The Jehovah Contract

by Victor Koman

  They must have thought we were insane. The idea had crossed my mind, too.

  "I saw blood, Dell."

  "So did I, sweetheart."

  "They didn't."

  I nodded and put her in the passenger's seat. Her hands shook when she gave me the keys.

  "Drive over to Hollywood Boulevard. Quick."

  I climbed in and tried to start the engine. It growled without catching.

  The same cold feeling that I'd had in Golding's home overcame me again. I felt a tremble of fear-real fear-begin to grow.

  Around the edges of the instrument panel welled droplets of red ichor. They grew and linked together to run down the sides of the dashboard.

  The same thick, warm fluid pulsed out of the ignition switch, soaking my fingers.

  Ann pushed away from the panel. Her hands wildly sought the door handle.

  "He's on to us," she murmured. "Get awa-"

  She touched the handle and shrieked.

  Blood was trickling down from the roof in rivulets and streaks across the sideglass.

  "

  Get me out!

  "

  I flung my door open, ignoring the sheet of red that splashed over me. Blood squirted from around the edges of the passenger door as I yanked it open. Her shuddering form collapsed into my blood-soaked arms.

  "Get me out!" she cried. "Get me away!" She clamped her eyes shut.

  In an instant, the carnelian stains vanished from our clothing. It didn't dry up or fade or anything. It just wasn't there anymore. The Porsche's interior sparkled like new.

  "It's gone," I said, standing her up carefully.

  "It'll be back," she said with grim certainty. Nervous hands wiped at her eyes. Her heels clacked loudly against the sidewalk.

  I strode up alongside her. "Where are you going?"

  "I've got to get to Hollywood Boulevard. There's a place there..." Her golden mane fluttered in the breeze that blew from the north. Her skirt rippled, clinging and sliding around her legs and thighs. Not a bad sight, had I been in a more receptive mood.

  I looked back at the car. Shadows flitted around it like an outtake from

  Fantasia.

  I didn't go back to find out if they could drive.

  I fell in stride with Ann. She took long, leggy steps with a panicky determination.

  "What's on Hollywood? More gremlins?"

  The walk calmed her a bit. She inhaled deeply the afternoon air. After a moment's thought, she said, "It's a sort of shop. It's been there for years. The woman who currently runs it is... sensitive to these things."

  "Splendid," I said. "Now we're dragging in fortune tellers."

  She stopped to stare at me as straight and as pointedly as a spear. "Maybe

  you

  can explain the blood. And why the others didn't see it."

  I tried to think of causes, reasons, rational explanations. "The drugs?"

  She frowned. "I'm not having a flashback, if that's what you're getting at." She smiled stiffly. "A friend of mine once told me that practically no one is so lucky as to get a free trip that way." She increased her stride with even greater intent.

  The hair on my arms prickled. The icy feeling spread across my shoulders and up the back of my head.

  Something

  was happening. The air grew rank and stale. More so than usual for Hollywood, that is.

  Ann pointed to the side of a building on Melrose Boulevard. With a tone of hysterical triumph, she said, "See?"

  I squinted. The vague outline of something-it looked like a moosehead with drooping antlers-shimmered almost invisibly on the south side of the building.

  Blood flowed down the building, staining brick and glass, turning brown where it dried.

  We weren't the only ones to notice it this time. Scores of cars squealed to a halt at the intersection. Not all of them did, though. The traffic jam was almost instantaneous.

  Dozens of people climbed out of their cars, pointing and staring. One man gestured wildly at the building. The woman with him shook her head in confusion. He pointed again. She shrugged as if nothing were wrong with the building but

  plenty

  were wrong with

  him.

  He looked one last time, gave up, and drove into the snarl of confusion at Melrose and Van Ness.

  "See that?" Ann asked again, pointing to the crowd. Some people stared in shock at the building. Others stared in amazement at the people craning their necks. "Some see it. Some don't."

  "Can't be holograms," I offered weakly.

  "Holograms don't feel slick. Or taste salty."

  We walked past the crowd on the south side of the street, moving through a whirlwind of chatter.

  I glanced up again. The building appeared normal. Yet that chill was still with me.

  A hand seized my shoulder. I whipped about to grab it.

  My fingers clamped air.

  The crowd had dissipated, and no one but Ann stood within a yard of me.

  Another something stroked the side of my face.

  "They're touching you, too?" Ann asked. She snapped her right arm sharply as if to free her wrist.

  "Ann-what is this? Ghosts in broad daylight?" A bunch of wet fingers dragged over my face like snails. Voices hissed in my ears.

  Ann gritted her teeth and broke into a run.

  I ignored the invisible tentacles that clutched at my hair and raced after her. She ran wildly, trying to escape the phantasmal hands. The effort was pointless. They kept pace with us, tapping and stroking and grabbing and tugging. Shadows darted about at the edge of my vision, always vanishing at the turn of my head.

  My longer strides brought me to Ann's side in a few frenzied paces. The Hollywood Cemetery blurred by to our left. I half-expected the graves to pop open and expel dead actors, looking as pale and grey as their fading images trapped in silver.

  Despite my jitters, nothing arose from the graveyard. The trouble lay ahead on Santa Monica Boulevard.

  Ann screamed, stopping suddenly to clutch at me. At first I thought hers was another invisible hand and ignored it. She nearly pulled me to the concrete.

  "Look, Dell!"

  A runny red fluid gurgled up out of the storm drains and sewers, filling the street with blood. Once again, some cars stopped, others honked angrily and sped about. Wheels splashed blood in crimson sheets across pedestrians. Dozens of people stopped in midstride to scream. Or vomit. Or faint. Others noticed nothing but their fellowtravelers' strange behavior.

  "It's not real!" I shouted to Ann and the crowds. "We

  know

  it! How come it's still there?"

  Ann looked as if she'd been worked over by a cop. She still flinched at the hands running over her, but she ignored them as much as she could, same as I.

  She took shallow, long breaths to control her panic. "We're getting psychic impressions from an outside source. It'll affect us regardless of what we believe. Let's

  go!

  "

  The light changed. She delicately lowered a petite foot into the flowing ichorous river. A couple of cars tried to run the light while swerving around the petrified rubberneckers. They skidded to a halt, splashing gore in all directions. Ann nodded at them and crossed.

  I followed. Though our crossing produced a queasy sloshing sound, it didn't

  feel

  as if we were fighting a torrential stream. Even the slap of the blood against my ankles-a warm and sticky sensation-didn't feel like wetness.

  We managed to make it across Santa Monica without serious consequences. The clamor of terrified pedestrians and motorists made the streets sound like an insane Shriner's convention. The air was drenched with the smell of blood, like a low, dank fog.

  When we stepped out of the stream, blood stained our legs all the way up to midcalf. I felt as if we'd taken a stroll through a slaughterhouse.

  I can't say when, but the stains vanished a few seconds after we were out. I looked down and they were gone.
>
  So was the river.

  My mind felt weak and dull. I was watching my nice, solid, normal world fragmenting about me.

  "We're at the center of it, that's fairly certain." Ann removed her shoes when we reached Fernwood. She ran faster without them.

  We got halfway past the Channel 11 building when she doubled over and stopped, one hand against the paint-scrawled wall. She looked like someone who'd been kicked in the guts.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Cramps." She clenched her teeth. "Worst I've ever had."

  "From the running?" I reached out to support her.

  She only groaned and bent further over.

  Picking her up before she tumbled to the sidewalk, I held her to me as best I could. I'd handled drunks and saps and stiffs in my time but never a sick dame. I wasn't too sure what to do.

  "Get to Hollywood," she murmured. "Let's get-" She spasmed in agony.

  I lifted her up to carry in my arms. She clung to my neck gratefully. Her legs bounced up and down with each step I took.

  We crossed Sunset that way. I doglegged over to Bronson and headed up toward Hollywood Boulevard. That same chill ran up and down my flesh. Ann shuddered.

  The hazy L.A. sky dimmed. Dark clouds billowed up overhead, the color of clots and scabs.

  Ann's jaw clamped her teeth together with grinding pressure. The pain pulled her into a fetal position. "Dell," she whimpered.

  A gash tore across the cloud bank. My skin felt cold and clammy against my clothes as I watched. Ruby droplets fell in bands and sheets like a monochrome borealis. They seemed to drift slowly toward the ground.

  I stopped to gape, hypnotized.

  With sudden intensity, the blood hit the sidewalk and streets. Thick slapping sounds like spilling porridge drowned out the roar of cars and commerce.

  All around us a vermilion haze hung like a curtain. Clothes stuck to skin. Ann's long blond hair fell in fat, dripping ropes to pull her head backward. I draped a handful over my arm. Brakes squealed somewhere in the bloody rain. Metal screamed. Glass shattered.

  People cried out.

  I ran toward an apartment complex on the left. Heavily overgrown with tropical plants in the finest Southern California tradition, it beckoned with the promise of protection from the storm. I splashed toward the courtyard.

  It was as if we'd entered another climate. One with sane weather.

  The ground was dry. Overhead, blue sky-as blue as it can get in L.A.-spread from horizon to zenith. The street was dry and clear. Only the people acted strangely. They covered their heads, huddled in doorways, looked fearfully at the sky.

  They still saw it. Some of them. Once again the illusion seemed to affect only a portion of the population.

  I lowered Ann to the driveway and took a step out onto Bronson. In the space of that step I left clear skies and dryness for buckets of blood drenching the earth from heavy black clouds.

  I was soaked to the bone. I took one step back. The day returned to normal L.A. autumn.

  Ann stood slowly. "My cramps are gone." She fussed with her hair. Perspiration damped it a bit, but it flowed golden and free as though never touched by the blood outside.

  She ventured a step past the property line, grabbed at her waist, and stumbled backwards to safety.

  "It's like the corpse grinders out there, yet we're fine here."

  I nodded and searched for a cigarette. "They could jack up the rents for that reason alone."

  The apartment building possessed its own charm aside from the mysterious protection it offered. Christmas lights hung between the two parallel apartment blocks, imparting a festive mood to the surroundings. It sure looked more cheerful than Old Downtown.

  "It's only two blocks to Hollywood," I said. "If we just concentrate on the fact that it's all imaginary, I think we'll make it easily."

  Ann looked at me as if I'd asked her to jog up Everest. "Do you know what those cramps felt like?"

  I shrugged. "I've been fondled with brass knuckles in the same locale a couple of times." I stepped out onto the sidewalk. "Besides, the rain's gone away. Come on."

  Sirens whined somewhere east on Sunset.

  She reluctantly followed me, keeping so close to my side that I could smell her perfume as well as when I was carrying her. The mysterious showers of blood had done nothing to wash it away.

  We passed a small clump of tenement buildings on Carlton and reached Hollywood Boulevard in a few minutes. Traffic flowed at its normal slow pace. Old hulks and long sleek limos mixed together in automotive democracy. Too late in the day for bums to be sleeping on the sidewalks, yet still too early for most of the hookers, the street boasted a blend of tourists, business people, and shoppers.

  Some still watched the sky, shrugging their shoulders and trying to explain what they'd seen to those who hadn't had the pleasure. We passed by a young couple trying to comfort an old woman who sat on the sidewalk tugging at her rosary.

  "Sanguinis Virgine," she muttered over and over. Blood of the Virgin.

  It was as reasonable an explanation as any.

  "Another block," Ann said, walking carefully to avoid stepping barefoot into any of the trash and crud lining the Street of Dreams. We headed east until she nodded to her right.

  "In there."

  The building was a modest storefront, not connected to any of the other building by shared walls. On the plate glass-in large, ornate script-was the name

  Trismegistos

  and in smaller, less flowery letters

  Candles

  Incense

  Oils

  Spells

  And Other

  Tools

  "Oh, no." I grimaced.

  "It's all right, Dell. I know the woman who runs the place."

  "How?"

  She stopped, halfway opening the door, to put her shoes back on.

  "Well, if you must know, Bautista Corporation owns the building. I drew up the lease." She went inside.

  A bell tinkled merrily to summon a pretty young woman from the back room. She wore a full-length violet peasant dress of a style that might have been popular a generation ago. Black hair trailed down her back in one thick, intricate braid. She smiled at Ann.

  Ann smiled back and sashayed over to her. They spoke quietly.

  Since I wasn't invited in on the tete a tete, I took the opportunity to nose around.

  The store didn't look spooky or witchy. Three aisles of glass display cases sat under two banks of fluorescent lights. They, and the shelves along three walls, composed the entire shopping area.

  Candles and vials of colored stuff constituted the majority of the sale goods. The contents were typed on Avery labels. No pretense of the supernatural tainted the place. It was as straightforward and businesslike as a corner pharmacy. More so. It lacked the garish display ads that promised miraculous cures.

  One case contained an assortment of knives labeled

  Athames.

  They were the only really witchy items in the store. Some of the daggers were plain, in black wooden sheaths. Others bore intricate ornamentation. A bronze dragon formed the hilt of the fanciest. It grasped the blade to its belly, its tail twisting around to form the finger guards.

  It was priced out of my reach.

  "Dell."

  I turned to see Ann swing her arm lightly in my direction. I walked over to the pair.

  "Kasmira will take us to see Bridget," she said.

  "Who's that?"

  "The owner. Kasmira is her granddaughter."

  I followed Ann and Kasmira through a bland, ordinary door in the back of the store. That's when things stopped being ordinary forever.

  7

  Witches

  She might have been dead the way she stood so still. Dead and propped up against the door at the end of the narrow hallway.

  Kasmira stepped up to the old woman and stopped. Ann and I waited a respectable distance away.

  Thin, bony arms rested against her chest, folded. She w
ore a pale blue kaftan robe, roped at the waist with a white cotton cord. She stared at us with the same clear jet eyes as her granddaughter. Her hair was long for an old woman's. It hung in gentle grey waves down to the small of her mildly curved back.

  "Well?" she croaked. She wasn't unpleasant to look at. She carried her years with pride and dignity. She simply looked

  old.

  Ann stepped forward. "I'm Ann Perrine. We met once, a few years ago. I work for Bautista Corporation."

  "And

  he?

  " she asked with a disdainful glance. The emphasis she put on my gender was as sharp as her athames.

  "Dell Ammo," I said. "Ann tells me you can explain what's been going on outside. Did you get a look at it?"

  Bridget smiled faintly. "I felt some static. Something screwed up a spell of mine, so I asked Kasmira to check things out. She went sensitive and saw what the others were seeing."

  "Blood," Kasmira said softly.

  "Yes," said Ann. "She told me that much. Can you track down the source for us?"

  The old woman unfolded her arms and stood away from the doorframe. Picking up a cane from behind a wall hanging, she leaned forward to say, "That's hard work. Why should I do it?"

  Ann stepped very close to the woman and whispered in her left ear. Bridget shook her head, pointing to her right. Ann changed sides and whispered again. Bridget frowned for a moment.

  Her eyes widened. "Others have tried," she said. "And failed miserably."

  Ann smiled at me. "None of them were professionals." She seemed to be enjoying all this.

  The crone narrowed her gaze and peered at me as if I were a bad joke. "That has little bearing on why you wish me to unravel a psychic incident."

  I continued to search for my cigarettes. "We're apparently the center of the occurrences. Perhaps the focus of a"-I had to clear my throat before saying it-"a psychic attack." I gave her the rundown on our mile-and-a-half excursion. She grilled me all through it with the incisiveness of a district attorney.

  "The image on the building. It looked like a moosehead?"

  "Yeah," I said, "sort of. Like a lousy drawing. The antlers drooped and the eyes were under them, off the sides of the head."