“The group wanted to meet Pelley and to get as far away from Europe and the stink of the continent as possible. So they went west.”
I say, “But you weren’t with them, were you?”
“No. They didn’t know that I’d made it to America. When the SA began attacking Lurkers right along with Jews and communists, I left the group and eventually Germany, wanting nothing to do with either ever again.”
“Where were you?”
“I was already in L.A. I ran all the way across America for the same reason they did. I’d been taking elocution lessons, trying to lose my accent and erase my past. I kept my distance from the local German expatriate community, but when I heard about a powerful occult group coming west, I knew who it was.”
“When did you meet them again?” I say.
She taps her cigarette ash into her wineglass. I keep dropping mine on the floor.
“It was in the summer of 1935. Shuna, another medium from back in the Thule-Gesellschaft days, came with them. She sensed me nearby in the city. Back then, I had enough of my gift left that I sensed it when she found me, so I came out of hiding and contacted her.”
“What happened to them? Are they how you brought the vampire groups together?”
Tykho laughs.
“Hell no. I was done with their fascist nonsense. No, I met Shuna and the rest at th
e home of one of the Silver Legion’s inner circle.”
“Was it in Laurel Canyon?” I say.
She cocks her head.
“How did you guess? It’s a hell of a power spot. Of course, none of the other members of the group knew I was coming. I was to be a great surprise. A present from Shuna to the group. I suppose I was a surprise in the end. I came through an upstairs window instead of the door and slaughtered every single one of them.”
I crush out my cigarette on the bottom of my boot and drop it with the ashes, pull out Vincent’s knife, and bury it deep in the top of Tykho’s desk.
“Did you use this?”
She looks at it like she’s checking out an antique butter dish.
“Not that one in particular, but there was a knife. I mostly used my hands and teeth. That’s always more fun, isn’t it, dear?”
She looks at Candy. Candy doesn’t take the bait.
“What kind of knife is that?” Candy says.
“You haven’t figured it out?” Tykho says. “I’m disappointed.”
She plucks the knife from her desktop and removes a smaller one from her boot. Setting the big knife on its side, she scrapes away some of the tarry grit on the grip. Underneath is an eagle and an SS thunderbolt.
“It’s an SS officer’s dagger,” she says, “fitted with a witch’s athame blade, to create a National Socialist sacred object. Himmler loved these things. You could get a hell of a price for it on eBay.”
I snatch the knife out of her hand and point it at her.
“You cut up Vincent with this one and I bet you had another for the second body. Who the hell was it and why did you do it?”
Tykho pushes off from the desk and spins around in her office chair like a kid.
“Isn’t it clear by now? Who was the one man still alive with even more will and occult desire than William Pelley?”
She stops the chair and looks at us.
“And who now was old enough to fear death just like I did years ago in Munich? It was the head of the White Lights, Edison Elijah McCarthy. That’s who I killed at Murphy Ranch. McCarthy is the new Death.”