The Night Dahlia Read online

  “Magdalena, you told me this psycho is building up a paramilitary cult with her as the goddess. You have no idea how powerful she might be, what kind of firepower.”

  “And she has no idea how strong I’ve become,” she said. I could see something cold and beautiful set behind her dark eyes. “I’m not running away, and I’m not leaving a good person to twist on the end of that monster’s little finger.”

  “When do we start?”

  “‘We’ don’t,” she said. “I’m doing this myself, Laytham. I figured you, of all people, would understand that.”

  “I do, it’s just … Does Didgeri know you’re up to all this? Does she…”

  “Approve? No, she doesn’t,” Magdalena said, her eyes darkening. I knew the look; she was getting pissed. I was pretty sure our mutual friend, and her teacher, Didgeri Doo had already had this conversation several times. “I don’t need anyone’s permission to do this, any more than you do. The power is all the permission I need.”

  It could have been me saying the words. I had said them or something damn close many times in my life. I suddenly felt very sorry for all the people I had said them to. They had only been trying to help me, protect me. You live long enough, you time travel, you run back into yourself. I nodded. “You’re right,” I said. “You’re free to do what you want. You’ve been trained; you know how to use your powers and how to defend yourself. Just … my granny tried once a long time ago to warn me off a path I was on. I didn’t listen, darlin’, and that’s part of the reason I’m the way I am now. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine, but you wander far enough down some roads, and you can’t make your way back again. I don’t want that for you, neither does Geri. Please, just try to remember who you are, and who you’re not.”

  She stood, still holding my hand. I rose with her, and we looked into each other’s eyes. Our arms and bodies fell into instinctual positions. We hadn’t been so long apart yet that we had forgotten them, forgotten how our skin felt together. I was holding her and she was against me, holding me. She looked up, and I saw the intent forming behind her eyes and then almost on her lips. She almost said it, but then she remembered she had promised herself she wouldn’t. I was proud of her for that, and more than a little sad, that I had made this sweet, open human being become just a little more guarded with her heart. I didn’t deserve to hear those words again. She kissed my cheek and hugged me fiercely, then she let me go, and I let her go.

  “Be careful,” I called out as Magdalena reached the door. “You’re not alone out there, you know.” She nodded, and smiled with her eyes. She was so beautiful she made my chest ache.

  “Neither are you,” she said. “Don’t you forget that. Ghosts are terrible backup, old man.”

  She was through the door and out onto the street. Lives intersect, we circle, we knot, we untangle, we part. The bartender waited a few minutes and then came over. “Hey man,” he said, “you need anything else? I’m headed out.”

  I paid him three hundred bucks to slip me a bottle of Herradura tequila, his half a pack of shitty Marlboro reds, and a baggie of fet. Now armed with my own backup, I headed out of the empty bar and onto the blissfully uncaring streets.

  TEN

  It was after four in the morning, and I still had no idea where Dwayne was. I bumped some of the speed I had picked up off the barkeep in the back of a cab and chased the pills with the Herradura. The cabbie didn’t give a shit. My kinda guy. I felt like fine grit had settled in me. I was tired but amped, drunk but wired. I was walking in a low-resolution dream, grainy and as flat and colorless as 4 A.M.

  Enough fucking around. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the night hitting homeless camps or wandering down to Venice Beach to have to deal with gang assholes. Louie would know where Dwayne was, if I could get Louie’s attention, which was sometimes easier said than done. I decided to try to check with one of the best-connected street operators I knew in L.A. “Take me to a rooftop,” I said. “Make it a high one.” That got a raised eyebrow in the rearview.

  I snagged a chintzy ring from a bubblegum machine at a Circle K. I had the cabbie stop there to get more smokes, buy a cheap-ass prepaid cell phone, and take a piss. The ring was fake gold metal that bent like tinfoil, and it had a little bright-red, fake plastic transparent “jewel” in a shitty pronged setting on the front. It was perfect, Louie would love it.

  The cab dropped me off at the ziggurat of City Hall. There’s an observation deck set up for folks to gawk on the twenty-seventh floor. It was, of course, closed at five in the morning, but I made my way up there through a combination of black-belt-level bullshit and some subtle use and abuse of the Ajna chakra to fuck with folks’ nervous systems to make them simply not look where I was, at any given moment. In ten minutes, I went from curb to rooftop. Suck it, Gandalf.

  It was a hell of a view. I liked having it all to myself, but I didn’t have long to enjoy it. I was running out of time to make shit happen. Dawn was our best shot to hit the gangbangers sheltering Demir, and that wasn’t far off. I placed the toy ring on the edge of the deck, smoked, drank, and waited.

  Twenty minutes later, a section of night tore free from the graying sky. It glided down, great black wings fluttering, dropping and landing with a loud “caw.”

  “Niiiiicccce,” the crow said, examining the ring with quick pivots of his head. His voice was a warm baritone, rich and deeper than you’d expect.

  “Hey, Louie,” I said. “How you been?”

  “Well, well, well, it’s my favorite hillbilly,” Louie replied, making quick hops toward me on the ledge. “How you been, Ballard? I hear you were busy up in Michigan a while back. Something about a corrupted water elemental?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They fucked up the water there really bad, and the thing kind of went berserk. It was killing sewer workers, started coming aboveground to kill people. I took care of it.”

  “Good for you, good for you,” Louie said. “So, ahh, I heard you were the Devil’s bitch these days too.”

  “How can a guy with no visible ears hear so much shit?” I asked. “I’ve more or less wrapped that bad business up,” I said. “How about you, old bird, how you been?”

  “Ah, don’t even get me going!” the crow said. “These youngsters in the murder, I swear to Bran, they’re killing me. I hope I didn’t do all that to my clutch warden when I was a young punk.”

  “I suspect you did worse,” I said, “knowing you.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not exactly the guy to be bringing up past behavior, now, are you, Mr. ‘tried to fool around with one of the Corvus noble ladies when he was just a lowly crow’?” Louie made a sound like a toy machine gun; it passed for laughter from him.

  “Hey,” I said. “All that class shit aside, she was totally into me.”

  I had met Louie years ago, back in my Nightwise days. Sometimes the souls of dead humans are taken in by crows and allowed to be reborn as the birds. Lou was one of these “ghost-born” crows. He had the life span, the brain, and the voice of a man but could interact with either society. Given his unique talents, Lou had become an invaluable agent of both the Nightwise and what passed for nobility in a society full of thieving, practical joking smart-asses, the Corvus Court. I had to become a crow for a time to help a transplanted human soul solve his own murder, and Louie had been a good partner and a good friend during all that. Come to think of it now, looking back, I have more in common with crows than I do people.

  “Hey, the Maven know you’re in town?” Lou asked.

  “I don’t work for that asshole anymore,” I said. “I don’t have to fucking report in to her. I quit, remember?”

  “Fired,” Lou said. “Well, I’m still Nightwise, so she’ll pretty much know soon, my boy.”

  “You’d rat me out?”

  “Now you’re just being insulting,” Lou said. “I’d crow you out. Hey, the lady has some really good sparklies, and she appreciates my info.” He looked over to the ring still sitting on the ledg
e. “Unlike some people.”

  “You’ll get it eventually,” I said. “How’s the radio gig going?” Lou was the midnight-to-six DJ on KROQ. He’d been doing it for years under various assumed names and with the help of a line of eventually-irritated-beyond-reason human assistants. Not many people outside the Life knew the voice talking to them in between sets of alternative music in the night was not human.

  “Meh,” he said. “It’s a living for a bird. I don’t know how the hell the humans who do it get by. It’s all a pain in my ass feathers! I got to renew my FCC license, and that’s a load of bullshit! I got this new kid helping me. He’s a total meat wagon—big, muscled-up, blond surfer. Sexy as fuck, but he’s dumb as a fucking turkey at an NRA convention.”

  “Speaking of cute surfers,” I said, “I’m looking for Dwayne, and I’m running out of time…”

  “When aren’t you?” Lou said. “I figured you were looking for someone tonight, the way you’ve been blundering all over town.”

  “Well, if you were keeping such good tabs on me, then I’m sure you know exactly where he’s at right now,” I said.

  “Oh, sure,” Lou said, turning his head sideways to admire the toy ring, then looking back up at me.

  “It’s yours,” I said and then dropped my hand down over the ring a second before the crow could grab it with his beak. “Once you tell me where to find Dwayne.”

  Lou made the machine gun laugh again. “Okay, okay! He’s over on West Sixty-Ninth.”

  “South L.A.,” I said, “over by Figueroa? What the fuck is he doing there?”

  “That,” Lou said, “will cost you another pretty.” He gave me the address. I headed for the door to the observation deck, already pulling out the cell phone to call Dragon.

  “Thanks, Lou,” I said. “Enjoy the shiny. I may have some more of those for you soon. I’m looking for a missing person.”

  “You picked a good city to do that in,” he said. “We’ve got plenty to choose from.” He started to pick up the ring with his beak, but then he paused. “Hey, Ballard, one more thing…”

  “Yeah,” I said looking back through the open door. I saw a mischievous glint in the crow’s eyes.

  “Oh, nothing!” he said. “You’ll figure it out. Tell Dwayne I said hi.”

  “Yeah, you tell the Maven I said fuck off.” Again the machine gun laugh and then a quick “caw, caw” of excitement over the new treasure; then Lou was airborne with the ring. He flew away from the brooding, still-hidden sun.

  I called Dragon in the cab headed to West Sixty-Ninth. I told her the address. “That’s 6-Pacc territory,” she said. “A bunch of different gangs have carved that area up, Ballard. You’re walking into the E/S 62 Crips’ house. If any of their buddies want to join in killing your ass, you could have half a dozen gangs on you. You want me to meet you there?”

  “No,” I replied. “You get everything set up, and get our final destination locked down. We’ll meet you there.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to at least contact some other members of the order to…”

  “No fucking Nightwise,” I said, sharper than I had intended. I rubbed my face, felt the scruff of my beard shadow, and felt very old and very tired. All of my cheats were coming undone. I fumbled around to see if I still had any more drugs from my fans, eschewing the weed in my present condition, or another hit of speed from the bartender. Nope. I was tapped out, not even a fucking cigarette. “The last fucking thing I need is the goddamned Maven or some of her robots up my ass about getting out of her fucking town.”

  Dragon chuckled. “It’s hard to believe you used to be her golden boy.”

  “Fuck her,” I said. “‘Her fucking town’, bullshit. It’s my fucking town.”

  “I’ll be sure to bring a tape measure,” Dragon said. “If she shows, you two can have a pissing contest, and I’ll see who gets greater distance.” She hung up. I groaned a little and laid my head back; it was starting to throb.

  It was a quarter to six when the cab dropped me off a half-block from the address and took off like a bat out of hell. I walked, hell, weaved a bit down the sidewalk. There was a flare again; my venerable, damaged, cranky, unresponsive nervous system couldn’t ignore the presence of power, real power close by, too close. I spun and tried to think of some kind of a defensive charm, something simple, but my brain was flat. There was nothing there, and the power I had felt was gone, just like in the bar. I tried to convince myself I was getting paranoid. I kept swearing off coke and speed, and this was one of the myriad reasons why. But the never-sleeping, rat-brained bastard in me knew better. That was not a paranoid shiver; that was someone in the fucking Life messing with me. I quickened my pace and headed for the address Lou had given me for Dwayne.

  There were about a dozen expensive cars parked on the street and in the narrow drive around the shitty-looking house on Sixty-Ninth. Urban ghosts, men standing around on street corners, huddled, all sporting Crips blue, eyed me as I walked up to the door. I had their attention. They started to come up but then they whispered to each other and glided back into the darkness. I looked around to see what had chased them off, and that was when I noticed the bloody streaks of fingerprints, of a partial handprint on the slightly ajar door.

  I tried to clear my skull of all the shit I had poured in there and managed to push out some of my fatigue and the fuzz of the drugs and booze. I pushed the door open and found a severed hand greeting me on the floor in a pool of fresh blood. I stepped around it. There was a dead man on the stairwell that went to the second floor. He had a pistol in the one hand he still had attached. I smelled no cordite; I didn’t think he had gotten a chance to get a round off.

  To my right was a large room that may have been designed as a living room. If it was, then some serious cosmic irony was on display. Dead men were everywhere, at least a dozen. Unfired guns, thousands of dollars in loose bills, and cooling bodies carpeted the floor. Overturned card tables and broken laptop computers were scattered around the room; one laptop still showed a spreadsheet program on its blood-smeared screen. There was a dead man impaled to the smashed plasterboard wall with a folded metal chair. Next to him was a whiteboard that was sectioned off into a grid with names and odds. Painted over the grid in blood were the words, “Second warning, next I get SRS.” The impaled man had a loaded Uzi machine gun lying at his feet. No spent shells on the floor anywhere, no stray bullet holes this kind of firepower produced. I heard a scraping noise farther back in the house, and I moved over the dead toward the sound.

  The next room back was a dining room. It was adjacent to a kitchen. The room smelled the way I imagined Hell would smell. A musty, wet-animal scent, the stink of loosed bowel mixed with blood and fear-piss. There were more dead here, a lot—bodies stacked on bodies. More impotent guns, more cash discarded as casually as the lives had been. At the center of the room was a makeshift arena, made up of doors turned sideways and connected to hinges so they could be folded up. There were two dogs, a chocolate pit bull and a reddish-brown Rottweiler mix, in the center of the arena. The Rottweiler was dead, his throat torn out. His body was crisscrossed with old scars. The pit was struggling to keep breathing, his eyes crazy with fear and pain. His wounds all came from fighting the other dog. I knelt by the pit and ran my hands over his sleek, muscled flank. A tiny whine came from the dog. The anger in me washed away the need for sleep; the soft wall of the drugs was torn down to let all of this pour in.

  “I already tried to help him, Ballard,” a familiar voice called out from another part of the house. “He’s too far gone, brah, too close to the dark.”

  As if in response to the stimulus of the voice, one of the men in the pile of bodies moaned; a bubble of blood popped from his open mouth. His one remaining eye opened and moved about lazily. He said something in Spanish I couldn’t make out, but it was the human equivalent of the sound the dog had made, a last feeble groan for help, for life.

  I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t casting a spell, I was
pulling up all the wires and conduits that the universe had seen fit to give me access to; this wasn’t magic, it was rage. And to be honest, the two, at their core, had always felt very pure and similar to me. I clutched my hand, clawlike, on the wounded man’s face and kept my other hand gently against the dying pit’s side. The man’s energy was still vital, was still strong; he could live with immediate medical care. I reached down into this anonymous man’s soul, his life force, the well of all he was, and I tore it out in big, ugly hunks. There was no care for the fragility of it, no concern for the fact I was taking every single thing this person had ever been from the time his soul gelled in his body, until this instant—good, bad, saintly, evil—every scrap of his contribution to the human condition. I pulped it, stealing it from the great wheel of karma, from his final judgment with his creator, from the Godhead, take your pick of whatever flavor you subscribe to. I was God in this bloody arena of doors, and I had judged.

  The man’s soul shattered and fragmented like a snowflake made of spun sugar and light. I took the raw, undefined life force, the ineffable spark that changes a living, animate, aware being into a pile of rotting meat, and I pumped every iota of it into the dying dog. I felt the fading flame in the pit jump and sputter at the infusion of raw life. The dog’s life force struggled, fought, and finally fortified.

  The pit lay on his side. His breathing was strong, his eyes closed, and he slept. I patted his flank gently and stood up, trembling from the anger and the effort, a little high and feeling indestructible after the stolen life energy had channeled through me. I noticed a wedding ring on the finger of the soulless man. For a second, I thought of going through his pockets, taking a look at the life of the person I had just erased. The cherry coals of my anger hissed fuck him, and I did none of it. I climbed out of the arena and headed toward the voice, headed toward Dwayne.