“He gave me some line about an arranged marriage, there was some snobby little noble guy there he said was supposed to be your husband?” She made a choked sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh. It got stuck in her throat.
“Yeah, that was the cover. He’d get me pregnant and then he’d marry me off to some house he wanted to control and we’d all claim the baby was from the marriage. Only the really old-school Fae still go in for the incest thing, so we had to keep this our little secret. It makes me sick just thinking about it.”
“You fell in with Glide and the Dugpa cult, not too long after you hit L.A.,” I said. She nodded.
“They don’t call themselves a cult. Everyone just knows everybody in it,” she said. “They don’t wear robes or dance around pentagrams or anything stupid like that. Brett seemed so nice. I should have known, you’d think I would have learned. Nice-acting guys fuck you over.”
“I honestly couldn’t say,” I said, “never having been one.”
“Yeah, I can see that in you,” she said. “You feel like a door torn open in a strong wind, Ballard, an empty house, full of winter wind and spinning dead leaves. Why do you think I’m talking to you? You’ve been nodding a lot. I’m not telling you anything new, am I, nothing you haven’t seen, been through?”
“Did Glide ever tell you who ran things, who was above him in the group?”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “He never said, just the occasional hushed phone call in the hallway or outside. I sure as hell didn’t ask. By the time Brett stopped being nice, I was so strung out, I would have blown my fucking father if I was told to. I wanted to die, I was planning it. I tried a few times.” She showed me her wrists. “They always stopped me. It wouldn’t get them off for me to just OD or bleed out, no. They had my disintegration mapped out, just like the others. We were like a fucking crop to be grown, harvested.” She glanced briefly at my wrists, my scars, then looked back up at me.
“Then I found out about Garland and I just … I couldn’t let them do that to me again.” Her hand fell to her swelling belly and she caressed it. “I knew that Brett would as soon as he found out I was pregnant.”
“Dr. Thobias?” I asked. Caern nodded.
“Yeah. They either forced you into an abortion, or to carry the baby to term, and then they would take it from you. You had no say in it, either way. A lot of girls in the industry went to Thobias. He’s one of them, y’know, right? Do you smoke? I thought I smelled it on you.”
“I suspected Thobias was,” I said. I handed her a cigarette from my pack. “They took the kids and had them adopted by other Dugpa.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that was what happened to Brett. He said once he was adopted, said his grandfather was some kind of big guy in the group back in the sixties. I think they raised him from a baby to be so fucked up.” She tapped the cigarette against her palm and gestured for me to give her a light as she put it to her lips with slightly trembling fingers. Before I could get to my Zippo, she ran her hand over her tummy again and tossed the American Spirit down on the table. “Shit,” she said. “Never mind. Thanks, anyway.” I put the cigarettes away. “Jesus Christ, how could anyone do that to an innocent little baby? It’s … evil. The closest I ever came to seeing God was looking into Garland’s smooshed-up little face that first time.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I’m shutting them down.”
“Good luck,” she said. “You wouldn’t be the first to try. If they can’t seduce you, they’ll fucking obliterate you and everything you hold dear. They’re everywhere, hardwired into the city, into its power. I was going to kill myself and my baby before they could kill him or steal him. If Joey hadn’t been there, Garland and I wouldn’t be here now.”
“Joey and you met in the business, in the Life?”
“Yeah, he worked for Roland Blue. He was a techie on some of the movies I worked in, early on, and he was sometimes muscle for Roland to make extra money. We were friends, we weren’t even fuck-friends, just friends. We didn’t fall in love until after we got away from all that shit. Well, he loved me before, and he wanted to get me away from Brett, from Roland, from all of it. He didn’t know about the stuff with the babies, the girls being sacrificed … the … whatever the hell you want to call them—club, group, society, cult, whatever—until I told him later.
“He’s the only guy I’ve ever known that didn’t fuck me over. He loves me, loves Garland, he’s seen me at my worst, so fucking damaged and broken, hateful, sick, mean, and he still loves me, wants me, wants our baby. We’d be dead without him. He found us a local doctor to help me get off the drugs and then later, she helped us with the baby.”
“Dr. Nahn,” I said. She nodded.
“I went cold turkey in his uncle’s old beach house out in Leucadia, Garland in my belly. He never left my side. Joey’s uncle is dead, so no one knew about that old falling-apart place but Joey, so we were safe there. Joey didn’t sleep for a month after we ran. He’d sit next to us, with a gun in his lap and jump at every sound. Garland’s named for Joey’s uncle.”
“An old beach house out in Leucadia, huh?” I said. “Well that explains the cheese.”
“The what?” Caern said.
I gave her a dismissive wave.
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s not important.”
“Here,” she said, climbing off her stool, “let me show you!” She made her way to the living room, checked on Garland, and then plucked one of a dozen or so pictures off the shelves of an entertainment center and handed it to me. The picture was recent. It showed a handsome young black man with long dreadlocks. It was taken at a Chuck-E-Cheese’s restaurant, maybe during someone’s birthday party. He was holding Garland and had his other arm around Caern. “Joey works at some of the equestrian centers over in Encinitas. His uncle raised him around horses.”
I stood, handing the photo back to Caern. “It’s a beautiful family,” I said and slid the old Polaroid I had of her and her friend Dree at the concert out of my pocket. I handed it to her as well. She gasped, covered her mouth, and made a little squeak.
“You talked to Dree! How is she?”
“She’s good. Working at the bank her father works at. She said to tell you she loves you, and misses you, and that your cat is fine.”
“Oh my god, Artemis!” she said. “She’s okay?”
I nodded and couldn’t help but laugh a little at her excitement.
“You keep that picture,” I said. “I don’t need it anymore.”
“You’re not going to tell him about me, about us, are you?”
“No, I promised him I’d see if you were okay. You’re doing better than okay. The son of a bitch doesn’t need to know anything else.”
“Thank you,” she said and hugged me tight. “Please be careful, he may not take no for an answer.”
“It’s the only answer he’s going to get,” I said, “I promise.” She hugged me again.
Caern walked me to the front door. We paused by Garland and he looked up at me and his mother. “Garland, this is Ballard, he’s Mommy’s friend.” The boy looked at me and I saw the doubt on his face before he looked to his mom for reassurance. “It’s okay,” she said. “I feel it too, baby. He’s sad inside, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad.” The boy looked at me and I could feel his judgment. I tried to play it off with a wink. Garland would have none of it.
“It’s hard for him, for us,” Caern said. “We feel everything like it’s physical. It’s wonderful and it’s terrible.” I knelt by Garland so we were pretty much eye to eye.
“Good for you, Garland,” I said. “Be sure about who you trust, kid.” He nodded and gave me a slight smile. There were gaps between his tiny teeth.
“Okay,” he said. “You too.”
I stood.
“Look after your mom and dad. You got good ones and that’s rare.”
Caern opened the door for me. “Thank you, Ballard,” she said.
“For what?”
“I don’t know, for making it out, I guess.”
She gave me a sad smile.
“The only way out is through,” she said, “but you already know that. Good luck, Ballard. Thank you for keeping us safe. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I get that a lot.”
TWENTY-THREE
On the way back to L.A., I called Vigil on the secure cell. “Where the hell are you?” he said, answering his phone.
“I found her,” I said. “Caern, I found her. She’s alive and she’s okay. Happy even.”
“What?” he said. “Wait, where? Where is she, Ballard?”
“She’s safe and she wants to be left alone,” I said. “That’s all Ankou gets. It’s more than the bastard deserves.”
“Okay, okay,” Vigil said. “Fair enough. He won’t be happy but he did agree to that. Where are you now?”
“Headed to LAX to meet Grinner. He’s digging up some stuff for me on the cult. I’m going to close the books on them before we get the hell out of Dodge. Tell Ankou I said he still owes me, I did what he wanted. I expect him to honor his side in this and try to get Torri out of her service.” The line was silent.
“I’m not so sure he’s going to see it that way,” Vigil said. “He may refuse unless you give him more details.”
“Yeah, well, that’s all he gets, deal or no deal. Meet you at the mansion in a little while.”
“Okay…” Vigil said. His voice sounded odd. I hung up.
We stopped at a convenience store outside L.A., and I excused myself to the men’s room after buying a road map and a Sharpie marker. In the bathroom sink I drew the appropriate symbols on the map and then burned it while incanting a spell of entreatment to IahXaiq, the god of lost travelers and forgotten roads. It was some road magic I had picked up off the mad scrawlings on a truck stop bathroom stall outside of Hartford. The scribbling, in black marker, raved about the glory and the horror of a place called Metropolis-Utopia that I never, ever wanted to visit.
The spell should cover my tracks pretty well if anyone tried to scry where I had been in the last day or so. It also cost me a single memory, don’t ask me which one. The gas station attendant bitched at me for the smell when I walked out of the smoking bathroom, a little dazed.
“You’re gonna set off the sprinklers, you stupid son of a bitch!” he bellowed. I had the presence of mind to flip him off, I think, still in the fog of the god’s kiss.
Santos dropped me off at the LAX main terminal. I handed him the last of the money in my wallet, a few hundreds and some twenties. He handed me a hundred back.
“Nah, man, you keep it,” he said. “From what I’ve seen, you’re going to need it.”
“Thanks. You ever need any help, you ask around. I owe you. You’re a good guy,” I said. Santos waved. My cell began to chirp.
“I may need you to explain all this to my wife. You got my number. You need a ride, shout.” He drove away and I answered the call.
“Please tell me you are long gone.” It was Dragon.
“I’m at LAX,” I said, “meeting Grinner.”
“Listen, you need to get out of town right now,” she said. “The Maven has sent out a pronouncement, not just to L.A., to Nightwise globally. She’s put you on the LibMal, you’re number one. Congratulations.”
The LibMal was the Libro de Aruspicum Malum, the Nightwise’s most wanted list of scary monsters and super creeps. “For fucking what?” I asked.
“The murder of Roland Blue, for summoning a Nightmare tulpa that killed a lot of other people before it lost interest and faded, and for all nine of the unsolved ritual murders dating back to 1984. Apparently she got intel that you and Blue were running some kind of grotto-snuff-porn cult together and he was your accomplice until you killed him last night.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” I was lighting a cigarette and looking around for Grinner’s rental car. LAX was a small city all its own, but Grinner had told me the general section of the vast parking moat that he’d be in. “I’ll talk to Gida and we’ll—”
“Laytham,” Dragon interrupted. “There is no negotiation about this. You’re wanted dead or alive. Any owl that spots you is going to drop you.”
“They can try,” I said, getting a little pissed. “I can handle them.”
“Not all of us, not me,” she said, sounding almost panicked. “Damn it, why couldn’t you just leave, like she asked you to?”
“Because I wasn’t fucking done yet,” I said. “I found Crystal. She’s alive and okay, case closed. I’m close to having the real identity of the Dugpa cult’s leadership.”
“You’re close to getting busted, killed, or banished,” she said. “I know you think you’re the baddest ass on the block, but the Nightwise is all the baddest asses, together. You can’t fight that, Laytham, and if you try they will most likely kill you. Please, run, now, until I can talk to the Maven and get this all sorted out.”
I spotted Grinner’s rental, a white Toyota Camry, with the burly hacker squeezed into it behind the wheel. I headed toward the car. “I’ll make sure I email Gida whatever I find before I take them down, Lauren,” I said. “You guys can take all the fucking credit. I just want them shut down for good.”
“You’re not fucking listening to me,” she said. Her voice was changing, deepening. She was losing control of her human form. “If I see you, I have to take you down, you understand that. It’s my job, it’s who I am. It’s who you used to be, Laytham. Let me bring you in. I can make sure you stay alive.”
“You think I did it, don’t you?” I said.
“No, of course not, but it’s a tight frame,” Dragon said, regaining some composure. “Whoever set this up knows you, played to your reputation. I’m the only one who stood by you last time when at least part of the shit you were accused of was true, jackass. Don’t you dare accuse me of selling you out. You have every cop in the Life coming down on you now. Not to mention the Janissaries that will come after you for the bounty.”
“Bounty hunters too, huh?” I said. “How much they put on me?”
“Do not fuck around with this, Laytham! They are coming for you. All of them are coming for you. Please, give yourself up and let me—”
“I’m not turning myself in to you, to anyone. I’m closing these assholes down.”
I hung up on her.
Fuck. All the Nightwise, everywhere. There wasn’t anywhere in this world or several others I could hide for long. I had to clear this up or I would be a dead man. I opened the door to the car and slid into the passenger seat. Grinner looked like three hundred pounds of sausage stuffed into a two-hundred-pound casing. I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Where’s your fez and the other six Shriners?” I said, shutting the door.
“Ha-fuckin-ha,” he said. “I didn’t care about anything, color, style, nothing, I said, ‘Just give me some leg room, I’m a fluffy motherfucker, just give me leg room.’” He gestured to the cramped compartment trying to eat him. “I get this.”
“Wait ’til you see your airplane seat,” I said.
Grinner grunted at me and opened a very thin laptop. He tapped a few keys and then leaned over toward me with it. The screen showed an international bank’s logo and columns of figures and dates. “Hacked a few accounting firms and a bank or twelve. I followed the money and as usual, it did not disappoint. Brett Glide’s company, Red Hat Productions, gets regular infusions of cash from a series of dummies and fronts that lead back to—”
“The Legion of Doom?” I offered. Grinner ignored me.
“Pentacle Studios,” he said, “the Pentacle Studios, been around since the silent movie days. They fucking built L.A. around them. Pentacle’s a media monster.”
“Can you give me a specific person or department at Pentacle that is propping up Glide’s business?”
“Yeah,” Grinner said.
“Better than that, and, oh, Brett’s name’s not really Glide, it’s Winder. Brett Winder.”
“Winder,” I said. “That name sounds familiar.”
“It should.” Grinner opened a second window on the screen. It showed a Forbes article with a picture of an athletic, smiling, older man, perhaps in his late fifties. He had a full mane of silver hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. His eyes were an intense, deep brown in the photo. He reminded me of someone I had seen recently, but I couldn’t place it. The title of the article was “Winder’s World, Pentacle CEO Brings Hollywood into the Twenty-first Century.” “Our boy Brett’s old man is Maximilian Winder, the president and CEO of Pentacle Studios. He’s the source of the off-the-books cash to Red Hat, along with about a dozen other adult entertainment companies, all tucked away under one of their subsidiaries’ independent development budgets.”
“I wonder if Disney invests in porn companies on the DL too,” I said.
“Ask fucking Hannah Montana. All of the adult entertainment companies Pentacle is secretly funding have one investor in common, Brett Glide.”
“So a studio exec is funding his kid’s walk on the wild side?”
“His adopted kid,” Grinner added. “Brett was adopted by Max Winder in 1984, when Brett was five years old and Max was only in his twenties. Want to guess which adoption agency Winder used?”
“Son of a bitch,” I said. “If Brett was a kid in 1984, he wasn’t involved in the initial ritual murders. That had to be Max.”
“Yeah, it took some doing, but I found some indications that Winder was involved very covertly with the porn industry in the late seventies and early eighties. He may have produced some films back then, had a few ties to the Mob, they were big into porno production back then. Almost all of this is pre-computer era stuff, so it’s hard as hell to find anything solid. Hollywood gossip, rumors, scraps. I sifted and didn’t come up with enough for anything but a guess. L.A.’s porn scene was the Wild West back then, man. Winder was a ghost in it.”
“So Max is the big kahuna of the Dugpa cult and he raised his boy, Brett, in the faith.”
The Night Dahlia Page 30