Bob looked up at the carnival monster. It was standing still, swaying, the spinning carousel like a gyroscope, keeping the top-heavy construct balanced. The pipe organ droned on, but the thing wasn’t moving.
Yet.
Bob looked deep into the construct. It wasn’t moving, because it was changing, rearranging its internal structure, converting the mash of carnival rides into something far more complex. Each piece was shifting slowly, interlocking like a complex puzzle. Nuts and bolts and bars forming logic gates and switches, creating mechanical algorithms for life. A spine had formed, reinforced at the neck to better support the huge carousel. What had once been a dozen separate Nineteenth Century fairground rides was becoming a single machine.
It was becoming Belenus, the Celtic god who never was, made real in a collection of fairground attractions.
Bob braced himself on the ground. Now was their chance, before the construct finished remodeling. The solution seemed simple: separate the machines.
He glanced at Ted. Ted was looking up at the construct, his hands green fire.
“Ready?” asked Bob. Ted nodded without taking his eyes from the machine.
Bob summoned the ocean and rose into the air on the crest of a tidal wave. It carried him up, allowing him to leap onto the construct’s chest. The machine shook and sparked as the water flooded through it, shorting the electrical systems, making the lights over its surface flicker. Bob grabbed at metal panels and began to tear them off. He reached inside the grinding guts of the machine, the moving parts jamming against his arm. He began pulling at anything that was within his grasp.
As he did, he felt the hunger grow along with the lightness in his head. He could dissolve the entire machine with a thought. And… why not? It would be so easy. They were running out of time, and here they were, playing. Even as he ripped out one piece, another moved to compensate, the construct rebuilding itself around the damage. It was a waste of time.
And then, he thought, once he’d destroyed the machine, he could make sure that San Francisco was never in danger from earthquakes again. The tectonic plates could be realigned, fixed.
And then, he thought, he could make some alterations to the city. Make it better.
And then, he thought, he could begin again, teaching the inhabitants of the city what it was to have an angry god as their lord and master. Oh, they would walk over fire for him. They would feed him with their blood and their souls.
Kanaloa, god of the ocean, looked at the molecular structure of the machine he clung to, and started making some changes.
Ted watched Bob, clinging to the front of the swaying machine. He’d started pulling the thing to pieces, twisted metal debris falling to the ground as Bob threw bits over his shoulder. But the machine was large, and Bob was making slow progress. Ted was surrounded by green fire, but he knew that wasn’t really him doing it. It was Nezha, the echo of a godly spirit that was still inside him, whispering Chinese riddles into his ear in a constant stream. He didn’t understand any of it.
Then Bob stopped moving. He clung to the front of the construct as it rocked on its feet, but he’d pulled his hand out of its interior.
The whispering in Ted’s ear grew loud as the green fire in his hands flared bright. Suddenly he understood the words being spoken to him.
Listen to me, Ted. Kanaloa must be stopped, for if he is not stopped, he will surely destroy the world.
Ted shook his head. “I–”
I said we had one chance, Ted. Kanaloa must be stopped. He asked you to do this.
“But–”
Kanaloa has a powerful will, but even he will not be able to resist for long. The power will drive him insane. There is nothing left to check it. Except you, Ted. Except you.
You are the master of every situation, Ted. Remember that.
Ted looked up at the carousel.
Yes, whispered Nezha. There. The center. The nexus. I will help.
Ted vanished from the ground in a puff of green smoke and reappeared on the carousel, riding one of the wooden horses. The world outside was a multicolored blur; the carousel was spinning impossibly fast, but within its bounds it was still and quiet, like he was not in the real world anymore. Ted swung himself off the horse. Behind his back, he heard it rear and neigh; when he looked over his shoulder it was still. Then its eyes rolled around to look at him. Time seemed to be moving differently within the ride. Slower.
Excellent work, Ted. I knew I could rely on you.
Ted turned back to the carousel’s hub. To the pipe organ, to the monkey with glowing red eyes that sat atop it. The organ and the monkey flickered like a zoetrope. Ted realized the carousel was still rotating around the stationary center.
“Why am I an acrobat?” Ted asked.
I needed a tool, Ted. I had grown tired, old, and was going to pass my power on. But before I was ready I was killed. So I hid the power for you to find it and use it, hunting my killer, stopping him before his own power grew too strong.
Time slowed to a crawl. The wooden horse behind Ted neighed again.
“But why the circus? And why me?”
Think, Ted. Think! I could feel the power of the circus. I knew that to be the source. But I was dead. I needed you to be my eyes and ears. I needed you to stop the killer in the city. I also needed you at the circus, to find the course. So I created the acrobat. With his abilities you could give chase to the killer while investigating the circus.
“Except I didn’t know anything about it, did I?”
Yes, well. Forgive me. I’m a trickster at heart. The fortune cookie, the acrobat. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s my nature.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
The striped wooden pole next to Ted’s head exploded in a shower of splinters. He spun around, and saw the rides behind him now occupied by wooden soldiers. Here, in the in-between-world of the spinning carousel, they were alive and moving. Three reloaded their flintlock rifles while the other three were taking aim. Behind them, the world outside spun by in a silent kaleidoscope of color.
I’m sorry, Ted. You didn’t have all of my power. If you had, then we could have worked together, you and I. But it has taken this long for me to get a hold of your mind.
Ted turned back to the monkey and felt the bullets hit his back. There was pain and green fire. Then the pain vanished.
“Was that you?”
Quickly. I can protect you for only so long. We must reach the center.
The hub of the carousel was a step higher than the platform itself. Ted pulled himself onto the back of a horse that had a writhing starfish for a head, swung his legs around to the side facing the hub, and jumped. Behind him, the creature screamed in agony as it was shredded by another volley of shots from the soldiers.
The Cold Dark is there. It does not belong here, Ted. It lives in the jeweled eyes of the monkey – the last fragments of a great comet that fell to Earth.
Ted pulled himself up the front of the pipe organ. Here, at the hub, the centrifugal force of the real world seemed to take effect, threatening to throw him spinning away. Fighting against the force, his hands burning green, Ted pulled himself up, until he was within reach of the monkey.
Hands grabbed his ankles, his legs. He kicked backward, but it was like kicking a tree trunk. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the wooden soldiers clambering over the rides. One had crossed from the platform to the hub, and now hung from Ted’s legs as it was pulled out and away by the centrifugal force.
The monkey. It sat unmoving on the organ, its red eyes glowing.
Ted felt his grip slip. He slid down the organ before regaining a hold, and felt the weight on his legs shift. He glanced down, and saw the soldier’s rifle pointed at his head.
Ted let go of the front of the organ with one hand and grabbed the rifle. He pulled it toward him in one swift movement, pulling his head out of the way. The soldier fired the gun. At nearly point-blank range, the bullet was right on target.
&n
bsp; It hit the monkey’s right eye. The gem shattered and the pipe organ howled. Ted pushed backward on the rifle barrel, and the wooden solider lost his grip. One kick, and it slipped off Ted, colliding with the edge of the spinning platform and disintegrating into splinters.
Ted pulled himself up, and reached out a glowing green hand. He grabbed the monkey’s remaining eye, and pulled.
The world exploded in red and green, and Ted fell backward. Waves crashed in, and the voice of Nezha rang in his ears.
You are the master of every situation.
You are the master of every situation.
You are the master of every situation.
And then:
Well done, Ted. I knew I picked the right one!
Ted coughed up a thick mixture of seawater, bile and mucous, and rolled onto his side. A hand appeared in his vision.
“Thanks, brah.”
Ted grabbed the hand and Bob pulled him up. Ted was soaked through, the water on his face warm and salty. Bob was dry as a bone.
“Kanaloa?”
Bob smiled, held up a hand. “It’s Bob, please.”
Ted pushed the wet hair from his eyes and looked around. The fairground field, already torn up from the earth’s tremors and the movement of the machines, was a muddy morass, the churned ground covered in broken and bent metal. Ted recognized one of the Ferris wheel passenger buckets, and one of the rotating clown heads buried upside down to the nose in the dirt.
Ted held up his hand, uncurled his fingers. In his palm sat a large red gem. It shone in the night, like it had an internal light of its own.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyes on the gem. It looked – it felt – dangerous.
“Yeah, well,” Bob said. “It was close. Good job, Ted.”
Ted shook his head. “I don’t understand. What did I do?”
“Well,” said Bob. “Must admit I lost it there. That’s the problem with power, especially power you haven’t used in, oh, a long time. Drives a hunger, right here.” He patted his bare stomach with a fist. “But that hunger was satisfied, just at the right time.”
“I still don’t know what I did. I was up on the carousel.” He frowned, and listened. Nezha’s whispering voice had stopped, the presence of the trickster god was gone. The circus was quiet.
“That,” said Bob. He pointed at the gem in Ted’s hand. “Whatever you did, you broke the connection the Cold Dark had with the Thing Beneath. It was rebuilding the construct, so when you interfered you released a whole ocean of energy. Snapped me right out of it.” He nodded. “Thanks, Brah. I mean it.”
Ted frowned. “I’m not sure it’s me you have to thank. I was just doing what Nezha told me.”
Bob tilted his head. “Is he still there?”
Ted paused, and shook his head. “No. I feel… like me.”
“You didn’t have all his power,” said Bob. “Maybe it wasn’t him you heard, not really. Just an echo of his power. You probably burned it out of yourself when you entered the carousel.”
“He said he was protecting me, but that he couldn’t do it for long.”
Bob shrugged. “And farewell to the trickster. You’re back to being you.”
Ted nodded. Then he looked around the circus ruins. “What about all this? The people in the circus.”
“They were all consumed by it. Their energy converted to create the golems.” Bob kicked at a pile of earth.
“They’re all dead?”
Bob nodded.
Ted sat on the ground. “Jesus.”
“But we stopped it,” said Bob, joining Ted. “It would have taken the city, and then California, then the West Coast, then…well,” he held his hands out.
Ted nodded. “So… can’t you, I don’t know, do something?”
Bob shook his head. “I can’t. I almost lost it once. Any more and…” He clicked his fingers, then paused. He was looking at the glowing gem in Ted’s hand, then he held out his own hand. “Give me the stone.”
“What?”
“I can’t use my own power,” Bob said, lifting the gem from Ted’s palm. “But I don’t have to.”
His fist curled around the gem and he closed his eyes. Ted took a step back.
Then Bob opened his eyes. Ted saw green and blue swirling colors, shining in the night, and the sound of the ocean far away, like he had put a shell to his ear.
Bob smiled. “Guess what?”
Ted shook his head, unable to find the right answer.
Bob rolled his neck, like he was a weightlifter about to go for gold.
“Tonight, everybody gets to live.”
— POSTSCRIPT —
ASIAN ART MUSEUM, SAN FRANCISCO
TOMORROW
It was a small ceremony at the Asian Art Museum. Ted, Alison, and Bob were special guests at the presentation.
The gift was spectacular: an antique set of Korean ceremonial armor, donated anonymously. The provenance was immaculate, the paperwork perfect. As stipulated in the gift, ownership of the artifact was to be held jointly between the Museum of Asian Arts in San Francisco and the National Museum of South Korea, with the piece swapping between the two in ten-year cycles. In the interim, scholars from both institutes could have full access to the armor, so it could be fully documented and researched. The richly embroidered robe included text that claimed it was the ceremonial armor of Tangun, the legendary first king of Korea, but Tangun was nothing more than a myth.
Like Kanaloa, the Hawaiian god of the ocean. Like Nezha, the Chinese trickster.
“You OK?” asked Ted, offering Alison a glass of champagne. She took it and smiled. The museum reception was a glamorous evening affair that allowed invited guests to browse the exhibits, Tangun’s armor pride of place. Alison looked at the display, sipped her drink.
“I’ll miss her,” she said.
Ted put his arm around her waist. “Me too,” he said.
Bob had burned the fairground to destroy the machines. It was ruled an accident, the giant – illegal – bonfire of the circus having collapsed during a minor earthquake that shook San Francisco, setting the whole carnival alight.
The circus fire had made headlines around the world. It was a miracle, everyone said. The entire fair had been razed, utterly, yet there were just two people unaccounted for – Joel Duvall, the manager of the carnival rides, and Jonathan “Jack” Newhaven, the ringmaster. Their bodies had never been recovered, and it was assumed they had perished in the inferno. That the rest of the performers and staff were accounted for, with only a handful of minor injuries, was a blessing. Likewise the earthquake, which had been small, sparing the city itself from much major damage. In the days after the quake there was no sign of the Hang Wire Killer. The police investigation continued, but leaks to the press from somewhere inside the SFPD suggested detectives were considering whether the serial killer was among the dozen citizens killed by collapsing buildings during the tremors.
Bob and Ted had found Alison still in Benny’s apartment, watching the sleeping ringmaster. The armor was there, empty. And then Bob had sat her and Ted down, and told them his story, and the story of the pantheon of which he was a part. He told them about Nezha the Magician. He told them about Tangun, and the legacy that Benny carried down her family line. Alison explained what had happened, that Tangun had said he would look after Benny.
They considered Jack, the ringmaster. Bob told them he would wipe his memory, like he had the resurrected members of the circus. Just to be sure. Then he’d take him back home to Vermont. He’d set him up as an antique dealer, or something. His life with the circus would be forgotten forever.
“What about Kanaloa?” Ted had asked, as he and Alison held each other on the couch. Alison was shaking, afraid, perhaps, of the god who stood in front of them in his faded blue jeans.
“My name isn’t Kanaloa,” said the god. “My name is Bob, and San Francisco is my home.”
“And me.”
Alison turned around. Bob smiled at her and sipped fr
om his own glass of champagne. He was back in the linen shirt, unbuttoned nearly to the waist.
“But,” he said, “she’s fine. Trust me.”
Alison turned to Ted, and Ted nodded. She turned back to Bob.
“We need a new writer,” she said. “Someone to cover Chinatown. And maybe write something about ballroom dancing.” Alison drew in closer to Bob, eying the people around them to ensure nobody was listening in. “And look, this whole god thing kinda freaks me out, but if Kanaloa really is gone for good…”
Bob raised his glass. “Relax. He’s not coming back. And thanks for the offer – it would be good to get out there, among everyone. I think Benny would like that.”
Ted smiled, and kissed Alison on the cheek.
“Yes,” he said. “I think she would.”
Alison raised her glass. “To absent friends.”
“To new beginnings,” said Bob, touching his glass to Alison’s and Ted’s. He took a sip, then turned to look at Tangun’s armor, proudly on display.
“New beginnings,” he said, lifting his glass once more.
Ted appeared at his shoulder. “I can certainly drink to that,” he said. He sipped his champagne, and as Bob turned away, cocked his head. He thought he heard a whisper, something just over his shoulder, but when he turned around there was nobody there.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped get this book into your hands, in particular Stacia J N Decker, agent extraordinare and valued friend, who once more went above and beyond the call of duty with another set of life-changing editorial notes.
To Amanda Taylor, who not only put up with endless emails about San Francisco – including its history, geography, weather, public parks, bylaws, suburbs, the works – but also found the time to read large sections of the text and provide much valued suggestions and comments: oh boy, thank you. Your essential help is deeply appreciated. I do hope you enjoy the end result.
Thanks to my editor Lee Harris, and to Will Staehle for another amazing cover. It was a difficult brief, but man, what a result.
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