by Jason Ridler
“No!” I screamed as I yanked the cloth. It dropped as I clutched my mouth. Damn it, I was making enough noise to call in an artillery barrage on my head. I kicked myself, then leaned against the chute mouth. Senses flaring, I counted down from a ten in Sanskrit while the whispers from above plucked at the hair deep in my ears.
“You see, Detective Morse,” said Octavia’s luscious voice. “There was no need to beat down our door. My palace is always open for the LAPD.”
“Much obliged, Octavia,” said the detective. “As soon as we’re done searching every nook and cranny, we’ll let you get back to your art movies.”
“You’re a very modern man, Detective.”
Cop shoes marched into the apartment wing for a post-raid sex party and that goddamn midget had locked me in the laundry room while he planned his next foul move. The only good news was that he couldn’t do anything loudly. But then again, neither could I.
The room was musty, and outside of the bloody sheets there wasn’t a hint of magic. No windows. Only sound was the groans of Vice and the women who had become their graft. The anting-anting bounced on my chest, too thick to use for a lock pick. I searched the shelves by the washer for anything that might act as a wedge to get me out of here before something far worse than a bitter midget showed up. The box of Dazzle had a ragged maw. I tore off a strip from the side, not wanting to cut the beautiful visage of the Dazzle gal. Thirty seconds later, I worked the lock with a slice of cardboard, but the eyes of the soap box beauty queen followed me like a pervert. The cardboard was too soft. Even when I flexed it out it wouldn’t hold itself taut enough to catch the lock.
Tearing it out of the door jam, I looked for a trashcan. But the little laundry room had none. Every laundry room has trash. For lint. Stray receipts.
TV had taken it with him. Which means there was something in that trashcan. Something washed out of the sheets that might be tied to . . .
I closed my eyes.
I recalled the red tower and the snake.
I recalled the throne room with the tentacle heart.
The box of Dazzle softened as the woman’s lips shook.
“Brimstone . . .” said the girl on the box. “Help me.”
CHAPTER 27
“MAXINE,” I WHISPERED.
“Help me, Brimstone,” screamed the visage of a woman possessed, a voice tortured with the numbness of terror, the scream hitting me as if from the other end of twenty-foot pipe.
“Where are you?”
“Close . . . I saw you.”
“How?”
Her visage wavered. “The demon in me . . . said your name. It fears you.”
Great. Now if that could only help me unlock a door. “Are you still on the set?”
“It’s coming . . . I can’t speak took long.”
“How can you see me?”
Her beautiful face and knowing smile spouted out a voice so distant “Its power . . . it’s immense . . . it flows through . . . but it’s killing me. Stop it . . . stop her . . .”
“Octavia? Is Nico okay? Is she close? Maxine!”
Distant screams filled my ears as I muzzled the box of Dazzle.
Then the visage went silent.
Maxine was alive. And the bastard demon inside her was powerful enough that she could speak through . . . images of herself. Images. Film. Sex. Power. In the darkness of a soiled laundry room, I felt everything come down on me. This wasn’t just a case of idiot novices fucking around with bad mojo, or even second-generation Nazis playing with toys they don’t understand. I’d seen perverse evil in glimpses. The throne with a heart. The snake tower. The magic that was in play was darker, harder, and deeper than I’d anticipated.
Though I didn’t know it, I was gripping the anting-anting for all it was worth. But fear flickered in my mind. Folk magic might not be strong enough to stop whatever it was that held Maxine captive. And Nico, too.
I took it off and slipped it into the ass pocket of my groovy terracotta slacks. I’d never gotten anywhere in life by avoiding trouble. I was rewarded in a handful of heartbeats.
Through the maw of the chute, the grinding sound of sex and lies went from murmurs and thuds to words and gasps.
“That’s it, copper. I’ve been bad. Make the cuffs tight, and use a lot of force.”
“Oh, your nightstick is so hard, and big.”
“Yes, officer, I’ll do whatever you say.”
These were countered with cop grunts.
“Going to have to fuck the slut out of you.”
“You’re going to take it all in and beg for more. “
“You have the right to suck my dick.”
My jaws clenched at the unbridled vocabulary of the small-dick man who craves power to dominate, the curses of guys who never got invited to bliss, but stole it and fucked it with all the charm of a fascist interrogation.
Suddenly, something shot down from the chute with a hiss. I leapt from the wall to find a pile of rope at my feet. Black rope with red eyes.
I had seen snakes in India, Australia, Africa, and South and Central America, not to mention the garter snakes of my short youth in Oakland. This behemoth raised a head the size of a football. The taste of magic was oily and slick. It was some monster snake from Parts Unknown and its diamond eyes glared at me with starvation.
“Easy, pal,” I whispered, taking two slow steps toward the laundry. Last thing I wanted was the members of Team Vice blaming me for interrupting their sick graft and closing this house down. One gunshot and everyone’s party was over. “I’m pretty much ninety percent jerky at this point.”
The forked tongue tasted air. The diamond eyes flexed and focused on me as the head rose. Clear and confident that it could eat the big mouse. And from the chute, the dirty talk rolled like a slinky from the top of the stairs.
“Yeah, like that. Ohhh, God. Don’t stop.”
“I can’t take it! You’re too big!”
“You taste like heaven.”
My back hit the dryer as the beast before me rose. “Whoever raised you didn’t skimp on meals,” I said. “Why don’t you take a snack break and a nap and leave this tough old skin and bones behind?”
“Yeah, you like it like this, you dirty whore.”
“Your ass is mine, bitch.”
“Did I say stop sucking?”
It reared back.
“God, I hate when snakes don’t listen to reason.”
I stepped on the bloody sheet, the box of Dazzle on my right.
The bastard snake hissed.
“Damn it.”
The critter snapped its head out like a flying dagger. I twisted away as the snake’s head punched through the washer’s door as if it were butter. The thunder of the blow so loud it might even pull a cop out of free sex. Instead, the women moaned even louder.
“You’re making me come! Fuck!”
“Harder, I need you harder . . . yes, yes, yes!”
“Mmmmmm.”
The snake retracted like a boxer pulling back for his haymaker, and in that sliver of time all I could think to do is yank up the sheet like a suburban matador.
The snake’s head hovered, iris dilated and tongue snapping out. The natural monster no longer seemed sure of its target. Tasting the blood from a demon snake’s tooth will do that to you, I suppose. The frayed metal punched in and out of the dryer gave me an idea: I didn’t want to die this way, so I hoped the idea turned out to be brilliant..
Above, the sound of hands slapping asses, of beer guts giggling, and of hair being pulled were trailed by the huff and guff of cops fucking film stars and believing they were gods.
I shook out the sheet. “Grrr.”
The beast hissed, moving back. Arms wide, holding the sheet at neck level like a matador’s cape, I slowly slid my bobbing head to the left as I held the rest of my body straight: if the snake was as dumb as most rubes, he’d think I was standing in front of the washer. The plan: have it dart into the face of the washer, wrap its head i
n this dirty magic sheet, and hope to God I could strangle it before it wrapped around a limb and crushed it like a fortune cookie.
The critter sized me up with another flash of tongue, then opened its mouth.
Tiny razors ridged the mouth until the large striking fangs. It was trying to scare me. It was working. Those fangs looked strong. Maybe strong enough to jimmy a lock.
“Toro, toro, toro!”
The jaw unhinged and the void of doom in its gullet whispered death. It rattled its head once and tore through the air, aimed right at my face, not body.
Sacrilege spilled down through the chute:
“Fuck, God, fuck!”
“Fuck me, Jesus Christ!”
“Lord, I’m going to suck you dry!”
Serrated teeth and fangs cut the darkness, so I snapped my head back and it changed directions, head swimming through the air and never taking its wild eyes from me. I pulled the sheet up to my chin. It reared back with a hiss.
“Not a fan of dirty snake linen, are we?” Talking helped remind you that your lungs were still jake and needed air to make you move at your best. I lifted the sheet to my eyes. Through the stained fabric, the snake slithered back. I moved my whole body in front of the washer, its lid up and the closest thing I had to a guillotine.
“Round two, Seth,” I said, dipping the sheet, nerves settling with the words. “Come and take a bite out of Brimstone!” Venomous intent drove that snake’s head with the accuracy of a sharpshooter.
Just what I wanted.
I bent backwards, arching my back over the washer and the snake’s head cut a close shave, the bottom of the jaw coming eye level as it passed over my face. The bladed teeth almost hooked my protruding chin. I clapped my hands together, trapping the cloth around it. The snake shook, stronger than a college kid hitting the gridiron. I twisted across the top of the washer, sliding my hand up the snake’s body until I felt the tensile strength of its neck flex. It knew what I was planning and didn’t like it one iota. Tough cookies.
My hands flexed with the strength of a man who’d made a life hitting tent pegs into the ground to earn his keep before he was old enough to read, hands trained to hold cards a million different ways and use them as weapons, hands that could squeeze the life out of a man three times his size if he had to.
The snake fought my grip and lost as I shoved its head to the edge of the washer’s lip.
Above came the gurgle of men about to climax, a sickening sound given their character.
“Gah . . . oh gawd!”
“Oh, oh . . .”
“Ugh!”
With my left, I slammed the lid down, then kept pressing. The machine shook while the savage beast fought against impending decapitation. But his number was punched. I ground the lid into its neck until the flexing went taut. And for one moment it became an expensive and erect snakeskin cane.
Above, the men grunted in breath and the ladies said smooth words.
Beneath my hand, the lid snapped closed.
Blood gurgled from the lip as I tore with my left hand, hard and fast, and separated head from body. I tossed the body into a darkened corner as blood seeped into the sheet thick, fast, and sticky. Then I heard a heavy thud and tumble as the lid closed.
I lifted the lid.
The wide-eyed head of my opponent glared out at me in death stare, jaws as wide as two hands, fangs like samurais swords pulled back for the last cut of the blade. A small prayer fell from my lips.
We meet as enemies on a blood-soaked plain.
One of us fell, neither to blame.
Next time, my friend, I may fall.
And see you soon, one and all.
But not today.
I plucked the critter’s head from the bottom of the articulator, then close the lid and lay it down. Tearing a piece of the cloth, I planned to use it to yank out a tooth for a lock pick.
The doorknob rattled.
And I had a better idea.
CHAPTER 28
TV FOUND ME PRONE ON THE GROUND, SILENT AND STILL. THE snake’s mouth was at my neck, head and body held together by my hands. In the dark, the snake’s blood might as well have been mine, covering my neck and hands, as if we’d had a life-and-death struggle and the snake was reading a death poem instead of yours truly.
“Well done, Charlie.” TV loomed above. One hand was behind his back. The other held a key. I manipulated the snake’s slither with my hand. “Drain dat venom inta da bastard.” He pulled out his hand and revealed a white mouse. “Then you get dessert.”
I held “Charlie” still, and then launched his head at TV like a shot.
“Gah!” TV shrilled and dropped the mouse and keys, as the ghost head of his killer pet bounced off his head. I did a kip up, caught the head, then came down with it on TV, who had landed on his knees, hands up. I flexed out Charlie’s teeth and held them at TV’s eye.
“Shh!” I said, picking up the keys, and shoved them into the tight pocket of my slacks. I flexed the snake’s head. “Laundry’s done.”
Above, cop grunts became low murmurs and the fake laughter of women who endured the presence of rotten men. I drew the pistol with my left hand and indicated the door, then pulled back Charlie’s head. But I didn’t drop it.
The hallway was taupe, lit with weak lights. I closed the door behind me with an elbow. There was a tiny bathroom on the right, while the hall stretched deep and long. Chlorine and bleach mingled in the moist air. I tapped TV’s massive head and pointed at the bathroom.
Inside, door closed, I laid my back on the bathroom door and took in the little man whose big snake had tried to kill me. “You can move fast for a fellow with tiny legs.”
He crossed his arms, chewing that cigar . . . which had yet to ash and remained at the same size as when I’d come to the door. “And youz as ugly as you are tall. You may be a good fibber with the gals, but I don’t buy you an ounce. You ain’t no brother.”
“And you’re no ordinary midget.”
He sneered.
“Why did you try and drug me?”
“Why’d ya pull a pistol?” He had stones for a little man, that was certain.
“You mean the pistol that you were going to use on me? So, once again from the top, why lace my drink with knockout drops?”
He grunted. “Ah, I waz just gonna drop ya off at the bus station with a beautiful creature and send you back to Wisconsin.”
“Because you don’t want me to find Maxine.”
He smiled. “Whoz said she was lost?”
Then I lifted Charlie’s head and TV’s smile shook. “Hard to tell what kind of snake is in the room when it’s darting for your eyes. But up close, I realized your dear Charlie was a rare breed of Australian Tiger Snake, the Red Dwarf, the small version of a much larger beast. Very poisonous. Some aboriginals believed their venom had magical properties.”
TV puffed. “You going to scare me with fairy tales?”
“No, TV. I’m going to give you a choice. See, this venom in raw form kills anybody full sized. But, oddly enough, in children and those of . . . small stature, it’s a powerful elixir for getting at the truth. Rare, but popular with parents. So, you’re either going to tell me where Maxine is, or I’m going to press these fangs into you so hard you’ll finally drop that cheap trick you’ve been chewing on. The one that covers up whatever stain of sorcery is on your skin.”
He sneered. “So. You know a little magic. Think you can scare me?”
“Me? Nah. I’m wearing ridiculous slacks and don’t much like blasting people into the great unknown. And, hell, I’m not even sure that if I did you wouldn’t rebound back with a legion of Charlies in a chariot made of fire and pulled by a minotaur.” I looked at Charlie. “But pretty sure that the venom in these teeth will make you sing like a tortured angel in the heart of Pandemonium. So, tell me where Maxine is. Tell me where Nico is. Tell me who is responsible, or it’s fangs for the memories.”
Slowly, the little bastard plucked his foreve
r-burning cigar from his mouth, spit at the ground with enough disdain to make a nun faint, and jutted his chin up to meet my approaching hand. “Do your worst, dabbler. I ain’t saying shit!”
Charlie’s fangs bit into TV’s cheek and I pressed down as he growled and fought the painful scream coming from his guts. Seconds later, his eyes went white.
I dropped Charlie’s head on the floor. “That’s not good.”
CHAPTER 29
TV LURCHED BACKWARDS, HEAD ABOUT TO PLANT ITSELF ON THE concrete floor, mouth agape and eyes like piss-stained milk. Lunging, I gripped his armpits before the rest of his body fell hard. The cigar’s cherry smacked concrete and sparks flew with a hiss. The taste of magic was bitter and sharp, like coffee grounds soaked in vinegar.
His weight hooked my hands and dragged me down with him, as if he was anchor of steel being dropped from a cloud. Pulling hard against this dense man’s collapse, my back ached, shoulder blades yanked forward before being yanked back.
Pound for pound, TV may have been the densest creature I’d ever held. With a supreme effort I had him against the bathroom wall, the burning cigar at his feet, eyes still swimming in puss.
“TV?” I said, looming over him. “TV, can you hear me?”
His neck twitched, face contorting. “Yeah . . .” the word fell out of his mouth like a long-lost letter, distant and faded. “Yeah.” The veins in his face turned blue, then flexed.
This was bad. Tiger snake venom didn’t push people into a coma. It was a truth serum, and a very rough kind, but one’s eyes were clear and focused. Not . . . whatever this was.
“TV, where is Maxine?”
His lips curled. “Can’t say. She won’t let me.”
“Octavia?” His skin covered in hives, as if allergic to my words. “TV, is Nico here? Who is behind the attack on Maxine and Nico?”
“Can’t say.” He started shaking. And that’s when I tasted it.
I turned him over, pulled down his collar.
Burned into his flesh with an arcane stylus was another sigil. Same blurry style as Terra Nova, but clearer, as if done in a hurry or against a stronger foe. I could make out the symbol: a pile of rope tied around what appeared to be a snake’s mouth. A spell of silence, cut into his body. A hiss rose from the floor. Blood had fallen out of TV’s nose and kissed the cigar’s cherry.
