“Why are you crying?” she said, her voice carrying to him as if through a roaring wind. He swabbed his eyes with his sleeve.
“I just… I came so far,” he found himself saying. “Can I please—can I get some water?”
She stared at him, rigid, then rolled her eyes and swirled her tongue in her cheek. “Come on,” she said. “Back here.”
He lurched gratefully after her, into a hall leading off the shop. She led him to a small kitchen cluttered with boxes and packing materials. She filled a paper cup from a rusty faucet, and watched while he drank.
“Uh… have you got a bathroom?” he asked.
“Here.”
She pointed out a door off the hall. “I’ll be up front. You do your business then come on, get out of here. How far did you come, anyway?”
He opened the door into a dark room, fumbling inside for a lightswitch. “My wife and I,” he said, “we drove from North Carolina.” He shut the door before she could reply.
He peed then washed his face, wiping it dry on his shirt because there were no towels. He went quietly into the hall, hearing voices. A voice. Lilith was talking to someone, but he heard no reply. As he stepped into the front of the store, she hung up the phone. Smiling now.
“Was—did you call Mr. Crowe?” he asked. “To check on me?”
“No, I had to call my coven and explain why I’m running late.”
“That’s all right, I’ll—I’ll leave you. I’m sorry I bothered you. I thought maybe I could talk to the mandalas directly, through you.”
She regarded him quizzically, still smiling. “You know, I don’t ordinarily do this, especially not after hours, and with someone I don’t even know… but I have a feeling about you. I feel that I—I’m supposed to help you. Does that sound crazy?”
“No,” Michael said gratefully. “Not at all.”
“Would you, maybe, like a Tarot reading? Would you have time for that?”
“Yes!”
But here came the “wind” again. The room was beginning to spin. He steadied himself on the counter, convinced he was on the right track. That’s why the opposition had begun to intensify. He must bear up under it.
“My cards are in my car. It’s up the street a block or so—away from the parking meters, you know? I’ve got my special deck in there. You just… you stay here and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back and then I’ll give you a special reading. I can see you really need it.”
“Sure,” Michael said. “Go ahead. I’ll wait right here.”
“Good.”
She put her keys in the door, twisted the deadbolt, and rushed out, casting him a nervous backward glance. As she started down the steps into the dark, he realized she had left her keys hanging in the door. She would need them to get into her car. He pulled out the jangling mass of metal and opened the door, heading after her.
He almost collided with Lilith at the bottom of the steps. She was standing stock still, face to face with a man he couldn’t quite see.
“Sorry,” he said. “I—”
Then he saw the gun in the man’s hand, held on Lilith but turning to cover him as well. He realized that in his hurry he had given in to the steady insistent pressure. He had allowed himself to be flung out from the center.
“Who is he?” the man asked Lilith. “Another friend of Mr. Crowe?”
“Fuck you,” she said. “If you’re looking for Derek you can find him yourself.”
The man made a little jab with his gun, and Lilith stumbled into Michael. The man urged them away from the store, into the dark, goading them on. To Michael it felt like plunging down a long dark slope, into the whirlpool’s mouth.
For one instant, before he turned, the man’s face was just bright enough to see. There was plenty to absorb in that instant: deep scarring, a twisted expression, and a rubbery knot where the man’s left ear had been raggedly torn away.
PART 7
We cannot take responsibility for every natural disaster visited upon humanity, no matter how we sate ourselves on the misery thus unleashed. Even we must bow before the blind mastery of nature. The parent torments the child; the child torments a puppy. This is the law. It may satisfy your crueler souls to know the tiny doses of suffering we pass along are nothing compared to the infinitely expanding circles of agony in which nature has immured us.
We cannot take responsibility for every blessing bestowed upon humanity; even we can never fully comprehend the miraculous workings of nature. But the child teaches the parent how to love, and the parent’s heart consequently opens that much wider. As above, so below. It should please your noblest nature to know that all your acts of goodness and compassion expand in infinite circles, and touch us deeply, and increase our power to help you.
37
Inside the limo, the four of them sealed off from the driver in a padded compartment, Etienne and Nina stared expectantly at Lenore for several moments, then looked to Derek for explanations.
“Why—where’s Michael?” he asked.
Lenore had fallen against him as they entered the car. She remained that way, with her thigh pressed up against his, as she turned watery, distant eyes toward him.
“We… broke up,” she said.
Derek swallowed, uncertain whether to tender sympathies or press for details he didn’t wish to learn. He wanted to close his eyes and try to orientate himself—everything kept reeling as the streets crawled by—but he was in company now. He must pretend some degree of sobriety, and in fact he was beginning to feel a bit more stable.
Nina took from him the burden of responding, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“Your boyfriend?” she asked comfortingly.
“My husband.”
“I’m so sorry!” Nina put a finger lightly to the mandala tattoo on Lenore’s forehead and looked at Etienne. He nodded, smiling and smug. “He didn’t understand about this?” She tapped the mandala.
“No, he… he thought he did, but I guess he didn’t.”
“What a shame. He didn’t know what he had! Etienne, maybe she would like some… you know.”
“Of course, excuse me, I’m being rude!” Etienne held out a handful of clear gelatin capsules, tamped full of white powder.
“I don’t want it,” Derek said. “What is it?”
Lenore didn’t ask. She took two, and tossed them down her throat without water.
“Well, well,” Etienne said approvingly. “It’s a designer drug, but that is an insufficient word. My friend, the one who created it, is an artist, an absolute artist with chemicals. He made it especially for patrons of the club. Can you guess what it’s called?”
“Mandala,” Derek said dully.
“Thirty-Seven! Do you like it, Lenore?”
She nodded, still swallowing, her jaws working to pump saliva.
“It has many interesting properties, I’ve been told.”
“You haven’t tried it yourself?” Derek’s momentary promise of sobriety was passing, like a sea rock disappearing under waves. He felt awash himself.
“We’ve been waiting. For tonight. Come along now. Do try it. It’s a synthetic, but it mimics a naturally occurring substance. You know which one I mean.”
Derek shook his head.
“The compound found in the sak!” Etienne touched his chest, meaning his hidden tattoo, and Derek felt his skin start to crawl and writhe beneath his clothes, as if the mandala-brands had begun turning, thirty-seven hands seizing and twisting his flesh in thirty-seven places all at once.