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Soon the air begins to clear. The echoes of the crash and the crazies’ screams fade away. There’s just the gentle sound of Vidocq cursing in French and Brigitte meeting him curse for curse in Czech.
“Who the fuck was that?” says Candy. “More Shoggots?”
“No. It was the construction workers. Some of them still had their hard hats and work shirts.”
“What happened to them?”
“They fucking invoked something on those stairs and then Norris and his boys invoked it again. Maybe they were going to change too, but they didn’t get the chance.”
Traven says, “Is that madness going to happen to us?”
“We didn’t walk straight down, so maybe we got around the hex.”
“Who would build something like that in here?”
“Right now I don’t really care. Let’s get out of here.”
Delon comes back and leads us to another staircase, this one with no amusing markings on it. Sore and bloody, we head down.
Right into a dead end. There’s no wreckage covering a possible exit. No windows or crawl spaces. Just a solid wall ahead and a small pile of debris behind.
“Paul,” I say.
He turns and looks at me. There’s already a trace of panic on his face. He knows where this is heading. I get a hand around his throat and shove him against the wall.
“What have you fucking done to us?”
He looks around like maybe a magic door will descend from Heaven above.
Candy puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Can’t you take us out through a shadow?”
“Take us where? Home? Disneyland? We didn’t come here for that. I want the ghost, and you, Delon, were supposed to get us to him. You’re Tykho’s spy and I went along with that as part of the deal, but you’ve been about as useful as a three-legged elephant. Why should I even explain myself to you? You’re not even a real boy.”
I reach under my coat for the black blade. But it’s not there. Candy grabs my arm.
“Stop. Just stop.”
I look at her, and for a second I see Alice’s face the first time she saw me kill someone. The moment she understood what I’d become. It didn’t feel good then and it doesn’t feel good now. I let go of Delon and he pushes past me and climbs halfway up the stairs.
“You okay?” says Candy.
“Swell. How about you?”
“Just another day in paradise.”
I want to say something more, something dumb and funny and reassuring, but in my head it’s all black and full of the snake-eyed dice and Devil heads. Bad juju. Evil thoughts. I’m not taking Delon apart right now, but that doesn’t make me want to do it any less. The only other thing I can think to do is what Candy said. Leave. Go out through a shadow and what then? Start over? Delon isn’t coming back with us, and without a guide we’ll be right where we were before we started. Maybe I could trade Tykho something for the map. Promise not to burn down her club or stake out all her toadies on the roof at sunrise. Maybe maybe maybe. It’s all bullshit. This city has done its best to keep the 8 Ball from me and I think it might have won. Maybe it’s time to go home, order room service, and wait for the end of the world in luxury.
“We are such fuckups,” I say.
“Relax. It could have been ten,” says Traven. Neither of us laughs, but I want to murder someone maybe 10 percent less. I think about what Mustang Sally said. “When you get lost keep going till you hit the end of the road. There will be something there, even if it’s not what you were looking for.” But there’s nothing here at all. Just a bunch of fools and a lot of ruins.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
“How?” says Delon. “We’re trapped. We’re fucked.”
“Does anyone know what this is?” says Traven. He holds out a blue plastic ball about five inches in diameter.
