for more than a week.
So, what the hell does Lucifer want? I don’t have my gun or the na’at with me, which is probably just as well. I have the black knife and the stone Lucifer gave me the last time we saw each other. I tested it. I’ve thrown every kind of magic I can think of at it and it seems to just be a rock. I don’t know why I carry the damned thing around. Superstition, maybe. When the devil tells you you might need something someday, I figure it pays to listen. Between the rock, Azazel’s knife, the na’at, Mason’s lighter, and Kasabian’s head, I’m starting to feel like a Gnostic junkyard.
As I cruise the streets, my mind wanders. Never a good idea. An image of Alice tries to form in my brain, but I concentrate on the lights, the billboards, and the other cars and it goes away. I spend a fair amount of time and energy not thinking about Alice these days. On the other hand, I think about Mason all the time. I know Kasabian knows more about Mason than he’s telling me. I’d love to get some alone time with the Daimonion Codex, but I’m not willing to get my head cut off for the privilege.
THE KISSI I don’t think about much, but I dream about them. Their vinegar reek chokes me while their fingers dig around inside my chest like bony worms.
I PUSH A recessed sci-fi button on the armrest and one of the Veyron’s windows slides down silently, like a tinted ghost. I turn off Hollywood Boulevard onto Sunset, go about half a block, and flip a James Bond U-turn in the middle of the street. Kick the Veyron back into gear and burn rubber to the little strip mall where Doc Kinski’s clinic is located. The Veyron bottoms out as I turn into the parking lot. A couple of local geniuses have broken into the doc’s office and are carrying out armloads of junk. Nice timing. I’m just in the mood to hit someone.
I throw open the door and come around the car looking for which one to smack first and all the fun goes out of it. It isn’t thieves after all. It’s Kinski and Candy. They’re loading boxes of scrolls and the doc’s strange medicines and elixirs. They’re as surprised to see me as I am seeing them. We all just stand there looking at each other for a minute like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I threw a perfectly good cigarette out the window for this. The doc hands a box to Candy. She keeps loading while he comes over to talk to me.
“Nice to see you, doc. I don’t suppose you got any of the like fifty messages I left you? With most people I’d stop calling, but I used to think we were friends. Then after a while I kept calling because I was plain pissed off and thought I’d spread the joy.”
“Things have been a little crazy. Sorry. We’re doing a lot of work away from the clinic.”
“So I noticed.”
Candy is carrying smaller and smaller boxes one at a time to the car so she doesn’t have to come over. I give her a big talk-show smile.
“Hi. How are you?”
She stops loading for a second, but stays by the rear of the car.
“Okay. How have you been?”
“Getting my arm about burned off and the rest of me beat to shit by vampires. I was hoping maybe one of you would return my call and help me out with that since that’s what I thought you did for a living. Don’t worry, though. I got some Bactine.”
“Problem solved, then,” says Kinski.
“I hope you’re doing some superfine doctoring wherever it is you’ve been going. You better have figured out how to cure cancer with ice cream or something ’cause your reputation is going to shit around here.”
Kinski takes a step closer, speaking quietly.
“There’s a lot going on in the world that doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re always going to get burned up. Or your ass kicked by vampires. Sinatra sings ‘My Way’ and you crack your ribs. You’re a walking disaster area and I can’t fix that for you.”
“Thanks all to hell, doc. You’re a real chip off the Hippocratic oath. I’d ask you for a referral to another doctor but L.A. is full of assholes, so it shouldn’t be hard to find one.”
“You want some advice? Start stealing ambulances instead of flashy cars. Allegra can take care of you until we get back. That’s all I can do for you right now.”
“Where is it you need to be so fast? Are you two okay?”
“Candy and I need to be elsewhere. We need to be there soon, and standing here talking to you isn’t getting us any closer.”
Kinski goes to his car and Candy gets inside. I walk around to the passenger side and look in the window at her. She looks at me, away, and then back. There’s something in her eyes that I can’t quite figure out. It’s more than being uncomfortable about when we kissed at Avila, but I can’t tell what. Did she fall off the wagon again and kill someone?
Kinski starts the car and guns the engine. He takes the brake off, and I step out of the way so he can line up the car for the street. I’m getting back in the Veyron when I hear a car door open and slam shut. A second later Candy is next to me. She grabs me around the neck.
“I miss you, but we have to go. Things will be okay soon. You’ll see.”
She pecks me on the lips, turns, and gets back in the car. The doc steers them out onto Sunset, where they disappear into traffic.
THE CHATEAU MARMOT is a giant white castle on a green hill and it looms over Sunset like it fell out of a passing UFO. It fits in with the surrounding city with all the subtlety of a rat on a birthday cake. Make that a French rat. The place is a château, after all.
When the parking attendant sees the Bugatti, he mistakes me for someone he should care about and rushes over. His interest lasts for maybe a second, the exact amount of time it takes me to step out of the car. People have cash registers for eyes at places like this. By the time my feet are on the ground, he’s totaled up exactly how much my clothes and haircut are worth and I’ve come up short. Still, I’m driving a two-million-dollar car, so I might be an eccentric foreign director who’s just flown in for some meetings and sodomy, which means he can’t quite work up the nerve to shoo me away like a stray dog that just crapped in the pope’s big hat.
“Good evening, sir.”
“What time do you have?”
He checks his watch.
“Ten to eleven.”
“Thanks.”
He tears a numbered parking tag in half, hands me half, and sets the other half on the Bugatti’s dashboard.
“Are you staying at the hotel?”
“No. Meeting a friend.”
“That will be twenty dollars, sir.”
I tear up the parking tag and drop the pieces on the ground.
“I’ve got a better idea. Keep the car.”
“Sir?”
He wants to come after me, but other cars are arriving, so he drives the Bugatti into the garage.
Inside, I go the front desk and it hits me that I don’t have a room number or any idea who to ask for. Point for Kasabian.
“Good evening, sir. How can I help you?”
The desk clerk looks like Montgomery Clift and is better dressed than the president. He’s smiling at me, but his pupils are dilating like he thinks I’m going to start stealing furniture from the lobby. I stashed the leather jacket in the Room of Thirteen Doors before coming over and am wearing the rifle coat. I thought it looked classier and more formal, but maybe I was wrong.
“A friend of mine is staying here, but I don’t have his room number.”
“Of course. What’s your friend’s name?”
“I