Noir

to the Collection Agency, or anything from that other world you came from.” The scorn in the woman’s voice became more withering with each syllable she spoke, like acid going through a reverse titration process. “You’re in our territory now, pal. The Wedge-everything over here-it belongs to itself.”

“What about the other one I saw? What about… Verrity?”

“Who?” A wicked malice showed in the barfly’s smile. “I thought she didn’t exist. I thought you made her up.”

“That’s what I thought, too.” McNihil spread his hands apart, a small gesture of surrender. “But I’ve changed my mind.”

“Good. That shows you’re learning. There’s hope for you yet. Maybe that’s why the Wedge is being so nice to you, letting you off the hook. Maybe…” With a tilt of her head to one side, the barfly gave him a newly appraising look. “Maybe you’ll be as lucky as the other one. Maybe she’ll do something… nice… for you. Like she did for that Travelt guy.”

“What’d she do for him?” McNihil asked, though he already knew what the answer was going to be.

“Come on,” chided the barfly. “I know you know. Your head’s not too hard to get into… at least, not for somebody like me. I can walk around inside your skull like it’s the hotel lobby. Easier, in fact, considering the present state of things around here. All this stage-setting, the heavy symbolism and shit-it really gets in the way, sometimes.”

“How was it when Travelt came here?”

A dismissive shake of the head. “I don’t even remember. It’s hard to keep track of these things, when everybody’s walking around with the same face, that prowler mask.” She gestured with one hand toward McNihil. “Except it wasn’t a mask for that Travelt guy, the way it is for you; the Adder clome told me about the services he did for you.”

“That’s true.” McNihil had expected that the barfly would be up-to-speed on that matter. “Travelt was actually inside his prowler. The transference had taken place. Enough of him had passed from one to the other. That corpse I was shown-there really wasn’t anything left of him in there.”

“Lucky for him. In a lot of ways.” The barfly gave a slow nod. “He got a second chance. To become real. How many people even get one chance at something like that?” Her gaze weighed and judged McNihil. “That must be why you came here. Because you knew it was your big opportunity.”

“You might be surprised,” said McNihil. “I already had my chance.” And I took it, he said to himself. There were some things that the barfly didn’t know, despite this being her turf. Even when she’d kissed him, she hadn’t been able to tell. The spark had passed from her mouth to his, this memory into his head; that was all that mattered. They think there’s only one mask possible-they didn’t know what he’d done to prepare himself for this journey. The ultimate mask, which concealed a difference greater than that between the human and the fake; no one had found him out so far. He might pull it off yet.

“Maybe you did… and maybe you didn’t.” The barfly drew her head back, studying McNihil as if seeing him for the first time. “I don’t know; I’m not the one to decide. But if you’re hiding something-if there’s something you think you can keep from being found out-then you’re playing a dangerous game, pal.”

“Who am I playing against?”

“What?” The barfly raised an eyebrow. “Verrity isn’t enough of a name for you?”

“No…” McNihil shook his head. “Not if it isn’t the real one.”

“Real, schmeal-that sort of thing just doesn’t apply here. Not as far as names go, at least. There’s a thousand different names for her, just like there are for the Wedge. It just depends on where you’re coming from.” The barfly’s gesture pointed beyond McNihil. “Take another look out the window. A good look, this time.”

The light had shifted outside; looking up as he stood at the window, McNihil saw the dark streaks of clouds cutting beneath the sun. Around the buildings, the shadows had diminished and grown less distinct, a slow fade into the graying daylight.

“Tell me what you see.”

He didn’t answer the barfly. McNihil leaned his hands against the charred windowsill, bringing his face past the shards of glass still embedded in the frame. The remains of the buildings’ shadows had drawn his gaze downward. Now he saw what lay in the streets.

“I told you.” The barfly’s voice was a soft whisper from behind him. “I warned you. This isn’t anywhere you want to be playing games. She plays for keeps.”

When he’d been at the End Zone Hotel before, in that other world he’d left behind, he’d looked down from the rooftop. The building had been in flames then, real ones that consumed both architecture and flesh. But past the fire and billowing smoke, McNihil had been able to see the mass overlapping and interconnecting copulation that had been taking place down at ground level, the bodies writhing and seeking each other’s heat in the wet, sticky bounds of the fire-dousing foam. All that motion had ceased, along with any warmth, either fiery or body temperature.

The foam had been sluiced away, down the street’s gutters and out to this world’s hidden sea, by endless centuries of storms. Leaving behind the remains, in this world, of what had been alive in that other one. Whitening bones were knitted together, a stiff tapestry of static coitus. The human skeletons reached as far as McNihil could see, as though a tide had receded from among the buildings, revealing coral reefs at their base. Empty eye sockets gazed back at him, darkness and silence inside the bone, hollow grins fixed in transports of idiot delight. We came here, said the skeletons to McNihil, in more ways than one. He could hear them inside his head. And it was worth it.

“Sometimes she dances,” the barfly said softly, “arrayed in skulls. Those ornaments have to come from somewhere, don’t they?”

“I suppose so.” This was part of the memory, he knew. That they had given him in the barfly’s kiss- This is what they want me to see, thought McNihil. “I guess it’s all part of the gig.”

“She has one name when she’s like that. And one dreadful visage. Probably better-for you, that is-if you don’t see her in that form.”

McNihil glanced back over his shoulder. “Do I have a choice?”

“No…” The barfly shook her head. “Not really. Not here. But you have luck; at least for a little while. You’re lucky you’re from the Gloss, the real one outside. That’s where her worshipers know her as Tlazolteotl. Also Ixcuina, or Tlaelquani, depending upon whether you want the Nahuatl, the pure Aztec, or the original Huaxtec.”

He’d seen that name, the first one, before. On the sandwich-board advertisements of the homeless marching single-file in nocturnal alleys, on a bishop’s monitor and a dead man’s stomach, revealed and hidden. McNihil supposed it’d been inevitable that he’d meet up with her someday. But not just yet.

“It doesn’t feel like luck,” said McNihil.

“You don’t even know.” The ultimate barfly slowly shook her head. “To have any encounter with Tlazolteotl at all, to have seen her in my face the way you did, and still be walking… you’re a totally lucky bastard.”

“Why? Who is she?”

“Like I said.” The barfly gave a shrug. “Different names, different forms. But always the Filth Deity-that’s what the name means-the goddess of sexual impurity and deep, bad, annihilating sin. First a seductress, with no thought in her immaculate head other than connecting. Then comes her first destructive form, the one dedicated to gambling, risking and daring everything, including your own life. Then the redemptress, the form that can absorb and absolve human sin. That form can forgive sinners and remove all the world’s corruption. But it’s not her last form. The last form is the hag with teeth of iron, the destroyer of pretty youths and all innocence. Like I said- everybody meets up with her eventually. But not many walk away.”

“She’s the one with the wild black hair? The crazy eyes?”

“Very good,” said the barfly. “You’ll know her when you see her again. The wild hair, the crazy eyes-and wearing the flayed skin of one of her victims.” The barfly smiled. “Rather appropriate for around here, I think you’d have to say.”

“And this is her world,” said McNihil. “Isn’t it?”

“Of course it is.” The barfly regarded him with amusement. “What else could it be? This business with the prowlers, people trying to protect themselves from the dark and scary stuff… what good does it do? Nothing at all. The prowlers can’t help you. Nothing can. Just because you created a world without Tlazolteotl in it doesn’t mean it was ever going to remain that way. The doors will be broken down and the dark, scary stuff will come flooding in.”