Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

She heard the woman cry out—the first sound she'd actually made. There was a disturbance in the scene around them, but not the instant transfer from Kissoon's Loop to West Hollywood she'd hoped for; and the Lix were massing around them in greater and yet greater numbers.

"Again," Tesla told herself. "Do it again."

She focused on the woman in front of her, who was still tearing pieces of the Lix from around her body, and pulling them from her hair. It was this mirage she had to focus on. The other passenger, herself, was easily imagined.

"Go!" she said. "Please God, go!"

This time the images in her head jelled; she not only saw herself and the woman clearly, she saw them in flight, the world around them dissolving and reconfiguring like a jigsaw blown to pieces and remade as another puzzle.

She knew the scene. It was the very spot she'd left from. The coffee was still spilled across the floor; the sun was pouring in through the window; Raul was standing in the middle of the room, waiting for her return. She knew by the look on his face that she'd succeeded in bringing the woman through with her. What she hadn't realized until she looked was that she'd brought the whole image, including the Lix that had been battening upon her. Though they were separated from Kissoon their unnatural life was no less fevered here than in the Loop. The woman dropped them to the floor of the apartment where they continued to writhe, their shit-smelling blood oozing on the floor. But they were only pieces: heads, tails, mid-sections. And already the violence of their motion was slowing. Rather than waste time stomping them out Tesla called Raul to her, and together they carried the woman through to the bedroom and laid her down.

She'd fought hard, and was the worst for it. The wounds on her body had reopened. But she seemed not so much in pain as simply exhausted.

"Watch over her," Tesla told Raul, "I'm going to get some water to clean her up."

"What happened?" he wanted to know.

"I almost sold your soul to a fuckhead and a liar," Tesla said. "But don't worry. I just bought it back."

A week previous, the arrival in Palomo Grove of so many of the brightest stars in Hollywood's firmament would have brought the inhabitants of the town out on to the streets in significant numbers, but today there was barely a witness on the sidewalks to watch them appear. The limos eased their way up the Hill unnoticed, their passengers either getting high or fixing their make-up behind smoked-glass windows; the older ones wondering how long it would be before people gathered to pay hypocritical tribute to them the way they were to Buddy Vance, the younger assuming a cure for death would have been found by the time mortality threatened. There were few among the gathering assembly who had truly loved Buddy. Many had envied him; some had lusted after him; nearly all had taken some pleasure in his fall from grace. But love came infrequently in company such as this. It was a flaw in armor they could ill afford to shed.

The passengers in the limos were aware of the absence of admirers. Even though many of them had no desire to be recognized it offended their tender egos being greeted with such indifference. They quickly turned the insult to good purpose. In car after car the same subject arose: why the dead man had chosen to hide himself away in a God-forsaken shit-hole like Palomo Grove. He'd had secrets; that was why. But what? His drink problem? Everybody knew about that. Drugs? Who cared? Women? He'd been the first to boast about his dick and its doings. No, there must have been some other dirt that drove him to this hell-hole. Theories flowed like vitriol as the mourners turned over the possibilities, breaking off from their bitchery to step out of their cars and offer their condolences to the widow at the threshold of Coney Eye, only to pick it up again as soon as they stepped inside.

Buddy's collection of Carnivalia caused considerable comment, dividing its audience down the middle. Many considered it a perfect encapsulation of the dead man: vulgar, opportunist and now, out of its context, useless. Others declared it a revelation, a side of the deceased they'd never known existed. One or two approached Rochelle to see if any of the pieces were available for sale. She told them that nobody yet knew to whom the Will would ascribe them, but that if they came to her she'd happily give them away.

Jokemeister Lamar went among the celebrants with a smile plastered from ear to ear. In all the years since his parting from Buddy he'd never dared believe he'd be where he now was, lording himself over Buddy's court. He made no attempt to disguise his pleasure. What was the use? Life was too short. Better take pleasure where there was pleasure to be taken, before it was snatched away. The thought of the Jaff only two floors above added an extra glitter to his smile. He didn't know what the man's full intentions were, but it was entertaining to think of these people as fodder. He held all of them in contempt, having seen them or their like perform acts of moral acrobatics that would have shamed a Pope, all for the achieving of profit, position or profile. Sometimes all three. He'd come to view with disgust the self-obsession of his tribe, the ambition that drove so many of them to bring down their betters, and smother the little good in themselves. He'd never let that contempt show, however. He had to work among them. It was better to conceal his feelings. Buddy (poor Buddy) had never been able to achieve such detachment. With a little too much drink in his system he'd railed loud and long against fools he refused to suffer. It was this indiscretion, above all others, that had been his downfall. In a town where words were cheap, talk could be expensive. They'd forgive embezzlement, addiction, molestation of minors, rape and even, on occasion, murder. But Buddy had called them fools. They'd never forgiven him that.

Lamar worked the room, kissing the beauties, acknowledging the studs, shaking the hands of the hirers and firers of both. He imagined Buddy's revulsion at this ritual. Time and time again during their years-together he'd had to coax Buddy out of a party just like this one because he couldn't keep his insults to himself. Time and time again he'd failed.

"You're looking good, Lam."

The overnourished face in front of him was Sam Sagansky, one of Hollywood's most successful power-brokers. At his side stood a big-breasted waif, one in a long line of big-breasted waifs Sam had raised to glitterdom then parted from in public dramas that had left the women's careers destroyed and his reputation as a ladykiller enhanced.

"What does it feel like?" Sagansky wanted to know, "being at his funeral?"

"It's not exactly that, Sam."

"Still, he's dead, and you're not. Don't tell me it doesn't make you feel good."

"I guess so."

"We're survivors, Lam. We've got a right to scratch our balls and laugh. Life's good."

"Yeah," Lamar said, "I suppose it is."

"We're all winners here, eh, honey?" He turned to his wife, who displayed her dental work. "Don't know any better feeling than that."

"I'll catch you later, Sam."

"Are there going to be fireworks?" the waif wondered.

Lamar thought of the Jaff, waiting upstairs, and smiled.

Once round the room, then he headed up to see his master.

"Quite a crowd," the Jaff said.

"You approve?"

"Wholly."

"I wanted a word before things got too...busy."

"About what?"

"Rochelle."

"Ah."

"I know you're planning something heavy-duty, and believe me I couldn't be happier. If you wipe them all off the face of the fucking earth you'll be doing the world a favor."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," said the Jaff. "They won't all be joining the great Power Breakfast in the sky. I may take a few liberties with them but I'm not interested in death. That's more my son's area of endeavor."