My brain might have been cracked at the beginning of the fight, but now it breaks. I lived in Hell for years, and I never saw anything like this. I stand there as the traffic flows around me. Horns honk. Drivers give me the finger. Bus drivers scream at me to get out of the street. I crane my neck as Parker, the Human Fly, skitters up the side of a building, getting away.
My brain explodes like ice dropped in boiling water.
I sprint forward and get right under him.
Fuck magic.
I pull the Colt Peacemaker from under my jacket and blast all six shots into Parker's back. As each bullet hits, he slows down. When the last of the big .45 shells slams into his spine, I can see bones through the hole in his back. He stops running, stands drunkenly on the side of the building for a couple of seconds. Then his body goes limp. He starts to fall.
I step far enough away from the building to avoid the splatter when he hits. I have the knife out, ready to drive it into his heart to make sure he's really dead.
As Parker falls, his body seems to drift away like smoke. He becomes transparent. Two floors above the street, the last of him blows away like morning mist. I keep the knife out, ready for a trick. Nothing happens.
I walk back to the front of the building, looking up, hoping that Parker has somehow scrambled around to another side. He's not there. He's gone. I hear someone laughing nearby.
Across the street Mason is leaning against a lamp pole. The sun shines on him. A slight breeze blows his hair. He's smoking a cigarette. He doesn't look at all like the dark god of Los Angeles. He looks like Mason. A smug, handsome rich kid, but entirely human. A shadow slides from behind the lamp pole and joins him. It's Parker. His clothes are perfect. His shirt is pressed and clean. His bones are back inside his body. Both men are laughing at me. Mason points his index finger at me like a gun, and then snaps his thumb down as he pulls the imaginary trigger.
I take a step forward as two crows dip silently toward the street. When the birds pass, Mason and Parker are gone.
I HEAD BACK to Max Overdrive to change my scorched party clothes. I'm an Evel Knievel doll that a kid lit on fire and tossed on Dad's barbecue. Good thing I bought the motocross jacket with Brad Pitt's money. Otherwise, I'd be really pissed off. At least my boots are all right. And I still have the silk overcoat. Thanks, Brad. Hope Avila's security goons didn't confiscate your stun gun.
Going through the door at Max Overdrive, even the back door, usually feels good. It's boring and normal. Burned up like this, I don't bother. I step through a shadow and straight into my room. For the few seconds I'm in the room, there's noise coming from behind every door, especially the thirteenth. Something seismic is rippling through the aether, giving the universe indigestion. Good.
I take off my ruined clothes, toss them into the far corner of the room, and dig out a hoodie and pair of black jeans that I picked up with Muninn's cash. Then I walk the few steps through a dark patch in the wall to Vidocq's apartment.
I knock and let myself in. Allegra is holding an old book that looks like it weighs more than she does. Vidocq is reading it over her shoulder, with a couple of potion vials in his hands. They look up when I come in. Allegra doesn't say anything. Vidocq turns back to his worktable. I don't need super magic sense to figure out that something isn't right. He takes a set of keys from his pocket and hands them to Allegra.
"Would you take the car and get us some lunch?"
I walk into the room. "You own a car?"
"I own and do many things you don't know about. You don't know anyone anymore. You don't listen. You don't care."
Allegra walks to the door.
When she passes I ask, "Cat got your tongue?"
She turns to me. "You fucked up good, man." When she leaves, I look over at Vidocq, but he won't look at me.
Quietly he says, "You and your cowboy bullshit. There's no excuse for what you did today. It was too public and too reckless. You could have been killed. You could have killed others."
I sit down on the arm of the easy chair. "Right. It's all my fault because Parker was being so careful not to hurt civilians."
"You should never have gone after him, Mason, or the others like this."
"If I didn't, which one of you was going to? You were a detective once. Why didn't you track Mason down?"
Vidocq shakes his head, turns away, and flips pages in the book that Allegra had been holding when I came in. "I tried for a while, but I saw things. I heard things. Don't ask me what."
"You people have had eleven years to deal with Mason and, as far as I can tell, you haven't done a goddamn thing. You think he grabbed all that magical power so he can retire? You should be on my side, trying to snuff him."
"People were here earlier. Representatives from the Sub Rosa." Vidocq finally looks at me. "They came to me because they know that you and I are close."
"Are we still? I can't tell lately."
"They're done with you over that debacle. There were so many people. So many security cameras in the stores and on the street. Tourists with more cameras. There's only so much they can do to cover it up."
"They have a story yet?"