Butcher Bird

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he asked. "But I can't control it. I'm a little scared of my hands. What if my mind wanders-and it's wandering a lot these days-and I turn some baby goth girl into a Black Clerk?"

"If you make any Angelina Jolies, save one for me." She smiled at him and when he didn't smile back, Lulu shook her head. "I don't understand why you can't just do stuff now. You healed me back at Cinders' place. And you fixed Shrike."

"That was all one big rush. Like I was running, and as long as I kept running, I could do anything. But now I stopped and I can't find my feet. The more I think about the magic, the worse I get at it."

"What are you going to do?"

"Don't know. The insurance money came through, so I don't really have to work right now. Besides, I dream about money and there's gold in my sock drawer when I wake up."

"Must be nice," said Lulu, irritation edging into her voice. "What'd be even nicer was if you got over this whiny little bitch thing you're in and you went out and found Shrike."

"You don't think I've tried? I've been back to the night market. Down to the Coma Gardens. I even busted into the tunnel under Alcatraz. Nothing. No one's seen her. She's gone."

"Sorry, bro."

"I should go."

****

He didn't tell Lulu the whole truth about his home life. The magic or power or whatever it was he'd acquired inside the book was getting more out of control every day. The deeper he sank into his dark mood, the more dangerous the magic became. Each night, he woke up from restless dreams to find his apartment choked with hellfire or locked in glacial ice. His bedroom was invaded by souls wandering in from the edge of the Bone Sea. Galaxies swirled where the ceiling should be, and he could see the Dominions floating between the stars, eating worlds and swimming in swirling clouds of cosmic dust.

Spyder couldn't stand being in the warehouse anymore, so he rented an ancient, rundown metal workshop in the industrial zone on a winding road out by the old Navy yards. The place was just four metal walls and an aluminum roof with a razorwire fence outside. There was nothing inside the shop for him to break or freeze or burn up when he dreamed. All Spyder took with him was his motorcycle, an air mattress, cartons of cigarettes and beer. Everything else he dealt with as he needed. During the day, he kept Apollyon's blade under the mattress. It mostly came in handy on those sleepless nights when he thought he was going crazy. He would take out the knife and feel its weight in his hand, smell a faint echo of Hell when he held the grip close to his face. When sleep refused to come, he thought about hiring an airship and flying deep into the desert to find the hole he'd blown in Hell's roof. Lucifer would be happy to see him and might let him stick around to help rebuild Heaven. Or would he? The fallen angel had told him to go home and live his life, but what did that even mean anymore?

What an amazing place to have gotten yourself to, he thought, when even Hell isn't an option.

****

In May, on Orson Welles' birthday, an old art house theater in the Mission District had a marathon screening of his films. Spyder had seen the early stuff dozens of times, so he only came for the late-night flicks, It's All True, Welles' doomed Brazilian epic, and The Other Side of the Wind, a dark, micro-budget film about a bitter director, played by John Huston. He knew there weren't enough guns or tits in either movie to get Lulu to sit through them, so he went alone.

It was almost two in the morning when the movies let out. Spyder went to the corner where he'd parked the Kawasaki and lit a cigarette. It was cold and wet. Heavy fog was blowing through the streets like sparkling ghosts.

"Hey, pony boy."

She was leaning against the front door of a check-cashing shop. Through the open door was a miserable line of restless illegals pretending not to see the down-on-their luck Caucasians who were busy pretending to be somewhere else entirely.

Spyder sat on the bike, took a drag off the American Spirit.

He said, "I have this scar on my arm. Sometimes at night I touch it just to make sure I didn't imagine it. It's where the Clerks marked me. On the floor by my bed, I have this great big knife. I close my eyes and my head is full of the craziest things. Like some kind of acid flashback, only it's not mine. It's someone else's. But when I fall asleep it's all okay because at the end of the craziness, I get the girl. Only I wake up and remember I didn't."

"I'm sorry I ran off. I'm worse at goodbyes than you are," said Shrike.

"How's your father?"

"He died."

"I'm really sorry to hear that."

"Don't be. I took him home, to the Second Sphere. He was happy when he went."

"So, there's a happy ending after all. I'm glad you both got that."

"You don't have to be so magnanimous."

Spyder nodded, took a pull on the cigarette.

"Yeah, I do. Otherwise the walls start doing that closing in thing and I want a drink and I'm trying real hard not to want that."