The Quinn Henaghan Chronicles Box Set Page 14

  “You’re not doing it right. Watch me.” He uncocked then re-cocked his head. “There. See?”

  Again, she did what she thought he was doing but saw nothing new. “I don’t see anything.”

  Taft sighed. “This really is like Magic Eye. Watch me. I’ll go slow. It’s not just in the head tilt, it’s in the eyes.”

  He went much slower and Quinn watched both his head and his eyes. She saw a subtle dilation in the pupils. When she replicated what he did exactly, she saw it. “It’s the membrane,” she said.

  “Thank Christ. I thought we were gonna be here all day. That’s right. It’s the membrane. Describe it to me.”

  The girl was looking at the infinite sheet of tissue separating the Astral Plane from the physical. And “tissue” was the right word. It looked like living matter, veined and pulsing with life. Looking closer, she saw its pores. Looking closer still, she saw the maya flowing through those pores—in both directions. “I see maya,” she said, excited.

  “Yes, you see maya. Flowing freely between both aspects of reality. What do you think would happen if the membrane… became injured?”

  Great question. “I dunno. Would it repair itself?”

  “It has that capability, yes. Do you think it could repair itself with a torrent of maya flowing through it like the Colorado River?”

  Quinn wasn’t sure. “I’m guessing no?”

  “No would be a correct guess. Here’s another confounding factor: Once you create a fissure and the maya comes barreling through, the fissure’s more likely to grow larger rather than repair itself. The membrane is, as far as anyone knows, infinite, but imagine if it grew an ever-expanding tear.”

  “That would be bad, wouldn’t it?” Quinn looked away from the membrane, confident she could find it again if she needed to.

  Darren shrugged again. “No one’s ever tested it to find out. The prevailing theory is that, without the membrane, the Astral Plane and the Physical plane would eat each other.”

  Quinn sighed. “So, the lesson is, don’t tear the membrane. Like ever.”

  “That’s always been my motto.”

  Crestfallen, Henaghan said, “Alright. What else’ve you got?”

  “Come with me.” A portal opened and they both went through. The doorway opened onto their old faraway view of the Cauldron with its orbiting Asura. Darren pointed to another region of space. “Over there… See anything unusual?”

  Quinn squinted and saw it. “There’s a circle of black. Blocking the stars behind it.”

  “Right,” Taft said. “It’s the Yin to the Cauldron’s Yang.” Another portal appeared and, again, the duo went through. Soon they were above the mirror-opposite of the Cauldron, a black sphere orbited by comets of white. “I told you the Cauldron was the center of the Astral Plane. That was a half-truth. This is the Pavana, AKA the Kiln. Don’t ask me who came up with these brilliant names, I have no idea. Anyway, the Cauldron and the Kiln both comprise the center. They orbit one another and the rest of the plane spins around them. Those creatures—the ones that look like reverse Asura—are the Deva. The Celestials. The Divine. Don’t let the name fool you. As far as we humans are concerned, the Deva are just as uncaring as the Asura. They do have opposite polarities but it’s physical, not moral. That said, if you drop an Asura and a Deva into a fishbowl, they fight.”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  Darren laughed. “See, wouldn’t it be great if life could be reduced to aphorisms like that? Do you see the problem with your equation?”

  Quinn shook her head.

  “Okay, best case scenario: You’re facing off against an Asura when, Whoa! Hey!, you summon a Deva to fight on your behalf. And the cool thing is, the Deva wins. Problem solved, right?”

  Henaghan folded her arms over her chest. “I’m guessing not.”

  “I just told you that Deva don’t give two shits about humans—in fact, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they might hate us because of our link to the Asura. No one’s ever gotten close enough to a Deva to find out. Anyway, bottom line, you’ve swapped one snag for another. You got rid of your Asura and now you have to fight a Deva who, it goes without saying, is similarly badass.”

  Quinn dropped her arms to her sides and her shoulders drooped. “Gee, Darren. I’m so glad we had this chat.”

  Taft didn’t smile. He took no pleasure in telling her hard truths. A portal appeared, enveloped them both and they were back in the tiny room beneath the bookstore.

  As they climbed back up the ladder, the girl said. “Okay, well tell me this at least: What’s up with the birds?”

  Taft closed the trapdoor behind himself. “Birds? What birds?”

  “Up at the Mulholland house… Verbic had cages with crows. Lately, I’ve been seeing these little blue birds with bright red heads.”

  Darren stopped, grabbing the girl by her shoulder and spinning her toward himself. “Little blue birds with bright red heads? In dreams or in person?”

  “Both,” Quinn said. “The other night there were hundreds of them outside my living room window.”

  Taft’s eyes grew large and a smile spread across his face. “Quinn, those are Vidyaadhara. Phantasms. Remember what I told you… They sometimes take on physical form. Familiars in the old school Halloween witch vernacular. I knew about Verbic’s crows, but your little blue birds… That comes as a pleasant surprise. Birds like those followed Aisling into battle. In the ancient rebellion.”

  “Okay, great,” Henaghan said, still skeptical. “What does that get me?”

  As they moved out into the store, the heavy-set man shrugged. “Search me. But I take it as a good sign.”

  “Take what as a good sign?” the ADJ said, looking up from Darren’s newspaper.

  “Mind your own goddam business, Brent.”

  “Brad,” the kid said.

  6

  Loss

  Driving back from the Boulevard, Quinn found herself taking the long way. Through West L.A. Which wasn’t anywhere near where she lived in Hollywood. She skimmed past the 20th Century Fox lot and, at a stop light, she said aloud, “What’m I doing?”

  But what she was doing was obvious. Her unconscious was trying to tell her something. Without any further hesitation, she pulled into Molly Blank’s apartment complex and parked the Prius. Molly was coming down the wooden steps from her apartment right then. She wasn’t looking and hadn’t seen Quinn. She was walking with a man. Henaghan almost laughed when she realized she’d just had a flash of jealousy. She was also crestfallen that Blank might be two-timing her. Molly touched the man on the elbow, the two of the them laughed, and the man went left as Blank went right. When she was pointed toward the parking lot, the older woman saw Quinn and her face split into a blinding smile. Without hesitating, Molly got into the Prius and put on her seatbelt. She turned to Quinn, “Where’re we going?” she said.

  “Huh?” Henaghan said, not fully caught up.

  “You’re sitting in front of my apartment because you wanted to surprise me and take me somewhere romantic.”

  Quinn flushed. “It was more of an impulse thing,” she admitted.

  “That’s okay too,” Blank said. “In fact, it’s better. You’re being more impulsive and you were thinking about me. Win-win.”

  “Who was that man?” Henaghan said with a scowl.

  At first, Molly didn’t know who the younger woman was talking about, then she grinned. “That was Harold, AKA Thumbelina. You can see her three nights week over at The Angry Inch.”

  Quinn exhaled and smiled. “I’m kinda new at this whole gay thing.”

  Blank turned so she was facing Henaghan more directly. “Relax,” she said. “I was raised in the suburbs. I don’t go in for weird subculture stuff any more than you do. I’m not gonna drag you to some bar where they do God knows what. I’d much rather stay home, watch decorating shows and eat ice cream. I talk to Harold because he’s nice to me and he says funny things. If it helps at all, don’t think o
f it as gay. Don’t think of it as anything. I don’t. If I’m attracted to someone, I’m attracted to someone. I don’t care if they have a ding-dong or a gizmo.”

  The younger woman started to say something pertinent and heartfelt, but she got stuck. “Gizmo?”

  Molly nodded. “That’s what we called va-jay-jays back in the day. It’s a cute name, but you’ll never watch Gremlins the same way again.”

  Henaghan nodded. “I’m hungry. Do you want to eat?”

  “I do. I do want to eat.”

  Quinn put in the car in reverse, backed out, then pointed it at the entrance to Molly’s complex.

  “Do you wanna know what’s awesome that just happened?” Blank said.

  “What?”

  “You saw me with a dude and you were jealous.”

  Henaghan’s head sank into her shoulders as she merged the Prius into traffic. “I was not,” she grumbled.

  “You were jealous, you were jealous,” Molly sang.

  After her meal with Molly, Quinn felt more calm. She cut it off with food, though and directed herself homeward.

  As soon as she drove over the flood control channel on Gower Street, she saw her apartment was abuzz with activity. Sirens, people in uniform moving back and forth between the parking lot and the building nearest the street. Quinn’s building.

  Rubbernecking, she went past her apartment and turned left at the light beyond. She did a U-turn and pulled into the gas station across the street. Parking the Prius near the coin-operated air pump, she got out and watched the goings-on from across the street. Three police cruisers. An ambulance. A coroner’s wagon. Cops and EMTs walking the lot. A flash of white caught her attention. On the second floor, a gurney came out of an apartment. On it was a person. A body. Quinn knew it was a body rather than a patient because the head and face were covered. She also knew the body belonged to Annabelle Grindle. The apartment was the one below her own.

  Gasping, the girl dropped to her knees next to her car. Tears streaked her cheeks and her eyes swelled. Through the mist, Quinn looked harder at the gurney as it approached the stairs. On the sheet were several patches of blood. Annabelle had been mutilated. One of the blood patches was above what would be the right thigh bone. Henaghan knew what that signified. A number. A Sanskrit number carved in flesh.

  She laid her head against the Prius until an old man, pumping gas, came to her. “Are you okay, miss?”

  She looked back at him and he was fuzzy through the tears covering her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said, so quietly that she herself could barely hear.

  The old man was kind, but he didn’t know what to do. “That looks like a grim scene over there. Is that where you live?”

  Quinn nodded.

  The old man nodded too and they both watched as the gurney came down the steps.

  Quinn was in the head of a woman.

  A new woman.

  It was night. Her vision bobbed as she tore through the dark toward a well-lit home. The sound of heavy breathing (her own and others’) was all around her. Others running. Toward the house.

  Henaghan knew the house immediately. She’d seen it in photos many times. The address was 10050 Cielo Drive. Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills. Based on the maniacal state of her host and the urgency with which they approached the house, Quinn also knew the year.

  1969.

  She could’ve been inside any one of three women—Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, or Patricia Krenwinkel. She didn’t care to find out which because panic was setting in. She knew what was about to happen. Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski were about to lose their lives. Young Steven Parent, a visitor to the home, already lay dead near the gate behind the girls and Tex Watson, their male companion.

  Henaghan was so horrified, she rattled around inside the stupefied brain of her host like a rat trying to escape a trap. All she could think about was beautiful Sharon Tate begging for the life of her unborn child. Begging for mercy and getting none. Quinn couldn’t face such a thing. Couldn’t be a party to such evil. It would tear her apart.

  She collected herself enough to remember what had gone before. She wasn’t trapped. She could exit. No one was going to force her to watch something so heinous.

  She was still in control.

  Quinn sprang from the head of the woman, drifting up and up just as she and her companions entered the house.

  History was over, Henaghan couldn’t change it, so she turned away from the house toward the trees and the gate beyond. Outside the gate was a car, backed in, it’s lights still lit. Inside the car, Quinn sensed another addled mind, this one shot through with insanity as well as narcotics.

  Insanity and evil.

  Shutting her eyes, Quinn willed herself still higher. Away from the murders happening below. Away from Charlie Manson.

  Quinn Henaghan woke with a start. She looked around and the room was dark and cold. The bathroom light shone from under the door, providing enough illumination for her to see the layout.

  She was in another motel, this one about halfway between Los Angeles and Barstow. She barely remembered getting back into her car and driving out toward the desert.

  As she lay there, she felt a heaviness in her arm. The heaviness was moving. Down from the elbow toward the wrist. She fumbled for the light switch and, finding it, she looked down at her appendage. She could see a mass under the skin inching toward her palm. Her injured palm. As she stared, five phantasms left her through the wounds in her hand. One after the other, they left her, drifted up and through the ceiling and were gone.

  The pattern on Quinn’s palm was complete.

  It was a five-pointed star inside of a perfect circle. As soon as the transformation registered, the pounding began. The girl was startled so badly she cried out. Finally, a voice joined the pounding. “Quinn, it’s me! It’s Darren! Open up!”

  Henaghan reached over to the unoccupied bed next to hers and grabbed her clothes. She dressed and went to the door to admit Taft. “Finally,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”

  Quinn shut and locked the door behind her mentor once he was inside. “I don’t understand. How did you find me?”

  “It’s like a bloodhound-smelling-magic thing. Unless the person you’re looking for covers their scent, you can usually track other Channelers. Remind me: that’ll be the next lesson.” Darren shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around. “By the way, your shirt’s on backwards. And inside out.”

  The girl looked down and rolled her eyes. “It’ll have to wait.”

  “Come on, get your stuff. This is the worst thing you could be doing right now. Unless you’re gonna keep heading east. You’re alone, you’re vulnerable. They’re gonna pick you off like a calf that’s strayed from the herd.”

  Quinn reached over and turned on the light on the nightstand. They both blinked in the new illumination. “Calf? What’re you, Zane Grey?”

  “I don’t think you appreciate the kind of trouble you’re in, so if you could—”

  “Sato killed my friend, Darren.”

  Taft stopped short, his expression becoming more tender. “I know. It made the news. The author. You think Sato’s behind the Rosebud?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Makes sense. Killing women’s been a hobby of Chuck’s for at least as long as he’s been in L.A. The Asura are deeply misogynistic. The females in their culture are second class. Also, there’s that whole thing where a woman brought their whole civilization crashing down. Sato was there when it happened. Now he finds diseased minds and… encourages them.”

  “I know. I’ve seen it.”

  Darren looked at her a moment. “Therein lies a tale, I’m sure, but it’ll have to wait. I understand if you don’t wanna go back to your apartment. If we have to, we’ll get you a hotel room in town. Either way, I need you closer if I’m gonna be able to help.”

  “Do you think you will be able to help?”

  Taft wore a wounded expression. “You’re gonna take
a dig at my meager abilities now? After I drove out here all worried and shit.”

  Henaghan put a hand on the older man’s forearm. “It wasn’t a dig. We’ve already talked about how this might be a no-win scenario. If I’m gonna die, there’s no reason for me to take you with me.”

  “Well, that,” he said. “Is a nice sentiment, but we’re taking this one step at a time. Drive back toward town. As fast as you can. I’ll be behind you the whole way.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said. “Let me fix my shirt. And pants. Pants would be good.” Taft turned to go, but she said, “Darren…” He pivoted back toward her and she hugged him. After a moment, he returned the embrace.

  “Come on,” Taft said, pushing her away gently. He resumed his progress toward the door and Quinn entered the bathroom.

  Wasting no time, Henaghan took off her sweater, turned it rightside-in and put it back on again. Her pants were draped over the tub and she put them on, along with her shoes. She left the bathroom and saw the door to the outside was open. Darren Taft was silhouetted in the door way, frozen in place. The girl took halting steps toward her mentor, realizing right away that something was wrong. When she was behind him, she processed the scene with a tactician’s cold regard.

  In the foreground was the motel parking lot. Behind it was the highway and its lights. In the middle, to Quinn’s left, was her Prius. About ten yards to the right of the Prius was Taft’s mint condition Gran Torino. Between the Gran Torino and the Prius was a dark blue 1947 Cadillac Convertible Coupe. Leaning against the latter was Chuck Sato, his suit matching the era of his automobile. His pose was loose like he was waiting for a lady. A cigarette dangled from his mouth.

  Darren Taft didn’t turn. “Either I’m gonna hit him or he’s gonna hit me. When it happens, you run around me on the left, get in your car and haul ass out of here.”

  “Bullshit,” Quinn said, ducking behind Taft so that she could no longer see Sato. “If we both hit him together, he can’t—”