The Shonin looks at her.
“Your name is food? How about I call you Banana Split or Hot Dog?”
Candy turns Jade for a second. Her eyes go black, with pinpoints of red at the center. Her teeth are as sharp as a shark with a switchblade.
“Why don’t you just do that?”
The Shonin looks at Wells.
“What the hell kind of a place do you run here? You bring me a fatty and a demon to work with? I didn’t meditate in a hole in the ground for four hundred years for this crap.”
Candy goes back to her human face and I touch her shoulder on the way to the cooler. She doesn’t take shit from anyone. It’s one of the reasons we get along.
I take the dead man’s head from the cooler and sit facing it in the silver circle on the floor. I take the Colt from my waistband and hand it to Candy. She snatches the tea out of the Shonin’s hand and brings it to me.
“Thanks.”
“Now I have both of our guns. If anything weird happens here, I’m shooting these two first.”
“Please do.”
I look at the Shonin.
“I’d still like that crow feather.”
He goes to the herb table and pulls a feather from a bundle wrapped in twine. Candy takes it from him and brings it to me. This isn’t like the old days. I’m still getting used to having someone watch my back. It’s an okay feeling.
“Thanks, baby.”
I throw back the cup of tea. It tastes like hot swamp water filtered through a baboon’s ass.
“Okay,” the Shonin says. “Now you meditate. You need a zafu to sit on? What kind of meditation do you do?”
I pull a flask from my back pocket.
“The liquid kind,” I say, unscrewing the top and downing a long drink of Aqua Regia, the number one booze in Hell. It goes down like gasoline and hot pepper and washes the taste of baboon out of my mouth.
The Shonin says, “Drink all you want, dummy. You won’t find God in a bottle.”
“I already found God,” I say. “That’s why I drink.”
I hand Candy the flask and she takes a quick gulp before putting it in her pocket. I’m used to Aqua Regia’s kick, but down enough at once and it’s going to turn anyone’s cerebral cortex into chocolate pudding. I let it and the tea do their work. They fight it out in my stomach. The Hellion hoodoo wrestling whatever kind of magic Mr. Bones uses. My stomach cramps and for a few seconds I want to throw up. But I hold on and the feeling passes. The room gets thin, like it’s made of black gauze. I put the crow feather between my teeth just as I fall out of myself.
I’m standing on an alkali plain stretching out flat and cracked in all directions. In the far distance is a shaft of light, but it never moves. The sky is dim, like just before sunrise or after sunset. Flip a coin to decide. The air is thick and hard to breathe. I wouldn’t want to have to run a marathon here.
The dead man wanders around shivering. Probably from being on ice for so long. I’m glad it worked and I didn’t have to come halfway to Hell for nothing.
The dead man stumbles back a -couple of steps when he sees me. A second later he recognizes me and starts over, a little cautious.
I say, “Joseph Hobaica.”
He stops.
“How do you know my name?”
“We’re standing in fuckall limbo and that’s your first question? It’s just a little trick I can do.”
He looks around, hands across his chest, holding on to his shoulders, shaking.
“Where are we?”
“I just told you. Limbo. Halfway between Hell and Heaven. You’re dead. Remember?”
His face changes. Things start coming back to him. Death can be a real kick in the ass, especially a death like Hobaica’s. Sometimes it takes awhile for spirits to come back to themselves.
“This isn’t right,” he says. “This isn’t where I should be. Where’s the Flayed Heart?”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
“I know that name. It’s a nickname for one of the Angra Om Ya. A big goddamn carnivorous flower. Her real name is Zhuyigdanatha, right?”
He drops his hands to his sides. Narrows his eyes at me.
“You know nothing about the Flayed Heart.”
“I know it’s easier to say than Zhuyig--fucking--danatha.”
“Don’t blaspheme her name.”
“You can knock that off right now. I’ve already got one schoolmarm worrying about my language. I don’t need two.”
Hobaica turns in a dazed circle.
“I don’t understand. Where’s the fire? Why is my body still intact?”
“Maybe you blew your ritual. Remember that? It’s where we met.”
“You were the witness to our sacrifice. An ordinary, mortal man shattered by such a holy rite was our way to paradise.”
“And yet here you are. Downtown Nowheresville. Like the view?”
Hobaica comes at me.
“You did this.”
He tries to grab me. I sidestep, give him a little shove to throw him off balance, and stomp on the back of his knee. He goes down on his face, hurt but in one piece.
“You got that out of your system and now you’re going to be smart, right? Good. First off, who told you I was following you?”
Hobaica nurses his hurt knee, but manages a smile.
“A little birdie. Der Zorn G?tter has friends in many places.”
I’ve heard of them. An upper--crust Angra sect. They have connections in money and politics all over the Sub Rosa and civilian world. Could they have connections to the Vigil?
“You made a mistake asking me to be your witness, genius. First, I’m not exactly mortal, and second, I spent eleven years in Hell. You think a bunch of nitwits sawing their own heads off is going to shatter me? In Hell we called that ‘Wednesday.’ ”
I go over and pull Hobaica to his feet.
“This is a trick,” he says.
“Show me what’s in your head. I want to see what you expected when you died. Show me the Flayed Heart.”
“Never.”
“Listen, man. I know you don’t mind a little pain, but you’re dead now. You don’t need to have to do that anymore. Show me what I want or it’s going to hurt.”
He stands up straight. A moron with scruples.
“I won’t tell you a thing.”
I nod.
“No matter what the old mummy said, I knew I wasn’t getting through this without losing some blood.”
“What?”
“Hold still,” I say, and pull my knife.
Hobaica tries to run, but his gimpy leg collapses and he goes down on his face. I kneel on his chest, pinning his arms to the ground.
“I should probably feel worse about this, but you hack up -people to decorate your playpen, so I don’t.”
I grab his chin with my free hand and cut a sigil into his forehead. The mark of Nybbas, the Seer. He stops thrashing for a second when the blood flows into the eyes. I take that moment to run the knife over my own forehead, making a deep gash. Grabbing Hobaica’s face, I push my forehead to his until our wounds touch. As our blood flows together, I get a dirty, low--res image of his mind.
This is what Hobaica expected. What he wanted.