'I'll do it, Honey. I trust you.'
'Thanks, Domino. You're a good friend.' She hovered near me and then darted in and kissed me on the forehead. She flew away before I could react. Blue and violet pixie dust trailed behind her.
We went back to the condo and I hung the gunbelt in the closet by the front door. I crossed over and went into the kitchen and poured myself a tall glass of tequila. I went out on the balcony and stood with Honey's garden pressing in on me from all sides. I drank the tequila and chased it with a cigarette.
Then I went back to the kitchen and called Honey. When the threads of magic snapped into place, I tied them to the sports bottle that held the wilting carnations I'd bought for Mrs. Dawson. The world stretched thin and Honey came through.
'Thanks, Domino,' she said, but she didn't seem too happy about it. She disappeared into her cave behind the waterfall on the kitchen table.
I poured some more tequila and thought about getting drunk. Then my cell phone beeped, letting me know I had a voice mail message. I got it out and listened.
'I have to go out, Honey,' I said in the general direction of the kitchen table. She didn't answer.
Rick Macy lived in Pasadena near the campus of Caltech. He was in grad school, particle physics, but he worked for the outfit on the side. I'd never met him, but I knew of him. He had more juice than Jamal or Jimmy Lee. He was a theorist, a designer. In the real world, he might have been something like a systems engineer. He was valuable.
I parked on the street outside his little two-bedroom rambler. Vernon Case was sitting on the front steps looking like he'd rather be somewhere else. Case was a veteran. He'd hooked up with the outfit in the early sixties and made a career of it. He had enough juice to stick but not enough to go all the way up. He looked old and tired.
'Hey, Case,' I said, 'what's the story?'
He looked up at me and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 'More of the same, I guess. You might as well see for yourself. I was just told to lock the place down until you could get here.'
'Okay,' I said and walked up to the door. 'Thanks for your help. You find the body?'
Case shook his head. 'No, his girlfriend. They pulled her out already. She went a little nuts about it. University student, no connection to our thing except Ricky. We're just lucky she called us before she called the cops. Hell, we're lucky she didn't go bat-shit seeing that thing in there.'
I nodded and went in, and Case came in behind me. Rick Macy was in his bedroom, his arms duct-taped to the head-board. He'd been skinned, but at least they hadn't nailed him down first. I went through the motions, just like I'd done at Jamal's apartment. The only thing I found was a black stain left by the soul jar, this time on Rick's bed.
'You on this thing, Domino?' Case asked when I was finished. 'Everyone knows what's happening in South Central. Hell, most of us have been down there to see for ourselves. The word is, Papa Danwe is moving on us and we're doing jack-shit about it. Everyone says we're at war, which no one minds too much, but it seems like only one side is fighting.'
'We're fighting. Rashan just doesn't want to fight blind.'
Case nodded. 'That's good. I knew Ricky pretty well. I helped bring him in, you know. Hell, I guess I recruited him. The guy was a fucking genius, Domino. I was supposed to train him.' He laughed and shook his head. 'I had to turn him over to Rashan because he was way ahead of me, even at the start.'
That got my attention. 'Rick was trained by Rashan?'
'Sure he was. Ricky didn't have your kind of juice, but he was brilliant. He got it, you know? He understood how all this shit works.' He shrugged. 'Me, I do what I do but most of the time I don't really understand it. I don't have to-I just do it.'
I nodded, thinking. 'You've been around the outfit a long time, Case. You know everyone. How well did you know Jamal and Jimmy Lee?'
'I knew them well enough, I guess. I watched them come up, tried to help out where I could. They were good boys.'
'Who trained them, Case?'
He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. 'Jamal got some basics from Rafael Chavez. Jimmy Lee was brought in by Frank Seville…you know him?'
I nodded and waited for the rest of it.
'But both guys were specialists, you know. Most guys in the outfit don't do one thing any better than another. Hell, most of us don't do anything all that well. We've got lots of guys who can lay down tags, but most of them aren't really taggers like Jamal was. You know what I mean? Him and Jimmy Lee didn't have a lot of juice, maybe, but they had one thing they did well. That made them different.'
'They needed more training than most,' I said. 'Advanced training in their specialty. Who gave it to them?'
'Well, Rashan did. He always does that kind of thing himself.'
'I was afraid you were going to say that.'
I told Case to keep the place locked down until nightfall and then to get rid of the body. Then I got on my cell and called Rashan. He was on his way home from the strip club. He agreed to meet me at his house.
I ran to my car and spun the traffic spell, and I kept the speedometer above ninety most of the way out to the hills. I pulled up in the circle driveway in front of the house just as Rashan was getting out of his Mercedes.
I'd never been invited to Rashan's house before. It was pretty typical for the filthy rich in that part of town. Hillside. Boxy modern architecture. Lots of glass. Wide balcony. Stilts.
'Stilts, boss?' I asked, looking up at the house. 'That doesn't seem like a good idea.'
Rashan smiled. 'The stilts are very strong, Dominica.'
'How strong?' They looked pretty spindly to me.
'It would be easier to move the hill than to move the stilts.'
'This is L.A., boss. Mudslides, earthquakes. It wouldn't be that surprising if the hill decided to move someday.'
Rashan shrugged. 'It's L.A.'
'Yeah, what are you gonna do?'
The boss smiled. 'I'm not afraid of earthquakes. We had some big ones back home. Biblical ones. We took pride in them. We thought even the gods had taken notice of our great works and mighty deeds.'
'Alas, Babylon,' I said.
'Close enough, Dominica,' Rashan said quietly. 'Close enough.'
We climbed the stairs to the front door and went inside. Rashan led me to his study and closed the door behind us. I sat in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk and he poured us both a Scotch.
'You've been to Rick Macy's house?' he asked, settling in behind the desk.
'Yeah,' I said, 'I was there. Same story.'
'And do you have a theory?'
'I've been chasing a theory, but I think I got it wrong.'
'Why don't you tell me.'
I nodded and took a deep breath. 'I was able to bring Jamal back from the Beyond. He told me who the killer was.'
'You neglected to report this development. You must have had a reason for that.'
'Yeah. The killer was your son, Adan.'
'But Adan is not a sorcerer. He could not have done these murders.' He didn't seem terribly surprised by my revelation. I'm not sure why I thought he would be.
'Right. I could see he wasn't a sorcerer, but Jamal pointed to him. Based on what Jamal said about the ritual and something that happened when I was with him, it looked like Adan was being possessed.'
'Is that why you've been staying so close to my son?'
I looked down at my glass and took another drink. 'Yes and no. At first, I just needed to stay close to him, like you say. But…it got complicated. It is complicated.'
'And if you believe he is the victim of possession, what have you done about it?'
I told him about my plan to find the spirit in the Between and destroy it. I told him about the vampire. I gave it
