by Rowan Casey
Is that what they are? Helpful?
“Yes,” she said firmly.
The image of that thing lurking beneath Dellacroix’s face filled her thoughts.
That’s helpful?
Jessie shook her head to clear it, then changed the television channel, ignoring that inner voice in the process. She settled on an episode of Friends, ignoring the fact that she’d seen it at least half-a-dozen times.
The voice was quiet for a time, before starting up anew.
The visions aren’t going to go away on their own, you know.
“Shut up.”
You know I’m right. You haven’t had a hit in nearly a week now and looks what’s happened. First there was that thing in the alley and tonight you had not one, but two different hallucinations.
“I said, ‘shut up.’”
She flipped the channel again. And again. And again.
The fights over; you don’t need to be sharp any more. Take a little dose and keep the visions away in the process. What’s it going to hurt?
“What indeed?” she asked herself.
That did it.
With a cry of frustration, Jessie rose and stalked into the other room. Grabbing her gym bag, she pulled it toward her and dug out both the packet of smack Reardon gave to her and her drug kit. Taking both of them back over to the couch with her, she sat down and set to work preparing the drugs.
When she was finished, she held the prepared syringe up to the light in front of her.
Are you sure you want to do this? that voice in the back of her head asked.
“Oh, hell yes,” she said aloud to the empty room, and then jabbed herself with the needle, emptying the drug into her vein.
Removing the needle, she laid it gently on the coffee table in front of her and then leaned back against the couch cushions, arms at her sides, waiting for the ride to come…
13
She found herself walking down a dark street in a neighborhood that she didn’t quite recognize. She knew that she was still in Los Angeles - the city still had that indefinable sense to it that told her so – but it was an LA that was very different than the one that she was used to.
The buildings around her were twisted and broken, for one, looking more like they belonged in the middle of a war zone than modern day Los Angeles. Several had collapsed in on themselves, spilling rubble into the street, and all of them had that weathered patina more common with abandonment and age than anything else.
That, however, wasn’t the only difference.
The streets, and the buildings around them, were deserted.
Jessie didn’t see a living soul anywhere.
The streets, the few cars parked along them, even the remains of the buildings around her; all were devoid of any signs of life. It was as if the city had been evacuated overnight and no one told her about it. Her footsteps, gentle as they were, seemed to echo slightly with every step she made.
A chill washed over her.
What the hell was going on here?
As she looked around, she was struck by the overwhelming sense that she needed to move, to get the heck out of there as swiftly as possible. She didn’t argue with the feeling but listened to her instincts instead, striding forcefully down the street without stopping to think about it. She glanced about as she went, though, trying to figure out what had spooked her.
She’d gotten about halfway down the street when she thought she heard something behind her, on the other side of the street.
She stopped and glanced back. “Hello? Anyone there?”
There was no reply.
Shrugging it off, she continued forward, only to have it happen again a few seconds later. This time the sound came from somewhere behind her, on her side of the street, and she spun about, bringing her hands up in case she needed to defend herself.
“Who’s there?” she yelled, a bit louder this time than last. “Come out where I can see you!”
Again, there was no answer.
She took a few steps in the direction she’d come from, peering into the shadows behind her and into the darkened buildings on either side of the street, looking for whoever might be back there.
She didn’t see anyone.
It looked like the street was empty, but something deep inside her said differently. She had the distinct feeling that there was something back there. Watching her.
Waiting for the right moment.
The right moment to what?
She didn’t know.
She moved a few steps closer, still peering into the shadows of the nearest building, trying to see if there was someone hiding there.
“We seeeee youuuuu.”
The whisper was just on the edge of her hearing, so faint that at first she thought she might have imagined it. Jessie stood there, wondering if it had been real.
“Over here.”
She turned her head slowly, trying to figure out where it came from this time. Her left? Her right? Behind her? It was hard to say; the voice seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
“We’re coming to get you, bitch.”
This voice was deeper and more guttural than the one before it. It was also closer, and accompanied by a flash of movement from about twenty-five yards behind her. She waited, watching, and was rewarded with a glimpse of something scampering between two piles of rubble a few seconds later.
Closing in on her.
She didn’t know what it was, but the fact that she’d seen it was enough to quell any question in her mind about whether the voices were real.
They were. And they were decidedly unfriendly, as well.
She wasn’t going to wait around to meet their owners.
Jessie turned and hurried down the street, intending to put as much distance between herself and whatever was back there as possible.
No sooner had she turned her back that a makeshift howling filled the air and the first voice was joined by at least three, possibly four more voices, all howling like a bunch of teenagers imitating a pack of wolves intent on the hunt.
Was that what it was? Teenagers?
Her instincts were telling her otherwise.
She hurried on.
The street intersected another running perpendicular to the first, but no less deserted or damaged. Some of the buildings looked familiar; like the Chinese restaurant a short distance down the street. But she remembered it being on the corner, not halfway down the thoroughfare.
Her anxiety mounting, Jessie glanced back. This time she spotted movement from both sides of the street and it was nearer than before.
A loud clacking sound caught her attention. As she looked that way, a large, white stag stepped into view from the shadows of an alley entrance on the opposite side.
It was a majestic beast, with a thick tuft of white hair adorning its chest and a full set of antlers that spread above it like some kind of natural crown. Its dark brown eyes caught and held her gaze.
When it was sure it had her attention, the stag raised its front right hoof and struck it sharply against the pavement several times in a row, clack clack clack, making it clear that it had been the source of the sound she’d heard moments before. Then, quick as lightning, it turned and bounded away down the street.
Jessie stared after it, a vague sense of familiarity tickling the edges of her memory.
It wants you to follow it, she thought, with no small sense of wonder.
Then, before she had time to consider just how crazy the notion might be or what the heck a white stag was doing in the middle of Los Angeles at night anyway, she did just that; she hurried across the street after it.
At the entrance to the alley Jessie skidded to a stop, cautious about being led into a trap. A glance down the alley’s length showed her the stag was still moving away from her, bounding over a pile of trash that had spilled into the thoroughfare, and headed for the street that bisected the alley at its far end.
Jessie hurried on in pursuit.
&
nbsp; She’d only managed to get half-a-dozen yards along its length before the sounds of pursuit reached her ears and she realized that the things behind her had followed her. She spun about, hands at the ready, only to watch in surprise as a pack of shadowy shapes rushed past the entrance to the alley as if they had no idea that she was even there.
She stood there for several tense seconds, afraid to move and call attention to herself. It was only when the sounds of the pack faded in the distance that she got underway again, hurrying down the length of the alley, afraid that the stag would have vanished and she’d have lost her guide.
But when she reached the end of the alley, she heard the clacking sound again and looked to her left to find the stag waiting patiently at the next corner, the impatient expression in its eyes seeming to say, “What the heck took you so long?”
Not knowing what else to do, Jessie shrugged an apology.
The stag chuffed, exactly once, and Jessie was struck by the notion that it was answering her, that if it could speak it would have looked her right in the eye and drawled a laconic, “Really? That’s all you’ve got?”
Unable to stop herself, she answered that unspoken remark aloud.
“Sorry.”
The stag pawed the ground, dipped its head, and then spun about, bounding away down the street again.
As before, Jessie gave chase.
The stag led her down several streets, across a canal she’d never seen before, and through a maze of back alleys that she wouldn’t have been able to trace her way through again on her own, before emerging from a side street back onto a main thoroughfare. The moment her foot touched the pavement of that street, everything changed.
One moment she was moving through the streets of a Los Angeles that might someday be, with its empty streets and crumbling buildings, and in the next, like a bubble bursting around her, she found herself back in the Los Angeles she knew and remembered, with cars honking in the street in front of her and crowds of pedestrians slipping past her on the sidewalk, as if they were the river and she the rock rising up in the midst of the current. The sounds of the city came back then as well, the noise level crashing against her with a weight all its own, its prior lack only becoming obvious in the crash and clamor of its return…
Jessie turned slowly about, drinking it all in; the cars, the people, the buildings rising around her. Several of those passing her on the street were giving her odd looks and when she followed their gaze she discovered she was standing there in the middle of the sidewalk in her hotel bathrobe, its formerly pure white surface now stained with dirt and other detritus. Her feet were bare and likewise stained.
Holy shit! What the hell happened? she asked herself, bewildered.
A twenties-something male walked past, shaking his head at her. “Late night, huh?” he asked snarkily and Jessie had to resist the urge to beat him senseless in her surprise and fear at finding herself out on the street.
How the hell did she get here?
The last thing she remembered was lying back on the couch in her suite after injecting herself. Somehow, in the midst of her drugged stupor, she’d managed to leave her hotel room, leave her hotel, and wander the streets for half the night wearing only her bathrobe.
She turned and began walking with the flow of the crowd, her thoughts a jangled mess. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was; the neighborhood looked familiar to a certain extent, but then again, so many streets in Los Angeles looked the same that telling one from another was akin to assembling a puzzle where every piece was made up of the same color. Her feet hurt and given the way she was dressed she felt horribly exposed as well.
She didn’t even consider trying to flag down a cab; she had no way to pay for it even if one bothered to stop for her, dressed as she was. No cabbie she knew wanted to be stuck with a crazy lady in the back.
Thankfully it turned out she didn’t need a ride. She’d only walked a couple of blocks when she turned the corner and found herself staring down the street at the doors of the Wilshire Arms Hotel.
Now I just need to convince them to let me in.
Which wasn’t anywhere near as hard as she expected. She marched up to the front doors as if she belonged there. She watched the doorman’s gaze take her in, dirt smudges and all, and then settle on the hotel’s logo embroidered on the right breast of her bathrobe. That, apparently, was all he needed to see. He smiled brightly, said, “Good morning!” and held the door open for her without a single word about her appearance.
The hotel’s been here for over a hundred years, playing host to all kinds of Hollywood celebrities; perhaps he was used to such antics, Jessie thought.
Once inside, Jessie walked meekly over to the reception desk.
“I, um, seem to have locked myself out of my room,” she told the clerk.
The young woman looked her up and down and then flashed her best professional smile. “Your name, please?”
“Jessie Noble.”
The clerk typed something into her computer terminal. There was a pause and then she turned back to Jessie. “Can I see some identification, please?”
Jessie returned the stare for a long moment and then extended her hand across the counter, palm up.
“What’s that, ma’am?” the clerk asked, not understanding.
Jessie’s smile was dazzling with its sarcasm. “My fingerprints. That’s the only identification I have on me at the moment. Unless you want to see the birthmark on my ass?”
She turned her hip to the counter, grabbed the side of her robe, and moved to pull it to one side. The clerk hurriedly held out her hands in a stop gesture.
“That, ah, won’t be necessary, ma’am. Can I get your room number please?”
“Of course. It’s...ah...”
What the hell was her room number? She’d been overwhelmed by so many things last night, from her victory in the ring to hiding the smack from Hautdesert in the wake of Reardon’s visit, that she barely noticed the number written on the outside of the cardboard folder that held her room key. She tried to picture it in her mind without success.
Come on!
“Ma’am?”
Jessie shot out a hand, palm forward, in an unmistakable stop gesture.
The clerk went silent.
Concentrate. You walked down the hallway, looking at the little plaques by the doors. You turned the corner, pulled out your key, and then stopped in front of the door. You glanced at the plaque while sliding the key in the lock…
“753,” she told the clerk, smothering the sigh of relief that wanted to follow.
The clerk looked dubious but didn’t say anything more as she turned back to her terminal and typed something into it. She paused, stared at the screen, and then looked up at Jessie. Whatever the record said, it had a startling effect on the clerk. Her unspoken judgment disappeared in a flash, replaced with an almost fawning enthusiasm.
“My apologies, Miss Noble! I’ll get you a new key right away!”
The clerk fussed with the gadget that imprinted the proper information onto a pair of room keys, then slipped them into one of those little cardboard folders and handed them to Jessie.
“If there’s anything else I can do for you, Miss Noble, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Jessie didn’t let the opportunity slip past. “Now that you mention it, there is something you can help with.”
“I’d be happy to do whatever I can.”
“You can start by telling me who booked the room for me.”
The clerk looked pained as she said, “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Noble, but I can’t.”
Not surprising, but still…
“Can’t or won’t?” Jessie pressed.
The clerk looked relieved that she could answer that one. “Literally can’t. Any information about the room, aside from the fact that you are its current occupant, is restricted in the system. Only the hotel manager can access it.”
“And is that usual?”
The clerk frowned. “Usual
? I don’t know. I can tell you that I’ve been here for a year and I’ve never seen that particular command before, if that helps.”
Yes and no, Jessie thought. It did in the sense that it told her that her mysterious benefactor was going to considerable lengths to keep his identity from her, but it didn’t answer her original question and, more importantly, it didn’t tell her why.
She thanked the clerk and then took the elevator back to the seventh floor, ignoring the looks she got from other guests along the way. Given all she’d been through over the last few years, Jessie had long since given up on caring what other people thought about her, especially those she didn’t know personally.
Reaching her room, Jessie used her new key to open the door, discovering in the process an envelope that had been slipped beneath it. She scooped it up and carried it inside, locking the door behind her.
First things first, she thought, as she dropped the envelope on the bed and headed for the shower.
Fifteen minutes later, washed, dried, and dressed in a clean set of clothes she’d had sent up from the hotel store using the money in her new bank account, Jessie settled in a chair by the room’s floor-to-ceiling window and examined the envelope she’d found beneath her door.
It was your average, everyday business size envelope, with her name scrawled across the front in a fine, spidery script.
She tore off one end of the envelope and tipped its contents – a folded piece of paper – into her other hand. Opening it up, she found a pair of tickets to an illusionist’s show that evening at a place called Avalon and a handwritten note.
“I hope you’ll be my guest at tonight’s show,” it read.
It was signed Dante Grimm.
14
Avalon, as it turned out, was one of the new nightclubs that had sprung up in the Silver Lake District over the last few years. It sat at the end of an alley, a squat little building staring back up the street to where Jessie stood, all but daring her to approach. The neon sign spelling out the club’s name on the rooftop blinked one oversized letter at a time, illuminating the line of well-dressed people that stretched away from the front door where a pair of bouncers stood controlling entry.
