“I’m sorry to say you’re killing your daddy, Garland,” Glide said. I could feel him building a working aimed right at me. “This old bum, he’s lying to you. He doesn’t want to help you. He got your mommy killed.”
Garland looked at me and I saw the doubt enter those young-old eyes. I completed the first key and my fingers began the second series of mudras; the twisting and the shaping of my fingers was even more difficult than the first. I kept working and I matched the little boy’s gaze. It was harder than I thought it would be.
I thought about my grandmother, how she used to talk to me when I wasn’t much older than Garland, her gentle voice, her kindness, and most of all, her honesty. I tried to think what Granny would say. “I messed up,” I said. “I got scared and I did something bad because I was scared. Your mom got hurt, got killed, because I messed up, Garland. I’m sorry.”
“Mamma said you were her friend, that it was okay that you’re sad inside,” the child with Caern Ankou’s eyes said to me as sagely as any guru, as any mystic master I had ever met. “Mamma told me it’s okay. She told me we all get scared and we all mess up sometimes. We just got to try again to do good. Mamma was sad inside too, for a long time. She messed up too, but she said me and Dad made her happy inside again. She told me after you left that she could see the good in you, trying to peek out from all that sad and bad. She liked you, Ballard.”
“I liked her too,” I said. I was almost done with the second key, my fingers were flying. If I hadn’t fucked it up this should get Brett’s attention. I couldn’t fuck this up. “I need you to think of your mamma right now, kid, see her, don’t close your eyes, don’t be afraid of the monster or the bad man. Think about all the good things about your mamma. See her.”
“Okay, this is too fucking sweet for words,” Glide said. “And you think I’m smarmy, please. Say night-night, old man.” He raised his hand to obliterate me with a channel of Muladhara energy. I completed the second key and my hands came together, steepled with a too-loud clap. A halo of violet light surrounded Garland and it slowly drifted away from him as it grew larger, shifted in shape, and began to take on substance. “What did you do?” Glide said, incredulous as he finally began to comprehend what I had been working at. Crimson energy flared like a bloody star from his hand straight toward my heart.
A slender, pale hand stopped it harmlessly, refracted it into a million shards of twinkling, jeweled light. The hand was connected to a wrist crisscrossed with old scars. Garland looked up into the fading lavender light and smiled into the face of his mother.
“It’s all right, Garland,” the tulpa of Caern Ankou said as she effortlessly pulled Crash Cart’s slippery steel cables away from Garland. “Mamma’s going to make the bad dream go away now.” The tiny little Fae girl shoved back the hulking stainless steel nightmare and Crash Cart smashed back into a wall, sending down a rain of plaster dust and debris.
“That’s not possible,” Glide said, as he slipped to the floor and assumed a Burmese position. His fingers linked and began to shift and move frantically. “It took my father years, me, decades, to master the formation formulas to build a tulpa. How could you…”
“Your granddad Chuck taught me in one day,” I said, “for a carton of smokes. I’ve always been a quick learner, at least as far as magic goes.” Glide was working to strengthen Crash Cart’s physicality in the waking world. He was working off stale formula and rote visualization. Caern’s projection was fueled by the dynamo of a child’s imagination and a son’s love. Crash Cart tried to roll back toward the boy and Caern stopped him cold with one hand on his boxlike chest. The nightmare began to become a little blurry at the edges.
“Leave my family alone,” she said. A fierceness set in her jaw. I saw Joey’s head come up, the look of amazement on his face.
I shouted to him even as I began a new combination of mudras, a riff off what Manson had taught me, an improvisation. It was something else I was actually kind of good at, one of the few things. “Joey! Think of Caern, remember her, all your love, all your memories, now!”
Caern became even more substantial, more solid. The detail of her face, her clothes, everything brightened and sharpened, even as Crash Cart was losing detail. I completed my new mudra just as the monstrous tulpa rolled away from Caern, who now was radiant in all her true Fae glory, beautiful, powerful, a goddess, protecting her child. At my direction, Crash Cart grabbed Brett off the floor, gathering him up in his viscous tendrils. The Dugpa screamed and struggled in shock and horror.
“No! No! What are you doing? Stop, you can’t do this! I’m your master!” Glide shouted as Crash Cart wrapped the black tantric wizard tighter in his inhuman embrace. The horrible, mangled head turned in my direction. Eyes, one leaking bloody jelly, the other a metal and glass lens embedded in meat, regarded me.
“Go back where you came from,” I said to Crash Cart. “Take him with you, he’s yours now.” The outline of a smile again under the stained, bloody mask. The wall behind the tulpa folded in upon itself, a toothed maw gnawing a hole into our world. The last of Charles Manson’s living nightmares rolled backward into the festering wound in space, one of its rubber wheels squeaking and shaking as it did. It dragged Brett Glide, aka Brett Winder, into its realm, the place behind our eyelids we thrash and struggle to flee in deepest sleep. Brett begged, and when begging did nothing, he cursed my name with the last shreds of sanity his charred soul possessed. The mouth closed and became just a wall again. The stench of rancid blood and engine oil faded. Caern’s tulpa became her mortal self again. She knelt down and pulled Garland tight.
“Mamma, you a ghost?” the boy asked. “Can you stay with us?”
“Oh baby, Mamma’s a memory now,” Caern said, “and I’ll be with you every day, all day. Anytime you need me, you remember. I’ll be there.”
“But I’ll miss you, Mamma.” Garland’s voice was quavering, “I miss your kisses and your hugs, and, and … it’s not fair.”
“It is fair,” she said. “I know it doesn’t make sense to you now, baby boy, but it will in time.” The child hugged the tulpa with all his might. Tears ran down son and mother’s faces. “It will in time, baby.”
I groaned as I made my way to my feet. I was really dizzy from losing blood. I managed to help Joey up, and we leaned on each other like two staggering drunks. Joey wrapped his arms around his son and his dead wife. They held each other, never wanting the next moment to come, never wanting this sliver of time to end. Caern kissed her little boy on the head and her husband on the lips. She looked over to me and that same sad, almost pitying look she had given me only a couple days ago was on her face.
“Thank you for this,” she said. “You gave me a chance to say good-bye. You did right by me, by them.” She kissed Joey again on the cheek. “Please get him to a hospital.”
“I will,” I said and stepped away. I knew what was happening, and I knew she didn’t have long.
“I love you,” Joey said. “I’m sorry I got mad and—”
Caern kissed him again to quiet him.
“You know in your heart how much I love you,” she said. “You are the only man who ever kept all his promises to me. I want you to be happy and take good care of our boy. I know you will. I love you, Joey, and I always will.”
Garland was crying, the sobs shaking his whole body. Caern lifted him into her arms and wiped the tears away. “Don’t go, Mamma, please!”
“We don’t get a say in that, Garland,” Caern said, kissing his eyes and tickling his tummy. “Don’t let that make you sad, or angry inside, honey, please try. Life’s beautiful and it’s a present, every day you’re here. Mamma wishes she had more time with you and Daddy too, but I’m so grateful for every second I had with you. Think about what you have, Garland, not what you lose.”
Again, my grandmother’s words in my ears. I understood Garland’s panic, his fear and how that simmering fear could boil into a lifetime of anger and resentment. I wish I had listened harder to what
Granny had tried to teach me.
“Promise Mamma you’ll try to not get sad inside? It’s okay to be sad inside sometimes, but don’t let it eat you up, baby. You end up hollow and Mamma never wants that for you.”
“I promise, Mamma,” Garland said, wiping his own tears away. He hugged her neck tightly. I knew he was smelling her hair, trying to remember every bit of this moment to sustain him for the long years to come.
“Daddy will help you,” she said, “and Ballard too. They’ll be there for you when it gets hard and they’ll understand.”
Caern kissed her boy one last time and set him down. She was already fading, losing detail. Garland clung to his father’s leg and hip; he didn’t seem to notice the blood. Joey didn’t seem to feel his wounds in this moment. Caern became caught in a swirling mass of tiny, indigo lights like fireflies as the tulpa continued to fade away. “I’ll find you in dreams,” Caern Ankou said to her family. “I love you two. You’re the best thing that ever happened…” She was so thin now you could see through her like glass. “… to me.”
She was gone. Her two men, Joey and Garland, stood silently, lost in their thoughts and their pain.
“Your mom’s right,” I said to the boy as I picked him up. “Don’t let all that yucky bad stuff stay in you, kid. You’ll end up like that asshole … that bad man, Brett.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Garland asked, sliding one arm around my neck.
“Something like that,” I said. “Don’t end up like me, be like your mom.”
“Mom liked you,” he said. “I like you too, but you smell like smoke.” The kid scrunched up his face and pinched his nose. “Yuck!”
I looked to Joey. “You can walk a little farther?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You never have to thank me for a damn thing,” I said. “Come on, let’s get you some help. I know a street doc that can patch us both up.”
We made our way back through the wrecked kitchen and out the broken back door. I was still carrying Garland in spite of the pain and the dizziness. Just a little farther. All three of us stopped at what was waiting for us in the yard.
I counted at least ten of them that I could see, the whole contingent here in L.A. The most powerful wizards in all the worlds, they all had spells ready, boiling at the tips of their fingers. I could sense them and their energies now since Gida was dropping the masking glamour she had been running to keep me from sensing their approach. Dragon was at Gida’s side. To everyone else she might look pissed, but I knew Lauren better than most and she was dying inside with sadness and conflict.
“Laytham Ballard,” Gida said, “you are under arrest by the Order of the Nightwise for your heinous crimes within our city. By the power of the Silver Seals, and the Compact of Shiva, by the sacrifice of the Bodhisattva, by the secret saint, Alice Weinstein of Fort Worth Texas—destroyer of monsters and guardian of life—by the Court of the Uncountable Stairs, you are bound to stand down.”
“I didn’t kill those women,” I called out to the faceless shadows of my mage peers, ready to destroy me if I made a false move. “You know that, Gida.”
“You’ll get to have your say at the tribunal, prior to execution or banishment,” Gida said calmly. “Now step away from the boy and his father. I’ll make sure they are cared for.”
“The hell you will,” I said. I looked at Dragon. “The Maven is part of the Dugpa cult that has been operating under your noses for a long, long time. They have been committing the ritual murders, and she’s been covering for them since before she became Maven. She’s sold you out!”
Dragon’s frown deepened. There was a murmur from the assembled Nightwise, but not a single destructive spell wavered in its focus on me.
“Ballard, you’re not helping yourself here,” Lauren said. My former partner took a step toward me. “You’re injured, badly. Release those two so they don’t get hurt in this. You just … you need … you need to come along quietly.”
“Never a day in my life, darlin’.” I said to Dragon. “Handing Joey and Garland over to the Maven is the same as giving them to the Dugpa.” I turned and handed Garland to Joey, who held his son tightly despite how much of his own life was leaking out of him by the minute. “If this gets ugly, you two run,” I said softly. I moved so that father and son were at my back.
“Yes, the mythical ‘Dugpa cult,’” Gida said. “The one you and Roland Blue participated in since you were one of us, before your fall.”
“The one you covered up from me and Nico,” I said, “and then from Dragon, from all of the Nightwise. The one you are a high-ranking member of, Maven. The one that used Roland Blue as an agent in the Life. Didn’t you guys ever wonder why in all the years Blue’s been in business you were never able to nail him, shut him down? He was protected, by the Maven.”
“Don’t listen to him!” It was my old buddy Luke, from the elevator. His partner, Bridgette, was also in the crowd, targeting me with a deadly spell, a look of predatory anticipation on her face. “Ballard’s a fraud, a con man. He attacked me and Bridgette! He’s as dirty as they come!”
“I swear I’m telling the truth, I … I give my word!”
I regretted it as soon as I said it.
“Your word?” Bridgette sneered. “Everyone here knows what your word, your oath, is worth. You betrayed the order and now you’re trying to hustle us to get away with murder.”
“You reputation does make it hard for you to be believed, Laytham,” Gida said. “You were driven from our number because of the things you’d done, the compromises you made. You have reveled in your debauchery and your delinquent behavior your whole life, everyone knows that. You are no longer Nightwise, Laytham Ballard, no longer one of us. You have no code, no honor. You no longer live by the Brilliant Badge, nor can you even summon it. You don’t stand for the weak and the innocent, you prey on them, hurt them, and now you’re under arrest.” The shadow of a smug smile crossed Gida’s face for just a second. Only I saw it. “I’m sorry, Laytham.”
I felt them all preparing, waiting for me to stand down or to fight. I’d die, there was no hustle, no shit I could pull out of my ass here. I’d die, Joey would die and Garland … I looked back at the boy and he looked at me with eyes as big as an owl’s. They were his mother’s eyes too.
I raised my hand. I thought of Garland, of Joey, of Peggy, of Grinner, of Jane Doe, of all the Jane Does, and most of all of Caern, sweet, sad, Crystal Myth, Caern. I took the bitterness of my failures and I hammered them about me like armor. I had made so many mistakes, authored so many tragedies. I had let so many people down. Not today, not the kid. Garland’s words were in my mind as I sifted the formula, went through the routes of the simple ritual and laid myself bare before it in judgment. She told me we all get scared and we all mess up sometimes. We just got to try again to do good. I took a shaky, burning, painful breath and I tried one more time to do good.
The Brilliant Badge burned in the night, hovering above my hand. It was strong, and it was steady, and it did not waver. The light of it illuminated the faces of the circle of wizards and I could see the shock on those faces. The best look of all was Gida’s. I saw fear there, and maybe a little remorse, some sadness.
Dragon smiled and walked away from the Maven to stand by my side; she summoned the Badge as well. One by one, each Nightwise called their Badge to them and the night was pushed back, held at bay by the joined radiance. Gida stood alone now, circled by wizards, their spells leveled at her, not me. No Badge hovered above her palm. She raised her hands in surrender. Her eyes never left me.
“You’re under arrest,” I said.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The waves reached for the heavens, then tumbled under their own weight, crashing, falling into white, hissing foam as they rushed across the wet sand. Garland laughed as the water tickled and pulled at his feet. The child squealed in delight and some seagulls gave a shrill reply. The boy ran along the beach and his father ran with him,
playing tag with the endless ocean. Joey had lost some weight while he was in the hospital, but he looked good and he scooped Garland up and spun him around. I stood at the rocky edge of the beach, which was off of Third Street, in Encinitas. Vigil, finally up and out of the hospital himself, stood beside me, his arms crossed. I could feel Garland’s aura reaching out, teasing at the water, at the gulls. The colors coming off him were brighter than the late-morning sun. Garland saw us and called out to his dad who set the boy back on the wet sand and then raced him to us. Garland won.
“Ballard! Vigil!” Garland shouted as he crashed into our legs. Vigil held out a stabilizing hand to keep the little bundle of speed from falling on his ass.
“Easy,” Vigil said, “you’ll knock us old men down.” The kid grinned and I noticed he had lost another baby tooth. “That’s quite a gap there,” Vigil said, kneeling to Garland’s level. “Perhaps the Tooth Fairy will leave you a little something for that.” I snorted and Burris looked up at me.
“Don’t get me started on the Tooth Fairy,” I said. “When he’s not creeping around between Arcadia and Earth, he runs an odontophilia fetish website out of Copenhagen.”
“Copenhagen, huh,” Vigil remarked as he ruffled the kid’s hair and stood back up. “I would have figured Great Britain for that.”
“I know, right?”
Joey walked up. He shook Vigil’s hand. He didn’t offer and I didn’t attempt. “You both look better than when you were in the hospital,” he said. “You wanted to meet up, Ballard? What’s going on?”
The Night Dahlia Page 35
