“The domme witch that messed with you before we met,” I said. “You said she was in the Life and she tried to make you her slave, not just her sub. Why the hell would you poke into anything dealing with her?”
“I had met a girl on Fetlife, Jeannie,” she said. “It was a tantric group. She was starting to develop some abilities, it sounded like she might be like you, and Didgeri, and me. Then this woman, this domme was suddenly in her life. This bitch sounded a lot like … my old bitch. I tried to warn her and get some more information, and then Jeannie stopped answering me. Grinner tracked her for me, and here I am. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to help her, the way I wish someone had helped me when she had her claws in me.”
“Magdalena, you told me this psycho is building up a paramilitary cult with her as the goddess. You have no idea how powerful she might be, what kind of firepower.”
“And she has no idea how strong I’ve become,” she said. I could see something cold and beautiful set behind her dark eyes. “I’m not running away, and I’m not leaving a good person to twist on the end of that monster’s little finger.”
“When do we start?”
“‘We’ don’t,” she said. “I’m doing this myself, Laytham. I figured you, of all people, would understand that.”
“I do, it’s just … Does Didgeri know you’re up to all this? Does she…”
“Approve? No, she doesn’t,” Magdalena said, her eyes darkening. I knew the look; she was getting pissed. I was pretty sure our mutual friend, and her teacher, Didgeri Doo had already had this conversation several times. “I don’t need anyone’s permission to do this, any more than you do. The power is all the permission I need.”
It could have been me saying the words. I had said them or something damn close many times in my life. I suddenly felt very sorry for all the people I had said them to. They had only been trying to help me, protect me. You live long enough, you time travel, you run back into yourself. I nodded. “You’re right,” I said. “You’re free to do what you want. You’ve been trained; you know how to use your powers and how to defend yourself. Just … my granny tried once a long time ago to warn me off a path I was on. I didn’t listen, darlin’, and that’s part of the reason I’m the way I am now. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine, but you wander far enough down some roads, and you can’t make your way back again. I don’t want that for you, neither does Geri. Please, just try to remember who you are, and who you’re not.”
She stood, still holding my hand. I rose with her, and we looked into each other’s eyes. Our arms and bodies fell into instinctual positions. We hadn’t been so long apart yet that we had forgotten them, forgotten how our skin felt together. I was holding her and she was against me, holding me. She looked up, and I saw the intent forming behind her eyes and then almost on her lips. She almost said it, but then she remembered she had promised herself she wouldn’t. I was proud of her for that, and more than a little sad, that I had made this sweet, open human being become just a little more guarded with her heart. I didn’t deserve to hear those words again. She kissed my cheek and hugged me fiercely, then she let me go, and I let her go.
“Be careful,” I called out as Magdalena reached the door. “You’re not alone out there, you know.” She nodded, and smiled with her eyes. She was so beautiful she made my chest ache.
“Neither are you,” she said. “Don’t you forget that. Ghosts are terrible backup, old man.”
She was through the door and out onto the street. Lives intersect, we circle, we knot, we untangle, we part. The bartender waited a few minutes and then came over. “Hey man,” he said, “you need anything else? I’m headed out.”
I paid him three hundred bucks to slip me a bottle of Herradura tequila, his half a pack of shitty Marlboro reds, and a baggie of fet. Now armed with my own backup, I headed out of the empty bar and onto the blissfully uncaring streets.
TEN
It was after four in the morning, and I still had no idea where Dwayne was. I bumped some of the speed I had picked up off the barkeep in the back of a cab and chased the pills with the Herradura. The cabbie didn’t give a shit. My kinda guy. I felt like fine grit had settled in me. I was tired but amped, drunk but wired. I was walking in a low-resolution dream, grainy and as flat and colorless as 4 A.M.
Enough fucking around. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the night hitting homeless camps or wandering down to Venice Beach to have to deal with gang assholes. Louie would know where Dwayne was, if I could get Louie’s attention, which was sometimes easier said than done. I decided to try to check with one of the best-connected street operators I knew in L.A. “Take me to a rooftop,” I said. “Make it a high one.” That got a raised eyebrow in the rearview.
I snagged a chintzy ring from a bubblegum machine at a Circle K. I had the cabbie stop there to get more smokes, buy a cheap-ass prepaid cell phone, and take a piss. The ring was fake gold metal that bent like tinfoil, and it had a little bright-red, fake plastic transparent “jewel” in a shitty pronged
