“Zephyr,” the big man drawls. It’s a complete put-on, just like George Bush. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”
“Dust off your snifters, Twilight-me-lad,” I reply, jaunty despite the hour and the starvation-withered constitution I will soon have cause to decry. “I’m here to celebrate.”
The dark angel darling of the occult world draws aside to let me into the rear lounge. Yes, yes, there’s all that “going into Twilight’s rear” again, I know. God damn the pretenses of literary fiction. But seriously, you’ve got to wonder about a guy who keeps an eighteen-bedroom mansion, but never lets anyone past the front room. The lounge is set up expressly to meet all his entertaining needs. There’s even a bathroom through a door between the nearest floor-to-ceiling bookcases.
“What’s going on, big guy?” Twilight asks.
The epithet’s a bit too little buddy for me, but maybe that’s my own Twilight-centric inferiority complex getting the upper hand.
“I’m celebrating my daughter,” I say.
“I didn’t know you had kids.”
“Don’t ask and I won’t tell, you know how it is.”
“So what’s she done?”
“Keeping it in the family. I found out today my little girl has powers all her own.”
I’m grinning. God knows why.
I add, “She’s helped me remember who I am. Do you remember that Dr Phil special on retired masks?”
“Masks?” Twilight blinks. “Who calls us that?”
“Everybody,” I reply quickly.
“Hmmm, well you’re ringing a bell.”
“Reconnecting to your inner hero?”
Twilight makes a face and drops heavily into one of the leather-upholstered chairs. The air smells of brandy and hashish and pussy. He narrows drug-slackened lids.
“What are you telling me?”
I’m about to open up on the whole deal when a splinter of red light catches my attention and I note the medallion Twilight used on the Insect King is sitting in a little cradle on a mahogany pedestal, just a tiny something to brighten up the room perhaps, an unintentional conversation piece as one might do with any ensorcelled cross-dimensional portal.
“Is that the, uh, thing you used on . . . on Creeping Death?”
“Creeping Death?” Twilight doesn’t catch what I’m on about until he languidly twists on the divan and shoots a look over his shoulder. “Oh fuck, the bug guy. Yeah.”
“Hmmm,” I reply, less a word than a subliminal vocalization as I mount the carpeted split-deck step and approach the little dais. “I’m surprised it’s just . . . sitting around here. Wouldn’t you normally keep this in your sanctum?”
Twilight, standing now, shrugs. He glances at his wrist and reacts for all the world like there’s really a watch there.
“It’s getting late. I thought we were here to discuss your situation?”
“Hey if it’s late, that’s because you set the time.” I smile to show him I am not trying to yank his chain, though we both know I am talking to him like I’ve grown a spine for a change.
“Well, if you’d rather discuss Hariss as-Sama, you can, if you like?”
“Is that the guy who wrote Silence of the Lambs?”
“No, that’s the guy who tried to ingest my psyche, but failed, largely thanks to you,” Twilight says with the sternest face possible.
“I thought he was called You-are-we. . . ?”
“He has many names. And aspects. The Arabs knew the names for all the Old Gods because they were masters of the stars, as well as other arcane arts.”
“Like math.”
“Like mathematics.”
The occultist inclines his head in agreement.
“FBI picked up a fine scattering of human DNA at the crime scene,” I say. “Do you think your little friend, the bug guy, made it through that . . . lens . . . alive?”
“Probably not.”
I stare at Twilight a moment. I don’t know why I am surprised he feels little remorse. I’m an anti-hero plays over in my mind. And in a rare moment of insight, while I can’t see much sympathy for the deceased, I do recognize in the tilt of Twilight’s eye some other emotions not oft seen.
“You’re . . . not letting on all you know, are you?”
“Knowledge is power,” Twilight says and smirks, a shade guiltily.
“More Arab wisdom?”
“Foucault.”
“Hey, you too,” I say and we’re both smirking now at the dumb jest.
“Look, Zephyr, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
Twilight looks around, more frat boy now than, well, whatever he is normally: pretend philanthropist-cum-superhuman occult crime syndicate heir?
“I kind of, well, knew about Creeping Death before he showed up downtown.”
“You knew Michael Calloway?”
“Was that his name?” Twilight shakes his head. “No. It’s what was inside Calloway. . . .”
“Ras Algethi.”
The big guy was about to say something else before I snapped. Now it’s his turn to close his mouth astutely and do the tilting head thing at me, frowning, just a hint of sobriety coming into his features.
“That’s right.”
“Strikes me that that’s an Arab name too. Like our pal.”
“Hariss as-Sama,” Twilight repeats.
“Yeah.”
“Hmmm.”
“Co-inky-dink?” I give him a shrewd look. “I don’t think so.”
“Yeah well, like I said, I knew him.”
“As in, alas Horatio, I knew him well?”
“Actually, it’s ‘Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio’,” Twilight replies with mild distaste. “Not that I see the relevance.”
“We’re talking about dead people,” I say.
“No. We’re talking about gods.”
If there’s a crackle in the air, it ain’t me. The deathly silence that fills the void roils outwards until in the end I just have to cough and give a wry laugh as I pick up the metal object with the tiny red threshold trapped inside. One moment the object terrifies me, the next I have it in the palm of my hand on impulse. Jeez, I’m a crazy guy. It’s both lighter and heavier than I expect, and I turn it over, only vaguely recalling the words Twilight used to turn a two-hundred pound human being into a very fine mist.
“Funny. I came here to tell you I’ve decided to stay complete. Myself. Zephyr. Yet sometimes I still wonder who that person is.”
“You’re a bag of contradictions, my friend.”
“You can say what you’re thinking if you like. ‘A bag of contradictions and petty foibles,’ maybe. That’s the polite version. It’s the least real friends can do, to tell the truth.”
“Fuck Zephyr, you’re getting so serious on me,” the other super says with casual alarm.
“We must all look pretty pathetic to a guy like you, you know, doing the whole HP Lovecraft thing, piercing the veil and looking beyond.”
“I have a different perspective,” Twilight says carefully. “There’s nothing in that to suggest I . . . value you any less for the fact you haven’t . . . what, walked a mile in my shoes?”
“I’m not sure we share the same values when it comes to people we don’t know, though, do we?”
Twilight shrugs. “Like I said before, I’m not a hero like you are.”
“My turn to correct the quote: ‘I’m an anti-hero,’ you said.”
“Not a hero, anti-hero, whatever. The consorting with demons thing isn’t just a catchphrase, Zephyr. I’m sorry. Deal with it.”
“And consorting with demons, speaking of which, is that what this Hamas al-what’s-his-fuck is?”
“Again, it’s a matter of perspective.”
He stares at me a moment like a failed child actor or something, one hundred per cent spoiled brat. I’ve pissed on his cookies and now we’re in strange new territory. Funny how little it can take to cross that line.
“What?” he barks in the voice probabl
y reserved for the servants. “What are you looking at me like that for? I let him out. Is that what you want to hear? Well I did. It’s my fault and you know what? He’s still fucking loose. That’s what the lens is there for. I’ve got a problem.”
He clears his throat and goes to speak and hangs on a moment like he’s struggling to swallow a particularly big loogie, but it’s all a charade – stalling for time, to think, to concoct a story, maybe. He’s watched too many Matt Damon movies, I think, because his technique sucks and I’m not buying it.
“You can bemoan being human all you want, Zephyr,” he finally says in a strained voice. “And by the way, copping out of fulfilling your own potential is just a pathetic waste. I let this motherfucker loose trying to research your problem man, so don’t get on your high horse with me.”
I stare at the pattern in the miniature portal for longer than may be good for my sanity. With an effort of will, I carefully put the item back down on the pedestal. And for the first time I notice what I mistook to be a snow globe beside it now looks to me to be a genuine A-grade crystal ball on the lower shelf of the wall just behind the wooden lectern.
“What’s this?” I ask. “Is it what I think it is?”
“No, Zephyr,” my host answers sternly.
A quick glance assures me Twilight would prefer to rip me limb-from-limb at the moment, but either hospitality or some other rules seem to be getting in the way. My hand, hovering over the pearly-lit globe, slowly retracts.
“OK. Sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Twilight says. “If you want to reconsider, I can give you time to think, but I don’t think you’ll want to. You seem to have . . . come to a decision.”
“I had a confrontation with my family tonight, Twilight,” I say in response. “I’m not the sort to run from a fight.”
“You’re a good man, Zephyr. That’s why I keep you around.”
The barest smile. I try and reciprocate, but keep seeing a male model in silk pajamas meeting his fate almost literally trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle and winding up little more than a smear on an Atlantic City sidewalk. I think upon what Vanguard and Synergy might call that, and call me amoral ordinarily, compared to Twilight I feel suddenly self-righteous, almost holy, above it all, you know, like Judge Judy.
“You know the saying,” Twilight continues. “A good man is hard to find.”
“Better to have one handy when you need him, then.”
My reply is flat. Twilight nods, that calculating side of him he normally keeps cleverly masked now ousted like the naked, drooling, misshapen freak it really is. But he’s lost in his own perspective. For once I am the one with knowledge and therefore the power. I can nod calmly, now that we are so close to the back doors and the final exit.
“I’ll see you around,” I say, the brandy bottle never even breached let alone broached.
The glass door judders closed behind me and because I feel adrift in this new spiritual winter, I walk rather than power into the air as I might otherwise be inclined.
It’s those vital ten seconds that change things forever.
Walking, I linger long enough to see the woman opening the door from within Twilight’s sanctum sanctorum. Although the distance from the rear of the house is considerable, the aforementioned display lights do a fine job of catching her in profile, not much more on but a bathrobe and a sleepy smile. And while it’s the grass over the edges of the halogen globe that give the side of the building a viridescent aura, there’s no mistaking the color of her hair even at a hundred paces.
Cusp.
Her green hair looks wet from the shower. It occurs to me I owe the lady a phone call, but perhaps understandably, this is not the first thing I’m thinking. It’s a mix of emotions that will momentarily unravel in a most bizarre way. So instead I stand practically mesmerized, and I can’t believe Twilight isn’t watching any of this and doing something to stop it, but at the same time there’s a sense of the cosmic inevitable as the woman catches sight of me and puts her hand to her mouth and comes across the impeccable grass toward me in her towel, barefoot on the crunching, fresh-mowed shoots, and holds out her hand like a baroness to be admired and greeted.
“Hi. You’re Zephyr, aren’t you?” She smiles, more beautiful than any vinyl mask could ever to conceal. “I’m Holland. I’m here with Twilight.”
Zephyr 3.2 “A Good Dream”
IT PAYS TO be sure of your facts in my game, even in the face of the ridiculous.
“Cusp?”
Holland smiles, and I think: What kind of fucking name is that? Nigeria? Skandia? Jamaica? No, she went herself.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re Cusp.”
“Who is?”
“You are.”
“Cusp?” She looks at me weird, completely unprepared to find that in real life the hero Zephyr is a blithering madman. “Uh, no. You must have me mixed up with someone else.”
“Green hair.”
Self-consciously, she raises her hand to the wet strands forming into ringlets at their exposure to the cool night air.
“This? Ha ha, yeah. It’s for Twilight. He never really explained.” She shrugs. “You know how he is.”
“I thought I did.”
“Are you . . . OK? Were you . . . leaving?”
I don’t say another word, but turn instead and march back toward the house. Perhaps it’s rude, but I’m pretty sure of my footing even if I’m not on solid ground as I put my fist through the door and tear the whole thing aside, panes of glass falling like slow-motion rain to shatter on the tasteful stone flags.
The entrance surprises Twilight to say the least. He’s standing where I stood before, the Hariss as-Sama medallion in his bare hand. His mouth makes a comic book “O” of surprise and then I charge straight for him, taking out the big blonde anti-hero along with most of the wall behind.
“Zephyr! No, wait!”
Call it insurance, but I land a few solid punches to the side of his head to even up the argument in my favor.
“Remember Tabitha, Queen of Cats?” I yell.
“You’re meant to say ‘TM’ after that,” Twilight grins, seemingly unperturbed by my homicidal rage and the steady trickle of blood from his right nostril.
“Commsec Tower, three years ago. You used your astral powers to take control of her body when she was making like a sequel to Die Hard, holding that Afghani delegation hostage in the ballroom.”
Twilight bunches under me and throws me off, back into the rear lounge. He picks off books and pieces of wood and plaster, standing in the ruins of what looks like a billiards room.
“What of it?”
“You told me one night we wouldn’t be hearing from her again. You maintained the ‘spiritual link’,” I say, my words echoing as Twilight dully repeats them word-perfect with me.
“Nice to know we finally got our quotes right,” he says. “I take it you met Holland?”
“Yes.”
“Fucking chick. I told her to wait for me in the sanctum until I was finished.”
“What, like you don’t have enough rooms to stash her away inside the house?”
I’m so angry I sound like I’m blubbering, all high-pitched and Woody Allen-like. I desperately try to suck down a few calming breaths, ignoring the coruscating electrics across my upper body.
“Get serious, Zephyr. Where do you think all the wops with guns sleep?”
He sighs, makes a little show of cricking his neck, and adds, “Speaking of which.”
I roll aside just as submachinegun fire rakes the décor. Books, plaques, ceremonial plates, a rich man’s DVD collection – they all dance themselves loose from the shelves as the widescreen plasma explodes and a few of the 9mm slugs actually tear through the sofa and past me. I don’t get to take much more than a glance amid the rain of shredded upholstery, but that’s enough. With my boots against the back of the heavy leather couch, I give one almighty push and two of the three mooks are erased f
rom the gaping doorway. Without even standing I Taser the third one. He shits his pants and goes down in a smelly pile, Uzi ejaculating the rest of its clip into the ceiling.
Twilight has the initiative. And heavy globes of green fire spring into life in the palms of his hands.
*
ALL THE ENERGY superhumans throw around comes from somewhere: fire is radiant energy, mine’s electrical, telekinesis is physical force, and good ol’ laser beams are compressed light. Twilight’s blasts are mystical energy, in this instance literal hell-fire, sucked through space and time and infinite dimensions to radiate through his fingers like the world’s best Hallowe’en decoration – and when it hits it burns like the son of God and sticks to me like a motherfucker. Past experience has taught me to stay on the run, but I’ve never come up against Twilight in anything other than repressed homoerotic horseplay, so I’m not exactly prepared to dodge as the greenish fire starts flying.
The second throw hits me in the shoulder and spins me around just as I get my momentum. I judder around the room like a smoldering version of my namesake, yowling like a cat in heat – no pun intended.
“Twilight,” I growl for no particular reason.
“Zephyr,” the big guy responds.
I’m not sure how we’re gonna save the friendship.
As I come to a halt brushing bits of charcoalized leather from my arm, I can tell he’s holding back, the look in his eye more quizzical than murderous as he takes in the extensive damage to his bachelor pad without focusing on any one thing in particular. Lightning crackles down my sleeves and I’m breathing heavy, aware my metabolism is at the mercy of hours without food and my earlier night’s activities. It all just crept up on me so natural and believable – like any other slow-moving plot development – that now I can feel the familiar queasy sinking sensation at the cellular level and the comparative weakness that comes with it.
I say comparative because one man’s failure is another’s inspiration. I’m down from my best, but that doesn’t mean I still couldn’t go a few rounds with Dr Nefarious if I need to – the only problem is I know Twilight could beat the old doctor to death with one arm tied behind his back.
Zephyr I Page 22