Then the golden light that filled us dissipated and I instinctively inched toward Lei-tao as she fell into my arms. Our bodies were dripping wet with perspiration but our minds were alert and euphoric. “Thank you, Cable! She said breathlessly. “I knew you could do this with me—I just knew.”
“And thank you, babe. I think you just spoiled me for a human existence, though. How can I ever have a mortal woman again?”
“You will. In the human condition, you will forget. And you will live on without me, as I must live on without you. What has been added is that you will pass some of this golden walk to the Center of the Sun onto others that they might be lighted by your presence. This is how we silently grow and learn from others. This is my gift to you, Cable.”
I woke up on the floor of that dark room with the little table and the single red lantern. “Lei-tao?” I called. “Lei-tao?” I felt my body. It was still intact and nothing hurt. “Are you here?”
“Yes, Cable. But the cup is tipped and you must right it so I can re-form into it and regain my physical self.”
I saw the goblet next to me on the floor. I got up and placed it on the table by the glowing red lantern and sat. “Okay. Shoot…” I couldn’t believe it as the bottom of the chalice began to fill again with the bright red and gold liquid. Soon it rose like a mist up out of the container and spread around the room like a beautiful fog. Then Lei-tao’s complete woman’s body formed out of that fog and she stood before me…perfectly wonderful…perfectly naked. “Happy to see you again, fellow traveler. Do…do you, uh, need to put some clothes on? Now that I’ve experienced the you in you I think my human man’s desire is tweaked. But what an adventure, toots! How am I gonna ever top this one?”
She giggled a little. “You won’t have to. Some of it I have erased already. You will take away only the essence of our experience together. Otherwise, you might go mad trying to equal your experience with other earth-grounded women.” She went to a dark corner and slipped on a red outfit that was hidden there.
“Yeah, I’ll drink to that.” I looked around. “Speaking of which, I could sure use a mighty potent drink just about now.”
“We will go back to my apartments. I will go first. You follow in ten minutes. We will drink a celebration, Cable. You have accomplished much this day.”
“I have? So what about the Seven Truths?”
“They are reminders and speak of our sacred roots. Do you remember most of them?”
“Naw, not really. They’re a bit over my head, kid. You see, I’m still a caveman in some ways—the guy who sucks in his gut every day as he goes to work in that silly blue uniform and badge, someone who walks his talk but runs into the bullshit that the unjust of the world dish out—someone who’d rather be amongst the smoke and din of a crowded nightclub, watching a pretty babe with big tits and a red-sequined gown warble a couple of great tunes. I live in the realm of what is and what could be, willing to take the chance because life is a brief trip anyhow and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out if you start out at the bottom of the money-ladder, chances are you ain’t gonna be having lunch at New York’s Stork Club or playing polo on a twenty-grand horse anytime soon. So you see, you do the next best thing, take your sword in hand and slash away at the untruths and injustices in the world, help out the poor and under-privileged, rescue a damsel from being beaten to death by her boyfriend, help that old lady across the street and draw your gun when danger threatens, shoot or be shot, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. That’s the world I live in, lady, the one where the battle never quite ends, where love and sex become all muddled up together and children still cry on street corners when Mamma gets mugged in the dark, where the underbelly of the world rules with its diabolical greed and lust, where people like Ravna and Matrangas or Laggore spread a violent sickness like a virulent plague that won’t go away because they own the store and run it smart, because the populace is too dumbed down to notice as it struggles just to make ends meet providing food and a roof over their heads. And that…that’s called the school of hard knocks, kid.”
Lei-tao stood there. “If a shape-changing woman could love a mortal man, Cable Denning, I would love you. I have never heard a man speak as you do. Your mind is bitter but your heart is wonderful. We must go now.”
Chapter 9
THE REACH OF THE BLACK HAND
About 600,000 people died between 1918 and 1920 of the Spanish flu in the United States. It hit every income strata, every family, every walk of life. Now, ten years later, it was as if it never happened and it faded like a memory of something that happened on another planet. Life has that capacity to go on, and not look back if the nightmare was worse on the road behind than one could imagine on the road ahead. Lei-tao told me I would forget her in time, that whatever I had shared with her this day would fade from me, drain out of my memory as every day existence pounded its drum in my ear. Maybe it was true. Maybe there is a failsafe mechanism in humans that unless your heart is broken, most things we recall don’t amount to much. Perhaps a fond childhood memory or someone you loved who isn’t around anymore filters through our brain cells now and then. But survival was dependent on the immediate on those days, and no matter how crazy something might have appeared to be, the inexorable march of time buried it along with the other dirty laundry in the basket we keep under the counter marked ‘once upon a time.’
I went down the stairs and crossed the basement room toward the golden elevator. Wong Lo San caught up with me from out of the shadows. “You are to be searched, ocean shadow,” he said, as he stopped me. He threw me against a wall and slapped the palms of his hands all over my body, giving my genitals an extra-hard whack. “That to remember me by, white ghost. Go, and may the Curse of the Red Dragon Lady be upon you.”
I was smarting from a case of whacked balls. “Thanks, you ugly son-of-a-bitch. You’re a cowardly bastard for a Hatchet Man. You fear and that’s why you hit me. You fear you will never have what I have already experienced with your mistress. Well, let me tell you, buster, you never will have that privilege. You know why? Because you come with a pre-set gearbox of meanness, and until you lighten up and let go of what you can’t change, you’ll always be a cheap henchman.” He raised his hand to strike me. “Go ahead, hit me again if it makes you feel better. You Chinese are supposed to be ancient and wise, but you know what? I see you as fearful and stupid, breeding like rats in a filthy sewer of your own making. Even if you could rule the world one day, your kind will perish because you fucked your way to oblivion along with the rest of the planet.”
He put his hand down. “Go, piece of white crap, and do not let me see you again, for surely, I will kill you when next we meet.”
I went to the elevator, got in and pressed “4”. Soon I was in Lei-tao’s gold and red living quarters again. She was sitting on the plush golden sofa I had slept on the previous night. She was wearing a very light pink see-through nightgown. She sat with her legs crossed and a long, narrow crystal glass in her hand. I was still a bit bent over from the pain in my groin. “What happened, Cable?” she said, alarmed at my strange gait.
“Oh, nothing much. Your hatchet boy down in the lobby doesn’t like me much. He searched me and punched me in the balls for good measure.”
“Oh, no…I’m so sorry…” She got up and came over to me. She scooped my balls into her left hand and almost instantly all my pain ceased. “Wong Lo San is bitter. He feels demoted in the web of things. What he does not know is that he has not learned the first lesson he came to learn. He will need many, many lifetimes to accomplish that, I would say.”
She let go of my balls and I was sorry. It felt pretty good. “Yeah, well, let’s not talk about Wong Lo San anymore, okay? I think I’ve had my fill of him in this one lifetime I’ve got right now.”
She escorted me to the large sofa and sat me beside her. “Now that I trust you, Cable, I must ask you a favor. I must ask you to seek out and retrieve the Fen de Fuqin from its hiding p
lace. Then you must return it to me so I may put it back to where it will be safe.”
“Aren’t you forgetting a thing or two? Say I retrieve your precious sacred, how do I sidestep the Order from killing Adora, myself and anyone else in the way? You do know everyone and their brother wants the damn thing? Did you say it was supposed to be filled with that Tone of Creation thing or something? Oh, yeah, and what’s to prevent those bogeymen creatures from returning to your Cave of the Seven Truths and stealing it again? I’d hate to go through all that effort only to find I was dead meat at the other end anyhow.”
She smiled at me and raised her crystal glass to me. “You are so perceptive, Cable.” She got up and poured me a drink from a different bottle than what she had been sipping from.
“What, I don’t rate to drink equal with the lady?”
“No, it’s not that. What I drink in this bottle would kill you. I do not eat or drink as you do. This is liquid gold plasma and dissipates into my body before it reaches my stomach. I cannot eat your food or drink. I have some very aged brandy here for you. I hope you like it.”
“Oh,” I said, a bit perplexed as how these beings lived. I toasted Lei-tao and drank down a little of the brandy. It was so smooth that my whole chest lit up when I drank it. I got out a cigarette and lit up. “Thanks, Lei-tao. I’m—I’m just not used to dealing with other dimensional creatures you know. As I said, you’d make a hell of a difficult wife or lover.”
She laughed. “If I could, I would be your wife, Cable. I think I love you, I mean, in your language, your way of loving someone. I am sorry I cannot participate. But now you have ‘had sex’ my way. Did you like it?”
“I’ll never forget it. It’s just different, that’s all. I liked the part about raising the energy from the genitals up to the solar plexus, into the heart and way up there in that purple place I felt. Yeah, and thanks for loving me, your style. I like you a lot, too.”
She cleared her throat. “Now, to answer your questions. First of all, I cannot retrieve Fen de Fuqin because I must leave immediately tonight…my energies are depleting, and it takes several of your weeks for me to regenerate in order to return. Taking you on our journey took most of my reserves. But I wouldn’t have traded it, Cable. That said, I do not know the answers to all your questions. If Ravna or even Mr. Damianos is still seeking the Fen de Fuqin, then your mortal lady is safe.”
I thought for a minute. “You’re forgetting the fact that at the end of this trip, I’m supposed to deliver up—or Miss Moreno dies, and as I said, God knows who else. How do we circumvent that little reality, Red Dragon Lady?”
“Toggth. For a short while, he can replicate the original Fen de Fuqin and get away with it. But you must get the original to me as soon as possible. He will fashion a three-dimensional duplicate. But it will only vibrate in that state for so long. And once I have the real one, I must extract the microfilm and replace it with the Tone of Creation. In that moment, the sound of the lotus returning will be heard and the duplicate will disappear.”
“Now who in the hell is this Toggth? You sure know some weird dudes.” I took a big drag on my Lucky Strike and had a big swallow of my very smooth brandy. “And when whoever has it discovers the fraud, I’ll be right back where I started, won’t I?”
The Red Dragon Lady thought for a minute. “Toggth will appear to you when the time comes. Toggth knew the Fen de Fuqin was hidden in the throat of Blinthe, until other evil forces discovered it and thought they had killed him for it. But when your Dr. Sandor stole the golden capsule, Blinthe’s body evaporated. Toggth is a substance-master, one who can create dimensional matter into any shape or form. But it will last for only a limited time. We can hope once the duplicate is put away, the deception will not be noticed.”
I almost choked on my drink.! No wonder Blinthe disappeared from the table next to Ardizzone’s body at the morgue that night. He really did! “But I saw a dead man on that slab, some little guy with no fingerprints, no belly button. He was as human as you and I….” Then I stopped. I realized Lei-tao was not one of my kind. “I think you’ve got me playing a game of Russian roulette here, lady. I’ve got five blanks and one live shell in the chamber. When I click the gun stuck to my temple, I’ve got one chance in six that I’ll blow my brains out. I don’t much like those odds.”
“Please, Cable. Let’s say it works.” I was looking at that beautiful body of hers through the see-through nighty. “As far as the evil ones returning to the Cave of the Seven Truths, it is now protected with the Vibration of the Spheres. You see, we do have lots of help, despite those who intend harm.”
“Okay, let me get this straight. While you’re recuperating your energies, I find and retrieve the capsule. Somehow I get it to you. In the meantime your master alchemist replicates the Fen de Fuqin and I get that when I hand you the real one, right?”
“Correct.”
“Then I go back to living my life just as though nothing happened, right? What about Dragna and his gang, Damianos and whoever I don’t know about, that's after the capsule? I’ve got this feeling that Ravna will be first in line to grab it and it’ll be him and his Oculus Pyramis Order that’ll get first dibs. So, at best, Lei-tao, we’re buying some time here.” I finished off my brandy, feeling a little lit up from the near-pure alcohol. “What a chump I turned out to be. All for a dame—whether it’s you or Adora—it’s my balls that drive me, let’s face it.”
“No, Cable, not just that. You’re very strong and live without fear for yourself. There is nothing you can do about others who may step in harm’s way. What you do not see is that we are all part of the fabric.”
“Well, not if I cause the death of someone else in the fabric. What if they didn’t ask for it? What if I got them implicated accidentally? Like Adora—”
“—you don’t know souls, Cable. Each has its own pathway of intent.”
There was a long pause as I lit up another Lucky Strike. I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “So…where is this thing hidden?”
“It is in a castle on top of a hill above a little village in California called San Simeon. The castle was built by a newspaper tycoon and contains many very old artifacts and collections. Among them, in the Hall of Flags, is a medieval knight’s armor standing on a pedestal. Remove the left glove, and near the elbow you will find the Fen de Fuqin wrapped in a doe skin.”
Finally I got it: the riddle was never “night of nights” but “knight of nights!” Madame Palladino’s channeling was correct. “Truthfully, Lei-tao, I think the chances of complete success are about one in a million. But I’m so damn wrapped up in this thing already, I’ve nothing to lose but my skin, I suppose. What the hell, life is short anyway.”
The lovely Red Dragon Lady glowed in the red candlelight. Her dark eyes shone out at me with much admiration, her lips poised on that wonderful mouth so perfectly. “You are a one-in-a-million, Cable Denning.”
I leaned closer to her. “I know you said I might defile you, but how much harm could one kiss do? May I kiss you?”
“I—I don’t know…no one has ever kissed me.”
“Are you still a virgin, then?”
“Not really. Not around you, Cable. I gave something of myself to you in the Cave of the Seven Truths when we made love. I cannot take that back. So perhaps in the ethereal sense, I gave my virginity to you.”
I bent my head forward to her mouth, my lips nearly touching hers. “So, permission requested, beautiful Dragon Lady—may I kiss you?”
“Permission granted…” She said that and ever so tenderly brought her lips to press on mine. They were a bit cool at first, but soon warmed up and clung to mine for the longest time. When our lips separated she sighed and took my shoulders between her gentle arms. “My first kiss…it felt…so wonderful, Cable. And it didn’t deplete me. I feel…stronger, reinforced in your world…thank you for kissing me…perhaps again sometime?”
“How about right now? I’ve always sa
id it has to be the right kiss, kid. I’m not exactly your prince, but at least I didn’t turn into a frog, did I?”
She smiled and tittered a soft sound. “No, you didn’t—nor did I evaporate into nothingness. When first we met, I told you it is love, Cable… love is the great perfecting moment, the one that binds us in unity and makes everything good, inside and outside—even pleasurable.”
“Well, damn, I’d hope so.” I moved in to kiss her again. This time she drew away.
“I—I am afraid…I do not want to become a mortal woman…or think like one, tied to uncertainty and desire. Please…let it go…and remember the one perfect kiss we have shared.” She rose up from the sofa. “I must leave you now. Wang Lo San will escort you out. He will not harm you. I have forbidden him to hurt you.”
“Well, my balls still smart a little. If that wasn’t a painful enough—”
“—please…go now. And thank you…thank you for who you are…and for entering my life. I will see you at the other end of the adventure.”
“Oh, one thing more. How do I gain access to this castle at San Simeon? Who in the hell owns it?”
“It’s called La Cuesta Encantada and owned by a newspaper mogul named William Randolph Hearst. He is very well known and involved in Hollywood. Maybe someone you know of can help you gain access. I will send you some magic to help you.” She turned and walked down the hallway.
That night, I returned to my room at the Hotel Verona and found everything in order. I called Ravna, reassured him that although I didn’t have the golden capsule in hand at the moment, I was sure to have it within a week or two. He grumbled that I’d better be on the level and he’d be in L.A. in a few days to get a report first hand. He also informed me that one Isaiah Damianos had met with a most unfortunate accident and now resided at the bottom of San Francisco Bay, rent-free. That hit me pretty hard because I was just getting to like the bloke. And if I didn’t deliver that damned Deus Patrum Nostrorum pretty soon, I might be renting a place at the local cemetery. Ravna informed me that the Church was out of the picture for the time being until they sent their next emissary to procure what Ravna wanted more than anything else in this world—and reassured me he was determined to get it.
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