Adderall, for example, can keep anybody awake and focused, but for a mage it makes their magic easier, faster. You see a lot of newbies depending on it, same with pit fighters. Yeah, we have pit fights. Two mages in, one mage out. It’s fucking brutal. But at one point or another we all use it. We’re bending reality into pretzel shapes, after all, and anything that makes that easier is going to be a popular choice. The only people who do more Adderall than mages are med students.
Pot doesn’t really do much for us unless it’s for a ritual that involves complete relaxation, and Valium works better. Acid is amateur hour. You’re a mage and need acid to expand your consciousness, just get out of the game.
Another popular one is ecstasy. Because A) it’s awesome and B) if you’re doing any kind of sex magic you get really good results. You can pull some impressive shit out of your hat on that stuff. But man, are you gonna feel it the next morning.
Now cocaine is special. Cocaine hits mages like it hits everyone else. It boosts confidence, gets you all jittery, generally feels good for a while, helps you make really bad decisions. Like doing more coke.
But the weird thing it does is fuck up truth magic.
It’s ironic. People on coke are horrible liars. It’s so fucking obvious they’re shoveling horseshit that nobody bothers to use it to defeat a truth finding spell.
Most truth spells are more like polygraphs than actual compulsions to tell the truth. Those exist, but they’re less like unlocking a door than they are taking the door down with a ten-pound sledge. The after-effects aren’t pretty.
What truth spells do really well is tell if someone believes they’re telling the truth. And right now, I need to believe like a Pentecostal snake-handler in a pit full of rattlesnakes with his dick hanging out his pants.
The trick is to get just high enough that it can fuck with the magic without taking you so over the top that nobody needs magic to tell you’re bullshitting them in the first place.
It’s like any drug that way. Get just enough of a buzz and you’re golden. Go too far, and you’re sitting naked on your ex-girlfriend’s lawn crying and screaming at her to take you back until the police come to tase you.
I drive up to the mansion’s gate, roll down the window, and stick my head out until I’m sure the camera on the post has a nice, clear view.
“Hi. I’m the guy whose head you want to cut off and stuff into a bowling bag,” I say. “I was thinking maybe we should talk.”
Chapter 28
Nothing happens for a good thirty seconds, and I’m starting to think that the offer of talking is not being received well, and men with guns and dangerous spells will be appearing from the bushes to kill me. But then the gates open up and I drive on into the compound.
Mansions in Beverly Hills never show any imagination. Oh, the people who live there might think they have imagination, that they’re decorating geniuses. The houses might look a little different, but it’s all the same standard bullshit. There’s a pool, indoor hot tub, tennis court, movie theater, the usual. It’s all the same posh shit everybody else on the block owns.
Mage houses, on the other hand, when they give no fucks about hiding who they are from other mages, really give no fucks. As soon as I’m across the threshold of the gate and around a bend of the private road leading to the house, everything changes. The sky goes from day to night and is ringed by a brilliant display that would put the northern lights to shame.
If I hadn’t just walked through the inside of a hotel’s ghost to get to a room on another planet filled with things that would make Cronenberg shit himself, I’d probably be impressed.
I slow down the car to let a unicorn herd cross the road. Seriously? Unicorns? I met a breeder one time who let me in on the secret that they’ve only been around since about 1920. They don’t advertise that fact, obviously. It’d be like De Beers admitting that a diamond is just a pretty rock.
I park the Corolla between a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and a black Bentley Continental. I resist the urge to “accidentally” bump into one of them.
The steps to the front door are lit with bioluminescent plants at the edges. The colors are vibrant and shifting, making it hard from a practical standpoint to actually see the steps. Probably by design to fuck with visitors.
What I don’t see are the security guards. I know they’re here. I probably have three of them standing behind me right now and if they’re using spells I’d never know. There’s so much magic in the air they could have an invisible 747 parked in the driveway and the only way I’d figure it out is to walk into it.
I get to the door, straighten my tie, pull my cuffs and look about as presentable as I’m ever likely to be. I knock on the door.
When it opens the smug look of satisfaction on Attila Werther’s face drops almost to a pout when he realizes I’m not surprised.
“I told everybody you weren’t dead,” I say. “Nobody ever listens to me. I mean, you’re what, a hundred? Hundred and fifty? You don’t live that long and not know how to get out of tight spaces.”
“Two hundred and three, actually. And credit where it’s due, I actually did have a harder time than expected. Had to sacrifice my driver to get back. You might as well come in. I can at least offer you a drink before killing you.”
I follow him inside. The door closes on its own behind me. The inside is all stark white marble, with black accents. I feel like I’ve walked into the end scene of 2001. “Power, grace, and snazzy interior design. You just don’t see that kind of thing anymore,” I say.
“I already pay someone to suck me off once a week, Mister Carter, so unless you’re applying for the position, stop trying to blow me and get to the point.” He leads me into a study that’s just as stark as everything else I’ve seen.
“Have a seat. Whiskey?” I sit in the proffered chair, a surprisingly comfortable wingback upholstered in . . . is this manticore fur? Huh. Haven’t seen that in a while.
“Given you’re probably gonna kill me anyway, I might as well go out with some quality hooch,” I say. “That’s a yes, by the way. Okay. The point. I didn’t murder any of those mages. And I didn’t murder your granddaughter.”
He hands me my whiskey. From the scent alone I can tell it’s quality. And I’m usually a whatever’s-closest-to-the-counter sort of whiskey drinker.
“A woman murdered my granddaughter with a bullet to the head in full view of everyone,” he says.
“Yeah. Funny, you’d think she’d be easier to find. Especially for someone with your resources.”
“Explain yourself,” he says. I pull the folder I got from Chu and hand it to him.
“Her name’s Jacqueline Sastre. She’s a sicaria for the cartels in Mexico. She’s very good and can do subtle if that’s the job, but she really likes the flashy shit. Particularly fire. And torture. They call her La Niña Quemada, the Burning Girl. She’s been hunting mages and setting them on fire using a magic Aztec lighter that will burn anything in nothing flat.”
He pulls the picture from her border crossing and examines it closely. “That’s the lighter, isn’t it? She let them take that picture. She wanted someone to see the lighter.” He looks up from the picture to me. “She wanted you to see it, didn’t she?”
“Yes. I recognized the lighter, and she knew I would because I used to have it. She’s not up here on her own. She’s working for the Aztec wind god Quetzalcoatl. Near as I can tell, her whole job was to sow as much chaos as possible and point it at me to keep me off balance. Quetzalcoatl wanted to push me in the direction of finding a thing they think I have, but I don’t.”
He looks through the remaining photos and reports before saying, “That’s quite a story. I wouldn’t believe it of anyone if I hadn’t heard about your recent troubles in Mictlan ”
“You’re well informed.”
“I have eyes and ears everywhere, Mister Carter. I’m sure
you understand.”
“You also don’t have any family in Europe that gives enough of a rat’s ass about you to put a bounty on my head. You did it hoping to either have someone kill me, or flush me out and do it yourself. What if somebody had taken me down and showed up with my head? Would you have paid up?”
“Oh, absolutely. I have a reputation to maintain, you know. I’d let them enjoy some of the luxuries of the upper crust and then have them quietly killed in their sleep.”
“Kinda figured.”
“You have a history with Quetzalcoatl.”
“History. That’s an interesting word for it. You know I was in Mictlan. Do you know why I was in Mictlan?”
“I’ve only heard rumors,” he says. “Something ridiculous about you becoming some sort of king of the dead.”
“I was trying to avoid it, actually. I sort of succeeded. More or less. Anyway, before I went down there I made a request of the spirit of the Santa Anas. You know how wind spirits work. They all mix and match and fuck each other and what one knows eventually they all know.”
“I see. And Quetzalcoatl, being a wind god, got into the conversation and gave you what you were looking for. His price was what, exactly?”
“Burn down Mictlan with that lighter. He doesn’t like the place or the people. Holds a grudge like a motherfucker. That lighter contains the last of the god Xiuhtecuhtli’s fire. You light something in Mictlan, the whole place will go up. You light it out here, it’s a lot more limited, but you’ve seen what it can do to a building and a person.”
“I see,” he says. “It sounds as though he has something personal against you. It sounds like if I just killed you, this whole mess would end.”
“I thought that, too. And yeah, it probably would. For a while. But they’d just find some other patsy later and try again. You know Darius, right?”
“The Djinn? Yes, I’ve met him. Ah, they think you have his prison.” He looks at me carefully and—wait for it. There we go. I feel the touch of magic coming from him. Let’s hope that noseful of Bolivian flake I did earlier does its job. “Do you?”
“If I did, do you think we’d be having this conversation?”
“Fair enough. But why do they think that’s what they want? Or that you have it?”
“My grandfather was part of an archaeological dig on Catalina after the war that found some Spanish artifacts. I guess he was known as something of a collector? Anyway, Catalina Island, Spanish artifacts, Cabrillo dead on one of the islands. You know about Darius, it’s not a big leap. Also, bit of trivia I picked up in Mictlan, Darius and Quetzalcoatl helped the Spanish kick the shit out of the Aztecs. If anybody knows what Darius can do, it’s him.”
“Interesting,” he says. “So how did you figure this out?”
I mentally cross my fingers. Lying indirectly like I did when he asked if I had the bottle is one thing. Talking complete bullshit is something else entirely. It helps to pepper it with enough truth to make it plausible bullshit.
“Somebody kept pushing on me to see if I could find a spirit bottle strong enough to trap Quetzalcoatl and started talking about rumors about my grandfather. That rang alarm bells.
“You know the L.A. Library has digitized copies of every city newspaper going back to the 1840s? Didn’t take long to find the stories. I’m thinking someone found them a while ago, dug into the history, drew some connections, and got Quetzalcoatl involved. Now whoever did it knows Q wants that bottle, and they want it, too. Whichever one of them gets their hands on it first can let Darius loose to kick the shit out of the other. They’re not only betting I have the bottle, but they’re also counting on me not knowing what the bottle is.”
“That’s an interesting theory. You have a suspect?”
“I do, but proving it might be a little tough.” Not that I really care about proving it. I know the fucker doing this. I don’t need proof. But a veritable king like Werther, here, he will.
“Would a confession work for you?” I say. “If they did do it, then not only did they start all this mayhem, but they might as well have fired the gun that killed your granddaughter.”
“I’m not sure if you’re lying or not,” he says. Thank fuck for that.
“I’m not a very good liar,” I say. “Look at it this way. If it turns out I have lied to you, you’ll just kill me. Hell, you might just kill me, anyway. But if I’m telling the truth, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to aim your vengeance at the wrong person. Not because I think you care much about innocents, but the real killer would get away.”
“And I suppose you’d like something in return for pointing me toward the real killer?”
“Call off the bounty. That file’s already circulating. People are already figuring out I didn’t murder their families. But it doesn’t matter a rat’s ass if they still think they’re gonna hit the jackpot by parading my head in front of you on a stick.”
He downs his whiskey. Is it too early to be drinking? I pop amphetamines like they’re Tic Tacs, so the fuck do I know? I toss mine back, and wait to see if he bought it.
“All right,” he says. “What do you need from me?”
Chapter 29
Everything burns. Flames crawl along the floorboards, up the walls. They dance along the ceiling, flowing and dripping like a living thing. Outside the window I can see the rest of the city. The fires have spread, the streets are aflame. Cars are engulfed, paint stripped to glowing metal underneath, asphalt bubbling as it boils. Corpses lie on the sidewalks, trapped in cars, charred black, limbs contracted, drawn in from the overwhelming heat.
This is my fault. I brought this here. I brought this down on all these people not because of something I did, but because of who I am. I’m the guy with the key to an extradimensional room in a dead hotel, the guy with a bottle holding an entity that can crack worlds, the guy with a storage unit filled with the sorts of toys you play with only in nightmares.
“Everything dies, Eric. Everything is covered in blood. Whatever you touch you destroy.” Santa Muerte with Tabitha’s voice walks beside me down the street, a snow of ash falling to cover us both, her wedding dress as red as the embers in the flesh of burning corpses. “This is what it means to be king of the dead.”
“Open the bottle.” Gabriela on my other side. The front of her shirt soaked in blood, her eyes hungry, face feral. “Imagine what you could do if you let Darius loose. A Djinn that powerful, you could remake the world. Or give it to me. I’ll do it.”
“And let’s face it,” Vivian says, leaning over my shoulder from behind, her skin blackened and split like overdone barbecue. “It’s a pretty shitty world.”
* * *
—
I bolt up from the dream, sweating, panting. Panic wells up inside me. I can’t tell where I am, what’s real, what isn’t.
I’m in my motel room. I came back here after seeing Werther to try to get some sleep before the festivities start. A few things are hazy. Somewhere in there I remember calling MacFee. He used a teleportation charm to send me what I bought. Did I actually agree to get rid of fifty goats for this guy? I wonder if they like goats in Mictlan.
I’ve gotten about four hours of sleep. That’s more than I’ve had in the last few days and I could sleep for another twenty. The bruises and cuts don’t feel as bad, and my ribs don’t feel like the rotting beams of a house somebody should have torn down years ago.
Then I move and it all goes to shit. Vicodin, a hot shower, I’ll be just fine. But Jesus, the last couple days have taken their toll. I only have a few hours, and I still have a lot to do.
I shower, shave, get cleaned up. Fresh Band-Aids across my road rash knuckles, on various cuts and gashes I hadn’t noticed before. Gotta look professional for the shindig later.
Then I get to work. I pour some Morton’s salt in a circle around me for protection. At the cardinal points I place a bowl filled with dir
t, another with water, a dish with a lit candle, and a blown-up balloon. Hey, fuck you. If you can think of a better way to represent air, I’m all ears.
The spell I got from MacFee is complicated, dangerous for amateurs, and has lots of moving parts. I could never hope to do it on my own. That’s why the people he got it from have put it together in convenient kit form. It’s less like chanting in ancient Aramaic for fifteen hours to summon pit demons than it is like following instructions from Ikea. About half an hour later, I’m done. And I don’t even have any left-over Swedish screws.
Sitting on the table is a perfect—as perfect as I can recreate from my own memories and photos on my phone—likeness of Darius’s bottle. I go over it one more time. Make sure the sigils match, the colors are right, the brass is tarnished in the right places.
Satisfied that it’s as close as I can possibly get, down to how I remember the feel of the glass and the acid-etched glyphs, I delete the photos from my phone and pack the fake bottle in its case.
MacFee sources some good shit, I gotta admit. He works with a group that does high-end glamours. Really high end. There are pretty young things walking the runway or starring in blockbuster films who aren’t what they appear to be. Hell, they’re not even human. You’d be amazed how many famous actors and actresses have been around since before talkies were even a thing.
I’ve got an hour to kill so I turn on some 24-hour news channel and watch a talking head tell me that the Vernon fire is contained and they expect to have it out in the next day or so. But the damage is done. Hospitals are at capacity. The county morgue doesn’t have enough room for all the bodies, so they’ve got them stored in hospitals, funeral homes, refrigerated trucks.
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