“Wait a minute. Hey.”
I’m almost at the first of the house’s protection spells when the woman’s voice catches me by surprise. I turn and there’s the scarred girl coming outside. She has her hands up in front of her.
“Don’t hurt me. I’m just here to tell you something.”
“Who are you? Why would you want to talk to me?”
“I’m Lula Hawks. I don’t like Cairo or his thugs. I don’t trust that Aelita woman either. And I don’t like where the Sub Rosa are headed. I might be able to help you find your double. Maybe the crazy little girl too. Can you do something about her? She’s hurt an awful lot of people.”
“If the kid doesn’t work for Aelita, then she’s not my problem. If you know something about Saint James, tell me. If it pans out I’ll owe you one.”
She comes a couple of steps closer like she doesn’t want anyone inside to hear her.
“Do you know a Tick Tock Man called Manimal Mike?”
“Never heard of him.”
“He knows a lot of things. He might be able to help you.”
“Why would he?”
“You own his soul.”
Good reason. She writes something on a piece of paper. Hands it to me and I look it over. It’s an address in Chatsworth.
“Don’t tell him I sent you. Or that you know me at all. Good luck,” she says, and goes back inside the abandoned hotel.
I put the paper in my pocket. Walk through the wards and into the street where the Augur’s mansion is just another anonymous shit shack in a neighborhood full of them.
A block away a gray-haired homeless guy, not much more than a pile of rags with a face, puts out his hands for spare change. He smells like Four Roses and death. I’m the Devil. I don’t save people or souls, my own included. I reach into my pocket, pull out Cairo’s crumpled twenty, and drop it into his hands.
“You might buy a sandwich along with the jug,” I say, knowing he’ll never do it.
I walk on. I want out of this dead zone and back to the Beat Hotel. I’ve got no girl, no home, a gun I hate, and I have to beg a talking head on a dog’s body for pocket money. Still, I wouldn’t trade lives with anyone back at Blackburn’s.
I ride the Hellion hog to the Beat Hotel to change shirts and pick up some gear. I made a mess tonight but I think I’m still following Wild Bill’s advice. Pick and choose your fights. Carlos got shot by someone gunning for me, so this is the fight I pick. I hope the shooter was one of the sons of bitches I dragged Downtown tonight. Maybe I’ll get Semyazeh to send their souls to Wild Bill’s bar and make them lick his floors clean every night for the next thousand years.
Should I call Candy and tell her I’m okay? She’s probably pissed that I sent her away. If I got us both locked up in the Sub Rosa Sing Sing, she’d be pissed about that. If I said forget about your girlfriend and run off with me she’d be pissed in a whole different way. I can’t win. Maybe I should have stayed Downtown. At least people missed me when they thought I was dead. Punching Cairo and morons like him is a lot easier than being a person.
