by Rowan Casey
I ran through the debris of the lounge, figuring I'd done about three mil worth of damage, including the art and fancy statues. That ought to be enough to get the murderer's attention.
It was only as I was halfway out of the bifold door that I saw the crack in the mirror, and through it the torture room it was hiding.
I stopped dead in my tracks. We're talking proper BDSM playroom stuff, but with an edge. I didn't like the stains on the wall, either. It was easy enough to compartmentalize stuff in your head, and to be honest, not actually think about the reality of what you were doing when you were caught up in the game, but in one sideways glance I'd torn down the walls between any and every compartment in my mind. This guy was sick. And dangerous. And I'd just urinated on his bed.
Second thoughts, that might not be the smartest thing I'd ever done.
That honor went to showing my face on camera, threatening him, and tipping my hand with the whole skin and bone thing. He knew I knew, or would know soon enough. I was beginning to understand how I wound up getting killed tonight. I was making a lot of spectacularly bad decisions. Problem was, I was having far too much fun making them.
The alarm shrieked. The mower still drowned out all but the shrillest notes. I was well over my 180, closing in on 240. Next stop 300 and a jail cell. But I wanted to check out the playroom. I needed to know what I was dealing with.
So I pressed my face up against the broken mirror, peering in through the V in the glass where the shard had fallen free, and saw the pretty boy crucified against a huge wooden X frame with leather cuffs at ankles and wrists. He was alive. He looked up at me, and I know he saw me, despite the mess of his face where Holm had gone to town on him. There was a blue tattooed sigil on the curve of his public bone, waiting for the final sacrifice that would activate it.
I thought about trying to get in there and save him.
Honestly. I did. I thought about it.
But then I heard the first siren and knew I had to make like a shepherd and get the flock out of there.
6
I was over the wall and back in the bucket seat before the first car swung in through Holm's creepy gates. I thought about phoning in a tip off, telling them to look behind the mirror, but that was getting involved. I didn't actually want to get involved. I just wanted to draw the killer out, bring him down from the Hills into my turf, and see about turning him over to Dante Grimm.
I reached for my phone even as I pulled away from the curb and Sting tried to convince me we were just spirits in the material world. To my surprise, I discovered that Grimm had put his number in my phone. I hadn't seen him do it. I hadn't even crossed my mind he had. The phone hadn't been out of my sight--apart from the whole time I was dead, of course.
I hit the icon.
He answered on the first ring.
Before I could tell him what was happening, he said, "Come to Avalon," and hung up on me.
Which was all well and good, but the only Avalon I knew was a fancy nightclub in the heart of the city. It had been a cult hotel until about ten years ago, when the courts had closed the so-called Church down and sold their assets off for top dollar.
So, working on the theory that Grimm being connected to a nightclub was no more insane than anything else that had been going on since I'd woken up, I drove to Avalon.
The sun was glorious. It was the kind of sun that could make a man a believer. It always amazed me how many people actually walked in this weather, just because there was a sidewalk. Down by Amoeba Records, in the shadow of the old Capitol Records rotunda, I saw a would-be Sheryl Crow out on the sidewalk earnestly strumming her acoustic guitar and singing her little heart out. I'd give it an hour before some creepozoid from some cult or other would crouch down beside, put ten dollars in her hat, and promise her a better life. The problem was she had talent. Not enough to make it, but enough to break her heart for trying.
Avalon was three streets away.
I parked in the underground lot, grateful for the shade, and took a minute to fix myself a smoke before I went in to see Dante and confess my sins.
It was only then, leaning back against the Mustang and feeling the Colt press into the base of my spine that I realized I'd missed my shot. I'm not used to being tooled up. It's not the way I operate. But that kid in there, victim number fifteen, he needed me to put a bullet between his eyes. That would have been a mercy for him, but more importantly it would have utterly screwed with Holm's plans. He was working to some sort of schedule, a sigil at a time, preparing for some major hoodoo to go down. Killing the kid would have removed him entirely from the game board. I could only assume the torture wasn't just for kicks, but that Holm was prepping his victims for the sacrifice. I could have bought more time. It wouldn't have made any difference for the kid. He was beyond saving. But maybe it would have been a better death.
I ground the cigarette out under my heel.
There was an elevator at the far side of the lot, which meant walking fifty-feet across the empty, echoing structure. I hit the call button and waited. It wasn't the kind of elevator that offered sweet muzak to sooth your sweaty soul on the way up. It was a functional freight thing, only three buttons, one marked subbasement, which was where I was, one marked kitchen, and one marked Avalon. I hit button number three and settled in for the rickety ride.
When the doors opened a woman intercepted me. She introduced herself as Jessie. I recognized her. I'd seen her fight once. She was hardcore. She'd been some sort of MMA fighter, but I'd seen her in an underground fight where she'd beaten her opponent, a guy twice her size, half to death. Word was she'd fallen a long way. Drugs. Her photos were worth maybe fifty bucks on the open market, where twelve months ago I could probably have pocketed a grand for a shot of her doing something stupid, a lot more for a shot that could have dethroned her as a fight darling. I didn't let on I knew who she was.
She led me through to the dance floor and bar area. There was a grand piano in the middle of the room, lit by the optics behind the bar. It looked pretty cool, I admit. A guy I didn't recognize butchered a tune I couldn't possibly hope to recognize on those bruised ivories. He nodded my way, like he was greeting an old friend. I nodded back, hoping Dante was waiting in a sound-proof room. My ears depended upon it.
There was someone else behind the bar, helping herself to a shot. She rolled a set of dice across the bar top to amuse herself. In the couple of seconds it took me to cross the dance floor she'd rolled half a dozen pairs, and made the dice dance in ways I couldn't even begin to understand. Jessie nodded her way and said, "Jaz," by way of explanation. I've got to admit, and it's shallow of me, that the short black bob and sharp features looked good. I'd have been quite happy to lean on her bar and trade quips for tips any night of the week.
Jessie led me though to a back room, which frankly, was like nothing out of even my wildest dreams. We're talking full-on mental conference suite. There was a massive table that dominated the room, and when I say dominated, I mean it had it on its knees, ball-gag in mouth and made the room it's bitch. It was huge. It was round, with a section cut out of it so you could walk into the center of it and hold court.
Dante was there, in his long black leather coat, pebbled sunglasses on despite the fact we were inside--I realized I'd never seen his eyes--and on the table in front of him a huge two-handed greatsword. I noticed a shiver of blue light that rippled along the blade as I walked into the room. I know the weapon from my other life. Hell, I'd coveted the weapon in that life. There aren't many men who get to wield a blade like Excalibur.
"I hope you're ready to give me some answers," I told Grimm before I took my seat at the table. It was weird. I knew exactly where I was supposed to sit, because it was where I'd always sat, at Arthur's right hand. Man, that's some bizarre shit to admit, but there you have it.
"Assuming you have the right questions, Sam."
"Oh, I've got plenty of those. How about we start with some basic stuff, like how long have I got left, where
does it happen, and actually the one that's been bugging all morning, why did you bring me back?"
"One of those is a pretty big question, one I'm happy to answer, one I can't because if I do it will meddle with destiny and I've learned my lesson with that."
"Okay, so let's take the one you'll answer?"
"You died somewhere between two and three o'clock in the morning. I can't be any more precise than that. You'll just have to trust me when I say there are reasons."
I nodded. "I'm assuming you're not going to say where, because then I'd have the option of simply not turning up to my date with death?"
"You always did catch on quick."
"Okay, so the why then?"
"You see the chairs around the table? There's one for each of you, for the knights who made that vow with me to protect this realm at all costs. You are the last defense against the Veil being torn asunder and the creatures of the Demimonde pouring into this realm." Before I could interrupt him, trying to get more clarity on the whole creatures thing, Dante went on, "Think of yourselves as a single warrior, thirteen aspects to the warrior's soul. Reduced, you are weakened. The only way we can face this evil is as one. I need the Circle to stand together as one, complete."
I sort of understood what he meant, but it felt weird to think of myself as anything other than me. The idea of being a part of something bigger was weird, but to be honest it was a lot weirder that it hadn't felt right to question Grimm about the whole turning back time thing, or my secret Clark Kent identity. That felt right.
"Do the others know? That I died?"
He shook his head. "No. That is between you and me. No one else knows anything, though conceivably they could experience feelings of deja vu today as they repeat things they've already lived through once."
"So no one else knows?" I asked, thinking about Evienne.
"No one," Dante Grimm assured me. "Why?"
"I'm just trying to put stuff together in my head," I said. "It's a mess in here," I tapped my temple. "I mean...you're telling me it's all true? The stuff I felt--remembered--when I took the gun from the tar woman? The quest for the Saint Graal? That's real?"
"It comes down to definitions of real, Sam," Grimm said. "Do you remember it exactly as you lived it? Possibly not. The mind has a way of mythologizing the reality, but the essence of it, the fight we faced then and face again now, yes, that is real."
"So you really are Merlin?"
"That's not a name I ever wore in life," the ancient magician said. "I always preferred Myrddin, the name my mother gave to me. But yes, again, perceptions of what is real. I am he and he is me."
"That's a lot to wrap my head around. And the guys out there, we're talking the immortal souls of Galahad, Gawain, Percival, the whole shebang?"
"You know the answer to that," Grimm said patiently.
"That's fucked up."
"It is what it is. Now, you called me for a reason?"
"I know who the killer is. I've been in his house. I've seen his next victim, the sigil already inked into his abdomen."
"Who?"
"Jonas Holm, the King of Horror. The guy behind the Sufferer's franchise. He's got a hidden torture room in his mansion up in the hills. He has a pretty boy bound hand and foot, half-dead."
"And you didn't think to make him all dead?"
"Didn't even think about it. I'm not a killer."
"It would have been a mercy," Grimm said. "Still, it is done. What did you learn?"
"He's been getting his victims from The Garden Encantada, Evienne Nemi's place. She hired me to put the frighteners on the sicko."
"Evienne?" There was something in the way the old man said that name, like he'd always known the Hollywood Madam lay at the heart of this tangled web and now he was finally getting confirmation.
"One and the same. That's one weird lady, I don't mind saying."
"She is more than that," the old man said cryptically. I knew I was meant to understand the unspoken truth, but it wasn't all there yet, no matter what I'd thought when I first held Adronight again after all this time. It was coming back to me piecemeal after the initial rush. The most recent memory I'd unlocked had been a pretty harrowing one as I came up in the elevator. The last time I'd visited Avalon it had been on the Boatman's silent vessel, my dying son's head in my lap, praying he'd live just long enough for the sisters of Affalach to save his life. It was the whole son thing that freaked me out, to be honest. I used to live my life based on the wisdom of the plastic grocery bag. You remember them? They used to have a line printed on the bottom? Keep away from babies and small children.
"Sure," I said, like I understood. "Anyway, she's hosting one of her special parties tonight. She told me they've got a special guest coming. She knew about the Demimonde and the Veil. She told me the guest that was coming was so adored that kind of emotional power would be enough to basically light up a city."
"Which must make him the final victim, his soul being used to finally shred the Veil and let the shadow demons though. You can't let this happen, Sam. Whatever happens, that star cannot be sacrificed. We aren't ready." He looked me in the eye, and seemed to see that I was only half-awake, to use his own words. I nodded.
"It's not happening on my watch," I vowed.
"You are a good man," Dante said.
"I didn't have the heart to contradict him, after all it seemed that he'd known me longer than I knew myself.
"She said something that got me to thinking, Holm's only leaving skin and bone behind, which is a metaphor for Hollywood burning its talent out, right? Until the physical beauty of all of these Beautiful Ones is reduced to just that, skin and bone. But what if there's something in that stuff that the cops are missing, because they don't understand a world with magic in it, right?"
Grimm nodded.
"But you do. So what if we get you into the morgue to look at the last victim, see if there's something in there they've been missing? Something on the bones?"
"Bone magic? I have heard of such a thing," Grimm said. "It is rare, but there were practitioners of bone magic once upon a time. It is one of the more ancient necromancies."
"Right, so it's a thing. So, it's not ridiculous to think that there's more to it than just the sigils he's inked onto their skin. I know you said he was working on a spell of opening, and I get the whole grand plan, tearing the Veil asunder, but what if that's only one aspect of what Holm's doing? What if he's part of something bigger?"
"Bigger how?"
"You said there are thirteen of us in the Circle, and that we are stronger as a whole than we ever could be individually. What if Jonas Holm is somehow our nemesis? You know, like Newton said, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? What if Holm is part of our opposites? A shadow Circle working against us?"
"That, my friend, is a prospect too frightening to willingly think about. That someone would willingly look to tear the Veil and shepherd through the twisted darkness of the other side..." He trailed off. I had no idea what he was imagining, but the grim caste of his face conjured its own video nasties in my mind.
"Okay, but what if I am right?"
"Then it is even more imperative that Holm does not succeed. We do whatever we must."
"Including dying," I said, unable to shake the weird feeling that we'd had this conversation--or most of it at least--before and whatever had happened next had led directly or indirectly to my respawning.
"I can't bring you back a second time," Grimm said, maybe reading my mind.
"Last life, eh? No more respawns. Good to know. Can I ask you something?"
"Can I stop you?"
I offered a lopsided grin at that, because we both knew the answer was 'no.' "Did we do this before? Last time? Did we go after Holm? Did Evienne reach out, offering him up on a plate?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"So we did. I haven't told you anything you didn't already know, which means you must know that going after Holm is going to get me killed."
/>
"Yes."
"Did I have Arondight the last time? Was I awake?"
He looked at me. I thought for sure he wasn't going to answer me. But he did. "No. You didn't. We talked. I tried to wake you, but without knowing where your weapon was, and just how strongly your soul was bound to it, I couldn't. So I sent you up against them as yourself, as Sam Lake. And you failed."
"So this time it is different."
"In that fundamental way, yes. I had to offer my own sacrifice to The Lady to get her to offer up your weapon. I just pray it was worth it."
"What did you give up? What did this," I reached out with my arms, trying to encompass everything from the round table to Avalon, Excalibur to the Grail Knights on the dance floor, "cost you?"
"The last of my magic," he said, and then I understood why he couldn't bring me back a second time. He'd given up everything that made him immortal in that bargain with the the Lady of the Tar Pit Lake, one last desperate roll of the dice.
"Fuck," I said. It was the most profound thing I had said in my life.
7
I drove Merlin to the morgue in the Mustang. That’s not something you get to say every day.
He didn’t seem particularly enamored with dad’s mix tape, but then again he had just given up his magic to make a deal with the universe that he had no right making, so I’m hardly surprised Echo and the Bunnymen did nothing for him.
I called ahead to let Milos know we’d be knocking on his door, and more specifically, to let him know which body we wanted access to. We did the usual quid pro quo dance. This time he wanted a candid upskirt shot of one of the latest darlings of the silver screen that I hadn’t been able to sell post #metoo. I was happy enough to hand it over. I didn’t care how the Greek mortician got his rocks off. I mean, you take it for granted a guy who hangs out with the dead every day is a weirdo, but you kinda put him in the mental partition that says good weirdo, not school shooter weirdo.
