"Settle it," he said. "This is a one-time offer."
An involuntary whimper escaped my lips. My insides streaked with black lightning, a volcano erupting in that pit from where the Chorus grew. Yes. Take back what is yours. Close enough.
Pender watched me for a few seconds, a smirk pulling at his lips, before he walked away. His car was parked on the far side of the empty lot, and as he opened the door, the interior light flicked on. Before the door shut, I caught a flash of movement in the receding shadows of the back seat. The Chorus still raged within me, still thrust themselves against my Will, but I squeezed them into a knot. Squeezed hard, and focused. As the vehicle left the lot, I strained to part the shadows in the back seat.
He wasn't alone. There was someone else in the car.
"Who was that?" Nicols stood in the doorway of the trailer. "Pender?"
I slumped, barely able to shake my head.
"He just left you here?" He walked toward me.
Shivering, I offered him the Polaroid. I still couldn't speak.
I didn't have to. He looked at the picture for a long time. "This her?" he asked finally. He flipped the picture over. "There's something on the back. 'Scarlet Woman plus Hidden Light equals Beast.' And there are some numbers underneath: 393 + 273 = 605." He paused, doing the math. "That's not right, 393 and 273 add up to 666."
"Six-six-six is the number of the beast," I groaned, the Chorus finally letting go of my voice. "Six-oh-five is the number of my hotel room at the Monaco." The difference was 61. Another message: 61 was Ain-the Abyss, the cold darkness where the Qliphoth thrived.
"The picture was taken in my hotel room."
Nicols flipped the Polaroid over again to re-examine the portrait. "She's there?"
"She's waiting for me."
Settle it, the Chorus oozed, dripping poison in my ear. I was caught between terror and desire, shivering with the promise of their commingling. Take it back. My lost soul, my lost heart. The Lovers, hands on hearts and heads, energy flowing back and forth in an endless loop, mixing themselves together. This is the way to heal yourself. Make you whole again.
One path, one direction. Through darkness into light. This was the way promised me.
Were the Qliphoth capable of keeping promises? Was the flesh capable of not betraying itself? Was the Word still true if it came from a false Godhead?
God created the Demiurge who, in turn, created the World. God was the Word, and He gave it to the Creator to speak it. And, having made the World, the Demiurge forgot who gave him the power to Create.
Was my world a lie? The history I remembered-so fractured with dark light-was it a fabrication? Made solely to provide framework for the insistent noise of the Chorus? As I had gotten closer to Kat, they had become more frenzied, more inflamed by. . what? A desire for revenge?
But was it deserved? Was it true? There were cracks in their rationale, joints that didn't quite fit. As if the history they purported to be true was actually bolted together-some Frank-ensteinian construct that wasn't entirely. . me. Beneath them, providing direction and intent, was something else. Some other version of reality undimmed by these false memories.
There was only one way to find out. I held out my hand and Nicols, thinking I wanted the picture back, put it into my hand. I shook my head. "I need your car keys."
"I don't think this is a good idea," he replied.
"I don't care what you think."
"You're not rational, Markham. Your obsession with this woman is screwing with your judgment." He gestured toward Piotr's trailer. "I saw you in there. Hell, I saw what happened when you got close to a memory of her at the barn. Your head is all fucked up about this woman, about what you think happened, and it is going to get someone killed."
I got to my feet. "Her?"
"You," he said.
The Chorus churned, finding cause for violence in Nicols' inference. I made to bind them, and they responded by compressing into a lodestone in my chest. A magnetic attraction pulled at me, tugging me south and east. I looked along that axis-straight across the Interbay, right through the whirling globe atop the Seattle Post-Intelligencer building, through Belltown and the curve of the Performance Center-and I could see the phantom shape of my hotel. The Chorus pulsed, and this magnetic line of desire stretched tight between Kat and me. They wanted release. From this conversation, from this damp parking lot. They wanted to run like dogs who had found the scent of their prey.
"Why would Pender give you what you want?" Nicols asked. "What does he gain by doing that?"
"What are you talking about?" The humming sound of the magnetic connection was making it hard to think.
"You said it yourself: they're schemers. The Watchers shape events by influence and manipulation. Do you think this situation is any different?"
I fought the pull in my chest, clinging like a drowning man to Nicols' words. Yes, and the reading Piotr had just thrown. The Eight of Swords had been my foundation. They were the roots entangling me. Interference. Obstructions raised by other forces and other agents who would attempt to distract me from my goal. Perhaps the detective himself is such a distraction, the Chorus whispered. You have her. You've been given permission.
Take it.
I shook my head, shaking off their voices more than denying the truth to Nicols' question. "You think I'm going to kill her."
"Yeah, the thought crossed my mind. Has more than once. I don't think you're stable, Markham; I think there is some serious damage in your brain. But here's the thing-and you should listen to this because I know what the fuck I'm talking about-killing Kat isn't going to fix what's wrong in you."
I held out a hand for the keys. "You don't know anything about me." A black bubble rose in my throat.
"Christ!" he exploded. "You think you're the only one who's had his heart broken?"
"It's not like that."
"No? Because you're certainly acting the part. I've been cleaning up after people for twenty years. When lovers get jealous or angry, when families self-destruct, when people just get stupid: I'm there. I'm the guy who has to see the aftermath; I have to tell parents that someone-a lover, a friend, a sibling-someone just took their baby away from them. You don't think a day doesn't go by when I hear some pathetic fuck whining about how this bitch just broke his heart and so he gave her what she deserved? 'She sucked off the mailman and so I put a gun in her mouth and blew her head off.' "
I flinched, and Nicols jabbed a thick finger at me. "Yeah, last week. That was some gang-banger's entire rationale: she deserved it. Three days later, the guy is screaming in his cell, yelling for his dead girlfriend because he's finally realized what an enormous mistake he's made. I can't help him. He's confessed, the evidence has been processed, and the DA has already cut a deal with the nickel-rate public defender assigned to the case. Guy's going to Walla Walla for ten to fifteen. You think that's going to fix the hole in his heart? You think that's going to bring her back?"
The Chorus whined, and I moaned aloud in concert. My legs twitched like a dog's who could see the open fields but knew there was an invisible fence, a radio frequency barrier that would trigger his electric collar if he strayed too far.