“Nehebkau’s Tears.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Shut up, you ignorant boy.”
It’s a woman’s voice, coming from behind the group. An old woman pushes her way to the front.
The whole Mangarm crew is gaunt but the woman looks like a mummy with a hangover. But she’s alive. I can hear her heart and smell her sweat, which isn’t all that pleasant.
She looks at Rasper and shakes her head.
“If you were good for anything besides stealing drugs from college kids’ backpacks, you’d know exactly what Nehebkau’s Tears are.”
She turns and looks down at us.
“Please forgive Diogo. I love my boys, but this one took one too many pretty pills and it’s left him with a skull full of fiddler crabs.”
She scratches the back of his head like he’s the not very bright family dog. She looks Delon over. The woman might look frail but her eyes are bright and hard.
“Let me see the Tears. I’ve handled them before, so I’ll know if you’re lying. If you are, I’m going to have my boys kill you.”
Delon tosses the bottle across the chasm. Hattie catches it easily. I reach up, pull Delon off the top step, and go up there myself. I have one hand under my coat, ready to pull the Colt the moment anyone twitches. A second later Brigitte is standing next to me. I can’t see it but I know she has her CO2 gun handy. If she can get it out without anyone noticing, Candy will be pulling her 9mm folding pistol. Vidocq will have palmed a noxious potion or two. I hope Father Traven has the sense to stay in the back. I don’t know what Delon is doing, but it suddenly bothers me to have him behind me at a moment like this.
“What are the Tears?” Traven says.
Delon says, “One of the most potent poisons known to the Sub Rosa, mortals, or Lurkers. And it’s undetectable. Worth a fortune.”
Hattie opens the vial and sniffs it. Touches the underside of the stopper to her tongue. I hear Delon gasp. She swishes the stuff around in her mouth for a moment. Then half spits, half coughs it out with a wad of phlegm.
She looks at Delon and laughs.
“Don’t you worry about old Hattie. I’ve been around poisons and potions, elixirs and venoms, every kind of nostrum and bane that you can think of. It’s worn out this old body, but it’s left me immune to about everything made or grown on this earth.”
She looks at the bottle, smacks her lips, and puts it in her pocket.
“Let them up, boys,” she says, then points at me. “But keep an eye on the scarred one. He looks shiftier than a drunken sidewinder.”
Diogo and his boys grab ropes suspended over the stairs and pull. A makeshift ramp made of old pieces of scaffolding wired haphazardly together swings up into place. With a thud, the ramp bangs into the bottom of the steps and Hattie’s boys tie off the ropes.
“You first, Cortés,” I say, and shove Delon onto the ramp. It sways and the ropes creak and Hattie’s boys laugh, but the thing holds together. Delon walks up the ramp like he’s barefoot and stepping on razor blades.
“One at a time,” I say to the others, and start across. I let go of the Colt so I can put out my hands to keep my balance. I don’t bother looking down. I have a pretty good picture in my head of the garbage heap twelve floors below. I don’t want to end up another empty juice box on the pile.
I make it across and Candy stumbles up behind me a second later. Then Brigitte and the rest.
Diogo and his boys take us into the remains of the Blue Pavilion Hotel. The place is in better shape than downstairs but could still use a good hosing down. Hurricane and smaller oil lamps light the lobby and surrounding halls. The lobby furniture is patched with duct tape and random swatches of fabric. Some of the chairs have no legs and sit flat on the floor. All the glass in the panoramic windows is covered with heavy curtains, which makes sense. They don’t want anyone on the beach to see the lights from up here. Duct tape covers slits in the curtain every ten feet or so. Spy holes. It’s a damp, depressing place, but at least we’re high enough that there isn’t fungus and mold everywhere.
“Come sit by me,” Hattie says to Delon.
She perches on a heavy wood-and-gilt chair against the wall. Her secondhand throne. Delon goes over and sits in a smaller chair slightly off to the side.
Up here, the Mangarms look a little less like the Texas Chain Saw psychobillies I thought they were on the stairs. In here, with their patched robes and mangy furs, they look like sad, faded royalty. The bluebloods of a kingdom as long gone and dead as Atlantis.
“Tell me why you’re here,” Hattie says. “You didn’t come for potions since it’s clear you have your own. You’re not looking for sanctuary because . . . well, this isn’t the place for it and we aren’t the kind of people likely to give it.”
Diogo and the boys chuckle and elbow one another. They love their mom. I wonder how long they’re going to last when she finally kicks it. I give them six months.
“We’re looking for a ghost,” says Delon.