by Paul Neuhaus
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“Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.”—Groucho Marx
Prologue - The Making
An island under a waning summer sun. Dark clouds roll in from the sea, lit purple and orange. At the center of the landmass, at the edges of a crater made long ago by a fallen star. A hundred men, hands joined, look down into a pit of unnatural fire.
The crater’s bowl is shiny glass, a byproduct of the long-ago collision between celestial bodies. The glass shines in the fire’s light. The fire strobes from red, to purple, to blue, to green, to yellow, and back to red in a continuous pattern. The faces of the men are lit by the eerie glow.
On the Eastern side of the crater stand the Jihma, fifty strong. Each man wears a robe of deepest blue. Around the collar of each robe is an embroidered pattern, iconic birds—starlings—in azure thread.
On the Western side stand the Dharmin, also fifty in number. Each of them wears a dark gray robe with an embroidered pattern around its collar. Iconic birds—ravens—in black thread.
Outside the circle, in an carved wooden chair sits a woman. An young woman with red hair and a face much older than her years.
All one hundred men—Jihma and Dharmin alike—are joined both by their interlocked fingers and by the words they sing. The harmony they make is perfect. Their song speaks of creation and of power. None of them waver in their pitch or in their volume.
The ancient-seeming woman looks on, but does not sing.
Rain comes all at once, falling in sheets so the men of the East can no longer see the men of the West. The storm, as determined as it is, cannot quench the flames or silence the deep song of the Channelers. Not only does the fire not go out, it grows and emits bright flashes and pops from its heart. Finally, as the song reaches its apex of perfection, the mystic conflagration retreats into itself with a sound like a sharp intake of breath. The men are in the dark for a moment before the fire jets skyward again, its sound that of an exhale. On its rebirth, the strobing blaze takes on a recognizable form. It is a man, tall and muscular with the head of a falcon. The singers, their hands still joined, look up to appreciate this miracle. Their eyes are so filled with water the figure seems to animate, spreading its arms wide and welcoming its own birth. But the apparition is short-lived. The flames again double back and again make the sound of an inward breath. When they rise again (with an exhale), they again take the form of a man, this one with the head of a jackal.
The blaze retreats one final time, extinguishing itself to reveal a round hole at the bottom of the crater. From out of this hole rise two glowing objects, each about a foot high.
Two Channelers, one Jihma and the other Dharmin separate from their groups and rise into the air. The man from the East places his hand on the object nearest to him, a statue of a bird, a crown on its head. The man from the West places his hand on the object nearest him, a statue of a jackal, also crowned. The man from the East joins hands with the man from the West.
The woman on her ancient throne looks up, ready to perform her final miracle.
1
Quinn
Quinn Henaghan hovered high above Hollywood as sheets of rain cascaded down. Water pounded off the hood and down the sides of her yellow rubber raincoat. The currents running over her bare legs made her shiver. She had the ability to regulate her own body temperature, but she chose not to.
She wanted a more authentic experience.
As she surveyed her domain, she realized something: Somewhere deep in her reptile brain, she was pretending to be Batman. The thought made her giggle, but she regained her stoic composure. Batman wasn’t a giggler.
After turning in place and surveying as much of the terrain as she could, she headed back to her right. To the outcropping of rock where Griffith Observatory stood. She landed on the concrete sidewalk surrounding the facility and immediately cursed herself. She slipped on the wet ground and nearly landed on her ass—still another un-Batman-like thing to do. Recovering, she pointed herself toward the parking lot where she’d left her Toyota Prius. Given the weather and the time, hers was the only car present. Now that she was back on the ground she felt more vulnerable to the elements. She pulled her raincoat around herself and said, “Brrr.” Then she thought, Why am I doing this?
It had been six months since she’d killed Reginald Verbic, the supernatural underworld figure who’d loomed large over Los Angeles for nearly a century. After that, Henaghan developed a motherly view toward her city. She felt responsible for the town and its people. Which, perhaps, would have been a great thing if the city needed mothering. After Verbic died, L.A. and its environs had gone deathly quiet.
Quinn had come into enormous power, and now she had nothing to use it on.
As she walked by the bronze bust of James Dean, she gently brushed the late actor’s right cheek. She chose Griffith Observatory because of its history, both long-term and short-. It had been this very crop of land from which Darren Taft had taught her to fly. Of course, later, Taft had died trying to protect her. She didn’t take such a debt lightly, and was determined to make good use of his short tutelage. Also, she missed him. For years, he’d been nothing more than the owner of Taft’s Books on the Boulevard. A crusty guru on all things Tinseltown. Once Henaghan developed the ability to Channel, Taft—through a peculiar set of circumstances—became her Obi-wan Kenobi. During the duo’s lessons, he’d laid aside his crustiness and, of course, sacrificed himself for her continued development. If only she could see him again. If only she had a little more time to pick his brain.
When she got to the Prius, she opened the back hatch, removed her coat and threw it into the vehicle. For the time it took her to slam the hatch and run around to the driver’s side door, she was exposed to the elements. Her short dress and girly shoes did little to protect her. She got into the car, slammed the door and sat there with dripping hair. In that moment, she had a strange epiphany. An epiphany that made her smile.
She turned on her headlights, put the car in gear and started the trip down out of the hills.
Quinn arrived back at her apartment and, after another mad dash through the torrential downpour, she was home again. Though she’d walked through the front door dozens of times since Molly moved in, she was struck every time by how different her place looked. Where once there was a recluse’s stark minimalism, now there was the relentless clutter of an avowed hoarder. Stuff was simply everywhere. Henaghan navigated through the cardboard boxes and redundant furniture to the bedroom beyond. When she reached the bathroom and the tub therein, she dropped her raincoat in with a solid thunk. Her errand complete, she turned and nearly had a coronary. Molly Blank, silent as always on bare feet, was standing in the doorway. “What’re you doing?” she said.
Henaghan pointed over her shoulder at the bathtub. “Putting away my raincoat. It’s wet.”
Molly tsked the younger woman and went around her to collect the coat. “You call this putting away? What is this, a flophouse?”
Blank again went around Quinn and headed back through the bedroom. Quinn followed her. “At the moment, it kinda looks like one.”
Molly opened the front door and deposited Quinn’s wet outerwear on the front porch. “I know, I know,” she said. “Don’t think it doesn’t drive me crazy.” Shutting the door, she took a moment to survey the living room. There were two couches, four light fixtures and sixteen unopened cardboard boxes. Next to the computer desk, there was a birdcage on a tall stand. “Nothing would make me happier than if we could get a bigger place.”
The redheaded girl sat down on one of the couches. “That’s
not gonna happen right now. My financial situation is… complicated and yours is nonexistent.” She knew immediately she’d made a mistake. She looked up in time to see Molly’s shoulders go slack and her eyes fill with tears.
“I’m sorry,” Blank said, raising her hands to waist height and dropping them again. “I’m old and my agent was a serial killer. I don’t know what to do!”
Quinn smiled in spite of herself. Blank was a thirty-eight year old actress with no prospects. She was still crazy beautiful, but her expiration date had passed. As Blank herself had once said, Hollywood doesn’t want women who are over twenty-one and who don’t have titties like hot air balloons. Henaghan reached up and held out her hand. Molly resisted the gesture for a moment then, wiping her eyes, she took the hand. Quinn pulled her down onto the couch and the brunette curled up next to her. “Ew,” the younger woman said at last.
Molly was confused. “‘Ew’?”
“You wiped your eyes with that hand. I’ve got a palmful of lady tears.”
Blank smiled. “That,” she said. “Is. So. Fucking. Hot.” Oddly, she looked even more gorgeous with her face flushed and her eyes leaking. Henaghan leaned in and kissed Molly on the mouth. Soon, the two of them were locked in a tangle of arms and legs full of caressing and sighs.
At last Henaghan broke from the older woman, stood and again offered her hand. Blank looked at the hand dumbly. “Come on,” Quinn said. “I mean this is the nicest way possible, but you’re way too big for me to carry.” The redhead was only five-foot two. The brunette was seven inches taller and way more buxom.
Sighing, standing, Molly said. “Great. I’m unemployable and I’m a seacow.” But she took Quinn’s hand and got to her feet.
That night, as she did most nights, Molly woke up screaming. For several minutes after she awoke, she was right back in Barry Faber’s basement. Her arms and legs bound with leather straps. Her head held in place by an elaborate harness.
She, like Quinn, had been only moments from death.
Quinn grabbed at the woman next to her, and did her best to contain Blank’s flailing arms and legs. “Sshhh,” she said over and over. “I’m here. I’m here.”
It was getting no easier. Molly was so tangibly in that other place that her psyche needed sustained persuading. As she wrestled with her partner, Quinn looked up at Blank’s glow-in-the dark Felix the Cat clock.
It’s was four-twenty a.m.
Quinn was bad at getting back to sleep once she was awake—particularly when she’d been awakened by another woman deep in the throes of a serious night terror. She got out of bed and felt around on the floor until she found her discarded dress. She slipped it over her head, not bothering with underwear. As silently as she could, she crept across the bedroom and slipped out into the apartment proper. In their rush to make love, the women had left all the lights on. Henaghan padded out, winding her way through the obstacle course between the bedroom and the kitchen. She loved Molly (or at least she thought she did), but she missed aspects of her old life—particularly the lack of clutter and the ability to be alone for more than a short stretch of time.
And sleep. Sleep was sorely missed.
When Quinn got to the kitchen, she thought about starting the coffeemaker, but decided it was too much trouble. Instead, she got a Capris Sun out of the refrigerator and poked the little straw into the foil pouch. Returning to the living room, she stopped at Annabelle’s cage. Annabelle was a little blue bird with a bright red head. Not too long after Molly had moved in, the bird appeared, flew through an open window and entered Molly’s antique birdcage. She hadn’t shown any inclination to leave since. Quinn waggled a finger between the bars of the cage and Annabelle cheeped . The bird belonged to a nonexistent species and was, according to the late Darren Taft, not a proper bird but rather a familiar, a supernatural being in the shape of a bird. Neither woman had ever seen any evidence of Annabelle’s otherworldly nature, and Molly would say from time to time, “Are you sure this is a familiar? All it does is eat and shit.”
Henaghan sat on the couch next to her computer desk and sucked at her “citrus” beverage. She looked over at the iMac and realized that, were it not for Molly and her self-assumed role as “housewife”, the computer would be covered in dust. Even before Molly moved in, Henaghan had lost interest in maintaining Company Town, her website of Old Hollywood tales. Through that venture, she’d met Darren Taft. Her lifelong interest in Tinseltown history brought her to Los Angeles in the first place. Given the ways her life had changed over the last half-year, Henaghan had little interest in the past. Or at least a past filled with silver screen dreams and overly-pretty people. She’d even stopped checking e-mail from the site. “Town” got its fair share of traffic and Quinn assumed there were at least a couple of heartbroken aficionados out there. Not even the vision of those people pining away in their lonely rooms was enough to stoke the coals of Henaghan’s old love. She just didn’t care.
Turning away from the computer, she focused on a much more pressing need: Rest. Molly was having night terrors often enough that it was impacting Quinn’s health. The girl prized sleep and refused to go without it. But her pleas to Molly to get therapy fell on deaf ears. Molly’s father was a retired veteran of the L.A.P.D. and Molly had inherited a lot of the man’s meat and potatoes pragmatism. Blank’s refusal to see a “skull cracker ” was, quite literally, keeping Henaghan up nights. And, while she was out on the couch, deprived of rest, Quinn’s mind often turned cranky. Is this what I want? she’d say to herself. Her apartment looked like an aerial view of downtown, but that wasn’t the real sticking point. Even after six months and an unquestionably loving relationship, Quinn was still unsure whether or not she wanted to commit to a woman. She’d been heterosexual her whole life until she met Blank. She’d never given a single lascivious thought to another female. She chalked her attraction up to two things: Molly’s undeniable sexiness and lovability, and Quinn’s own budding abilities as a Channeler, a user of magic. During the time she’d gotten in touch with her latent power, Henaghan had several supernatural entities coursing through her bloodstream. Vidyaadhara. AKA “phantasms”. Quinn had to assume that these creatures had had psychological and physiological effects upon her during their short stay inside her body. At any rate, the former Atlantan was still torn. Despite her tendency to isolate, she’d always assumed she would have a husband and a child. Should she give that up for the love of a good woman? As she pondered an uncertain future, Quinn realized she’d been looking at the palm of her hand. The palm where, six months ago, a symbol had etched itself. A five-pointed star inside a circle. The marking was still visible but it had faded. Like an aging scar.
Blank came out of the bedroom wearing a long nightshirt and rubbing her eyes. “I did it again, didn’t I?”
“You did it again,” Quinn agreed.
“I’ll get coffee on.”
“No need,” the younger woman said. She raised the Capris Sun which she’d forgotten was in her other hand.
“Yeah, ‘cause that’s the same,” Molly said, shaking her head. She went in and began filling the coffeemaker with water and grounds.
“Listen,” Henaghan said, turning her head so she faced the kitchen. “About that therapist…”
Blank rolled her eyes. “We’ve had this discussion already.”
“Can we have it again? I’m really, really tired.”
“I know,” Blank said, clearly sorry. “But a) I don’t think it’s gonna help, and b) what’m I gonna say? Aren’t you supposed to be completely honest with a therapist? I’m not gonna be all like, ‘Yeah, so turns out my agent was a serial killer and he got me and my girlfriend down in the root cellar and he was gonna kill us both but then my girlfriend turned his brains into guacamole with magic powers. Then, after that, she went and killed a moldy Babylonian god, again, with magic powers.’ I bet you wouldn’t even come and visit me in the booby hatch.”
“I would come visit you in the booby hatch,” Quinn said wi
th mock weariness. Following her encounter with Reginald Verbic—an ancient creature called an Asura—Henaghan had told Molly everything about her supernatural abilities. She trusted Blank and wasn’t worried about proving her story. That was easily done.
Molly took a skillet out of one of the cabinets. “How many eggs you want?”
“Zero. I want zero eggs.”
Blank put on a babydoll voice that was, at once, grating and adorable. “Oh, come on! Don’t be a grumpy-puss. You gotta have eggs!”
Henaghan fought back a smile. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “I think I’m gonna hang out for a while and then I’ll go down to Taft’s and help Brad get situated.” Brad had been Darren Taft’s assistant at the time of Taft’s death. Unbeknownst to either Taft or herself, he was, like Quinn, a trust fund baby. The young man had bought the bookstore with a vow to keep it running as it always had. This came as a relief to most of Hollywood. The town wouldn’t have known what to do with itself in the absence of Darren’s particular services.
“Nuh-uh,” Molly said as she cracked eggs into the skillet.
“What do you mean ‘Nuh-uh’?”
“I mean nuh-uh. Don’t you remember? You’re having lunch with Mia today.”
Quinn had forgotten. Willfully. The last thing she needed after night terrors and an a.m. full of soul-searching was an encounter with her younger sister. Mia had appeared, out of the blue, last week with an injunction to “catch up”. That could mean only one thing: she wanted something. Henaghan sighed. “Now, I really don’t want eggs,” she said.
By lunchtime, Quinn was drag-ass tired. She wended her way back to Mia’s booth at Musso & Frank and plopped down. As she passed through the restaurant, she tried not to look at the private rooms in the back. Those rooms gave off some bad mojo.
