In moments the bodies are fully covered with plastic over the sheets, the black straps making zebra stripes over the gurneys. One by one, they’re wheeled out of the morgue, into the LA sun and placed in ambulances. Patrol cars not manning the explosion site wait to join the cavalcade.
Red Feather and Günn take the lead, clearing traffic ahead of the ambulance train, sirens blaring all the way to the UCLA medical campus, where dozens of staff wait to greet them and hopefully catch a glimpse of one of the medical marvel bodies.
“So much for keeping this on the down low,” Günn snickers.
“The more people that see it, the less cuckoo our report’s gonna sound,” Red Feather retorts.
“Touché.” Günn flips him the bird and feels her tension slightly ease.
Red Feather parks the car and he and Günn step out, walking toward the line of ambulances. Unlike every other investigation they’ve worked on, nobody stops a single person from snapping photos. They’ll need all the documentation they can get.
7:00 AM Office of the Mayor
The Countess Barona, a pale and perfectly coiffed woman in her fifties dressed in a modern spin on Victorian fashion, high neck and lace bodice, taps the nails of her manicured hand on the armrest of the uncomfortable wooden chair in the mayor’s office. Their conversation is interrupted by the phone ringing off the hook. The tendons in her fingers creak and her joints crackle as she tattoos faster. The mayor glances over at her, frowning at the noise she makes. Barona smirks and only raps harder. She’s his biggest campaign contributor, and she deserves his undivided attention, not forced to sit here in this cheap chair that will surely give her some sort of rash, waiting while he dallies on the phone. Probably one of his boyfriends. The Countess snorts and starts drumming her high heel on the floor in an unpleasant counterpoint to her fingernails.
“Be right there,” the mayor says hanging up the phone.
Finally. She stops her rat-a-tatting.
“Who, pray tell, was that?” the Countess hisses, “We are in the middle of something.”
“What are you doing here anyway? In case you missed the morning news, there was a terrorist attack last night and the city’s in a state of emergency. And you’re here for what, idle chitchat?” Mayor Charles Ellis snaps, regrets it instantly. He’s too tired and too upset to think straight, having been up since just after the explosion at 1:00 AM, unable to get the number of possible dead from clanging about his brain. Thirty-four thousand four hundred and eighty-six.
“How dare you speak to me like that, Mayor,” Barona spits, enjoying keeping the mayor from what she knows are far more pressing matters. “Without my support you’ll never make it through the next election.” The Countess stares at him. He stares back defiantly.
“Or do you think you’ll get re-elected on your star power alone?” She sneers, the grimace of an evil stepmother.
“I’m afraid we will have to continue this another time. I’ve somewhere to be.” The mayor opens his agenda. “Shall we say next Thursday? I’ll take you to lunch.”
“You’ll do no such thing. We finish this negotiation now or—” a sly look steals into the Countess’s eyes. “Take me with you. I’ve always been curious to see what my millions have funded.”
Mayor Ellis sighs, knowing he never should have gotten involved with this crazy old bitch. His wife warned him he’d be selling his soul if he took the Countess’s money, and boy was his wife ever right. She’s always right. No wonder he never wants to have sex with her. Well, that’s not entirely true. But he tells himself that anyway. He’s not ready to admit even to himself who he really is. Ellis often worries that someone will catch his thoughts and expose him. Say goodbye to the mayorship then. You can’t run a family values campaign wearing women’s clothes and with a man half your age on your arm. No siree, Bob. Fuck.
“Countess, you know how much I value and appreciate your support—”
“Save the spiel, Mayor. You’re going to take me with you. I insist.”
The Mayor’s had it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. “I’m sorry, Countess Barona, but that will not only be inappropriate. It will be impossible.” The Mayor stands and starts to put on his coat. “We can have lunch another time at your convenience, but for now this conversation is over.”
The Countess feels a flush rise across her face. The nerve to speak to her this way! She takes a deep breath, composes herself, tamps down her rage. Her voice cool, she says, “How unfortunate. I’m sure the press would love to see the photographs I have of you.” The mayor stops in his tracks. Stares at Barona. “The ones of you doing your very best J. Edgar Hoover impression? Thigh highs and blonde wigs. Tsk tsk. Might I add that you’d be far better as a redhead. Has anyone ever told you that?” The Countess stands and slings her Prada cape over her shoulder. “Have a nice day, Mayor!” Countess Barona singsongs as she moves to walk out the door.
How the hell does she know? Ellis thinks, furious and frightened. A spy in The Cove. Los Angeles’s most secure bordello my ass! “Wait!” Ellis shouts. Barona pretends not to hear as she sashays down the hall, forcing him to chase after her. He’s gonna get creamed for this. He’ll tell them she’s…Oh screw it, he’ll think of something on the way. “Come on then, Countess. My driver’s waiting out front.”
A cruel smile steals across the Countess’s face. “You must be joking. Of course I have my own driver. I’ll meet you there.”
“Suit yourself.” Fucking bitch.
“So?” Barona looks at him expectantly.
“So what?” The joy it would give him to pistol-whip her, wipe that smirk off her face.
“Where is there, Mayor?” Barona’s voice drips with scorn.
“Oh, that. UCLA Medical Faculty. Wait for me outside.” Mayor Ellis feels desperation trickle down his back in rivulets.
“Ta ta for now, Mayor,” the Countess trills, swivels and struts out of the Mayor’s office. Ellis, red-faced and furious, sticks his tongue out at her back and flips her a full middle finger.
“Drive into a median, you old hag.” Ellis pulls from his whiskey flask, pops an Altoid in his mouth and locks up his office, no idea of how he is going to explain all this away. He could just resign. There’s always that option.
Countess Barona’s Manolos click click across LAPD’s marble foyer in a similar rhythm to her nails earlier, sharp and demanding. Her limousine and driver Janosh wait outside, he turns off the news when he sees her coming.
“To UCLA Medical Center. And put some steam in it.”
Janosh looks in the rearview mirror and nods, shifting the limo in gear and revving the engine long and hard enough that it will leave behind a rubber trail on the concrete. The Countess Barona smiles. She has trained him well.
The Countess Barona
You look out at the Los Angeles landscape that you and your husband, the late Aleksandr Barona, helped build. What a team you were in the beginning. Automobile magnates and human traffickers, eventually driven from Europe because of what Aleksandr called your “proclivities,” and what you call “payback” for your husband’s penchant for sampling female merchandise before passing it on. How many virgins he ruined, their value cut in half because of his insatiable appetite and belief that this first sex would cure his many venereal diseases.
Regardless of your backstage business, Aleksandr joined the ranks of LA’s most elite and influential as county commissioner. By currying favor upon favor, you were insured a level of immunity for life, something you’d never had in any of your many European homes.
And in a city of so many million strangers like Los Angeles, children go missing every day, and with so many more reprehensible people to blame than you. Your sizable donations to children’s charities and orphanages seal your mask of benevolence in place. Well, to anyone who doesn’t personally know you, that is.
Since Aleksan
dr’s passing from AIDS—a fate you escaped by not having shared a marital bed for more than twenty years—you have diversified the Barona business interests. Nobody but you and your business manager know that you established the first of many Beverly Hills bordellos, catering only to the finest of Los Angeles’s old and new money: A club with the most upscale of clientele, all measure of celebrity, politician, and entrepreneur who could not only afford the hundred-thousand dollar yearly membership fee, but the hourly rate of five thousand dollars, to boot.
The Cove.
Your secret weapon, with its hidden cameras in each room, ever recording the disgusting habits of the rich and famous. Nobody in LA dare deny you, unless they’re willing to pay with their own blood and reputation. And in Los Angeles, city of demonic angels, nobody risks their own skin. Most especially not those at the top. Those with the most to lose. Like your dear friend the Mayor, who has the choice of eating out of the palm of your hand, or finding himself coming down with a case of toxic pariah, losing everything for which he’s worked so hard.
Winning: It’s what you do best.
7:30 AM UCLA Medical Center
The place is a zoo. Paparazzi craning their necks like giraffes to get a glimpse of the who’s who entourage rolling up in car after car. The mayor, chief of police, the commissioner, senators, congressmen. How the hell they all heard about the mysterious growing body parts, damned if Red Feather and Günn know. The mayor even brought his girlfriend, that insufferable self-professed countess, though there’s no evidence to indicate she’s anything but Eurotrash. The senators and company see Barona enter the building, Mayor Ellis’s beefy arm around her like a protective papa bear.
The gossip mill starts churning and the tabloids can already see tomorrow’s headline: Mayor Ellis flaunts affair during American tragedy!
“Come on,” Red Feather says. “Time to break through the over-entitled hordes.”
Red Feather and Günn charge their way through the crowd, not afraid to throw the occasional elbow or four, and a legion of boys in blue follow suit.
The Ethereals
In a circle you begin the chant that will bring the twelve chosen dead ones back to life. The goddesses of magic, love, revenge, honesty, and sadness: Maga, Amaria, Ganza, Veritas, and Lastyme. You sing the world electric.
Through you justice will have new faces.
Through you the karmic upset released by Kaleanathi will be set right.
Even though The Angel Curiel begged you not to proceed, claiming Mother, The Ancient One has woken and you’ve done enough, you don’t take heed. You pretend not to feel Mother’s anger radiating from her resting place. The Elementals will suffer for what they’ve done.
The Angel Curiel reminds you The Elementals are just as much a part of the celestial ecosystem as you. They have their place, just as you have yours.
But no, you say, this cataclysm was above and beyond what the Elders permit. And now the humans will know. They will have the empirical proof some have always wanted that divine intervention is real. There’s no way now to protect the heavenly secret anymore.
Once upon a time the gods and goddesses walked among the humans. And now because of the smog goddess, Kaleanathi, those days will soon be upon the world again. Our human army must be in place. These few dead are too important to lose: the bottom line of resurrection. Their work is unfinished, their passing into the Spirit Realm not in the master tapestry. For that, The Elementals will atone. The heavens open with new purpose: free the chosen souls from the poison womb of Kaleanathi.
Yet, try as your collective might, you cannot. Another soulscream tears through the multiverse as you realize Kaleanathi has become too powerful feeding on so many thousands of souls at once. She’s tapped into The Source, and she’s depleting it.
In the stone circle of the heavenly Elders you Ethereals meet, stretching your energy as far as it can reach, finding a portal into a neighboring multiverse and drawing now from its Source. You can’t stop breaking the rules, and you awaken and anger new beings in the process.
The Angel Curiel watches on, powerless to stop you from pulling at the threads that will unravel everything.
7:40 AM UCLA Medical Center Operating Theater
The air is kinetic, the inside of a Van de Graaff generator making people’s hair stand on end. The Countess Barona tries to smooth her blonde do down, but it will not comply. She keeps trying. She refuses to be photographed with hair like a harridan just emerged from a stint lost in the woods.
Guy Severin watches from the sidelines, feeling the tension rising. The dead coming back to life. The energy in the atrium is motile, a force field, charging the tight space. Severin feels the hair on his arms rising, a tightness in his chest, an elephant sitting on him making it hard to breathe. More than anything he wants out. Fresh air, maybe even a toke, though he’s five years sober. The air crackles around him. He feels it in the tips of his fingers and his thinning hair floats around his face. He pats it down, making it worse. He feels an overwhelming urge to pray, but that’s something else he’s quit.
Captain Anderson worries about his pacemaker. His heart thrums in his chest making his fillings hurt. No, wait, that’s because he’s grinding his teeth. Gnashing them, can’t help it. He pops a cough lozenge in his mouth, hoping it will relax his jaw. It smashes to sugary bits in the back of his throat. He worries he’ll choke on a sliver. He wants to spit it out, but the cameras are rolling. He wants to excuse himself, but he can feel it. Any minute now. Something’s gonna happen. Don’t choke before it does.
Thirty-five onlookers are crammed into a space made for at most twenty graduate students to watch surgeons perform experimental surgeries. The operating room below is laid out with twelve gurneys covered in white sheets, the hills and valleys of bodies making ridges in the surface. What once were body parts are now whole people.
Nobody wants to ask, but the question is forefront in their minds: What will happen if they wake up?
The hospital staff make sure the bodies are strapped down tight. They make sure to not uncover the faces yet. The Mayor said he doesn’t want them ending up on the five o’clock news before answers are had.
Mayor Ellis wishes he hadn’t tippled this morning. The start of a headache steals over the left side of his forehead. Anger rises in him, the lead-in to a hangover. He should have drunk the whole flask. What was he thinking? Just a few sips. Idiot. And now he’s gonna have to deal with Barona and the press. Fuck. His mouth is dry. A spoonful of peanut butter when you’re thirsty. The sound of his smacking mouth makes the headache move closer to center. Come on, come on, let’s get this show on the road already.
The observation room gets more and more cramped as CSIs Pete Mazzotti and Tina Vasco squeeze their way in. The window into the room below films over with condensation. Pete uses his sleeve to wipe down the areas around him. Tina continues giving him the silent treatment, then has a change of heart.
“Pete, I don’t feel so good.” Sick sweat shines on Tina’s tan skin, growing paler by the moment. Pete hands her his handkerchief and she wipes her face.
“Did you take your shot?” It wouldn’t be the first time Tina gets so caught up in work that her blood sugar crashes.
She nods. “Do you have any water?” Pete doesn’t.
“Vending machine just outside. Come on, let’s take a breather.”
“I don’t want to lose our spots.”
“Tina, come. Now.” She allows Pete to take her by the arm and lead her out, jostling and squeezing through the packed room. The hallway is cool. Tina rests her clammy forehead against a tile wall. The vending machine whirs and spits out a bottle of Aquafine. Pete cracks the lid open, and hands the bottle to Tina. She takes a long swig, wishing it were vodka.
“Better?”
Tina nods, but doesn’t look much better. She finishes the bottle. Tina
feels the fillings in her teeth rattling. Whatever is happening in that operating theater is going on out here, too. What is this?
“Want another one?” Pete looks worried. Goosebumps rise and fall all over his body.
“This isn’t going to make up for you being a dick.” She rubs the new sheen of sweat off her face, dries her hand on her jeans.
“I know.” Pete puts more coins into the machine and another bottle of water falls into the tray.
“Come on, jerk. We’re gonna miss all the action.”
Tina gives him a small smile. Pete moves to kiss her but she shakes her head. Too soon.
Inside the observation room the air is thick with invisible currents. Everyone’s hair floats from their skulls in assorted afros. It’s hot. Condensation on the window has thickened. A nurse collapses down in the operating theater. A doctor helps her to her feet and escorts her out of the room. Up in observation, the room is abuzz.
“There’s no way that those bodies down there started off as parts. I don’t believe it.” The police commissioner shakes his head.
“Believe it. They’ve documented the whole thing. There’s witnesses,” a Los Angeles Gazette reporter barks back.
“Who reported it?” The commissioner won’t have it.
“I did,” Guy Severin says. “One of, anyway.” It’s the backlash he’s been waiting for. “The limbs made these creaking noises as they grew. Like rhubarb during growing season? It was the scariest shit, um, I mean, stuff, I’ve ever seen, sir.”
Skeptical faces reign. But not from Pete Mazzotti, Tina Vasco and Detectives Red Feather and Günn. Countess Barona looks fascinated, like a young psychopath torturing neighborhood pets to see their death throes.
Crime Rave Page 7
