Butcher Bird

  Jogging back to the Ducati, he gunned it to life and tore across Haight Street, up onto the sidewalk and through the caution tape into the shop, scattering trash and splinters of blackened wood. Revving the throttle, Spyder turned donuts in the debris, smoking his rear tire and scaring the winos enough to huddle together in the back. As a foot patrol cop came running into the burned shop, Spyder slammed back onto the street and away.

  The light was on in Lulu’s Mission District apartment. Spyder rang her bell and, when there was no answer, yelled up at her window. When that didn’t work, he climbed the fence into her backyard and went across a neighbor’s roof until, with a jump, he could reach the bottom of the fire escape. Spyder hauled himself up to the bottom landing and climbed the stairs to Lulu’s apartment on the fourth floor.

  Through the half-open window, he could see Lulu in her old orange robe, passed out on the couch. Pushing open the window the rest of the way, Spyder stepped inside. There were little packets of foil on the coffee table, along with burnt spoons, medical tubing and a syringe with a white, crusted tip. Spyder shouted angrily at Lulu.

  “Wake up, asshole. Move. Look at me.”

  Lulu was limp, but she made a feeble attempt to push him away. Spyder knew that was a good sign. “Look at me, girl. It’s Spyder. Open your eyes.” He stopped shaking her for a moment when he remembered that she didn’t have eyes to open. It didn’t matter, she was rousing herself by then, holding on to his sleeve and pulling herself up.

  “Spyder? That you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. What the hell’ve you been doing?”

  Lulu was sitting up shakily, staring in his direction with the little pieces of paper over her hollow eyes. She began to cry quietly and punched him hard in the chest. “Where you been? I thought you’d gone. Run off ’cause I’m a monster.”

  “You’re no monster, Lulu. And I was only gone a day.”

  “A week!” yelled Lulu. “You’ve been gone a goddam week and no word at all!”

  “Oh, baby.” Lulu grabbed him and cried against him, holding onto his jacket like a child. “I went away to get help for us,” Spyder said. “It didn’t seem like a week, but we went some funny places where the clocks run different.”

  “They burned down the shop, Spyder.”

  “Who did?”

  “A bunch of people. Friends!” Lulu wiped her nose on the sleeve of her robe. Spyder handed her a bloody Kleenex from the table where her works were scattered. “They were crazy. Neighbors from Haight Street. People from the Bardo Lounge. They came in saying all kinds of insane shit. You’re a murderer or some shit. And, like, we kidnap kids and do things to ’em in the back. They started tearing the place up and someone had a gas can. I thought they were going to burn me, too.” She was crying again. When Lulu blew her nose, Spyder saw fresh scars on her wrists. Deep and running along the inner length of her arm, the scars were dry, like ruts dug into hard-packed sand. Spyder touched the scars and Lulu laughed.

  “Funny, huh? I can’t even off myself. There ain’t enough of me left to suicide.”

  While he’d been gone, Lulu had done other things to herself. She’d inserted slivers of glass and rusty nails through her skin, like parodies of her piercing jewelry. Spyder opened her robe and Lulu didn’t resist. Her bare body was decorated with stingray quills and surgical needles. She’d pulled the rubber insulation off wire and laced the bare copper through her skin, ringing the shark’s teeth she’d set above her bare pussy. It was mad. But Spyder had seen it before. It was anger mixed with ritual—Lulu’s fury at her body and an attempt to reclaim her desiccated flesh through pain and action. Spyder closed Lulu’s robe and said, “You’re coming with me.”

  “Get away from her!” Spyder hit the deck as someone slammed into him from behind. He managed to get his boots flat on the floor and roll on top of his attacker, pinning their arms down. It was Rubi. She was screaming at him.

  “Get out of here, you freak! Killer! You child-molesting fuck!”

  “Rubi, calm down,” said Spyder, not daring to let go. When it was clear he wasn’t going to release her, Rubi stopped struggling.

  “You going to rape me, too, asshole? Everyone’s on to you. Such a big man. What you do to children, you sick fuck…”

  “Rubi, whatever you think you know about me, it’s not true.”

  “Don’t you hurt my Lulu!”

  From the couch Lulu said, “This is what everyone’s like when they talk about you. What did you do? You’re like Charlie Manson all of a sudden.”

  “I killed a demon’s best friend,” Spyder said. “Lulu, put some stuff in a bag. You’re coming with me.”

  “No, she’s not!” screamed Rubi. “I won’t let him hurt you, baby.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere, Spyder. I’m scared.”

  “And you’re stoned, too. Listen, it’s not safe for you. If this curse or spell or whatever made people think I’m a killer, it means sooner or later, some of that’s going to land on you. If they can’t get to me, you’re next on the menu.”

  “No! Don’t listen to him, Lulu. He’s sick. He’s a murderer!”

  “I’m so sorry, Rubi. I like you. I really do.” Spyder held the bartender down and punched her as hard as he could across the jaw. Rubi was unconscious immediately.

  “Rubi? Oh shit, Spyder.”

  “Lulu, don’t fade on me now. We have to get you out of here.” He held up the dirty syringe. “If these deluded assholes don’t kill you, you’re going to do it yourself.”

  He pulled her from the sofa and walked Lulu to the bedroom closet. “Get dressed,” he told her, and grabbed the small leather backpack that Rubi always carried. Spyder dumped the contents on the bed and pulled shirts, underwear and socks from Lulu’s dresser, shoving them in the pack until it was full.

  When he was done, Lulu was sitting quietly, dressed in a scuffed pair of Doc Martens, black jeans with ripped knees and a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. Spyder put Lulu’s favorite ’50s gas station attendant jacket on her and led her back to the living room. Rubi hadn’t moved. Spyder knelt and listened to make sure she was breathing all right. She was. He got some ice from the freezer, wrapped it in a washcloth and laid it on Rubi’s jaw. He dialed 911. When the operator came on, Spyder said, “There’s been an accident. A woman’s hurt,” and gave the address.

  “Bye, Rubi,” whispered Lulu as Spyder hustled her out of the building.

  “Hold on to me,” he told her as they got on the bike. Lulu wrapper her arms around his waist and leaned heavily on his back. Spyder kicked the Dead Man’s Ducati into gear and took back streets across town to a twenty-four-hour diner he knew down by the waterfront.

  For all her scars and drugged despair, Lulu seemed better after a second cup of coffee. She took a long breath and even smiled the now familiar raw flesh smile.

  “Aren’t we a pair? A couple of real desperadoes. Like those kids in Badlands. Kit and…who was his girlfriend?”

  “Holly.”

  “Yeah, that chick from Carrie. She was really something.” After a moment, Lulu said, “I never saw you punch anybody like that before.”

  “Sure you have.”

  “Not a girl.”

  “Yeah,” said Spyder. “That was new.”

  “I love her.”

  “I know you do. She going to be all right.”

  “You sure?”

  “I promise.”

  Lulu looked out the window, apparently satisfied for the moment. They drank coffee, ate pie and french fries, and Spyder watched the clock over the counter creep ever so slowly toward dawn.

  “So, what happens next to a couple of outlaws like us, hopped up on caffeine and sugar, and on the lam?”

  “I figure it’s a lot like Badlands,” said Spyder. “We leave here, get a ride and go straight to Hell.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  JUBILEE

  At the far end of Fisherman’s Wharf, past the eager early morning tourists and their blear-eyed children, a jeweled ai
rship hung in the air.

  The balloon portion resembled an enormous, ruby-colored seahorse. Below this was a comfortable-looking gondola of a dark, lacquered wood with gold filigree. Spyder saw the seahorse blocks away, but wasn’t worried. By now he knew that no one else could see the thing or would remember it for more than a few seconds if they did.

  Spyder parked the Dead Man’s Ducati by a clam-chowder stand in front of Fisherman’s Wharf and left the keys in the ignition. Taking Lulu by the hand, he led her down the long wooden walkway connected to the piers. Long before Fisherman’s Wharf had been transformed into a video game and fried fish tourist trap, the place had been a working pier for fishing boats coming in from beyond the Golden Gate. Even weekend sailors avoided the place now, however. It wasn’t just the tourists. The few places left to tie up boats had been staked out by hundreds of growling and extremely territorial sea lions. Mostly, the animals used the piers to sun themselves, so in the cool morning air there weren’t more than a dozen or so sacked out on the deck. Spyder walked Lulu carefully around the sea lions to the airship.

  Primo waved to them from the end of the pier. Shrike was sitting on one of the pilings, her face to the sun. Her pale skin was outlined in the orange and pinks of dawn light. Spyder stood behind her. She got to her feet, put a hand on his chest and smiled at him. “I never doubted you for a moment, even if you doubted yourself,” Shrike said, and pecked him on the cheek. She went to the balloon and Primo helped her into the gondola, then Lulu. Spyder followed them inside as Primo cast off the rope that tethered them to the wharf. For a second, it seemed as if nothing was happening. Then, they rose straight into the chill morning sky. Spyder’s stomach dropped with the nauseous sensation of riding in a freight elevator.

  Shrike was passing around cups and a thermos full of hot coffee.

  “Hey, I’m Lulu,” Lulu said to Shrike. “A friend of Spyder’s. I was at the bar with him the night you two met.”

  Shrike nodded. “Have some coffee,” she said, then turned and went below deck.

  Spyder poured coffee for Lulu and himself and watched Primo at the front of the gondola operating a spider web of lines and pulleys, positioning the airship to catch the bay winds. Spyder took his cup and approached the little man.

  “Want some coffee?” Spyder asked.

  “I don’t drink stimulants, sir.”

  “Need any help with the ropes?”

  Primo grinned. “Oh, no thank you. I’m fine.” He pulled enthusiastically on one line and let another slide through his hand as they turned away from the coast and drifted toward the Golden Gate Bridge, steadily gaining altitude as they went.

  “You look like the cat who ate the canary, after fucking it,” said Spyder.

  The little man nodded. “I’m doing what I love,” he said. “I serve Madame Cinders because that is my duty. She gave my clan sanctuary centuries ago and we always honor our debts. But living sedentary in her palace isn’t the happiest life for me.”

  “A ramblin’, gamblin’ man.”

  Primo laughed. “We Gytrash are travelers both by profession and by disposition. I grew up on horseback, in trading ships clad in gold and on endless overland treks through all three Spheres.

  “This airship reminds me of one I was on many years ago. My clan landed on the island of Montes Lunae to make repairs and take on supplies. Montes Lunae is a rich, green island in the Second Sphere which, back then, was ruled by Chashash, the Raven King. It was the hundred and fiftieth year of Chashash’s rein and in keeping with Lunae tradition, he’d declared Jubilee.”

  “That some kind of party?” asked Spyder.

  “It’s much, much more than that, sir. During Jubilee, all laws are suspended, all slaves freed, all the lands won in battle are returned to their original owners. Jubilee is a time of renewal and madness. A time to burn the fields—both physical and metaphysical. Prisons became art galleries. Art galleries became bordellos. Bordellos became courthouses. Then it all changes again over night.

  “As time goes on, the laws of physics begin to fall apart. Mortals can fly…badly, in my experience. On Montes Lunae, many aeronauts cracked their skulls before they got the hang of it. And when they did learn the basics of flying, they’d still get airsick. It was a bad idea to enter some neighborhoods without an umbrella.

  “There was a method to all this madness. Everyone who lived on the island, including visitors like us, were given tattoos with colored shapes—circles, triangles or squares, along with alchemical symbols. This complex combination of colors and symbols told you who you were in relation to everyone else on any given day. On my chest, I received an inverted red triangle with the symbol for quicksilver.

  “The night my clan received its tattoos (each of us received a different combination of symbols), we had no idea of our place among the islanders or to each other anymore. We were saved when I saw a captain from the Raven King’s army. I had met the man earlier, but that night he prostrated himself before me. He was a slave, he told me, the lowest of the low in relation to those who carried my symbol. I had him explain the pecking order to my whole clan, so that we might fit in with the celebrations. When I saw the captain again a few days later, he was the lord and I was the slave. This is how it was during Jubilee. Anyone could be anyone else on any given night. Even the Raven King himself was, on occasion, both a prisoner and a slave. I know this because I, Primo Kosinski, of the Black Iron Gytrash, for three full days became king of the Second Sphere.

  “I was in prison when it happened. Everyone ends up in prison during Jubilee. What I didn’t know was that the Jubilee kings and queens were chosen in prison by a lottery. My lottery card bore the outline of a wolf’s paw. This meant nothing to me since a number of other prisoners had similar symbols on their lots. But through a combination of the wolf, the configuration of the stars in the sky and my tattoos, I was declared king and taken to the royal palace high atop the World Poplar.

  “I loved being king. Pretty girls—exotic dancers who were now the legislature—would bring me fruit and legal documents. I often signed the documents without reading them, assuming I would learn what they were eventually.

  “We passed new Jubilee laws constantly, then would make it illegal to enforce them. The laws were often deliberately ludicrous. It became illegal to carry a small dog while smoking a pipe. It was further illegal to attempt sexual relations with an animal while either party was on fire. No one could smile while wearing white, or frown while in the presence of a man in stripes. Those found guilty of these charges might find themselves banished to the sewers with nothing but a candle and a baseball bat. Or they might be made archbishop.

  “The only law that remained constant and coldly rational throughout Jubilee was simple: Everyone on Montes Lunae, resident or guest, must participate in Jubilee wholeheartedly while he or she was there. This was a hard thing for some people. It was a hard thing for my family.

  “Eventually, my mother found herself subordinate to a man she didn’t like, a marriage broker who was also a card cheat and a libertine—two things my mother couldn’t abide. She refused to serve the man when it was her time. When the broker insisted, my father and brothers beat him. My family was arrested and brought before me. I was king. I had no choice. They had broken the most basic law of Jubilee.

  “I executed them.”

  Spyder looked at Primo hard as the little man made subtle adjustments on the lines that controlled the airship’s progress.

  “But this isn’t a sad story,” Primo continued. “To honor my family’s death, I prepared their bodies as a great feast on my last night as king. I invited all the citizens of the island to dine with me. Everyone ate and through the citizens’ digestive tracts, my family became a part of every person on Montes Lunae. When those citizens had children, a tiny piece of my family was passed on to them. To this day, I am welcome in any home on the island, from the highest to the lowest, because, in a sense, every person on Montes Lunae is a blood relation.”


  TWENTY-TWO

  BEWITCHED

  “It occurs to me that I have no idea where we’re headed.”

  “To the desert. The Kasla Mountains,” said Shrike. “They’re our entrance to Hell.”

  Spyder and Shrike were in the galley below deck and she was mixing a strong tea fortified with red wine and spices. Spyder liked the smell and he enjoyed watching Shrike work, feeling with her small, sure hands for each utensil and ingredient as she prepared the brew.

  “I’ve never heard of the Kaslas.”

  “They’re on the island of Kher-aba in the Sunkosh Sea.”

  “This is going to be one of those places that regular people can’t see, right? And I’m going to recognize fuck all.”

  “Chances are.”

  “Tell me how nice I am for coming along.”

  Shrike smiled. “You’re an angel. A lifesaver. My prize pony.”

  The living quarters in the airship were like a flying palace, an equal, in miniature, of Madame Cinders’ ornate quarters. The place smelled of cedar, mahogany and Shrike’s herbal brew. Nearby, Lulu slept on a heavy Chinese fainting couch, delicately carved in the shape of an emperor dragon. Though smaller than his warehouse, the airship was easily the best place Spyder had ever lived.

  “I’m the teacher here, school girl. You’re not allowed to sexually harass me.”

  “You’re missing your chance, Humbert. I was going to do my best Lolita for you.”

  “How is it that a princess who knows about Lolita has never heard of stuff like James Dean or a Porsche?”

  “Sorry if I skipped Pop Culture 101 before we met. I’ve lived in this Sphere on and off and I’ve picked up a few things. TV I learned about from my old partner. He would describe the shows to me.”

  “You never told me much about him.”