"Here."
She pointed out a door off the hall. "I'll be up front. You do your business then come on, get out of here. How far did you come, anyway?"
He opened the door into a dark room, fumbling inside for a lightswitch. "My wife and I," he said, "we drove from North Carolina." He shut the door before she could reply.
He peed then washed his face, wiping it dry on his shirt because there were no towels. He went quietly into the hall, hearing voices. A voice. Lilith was talking to someone, but he heard no reply. As he stepped into the front of the store, she hung up the phone. Smiling now.
"Was—did you call Mr. Crowe?" he asked. "To check on me?"
"No, I had to call my coven and explain why I'm running late."
"That's all right, I'll—I'll leave you. I'm sorry I bothered you. I thought maybe I could talk to the mandalas directly, through you."
She regarded him quizzically, still smiling. "You know, I don't ordinarily do this, especially not after hours, and with someone I don't even know .. . but I have a feeling about you. I feel that I—I'm supposed to help you. Does that sound crazy?"
"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.
PART 7
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
37
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?"
Lilith nodded. "Among other things. Yeah?"
"So, we cast a circle but the mandalas broke through it. The usual protection is nothing to them. They don't recognize the old pagan symbols. I thought the mandalas were just symbols themselves, till I saw them."
"Not part of your basic neo-pagan training," Lilith said with an edge of sarcasm in her voice that made him realize she was starting to accept his story.
"Tell me about it! I didn't know where to turn. I couldn't reach Crowe. The only real grandmaster I ever knew, this old guy named Elias Mooney, was dead—though I tried to call him up, contact whatever matrix of energy he'd left behind."
Lilith said, "You knew Elias Mooney?"
"Yeah! Did you? I know he lived out here. I never met him, but he sent me tapes. He helped me through some really bad times."
"I don't believe this," Lilith said, and it was as if the handcuffs that connected them had turned to brilliant glowing gold, an intense bond that cut through all suspicion. "You could be telling my story."
"Yours ... ?"
"I grew up in L.A. I was a teenager, just totally lost and fucked up. Drugs, drugs, nothing but drugs. Well, that and sex. I mean ... dangerous sex, you know? I was into Magick— with a 'K.' "
" 'An' it harm none, do what you will.' " Repeating the old Crowley maxim, Michael laughed.
"Exactly. But I was killing myself."
"Me too!"
"And someone gave me this phone number. I thought it was a suicide hot line or a Coke-Ender thing, and one night I was so miserable and depressed that I just called it. I was out of my mind. I just wanted to hear a voice. And I found myself talking to this old man. This cool old guy who had the most amazing stories and seemed to know exactly what I was going to say before I said it. I figured out later that he wasn't exactly as gentle as all that—I mean, he had an edge. He cut right through my sickness and insanity. When I came up here a few years ago, I was going to throw myself at his feet and beg to be his student. But he died before I met him, and all I have left is memories of those conversations we used to have."
"He could tell you right where you were sitting, what was going on around you. ..."
"I can't believe this," she said. "Elias was like a secret national treasure or something. I've never met anyone else who knew him."
"Me neither."
He was staring into Lilith's eyes, and she into his. He felt as if he had just dropped a tab of acid and it was coming on, making the edges of all things electric. He had the strong sense that Elias was with them right then. He could almost hear the old man's voice.
"Lilith," he said. "What are we going to do?"
"If Elias were here, he'd tell us, wouldn't he?"
"I think ... I think he is here. I think maybe he brought us together. Maybe there's a reason for all this."
"Even this?" she said, raising their cuffed hands between
them.
Michael's throat went dry.
"Even magic can't open Smith and Wesson handcuffs," she said loudly. Suddenly she broke into tears, slumping against him. Startled, Michael put his free arm around her. The driver's sad eyes floated in the rearview mirror, suspicious. Michael whispered comfortingly, feeling worse than useless.
Then, between sobs, he heard Lilith whisper. He realized that her face was dry against his neck, and her voice unchoked.
"The thing is," she whispered, "Smith and Wessons all use the same key."
"It's okay," he said loudly. "Everything's going to be okay."
"I have one in my purse."
Suddenly they heard the gate crash. They jumped apart. Lilith dragged her hands across her face, knuckling her eyes, smearing her makeup and dragging spit down her cheeks. One-Ear's face was far from reassuring as he strode toward the car. Under his arm he carried a bundle of red and black notebooks and stapled sheafs of paper. He wrenched open his door and ducked into the car, hurling the notebooks over the seat at them.
"It's all here," he said. "So he can't pretend he doesn't know. He won't lie to me again."
Michael looked down at the papers in his lap. Light fell in from the street, enough to make the manuscript readable:
Elias 's Story — Tape Transcript
Evangeline had no interest in magic when I met her. She was a cook ...
One-Ear gave instructions to the driver and the car lurched forward, causing the pages to slide to the floor, uncovering one of the notebooks that lay open in his lap.
At the sight of the handwriting, Michael felt certain that Elias truly had come to them tonight. Here, in the little journal, was the old man's formal script, stronger and clearer than he had seen it on the envelopes addressed to him and the notes Elias had tucked in with his tape cassettes.
He reached up and switched on the canopy light, to no objection from One-Ear, who was bent on navigating the street ahead of them. The text seemed familiar—vaguely, maddeningly so. As if he had read it in a dream he couldn't quite remember.
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