Nightwise (10 page)

It was still raining, but it felt cool and good after the heat of the club, and we both felt the exhaustion and strange marriage of calm and exhilaration that come after a night of dancing your ass off. A random thought wandered through my tequila-enhanced brain.
Cocaine would ruin this feeling right now. Even pot would.

“You got kinda quiet after you and Didgeri talked,” Magdalena said, taking a sip on a bottle of water. “You okay?”

“Right as rain, darlin',” I said. “We just got to talking all serious council of wizards stuff. Very weighty, cosmic shit. Who's taking the sorting hat to prom, and such.”

“Umhm,” she said. “Have to do with this guy you are looking for, that you still haven't told me anything about?”

“How the hell did you know I was looking for someone?” I asked.

“You have Grinner working on something for you,” Magdalena said. “People usually hire him to find people or to get lost. I had a fifty-fifty shot. Besides, you don't seem the type to be trying to hide.”

“You'd be surprised,” I said. “What time is it?”

She looked at her phone. “Four ten. Why don't you have a cell phone?”

“They are a tool to control you economically and mentally,” I said.

“Paranoid much?” Magdalena asked.

“I know a guy in L.A. who has developed an entire form of sympathetic magic through cell phones,” I said. “He's a twittermancer—he can read your thoughts, control your actions, and know your secrets through your cell phone traffic. Of course his workings have to be a hundred and forty characters or less to work, but that keeps him on his toes.”

“You're not serious about the phone stuff are you?” she asked.

“Think about it for a second,” I said. “What is one of the most personal, idiosyncratic talismans you carry with you everywhere—to bed, to the bathroom? Your phone. The cell companies are drug dealers; they push minutes and data plans instead of crack and meth. Most folks would pay for their phone before they pay their rent. No one seems to notice that one of the major cell companies has the fucking Elder Sign from H. P. Lovecraft as its corporate logo.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “You're ranting. You sound like a Luddite, for Christ's sake.”

“Arcane, binding contracts,” I went on, “the addictive quality of having the phone close by, to check it, to talk through it by texts instead of actually talking to people. The constant hunger and envy for the newest one, the thinnest, the biggest screen, even if you just got one. The incessant monitoring of where you are by GPS, the dependence on it. Tell me, the people closest to you—do you know their numbers, or do you just push a button and the phone takes care of it? And the constant use of the things mutates your brain, alters the organ you use to interpret reality, to reason. Give it a few decades, you will have them implanted inside you—part of you. I'll pass on Candy Crush, thanks.”

She laughed. I could get used to that sound.

The tires of the cars swooshed on the wet streets, smeared with the reflections of city lights. The cabbie was listening to some AM talk show going on about Bigfoot being an extradimensional entity. He was, but I really didn't need that in my ear right now.

“You feel any different tonight, in the club?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I did. At one point, I thought maybe I had been dosed with Ecstasy. I felt connected to everyone and everything in there. The people, the music, the light. It was amazing, but it didn't feel … synthetic, like X can. It felt like I was breathing with the world.”

I nodded and fished out my cigarettes. “Well said. You were.” I held the pack up so the driver could see. “Hey, pal, you cool?” The driver glared at me with eyes that smoldered of hate and practiced patience. The window on my side of the cab hummed down and the cool air and rain blew in. I nodded and went about the business of lighting up. “Tell me, did you feel connected to me or Didgeri in there?”

“Some when we were dancing, early on, some when she was doing her poi thing, but now that you mention it, no. It was like you two were outside of everything.”

“It's a defense,” I said, “something you learn to do so you aren't naked and vulnerable. That beautiful world you were breathing with, it has teeth sometimes, sharp ones.”

“I don't understand,” she said, turning toward me.

“Yeah,” I said, “part of you does. You're afraid to go with that intuitive knowledge yet; you'll learn that in time too. Your instincts can guide you. It's the universe whispering in your ear.”

“You were serious about all this magic stuff you been talking,” she said. “You meet guys all over this town that claim to be into occult stuff—usually it's a pick-up line, or an excuse to wear black and be an asshole.”

“Listen,” I said, “inside. Listen, hear the music between things, between you, in you.”

I saw her open herself to her own inner voice; the knowledge crossed her face for just a second, then she shut it down, hard.

“Are you trying to tell me I'm some kind of psychic or something?” she said. I saw the driver's hate-filled eyes flick back to us in the rearview mirror. The noise from the radio had diminished.

“Turn it back up,” I said, blowing cigarette smoke out the window, “right now. And if you look back here again, I know several very reputable rakshasa in this town that I will personally invite to feed on your liver. Now drive.”

The cabbie muttered a prayer in Hindi and turned the radio back up.

“Psychic is a word,” I said. “My granny called us Wisdoms. Geri's kin call us Secret Men or Initiated Men. Wizards, warlocks, witches—lots of
w
's there. Magus, Illuminate, hoodoo, Drabarne…”

“Drabarne. My grandmother used that word,” Magdalena said. “You are saying I can do magic? I'm some kind of witch?”

“I'm saying you have the potential to open yourself up to a wider universe, to new perceptions, to power, real power. Yeah, darlin', I am.”

She looked out the window into the darkness between the islands of city light. She placed her hand on the cool glass, and I could see her shadowed reflection in the window, a face filled with rain. “Why me?” she asked softly. “I'm not anything special, I'm nobody.”

“I don't know why,” I said. “I don't think there is a why. You have choices now. Decisions about what you want to do with it.”

“Can I just ignore it?” she said, the ice cracking in her voice. “I don't want anything to do with it, okay? This is fucking crazy. Magic isn't even real. This is bullshit.”

“You don't believe that,” I said. “Not even as the words are falling out of your mouth. You know it, you feel it, and you've felt it most of your life. You can run from it, pretend it isn't real, and ignore it. It won't ignore you. It's no coincidence that we found each other. The people who exist in this world—most of us call it the Life—can sense each other. We're like lodestones. The Life tends to drag us toward one another, and toward trouble, weird trouble.

“The power doesn't really give a damn what you want. I'm surprised you haven't run into one of us before. So, yes, you can keep on keeping on. But even if that is your choice, you needed to know about all this, so when the weird shit comes a-knockin', you can at a least be ready to run, not just piss yourself and lose your mind.”

The words seemed familiar to me, and when I realized their origin was my grandmother, a terrible sadness filled me. I wish I had listened.

We were quiet for a bit. Her hand found mine and I took it. She was tough, I'll give her that. Most people who just find out that all the paranoid, schizophrenic shit they thought was bad juice in their heads was actually not madness but hyperreality, they tend to lose it. She didn't. She took my hand and we rode through the endless city.

“I was with someone for a long time,” she began. “I … enjoy submission, I like having someone take control and take me out of my head. I had a lot of bad things happen when I was a kid … that doesn't really matter. I like it and, at times, I need it. This woman, I met her, and we fell in love, and she gave me that, and I gave her what she needed too, I thought—a sense of being in control of me, of protecting me and caring for me. I thought…”

She was fighting the tears, and so far, she was winning. She turned away from the night and looked me in the eyes.

“She was like you, into all this occult shit. She was powerful, like you, like Didgeri, maybe more powerful. She scared me. She was building a cult around submissives who worshiped her like a goddess. She was buying up land in Mexico, recruiting medical personnel, military types, as her slaves.”

“She have a name?” I asked.

“Yes,” Magdalena said, nodding, “but I don't want to say it. I can still feel her regard sometimes, like she's looking for me, and if I think about her too hard, if I say her name, then she will come get me. I know it's stupid, but she fucking terrifies me.”

“No, no,” I said. “That's actually a very good idea. Don't think about her if you can help it. So things went bad and you left?”

“Yes,” Magdalena said. “She started dominating me all the time, not just when I consented to it. She forced me to take part in her rituals. She … used me in them. Now I think that I was some kind of … battery for her. She used me. I always felt so bad afterward, like I had the flu. I liked her putting me into a submissive mind space, but then she started trying to addict me to it, try to crush my free will. I ran away, took another name, and hid. I got help, helped myself. Started over. So, yeah, I have met someone in the Life before, and she was a psychopath and nearly ate my soul.”

“I know you don't want this,” I said, “and I understand why, but if you accept this part of yourself, master it, then if this crazy bitch ever does turn up one day, you at least have the tools to protect yourself, to keep running, maybe even to take her down.”

“I don't want to take anyone down,” Magdalena said. “I just want to focus on beauty, on creating things. This ‘Life' seems to all be about control and power and using people. I don't want that.”

“It doesn't have to be,” I said. “Didgeri was doing a working tonight; it was part of what you felt in the club. It was about making people open up, making them feel good, feel connected. The power is a tool; you can make of it whatever you want, whatever you have inside of you.”

“Could you teach me?” she asked. A cold knife slid into my guts.

“I … wouldn't be a good teacher,” I said. “I suck at that. I'm just telling you what your choices are and letting you know you have options. I'm trying to help you, Magdalena.”

“If this is some bullshit scam to get me to sleep with you,” she said, “it is the worst ever.”

“No,” I said. “Unfortunately, after all of the psychic vulnerabilities we've been ripping open tonight, it would be really, really shitty of me to do that. Bad wizard form, I'm afraid. Could get my pointy hat revoked for that. Just a confidante and a friend.”

Magdalena gave me a very strange look and squeezed my hand.

The cab pulled up in front of Grinner's building. The rain had canceled the usual ongoing block party. We got out, and I reached for my wallet to pay chuckles, the cabbie. The second we were out of his cab, he gunned it and roared away.

“Come on,” I said, putting my arm around Magdalena, “let's get out of this damn rain.”

The apartment was dark. Grinner and Christine were either asleep or not home. We shed our coats and walked down the hall to our rooms.

“Well, thanks for a very … unique evening,” she said. She held up the thumb drive. “And thanks so much for this! I can really make some things happen in my career with these in my portfolio. You're a hero, Laytham.”

“Bullshit,” I said, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

She moved a step closer to me. “Well, you were a Boy Scout,” she said, resting her hand on my chest. I felt my pulse jump at the touch.

“For at least a week,” I said. Awkward silence. No one moved, no one stepped away. The feeling I had when we had first met and talked was back. The unspoken thing that is either there or not, granted or forbade.

I knew what was right; I just really didn't give a damn.

I ran my hand through her long, thick raven hair, still damp from the rain. Our eyes locked. I clutched a handful of her hair tightly and pulled her head back. She gasped. Excitement, and a touch of fear, flared in her eyes. I felt a cool sense of control settle over me, wrapping itself in my arousal, my desire. Our mouths, hungry, insistent, clumsy in need, opened, fell onto each other, upon each other. She moaned under the crush of my lips, my tongue.

She pushed me against the wall next to my door. Her nails were raking down my back, her legs wrapping around my waist. Her tongue, teasing, flicking my own. It was my turn to moan.

“You going to get in trouble for this?” she said, gasping as our mouths separated for a moment.

“Trouble is my business,” I said, with apoligies to Raymond Chandler, and pulled her by her hair back to my mouth.

We crashed into her room, the only light spilling in from the hallway. There was a vanity with a cracked oval mirror, a dumpster treasure, a dresser from the same back alley store, and a proper bed with tarnished brass head- and footboards. There were dark candles everywhere, on every milk cart pedestal and bookcase, on top of the dresser and the vanity, and there was a brass stand that held a large white candle near the window.

As one clumsy, thrashing organism, we stumbled to the bed and fell onto it laughing and moaning. Clothes were flying everywhere. I sat up and put my hand to her pale, perfect throat. She gasped, then relaxed against my hand. I kissed her bare shoulder and then kissed my way up to the tender junction where shoulder met neck. I moved her head backward slightly with pressure to her throat.