“It’s a small community, relatively speaking,” Anna said. “Could just be a coincidence.”
“If we didn’t know that Glide was connected to the life,” Vigil said, “and that his company is named after these Dugpa. It stretches coincidence pretty far.”
“Crystal Myth worked for Red Hat too, didn’t she?” I said, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah,” Grinner said.
“And that breaks coincidence,” Anna nodded.
“How did you know?” Vigil asked me. “That she was connected to your old case?” I took out the crumpled still from one of Crystal’s movies I had found at Elextra’s murder scene. I laid the blood-flecked, wrinkled print out on the desk between us. I pointed to a scar on her hip, an ornate brand made up of lines and whorls with sharp, pointed swoops on the ends of the pattern.
“Is that what I think it is?” Dragon asked. I nodded.
“That,” I said. “All the victims had it somewhere on their bodies. Sometimes it was fresh, a few weeks old, other times it had been there for a while, probably years, but always the same symbol. No one in the Nightwise, LAPD, FBI, even Langley’s code-breakers, could ever figure out what it meant, until this morning, until I found out we’re dealing with Dugpa.”
“What is it?” Anna asked.
“Looks like fucking Klingon,” Grinner offered.
“It’s from the Tibetan alphabet,” I said. “The symbols have been packed together and then reversed like a mirror image. It says, ‘mchod pa.’ It means ‘offering.’”
“Of course it does,” Grinner muttered, looking at the old photo. “Shit. You think your lost girl, this Caern, Crystal Myth, you’re looking for is dead?” Vigil searched my face. His jaw was tight.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. Every victim’s body was dropped someplace they would be discovered pretty quickly, like the killers were showing off what they did. The Dugpa corrupt by weakening the resolve, challenging belief. Nothing like a brutal, senseless torture-murder to shake up your faith in a just and ordered universe, right? Each one of these nine murders gave them mystical fuel. That’s why the heads were left pristine on each woman, to allow them to feed off the suffering and death pouring through their perfect Ajna and their Sahasrara chakras, the seats of awareness and enlightenment. It’s sick as hell, but it makes perfect sense.”
“So they degraded these women, over years,” Anna said, “wore them down, ruined their lives, destroyed their hope, and then, when they had nothing left to lose, tortured them, killed them and…”
“Ate their souls,” I said, “like it was caviar. By that point the women were probably thankful for the utter negation of their life force. They wouldn’t just want to die, they’d wish they had never been born, and never be reborn. They’d beg the Dugpa for annihilation. It’s … bad … it’s fucked up on a different level, even for me.”
“We have got to stop these evil things,” Anna said. I nodded.
“They’re not monsters, darlin’, just human beings, that’s all they need to be. I’ve got ten hours to find them and punch their ticket.”
“And find the Lady Ankou,” Vigil said. “If she’s not dead, she is in danger from this cult.”
“Agreed,” I said, “but we’ve very little time before I have the fucking mojo po-po up my ass.”
“We can’t deal with the assembled might of the Nightwise,” Vigil said.
“Yeah,” I said, “that would suck, especially since that would include Dragon too.”
“Damn it, Laytham, you can’t put her in that position,” Anna said. “All she has is the Nightwise. She believes in what the order is about, even if you don’t anymore.”
“I know,” I said, rubbing my face. I felt so tired, and I was painfully aware of every hour, every minute, every second it had been since I’d had a drink. “I’ll figure something out, Anna. I won’t hurt her, I won’t make her choose. I promise.”
“Don’t promise,” Anna said, “I know what that’s worth. Just do it, okay? Please.”
“I poked a little deeper into Red Hat,” Grinner said, coming to the rescue. “It’s weird. That company is older than Brett Glide. It’s been creeping around under different names but same holding companies since at least the 1970s, probably further back than that. The electron trail gets cold past a certain date.”
“Manson claims the Process is part of this too, that they were his patrons here in L.A. That fits with the seventies.”
“It does,” Grinner said.
“The Process?” Vigil asked.
“The Process Church of the Final Judgment,” Grinner said. “A cult, started by a couple of nut-burgers in England. They went international for a while in the mid sixties.”
“Their doctrine was often mistaken for Satanism because they worshiped three forces, including Christ and Satan, but it’s actually closer to Dugpa philosophy, embracing the negative to become a fully self-actualized human being. They folded tents under the Process name in the seventies.”
“Just in time for Red Hat Productions to open its doors here as the latest incarnation of whatever this fucked-up mess is,” Grinner said. “Nice.”
“God, Laytham,” Anna said, “is it possible something this awful could be operating here in L.A. for generations, shifting around like some dummy corporation or tax shelter, and the Nightwise never even had a clue?”
“They can be a clueless lot,” I said. “Cops like easy, neat solutions.” I didn’t know what else to say. That seemed off to me too.
“So what’s our play?” Vigil asked. Everyone looked at me, and I really needed a drink. I hoped it didn’t show.
“You and I have a date at the Iron Cauldron
