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“You want to know about underground dwellers? Why don’t you ask the jabber over there?”
Jabbers are ghosts so scared of the afterlife that they won’t even leave their dead bodies. They claw their way through the soil under the city, dried-out bones living in dirt.
“Don’t you dare talk about Ishiro Shonin that way. This is a holy man. Jabbers are cowards. What this man did took years of dedicated training and preparation. Successful self-mummification is incredibly rare.”
I fish around in my coat pocket for a pack of Maledictions. I find them but they’re soggy with rainwater. I crumple up the pack and throw it in a wastebasket.
I look at the Shonin.
“You’re what successful looks like? I’ve met Buddhist monks before. None of them looked like Johann Schmidt’s foreskin.”
“It took a thousand days to purify my body and mind before I could inter myself, preparing to come back when the world needed me. Of course,” he says, looking around, “I didn’t think I was coming back to a world of gaijin, urban yôkai, and whatever it is you are.”
“Angels call me Abomination, but looking at you, I don’t feel so bad about it.”
“What’s ‘urban yôkai’?” says Candy. Her voice is shaky.
“He means Lurkers. Don’t you, muertita?”
The Shonin says, “I knew, for instance, respectable tengu back home. You Los Angeles people—humans, and monsters—you are lost beings.”
“Speaking for all the yôkai in L.A., go fuck yourself,” says Candy.
“Watch the profanity,” says Wells.
I go over to him.
“Exactly what is Mr. Bones doing here?”
“He was a yamabushi back in Japan. A lone mountain monk in Sennizawa. They called them Swamp Wizards. He has a deep background in the mystical arts. He’s going to figure out how to make the Qomrama Om Ya work.”
“I’m supposed to be lab partners with this guy?”
The Vigil has the 8 Ball locked up in a secure clean room all by itself, suspended in a magnetic field. It floats in the air and changes shape as you walk around it.
“Not supposed to,” says Wells. “You are. It’s done and settled. He’ll figure out the Qomrama and you’ll use it.”
“Why don’t you clue me in on these things from time to time so I know what to expect?”
Wells pushes the cooler against the wall with the toe of his highly polished shoe.
“Fine. Here’s your clue for today. I want you to write down everything that happened before the man you brought in died and everything you saw and heard when you went inside his head. Make sure Ishiro Shonin gets a copy and so do I.”
“Now I’m your secretary.”
“For the kind of money we’re paying you, you’re whatever I need. Today you weren’t much of anything at all.”
“Speaking of money, I still don’t have my first check.”
Wells squares his shoulders.
“I wanted a man to question and you bring me back a horror show. This isn’t a good time to complain to management about your salary.”
I look over at Candy. She’s leaning her elbows on the table.
“I’ll write your report, but I’m doing it at home.”
“I want it by nine A.M.”
