Ted slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He had a bottle of white wine in his hand. Squatting down against the wall, he sipped from it.
"Jeez, what a night," he said, his voice quivering with emotion. "I almost canceled last week. I wasn't sure I wanted people looking at what's in my head." He leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes, expelling a long, low breath. There was silence for perhaps half a minute. Then he said, "I got what you wanted, Harry."
"Yeah?"
"I still think you're out of your mind-"
"When's the ceremony?"
"Next Tuesday."
"Do you know where?" look. "Of course," Ted said, giving Harry a mock-offended "Where?"
"Down around Ninth and-2' "Ninth and what?" "Maybe I should just take you." "No, Ted. You're going to stay out of this."
"Why?" Ted said, passing the wine bottle to Harry. "Because you swore off all that shit, remember? Heroin and magic, out of your life. That's what you said." "they are. I swear. Are you going to drink or not?" Harry took a mouthful of wine. It was sour and warm. "So keep it that way. You've got a career to protect." Ted gave a little self-satisfied smile. "I like the sound of that," he said. "You were about to tell me the address." "Ninth, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth. It's a trian gular building. Looks deserted." He claimed the wine bottle back from Harry's hand, dropping his voice to a near whisper. "I've dug some secrets out of people in my time, but shit, getting this address, Harry, was like getting blood from a stone. What's going on down there?"
"You don't want to know."
"The less you tell me," Ted warned, "the more damn curious I'm going to get."
Harry shook his head despairingly. "You don't let go, do you?"
"I can't help it," Ted replied with a shrug, "I've got an addictive personality." Harry said nothing. "Well?" Ted pressed. "What's the big deal?"
"Ever heard of the Order of the Zyem Carasophia?"
Ted stared hard at Harry. "You're kidding?" Harry shook his head.
"This is a Concupigaea ceremony?"
"That's what I heard."
"Harry... do you know what you're messing with? They're supposed to be exiles."
"Are they?" Harry said.
"Don't bullshit me, Harry. You know fucking well."
"I hear rumors, sure."
"And what do you think?"
"About what?"
"About where the fuck they came from?" Ted said, his agitation increasing.
"Like I say, it's all rumors, but@'
"But?"
"I think they're probably from Quiddity."
Ted let out a low whistle. He needed no introduction to the notion of the dream-sea. He'd dabbled in occult practices for half a decade, until in the midst of a conjuration, high on heroin, he'd unwittingly unleashed something with psychopathic tendencies, which it had taken all of Hariy's wits to beat. Ted had sworn off magic and signed on for a detox program the same day. But the vocabulary of the occult still carried its old, familiar power, and there were few words in that vocabulary as potent as Quiddity.
"What are they doing here?" Ted said.
Harry shrugged. "Who knows? I'm not even sure they're the real thing."
300 Clivc Barkcr
"But if they are-?" "If they are, I got some questions I need answering." "About what?" "About that snake you put under my heel."
"The Anti-Christ." "they call it the lad." Again, Ted needed no education in seminologies. "The Uroboros and the Anti-Christ are the same thing?" he said. "It's all the Devil by another name," Harry replied. "How can you be so sure?"
"I'm a believer."
The next day Harry went downtown to take a look at the building Ted had pinpointed. It was utterly commonplace, a four-story tenement, now apparently deserted, its windows boarded blind, its doors either padlocked or bricked up altogether. Harry ambled around it twice, studying it as discreetly as possible, in case he was being watched from inside. Then he headed back up to Nonna's apartment, to get some advice.
Conversation wasn't always easy at Norma's place. She had been since adolescence a beacon for lost and wandering souls (particularly the recently dead) and when she tired of their importunings she turned on the thirty-odd televisions she owned, the din of which drove the wanderers away for a spell, but rendered ordinary exchanges near impossible.
today, however, the televisions were all mute. The screens flickered on, selling diets and cars and life everlasting. Norma didn't see them, of course. She'd been blind since birth. Not that she ever spoke like someone who was sightless.
"Look at you," she said as soon as Harry opened the door. "Are you catching something?"
"No, I'm fine. I just didn't get very much sleep."
"More tattoos?" Norma said.
"Just one," Harry admitted.
"Let me see."
"Norma."
"Let me see," Non-na said, reaching out from the wellcushioned comfort of her armchair.
Harry tossed his jacket on top of one of the televisions, and went over to Norma, who was sitting by the open window. The sounds of voices and traffic drifted up from below.
"Why don't you turn on the air-conditioning?" Harry said as he rolled up his shirt sleeve. "You're just breathing fumes."
"I like to hear the world going by," Norma said. "It's reassuring. Now, let's see the damage." She took hold of Harry's wrist and drew him a little closer, running her fingers up his arm to the place close to his elbow where he'd been most recently marked. "You still go to that old fake Voight?" Norma said, pulling away the bandage the tattooist had applied and running her fingers over the tender skin. Harry winced.
"It's nice work," Norma conceded. "though Christ knows what good you think it's going to do you."
This was an old debate between them. Harry had gathered the better part of a dozen tattoos over the last halfdecade, all but two of which had been the handiwork of Otis Voight, who specialized in what he called protective ink: talismans and sigils etched into his clients' skin to keep the bad at bay. "I owe my life to some of these," Harry said.
"You owe your life to your wits and your bloodymindedness, Harry; no more nor less. Show me a tattoo that can stop a bullet-"
"I can't."
"Right. And a demon's a dainn sight worse than a bullet."
"Bullets don't have psyches," Harry countered.
"Oh, and demons do?" said Norma. "No, Harry. They're pieces of shit, that's all they are. Little slivers of heartless filth." She bared her fine teeth in a grimace. "Oh God," she said, "but I'd love to be out there with you."
"It's not much fun," Harry said. "Believe me."
"Anything's better than this," she said, slamming her hands down on the arms of the chair. The glasses on the table beside her clicked against the rum and brandy bottles. "Sometimes I think this is a punishment, Harry. Sitting here day after day hearing people coming through with their tales of woe. Sobbin' about this, sobbin' about that. Regrettin' this, regrettin' that. I want to yell to 'em sometimes, It's too damn late! You should've thought about regrettin' while you could still do something about it. Ah! What's the use? I'm stuck talking to the snotty dead while you have all the fun. You don't know you're born, boy. You really don't."
Harry wandered over to the window and looked down seven floors to Seventy-fifth. "One of these nights," he said.
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to come fetch you and we're going to ride around for a few hours. Check out a few of the bad places, the really bad places, and see how quickly you change your mind." "You're on," Norma said. "In the meanwhile, to what do I owe the honor? You didn't come here to show me Voight's handiwork."