Kill the Dead

TRACY LOCKS THE office and walks us around the corner to an apartment building a couple of blocks away. It’s one of those peculiar L.A. complexes supported on a series of metal legs, with an open parking area underneath and the apartments above. It’s like Hannibal Lecter hired an architect to design something guaranteed to turn into a human trash compactor in any quake higher than a 3.0. She has a corner place on the top floor. It was probably the old owner or manager’s place because it looks like someone knocked down a wall and made two small apartments into one decent-size one. A small blond woman lets us in. “That’s him? I thought it was just going to be one person coming.” “It’s okay, baby. The chick’s a doctor and she brought the candy.” Tracy ushers us in and closes the door behind us. “This is Fiona,” she says, going over to the blonde. “Fiona, this is Stark and Allegra.” “Hi.” “Thanks for letting us in on such short notice,” says Allegra. Fiona gives her a nervous smile. “It’s just that Johnny doesn’t get a lot of visitors and we know most of the people who come to see him.” “So, why are you here to see Johnny?” asks Tracy. I say, “Because Johnny may be top of his class, but his friends cut school and they’re hungry.” She stiffens. “There’s going to be an outbreak?” asks Tracy. “There already is, but it’s early. Maybe Johnny can help us stop it from getting out of control.” “We haven’t heard anything about rogue zeds and we know some important Sub Rosas,” says Fiona. “People have been disappearing for weeks, but just one or two at a time. Last night was the first breakout of Drifters into the streets. If the Sub Rosa isn’t being chatty about it, it’s probably because someone in the Sub Rosa is behind it.” “Are you sure?” “Yes.” “Who?” “Cabal is my guess. He’s got the background, the family chip on his shoulder, and his public drunken crazy act has most of the other families scared. And they should be. Just because Cabal pretends like he might be crazy doesn’t mean he’s not.” Tracy gets a bottle of blue Mexican soda from the refrigerator, twists off the cap, and tosses it into the sink. “If no one is talking about escaped zeds, how do you know about it?” “Because I let them out. They bit a friend of mine and they escaped while I was getting her away.” “You let them out? So this is all your fault.” “They got out when I was trying to save a friend. Someone who came halfway around the world to stop exactly what’s happening and save all your asses. You want to start working on whose fault it is those Drifters got out last night, how about finding out who put them there in the first place?” “I suppose,” says Tracy. “Where were they?” “At the Springheels’ place.” Tracy and Fiona exchange a look, but neither says anything. I hold up the cooler. “This is getting heavy. Think we could meet Johnny?” Tracy sets the soda on the counter and gestures for us to follow her to a closed door at the far end of the apartment. “Don’t come in until I tell you to and don’t say anything until I tell him who you are. Savants are kind of obsessive-compulsives. Don’t take it personally if he ignores you for a while.” “Got it.” She opens the door and says, “Johnny?” like she’s talking to a nervous six-year-old. “There are some friends here to see you. Can I let them in?” I don’t hear anything, but Tracy waves us in. “Johnny, this is Allegra and Stark. They brought you some presents.” She nods at us to put the cooler and jelly beans on the floor near Johnny. Johnny Thunders is hunched over a metal folding table wearing a magnifying visor on his smooth white head. He’s studying something microscopic in his left hand while his right hovers above it with a delicate paintbrush. He’s wearing black sweatpants and nothing else. He looks like an albino mantis about to strike. Johnny is beyond skinny. He’s Auschwitz thin. You can count each of his ribs. Practically strike a match on them. But he doesn’t look sick or weak, more like he’s a separate breed of minimalist humans designed to take up as little physical space in the world as possible. “Can you say hello, Johnny?” “Just a minute,” he mumbles. His right hand moves almost imperceptibly. I’m not sure Allegra or Tracy saw it. I barely caught it and I can see down to the quarks in his fingernails. Johnny holds his microscopic object at arm’s length, studies it for a second, blows on it, and sets it down in a small upturned box lid. There are dozens of other flea-size objects in the lid. Apparently satisfied, Johnny turns and looks at us. He smiles and for a minute looks sort of human. “Hi. I’m Johnny.” He stands and puts out his hand. It’s reflexive. Something he’s learned or remembers from another life. Allegra shakes and I follow. He holds on to my hand and looks at me, cocks his head like a dog listening for a strange sound. “They brought you some goodies,” says Tracy. Johnny touches the cooler and bags of candy with his toes. “Thanks.” “Glad to,” I say. “Mind if we sit down?” “Of course not.” Tracy gets us a couple of folding chairs from the closet. Johnny crosses his long legs and waits for us to start. I heard that the dead are usually patient. What else do they have to do? Allegra takes an old Polaroid camera out of her shoulder bag. “Do you mind if I take your picture?” Johnny smiles and sits up. “Is this all right?” he asks. “Perfect,” says Allegra. She presses a button and the flash goes off. The camera’s motor grinds and ejects the shot. Allegra takes the photo and rests it on her lap while it develops. I ask, “Do you know about the other dead people in the city, Johnny?” “Not really.” “Some got out into the streets last night. They’re probably going to cause a lot of trouble.” “I’m sorry. But I don’t know anything about them. I know I’m one of the twenty-seven, but I don’t know much about other revenants.” It was a long shot that the smart ones might have a sense about or a psychic link to the dumb ones. “What are the twenty-seven?” “I don’t know. It’s my understanding that no one knows.” “Do you like being here? Do you ever want to get out of this room?” “I like it here. Tracy and Fiona are wonderful and the people who come to visit are mostly very nice.” “Mostly, but not always. Who hasn’t been nice? Cabal?” Johnny shrugs. “He tried to be nice, but I don’t think it’s in his nature. I think he’s a very troubled person.” “Did Cabal want to take you out of here and away from Tracy and Fiona?” “No. We just talked.” “About what?” “I don’t remember.” Is this how I’m going to end up if the Stark part of me dies off? Like a psych patient drooling on Thorazine. Or will I be something else? I’m already something else, I think. Not that that helps much. The stronger this angel vision gets, the deeper I can see inside things. But I still can’t be sure if Johnny is a well-spoken Drifter or a P. T. Barnum scam. Allegra leans over and hands me the photo. The anima-scope built into the camera can catch the life essence on film. Johnny’s isn’t there. The photo is a normal shot of a boring room except for the Johnny-shaped black hole in the middle. It’s true, then. Johnny is as dead as corn dogs. What would that camera show if I let Allegra shoot me? “Did you ever bite anyone, Johnny? Did you ever kill anyone and turn them into something like you?” “That’s completely out of line,” says Tracy. Johnny raises a hand. “It’s all right. The truth is I don’t know. I think I was dead for a long time before I woke up and became what I am now. I suppose I might have hurt some people back when I was a zed.” I didn’t expect him to even know that word, much less use it. “No one’s taken you out of here recently? Even if it was just for a little while?” “That I would remember. Why would I go? I have everything I want right here.” “Not free-range flesh. You like Tracy and Fiona and you’d never hurt them, but what about a stranger? What if someone took you out of here and let you loose on someone you didn’t know?” He looks at the floor. Crosses his legs and shifts in his seat like it’s suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m not sure,” he says. “But as I said, I haven’t left the apartment in a long time.” “Maybe it’s time to take a break,” says Tracy. “Just one more thing. If a regular person like Tracy here got bitten by someone like you, or maybe a zed, is there some way to fix her?” “You mean so she doesn’t die and return?” “Yes.” “No. There’s nothing for that.” Tracy comes over and stands between Johnny and us. “That’s it for now. Let’s let Johnny have his snack, and if he feels like it, he can answer a few more questions.” As Tracy talks, Johnny takes off the top of the cooler and looks inside. He goes to a dresser and takes a plastic sheet from the top and spreads it on the floor like a picnic blanket. He rips off the top of one of the bags of jelly beans and pours the candy into the pig guts and blood, stirring it with his fingers. He looks at us and grins. “I have a bit of a sweet tooth.” “Let’s go have some coffee and let Johnny eat,” says Tracy, shooing us out of the room and closing the door. “He likes to eat by himself. He knows his food bothers living people. It’s his way of being polite.” “He’s not what I expected. He’s like a kid.” Fiona started the coffeemaker while we were in with Johnny. It smells good. She pours cups for all of us. “He isn’t always like this. None of the undead sleep, but they still have bodies and bodies need rest. Every few weeks, Johnny goes into a kind of fugue state. Sleepy. Vague. Uncommunicative. Like he’s suddenly autistic. After a couple of days, he starts coming out of it. That’s what he’s doing now, so he’s a little slower than usual.” “How’s his memory?” “Look, if you still think someone’s been sneaking him out, you can forget it. Johnny’s tagged with one of those house-arrest ankle bracelets. If he tried to leave here or if someone tried to take him, alarms would go off all over the place.” “Someone could disable it with tools or magic.” “Yeah, but they’d have to know about it. The bracelet isn’t on his ankle. It’s inside him. Sewed inside his stomach cavity.” Dammit. Cabal using Johnny as a blunt instrument was a nice neat package, but Johnny seems to be off the hook. Cabal, on the other hand, is still homecoming king to me. I just need to connect a few more dots. Allegra pours cream and sugar into her coffee. “How’d he get the name Johnny Thunders?” Fiona smiles like a mother remembering her kid’s first step. “Johnny was in one of his fugues when they brought him here. I think moving when he was zoned out was hard on him. He ignored us and didn’t talk for days. He just stared at the wall. We used to leave the TV or music on when we weren’t in the room so he’d have company. Usually one of us was in the apartment, but this one night Tracy’s car broke down and I had to go and pick her up. When we got back, Johnny was bouncing up and down singing along with the stereo. It was the Murder City Devils song ‘Johnny Thunders.’” I drink the coffee straight. It feels good to have coffee for its own sake and not to cure the night before. “Why was he staring at his hands with a magnifier when we went in?” Tracy says, “He wasn’t staring. He was working. I said it before, Savants are obsessives. They do something really well and they do it over and over again. They’ll do it forever, I guess.” She pours herself more coffee. “Johnny likes words and he likes geology. He’s transcribing the entire

Oxford English Dictionary

onto grains of sand. The last time I asked, he was up to ‘farraginous.’” I take my coffee, go back to Johnny’s door, and open it. He’s bent over the cooler on his knees, a fistful of pig guts in each hand. His mouth and chest are smeared with blood and half-dissolved jelly beans. Not exactly a yearbook photo, but I saw plenty worse Downtown. Hell, I did worse. When Johnny notices me he smiles. “These are really good. Thanks.” “Before Tracy told me to bring the candy, I didn’t even know Drifters could taste anything.” “That’s what most people think. They bring smelly meat and old, clotted blood. That’s zed food. This is better.” “You’re welcome. Who comes to see you?” He shrugs. “A few Sub Rosas. I think they’re important, but they’re not very interesting. They always ask about what I remember. I tell them the same thing I told you. I don’t remember anything before waking up, but I think they think if they keep asking, I’ll remember and they’ll win a prize or something.” “Even if you do remember, you don’t have to tell them anything. They’re your memories, not theirs.” He nods and shoves more pig into his mouth. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to finish my coffee and come back and talk a little more.” “Okay,” he says through a full mouth. I go back to the kitchen and Fiona pours more coffee. Tracy stares at me. “You must walk on goddamn water. Johnny never just talks to people like that, especially when he’s eating.” “I get along pretty well with monsters.” “Johnny’s not a monster,” says Fiona in a tone that tells me I’m not getting any more of her coffee. “Yeah, he is. Look out your window. Johnny’s the worst nightmare most of those people will ever have.” “That’s only because they don’t know him.” “They don’t want to know him. Or you. You feed the monster and hide his leftovers in the trash under the pizza boxes. Don’t get me wrong. I like monsters. But to people who don’t like them, people who help monsters are monsters, too.” “What are you getting at?” asks Tracy. “How did you end up being Johnny’s stepmoms?” “Granddad was Sub Rosa, but Dad wasn’t born with the gift and neither were any of us. After Granddad died, the family kind of went to shit. You heard about Enoch Springheel?” “Yeah.” “He was a distant cousin. His part of the family used to look after Johnny. When there was just Enoch left, well, he couldn’t take care of himself, much less a Savant. That’s when we got him.” “I’m going to see if Johnny’s finished,” says Fiona, and goes to his room. “A few of the big families kicked in and pay us to look after him,” says Tracy. “They make like they’re doing us a favor because all us Springheels are such losers. The truth is that none of them want Johnny around. For all their money and power, they’re a bunch of pussies.” She looks over her shoulder. “Don’t tell Fi I said it like that.” “We’ll keep your secret,” says Allegra. Tracy looks at my coat, then at me. “Are you packing?” “Always.” “Can I see?” I take out the Smith & Wesson and hand it to her butt end first. She weighs the .460 in her hand. “What are you planning on shooting with this?” “You never know when Hannibal is going to come back with his elephants.” She hands me back the pistol. “Years ago I was a cop. I’m glad I don’t have to carry anymore.” “With Drifters loose, you might want to reconsider that. At least for the next few days.” She shrugs. “I’ll think about it.” Fiona comes back with a plastic trash bag filled with something wet. “Johnny is finished and cleaned up. You can talk to him for a few more minutes, but then I think that’s enough for today.” She means she wants us out of here, but she’s too polite to say it. We go back to Johnny’s room and sit down. He looks a lot better than when we first came in. Alert and awake. “I just want to ask you a couple more things and then we’ll leave you alone.” “That’s okay. I like talking to you.” “Tracy tells me that you used to live at the Springheels’ house. I’ve been there, too. Did you ever go into the basement behind the wall?” “All the time. Enoch liked us to play down there.” I seriously don’t want to know anything about the games an autophagia freak would play with a zombie. “Last night a group of Drifters came out of the basement. There was a big hole in one wall. It looked new and like it might have led to a tunnel. Do you know where it goes?” “A lot of the old family houses were built over the caves in case they needed to run away. Of course, they don’t use them anymore. Enoch didn’t have much common sense, but even he wouldn’t go down there. Live people never go into the Jackal’s Backbone.” “Tell me about the Jackal’s Backbone, Johnny.” “It’s where the dead people live. It’s where everybody lives.” “What do you mean ‘everybody’?” “Everybody who dies in Los Angeles goes into the Jackal’s Backbone and stays there. Unless they find one of the tunnels that leads out or unless someone comes and gets them, like me. I guess it’s pretty crowded down there these days.” A sick, cold feeling rises from my stomach. “When you say ‘everybody’ do you mean all the people in the cemeteries? What about the people before that? Before the city was here. Are they there, too?” “Everybody. The Jackal’s Backbone has been around for a long time.” “What if someone wasn’t buried? What if they were cremated and their ashes scattered in the ocean?” He thinks about that for a minute. “I don’t know. I only remember a little of the caves from when I woke up and before they took me away. The rest I learned from people who come by to talk to me.” “Like Cabal.” “He knows a lot about them. He said there’s someone else who knows even more and told him about the Backbone after he did something for them.” “Do you remember what he did?” “No.” “If I wanted to go into the Jackal’s Backbone, would you go with me? You could show me where you woke up.” “I don’t remember it very well.” “Maybe you will if you go back.” “Maybe.” “Would you go with me?” “Hey,” says Tracy. “You can’t ask him that.” Johnny says, “I don’t think you should go into the Backbone. It doesn’t seem right.” “I have to. Someone is using Drifters to kill people they don’t like and now some are loose in the city. I have a feeling more are going to get loose. I need to understand why it’s happening. And there’s someone I need to look for and see if she’s in the Backbone.” “You won’t be able to find one person. There’s about a million people there.” “I still have to try. Will you go with me?” Tracy says, “Johnny, don’t listen. You don’t want to go out there where people will be afraid of you.” “No one will know I’m there if I go into the Backbone.” “You can’t leave,” says Tracy. “That’s final.” She whips around at me and sticks a finger in my face. “And you, asshole. I knew I shouldn’t have let you in. Get out.” “Johnny is one of the twenty-seven. I think if he wants something, he should get it. Including going home.” “Get out.” “It’s your choice, Johnny.” “You need to leave now.” I turn around. It’s Fiona. She looks very determined. The .45 automatic in her hand is probably helping with that. I turn to Tracy. “Let me guess. Your old cop gun, right?” Tracy says, “It’s a big bad world out there. A lady needs to know how to defend herself, doesn’t she, Fi?” “Herself and her loved ones. You two need to leave.” Allegra is frozen in her seat. I think it’s been kind of a long day for her. I take her arm and pull her to her feet. “Okay, we’re going. You be careful with that.” Fiona cocks it. “Go to hell.” Allegra tugs on my coat. “Let’s go.” We start for the door, Fiona behind us, an angry righteous mom defending her brood. “Fi?” It’s Johnny calling. “Yeah?” Fiona pushes us the last few feet and throws the dead bolt to let us out. “I think I want to go.” “No you don’t, Johnny. It’s dangerous and you can’t trust these people.” “I think I want to go.” “Let’s talk about it after they’re gone.” “I don’t think I want to talk about it. I want to go.” Fiona keeps the gun on us. She looks back at Johnny standing in the doorway to his room. He says, “I want to go.” “You can’t.” “Stark’s right. I’m one of the special ones. Sometimes I get to say what I do.” She sighs and says, “Johnny, the twenty-seven thing is made up. It’s a way to keep you smart ones together and controlled.” “I still want to go. We’ll go tonight. It’s too bright out now. It hurts my eyes. Come back tonight. When is it dark, Tracy?” “It gets dark late, honey. And you want it real dark if you go out. Don’t go out before eleven.” “Come back at eleven,” says Johnny. “I’ll be here.” Johnny goes back into his room and for a second I think that Fiona might shoot us on principle. Finally she puts the gun on the kitchen counter. Tracy puts her arm around her. “Get the fuck out,” she says. When we get outside, Allegra wants to run but I hold her back. Even with people, running makes you look like prey and we don’t want to look like prey to an angry mom with a .45. “Now you know some of the kinds of things Eugène and I have seen. What do you think?” Allegra holds a hand over her mouth. I can feel her trembling under all the shirts and sweaters Vidocq made her wear. Get ready for the waterworks. Get ready for her to puke. This is when it always happens. People get away from danger, start to relax, and it all comes out at once. “What do you think?” She lowers her hand. “That was the most awesome thing ever.” She grabs me and hugs me as hard as anyone ever has. “Let’s get home. I want to blow Eugène’s mind.” We head back to the Boulevard. I scan the backs of stores and sides of apartment buildings for a decent shadow shielded from the street. The sun is so goddamn bright at this time of day it’s bleaching the shadows to frail patches of gray. Those pale shadows are no good to get to the Room, but they’re beautiful. I can see each burning photon and trace it all the way back to where it emerged from the sun. We could call a cab to get home, but in the morning in this part of Hollywood we could wait an hour. I could steal a car, but that might be one colorful adventure too many for Allegra. I’d rather float home through the sewer on a raft made of medical waste than take the bus. Fuck it. I turn back and forth looking for a likely car. That draws my attention away from the rest of the street until they’re right on top of us. I smell them from ten feet away, but am distracted enough to think it’s restaurant trash that’s gone ripe. I know what a complete fucking idiot I am when I hear Allegra give a little yelp. There’s two Lacunas. A man and a woman, if you can call them that. They’re pretty obviously dead. Their skin looks like bruised sandpaper wrapped around fat and muscle. The male wears a camouflage baseball cap. The female wears wraparound shades. They both have knives and are holding them at Allegra’s throat. Even with it pressed right up to her carotid, I know I could get the knife away from one of them and pry its skull open with it before it could hurt her. But I’m not sure about two. Especially two somethings that feel no pain, are kind of dumb, and aren’t afraid of ending up any more dead than they already are. “You going to do something, tough guy? Save the day, cocksucker,” says the female. “No. I think I’m going to stand right here and admire the view.” “Good cocksucker. Smart cocksucker. First smart thing you’ve said in a week,” says the male. “Is that it? Did you come by to hurt my feelings or are muggers getting paid by the word these days?” The female is next to Allegra, pinning one of her arms to her side while pressing the tip of her knife into her throat. The male holds Allegra from behind. He has his arm wrapped around her neck with the side of his blade ready to slice her jugular. He presses the knife harder against her neck. “Watch your tone, cocksucker. One of us might twitch.” “It’s nothing personal. I’m just trying to get the conversation rolling and find out what it is you walking garbage heaps want.” “We want you to go to Disney World,” says the female. “It’s called

Disneyland,

you stupid cunt,” says the male. “No. There’s another one. In Florida, I think.” “If you two want to go get a map, we can come back later,” I say. “Shut up,” says the male. “You need to take a vacation. Stop everything you’re doing and go away. Right now. This goddamn minute.” “I’m kind of booked up. How about Labor Day? We can all go to Hawaii together. Get a cabin on the beach and burn you two for firewood.” The female is jumpy. She really doesn’t like not stabbing anyone. When I have to move, she’ll go first. “That’s the wrong attitude. For you and her, but especially her. You don’t want her to end up in pieces like the Fiddler, do you?” “I don’t know any fiddlers, but I’ve never been into blue-grass. Either of you ever listen to Skull Valley Sheep Kill? Now, that’s music.” “He’s too stupid to get it. Cut her,” says the female. I say, “No. Don’t. Don’t move at all. Stay exactly where you are.” I’m a little surprised and extremely relieved when they do it. “Put down your knives. Let go of her and move away.” The Lacunas do that, too. I grab Allegra, pull her away, and push behind me. “Throw your knives into the street.” They toss them. I turn to Allegra. “Are you okay?” She steps up beside me. “Fine. Who are they? And why are they just standing there?” “Take a deep breath. Smell that? They’re Lacunas, pitbull Drifters. And I think they’re standing there for the same reason that Johnny said he’d come with me tonight. Because of this.” I take Eleanor’s belt buckle out of my pocket and show it to her. “What is that?” “I have no idea, but it’s honey to Drifters. They can’t get enough of it and it seems to have some control over them.” “So, you didn’t know they’d listen to you when you started calling them names?” “After Johnny said yes so fast, I had a hunch.” “I’m pretty sure I hate you right now.” “But you’re not positive. I can live with that.” Allegra goes to the gutter and retrieves the Lacunas’ knives. She pockets the male’s, but holds the female’s, a black KA-BAR. She points the tip at the male. “What did they mean I don’t want to end up like the Fiddler?” “It’s a kind of hoodoo. Titus Eshu is a Fiddler and this maggot pile just told me that he’s dead. Titus was looking for some lady’s kid and he’s been murdered for it. That’s one more person fucked up by whatever this is.” “How did they know where we’d be?” “Good question. You, Dark Phoenix, how did you know where we were?” The female takes something the size of a matchbox from her pocket and hands it to me. “What is it?” asks Allegra. “It’s a tracker. This is Vigil tech. It has to be.” I hold up my arms. “Pat me down. See if there’s anything on me.” Allegra stands behind me and runs her hands down my arms and sides and around my boots. She starts one leg, but stops. “There’s something on the bottom hem of your coat.” “Let me see it.” I feel a tug and she hands it to me. It’s the size of my thumbnail. A matte black beetle with six pincer legs. I check the screen on the matchbox the Lacuna gave me. The GPS map shows our exact location. Great. The Vigil is dealing in Drifters now. Are they running this show or just piggybacking on someone else’s apocalypse, taking the opportunity to knock off people they don’t like and make it look like someone else’s fault? “What are we going to do with them?” Allegra asks. A garbage truck is moving our way. It looks like it’s picking up commercial loads from stores and apartment buildings. I tell the Drifters, “Come over here,” then lead them to the parking lot attached to a self-storage place. There’s a double-size commercial Dumpster hidden from the street by a low wood-slat fence. “Open your mouth,” I tell the male Lacuna. He does. I toss the tracker down his throat. “Shut your mouth and both of you get into the garbage.” I look at Allegra. “Go back to the street. Let me know when the truck is close.” She knows I just want her away from here and she’s happy to oblige. When she’s out of sight I take out the na’at, twist it to expose its sharpest edge, raise it, and bring it down hard, splitting the male Lacuna from head to crotch, making sure to slice his spine in half. The two halves crumple onto the trash bags. Its blood has long since turned to dark sludge, so there’s almost no spray from the cut. I do the same thing to the female, and when both of their bodies are laid out in the garbage, I slice them in half at the waist. Smaller parts are easier to hide and harder to recognize if some citizen happens by. The barbs on the na’at are good for hooking trash bags. I stamp the Lacuna giblets down into the can and camouflage them by piling garbage on top. Just in case they aren’t dead, I lean over the Dumpster and say, “If you don’t get crushed and make it to the dump site, you’re going to stay wherever you fall. You’re not going to bite or scratch anyone. Just lie there and wait for the crows to pick your bones clean.” Allegra and I go across the street to a real estate office. We check our phones. Look around. Check the wrist-watches neither of us owns and generally try to look like we’re waiting for someone. The truck rumbles to a stop across the street. Two bored, sunburned men hop off the back and wheel the Dumpster into place so that the truck’s hydraulic lifts can upend it. When it’s twenty feet up, the garbage slides into the big compactor. I think I catch a flash of the female Lacuna’s legs, but no one else seems to notice. One of the men hits the button that activates the compactor. It grinds through its cycle, stops, and resets. The driver guns the engine and the truck moves on to the next pickup. I’m sick of regular people who can’t see what light is made of. I don’t care what they think or what might give them bad dreams. I take Allegra’s hand and pull her into a shadow in the real estate office doorway. An agent inside sees us coming and opens the door just as we disappear.