Broken Souls (12 page)

“We’re not talking about the tattoo, anymore, are we?” So much for changing the subject.

“We’re both adults. A roll in the hay is just a roll in the hay.”

“Never said it wasn’t.”

“We’re a ‘habit’?”

“Yeah, okay, not my finest moment. Sorry.”

She waves it off. “As habits go I can think of worse ones. I like you. Obviously. Scary eyes and all.”

“There’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

“Would you date you?”

“Point.” I could tell that’s where she was going with it, but it still stings. “Hey, you said you had a neighbor whose car I could steal?”

“Across the street. Yellow Hummer. Guy’s an asshole. Take it with my blessing.” She steps into the shower. I get up from the bed and join her.

“I’ll probably dump it in the desert.”

“That where you’re going?”

“Yeah. The thing I need to talk to hangs out in the desert out past Cajon or Soledad Pass. Sometimes.”

“You need help?”

“Thanks, but no. If things go to shit they’ll go to shit fast and I’d really rather you not be in the middle of it. I like you, too, you know.”

“Thanks. What exactly is it, anyway?”

“Old. Very, very old.”

Every year L.A. burns.
Brush fires from too much heat and too little moisture sweep through the canyons, rampage down the hills. Flames chew through the landscape, an inexorable force that eats everything in its path. Thousands of people displaced, millions in property damage. All because of the wind.

Raymond Chandler called it the Red Wind. To some of the locals they’re the Devil Winds. Good name for them. You know how to tell when L.A.’s about to burn? The air moves. They’re the Santa Anas. Sometimes hot, sometimes cold. Always dry. They blow through the Cajon Pass, Banning, Santa Clarita. Funnel in from the desert. Set everything ablaze.

The winds blow through the streets, in through windows, cracks in doors. They go everywhere and they see everything. So if you absolutely, positively need to track something down there’s really only one thing to do.

Ask the winds.

I stop at my motel to pick up a few things, get a change of clothes. When I told Tabitha what I was planning she got that same look on her face she had when I told her about Santa Muerte. One more chip out of that wall of Normal she’s looking for.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going. When I get onto the road the sun has already set. I take the stolen Hummer up the 5 Freeway and cut across the 14 toward Palmdale, tasting the magic as I crawl through traffic. The flavor shifts from the heavily Latino magic of North Hills and Sylmar to a sort of suburban kitchen-witch magic from the new subdivisions in Santa Clarita. Nothing big, nothing old.

When I get up by Vasquez Rocks it changes completely. You’ve seen the place in old western serials and Star Trek episodes. Massive jutting rocks angled toward the sky. Before Hollywood came knocking it was a hideout for a bandit name of Tiburcio Vasquez. And before that it was a home to local Indian tribes like the Tataviam, Chemehuevi, Serrano, Kitanemuk.

It’s a tourist spot now, but you can taste all that history in the place’s magic even as far out as the freeway. I get off at Agua Dulce. The park’s closed, a chain running across the entrance road. I park across the street, grab a knapsack and a flashlight and draw SUPPOSED TO BE HERE in big letters across the side of the Hummer. Don’t need some County Sheriff towing it when I don’t have a ride back.

I haven’t been to Vasquez Rocks in almost twenty years. Place is still a pit. Dry desert air, dirt and scrub brush. Nearby houses look down from the distant hills. Further out in Mojave at least you get the sense you’re in the middle of nowhere. Here it feels like you’re in somebody’s shitty backyard.

There’s a trail that loops around the park, hits that big Star Trek rock everybody’s seen. Plenty other rocks like it here. High ground is good for what I need to do. There’s no moon and it takes me about an hour to pick my way along the trail with a flashlight until I find a nice rise with a flat top. I climb up and start my preparations.

The evening air is cool and the wind is starting to pick up. I pull a box of salt from the knapsack and a hammer that I use to chip some stone flakes off the rock. I gather up dust from the ground, mix it and the stone flakes in with the salt. I pour the whole thing into a circle.

Now the tough part. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve spoken with wind spirits, Kabun, the Algonquin west wind, a handful of things that all call themselves the North Wind, but never the Santa Anas. I’m not even sure it has a proper name, or even if there’s only one.

But I do know that they all talk to each other. Nature spirits are very much a part of the thing they represent and vice versa. Because of that, wind spirits tend to be a little blurry around the edges. Identities get mixed up. Boundaries don’t really exist. The one I talk to tonight might just as easily have been a dust storm in China a week ago, a tornado in Ohio last month.

Fortunately, like most magic, summoning is based on will. The chants and rituals are a way to hone in on your intent. I don’t necessarily need to know the thing’s name. The words don’t matter. Might as well be singing Queen songs as much as chanting Vedas into the open air. It’s what you’ve got in your head that matters most and whether or not you can channel that energy into something useful.

I sit cross-legged outside the circle. It’s not a protection so much as it’s a landing place. Protection against this thing is pretty useless, anyway. And if it thought I was trying to actually bind it, it’d just get pissed off.

Intent and will. Focus and power. Images in my mind of windswept deserts, blast furnace air. Fires rampaging out of control. The air scouring every living thing down to bleached bone. An hour later the wind picks up, dry and hot. Plays at my hair. Blows up little dust devils that dance around me. Another hour goes by, and another. My legs are starting to cramp up. I forgot to stretch first.

About four hours in and I feel it. A sudden presence of solid air that surrounds me, rushing past and coalescing into the circle. A dust devil six feet high flows into being with a noise of rushing wind. It pulls the dirt and mix of salt and rock that I drew for it, sucks in the dust dancing in the air.

The voice hits me from all sides. Echoes off the rocks. Talks to me, talks to itself. Sounds overlap each other, hissing like wind through trees, stripped-off bark, blowing sand.

“We are called,” says one voice to my left. “We come,” says another behind me. The dust devil shifts slightly, but stays rooted to its original spot. “What does it want?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I say. “The wind is everywhere. The wind sees everything.”

“The king asks us for help?” says a voice. “Honored,” says another. “The king is dead,” says a third.

“I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

“It jokes.” “It jests.” “It makes a funny.”

“Okay,” I say, not liking the tone of that one bit. What king do they think I am? “I need a man tracked. Russian guy. He’s killing people. Stealing their skins. Last I saw him he was in Downtown L.A. last night.”

No sound but the rushing air in front of me. Silence for a long minute. Have I offended it? I sure as hell hope not. Pissed off nature spirits can be seriously bad news. I once saw a forest spirit in Canada pull an 18-wheeler down into the earth with nothing but pine tree roots.

Then, “Sergei.” “He wants Sergei Gusarov.” “And sister Katya.”

“That’s helpful,” I say. I have a name. I have no idea if it’s the right name, but it’s a place to start. If it can help me track him even better. “Can you help me find him?”

“The king wants help.” “The king needs us.” “We can help the new king.” The enormous dust devil pulls in on itself, particles spinning faster and faster with a sound like grinding sand, shrinking until it’s the size of a dinner plate, then a softball. With a loud pop the mass solidifies into a red, glowing orb the size of my fist.

“This will find him?”

“It will glow in his direction.” “It will glow brighter when he is near.” “It will lead you to him.”

“Excellent,” I say. I don’t make a move to touch it. We’re not even close to done here.

“What does the king offer?” say all three voices simultaneously.

“What does the wind want?”

“Fire.” “Mayhem.” “Burning.”

Awesome. Of course it wants fire. Flames are its plaything. All the houses ringing the canyons, the scrub brush and Joshua trees, these are all just toys to it.

“I got a Zippo here somewhere,” I say. I need to stall for time as I figure something out. I need that orb if I want a chance in hell to find this Sergei guy. But I can’t set off a brushfire. Twenty years ago there was nothing here. Scrub brush, empty lots. Some ranches, crazy coots living in Bucky-Dome houses in the desert. But now? Thousands of people have moved out here for cheap land. I passed half a dozen housing projects and big box stores on my way up here. A brushfire would be devastating.

“Not here.” “Not this place.” “Your lands.”

“Uh. I live in Burbank. Sort of.”

“It doesn’t know.” “How does it not know?” “The king does not know his own home.” Then, with one voice. “Go home. Set it ablaze. Promise that and we will help you.”

I am liking this less and less. I have no idea what home they’re talking about, or why they think I’m a king of anything. Nature spirits sometimes speak in riddles, but this is a bit much even for the stupid ones. But if they think I’m someone else, someone important, it might work to my advantage. I’m happy to make promises somebody else has to keep.

“Deal.”

“The promise is made.” “The lands will burn.” “Take the sphere.” I reach out and pick up the orb. All the dust and dirt that makes it up has been compressed into a smooth, polished sphere that feels like quartz. Heavy and crystalline. Deep inside I can see a faint glow on one side. I turn it this way and that but the glow stays pointed in the same direction. Southwest. Towards L.A.

“It will take time.” “We know.” “To claim your throne.”

“I’m sure it will,” I say. Especially since I’m not this king they think I am.

“A warning,” one says. “Watch the false friend,” it says. “Beware the dead king.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

“Hunt well.” “New king.” “Eric Carter.” And with one voice, “King of the dead.”

Hot winds blow up around me, kicking up dust and dirt. I close my eyes against the blast of grit, cover my nose and mouth. A moment later the winds disappear, and all that’s left is a scoured patch of rock around me and those final words in my head, chilling me to the bone.

Eric Carter. King of the dead.

They knew my name.
Of course they knew my name. You don’t hide much from the fucking winds. Any hope that they were confusing me with someone else is gone. Wishful thinking, anyway.

I swerve the Hummer across lanes on the 14 as a truck barrels up my ass. I’ve been so focused on what the wind said to me that I’d completely forgotten what I’d done to the Hummer. I pull over to the side of the freeway, gravel and dust kicking up behind me. I get out to obliterate the camouflage spell I’d written on the side of the car as best I can with the Sharpie, trucks and cars barreling past me. This is almost as bad as changing a tire out here.

I get the markings erased, grab the orb and walk down the embankment. I need to clear my head, figure out what the hell is going on without worrying about getting my ass run over. I lean against a rock big enough to sit on and look up into the sky. Twenty years ago you’d see nothing but stars out here, a thick field of them away from the glare of Los Angeles proper. But now the sky is a hazy, dark blue, light bleeding up into it from all the nearby developments. The winds are already starting to pick up. I wonder if we’ll get a full-on Santa Ana tonight from what I did, if the desert will burn. I hope not. It’s not like the wind promised it wouldn’t burn it all down. I take a deep breath of cold, desert air, try to clear my head. What the hell happened back there? What is this whole king business? There’s something I’m just not putting together.

A smell of smoke and roses and a burn in the new tattoo is the only warning I get before I hear “You’ve had a busy night, husband.” I turn and see Santa Muerte standing about five feet away, her wedding gown glowing faintly and looking in the wrong direction.

“You still can’t see me, can you?”

She turns her head. “I was admiring the landscape,” she says.

“Sure. What do you want now?”

“To see that you are safe. You dealt with powerful magic tonight. I would have come sooner, but,” she points vaguely in my direction, “that mark you put on yourself clouds my vision.”

“Then it was worth every penny. You seem awful concerned about my safety. If that’s the case where were you last night when I was getting my ass handed to me?”

She says nothing.

“Uh huh. Look, I still don’t know what the hell you want from me. You haven’t actually given me anything to do. Vague, cryptic, ‘I need you safe’ shit just makes me antsy. And seriously, if you need me safe, where the fuck were you last night?” That magical Faraday cage might have kept her from sensing me, but what about after? Or before?

“You were in safe hands.”

“Safe hands? Yeah, those demons were excellent hosts. I particularly liked how that little one did that whole snake jaw thing.”

“You do your best to hide yourself from me and then complain that I’m not there to help,” she says.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I want nothing more than for you to fuck off and never come back. But I do want to know what the hell your game is.”

“And I yours,” she says. “We had an agreement and I believe you are trying to maneuver your way out of it.”

“No shit. Ya think?” I show her the wedding ring on my finger, the gold glinting in the glare of the headlights speeding by on the freeway. “This I did not sign up for. Your enforcer, your assistant, whatever. Your husband? I don’t fucking think so. I want an annulment.”

“I think it is a bit late for that,” she says. “We are linked, whether you like it or not. You know the consequences of my displeasure.”

“So help me if you try anything,” I say, “if you even think about hurting anyone again—”

“You spoke with the winds,” she says, interrupting me. “What did they tell you?”

So she couldn’t eavesdrop on my conversation with them? Interesting. I still don’t know what she can and can’t do. It’s maddening. “They gave me the name of the man who’s been trying to kill me.”

“And nothing else?”

“I didn’t ask for anything else,” I say. “Why? Should they have?”

“No,” she says. “You should take care who you listen to. Lies abound.”

“So I’ve noticed. Are we done here? I’ve got to get back to town. I got some guy I need to hunt down and murder and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

My phone rings. I let it go a couple times before picking up. MacFee. “Yeah.” I don’t take my eyes of Santa Muerte.

“Holy fuck you’re alive,” he says. “Wait. Is this you? Like really you? Not like skinned you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s really me.” Though I have no idea how I could possibly prove that. Or how he could prove he’s him. Jesus. Talk about getting paranoid. But then I wonder who the hell would want to take MacFee’s skin and relax a bit.

“Oh, cool. I thought you were dead or somebody else by now. I heard about the Bruja’s hotel.”

“Yeah? Who told you?”

“She did. Or, her secretary did. The girl, Gabriela? Just got off the phone with her. Wanted me to get her in touch with you.”

“Why didn’t you just give her my number?”

“Dude. I don’t just give out numbers. That’s unprofessional. Anyway, she says she needs to see you. Tonight. There’s a warehouse down by the L.A. river. I’ll text you the address.”

“So you’ll give me her address, but not her phone number?” Silence. “Are you sure it’s her?” I say.

“Of course. I asked her the same thing. I’m not stupid.” No, but he is freaked out. MacFee’s a go-to guy, not someone who lands in the thick of things.

I have no idea if Gabriela is still Gabriela or if Sergei got hold of her. There is one way to tell, though. I glance down at the orb in my hand. The glow has gotten brighter since I left Vasquez Rocks, but it’s still faint. If Sergei’s in the area then it should tip me off before it’s too late.

“Okay. Send me the address. I’ll meet her in a few hours. Hey, you spread the word about Kettleman?”

“Yeah. And people are losin’ their shit. Word is that somebody tracked down the police report. I don’t know how they know but I’m hearing that people are sure that the body in the morgue is his. And since some people are still seeing him walking around they’re givin’ him a lotta space.”

“Good. If that keeps them away from him, so much the better. Might keep some of them alive.”

“Yeah, well that’s the good news. Bad news is that folks aren’t too sure about you. You sure you didn’t kill him?”

“Yes, I’m sure. No, I can’t prove it. But hey, if it keeps people out of my way, that works, too. You ever hear of a guy named—” I pause. Do I want Santa Muerte to know this? Or does she already? “Sergei Gusarov?” I finally say. “Big Russian guy. Prison tats. Looks like he did time back in the mother country.”

“Shit. Gusarov? Seriously?”

“So you know him? Has a sister, too. Katya.”

“I know of him, yeah. He used to work for Ben Griffin as a leg breaker. Normal. No magic. Really good at breakin’ legs, though. And other stuff.”

“Huh. You seen him around lately?”

“No, but I heard about him a few months ago. Griffin had a bunch of Russian ex-cons working for him. Normals. Maybe a little talent here and there. Guys the mob didn’t want. I don’t know how, but he was able to keep ’em in line. When Griffin got killed I heard Gusarov started pulling them together to do their own thing. Then he sort of dropped off the radar.”

“You hear about any of Griffin’s other people?”

“Here and there. Some of them have pulled together enough that they’re kinda organized. Picking up his rackets. But they’re all going at it like cats in a bag. It hasn’t spilled out onto the street, yet, but you know it’s gonna eventually. One group takes somebody out, another takes another out. Quiet, but it’s happening. From what I hear nobody really wants to get the cops involved.”

“What if Sergei’s playing them against each other? These are all quiet hits? Evidence left behind pointing a finger at somebody else?”

“Maybe,” he says. “I don’t really know. I can see if I can find out anything, though.”

Yeah, this is a power grab, all right. And now that he’s got the knife he can do it even better. Hell, instead of just killing somebody, he could take their skin, take over their life. Hit the right guys and he could run the rackets in the whole fucking city.

“How much?”

“I am offended,” MacFee says. “This is my community. This is a threat to my well-being. I can’t possibly do it for less than a thousand.”

“Yeah? That on top of whatever you’re billing the Bruja and me for this messenger service?”

“I’ll roll that in for free.”

“Nice to see some things never change. Let me know what you find out.”

“On it, chief. I’ll put it on your tab. Talk to you later.” He clicks off.

“That was enlightening,” Santa Muerte says when I hang up.

“Was it?”

“This Sergei Gusarov. I know that name. A dangerous man.”

“Yeah, well he’s—” I catch myself. No reason to go volunteering information. “Nothing I can’t handle,” I finish.

“I have no doubt. Go and take care of him. We will speak later about what the wind did or did not tell you.” A breeze blows up a dust devil of sand and grit. There’s that smell of cigar smoke and roses and when the air clears of dust she’s gone.

A moment later my phone buzzes and a text with the warehouse address pops up on the screen. Third and Mission. That’s east of the river and just off the 5. From where I am it should take me less than an hour to get there.

I don’t know what happened to Gabriela after the hotel went up. It could be a trap. Only one way to find out. I make my way back to the Hummer and get back onto the freeway. All right, Bruja, let’s find out if you’re still you.

___

I pull off the freeway at Fourth Street. Downtown in the distance just over the bridge. Barred windows on graffitied houses, billboards advertising telenovelas, sodas, long-distance phone service, everything in Spanish. Houses give way to light commercial, the occasional abandoned storefront. Then warehouses, industrial, manufacturing. Smell of diesel from the trains across the river.

I pull up Mission and a couple blocks later look for a place to park. It’s after midnight and you’d expect the only cars on this street would be trucks heading out or coming in from the train depot. But the street is crawling with them. Beat up Tercels, Maximas, Hondas. Handful of custom lowriders, kind you’d see bouncing their rear ends on Crenshaw. Couple brand-new muscle cars. They’re all centered on one multistory warehouse with delivery trucks and more cars in the yard, loading docks and a top floor with lots of windows. So either I’ve taken a wrong turn and landed on the world’s quietest warehouse party, or this is the place.

I look at the orb on the passenger seat. It’s brighter, but not by much. How much brighter is it supposed to get? Like, nightlight brighter? Noonday sun brighter? When otherworldly beings hand out magical artifacts it’d be nice if every once in a while they’d include a fucking manual.

I drive around a couple of times looking for people and watching the orb to see if it gets any brighter or points toward the warehouse before I park the Hummer behind a Chevy Bel-Air halfway through a custom refit. I don’t see anyone, but I don’t doubt there are some guys in the top floor of the building with rifles looking out through the windows. I consider sliding over to the other side, but when I get out of the car I can see that won’t work.

This is the Bruja’s new place, all right. Same wards she had at the Edgewood, but these are even more impressive. Given what she ran into there I’m not surprised that she beefed up security here. I’d kinda hoped I could sneak in, but there’s no way I’m getting in via the dead side. She’s got the whole thing warded against ghosts, demons, constructs, probably even Scientologists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’m not entirely sure I’ll get in just walking through the front door.

Only one way to find out, I suppose. I consider drawing the Browning, but that would probably just get me shot. Instead I take the orb with me and walk toward the open gate leading to the parking lot. The orb didn’t change much during my drive around the property and the glow kept pointing to the west. If it really is tuned to Sergei, he’s not in there.

I stop at the open gate, energy buzzing along my skin. She’s not fucking around. Some of these wards aren’t just the “keep out” variety. If the wrong thing crosses the threshold they’ll kill it. Here’s hoping I’m on the guest list. I step into the parking lot.

And I don’t explode. So that’s a plus. But immediately a couple doors and the loading bays open up, and a dozen cholos with AKs pour out and surround me. They all look scared and trigger happy. I put my hands in the air.

“Gentlemen,” I say. “I got an invite.” One of them comes up to me to take the orb from my hand. “Try it and you’re pulling back a stump.” I think my eyes are helping because he backs off and rejoins his buddies covering me.

“The fuck are you, man?” one of them says. I don’t recognize any of them from the hotel. Probably all those guys died.

“I’m here to talk to your boss.”

“She don’t talk to nobody. You want an audience, you gotta get through us.”

“Jesus, are you dumbfucks serious? This is a test, isn’t it? She sent you out here to see if I’d do anything stupid. To see if I’m really me. Fine.” I look up at the bank of windows on the second floor. If she’s watching this, she’s probably up there.