The Mall of Cthulhu (20 page)

"Oh, we've had the
Necronomicon
for years. The great majority of it is completely useless. Largely the insane rantings of someone who'd been hitting the hashish a bit too hard."

"Hence the 'Mad Arab' thing, huh?"

"Right. But there are approximately thirty pages of incantations in the
Necronomicon
with all kinds of deadly implications. But they're coded. You can't do anything with them without a key to the code."

"Which these guys obviously have."

"Right. We don't even know what book contains the code, what it looks like, what language it's in, anything. Frankly, we didn't believe there were any extant copies."

Laura smiled. "Say that word again."

"Necronomicon?"

"Hee! That's a funny one too, but I mean 'extant.' It sounds funny, you know? Like, something that used to be tant. Whatever
tant
is."

"Well," and Marrs shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "I think perhaps we should continue our conversation in the morning—"

"But, I mean, why couldn't you just kill all these guys, or at least arrest them or something? Why'd you let them dig up the
Necronomicon
in the first place? Why didn't you kill the vampires? If you know about all this shit, why don't you fix it?"

Marrs sighed heavily, removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put his glasses back on. "Right now," he said. "I mean at this very instant, my branch consists of me and five other people in the office. We spend a lot of time monitoring information on computers, we piggyback on the surveillance whenever the FBI is investigating anything that we think might be supernatural—we work very hard, I want you to understand this—we all work seventy, eighty-hour weeks, and through anonymous tips and selective use of arson, sunlight, crosses, silver, and numerous magical spells, we've actually been able to prevent probably thousands of deaths.

"But this is a very very big country, Laura. I should probably have one agent assigned to Sasquatch duty full time. Especially during mating season. They grow rather irascible then. But we simply don't have the personnel. When I flew out to Death Valley to perform the simple matter of the Anti-Djinn incantations, some people dug up a
Necronomicon.
I don't know how long our money has to last, so we can't spend like we'd like to, and, as I said before, it's damn hard to recruit when your pool of qualified applicants includes only those people who believe in the reality of vampires. I can't tell you the number of pale-skinned, black-attired Anne Rice devotees I've turned away—no law enforcement background, and most of them want to play bass for Lestat instead of wanting to rid the earth of bloodthirsty murderers."

Laura's next shot and beer arrived. She shot the tequila and suddenly had the presence of mind to wonder when she'd had this much to drink in this short a time before. Probably ten years ago at a party that this hot girl's sorority was having . . . And she was suddenly annoyed with herself. Time might be of the essence here, and she'd just taken herself out of the investigation for at least a few hours.

She thought, "I investigate better when I'm drunk," and then found herself laughing. She'd laughed a lot in the last few minutes—not too bad, when she'd thought she would never laugh again just a few minutes ago. Maybe she should get shitfaced more often. Marrs looked slightly annoyed.

"Listen, Ms. Harker, you're obviously not in any condition to make a decision right now, but I'm going to give you my card—" he pressed a card into her hand—"and if you'll give me your cell phone number, we can have a conversation in a few—"

"Don't need to think about it. I wanna do it." The words spilled out of Laura's mouth before she had a chance to consider what she was saying. But then she thought about it. This was what she wanted to do all along—to work on this kind of case. And if she stayed with the regular FBI, she'd have to look for Ted on her own time, and every time something obviously supernatural came up, some jackass would tell her it was a magic trick and she couldn't have any resources. It didn't seem like Marrs had much in the way of resources either, but at least he'd let her use her time the way she wanted.

Marrs smiled. "Delightful. Well, I can't obviously take you as seriously as I'd like given your condition."

"Being a lesbian is not a condition, okay? And I don't know why it should prevent you from . . . "

Marrs looked uncomfortable, and his face turned red. "Well, no, I was actually referring . . . I mean, obviously who you choose to . . . that is . . . "

Laura let loose a flood of giggles. "Gotcha!" she said. Marrs didn't look amused. "So when do we start, and where?"

"I really don't think we should discuss this right now. I will call you first thing in the morning. So I suggest you cut off your consumption at this point so as to be in suitable investigating condition. I find that water, in addition to a supplement containing a rich B-vitamin complex does a wonderful job of helping one avoid some of the worst symptoms of the hangover."

"B vitamins?"

"Consumption of alcohol depletes your supply of B vitamins. This adds tremendously to the complications of a hangover. A spoonful of brewer's yeast, or possibly—"

"Yeah, what's that shit Ted drinks? Some kind of fizzy vitamin shake . . . "

"Just the ticket. I'll call at six." He extended his hand. "We're happy to have you on board. I believe you're the first rug-chewing lush we've ever had in the department."

Laura looked blankly at Marrs' extended hand and debated whether to smack him. Then he laughed a hearty laugh and said, "I believe I owed you one!" and Laura wasn't sure whether to smile or deck him. Finally she shook his hand.

"Do we get to take 'em out?"

"Who?"

"The guys who . . . who did this to Ted. Do we take 'em out?"

"Well, if they were supernatural creatures, certainly—pile of ashes, puff of smoke, what have you, problem solved. But these cretins aren't supernatural, so not only do they tend to have next of kin, they also leave behind remains that are far more difficult to dispose of, and we simply—"

"I know. Resources."

"Exactly."

"Well. Till tomorrow, then."

"Fine," Marrs said, smiling. He walked out of the restaurant. Laura pondered the beer that sat in front of her and decided not to drink it. She called for her check and paid it. She walked unsteadily down the street toward the panel van—though she hardly knew Killilea, he'd been better through this whole thing than he had to be, and she thought he deserved a goodbye. But the van was gone and Laura was officially transferred. She walked toward the unfurnished apartment that Ted would never set foot in again, stopping at a convenience store a few blocks from Ted's apartment (No, you told him it was your apartment, remember, when he tried to kick you out of it for calling him a baby, a really annoying voice in her brain reminded her.) and bought a packet of what she hoped was the same fizzy vitamin thing Ted always drank as well as a liter of water. She poured the powder into the water and began to drink it.

The phone woke Laura up at six a.m. Her first, half-awake thought was "Leave it to Goddamn Ted to call at six in the morning when I'm trying to sleep off . . . " And then she realized that Ted wasn't calling, that Ted might never call again, and she was wide awake and felt like crying.

She felt extraordinarily tired, as she'd been up at least three times to pee in the night, but her head didn't hurt, her muscles didn't ache, and her stomach felt only slightly sour. She punched the green button on her phone.

"Harker."

"Marrs. Ready to get started?"

"I think I should shower first."

"By all means. Meet me at the coffee shop catty-corner from the mall in half an hour."

"Okay." Laura hung up the phone and reflected that she always said "kitty-corner."

Half an hour later, she was catty-corner, or maybe kitty-corner (Pussy-corner? she asked herself, and then allowed herself two and a half seconds to think that it had been way too long since she'd gotten laid.) from the mall, looking at an enormous latte and Marrs, who sipped from a small tea.

"Tannins," he said, "You know, even the black teas have fantastic antioxidant—"

"I'm sure they do, but can we talk about how we're going to get Ted back?"

Marrs looked down at his tea, and then back up to Laura. "I need to be really clear with you now that you're sober. While we'd love to have Ted and the young woman who disappeared back—"

"There was a woman?"

"Yes—mid-twenties, ran a pushcart at the mall—"

"Too many piercings?"

"Judging by witness accounts, yes. She fell or was thrown into the rift first, and Ted jumped in after her."

Laura fell silent. So Ted had done it again. He'd gone after somebody he cared about. She'd chided him for being this brainless puppy that followed people home, but she had to hand it to him—he also had the best qualities of a dog, in that he loved unconditionally and with complete loyalty. If he liked you, there was really no limit to what he would do for you, whether it was beheading Bitsy or jumping into another dimension that would likely kill him or drive him hopelessly insane.

The self-loathing came bubbling up from her midsection again. Why the hell hadn't she appreciated him more? There probably weren't many people in the whole world who'd be as selfless as Ted when the chips were down. He was a puppy, but she was a heartless, ungrateful bitch who kicked puppies in the teeth. Ugh.

"In any case, Laura, I need to be very clear here. The goal of our investigation is to shut this Cthulhu operation down, permanently if we can. Getting Ted back would involve either allowing them to open the rift again, or opening it ourselves. Now, Lovecraft has given us some idea of what's on the other side, but we have no idea how reliable his descriptions are, or, even if he's accurate about the Old Ones, what else we might be inviting into our world if we throw a window open like that."

"So we just let Ted and . . . and this girl—"

"Jennifer. Apparently she went by Cayenne."

"Like the pepper?"

"Right."

"Of course she did. Anyway, so we leave them to whatever horrible fate they're suffering now—I know, I know you think they're dead, you don't have to give me that look."

"Listen. Let's assume that the only place we were putting at risk by opening the rift again was Providence. One hundred and seventy-three thousand people live in Providence. We can't put them all at risk to save two people."

We can when one of them is Ted, Laura thought. She knew Marrs was right, and yet . . . . "Is that the kind of fact you just know off the top of your head? The population of Providence?"

He gave a small smile. "I looked it up. I anticipated having this argument with you."

"Okay. So if I have to be satisfied with just taking this operation down, that's what I'll do." In her mind, Laura crossed her fingers behind her back. "So how do we do it?"

"Well, you have one address—oh, by the way, you've now officially been transferred out of the Boston office, and nobody knows exactly to where, and everyone thinks someone else is responsible—exploiting the natural confusion attendant on any bureaucracy is a specialty of mine."

"Fantastic."

"At any rate, you have one address from the man you followed. We have all the surveillance video, and I've been able to pull some decent photos out of them that we can show around. The New England League of Illusionists, an organization I invented, has claimed responsibility for what they call "An act of magical guerilla theatre." The newspapers are fulminating about the need for better mall security, which could only help us, and fortunately for us, an attractive young white woman has disappeared in the New York area, so the cable news networks are running with that story and essentially ignoring this one.

"So. We could continue to watch the mall. We could also tail the person you know about, whose name is—"

"William Castle."

"Yes. Those are pretty much the options I see, unless you have something else."

"Well," Laura produced her flash drive, "I copied the documents off that guy—William Castle's hard drive. And, uh . . . let's see. Oh yeah—Ted told me the guys who dug up Lovecraft's street had an Ocean State Power truck. So maybe one of them works there."

"That's certainly worth investigating. Why don't you head over to the maintenance lot at Ocean State Power—here." Marrs reached below the table into a giant leather man-purse and pulled out a sheet of paper with a bunch of digital photos which he handed to Laura. "Here are the images we grabbed off the security videos, so you can ask after your guy. I'll take your flash drive and see if I can come up with anything interesting or worthwhile."

They stood. "Uh, I have a question," Laura said.

"Yes?"

"Is there any—I mean, I know about the resources, but, you know, I drive a Corolla. I think I need a town car or something to look like I'm actually an agent. You know what I mean?"

"I do. You can take my car—it's a large American rental, no idea what make or model. Here's the key," and he handed her a key on a rental car company chain.

Laura headed for the Ocean State Power maintenance yard closest to College Hill, where they'd presumably dug up the
Necronomicon.

The lot was surrounded by eight-foot-tall chainlink and was full of idling trucks and panel vans and men in jeans and khaki work boots and blue Ocean State Power jackets drinking from large Styrofoam cups from Dunkin' Donuts.

Laura walked across the lot to the office, stifling the urge to pull her badge and gun on the group that was loudly speculating about what her ass might look like in a nicer outfit. She realized she was still in her two-day-old surveillance clothes, and that a change of clothes might have been better for being taken seriously than a big American rental car. She turned her head and covertly sniffed her pit. Not great, but not horribly offensive.

In the office, she talked to someone named Frank, who sat beneath an insurance agency calendar with a photo of a typical New England lighthouse above the month. He appeared to be in his forties, wore a blue jacket, jeans, and khaki work boots and drank from a Dunkin' Donuts cup.