“It’s Max.”
The door opened. Richard was on the other side, looking pale. At least he didn’t look as bad as Hasim, which made me feel a little safer. “What happened to you?” He was wearing a robe. I couldn’t tell if he was wearing pants, but I was tempted to pray to everything I could think of that he was.
“Bad day.”
“You brought your friend? Can she…” He trailed off, gesturing.
“Mina, could you wait over there?”
She nodded. She was still subdued from the carnage at the Assassin beach house. I went into Richard’s dressing room and shut the door behind me. Richard sat down and gestured toward a sofa that was pretty much just a loveseat. I really hoped he hadn’t auditioned many serving wenches on it.
Richard’s dressing room was half swinger’s pad and half monastic cell. There was a nice big cross on one side, a small altar, and it didn’t take much to imagine panties hung over one side of it. I wondered if he angled them so Jesus was always looking at them or always looking away from them. He had a stereo with an iPod dock, but I didn’t want to know what kind of music he liked. I imagined a lot of Enigma.
“Eric Caldwell was found dead outside his apartment.”
I tried to express some surprise, but Richard wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at his hands, like he wondered if maybe he had strangled Eric with them and forgotten about it. I settled on a neutral response that I tried to inject with that same little bit of dismay that I’d felt when Brady took Eric. “How?”
“He was shot twice in the chest with a 12-gauge, thrown through a plate-glass window, run over, and set on fire. The police are calling it suicide.”
The really sad part was that wasn’t the most ridiculous “suicide” I’d heard of. I said, “They always do.”
“I suppose so.” He’d forgotten to call me “squire.” He seemed really broken up about the whole thing. I was going to have to change my opinion of Richard a little bit. “I have contacts within the police,” he said. Yeah, me, only he didn’t know that. “The investigation is already closed.”
I decided to cut the shit. I’d been shot at, and I knew who did it. No reason to let Richard stew like this, especially if he really was hurting. God, Mina was turning me into such a schmuck. “Eric was kidnapped from the jail by a woman named Ingrid Brady. She normally goes around dressed in a man’s suit with a little blond mustache. Ringing any bells?”
Richard’s mouth worked like a fish.
I said, “Yeah, I know. Brady’s an agent of the Anas, and possibly part of a conspiracy to break the peace with V.E.N.U.S. She also might be trying to wipe out the Assassins, but that could just be a coincidence.”
“How do you know all this?”
“And that reminds me. The Chain of the Heretic Martyr was stolen by the Satanists, who then gave it to the Discordians, I think for religious reasons. It’s been… altered since you’ve seen it.”
“Squire Max?”
“I know, disconcerting, right?”
“It’s a lot to process. This agent, Ingrid…”
“Brady. I’m trying to track her down.”
“Good. You do that.”
I got up. Richard was collecting himself. When I got to the door, he said, “Squire Max, wait.”
I turned around. He was holding a dagger. Goddamn it. Not him, too. I braced myself for an attack. He flipped it around, offering me the handle. “Take this. You might need it.”
“I’m not a big fan of weapons.”
He sheathed the dagger. “Not really something one expects to hear from a squire in the Knights Templar. If it makes you feel better, think of it as a cross. Go with God, Squire Max.”
I looked at the thing. It seemed like an antique. The blade was dark, the grip worn smooth. I slid the blade out a little from the worn leather sheath and touched it. Sharp. And probably a vector for tetanus. “Thanks.”
-NINETEEN-
There aren’t a lot of Buddhist conspiracies.
Sure, there are some. The Tibetans that fought for the Germans against the Chinese in World War II were one. The Undying Samurai that kept bothering people in the Pacific during the ’60s and ’70s were sort of Buddhist. It’s not that Buddhists are better than the rest of us—they’re really not—it’s just that most of them actually believe in the tenets of their religion. It’s sort of jarring.
Despite the name, the Anas aren’t a sect of Buddhists. They’d like you to believe that they are. The name of their goddess, Anamadim, is supposed to sound vaguely Indian with maybe a bit of Hebrew, in order to cash in on the whole Kabbalah fad. They’re a fairly new cult that blew up with the rise of the internet. If there’s one thing the internet loves almost as much as porn, it’s new religions. It makes it hard to keep up with, but it also keeps providing me with new jobs, so I can’t really complain.
The Anas are ascetics in their way, but they’re also very concerned with the here and now, especially the part of this present world which relates to love handles. They’ve been steadily kicking V.E.N.U.S.’s ass for the past couple decades, too, and considering that V.E.N.U.S. claims a prehistory, where most conspiracies merely have a history, that’s pretty impressive.
We were driving toward their temple in the Hollywood Hills.
Mina said, “You realize these people want me dead.”
She was right. Brady, in her disguise as a Fed, had hired the Russian mob to take Mina out. “Hey, look on the bright side. It could have been your own people.”
“Even if it’s not, that doesn’t change anything.”
“Perfect cover. You go in as you. You tell them that V.E.N.U.S. set you up. I recruited you, and you’re there to hear the sales pitch. We get the run of the place. I need to get more information on Ingrid Brady.”
“And I get some truly insane dieting advice.”
“You have to like laxatives.”
She made a face. “Okay, Rabbit. What do I call you in there?”
“Ivan. Or Angelbutt.”
“That would so not be your pet name.”
“What’s wrong with my butt?”
“I don’t have enough evidence to make an informed judgment.”
Now, when a woman says something like that, God, Eris, the Devil, maybe the Cosmic Trickster or the Universal Unconscious conspires against you. You fart. You spill a drink into her lap. Or, in my case, you arrive at your destination, and don’t have a good excuse to continue the conversation. More than anything, I wanted to get out of the car and curse at the sky, even thought it was wholly innocent in the matter.
The temple of the Guardian Servitors of the Anorectic Praxis looked like it was bought with drug money. Specifically, coke money earned in 1984. It looked like a stack of white blocks that some kid arranged haphazardly on the way to failing an IQ test. In the LA sun, it shone so brightly I wanted to turn away. The wrought-iron gate was wide open. The lawn was trimmed. There was no breeze, no one around. I had the feeling that I was going to open the door onto a slaughter.
Mina lagged behind me, probably hearing the same alarm bells I was. We reached the door. I knocked. The door drifted open. I nearly shrieked.
I was immediately glad I hadn’t. I would have looked like an idiot and I still kind of wanted to impress Mina. A woman, though telling gender is tough with the Anas, wandered in front of the door, looking like she was on her way somewhere and just happened past at that moment. She wore a flowing white gown that looked designed, and nicely showed off her skeleton, clearly visible even though she had skin stretched over it like Saran Wrap. There was a little bleached blonde hair coming from her scalp like she had just come from ground zero at a nuclear test. She saw me and grinned, her eyes unfocused and sleepy.
“Oh, hey. I know you, right?” The Anas could be a little spacey. Something about not eating. Still, it was a good idea not to let your guard down. They were capable of some pretty impressive feats in short bursts, as Ingrid Brady had so ably demonstrated.
“Ivan
Cohen. I work for you.”
She nodded gingerly. “Oh, good. What can I do for you?”
“I’m here to see the Reverend Mother.”
“She’s leading meditation and… by Anamadim!” Her sleepy smile was gone, replaced by stark horror. She was looking over my shoulder at Mina.
“Hi,” Mina said.
“Wha… wha…” The skeleton was having trouble.
“I’m here to talk to the Reverend Mother about a possible new recruit.”
The skeleton swallowed. Probably more nourishment than she’d had all week. “Of course. Right this way.”
She shuffled along the hall like she was worried about breaking a hip. The halls were wide and plain, the walls white and smooth. There was minimal art hanging, and that was modern, usually something I didn’t understand. I could hear ghost sounds within the mansion, a soft shuffling that sounded like the wings of pigeons. As we got closer, more sounds joined them, a whisper-hum that grew in volume. The hall opened up into a vaulted room that I knew was in the center of the structure. There would be no windows in there, but the room was lit in bright gold: 147 candles. I didn’t have to count.
We got to the doorway. In three rows, one of three and two more of seven, were more of these wraiths in various stages of emaciation. They sat in lotus positions, wearing designer clothes, everything pure white. Candles and incense burned around them. At the head sat the Reverend Mother, a shriveled thing who, through concentration and sheer willpower, had turned herself into a thousand-year-old goblin. She hunched over, eyes closed, humming. She had a small crucible in front of her, and stacked by it were cookies, a candy bar, and what looked like a Taco Bell burrito.
Our escort raised a claw, but made no sound. Still, the Reverend Mother opened her eyes. I saw horror register when she saw Mina, but it was a fleeting thing. She controlled everything else about her—why not that, too? She rose from her lotus position and, in a voice that sounded much too young for her appearance, she said, “Excuse me, students. Keep concentrating on the sculptor of flesh. I will return to you shortly.”
She shuffled over to us. “What brings you here, Ivan?” One look at Mina and she knew what I’d say, but she wanted me to say it.
“Reverend Mother, this is Mina Duplessis.”
The Reverend Mother turned to Mina, but didn’t offer her hand. “I know who she is. Why is she here?”
Mina spoke up. She stuttered, but that was probably from the counter-horror of seeing these people. “I’m… uh… I’m here to join.” The Reverend Mother was silent, so Mina just bulled on ahead. She spilled the cover story I’d sold her, and she didn’t sound completely unconvincing. I kept waiting for the Reverend Mother to stick Mina’s hand in a box filled with pain.
When she was finished, the Reverend Mother turned to me. “And you brought her to us, Mr. Cohen?”
“Thought it would help. A defector like this, well, it can’t hurt.”
“No, I don’t suppose it could. Miss Duplessis, will you consent to stay awhile? Mr. Cohen, you may go.”
Mina shot me a look, subdued but pleading. I tried to tell her that I’d be around, but my telepathy wasn’t up to snuff. I had some quality lurking to do. The Reverend Mother guided Mina into the meditation room. I turned to my guide, the friendly skeleton. She was shuffling down the hall.
“Excuse me?” I said, going after her.
She turned and smiled. “Hey. I know you, right?”
Wow. I wanted to force-feed her a steak or something. “Yes. Ivan Cohen? I work for you?”
“Right. How are you?”
“Can I ask you about someone? We have a member named Ingrid Brady, right? She’s blonde? Might be prone to cross-dressing?”
I got a blank look.
“Can you check? There are rolls, right? Member lists, that kind of thing?”
“You’re not a devotee of the carver of fat.”
“Well, no. But she did buy me a big TV last year.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” The skeleton started to shuffle off. It was pretty clear that questioning her was like playing ping-pong with a wall. One way or the other, it’d end up with me exhausted and flat on my ass. It was time to wander around, and if someone found me in a place I shouldn’t be, resort to the “I got lost” card and hope that protein deficiency filled in the gaps in any of my lies.
There were cells in the building, that much I did know. The cells weren’t for day-to-day living, but any Ana of sufficient standing would have a dedicated one. The cells would be used in a time of total war, or if an Ana was having trouble with temptation and needed to be kept cloistered. I took a gamble and started wandering down hallways, trying to find a stairway. This sort of thing struck me as something that would be on a second floor.
I found the staircase, and I was immediately terrified when I got up it. The walls were no longer white. They were mirrored. It was like a dance studio up there, with reflections that went on to infinity. At least they weren’t funhouse mirrors, the ones that make you look fatter. I imagined that whoever designed the place trusted the warped subconscious of the faithful to do that.
Doors opened in the reflections, but those, too, were mirrored. I felt alone and surrounded all at once. I would see movement out of the corner of my eye, but it was just one of my infinite reflections. Pretty soon, I had to block that out. I really wished that I’d had the foresight of a Hansel or a Gretel and left some breadcrumbs. Of course, leaving carbs around this place would probably get me killed.
I opened the first door I found. Unlocked and empty. It was a cell, and in this place, all the walls were mirrored again. There was a tiny cot, a chair, and a desk. Other than that, the room was bare. I started wondering if they had an RA or a Den Mother.
I was deep in thought when one of my phones rang. I checked it. The Templar phone. I picked it up. “Sir Richard, I’m in the middle…”
It wasn’t Richard. The buzzing voice said, “Duck.”
I did. I felt the wind over the back of my neck. I spun into the hall to face my attacker, dropping the phone. Ingrid Brady stood there barefoot, in one of those white gowns, recovering from her attempted kick to the back of my head. I could see her ribcage over the scooped neck. She wasn’t wearing a wig, her scalp showing through her wispy hair.
“Hi, Ingrid. Or do you prefer Brady? And I’m curious, is that g-man power suit and the fake mustache in the building, or do you keep those offsite?”
She threw another kick, faster than I expected. I jumped backward. That one barely missed. It was only a matter of time before she took me down. She said, “You’re not getting out of here.”
“Your assassins keep failing, so you think maybe you’ll to the job yourself?”
Kick, punch. “Stop talking.” She was getting closer. Much closer. I knew from before that a single one of her kicks would be enough to drop me. Abruptly, I was filled with rage at the entire ascetic tradition. Assholes deny themselves comfort and become total bad-asses. It was unfair to those of us who liked our trans fats and ten hours of sleep a night.
Spin, kick. I said, “Why didn’t you just take me out in that bunker? Why let me go?”
“You played me!” She lunged forward. That was my chance. She might be a kung-fu asskicking machine, but I had a couple inches and probably a hundred pounds on her. All the kung fu in the world is useless if you’ve got someone sitting on you.
I went for a tackle. She recovered, grabbed my waist, and twisted. My momentum was her power, and she introduced me to the wall, face-first. The mirror didn’t shatter, but it did crack. In another situation, seeing my face like that might have been hilarious. In any case, the sliding sound I made was a little funny.
“Ow.”
She kicked. I rolled. She kicked me in the ribs. I kept rolling. Another kick to the ribs. Okay, this was getting ridiculous. I came up on my back with my hands up. “Wait! Wait!”
She stopped. “What?”
“Can I get up?”
“No! I’
m going to kill you.”
“Okay, fine. But I don’t want to die ignorant. Fill in some blanks for me, then you can snap my neck or whatever, deal?”
She sighed. “Fine. Be quick.”
“You sent the Candidate after me at Union Station when you found out…” The look on her face said I already made a wrong turn. “You did send the assassin, right? After you had the weapon planted because…”
She got ready to kick me. “I’m not going to listen to your lies anymore!”
“Wait!” She held the pose. “You didn’t send him? The one you and Eric Caldwell were conditioning.”
“He was ours, but we lost contact with him sometime Friday morning.”
“You did activate him, didn’t you?”
“We did. Not for you, though.”
“Who then? Mina?”
She laughed. “Why would we want her dead? No, her contract went through the regular channels.”
I was trying to keep up. “You’re not Mr. Blank?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Oh, crap. Statler. Her boss. “Who’s Statler? The guy Eric was meeting in the gay bar? Your boss!”
“That’s not something I’m going to tell you. Let me save you some time: he doesn’t exist to someone like you. Anything about him is well out of your reach.” She wasn’t lying, but there was one thing even Statler couldn’t escape, and it was waiting in a downtown basement doing whatever it is gods do.
“Who did you send the Candidate after?”
She sighed. “A man named Tariq Suliman. An Assassin. Diaz never made contact, though.”
“Then how the hell did he end up at Union Station trying to kill me with the Genesis Stone?”
“I don’t know. This has been fun, but you’re a threat. It’s time to finish this.”
“Wait. One more question. Why put the contract on Mina?”
“Nothing personal. Orders from the Reverend Mother.” I nearly lost all control of my bowels.
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