That, or he’d got used to it. He leaned back against the door, paused. Nope, gone.
Alison placed her bag on the dining table, and looped her arms around Ted’s neck. She kissed him lightly on the lips. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
“Thank you very much. It’s great to be here,” said Ted in his best Elvis voice. He smiled and hugged Alison back. Over her shoulder he saw his laptop on. “I need a new computer.”
Alison let go and turned to the table. “Practicing your Chinese, eh? You’re back at work and already you want Benny’s job covering the Chinatown beat?” She laughed.
Ted frowned. He leaned over the computer, tapping the down cursor with one finger, the page scrolled on the screen.
The repeated text was back, in a neat column down the page, but instead of the fortune from the restaurant, it was a string of Chinese characters. They really were Chinese, he could see that now, not Korean like the mysterious note.
“Hmm,” said Ted, and he quickly closed the lid of the laptop.
“Are you OK?”
Ted turned around, smiled, but Alison’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m fine, really.”
“Look, I’ll stay tonight, OK?”
“I’d like that, thanks.” Ted stepped forward and put his arms around Alison’s waist. He kissed her nose.
“And tomorrow we’ll go back to the ER, OK? Get you checked out again.”
Ted sighed. “OK, fine.” She was right. He was feeling better, seemed to have got his sleep pattern back to normal, but he knew the dangers of head injuries, even ones that seemed mild and benign. Especially the ones that seemed mild and benign.
Ted smiled and studied his own reflection in Alison’s eyes. Here was a woman who loved him, cared about him. He needed that right now.
“So,” said Alison, “we going to stand here all night?”
Ted shook his head. “Standing wasn’t what I had in mind.” He grinned.
“You, my love, need to get some sleep.”
“Aw,” said Ted, mock hurt in his voice. Alison laughed.
“Come on,” she said, leading him to the bedroom.
— XV —
AQUATIC PARK, SAN FRANCISCO
TODAY
Aquatic Park was packed with tourists and locals alike. It was a fine morning and already people were sitting around on the concrete tiers by the beach. Waiting for Bob and his famous ocean-side dance lessons.
The crowd parted in front of him as he approached. Some even clapped. Phones and tablets were raised, photos taken. It was ridiculous, he thought, like he was some Z-list celebrity stepping out onto the red carpet.
But this was what he wanted, right? To live on Earth, to live among humanity. To do something that made people happy. There was nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Except the adulation, even minor adulation – cheesy holiday photos and tourists tittering over the bronzed surfer dude who like to walk around with his shirt off – was an echo of something else. Something Bob had experienced long, long ago, when crowds had parted for him, when they had looked upon him with adulation and lust. As they walked across hot coals to kiss his feet. As they skewered virgin sacrifices on sharpened poles to please him, sate his hunger.
Bob frowned, turned around to face the crowd, and waved for attention. There were some memories he didn’t want to dwell on.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Thanks for coming down here, you know, on such a nice day. I’ll be doing lessons shortly, but just lemme slip into something more comfortable, OK?”
More laughter and applause. A woman in the crowd called out and Bob pretended not to hear it, but the crowd laughed in response. With a wave, Bob walked off down the beach, toward the maritime museum and his little hut. He unlocked the padlock on the door without a key – he figured a little magic wouldn’t hurt, right? Nobody would notice that – and stepped into the dark interior. He yanked on the pull cord of the main light.
Benny was sitting on the floor, legs folded, chin in her hands. Bob hissed in surprise. Then he quickly checked over his shoulder to make sure the coast was clear, and shut the door behind him.
“You gave me a hell fright there, brah.”
“Kanaloa,” said Benny. “We–”
Bob leaned against the back of the door. He knocked on it with his knuckles, then took a breath and pointed at Benny.
“Don’t you call me that, Benny. Kanaloa has been dead for a long time. My name is Bob.”
Benny unfolded herself from the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but there’s something going on that needs his attention.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” said Bob. He pushed off the door, pulled the folded paper from his back pocket, and offered it to his surprise guest. “I was looking for you, but found this instead. Know anything about it?”
Benny took it, unfolded it, looked briefly at the symbol. Then she held it out to Bob. Bob didn’t move, didn’t take it back.
“That was for Ted,” said Benny. “The–”
“The sigil of Tangun the Founder, yes, I know. I can read it. Thing is, Ted can’t.”
“You sure about that?”
Bob cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“You know Nezha is dead.”
Bob shrugged. “I didn’t think gods died. They just fade away.”
“He died here. In San Francisco.”
Bob pursed his lips. OK, that was different. Gods were born and gods died, but not in the mortal realm. Up there, in the pantheon, sure, they came and went, grew old or young, died, were reborn, changed form, did whatever the hell they liked. Some got fed up and bored, died, and didn’t come back. It wasn’t the same kind of death that life in the mortal realm knew. Heavenly death was just another change of form.
But that did explain the odd feeling he’d had, the sensation that Nezha had dropped by and then gone, suddenly.
“He was murdered,” said Benny.
“And how do you murder a god, exactly?”
“That’s what we need to find out. Tangun wants to talk to Kanaloa.”
“Can’t you give him a message?”
“Doesn’t work like that.”
“Of course not.”
“Look,” said Benny. “This is some serious shit. Nezha was murdered. In his last act, he hid his power in the city. In a damn fortune cookie.”
Bob whistled. He looked around the inside of the small hut, at the Playboy calendar forever set to August 1959, at the homemade shelves with plastic Hulu dolls in a row, and the tiki mug carved with the image of an angry Hawaiian god. Bob frowned at that one, turned it around so the face wasn’t looking at him. There was another image on the back – the same god, smiling. Better.
“Nezha was a trickster, for sure. Never saw the point of that myself,” said Bob to the shelf.
“We represent power in all forms.”
“And how do you know this, exactly?” Bob turned around, arms folded.
“Tangun is here. He’s looking for Nezha’s power. He tried to lead me to it, but this is the whole point – I found it, but it didn’t go to me. It went to Ted.”
“So, get it back off him.”
Benny slipped the baseball cap off her head. “That’s the plan. Tangun’s plan, anyway.”
“His plan involves leaving Ted little notes that he can’t even read?” Bob held up the folded paper again.
“Ted can’t read it, but whatever is left of Nezha within him can. He should recognize the summons.”
“Ted had no clue when he gave it to me. Said he’d ask you to read it.”
Benny replaced her cap, pulling her ponytail around and playing with the end of it. Bob sighed.
“Why can’t Tangun just grab him, anyway?”
Benny shrugged. “No use asking me. He likes to do things his way, I guess.”
“Anyway,” said Bob. “There’s something else too. Listen up.” He explained his visit to Mrs Winters’ house and the strange fi
re. As he did, Benny just shook her head in confusion.
“So, it’s like before?” she asked when Bob had finished. “In, what, oh-six?”
Bob nodded. “And ’89, yeah. Kinda. Feels different this time. Before, it just happened, no warning, no build up. Now we’ve got signs. Like visions and omens and all that jazz.”
“And the old lady?”
Bob rubbed his chin. “She was just caught up in, I don’t know, the field of power.” He moved his hands around in the air, like he was shaping a globe. “Her daughter is murdered by the Hang Wire Killer and she thinks she’ll be reborn from earth and fire.” He frowned. “But it didn’t work. The house went up instead.”
“So she had no idea?”
Bob shook his head. “I don’t think so. She was just… going with the flow. She’s safe now, at least. I took her to the hospital and they found some family to look after her. She doesn’t remember a thing.”
“Do you think it’s connected with Nezha and the power he gave to Ted?”
“Could be,” said Bob. He ran a hand through his hair, then he turned back to his little shelf, looked at the tiki mug a moment. He turned it around so the face of the angry god was looking out again. “It’s waking up. The Thing Beneath. Maybe Nezha’s power did that too.”
“So what do we do?” asked Benny.
Bob turned around. “We do what we can. Tangun needs to stop shitting around and grab Ted. Once we’ve got the power out of him, maybe then we can figure this mess out.”
“OK. Good,” said Benny. “Good.”
“You sure?”
“Oh yeah, yeah. No problem. Tangun can be a real pain in the posterior, but I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Bob smiled. “Tell him that if he has a problem, he’ll have to take it up with the god of death himself.”
— XVI —
SHARON MEADOW, SAN FRANCISCO
TODAY
The lull before the rush, the calm before the proverbial storm. Rehearsals over, work done, preparations complete; as the early evening drew in, excitement slowly, quietly began to build among the performers. There were a couple of hours to kill before the gates opened. Time to chill, or try to, before the curtain rose.
Sara ducked around the side of the truck and waved at Kara, who checked left and right and then jogged across the open yard formed by the circle of trailers, across the blackened circle that demarcated the site of Stonefire’s nightly blaze, to join her partner at the truck. Kara pressed her fingers against the corrugated metal of the truck’s covered rear and gasped at the unexpected coldness of it. Sara shushed her and pulled her partner into the shadows between this vehicle and the next.
“What’s he doing now?”
Sara swung out from the truck to look. Ahead was a narrow corridor formed between two rows of transport vehicles parked nose-to-tail. It was a staff-only shortcut from the back of the main circus site to the carnival, where the tops of the big dipper and the Ferris wheel and the angled struts and colored lights of a dozen other rides towered above the trucks, all dull and unmoving.
Joel, the carnival manager, had just entered the passage between the trucks, making his way toward his domain, presumably to get the machines up and running, lights on, ready for the first members of the public to come and get a ride before the main show in the Big Top.
Joel was a loner, unpopular with the rest of the circus. He didn’t socialize; he never spoke. In fact, when Sara thought about it, the only times she saw him outside of show time he was either lurking in the shadows of the trucks, watching people – watching them – or getting into a fight with another member of the company, usually one of the Stonefire dancers.
There had been a lot of fights recently, since they’d arrived in San Francisco. There was something in the air, something… evil. Something connected with Joel. Sara and Kara had talked about it a lot, the way the creepy man seemed to be in the center of it all. Even the ringmaster, Mr Newhaven, seemed to bow to his employee. The girls had both seen them walk off into the shut-down carnival late at night. What they were doing in there, neither of them knew.
And then there was the missing steel cable. Everyone knew about it, even if Mr Newhaven hadn’t said anything to the company. The police hadn’t been called, despite what was going on in the city.
Which had also started, by Sara’s reckoning, around the time the caravan had set up in Sharon Meadow.
If the police came, if the local news got whiff of it… it would be the end of Zanaar’s caravan. The end of the road for everyone.
“Come on,” said Kara.
The sky was darkening. As the pair emerged from the makeshift tunnel leading to the back of the carnival site, they paused. The machines were turned off, their lights dead, and in the gloom they looked old and dangerous, like they would fall apart if you touched them. Or like someone was watching, and if you stood too close to a ride it would fall over onto you, trapping you between cold metal and wet grass.
It was probably Joel. The carnival was large and had plenty of nooks, and Joel seemed like the kind of guy who liked to sit in nooks and watch.
“There!”
Sara followed Kara’s finger, and saw Joel disappear around one of the rides. The pair hung back at the edge of the passageway, and a few seconds later Joel’s legs appeared behind a trailer as he took a left turn and walked around the back of a carnival machine.
Maybe the cable hadn’t been stolen. Maybe someone had sold it – to fund a drug habit? Joel seemed like the type, the way he acted, the way he swayed on his feet and stared, his mouth moving like he was talking to himself. Sometimes he’d laugh, and sometimes he’d nod, like his imaginary friend was talking back. If he was strung out on some shit then his paycheck from the circus wouldn’t nearly be enough. He couldn’t steal cash – Newhaven and the circus manager, Nadine, were pretty good at financial security, the takings collected by van each morning to be banked.
But Joel could have taken the cable and then sold it – the wire would have had good value as scrap metal, and while a full reel would have weighed a ton at least it was reasonably transportable.
Did he have any idea that the wire had been sold-on as a murder weapon? Hell, did he even watch the news or read the paper or browse the net? Did he even know about the killings? Sara bit her lower lip. She’d never seen him with a phone, unlike the others at the circus. In fact, Joel seemed so old fashioned, like a man out of time, that she couldn’t really picture Joel using any kind of technology. The carnival was old school, all painted wood and enameled metal showing stars and planets, and the recurring motif – a comet arcing through the heavens – was an archaic symbol, like the art of a silent movie.
They should go to Newhaven and Nadine, Kara and Sara both knew that, but they were afraid, because when it came to the manager of the carnival, the ringmaster seemed not to have too much control. The big draws of the circus were Highwire, Stonefire, and the old fashioned mechanical carnival. Newhaven wasn’t greedy but he knew how much the circus cost to run and he knew which of his employees he had not only to protect but to allow a little more free reign than others.
Joel had been a fucking weirdo on the whole tour. Las Vegas, Sacramento. But San Francisco seemed different. Highwire was new. So was the Stonefire bonfire – a ritual that kept the girls awake but didn’t seem to bother anyone else, almost like the whole circus was hypnotized in their trailers. Malcolm and his dancers were weird as well, taking their Disney version of Celtic warriors and princesses just a little too seriously, right down to the lack of personal hygiene. Then the fights had started, and Joel had started talking to himself.
Maybe it was the sea air and the San Francisco weather – baking hot with blue skies followed by freezing fog and gloom. But Kara had another theory. It was to do with space.
San Francisco was the first city in their tour in which the circus had really been able to spread out, the city offering them the prestigious patch of land in Golden Gate Park. For the first time, Jo
el had been able not only to get all of his fairground rides out of their trailers and unfolded from their trucks, but he’d been able to spread them out. The carnival was huge and drew people like a magnet, the wide-open spaces soon packed shoulder-to-shoulder.
It was nearly dark now, and still the carnival was dead, a collection of dull machines rusting in a field. In the gathering gloom their brightly colored designs and decorations looked washed out, faded, and very, very old. Sara wondered if the machines really were vintage. In the dying light, with their illuminations off, they were creepy as hell. Of Joel, there was no sign.
“Come on,” said Kara. She began to walk away, but stopped as Sara caught her arm. “What?”
Sara indicated the way ahead with a nod. “What are we going to do exactly?”
“We’re going to see what Joel is doing,” said Kara. She put one hand on a hip. “Remember?”
“Yeah, and then what?”
“Fine,” said Kara. “Go back to the trailer. I’ll see you at show time.” She turned and walked away.
Sara had a point, and she knew Kara knew it too. What were they going to do, exactly? Highwire seemed to have got the message, but there was no sign of him yet. They’d discussed it – the acrobat seemed to be different from the rest of the circus, separate. They didn’t know him – nobody did really – but they felt he could be trusted. Maybe he’d know what to do.
Sara pulled back, watching her partner stalk off across the grass, then swore under her breath and went to follow.
Then Kara fell over. She lay on the ground, shaking.
“Kara?” Sara drew a sharp breath. “Kara! Oh my God, Kara!”
She ran over to her friend and dropped to her knees. Kara’s eyes were rolled back into her head. Sara grabbed her shoulders, trying to hold her partner as she had some kind of seizure.
Kara twisted on the ground, foam at her lips, her eyelids fluttering.
“I… I… Belenus I… I… I… Belenus I…” she said, over and over. She bit her tongue and soon her mouth was filled with blood, but she kept talking, repeating the phrase that meant nothing to Sara.
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