Dead Things

by Stephen Blackmoore

  But maybe I can get Vivian back. Stop running, get a second chance. If she can forgive me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You said that.”

  “I was delirious. This one’s more heartfelt. And conscious.”

  “Don’t, Eric. I can’t accept that apology. Not yet.”

  “Fair enough. But maybe we could—” I don’t get a chance to finish. The door opens with a knock.

  “Hey,” Alex says, stepping inside with a shopping bag. “How you doin’, tiger?”

  “I’ve been worse,” I say.

  “You were pretty messed up when you came in here.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. How’s your bouncer?”

  “Wants to rip you a new asshole, knows it’s a bad idea.” Alex shrugs. “Shit happens.”

  He steps behind Vivian, wraps his arms around her in a hug and gives her a kiss on the cheek that’s a lot more intimate than just friends.

  If either of them has any clue how I’m feeling about this they’re doing a good job covering it up.

  So much for second chances.

  “I got you some new clothes. Moved your stuff to a different hotel. Hid your car. Have you considered getting something that doesn’t steer like the Titanic?”

  “How’d you know which room I had?”

  He holds up my motel room key. “Found this in your pocket.”

  Of course. My paranoia ratchets down a notch. “Where’s the Caddy?”

  “At the new motel. Parked in the back. You always drive it with a screwdriver in the ignition?”

  “Present from Griffin,” I say.

  “Oh. Speaking of which, he’s why I moved it. Figured if you weren’t just being delirious and he’s the badass you say he is, might not be a bad idea to get it out of the way. Turns out you’re right.”

  I tense up, my heart hammering in my chest. “Did he come here? What happened?”

  “He and three guys with guns. Side of him I’d never seen before. He made noises. Wanted to know where you were. Don’t worry about it. I’ve got this whole place warded for privacy. He wasn’t going to find you.”

  “Helps you’re a good liar,” Vivian says.

  Yes, it does. I don’t know if I’m having doubts because I really think Alex would hand me off to Griffin, or if I just want something to hate him for besides Vivian.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “I got your back. Know that. Please. Now, what the fuck happened?”

  I tell them about being grabbed at the payphone, getting tagged at my motel room. The fight, me getting away. I leave out a few details, like how I got out of Griffin’s house.

  “Jesus,” Vivian says. “You’ve had a hell of a day.”

  “I’ve had worse,” I say before I can catch myself.

  Her eyes narrow and she does this thing where she bites her lip when she’s thinking. I’d forgotten how cute that was.

  “I’ll look into that,” Alex says. “I don’t like the idea of doing business with a guy who’s picked up where Boudreau left off.”

  “He seems less crazy than Boudreau,” I say.

  “Doesn’t make him less dangerous. I’ll ask around. He’s not the only one who’s got people, you know.”

  “What, you’re gonna have your waitresses tail him?”

  “No, Max.”

  “The bouncer?”

  “Ex-LAPD.”

  “I should probably apologize to him, huh?”

  “Might not be a bad idea,” he says. He hands me the shopping bag. “I got you some new clothes. I figure you walking out of here half-naked in bloody pants would just confuse the customers.”

  “I thought I scared them all off,” I say.

  “This is the late night crowd. Trust me, these folks, you’re not gonna scare off.”

  I look into the bag, pull out a cell phone.

  “No more payphones,” Alex says. “Get with the fucking 21st century.”

  I snort, toss it back in the bag. There are jeans, shoes and socks, a t-shirt and a hoodie with a Lakers logo on the front.

  My shirt and tie are little more than ribbons. I ball them up and toss them into a wastebin. I put the t-shirt on. Pulling it over the stitches in my back and my broken nose isn’t fun, but it’s a good fit.

  The Browning is in its holster at the bottom of the bag. I leave it there and toss my shoes in with it. A good polish and they’ll be fine.

  I swap my torn-up suit pants for the jeans and pull on the tennis shoes. I’m transferring the contents of my suit coat into the pockets of the hoodie when I catch Vivian’s expression.

  “Jesus,” she says as I pull out the pocket watch, her eyes going wide. “You still have that thing?”

  “What is it with you people and watches?”

  “I had the same reaction,” Alex says. “He’s got good reasons for keeping it.”

  Vivian looks from Alex to me and back again. “I’d love to hear them.”

  “The watch is an entropy trap. Causes aging, withering. Sucks time out of things.”

  “Like living things,” she says, “I remember. Tell me you haven’t used it on anyone. That accident with the cat was appalling. You said you were going to get rid of it.”

  “I lied.”

  “Viv,” Alex says quietly. He puts his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it away.

  “Would you rather I had just tossed it in a dumpster and let some other poor bastard find it?” I say. “Imagine a normal getting their hands on this thing. Any idea the kind of disaster that would be?”

  She closes her eyes. I can almost hear her counting to ten. “Fine,” she says. She won’t look at me.

  “You were asking earlier about any of Boudreau’s people taking over,” Alex says, steering the conversation back. “Well, looks like you met one. Why’d you want to know?”

  “Oh, the getting my ass handed to me portion of my day was preceded by the finding out of why Lucy was killed.” I give them a rundown of Lucy’s murder, the message the killer left behind and how he left it behind. I spare the details, but not much.

  By the time I’m done both Alex and Vivian are crying. Me, I can’t access that emotion anymore. I just get angrier.

  I tell them about my failed attempts to ask the Dead, about Santa Muerte, her clue about finding Boudreau’s ghost. I leave out the part where I have to kill Griffin. I don’t think either of them would take it very well.

  When I’m done I’m met with a heavy silence from both of them.

  “Santa Muerte?” Vivian says. “She’s real?”

  “Yeah. She’s real. Not much different from any of the other things you can call up. Just … bigger.”

  I’ve spent the last few years dealing with things that are higher on the food chain than most people, normals or mages, ever encounter. It feels weird to hear the question.

  “And you think Boudreau is back?” Alex says.

  “No. He couldn’t be.” Could he? I push that thought out of my mind. I made sure of it. I tore every last piece of him into scrap.

  “How can you be sure?” Vivian asks.

  They know I killed Boudreau. They don’t know how. They don’t know what I was willing to do to make sure that fucker never took another step in this or any other world. I’m not sure how they would react to the truth.

  “I just know, okay? I’m thinking it’s maybe something he left behind, instead. Some significant memory or something that symbolized him that’s still around.”

  “That could be anything,” Vivian says.

  “That’s why I’m thinking that whatever it is, Griffin’s got it. You said he’s the only one of Boudreau’s old crew left?”

  “Not the only one, no. I was thinking about this a little while ago. There’s one other guy I can think of who’s still around from the Boudreau days. Guy named Henry Ellis,” he says.

  “The hobo?” Vivian asks.

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah. I do an ER shift at Harbor once a week and word’s around
that I’ll help out with the magic set. He comes in a lot. Guy’s a mess.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” Alex says. “Worked directly for Boudreau. Don’t know what he did, but I hear he burned out his circuits. Can’t channel power from the pool and his talent wasn’t all that great to begin with. He might know something.”

  Burning out happens to mages who hang onto more power than they can hold. One time is fine. Even a hundred, you space it out right. But you do that for too long and one day you find you’re pulling less and less and what started out as a waterfall has slowed to a stream, then a trickle, then nothing at all. Then you’re dead in the water.

  “Know where I can find him?”

  Vivian shakes her head. “I treat him every once in a while down at County. Guy’s homeless. Lives wherever he finds room. He’s a piece of work. I knew he was a talent, but I didn’t know he was a burnout. No wonder he’s so messed up.”

  Alex nods. “He could be anywhere,” he says. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

  The door opens and I tense. But it’s just Tabitha, the waitress. Her apron is off, purse slung over her shoulder. She’s jingling a set of keys in her hand.

  “Hey,” she says, giving me a little wave.

  “Hey yourself,” I say. I pull the hoodie on. “Where’s this motel?”

  “Over on Lankershim,” Alex says. “Tabitha will drive you over.”

  “Get sleep,” Vivian says. “And something to eat. You don’t get rest you’ll take longer to heal. Especially that nose.”

  I give her a Boy Scout sign. “Yes, ma’am.” I might not have any choice. I’m exhausted.

  “Be safe,” Alex says. “And don’t do anything stupid.”

  Right. Like I can do anything but.

  —

  Tabitha’s got a little two-seater Pontiac Solstice. It suits her. Both are sleek, classy designs, compact and damn good looking. She slides into the driver’s seat and I lower myself into the passenger side like a decrepit 80-year-old.

  “Come on, grandpa, you’re not that old.”

  “No, just beat up a lot.”

  “I heard. Rough day, huh?”

  “Rough couple of days, yeah.”

  There’s a paper bag on the floor of the car. I look inside. There’s a bottle of Alex’s Balvenie ’78.

  “You planning a party?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” she says, giving me a smile that’s a little more like a leer. “You never know how things will go.”

  I think about my day. Started well enough. Burger at Travel Town, hanging off the trains. Then arguing with an avatar of death, fighting off mages and guys with tasers, aging a guy into mummified insanity and throwing another one to the hungry Dead like I was feeding piranhas.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You never know how things will go.”

  She takes a corner a little too fast, a little sharp. We should be skidding but we’re not. And it’s not ingenious engineering that’s got the car cornering like it’s on rails. She just cast a spell.

  “You’re a talent,” I say.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Didn’t Alex tell you?”

  “Doesn’t tell me anything,” I say, thinking back to Vivian’s and Alex’s embrace earlier.

  “It’s not much, but he’s showing me some things.”

  “Good for you,” I say. “Don’t let it get you killed.”

  “Oh, please. What could go wrong?”

  Lucy’s face slamming against the wall, her bloody hands being used as a paintbrush. Her body broken, her mind nothing but the leftover trauma of the night.

  “A whole hell of a lot,” I say.

  She’s silent for a couple of blocks, face tight in concentration. Whether from the magic, the driving or trying to figure out what I meant, I can’t say.

  “You’ve been doing this for a long time?”

  “Getting the shit kicked out of me? Years.”

  She laughs. “No. I meant the magic.”

  “Yeah. Since I was a kid. You?”

  “Few years ago,” she says. “I think I always knew, though. Little things, you know? A little too lucky with some things, shit you can’t explain.”

  “Yeah. That’s how it starts. How’d you find out?”

  “Car accident. Was taking a turn in a Mini way too fast on the 110. Blew a tire. Car spun out. I hit the railing and went right through.”

  “Sounds nasty.”

  “Would have been if the car hadn’t stopped mid-air. I mean hanging over the street. Fifty feet to the ground and the car’s just floating down.”

  “Impressive. Been able to do it since?”

  “Are you crazy? I’m not about to try. I freaked out and the car dropped ten feet. Had a hell of a bruise on my ass and it cracked the axle.”

  I laugh. “If you don’t try, you won’t know.”

  She glances over at me. Grins a little. “Yeah, Alex said you’d say something like that. He’s been telling me not to try until I know how to control other spells.”

  “Did he now?”

  “Yeah, he’s kind of a dad. I mean, that’s great and all. Helped me out. I was working at the bar when it happened. I come in the next day and he takes me back into his office and he just knows. It was freaky. How does he do that? Know shit like that?”

  “He’s good at reading people,” I say. “That’s his knack. He tell you he used to do short cons to make money?”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. He was good at it, too. Don’t know why he stopped.”

  “Wanted to settle down?” she says.

  Yeah. Settle down. Vivian wouldn’t want somebody who’s just living day to day, bouncing around. Somebody like me. I shake the thought away.

  “I guess,” I say.

  “You ever think of doing that? Settling down?”

  “I’m not really wired for it.”

  “Me either.”

  “Home’s an illusion,” I say, more to myself than her, but she nods her head.

  “Yeah. Working with Alex is the longest job I’ve ever had. I’ve never even had an apartment longer than a year.” She takes a right off of Lankershim and into a parking lot. “Speaking of which, welcome to your new illusion.”

  —

  “Sweet place,” Tabitha says behind me as I flick on the light. It’s called The Goodnight Inn, down in the Valley. Alex didn’t think having me stay so close to his bar was a good idea. Extended stay suites. Two rooms a pop. Nice furniture. Kitchen and complimentary morning newspaper. Everything’s all coordinated the way real people live. Even the hotel art is tasteful.

  I hate it.

  Tabitha sits on the king size bed, bounces up and down a little. Flops down onto her back, snuggles into the blue comforter covering it. “Come here,” she says. I do and she grabs my hand, pulling me down onto the bed. I wince, but lie down next to her, anyway. Goddamn, I feel old.

  She props herself on an elbow. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding, were you?”

  “About getting beat up? Figured the taped up nose and bruises were kind of a giveaway.”

  “Well, yeah, but I figured it’d stopped there.” She hesitates, considering. “I heard you were pretty messed up when you came in. Heard you laid out Max. I’ve never seen anybody budge him.”

  “I was motivated.” And an asshole. When I left the club I tried to say sorry, but he just glared at me. “Do you know why I’m out here?”

  “Alex told me some,” she says. “Heard about your sister, about how you, Alex and Vivian used to hang out. And that your magic’s all about dead people. I figure you’re looking for the guy who killed your sister?”

  “That about sums it up.” I close my eyes for a moment and relax a little. Having Tabitha lying next to me is nice. She puts her head on my chest. I don’t stop her. That’s even nicer.

  I feel her run a finger along the tattoos on my forearm. “This stuff go all the way up?” she says, voice quiet.

  “And down.” I tug up the t-shirt and show her
the tattoos on my side and belly.

  “Wicked. Can I see them?”

  I cock an eye at her. “When I say they go down, I mean they go all the way down.”

  “Now I really want to see them.”

  “How about you?” I say.

  “A couple.” She sits up, peels off her top, undoes her bra and drops it on my chest.

  I’m expecting butterflies and unicorns, but it’s an elaborate series of cherry blossom branches from one shoulder, down her side, across her hips, cupping her right breast. The work is excellent. The branches knot back into each other in elaborate patterns and disappear down her jeans.

  “Nice,” I say for both the tattoos and the woman wearing them.

  She rolls over, straddles my hips, slides her hands up under my shirt, fingernails running lightly across my abdomen. Now that’s something I haven’t felt in a while.

  “I want to see the rest,” she says.

  “Not that I’m implying anything, but are you going to try to eat me and suck out my soul?”

  “Does that happen a lot?”

  “Enough for it to be a question.”

  “Only if you ask very nicely,” she says.

  “Well, then,” I say, running my hands along her hips and up her back. “How could I possibly say no?”

  —

  Tabitha’s asleep, sprawled out in the king size bed next to me. I can’t stop thinking about Boudreau. The idea that he or his ghost or whatever could possibly still be around is absurd. I go over that night in my head a thousand times, play his death over and over again in my head.

  He’s dead. Dead as he could possibly be. But what if he’s not?

  That thought keeps nagging at me and I push it aside once more. No, either he left something behind or—and here’s something I hadn’t considered—someone’s trying to make me think Boudreau is back. But why? Griffin sure as hell isn’t going to offer any clues. And Santa Muerte, well, she’d be happy to tell me if I gave myself over to her lock, stock and screaming soul.

  Alex mentioned some homeless burnout. Henry Ellis. Only lead I’ve got. And the sooner I find him the better.

  Tabitha stirs beside me, cracks a sleepy eye open. “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey yourself.”