touché. So what do you think we should do?”

“I had Allegra and Vidocq patch him up, but he is Death. Give him a ­couple of more days. If he doesn’t come around, we’ll figure out a plan B.”

“I thought Death would be better at, well . . .”

She shrugs. I pick up my coffee.

“Being dead? Look, we don’t even know if he is who he says he is. He could be a lunatic angel gone off his meds, or some mad scientist’s Christmas present gone wrong. The real point is, I don’t like him and I want him out of my place as soon as possible.”

Julie ignores the remark and picks through some of the printouts on the table.

“You’re the magic man, so you’re in charge of him for the time being. But there’s something I wanted to show you.”

She pushes some of the papers across the desk to me. I pick them up.

“What is all this?”

“Articles. Police and accident reports. Patient records from the last week.”

“Okay. Why do I care?”

“Because they all say the same thing: no one has died since right after Christmas. There are the same number of ­people with terminal illnesses, gunshot wounds, car accidents as always, and most of them should have died. But they haven’t.”

“Then what’s happening with them?”

“They’re in deep comas, with their vitals hovering just above death. Hospitals are full of them. Thousands. All over the world. No one is dying anywhere.”

“And you think this proves that the hobo I’m babysitting is Death.”

“You have another explanation?”

“Yeah. God is doing construction jobs in Heaven and Hell. Maybe He doesn’t want a busload of new kids getting in the way.”

“Then you think it’s a coincidence that at exactly the same time an injured man calling himself Death came to us—­”

“Came to me.”

“Came to you, that ­people around the world stopped dying?”

I gulp my coffee, thinking. Trying to poke holes in her argument.

“I admit, the timing seems a little weird.”

“You’ve dealt with God and the Devil. Why is it so hard to admit that when Death has a problem he might come to you?”

I look back at the bar, wishing I’d taken that drink Carlos offered.

“Because I thought I was done with that stuff. The Angra Om Ya are gone. Mason Faim is gone. The Room of Thirteen Doors is gone. I hoped that part of my life might be over for a while and I could just be a boring PI. Hunt down insurance fraud and lost cats.”

Julie leans forward, her elbows on the table.

“And we’ll do those things, but we’re going to solve Death’s murder first.”

“You’re not getting it.”

“What am I not getting?”

I push the papers back across the table.

“This thing you want to get into, you’re screwing around with bad angelic hoodoo. And if this guy really is Death, whoever dragged him into a human body and cut his fucking heart out is into some of the heaviest, darkest baleful magic I’ve ever seen.”

Julie brightens, like a kid just remembering it’s her birthday.

“And that’s why it’s perfect for us. Look, it can take years for an investigations firm to build the kind of reputation it takes to bring in the big jobs. We might bypass all that with a single case.”

“Years? I should have stayed in the arena.”

“I guarantee if we solve this case, the kind of clients we’ll have, there’ll be plenty of money for you and Max Overdrive.”

I try to come up with an argument, but I can’t because she’s right. This is exactly the kind of case that would get the attention of every Sub Rosa, wealthy Lurker, and Beverly Hills magic groupie in California. Besides, Julie is ready to hand me money right now.

And there’s the other debt . . .

“All right. I’m in. Let’s do your Mike Hammer thing.”

She raises a bottle of light beer I missed behind all the papers. I click it with my coffee cup. There’s just one more question.

“So, we’re partners?”

She shakes her head.

“No way. I’m taking all the financial risks. It’s my company. You’re an employee.”

“But I get stock options and you’ll match my 401(k).”

“Tell yourself whatever story you need to get yourself out of bed, but as of now, you’re on the clock. Which means sticking to coffee during daylight hours.”

“You know how to suck all the fun out of being sober.”

“That’s a boss’s job.”

My coffee is getting cold, but I sip it anyway. It tastes lousy. I mean, it doesn’t taste any different than it did a minute ago, but knowing it’s my only drink of choice all day, every day . . . Let’s just say that the romance is over.

“I thought Chihiro would be here with you,” says Julie.

I turn and scan the room for familiar faces, but don’t find any.

“She’s out getting some new clothes and things. Since she got her new face, she’s been doing this bleach-­blond kogal look. You know, Japanese schoolgirl drag. She was having fun, but I went through the plaid-­skirt thing back with my old magic circle. A woman named Cherry Moon. She wanted to look like a junior high princess forever. After that, I don’t want anything to do with that Lolita stuff. So, she said she’d figure out something else.”

“Sounds like she likes you.”

“She just likes my movie collection.”

“I’m sure that’s what it is.”

A new song comes on the jukebox, a fifties cha-­cha version of “Jingle Bells.” I’m going to have to speak to Carlos about how his Santa fetish is curdling his taste in music.

“I have some good news,” Julie says. “I think I found a real office. On Sunset, near Sanborn. It’s a little two-­story building that used to have a dentist on the first floor and a telemarketing company on the second. The woman who owns it left when the floods started. There’s some water damage in the lobby, but it’s not bad and she has insurance. Best of all, after all the craziness, she doesn’t want to come back to L.A. and will sell me the whole place for a song.”

“That’s great. Congratulations.”

Julie smiles.

“I mean, it’s not much to look at. It’s between an El Pollo Loco and an empty garage, and across the street from a used car lot.”

“A car lot? That’s convenient. I’m going to need to steal a lot more cars now that I can’t shadow-­walk anymore.”

“Don’t even think about it,” says Julie, suddenly serious.

“Fine. I’ll get around on a Vespa. See how much your clients like that.”

“Can’t you ride your motorcycle?”

“I brought it back from Hell. There’s no way it’s street legal and I’m not looking for any more run-­ins with LAPD.”

“And you think stealing cars will help you avoid that?”

I’m not a huge fan of other ­people’s logic.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “we’ll figure out something. Just no stealing anything in the neighborhood.”

“Cross my heart.”

“With luck I’ll sign the papers next week. I’m putting my condo up for sale. That will cover most of the costs.”

“I’ll cross my fingers and toes too.”

“Thanks.”

Julie shuffles the printouts until they’re straight. She riffles through them one more time and puts them in a soft-­sided leather attaché case.

“I really think we’re onto something,” she says.

“I hope so.”

I look at the last dregs of cold coffee in my cup.

“I need another drink. You?”

She drains the last of her beer. Shakes her head.

“I’m good. You’re sticking with coffee, right?”

“While you drink beer?”

“I don’t have a drinking problem.”

“You think I do?”

She starts to say something, but stops, like she doesn’t want to get into it.

“Just stick to coffee for now.”

“Yes, boss.”

I head back to the bar. Carlos sees me coming and has the coffeepot ready.

“How’s the sober life treating you so far?”

“It’s been ten minutes of sheer hell.”

“I hear it gets better.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Fuck you.”

Carlos puts a hand to his ear.

“Sorry. I can’t hear you over the music.”

I give him the finger as he moves on to other customers.

“You heard me just fine.”

Someone says, “Drink up, cowboy. I’ll get the next round.”

It’s a woman’s voice, but when I look there’s no one there. Someone taps me on the shoulder. I have to turn to see her.

She’s wearing shades. Round and deep black, so her eyes are invisible. Her hair is buzzed to maybe an inch long and dyed cotton-­candy pink. Black lipstick and a bomber jacket over a “Kill la Kill” T-­shirt. Black tights with thigh and shinbones printed in white down the sides. Shiny black boots with pointed studs on the toes and heels.

“So,” Candy says. “Different enough?”

“Plenty. Perfect. Still got your knife?”

She opens her jacket and shows me where she’s had someone at Lollipop Dolls sew in a leather sheath.

“Think my lunch-­box gun will go with the ensemble?”

“I think you’d look naked without it.”

She grins and gets a little closer.

“Naked. I like the sound of that. I checked out my reflection on the way in. I’d do me. How about you?”

I shake my head.

“Careful. Out here in the world we’re still getting to know each other.”

She purses her lips and pulls the jacket around her.

“You’re goddamn paranoid. You should see someone about that.”

“I tried, but she kept writing things down. It made me more paranoid.”

Candy looks away at the bottles behind the bar.

“I went to all this trouble and I can’t even kiss you.”

“Grab a drink and come back into the corner. Julie and I are just about done with our meeting.”

“Fine,” she says.

I can hear the disappointment in her voice. She went way out of her way to change her look and all I can do is nod and smile like a tourist admiring the view. Truth is, even before Candy became Chihiro I’d been feeling funny about the two of us. When she was locked up in a Golden Vigil jail cell for attacking a civilian, she said some things. Like I was using her. Like I thought she was sick. Later, she said it was just poison talking after someone spiked her anti-­Jade potion. She said it made her crazy and suspicious. Maybe. Because some of what she said hit close to home and I’ve been wondering about it ever since. There’s a lot of unspoken stuff between us. I used to think that was a good thing. Now I’m not so sure.

When I get back to the table, Julie says, “Who was that?”

“Guess.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“You’ll see for yourself in a minute.”

Candy comes over with a shot of whiskey. I swear I can smell it all the way across the bar.

She takes off her sunglasses and hooks them over her shirt. Grabs a chair and sits down at our table.

“What do you think?” she asks Julie.

“I can’t believe you’re the same person.”

“That’s the idea,” I say.

“Admit it, I look like a superhero, don’t I?” she says.

“I don’t know many pink-­haired superheroes,” said Julie. “But if there are any, you’ll be stiff competition.”

Candy looks at me.

“See? She likes it.”

“I told you. I like it fine. We just have to be cool.”

Candy rolls her eyes.

“He thinks if I stand too close to him we’re going to get nuked.”

“He might have a point,” says Julie. “About playing down your relationship.”

Candy sits back in her chair.

“You two should start a band. The Buzzkill Twins.”

“Julie is going to have a new office soon,” I say, trying to change the subject.

That gets Candy’s attention. She sits up.

“Cool. If you’re hiring this scaredy cat, can I have a job too?”

“What are your skills?” says Julie.

“I was afraid you’d ask that.”

I say, “You used to run the office for Doc Kinski.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“I might need a receptionist at some point,” Julie says.

“Swell.”

I look at Candy.

“You really want to be a receptionist?”

“No,” she says. “I want to kick down doors like you, but apparently I’m not allowed.”

“I never said that.”

I want a drink and a cigarette. I want zombies, dinosaurs, and flaming giraffes to come crashing through the door so I don’t have to talk anymore.

“Look,” I say. “Maybe I am being a little paranoid. It’s just, we faked your death once. I’m not sure we can get away with it again. What do you think, Julie?”

“I think the U.S. Marshals Ser­vice isn’t dumb,” she says.

Candy sips her drink.

“So, I should hide out at Brigitte’s forever and learn to knit?”

I take her shot glass, drink half, and hand it back.

“It would probably be okay if we partner up, but you have to do it as Chihiro, not Candy. Pretend it’s the first season of X-­Files.”

Candy leans back and smiles. The black lipstick with the short pink hair looks good. But I’m not sure she gets that I’m as frustrated by all this clandestine crap as she is.

“A Scully and Mulder thing? Yeah. I can handle that,” she says. “Does that mean I get to move back home?”

Julie gets her bag and stands up.

“This is getting a bit personal. I think I’ll go.”

“So, can I have a job?” says Candy.

Julie thinks for a minute.

“You can work with him as an unpaid intern. We’ll see from there.”

“Awesome.”

Julie slips the bag over her shoulder and looks at me.

“I’ll call you. Keep an eye on our guest.”

“My guest.”

“Call me if anything changes.”

“Bye. Thanks,” says Candy as Julie weaves her way through the crowd.

When she’s gone, Candy finishes her drink.

“Seriously,” she says. “We have to talk about some kind of timetable for me coming back to Max Overdrive. I love Brigitte, but I can’t live without a plan.”

“Trust me. I know how you feel.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I wasn’t sure for a while there.”

She pushes her leg against mine under the table. I look around, making sure no one can see. I think we’re okay and she feels good, so I don’t try to stop her.

“Look,” I say. “If we work together we’ll see each other all the time. Aside from that, give it until the later part of the month before you come back. Okay? Maybe by then I’ll have Sleeping Beauty out of the store.”

“Can I come over now?” she says. “Seeing as how we’re colleagues, I should have a look at the dead man.”

“I don’t see why not. But we can’t leave at the same time. I’ll go. You go and order another drink. Take off in, say, twenty minutes.”

She picks up the shot glass and rolls it between her palms.

“Twenty minutes is a long time to be all on my own. What if someone asks me for a date?”

“Do what you think is best, but remember that your guitar amp is still at Max Overdrive.”

“What do I have to do to get it back?” she says.

“Awful things. Depraved things.”

“You bad man.”

I get up from the table.

“Forget twenty minutes. Make it ten.”

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.”

She heads back to the bar. I go out the door.

LOS ANGELES IS a busted jukebox in a forgotten bar at the ass end of the high desert. The city only exists between the pops, skips, and scratches of the old 45s. Snatches of ancient songs. Lost voices. The jagged artifacts of a few demented geniuses, one-­hit wonders, and lip-­synching frauds. Charlie Manson thought he was going to be the next Beatles and we know how that turned out. This city is built on a bedrock of high crimes and rotten death. The Black Dahlia. Bugsy Siegel. The Night Stalker. We’ve buried and forgotten more bodies than all the cemeteries of Europe. Someday the water is going to run out and the desert will strip this town down to its Technicolor bones. Even the buzzards won’t want it and the city knows it. Maybe that’s why I like it.

It’s not a long walk back to Max Overdrive and I can let my mind wander.

It’s funny to be thinking about the desert when there’s still so much water around, cutting off streets with blocked sewer drains. Signs of the weird floods that nearly drowned the city at Christmas are fading fast, but not completely gone. L.A. doesn’t have the luxury of hundred-­year flood warnings. We don’t have that kind of relationship with water or the past. And this flood wasn’t anything to do with global warming or El Niños. It wasn’t real weather. It was the symptom of a disease. An organism worming its way into our world from another.

The Angra Om Ya were old gods. Older than the God most good little girls and boys think about. That God, sneaky bastard, stole the universe from the Angra and walled them off in another dimension. When they broke out and headed back into our space-­time, they brought the floods with them. One long golden shower of hate. I fought the Angra, if fight’s the right word. I danced around until I foxed them into the Room of Thirteen Doors and locked them in forever. If you live in this universe, you’re welcome, and could you spare some change for a fellow American who’s down on his luck? Okay, Bogart said it better than I did, but you get the idea.

The city was still underwater when we killed Candy. No choice. The feds were trucking Lurkers out into the Mojave to a hoodoo Manzanar. So, Julie helped us out. We staged a scene where it looked like she shot and killed Candy. What was another Lurker stiff to the Vigil jackboots? And now I owe Julie and will be working off the debt until she dies or I die or the oceans turn to Jell-­O and Atlantis rises.

You’d think after that, things might smooth out a little. What could be worse than your city underwater, pissed-­off elder gods, and killing your girlfriend? Nothing, you’d say, but if you bet me the farm on it, I’d be asshole-­deep in cotton. You see, a bum wandered into my life around New Year’s. He called himself Death, and who was I to argue? Someone had ripped out his heart and he was still walking around. He wasn’t a zombie because I destroyed all of them (seriously, how about that spare change?) and he definitely wasn’t an ordinary angel. The fucker, who or whatever he is, came to me specifically and asked me to find out who killed him. Me. Like I need more bullshit in my life. Between BitTorrent and video streaming, Maximum Overdrive is about dead. Now I have to drop all that to wet nurse another supernatural shit heel because why?

Because I’m a freak. A nephilim. Half human and half angel. Heaven hates me because I shouldn’t exist and the world hates me because, well, I’m really good at killing things. Yet for some reason, the schmuck asleep in my storeroom thinks I’m a Good Samaritan. When he wakes up, despite what Julie wants, I’m going to skate his ass out the door as fast as I can. I simply do not need crap like this in my life.

What I need is a drink, a week in Mexico with Candy, and tickets for Skull Valley Sheep Kill when they reopen the Whisky a Go Go. I’m not betting on the last two, but I can magically conjure up the first by reaching into my pocket and taking out my flask.

Which is almost empty.

Story of my life. Thanks for listening. Be sure to tip your waitresses on the way out.

PAUL NEWMAN AND Steve McQueen are jumping off a cliff when I get back to Max Overdrive. I recognize the movie immediately. It’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but not any version I’ve seen. Robert Redford is nowhere in sight.

“You like it?” says Maria. Her voice cracks a little, like she only takes it out on special occasions.

Maria is about my height, her skin darker than Allegra’s. She reminds me of a young Angela Bassett if she’d grown up with alley-­cat gutter punks. She’s got a heavy-­gauge ring through her nose and a smaller one in her lower lip. A muscular neck with tattoos of the four elements—­air, earth, fire, and water. Her hair is about shoulder length, dyed sky blue, but with black roots showing, and pulled back in a ­couple of ragged pigtails. Each of her fingernails is painted a different color.

“It’s great, right?” says Kasabian. He’s drumming on the front counter like a beatnik with a pair of new bongos, his metal hand bouncing like silver spiders.

“McQueen was originally supposed to play the Sundance Kid, but the deal fell through,” he says. “Get it? This is the future for the store. Movies that never happened. Dirty Harry with Frank Sinatra instead of Eastwood. David Lynch’s Return of the Jedi. Brando in Rebel Without a Cause. The right ­people will pay a fortune to see this stuff.”

I watch Newman and McQueen trading quips for a ­couple of minutes.

“It’s not the worst idea you ever had.”

“It’s goddamn genius and you know it,” he says. “The next one Maria is getting for us is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s version of Dune.”

I look at Maria.

“Was this his idea or yours?”

She rubs her throat nervously, like she’s not used to being the center of attention.

“Neither,” she says. “It was Dash. Want to meet him?”

“Now we’ve got another partner? How many ­people are we bringing in to this thing? I don’t like surprise guests.”

Kasabian stops drumming and gives me a look.

“Calm down, Frank Booth. Tell him who Dash is before he needs smelling salts.”

Maria reaches into a small clutch bag and pulls something out.

“It’s okay, Stark. He doesn’t want money. He just likes to keep busy. He’s a ghost.”

Christ. I hate ghosts. They’re nothing but trouble.

“I need a drink.”

“Good,” says Maria. “He likes liquor. Bring down a shot for him.”

“Your ghost is a drunk? Fuck me with all this good news.”

I go upstairs and find the Aqua Regia. I refill my flask, pour a shot into a glass, and down it. I fill the glass again and take it downstairs.

“Right there is fine,” says Maria, indicating the counter. I set the shot glass down.

“You don’t have anything to eat, do you?” she says. “Something sweet.”

Kasabian takes a Donut Universe bag from under the counter, removes an éclair, and sets it next to the shot.

I watch as Maria unfolds a black plastic clamshell. An old-­fashioned makeup compact.

“If we’re doing dead-­­people makeovers, the guy in the storeroom can use one.”

“Give it a rest, man,” says Kasabian. “Show an artist a little respect.”

Maria sets the open compact on the counter with the mirror facing the glass and donut. She blows on the mirror and draws a symbol I don’t recognize on the misted glass.

“Are you home, Dash?” she says.

Nothing happens.

But then the mist fades, and a face drifts into view behind the drink and donut. I can’t get a good look at him. A lot of his face is hidden behind the food. He’s a kid, maybe sixteen, with messy blond hair streaked with bright red. He closes his eyes and sniffs. He’s getting high off the food offerings.

“Dash, this is Stark,” says Maria. She moves her hand, letting me know I need to get closer to the mirror so the kid can see me. I don’t really want to get too close. I don’t trust ghosts.

I lean over, but stay on the far side of the food.

“Hey, kid. Thanks for the movie. You have good taste.”

Dash mouths something, but I can’t hear him.

Maria, standing behind me, has been watching the whole thing.

“He says you’re welcome and he hopes to bring more with him next time you meet.”

Next time. Great.

“You read lips,” I say.

Maria nods.

“I learned when I was a girl. Like Dash, some ghosts are shy and will only appear through a looking glass.”

Kasabian shoulders me out of the way and practically sticks his mug in the mirror.

“Hey, Dash. How’s it going?”

The kid’s grin widens. They’ve talked before.

“You working on getting us Dune?”

Dash nods and gives a thumbs-­up.

“Swell. Do it and next time you come by I’ll have a steak dinner waiting.”

Dash shakes his head.

“He’s vegetarian,” says Maria.

“Okay,” says Kasabian. “How about a big salad with croutons and edible flowers?”

Dash nods.

I look at Kasabian.

“Edible flowers?”

“Yeah. Fairuza uses them when she cooks. They’re not bad.”

“If you say so.”

I lean over to the mirror.

“Keep the movies coming and I’ll get you a whole damned wedding cake next time.”

Dash mouths “thanks.”

“Thanks, Dash,” says Maria. “Now everybody knows everybody. Isn’t that nice? I’ll talk to you tonight.”

Dash gives a little wave and drifts out past the edge of the mirror. Maria snaps the compact shut.

“That’s Dash,” she says.

I pick up the shot glass.

“Seems like a nice kid. Thanks for hooking us up.”

Maria puts out a hand as I raise the glass to my lips.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. It’s just that when we present food to Dash, any looking-­glass ghost, he eats the essence of the offering. Don’t worry. The food isn’t poison or anything like that. It’s just a bit empty.”

I look at the glass. Ghost leftovers. Why not? I open up and toss the Aqua Regia back.

Maria was right. It isn’t awful, but it’s not booze anymore. The taste is thin and slightly sour, like the memory of a drink. I take a bite of the éclair. It’s worse. Like Play-­Doh and chalk. I go behind the counter and spit it into the wastebasket.

“Classy,” says Kasabian. “You really know how to impress the ladies.”

“I don’t need etiquette tips from you, Tin Man.”

Maria is tugging on the loose threads of her jacket sleeves again. She’s used to nicer ­people than us.

“What do we owe you for the movie, Maria? We aren’t exactly rolling in cash, you know.”

“Oh, no. It’s not like that,” she says. “I was just hoping you could show me some magic.”

“You’re a witch. What do you think you can learn from me?”

“That’s it. Kasabian said you know different kinds of magic. And that you’re good at improvising spells and hexes.”

“Yeah, I can improvise things. But that’s not what you’re after, are you?”

She looks up from her sleeves.

“No. I want to see Hellion magic.”

“Why?”

“It’s different. I’m curious.”

Her pupils contract almost imperceptibly. She’s lying.

“Maria? What’s this really about?”

She takes a breath and lets it out.

“Some ghosts are angrier than others. They want to get out of where they are. Some are scared. Some are vicious. I’ll want to talk to one like Dash and one of the others will appear. It’s getting worse.”

“Did you ever think about not talking to ghosts? You’re not a Dead Head necromancer. Why bother?”

Her brow furrows.

“They’re my friends. I can’t abandon them. Would you refuse to see a friend because she lived in a bad neighborhood?”

“No. I guess not. But I’m not a ghost expert. Mostly I deal with things I can punch. For ghosts, I’d have to think about it.”

“That’s okay,” she says. “I’d rather have the right answer than a quick wrong one.”

“Okay. But I just started a new job and I kind of have my hands full right now. Let’s maybe talk the next time you come by.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“No. Thank you,” says Kasabian. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t forget.”

Maria puts her handbag under one arm.

“I appreciate it. I’ll come by when Dash gives me your movie.”

“Thanks. You’re always welcome to come by,” says Kasabian, suddenly a fucking diplomat. He and Fairuza broke up a few days ago. Is he already on the prowl? Does Maria know he’s 90 percent machine?

“See you around, Maria,” I say.

She smiles and starts out. Stops.

“Did you know there’s something sprayed on the front of your store?”

“Yeah. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Kasabian and I watch the big-­screen monitor bolted to the ceiling for a few more minutes. He was right, of course. The movie has a completely different feel with McQueen playing the Sundance Kid. We could make a mint if we can get more never-­mades like this.

Candy comes in during the closing credits.

“Chihiro?” Kasabian says. “Holy shit.”

She smiles and does a turn.

“You like the new me?”

“You look great. I mean you always looked great, but I think you nailed it this time.”

I take out a Malediction.

“She doesn’t look like Candy. That’s the important thing.”

“Don’t light that cigarette,” she says.

“Why?”

She comes over to me.

“Why this?”

She leans in and kisses me. I kiss her back. It’s been long enough that we’ve been even somewhere safe together that it feels strange and new to hold her. And I’m not used to her being Chihiro yet. It feels a little like I’m cheating on Candy. But she is Candy. This whole thing is going to take a while longer to get used to.

When she lets go of me she steps back and laughs.

“What?” I say.

“You have lipstick all over yourself. Hold it.”

She gets a napkin from the Donut Universe bag and wipes my lips. Which, with perfectly lousy timing, is when Fairuza decides to walk in. She’s a Lurker. A Ludere. Blue-­skinned, blond, and sporting a small pair of Devil horns. She knew Candy for a long time. She played drums in Candy’s band back before she “died.”

Fairuza takes a DVD from her bag and slams it down on the counter. Walks over and slaps me hard enough it feels like hornets are having a hoedown on my cheek.

“Candy’s barely gone you’re already with this little bitch? Fuck you.”

She starts to hit me again, but I get my arm up and her hand glances off.

“Fairuza,” says Kasabian.

She turns and stabs a finger at him.

“And fuck you too for hanging around with this asshole. Is this the bitch he gave Candy’s guitar to? Yeah, I heard about that. Fuck all of you.”

She heads for the door and slams it hard enough I half expect the glass to crack.

Candy takes a step back and hands me the napkin. I wipe the last of the lipstick off my face myself.

“I’ve got to tell her,” says Candy.

“No, you don’t. The more ­people that know, the more dangerous this gets. Let her hate me. I can live with that.”

“Goody for you,” says Kasabian. “What about me? She’s never going to speak to me again as long as I’m here with you two.”

“What are you worried about? I thought you broke up.”

“We did,” he says. “But at least we were friends and . . . I don’t know. Maybe there was some chance of getting back together. Now, though . . .”

I put my hands out like a goddamn preacher.

“No one tells Fairuza or anybody else. We are on thin fucking ice. One mistake and Candy ends up in a federal pen. It’s too much of a risk.”

“What about me?” says Candy. “Okay, some ­people are going to think you’re an asshole for being around Chihiro, but you still get to be you. I’m no one.”

I hadn’t really thought of that.

“Look, I’m still trying to get my brain around all this too. Maybe down the line it would be safe to let a ­couple of more ­people know. But we’ve got to play this out for a while. Chihiro didn’t even exist a ­couple of weeks ago. You stick out. Let ­people get used to you. Then maybe we can think about letting other ­people in.”

Candy thinks for a minute.

“I’ll give it till the end of January. Then I’m talking to Fairuza. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”

“Fine. But she’s the only one for the time being.”

“I guess.”

“Listen. If this thing falls apart, it’s not just on you and me. There’s other ­people too. Julie. Brigitte. Allegra and Vidocq.”

“Aren’t you maybe leaving someone out?” says Kasabian.

“I was getting to you, Iron Man.”

“I thought we discussed no more nicknames.”

I ignore that.

“I know you think I’m a drag sometimes, but there’s a lot at stake here.”

“I know,” Candy says quietly.

“I saw you dead once. I don’t want to see that again.”

“I wasn’t really dead, dumb-­ass.”

“You sure looked like you were.”

“That’s ’cause I’m such a good actress. Me and Brigitte are going to star in a remake of Thelma & Louise.”

“As I recall, that didn’t end well.”

“In our version the car is a Delorean time machine, so we just drive off and have adventures with pirates and robots.”

“Or Lethal Weapon,” says Kasabian. “You could do a girl-­girl remake.”

“Or Bill and Ted,” she says.

She looks at me.

“I need another drink. You have supplies upstairs?”

“You know it.”

I step aside and let her lead the way.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

It’s a man’s voice coming from the storage room.

I look at Kasabian.

“Lock the front door.”

“Sure. It’s not like we’re a place of business or anything.”

As he does it, Candy and I knock on the storage room door.

“You all right in there?”

“Where am I?”

I open the door. He squints and pushes himself back to the farthest corner of the cot I set up for him, huddling there like a bug.

He says, “It’s too bright.”

Candy and I go inside and close the door. It’s ripe in here. The guy wasn’t clean when I met him. Add an extra week to that. We’re in a cheese factory.

Candy hits the overhead light. It’s only a sixty-­watt. Candy liked the room dim when the band rehearsed.

I take a step closer, getting between the guy on the cot and Candy in case he’s as unhinged as he looks.

“Is that better?”

Slowly, he opens his eyes. He keeps a hand up, blocking the bulb. When he can focus he stares at me.

“Where am I?”

“At Max Overdrive. Do you remember coming to me at Bamboo House of Dolls?”

He sits up and leans against the wall. Candy steps around me, fiddling with her phone. Who the fuck is she calling right now?

“Who’s that?” he says.

“A friend. What do you remember?”

He looks at the blanket, his hands, and the room like he’s never seen any of it before. When he looks at me I can see the gears starting to turn in his head.

“You’re Stark.”

“That’s right. And this is Chihiro. You met her the other night too.”

He stares at Candy for a little too long.

“That’s not her real face,” he says. “Or her name.”

Candy shoots me a worried look. I hold up a hand to say “be cool.”

“You can see through the glamour,” I say. “So, you really are an angel.”

He nods.

“The oldest, known to mortals as the Angel of Death.”

“Yeah. You said that the other night.”

“And you don’t believe me.”

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I’ve met my share of, let’s say, unstable angels.”

“You mean Aelita.”

“There were others but, yeah, she was the worst.”

“I’m not mad and I have no desire to be here or to be a burden.”

“Then why are you here? And why come to me?”

Death touches the gauze bandages over the hole in his chest.

“You closed the wound.”

“Not me. It was friends. And you haven’t answered my question.”

“It hurts,” he says, rubbing his chest. “Everything hurts. I’d forgotten what pain is. Do you have anything for it?”

I take out my flask, unscrew the top, and hand it to him. He takes a swig and coughs, practically spitting the Aqua Regia all over himself.

“This is Hellion brew,” he says.

“That’s right. Drink up. It tastes like gasoline, but it’ll help with the pain.”

“I’m not sure it’s permitted.”

“I don’t think anyone would hold it against you,” says Candy. “It’s not like you’re here to party.”

He looks at Candy for a few seconds, then drinks. He keeps it down better this time, but he’d probably be happier with an aspirin. Fuck him. I drank Aqua Regia for eleven years in Hell because there weren’t any angels to help me. Death can choke down a ­couple of mouthfuls.

He hands me back the flask.

“Feeling better?”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“No.”

“You will.”

“The brew smells interesting.”

“Huh. I never thought of that. I guess it does.”

Candy gets in closer to him.

“Why did you come here?”

“I was looking for Sandman Slim.”

“Why?” says Candy.

“I need help.”

“Because you’re in a body.”

He nods.

“And someone has murdered it. Murdered me.”

I say, “Why not call one of your angel pals?”

He closes his eyes again.

“I don’t know who to trust.”

“But you trust Stark,” says Candy. “Why?”

“Because Father trusted him.”

Father. Mr. Muninn. God.

The bloody, dirt-­streaked trench coat he had on when I met him is in a pile on the floor. I pick it up and go through the pockets. He doesn’t object.

I say, “Why not go to Mr. Muninn if you need help?”

He shrugs.

“I’ve called and called to him, but all I get is silence.”

There’s a knife in one of his coat pockets. I’ve never seen one quite like it. It’s over a foot long, double-­bladed, with a black wooden grip. Sort of like an oversize athame ritual blade, but with a silver eagle on the grip. There’s what looks like a glob of tar by the pommel, maybe to hold it in place.

I hold it out to him.

“What’s this?”

“That, I believe, was what killed me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because someone pulled it out of my chest and I awoke.”

“Who pulled it out?”

He holds up a hand and gestures vaguely.

“I don’t know. I get the impression they were teenagers having some kind of party. By their startled reaction when I awoke, I don’t think they were looking for me.”

“Okay,” I say. “It’s New Year’s and some kids are out partying. They find you and pull the sword out of the stone like King Arthur. Then you came and found me. Is that pretty much it?”

“I think so,” he says.

“And you’ve never seen this knife before?”

“Not before I woke up.”

“How did you find me?”

He’s closed his eyes again. We’re losing him.

“I’m an angel. I reached out and there you were, so I walked to where I found you.”

“Where did you walk from?” says Candy.

“I don’t know. There was a concrete structure. Not quite a building, but like it once was. It was covered with painted words and images. There were trees and scrub. It was dry and warm there. And stone stairs. Yes. I had to walk up a long stairway. After that, I walked for a long time down a highway and then through the city. That’s where I found you.”

He’s looking at me and I don’t want to believe any of it, but he’s such a whipped dog I can’t throw him out yet.

“I’m tired again. You are right about the brew. It took the pain away,” he says.

“Okay. You get some more rest. But we’re going to talk again later.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to take a goddamn shower. Today.”

“Yes. Thank you,” he says, and lies down. “Would you turn the light off, please?”

“There’s just one more thing before we go.”

“Yes?”

“I’d appreciate it if you never mentioned anything about Candy’s face or name again.”

“As you wish.”

Candy turns off the light and we go back outside. It’s good to be out of the room and the dead man’s stink. I turn the knife over in my hands.

“You ever see anything like it?”

Candy shakes her head.

“Never.”

I take it over to Kasabian.

“How about you? You recognize it?”

“No, but I can look around online if it’ll get him out of here quicker. He gives me the creeps.”

“I’m with you there.”

“I think he’s kind of sad,” says Candy.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“I should have taken notes or something. I’m never going to remember everything he said.”

Candy holds up her phone.

“Welcome to the twenty-­first century, Huck Finn. I recorded the whole thing.”

“Nice job.”

“I know.”

“Why don’t you forward that to Julie? You’ll make her day.”

“I’m on it,” she says, punching numbers into her phone.

I heft the knife in my hand. It has good weight and balance. With enough strength you could easily ram this through someone’s ribs and pull out whatever the hell you wanted.

“I’m going to put this away upstairs. You still want that drink?”

“Hell yes, Agent Scully.”

“Wait. I thought Scully was the woman.”

“Stop being so heteronormative. You’d look good in a dress.”

“I don’t know what one of those words means, but okay.”

“I really do have to drag you into this century.”

“Drag away. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Not without me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Will you two please go the fuck away?” says Kasabian. “You’re giving me diabetes over here.”

We go upstairs and don’t come down for a long time. My phone rings. It’s Julie. I let her go to voice mail. Who’s Huck Finn now?

I CALL JULIE back an hour later. We set up a time for the next day when she’ll come by and see Sleeping Beauty. She says she might already have a line on another case and will call me when she’s sure. I guess this is how things are from now on. Business calls and meetings with clients. Jobs we get and jobs we lose. Time to shine my shoes and carry my lunch in a brown paper bag. Soon it will be heart-­healthy egg salad on vitamin-­enriched organic free-­range whole-­wheat bread.

I’m so doomed.

Here’s the thing: once upon a time I ran Hell. I didn’t break the place, but I didn’t exactly spruce it up. I don’t have a good track record with nine-­to-­five responsibilities.

I wonder how long it will take for me to fuck up so badly that Julie gives my job to a guy selling oranges by the side of the freeway? Maybe I can swap gigs with him. He can do the surveillance and the paperwork and I’ll stand by the off-­ramp sucking fumes and selling oranges all day. It doesn’t sound like such a bad life. A little repetitive, but so was fighting in the arena. The freeway job would have less stabbing and more vitamin C, and that’s a step up in the world by anyone’s standards.

I’m on my way to the big leagues one Satsuma at a time.

KASABIAN HAS REOPENED the place when I come downstairs and a few customers are browsing our very specialized movies. Before Maria and Dash, Max Overdrive was doomed. Kasabian made a deal with them to find us copies of lost movies. The uncut Metropolis. Orson Welles’s cut of The Magnificent Ambersons. London After Midnight. Things like that. The problem was that a lot of the best of the bunch were silent movies, and in L.A. we like our gab, so those movies had a limited audience. They brought in enough money to keep the lights burning, but not enough to live on. The new, never-­made movie scheme makes a lot more sense. Maybe we’ll be able to sleep at night without worrying that the next day we’ll be running the store out of the trunk of a stolen car. It’s this possibility that makes me even more pissed about the angel tagging the front windows.

Fuck waiting for paint remover tomorrow. I get the black blade, go outside, and start scraping.

I’m at it for maybe ten minutes when I see someone’s reflection in the glass. A tall guy in a brown leather blazer.

Someone is watching me from the street. I managed to get GOD off the glass, but now it reads KILLER, which really isn’t much of an improvement.

I turn around and give the guy a “move along, pilgrim” look. He gives me an irritatingly polished smile and comes over to where I’m working.

This day just keeps getting better.

“Someone really did a number on your windows,” he says. “Any significance to the word?”

“Some to him, I guess. None to me. What do you want?”

He looks around like he’s checking to see it’s just us chickens.

“You’re James Stark, aren’t you?”

“Who’s asking?”

He reaches around his back. I make sure he can see the knife in my hand. For a second he looks nervous, but he recovers quickly and flashes me that shit-­eating grin.

He holds up his wallet and shows me an ID card from the L.A. Times. The name on the card is David Moore. I nod and he puts it away.

“Impressive. I bet you own a dictionary and a thesaurus.”

“Paper too,” Moore says. “Lots of blank printer paper.”

“And you want to print something about me. Why?”

He takes a step closer. He smells of adrenaline with a hint of fear sweat.

“We’re doing a feature—­maybe a series—­on the ­people who stayed here during the flood. The pioneers and eccentrics.”

“It sounds like you think I escaped from the Donner expedition.”

“Nothing like that,” he says.

He pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Taps out one for himself and holds the pack out to me like he’s throwing a bone to a ragamuffin refugee in a World War II movie. I don’t like the guy, but I take the cigarette. He lights it and then his own. It’s not bad. A foreign brand that burns the back of my throat pleasantly.

“Thanks.”

I go back to scraping the window.

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, then, “How about it? Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Let me ask you one. Why me? Lots of ­people who stayed behind, including some of my customers. Why not interview them?”

He comes around where I’m scraping, so I get a clear view of his mug. Trying to establish eye contact and intimacy. Letting me know that even though he’s from the press I shouldn’t hold it against him. He’s one of the good guys. But he’s too eager to be convincing.

“You’re the only celebrity around here,” he says.

“And here I thought I was just another small businessman. Tell me, do all celebrities scrape their own goddamn windows clean?”

“We can start there. Why would someone paint ‘killer’ on your store?”

“Maybe they thought I was Jerry Lee Lewis. Look, I don’t like talking to strangers. Next thing, you’ll try to lure me into your van with promises of candy and puppies.”

He doesn’t react to the dig, so I keep on scraping. He watches me for a while before he speaks again.

“Maybe it said something else before. Maybe it said ‘Godkiller.’ ”

This time when I face him, I put the knife to his throat. There’s nothing behind him, so there’s plenty of room to move if he can get his brain and feet to function, but he can’t. That means he’s probably not one of Audsley Isshii’s crew, an assassin sent to settle a score. I don’t think he’s Sub Rosa either. That’s the first thing that would be coming out of his smug face if he was. He’s just a ridiculous civilian looking for a story or an autograph.

“Why would you say ‘Godkiller’?”

He puffs his smoke, trying to look like he’s rolling with the scene, but his hand is shaking. Not enough for most ­people to see, but I can.

“There are a lot of rumors about you. About your past. And what you did during the flood.”

“What do you think I did?”

“Some ­people say you saved the world and that it wasn’t the first time. Other ­people say you lost your mind and killed God, which is a big surprise to some of us.”

“You’re an atheist.”

“I guess you’re not.”

“I wish I had the luxury.”

A ­couple of ­people come out of Max Overdrive. A civilian guy and a female Lyph. Lyphs are generally a friendly bunch, but they freak out a lot of regular citizens because they look like what kids draw when they imagine the Devil. Horns and hooves. A tail. This one has rented from us for a while, but I can’t think of her name.

“What’s the matter, Stark?” the Lyph says. “He return a movie late?”

I take the knife from his throat, but keep it by my side.

“See? My customers are a lot more interesting than me.”

“Everyone’s more interesting than Stark,” says the Lyph. “He’s just a Mr. Grumpypants.”

“This guy is a reporter from the Times. He’s looking to interview ­people who stayed in town when it was underwater. Want to talk to him?”

The Lyph and her friend come over.

“It was awful,” says the guy. “Our whole place flooded, but our pet rats are good swimmers, so it turned out okay.”

I take a drag off the cigarette and look at Moore.

“See? Human interest. That’s what your readers want. Real stuff. Not hocus-­pocus rumors.”

“Hi,” says the Lyph, holding out her hand. “I’m Courtney and this is Jeremy.”

Moore shakes Courtney’s hand. I’m not sure he can see her for what she is. When they’re in the street, Lyphs usually use cloaking hoodoo to blend in with the civilians. I try to read the sour look on Moore’s face. It’s hard to tell if he doesn’t want to touch the devil lady’s hand or if he’s pissed that we have an audience.

“Nice to meet you,” he says, and tosses his cigarette into the street. “Maybe you can give me your number and I can get back to you later for an interview.”

“Meow,” says Courtney. “I haven’t been brushed off like that since fourth grade and Father Barker realized I had a tail.”

“Really, Mr. Stark. I was hoping to talk to you specially about something besides the flood,” says Moore.

“What’s that?”

“Your wild-­blue-­yonder contract.”

“Why do you think I have one of those?”

He pats me on the shoulder and I consider cutting off his hand.

“Because you’re famous and L.A.’s famous always have a backup plan.”

“What’s a wild-­blue-­yonder contract?” says Jeremy.

What do I tell him? Just because he dates a Lyph doesn’t mean he knows how things are. How ­people with enough pull, fame, or infamy can get contracts that bind their souls to Earth so that when they die they don’t have to go on to the afterlife. And let’s face it, for ­people in L.A. that usually means Hell and they know it, and want to put if off for as long as possible. I really can’t blame them. The contracts are handled by talent agencies specializing in ghosts. You want Jim Morrison or Marilyn Monroe to croon “Happy Birthday” at your next party? Come up with the cash and they can do a duet with James Dean or Jayne Mansfield. It’s not just show-­biz types, though. Plenty of bankers, politicians, crooks, and cops don’t want to head Downtown too soon. A wild-­blue-­yonder contract is Heaven for mama’s boys.

Moore looks at me, waiting to see if I’m going to answer the question. I’m not sure what to tell Jeremy.

“It’s a death deal for chickenshits. When you die, you stay here and the company that sold you the contract can send you anywhere they want to be a performing monkey. Mostly, the contracts go to the famous so rich assholes can mingle with them over finger sandwiches.”

“Cool,” says Jeremy. “Can I get one?”

“Anyone can get one,” says Moore.

I tuck the black blade in my waistband. I’m not going to need it with this band of cutthroats.

“Yeah, but if you’re not an A-­list celebrity, you’ll probably end up being Mickey Cohen’s towel boy. Not all ghosts are born equal, are they, Moore?”

“Oh,” Jeremy says. “Wait—­who’s Mickey Cohen?”

“A notorious ventriloquist. His dummy worked for Murder Incorporated.”

Jeremy and Courtney look at each other.

“This doesn’t sound like something for us.”

Moore looks a little uncomfortable confronted by actual ­people who see the scam for what it is.

“Smart,” I say. “Don’t let anyone talk you into one.”

“We won’t,” says Courtney. Then to Moore, “What did I tell you? A big sack of grump.”

She and Jeremy take their movie and head off, leaving me alone with Moore.

“You’re not really a reporter, are you?”

He looks away and back and does the grin again. I wonder what he’d look like with no lips?

“That’s not entirely true. I have friends at the Times. Sometimes I bring them stories and they slip me a little something.”

“But that’s not what you’re really about.”

“I work with a talent group. One of the biggest postlife artist agencies in the world.”

“And you want to offer me a contract.”

“Why not? A lot of Sub Rosas have them. And you’re right about A-­listers versus everybody else. But I can guarantee you that you’d be on the A-­list of A-­lists. I mean, everyone wants to meet Lucifer . . . even an ex-­Lucifer.”

I move faster than he can react, dragging him around the side of the building and shoving him up against the Dumpster. I tap the black blade against the crotch of his jeans, right under his balls.

“Listen up. If you really knew anything about me, you’d know that I wouldn’t sign a blue yonder if you promised me chicken and waffles with Veronica Lake. I don’t know how you know all that Trivial Pursuit stuff about me, but forget it. It’s ancient history and nothing you should be talking about. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“Do you? I know threatening to kill you won’t matter because you have a blue yonder and you think you’re safe. But think about this: I know how to cut off your head so you won’t die. Who knows how long I can keep you alive? You can be my lab rat. How’s that sound?”

“I’d rather not,” says Moore.

“Then don’t ever bother me, my friends, or my customers again. If you do, I’m going to use your head for kindling.”

“I understand.”

“Now shoo.”

I take the knife away and he sidles past, not turning his back on me until he’s on the sidewalk, running down the street and across Hollywood Boulevard. I listen for the sound of squealing brakes in case he does the polite thing and scampers in front of a semi. But the sound is all just normal traffic. It’s disappointing.

When I come around to the front of the store, Candy is standing there. She’s looking off in the direction of Moore’s sudden exit.

“What was that all about?” she says.

“A man tried to sell me some magic beans.”

“Was there a giant with treasure at the top of a beanstalk?”

“No. Just old movie stars and dead gangsters.”

“You know the most interesting ­people.”

“You’re more interesting than any of those bums.”

“Aw. I’m better than a bum. You say the sweetest things.”

She leans over and kisses me on the cheek, uses her thumb to wipe off the lipstick.

“Listen,” I say. “I have to go see Vidocq and Allegra. Do me a favor and babysit our guest until I get back?”

She nods. Sighs.

“Sure. It’s not like I have anything better to do tonight.”

“Thanks.”

She looks at me.

“You know, I know what you’re doing.”

“About what, in particular?”

“You’re trying to keep me out of sight, trying to keep me at arm’s length at Brigitte’s. This is still about what happened when I was in jail, isn’t it?”

Candy is quick when it comes to ­people. It’s one of the things I like about her. I give her a slow nod.

“Some. You said I was using you. I didn’t like that. I still don’t. Later, when you said you didn’t remember, I always wondered if that was true.”

“The poison Mason gave me made me crazy and paranoid.”

“See, Mason said the drug was like liquor. It loosened ­people up so they said things they wouldn’t normally say. Truths they were afraid of.”

“Mason was a monster and a liar.”

“Not about everything. That’s why he was so good at it.”

She crosses her arms.

“So, you believe him more than me? Why don’t you just shut up and listen when I say I’m fine. I’m here ’cause I want to be.”

I shrug.

“Okay. Maybe I’m pushing things a little harder than I should. But another woman I cared about got killed because of me. I’m not letting anything like that ever happen again.”

She pats me on the arm.

“You need to calm down, drink some tea, and hug a teddy bear.”

“I’m serious. No one else gets hurt.”

“Everyone gets hurt around you, but we stay anyway.”

“And sometimes I wonder if that’s a mistake.”

She puts up a finger and aims it at my chest.

“You know, there’s a fine line between caring and pissing ­people off. If I say I’m okay, I’m goddamn okay. Stop playing Mr. Sensitive and trust me. You want to see things get fucked up between us? Keep not listening to how I feel.”

I look away, then back at her.

“I see your point.”

“Smart boy. Stop worrying about all this relationship stuff. You’re really bad at it.”

“You’ve got to give me points for thinking about things.”

“You’ve got to give me points for kicking your ass if you don’t believe me again.”

“Done.”

She rubs her chin with her index finger.

“One thing. Your friend in the closet, he could see me through the glamour. What do you see when you look at me? Candy or Chihiro?”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of yourself.”

“Put a sock in it, Jack Benny. Can you see me?”

“I see both of you. Sort of a ghost hovering over another ghost. Chihiro is in the foreground, but I can see you just fine.”

That seems to satisfy her, but she’s still frowning.

“You know what I’m really afraid of? Meeting new ­people. You and Brigitte and our friends know who I am under all this magic, but when I meet someone new I’ll just be Chihiro. That means the first thing that person knows about me, the first thing I tell them, will be a lie.”

“I thought about that. But consider the alternative.”

She taps her round sunglasses against her knuckles.

“Yeah. I wonder if there’s a statute of limitations or anything on assault. Maybe I don’t have to hide forever.”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask Julie. But, you know, the law might not be the same for Lurkers. The government was already throwing you in internment camps. I don’t think forgiveness is high on their agenda.”

She slips on the glasses. Does an unhappy half smile.

“Then, I’m Chihiro forever.”

“We don’t know that. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Okay.”

“I should get going. I don’t want to leave you alone with that guy any longer than I have to.”

“Don’t rush. The way he looks, if I speak harshly he’ll faint.”

“I won’t be long. I’ve just got to find a car.”

“Don’t steal anything boring,” she says as I start away.

“I just need to find something with an engine that didn’t die in the flood.”

She points to Hollywood Boulevard.

“There’s a Range Rover around the corner. It might work.”

“Thanks. I’ll look for it.”

“I’m going to get drunk with Kasabian.”

“I’ll join you when I get back.”

I head down the street, but she yells after me.

“Where can I get brass knuckles?”

“Why?”

“I want a set.”

“Why? You don’t need them.”

She runs a hand through her short hair.

“Candy doesn’t need them. I think Chihiro would look fetching with a pair.”

“Christmas is over, you know.”

“It’s the first I’m hearing of it. Maybe they should be pink to match my hair.”

“No. They’ll be brass or black.”

She opens the door to Max Overdrive.

“If you love me you’ll find me a pair.”

“I think regular ­people refer to this as emotional blackmail.”

She starts inside.

“I can’t hear you. I’m going now.”

“You’re a horrible person.”

“Find me a pair or learn to love fucking your hand.”

I walk down to the boulevard, and sure enough, there’s a Range Rover Defender near the end of the block. I slip the black blade into the driver’s-­side lock and the door pops open. When I jam the blade into the ignition, the Rover starts on the first try. I pull out into the sparse traffic wondering who I know who deals in knuckle-­dusters.

I GET ON the 101 south to the 10, get off and head north on Crenshaw to Venice Boulevard, and pull up by an old battleship of a building. They used to manufacture safes inside, back when there were only three TV channels and everyone dreamed of L.A. in black and white.

I go inside and take the battered industrial elevator up to the third floor. I lived here twelve years ago, before Mason sent me Downtown and Alice was still alive. Vidocq took over the apartment after I disappeared. Used some of his alchemical tricks to make the door invisible and, better yet, make everyone in the building forget there was ever an apartment here. He’s lived in the place rent free ever since.

I knock on the door and Allegra opens it, hugs me, and invites me inside. Vidocq smiles from his worktable. He’s in a stained lab coat, boiling red gunk in a beaker so that it condenses and trickles down a glass tube and drips into another beaker, clear now and full of what look like small spiny fish swimming around in slow circles. It looks like he’s either just created life or is making dinner. He’s well preserved for two hundred (though he doesn’t like to admit to being over a hundred and fifty). Close-­cropped salt-­and-­pepper hair, nice clothes, and a trimmed beard. A mad scientist by way of GQ.

“How’s life without whooshing in and out of shadows?” says Allegra.

“Slow. Terrifying. I’m more like regular ­people every day. I’m going to end up wearing Costco suits and going to cupcake stores.”

Allegra’s hair is jet black and shorter than Chihiro’s. Her café au lait skin is paler than when we first met. She’s spent a lot of the last year indoors at the clinic looking after sick and injured assholes like me.

“You could do with a little more real life in your life,” Allegra says.

“As long as I don’t need an accountant or a résumé.”

Vidocq leaves his hoodoo table and goes into the kitchen.

“Your scars are your résumé,” he says. “What sensible employer would ask you for more?”

It’s the truth. After eleven years in the arena in Hell my body looks like it was run through a wood chipper and put back together with a hot glue gun.

“Would you like some coffee?” Vidocq says. “I just made it.”

“It doesn’t have little fish swimming around inside, does it?”

He glances back at his worktable.

“That’s an interesting project. I’m experimenting with blood and blue amber to reanimate fossilized animals.”

“Whose blood?”

“Mine, of course.”

“Why?”

“To understand life, why else?”

“I’m not sure it’s working that well.”

Allegra goes over and stares into the beaker.

“He’s right. Your critters have refossilized.”

Vidocq sighs.

“We learn as much from our failures as our success.”

“Then I’m a goddamn Rhodes scholar.”

I take the coffee he offers. He hands the other cup to Allegra.

“You inspired the experiment, you know. Or your guest did,” she says. “Ever since he showed up it’s life this and the nature-­of-­death that.”

“What about you? He set off any new thoughts for you?”

She blows on her brew.

“You’re the only angel I’ve treated extensively, and you’re only part angel. I’m curious about what a full angel might be like.”

I sip Vidocq’s coffee. It’s good and strong.

“Which brings me to the subject at hand: How do you know he’s an angel?”

The day after Candy and I brought the guest home, Vidocq and Allegra came over and took hair, sweat, and saliva samples while he was asleep.

Allegra taps the side of her mug with her index finger.

“Technically, we don’t. I’m just hoping.”

Vidocq comes in with his own cup and sits on their sagging couch.

“The body we examined is that of an ordinary man,” he says. “Nothing more and nothing less.”

“Except that he’s missing his heart and, I’m guessing, most of his blood,” I say.

“Yes. Whatever is in the body is clearly not human.”

“Could he be a new kind of zombie?” says Allegra.

“I doubt it, but maybe I should have Brigitte look him over. She’s the Drifter expert.”

“He could be exactly who he says he is. I mean, no one has died since he appeared.”

I nod and lean against the kitchen counter.

“Julie mentioned that. Okay, let’s say he’s the real thing. What am I supposed to do with him?”

“What would you do if he was just an ordinary man who came to you for help?” says Allegra.

“Buy him a drink and give him cab fare to the next bar. I almost died wrestling the Angra Om Ya. Don’t I get a day off?”

“Maybe not.”

“Maybe time off is not your fate, Mr. Sandman Slim,” says Vidocq.

He smiles like he’s being goddamn witty. Maybe from his point of view he is.

And maybe what he said hits too close to home.

“Fate is what happens when you don’t run fast enough. Keep moving and fate gets dizzy.”

“Looks like you didn’t run fast enough this time,” says Allegra. “So what would you do if someone came to you for help and you did decide to give it to them?”

I look at the coffee. Sip it, but suddenly don’t want it anymore and set it down.

“I’d find out who he was.”

“You’re already doing that. What else?”

“I’d find out where he came from and backtrack from there. Maybe look for some physical evidence. All Mr. D had on him was a coat and a knife.”

“What did the knife look like?” says Vidocq.

I take it from my pocket wrapped in a red utility rag I found in the Rover and hand it to him. He carefully unwraps it. Picks it up with his fingertips and turns it over.

“Do you recognize it?”

“I’m afraid not,” says Vidocq.

“Me neither,” Allegra says.

“Do you mind if I run some tests?” says Vidocq.

“Please do.”

He takes the knife to his worktable, sets it on an iron disc the size of a dinner plate, selects a green bottle from a jumble of similar bottles at the back of his table. He gives it a shake and unstoppers it. I leave my coffee and go over.

“What is that?”

Allegra stands on his other side.

“My own invention. A personal amalgam of quicksilver, sulfur, and other rarer elements I’ve gathered in my travels.”

“What’s it going to do?”

“It reveals the history and composition of any object. Its true nature. Let’s see what it tells us about your knife.”

He puts an eyedropper into the bottle and suctions up a small potion of shimmering silvery metal. Holding the tip over the knife, he lets three drops fall.

The mercury slides down the length of the blade, making it look soft and liquid. A few seconds later, it begins to sizzle like someone frying an egg with a blowtorch.

I lean in for a better look.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

“Not necessarily,” says Vidocq.

Smoke rises from the boiling metal. It shudders. Turns yellow, then deepens to black. The mercury cracks like a broken roadbed, silver veins of the knife blade visible beneath the charred metal crust. A few seconds later, the black fades and the mercury turns back to its original shimmering form, flowing off the tip of the blade. When it falls on the worktable, it spreads and burns a poker-­chip-­size hole in the wooden surface, sending up a ribbon of gray smoke.

Like me, Allegra leans in to watch.

Vidocq pushes us both back.

“Don’t inhale the vapors,” he says.

The smoke stinks. I go to a window and open it.

“I’m guessing that hasn’t happened before.”

“What did we just see?” says Allegra.

Vidocq rubs his chin with the knuckle of his thumb.

“I don’t know. It’s never reacted so violently before.”

I reach for the knife and Vidocq pushes my hand away.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he says.

He takes a dark, ragged chamois from a drawer and wipes down the whole knife, holding it in a set of heavy pliers that look like they came from a yard sale at Hannibal Lecter’s. I point at the chamois.

“What is that?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I might need one later.”

Vidocq wipes every inch of the blade, not looking at me.

“It’s the skin from a Hand of Glory, purified and loosened from the bones by soaking it in holy water.”

A Hand of Glory is the left hand of a hanged man. Powerful hoodoo. Not something you find at Pier 1.

“I thought you got rid of that thing,” says Allegra.

“As you see, I need it for my work.”

Vidocq wraps the knife back in the red utility rag and hands it to me.

“Where does a person get something like that? I could use it to clean up after Kasabian.”

Allegra shakes her head.

“Bad ­people,” she says. “Dangerous ­people.”

Vidocq picks up his coffee.

“What safe life is worth living?” he says.

“What are you going to do with that knife?” says Allegra. “You can’t take it home with you.”

“I’m not letting that thing out of my sight. I want to know exactly what kind of power is in there.”

“As do I,” Vidocq says. “Perhaps we should take it to a Fiddler.”

A Fiddler is a nice resource when you have a troublesome toy, like a nerve-­gas-­pissing knife. Their hoodoo lets them tell you about an object just by touching it. Not all Fiddlers are on the up-­and-­up, but I think I can tell the grifters from the real ones by now.

I put the knife in my pocket.

“You sure you want to do that?” says Allegra.

“I have other coats. Besides, I always have you if it sets me on fire.”

Allegra pushes a test tube back from the edge of Vidocq’s worktable.

“I could use the distraction. I’ve been going a little stir-­crazy since the clinic closed.”

A clusterfuck of cops and vigilantes torched Allegra’s clinic right before Christmas. The fire took down the whole mall, killing off a nail salon and a pizza joint too. Some ­people have no respect for the finer things in life.

“Have you had a chance to treat any patients?”

“I’ve done a few house calls. Ever since the Lurker roundup, things have gotten progressively quieter. I suppose if the clinic was open and empty I’d be even more depressed.”

“We’re looking for somewhere she can open a new clinic,” says Vidocq. “But it’s a slow process.”

“I don’t know if it’s any help or not, but I’ll pay you for running the tests.”

Vidocq rubs the chamois over the burned spot on his table.

“We have no use for your money.”

“It’s not mine. It’s the PI agency’s.”

“In that case,” says Allegra, “we’re happy to accept.”

“I’ll probably have more work for you as business ramps up.”

“Good. It will be nice to be working again.”

“Speaking of which, do you have any painkillers for the guest? Whatever he is, I don’t think he’s used to having a body, and it hurts.”

Allegra goes to a kitchen cabinet and comes back with a plastic aspirin bottle with the label scratched off. The pills inside are small black ovals.

“These should help. I’ve used them on both Lurkers and humans for pain.”

“Thanks.”

I put the pills in the pocket with the knife.

“Bill me for these, too. One more thing: Does either of you know where I can find some brass knuckles?”

“That’s more your thing than ours,” Allegra says.

“I know. I just thought I’d ask. I’ll bring these pills back to Sleeping Beauty.”

“He has a name, you know.”

“I’m sure he does. I’m just not sure we know it yet.”

I GET IN the Rover, head back up the Hollywood Freeway, and end up getting caught in a traffic jam while trying to get onto Sunset. This is my future. Brake lights, angry lowriders, stoned jocks in a party van, frustrated soccer moms, and sweating salarymen fumbling for their heart pills slow-­rolling on and off freeway ramps until one of us snaps and opens fire on the rest. Even dead we’ll be stuck in traffic, our corpses pickled in fumes and lit by the glare of light bars on squad cars. We’ll make the evening news, and be talked about at work the next day. Cars, guns, cops, and gossip. Reality-­TV immortality. Show biz and murder. That would be a good name for a drink. I’ll have to remember to tell Carlos about it.

I ditch the Rover by Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, where Candy and I tried to have a sort of first date. Naturally, it all went wrong. A phone call from a demon got in the way. I promised to take her back. Did I ever do it? So much has happened in the last year, a lot of it is a blur. Shuttling between Earth and Hell, cutting off heads, getting shot, playing Lucifer, dying a ­couple of times. Even if I did take her back, it’s time we went again. Just a ­couple of monsters out for dinner, clogging our arteries with gravy and not giving a damn because this is California, where everyone lives forever.

I go down Sunset, cut up Ivar, and walk into Bamboo House of Dolls a few minutes later.

When Carlos sees me he holds up a shot glass and a coffee cup.

“You on or off the clock?”

“A little bit of both, but I’ll take a drink.”

“Thank you, Jesus. I don’t need you in here sober and sad. It bad-­vibes the room.”

“Then give me a double and let’s spread the Christmas cheer.”

“Ho ho ho,” Carlos says as he sets down a double Aqua Regia.

“I can’t remember, are you married?”

Carlos smiles.

“Happily divorced five years now.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“It just happens sometimes, you know? You start out young and a certain kind of person, then you grow up and you’re not that person anymore. Sometimes the ­people you become just shouldn’t be together. You stick around that shit long enough, you end up hating each other. My ex and me, we stuck it out too long. By the end, our differences got damned irreconcilable, so instead of torturing each other anymore, we finally called it quits. Why are you asking?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’m just trying to figure some things out.”

“Losing someone is never easy,” he says. “If it was, I’d be out of business.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening.”

“Drink up,” he says, pours us another round, and holds up his.

“To other ­people’s misery.”

We clink glasses and drink.

He pours us one more.

“To Candy. A great girl.”

I look at him. He waits for me. After a few seconds of thinking, I drink and he does too. Carlos knows that Candy is Chihiro, but he’s right about losing ­people. I didn’t really lose Candy, but she’s still gone.

I look around the bar for familiar faces among the twinkling Christmas lights. I find one at a nearby table: Brigitte is drinking wine with a handsome trio—­two men and a woman—­laughing and talking loudly, having a fine old time. She spots me and I invite her to the bar by pointing to my drink. She excuses herself from the table and walks over.

She kisses me on both cheeks and I say, “At least someone’s having a good time tonight.”

“Yes. They’re from Prague. From the old days, when I was still a killer like you. It’s good to see old friends.”

“That must be nice.”

“It is. And I so seldom get to speak Czech anymore. It makes me feel more at home here.”

“I felt the same way speaking English when I was Downtown.”

“Did it make things better?”

“A little. Sometimes during the holidays I feel very far from the things that made me happy.”

“Like hunting Drifters?”

She smiles.

“I came here to destroy revenants and become a real live Hollywood actress. The first is done, but no matter what I do, the second feels as if it’s barely begun.”

Brigitte used to do artsy porn flicks back in Europe. I never saw any, but Kasabian worships her as a goddess. A producer brought her to L.A. with promises of big roles in big movies. He croaked and Brigitte has been trying to get a foothold in the business every since.

“All our apocalypses keep getting in the way of work.”

She slowly shakes her head.

“You’d think someone was conspiring against our happiness.”

“The universe hates happy ­people, that much I’m sure of. You need to cultivate a taste for colorful misery.”

“Like you and your Aqua Regia.”

We both drink. I finish mine, but don’t ask for a refill this time.

“Maybe things will settle down awhile, end-­of-­the-­world-­wise. Once the movie moguls slink back into town, you’ll be rolling in work.”

She pushes a stray strand of hair out of her face.

“You haven’t said anything about my voice. I’ve been taking lessons, trying to lose my accent. How do I sound?”

“Like the queen of the county fair. What do you think?” I say to Carlos.

“You sound like Angelina Jolie. Kind of husky. Kind of silky.”

“You’d think I was American?”

“Absolutamente,” he says.

“I think you’re both being kind. Nevertheless, I’ll take the compliment.”

I take her arm to pull her in closer so we can talk quietly.

“You haven’t heard any talk about High Plains Drifters, have you?”

“No. Nothing. Is this about the man Chihiro talks about? Do you think he’s a revenant?”

“To tell the truth, no. I just don’t want him to be who he says he is.”

“You’re afraid of another apocalypse.”

“No. Just a lot of goddamn trouble. If this guy is Death, the ­people who killed him aren’t going to be hard to find, and I guarantee they’re going to be unsympathetic.”

“How do you know it’s more than one person?” says Carlos.

“I don’t, but I also don’t see someone pulling off this kind of hoodoo all on his lonesome. You’re talking about capturing an angel in a human body . . . and that’s after you find the right body. Then you need to know the hexes and magicians who can pull them off. Then you need a weapon that can kill him. On top of that, you need a motive. Why kill Death? There are potions that will keep you going for a hundred years. Yeah, they’re expensive, but it’s easier to rob a bank than shanghai an angel.”

“How does one kill an angel?” says Brigitte.

“With this.”

I take the knife from my coat and unwrap it on the bar.

“It looks quite ordinary,” she says.

“It’s not. It was thinking seriously of burning down Vidocq’s place.”

“It looks Roman,” says Carlos. “Like an antique Roman dagger. See the silver eagle? Legions used to have those on their standards.”

“How the hell do you know all that?”

He clears away some glasses and pours Brigitte more wine.

“My brother-­in-­law. Ex-­brother-­in-­law. He’s crazy for old weapons. He has something like that. I can send him a picture if you want and see what he knows.”

“This brother-­in-­law of yours, is he the person who’s been slipping you potions?”

Carlos tries to suppress a smile, shrugs.

“He dabbles in a lot of things.”

“He’s a magician, isn’t he? You married into a Sub Rosa family.”

He nods.

“She kept it from me most of the time we were together. Her family thought I wasn’t worthy and I think maybe she did a little too. You were the first person I met who did real magic right out in the open. After seeing that, I knew I’d been right to leave.”

“If she hid it, was she into baleful magic?”

“Baleful?”

“Black magic,” says Brigitte.

Carlos carefully arranges a Santa hat on a small plastic hula girl.

“I don’t know if her magic was black, but her soul turned dark. That’s what I meant about ­people changing. First figuring out that she was a real bruja. Then finding out she wasn’t the only one. Then seeing her go to darker places. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but I knew I didn’t want any part of it.”

I say, “You knew about our funny little world, but played innocent this whole time.”

He shakes his head.

“This? Lurkers and zombies and shit? I didn’t know any of that. And it’s cool at the bar. But home I like boring. The only magic I want there is in games and bad movies.”

“It was cruel of your wife not to tell you who she really was,” Brigitte says.

Carlos cocks his head.

“We had some good times. And anyway, my brother-­in-­law and me get along fine. Want me to send him a picture?”

“Go ahead.”

Carlos takes out his phone, clicks a picture, and thumbs in a message.

“I’ll let you know what he says.”

“Thanks.”

Carlos moves on to other customers.

Brigitte looks at me.

“Stark.”

“What?”

“Chihiro needs to come home.”

“It’s not the right time.”

“She said you said that, but I’m here to tell you that caution be damned. You’ll lose her if you keep pushing her away.”

“I told her we can do something around the end of the month.”

“She’s a dead woman. She lost her identity. She needs to be around the things that matter most to her.”

“We’re going to be working together for the agency.”

“And you’ll send her home alone every night. Your time in Hell might have taught you to plot strategy and when to strike, but it hasn’t helped you understand how ­people work. Chihiro isn’t a strategy and she isn’t someone who makes plans. She’s spontaneous and intuitive and more easily hurt than you might understand.”

That go-­for-­broke quality is one of the things I always liked about Candy. She went all in when she got into something, whether it was anime, being Doc Kinski’s assistant, or hooking up with me. I never thought of myself as a brain person, but maybe I’m turning into one. Like I said, it’s been a funny year.

“Let me think about it.”

“Don’t lie to me or her, and especially don’t lie to yourself. If you’re going to think, do it fully and soon.”

I want to change the subject, but I can’t ask Brigitte about her love life. Her lover, Father Traven, is dead.

“Has either of you seen a Fiddler in here tonight?”

Carlos looks around.

“How about Christopher Marlowe over there?”

Marlowe is by the jukebox chattering at one of Brigitte’s friends. The lady doesn’t seem interested.

Brigitte shakes her head.

“He’s wasting his time,” she says. “She doesn’t like men and she doesn’t speak English. I’ll rescue her and send him to you.”

She squeezes my hand.

“Think about what I said. What’s more important: Chihiro or one more little apocalypse?”

She goes over and says something to her friend. The woman goes back to the table, and when Marlowe turns his attention to Brigitte, she points at me. All the fun goes out of his face. He’s not scoring with any of the Euro girls tonight.

Marlowe comes over and puts his hands up like a robbery in a cowboy movie.

“I swear, Sheriff, I didn’t lay a hand on her.”

He’s boyishly handsome, wearing a green-­striped shirt and khaki pants, looking a lot more J.Crew than Elizabethan. He’s not the real Christopher Marlowe, of course. At least I don’t think so. Last I heard, the real Marlowe is a vampire living happily in Tangiers. Still, I bet this Marlowe has a screenplay. There are more unproduced scripts in L.A. than rats.

“Relax. I’m not playing chaperone. Besides, Brigitte carries a gun, so she doesn’t need my help.”

Marlowe glances at her, back at the table with her friends.

“Thanks for the warning.”

“It was more friendly advice, but you’re welcome.”

He leans against the bar and orders a dirty martini. When Carlos goes off to make it, he turns to me.

“So, if you’re not minding the beauty’s business, why have you summoned me? Fashion advice? First, ditch the Johnny Cash coat. This is L.A., not the Grand Ole Opry.”

“Thanks. When I want advice from a Banana Republic catalog, I’ll come to you.”

Carlos brings him his drink and he pays.

“Carlos says you’re a Fiddler. Is that right?”

“Are you asking because you’re famous and want a favor?”

“Not at all. I’m a small businessman myself. I can pay.”

“Cash?”

“You can bill the agency.”

He looks at Carlos.

“Is this guy for real?”

“Yeah. He’s a regular Derek Flint these days. His boss comes in here all the time.”

“Fine,” he says. “Show me what you have.”

I hand him the knife.

“You looking for anything in particular? I’m good with dates and original owners.”

I put the utility cloth in my pocket.

“Just tell me anything you can tell me about it.”

Marlowe runs his fingers around the hilt, over and around the blade. He sniffs it. Presses the blade to his forehead.

“That’s weird.”

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing on here, and I mean nothing. You’re not even on here and you just handed it to me.”

“Can you tell me how old it is or where it came from?”

He takes a gulp of his drink.

“What did I just say? There’s nothing here. I’ve never felt that before. It’s a complete blank.”

“Could someone do that with hoodoo?”

“Of course, but I’ve always been able to read through magic. This thing is wild. I might know buyers for something this special. I do consulting and appraising for some of the auction houses.”

I take back the knife.

“It’s not for sale.”

“Your loss,” he says, and finishes his drink. “Even though I didn’t find anything, it still counts as a reading, you know.”

“Sure. Bill me.”

He puts down his glass.

“This is pissing me off. Let me try it one more time.”

I hand him the knife.

“I want to try something.”

“Whatever you need to do, Kreskin.”

He holds the knife with the tip straight up and just stares at it for a minute. Then puts the blade to his mouth, licking it from the hilt to the tip in one motion.

Carlos looks at me. I don’t know if I’m getting my money’s worth out of Marlowe or just feeding some secret knife fetish.

“If you’re going to popsicle that knife, it better be for business reasons.”

“Fuck,” he says, and hands me back the knife. I take it using the utility rag and wrap it up without touching it. I’ll have Vidocq chamois it off again later.

“There’s nothing on there,” he says. “I get the slightest trace of you, but nothing else. It’s like that thing is a black hole, sucking everything in. You’ve got to tell me where you got it. Are there any more like it?”

“No, I don’t, and I don’t know. Just bill me for your time.”

“Where should I send it?”

“Bring it to Max Overdrive.”

“Or he can leave it here,” says Carlos.

“I think I’d be more comfortable here. That friend of yours with the metal hands creeps me the fuck out.”

“He was even worse when he didn’t have a body.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Marlowe holds up his glass for another drink.

“Listen, I know buyers with way too much money on their hands. I won’t charge for the reading if you tell me where you got the knife.”

“Sure. From a murder scene.”

He shakes his head.

“It doesn’t make sense. That’s the first thing I would have felt.”

“But you didn’t and that’s all I need to know for now.”

“If you find out who hexed the knife, I’ll pay you for the name.”

“Maybe. I do enjoy the company of money.”

Carlos sets the martini down in front of Marlowe.

When he reaches for it, his hand goes limp. He knocks the glass over. It falls to the floor and he goes down with it, his body rigid and convulsing.

I remember something about turning choking ­people on their sides, so I roll him over. Carlos comes around the bar and hands me a small blue bottle.

“Get that down his throat,” he says.

I roll Marlowe onto his back and pry his jaws apart enough to pour in a syrupy orange potion that smells like cat piss and bubble gum.

It takes a minute for the convulsing to stop. I roll him back onto his side and soon he’s breathing normally.

He opens his eyes and looks around, realizes he’s on the floor, and sits up.

“What happened?”

“You dosed yourself, jackass, when you licked the knife.”

“I take back the offer. Keep that thing away from me.”

I get his shoulders and wrestle him to his feet. There’s a crowd around us, but Carlos gets them back to their tables and drinking again. I set Marlowe on a bar stool. Carlos gives him a glass of water and he gulps it down. I wait for him to finish.

“Did you see anything when you were unconscious?”

He takes a long breath and lets it out.

“Yeah,” he says. “It felt like I was dying and someone was coming for me.”

“You mean, like Death?”

He rolls the glass between his hands.

“That’s the weird part. I knew it should be, I felt like it, but it wasn’t Death. It was someone else.”

“You mean ‘something.’ ”

“No. Someone.”

I take the glass out of his hands and set it on the bar.

“You should go home.”

He looks at me, still woozy.

“I’m billing you for a cab, too.”

“Fine. But you owe Carlos for the potion that brought you around.”

He takes out his wallet and slaps it on the bar. The leather is so expensive it looks like it came off an angel’s backside.

“Take what you want,” he tells Carlos.

He turns to me.

“And you, get the fuck away from me. Don’t talk to me and don’t ever bring me any of your poison shit again.”

Carlos already has his phone out. He pushes Marlowe’s wallet back at him. I reach over to get it, but knock it off the bar. I pick it up from the floor and hand it to him.

“There’s a cab on the way,” Carlos says. “Keep your money. The potion is a business expense. Better that than dead ­people piled up in the bar.”

Marlowe pushes himself up and starts to go outside to wait for the cab. He stops by the door.

“I saw one other thing, Stark.”

“What’s that?”

He steadies himself with a hand on the wall.

“It knows you’re looking for it. Whatever that knife is, it knows about you.”

Marlowe gives me the finger and goes outside.

Carlos wipes the spilled drink off the bar. I sit down and Brigitte comes over.

She says, “This is exactly what I was talking about. What just happened isn’t something Chihiro should have to hear from me.”

She goes back to her friends and I take out my phone.

“Hi,” Candy says after a ­couple of rings.

“How’s our friend?”

“What do you think? Still asleep. And Kasabian’s gone out to buy beer.”

“Sounds boring.”

“It is. Where are you?”

“At Bamboo House. Why don’t you come over.”

“What, be seen in public like a real person?”

“Just like one. I’ll buy you too many drinks. Later, we can order Chinese food from bed.”

“Thai.”

“Demanding harlot.”

“Watch that mouth, boy. You’re going to need it later.”

“Hurry. I’m at least three drinks up on you.”

“Then order me three drinks and stand by.”

“See you soon.”

She doesn’t say anything for a beat.

“Hey, why did you suddenly get smart?”

“I’ll tell you a funny story when you get here.”

“It better have clowns and Sailor Moon in a bikini in it.”

“And ponies.”

“I’m swooning.”

“See you soon.”

I order a drink for myself and three extras. Carlos sets the glasses down and I arrange them in a pyramid just like a clown would.

WE WEAVE BACK to Max Overdrive after an hour or so of drinking. The first three drinks pretty much did Candy in. I don’t know how many more she ordered, but Carlos cut her off at two. I got cut off too, but more, I think, to encourage me to take Candy home. It was time anyway. I’d told her about Vidocq, Marlowe, and the knife by then, so there wasn’t much more to say. I didn’t mention what Marlowe said about a bogeyman waiting for me in the great beyond because I was 90 percent sure he was fucking with me. If he wasn’t, I figured I’d know soon enough.

We go in through the side door because I don’t want to look at KILLER on the front windows. I’m in too good a mood for that. It doesn’t last long. The moment we get inside, Kasabian comes clanking up on his Tin Woodsman legs.

“He’s awake,” he says. “He woke up just a little while after you left.”

He gives Candy a look that’s half accusing and half scared shitless. I wave a hand in his face to get his attention.

“Where is he?”

“Right the fuck inside.”

We go around the counter and there he is, the Angel of Death, stark damned naked in the middle of the empty store watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on the big screen. He’s got this goofy grin on his face, like an ankle biter seeing a mobile for the first time.

I walk over and stand next to him, watching the movie. Caligari is a silent film. Cesare, the somnambulist, is carrying Jane across rooftops that look like they were designed by Dalí and drawn with crayons on blotter acid.

“Is this old?” he says.

“Yeah. From 1920.”

He points at the big screen.

“I remember all of them. When each passed on, I remember taking them.”

Candy comes over. Kasabian stays back by the counter.

“How are you feeling?” she says.

He looks at her, then back at the screen.

“I still hurt, but watching helps take my mind off it.”

“You just described the entire twentieth century,” I say.

I take the pills out of my pocket and put them in his hand.

“Try these. They should help with the pain.”

“Thank you.”

He pours some out and looks at them.

“How many does someone take?”

I shrug.

“Try two.”

I look at Kasabian.

“You have anything to drink?”

He takes an open beer from under the counter and hands it to me with his fingertips, keeping as much distance as he can between himself and our naked guest. I hand Death the beer.

“Wash them down with this.”

He sniffs the beer. Makes a puzzled face and puts the pills in his mouth. Then raises the beer can, draining it.

“This tastes familiar,” he says. “I think whoever this body belonged to liked it.”

“That narrows the suspects to about three million in L.A. County.”

He stares at the can like he doesn’t know what to do with it. I take it from him and toss it to Kasabian. Death looks at me.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m as confused as you must be. But I appreciate you giving me a place to stay.”

Candy says, “Stark knows what it’s like being lost somewhere you don’t want to be. Isn’t that right?”

“Sure. I’ve been to Fresno.”

He pulls away the bandages over the hole where his heart should be. The wound has closed. There’s just an ugly scar the size of a man’s hand. He touches it and winces.

“You don’t believe me, do you? When I say that I’m Death.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know you. We’ve met before. More than once.”

Candy puts a hand on my arm. I take Death’s bandages and toss them, like the can, to Kasabian. He pulls his hands away like I tossed him dirty diapers.

“I don’t remember you. If you’re Death, why didn’t you take me?”

“There’s dying and there’s dead,” he says. “You were on the cusp, so I let you decide, angel.”

“Half angel.”

“That’s why I came to you. I don’t trust other angels right now.”

“You finally said something I understand.”

He turns and looks around the store like he’s seeing it for the first time.

“I’m cold.”

“I have some things that might fit you.”

I turn to Kasabian.

“You want to bring him down some stuff? You know where the closet is.”

“Sure,” he says, overjoyed for an excuse to leave.

Death watches him go upstairs. He looks at the floor, wiggles his toes like he’s not sure if they’re attached to his body.

“How can I prove to you that I am who I say I am?”

“That’s the problem. I do believe you. I’ve been trying to figure out a way around it, but I can’t. The real trick is figuring out what to do with you.”

“What do you propose?”

“You can stay here for as long as you need,” says Candy.

“Thank you.”

I take the pack of Maledictions from my pocket and light one. Death sniffs the smoke and sneezes. I don’t put it out. When things get weird, sometimes you just have to smoke.

“Our boss, Julie, is going to want to talk to you. She’s the brains. We’ll figure out what to do after you’ve talked. That okay with you?”

“That sounds fine.”

Death gets distracted by the movie again. Kasabian creeps down the stairs with a pile of clothes in his arms.

“I didn’t know what he’d like.”

“So you brought everything I own? Just set it down on the counter.”

I point at Death.

“You. Come here.”

He walks over. I hold up one of the few Max Overdrive T-­shirts left that doesn’t have bullet holes or my blood on it.

“That looks like it’ll fit. Try it on.”

He slips the shirt over his head. And gets tangled in it. Candy has to help him get it on.

I toss him some pants. He looks them over and starts to put them on backward.

“The other way around,” I tell him.

He navigates the pants better than the shirt. I toss him a pair of socks and he figures those out right away. Boy genius will be ready for Jeopardy! any day now.

“Is that better?” says Candy.

“Yes. Thank you for these.”

“Just don’t get cut open again. Those shirts are rare.”

“I’ll try.”

“Maybe he’s hungry,” says Kasabian.

“You hungry?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “My stomach hurts.”

“You shouldn’t take pills on an empty stomach. Let’s order some food,” says Candy.

I toss Death a black hoodie to wear over the T-­shirt. Candy helps him put it on. I look at her looking at him. She’s not scared of him. Another one of the things I like about her. I put out the Malediction. No reason to torment the poor slob.

I say, “You like Thai food?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Let’s find out.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll get everything mild,” says Candy.

He looks up at the big screen.

“Can I watch something else? Something where ­people speak?”

“We might have one or two of those. What do you think, Kas?”

“No action movies. Nothing with guns or explosions. I don’t want him getting ideas.”

Death zips the hoodie, then looks at Kasabian.

“We’ve met before,” says Death.

I smile in Kasabian’s direction.

“That’s right. He blew his dumb ass up.”

“Lucifer was the one who brought you back, wasn’t he? I like him. He has a funny sense of humor.”

“Tell me about it,” Kasabian says.

“Maybe cartoons?” says Candy.

Kas raises his eyebrows.

“Some of your fucking anime with monsters and robots? I don’t think so.”

“What about a musical?” Candy says.

Death looks from her to me.

“You like music?” I ask.

“Oh, yes.”

Kasabian says, “Okay. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?”

“Definitely Gene Kelly,” Candy says. “He’s the sexy one.”

“Singin’ in the Rain?”

I pick up the rest of my clothes.

“Can’t go wrong with a classic. We’re going upstairs to call for food. You need anything?”

Death shakes his head.

“No. Thank you.”

Candy and I head to our place. Kasabian follows us halfway up the stairs.

“Don’t leave me alone with him.”

“Relax,” I tell him. “Get him a chair. Give him a donut or whatever else you have stashed behind the counter. Put the movie on and play nice. We’ll be in earshot.”

“How are you going to pay for the food? We haven’t rented much since Mr. Charisma got here.”

“As it happens, I helped a guy with his wallet and some of his cash fell into my pocket. He’s a whiner and he’ll overbill the agency, so it will all balance out in the end.”

“What do you want when we order?” says Candy.

“Green curry with pork. Extra spicy. None of the baby food you’re feeding him.”

We start up again.

Kasabian stares downstairs and says, “Stark. What if you help this guy and he, you know, calls us in? I mean, we were dead. What if he wants to make it permanent?”

“Then I’ll kill him and we can all go to Hell together.”

“That’s a fucking comfort,” he says. Then, “I want some of those fried shrimp rolls too.”

We go upstairs. A minute later the overture to the movie starts.

When we’re alone, Candy laughs.

“You finally bring me back here and there’s Death waiting for us with his cock hanging out. You know how to make a girl feel at home.”

“Did you really expect a normal homecoming?”

She flops onto the sofa.

“Never. I’m drunk and hungry. Order me some food, garçon.”

“Hold your horses, Calamity Jane.”

She leans her head back on the sofa and says, “Shit. Should we call Julie now that he’s awake?”

I drop my clothes in a pile on the closet floor. There’s an envelope lying on the bed. I bring it with me back to the living room.

“Let the man eat. Between the pills and the food, my guess is he’ll pass out again. Julie can wait until tomorrow.”

“Good. All I want to do is eat and fuck and go to sleep.”

“I have that on my business card.”

“Find the menu. Dial quickly. I’m going to pass out here for a minute.”

She curls up on the sofa and I toss a blanket over her.

The menus are in a drawer by the sink. I call in the order and open the envelope. Crisp paper falls out onto the floor. Heavy, expensive stationery—­Sub Rosa–grade stuff. Sure enough, it’s from the Augur’s office. Looks like I’m invited to tea with the grand high lord and master of the whole California tribe. Thing is, I’m done with the Sub Rosa and don’t have any interest in who’s running the show now.

I wad up the note and envelope and toss them in the trash.

DEATH IS WATCHING another movie when we go down in the morning. Duck Soup starring the Marx Brothers. Kasabian comes over as quietly as he can.

“He’s been at it all night. I’m fucking beat. It’s your turn to babysit.”

“What have you been showing him?”

“More musicals. Mary Poppins. My Fair Lady. Some Disney cartoons.”

“Shiny happy ­people stuff.”

“Like I said, I don’t want him getting ideas.”

“Go to bed. We’ll take the morning shift.”

Kasabian slinks back to his room, right next to the storage room where our guest sleeps.

“Good night, Kasabian,” he says. “Thank you for sitting up with me.”

“Sure. Glad to. Anytime.”

He closes and locks his door.

“Are you hungry?” says Candy.

Death turns away from the movie long enough to look at her.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’ll bring down the leftovers.”

I head back upstairs.

Julie calls while I’m in the kitchen. I tell her Death is awake and she should come over if she wants Thai food.

“For breakfast?”

“It’s this or the last of Kasabian’s donuts, and those have been around since ‘Steamboat Willie.’ ”

“I’ll pass on the food, but I’ll be right over.”

I thumb off the phone, get the food out of the microwave, and head downstairs with some plates. Candy clears all the crap from the top of the rental counter and puts it underneath. I set down the cartons and Candy digs in.

Death sticks his fork in each dish and sniffs. Touches the food to the tip of his tongue. I don’t think he’s gotten the hang of having human senses.

I pick at a ­couple of things, wanting coffee and a smoke more than curry. Julie arrives about twenty minutes later with a large messenger bag over her shoulder. Death straightens up and puts out his hand when he sees her.

“Hello. I’m Death,” he says.

Julie gives her best professional smile and shakes his hand.

“Yes. We met briefly at the bar where you found Stark. You look a lot better now than you did then.”

“I feel a lot better. Stark and his friends have been taking good care of me.”

He looks at Candy.

“I’m still not sure what I should call you. You have two faces and apparently two names. Which do you prefer?”

“Look at either face you want, but please, call me Chihiro.”

“Then Chihiro it is.”

“Thanks for recording the interview,” Julie says to Candy. “It was a good start.”

“Glad to be part of the team, chief,” Candy says.

Julie opens her bag, then looks at me.

“You were interested in the knife. Did you find out anything about it?”

I fill her in on what happened with Vidocq’s experiment and Marlowe’s reading.

“Have you ever seen that happen before?”

“Never.”

“All right. We’ll set the knife aside for now and concentrate on other areas. At least we have a starting point with our visitor’s identity.”

“We do?” says Candy.

­“People still aren’t dying. Religious groups are up in arms, some calling it the end of days. There have been runs on grocery stores and banks. Hell, the president gave an address about it last night, saying the government is conferring with our allies to make sure this isn’t a terrorist act. This has been all over the Web and TV since it started happening.”

She frowns at me.

“You don’t pay much attention to the news, do you?”

“I make a point to avoid it.”

“Start watching TV, at least. It’s part of your job to have a clue what’s going on in the world.”

“I’ll take care of it,” says Candy.

“At least one of you is a grown-­up.”

I take out a Malediction.

“I make a point to avoid that too.”

I open the side door, blowing the smoke outside so Death doesn’t choke and I won’t look bad in front of the boss. This is worse than Hell. I can’t even kill anyone to get on her good side.

“Where are your other clothes?” says Julie to Death. “The ones you woke up in.”

“There. In the room where I was sleeping.”

“I’ll show you,” I say, tossing the cigarette into the alley. Good-­bye, old friend.

We go into the storage room and I flip on the light. Julie pushes past me, slipping nitrile gloves on over her hands.

“Have either of you handled the clothes?” she says.

“We both helped him undress,” says Candy.

I step deeper into the room, out of Julie’s way.

“And I searched his gear.”

Julie hands us each a pair of gloves.

“In the future, don’t touch any potential evidence barehanded.”

“Got it,” says Candy. Teacher’s pet.

Julie holds up Death’s coat, then his pants. There’s pale dirt or dust on the bottom of each, and more on the floor. She checks his shoes and finds more dust. From a padded compartment in her bag she takes out a gizmo that looks like an iPad crossed with a game controller.

A small tray pops opens on the side of the tablet and she carefully drips in a sample of the dust, then pushes the tray shut. The screen lights up, showing some kind of multicolor readout.

“What is that?” says Candy.

“It’s the chemical composition of whatever is on his pants and shoes. It doesn’t look like city dirt. Something drier and desert-like. I’ll collate the numbers with USGS maps of the area.”

“Awesome,” says Candy.

I angle for a better look at the tablet.

“That’s Vigil tech. How did you end up with it?”

Julie puts the tablet away and collects more of the dust in a paper envelope.

She says, “We have an understanding. Now that I’m a civilian, I can do things, go places, and ask questions the government can’t. In exchange, I get access to certain Vigil equipment and information.”

“Can you use your toy to tell you anything about the knife?”

“I doubt it,” she says, sealing the envelope and putting it in the bag. “I wonder if we loaned it to the Vigil they’d be able to come up with anything?”

I pick up an empty DVD case and toss it back on a pile of others.

“Forget it. Boss or not, there’s no way I’m handing over our only serious piece of physical evidence to those Pinkertons. We’d never see it again.”

She stops working, her hands still in the bag.

“I hate to say it, but you might be right. They wouldn’t want civilians to have access to a magical artifact that powerful.”

She turns to Death.

“Have you showered since you’ve been here?”

He shakes his head.

“Good. I’d like to take some samples of the dirt under your nails. Also, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take your fingerprints and do a quick physical exam. Is that all right with you?”

Death frowns slightly, looks from Julie to me.

“She wants your clothes off so she can make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be.”

“If it will help,” he says.

“He’s not the shy type,” says Candy.

Julie doesn’t ask what that means. She just pulls another device from her bag, this one like a large cell phone.

“Good,” she says. “That will make things go faster.”

To Death I say, “After this, you’re cleaning up. This place is starting to smell like the reptile room at the zoo.”

“Smells are interesting,” he says.

“Some less than others.”

Julie sets one of his hands on the device. It lights up for a second. When she takes his hand away, his finger and palm prints glow pale blue on the screen. She does the same thing with the other hand and puts the device away.

“Can I take your picture?” she says.

Death nods.

She uses her phone to take full-­face shots and each profile.

“Stand up,” I tell him. “It’s ‘Nick the Stripper’ time.”

I mime taking off a shirt. He starts undressing.

“What are you looking for?” says Candy.

“Identifying marks. Scars. Birthmarks. Tattoos. That kind of thing.”

Death looks down at his naked body, as interested in it as they are, but baffled at being surrounded by his own flesh.

Julie goes over his front, legs, and back.

“Lift up your arms, please,” she says.

The moment he does, Candy says, “What’s that? A tattoo?”

Julie and I look where Candy is pointing, near his left armpit. Death cranes his head around trying to see.

“It’s not a tattoo,” says Julie.

I put my finger on the design. The skin is slightly raised and pinker than the surrounding flesh.

“It’s a brand.”

“Do either of you recognize it?”

Candy and I both say no.

Julie touches the brand with her gloved fingers. She glances at Death.

“Do you know where it came from?”

“No.”

She photographs it, stops when she checks the shot.

“There’s something else.”

She fits a zoom lens to the phone’s camera—­more Vigil tech by the look—­and takes another shot.

A pattern on Death’s skin glows a bright green.

“It looks like a tattoo that’s been lasered off,” she says.

She shows the design to Candy and me. Neither of us recognizes it. The marks look like letters, heavily stylized, in a circle.

“It’s not a word. Maybe it’s his initials,” I say.

“Why would he remove his initials?” says Julie.

­“People lose their names all the time,” says Candy. “When they’re scared and want to hide from something.”

No one says anything for a minute.

“Is this the body of a good man?” says Death.

Julie takes the lens off her phone and puts it in the messenger bag.

She says, “It’s too early to tell. You can put your clothes back on.”

This time, Death dresses himself. Just like a big boy.

“I’ve gone over the recording Chihiro made of your first talk, so I know you woke up in an isolated area near a deserted concrete building, right around Christmas. There were ­people nearby. Teenagers, you said. Did you get a look at any of them? Would you recognize one if you saw them again?”

Death picks at a sleeve cuff.

“No. I didn’t see any of them well and they ran away so quickly.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about your awakening? Anything else you saw?”

“One of the men had horns.”

I say, “What do you mean horns?”

“On his forehead. Above his eyebrows. I suppose they could have been markings.”

“Tattoos. Okay. Anything else?”

“The same man had a drawing on his cheek. A number fourteen in a circle of letters.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Approximately, how long did you walk?” says Julie.

“Five hours,” he says.

“You sound very certain.”

“I am. I found a watch. One of the teenagers must have dropped it.”

“We looked through your things. There wasn’t any watch,” says Candy.

“It stopped working, so I threw it away.”

I say, “Do you remember where?”

“Of course.”

He points to a trash can by the head of his cot.

Julie reaches in and fishes out a gold pocket watch attached to a broken fob chain. She presses the winder on top and the cover pops open. The watch shines, but it’s just cheap plastic in a metallic coating.

Julie holds it up.

“There’s something stamped on the cover, but I can’t make it out.”

She hands me the watch.

I study it while Candy looks over my shoulder.

On the inside of the cover is a skull with candles in the eye sockets and an open book in its mouth.

“It’s a necromancer’s mark,” I say.

“Then maybe the kids weren’t partying,” says Candy. “Maybe they were part of the resurrection.”

“Maybe, but this thing is a piece of shit. No professional Dead Head would carry something like this.”

I hand Julie the watch. She looks it over.

“They sell things like this at flea markets and goth shops, don’t they?”

“You can buy them all over Hollywood Boulevard. Good luck tracking it down,” I say.

“Maybe they weren’t professionals, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t necromancers,” says Candy.

“It’s possible,” says Julie. “May I keep this?”

“Of course,” says Death.

“Maybe I can pull some prints or DNA off it.”

She puts it in a small container and places it in her bag.

“I’m wondering something,” says Candy. “Could we use a spell to track where Death walked from? Maria, who gets the store videos, is a witch. She might be able to help us.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” says Julie.

“Yeah, it is,” I say. “If you backtrack Death, then you’re backtracking the knife, and I’ve seen what happens when you aim hoodoo at that thing. Let’s see what Julie comes up with before we get too Tinker Bell.”

Julie arranges things in her bag.

“All right. I have plenty to work with right now. We’ll hold off on any spell work until I see what the physical evidence shows us. Do you have the knife with you?”

“You sure you want to take it?”

“I’d like to examine it myself.”

“But no hoodoo and no Vigil?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll get it.”

I go upstairs, dig the knife out of my coat, and bring it back down. Julie slips it in an evidence bag.

“Just be careful,” I say.

“I always am,” she says. There’s a note of irritation in her voice. I shut up.

Julie puts the knife in her bag and takes out a plain white business envelope.

Handing it to me, she says, “Here’s the five-­hundred-­dollar advance I promised you.”

I open the envelope and look inside. It’s full of crisp, new twenties.

“Thanks,” I say, then to Candy, “It’s lobsters and Twinkies tonight, baby.”

She takes the envelope and riffles through the bills.

“May I say something?” Death asks.

“Shoot,” Candy says, rolling up one of the bills like she’s smoking a cigar.

“There’s something else to consider. Trapped in this body, I can’t do my job of escorting souls from Earth. Essentially, I am no longer Death. But there must be a Death. It’s one of the fundamental laws of the universe.”

“But no one is dying,” says Julie.

Death nods.

“Exactly. And yet there must be a Death. This leaves the question: Who has usurped my role and why isn’t he or she taking souls?”

I think back to Marlowe and his bogeyman for a second, but let the thought drop.

I give Death a look.

“You had to wait till now to bring this up. You just took a massive shit all over our feel-­good moment.”

“I know,” says Death. “I’m somewhat famous for that.”

“You can fucking say that again,” yells Kasabian through the storage room wall. “Now, will you ­people fuck off so I can get some sleep?”

JULIE GOES HOME soon after the interview, but calls back a few hours later. She needs Candy and me on a quick one-­night job that has nothing to do with the guy in my storage room. I like the sound of that. Maybe like is too strong a word. The job is a stakeout. Sitting in a car for hours without a break, so I don’t actually like it, but I do like the chance to walk away from Death’s case for a few hours.

“While I have you on the line, I need to know something. Is there a statute of limitations for a Lurker with an assault charge?”

She doesn’t say anything right away.

“As far as I know, there isn’t a statute of limitations for Lurkers at all.”

“Thanks. I had to know.”

“I’m sorry, for both you and Chihiro.”

“One more thing. Do you know where I can get some brass knuckles?”

“Those are illegal in California, you know.”

“And yet I need them. Years ago, a friend bought a set off an ex-­cop. He was selling them as novelty paperweights.”

“They could have both gone to jail for that.”

“Sounds like you don’t have those connections.”

“No. I don’t. And you shouldn’t be asking questions like that. In the current climate, they can get you in trouble.”

“Understood. I’m going to need a car for tomorrow night.”

“Swing by the office later today. I bought one just to keep you out of trouble. You’ll love it. It’s a big, comfy Crown Vic. Retired just a ­couple of years ago.”

“A retired Crown Vic. You’re talking about a cop car.”

“Indeed I am. It’s in great shape.”

“You’re going to make me drive around L.A. in a cop car?”

“It’s this or you can get a Vespa.”

“Don’t say that to Chihiro. If she ever got her hands on a scooter, we’d never see her again.”

“Then it’s the Vic?”

“You’ve got me cornered.”

“We should see about getting you a driver’s license.”

“I told you. I can’t get docs like that.”

“I didn’t say it would be real. I’m sure the Vigil can put some papers together for you. Maybe you can even open a checking account.”

“Yes, that’s what I came back from Hell for. Overdraft fees.”

“I’ll see you this afternoon.”

SHE’S RIGHT ABOUT the Crown Vic. It’s big and it’s comfortable, painted a highly forgettable gray. With its cop suspension, it even handles well.

It’s after dark. Candy and I are sitting in the eight-­thousand block of Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon not doing a goddamn thing. I want to play a new off-­the-­board bootleg of Skull Valley Sheep Kill’s last show at the Whisky a Go Go on the stereo, but Candy got there ahead of me and we’re listening to migraine-­inducing noise from Tokyo. It’s a band called Babymetal. A trio of chirpy girl singers cheerleading their way over razor fast metal riffs. They sound like Britney Spears on helium backed by Slayer.

I reach for the volume knob.

“Touch that and you’re a dead man,” says Candy.

“I just want to check in with Kasabian.”

“Fine. You have my permission to turn down the stereo for the duration of your call. Then it goes right back up again.”

“You’re just torturing me. It’s the singing robot sunglasses all over again.”

She frowns.

“I’d forgotten about those. They were fun to play with when you had a hangover. I wonder whatever happened to them?”

“If there’s justice in the universe, they’re in Tartarus.”

“Just make your call, Pinkie Pie. The best song is coming up.”

I dial Kasabian and he answers with his usual charm.

“What?”

“I wanted to know how things are going with our guest. You keeping an eye on him?”

“He’s right here talking to Maria, our friendly neighborhood witch.”

“You opened the store?”

“Don’t whine. We’ve been open so little ­people are lined up. We’re making brisk money.”

“What’s Death doing?”

“He’s helping behind the counter.”

“Are you crazy?”

“He’s putting DVDs in little plastic cases so customers can take them home. I think even an angel can handle that. Besides, I’m sick of being alone with him watching kiddie movies.”

“Okay, but the first sign of anything weird, the first unfamiliar face that tries to get in, you lock the place down and call me, understand?”

“I can’t hear you. I’m doing actual work. Have fun sitting on your fat ass all night.”

He hangs up.

Candy is snapping pictures of the street through the windshield.

“How are the kids?” she says.

“I should have bound and gagged them before we left.”

“You’re such a good dad.”

I watch her with the camera, playing with the angles, popping the zoom in and out. She’s having too much fun, like she thinks she’s David Hemmings in Blow-­Up.

“Since when are you a photographer?”

She snaps away.

“Since today. Julie gave me a Vigil point-­and-­shoot. It does the work and I make the art.”

“Why didn’t I get one?”

She moves the camera just low enough that I can see her eyes.

“Julie says you break things.”

I don’t reply, just let her shoot. It’s distracting her from turning the music up again.

“So, some old lady thinks her neighbors are dealers,” Candy says.

“That’s what Julie told me. We’re supposed to get hard photographic proof of their evil ways.”

“I’ve hardly seen anyone go by. They must be lousy dealers.”

“Ours isn’t to judge. Ours is to show up and collect a paycheck for the night.”

“Why didn’t the old lady just call the cops?”

“Apparently, she did. They sent a ­couple of patrol cars to do roll-­bys, but they didn’t see anything. I guess she wants proof before she calls back again.”

Candy rolls down her window and takes some shots of a coyote running up the winding street.

“She must have money to throw around to pay for an all-­nighter.”

“God favors the wellborn and the well connected.”

“That sounds like something Vidocq would say.”

“I stole it from him.”

A ­couple in matching tracksuits strolls by, walking their dog.

“Julie says there’s no statute of limitations on Lurkers.”

Candy nods, checks some of her shots in the LED screen on the back of the camera.

“Yeah,” she says. “I really blew it, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t blow it. Mason blew things up when he dosed you. He could have killed you, but he knew ruining your life would be more fun.”

“I didn’t even know the guy.”

“That made it even more fun. Dragging you into his random craziness.”

“But it wasn’t random, was it? Before, he fucked with Alice because she was with you, and then he came after me.”

“He liked to get to me through ­people I cared about.”

She takes shots of the other cars and a lone cat sitting on the trunk of a nearby Lexus.

“Too bad he’s dead. I wouldn’t mind hurting him.”

“It sounds kind of lame to say, but I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.”

She shrugs.

“ ’Course there’s another way of looking at things. I mean, making me crazy, making you angry and paranoid. If we were smart, we’d have broken up by now. But we didn’t,” says Candy. “The way I see it, we won.”

“Me too.”

“I’m hungry. Did you bring snacks?”

“I forgot them.”

“Moron.”

“Yeah.”

A door slams somewhere up the street. Maybe a second later, three men in identical clothes come running down Wonderland Avenue. In the pale light from the surrounding houses, it’s easy to see the bats and pipes in their hands. Two of the men look scared. I can’t see the third because he’s facedown in the street. The idiot tripped over the low brick boundary around a small garden in front of one of the houses. His buddies start back for him, but he gets to his feet and breaks into a stumbling run.

“You shooting?” I say, but it’s unnecessary. When I hear Candy clicking away with the camera, I hit the headlights to give her a better view of the street.

The Three Stooges freeze. They’re dressed in matching desert camo shirts and black slacks tucked into what look like paratrooper boots. Their shirts are soaked in blood I’m pretty certain isn’t theirs. With light on them, I see something else. An insignia on their shirts. Like a capital W in a white circle, and something else I can’t identify.

Their brains reconnect with their bodies and they take off. I jump from the car and run after them. Two are dead ahead, but the third one is gone.

There’s a thudding blow against my right shoulder, then a stinging sensation that spreads across my back and right up my neck. One of the Stooges was hiding behind a car and clocked me good on the back with a length of pipe. I turn just as he swings for my head and duck out of the way, letting the metal sail by, barely missing me. I’m still getting my balance when I hear footsteps moving up behind me. There’s nothing I can do but turn because I know from the sound that both of the other Stooges are back there.

I swing around, staying low, hoping Stooge Three behind me holds back, waiting for his buddies. That might give me time to hurt them just enough that I can get back to him, even with numbness spreading from my shoulder down my right arm.

I should have known better than to worry, but, you know, it’s embarrassing and distracting getting hurt that early in a fight.

The two guys coming at me don’t ever connect because they’re too distracted by their friend’s screaming. I don’t have to look to know that Candy’s back there, gone completely Jade. Red pupils sunk in black eyes. Shark teeth in a pretty mouth and claws like scythes. She’s shredding Stooge number three’s shirt and skin. One of the other Stooges, a beanpole with a baseball bat, pulls a Glock from a holster on his hip. I turn and dive, not heading for the beanpole, but going for Candy, knocking her down just as the first shot goes off. Beanpole pops off a ­couple of more rounds before he and the Stooges leg it into the shadows, disappearing between a ­couple of houses down the street. It’s too dark to know which ones.

When I let Candy up, she’s already changing back into Chihiro. By now a dozen ­people are all dialing 911, but I want to know what the hell just happened. We run up the block and spot a boxy two-­story stucco place with a blood trail all the way down the side stairs. We follow the red up, careful not to step in any, and come to an open door on the first floor. There’s just enough light reflected inside to see a sizable pool of blood and four bodies laid out like sausages in a frying pan. The weird thing is, the way their bodies are angled, it looks like they’re making a W. Candy might have called me the brains the other day, but she’s the smart one. She pulls the Vigil’s camera from her pocket and starts taking pictures. I have to pull her back down the stairs.

We sprint for the car. Once in, I gun it, heading back down the hill with the lights off so no one can get our license plate. When we hit Laurel Canyon Boulevard, our lights are on and I’ve settled in at the speed limit as the first cop cars blow by.

Still, I take the long way back to Max Overdrive and leave the Crown Vic parked down by Hollywood High. If someone did see us up on Wonderland tonight, maybe the cops will blame the cheerleading squad.

While we walk home Candy rubs my shoulder.

It would be sweet if she weren’t laughing at me for getting hit.

ONCE WE’RE HOME, I get out my phone. It takes all of ten minutes to fill Julie in on what happened in the canyon.

“And you’re both all right?” she says.

“We’re fine. I’ll have a bruise tomorrow, but my pride will hurt more.”

“Have Candy bring the camera by in the morning so I can download the photos. And when I say morning, I mean morning. Not two o’clock or even noon. I want you in by nine.”

“What’s the big deal? We didn’t see anything that looked like a drug den, unless they’re using cats to carry their smack. The other thing we saw, the cops will handle.”

Julie curses quietly.

“I wish you hadn’t gone to the crime scene, but since you did, I want to see what you have.”

“I think Candy got some good shots of the three assholes. If you give them to the cops or the Vigil or whoever, just leave our names out of it.”

“Don’t worry. You’re the last person I’m bringing in as a witness.”

I take the phone outside so I can light up. It feels good to have the smoke in my lungs, burning out the smell of all that blood in the apartment. The stink reminds me of the arena Downtown. Of course, there the blood was usually mine.

“Something bothered me all the way home. The address you gave us. The eight-­thousand block of Wonderland Avenue. Does that sound familiar to you?”

“Should it?”

I puff the Malediction and scrape at the KILLER paint job on the windows with my thumb.

“The Four on the Floor murders, way back in ’81. It was big news at the time. Four ­people beaten to death with bats and pipes.”

“And you’re saying the murders took place nearby?”

“On the same block. Those murders were drug-­related and we were there on a drug case.”

“But you said you didn’t see any dealing going on.”

“Fine. Alleged drug case. But you see the similarities, right?”

“It is a funny coincidence, I’ll give you that,” she says. Then, “Are you talking about the murders where they arrested some big porn star?”

“John Holmes. Ex–porn star by then. He was on a long downhill slide. The cops were certain he was one of the killers, put up to it by a big L.A. dealer named Eddie Nash. They put Holmes and some other losers on trial. Everyone walked.”

“It’s an interesting story, but a hell of a stretch. Where’s the connection after all this time?”

I turn around and there’s a wino watching me from across the street. I can practically smell him from fifty feet. He makes finger guns and yells, “Bang! Bang!” Then, “Have a nice night, killer!”

I really have to get rid of this paint job.

“I don’t know the connection. Look, maybe, at worst, it’s a copycat crime. But those guys in uniforms, they stank of crazy. And not just any crazy. L.A. crazy.”

“What does that mean?”

“L.A. crazy is when you don’t just kill someone, you turn it into a cheap made-­for-­TV movie. The Wonderland killings, starring Laurel Canyon money, dope, and porn. B-­horror-­movie killers like the Hillside Strangler and the Night Stalker. It’s Charlie Manson hanging out with the Beach Boys because he thinks they’re going to make him a rock star. It’s the Black Dahlia, a murder so strange a lot of ­people didn’t believe it at first. Hell, I’m babysitting Death. That’s what I’m talking about. L.A. crazy.”

“I’m not going to tell you this often, Stark, but I’m going to tell you now,” says Julie. “Go and have a drink. Have two or three. Calm down and bring me the pictures in the morning.”

I drop the Malediction and grind it out with my boot. Feel around in my pocket for the flask, unscrew it, and take a pull.

“I wonder if what happened is going to make the news?”

“Why do you care?” says Julie.

“Maybe someone else saw the Three Stooges.”

“Let it go for tonight. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Okay. See you then.”

I hang up, but don’t go inside right away. I have a ­couple of more drinks. Boss’s orders. Besides, something else is bothering me.

Tonight is the first time Candy’s gone Jade since becoming Chihiro. It was a beautiful thing to see, but it brings up a problem I hadn’t thought of before. What if down the line someone sees her change and starts calculating the odds of me hooking up with two Jades in a row? Maybe I can just pass it off as having a thing for shark-­toothed berserker girls. I’ve heard of worse fetishes. Still, it’s one more thing to worry about.

WE DROP THE photos with Julie and head back to Max Overdrive with a bag full of cleaning supplies and paint thinner.

Kasabian and Death stay inside, having sort of elected themselves the new store staff. It’s too early for customers, but they’ve already opened. I get the feeling now that he’s healed, Death doesn’t sleep much, and Kasabian is trying to keep up. I give it until tomorrow before he collapses on a pillow of Bavarian creams and empty beer cans. I think Death is kind of fascinated by Kasabian and his mechanical body, a yappy sideshow attraction not quite dead or alive. Kasabian must be feeling better around Death. When Candy and I came down this morning, they were watching This Island Earth together. It’s not exactly Friday the 13th, but ­people do die.

Candy and I are still experimenting with the paint thinner, trying it on a ­couple of different spots, when Maria comes up the block. She waves when she sees us. Candy waves back.

“Hi, Candy. Hi, Stark,” she says in that halting “I don’t talk to live ­people that much” way she has.

“Morning,” says Candy.

I wipe paint thinner off my hands.

“Hi. If you’re looking for Kasabian, he’s inside with his friend from Narnia.”

She shakes her head tensely.

“That’s all right. I was looking for you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Dash is missing.”

“Dash is your ghost pal, right? The one you talk to through the mirror.”

The morning is warm, but she keeps her arms wrapped around herself like it’s ten below.

“Yes, that’s him. I haven’t been able to contact him in a ­couple of days.”

“Why are you coming to me with this? Aren’t there other witches who can help you track down a lost ghost?”

“That’s the problem,” she says. “We’ve been trying, but he’s just not there. I was hoping . . .” She trails off.

“What?”

­“People say you can go places. Hell. Heaven. The Tenebrae. I was hoping that maybe you could look for him for me.”

Candy and I exchange a look. I walk over to Maria.

“I’d like to help you, but I can’t shadow-­walk anymore, which means I’m stuck on Earth like everybody else.”

I don’t want to tell her that I might be able to go to the Tenebrae, a kind of wasted, lonely, hangout for souls not ready to move on to the afterlife, but I don’t want to. To go there, I’d have to perform the Metatron’s Cube Communion ritual. Slit my wrists and bleed out in a magic circle, letting my half-­dead ass drift to Tenebrae Station. It isn’t as much fun as a naked brunch with Candy, but back when I had access to the Room of Thirteen Doors I was always sure I could get back and into my body. Without the Room, I’m afraid I could get stuck in the Tenebrae with a bunch of manic-­depressive spooks forever.

“Oh,” she says. “I didn’t know.”

“Whatever rumors you’ve heard, they’re probably wrong or out-­of-­date.”

Candy comes over.

“Isn’t there something else we can do?”

No, I want to tell her, but Maria looks too miserable to hear it.

“I can pay,” Maria says. “I mean, I don’t have money, but I’ll give you movies. Your next three movies, four movies are free.”

“Listen, I have another job these days and I’m working on a case right now.”

Maria furrows her brows like she doesn’t believe me.

“We’ll talk to some ­people,” says Candy. “Maybe our new boss can help. She finds things for ­people.”

Maria smiles a little.

“That would be great. Dash isn’t just my spirit guide. He’s my friend.”

“We understand,” says Candy. “And we’ll do what we can to find him for you.”

“But no guarantees,” I say.

Maria loosens her arms a bit and lets them drop to her sides.

“I understand. And thanks. I really appreciate it.”

“I’ll talk to Julie today,” Candy says.

Maria nods.

“That would be great. Well, I don’t want to keep you from your work. I’m sorry someone wrote on your store.”

I look at the lettering. We haven’t made much progress getting it off yet.

“Thanks. I broke the guy’s wrists, so, you know, that was fun.”

Maria starts away. She gives us the same little wave she gave us before.

“Bye,” she says, and heads back down to Hollywood Boulevard.

I look at Candy.

“Exactly, how are we supposed to help her? Julie doesn’t know anything about ghost hunting. And I can’t do it anymore.”

“Maybe the Vigil has a machine or ghost surveillance cameras or something,” she says. “Or maybe Death could help.”

“Death lives in a closet and sleeps on a cot. If Death could help anyone, he would have helped himself by now.”

Candy pats me on the shoulder.

“You’re clever. You’ll think of something.”

“Thank you for your misplaced confidence.”

Our phones go off at almost the same time. I pull it out and look at the number. The screen doesn’t show a number or BLOCKED. It reads ANSWER ME. I’ve never seen that before. I figure anyone who can do that must be at least a little interesting, so I answer.

“Who is this?”

“Stark?” comes a woman’s voice. “It’s Tuatha Fortune. How are you?”

“Hi. I’m fine,” I say, wanting to hang up but sober enough to know that it would be a bad idea.

Tuatha Fortune is the wife of the previous Augur, Saragossa Blackburn. Widow actually. He died while in office. I have it on good authority he was dismembered and flushed out the pipes with the garbage. Not a pretty way to go.

“How are you, Ms. Fortune?”

“Lovely, my dear. Let me guess. You received the current Augur’s invitation, but decided to ignore it?”

“Not exactly. I threw it away. I was sure the name was a misprint.”

She laughs quietly.

“He said you’d do that. Tommy is a fine scryer.”

Scryer is a fancy word for fortune-­teller. They use their hoodoo to get glimpses of the future. All Augurs are scryers. It makes the Sub Rosa rabble feel more secure.

“Did he see that you’d call me and I’d come?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Why does he think that would work?”

“Because it’s me asking you. Not him. This is an anxious time for everyone, and Saragossa was always sorry that you were so estranged from the Sub Rosa family. He would have wanted you to give the new Augur a chance. I’d like that too. And remember: you’re responsible for me.”

“How’s that?”

“You saved my life. Remember? That makes you responsible for me. Isn’t that how the old saying goes?”

“And if I say no, he’ll send someone less pleasant to ask next time.”

“That’s not how he works,” she says. “But it would do you and everyone else a great favor if you met him.”

“You’re very sweet, Ms. Fortune, but however you put it, this is still an order from on high, isn’t it?”

“Yes, dear. I’m afraid it is.”

I want to tell her to fuck off. I want to tell the Augur too. But I don’t need trouble right now. I have a new job and the store is just getting back on its feet. And I’m not as strong as I once was. Just a few weeks ago, I could walk anywhere I wanted, to Lucifer’s palace or the Augur’s office, and put a knife to their throat. I can’t do that anymore. I’m vulnerable, which makes Candy and everyone else vulnerable. I need to figure out how to get around without the Room. I don’t like feeling weak and I don’t like driving a Crown Vic.

“All right. When does he want to see me?”

“Right now, dear.”

“Give me the address.”

She does. I put it into a map app. The address is all the way across town. It will take an hour to get there driving.

“It was a nasty trick, him sending you to talk me into seeing him.”

“Not really. It was how things were always going to happen. Just as it was fated that you’d say yes.”

“How did you know?”

“Tommy told me you’d agree. As I said, he’s a clever Augur. See you soon, my dear.”

“Not that soon. I’m stuck in a car these days.”

“How charming for you,” she says, and hangs up.

I look at Candy—­she’s deep in her own phone conversation. After another minute, she finishes and hangs up.

“Who was your call?” she says.

“The Augur. Who was yours?”

“How fancy. Julie called. She wants me to come in and go over some of the photos with her. She thinks I caught some interesting stuff.”

“When does she want you?”

“Now. How about the Augur?”

“Now.”

“We’re like a ­couple of school kids being summoned home.”

“For an egg-­salad lunch.”

“I like egg salad.”

“You could have kept that ugly secret to yourself.”

“I know, but I don’t want any secrets between us. I love egg salad. It’s my boyfriend.”

“Stop. I have to go see fucking Sauron. I don’t need images of you with egg-­salad teeth swimming in my head.”

“Where are my brass knuckles?”

“Carried away by flying monkeys.”

“Then you better get working on that banana gun.”

We gather up the paint thinner, rags, and cleaning supplies.

All we got off the windows is ER. Now the front of the store reads KILL. That ought to really bring in the customers.

THE 405 FREEWAY is the yellow brick road after the apocalypse. A winding stretch of paved bullshit choked with bumper-­to-­bumper demon drivers and banshee kids wailing away for the SpongeBob juice box Mommy and Daddy left on the kitchen counter. Road rage was invented along this cursed road. Murders and suicides are planned in the stinking miasma of stalled trucks and overheating Hondas, enough to fill all the graveyards in California and more. The 405 is one breakdown away from turning into the Donner Party. Starvation and cannibalism. Movie producers gnawing on starlets’ severed legs. School-­bus Little League teams crunching on the coach’s skull. All I want to do is get to Marina del fucking Rey. Or die quick right here and now. I don’t really care which anymore.

A century or two later, I dump the Crown Vic in a parking lot near the Basin E harbor. The dock number Tuatha gave me isn’t hard to find, but it’s behind a locked gate. I jam the black blade into the lock and it pops right open. The walkway is lined with pristine boats like floating palaces. I don’t have to look for a slip number to find the boat Tuatha described. It stands out like a rotting pig carcass in a butcher-­shop window. It just goes to show you how much pull the Sub Rosa has, parking this junk heap among the seafaring mansions.

You have to understand something about Sub Rosa aesthetics. While civilian blue bloods flaunt their inheritances buying the biggest, gaudiest Xanadus they can afford, the Sub Rosa go the other way. Their wealth and status get displayed by fronting their estates with hovels. Collapsed warehouses. Ransacked crack dens. Abandoned hotels. The current Augur has taken things a step further. His manor looks like the only things that are keeping it afloat are strong ropes and good wishes.

I don’t know shit about boats, but this looks like it was once a nice one, and fast. Maybe it was a fishing boat that took tourists out to catch whatever kind of fish sporty types like to kill and varnish for the den. It looks like it could hold a dozen ­people easy. Main deck, lower deck, and a raised area where the captain could pilot the thing like Ahab on coke and Red Bull. It was clearly very pretty at one point. Very sunny and merry. I can almost smell the white wine and gourmet box lunches. Just being here makes me miserable.

It looks like an engine fire took the boat out of commission. The lower deck and captain’s area are black, wood-­charred, and plastic-­melted into long brittle ribbons. I put one foot on the deck, not sure if the french-­fried shit box will hold my weight. It does. Too bad. Now I don’t have an excuse to leave.

I look around for any nosy neighbors, don’t see any, so I duck down and climb into the burned-­out lower deck.

And come out on the deck of a ship that would make Howard Hughes blush.

A spotless deck. Polished oak and gold fixtures. Also, a group of bodyguards. Big boys, puffed up on steroids and protein powder. I wonder why the Sub Rosa’s King Tut is working with civilian muscle and what kind of charms they’re carrying that would stop any self-­respecting magician with ill intent from blasting them to charcoal briquettes? They’re probably part of an addled outreach program. The Augur’s office throwing a bone to a local security company, sealing some kind of mutual aid pact between the Sub Rosa and civilian worlds. Hey, we’re not better than you. We’ll let you into the Augur’s place, as long as you make sure the riffraff don’t drop any cigarette butts on the deck. They’re glorified hall monitors. Still, I’m not here to hassle anyone, so when one of the meatballs gets up, I stay calm and cool. Instead of coming for me, the flank steak slides open a glass door to an even lower deck.

“Welcome, Mr. Stark. Mr. Abbot is expecting you,” he says.

I wait a second to see if it’s a gag and someone is going to laugh. When no one does, I head for the open door. But I keep a hand in my pocket where I’ve stashed my na’at, my favorite weapon from when I was in the arena in Hell.

Tuatha is in a leather easy chair across from an annoyingly handsome guy. Sandy-­blond hair, all-­American-­boy face with a movie-­star nose idiots in Beverly Hills would pay a small fortune for. He looks young. The youngest Augur I’ve ever seen. He’s wearing jeans and a yellow polo shirt with expensive-­looking deck shoes. Captain America at the yacht club. He jumps up when he sees me and puts out his hand.

“Stark—­that’s what you go by, right?—­it’s great to finally meet you.”

I shake Abbot’s hand and he hits me with a high-­watt Cary Grant smile that could melt the polar ice cap.

“Nice to meet you too,” I lie.

When he lets go, I put my hand out to Tuatha. She takes it in a more placid way. Not ladylike really, but in a “there’s nothing you can do about the situation, so sit back and enjoy the show” kind of way. She’s still wearing mourning black.

“Hi, Ms. Fortune. Good to see you.”

“And you. I’m glad we could finally get you boys together.”

“Me too,” says Abbot.

“Then let me make it official,” she says. “Mr. James Stark, I’m happy to introduce you to our new Augur, Mr. Thomas Abbot.”

“Ta-­da,” he says, holding up his hands.

They both laugh lightly. I don’t.

“Please sit down, Stark.”

He points to another leather chair that’s probably worth more than most of the boats in the harbor.

“Would you like a drink?”

I debate getting out my flask and asking for a glass or being polite. I’m in unknown territory, so polite wins.

“I’ll have what you’re having,” I say.

“We’re having margaritas,” he says.

“In that case, I’ll have a whiskey, if you have it.”

He gets up.

“Jack Daniel’s, right? I got in some Gentleman Jack just yesterday.”

I’m not surprised when he pours me the drink himself. It’s the perfect move in whatever man-­of-­the-­­people charm offensive he has planned. Only one question bothers me. What if the fucker is on the level? Tuatha seems to trust him and she’s far from stupid. That’s something I hadn’t considered until now. Charles Foster Kane I can fight. I’m not so sure about Mr. Rogers.

“Ice?” he says.

“No thanks. I’ll have it neat.”

“Of course.”

He brings me the glass, then settles back down in his seat.

“I understand you knew Saragossa Blackburn pretty well,” he says.

I look at Tuatha.

“I don’t know. Did I?”

“In your own way,” she says. “You helped him in ways others couldn’t or wouldn’t. He liked that you were so straightforward. He trusted you and it upset him that he could never get you to trust him.”

“I always respected the fact he didn’t have me bumped off. On that account, he was my favorite king ever.”

“Is that how you see the Augur? As a king?” says Abbot.

“How else should I see him? I don’t know any other Sub Rosa who could, say, hex the governor out of office, take over, and no one would bat an eye.”

“That’s the kind of misperception I want to clear up. You see this relationship as one side holding all the cards and the other—­”

“Holding shit and high hopes he lives another day.”

Abbot sets down his glass and leans forward with his hands on his knees, going for deep sincerity.

“That’s exactly what I want to change. This antagonistic attitude. We shouldn’t be adversaries. I know what you’ve done for the city. Hell, the world. When others ran, you stayed behind and fought the Angra Om Ya on your own. If you ask me, those are the actions of a hero.”

“You admire me for that? Let me ask you a question . . .”

“Call me Tommy. That’s what my friends call me.”

“Okay, Tommy. If you admire what I did so much, where were you when it all went down? I could have used some help, if not fighting the Angra then in getting LAPD off my fucking back.”

He nods.

“For one thing, I knew you’d win. I foresaw it and didn’t want to get in the way.”

“That’s a bullshit answer and you know it.”

He leans back, steepling his fingers.

“You’re right, it is. As far as the police are concerned, I wasn’t Augur yet, so I didn’t have the power to deal with them. And as for the fight, I’ll admit it in front of both of you. I was scared. Mad gods. Other dimensions. It’s a bit out of my experience. But not yours, and when it came time to stand up, you did. I want to acknowledge that. I want to reward that.”

“How?”

“I want to offer you a seat on my advisory council. You’d have an important voice in shaping policy where it comes to both the Sub Rosa world and how we interface with the civilian population.”

Okay. He got that punch by me. I was looking for a right cross and he hit me with a body shot. The nicer this guy gets, the less I want to trust him. He oozes sincerity, but so do cave birds Downtown. They look like cute little sparrows. They’ll perch in your hand and cuddle right up. Then the stinger comes out and they get you with one of the most noxious poisons in Hell. Lucifer kept a cageful of cave birds in his palace. He’d dip his royal dagger in their poison every morning before staff meetings. Everyone knew it and no one caused trouble. So the question is: Is Abbot the old Lucifer or Samael, the reformed and less homicidal Devil? What if I guess wrong? I want to get out of here, but the whiskey is good. Trust isn’t my greatest virtue, but it might be interesting to see how the other half lives. I might be able to get something out of it.

“Does it pay anything?”

“It could. I know you’ve had some financial problems. I could authorize you a stipend. Say, a hundred thousand a year? It would be steady money to give you breathing room. You wouldn’t have to give up the store or your other job.”

So he has been keeping tabs on me. At least he’s honest about it.

All this honesty is giving me a migraine.

“What do you know about my job?”

“I know you’re working with a respected ex-­member of the Golden Vigil. If she can trust you I think I can too.”

“What if she’s wrong?”

“I told you he’d say something like that,” says Tuatha.

Abbot nods at her and looks back at me.

“She’s not wrong, Stark, and all three of us in here know it. You come on like you’re still the monster you were when you came back from Hell. And I don’t use the word ‘monster’ lightly. You were a menace. Out of control. But you’re not that person anymore, just as I’m not the person I was when I hid from the Angra Om Ya when I should have been right there beside you.”

“What’s changed?”

“You. The idea that you might work with us. With your experience and knowledge of the dangers plaguing both civilians and the Sub Rosa, I think we could accomplish great things together.”

“You know, Audsley Isshii still has a hit out on me.”

Isshii had been Blackburn’s security chief. When Blackburn was murdered, Isshii decided I did it. He’s been after me ever since.

“I do know about that and I want you to know that we’re dealing with it. I guarantee you we will find him. In fact, if you wanted, I could assign you and your friends their own security teams.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“It’s just partial payment for all you’ve done for us.”

I look down at my glass and finish the drink.

“I like your whiskey,” I tell him, trying to deflect his bruising sincerity with some of my own.

Abbot gets up, goes to the liquor cabinet, and comes back with an unopened bottle of Gentleman Jack.

“Take it. Please.”

“Thanks.”

I take the bottle and set it on the floor next to my chair. If it’s a bomb, I want it out in the open where it will kill all of us when it goes off.

Abbot settles back down into his chair.

“I don’t expect you to decide right now. But at least tell me you’ll think about it.”

I tap the bottle with my boot. It doesn’t explode.

“Sure. Why not?”

Abbot flashes me a Mount Rushmore–size smile.

“That’s terrific news.”

He gets a business card from his pocket and hands it to me.

“This has my private number on it. You can call anytime. If you need anything or just want to talk.”

I put the card in an inner pocket of my coat.

It feels like the end of the audience, so I get up. Abbot and Tuatha stand too. It’s handshakes all around, a little awkward and self-­conscious, like the end of a mediocre job interview.

“Don’t forget your bottle,” Abbot says.

I pick up the Jack and cradle it in my arms like a newborn.

Tuatha says, “I’ll see him out, Tommy.”

He nods and sits back down.

“It was great meeting you, Stark.”

“Yeah. You too.”

With a light touch on my arm, Tuatha steers me outside. We walk to the far end of the boat.

“Thank you for coming and for listening. I know this kind of thing is hard for you.”

“Let me ask you something straight. Do you trust this guy? He seems too good to be true.”

“I thought so too when we first met. He does work hard to make a good impression, doesn’t he? But over the years I’ve learned that a few ­people are what they appear to be. Especially the ones with good hearts.”

I look back the way we came.

“But he’d still have a troublemaker killed if he thought it was for the greater good.”

“Of course. Don’t take his good manners for weakness. He is the Augur, after all. But I don’t think you have to worry. I can tell he likes you.”

“Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t give Gentleman Jack to an enemy.”

Tuatha looks at me more seriously than she ever has before.

“Think about the offer. Really think about it. I think you two could do wonderful things together.”

“Thanks, Ms. Fortune. Take care of yourself.”

She goes back to the cabin and Abbot to talk about me. If I could still shadow-­walk, I’d come out behind the drapes and listen to what they really think. As it is, all I can do is speculate. Like, are they setting me up for something or is this a chance to get some real money?

I walk past the bodyguards. They don’t show the slightest interest in me.

Back on the deck of the burned-­out boat, I stand and look out to sea, playing the last few minutes over in my head.

I don’t know what to think. I want to tell Abbot to fuck off and walk away, but I’ve played that game so many times before and where has it gotten me? Broke. Almost homeless. With no real prospects and less power than I’ve had since I went Downtown. Being an Abomination is one thing, but being a loser Abomination is really not acceptable. Still, I can’t get past the fact that the James Dean pretty-­boy prick was just too good to be true.

I weigh the bottle in my hand. Cock my arm to throw it out into the harbor. I’m halfway through my swing when I stop.

On the other hand, he could have poisoned me on the boat and dumped my body in the ocean where no one would ever find it. Even if Abbot is a snake, it doesn’t mean I have to take it out on an innocent bottle of good whiskey. And being on the outside so long is starting to lose its charm. What’s the saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I don’t know who Tommy is, but maybe I should be the cave bird in his hand, just for a while. It’s something to think about.

As I wander back to the Crown Vic, a stretch limo pulls up a few yards away. Four goons climb out of the back, two from each side of the car. They eye me like a Gucci SWAT team. Unlike the meat pies on the boat, these are Sub Rosa heavies, second-­rate magicians, but with big balls and a lot of dark, baleful magic tricks.

I act like I don’t see them, open the car door, toss in the Jack, and slide inside the Vic like any good civilian heading home after a day at the marina. With my left hand, I adjust the rearview mirror so I can see them. I keep my right hand on the key in the ignition just in case. Once the wolves have decided the coast is clear, a squat, older man with a cane climbs out of the car.

His clothes are so out of style, for a second I think he must be a vampire. Some of the slow ones lose track of the decades and fail to notice that not everyone wears zoot suits anymore. It makes them easy to hunt. This guy, however, is out in broad daylight, so he’s no shroud eater, meaning his look is deliberate.

He has on a bright red leisure suit, white patent-­leather shoes, with a white belt, like the regional manager of a carpet-­cleaning company in 1974. I only get a glimpse of his face before the goons close in around him, but it’s enough.

It’s Tamerlan Radescu, the necromancer. He’s not just a Dead Head, he’s the McDonald’s of Dead Heads, the only magician I’ve ever heard of who’s licensed his name to other magicians. Any competent but mediocre necromancer can buy a franchise, use Tamerlan’s name and “techniques,” and instantly double his or her income, all while kicking back a percentage to the home office. ­People say Tamerlan himself hasn’t done a lick of hoodoo in years. He just collects the checks and buys bad suits.

Tamerlan lets himself through the gate I had to break into and heads down the dock for the Augur’s boat. Where else would he be going? Looks like Tommy is still getting acquainted with the local Sub Rosa heavy hitters. Have fun staring at that grisly suit for an hour.

As I start the car I stare at all that money, feeling sorry for myself. Because I have to drive another hour back across town. If I end up taking Abbot’s offer, I don’t want a stipend.

I want a jet pack.

I’M BACK ON the 405, stuck behind a vegan bakery truck with a flat tire. It’s not their fault, but now I’m hungry for a plate of carnitas. As the traffic in our lane slowly merges into the next to get around the carrot huggers, my phone rings. I answer it and hit the speaker button so I don’t have to hold it.

“Stark? It’s Julie. Where are you?”

“Stuck in traffic on the dark side of the moon. Where are you?”

“At the office. Can you get over here? I have some information.”

“Me too. I just met the new Augur.”

“Really? Wow. You’ll have to tell me about it.”

“Not anytime soon. Seriously, nothing is moving. I’m going to be here for a while.”

“Fine. We’ll do it this way. I have an ID on Death. Death’s body.”

“Who is it?”

“His name is Eric Townsend. A commodities trader at a boutique company called Yaa and Sons.” She spells it out. “It sounds like it might be China-­based. I’m going to check them out.”

The guy behind me honks, an existential bleat in a concrete river of despair. I give him the finger. Fuck you, Jeff Gordon.

“Yaa isn’t Chinese. It’s an old Indian name for Los Angeles. And I mean old. Like five thousand years old.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a magician. We know lots of funny things. And sometimes Kasabian watches Jeopardy!”

“Anyway, that’s an interesting name for an investment company.”

“No shit. You have anything else?”

“A lot. From all accounts, Eric Townsend was a very upstanding businessman, one of his company’s best. That’s before he disappeared six months ago.”

“Any idea what he’s been doing for all that time?”

Brake lights flash like fireflies up ahead.

“Listen to this,” says Julie. “That tattoo he had lasered off? It’s the same emblem that was on the shirts of the three men you and Candy saw on Wonderland Avenue.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s the insignia of the White Light Legion. Ever heard of them?”

“Aren’t they some freaky skinhead group? Like religious Nazi assholes?”

“You’re partly right, but they’re much stranger than that. The Vigil has a whole library on the White Lights and the Silver Shirts.”

“Now, the Silver Legion I’ve heard of. Local Hitler groupies back in the thirties. They were kind of a big deal at one point.”

“Their leader was a disgruntled screenwriter named William Dudley Pelley.”

“Leave it to a writer to go nuts and think he can take over the world with his Dungeons and Dragons crew.”

“It goes much deeper than that. Pelley didn’t want to take over the country. He wanted to pave the way for the Führer in the U.S. when he won the war in Europe. Pelley started the Silver Shirts on January first, 1933, the day Hitler became chancellor of Germany. But he wasn’t a run-­of-­the-­mill fascist. Yes, his group attracted the usual bullies and thugs you find in those groups, but Pelley saw himself as a spiritual leader. Call it New Age fascism.”

“What does that mean?”

A Caddy cuts off a plumbing truck to move farther left, so I cut off a Prius to do the same.

“In 1928, Pelley had a ‘clairaudient’ event. A kind of out-­of-­body experience that later, in an article, he called ‘My Seven Minutes in Eternity.’ He said he was hit by a shaft of bright white light that took him to another plane of existence where he heard voices. He talked with the souls of the dead, even God and Jesus. Along the way, he gained special psychic powers.”

“This guy is starting to sound like every snake-­oil salesman I’ve ever heard of.”

“Not quite. Pelley was special. The Silver Legion had fifteen thousand members at one point, three thousand in California alone. But Pelley didn’t want to just be a fascist. He saw himself as a great religious leader and that the beings he met on his out-­of-­body journeys had picked him to bring about a spiritual revolution in America.”

“What kind?”

“Pelley had psychic experiences for four years after the first one in ’28. According to him, they unlocked his mental powers. Some accounts say he claimed he could levitate. He could speak to ‘secret masters’ that lived on other planes, and it was his job to teach others what they taught him. He even had his own metaphysical magazine, the New Liberator, where he published general spiritualist articles and his own teachings.”

We come to a complete stop again. A pickup truck and a Maserati almost sideswipe each other as they wrestle for an exit ramp.

“What does any of this have to do with Townsend? He wasn’t a Silver Shirt. You said he was in another group.”

“Yes, the White Light Legion. They were split off from the Silver Legion in the late thirties over some kind of metaphysical dispute. They didn’t think Pelley’s teachings went far enough. They weren’t practical enough. If Pelley could levitate and communicate with dead souls, they wanted to do the same. Their leader, Edison Elijah McCarthy, thought Pelley was holding out on them.”

“A Nazi must have loved having a name like Elijah.”

“By the time he legally changed his middle name to Monroe, it was too late. Enough ­people knew his real name. He spent years trying to cover it up.”

“What are you saying? Those White Lights guys slaughtered a whole houseful of ­people on Wonderland because someone knew their leader’s real name?”

“I doubt it, but it’s hard to say exactly what the White Lights want. We know they demanded access to Pelley’s most esoteric teachings, but there’s no way of knowing if they got it. They had their own publications, but they destroyed them all in the early sixties when an FBI agent briefly infiltrated the group. Since then, all their teachings have been by word of mouth and no other plants have gotten close enough to the inner circle to learn their most important beliefs.”

Julie is on a roll. I don’t want to stop her, but I’m going crazy sitting here. I dig the Maledictions out of my pocket and light one up. It’s a small victory.

She says, “We know that Edison kept in touch with some of Pelley’s contacts in German fascist and metaphysical organizations. But we don’t have much information about that either. What reports we have say he did have dealings with the Thule Society.”

“I’ve heard of them. Dark-­magic dilettantes and trying to prove Aryans were the master race, tracing them back to earlier made-­up civilizations. Atlantis and other cheap fantasies.”

“Right. Apparently he was in touch with other groups too, but there are no records of which ones.”

“So really, all you know is that this Townsend, a straight-­arrow banker type, was a member of a group that wanted to ascend to higher planes and turn themselves into Nazi X-­Men. Do I have that right?”

“Essentially.”

“Guess he didn’t ascend fast enough. But why is Death walking around in his skin? And what happened that made him burn his association with the White Lights off his body?”

“I’m sure the two are connected, but I don’t know how. Maybe killing and mutilating Townsend was punishment for leaving the group.”

“Sounds right for bully boys like that. They don’t like quitters and they’d probably see anyone who wanted out as a potential rat.”

“This is all assuming that the White Lights have anything to do with this at all. We don’t even know if the White Lights are the ones who killed him. And even if they did, it could have been another group that used him as a vessel for Death.”

“Like Dead Heads?”

“Exactly.”

“I saw Tamerlan Radescu headed to the Augur’s place when I left just now.”

“That’s interesting, but again, we don’t have any concrete connections.”

“Maybe we should look for them.”

“Maybe. We need to talk to Death about this. He might have heard or remembered something.”

“Have you found anything about the abandoned building where he said he woke up? Sub Rosa like trashed buildings where they can hide their mansions inside.”

Like a miracle, traffic begins to open up. I can touch the accelerator without feeling like a storefront preacher praying for rain.

“I’m working on that now. I have some ideas, but I need to do more research.”

“This is all too strange. I like my Nazis young, bald, and dumb. I don’t like clever fascists. I knew one once. His name was Josef. He did a lot of bad things to nice ­people.”

“Is he still around? Maybe I could talk to him.”

“Good luck. I cut off his head.”

The line goes silent and I wonder if the call dropped. Then I hear Julie’s voice.

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell when you’re kidding.”

“Of course I’m kidding,” I say, but I’m not. I burned Josef and his skinhead dogs out of their clubhouse, and when he came for me, I took the fucker’s head off with the black blade. It wasn’t a hard choice. Josef was a Kissi. But Julie would never understand that, and sometimes a little white lie saves a lot of time. So I just say, “Josef really is dead. There was a fire at his group’s compound and I heard he went down with the ship. Besides, he was smart. He’d smell the cop on you and laugh in your face.”

“You’re probably right. Stop by the office when you get back to the city. I want to hear about the Augur and Radescu.”

“I should be there in less than an hour. We’re finally moving. Cross your fingers it stays that way or you’re going to be there till the Rapture.”

“I’ll light a candle for you. Get here as soon as you can.”

“You got it.”

As the road opens up more, it occurs to me that I’m an idiot. I had the perfect opportunity a few minutes ago. I mean, if anyone could get me brass knuckles it would be the Augur. Now I’m going to have to ask for knuckles and a jet pack.

IT’S PAST ONE when I get back to Julie’s office. She didn’t have anything new on Death’s case, but she was plenty interested in the Augur and his floating mansion. I couldn’t tell if it was professional curiosity or if she’s just fascinated by the idea of the Sub Rosa world because she’s never been quite so close to it before.

It’s two before I can pry myself loose and head home. The whiskey at Tommy’s place is coming down on me. I’m out of practice morning drinking. I need coffee and food and bed, not necessarily in that order.