Marla frowned. “Time? You can’t just…manifest one? The way you did with the asps, and those snakes that made the truth-circle, and the glowing ones in the back room?”
Ch’ang Hao shook his head. “I fear not. Those are mystical serpents. They do not eat, or breathe, or breed. You need a real, living, particular sort of snake. I can find it, unerringly, but it will take me…at least three days. One and a half to go to the jungle and find the snake, and as much again to come back.”
Marla wondered if the city would even be standing in two days. “I guess that’ll have to do,” she said, though she suspected it would be too late.
“Wait,” Rondeau said. “You can walk to a South American jungle and back in two days?”
“I have my own ways of traveling,” Ch’ang Hao said. “Walking is part of it.”
“Well, yeah,” B said. “But is it faster than hopping on an airplane to get you most of the way? Say, from San Francisco to Bogotá?”
“What is an airplane?” Ch’ang Hao said.
“Ah,” Marla said, rubbing her hands together. “This might work out after all. Rondeau, you’re going to get Ch’ang Hao some proper traveling clothes, take him to the airport, explain to him how everything works, see him on his way, and all that.”
“What is an airplane?” Ch’ang Hao repeated, patiently.
“A way of traveling great distances at relatively high speed and in considerable discomfort. All will be revealed,” Rondeau said. “Just come with me.” He turned to Marla. “Where do I meet you guys when I get back?”
“Just wait for us at the hotel room,” she said. “B and I have some errands to run.”
“We do?” B said.
“Yeah,” Marla said. “We do. I’m tired of chasing Mutex around town, and now that Ch’ang Hao is going to get a snake for me, we’ve got other options. I’d rather get ahead of Mutex for once. It’s time I found out just what, exactly, you can do, B.”
15
Find me an oracle,” Marla said, and crossed her arms.
B frowned. “Right now?” He looked around. They were just outside the limits of Chinatown, near the City Lights Bookstore, where Marla had cast her first divination to try to find Lao Tsung—yesterday afternoon, and a subjective hundred years ago. “Right here?”
“I need to know where to find Mutex,” she said. “I need to know where he’s going to be tomorrow.” That would give Ch’ang Hao time to return with the snake. It might also give Mutex time to kill every sorcerer in the city, but that was a chance she had to take. More importantly, it might give Susan time to act against her, but there was nothing Marla could do about that, not now. The spell Susan planned to cast was complex, and Marla just had to hope it wouldn’t be ready today. She knew Hamil was doing his best to stall things.
“Okay,” B said. “I’ll do my best.” He went toward Jack Kerouac Alley, between Vesuvio and City Lights. He stopped near a pile of stacked pallets, and put the palm of his hand against the wall of Vesuvio. “Hey,” he said. “Anyone here? I could use some help.”
Marla had her spirit-eyes on, and she didn’t see anything, not so much as a shade or a specter, let alone the concentrated power of an oracle.
Suddenly something rose from behind the pallets, a mist that took the shape of a man with ash-gray skin and monochrome clothing. Its skin—or its semblance of skin—was slack and wrinkled, and it mumbled something incomprehensible. B mumbled something back, then gestured to Marla. “Come on,” he said. “Ask him what you need to know.”
Marla nodded, and started forward calmly enough, but inside she was caught between shock and elation. B had conjured this oracle, drawn it up out of the stones and memory of the city. This being was, in truth, nothing but a semi-physical manifestation of B’s own incredible perceptive powers. He was no mere seer, but something far more rare and valuable. Some of his visions were so powerful that he couldn’t experience them via direct perception, and so he had to manifest outside sources to present the information. Marla had heard of such individuals, oracle-generating seers, but they were as legendary in their way as Merlin or Sanford Cole. Bowman thought he was summoning an oracle, and there was probably some sort of supernatural entity here—a ghost fragment of a dead Beat poet, perhaps—but that merely provided a focus and form for the expression of B’s power. She turned toward the oracle. “I need to know where Mutex will be tomorrow afternoon,” she said.