"Excellent. I was about to suggest that very thing. You should meet him as soon as possible."
"You think?"
"Absolument. He is a man who knows and possesses many useful things. And I think soon you will need more than your Sundance Kid guns to stay alive."
AFTER I DROP OFF Vidocq, I stop behind a nearby Safeway, wipe the Luger for prints, and stuff it in the bottom of a very full and very smelly Dumpster. I don't want the Luger near me. Who knows what crimes those Nazi freaks committed with it.
The Bamboo House of Dolls will be closed by now, but I need something to drink. I ditch the Porsche a block from Donut Universe, get a large black coffee and a couple of old-fashioneds, and walk the few blocks to Max Overdrive.
I've finished the coffee and one of the doughnuts when I reach the store. The lights are on. The front door is open and the glass shattered. I throw away the food, pull Azazel's knife from my boot, and go inside quietly. The place is a wreck. Racks are turned over and discs and cases are scattered everywhere. The cash register, though, looks untouched, so it wasn't thieves or crackheads who got in.
I kick through the broken glass and discs wondering who would want to just trash the place when I see a shoe sticking out from under one of the upturned racks. I grab the rack and flip it over. Allegra is lying there. She's a mess. Her clothes are torn and her hands and face are bloody. I put my ear against her chest and am relieved to hear a slow and steady heartbeat. She weighs practically nothing, so I pick her up and carry her to my room. The door at the top of the stairs has been kicked in. I set Allegra on the bed and cover her with a blanket. When I go into the bathroom to get a wet cloth, I see something a lot scarier than the ghouls in Mason's basement. The door to Kasabian's closet is ripped off its hinges. He's gone.
I clean the blood off Allegra's face and drape the cool cloth across her forehead. When I push open her eyelids, her pupils are wide and they stay that way. A concussion. Not good. She moves her head and groans a little before pushing my hand away.
"What happened? I'm cold."
She's going into shock. I wrap the sheet around her. "You're hurt."
"Mr. Kasabian left. He looked dead, but he said goodbye."
"I'm taking you to the hospital."
She sits upright. Almost. She gets halfway up and drops back down.
"No hospital."
"You have to. You're hurt."
"No hospital. They might call the cops."
I didn't see that coming. "I'm taking you anyway."
That's exactly the wrong thing to say. Allegra grabs my arm, pulls herself up and tries to slap me. It's pretty impressive for someone who's gasping like a dying goldfish.
"No hospitals! No cops!"
Having finally gotten the point, I help her back down on the bed. Scraps of paper, half-eaten burritos, and ashtrays full of cigarettes are piled on Kasabian's worktable. I paw around the debris until I find the phone. I dial Kinski's number. Someone picks up on the sixth ring.
"Is this Candy? This is Stark."
"Stark? Lovely to hear from you. Tell me, Stark, do the clocks on your planet work like ours? Because the ones here on Earth tell me that it's late for chitchat."
"Shut up. I have a civilian here and I'm pretty sure she's been hurt with magic. I don't know how bad, but I think she's got a concussion. Kinski is the only doctor I know about in L.A., so I'm bringing her to see him. If he isn't there when I get there, I'm going to be extremely unhappy."
"Okay. Do you have the address?"
Fucking brilliant. I'm threatening people I don't know, but need, at an address I don't have.
"Give it to me." She does.
"See you soon," she says.
I carry Allegra downstairs and leave her by the front door. Outside, I scan the street for transportation. I want something big so that Allegra can lie down, but mostly it's Japanese compacts and Detroit Tinker Toys. Down by the corner, I see what I want, a shiny red Escalade. The problem is that two guys are sitting inside. Still, it's worth checking out.>"I don't know if we're going to find anything interesting in here. Mason always hinted that he had a hidden room where he kept all his important stuff, but none of us ever found it."
Much as I don't want to, I lean against a mildewed wall. My head is suddenly spinning. Voices and faces shoot through me, like streaks of lightning. I can even feel echoes of the Circle, all of them, even my younger self, trapped in here. I've heard of dark magicians doing this. Sometime in the past, Mason hermetically sealed the room from the rest of the world with a kind of barrier hex. He didn't want what he was doing to leak out into the aether. It might let other magicians know that he was horse trading with Hellions. A lot of scary things passed through this room. A lot more than the few beasties that dragged me Downtown. Some I can see and feel, but others are just blurs that I can't get a fix on. The inside of their heads is all hunger and knives, like insects. I'm not sorry that I can't get any farther inside. I'd been getting used to sensing other people's thoughts and feelings, but the intensity of this place makes the experience new and weird again. Suddenly I don't want to be here anymore.
"Ha!"