They Thirst Part 8

Except the Death ( Machine, o' course. Now there's a good bunch of brothers. Old d.i.c.ko and me just i-got back from a San Diego run. You shoulda been there and seen the looks on these f.u.c.ker's faces when thirty Death Machiners come runnin' right through their jr campground, scatterin' picnic baskets and tables all to h.e.l.l and back. Yeah, it was alllllright. Wasn't it, d.i.c.ko?"

"So what about you, Kobra? What's the story?"

"Nothing much to tell," Kobra said. "I hooked up with the Nightriders up in Was.h.i.+ngton for a while, started getting road fever, and moved on. I guess I've ridden with nine or ten clubs since I left the Angels." Viking leaned closer, his eyes glimmering with low beer lights. "Hey," he whispered conspiratorially. "Who'd you waste in New Awleens? What was the action?"

"Couple of Dixie Demons trashed a buddy of mine. I killed 'em as a favor."

"How'd you do it? Fast or slow?"

Kobra smiled. "The first one I shot in the kneecaps. Then the elbows. And I tossed him into the mighty Mississippi. f.u.c.ker flopped around like a frog for a while before he went under. The second one I caught in a gas station toilet. I made him lick the Johns clean and then . . . pow! . . . right through the old beanbag. Bled like a swamp." His gaze clouded slightly. "Too bad he was working with the cops, about to turn state's evidence on some Demon dirt. All kinds of pigs were hunting me from FBI on down. That's the luck of the draw, right?"

"Right." Viking leaned back and let out a satisfied belch. Kobra drank his coffee and felt it roiling around in his stomach. He could feel d.i.c.ko's stare on him, like a leech clinging to the side of his face.

"Viking,"

Kobra said after another moment, "is there any action going on in L.A. I might be interested in? Anything big? You know, maybe some down-and-dirty, or somebody in bad need of an out-of-town shooter?"

Viking looked at d.i.c.ko and then shook his head. "Don't hear anything. Well, the Knights and the Satan Stompers are having a little war over in La Habra, but it'll blow over in a few days. Why?"

"A feeling I've got. Like something's about to break." d.i.c.ko's ferret eyes gleamed. "What kind of feeling? Sorta weird, like you can feel power hummin' inside you?"

"Yeah. Sort of like that. Only it's getting stronger all the time, and a little while ago I thought I heard . . . you guys know of a place something like this-real big, maybe on a cliff, and it's got high towers and stained-gla.s.s windows, could be a church?"

d.i.c.ko looked startled. "Uh ... on a cliff? Way up over L.A.? Jesus! A castle, maybe?"

Kobra nodded.

Viking barked out a laugh. "A f.u.c.kin' castle? Sure, old d.i.c.ko knows it! You talkin' about the Kronsteen place? That's where d.i.c.ko and a bunch of freaks stoned out of their gourds on LSD and mesc had a party about . . ."

"Eleven years," d.i.c.ko said quietly. "It was eleven years ago we did that."

"Did what?" Kobra asked. "What're you talking about?"

"You want to go up there?" d.i.c.ko's gaze was dead again. "Why?" Kobra said, "Maybe it's not the place I want to go. I don't know. But I'd like to see it. How far is it from here?"

"It's way up in the Hollywood Hills. But we could make it before sunrise if you want to see it. I hear somebody's moved in up there."

"Who?" Kobra asked. How do you like that, he said to himself. A castle, not a church.

d.i.c.ko shrugged. "Some foreign f.u.c.ker. There was a piece in the paper about a month ago. I saved it."

"Okay. What the h.e.l.l, I got nothing better to do. Let's burn on up to this joint and take a look at it." Kobra was suddenly eager to get under way. Is my trip over? he wondered. Or has it just started? His blood seemed to be boiling in his veins.

"Let's git gone!" Viking said, and shoved his bulk away from the booth. Out of the dead blue darkness, three moons rose in the hills above the Hollywood Bowl. Kobra rode on d.i.c.ko's left flank, following the twistings of the road with an almost extrasensory knowledge. They had made good time from Millie's, even though Viking-riding on d.i.c.ko's right, his bike wheezing like an old, used-up horse-had to stop and take a beer p.i.s.s every few miles. Now they were climbing at an incredible angle, their engines cracking the silence with pops and growls.

d.i.c.ko, made a quick turn onto a narrower road lined with hundreds of dead trees.

They continued to climb, the wind swirling like whirlpools around them. And then they came to a chain across the road with a sign on it, PRIVATE PROPERTY-NO TRESPa.s.sING.

"Well see about that," Kobra said; he got off his chopper and moved toward a tree on the left side of the road. The chain had been wrapped around the trunk and secured with the kind of padlock you couldn't even shoot through. Kobra touched the chain and pulled at it. It was tighter than a c.o.c.k ring, and there was no way to go around it either-the left side of the road pitched off into empty s.p.a.ce, while the right was blocked by a boulder as big as a house.

"Gonna have to walk the rest of the way," Kobra said, and started to step over the chain. He heard a sudden faint click, and the chain slithered to the road.

"Alllllright!" Viking said, revving his engine. "How'd you do that?"

"I... I don't know." He backed away a pace and bent to look at the open p.r.o.ngs of the lock. They were polished and new. "Rusty lock," he said, and rose to his feet. What's waiting for me up there, Fate or Death? He went back to his bike and stepped on, his knees beginning to shake a little but d.a.m.ned if he was going to show it.

"You sure you want to go up there?" d.i.c.ko asked him; in this faint light there were deep blue hollows beneath his eyes, and his mouth was twisted like a gray worm.

"Yeah. Why shouldn't I?"

"Roads tricky as h.e.l.l higher up. I ain't been here in a long time. I hope I don't take us right over the edge and down to L.A."

"You want to turn back, d.i.c.ko?" Viking asked with a soft laugh, his eyes mocking.

"No," d.i.c.ko said quickly. "I'm able. But . . . you know ... I think about that night a lot. It was a freak named Joey Tagg did the cutting."

"That's not what I hear," Viking said, but then he kept quiet. d.i.c.ko roared on across the chain, and Kobra followed closely. Higher up they had to swerve around slabs of rock that had fallen from ledges just above their heads. The road turned at an eighty-degree angle as they neared the top, and through a cut in the trees Kobra could see the whole glittering valley below from Topanga Canyon to Alhambra.

And then there it was, perched at the top like a stone vulture. The thing was enormous, much larger than Kobra had envisioned. He felt doused with ice water.

This was the place, no doubt about it. Black towers jutting into the sky, high pointed roofs like dunce caps, the soft glimmer of a blue window sixty feet off the ground. The whole place was surrounded by a ten-foot-high stone wall with coils of barbed wire strung along the top. The huge wooden slab of a gate hung wide open, and Kobra could see along a weed-infested driveway that led across a barren courtyard to a series of stone steps. At the top of the steps was a front door as big as a drawbridge. Should have a moat with f.u.c.king crocodiles, Kobra thought. "Who built this b.a.s.t.a.r.d?" he asked d.i.c.ko. d.i.c.ko cut his engine, and the others did the same. In the silence they could hear the wind rippling through the foliage below them; the wind touched Kobra's face like cold fingers exploring his features. "Crazy old movie star name of Kronsteen," d.i.c.ko replied softly, getting off his bike and letting it rest on its kickstand. "He brought this thing over from Europe piece by piece. You ever seen any of his flicks?"

Kobra shook his head.

"Monster flicks," d.i.c.ko went on, his gaze following the sharp angles of towers and parapets. "They drove the old dude crazy, I guess. You see all those dead trees we pa.s.sed? Kronsteen hired a bunch of guys to spray them with black paint, just covered 'em with the s.h.i.+t, like something from a horror flick set."

"How long's it been here?" Kobra asked, stepping off his chopper.

"A long time. I think he built it back in the forties. But it's old. It must've been in Europe for hundreds of years."

"But old Kronsteen wasn't near as rich as you dudes thought he was, huh?" Viking asked, grinning; he belched and muttered.

d.i.c.ko didn't answer for a long time. Then he said, "Hardly had a stick of furniture in there. Wasn't no gold statues, wasn't no chests full of money. Wasn't nothing but a lot of empty rooms." He turned to Kobra. "You've seen it. Let's go."

Kobra had taken a few steps along the driveway, gravel crunching under his feet.

"Wait a minute." What's here? he wondered. What called me?

"Come on, bro," Viking said. "Let's git ... HEY! YOU SEE THAT?" He pointed, and Kobra looked up to the right.

In one of the tower windows a candle was flickering, the light made orange by the stained gla.s.s. From the corner of his eye, Kobra saw another candle begin to burn off to the left behind another window. And now there were more candles glittering, from almost every window in the place. The tiny flames glowed green, blue, and white behind colored gla.s.s, candles burning like lanterns to welcome the hunter home.

The front door silently opened. Kobra felt a surge of joy and fear course through him, like a charge between opposite poles. His legs moved slowly, as if he were crawling across flypaper. "Where are you going?" Viking called behind him. "Kobra? What you doin', man?"

"It wants me," he heard himself say, and looked back at Viking and d.i.c.ko standing at the far end of the driveway. "Come on," Kobra said, a wild grin rippling across his face. "Come on with me. It wants us all." Neither of them moved.

The castle loomed above Kobra, dwarfing him. Through the huge open doorway he could smell the guts of the place-dry, cold, maybe as old as time itself. At the threshold he paused to look back at his friends, and a voice like a cool wind wafted through his brain-COME TO ME. As he stepped into the darkness, he heard Viking shout from a world away, "KOBRA!"

He stood in a womb of darkness, a place without ceiling or walls or floor. There was a distant noise like water dripping onto concrete, or m.u.f.fled footsteps.

When he started walking again, feeling his way, his boots clattered like a toss of bones across the floor of rough stone. Echoes converged and pa.s.sed each other like riptides with Kobra at the center. His eyes were getting used to the blackness now, and he could see smooth stone walls around him, a geometric pattern of rough-Q' hewn rafters perhaps twenty feet overhead. An old rusted metal chandelier hung Q - crookedly from that ceiling, still holding two light bulbs that looked like teardrops. From the depths of the place, a candle flame flickered, far away; Kobra followed its light, his fingertips grazing the wall. He was in a long, high corridor that seemed to go on forever, like the trick done with mirrors in the carnival funhouses. Half of him cowered in fear like a mongrel dog; the other half lurched with drunken glee, and it was this half that kept his legs moving. I'm in a haunted house at the New Orleans fairgrounds, he told himself; I'm walking through the Madman's Maze.

Going to feel cobwebs in my hair in a minute, going to see a dummy dressed up in an ape mask.

He reached the candle. It sat in a gleaming bra.s.s holder on a long table of dark, s.h.i.+ning wood. He couldn't see beyond the range of the light, but he had a feeling the room was as large as a cavern, maybe with stone stairs that wound around and fy around and out of sight. He could hear the wind whistling through broken windows very high above him.

Off to his left he saw another candle, moving in midair, carried by a ghost. But then he saw the quick flicker of pale light on the face of a girl. She had a long sweep of ebony hair, sensual pouting lips, a face as beautiful as the moon.

There was another candle now, on his other side. This one was held by a young man in a Kiss T-s.h.i.+rt. He had a lean, sharp-boned face and predatory eyes. Then a third candle, behind Kobra. A tall, smiling girl, her red hair cascading in disarray around her shoulders. Then the others: Kobra saw a couple of Chicano girls, a black dude wearing a headband, a middle-aged man and woman who looked at him lovingly, as if he might be their long lost son. Candles burned in a silent circle around him.

And then a hand as cold and hard as a chunk of ice touched Kobra's shoulder. He whirled, ready to go for his Mauser. But the hand moved in a white streak and caught his wrist, not hurting him by only holding him where he was. In the golden candlelight Kobra could see the face of someone who looked at once very young and very old.

There were no lines on the white face, but the eyes seemed ancient and wise, ablaze with powerful secrets. Where the hand touched him, Kobra tingled with electricity; the feeling slowly spread until he thought he must be plugged in to the same socket that supplied power to the universe. He felt like he was going to explode with fear and exhilaration, that he should kneel down there on that cold stone floor and kiss the wintry hand of Death. Death smiled-a boyish smile-through an old man's eyes. "Welcome," he said. For a long time Viking and d.i.c.ko waited outside, but Kobra didn't come back. The first tentative rays of gray light were creeping across the eastern horizon.

After they had called him a few times, unsuccessfully, Viking unsheathed a hooked hunting blade from a leather holder at his side. "Somethin's happened to Kobra," he said to d.i.c.ko. "I'm gonna find out what. You comin'?" d.i.c.ko paused, then reached to the small of his back and took out the .45 from its black holster. "Yeah," he replied. "I'm in." They moved into the castle and were swallowed up by darkness. The sun gradually strengthened its hold on the horizon, chasing shadows in its path. Sometime before dawn the door swung closed, and a bolt was thrown. FOUR Sunday morning dawned bright and warm. Bells chimed from a hundred church steeples across L.A. The G.o.d of Light was wors.h.i.+pped in as many different ways, from formal services to the simple act of prayer on Malibu Beach by the Pacific Ocean Church. Incense cones were burned by the Holy Order of the Sun, Catholic ma.s.ses were being said. Buddhists bowed before their altars. The city seemed quiet, at rest, the planet spinning in an ordered universe. From his Laurel Canyon terrace Mitch Gideon watched a flock of birds moving gracefully across the sky as if in slow-motion. He stood in a warm splash of sunlight, smoking a cigar and thinking about the dream of coffins on a conveyor belt. He'd had it again last night and had sat up in bed so violently Estelle almost had a heart attack. That dream had been peculiar at first, something to laugh about. Now it was terrifying, the details gradually becoming clearer and clearer. Last night he'd been able to see the faces of some of his co-workers.

They'd looked like grinning dead men, and the cold whiteness of their flesh had been so real, so close, that Gideon had just fought his way out of the dream as if up from the bottom of a deep, green pond. He was playing golf this afternoon in a foursome at the Wils.h.i.+re Country Club, and he hoped hacking at a Slazenger would take his mind off a dream that was really turning s.h.i.+tty. Andy and Jo Palatazin sat in their usual places at the Hungarian Reformed Church on Melrose Avenue, just a few blocks from their house. She gripped his hand and squeezed it, sensing his preoccupation. He smiled and pretended to be paying attention, but his mind was seesawing back and forth between two dark concerns: the Roach, whose presence in the city now seemed as intangible as a ghost's; and whatever had ripped through the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. The artist's composite of the man who had tried to lure Amy Hulsett had been printed up by the dozens for detectives and uniformed officers to use in their conversations with street people. Of course, the man might not have been the Roach after all, just a guy out to buy a good time, but it was an angle that had to be pursued.

All that Brasher's hard work had turned up was one suspect who owned a dark blue Volkswagen, and the man was almost the total physical opposite of the young prost.i.tute's description. Palatazin had put an officer on surveillance to be certain.

The second concern made him more uneasy. He'd driven past HollywoodI Memorial on the way to church; everything had looked okay, and Palatazin had , caught a quick glimpse of the watchman, Kelsen, unlocking the front gates for the Sunday morning visitors. Had it been only mindless vandalism after all? He was hoping it was. The other answer-the one that lurked deep in the back of his mind-might drive him mad.

And in a huge circular bed in his Bel Air home, Wes Richer stirred, reaching across to touch Solange's cool brown flesh. His fingers gripped the edge of the sheet where she should have been lying. He opened his eyes and winced; the light was buffered by thick beige curtains, but it was still bright enough to make his L optic nerves sputter like severed live wires. He turned over on his back, his palms pressed against his eyes, and waited for the first wave of the cras.h.i.+ng headache to pa.s.s. "Solange?" he called out, the sound of his voice making his eardrums throb. There was no answer, and finally Wes sat up on the edge of the bed. "Solange," he called again irritably. d.a.m.n! Where is she?

he thought. His sinuses were clogged with the mingled odors of marijuana and jasmine incense with a cold dash of cocaine in there for good measure. How was the show? he wondered suddenly. Was I good? "Sheer Luck" strikes again. Alimentary, Dr. Batson. Wes stood up and struggled into his Fruit of the Looms.

When he walked into the living room and looked around, he swore loudly. He saw the ruined wall-to-wall carpet, a mahogany coffee table scarred like a K-Mart reject, a shattered piece of Inca pottery that he'd been too high to notice the night before, the empty hospitality bowls that had been br.i.m.m.i.n.g at least five times last night, the silver cocaine trays snorted clean, the bits of gla.s.s that glittered in the carpet between all the stains and crushed b.u.t.ts, the heel marks-heel marks, for Chrissake?-atop the grand piano, the . . . oh, to h.e.l.l with it! he thought. The wreckage was consummate.

And sitting there in the middle of it was Solange, wearing her long white robe cut low to show the soft dark swelling of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She was sitting on the sofa, her arms crossed tightly as if she were chilly. She was staring at the Ouija board.

"Morning," Wes said, and plopped himself down in a chair. An instant later he stood up to remove the filled ashtray he'd sat down on. There was a ring of ashes on his a.s.s. "Christ!" he said softly, surveying the damage. "If the guys at the Domino Club could only see me now. As they say." He saw she was not paying attention; her eyes were fixed on a spot at the center of the board. "I didn't feel you get out of bed. What time were you up?" She blinked and glanced up at him as if just now aware that he'd walked into the room. "Wes," she said. "I... I've been up for a long time. I couldn't sleep after the sun rose." She looked at him for a long time and then smiled appreciatively. "You look like someone hit you with a nganga."

"A nuhwhat? What's that?"

"An evil spell. A big one." Solange frowned slightly and turned back to the board. She picked up the planchette and examined the bottom of it with a fingertip.

"Better watch out for that b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Wes said. "It might bite you. I'm going to kick Martin Blue's a.s.s the next time I see him. He could've put my eye out!"

She replaced the planchette. "What are you saying, Wes? That Martin was in control of what happened here last night?"

"Sure he was! I saw his hands! He skidded that thing right off the board!" When Solange didn't reply, he walked over to the picture window and looked down at the swimming pool. A bright yellow-and-green striped lawn chair was floating in it; there were some Coors cans at the deep end. "All right," he said finally. "I know that silence. What are you thinking?"

"Martin didn't do it," she said. "He had no control over it, and neither did I.

Something very violent and very strong was here . . ."

"Oh, come on! Listen, I can take that mumbo stuff when we're at a party, but when we're alone, I wish you'd forget the spirit world!"

"You don't believe?" she asked coolly.

"Nope."

"Do you pray to G.o.d?"

He turned from the window to face her. "Yes, but that's different."

"Is it? Think back. You were playing high-stakes poker in a room at the Las Vegas Hilton nine months ago. You were playing against some very influential and wealthy men."

"I remember."

"Do you remember the final hand? You closed your eyes for a second before you picked up that last card. To which spirit were you praying?"

"To ... I was wis.h.i.+ng for an ace from Lady Luck. That's not a spirit." She smiled faintly, her nostrils flaring. "I say it is. All deities are spirits, and all beliefs can become deities. Oh, yes, Wes, you believe." She regarded the board again. "You saw. You spelled out the words."

"What words? It was gibberis.h.!.+"

"It was a message," Solange said quietly. She s.h.i.+vered and lifted her gaze to him. "The spirits are troubled, Wes. There's a great, terrible nganga in the air. If you had Bantu blood in your veins, you could feel its vibrations, or smell it like the reek of old vinegar. The spirits know every mystery; they see the future and try to protect us from harm, if we will only listen to what they say." Wes smiled slightly, and Solange's eyes snapped with anger. "I've never felt a power before like the thing that was here last night! It simply silenced the beneficent voices; it brushed their spirits away with as much effort as it takes to flick a fly away! That was the thing that spelled out the final message, the thing that took the planchette into its, power and . .

"Stop it," Wes said abruptly.

Solange's face tightened. She stared at him for a few seconds with what Wes sometimes referred to as her "molten ink" eyes, and then she rose gracefully.

"I I didn't mean to upset you . . ."

"I'm not upset!"

". . . but I wanted you to know the truth . . ."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!"

". . . about what happened last night. I have told you the truth."

"And the truth shall set us free." His grin spread. "Seems like I've heard that before."

"Wes!" Tension was stretched tight in her voice now. "You can stand on your stage and make your little jokes for other people; you can contort your face and voice and make the people think you live for their laughter, but don't think for an instant that you can put on your disguise in front of me!

Sometime the jokes will have to end; the laughter will die. And you'll have to face the world on its ownp terms without falsehood."

"What world are we talking about, dear? The spirit domain, I a.s.sume?" Solange had already turned away. She crossed the living room, her white gown swirling behind her, and disappeared into the far hallway. He heard the faint sound of a door closing. Her problem is, she can't take a joke, he thought. He rose to his feet and went through the living room and the short connecting hallway to the kitchen, where copper cooking utensils hung from an overhead rack and African woodcuts decorated the walls. He found a carton of orange juice in the refrigerator and took a variety of plastic bottles from the vitamin cupboard. As he downed his breakfast, he was aware that his pulse was kicking hard. He'd been thinking of that planchette coming for his face like a runaway Nike missile, and he knew that there was no d.a.m.ned way Martin Blue could've done it. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been scared witless. So what, then? Spirits, like Solange said? No, that was bulls.h.i.+t! When Solange got started, she could really lay it on thick, stuff with crazy names like Santeria, brujeria, nkisi, makuto. Once he'd peeked inside the ornately carved wooden box she kept under the bed. There was a strange collection of peac.o.c.k feathers, seash.e.l.ls, black and red candles, corn husks, white coral, and some kind of weird iron nails wrapped up with string inside. Wes tolerated her beliefs, but he had drawn the line several months ago when she'd wanted to put a twig tied with a red ribbon behind every door in the house.

He'd never known her last name; the man who'd lost her to him in the Vegas poker game hadn't known it either. She told Wes she was born in Chicago, the daughter of a woman who'd been a cla.s.sical actress in j.a.pan and an African man who was a practicing santero, a good magician. She was born, she said, on the seventh day of the seventh month at exactly seven o'clock in the evening. On the day before her birth, her father had dreamed of her sitting on an ivory throne with seven stars moving about her head like a glittering tiara. Which seemed to be a d.a.m.ned good omen, the way Solange had explained it. It was supposed to mean that she had inherited her father's powers of white magic, that she was to be considered a living talisman. Solange didn't talk about the things she'd learned from her father in her formative years, but Wes figured she must've been pretty important. Solange recalled that people always came to their door, wanting to touch her, or ask her about problems they were having with love or money.

When she was ten years old, walking home from school with the snow falling softly, a car had pulled up to the curb, and two black men had stuffed a rag into her mouth and thrown her onto the backseat. She was blindfolded-she could vividly recall the coa.r.s.eness of the cloth against her face-and the car traveled all night. They went fast, over all kinds of roads. When the blindfold was taken off, she was at a big house with snow-filled woods all around. For several days she was locked in a beautifully furnished bedroom with windows that looked down on an ice-glazed lake and fed by a black man in a white suit who brought her food on a silver tray. On the third day she was taken to a gla.s.s room full of jungle vines and blooming red flowers, where a large-bellied black man who wore a gray-striped suit and smoked a cigar waited. He was very nice to her, very friendly, and offered her a lace handkerchief to wipe her eyes when he told her that she wouldn't be going home again because this was her home now. His name was Fontaine, and he said there were some things Solange was going to have to do for him. She was going to have to give him good fortune and protect him from evil. Or something might happen to her mother and father.

It was only gradually, she'd told Wes, that she learned he was a bad man, a gangster who controlled most of the Harlem rackets. His power was slipping, and he'd heard about her through some of his people in South Chicago. In a period of four years, during which Solange did very little but read the lines in his hand and touch photographs of different men to feel their weaknesses, Fontaine never came to her bedroom, never laid a hand on her. He left her alone, first because he was beginning to fear her all too accurate predictions of the future and the incantations that caused his enemies to suddenly wither from health to sickness; also, his brain was steadily being gnawed away by syphilis. Many nights she could hear Fontaine roaming the long hallways of the mansion, howling like an animal in mad rage. In the end it was the syphilis, not his enemies, that crept up on him with a deadly hand, and none of Solange's incantations or poultices could halt its advance.