by John Farris
“Huh-uh. I’m only good at interpreting my own dreams.”
“Real good at it? Any chance you could be wrong about Las Vegas bitin’ the Big One?”
“Oh, that.” She shrugged. “No, sir. I’m sorry. Did I upset you?”
Cody whistled dolefully. “You might say it gave me pause.”
Eden licked around the thin rim of her snifter, coaxed a last drop onto her tongue, brought forth shivery music with a flick of a fingernail.
“I never drank except for an occasional beer until a couple of months ago. In Africa. You should go there, to paint, but be careful. Africa sneaks into your soul. It’s breathtaking and devastating and so very cruel to the lonely.” She drew a pensive breath. “But I suppose you could say that about anywhere.”
She reached for the bottle of Rémy Martin and poured herself another generous round, the same for Cody. He watched her. “I think I like it too much. That’s a reason to quit. But not a good enough reason yet.”
“I expect there’s something you need to put out of your head real bad.”
Eden smiled ruefully, swallowed, stared at him.
“That magician’s dead, isn’t he?” Cody said.
“He’d better be.”
“You had something to do with that?”
“Everything to do with that.”
Cody slid the omelet into a warming dish with a spatula and sat down again. He lifted his glass and studied her through the bell curve. Eden looked steadily back at him and sipped her brandy. The picture of tranquility. Or about to explode into hysterics. He couldn’t tell which.
“You sure can go a long time without blinking, can’t you? Well, did he deserve it?”
“Oh boy. Did he ever.”
“Personal matter?” he said, and had to clear his throat. Larynx knotting up on him.
“It was highly personal. It also involved the fate of the human race, unless I was reading him wrong. Don’t think so. We all might be a little better off today. Can’t say for sure, yet. That doesn’t depend entirely on me. You can stare a long time without blinking, too. Time out.”
They both blinked. They were leaning toward each other now, elbows on the café-style table, faces little more than a foot apart. Immersed in each other’s aura.
“I don’t know if I can follow that,” Cody said, in a state of mind that could be called white-knuckle perplexed. “How did you—”
“Cody, there is nothing in the entire Book of Revelation as vile and evil as Mordaunt—the Magician—was, or is. The Magician, whom you know as Lincoln Grayle, is gone for good but not Mordaunt, Grayle’s oversoul. He’s only . . . contained. So you see I’m not a murderer, really. I do have supernatural powers. Those in the occult underworld call me the Avatar.” She searched his face to decide if she should go on or just abandon her attempt at an explanation. He nodded with an expression of assent neither skeptical nor patronizing, so she took a second-wind breath and kept going. “An honorary position, I didn’t have to campaign for it. But Avatars must assume a certain amount of responsibility for opposing the evil ones who would enjoy seeing the world go up in flames. In fact it’s their calling. And what do the bad-hat guys care, it isn’t their world.” Eden finished her second brandy, which had kick but didn’t prop her up as she’d hoped. She was sagging in morale and feeling like Tinkerbell low on glisten and pixie dust. Her nipples had puckered beneath his shirt. Of all times. Wordless, obviously listening for something he hadn’t heard yet, Cody had that effect on her: stature and bounty, his wide-shouldered maleness. But still they were a long way from the right time, if ever.
Eden set her glass down and said with a rueful tic of the lips, “Does drinking before breakfast make me an alcoholic?” There was a change in his eyes, a softness, benevolence. “What would you like to hear now?” she said. “How I came by my supernatural powers? Now there’s a story you never read in People magazine.”
Cody relaxed a little, sitting back in his chair, looking buffeted but not blown off her—their—course. He studied Eden’s face, cheekily flushed now, her brow damply alight, from the brandy or from the stress of wringing out her heart.
“There’s a long line of sorcerers on my ma’s side of the family,” Cody said at last. “Diviners, mushroom eaters. An old uncle who turned himself into a raven at night, or so the story goes. What I saw of him when I was little, I could believe it. Even so—I can tell you’ll take some gettin’ used to.”
“Where would you like me to start?” Eden said, bare feet on the lower rung of her chair, toes gripping. She felt so densely naked to his gaze that she might as well not have been wearing the shirt. Naked and cherished but not for sexual reasons: one of those born-again numbers, beginning of a ritual of purging and then acceptance into a new, protective tribe.
“What about your graduation day?” Cody said. “From what I picked up online, isn’t that how it all began?”
“Yes. May twenty-eighth. Red Wolves Stadium. Eleven thirty in the morning. That was—” she seemed surprised to think of it, “only five months ago. Seems like five centuries. You know what? I never did get my diploma.”
Unexpectedly, tears filled her eyes and she just let it happen, the hot drizzles. But she kept her head up, wincing a little, sniffing. Lashes matting, vision blurred. She avoided his eyes.
“And so far, graduate school has just been h-hell on wheels.”
Cody nodded understandingly and handed her a paper napkin.
Eden blew her nose. So she’d let him see her cry. There was only one intimacy more privileged than that.
“No sense lettin’ good chow turn cold.” He got up from the table. “S’posin’ we eat now. There’s plenty time for more talk.”
“You really want me to stink up your day, don’t you, Cody Olds?”
“Might happen. But only if you could beat me at a game of five-card stud.”
“Gambling man,” she said softly. Eden wadded the napkin in her fist, tapped the fist on the tabletop. Smiled. “Taking a gamble on me.”
“No, ma’am,” Cody said from the kitchen. “I always have found it profitable just to bide my time and trust my instincts. Would you be wantin’ strawberry jam on your toast, or cinnamon and sugar?”
“Cinnamon toast! Haven’t had it since I was a kid. And coffee black, please.”
4:45 P.M.
They are coming now, the vanguard of Mordaunt’s Elite 88, to the high desert, like flies to butter.
Within the next forty-eight hours, before nightfall of Halloween (a killer of a coincidence, but how fitting), all of the 88ers—minus three who now are in the stale of their antiquity and were warned not to fly long distances, and a select handful whose presence in Las Vegas, should they be detected, would be exceptionally newsworthy—will have convened at Lincoln Grayle’s secluded Snow Lake Ranch to assess the damage done to the Great One’s domain by the upstart Avatar, a new menace to their sacrosanct society.
One by one they enter Vegas airspace, flashing silver in the westering sun: potentate 747s from the Mideast; smaller, merely cushy, mogul-style Boeings, Gulfstreams, or Bombardiers from Montreal, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Prague, Sao Paulo. Two members of the 88 already live full-time or have residences in Dazzle City, having funneled billions into its development.
The Elite 88 is a men’s club. Always has been, since the days of long-dead languages. Through millennia there have been a few women, expelled from their wombs in blood and wrath, born and reborn without the impedimenta of morals, mercy, or compassion, who would qualify on equal terms. But when one of them appears, the ranks of the already-empowered close against her. Such women are destined to be subservient to Mordaunt, most often employed as Fetchlings, their reward those dewy states of optimal youth while they assume roles as doxies and consorts to pathologically ruthless and ambitious men who are cultivated, financed, and promoted by the
88 to pinnacles of democratic or despotic power, where they can do the worst possible harm to the remainder of mankind.
Deus Inversus, the darkness of God.
Present whereabouts unknown.
General Bronc Skarbeck, born on an Army base in Arkansas and depressingly mortal compared to the Malterran Elite, who enjoy secrets and privileges of extended life denied him, is not in the club. The irony of his situation isn’t lost on Bronc. But (as he reminded himself while shaving early this morning) he is not just Mordaunt’s nigger, by a long shot. Bronc knows all of the 88 on sight and by reputation, although he has met few of them personally. They will, he knows, instinctively dislike and mistrust him. His own instincts and training for brute command tell him that without the Magician directing the day-today business of the 88, they are little more than a faithless mob. Unenergized. A new Deus Inversus will not routinely be elected, like a Vicar of Rome when one of the Church’s Gods-on-earth withdraws to heaven’s pomp and ermine clouds. The Elite (Skarbeck is reasonably sure) have no experience in acting independently of Mordaunt’s will and desires. This crucial fact, he calculates, automatically increases his status and opportunity. He has spent his career in duties of crisis and spit-and-polish organization.
Can’t whip a group of spoiled lap cats into shape and keep the Magician’s global street game running? Please.
* * *
Bronc had opted for a limo and driver for most of his hectic day as he shuttled between McCarran, the offices of Lincoln Grayle Enterprises at Bellagio, and Snow Lake Ranch. During these time-outs he reviewed his phone messages, placed urgent calls, kept tabs on the removal work in progress at the avalanche site.
Harlee hadn’t made it home last night but had checked in with him twice today. Her dearest friend, Devon O’Flaherty, was still in the hospital. Food poisoning, Harlee said. None of the other girls at the cookout seemed to have been stricken. One of their number who had stayed overnight at Casa Skarbeck crept into his round bed at two thirty a.m., nude and warm and limber as a gymnast, with a smile of worship on her heart-shaped face. Saying how she had admired him from afar. Out of fidelity to Harl and assuming the two girls would trade notes, he ought to have sent her away. But then, dear God, the clutch and velvet of her compact body, breast and pubes plump and smooth as little cupids: before he could get his sanity back it was Molly-over-the-windmill. And not much snooze time after, holding the adorable one in his arms, groin burning and throbbing. Her name was Reese. She had said she was from Iowa. Probably a runaway, he thought, not caring much.
Bronc sipped a neat scotch on his third trip out to the ranch and turned off all phones for a few minutes, following the last call placed to him within the hour by Dr. Marcus Woolwine. The biogeneticist hadn’t left a message on the other two occasions, so Bronc assumed that whatever it was could wait. Then he undid the belt of his trousers, unzipped, and pulled out the cold pack he’d been wearing snugged up behind his balls. He adjusted the orthopedic seat of his silent-as-the-grave Maybach, eyes closing for a brief nap while he was chauffeured through the westbound traffic and on past Red Rock Canyon to the ranch.
At precisely five o’clock, the lone Bureau of Land Management ranger still on duty at the Red Rock Canyon visitor’s center locked up, then drove his pickup north on the scenic highway, on the lookout for stragglers. He found one in the front seat of a powder-blue Jaguar parked at the Sandstone Quarry overlook.
Devon glanced up from the movie she was watching on the DVD player in her lap when his face appeared outside her tinted windshield like something surfacing in a murky aquarium. She gave a little start, then put her flick on hold, removed her Bose noise-canceling headphones, and put down the window on the passenger side. The temperature outside had dropped a good fifteen degrees since midafternoon.
“Oh, you scared me.”
“I’m sorry, miss. Couldn’t be real sure anyone was inside. Look, it’s ten past five, and—”
“Oh, that late?” Devon looked back to find the lowered sun at the edge of the gray mountains, fossil dumps from the deep seas of prehistory.
“Meaning you ought to have been out of here ten minutes ago. There’s no overnight camping in Red Rock.”
Devon frowned prettily. “But I’m still waiting for someone. She went up that trail, oh, it must have been two hours ago.”
The ranger glanced at the Calico trailhead and a shadow assembly of Aztec sandstone, the deep rust of rocks and promontories as wrinkled as a baby’s bottom. He blinked mildly in the red flush of sundown. He was approaching middle age and drastic hair loss, but he had a trim hiker’s body and most of his youthful good looks. The terrain of his sun-cured face was not seriously marred by some tiny dark moles surrounding his squint blue eyes like inklings and omens. He had large sinew-ribbed hands, resting now on her windowsill. Devon liked men with big hands; usually it meant everything else was big too.
“That so? Who is she?”
“Her name’s Harlee. She’s my best chum.”
“Hiking by herself? How come you didn’t go along?”
“I would’ve, but I sprained my knee getting off an elevator at the Palm a couple of days ago.” Devon sighed. “Wouldn’t you know, I’m a great dancer; but I can’t walk up a flight of steps without stumbling. How do you account for that?”
The ranger shrugged. He was still looking up the trail to the Calico Tanks area of the canyon, hoping to see the missing hiker on her way out. He wore a name tag on his jacket. He was Herbert Cushing Jr.
“Two hours? She ought to be back by now, it’s only about a hour and a half round trip.”
“Harlee said she wanted to be at the top at exactly five sixteen this afternoon.”
He didn’t look thrilled by the news. “If your friend doesn’t start down from the tinaja right away, it’ll be almost full dark when she gets back here.”
“Oh, she’s prepared. Flashlight and extra batteries in her backpack. Harlee’s in wonderful condition too: she’s a champion fencer in her age group. She does excel at rock climbing and the like. She won’t get lost.”
“What did she want to be up there for at five sixteen?”
“Harlee is into harmonic convergences.”
The ranger glanced down at the slender hand that lay atop his. “Harmonic—? What are those?”
“You know, really great vibes. The collective unconscious of peace and love. Healing the earth. There’s an international movement. Purification rituals. Like in the sixties—or so I’ve been told. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Were you born then, Herbert? By the way, my name is Devon.”
“Born in ’sixty-two,” he said. “I remember some of that flower-child business. Then there was Woodstock. My sister went. It rained. Naked people wallowing in mud. Minivans painted psychedelic-like. Well, I wish your friend wasn’t out there by herself, is all. Maybe I ought to take a run up to the Tanks and—”
Devon carefully tightened her hold on him. “Oh, I don’t think it’s at all necessary. I’m very sorry that you’ve been delayed, Herbert.” Devon shuddered delicately. They’d reached the point where he wasn’t able to take his eyes off her for more than a second or two. “I shouldn’t like to be left alone here. Harlee can take care of herself. Really.” She shuddered again, an excuse for gripping his hand more tightly. “There seems to be a frightfully keen nip in the air.”
“Yeah, it can drop below freezing in the canyon this time of the year. Well. I didn’t have that much going tonight. It’s my wife’s sister’s wedding anniversary but we probably won’t go over there, they haven’t been getting along all that great anyhow.”
“Could I persuade you to let me wait at the visitor’s center with you until Harlee comes down? I’ll leave my car for her.”
“It’s my business to see that both of you
are okay. I can leave you at the center, but then I need to get on up the trail myself, just in case.”
“Would there be any coffee?”
“If you’d like some. Suppose I could, uh, make fresh.”
So he was a shy one and she had him on the verge of stammers. In under five minutes Devon had raised his awareness of, and desire for, her to critical mass. Forty-four. Those heebie-jeebie midlife-crisis years. Particularly strong for men who had been married way back in their young twenties, as Devon suspected of Herbert Cushing Jr. Devon sympathized, while continuing to mold the putty she had in her hand.
“You won’t get into trouble, will you, I mean because of us?”
“No. I’m in charge here, is pretty much how it goes.”
Devon lowered and raised butterfly wings of dusky eyelashes.
“I’ve a confession to make. I have always loved the name Herbert. It’s so—authentic: your name gleams with strength and valor. Nowadays the boys one meets are all Seans and Justins. Totally devoid of personality.”
“Devon is, uh. A real pretty name.” The ranger helped her out of the car. “Mind my asking, how do you get that white stripe through your hair like that? Bleach?”
“No, it’s hereditary,” Devon fibbed.
She left the keys in the Jag for Harlee, fully confident that Herbert wouldn’t be coming back. They were crossing to his BLM pickup truck, the time five sixteen p.m., when a streak like an arrow from the stars fell through cloudless indigo sky to touch down on the summit of the Calico Tanks.
The ranger whistled. “See that?”
“Surely did,” Devon said, giving her underlip a pensive bite. She could only hope that Harlee had survived it. The sky above the Tanks was stained a rosy apricot shade that faded slowly. Then there was another arrow, rising this time like pyrotechnics, curving up and over their heads and down to the horizon, where it was lost to view.
Herbert continued to stare at the sky in amazement.