by Colin Sims
As I read, Buckner leaned over to do the same. “Sounds pissed,” he said.
“That’s because I’m an asshole. I should’ve texted her last night.”
He leaned away and raised another eyebrow. “You mean before or after you got chased by demon vampire girls?”
I shook my head and started crafting an apology with my thumbs. The autocorrect wasn’t doing me any favors. The message “I’m so sorry, I was asleep!” turned into “Sodium rock salt, Iowa slapped!” I actually came within a hair’s breadth of sending it, too.
“Dude, that was the absinth,” I said distractedly. “Anyway, I gotta get cleaned up.”
A brisk shower later, I put on my freshly cleaned suit. It was stylishly dark with a skinny tie. It made me feel like I was in a Tarantino movie. Not Reservoir Dogs, of course, I wasn’t that cool. Maybe Jackie Brown? Anyway, I still had three hours until the interview so I made myself a Mushroom Delight breakfast—a carton of diced mushrooms fried in real butter with three handfuls of shredded cheese—before hailing an Uber. The nearest car was three minutes away.
“What time’s the big interview?” Buckner asked as I came back into the living room. He was playing Duty Bound, the latest in the Kill ‘em All! franchise on Xbox. His character, Jax Bishop, was in the middle of wasting a large crowd of terrorists with a Gatling gun.
“Eleven,” I said.
He glanced at the clock and then at me. “And you’re leavin’ now? It’s eight-thirty.”
“Traffic,” I said with a shrug. “And I want to get there early.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Well that, partner, I believe you will achieve.”
By my calculation, I’d arrive downtown by 9:30. That left me an hour and a half to get a coffee, take a little stroll, ditch my hangover, and then be in the Goodman, Sachs & Morgenstern lobby with twenty minutes to spare.
“Thanks,” I said.
He paused the game and looked at me. “Well, I’d say good luck, but I’m still holding out for you comin’ to your senses.”
“It’s just an internship, man.”
He shrugged and turned back to the TV. “If you say so.”
• • •
Contrary to what most people think, LA is actually a very green place. And by “green” I don’t mean environmentally friendly. I mean that there are a lot of trees and bushes everywhere. (Perhaps the word “bucolic” would’ve been best.)
As such, my apartment building existed within a veritable jungle of dense, tropical foliage. There were palm trees, tall ferns and a dozen other types of plants that I didn’t know the names for.
I was in the middle of hacking my way through them when I saw my ride parked at the curb. Now, at moments like these, people usually say things like, “he stopped dead in his tracks,” or “it looked like he saw a ghost.” But those phrases are overused. I can do better than that. I’ll invent a new one. “He stopped like the music when Biff walks in.”
Good? No good?
Alright, so when I looked up I stopped dead in my tracks. It was like a flashback or a phantasm of some kind. There, parked in front of my building like it was no big deal, was a jet-black Ford Mustang with a tall, ponytailed girl leaning casually against the hood.
I stared like I’d just seen a ghost. Then … I reacted.
Now if I were a member of the U.S. military, I’d tell you that it wasn’t me that deserved the credit for my next move; it was the training. It was the training that had sharpened me into the iron tip of a spear. It was the training that gave me the reflexes necessary to dive into the nearest bush and start belly crawling back toward the building.
I’d made it a good ten feet before a confused voice called out, “François?”
I stopped.
Part of being a good commando is knowing when to freeze.
I waited. I listened.
Footsteps. Drawing closer.
Run? Stay? Fight?
“What are you doing?” the voice said. It was above me now. Sounded curious.
I turned.
Black combat boots stared back at me. They transitioned into bare, toned legs that went up and up and up into an alarmingly small pair of cut-off jean shorts.
I let out a protracted “uh” sound and then blinked a few times to regain my senses.
“Are you okay?” she asked. Her nose wrinkled like she’d just witnessed a nasty fall.
I got back to my feet as casually as I could and winced when I saw my suit was covered in dirt.
“Yeah, why?” I blurted. It came out sounding a little more defensive than I intended.
“No reason.” She shrugged. “How are you?”
“How am I?” I said. “First of all, you’re not real. This is a hallucinogenic haze brought about by an overabundance of absinth in my system. Second of all, I’ve got a really important interview in a couple hours and I need to get going.”
At that, I began walking briskly toward the sidewalk. She quickly caught up and kept pace beside me.
“What interview?” she asked. Oddly, she sounded genuinely curious.
“It’s for an internship,” I said, getting out my phone.
“A what?”
I elected to ignore her and muttered, “I need another Uber,” and began tapping at the screen.
“I can give you a ride,” she offered.
“That’s impossible because your car is imaginary and I can’t ride in it. I didn’t ride in it last night, and I can’t ride in it today because you’re not really here right now and this is all in my head and I need some coffee.”
“So you’re still freaking out, huh?” she asked.
“I’m not freaking out. I’m perfecting calm. I know exactly what’s going on right now. Why would I freak out?”
“Let me give you a ride,” she said. “I promise I’ll get you to your interview thing on time.”
“Are you an Uber driver?” I asked.
“No. But I hacked your phone so my car’s the only one that’ll show up on your app.”
“What?”
“Yeah. So come on. Let’s go for a ride. I’ll explain some things.”
I believed her about the hacking thing. Uber wasn’t showing any other cars in the entire city of Los Angeles—other than the black Mustang parked like a caged animal right in front of me. Thus, hallucination or no, I got in.
A minute later, we were speeding up Wilshire as if it were a roller coaster ride. The girl never took her foot off the gas once, which was remarkable given the bumper-to-bumper LA traffic. She avoided it all like a game of Frogger, making liberal use of the sidewalks. All I could do was hold onto the grab handle for dear life and try not to embarrass myself.
“So,” the girl said. “I guess I should start with the easy stuff. My name’s Cassie Chu and I’m a secret agent. I’m also a succubus. Do you know what that is?”
I tightened my grip on the handle as we fishtailed through a red light onto Sunset.
“Of course,” I grunted. “It’s a super hot demon chick who drains the essence out of men.” (I’d played Magic: The Gathering a few times as a kid. Sue me.)
She scrunched her face a little in annoyance. “Well that’s kind of a guy way of looking at it, but okay. Besides, I’m only half. My dad was human. And I don’t ‘drain the essence’ out of anyone.”
“What do you do then?”
“I kill monsters.”
We were back on the sidewalk again and a guy in an Elvis costume dove out of the way. It was one of those things that if you saw it in a movie you’d probably laugh, but in real life all you can think about is whether or not the guy had a heart condition and how long your prison sentence will be.
“So you’re like Blade?” I asked.
Cassie looked at me askance before swerving back onto the road. A bicyclist in full Tour de France gear toppled over his front wheel in shock. “Who?” she asked.
“It’s a movie. Never mind.”
She found a pocket of empty road and gun
ned it. I swallowed. The combination of booster rocket G-forces and my lingering hangover were beginning to exact a toll on my Mushroom Delight breakfast.
“The only movie I ever saw was Cars 2,” she said with a grimace. “And it sucked.”
She then yanked on the wheel and the Mustang veered onto the 101 North. (If you’re not from LA, the 101 North is the opposite direction from downtown.) I pointed this out to her, but she merely maneuvered onto the shoulder and treated it like an empty lane.
“What time’s the interview thing?” she asked.
“Eleven,” I told her.
She glanced at her clock—which read 8:46—and then gave me a look. “I think we’ll make it,” she said. “Besides, we have to make a stop first. It’ll only take a second.”
I noticed we were heading back in the direction of the Hollywood Hills—and with them—the eerily vivid memories of every single thing that had happened last night, absinth or no. It occurred to me that hallucinations weren’t usually this real. Usually they were more abstract. I mean, imagining your walls melting is one thing, but dipping straight into The Matrix and having full conversations and car chases was quite another.
Anyway, the freeway—even if we were driving on the shoulder—was comparatively relaxing next to the city, so I figured I’d take a shot at understanding some things.
“So,” I began. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that I’m not imagining all this. How come the cops haven’t talked to me yet? I mean, my car exploded. You fired a bazooka. Is anyone dead?”
Cassie nodded sagely. “All good questions. First, no humans are dead. The vampettes, on the other hand, are toast. Second, I’m not imaginary. I’m real. Third, that was an M72 rocket launcher I fired—very different from a bazooka. Fourth, the cops haven’t talked to you because none of them have any memory of last night.”
Hmm.
Ever notice how some answers just lead to more questions? This was precisely one of those times. So let’s start in order.
“What’s a ‘vampette?’” I asked.
“Well technically,” she groaned, “the official term is ‘vampire spawn,’ but I like vampette. It sounds better. Plus, I made it up.”
“So they were vampires?” I asked.
“Vampettes, yeah. Just be glad they weren’t full vampires. Those guys are crazy. Much tougher to kill.”
“What makes them so hard to—?”
I cut myself off. This was no time to get sidetracked.
“Why were they trying to kill me?” I asked.
“Well, killing people is kind of what they do. But why you in particular, I’m not sure. That’s why we need to find out who you are. You’re sure you’re not a wizard or anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
“VIP? Undercover spy?”
“My parents are computer programmers who collect bobble-head dolls of Steve Jobs. There are far more varieties of him than you might think. I’m not a spy.”
She glanced at me, confused. She probably didn’t know who Steve Jobs was. Or what a bobble-head doll was. Or why anyone would collect them. Why would anyone collect them? “Either way,” she said, “I know someone who can help.”
“Who?”
“You’ll see.”
I couldn’t believe I was about to ask this—especially with a straight face—but I did anyway. “Is he a wizard?”
She chuckled. “I told you,” she said. “You’ll see.”
“Okay. So why don’t the cops have any memory?”
“The BPI.”
“The what?”
“The BPI. Come on, even non-magic people know what that is.”
(I could tell she was struggling not to use the word, ‘Muggles.’)
“You mean the Bureau of Paranormal Whatever?” I asked with a frown. “I read about that once. It has like two employees or something. And one of them is a clown.”
“Jasper’s just the mascot,” she said. “And it’s Paranormal Investigation. The BPI has thousands of people, not to mention all the automata. It’s huge.”
“Automa-what? Actually, never mind. What does it do?”
“The BPI?”
“Yeah.”
“They cover things up, mostly. Like your car. They make sure no one knows about that stuff. Their slogan is something like,”—she deepened her voice to sound overly serious—“Guarding Against Instances of Magical Display. Basically, they’re a bunch of old guys with sticks up their butts, but mostly what they really do is wage war against YouTube all day.”
“So who are you then?” I asked.
“Me? I don’t know. I guess I’m sort of an assassin. But I’ll explain more about that later. First, we have to get you to Rosewood.”
“Who?”
“My boss. Don’t worry. He’s nice. ”
I sat in silence a moment to let everything sink in. I typically find that creating a little bullet-point list in my head of what I know—and what I don’t know—tends to help with difficult situations. So … what did I know?
1.) The odds were steadily decreasing that this was an absinth-induced hallucination.
2.) I was nearly killed last night by vampire spawn.
3.) “Cassie the Assassin/Succubus” was taking me to see someone named “Rosewood” at an unknown location.
As for the things I didn’t know, that list would take up the next six to seven hundred pages. Needless to say, I still had a lot of questions—many of which were vital to my continued sanity—yet one in particular pushed its way to the front of the queue.
“How come you were wearing pajamas?” I asked.
“When? Last night?”
“You were wearing Hello Kitty slippers,” I said.
She smiled girlishly. “I love those! But yeah. I was asleep when I got the call. And considering I was in Tokyo at the time, there wasn’t any time to change.”
“You flew here from Tokyo?”
“Well, I ran most of the way. And I know that doesn’t make any sense, but you’ll understand in like two minutes.”
“Understand that you ran here from Tokyo?”
“Something like that.”
I paused a moment and looked out the window. How does someone run to California from Tokyo? And how in the world was that going to make sense in a couple minutes?
“So are you sure you can’t tell me where we’re going?” I asked.
“Of course I can,” she said. “The Hollywood Sign. Ever been up there?”
I added another item to my list.
4.) Hollywood Sign. Why?
“Uh, can’t say that I have,” I said. “But, speaking of Tokyo, are you Japanese?”
She glanced over at me and frowned. “Um … no?”
There was a slight, awkward pause before she suddenly brightened in understanding. “Oh, wait,” she said. “You mean because I’m Asian looking? Look at you, all racist. No, I was just working there. My dad was from Hong Kong—at least I think he was—but that’s kind of a sore subject. And you’re really not French?”
I shook my head. “No, I just had cruel parents.”
And then, for some strange reason, all conversation ceased on a dime. So I made another note:
5.) The succubus does not appreciate jokes about cruel parents. Reason still unknown.
“They’re from France,” I added. “They just emigrated here when I was a baby.”
Still nothing.
When we stopped, I noticed we were on a dusty hillside above the Hollywood Sign. It was one of those weird moments where you see something familiar from a completely new angle and barely recognize it. (Kind of like seeing a celebrity up close. Always a disappointment.)
Cassie got out and I followed. She headed toward a chain link fence topped with clusters of angry-looking security cameras. I’d read somewhere that the city of Los Angeles doesn’t play around with its most famous landmark. Trespassing on it is still punishable by firing squad, and to emphasize this, the site had a small, sturdy security b
ooth, housing a single LAPD officer. The man inside it looked about as grim as a human being can possibly look. I’d say he had one of those patent “flat faces,” but it was more like his whole head had been shaped in an upturned bucket.
As we passed him, I asked Cassie if he was going to bust us, but she explained he was an automaton working for the BPI.
“You mean like a robot?” I said.
“More like gears, spindles and magic working together, but yeah, sort of.”
She walked up to the fence and touched a certain link, and the whole thing rolled aside like a carpet.
And now is as good a time as any to say that Cassie Chu was the most attractive girl I’d ever seen in my entire life. I’d noticed this earlier of course, but right now just seems like the best time to tell you about it. So … where to begin?
Let’s start with the wisdom every frat guy likes to pull out of his backwards hat when he’s had a few, and is trying to sound like Don Juan. It concerns the difference between “hot” and “beautiful.”
“Hot” is like a porn star or a swimsuit model.
“Beautiful” is like Audrey Hepburn or vintage Elizabeth Hurley.
However, every once in a while, a Marilyn Monroe comes around, and is both.
Cassie Chu was definitely both. She was a twenty-six on a scale of one to ten. And she wasn’t even trying either. Right now, all she was wearing was shorts and a tank top, and yet the sight of her was almost too much to look at.
You want details? Okay. She had the tall, broad-shouldered figure of a runway model, yet with a surprisingly large bust and the nicest backside I’d ever seen. And in the era of Google Images, that’s truly saying something.
Her hair was long and dark, with a hint of purple in the sunlight.
Her eyes were round and cat-like.
Her smile was broad and devilish.
Anyway, I’ve read that less is more when it comes to descriptions, so I’ve already messed that up enough. Let’s just wrap it up by concluding that Cassie Chu was a succubus. (Or at least, half of one.) That meant that she was literally supernaturally beautiful. Hopefully that gives you some idea what I’m talking about.
So yeah. The fence rolled away when she touched it and that was kind of cool. I followed her to the letter “H,” and watched as she took a small key from her pocket.