"You might want to stay down, Fred, so I don't have to cook your pasty ass."
Fred's jaw clenched, whether in pain or frustration I wasn't sure. I could see the pride and survival instinct, both honed over centuries, warring in his eyes. He looked at me. He looked at the fire. Survival won.
Like I said, vampires are pussies.
"Here's the way it is, Fred. Out of respect for your friendship with Mr. Rashan," I said, turning and smiling at Adan, "I'm going to let you walk away. But Fred, if you fuck with me again, you're going to burn. Clear?"
The Vampire Fred gritted his pointy teeth, and then he nodded.
"Groovy," I said. "Now get the fuck out of here."
Without a word, Fred pulled himself up and hobbled off down the street. Even with a busted wheel, the vampire limped faster than the human eye could follow.
I pulled in juice and dropped a confusion spell over the street, just enough hoodoo to render any witnesses or inconvenient security cameras useless to a police investigation. I looked in the direction the vampire had fled, then turned back to the crowd of stunned onlookers and shrugged.
"He wasn't on the list." Three Adan was annoyed. We were cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard toward the beach, and he was pressed against the passenger door and glaring at me.
"You didn't have to kick his ass like that in front of everyone."
"He started it," I said. "I wasn't going to touch him as long as he didn't scratch my car."
"You sound like a ten-year-old, Domino."
"Well, what should I have done? He's a vampire. You want me to go back and let him take a bite out of me?"
"No, of course not. And I know he's a vampire, but he's been cool to me. Besides, you provoked him."
I shrugged. That was true. I tried a different angle.
"He's cool? You know the magic is in the killing, right? Every human is topped off with ten pints, give or take, but all that's just foreplay. It's the mouthful that stops the heart that keeps him going."
"I know. I just said he's been cool to me." He shook his head and snorted. "Anyway, you're a gangster. Where do you get off judging him?"
I scowled. "Yeah, I'm a gangster-in your father's employ, I might add-but that doesn't make me a homicidal undead monster. Come to think of it, I can't even remember the last time I killed a guy and drank his blood."
"No, you just kill guys and have some stooge bury the bodies."
Ouch. That was going to leave a mark. "I don't kill anyone. Usually. And never civilians. If you choose to get in the game, you know the rules and you know the risks. It's not murder when you have to kill an enemy soldier."
Adan laughed. "Oh, yeah, the standard gangster code of situational ethics. That bullshit's an insult to real soldiers."
"That…is probably true. Anyway, it's just a fucking metaphor. Excuse my language."
"Actually," Adan said, "I think it's a fucking analogy."
I glared at him and he laughed. I shook my head, chuckling, and just like that the tension was borne away by the wind whipping through the open convertible.
I wasn't sure why I was arguing with this guy, anyway. His last name was Rashan. He knew the score. The truth was, Adan had pushed one of my buttons. Growing up, I'd always thought I'd end up using my magic for the Forces of Good. Maybe work a quiet job by day and kick evil ass by night, like Batman or the Ghostbusters. Long before I hooked up with the outfit, I'd seen enough of the world to know how things really work.
Adan was right. I clung to that gangster code because it was just about all I had to distinguish myself from psychopathic freaks like the Vampire Fred. I hadn't killed often, but I had killed. I hadn't killed innocents, but I'd taken husbands, and fathers, and brothers and sons. Even some sisters. To stay sane, I tried to convince myself they were bad guys, just like me, and they got what they deserved.
And still, late at night and usually when I was drunk, I'd type their names into that search box on my laptop and reach out to them in the Beyond. They never answered, but I knew they were waiting for me out there in the dark.
Adan noticed my uncharacteristically angsty mood and laid a hand on my arm. "I've had this argument a thousand times with my dad," he said. "You know what he says? He says the difference between a strong man and a weak man is that the strong man will do anything, even kill, to remain strong…the weak man will do anything, even die, to remain weak. He says that a man who is both strong and good will kill to remain strong, and will hate himself for it."
I looked at Adan, and a little smile teased his infinitely kissable lips. That's about when things started to get really complicated. I knew my little stunt with Fred would have ended my chances with most of the guys I'd met. Not because they felt sorry for Fred or disapproved of violence or anything like that, but because they would have felt threatened and humiliated by it.
The bottom line was that I'd worked over the vampire because I'd wanted to protect Adan. And he didn't seem to mind. The reason for his enlightened attitude was obvious-he knew the outfit. He knew the life. He knew that in the underworld it wasn't about girl power versus machismo or any of that shit. It was about the juice. I had it and he didn't. Adan accepted that. He maybe didn't like it, exactly, but he was man enough to deal with it. For a girl like me, Adan was a miracle.
By the time we got to the beach, I'd forgotten why I went to the club. Sitting with Adan on the sand, listening to the sound of the waves and the wind, I forgot about Jamal altogether.
We were sitting quietly together when I heard laughter drifting across the water. The moon was out, and I could see there were no late-night surfers or swimmers out there.
I nudged Adan. "Watch," I said. I scooped up a handful of juice that washed ashore with the tide and spun a spell of true seeing. Golden, sparkling light cascaded out over the waves. The light revealed figures frolicking in the surf, male and female, their skin so pale it was almost translucent in the moonlight.
"Oh, my God. What are they?" Adan whispered.
"Ocean spirits. Mermaids-merpeople-or something like it. When I was a kid, I used to come down here all the time just to try to catch a glimpse of them. They're more common now than they used to be. I don't know why. Sometimes I'd go months without seeing one."
The creatures noticed us and froze, suspended in the water like seaweed bobbing in the tide. Then, as suddenly as they'd appeared, they were gone. I dropped the spell and the light faded.
"Domino, that was amazing. I had no idea," Adan said, moving closer to me. I shivered, shamelessly, and he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against his body.
"There's a whole world out there most people never even see," I said. "Some of it is beautiful." Most of it just wants to eat you. I decided to keep that part to myself.
"I want to see you again, Domino."
"I'd like that."
"What about my father?"
"Yeah, I'll have to see him again, too."
Adan laughed. "No, I mean, he probably wouldn't approve."
I smiled. "I'm sure of it. He probably wants you to find a nice professional girl, like a doctor or lawyer or something."
"No, he hates lawyers."
"Well, whatever fathers want for their sons these days, I'm pretty sure a gangster isn't what he has in mind. If you're planning to get involved in the outfit, it could get really complicated."
Adan didn't respond and I looked over at him. He was staring down at his feet, tracing abstract designs in the sand with his fingertips.
"Did I say something wrong?"
He shook his head. "Nah, it's okay. It's just…I can't ever be part of the outfit." He looked up at me, and I thought I saw real pain in his eyes. "I don't have it, Domino. I'm not a sorcerer."
I already knew that, and I felt stupid for being so careless with my words. I'd known he didn't have any real juice the moment I saw him in the club. I'd thought about what that meant for me, but I really hadn't thought about what it would mean for him.
"Damn, I'm sorry. I thought maybe,
you know, considering who your father is-"
"It's cool. It just doesn't work that way. Dad says the gift or whatever isn't genetic. He has over thirty living children. None of them have it. He keeps trying because he wants an heir, in case something happens to him. I'm his latest disappointment." Adan laughed and shook his head. "Ah, man, I can't believe I'm telling you all this. Dad would kill me."
I squeezed his arm and smiled. "I won't tell on you."
He laughed. "Thanks," he said, "and I won't tell him you forced me to reveal his secret shame."
I tried to laugh, but really, that shit wasn't funny. It was definitely the kind of thing Rashan wouldn't want anyone to know. I felt like I had a good relationship with my boss, but I couldn't read him, didn't really know him. I couldn't even guess what he'd do if he knew I'd found out about something like this.
"Yeah, let's just pretend you didn't tell me that," I said. "The fewer of your father's secrets I know, the better."
Adan nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry I told you. I just…I guess I feel like I can talk to you. Maybe it's lame, but it gets lonely, you know? I can't be a part of my father's life, but I never really feel at home in the normal world, either, because of what I know."
I understood how he felt. I'd had that same feeling of being an outcast until his father found me and brought me into the outfit. For Adan, it was worse. He would always be an outsider in both worlds. That was real loneliness. I could even see how he'd reach out to someone like the Vampire Fred-anyone or anything that would accept him.
"Maybe it's a bad idea, Adan, but I still want to see you."
He smiled. "Me, too. It'll be our secret. Dinner tomorrow night?"
"Okay," I said, "I want pizza."
"I'm impressed," he said. "On a first date, women usually restrict themselves to salads they never actually eat."
Okay, I use magic to cheat with dieting, too. "I have a fast metabolism," I said.
"Sounds great-I love pizza. Pick you up at seven?"
I nodded and smiled.
"Give me your cell phone. I'll give you my number and you can call me tomorrow, give me directions."
I handed him my cell and he punched in his number and gave it back to me. I checked the display, and he'd given me both his home and cell numbers. My dating game was a little rusty, but that seemed like a good sign.
"Great," I said. "I'll call you. I'd better get going. Did you drive tonight or catch a ride with someone?"
"I drove," he said. "You can just drop me at the club." I did, and I waited there until he got in his car and drove away.
I'd never been a romantic. I didn't believe in love at first sight, soul mates, star-crossed romance or any of that stuff. I didn't believe that Adan and I were destined to fall in love, get married and live happily ever after. Judging by past experience, he was more likely to screw up my life, make me miserable and hop in bed with an exotic dancer just when I was finally getting used to him.
I grew up in the barrio, fatherless and poor. My life was violent and brutal, and I'd long ago stopped pretending there was anything more to it than getting ahead and getting out alive. Despite that, it wasn't a hard life. With magic, I could have just about anything I wanted. The only thing I couldn't change with a little juice was myself. I couldn't change how I felt, and I couldn't change what I believed. And the worst thing about not believing was that I always knew what I'd lost or what I'd never had.
I was a gangster, and I'd done things for which even God couldn't forgive me. But I was still human. I was still a woman. I wanted to believe in that fairy-tale love that little girls dream about, and I hated that I couldn't. The cruelest joke of the underworld was that so many parts of fairy tales were true, but not the ones that really mattered.
Adan made me want to believe. He made me want to believe all those wonderful, impossible things, and that he could somehow make them come true. He made me want all those things with him.
Sorcery is just will and power. So is believing.
Later that night, I tried to contact Jamal again. This time, when the same Flash intro came up, I kept pumping juice into the spell from the ley line below my building in an effort to stabilize the pattern. The squall from the speakers intensified until I was sure it was loud enough to raise the dead, or at least wake my neighbors. My computer slowed to a crawl and the screen flickered dangerously, but the system didn't crash.
I poured more juice into the spell and the noise finally died down, to be replaced by sporadic bursts of white noise. In the intervals between the bursts, I heard voices. There were a lot of them and it was disturbing, like a party that had turned ugly. The cacophony of voices was punctuated by panicked shouts, terrified screams and despairing wails. It reminded me of live video footage I'd seen of a crowded Jerusalem restaurant in the aftermath of a suicide attack.
There was no foreground or background to the noise-all of the voices were just mixed in together. Occasionally, though, one of the voices was isolated enough that I could make out the words. Most of it made no sense to me-names I didn't recognize, languages I didn't understand, mundane phrases so removed from context they had no meaning. The voices were garbled, warped, but a few did make sense, and that was worse.
"I can't find my leg," a voice whispered.
"I'm dead now."
"They took my mommy." A little girl's voice.
"I want to go, I want to go, I want to go, I want to…"
"I know who you are." The voice sounded like an old woman. She sounded pissed.
"Help me, Domino. Please, D."
"Jamal?"
"Help me, D…help me."
I channeled more juice into the spell, straining until I thought my eyes would pop. I kept feeding the spell, but the juice kept backing up, into me, like blood in a junkie's syringe. It was so cold it burned.
"Jamal, I'm trying. Talk to me. Just keep talking to me."
"I can't…I can't get back, D. I can't get back. It's just dark…ain't nothing here, Domino…ain't nothing but the dark."
"I know, Jamal. Keep trying. I'm here. Keep talking."
"Domino? Are you there, D? Please don't leave. Domino, please don't leave me here." He was crying, but his voice was growing fainter.
"Jamal, keep talking. I'm here." I ground my teeth and reached for more juice, but I had so much of the backwash in me I couldn't push it through and I felt like I was drowning. "Fuck!"
I tried again to force more juice into the spell, but now it was washing back into me faster than I could tap it from the line.
"Jamal! I'm still here. Come back."
Silence, then a few short bursts of static. Then nothing. I'd lost him.
I shut down the computer and went to the kitchen for a beer. I was buzzing from all the juice I'd flowed. I was also shivering and choking on that grave-cold backwash I sucked down. I collapsed on the sofa and drained the beer.
Whatever was happening with Jamal wasn't right. Contacting the dead was never a sure thing-if they didn't want to talk to you, there wasn't much you could do about it. Jamal obviously wanted to talk, but I couldn't reach him. Why? The backwash I was eating when I tried to feed the spell-why?
The only explanation was that someone was fighting me. Pushing back at me. While I was flowing juice into the spell, someone was pumping it back into me. Someone stronger than I was.
Someone like Papa Danwe. It might have been Terrence Cole, I supposed, but I doubted the Haitian had a sidekick with enough juice to shut me down like that. It had to be Papa Danwe.
I felt pretty sure after this experience that FriendTrace wasn't going to get it done. I maybe could have kept flowing juice into the spell a little longer, but I knew the backwash from the Beyond would have killed me before I was able to establish a stable connection with Jamal.
Still, the fact that Papa Danwe was blocking my efforts at communication made me even more determined to succeed. I needed to talk to Jamal. He obviously had something important to say, something the Haitian didn't want me to
find out.
Well, if you can't bring Mohammed to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed. That's not a spell formula, just a saying that came to mind. If I couldn't reach Jamal in the Beyond, maybe I could bring him to me.
It was a little after two in the morning, and I still had time. I went down to the garage and put my toolbox and several cans of spray paint in the trunk of my car. Then I drove to Crenshaw, back to Jamal's apartment.
When I got to his door, I juiced the lock and let myself in. Anton had removed the corpse as ordered. The small apartment was empty and quiet. I set the toolbox on the floor beside the bondage rack and went to work.
The rack was really just two fitted timbers bolted together to form an X. I unbolted and separated them, laying them on the floor side by side. I closed up the toolbox and ran it down to the car, then returned for the first of the timbers. The beams were heavy, but I was able to get them down to the car, one at a time, using a little juice. With the top of the convertible down, they fit in the backseat, more or less. It was something to cling to the next time some prick in a Prius smirked at my vintage Motown gas-guzzler.
I went back to the apartment and stuffed some things from Jamal's closet into a duffel bag. On the way out, I grabbed the stapler Anton had used with the magazine cover to protect Jamal's modesty. I went down to my car and drove to the playground where I'd talked to his crew.
There was no one on the playground at that hour, even in Crenshaw. The security lights had likely been broken within hours of being installed, and the concrete was lit only by a feeble moon and the ambient orange glow of the sleeping city.
I hauled the timbers out to midcourt and reassembled the bondage rack. I'd packed some of Jamal's clothes in the duffel bag, and I took them out and stapled them to the rack. There was a Lakers jersey, jeans and a pair of Nikes. Next, I went to work with the spray paint.
The tags Jamal had laid down all over the playground were designed to tap the juice of the place. There was a fair amount of it, and Jamal had done good work. I'd be able to get plenty of power, and best of all, in a way it would be Jamal's juice I was flowing. I just needed to hook up his tags to the ritual I was building.
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