“Fuck. We were supposed to deliver a message and just thought we’d have some fun first.”
“And I spoiled things. Sorry. What’s the message?”
“Nnnhhnn,” says the older woman, trying to talk while holding her broken jaw in place.
“The message?”
Hendrix looks at me like he’s bouncing back and forth between totally panicked and numb.
“Tykho wants to see you at the club tomorrow night.”
Tykho is the new boss of the Dark Eternal. I heard a freelance Bela hunter staked Jaime Cortázar, the old boss. Too bad. He once gave me an attaché case full of hundred-dollar bills. I gave him free movie rentals at Max Overdrive. But Tykho’s okay. Smart too. Like Cortázar, she once assured me that “Dark Eternal” sounds a lot scarier in Latin.
“If Tykho is summoning me to demand to buy the 8 Ball, she can kiss my ass and your ass, and she can dig up Gary Cooper and kiss his ass too.”
“She didn’t say anything about wanting to buy anything. It sounded more like she has something for you.”
Interesting. Vampires aren’t the giving type.
“Okay. What time?”
“Midnight.”
“Seriously? A vampire queen wants to meet me at midnight?”
Hendrix shrugs.
“She likes to watch Leno.”
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
“ ‘Fine. I’ll be there,’ ” says the Goth girl in a high, mocking, nasal voice. She shakes her head while she talks. “I’m not telling Tykho about this. She told you to give the creep the message. I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“Are we done?”
Hendrix shoots me the finger.
I nod to the ashes.
“Good night, Phil.”
I get the bag of donuts from the pickup truck and head to the Chateau. A crowd is watching us through Donut Universe’s recently repaired front window.
From behind me the older woman says, “Nnnhhhnnn.”
“What did she say?”
“She said fuck you sideways, asshole,” yells Hendrix.
LATER, KASABIAN IS back tapping on the computer, watching Hell through his peeper like it’s an old rerun of I Love Lucy. Candy is curled up next to me on the sofa. Too many donuts and too much wine have put her in a food coma. I want to get drunk, so I don’t. I drink black coffee and light up another Malediction.
What am I doing agreeing to go for cigars and brandy with a hundred vampires on their turf? What the hell kind of life is this? Is this what I came back from Hell for? Is the marginal existence I’ve carved out for myself going to get Candy and the others killed the way it got Alice killed?
I keep thinking that if I try to act more like a person, I’ll be less of a monster, but at night most of my dreams are about the arena and being Lucifer. Instead of running around asking questions, I’d rather be cutting off heads. But I won’t. Not even Nasrudin Hodja’s. Pick and choose your fights, that’s what Wild Bill said, and I know in my heart of hearts he’s right. A war with the Cold Cases would take over my life, and what would I get from it? A pile of skulls and a bit of idiot glee. That’s not enough anymore. The moment I admitted that I was connected to the people around me and this world, that life was over. Still, I feel like I could go off at any minute. I’m not sure which is the real me anymore. The reasonable guy who can sit in a bar without hitting anyone or the guy giving idiots compound fractures because no one will cough up the 8 Ball.
Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe reasonable guy makes monster guy stronger. People used to run when they saw me coming because they knew I was there to break things. Now no one’s sure what I’m going to do and that’s its own kind of power.
But how does any of that get me out of this situation? I still have to find the 8 Ball and deal with Aelita or she’s going to deal with me. The only good news is that with the 8 Ball out of her hands she can’t run around killing off the God brothers. They might be the only things in the universe that can stand up to the Angra Om Ya. I’m not looking forward to going at Aelita one-on-one. She’s beaten me more than I’ve beaten her. Hell, she already killed me once. It was only one of Vidocq’s potions that brought me back before my soul wandered off to Hell or Fresno.