LITMIR.BIZ

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problem. I’ve got to go and meet some friends. Can you lock up after me?”

      “Sure. Good night.”

      “Night.”

      I haven’t used keys for a while. What a stupid damn thing to say. I could see it in her eyes. She’s wondering if I’m flat-out crazy or a recent jailbird. Worse, she’s wondering if I’ve done something to Kasabian. Plus, she’s wondering about what’s wrapped in the dirty oilcloth. I’ll have to start locking the upstairs door. I’ll have to do something about her suspicions, too, but I don’t know what, and I’m not going to figure it out tonight. I take my bags and the bundle with the guns upstairs and drop them on the bed. Tomorrow I’ll check into the BlackBerry thing. Having the Internet or Web or whatever with me will help me catch up on the world and keep me from sounding like a newly landed Martian.

      I go over and open Kasabian’s closet.

      “Morning, sunshine. Sleep well?”

      There’s a cheesy infomercial playing on the TV. Some guy in a chef’s uniform is waving kitchen utensils around.

      “You ever see these knives, man? I just might have to get a set. They cut right through soda cans and bricks.”

      “If I ever start eating bricks, I’ll come by and borrow them. You had any thoughts about our conversation last night? Like, where I can find some of the old crowd?”

      Kasabian doesn’t look at me, but keeps staring at the TV. “They never rust, you know. And you never have to sharpen them. They’re amazing. They’re almost magic.”

      “You’re really not in a position to be fucking with anybody right now.”

      He finally aims his eyes up at me. “Think so? See, I think I’m in exactly the position where I can do any goddamn thing I want. You want to kill me? Go ahead. I wasn’t exactly having an E ticket life before and now I don’t even have that.”

      “You’re not getting back your body. Someday maybe, but not right now.”

      He turns back to the TV. “Did you meet Allegra? That is one sweet little piece of art girl scooter pussy. It’s not like I fucked her yet or anything, but New Year’s is coming and I figure some champagne, a couple of roofies, and I’ll finally know if the carpet matches the drapes.”

      “Whether you mean any of that or not, you really are just puke on two legs.”

      “I don’t have any legs, asshole.” He nods toward his body. “Aw, did I offend the serial killer? I’m so sorry. Murder anyone today? Cut off any friends’ heads?”

      I recognize the pose, the B-movie defiance. I tried the same thing in Hell. It’s hard to scare someone who thinks he has nothing to lose. The trick is to remind him that there’s always something left to lose. For some, it’s family or friends. For a creep like Kasabian, demonstrating the possibility of future loss is easy.

      I get his gun from the bed, wrap it in a towel from the bathroom, and fire off three shots in the direction of his body.

      “Are you fucking crazy?” he screams. “I need that!”

      “All of it? You’ve got two knees, two kidneys. That’s a spare for each.”

      “Fuck you, you fucking fuck.”

      “You want to answer some questions or do you want me to play William Tell?”

      “You know, this, right here, is why it was so easy for Mason to sell you out and why the rest of us didn’t really care.”

      “Why was that?”

      “Because you’re such a dick.” He raises his eyebrows at me, hoping I’ll react. I don’t. “Back with the Circle, Christ, you were just a punk kid and you had all this power. More than any of the rest of us, including Mason. But did you care? Hell no. It all came too easy for you. The rest of us had to kill ourselves studying to get the simplest spell to work. Most of the time, you didn’t even pretend to study the books. You’d just make up something on the spot and angels would fly out of your ass. Do you know how that made the rest of us feel?”

      “So, you sent me to Hell because I hurt your feelings?”

      “No, because you hurt Mason’s. You never let up on the guy.”

      “If I gave Mason a hard time it’s because he deserved it. Always going on about being a great dark magician. He didn’t want to learn anything from magic. He didn’t even want to have fun with it. He just wanted to be Lex Luthor. I might not have given him so much grief if I’d known what a little hothouse flower he was.”

      “See? You’re still doing it. But for all your bullshit and your show-off magic, Mason beat you, didn’t he? You could pull magic out of the air, but he ended up with real power and you ended up blowing demons for eleven years. Every night, before I go to sleep, I cherish the look on your face as they dragged your ass down to Hell.”

      Without looking where I’m aiming, I pop off a couple more rounds in the direction of his body.

      “Stop it! Stop, goddammit! What do you want to know?”

      “Same thing I wanted yesterday. Where’s the rest of the Circle?” I toss the gun onto the bed. God, I want a cigarette. “Let’s try a different approach. You’re right here, so where’s Jayne-Anne?”

      If Donald Trump and the Wicked Witch of the West had a kid, it would be Jayne-Anne. She looks like a librarian with some money and good taste in clothes, but underneath the Versace, she’s Godzilla with tits. She isn’t as powerful a magician as Mason, but next to him she’s the most focused and ruthless and, in her way, scarier than bad dog Parker.

      “I don’t know. I heard she’s got some kind of movie-business gig.”

      “What about Cherry Moon?”

      Crack open a pedophile’s piñata and Cherry Moon is the candy that falls out. She’s a Lollipop Doll, one of a gang of girls who take their manga and anime a little too seriously. They all want to grow up to be Sailor Moon and Cherry had the magical skill to do it. Last time I saw her, she was in High Gothic Lolita drag, radiating rough sex and looking all of twelve years old.

      “Also don’t know about her. Someone said she’s running some kind of spa or plastic surgery thing for rich assholes.”

      “I’m glad to hear that everyone’s using their new power for such worthy causes.”

      “We’ve all gotta eat. Not me right now, but generally.”

      “Where’s TJ?”

      He rolls his eyes when I say the name. “That fucking hippie. After the Lurkers grabbed you, he bawled like a little girl for days. Some people aren’t cut out for real life.”

      “Lurker” is what the Sub Rosa call any secretive magical, mystical, or monstrous freak that isn’t them. A naiad is a Lurker. So are zombies and werewolves. Undercover cops are secretive and sometimes monsters, but they aren’t Lurkers. They’re just pricks.

      “Where is he?”

      “Sucking dirt in Woodlawn. The little faggot hung himself a week after you went bye-bye. Guess he couldn’t get the monsters out of his head.”

      Poor dumb kid. TJ was even younger than me. He would have been sixteen or seventeen back then. But Kasabian is right about one thing; some people aren’t built to see the dark side of magic or deal with the vicious parts of life. TJ never belonged in our little wolf pack. In a way, I was glad he was gone. I hadn’t been looking forward to hunting him down.

      “I guess we covered Mason and Parker last night. Mason’s gone and he took Parker with him. Do I have that right?”

      “Yeah. And don’t ask me about them because I don’t know. People see Parker around town sometimes. Usually right before some other nosy magician gets his neck broken.”

      The thought

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