Shade City (9 page)

The only thing I remember about the drive home is that we were winding through the streets somewhere and the car made an awkward jerk. I asked Trent, who was driving, if he had fallen asleep.

"A little bit," he said.

 

 

 

The next day, late enough in the afternoon that I had outslept my headache, I got off the Red Line in Hollywood and marched down Highland Avenue one more time.

"It can't be a coincidence," I said to Violet. I spun the brass pocket watch by its chain as I explained everything to her. "The same block that Sal disappeared on is close to the back alley of the pizza place where he lives. Red Hat Events being headquartered there is telling."

"Why not? They can't be the most reputable company. They run clubs and raves." It was a business that thrived on the illicit drug community without having paper ties to it. But surely they fed off each other.

I sighed uselessly into the air. Violet was the one who had wanted me to aggressively follow this guy. I'd found out who he was, where he lived, and what his connection to Soren was, and she still had to pick me apart.

"I admit I don't know enough about Red Hat, but that's why we're here now."

"Okay. Who then?"

"He has to be. That's why you noticed something off with him."

"So what? He's too much of a normal homeless man to have an ulterior motive?"

I nodded in that indignant way that said I recognized the plausibility of the statement but didn't really place much stock in it. No one could convince me that Sal wasn't possessed. It would only take a simple touch for me to know the truth. Finding him was the hard part.

As we walked by the diner and cut into the block, I saw the old Art Deco building that ran up the side of the alley. The words "Department of Water and Power" were emblazoned at the top of what must have been a historic structure. I was still across the street, staring at the GPS on my phone, when I realized that Red Hat Events was showing up at the same address. That was a bit strange because there were no markings for the events company, but I figured they must have been using the defunct site as an office.

I didn't have much time to ponder the matter, as it was, because at that moment a man emerged from the alley and turned into the building, walking through the large front door. He was notable for his plaid trench coat and thick dreadlocks.

"Fucking shit."

Before Sal disappeared into the doorway, he looked straight at me. He knew he'd been spotted, just as in Mel's. I supposed finding him wouldn't be the hard part after all.

I cut into the empty street and made a beeline for the building. Whatever happened, he wouldn't be getting away this time. I surely wouldn't be distracted by any owls. I rushed inside and saw the man impatiently pounding on the elevator call button. As he saw me enter, he abandoned that route and slipped into an access door.

This was a small lobby, empty except for the cute girl sitting at a reception desk. The solid red logo of a baseball cap spanned the front veneer of glass so I knew I was in the right place. But there wasn't time to talk to anybody. Without making too much of a scene, I slipped the pocket watch into my jeans and briskly followed Sal into the stairwell. The basement path was locked up behind a gate, but it didn't matter. I heard the man's feet slapping on the stone steps above. Matching his pace, I broke into a run.

The old Art Deco building was taller than it looked, or perhaps the stairs were too small. Sal didn't stop at any of the intermediate floors, and I found myself getting winded near the top. I heard the metal door to the roof pound open and I dutifully chased. Before I knew it, I stood on the tar-stained gravel that basked in the California sun.

Sal was the only other person on the plain rooftop. He had stopped running now. He turned slowly to face me, arms in the air.

"Why are you chasing me?" he asked, nearly in hysterics.

"Whoa, whoa," I said, putting my hands out to show him I had no weapons. I didn't advance on him. He kept his feet planted where he was, about ten feet from me. "It's Sal, right? I just want to talk."

"Are you police?"

"What? No, man." I had a dabble of a goatee on my chin and my hair was long enough to get into my eyes. I liked to think I didn't look anything like a cop. "I'm just a guy. They told me about you at Dos Pizzas. I was hoping you could tell me about Red Hat."

Sal was a dirty man. He twitched at times, he smelled something awful, and he had wild eyes that darted in all directions, but when I mentioned Red Hat I could swear that something registered in him.

"This... this building?" Sal lowered his arms to his side and became more relaxed. Maybe he realized he wasn't in trouble. He looked less jumpy, anyway. "I just ran into here to get away from you."

"No," I said. That wasn't right. "You were coming in here before you saw me."

Sal shook his head. "I clean the street. I live in the street. I don't have anything to steal."

He was just playing dumb now.

I stood there for a second and saw that he was done explaining himself, so I withdrew one of my special cigarettes and lit it.

"Do you smoke, Sal?"

His eyes jumped between my face and the cigarette. "N—no."

I had found the only bum in Hollywood who didn't light up.

I took a step towards him. "How do you know Soren, Sal?"

The restless eyes narrowed and the homeless man didn't answer. He took a breath and sort of stood up straighter and taller than he had been. He slipped his hands into his coat and just watched me.

"Who are you?" he asked, finally breaking his study.

"I've gotten that question a lot lately, all by stranger characters than myself." I took another drag of the sage and confidently stepped towards him. "I'm just a guy who wants to have a conversation. Let's start with who you are and why you're here."

"I am just a bum, sir."

I chuckled at his change in diction. "Well," I said, continuing my casual approach, "perhaps we are both fakers."

"What we are, sir, are strangers. Unless you have a claim otherwise, my business here is my own."

"Why don't we get acquainted, then?" I held out my hand. "One proper introduction, and I'll be on my way."

Sal, or whoever he was, took a step backwards. He was unsure of my motives. He couldn't have known that I could see his true self with a touch—none had ever been aware of my ability before—yet the man still shied away from my hand. I had to see who he was.

"Why should I be concerned with making friends?"

I shot him a laser stare. "Because I've never been a good enemy to have."

I threw caution to the wind. Only a few feet from the man, I lunged at him.

Sal spun and leaped over the parapet. Flannel coattails slipped through my fingers and waved in the wind.

"Wait!" I screamed, way too fucking late.

The man plunged into the sidewalk below with a wet thunk. I glanced down and pulled away reflexively, sickened by the splatter.

No. No. No.

He wasn't supposed to die.

Whoever I had been talking to, whoever was inside Sal, was a shade from the Dead Side. He had found a compatible host in the homeless man and was living his life for him by proxy. I've always tried to expel their kind without hurting the person. The victim. Sometimes things got messy or violent, as with Soren, but cuts and bruises were it. No one had ever been seriously hurt before. Definitely never killed.

I pulled the pocket watch into a tightened fist. "He's dead."

"He jumped. I tried to touch him and he jumped."

I choked on bile. I felt it come up into my throat and fought it back.

"No!" I yelled. "He jumped!"

I bent over and almost puked again. I couldn't get the image below out of my head. But something told me not to throw up. I couldn't leave my DNA at the scene.

Holy shit. The scene. I realized I was standing in the middle of what could be considered a murder.

Yes. I stumbled to the door, fighting the knot in my stomach.

"What?"

I realized I had dropped my smoke at some point. I saw it burning in the gravel. I picked it up and pressed it against the tar to put it out, then slipped it in my pocket. I looked around. Was there anything else?

I slid down the steps, almost falling more than walking. I had to slip out, unnoticed. The back street was empty. With any luck, no one saw Sal jump. If nobody inside had heard anything then I could walk away as though nothing had happened.

At the bottom of the stairs, I took a forced breath and composed myself. I softly pressed the door open and entered the lobby.

The receptionist was standing by the front, tears in her eyes. There was another man there, a short guy, who was pushing her away. There was nothing I could do except walk right at them.

"Watch out," said the guy. "Someone jumped."

I peeked out of the front door and my sight grazed the horrific display. "Oh my God." I looked around in not entirely feigned desperation and pointed at the receptionist. "Call 911." I exchanged the watch in my hand for my phone and pretended to dial the police as well. I stepped outside and put my cell against my ear.

I figured the guy was a bystander who had witnessed Sal's suicide. I didn't see anybody else in the road, and I tried to melt away without looking at the grim aftermath of what had happened up close. I crossed the street, spun around, and confirmed that my trail was clear.

Maybe it would be a good idea to avoid Hollywood for a few weeks.

 

 

 

The soft whiteness from the sky failed to cast light upon the physical denizens below it. The street was wet this time. Blurry reflections played on the shimmering surface. But it wasn't raining, or windy, or even cold; there was no weather in this place. It was all the facade of the dream. Things came into being and just were without origin.

I trekked down the old financial quarter on Spring Street. In place of renovated condominiums were old offices. Instead of a club with colorful lights and muffled beats, there was the Stock Exchange. I've always liked the early twentieth century architecture of Downtown Los Angeles. Wide structures of stone housed recesses for statues and the other small details that our age forgot. In the real world, the converted buildings were old and new all at once, an anachronism that I appreciated. It instilled a sense of history in the brick. But on the Dead Side, everything lagged behind. Not new. Not frozen. But abandoned. Decrepit. As if to make clear that, even in this place, time took its unceasing toll.

It was odd for me to be back here so soon. My visits were usually random and infrequent. The recent months had sparked a change in the pattern; this was only days after my last trip. That had never happened before. Still, whatever proficiency I may have been honing, everything fought against form and clarity just the same. Perhaps Violet had helped to crystallize my senses last time, but now I was alone.

I slowed as a whispering found me. It was my name, traveling along a hollow breeze. There was something unnatural about the voice that set me on edge. I looked one way, then the other, then back again, but I was ever alone.

Across the street, there was a cafe that seemed to be the area that held the least shadow. I desperately pushed myself through the haze of nothingness to reach it. Like a mirage, the welcome of the area collapsed as I approached, and I felt more vulnerable than ever out in the open.

Then a faintness—I hesitate to call it a light—appeared on the sidewalk behind me. I heard my name once more.

"Dante."

Though the surroundings were misty, the sound took a form that could cut glass. I reached for my trusty pocket watch, my security blanket, to give me guidance. It was no use. It wasn't there. I never had it with me on this side. And ever slowly, the presence approached.

I squinted at the form and it coalesced. It was doubtful that I had caused the clarity, but it was no longer a mystery who was following me. Trailing me was the skeletal form of what was once inside Soren. Orange hair hung haphazardly on a head beset by rot. He bared black teeth at me as he closed in.

"Nero."

I turned and fled. I crossed Spring again and pushed down the opposite sidewalk. The lonely streets, ever empty, began to bustle with strange activity. A populace sprang up around me. A parade of cars and carriages smothered the asphalt. Pedestrians bounced me effortlessly between them as they hurried on their way. I now had the sense that I was sport, a helpless animal being surrounded by something greater than myself.

Behind me, with the ease of a skier on fresh snow, the fiend closed in.

I ducked under two men holding a roll of carpet. I squeezed in between the locked hands of a mother and her child. I pressed the back of an elderly man to force myself by. One by one I was surmounting every obstacle in my path. I was a solitary salmon fighting the unbearable counter current. I was making headway.

But Nero was faster.

I got caught up in a row of women, two deep, who were caroling an old chant that was unfamiliar to me. They stood firm, their ghostly voices rising above my might, and I spun helplessly as I became encircled.

The figure of death and dependence marched closer to me. Nero shrieked and raised a withered arm to clasp my throat.

This was the most helpless I'd ever felt in my life, compounded by the fact that I couldn't wake up.

* * *

Strong hands gripped my shoulders and carried me backward, through the throng and into the glass storefront of the nearest building. The fuzzy ground hardened into a staccato of tiles beneath my feet. Bold stone columns rose high, their impressive density supporting a massive ceiling. An array of shapes materialized into a series of haphazard solid wooden bookcases detailed with iron and steel. And on their shelves, books. Hundreds and hundreds of books. I was in a grand bookstore.

There was a red leather tufted chair. Beside it, standing straight with a single arm resting on it, was my savior. He was an old-world man of class and elegance, with a head full of jet black hair under an old top hat. He wore a well-tailored jacket the color of smoke. I was immediately struck by his sense of calm.

"Good morning," he said, ignoring my harried demeanor.

My eyes moved from one bookcase to the other, scanning the aisles and the second floor banister and looking to the door for any intruders. I was still in shock. A mere moment before, I had been amidst a suffocating throng. This newfound silence was eerie. I didn't trust it. And I wasn't prepared to thank anybody just yet.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

"I'm always here," the man said in a measured voice. He lifted a wooden walking stick and rapped the alabaster head against his chest. Then he pointed it at me. "You're the intruder."

"It's a dream," I reasoned. I knew that didn't make this place any less real, but one couldn't readily be an imposition in one's own dream.

"Interesting..." was all the man offered.

Now that the world had solidified, I felt I once again had my bearings and my wits. The situation seemed safe enough, and it didn't appear as though Nero was coming inside.

"A bookstore?"

"The last," he answered. "There is great knowledge in these tomes."

"Who are you?"

The man smiled. "I've been called many things. My fifth wife preferred 'son of a bitch.'"

"So, a ladies' man?" He didn't relax his stiff posture and stood resolute in his coldness. "Is that what I should call you? Son of a bitch?"

"I am just a passing spirit. My name isn't important. You will likely never see me again. But him," he said, looking to the glass door, "he seems intent on meeting you."

I checked again to make sure the fiend wasn't entering. "I don't know what to do about him."

"Shades have a habit of finding you when you meddle in their business."

I nodded. "Seems fair. I did expel him."

For the first time, the man's stoic visage was allowed to appear impressed. "Ah, a rare talent."

"It's just science," I said.

"Isn't everything?" The man turned and paced casually. "These halls are filled with science. Even the fiction, stories passed down through generations, have truths to tell us. I have spent a great many years here in study, yet I have never found a story of a man who visits the dead when he sleeps." The metal tip of his walking stick made a flat note against the tile. "We all have our talents. Even shades. That," he said, pointing outside, "is a desperate one. He seeks to return to your world but is unable."

"I gave sage to the one he was bound to."

The man smiled blankly and said nothing. Had the spirit never read a story about white sage, either?

"He's trapped here forever now. He'll never get back."

"It's likely you are correct. Most shades are fools. Others are smart and disciplined. He is still a threat to you for the time being, but I wouldn't be overly concerned. The crazy ones may be more violent—but it is the measured ones who prove to be more dangerous in the long-term."

I walked further into the bookstore. It was an area that felt warmer than any other place I'd seen on the Dead Side. If I didn't know any better, yellows and reds seemed to creep into the periphery of this desaturated place. Despite the comforting feel, there was a subtext to this conversation that I was missing.

"Is that what you are? A smart spirit? More dangerous than Nero?"

The gentlemanly figure turned. He shot me a look, not of one offended so much as of a man losing patience.

"You can't trust shades, sir. Their motivations are foreign to the living."

I scoffed. "Nothing's complicated about not wanting to be dead."

"Perhaps you underestimate the desperation inherent."

I strolled up to a small table where an original gramophone sat beside a pile of books. Taking a cursory glance at the pages, I tried to mutter as unassumingly as possible. "You're a shade."

The man smiled again. "And that is precisely why you shouldn't trust me." He sat on the leather couch, rested back, and crossed one leg over the other. "I wouldn't trust me, if I were you. Certainly don't take instruction from me. But you may note that I am giving none."

I nodded and leaned against the end table, facing him. This man was the definition of cool etiquette. He was polite and friendly and projected strong character. Everything he said made sense and appeared above board. But he had overplayed his hand.

"You said that shades can find you when you poke into their business." He looked at me as I spoke with a knowing expression. "One might wonder how you found me, but I've already figured it out. We came to cross paths in the world of the dead because I chased you off a building in the world of the living."

He bowed his head slightly. "Bravo, sir. You have your man. I do apologize for acting like such a brute. I didn't know who you were and I panicked."

"And now Sal is dead."

"Well, let's not shed a tear for the unfortunates. I have little patience for madness."

"So," I said, acting cool in the face of his apathy, "you decided you would get to know me and my methods?"

The man removed his hat and brushed his hair along the part. "Turn about is fair play, but to the contrary, it was you who was seeking an audience with me. Was it not?"

He was right. Sal, or this man while inside of Sal, didn't even know about me until I intervened in his affairs. Still, his business was illegitimate. That is what had attracted us to him in the first place.

"It was."

He nodded. "And what, pray tell, do you seek me for?"

"I make it my business any time the dead impose on the living."

"Do you now?" The man's dark eyes studied me intently. "May I ask why?"

I shrugged. My friends didn't know about my moonlighting so I hadn't been asked about it directly before. I'd never really thought about the answer. "There's nothing quite like it."

"No illusions of nobility, then? You do it for the thrill. Because you can. Isn't that a little self-serving?"

"Says the man who just killed a human being to avoid being found out, then quickly changed his mind and decided to meet me anyway. Besides, I never said I wasn't self-serving. Aren't we all?"

The man responded quickly, dismissing the gravity of his actions. "Precisely. As for me, it is true. I am weak. I concede that, like everybody else, I desire to live forever. How is it that you do it, if I may ask?"

"Do what?"

"You said you were about to find me out. How would you have known who I was?"

Something else he'd never read about. I shrugged again. "Just a simple touch will do. I can see second shadows in my mind. Couldn't tell you how or why." I kept the part about Violet out of it.

"Fascinating."

I was unnerved by the man's composure. Shades, for obvious reasons, strived to blend in with the living. There were exceptions reserved for short-lived attempts at disruption, but Sal had been right to run from me. He had known that I was on to him. That something was off. Now he just pulled a one-eighty and introduced himself. Why?

"What's your business with Red Hat?" I asked.

My unnamed companion widened his eyes and stroked his mustache. It was an outdated growth on his face that drew too much attention, although it may have played well with today's hipster crowds. "Take care with them," warned the man gravely. "Any frivolities you've had with the dead thus far are trivial by comparison."

"I've got it under control."

"Famous last words."

"What's your business with them?"

"They are an old company. Not Red Hat Events, of course. That is the newest incarnation. They started before your time—before my time even—as a millinery."

"What is that?"

He tipped the hat on his head. "A fine hat maker's shop."

There was nothing sinister about that. "Is it a front for a criminal enterprise?"

"The business? No, no, I suppose it is legitimate enough, as much as can be said for any in the nightlife industry. Red Hat is a means to an end, a vehicle of wealth and a structural hierarchy for a movement."

"What, do they want to take over the world or something?"

"No," said the man, forcing a laugh. "Nothing so sophomoric. They want what everyone wants." He looked at me and waited for an answer.

"To live forever."

He simply nodded.

The man was playing a delicate game. He had taken a risk by exposing himself to me and he was hedging what information he conveyed, for sure, but there was something more. He wanted something out of this exchange and I couldn't nail down what it was yet.

"Are you telling me that the entire staff is taken?"

"I am telling you that the structure is set up to propagate the dead. With your abilities and curiosity, it was only a matter of time before you found out for yourself. Not every employee need be possessed. Many can assist the cause simply by doing their job in ignorance. Many are just there to make money. But the ones in charge, the ones that matter, have lived a life other than their current one. They want to be rich. They want to be successful. And they want to find new hosts."

A dark cloud hovered over our conversation as soon as I understood the subtext of his words. "Soren."