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“We’re not Satanists, you babyfucker,” a ballerina unicorn shot back.

“How about we stay away from religious differences for the duration, hmm?” I said. “I mean real Satanists? Especially from some new group called the Sons of the Crimson Gaze?”

More murmurs, more shaken heads. Although I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition flicker across the faces of the Inquisition.

“Order of the Morning Star?”

The Inquisition exchanged some angry muttering, but didn’t pin this on the Order.

“How about Feds? Especially a skinny blond guy with a mustache?”

More baffled shakes of the head.

“All right. Best of luck to everyone here. I would like to remind everyone you’re fighting over a sandwich, and there’s literally no way Mary looked like she was in
From Here to Eternity
.”

I started backing away, putting a hand on VC’s arm. He backed off with me, never breaking character.

“Mike, wait!”

I stopped. It was Liam, his pistol trained on Happy Hobart. The priest winced in frustration, doing the peepee dance as he tried to decide whether to stick with the Mexican standoff or come over and talk to me. He ended up splitting the difference, jogging awkwardly over while keeping the gun on Happy.

“This Steve business has me concerned, Mike. You disappear for a year and a bunch of,” his voice dropped to a stage whisper, “nutjobs—”

“We heard that!” the ballerina unicorn shouted.

Father Liam glanced over his shoulder, where the gun was still pointed.

“It doesn’t matter. You clearly want to tell me something. What is it?”

“You mentioned the Order of the Morning Star? They’re almost gone. Barely any of them left.”

“Congratulations.”

“No, it wasn’t us.” He glanced around, lowering his voice even farther. “They’re in the middle of a doctrinal schism. The old guard has the normal take on things. Lucifer cast from Heaven, rules in Hell still. The other side says Lucifer is here, now.”

“What, on earth?”

He nodded. “Closer than that. Los Angeles.”

“It’s either here or Vegas.”

“This side says Lucifer has incarnated a physical form and is preparing for Judgment Day.”

“Anything to that?”

“Of course not. Lucifer is mostly metaphorical.”

“What the hell does ‘mostly’ mean?”

“Mike! This is still a church and you are still a child of God!”

“Sorry, Father.”

“Two Hail Marys should do it.”

I abruptly thought of a dirty joke and turned my snort of laughter into a cough. “And this new side... the Sons of the Crimson Gaze, I take it.”

“What are you doing with them?”

“Against them. Don’t worry. There might be a little confusion about my name, but not where I stand.” I looked him in the eye because that’s the best way to lie to a priest. “I just need to know where they are.”

“They have a theater on Hillhurst, near Franklin. Do you know Los Feliz?”

I had lived there for about seven years. “A little.”

“One thing. Who’s he?” Father Liam nodded to VC, standing impassively at the door to the vestibule like a statue covered in flop sweat.

“He’s a friend. We’re really into the Blues Brothers right now.”

“That... movie?”

“There’s a movie?”

He narrowed his eyes, trying to see if I was joking, finally deciding he was most comfortable with clerical sincerity. “Godspeed, Mike. Whatever you’re doing, see me later. I could use more information on this new enemy.”

I nodded. “And, you know, good luck with getting that sandwich. I think this should turn out really well for everyone.”

Father Liam broke into a sunny smile and returned to his side of the standoff, gun once again pointing right at Happy Hobart. Have a nice day.

“Goodbye, everyone. I hope the sandwich is miraculous or delicious, depending on your affiliation.” Only the ballerina unicorn waved happily at me, momentarily disrupting the aim on her AR-15.

I pulled VC out of there. As we walked across the street, the gunfire started. With the thick walls, it was mostly muffled popping. I hunched over and ran across the street anyway and ducked behind the Caddy. There were no bullets flying this way, but I felt safer with something made of literally space age materials. VC strolled along behind, casually opening the car up.

He plopped down and silently stared through the windshield.

“You can talk now.”

“23 skiddoo.”

“Right. Did you hear what Father Liam... what that priest said?”

“Negative. This unit collated data from unconscious emissions.”

“I don’t want to know what that means, do I? No, don’t answer. We’re going to Los Feliz.”

“Affirmative.”

He turned the key and the car’s engine rumbled and hummed. It swerved out into traffic to the sound of popping and chattering from the gunfight in the church. In my head, everyone was jumping around in slow motion, doves fluttering artfully in the foreground. Unfortunately, real gunfights are seldom so much fun, even for a spectator like me. There’s a lot of screaming and blood and loud noises, and really you just want to find somewhere to throw up. At least Liam Fratelli would die the way he lived: protecting something meaningless for no real reason.

We went north, through downtown proper. I reflected that I’d been there less than twenty-four hours ago at Mina’s arraignment. A lot had changed since then, but not enough to really matter. I was maybe a few inches closer to figuring out who framed Mina and murdered Neil, but I had dug a couple feet into shit. It felt like a net loss.

As VC drove up Hillhurst, one of those very uniquely Angeleno streets that split the difference between urban thoroughfare and suburban main street lined with brilliant green trees all dancing in the wind, a solid wave of nostalgia knocked me over. This was the old neighborhood. Not for one of my many aliases, but for me.
I
lived here, not a figment of my imagination. Sure, I’d rented my place under a fake name, but this was where I laid my head. It was also the place I spent my first night with Mina.

That part was much better.

No, we didn’t have sex. I couldn’t fathom her actually being attracted to me, since she is basically a redheaded Marilyn Monroe. I didn’t know at the time that she’s also intelligent and really sweet, which is good, since I would have been convinced I had no shot, even if I hadn’t also been convinced she was setting me up to be killed. Besides, we had just met. As things turned out, there were a lot of steps between meeting and Greco-Roman wrestling.

VC and I passed Ambrose Ave, where my old apartment was located. I looked away. I didn’t need nostalgia now.

I had the vague recollection of a theater around here. I had passed it a lot but never paid it much mind. It wasn’t part of my weird life and so it never really registered as a place to remember. I watched the street go past and almost missed it. “Right here.”

We were a block or two south of Franklin, so Father Liam hadn’t been far off. VC turned the Caddy down the block, and the businesses of the main thoroughfare instantly turned into wide craftsman homes on either side of the street. Parking was hell, especially for the boat VC was driving. He found a spot a few blocks down and parked with machine precision. The street was enclosed by corpulent cedar trees, making me feel like I was indoors.

We got out and I put the shades back on as we walked toward the theater. It was a low black building, apparently one story, but I would bet money there was at least one subterranean level. Two displays stood on either side of the doors with a section overhanging to protect theatergoers from the nonexistent Los Angeles rain. Some street art had been sprayed on the walls, a collection of symbols meaningless to most, but legible to me: mostly Luciferian rambling. Blah blah original rebel blah blah true good blah. According to the advertisements, they were performing an original piece written by “local artist” Hollis Nguyen, called
Salvation from Space
. Well, that sounded like a piece of shit, but I held out hopes for a Wiseauian level of incompetence. A man can dream.

VC and I strolled into the lobby. A small box office was on the left, with a few flyers and band postcards waiting for whoever wanted them. They had a concession stand with theater candy, pretzels, and a beer tap. The place’s liquor license was framed on the wall behind it. There was no one out front, and that made me nervous. Places that didn’t care whether you broke in were often much more dangerous and unsettling than those that did.

I went around the side of the concession stand and opened the door into the theater proper. It was fairly large, with easily twenty or thirty rows of seats. Three people sat dead center watching the action onstage.

One thing about LA is that we have great theater, at least from an attractive-actor standpoint. The reason being, we have an unlimited amount of actors, the vast majority of whom are extremely good-looking, and there is a limited amount of work. To stay busy, they do theater.

The people onstage looked like the cast of a CW show. The actual acting wasn’t great, but they were all chiseled from really sexy marble. So sexy it took me a second to actually hear what they were saying.

Guy With Ridiculous Abs: “The world is dying. Rape, child molestation, genocide. Who will save us?”

Girl With Inflatable Chest: “We need a savior!”

Guy With Blue Eyes To Die For: “Look to the sky!”

“No, no! You sound like robots!” the director shouted. He had a bit of an Asian accent of some kind, but I’m lousy at identifying those. I could guess he was Hollis Nguyen until something changed that.

“The savior exists in a vibrational state,” VC said to me.

“That’s great. Come on, I want to find a way backstage to look around.” I headed back into the lobby. A door near the box office opened up and an attractive young woman exited. I knew her. Brenda something. She looked up at me and I could see the wheels turning. She knew me, too, and I could see she was right on the edge of fighting past the suit and nose to recognize me. Play it where it lies.

“Hey, Brenda! How are you?” I enthused.

“I’m good... Eli?”

“Yeah!”

Elijah G. Simms, member of the Order of the Morning Star. Discipline problems in elementary school, leading to more pronounced rebellion in junior high and high school. Way cooler than me, in point of fact. Smarter, too; Eli Simms scored at the top of most standardized tests. If he really buckled down and applied himself, there’s nothing he couldn’t do. But Eli was too much of a rebel. Sure, he was into his poetry and even had a few published in some zines and online, but he would never spend too long on one thing. He was all potential, attitude, and cool. Perfect for the Order.

We hugged. She had grown out her hair into a loose afro. It looked good on her. “I can’t believe you joined up. I heard you’d disappeared.”

“You know, I was upset with the direction the Order was taking, you know. So I kind of freaked out and went my own way. Then I heard about the Sons and I thought I’d check it out.”

“I’m so happy you said that!” She flashed very white teeth. I think Brenda was an actress or something, when she wasn’t worshiping the devil. “Who is this?”

“This? This is my cousin, Victor.”

“Hello, Victor.” She reached out to him.

He took her hand, wrapping her healthy brown skin in sickly gray. It was dim in here, but VC still had the shades on. That was good, because his bulgy eyes were not his best feature. He didn’t have a best feature. “Hubba hubba. The savior is harmonically sound and vibrationally varied.”

“Uh... thanks?” She pulled her hand away from his a little too fast and turned a wince into an almost-convincing smile. “So, Eli, can I show you and Victor around?”

“We’d love that.”

“We have to be quiet. The play is rehearsing—we open in two weeks and nobody is off book yet. Hollis is losing his mind.”

“Isn’t that always the way?”

“You’ve done plays?”

“Never, but I’m from here.”

“You know, Eli, you’re like the only man in LA who isn’t an actor.”

I laughed at that, since there was no other sane reaction. Brenda took that in stride, smiling along like she got the joke.

“Come on,” she said. “Remember, be quiet when we go through the theater.”

“Got it.”

She pushed the door open and VC and I followed. The action onstage had proceeded as unfortunately as it began. The actors weren’t worthy of the embarrassing words they were being compelled to say. I immediately knew there was an NBC show in their futures.

I turned my attention to the man in the center of the seats, the director who had been shouting. He was a small man. Tough to tell how tall when he was seated, but I guessed he might be a hair over five-and-a-half feet. Impressive hair, too. Streaked with silver, it was done up into a perfect Elvis pompadour glistening with oil. His angular face was a mask of concentration, and his neat van dyke made him look a bit like a swashbuckler. Despite his periodic rants directed at the actors, I wasn’t getting a bossman vibe from him. Besides, I didn’t remember him from my association with the Order, meaning either he rose quick or he was from outside. There was someone else. Had to be. Or this guy had fallen ass backwards into a hell of a gig.

“That’s Hollis Nguyen?” I whispered.

Brenda nodded and put her finger to her lips. We went up a short wooden staircase, through a dusty curtain, and we were backstage.

“Where did you find him? Was he in the Order?” I asked her.

“Yes, but he was one of the first to come over to the side of the savior.”

“Lot of talk about the savior.”

“He walks among us,” Brenda said with the terrifying joy of the true believer.

“What, here?”

Brenda favored me with an
Oh, aren’t you cute
laugh. “No, He is not in the theater. The play we’re doing is all about His arrival, although Hollis wanted to cloak everything in a layer of metaphor. You know, to make the critics happy.”

“I think they should be pleased.” Pleased at getting to come up with new synonyms for “trainwreck.”

Brenda led me through the backstage, mostly a maze of pulleys where we were. I reflected that if my mysterious enemy was here and even the slightest bit respectful of proper conventions, he’d at least try to drop a sandbag or stage light on me. I superstitiously peered up to the catwalks over the stage. There was not a single living thing up there.