I look at her. Is this more Vigil bullshit? Is she on their side or mine?
“Please,” she says. “If you kill him, there’s no coming back. You’ll have the Marshals Service, Homeland Security, and the Vigil after you.”
In my mind I can see Mason’s head exploding. It feels even better than the first time.
Julie says, “I promise you I’ll find her. Give me twelve hours.”
I get out my phone and set a timer.
“Twelve hours. After that, he’s mine and I’ll hurt anyone who gets in my way.”
Julie nods.
“Okay. Let me go talk to Wells and tell him what’s happened.”
I nod and start for a shadow.
“Twelve hours.”
“Don’t come back unless I call you,” she says.
I GO HOME, fire up the Hellion hog, and head out again. But I don’t need a bike. I need a goddamn ark to get around. On some of the side streets off Hollywood and Sunset, the water comes up to the hubs. Even a Hellion bike starts getting pissed off after a while at that kind of thing. The Hellion hog was built for Hell’s heat, not L.A.’s Titanic-on-its-last-legs act. The bike coughs and threatens to tap out a couple of times, but it keeps going. I lose track of time in the empty streets.
Here and there, stop lights work. A single streetlamp glows. Every now and then I see another vehicle in the street. Whenever I do, it veers off onto another street. Looters probably, afraid I’m out scouting for LAPD. Take it all, you soggy bastards. I’d love to know who you’re going to fence it to. There’s something almost comforting in the fact that even at the end of the world, there’s always going to be one guy ready to pick your pocket.
I go by Bamboo House of Dolls first. Then Vidocq and Allegra’s place. Nothing. I call Brigitte. She hasn’t heard from Candy. Where else would she have gone? Maybe to be with other Jades? Do I know any other Jades? Just Rinko, Candy’s ex-girlfriend. I’m the last person on the planet she wants to hear from and the last she’d tell anything to. What an idiot scene this is. Me driving in circles in a monsoon like the Flying fucking Dutchman hoping to spot one lone girl on a million square miles of Southern California roads. It’s my fault and a little Candy’s, I guess. We’re both so closemouthed about our pasts. I keep waiting for her to tell me about the Jade world when she’s ready and she wants me to talk about Doc and that whole mess. Tonight’s lesson, class, is—assuming we live through this—to ask more questions. Man, I hate the sound of that. I just want to go back to the Chateau Marmont, order room service, get drunk together, and break all the furniture in the master bedroom. Is that too much to ask?
After the bike finally stalls a couple of times and the rain is coming down so hard I can’t see more than five feet ahead of me, I turn back for Max Overdrive.
I’m putting on dry clothes when the phone rings. It’s Julie.
“Have you found Candy?”
“Not yet, but we’re following up on leads.”
“Why did you call?”
“Wells wants you to come in. It’s about Saint Nick.”
“Stop calling him that. His name is Mason Faim.”
“How do you know?”
“Because back when he was a person I killed him.”
“You know a lot of dead people.”
“What does Wells want?”
“Saint Nick, Mason Faim, whoever, won’t talk to him. He wants to talk to you.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I get a dry coat and a gun. I step through a shadow.
THEY HAVE MASON in a cell with walls thick enough to stop a meteor. They’re covered from end to end, top to bottom, in a hasty scrawl of protective wards and crosses. It’s like they let a gang of junior high taggers go at the cell with a copy of The Little Wizard’s Handbook of Scary-Looking Shit.
Inside, Mason is seated at a metal table bolted to the floor. The walls are covered in binding hexes. Mason is cuffed hand and foot with cold iron shackles and dressed in orange coveralls. The zipper on the front of his jailbird suit is pulled down low enough that everyone can see the sutures holding his chop-shop body together. All that and his mismatched eyes make him look like a garage-sale-love-doll-at-Hammer Studios Frankenstein movie.
There are guards outside, but the room is empty. Julie follows me in. I pull up a chair and sit down across from Mason.
“Where’s Candy?”
“It’s good to see you too, Jimmy.”
“Where’s Candy?”
He shrugs.
“You’re the one with the sweet tooth. I always preferred my snacks salty.”
“Don’t be cute. I can kill you before anyone here can stop me.”
Mason leans on the table.
“You already did, remember? That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You cheated.”
“I sure did.”
“You told me not to use magic and then you went ahead and used it yourself.”
“My game. My rules.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say to you.”
“I’m not playing games with you. I’m going to ask questions and you’re going to answer them.”
He leans back in his chair, looking relaxed.
“And what if I don’t? You’ll kill me? How did that work out last time? You ended up stuck in Hell playing Lucifer. Badly. Your lover left you. Heaven, Hell, and L.A. suffered all sorts of calamities. And through it all, the Angra grew stronger. No, killing me just made things worse for everybody. Besides, you think I can’t find my way into a new body? You could fill a stadium with all the bodies my friends and I have created. And all I need is one. You can’t win playing your old games, Jimmy.”
“Where’s Candy?”
“In the cut-glass bowl on Grandma’s coffee table.”
Before he or Julie can move, I lean across the table and punch him. He shakes it off and looks at me.
“In a caravan to Timbuktu.”
I hit him again.
“On the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland.”
I start to hit him again when I hear Julie.
“Stark! Stop it.”
Mason spits blood on the floor.
“Tell you what, Jimbo. You like games. Play a game with me and I’ll tell you everything I know about your squeeze.”
“What kind of game?”
He turns to Julie.
“Do you have any playing cards around here?”
“We have a few games in the break room,” she says. “I’ll check.”
“Hurry back, darling.”
Mason turns back and raises an eyebrow at me. His chop-shop face is almost as scarred as mine.
“One of yours?” he says.
“You don’t need to know anything about her. Or anyone else here. I’m the only one you need to worry about.”
“How is it?”
“How’s what?”
He opens his hands, rattling the shackles.
“The Qomrama. Having fun with it? Teaching it to do tricks. Fetch? Roll over.”
“We’re doing great with it. The Shonin practically has it sussed.”
“The Shonin. I’ve heard about him.”
“From who?”
“A little demon told me.”
“Where’s Candy?”
Mason looks down at the table. Purses his lips.
“Every time you say something stupid or break a rule you lose a turn.”
“We aren’t playing yet.”
“Yes we are.”
The door opens and Julie comes back into the room. She sets a deck of cards on the table between us.
“What happens now?”
“Shuffle them,” Says Mason.
I shuffle them a couple of times. Set them back down b
etween us.
Mason turns to Julie.
“Would you cut the cards for me, dear? I’m a bit encumbered.”
Julie glances at me. She comes over and cuts the cards. I look at Mason.
“What are we playing?”
“In my time in the dark I learned that there’s only one game worth playing and it takes many forms. One form is cards.”
“What’s the game?”
“Chaos. Entropy. Catastrophe. Infinity.”
“I don’t know how to play that.”
He sits up straight, his eyes on the cards.
“It’s your whole life, Jimmy. You’re an expert. You just don’t know it.”
I look at the time on my phone and then at Julie.
“Shouldn’t you be out looking for someone?”
“I have a team on it.”
“Ready?” says Mason.
“What are we playing?”
“Simple draw poker. You can handle that, can’t you?”
“You don’t have anything to bet.”
“We have the whole world to bet.”
“If I win you’ll tell me about Candy.”
“Everything. Deal.”
I deal out five cards, each facedown. I get two threes, a queen of diamonds, a ten of clubs, and an ace of hearts.
Mason nods at his cards to Julie.
“Would you hold my cards up for me, dear?”
“Don’t call me that again. I’m Marshal Sola.”
“Would you hold my cards for me, Marshal Sola?”
She does it.
“Higher, please.”
She raises the cards a little.
“Thank you.”
I set my cards down and pick up the deck.
“How many do you want?”
“Four,” he says.
“What’s wrong with you? That’s how a six-year-old plays.”
“I’d like four.”
I deal him out four facedown. He points to the card he wants to keep. Julie lays down the others and picks up the new cards.
“Dealer takes two.”
I get an ace of diamonds and a two of spades.
“We’re not betting, so I guess we just show our cards.”
“Yours first,” says Mason.
I lay down two pairs, threes, and aces.
Julie puts down Mason’s hand. He has a three, a six, a four, a ten, and a jack. None of the suits match.
Mason says, “Alphabet soup as dear old Dad used to say.”
“I win. You answer my question.”
“Of course.”
“Where’s Candy?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
“Stark,” says Julie, a warning tone in her voice. I don’t get up and I don’t try to hit Mason.
“You had something to do with her getting sick.”
“Me? No. Possibly some of my associates.”
“Why?”
Mason slams down his fists.
“Because fuck you, that’s why. Because you cheated, and putting a bullet in my head really hurt. And because in the Infinite Game there are no rules and there are infinite rules. That’s why it’s so fun.”
“If anything happens to her . . .”
“What? You’ll kill me? Stop it. We both know if you were going to kill me you’d have done it already. No. You’re still here because you want to play the game.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because unlike that gabby mummy no doubt listening to us right now—hello, Mr. Shonin—I know exactly how the Qomrama works and I’ll teach you. But you have to play my games and, of course, you have to win.”
“The Vigil has all kinds of funny technology. I bet they have some kind of brain sucker around here. What’s to keep them from hooking you up and downloading you into a Tamagotchi?”
Mason’s face brightens.
“You have one of those? Neat. I’d love to see it.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
He drums his fingers on the table a couple of times.
“If the machine exists it wouldn’t work on me for the same reason it wouldn’t work on you. We wouldn’t let it. Do you really think these Keystone Cops have anything that could hurt people like us? You ruled the Underworld. I escaped Tartarus. Their magic can’t touch ours.”
“You didn’t escape Tartarus. Someone broke you out. Merihim and Deumos or some of their people.”
“They cracked open the door but I’m the one who did the heavy lifting, like when you first made it out of Hell.”
“So this is how we figure out the fate of the universe? Poker?”
“Of course not. That was nothing. That wasn’t even the appetizer before dinner. It was just to see if I should invite you for a full meal.”
“Should you?”
“Do you want to know how the Qomrama works?”
“The Shonin will figure it out.”
“Not in time.”
“How do I know you know anything?”
Mason closes his eyes. A minute later I hear the door to the cell open and the Shonin comes in.
“What did you do?” he says.
Mason laughs when he sees the Shonin.
“This is mankind’s savior? You’re like third prize at a backwoods Halloween fair.”
The Shonin says, “What did you do?”
“I proved I know how the Qomrama works.”
The Shonin starts to say something, but I hold up my hand and he quiets down.
I say, “What did he do?”
“The Qomrama opened the magnetic chamber and left it,” the Shonin says. “It’s floating in the center of the room, a ball of fire and ice. Boiling the room one minute and freezing it the next.”
I look at Mason’s beaming face. “Why should I believe you’ll teach us anything?”
“You have my word,” says Mason. “Every time you win a game I’ll tell you something about the Qomrama. I want you to learn it. I want to see you use it. And I want to see you fail so that in the end, you’ll know that I was always the better magician.”
“If I said I’d play, how would it work?”
“Simple. I call the games and we play. Every time you win, I tell you a secret.”
“And when you win?”
“I get to hurt you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Anything I want.”
“This is just between you and me. You can’t hurt anybody else.”
“I can do anything I like.”
“Don’t take the bait,” says Julie. “He’s crazy and he’ll never tell you the truth.”
“She’s right. I’ll continue my work,” says the Shonin.
Mason looks at him.
“Do you know the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans?”
“I know many spiritual books.”
“Chapter four, verse seven. Recite it.”
The Shonin thinks for a minute.
“ ‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven: and whose sins are covered.’ ”
“Very good. Now, recite that backward in Hellion and you can make the Qomrama do the little trick I did a moment ago. You can also use it to return it to its original resting spot.”
“That can’t be all,” says the Shonin. “A spell of that power would require meditation on a sacred object. A mandala or angelic sigil.”
Mason holds up his hands from the table. Using the sharp edge on one of his cuffs, he’s cut an inverted cross in a hex circle into his right palm.
I put my hand in my pocket around the Colt. Then let go and take my hand out. I turn to Julie.
“You have two hours to find Candy or I’m killing this guy, 8 Ball or no 8 Ball.” br />
She checks her phone.
“I have a message. I’ll see how the search is going.”
She leaves and the Shonin goes to Mason’s side of the table.
“You’re been a very bad boy from what I hear.”
Mason gives him a bland, condescending smile.
“I know that in your quaint foreign land what you did to yourself is considered a holy act, but here it would get you 5150’d. You’re going to have to forgive me if I’m unimpressed with the elaborate way you chose to sublimate your masochistic tendencies.”
The Shonin wags a finger at Mason.
“We had boys like you at the monastery. Big power. Little brains.”
“You didn’t have anyone like me. Tell him, Jimmy.”
I don’t say anything.
Mason’s scarred face clouds over.
“Tell him.”
I look at the Shonin.
“I doubt you ever had anyone like him.”
“Or him,” says Mason, pointing to me.
The Shonin throws up his hands.
“Fatty and Big Balls, a mutual admiration society. I’m going back to work.”
As the Shonin heads for the door, Mason calls after him.
“Be careful with the Qomrama. If you get the recitation wrong she has a nasty bite.”
The Shonin goes out, and before the door closes, Julie comes back in.
“We found her,” she says.
I get up.
“Where is she?”
Julie puts up her hands.
“Wait. You need to know something. She’s under arrest.”
“For what?”
“She attacked a homeless man and almost killed him. They’re both lucky we have a serum that reverses the effects of Jade venom. The man will live.”
“I want to see her.”
“She’s being processed. You can see her when she’s done.”
“No. Now.”
Julie gets right in my face.
“Shut up and listen to me. I just did you a favor. Washington has classified Saint Nick’s revived bodies as Lurkers, and under a new statute, any dangerous Lurker can be killed or detained indefinitely. My team had every legal right to kill a Jade attacking a civilian, but I gave them orders to bring her in. So you can fucking back off and wait until things cool down. And stop barking orders at me.”