Devil Said Bang (33 page)

Tiger Girl stands there with the strap in her hand
and her bag on the ground, having no idea what just happened. I do. The little
ghost girl is behind her. Maybe twenty feet away and walking fast. She’s
laughing that high childish tinkling laugh. Finally Tiger Girl hears her and
turns around. She just stands there. She knows who the girl is, and like most
normal people when confronted with flat-out evil, her brain vapor locks and she
freezes in place. Me, I pull the Sig and start shooting.

Cars skid. People scream and dive for cover.

All the noise snaps Tiger Girl out of her trance.
She dives for cover and I keep firing. When I reach the sidewalk, I get between
her and the ghost. The Spiritus Dei–covered bullets punch holes in the little
girl. She stretches like warm taffy every time one hits but the hole snaps back
and closes by the time the next bullet reaches her. She doesn’t come any closer
but she sure as hell doesn’t leave.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Candy jump from
between two cars.

I yell “No!” but it’s too late.

Candy heads straight for the girl, probably
thinking she’s wounded. She’s not. The little girl turns, and even though Candy
is moving Jade fast, the girl’s knife blurs the air and she slashes Candy across
the stomach. Candy falls. The momentum carries her a few feet away, where she
lies on the pavement tucked up in a little ball. Ghost Girl gets over her with
the knife held in both hands. I’m wearing a long, deep-pocketed coat I found in
Samael’s closet. I reach into a pocket and whistle. The girl looks at me. I do a
Dizzy Dean windup and throw the Magic 8 Ball at her as hard as I can.

She screams when she sees it, a long, high-pitched
wail like a giant’s fingernails scraping over miles of blackboard. She shrieks
louder when the 8 Ball hits her, tearing a hole in her side. There’s no blood or
bone. It looks like someone ripped a piece out of a photo in a magazine. The
girl’s face turns dark like she’s about to start crying. She disappears.

I run to Candy. Pick her up in my arms and lean
down to grab the 8 Ball. When I turn to get Tiger Girl, the little girl is
there. She slashes at Candy again. I pivot away fast enough to protect Candy but
the girl slices my arm. I hold the 8 Ball like a rock and slam it into her face.
She turns dark again and this time her scream is loud enough to crack the glass
in nearby cars. When she disappears, I grab Tiger Girl’s arm.

“Come on. She might come back.”

“That was the ghost.”

“No shit.”

I slide open the van’s side door and put her and
Candy in the back. Grab the big Chateau towel we were using as a tablecloth and
have Tiger Girl hold it to Candy’s stomach. Candy moans and tries to curl into
an even tighter ball.

“What the hell . . . ?” she says.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m taking you to the
clinic.”

Cairo lives in Silver Lake and Allegra’s clinic is
right on the edge of the neighborhood. It’s a short drive and even shorter
through three red lights. Each one explodes when I throw hard, fast hoodoo to
turn it back to green. Not having the Key to the Room of Thirteen Doors was a
pain in the ass before, but now this is Candy’s life. I never really thought
about killing Saint James, but if Candy doesn’t come through this, I might have
to.

Someone inside must hear the van screech to a stop
in the parking lot. Fairuza, the Ludere girl, opens the door and she and Rinko
come out. Candy is awake and wobbly, but on her feet. Rinko guides her inside
without even looking at me and Fairuza closes and locks the door.

Candy’s blood is all over me and the back of the
van. I pour the last of the sake on my hands and the knife slash on my arm. The
burning feels good. I get back in the van and wrap Candy’s towel around my arm.
Toss the other towel to Tiger Girl.

“Your dress is messed up.”

She looks down and sees streaks of blood. There
really isn’t that much but she lets out a panicked moan.

“No. Shit. Goddamn.”

I’m tempted to tell her that even if God cared, He
isn’t in a position to do anything about it, but I keep my mouth shut. It’s done
enough damage today.

“Calm down,” I say. “None of it’s your blood.”

Tiger Girl pats herself down enough to see that I’m
right.

The sky shifts between blue, pistachio green, and
the kind of deep purple I remember from when Downtown was on fire. Clouds turn
to metal and burst into flame before going white and puffy again.

“We can’t stay here and I can’t drive this van
across town.”

I dial the Chateau.

“Can you send a limo for me right now?”

“Certainly, Mr. Macheath.”

I give the clerk the address.

“Make it fast. Tell the driver I’ll keep his or her
ass out of the fire forever if they get here in ten minutes.”

“I’ll drive it myself.”

“I don’t care who. Just drive fast.”

Tiger Girl’s breathing is almost back to normal but
her heart is still going Mach 5. Mild shock. She’ll be fine. My adrenaline is
off the charts. I want to kick the clinic door in and find Candy but I don’t
want to slow Allegra working on her.

My goddamn arm won’t stop bleeding.

“What’s your name?” I ask Tiger Girl.

“Patty Templeton.”

I wrap the towel around my arm and hold it out to
her.

I say, “Tie the ends together, Patty.”

She takes the ends of the towel and pulls them
tight.

“I’m Stark. You can ride with me unless you want to
get out and walk home.”

“No fucking way.”

“Good. Now we’re friends and we’re going to talk to
each other, and no bullshit, right?”

I fire up the van and pull it into a corner space
behind some delivery vans. I’ll come back after dark and ditch it somewhere.

“Yeah. Okay. Just keep her away from me.”

“No problem. I know somewhere she’ll never find
us.”

The limo pulls up with thirty seconds to spare.

“What about your friend inside?” Patty asks.

“She’s in good hands.”

Patty and I get in the limo.

“Looks like you got yourself a ticket to damnation
paradise,” I say to the driver.

He turns the big car around.

“What if I’m not damned?” he says. I recognize the
voice from the phone.

“Trust me, pal. If you weren’t before, you are
now.”

As we pull into traffic, I glance back at the lot.
The hole Cherry dug yesterday is closed up good as new. Cherry works harder dead
than she ever did when she was alive.

I
f you
ever need to pull a girl into a secret room through a grandfather clock and not
have her make a big deal about it make sure she’s attacked by a knife-wielding
ghost first.

I leave Patty on the couch and go to the bathroom
for a new towel. This one is soaked through. When I come out, she’s sniffing the
open bottle of Aqua Regia.

“You might want to skip that. There’s regular wine
with the food.”

She sniffs again and pours herself a little in a
wineglass. Tosses it back and makes a face.

“I told you.”

She pours more. I sit down across from where she
was. She shrugs and brings the glass over. Yesterday’s food is gone and there’s
a fresh spread laid out buffet-style.

“I’ve had worse,” she says. “Some kind of
akvavit?”

“Some kind.”

“I’ve never seen it red before.”

“It’s pretty rare.” I don’t want to tell her that
the red is semipoisonous Hellion herbs and a few drops of angel’s blood. She’s
had a rough enough day.

“Was Cairo trying to kidnap you back there?”

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

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

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

“What were you arguing about?”

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

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

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

“My job. What drug?”

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

She finishes the glass and gives a little
shiver.

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

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

“I told you. My job.”

“What’s your job?”

“I’m a dreamer.”

“What is that?”

She looks at me.

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

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

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

“Yeah.”

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

“Martin Denny.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tell me.”

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

“The Mile High Club.”

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re telling me you’re God.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course not. Just the right ones.”

“How long have you been around?”

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

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

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

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

“The Sub Rosas being killed are all dreamers?”

“Mostly.”

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

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

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

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

“No.”

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

“Ooh. A gentleman.”

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

“Whatever, dude.”

She drops onto the couch.

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

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

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

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

“Who runs the dreamers?”

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

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