Circle of Enemies: A Twenty Palaces Novel

by Harry Connolly

  I stood. It wasn’t enough. The faint, choking stink of tear gas still clung to my clothes, and my skin was beginning to crawl.

  I used a clean shirt from my jump bag to wipe the drying Maalox from my face. The empty bottles went back into the grocery bag along with the cellphone. I wrapped them up and dumped them into the trash.

  I drove back toward the freeway until I came to a Best Western half a block from an exit. The vacancy sign was lit.

  My shirt still stank, but the clerk didn’t care. I don’t think she cared about anything except her air-conditioning. I rented a room on the second floor and trudged upstairs.

  The room was clean and plain. I stood by the bed with the TV remote in my hand for a full two minutes and tried to convince myself to shower. The temptation to sit in front of the tube in a trance state was so strong it was like a death wish. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself watching TV while predators spread through the city, killing people. I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted to rest. I carried my bag into the bathroom.

  I stripped down and threw my clothes into the bottom of the tub. I had brought a small bottle of laundry detergent, and I scrubbed the sweat, stomach medicine, and tear gas by hand. The cold water felt good on my hands. Then I hung them by the window, turning off the air just below them.

  Then I took a shower of my own. My skin was raw and red where Summer had touched me. I switched to cold water. It was uncomfortable, but I wanted it that way. I’d seen a predator on Summer and I’d backed off. I had to stand up and stay in the fight. I had to endure.

  My clothes were not even close to dry when I finished. I took my last clean shirt, a white button-down, from the bag and put it on. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look like a hungry ghost anymore, just a guy who needed a good night’s sleep. At least I had cleaned the sweat off my face. I’ve always hated the feel of dried sweat.

  I got back into my car and drove to Silver Lake, giving a wide berth to the Bigfoot Room and the street where I’d parked Bud’s truck. I wasn’t ready to run into them again.

  Caramella’s place was a little house, which surprised me. It had a lawn about the size of two postage stamps and a lot of Spanish stucco on the outside. As on just about every street in L.A., the houses on the block were a mishmash of styles, but hers was a basic A-frame that had been troweled over with a pueblo exterior. I took out my ghost knife.

  A Corolla was parked in the driveway. There were two tall windows at the front of the house, and I nearly walked into the tiny flower garden to peep through the glass. It was just after 9 P.M., and I was planning to break and enter a friend’s house.

  Instead, I pocketed the ghost knife and rang the doorbell.

  No one answered. I fidgeted a little, then rang it again. Again there was no answer. My Escort was parked at the curb, but the idea of driving away felt like defeat. Where would I go after this? I didn’t know where Caramella worked. I didn’t know where she hung out. A detective might have started walking around the neighborhood, asking about her at every diner, deli, and bar, but I wasn’t a detective. I was a criminal.

  I took out my ghost knife and slid it through the lock. The front door opened easily, and I let myself in, pushing the door closed behind me.

  The house looked even smaller on the inside, but it was nicely furnished. Everything I owned had come out of a yard sale, but Melly’s tables and chairs were new if not fancy. The plaid couch and recliner matched the curtains, and there were tiny white throw pillows everywhere. A pair of lamps on either side of the couch threw a pale blue light around the room, and the ceiling light in the bathroom was on.

  But while the room looked tidy and homey, it was sweltering hot and stank of garbage. The smell made my eyes water. It wasn’t a dead body, I didn’t think. I’d smelled bodies before.

  It felt strange to stand in Melly’s empty house, but what the hell. She had walked into mine without knocking.

  First, I wandered around the room. I was concerned that the garbage smell would hide the stink of a dead body, but I didn’t find one behind the furniture and there were no blood splashes against the walls. The bedroom was empty—the bed was neatly made, in fact, and the little desk in the corner was tidy.

  Then I went into the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was standing open. I pushed it closed, getting a glimpse of the dark circles under my eyes. The shower curtain was drawn, and a couple of the rings had been pulled free. I peeked through the gap into the tub. I couldn’t see anything in the bottom of the tub, not even droplets of water.

  I went back to the living room and noticed a mail slot just beside the front door. Below it there was a small wicker basket full of mail. It looked like a couple of days’ worth, but I couldn’t tell exactly. I fanned through it and saw that most of it was addressed to Luther Olive.

  There was a list of phone numbers on a notepad by the phone. I picked up the receiver and dialed the one at the top, labeled work. The woman who answered announced that it was a hospice-care facility, but she wouldn’t answer any questions about Caramella and she wouldn’t transfer me to her voice mail. I left my real name and a fake call-back number and hung up.

  Finally, I went into the kitchen. There was a pink ceramic bowl full of rotting chicken on the counter, but most of the stink was coming from the open garbage can. I looked around without touching anything, then went back into the living room.

  I was alone and it was obvious that I was the first person to stand in this room for a couple of days. I picked up a framed photo on the end table.

  It was a picture of two faces close together. One was Melly and she was laughing. She looked older than I remembered, and more beautiful. She had little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and seeing her openmouthed smile brought back the memory of her laugh.

  The man laughing with her, his cheek pressed against hers, was a black man with a short haircut, a scar below his eye, and a crooked nose. He had a beefy, solid look about him—the kind of muscular guy who would get fat at the first sign of comfort. He also gave the impression of puppy-dog earnestness, as though he was eager to please out of habit. That must have been Luther.

  I liked the friendly roughneck look of him, and I was a little jealous, too. Not because I wanted Caramella—we hadn’t had that sort of relationship—but because he had happiness and love and a home. I hoped I would be able to save whatever he and Melly had.

  There were other pictures on the mantel, and I studied them one by one. Here were pictures of Melly and her guy with her mom and sister in a lush forest somewhere. Next was an old bridal picture of a black couple, both looking heavenward. Next was a picture of Luther with Ty, Lenard, and Arne. They were all smiling. Most of the rest were Melly and her guy at various events—parties, picnics, carousels. The last showed Melly and Violet laughing while they baked Christmas cookies. I was surprised to see them together. They hadn’t been close when I was around, but apparently things had changed.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I rushed into the kitchen, dumped the rotting chicken, bowl and all, into the trash can, then carried the garbage out the back door.

  There was a plastic bin in the little backyard. I upended the trash can into it, letting a plume of stink blow over me. I tossed the can onto the parched lawn and went inside, leaving the back door open. I went to the bathroom and threw open the window, then opened the bedroom and living room windows. A mild crosscurrent blew across me. It wasn’t enough to clear the stink, but it was better than the stale, oppressive heat.

  Then I got to work.

  I searched the house from top to bottom, taking special care to put things back where they belonged. I was careful out of respect for Caramella more than a desire to trick her, although if she never found out I’d broken in, I’d be happy.

  I was looking for spell books, of course. Barring that, I wanted to find single spells, either instructions for casting them or a spell itself—a sigil drawn, carved, or stitched onto another object. If I
couldn’t find that, I hoped to find something to tell me where to look for Caramella next. An open phone book with a secluded Big Bear resort circled in red ink, maybe. I wasn’t that lucky.

  I searched every drawer, beneath every cushion, inside the pocket of every jacket and pair of pants. I opened every box and chest, looked inside every lamp, and ran my hand along the underside of every piece of furniture. I even unscrewed the grates over the air vents for their central heating. Nothing.

  Caramella had a laptop on a tiny sewing desk in her room, but I hadn’t done more than search around it so far. I didn’t have a computer of my own, and I didn’t know much about them.

  I opened it and it came to life. I was surprised that it was sitting there, already turned on. Had Caramella been here recently, using it? She could have come and gone invisibly, of course. In fact, she could have followed me around the house while I searched it.

  I felt a surge of anxiety as that thought grew larger in my mind, but I took several deep breaths. No one was there. Not with that garbage smell. No one was there.

  Once the computer had fully come to life again, it began to download four days’ worth of emails. It had been sitting there, switched on, for several days, and no one had used it recently.

  I read the five dozen new emails as well as a couple of days’ worth of old ones. Most were useless: supposedly funny stories about squabbling married couples, ads for natural Viagra, and attempts to organize a group of friends for a Friday movie date.

  Only in the last day’s messages did I notice anything unusual. Her mother had sent a note asking where she was, and telling her to please call. She had similar notes from her supervisor and co-worker, and from Arne.

  I tried to find out more, but everything I did on her computer caused something inexplicable to happen, so I closed it.

  I went back into the living room and looked at the clock. It had been just over two hours since I’d snuck in, and I had nothing to show for my time. Predators were on the loose, and I had no idea what to do next. Tomorrow at seven-thirty I’d go back to Ralphs and hope to meet Annalise, but until then I had nothing.

  But there was nothing left to do here. If I went back to my motel, I could have another shower and sleep—maybe—but I would have run out of options. There was nowhere else for me to go but back to Arne, and I wasn’t ready for that yet. I needed to talk to Caramella first.

  So I stood there, my indecision making the choice for me. Finally, I decided I might as well wait. I wanted to talk to her, and I was more likely to find her here than at my motel.

  I dug out the remote and turned on the local news, hoping there would be a segment about a mysterious invisible assailant, but I was out of luck there, too. The first segment covered the president’s plan to visit L.A.

  Then the newscasters switched to extended reports of a break-in at a movie star’s Beverly Hills home. Her name was Ellen Egan-Jade; she’d been in Minnesota filming her latest romantic thriller, but her live-in housekeeper had been beaten, raped, and left for dead. The only thing the asshole took was her Oscar. The cops didn’t have any leads.

  There was a pizza box with three slices of pepperoni in the fridge. The house didn’t smell so bad anymore—or maybe I’d gotten used to it—so I took the pizza into the living room to eat at the coffee table. It was dry and tight, like jerky.

  The announcer started speculating what would have happened if the actress had been home at the time of the break-in, while they showed pictures of her beautiful face. The whole thing made me feel a little sick, so I turned it off and ate in silence.

  After finishing the pizza, I leaned back on the couch. My eyes started to fall closed, so I jumped up and walked around. I peeked out the front window, then the back. No one was in sight.

  The heat and food were making me drowsy. I shut the front and back doors and propped a chair under each knob. I shut all the windows and turned the thermostat to eighty-five. Cool air hissed into the room. That would help with the heat. I just needed to keep myself awake.

  I paced until I grew tired, then sat on the couch with my arms folded. Just as I told myself I could stay up as late as I needed to, I nodded off.

  I dreamed I was standing on a ship on a stormy sea. Everything below deck had been taken over by a huge beehive—the buzzing was incredibly loud—and waves against the wooden hull were making it groan and crack.

  Then I realized I was sleeping and that the sounds were coming from outside my dream. I snapped awake in a living room full of noise. I jolted to my feet, looking around.

  The buzzing, cracking sounds were coming from the bathroom.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I raced to the bathroom door. The windows were dark; it was still nighttime, but how late was it? I took my ghost knife out of my pocket.

  I glanced around the room. No one else was here—not that I’d expected Caramella or Luther to come home and leave me sleeping quietly on the couch. I rubbed my eyes, trying to get them to focus.

  The buzzing became hollow, as though it was echoing down a long tube, and was followed by a series of cracks that sounded like the bathroom was falling off the building. I pushed the door open just as a terrible silence fell.

  The bathtub seemed to be full of darkness. I took a step into the room so I could see the bottom, but there didn’t seem to be one. All I could see was swirling black, and slightly darker shapes moving far, far away.

  An opening to the Empty Spaces had appeared in the bathtub. It wasn’t a vision this time; I could feel the absence there.

  Something floated through the opening into our world. It was little more than a colorless, shapeless shimmer, strung out like pulled taffy, and it hovered seven feet off the floor.

  A bad feeling came over me, and I backed out of the room while lifting the ghost knife. A second form began to rise out of the tub.

  The first shimmer rushed at my face. I instinctively held up my empty hand to ward it off. It struck my palm and flowed around it like a thick jelly. Tendrils struck my mouth and nose. It was sticky, just like Summer’s hand when she grabbed my wrist. I kept my mouth tightly shut, but it seemed to be trying to squirm into my nostrils.

  My iron gate, one of the spells Annalise had put on my chest, suddenly felt burning hot. For a moment, I felt a strange, heavy blankness in my thoughts, as though something was erasing my mind.

  I slashed my ghost knife through the tendrils, splitting it apart. The blankness vanished. I yanked the bathroom door shut. Whatever the hell I was dealing with, I wanted to face them one at a time. I slashed again, and the stuff let out a strange keening that bypassed my ears and went directly to my guts.

  This goop was alive. It was a predator and it was after me.

  My ghost knife can kill predators, though. I slashed it across the shimmer again, dragging it along my face and around my mouth and nose. More keening, which was just what I wanted. I cut it again.

  But I had to be careful: I know little about magic, and only slightly more about this spell I’d cast. My ghost knife has a powerful effect on living creatures, and I’d never cut myself with the spell, for fear of what might happen. At best I’d lose my will to fight, like Wardell. I didn’t want to imagine the worst thing.

  So I held the laminated edge of the paper close and smeared it through the sticky liquid slime spreading over my neck and shoulder.

  The creature flexed, twisting me off balance and knocking me to the carpet. I reached out to the table to break my fall, stupidly dropping my ghost knife. The predator wrenched me flat on my back. I could still feel it pushing despair into me, trying to make me surrender. With a quick exertion of will, I reached for my spell and called it back into my hand.

  The creature flowed over my face, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I blasted air out of my nose to clear it, then clamped it shut with my free hand. My skin … Everywhere it touched me, my skin burned. The thing was like acid.

  My iron gate flared again. The despair grew stronger and my thoughts were sluggish an
d dull. Without that protective spell, I would have been comatose.

  The creature flexed again, trying to pull my hand away from my face. Damn, it was strong. It took everything I had to hold my fingers over my nose. Eventually, it would realize it could bend back my fingers until they broke. For now, though, I was new prey and it wasn’t quite sure how to deal with me.

  I brought the ghost knife toward my face, but the predator pushed it back, slamming my wrist to the floor. I couldn’t move that arm.

  It had me pinned, and eventually it would find a way inside my body. Then the acid burning would be on my insides. With the right leverage, I might be stronger than it, but I was on my back, my air was running out, and I couldn’t see. I had to do something quickly—I had to think quickly—or I was going to die.

  I flexed my right arm with all my strength, trying to bring the ghost knife near my face with a sudden burst of power. It almost worked, but I couldn’t quite reach. I moved the paper back and forth along my wrist as much as I could. It made tiny cuts in the predator, but I felt it peeling away from my hand and the spell.

  Then my burst of power was over, and the predator slammed my arm back against the carpet.

  I was failing. Bad enough that I was going to be killed by this damn predator here on the floor of Melly’s pretty little house, but Caramella would have a predator in her home, waiting for her. God, no, I could not do that to her. I could not be responsible for that.

  I reached for my ghost knife again, even though it was already in my hand. I could feel it, like a part of me, ready to do what I wanted it to do. I’d learned months ago that I could “throw” it without moving my body at all; the spell went where I wanted it to go—there was no other way to explain its uncanny accuracy. But while the throwing motion helped me picture where I wanted it to go and made the spell faster, I didn’t need it.