Unleashed

FOURTEEN

I CALLED MORGAN TO LET HER KNOW IT STILL wasn’t safe to come back, but her phone went straight to voice mail, and her message box was full. She hadn’t called me, either, which was a bit worrisome. Ruby had been taken care of, but what about the other? Still, as long as Morgan stayed away, she should be safe.

Meanwhile, I had a message of my own-an unexpected gig. The booker at Rainy Tuesdays had called to ask if I was available tomorrow night. I was. I needed the money; even with shape-shifters roaming the streets, rent still comes due every month.

The club’s scheduled draw, the Scott Harkins quintet, had unexpectedly cut short their tour and abruptly canceled. Thus the call. I haven’t worked hard enough at self-promotion to be a headliner and I probably never will, but I did have enough of a local reputation to be on the short list as a fill-in. I was even getting enough of a name that occasionally people came out to specifically hear me play. Who’d have imagined?

I called the booker back and assured her we were ready to go. Then I started making calls, and it took until the next afternoon to get hold of everyone. Dave’s always the easiest-he’s a family man and he returns calls, especially if there’s a paying gig in the offing. But Roger is liable to be off skateboarding and he keeps temporarily losing his cell phone. And Bobby Clemens, whom I wanted to add, is drunk half the time and can’t be bothered to check his messages. But I finally got them all on board.

It was nice to be setting up at Rainy Tuesdays again. There are other clubs that are more fun to play, but few classier and few that pay as well. Of course, there’s Yo shi’s. They’d opened up a sister club in San Francisco, not yet quite with the cachet of the Oakland original, but it was getting there. But I’d been temporarily banned from playing there after an unfortunate situation that was none of my making. Nothing official, but effective. It would blow over. Things always do in the jazz world.

Rainy Tuesdays sits in the middle of the Mission District. Ten years ago the Mission was still a sketchy enough neighborhood to discourage nighttime business, but these days the main danger a patron faced was getting scalded by an errant latte. It’s a nice space-medium-sized, very trendy and hip, lots of small tables, and a great sound system to pipe the band’s music into the front room.

The long curved bar with its black leather rail at one end has taken on an iconic status in only a couple of years, and other places are starting to copy the look. They’d recently softened the original industrial retro look, adding some color and giving the place a warmer feel. They’d kept their trademark logo-an umbrella with three rain-drops, done in blue neon tubing. The stage is still a bit too small, because they want to squeeze in as many tables as possible. But it’s raised only about half a foot, and the nearest tables are close enough to almost touch the players, giving it that intimate touch. Jazz was never meant for the stage or the concert hall; originally jazz was club music, meant for people who dance and drink and party. And the best jazz hasn’t abandoned those roots.

Dave, the bass player, and Roger Chu, the wunderkind on drums, had become my go-to guys, and this time I’d added Bobby Clemens. Bobby was the finest organ player in town, one of the best anywhere, actually. He didn’t work as often as he should, because frankly, he was a total asshole. Unless he was drunk, and then he couldn’t play. The only reason he ever got a gig at all was that he was just that goddamned good. But he did manage to suck most of the joy out of playing music, simply by his very presence and attitude.

But I thought he’d work out for us. Dave is so laid-back he can get along with anyone, and Roger lives in a world all his own. The only thing that matters to Roger is the music-except for his skateboard. And it’s hard to insult someone who doesn’t even realize they’ve been insulted. When Roger’s not playing drums he’s mostly in an impervious teenage fog that nothing penetrates.

Bobby and I get along fairly well, considering. He never hassles me, not because I’m so easy to get along with, but because he’s slightly afraid of me. He’d once seen something he wasn’t supposed to, when a couple of street thugs tried to rip off my guitar one night. He’d managed to convince himself he’d been high that night, but there was just enough doubt remaining in his mind to treat me with a certain amount of caution and respect. Whenever he started getting out of line, I’d throw something minor his way, like quietly turning the ice cubes in his drink blue, then red, then back to normal. He never could be sure if it was real or not, and that certainly put a damper on his aggressiveness.

The draw that evening was light, since the original show had been canceled, but we were all on our game. For the first time in a long while I put everything out of my mind, refusing to worry about such mundane issues as carnivorous shape-shifters. My playing was assured; my lines inventive and flowing. Roger was a monster on drums, as usual, and the sound of Bobby’s B3 Hammond was so sweet that it makes every tune seem to groove even if it really doesn’t. So temporarily life was good-right up until the moment I noticed who had taken a seat behind the first row of tables. Our curly-headed friend, the Wendigo.

I immediately went on autopilot, comping behind Bobby’s solo without even paying attention to what he was doing. No one in the audience noticed, but Bobby did. He started to throw me a dirty look, but quickly changed it to neutral and puzzled when he saw the look on my own face.

The Wendigo ignored me, focusing on Roger playing drums. He hunched forward, drumming his fingers on the table, jerking with a little tic every time Roger hit the snare.

Maybe he was just here to listen to an up-and-coming drummer. Maybe he wasn’t here to cause any trouble. Maybe he was just a jazz fan. And maybe pigs really can fly.

We played a couple more tunes before I signaled for a break, a little early. I wiped down my guitar, unhurriedly, watching the Wendigo out of the corner of my eye. He seemed totally at ease, striking up a conversation with a couple of women at a nearby table, throwing back drinks like the original party boy. I quietly sidled over to his table and sat down. He turned to face me, feigning astonishment at my sudden presence.

“Ah, Mason. How good of you to come down and mingle with the hoi polloi.”

I was in no mood for snarky humor. He’d managed to turn a great evening into a bad one in two seconds, just by showing up.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“What, I can’t go out and hear some music, just because I’m not like other people? I thought you’d be more tolerant, being a musician and all.” I wasn’t buying it for a moment.

“What do you want?”

“Well, for starters, how about an intro to that drummer? He’s incredible.” I got up from the table and started to walk away. “Now, hold on,” he said, grabbing at my arm. “You’re right. I didn’t just come down for the music. I came here to help you.”

“Of course you did,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“No, really.”

“And in return?”

“You’ve still got some more of those stones. At least a couple; you didn’t hand them all over the last time.”

“You’re really hooked on them, aren’t you?” I said.

“You’ve become a junkie, basically.”

“And whose fault is that? You’re the one who introduced them to me.”

“So I did. I’ll just have to live with the guilt, I guess.”

“It’s not just about the magic; it’s about the music,” the Wendigo said. “Surely you can understand that. You see, I discovered that with them I’m a great drummer. Without them, just very ordinary.”

“Jesus,” I said. “You might as well be mainlining crystal.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Music’s important, in a way that other things aren’t. You know that. How do you think you found me in the first place?”

“I was following a vision, as I remember.”

“Sure, but a vision just tells you what may happen, and where. It doesn’t tell you why. It’s the creativity that connected us-yours and mine.” A philosophical Wendigo. What next? “Anyway, I thought I’d trade you some more information for the rest of those stones. I know you’ve still got a few of them left.”

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re a junkie. You’d say anything for a taste. Information from you would be worthless.”

“Not a problem. I’ll tell you, and you decide if it’s worth it or not. If so, then you give me the stones. If not, you don’t. Fair enough, right? You see, unlike you, I’m the trusting sort.”

“Right,” I said. We sat looking at each other for a minute. “Well?”

“Well, you managed to kill the shape-shifter that was causing so much trouble, I see.”

“We did. How did you know that?”

“I know things.”

“And you have a problem with that?”

“No, not at all. She, and those like her, aren’t really individuals like you or me-they take on the aspect and intelligence of others, and without a host of sorts they remain basically just animals. But there’s something else interesting about them that you don’t know.”

“They rise from the grave at the new moon?”

“Don’t joke about things you know nothing about. But no, nothing like that.”

I waited patiently. I was fairly certain he was bluffing, trying to pull some sort of scam to get his fix, but he might have valuable information. Or rather, he might be willing to share it. I had no doubt that he knew more than he ever let on.

“All those shape-shifters have their little differences,” the Wendigo said, “but there is one thing about them that’s a constant, that always holds true.”

“And what might that be?” I asked warily. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer. The Wendigo smiled, almost gleefully.

“Just this. They seldom enter the world alone, and they never stay alone. They exist in pairs. Always.”

He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile, proud of the bombshell he’d dropped. When he noticed I was looking at him with no change of expression, he frowned.

“You don’t believe me?” he said.

“No, I believe you. But you’re a day late and a dollar short.”

“Beg pardon?”

“It’s an expression. Not to burst your bubble, but I already figured that out.”

The Wendigo looked positively crestfallen. He’d expected his news to knock me off my feet. Maybe it would have if he hadn’t waited so long.

“Okay, so you know about that.” He paused and thought for a moment. “What about the energy pool-the one I came out of? And the others?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“It’s an open conduit, you know. Other things can come out of it as well. You really need to shut it off.”

“Yeah, we figured that out as well. But we’ve had more pressing issues lately.” I shook my head. “Anyway, that’s not information. That’s advice.”

“Oh, I know. I was just trying to be helpful, that’s all.”

“And pick up some stones.”

“Well, yes. But you don’t want them anyway, not really. And I did want to help.”

I left the table and played the rest of the gig in a funk. When the Wendigo came into the club, he mixed the two worlds that I tried so hard to keep separate. It was hard to concentrate on the music when the sight of him was a constant reminder that there was unfinished and unpleasant business waiting for me. The simple life of an ordinary musician had never looked so good.

NEXT MORNING I WAS BACK AT VICTOR’S. PROBLEM was, we had nothing to go on. If we waited for more dead people to start turning up, that would give us a place to start, but it would be a little hard on the victims.

But one thing that the Wendigo had said was true-we needed to close off the energy pool. So far, four things had come through-the fake Ifrit, the Wendigo, and apparently two of the shape-shifters. And perhaps even other things we didn’t know about yet. And as long as it stayed open, there was always the chance that something even worse might appear. In fact, I didn’t understand why we hadn’t already been inundated with uncanny apparitions.

Eli thought there must be specific circumstances governing it.

“You mean like the new moon falling on a rainy night?” I asked.

“Something like that, but nothing that simple, I imagine,” he said. “It would take a lot of study to figure it out. It will be a lot quicker just to shut it down.”

Easier said than done. I had no idea about how to go even get started, but Eli and Victor were in their element. We decided to wait until dark, since the construction site was active during the day, and there was no way to operate until it shut down. The energy pool was more apparent at night anyway, easier to locate and isolate. They spent the rest of the day poring over books and arguing about the best way to dissolve the pool. I stayed out of the way for the most part. About seven, we headed out.

Eli was disturbed at the turn things had taken, but he was thrilled to finally be able to meet Rolf. Eli was the one who had figured out what he and those like him were-practitioners who had changed over time so that they were no longer quite human, but instead incarnations of myth and lore, magical beings themselves. But with one thing or another, he’d never met any of them.

Rolf was alone, though, which was a disappointment for Eli. He’d particularly wanted to get a look at Richard Cory. Rolf let us in, sizing up Victor and Eli. He immediately took to Eli, but didn’t seem to care much for Victor. I guess he hadn’t yet lost all his human reactions.

“What brings you here tonight?” he asked.

“We need to close down the energy pool,” I said, getting right to the point. “We think there might be other things that could come through it, and the ones that already have weren’t too friendly.”

“Be my guest. You may be right, but it’s not something I’d care to mess with, myself.”

“What gave you the idea to create it in the first place?” Eli asked. “And how exactly did you manifest it?”

“We didn’t mean to,” Rolf said. “It just happened.”

Eli immediately started in speculations about the unconscious and its relation to talent. Which led, inevitably, to the subject of Ifrits, and why Rolf and his friends never acquired them.

Rolf became instantly wrapped up in the discussion, and the two of them ended up sitting cross-legged on the ground next to scraps of concrete and lumber, chattering on like two unkempt chess-playing codgers in a city park. Victor waited impatiently, then gave up temporarily and wandered back to where the energy pool shimmered and sparkled in the darkness. When he almost walked right into it, I realized he couldn’t see it. That was a complication.

Eli finally joined us, still talking to Rolf, and he couldn’t see it, either. Rolf seemed to be amused by that.

“Any ideas?” I said to him. Rolf nodded and draped his arms around both their shoulders.

“Ahh,” said Eli. “Now I see. Amazing.”

Rolf removed his arms from their shoulders, but once they’d seen the pool they could keep their vision of it. Victor walked around to the other side, taking care not to get too close.

“Hmm,” he said. “Now that I actually see it, I’m thinking we might have to change our strategy.”

“It’s too strong to push it back,” Eli agreed. He walked around the pool and joined Victor on the other side. “Perhaps we could speed it up, instead. Add some additional energy and destabilize it that way.”

“Hmm. Could work. What about the Coriolis force? Can we adapt that?”

“No, but there should be an analogue we could use.”

As usual, they were talking way over my head. I wandered away and joined Rolf.

“Quite the professors, ain’t they?” he said.

“Not a bad thing, actually. It doesn’t hurt to be smart.”

“Never said it did.”

We watched them measuring and discussing. After a time, Victor reached into his traveling bag and took out four crystals, placing them around the perimeter of the circle, evenly spaced. Next came a series of wooden rods, and he enclosed each crystal with a triangle of three sticks, like a little tent. Finally, he nodded and stood next to Eli.

“Will it be enough?” asked Eli, and Victor shrugged.

I walked over slowly to where they stood. Eli in particular wasn’t going to like this, but I had no choice.

“These might help,” I said, taking the two rune stones that I’d been carrying around out of my pocket. Eli looked at them, then at me.

“How long have you had those, son?” he said quietly.

“All along. I kept a few back when we used them to trap the Wendigo.”

Victor just shook his head and reached out a hand for them, but Eli stepped forward and took them instead.

“How many more do you have at home?”

“Some.”

“My fault. I should have known. A junkie doesn’t turn over all his drugs just because you ask for them. Well, time for that later. Right now we can certainly use these.” He handed one of the stones to Victor, who circled around to the opposite side. Eli lifted up his own stone, and a rueful smile broke out upon his face.

“I forgot how it feels to hold these,” he said. “This is what it feels like to have real power. Very seductive, I must say.” He called over to Victor.

“Ready?” Victor raised one arm in the air. “Now,” said Eli, and there was a crackling sound as a flash of phosphorescent green light arced between the stones. The crystals flashed in unison and began to pulse with their own light of swirling color, reflecting the colors of the pool. The swirl of colors in the energy pool started to move more quickly, and a high-pitched hum like a jet turbine filled the air, making my teeth hurt. Lou had been sitting by the edge of the pool, gazing into it, fascinated as always, but now he jumped back in alarm.

The pool revolved even faster, like a maelstrom in a horror tale. Bits of color broke free and washed up onto the ground, like nothing so much as a whirlpool throwing off rainbow-colored spumes of spray. The colors blended together as it spun faster; then, when it seemed as if it could no longer hold together, it folded in on itself like multicolored Silly Putty. One final spasm rocked through it, and just before it collapsed, a long streamer of viscous energy snaked out, falling right across one of Lou’s front paws. As it contracted, it dragged him toward its center and pulled him under, almost as if it had a malevolent consciousness. There was a horrible slurping sound like a clog becoming unstuck in a bathtub, and then the entire construct dwindled into nothingness. Then, at the last possible moment, it surged back, gyrated wildly, and finally settled down into its familiar rhythm. The humming cut off abruptly, and the only sound left was the roar of traffic on the access ramp overhead and a far-off ambulance wailing.

I ran over to where it pulsed, seemingly eternal. It was back, but Lou was gone.