“Pretty eyes, though,” Rondeau said.
Marla laughed.
After Marla left, B seriously considered taking a train back to the East Bay and going about the regular business of his life: reading history and mythology books, sleeping as much as possible, sifting through his dreams. What difference did it make to him what happened to Marla? But he knew his life was tangled up in hers for the next few days, that causes already past had led to effects that were as yet unnoticed. She didn’t want to acknowledge that, didn’t believe it—fair enough. Things would become clear to her later. He just wanted to get through these next days, and see Marla get through them. Because if she didn’t, San Francisco would suffer a disaster that would make the 1906 earthquake and fire seem trivial. After all, those nested catastrophes had only destroyed a third of the city. Things were likely to be a lot worse this time, and these days there was a lot more city to be destroyed. B had no great affection for San Francisco, but that was mostly because it was the center of his old life, when he’d worked in the movies and lived with his lover, H. Now he lived across the bay, in Oakland, where H had died, where the ghost that B was most responsible for resided. Even so, he’d had one of those dreams, and he knew from past experience there was no getting out of it—even if he tried to run away, events would conspire to draw him in.
He had the feeling Marla could be difficult to find if she wanted to be, and B wasn’t much good at tracking people down. Fortunately, he had other methods. It was never very difficult to find an oracle, or a minor spirit, or a cryptophyte that could provide him with information. After wandering through various alleys, he noticed a huge metal trash bin, dented and smeared with filth. Rapping his knuckles gently on the side of the bin, he said, “Hey. This is Bradley Bowman. Who’s there?”
A voice replied, low, hollow: “Murmurus.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I need some information.”
“I once taught in the classrooms of Hell,” the voice said, wistfully.
“Now’s your chance to teach again,” B said. “I need to know how to find a woman named Marla Mason. Where she’ll be later. I think something big is going to happen soon…tonight, or tomorrow. Do you know anything?”
“There are whispers in the gutters, voices humming across the glass,” Murmurus said. “Frogs, and birds, and monsters. Old things come around again. Sleepers awakening. Sorcerers rising up against one another. Bodies stolen and bodies lost. The woman seeks something ancient and powerful, but she is not the only one who seeks it.”
“I just need a place,” B said. “And a time wouldn’t hurt.”
“The hill in the lake,” Murmurus said. “A sweet red hill, filling the lake. There is nowhere else she can be. But she will arrive too late. Tomorrow will be too late.”
“How can I repay your help?” B said.
“Books,” the voice replied.
B had to walk a long way to find a used bookstore. He bought a cardboard box full of old paperbacks, making sure none of the titles was duplicated, but otherwise not paying much attention to the types of books they were. A disembodied spirit that lived in a Dumpster probably wasn’t that picky when it came to reading material. He walked back to the Dumpster and tossed the books inside. Murmurus didn’t make a sound of acknowledgment, but B felt a soothing sense of neutrality, of balance reinstated, come over him as he walked away. He’d learned you always had to pay your debts, or the nightmares would shake your life apart.
So now B knew where Marla would be tomorrow—though that was still an awfully big window of time—and he knew it would be too late, though he didn’t know what it would be too late for—not too late for everything, he hoped. In the meantime, he had a whole night to kill.
Well, why not go to the Castro, grab a bite to eat, hang around? He hadn’t been there in ages, and it had once been his happiest home. There were lots of memories there, but not all memories were traps or poisons. Maybe he could find a good memory to keep him warm through the night.
3
Marla and Rondeau wound up strolling in Yerba Buena Gardens. They were in the middle of a city, but all she smelled was grass and cool air. Marla had to admit—to herself, if not to Rondeau—that she liked the gardens, and suspected that if they visited Golden Gate Park, she’d like that, too. In the heart of her own city, where she lived and worked, most of the parks were magnets for drug dealers and users, perpetually trash-strewn, thoroughly unpleasant. The parks on the outskirts and in the suburbs were nicer, of course, but when her city had first begun growing, little thought was given to creating public green spaces. She’d been told the parks at home were nicer in the daytime, less dangerous, but Marla was usually sleeping during the brightest part of the day. Her work was more closely aligned with the night. But here, in this park at least, the night held no particular terrors, and a crowd of people milled around the modern building that Rondeau called the Metreon. Sounded like the name of a minor angel to Marla, but whatever.