And Pretty Maids All In a Row Read online

  When Antryg shook his head Jim transferred his bright, brown glance to Joanna, who said, “I’ve driven through it…” She’d stopped by the shabby little bungalow on Saticoy Avenue to have coffee on her way in to the offices of Blazon Entertainment, whose computer system she was untangling for the fifth time in four months owing to the unwillingness of Blazon’s administrative staff to follow backup procedures.

  “Blocks and blocks of old buildings, sewing shops mostly, or small manufacturing. There used to be more of that back in the ‘fifties than there is now, so the fifth, sixth, seventh floors of a lot of ‘em are empty. God knows what’s up there now.” Jim shook his head, and Antryg, perched on a tall stool and shuffling the well-worn Tarot deck while he listened, flipped out a card onto the silken table-cover at random: The Lovers. He fed it back into the pack without a blink, and went on shuffling.

  “I got lost off the freeway one night,” offered Joanna, “trying to get home from Ruth’s dad’s construction company. I think that’s where I ended up. It was spooky: totally deserted, like those old science fiction films where somebody’s dropped a neutron bomb. Ruth tells me she’s seen rats down there the size of cats.”

  “What did Chan want with you?”

  “Advice about Hungry Ghosts.” Antryg raised his eyes from the cards he’d laid out, a disconcerting pattern of cups and swords with, Joanna couldn’t help noticing, all four Page-cards reversed. She tried to remember what Pages signified, and couldn’t. “Though he didn’t seem certain whether to believe in them or not.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “That his girlfriend wasn’t one.”

  Jim laughed, as if relieved, but said, “You watch out for that guy, Antryg. Even if he only wanted advice about his love-life, he’s not somebody you want to get mixed up with. He offer you money?”

  “We didn’t touch it,” Joanna hastened to assure him.

  “I’m crazy,” affirmed Antryg, gathering in the cards, “but I’m not stupid – at least, not about that sort of thing.”

  “Good,” said Jim, and Antryg dealt another card onto the gaudy table: Death on his pale horse. Reversed.

  The conversation passed to other matters.

  The following morning, as soon as Rush Hour traffic had subsided, Joanna drove Antryg down to the crowded zone bounded roughly by Highway 10, Figueroa, Ninth, and San Pedro Streets, where decrepit buildings housed innumerable little factories, carpet-stores, and import houses, and tiny shops disgorged their wares onto the sidewalks in a fashion much more reminiscent of Mexico City or an oriental souk. Curiosity prompted her, and the awareness that after nearly a year in Southern California Antryg – though much better about it than he had been at first – still had trouble distinguishing customary patterns from behavioral anomalies… Not, Joanna admitted, that she herself could tell a garden-variety hooker from a lamia on the hunt, but still…

  They spent a hot and tiring autumn afternoon moving through the crowds of Hispanic ladies and bargain shoppers, vendors of hot-dogs and designers on the prowl, Joanna poking in delighted mystification through shop after shop of cut-rate lingerie, designer knock-off jeans, quinceanera supplies and bolts of every variety of fabric from silk velvet to sleazy chartreuse polyester with pink and yellow flowers. Antryg moseyed in his usual leisurely fashion along the cracked sidewalks, stopping now and then to pass his hands over the grimy brick of the walls, his eyes half-shut, as if he were listening for a sound, sniffing for the smell of smoke on the wind. Against Joanna’s advice he bought churros, dulce de leche, and chunks of Mexican watermelon from assorted street-vendors and didn’t get sick (which had not been Joanna’s experience with similar treats the one time she’d tried them) – but then, Antryg had the digestion of an ostrich and could consume nearly anything without ill effects. She suspected this was a spell, despite what he said about magic not working in this universe. He also purchased a propeller-beanie whose green blades supposedly glowed in the dark.

  “Is she down here?” asked Joanna, when they finally returned to the car.

  “She’s been here, yes. She seems to be hunting in a fairly small territory – I didn’t sense traces of her anywhere north of Eighth or west of Los Angeles Street. I notice there are a lot of homeless east towards San Pedro Street, where she’s been the most…”

  “Makes sense.” Joanna edged into traffic on the 110, which was still moving; maneuvered into the lanes that would put her onto the 101. “If you’re a vampire, I’m guessing you don’t want to hunt anybody whose friends and family are going to make a fuss.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite as easy as that.” Antryg removed his beanie, and flicked the propeller with a long, crooked finger. “Lamia can be very indiscriminate about who they hunt, and because they absorb energy a little at a time – as our friend Chan found out – it takes awhile for their victims to realize they’re being victimized. And though they’re brilliantly manipulative, they’re actually not very smart. The problem is that psychically, one becomes what one devours. If Jennifer – or whatever her name is – has been preying on the… the homeless, the mentally disturbed, the drunkards, the addicts… the lost souls who are the only ones down here late at night…”

  “And on Chan.”

  “Who, I would guess, is using her as a prostitute. Men who embrace lamia become addicted to the sensation very quickly. They go back to them… which is a much more efficient form of hunting, I suppose. And with every victim, the lamia herself becomes a little more violent, a little less concerned, a little more addicted herself—”

  “Like the files in a computer becoming corrupt, from a corrupt disk.”

  “I was going to say, like a child learning habits of cruelty and selfishness from cruel and selfish guardians. But I suspect it amounts to the same thing.” Antryg frowned out past the concrete retaining-walls at half-glimpsed roofs, billboards, shop-signs. “The question is now, how do I find her, before she escapes our friend Lester’s control completely and learns enough about this world to hunt on her own?”

  *

  That problem, at least, took care of itself the following Wednesday night.

  Antryg took the bus downtown late in the afternoon, saying he wanted to narrow down the lamia’s hunting territory when the crowds were gone.

  “You want me to go with you?” Joanna produced a Thomas Brothers Map Book from her purse and held it out to him helpfully. Always a believer in being prepared, she also had a set of Allen wrenches, a tube of sun-block, four blank three-and-a-half-inch floppy disks, a bottle of water and a can of mace in there, as well as her wallet. “I’ll be home by eight, unless traffic is really heinous.”

  “I should be all right.” He shrugged into his much-dilapidated Army fatigue-jacket, and spread the map-book out on the dining-room table, studying the map of Downtown as if memorizing it (he probably was, Joanna reflected). “If she’s down there regularly I think I’ll have a far easier time actually encountering her by myself, although… Good heavens!” As he’d spoken he’d taken a handful of buttons from a dish on the sideboard behind him and had dropped them onto the map-page; he regarded the resultant random pattern with startled shock..

  “What is it?”

  “The boy who wore this—” He picked up a light-blue shirt-button “—kept a frightful collection of pornographic magazines under the rug in his bedroom, so his mother wouldn’t see them.” He swept the remainder of the buttons into his hand, and replaced them all in the dish. “The 453 Bus – or is it the 487? – should get me into Downtown… I’ll be quite all right,” he added again, seeing Joanna’s worried expression. “I’d rather you kept clear this, my dear. Lamia…”

  He hesitated, as if fishing for words, then concluded simply, “I’ve put you in enough danger.”

  “I’ve put myself in danger, pumpkin,” pointed out Joanna. For a moment she saw the cards he’d turned in her mind: the Lovers, and Death, and all those pretty-faced androgynous little Pages…. “I’m a volunteer.”

  WHAT THE HELL AM I SAYING???

  But to her great relief he shook his head, gave her his daft grin, and kissed her hand. “I may stop by the club to speak to Jim again, but I should be back here by ten.”

  *

  The problem was, Joanna knew, that what she’d said was perfectly true. Though living with a wizard sometimes scared the living daylights out of her – and, she feared sometimes when she’d wake sweating at three in the morning, there was the very real possibility that it would get her killed one day – she WAS a volunteer. That was the kind of person Antryg was. If his scattergun enthusiasm for life was infectious, so was the deep sense of responsibility that went along with his power… even in this world, where he had no power. He still saw things that others didn’t see, and perceived dangers that presumably would have been a lot easier to deal with if he’d had the ability to work magic spells at his disposal.

  But he nevertheless felt he had to deal with them.

  And she regarded herself, almost as unquestioningly, as his backup.

  Was that why the Council of Wizards imprisoned him for all those years? she wondered, much later that evening as she gratefully edged her old blue Mustang off the freeway and guided it down Woodman Avenue toward Enyart’s’ parking lot. Not because he used his magic to meddle in the affairs of those who had no magic – who couldn’t defend themselves against magic… But because he could so easily get non-magic civilians like herself to follow him. To help him. To step into the line of thaumaturgic fire.

  Did he LET himself be imprisoned?

  Because he knows he can’t not be what he is? He can’t not do what he does?

  She parked in the last space vacant in the lot – Parking Space Luck seemed to cling to the shabby Mustang even when Antryg wasn’t in the car – automatically fished her can of mace from her purse (though she’d never had call to use it and the lot was well-lit)(she’d long ago perfected the art of discreetly dropping it back out of sight the moment she reached the door of wherever she was going), stepped out of the car—

  —and whipped around in shock as a man in a dark coat appeared out of nowhere (He must have been behind the car next to me…) with a gun in one hand, and reached for her arm.

  Nine months of taking sword classes with Antryg – plus occasional brushes with trans-dimensional abominations – was probably (she later reflected) the reason that she was aware of her attacker’s approach so quickly. But the assault was so sudden, so unexpected, it was almost literally as if he’d materialized from the darkness at her elbow. Still, nine months of sword classes (not to speak of trans-dimensional abominations) did actually pay off: she brought up the can of mace, sprayed it point-blank into the man’s eyes, grabbed the gun up off the pavement when he dropped it (screaming) and bolted like a scared bunny-rabbit to the back door of Enyart’s.

  “Jim!” she gasped. “Jim — Where’s Jim?” This to Mario the cook, who pointed to the swinging doors. The club was crowded for a Wednesday night. By the time Joanna (who was as usual the shortest person in the room) located Jim’s balding head above the sea of backs and shoulders, she saw the street door open to her right and Lester Chan come in, chuckling as if in genuine appreciation of a very good joke.

  She reached Jim’s side first. “Call the police—”

  He turned from the two women he was talking to at a table, face changing at the urgency in her voice.

  “There’s a guy in the parking-lot…”

  “Honey, relax.” Chan appeared at Jim’s other side. “Served Danny right for being such a bèn dàn trying to grab you like that. He’s never gonna live that one down!”

  “He had a gun.” Joanna handed it to Jim, who immediately broke it open and checked the cylinder.

  It was empty. In spite of herself Joanna felt extremely foolish, as if she’d run screaming from a water-pistol.

  “And he got a license for it,” pointed out Chan.

  “That still constitutes assault.” Jim slipped the revolver into his pocket, and Chan made a dismissive gesture: Whatever… keep it…

  “We just trying to find your boyfriend, honey, that’s all. We need his advice—” His brows knit and he glanced warily at Jim. “And we need it pretty quick. We figured either you or him would show up here…”

  “You air yourself,” said Jim, “or I’m callin’ the cops.”

  Joanna hesitated, looked up at the club-owner’s face. “I think Antryg needs to hear about this,” she said quietly.

  “I’m not letting you—”

  “It’s okay. Please.” She took Chan by the sleeve, led him a few steps away (making sure Jim was between them and the door). Chan was trying to hide it, but there was something about the way he kept glancing over his shoulder…

  He was scared. And she didn’t think it had to do with one of his boys facing charges for assault. He looked like a man who’d always have a lawyer on tap.

  “Thanks, baby.” Chan impressed Joanna as a man who never remembered women’s’ names. He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “I’ve got her. She’s in the car. I’ve really got to talk to your friend, like, right away.”

  Since Joanna wasn’t about to go out to the car with Chan – God knew what was really out there – she called the house from the phone behind the bar, found a table, and sipped a Diet Coke waiting for Antryg to call back. Chan downed two whiskeys by the time Antryg walked in, about twenty minutes later, and kept glancing around him and at the door. “She’s – She’s out,” he told Joanna at one point, “I mean out like a light, in the back seat…” but the story he told her about how he’d happened to re-encounter “Jennifer Wilson” (whom he called Suzy three times) was so disjointed, so inconsistent, that she deduced he was either badly spooked, or had had a lot more of his personality siphoned in the intervening week. She suspected that Jennifer (or Suzy) had been forced into the car as “Danny” had tried to force her, but last week, she thought, Lester would have come up with a more convincing tale.

  He nearly jumped out of his chair when Antryg finally breezed through the street door, and pushed his way through the crowd to seize the wizard’s arm. Jim, watching like a hawk from behind the bar, narrowed his eyes. Joanna saw Antryg bend his head down to listen, the pink bar-lights flashing off his glasses, then grasp Chan’s elbow and steer him back to the table.

  “You got to help me,” Chan whispered frantically. “You gotta tell me what to do—”

  “What is it?” asked Joanna – of Antryg, not Chan.

  Chan dithered, and Antryg replied, “He says she’s dead.” He spoke in conversational tones, and such was the noise in the room (it was The Beautiful Kevin the Bartender’s turn to set the playlist, so it was ABBA all the way) that nobody gave a sign of having heard. “Did you kill her?”

  “I – uh – No! It was… It was this guy named Steve. I saw him runnin’ away…”

  Joanna didn’t even bother to ask Steve who? and, she noticed, neither did Antryg.

  He killed her.

  Shit. She felt sick with fright. Had she resisted…?

  Softly now, Antryg said, “Let’s go look. Not you, Joanna,” he added, when she made a move to rise. “I want you to go home. I’ll be quite all right. These things can be very dangerous, particularly—” He turned to regard Chan, hovering at his elbow, “—if someone has been selling their services as prostitutes, which is what you were doing, wasn’t it, Lester? Don’t lie to me—”

  Chan had opened his mouth with an expression of denial in his eyes.

  Antryg seldom used what Joanna thought of as his Wizard Voice, possibly because – she had observed – when he used it, people did what he said. Sane or not. Dangerous or not. Maybe that’s what the Council of Wizards was trying to keep non-wizards safe from.

  “She was fine with it!” Chan whispered defensively.

  Joanna raised her eyebrows – Oh, YEAH? – but Antryg nodded, very slightly. Believing him and not surprised.

  “And the johns loved her! Man, they were paying five hundred dollars an hour – if I’d ask for six, or seven, they’d pay it, they’d pay anything! My phone was ringing off the wall! And she was worth it! I’ve never—”

  “No,” murmured Antryg. “No, I don’t suppose you ever have.”

  He laid a gentle hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “That’s what they do,” he explained. “That’s what they are. That’s what they take from you – the deepest seed of what gives you the most pleasure, the taproot of your heart. It’s more than physical, much more. They take it, and feed their minds straight into it, so that they are everything – everything – that you most want and need. It’s how they hunt. They make their prey come to them… Again, and again, and again.”

  Chan said nothing. Only gazed at him as if hypnotized, as if nothing existed around them – not the racket of the club, nor the gyrations of the dancers, nor the fear that had gripped him only minutes before… “That’s it, man,” he whispered. “That’s her. Everything – God, it’s like my flesh turned to light on my bones! But it’s like… I have to be with her! And now I’m not… I’m not myself…”

  “Nor are any of the men she coupled with,” said Antryg. “All repeat customers, weren’t they? She’s been eating them, a little at a time, even as she was eating you. But you become what you eat. She became them. And she became you. Your ruthlessness. Your cleverness. Your selfishness. Those are all part of her, now. Their selfishness, and violence, and deceit, and entitlement. Whatever hatreds they carried in their hearts… for women or black people or themselves or whoever got in their way or might vaguely resemble someone in their past… Did she start escaping from wherever you kept her, to hunt on her own?”

  Chan shook his head, as if he weren’t listening. “You got to show me how to get it back from her! I mean not hate or any of that shit, I don’t hate anybody… But now she’s dead, you can… you can bring it back out of her, can’t you?”