There was no mirror in the room, no mirror in the bathroom, and he finally asked for one. His vague reflection in the window looked wrong, somehow. When St. Katherine brought him into a larger bathroom one floor below, with a large mirror above the sink, he saw why.
The spikes were gone from his forehead, burned and melted away; scarred, nearly smooth flesh remained behind. His eyebrows were just now growing back, stiff and coarse. Beard and moustache, too, had begun. His hair was uneven, stuck out from his head.
“I like the look,” he said. And he did. He looked like someone else, which matched the way he felt.
“That’s good,” St. Katherine said, standing beside him. “Better if you are not recognizable.”
“Why?”
They looked at each other’s images in the mirror, reflected gazes meeting.
“Because you’re dead.”
They sat at the table of a small kitchen on the same floor as the larger bathroom. St. Lucy served coffee and joined them.
“Saint Lucy is my primary adviser,” St. Katherine said. “Also our medical expert.”
Mixer stared into St. Lucy’s eyes. A stunning, deep blue, unlike anything he had seen before. “Are your eyes real?” he asked.
St. Lucy smiled softly. “Yes, they’re real. They’re not the eyes I was born with, but they’re real.” Her smile faded. “They’re New Hong Kong eyes.”
There was something pained in her voice, in her expression, and Mixer knew better than to ask any more about it. He turned back to St. Katherine.
“So why am I supposed to be dead?”
“We made... an announcement. Over the nets. You died a martyr. Something like a Saint yourself.” She looked away, apparently uncomfortable. “A great trial, providing us with profound revelations.”
“Why?” Mixer asked again.
“For your protection,” St. Lucy said.
“We did something terrible,” St. Katherine said, still not looking at him. “I did something terrible.”
“It was a joint decision,” St. Lucy put in.
St. Katherine shook her head. “You advised against it. My responsibility.” She finally looked back at Mixer. “I came looking for you, Minor Danzig. For the trial. I came looking for you.” She laughed harshly. “I entered into a contract, a contract of the damned. For money and... other considerations, I agreed to find you for my next trial. You were expected to go the way of all the others. You were to die, or lose your mind.” The tears reappeared, welling in her eyes. “You did neither, Minor Danzig.”
Mixer didn’t know what to say. He looked back and forth between the two women. “Why do you call me Minor Danzig?” Not the question he really wanted to ask. “It’s the name I was born with,” he said, looking into St. Lucy’s incredible blue eyes. “But it’s not my name any longer. My name is Mixer.”
“You’ve been reborn,” St. Lucy said, smiling again. “It’s only right that you reclaim the name you were given at birth.” Then she gave a brief, graceful shrug. “You will need a new name, when you go out into the world again.”
St. Lucy glanced at St. Katherine, then got up from the chair and walked out of the kitchen, leaving the two of them alone.
“Who wanted me dead?” Mixer asked.
St. Katherine wiped tears from her eyes. “I’m confused,” she said, shaking her head, not quite looking at him. “I sacrificed my principles... no, not sacrificed. Sold them, for money and other things.” She now looked directly at him. “But doing that brought me you, one who has broken the Wheel and passed the trial. The first, the only one ever. The one man proven worthy to be my consort. Selling out my principles brought you to me, so perhaps it was meant for me to do, perhaps it was the right thing, perhaps I was guided.”
Mixer just shook his head. He finished his coffee, got up, and refilled his cup from the glass carafe on the stove.
“Perhaps...” St. Katherine said.
“No,” Mixer said. “It was wrong. I think all your goddamn ‘trials’ are wrong. Murder, is what they are. You believe it’s your calling; well, that’s for you to figure out. But doing what you did to me, for money, contracting out, even for you it was wrong. Doesn’t matter how it all turned out. Blasphemy, babe.”
He stood with his hip against the counter, watching her. He held the coffee in his left hand, though it was awkward. His right arm was too heavy, and still hurt. St. Katherine remained silent a long time, returning his gaze. Finally she nodded.
“You’re right, Minor Danzig. It was blasphemy, and I’ll have to atone for that.”
“Who wanted me dead?” he asked again.
St. Katherine sat up straighter in the chair, more confident and self-assured. Back to normal, Mixer thought. Was that good? She gave him a half smile.
“A woman named Aster,” she said. “But she’s not important, she was just a courier. She was working for someone else.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t tell us. What we did may have been blasphemous, but we didn’t do it stupidly. Lucy and I weren’t about to take the risk without knowing who was buying us.” She finished her own coffee and joined Mixer by the stove, refilling her cup and emptying the carafe. “Wasn’t easy tracing her, but we have hot demon resources. Angelic demons, of course,” she said, smiling. “Took us nearly three days, but we found it.”
“Who?”
“The trace led back to two sources,” St. Katherine said. “First, the mayor of this great city, the Honorable Terrance Kashen. And then, through him, we were fairly certain, to New Hong Kong.”
Jesus Christ, Mixer thought. The mayor. The New Hong Kong connection didn’t surprise him; there had been hints from Chick before he got himself killed. But the mayor. Fuck these people. What the hell was going on?
“Do you know why?” Mixer asked.
St. Katherine shook her head. “We never got even a hint.”
Mixer sighed deeply. “So, you were paid to kill me, and when I didn’t die, when my brains didn’t get scorched, you covered your asses and put out the word that I was dead.”
“No,” St. Katherine said, firmly shaking her head. “We could have let you die, and then it would have been the truth. We saved your life. You would have died without medical help. Lucy said it. We did it for your protection. So the mayor or whoever else won’t come after you again.”
“And you announced it over the nets.”
“Yes.”
He thought about Paula and Carlucci, Tia and Miklos and Amy, other people he knew, some friends, some not. They all must now think he was dead.
“Who knows I’m still alive?”
“Saint Lucy and I. The doctor, who is my sister. And the techs, but they don’t know who you are. The other Saints and all the novitiates think you’re dead. You looked dead when we carried you away.”
Mixer shook his head. “But I’m supposed to be your consort now, right? I survived the trial. So how does that happen if I’m dead?”
A wry smile crossed St. Katherine’s face. “I haven’t worked that out yet.”
Mixer looked out the small kitchen window. They were still several floors above the street. The day was bright and hazy, the sun glaring down through the sick mustard sky. What the hell was he going to do?
“I love you,” St. Katherine said.
Mixer turned back to her, remembering now that she’d said it once before. “You don’t even know me.”
She smiled. “It doesn’t matter. Besides, I do know you. I’ve been at your side for days, nursing you, watching you, talking to you, even when you couldn’t hear me. I know you, Minor Danzig. And I do love you.”
Mixer studied her face, looked into her eyes, and realized it was true. In her own way, whatever that was, whatever that meant to her, St. Katherine loved him. He thought it should frighten him, or repulse him, but for some reason it didn’t. Mostly he felt uneasy, a little confused. He remembered thinking as he was strapped to the wheel that he could fall in love with someone who looked like her. Sh
e was still stunningly beautiful, and there was something compelling about her, the way she was with him. But she had tried to kill him. She had saved him, but she had nearly killed him. Could he ever care for someone who had done that to him? Someone as crazy as St. Katherine? He didn’t know, and that disturbed him as much as anything else.
“Am I a prisoner here?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she replied. “But you’re still healing, you don’t have much strength.” She paused. “And it’s going to be dangerous for you. It would help if the beard were longer.”
“People think I’m dead. My friends think I’m dead.”
St. Katherine nodded. “And you had better be certain who your friends are, and careful who you see.” She paused. “Stay a few more days, Minor Danzig. Rest, and be cautious.”
Mixer nodded. “I’ll stay. And don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” He smiled. “I’ve already died once. I don’t want to do it again any sooner than I have to.”
EIGHTEEN
PAULA WAS FEELING reckless. Chick was dead, Mixer was dead, why not go all-fire? She was still uncertain about Tremaine, and she wanted to get away from that as well.
Fuck Jenny Woo and the Saints and whoever killed Chick, fuck ’em all. Jenny Woo had thought Paula was following her? Fine, she’d do it for real, see if she couldn’t find out what the hell was going on.
She thought about calling Carlucci and letting him know what she was doing, but he’d just try to talk her out of it, and she didn’t want to be talked out of anything right now. Instead, Paula left a message for Bonita, canceling another Black Angels gig that night, and headed for the Tenderloin.
Paula had her own ways into the Tenderloin, at least one into each of the Quarters. Two—into the Euro and Arab Quarters—were expensive and unpleasant, and she avoided them. Her two ways into the Asian Quarter would take her right into the heart of where she wanted to be, but would be a hell of a lot more likely to alert Jenny Woo. The Latin Quarter was too far away, so she decided on the Afram.
The sun was setting, streaking dark, heavy incoming clouds with deep orange and red, and the heat of the day still shimmered in the air, baking up from the street and off the darkbrick and stone and concrete all around her. It was probably going to rain sometime tonight; Paula could feel it weighing down on her.
She walked to the farthest reach of the Polk Corridor, then crossed into the DMZ between the Polk and the Tenderloin. DMZ was a bad name for the strip. After dark it got crazy, and by midnight was more of a free-fire zone than anything else. Now it was marginal, lights coming on and going off in windows, street traffic noisy and snarled, sidewalks jammed. Paula felt probing hands and fingers when she was bumped, saw crazed eyes staring at her, smelled panic and desperation in the air. A Black Rhino thundered down the street, clearing traffic as it ground up the pavement in its path, smashing vehicles aside. Paula leaped into the empty street in its wake, just in front of a pack of trailing Tick-Birds, ran behind it for a block, then cut up toward the Tenderloin, only two blocks from the Nairobi Café, her way in. She hurried along the two blocks, nervous energy pushing her close to a run. She’d have to settle down or she’d drive herself crazy.
She stopped across the street from the Nairobi Café, looking at the windows filled with lush tropical trees and plants and birds. A huge boa constrictor was wrapped around one of the trees, two feet of tail end dangling from a branch; a large, pop-eyed green lizard sat below the boa, flicking its tongue, eyes shifting with jerky movements. Paula crossed the street and pushed through the front door, still walking way too fast.
She was more than halfway to the rear of the café when she realized something was wrong. People turned to stare at her, and the noise level dropped, though the place didn’t actually go silent. As she walked among the tables, she realized she was the only white person in the place.
The Nairobi customers were always mostly black, but never exclusively, and though she’d never seen any Asians in the place, there were always whites, usually a few Latinos. Neither right now. Blacks at every table, at the bar, a lot of them looking at her. Shit. Shockley’s Raiders had re-formed recently, pounding around the city, making things jittery again. She’d bet they’d made some hit in the last day or two that she hadn’t heard about. Shit.
Paula kept going. No one tried to stop her. Maybe it wasn’t smart, but she was already closer to the back than the front. When she reached the end of the bar, she walked around it and into the short hall leading to the bathrooms. She passed the women’s room, the men’s room, then hesitated before the curtained doorway at the end of the hall. Fuck it. Paula pulled the curtain aside and walked through.
The room in back was small and dark. Orange lamps in the corners, a few chairs, a desk with a computer. A big-boned man sat at the desk, staring at her. A woman sat in one of the chairs, smoking a cigarette.
Paula walked up to the desk, laid down two twenties, and said, “Paula Asgard.” Her voice sounded perfectly calm, which surprised her.
“Your money’s no good here, white girl.” The man behind the desk made no move toward the money or the keyboard. “You are no good here.”
“Paula Asgard,” she said again, pointing at the computer. “I’m in there.”
The man behind the desk shook his head. “Nobody white is in there,” he said. “You pick up that money now, and go back out the way you came in.”
Paula still had too much nervous energy, pumped up now with adrenaline, and it made her stubborn. And maybe stupid, but she didn’t care. Her heart was beating hard, but she didn’t care about that, either.
“Samuel Eko is a friend of mine,” she said. “You call him upstairs, tell him I’m here.”
“He’s not your friend anymore, sugar,” the woman said. Paula turned to her. “Yes, he is. Samuel will always be my friend.” She swung back to the man behind the desk. “You call him.”
There was a long silence, no one moving. Finally the man behind the desk stood. “Wait,” was all he said; and then he went out through the curtain.
Paula remained standing in the middle of the room, hands in jacket pockets, right hand gripping the hilt of the gravity knife. She kept her gaze straight ahead, at the unoccupied desk.
The woman put out her cigarette, gave a short laugh, then lit another. “You’ve got balls, sugar. Too bad you’re about to get them cut off.”
Paula didn’t respond. She thought of Samuel Eko, hoping he was upstairs, reachable. She had known Samuel even longer than she’d known Chick. His sister, Angie, had been the percussionist in Heatseeker, the first all-woman band Paula had joined. When Angie had been killed, Paula and Samuel had become close friends, sharing their grief.
The curtain was pulled aside and Paula turned to see the big-boned man come into the room with Samuel Eko right behind him. Samuel was a tall man, well over six feet, almost thin, and one of the darkest men Paula had ever know. He approached her, smiling, and put his long arms around her. Paula hugged him back.
“Let’s go,” Samuel said. With one arm over her shoulder, he led the way to the door in the back corner of the room. He opened the door, and stepped back to let Paula go first.
“So long, sugar,” the woman said.
Paula entered the passage, which led to the Afram Quarter proper, and Samuel Eko followed, shutting the door behind them. The passage was long and narrow, with an occasional door on one side or the other, and lit by bare incandescents spaced every twenty feet.
“You’re a crazy woman,” Samuel Eko said.
“Probably,” Paula replied. “What did I miss? Something with Shockley’s Raiders?”
Samuel nodded. They walked side by side, little space between them; Samuel had to duck at each light.
“They burned down an apartment building on Fillmore this morning. Killed eleven people.”
“That’s what the smoke was.” She’d seen it from her apartment when she got up; smelled it, even.
“Same old shit.”
They
reached the end of the passage and Samuel pushed the door open. They stepped out into the Tenderloin, the sky now dark above the buildings, no stars visible through the thick clouds.
“Where you headed?” Samuel asked. They stood on the sidewalk, and Paula was certain that people on the streets were staring at them.
“The Asian Quarter.”
“Why didn’t you just go in there?”
“I should have.”
“I’d better go with you,” Samuel said.
Paula laughed. “Yeah, you’d better.” It was only a few blocks, but Paula didn’t want to do it alone. The streets didn’t look much different than the Nairobi; Paula saw only one other white, a man walking with two black men. A real different feel from what she was used to here. They started walking.
“Sometimes I think we’re never, absolutely never, going to get along,” he said.
“Who?”
“Whites and blacks. Asians and blacks. Anyone and blacks. Hell, anyone with anyone else. Every time things seem to get better for a while, something like this happens. Two years ago it was the crucifixions on the Marina Green. Before that, it was those black crazies burning down all those Cambodian houses and stores. Five years ago it was the Tundra riots and the Mission fires. It’s always something.”
They stopped at an intersection, waiting for a traffic knot to unsnarl. All-percussion music was coming from a bar just down the street; the strong smell of spiced coffee made Paula want to stop at Kit’s, a sidewalk café next to the bar, and have coffee with Samuel, but she knew it was impossible. Traffic cleared, and they crossed the street.
“You know my father came from the Sudan,” Samuel Eko said.
“Yes,” Paula replied. “And he met and fell in love with a Namibian beauty who made him the happiest man alive, who became his wife and the mother of his three sons and two daughters.”
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