Devil gets addicted to it. Five hundred years abuse. He likes the taste.
Then, late ‘40s, she’s remembering. But something has changed in her. Devil doesn't know what so it doesn't get recorded.
She has a final fling with a mortal man, Mr. Goya, and down to hell she goes. Bans posted. Married. Big feast.
End of the story.
So there we have it. That's Ava. A peasant girl from wherever it is story-book girls come. Grown up to become the Queen of Hell.
Since then, some time, fifty, sixty years, but I don't think the time's important. Can't see them using calendars in hell. But since then, something changed between them.
After their marriage, he threw her out of hell again. Started the stalker game again. Whole cycle, over and over again.
What happened to them in hell?
No idea.
I could ask.
Rather talk to her than him. But honest - I don't think she's anything I can handle. Not now, not without more information.
Figure out what happened down in hell, after the wedding, what spooked him about her. Then we'll maybe get somewhere.
Aristide? He can wait. Hollow isn't in a mood for a visit. I get one more shot at it, one more shot at freeing Jon ‘cause, next time the Hollow sees me, he'll be at me with knives ready. Fucking Devil saw to that.
I'm tired but wired. Whisky long since worn off. Pick up the Missionary's Notes. Nah. Not ready to put in the work. Bad sign if I don't feel like reading.
Bad idea worms itself into my head. Stressed. Not concentrating.
Pick up the phone.
She's just finishing work. Yeah, I can consult for you. Come to mine.
Figure I'll risk the Devil.
Scarlet maybe doesn't love Elliot? 17 hours till they get married. Wonder if that fact wasn't over my head, would I do this. Doesn't matter.
Knock on the door.
Katanya opens it.
'You really here to talk business?'
'I.'
'Not so good at this bit, are you?'
She grabs a fistful of my shirt, drags me in.
vi
After, she fixes us some coffee.
'Go have a shower. You've been on the smokes and drinks for too long.' I do.
She comes in, looks at me, frowning.
'Need to hit the gym. Too much booze. Man of action like you, need to get the cardio happening.' Look down. She's probably right.
'Slapper', I call her. She laughs, throws me the towel.
We drink the Joe.
'So why'd you come?'
Shrug. 'Think I answered that over there.' Point to the bed.
There's only one room in the flat. Covered in her art. Some statues of her gods. Athena. Morrigan. Like that.
Her clothes are all over the floor. Dishes piled up. Except for a suit-bag, hung up. Like she's got some fancy occasion to go to and it needs to stay clean in a room otherwise filled with vegetarian take-out bags and used knickers.
Here we all are with magic powers and none of us can get a life together.
Some sort of meaning there but I'm not interested.
'Nah. Yeah. I mean, it was good. Though, you know, Lark, I'm not interested in making a habit of it, you know? I'm seeing someone. It's good. I don't want to fuck it up with a piece on the side.'
Sure.
'So why'd you come? Really. You looking for some regular action ‘cause, Lark, I'm not. I know what it looks like. But I'm not.'
Why? Could tell her the truth. Because I fucked over Bettina to solve a case. Because I'm walking in territories I don't know. Because Scarlet is getting married Sunday and that's running around like a rat in the wall and if I didn't have this case I dunno how I'd be. Because I drank about ten shots of whisky last night and not a drop made me feel better.
Shrug. Who cares about that stuff?
Katanya frowns. 'Give me something, man. I don't put it out for just anyone. What's on your mind with this? Why you here?'
Part of me arcs up. This her price? I get laid and she gets a look at my business? Leak it to the Library? Someone else? Resist the urge to just get up and walk out. Because, if it isn't a play, get the feeling that move would queer it between me and her forever. Suspicion good. Paranoia might kick in the spokes with an ally.
Light a smoke slow. Gives me time to ease.
Look up at the roof. Look at her.
'I had... I had a bad night. Came home and for the first time in a long time, just sitting in the dark, thinking it over. Just a head that wouldn't switch off. It was no good to me. So here I am.'
She nods. 'Yeah, nights like that...I get that. But you can't keep me around like that. I got a girl, Lark. I really like her.'
Who wants that conversation? 'Anything happening with your crew?'
Shakes her head. 'Just putting out fires. Something's going on and it's causing low-level havoc all over the place.'
The Devil. Just walking around, he'll leave a radiation burn.
'You got any idea what that would be?' Looks at me over the cup. Not even bothering to hide that she's got me pegged for it.
'Yeah but... I tell you, I figure you'll shut me down and it's too big to leave alone. '
The Devil's girlfriend, a story come to life.
Must be terrible to be a story. To be trapped by narratives you cannot influence.
'Got a lead on putting it to bed right now.'
She nods. I give her something to see where she takes it.
Every day I'm hustling.
'You know some cat Aristide? Haitian, maybe. On the hardcore vodou tip.'
'Yeah. Docklands player. Old Man falls down, a lot of small crews rush in, looking for theirs. The Old Man had his pick of new recruits, minor lodges, all working for him. So a lot of new fish up there. Lot of new blood to be recruited.
Old bastard kept all the good geomantically active sites secured for himself too. Not to mention, he had a hand in local dealers so you got regular civilian crews fighting over who slings rock on street corners. Old Man dying... just left a mess.
Aristide, he rocks into town a year or two back. Kicks ass, takes names. So far, kept himself out of any black magic bullshit that calls for my guys. Hides in plain sight as a gangster with a James Bond villain gimmick but squeezing juice in the magic world. But he's not sacrificing anyone to the Devil or anything so no formal contact.'
Katanya looks careful at me.
'I ask you why you're asking about Aristide, you gonna give me anything?'
Throw some truth out there and buy myself some professional good will.
'He and that crew, they moved on the Hollow. Maybe Thursday night?'
She shakes her head. 'Suicide run. I got to call a cleaning crew?'
'Aristide legged it. He's still breathing.'
She drums her fingers a few times, real quick. 'We got new standing order to reopen the Hollow's case last night.'
' Active File #a0004.'
'Yeah. Foulstone wants us to acquire and surveil. The Hollow. He wants us to put a tail on the Hollow. I just said yes and never even bothered to pass on the order. Might as well tell us to prepare to invade the moon.'
Throw something into the mix. Maybe there's a payoff.
'Want to get yourself something with the new boss?'
'Sure.'
Give her the Hollow's lair, down in the old city. 'He's there. He's in a bad mood. Katanya, don't go down there. Not with a crew, not by yourself, not with a division of panzers. Foulstone or Blossom give you orders to storm the castle, you say no. But it's still a bead you can draw.'
'They ask, what's my story?'
Story. Lots of stories in this particular gig, it hits me. Stories.
'That's not my problem.'
Finish the coffee. 'I have to go to work,' she says.
'Yeah.' Finish dressing, she comes up to me at the door. She doesn't know what to do. Hug, kiss, handshake, what? I offer nothing, make the choice for her. She's got a girl and I'm not co
nvinced that every word I say to her doesn't end up in ears I don't want hearing ‘em.
'I told the crew we were giving it a bit of time before we quit. Not happy but they're listening to me.'
'Cool.'
'I'm seeing someone Lark. This booty call at five in the morning shit. It won't fly.'
I nod and fade out. The Devil is busking in the subway. Buy something for Bettina and he serves me, winking at me while he counts my change.
Twelve
i
Breakfast with Bettina and Lazlo.
Hand her the eye patch. She puts it on. 'First person makes a pirate joke is the first person eats his teeth for breakfast.'
Lazlo thinks that's funny. He's made us Bloody Marys, which I don't drink. Bettina knocks back one but she's not in the mood. Lazlo's on his third.
'You don't like the patch, we'll fix up... something else. How much is a glass eye?'
'Expensive, boy! I was there when Tom Waits stole Bette Midler's glass eye! He wrote Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night to replace it!'
'It'll do.' She's eating slowly. Getting used to depth perception.
Give it a second while Lazlo munches on the wet celery.
'Alright, here's our moves. I think this Ava woman... I think she's sort of... I don't know. Not a spirit. Not a woman. She's not real like regular people, for sure. She's like a story come to life. She's got something on Scratch, something that freaks him out. I don't know what. Don't even know what it could be. Normally, I'd leave it alone. Never got paid but sometimes you just got to let that go.'
They both disagree. Hustlers.
'I'm not tracking this woman down for money. Easier ways to get paid. What I need to do now is get the Devil off my back. He's going easy on me because he figures that I'll take on her for him. Way he sees it, I got him into this, I'll get him out. I don't know about her but the Devil isn't something we can fight. So we go after the client.'
Bettina frowns at me.
'I know this might not be good business but... we sure we making the right call? Goya's story, that seems like stalker shit to me. We getting this chick into something bad?'
'Thought about this. Remember when the Devil came to us at mine? He's trying to keep away from her. She pointed me at him, set me off. He was a stalker? Yeah. But even if that was all true - things have changed between them. She went off to Hell to marry him and but he skipped out straight away. Fifty years off this cat and mouse.'
Bettina shrugs at me. 'They sound like they belong together. Like numbers in a sum.'
Cock an eyebrow at her but she just shrugs.
Clean up, wash the plates. She dries. Morning sun is nice. First proper meal I ate in a while. Hand her the last dish and she has to focus a second before she takes it. Monocular vision. That affect her fighting? Try to ignore the thought.
'What's our percentage in this?' she asks.
'Can't even figure one.'
'Me either. Any chance we just drop it?'
'Devil strike you as a man to drop a grudge?'
She just shakes her head.
'You been with that girl again.'
'.'
'You don't have to hide it from me. Can't trust a partner, who can you trust?'
Don't trust me. I gave up your eye.
'Yeah. I was.'
'It's alright you know. I mean, I ain't exactly sure she's on the up and up but way I figure it, you ain't... figure a regular girl don't do it for you.'
'Bit hard to relate, yeah.'
'You just keep your head straight. Don't get lost in it. Don't let her get up in the way. Don't be buggin'. We got to figure our percentage from all this Devil shit.'
'Hell, Bettina, I'm too fucked up from the last one. I ain't got no more room for craziness over a woman.'
She grins at me. 'Don't disrespect yourself, man! You got plenty room for crazy.'
Tell you a secret about Bettina. She likes the inside dirt on the supernal world. Always figure her for being bored by me but she never seems to mind me talking shop.
'You ever hear about God's girlfriend?'
'Magdalene. But I hear she wasn't really a ho.'
'She wasn't. But not Jesus. God.'
'Never heard of her then.'
'So, there's this old idea. This is just the friends-in-a-kitchen version I'm telling. Sophia is the old Greek word for wisdom. If you're wise, you have wisdom you have Sophia. Some people, they don't like a story just being a story, they make it literal. So this idea, this powerful idea, of feminine wisdom gets an upgrade. Sophia-Achamoth, Gnostic goddess of wisdom. '
'Sure.'
'All this stuff gets cut out of what becomes the Bible. When it gets cobbled together, they leave out all the cool bits. I only know this ‘cause one of those sects, Simonians, had a big crew of magicians in it. But Sophia, she's strange, even for the weird theology of that time.
Sometimes she makes God by mistake. Sometimes, God's evil. Creates the world and there ain't nothing but pain here. They figure only a bastard pull that trick.'
She thinks for a bit. 'Sounds legit.'
'Course, she might also be one of those things we ran into last year. Like in the Scroll. An Archon. Doesn't matter. Point is, in the oldest stories, she's the creator of life. God, he's unreachable. But Sophia, she's his partner. They got each other's backs. He creates the universe but she's making light and people and love. Babies, too. Universal mother.'
'Why chicks always got to be about the soft stuff?'
'I wasn't there. I didn't come up with it. Just telling you the story. Eventually, tired of floating around in space, she wants to see the world she made first hand. Comes into it and gets trapped. Jesus, God sends Jesus on, like, a rescue mission for her. That gets done, she gets home to her husband.'
'So what's that got to do with why you can't get laid?'
'Well, Bettina. Comparisons between me and God aren't mine to make...'
Just raises her eyebrow at me.
'God and Sophia, they're partners. Take two to make a world. Male female. Light and dark. Like that. They fight, break up. Just like anyone. But together, they got it all figured out. I'm a strange cat. Lead a strange life. Need an equal. Not like, in smarts, or magic or anything. Just someone who's... tuned in to my frequency. So do you. So does everyone. Not likely to find that in the lonely hearts in the papers.'
She shrugs. 'God's girlfriend. Man, they really did cut out the good stuff.'
Light up. She and I don't talk about this stuff much. But still.
'What about you? You want to get some while you're walking around?'
She puts away the last dish. Mutters. I don't hear.
'I tried that last time.'
'What happened?'
Folds the dishcloth. Puts it over the stove. Smiles up at me but it's sad-like.
'Lark. This pussy cold.'
ii
Last big job when got into it with the Old Man, all I got was a stack of his papers which I had to stash before I got in the wind. This time, I have to be more ambitious.
Take some time and break it down.
What do I want?
The Hollow. I want it gone. Katanya will keep the pressure off herself by reporting back where the Hollow is. Katanya will report it back to me. Foulstone wants to move on the Hollow? That's a laugh. Nothing in the City can take the Hollow.
Unless Foulstone thinks he has something... Foulstone.
Got to figure that motherfucker out. Endiku and Sumerian shit. Way I figure it, he's looking at hitting the Hollow with the heavy artillery. That'd be fine, he didn't figure Jon for collateral damage. But he's got to know he's not ready. Katanya won't go after him so I've got time to make up my mind on how to help Jon.
Finding Ava won't be too hard now we broke that glamour. Figure that play before I make it. Just don't know what to make of that chick.
And the Devil?
There's no such thing as the Devil. Got to figure out what he even is, yet.
My phone
goes. Snaps me out of thinking. Usual protocols, then.
'Luanne'
'Lark have we... have you got an hour or two today?'
'No.'
'Look I want to apologise for being... well, I dunno. Mean, I suppose.'
Christ. What now? Say nothing.
'It's just. Look. I didn't. I didn't tell you everything.'
'Say it now Luanne.'
'I just. Look, our Greatma.'
'What's a greatma?'
'Our grandmother's mother. She... she's too old to travel. But she wanted to give Scarlet a present. For the, we - so she did her cards, a card reading, wrote it down. I was supposed to, you know, illustrate it. We were, well, that old gal was hoping there'd be a good reading. Babies, money, happin-'
'I get it.'
'But there's danger. For Scarlet. All the cards. Something is - it's just bad, okay? For her.'
Do you want to know what's coming to your world like a meteor? I heard that somewhere but the memory's in the fog.
'That's why I was after you. She won't listen to me. I told her about the reading and she said she knew. Everyone is scared for her. After the wedding, that's when it all starts for her, after the wedding. I told her to call it off, delay it. Elliot loves you, he'll understand. But she was having none of it.'
'Okay. Well, I'll call her up and tell her not to marry the cat. Easy. You can owe me a beer.'
'No, it's not like. You think I don't - ? Jesus. I'm scared for her.'
'Got a line on this badness?'
'Something old. That's all we know. Two things, two different kinds of old.'
'Not much to go on.' I breathe. 'Listen Luanne. Scarlet took a risky job. Dangerous. I don't even know much about her anymore. But I know this. That's a woman who knows how to survive. You want to help? Stay out of her way.'
'Lark she's my niece. I love her. She came up to this hellhole and now she's involved in all this... all this evil shit!'
'Yeah. That's the job.'
Hang up.
Alls I need. Mr. Foulstone. Mr. Blossom. She's brought in heavy hitters for something. Messing with that old black magic for a reason. She doesn't need you involved, Lark. Just... let it go.
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