The 37th mandala : a novel (38 page)

"No," Michael said gratefully. "Not at all."

"Would you, maybe, like a Tarot reading? Would you have time for that?"

"Yes!"

But here came the "wind" again. The room was beginning to spin. He steadied himself on the counter, convinced he was on the right track. That's why the opposition had begun to intensify. He must bear up under it.

"My cards are in my car. It's up the street a block or so—away from the parking meters, you know? I've got my special deck in there. You just ... you stay here and make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back and then I'll give you a special reading. I can see you really need it."

"Sure," Michael said. "Go ahead. I'll wait right here."

"Good."

She put her keys in the door, twisted the deadbolt, and rushed out, casting him a nervous backward glance. As she started down the steps into the dark, he realized she had left her keys hanging in the door. She would need them to get into her car. He pulled out the jangling mass of metal and opened the door, heading after her.

He almost collided with Lilith at the bottom of the steps. She was standing stock still, face to face with a man he couldn't quite see.

"Sorry," he said. "I—"

Then he saw the gun in the man's hand, held on Lilith but turning to cover him as well. He realized that in his hurry he had given in to the steady insistent pressure. He had allowed himself to be flung out from the center.

"Who is he?" the man asked Lilith. "Another friend of Mr. Crowe?"

"Fuck you," she said. "If you're looking for Derek you can find him yourself."

The man made a little jab with his gun, and Lilith stumbled into Michael. The man urged them away from the store, into the dark, goading them on. To Michael it felt like plunging down a long dark slope, into the whirlpool's mouth.

For one instant, before he turned, the man's face was just bright enough to see. There was plenty to absorb in that instant: deep scarring, a twisted expression, and a rubbery knot where the man's left ear had been raggedly torn away.

We cannot take responsibility for every natural disaster visited upon humanity, no matter how we sate ourselves on the misery thus unleashed. Even we must bow before the blind mastery of nature. The parent torments the child; the child torments a puppy. This is the law. It may satisfy your crueler souls to know the tiny doses of suffering we pass along are nothing compared to the infinitely expanding circles of agony in which nature has immured us.

—from
The Mandala Rites
of Elias Mooney

We cannot take responsibility for every blessing bestowed upon humanity; even we can never fully comprehend the miraculous workings of nature. But the child teaches the parent how to love, and the parent's heart consequently opens that much wider. As above, so below. It should please your noblest nature to know that all your acts of goodness and compassion expand in infinite circles, and touch us deeply, and increase our power to help you.

—from
The Mandala Rites
of Derek Crowe

Inside the limo, the four of them sealed off from the driver in a padded compartment, Etienne and Nina stared expectantly at Lenore for several moments, then looked to Derek for explanations.

"Why—where's Michael?" he asked.

Lenore had fallen against him as they entered the car. She remained that way, with her thigh pressed up against his, as she turned watery, distant eyes toward him.

"We ... broke up," she said.

Derek swallowed, uncertain whether to tender sympathies or press for details he didn't wish to learn. He wanted to close his eyes and try to orientate himself—everything kept reeling as the streets crawled by—but he was in company now. He must pretend some degree of sobriety, and in fact he was beginning to feel a bit more stable.

Nina took from him the burden of responding, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"Your boyfriend?" she asked comfortingly.

"My husband."

"I'm so sorry!" Nina put a finger lightly to the mandala tattoo on Lenore's forehead and looked at Etienne. He nodded, 
smiling and smug. "He didn't understand about this?" She tapped the mandala.

"No, he ... he thought he did, but I guess he didn't."

"What a shame. He didn't know what he had! Etienne, maybe she would like some ... you know."

"Of course, excuse me, I'm being rude!" Etienne held out a handful of clear gelatin capsules, tamped full of white powder.

"I don't want it," Derek said. "What is it?"

Lenore didn't ask. She took two, and tossed them down her throat without water.

"Well, well," Etienne said approvingly. "It's a designer drug, but that is an insufficient word. My friend, the one who created it, is an artist, an absolute artist with chemicals. He made it especially for patrons of the club. Can you guess what it's called?"

"Mandala," Derek said dully.

"Thirty-Seven! Do you like it, Lenore?"

She nodded, still swallowing, her jaws working to pump saliva.

"It has many interesting properties, I've been told."

"You haven't tried it yourself?" Derek's momentary promise of sobriety was passing, like a sea rock disappearing under waves. He felt awash himself.

"We've been waiting. For tonight. Come along now. Do try it. It's a synthetic, but it mimics a naturally occurring substance. You know which one I mean."

Derek shook his head.

"The compound found in the
sak!
" Etienne touched his chest, meaning his hidden tattoo, and Derek felt his skin start to crawl and writhe beneath his clothes, as if the mandala-brands had begun turning, thirty-seven hands seizing and twisting his flesh in thirty-seven places all at once.

"I've had enough already, thanks."

"I'll bet you have." Etienne meant something other than alcohol, judging from his grin.

"Maybe you'd like to go somewhere else, Lenore," he said. "We're headed to a rather large party. If you're not in the mood ..."

She looked at him, faintly puzzled. "I'm fine," she said. "I wanted to be with you. That's why I came back."

Derek blushed, wondering what Etienne and Nina would make of this declaration. Wondering, himself, how to take it. "Of course you're welcome, I just thought..." He wasn't sure what he thought. She fit in naturally here, as if she had known Nina and Etienne, as if she knew where they were going, as if all this had been planned and arranged.

"I'll stay with you," she repeated.

She came to me, he thought. She wanted to be with me.

"All right," he said, putting an arm around her. "I'm glad you're here."

"You're among friends now," Nina said.

"That's right," Etienne joined in. "A great many friends. And we all know just what you're going through."

Do we?
Derek thought.

"Now ... just relax and have fun. Here we are!"

He looked up through his window then and saw great bright wheels of light spinning overhead, tendrils reaching for him. He took it for a vivid hallucination, then the legs of the freeway stepped into the limo's headlights. Higher in the dark, where Derek didn't need to look to see it, the overpass arched above the car like a massive black smirk.

Michael had never worn handcuffs before, but he feared that if he struggled they would tighten up and cut off his circulation. These were already gouging his wrist. It didn't help that Lilith kept thrashing about, threatening the one-eared man and his thin, sad-eyed driver, in spite of Michael's pleas to calm her down.

One-Ear sat up front, twisted half around so he could keep his eye—and his gun—fixed on them. Otherwise, he had a distant look, as if he were daydreaming in the midst of his vigil.

"If you don't quiet down," he told Lilith, "I will forget about ransoming you to Mr. Crowe. I will just give you to him dead, once he's given me what I want. Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill you? It's not hard at all. What's hard is
not
killing, once you're used to it. A dirty habit, maybe; but very hard to break."

"You might as well. If you don't kill me, this one will," she said, jerking so hard on the chain that Michael cried out.

"What do you mean?" he said, hurt and confused. "Why would I hurt you?"

"I heard what you did to that couple back in North Carolina. Were they your friends too?" She glared at One-Ear. "You two should be sitting up front together. You have a lot in common."

Jesus, Michael thought. She's talking about Tucker and Scarlet.

"You—you don't think I did that?" he said.

"Derek told me about you."

"But he ... we. ... It wasn't us. It wasn't
anyone
. It was the mandalas!"

That word drew the gun's exclusive attention. "What about them?" One-Ear asked.

"They killed my landlord and his girlfriend, and left a big bloody mandala on the wall. We had to run from Cinderton because my wife was having problems, and we thought Derek Crowe could help us. I knew we'd be suspects, but I couldn't help it. We had to run but we didn't kill anyone. The mandalas would have killed us too, if we hadn't run."

"How do you know about ... them? The mandalas?"

"From Crowe's book. That's where they came from. Well, first from Ms. A—" He glanced nervously at Lilith, who was watching him guardedly."—whoever she is, and then from the book."

"But there is no Ms. A," Lilith said. Michael and One-Ear both stared. "Derek told me. There was no Ms. A. No hypnotic trances. No channeling. He made it all up. It's time somebody blew this thing out of the water—it's too far out of control. He invented this whole fucking cult that's suckered you both."

One-Ear gave her a sickly grin. "I'm afraid he can't take credit for that. I'm not sure exactly where he came across it, but I know it existed long before Derek Crowe. I have independent confirmation."

"Yeah," Michael said. "These things are old. They're not— they're nothing he made up, believe me. I've seen what they can do."

"He is involved in this with some other people," One-Ear said. "You know of Club Mandala?"

"What about it?" Lilith said.

"Mr. Crowe is friends with them?"

"He hates them."

"Hates? Then he's had dealings with them."

"He says he doesn't know them."

"He also says he created the mandalas. Can we really trust what Mr. Crowe says?"

"What is it to you, anyway?" Lilith said.

"I have a long-standing interest in these matters. Mr. Crowe or maybe his friends have something I desire. I wish to trade this thing for your safety."

"Then for my sake I hope he does have it," Lilith said. "But I've never seen anything. He made up the mandalas out of whole cloth. And if he lied about that, then he's a sadder case than I realized."

She fell silent then, and Michael watched her, wondered what she was grappling with. She had suspected him of being a murderer, a psycho. On the phone, back in Hecate's Haven, she must have been calling the police. When she'd ostensibly gone out for her Tarot cards, she must have been planning to run and leave him there for the cops to find.

The car began to slow, pulling to the sidewalk. How long had they been circling around? Michael looked out the window and recognized the battered iron grate of Crowe's apartment building.

"Now," said One-Ear, "my driver has a gun, and he is very good with it. I will return shortly. I might have Mr. Crowe along. Or I might have something else." He allowed himself a smile that looked like an additional scar in his ruined face. Then he opened the door and climbed out.

He waited by the gate for several minutes until a tenant went in. He caught the gate before it closed, and then rushed and caught the inner door as well. He was gone.

The driver sat impassively, facing forward with a mournful look.

"So," Lilith said after a minute. "You thought Derek was going to help you?"

"I thought he was the mandala expert," Michael said.

"Lenore was ... is possessed. I'd tried everything I knew. Cast a circle. That was a mistake though. You—you're in a coven, right? Wiccan?"