Vidocq narrows his eyes.
“God does not love snitches does he, Father?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Traven. “We’re no longer on speaking terms.”
Hattie and the boys come back, but seeing them doesn’t fill me with confidence. They’ve left the robes and furs behind and have armored up in a garbage-dump combination of shoulder pads, padded hockey pants, hard hats, and football and baseball helmets. Diogo is looking particularly proud of his mall-cop shirt and badge. They’ve left their swords behind and are carrying axes and baseball bats.
“I don’t believe we dressed properly for the party,” says Brigitte.
“Anyone with second thoughts can still go back,” I say. “After this, I’m not so sure.”
Candy punches my arm.
“Stop playing Nick Fury. We’re all on board.”
“I just want to make sure everybody knows.”
Brigitte looks at Candy.
“He’s so funny when he’s playing Dad.”
“Isn’t he just,” she says.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m more used to doing these things on my own. Not as part of a school field trip.”
Vidocq says, “Consider that for once you’ll have people to watch your back.”
“You’ll need them,” says Hattie, and puts on a wired-front hockey helmet. “Let’s go.”
We walk the twelve floors back to street level. I have a feeling they have the rope-and-pulley system rigged to get up and down faster but they don’t want us to see how it works. At the bottom, Hattie and her crew lead the way with lanterns and we head deeper into the mall.
There’s rubble everywhere, but we’re not in the worst of the wreckage. The big concrete slabs were probably dumped there during the time when the construction crew was looking for bodies. In the dim light, the random piles of stones make the place look like a haute couture Pompeii. We’re moving in a single small pool of light. Our footsteps echo off the walls. Insects buzz around our heads.
We go through a food court the size of a football stadium. The place hasn’t been looted. It’s been ripped to pieces by people looking for every spare corn dog and chicken wing they could find. Farther on are the dried remains of an old water park. Slides, fountains, and indoor surfing with an artificial wave machine. Nails and hooks have been driven into the walls, and clothes, all rotten now, hang in the dark. Crushed cans and plastic bottles litter the floor. People used to wash and haul water to their little fiefdoms from here. A desiccated body lies in the bone-dry fountain. The skull is crushed. Dried blood spray on the fallen concrete and in patches on the floor. I bet this was where they used to hold bazaars and where someone broke the truce big-time. I have a bad feeling I know who did it and we’re strolling right to them.
Paper crunches under our feet. Images torn from books and magazines are glued to the floor in patterns. The pages have bubbled up, are slick in the humid air, but a clear path is laid out through them. A long straight line, then a tight turn to the left. The path doubles back on itself several times in smaller and smaller curves. The pattern stretches out all round us in a circle thirty or more feet across. It’s a complex maze with a kind of cloverleaf at the center. A labyrinth. A meditation path, like you see in some old churches. The path of this labyrinth is paved with photos of the world outside Kill City. Hollywood. New York. Paris. Mountains. Someone doesn’t want to forget where they came from. The world as a holy relic. It’s funny to think of L.A.’s short con streets as some poor slob’s idea of Heaven, but there it is.
Father Traven’s light dips as he trips and almost goes down. Brigitte, right beside him, grabs him before he falls. I should have looked him over better when we got out of the van. He might be sleep-deprived, coming off the booze. Also, this is a pretty odd place to drag someone who’s spent his life in libraries. Was it a mistake bringing him? Brigitte never gets too far from him and I don’t think she would have let him come if she thought he couldn’t handle it. Still, I need to keep my eye on him.>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.