“It has to be my face.” She could see nothing wrong with the parts of her that were visible; the only logical conclusion was that the fault lay in an area that she was unable to see. She doubted that anyone had managed to affix the Necropolis equivalent of a KICK ME sign to her back. Had she come through somehow deformed, an elephant woman with three eyes or two noses? She had an easy and immediate way of finding out. She hurried to the glass display window of the nearest store and peered at her own reflection. She saw no disfigurement. In fact, her face looked pretty much as it always had, apart from a frame of new curls. As she had guessed, she was wearing a Cleopatra paint job. Her eyes were ringed with black kohl, drawn to elongated points at the outer corners and shadowed with imperial purple. What she hadn’t expected was the white pearlized lip gloss, but she’d seen a number of other women sporting a similar innovation, so that could hardly be what was making everyone look. So what was the problem?
And then the weight of realization dropped on her. No barcode. No fucking barcode! She froze with her face close to the glass of the store window. Her heart sank. Everyone she’d seen, without exception, carried one on their forehead. She all but cursed out loud. “I’m in a fucking Egyptian police state with no fucking papers!” The clothes and makeup came with the goddamned territory. How come no barcode?”
The ramifications hardly bore thinking about, and questions crowded in so hard and fast that they all but pushed Semple to panic. How bad was the omission? Well, seemingly bad, if everyone goggled as though she were a freak. And what exactly did the barcode signify? Was it just a permanent ID, or did it go further? Maybe it was a money substitute, a tattooed credit card that was the basis of the city’s entire economy. If that was the case, her pooch was screwed. Not only would she be regarded as some weird mutant, but she’d also be left to beg or starve. “Like, what do you intend doing about it, okay? You’re in a mall with no money, girl.”
The short-term answer seemed fairly simple. Everyone in town wore makeup, so there ought to be cosmetics stores in abundance. Beg, borrow, or steal. Get hold of an eyebrow pencil. Draw in a barcode of her own. It might not buy her a cup of coffee, but at least it would stop the stares. She scanned the line of stores on either side of her, and saw nothing that approached a beauty parlor or drugstore that might provide what she needed. The window she was using to examine her reflection belonged to some kind of fabric supply and displayed various colored bolts of the popular metallic cloth. The two stores on either side were disused and boarded up. This Necropolis mall was a haven for failure.
Semple began walking slowly along the row, turning her face away when anyone approached, trying to attract as little attention as possible. She passed a store that appeared to sell assorted stuff in earthenware jars that she assumed were some kind of foodstuffs, and another that had a window display of elaborate, harnesslike devices fashioned from leather and chains that she neither understood nor wanted to think about. No sign of cosmetics presented itself, but for all she knew, a sign saying FREE MASCARA HERE could have been staring her in the face and she wouldn’t have been any the wiser. The next place she came to had no display window, but its stucco frontage was covered by a mass of hieroglyphics in garish multicolored neon. Although Semple had no idea of the literal content, the nature of the place was plain. A bar was a bar was a bar, anywhere in infinity.
Semple had a great deal more experience of bars and how to work and operate in them than many would have expected. Back when she and Aimee had inhabited the same mortal body, it had been Semple who, late at night, while Aimee withdrew from consciousness, dolled herself up, ultimately whore-trashy, all the way from lingerie to lipstick. It was Semple who slipped out of the hotel and went saloon cruising for sailors, studs, and salesmen, so in the morning Aimee could pretend that she hadn’t enjoyed them.
This bar in Necropolis had a smell that, although unmistakable, was a little sweeter than the usual shot, beer, and cigarette aroma of a regular twentieth century joint. Semple didn’t know what this might portend, but she figured she absolutely had to make a move. She walked past the neon hieroglyphics, turned into the alcohol warmth of the dark doorway, hesitated for a moment, and, hoping for the best, went inside.
***
Two deep sonorous booms, like slowed-down thunderclaps, echoed from the cantina. They were followed, a couple of seconds later, by rapid fire-bursts of blue-white light like the popping of photographers’ flashbulbs. The thirty feet of hanging silk that covered one of the missing sections of wall suddenly billowed outward as though blown by an exhalation of giant breath. In the middle of the street, Jim glanced at Saladeen. “Looks like the Haitians are having themselves a high time in the old saloon.”
Saladeen shuddered. “Don’t even talk about them.”
By this point, all but a handful of the human and animal clientele had left the cantina. Long Time Robert Moore had been among the first, hurrying out with his guitar case in one hand and the other clamped hard to his hat, holding it in place like a storm was threatening. Euclid the dog was hiding under the same section of sidewalk where Jim and Saladeen had previously been sitting, invisible except for a pair of wary, mismatched eyes. Both Doc and Lola, however, had elected to remain inside. Jim was tempted to go inside and take a look. He was curious to see how a trio of honky-tonking Voodoo demigods disported themselves. More important, he could feel the booze calling out to him through the traumatic night, just the way it had done one million times before, booze being no respecter of either place or situation. He was over the shock of the blinding light and the Mysteres’ arrival, but now he was a little put out that his benignly comfortable high had been so rudely demolished. He wanted to get to work rebuilding its warm protective euphoria as soon as he could. About the only thing that stopped him from boldly going up the steps and in the door was the fact that Saladeen would undoubtedly freak out. Afro-boy seemed positively terrified of the Queen, the Baron, and the Doctor. The chance existed, of course, that Saladeen knew something he didn’t, and for the moment Jim bided his time.
It didn’t take long, however, before Jim’s cravings overtook him. He started walking, but faltered when another of the rumbling booms rolled from inside. This hesitation gave Saladeen a chance to catch up with him. “Are you out of your fucking mind, man? You can’t go in there.”
Jim turned angrily on his short-time companion. “Who the fuck says I can’t? I’ve got a killer thirst coming on and no bunch of shantytown spooks is going to eighty-six me out of the bar.”
Saladeen all but turned green. “You’re fucking crazy, Morrison. You don’t know what the fuck you’re messing with.”
“And I suppose you’re going to tell me?”
Saladeen was staring wide-eyed at a new popping flurry of blue brilliance. “I ain’t telling you nothing.”
Jim was losing patience. “What’s with you? You sound like a fucking Tarzan movie. ‘Don’t go in there, bwana. Many evil spirits.’ ”
This was too much for Saladeen and anger finally overrode his fear. “You wanna watch what you’re saying, motherfucker. No one talks to Saladeen Al Jabar like that.”
Jim stared hard in Saladeen’s face. “Oh yeah?”
They were virtually toe to toe. “Fucking right, motherfucker! Nobody.”
The two men might have fallen to brawling right then and there if Doc Holliday hadn’t come walking out of the cantina at the same moment. He looked around, spotted Jim and Saladeen, and started in their direction. “Morrison, a moment, sir. I need to have a word with you.”
Jim stepped away from Saladeen and took a breath. “We’ll get back to this later.”