Harvest Moon (35 page)

It was me.

The chant died on my lips and I stared at my reflection. After the initial shock, I looked with a more critical eye. I thought I looked a bit wide in the hips. I wasn't getting any younger, and I supposed my metabolism was slowing down. I'd need to amp up the spells I used to keep the cellulite at bay, and it probably wouldn't hurt to skip the burritos for a while…

I noticed my doppelganger had a rather annoyed look on her face.

“Let me guess,” I said, “evil twin?”

“I know you are,” she said, “but what am I?”

“Huh?”

“You have it backward, sweetheart. You're the evil-doer. I'm the part of you that wants to be punished.”

“That's a little twisted, don't you think?”

“You
would
say that.”

“Uh, yeah, I just did…”

There was a moment of awkward silence. We stared at each other. We cleared our throats.

“So what happens now?”

“Now I punish you…us…whatever.”

“Seems a little self-defeating. Can't we just go back to the way it was? You know, I'll do what I do, you can cry about it, and I'll mostly ignore you.”

My self-righteous twin shrugged. “That's not going to work anymore. There's a contract.”

“Yeah, but if you kill me, Samael won't be able to.”

“I'm a manifestation of the curse. Maybe I
am
the way he kills you.”

“It's not time yet.”

“It won't be long. I can make it last a while.”

“So make your move.”

She sighed. “
You
summoned
me,
remember? You've got the idea you can kill me and make the curse go away. I can stand here all night.” She laughed and shook her head.

I laughed, too, and then hit her with the force spell stored in the gangster ring on my pinkie finger. She triggered the magical shield in the ring on my—her—left ring finger, and my spell shattered against it like an arrow striking a steel door. We stared at each other some more.

“This really could take a while, huh?” I said.

“Yeah, I told you.”

I pulled in juice from the river and started spinning
spontaneous attack spells. I hurled them at her, one after the other, as fast as I could flow the magic and twist it into lethal implements of my will. There was a lot of juice to be had and I brought a furious storm down upon her.

She easily deflected every attack as quickly as I could launch it. It was no mystery how she was doing it. I knew every move she was making and anticipated every defense. It didn't fucking help me, though, because she anticipated every attack no matter how hard I tried to juke her. Really, it was infuriating.

After a time, she got bored and began countering. This didn't exactly liven things up. Thrust, parry, thrust. Swing, block, feint, swing. Back and forth, going nowhere. I'm not sure how long we stayed at it, but eventually I could feel my toes pruning.

My toes were pruning. Because I was naked, standing in the river. I was naked. My self-righteous twin was naked. Only difference was, I had a pile of clothes waiting for me on the bank. I pretended to tire and began to give ground, retreating to the edge of the river. My adversary didn't seem to be buying it, but she pressed the attack anyway. When I gained solid ground, I ducked, rolled, and reached for my clothes.

And I came up holding the stainless-steel forty-five semiautomatic I'd placed in the pile under my jacket.

“Eat lead, bitch,” I said, and squeezed the trigger.

My twin went to the crucifix at her neck, activating the physical shield stored in the amulet. There was an electric-blue discharge of magical energy as my shot ricocheted harmlessly into the night.

“Son of a bitch!” I took a couple hopping steps and threw the pistol as far out into the river as I could. It
arced over the surface, end over end, and plopped into the water like a bullfrog going for a swim.

“Well, what did you expect?” my twin said. “You know about the shield, did you think I'd let you shoot me?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I'm just saying, it wasn't very clever. You could have tried throwing rocks at me first, try to get me to discharge the shield.
Then
you shoot me.” So helpful.

“You'd have thought of that, too,” I said. “You could have used a telekinesis spell to throw the rocks back at me and still used the shield when I shot you.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

I threw up my hands and sat down on my clothes. “That's it,” I said. “I surrender.” I was all juiced out from the ridiculous duel, and the mark on my neck burned like a motherfucker. Besides, there's only so much frustration a girl can take.

My twin waded to shore and sat down by me, so close we were almost touching. “What did you think would happen, Domino?”

“I thought I could take you, obviously. You're not really me. You're just a spell.”

“It's a really good spell,” she said, “but that's not what I meant. How long did you think you could go around murdering people before you were called to answer for it?”

“I don't go around murdering people. If I have to kill a guy, he's got it coming—”

“Save it, Domino, I know the drill. It is what it is, no matter what you try to tell yourself. There are consequences.”

“Oh, give me a fucking break. You're a spell, okay?
That's it—just a spell. Don't try to tell me this is about some absolute moral law handed down from on high. You can try to close the sale all you want, but I'm not buying.”

She looked at me, and I thought there was a kind of desperation in her eyes. “Why, Domino. Why can't you see?”

I held her stare for a moment, then swallowed hard and looked down at my feet. I shrugged. “I'm a gangster,” I said. “I'm not apologizing for it. Maybe you, or Samael, or God Almighty don't think much of what I am, but there's worse things I could be.”

“There are better things, too.”

I stood up and started getting dressed. “Says who? I like being a gangster. Beats an office job.”

“Sarcasm and denial won't save you, Domino.”

“Never failed me before,” I said, and pulled on my boots. “I'm outta here. You coming, or what?”

“I can't go with you.”

“You have to stay out here? What will happen to you?”

“I'm just a spell, remember? This manifestation will fade when you leave, and I'll be unmade when my purpose is fulfilled.”

“When I'm dead.”

“Yes.”

My self-righteous twin was a manifestation of the curse condemning me to death. Maybe I could think of something more useful than trying to destroy it or talking a little smack. I sat back down.

“Tell me the curse,” I said.

“What?”

“Tell me the words, in English.”

“Angels of destruction will hit you,” my twin recited. “You are damned wherever you go. Dark will be your path and God's angel will chase you. A disaster you have never experienced will befall you and all curses known in the Torah will apply to you. I deliver to you, the angels of wrath and ire, Dominica, the daughter of Gisele Maria Lopez Riley, that you may smother her and the specter of her, and cast her into hell, and dry up her wealth, and plague her thoughts, and scatter her mind that she may be steadily diminished until she reaches her death. Put to death the cursed Dominica. May she be damned, damned, damned!”

“Benny wasn't fucking around.”

“Like I said, it's a really good spell.”

“Samael isn't just going to kill me, he's going to drag me to hell? I won't even leave a ghost?”

My twin shook her head. “Samael can kill you, but he doesn't have the authority to judge you.”

“So what's the bit about smothering the specter of me and casting me into hell?”

“It's a prayer for protection in the afterlife from the target of the death curse.”

“And Benny needs protection because I'll be dead but that won't necessarily get rid of me?”

“Even with death curses,” my twin said in a scolding tone, “violence never really solves anything.”

“In the underworld, killing a man is just the beginning,” I said.

“Right.”

“Or a woman,” I said and laughed. I stood up again and started making my way back along the river.

“What's so funny?” my twin called to me.

“I've got a plan,” I said, turning back to her.

“What plan?”

“I'm going to make someone an offer he can't refuse.”

 

Samael was waiting for me when I got back to the car. I ignored him and we drove in silence for a while. I thought about my next move. It was a gamble, but I was pretty sure it was the right play. The only other options Akeem had given me were dying and asking Shanar Rashan for help. Even with time running out, I wasn't real enthusiastic about either one. I was also thinking about Detectives Meadows and Sullivan. I'd gotten them off my back, but I wasn't convinced that was going to stick.

“I've been meaning to talk to you about that,” Samael said.

I kept ignoring him.

“The cops, I mean. You'll be pleased to know they won't be bothering you anymore.”

I glanced over at him with narrowed eyes. “Why's that?”

“There was another murder. Through shrewd police work,” he said and winked, “they were able to connect it to the tow-truck driver. They have a new suspect.”

“What kind of shrewd police work?”

He nodded, grinning. “A shoeprint with a distinctive wear pattern on the heel connected the two murders. Mud and fecal matter with a unique mineral, biological, and chemical composition connected the killer to the sewers below Chinatown. Maybe it was the MSG.”

“You actually planted evidence at the first murder scene, the tow-truck guy?”

Samael tapped his forehead. “He who fails to plan,
plans to fail,” he said. “Did you think I was winging this?”

“So who's the poor bastard you're pinning it on?”

“No need for you to worry—it's no one you know.” Samael laughed. “I have to admit, I thought about framing up your boss, but we don't really have enough time to let that play out the way it deserves.”

“Fuck you, who'd you pin it on?”

“A ghoul,” Samael said, chuckling.

“Couldn't find a ghost or a goblin?”

“No, a real ghoul. Haven't you ever run across one?”

I hadn't, but I didn't feel like admitting it, so I just clamped my mouth shut and stared at the highway.

Samael nodded. “Well, there aren't that many of them, so it's not surprising. They're similar to vampires, except, instead of gaining power by drinking blood, they get it from eating human flesh.”

“Like a zombie?” I couldn't help it—professional curiosity.

“No, they're not dead—or undead. At least, not at first. They start out human, as human as you or I. Well, you, I guess, not me so much. Anyway, they get some power from the cannibalism, like I said, but eventually it starts to change them.”

“How?”

Samael shrugged. “They start looking a lot like a cadaver.”

“How nice for them.”

“Yeah, but here's the cool part. If they survive long enough, they begin another metamorphosis as their power continues to grow. They start to become incorporeal. Not completely, at first, but they can control it. Like maybe they can make parts of their body incor
poreal. Then, later, they learn to phase out completely for a short time. Eventually, they become permanently incorporeal, like a wraith or something.”

“And there's one of these things in L.A.?”

“More than one. Like I said, this one does most of his eating in Chinatown.”

“And it murdered somebody?”

“Right. It can survive just fine eating corpses—you know, ones that are already dead—but this ghoul doesn't have any problem whipping up a fresh meal. It's old and hungry for power, pun intended. It'll soon be ready for its final metamorphosis.”

“And you sent the detectives after this fucking thing?”

“Yeah. I told you, they won't be bothering you anymore.”

I pressed the accelerator to the floor and kept it there. I made it back to the city just after dawn. Having screwed me again, Samael left me alone lying in the wet spot. Part of me said the detectives weren't my problem and I had enough shit on my plate. There was something more than a little absurd about a gangster going to bat for a couple of cops.

But I knew the detectives' lives were on my tab. Samael knew it, too, of course, which is why he set them up. It's not like he hadn't warned me. Even if I couldn't save myself, at least I could try to save Meadows and Sullivan before I checked out.

Samael had fed me enough information that I could probably have found the detectives without divination magic. Beyond the contractual three days of torment, he clearly wanted to keep me busy until it was time to die. For that reason, as well as the obvious one, I didn't
want to waste any more time than necessary in the Chinatown sewage system, so I stopped by my condo and ran a standard finding spell.

For necromantic divinations, I use FriendTrace.com. I was hoping the detectives were still alive, though, so I went with a popular mapping site instead. I typed their names in the input box, pumped juice into the spell and clicked the search button.

“Gather up the fragments that remain,” I said, “that nothing be lost.” A bird's-eye view of Chinatown came up with a red arrow pointing at a location off North Main. That meant either that Meadows and Sullivan were together, or only one of them was still alive. I grabbed my backup forty-five from the hall closet on my way out.

In the movies, the sewers under any great city are vast, stinky catacombs of dark, claustrophobic, brick tunnels and chambers. The reality is that L.A.'s modern sewers are nothing more romantic than smooth-walled, concrete pipelines of varying sizes. Still, all but the largest interceptor lines are just as dark, claustrophobic, and stinky as the ones in the movies.