California Bones (11 page)

“So how do we breach it?” Cassandra said, squinting at the scale chip.

“Seps venom is the only thing I know that burns through firedrake,” Emma said.

Daniel had never worked with seps, but he knew it was one of the most corrosive substances in existence. The Hierarch used it to destroy an entire armored tank division in the Death Valley Standoff. Sometimes archeomancers uncovered a bit of it, but seps venom hardly ever left European shores. Finding it in Los Angeles wouldn’t be easy.

Daniel turned to Otis, who’d been watching the meeting from the back of the room. “Got any seps in stock?”

“Afraid not.”

“Surprised. You’ve been handing over bone like it’s Victory Day.” Otis was coy about how he’d come into grootslang and gorgon blood. Even for him, this stuff was hard to get. But he’d clearly tapped into some good treasure, and he wasn’t afraid to spend it.

“I don’t have seps,” he said, uncrossing his arms. “But I know who does.”

*   *   *

Five days later, Daniel had his crew prepped to go get it. This would be a good test. If they couldn’t handle a residential burglary, then no way could they pull off the Ossuary job. Better to find that out now.

He still couldn’t believe he was going to break into the house of a Los Angeles god. Not that anyone else on the crew considered Wilson Bryant a god, but his father would go on for hours about the mystical brilliance of the music he made as leader of The Woodies, especially on their breakthrough album,
Animal Talk
. To which Daniel’s only ever response was, “The cow goes moo.”

Bryant lived in a two-story Malibu beach house elevated above the surf on pylons. A lot of celebrities insisted on living in this pretty part of town, and every few years their houses were swallowed by the sea or consumed by fires in the canyons, or swept down the hills in mudslides. They would come on television, looking stylishly disheveled, and proclaim how they weren’t going to let misfortune break their spirits, and how they were going to rebuild, and Daniel would throw a shoe at the TV.

But Daniel liked the location. Bobbing offshore in a rigid inflatable boat with his crew, he scoped out the house through binoculars. All visible windows were barred. There was a swiveling security camera on the roof, another on a second-floor balustrade, and a stationary camera over the door. Several alarm company placards were displayed like hexes. A glow in one of the upstairs windows suggested someone was home.

Daniel maneuvered the boat to avoid the pools of light cast by flood lamps on the roof. He killed the outboard motor, and rode the surf up to the iron mesh skirting the barnacle-encrusted pylons. Cassandra and Jo made quick work of the mesh with bolt cutters, and Moth paddled the boat under the house. Daniel tied off on one of the pylons and took a good sniff. Brine and sphinx-lock and a tinge of cannabis.

There was just enough space overhead for Daniel to stand. He played his flashlight over the web of support struts and spars, hoping to find an easy entrance—a rubbish chute or something. But no such luck. They’d have to cut through the floor.

Cassandra lifted an eighteen-inch, four-horsepower chainsaw. Hefting it in one hand, she smiled like a murderer.

This was going to be noisy. Daniel hated noise. He held up a finger before Cassandra touched the pull cord. With a rubber bladder, he squeezed out a few puffs of fine yellow sand. Ancient Egyptians had constructed myths around the snake personified by the cobra-goddess Meretseger. Her name meant “she who loves silence,” and it made sense to Daniel that pyramid builders revered her, since any moment of silence amid the clang and crack of hammers and chisels must have been a huge relief.

Daniel gave Cassandra the nod. She yanked the cord of the chainsaw. Muffled by the meretseger dust, the blade cut through wood, no louder than an electric razor. Less than eighty seconds later, Cassandra had sawed a gap in the floor big enough for everyone but Moth to climb through. They donned ski masks, and Daniel and Cassandra and Jo went up.

They found themselves in a dark hallway hung with framed gold and platinum records. Daniel noticed Jo’s acquisitive gaze, and he shook his head no. Sometimes the hardest part of a job was leaving good treasure behind, and he didn’t want a repeat of the Sylmar job with Punch and the monocerus.

Without speaking, they moved from room to room, ready for bodyguards. Bryant lived well. Given all the shiny trophy records on the wall, he could afford to. In the living room, a white grand piano rose from thick, soft carpet like a gleaming island. From the panoramic windows, one could look out to sea, and on a clear day, you’d be able to spot Catalina Island. Down the coast, candy-colored lights twinkled from the Santa Monica Pier, where Daniel had found the kraken spine a lifetime ago.

The house was set up like a museum, with glass display cases stuffing entire rooms. Daniel lost count of the Grammys and Los Angeles Arts Medals and the dozens of other industry awards and civic honors on show. When they came to a room housing Bryant’s comic book collection, Daniel reflexively began to add up values. He stopped before a case containing a crisp, clean first issue of
Lord Lightning
and swooned. Cassandra had to drag him away.

There was a room of baseball cards, and two rooms of guitars, and judging by the aromas permeating the carpet and walls, a sizable store of marijuana somewhere. Mostly Daniel smelled a rich miasma of osteomancy, but only recreational magic. Not the seps he was looking for.

He had to admit he was having fun. This felt good, being with Cassandra and Jo, knowing that Moth was keeping watch outside while they snuck through a place forbidden to them by law and economic status. Even more than using magic, this was when he felt powerful. If he wanted to, he could strip the house of all its gold and platinum and vintage Fender Stratocasters and pristine comics. Bryant was rich, which meant Bryant was powerful. Yet Daniel could take his power.

He gave a hand signal and the crew crept upstairs. More shiny metal records on the walls and pungent osteomancy. The room with the light was down the end of a corridor, and if Bryant had bodyguards, they’d let Daniel get unforgivably close. Either that, or they were waiting behind the double doors of the lit room. The doors were thick wooden things, carved in high relief with a surfer dude riding a longboard.

Cassandra counted on her fingers. When she reached three, she and Jo shoved the doors open, poison-tipped needle guns drawn. Daniel came in behind them, electricity on his fingers.

If the piano downstairs was an island, then the bed in the center of the vast bedroom was a continent. It rose on a mound of beach sand. The headboard was a cabinet towering to the ceiling, the shelves cluttered with more trophies and memorabilia, including photos of Bryant with Hollywood luminaries and members of the Council of Six, and more guitars, and even a surfboard. And propped up on pillows sat Wilson Bryant himself, bearded, huge, and barely contained by a white silk kimono. Yellow legal pads and In-N-Out burger wrappers lay scattered on his lap. Beside him was an acoustic guitar, half covered by a sheet like a sleeping lover.

He squinted at Daniel with red-rimmed eyes. “Oh, wow,” he said. “You are made of love.”

Odd reaction to three strangers in ski masks bursting into his room.

Daniel shrugged at Cassandra and Jo.

“You know us, Mr. Bryant?”

“I know you,” Bryant said, a beatific smile lighting his face. “I mean, not
you
you, but the you you are.”

“Which is…?”

“You’re incandescent, man. You’re like the sun. You’re like a firedrake in first bloom.”

“I like his lyrics about surfing better,” Jo said.

This was just a weird situation. Daniel decided to roll with it. “That’s sweet of you to say, Mr. Bryant—”

“Mister? Oh, man, I’m not a ‘mister.’ I’m just me. Just flesh and magic. We’re brothers. Brothers and sisters, all of us.” He laughed a stoner laugh and spread his arms as if he wanted to hug the world.

“That’s really brilliant,” Daniel said. “You’re such a creative guy—”

“A genius, actually,” Cassandra said, helpfully. Her gun was still aimed at him. Jo turned her head so Bryant couldn’t see her rolling her eyes.

“Such a genius,” Daniel went on. “And this room … It’s a really inspiring space.”

“I used to have to go outside to feel the beach,” Bryant said. “But then I saw the difference between outside and inside was a totally artificial barrier, so I brought that barrier down.”

“Yeah. That’s good,” Daniel said. “That’s really good.”

Bryant’s round head bobbed in an enthusiastic nod. The stoner laugh bubbled up, but then abruptly died as he screwed his face into an approximation of focus. “You’re made of love, man. But there’s something off about you. Like you’re the wrong kind of love. Like a false prophet. You know, like in my song ‘Unicorn Tears’?”

“I’m not familiar with that one.”

Bryant sniffed, a little bit hurt. “It was a B-side. It’s about making people love you. Do people know about you? How you make them love you?”

Daniel didn’t like the way Bryant was looking at him now. He wasn’t funny anymore. He didn’t like the way Cassandra was looking at him either.

A subtle change in Jo’s posture drew Daniel’s attention. He followed her gaze to a shelf in Bryant’s massive headboard. There, inside a two-foot-tall jar, was a snake’s skull the size of a basketball, floating in bluish fluid. No wonder Daniel couldn’t smell any seps. It was sealed in osteomantic preservative.

“Say, would you mind if we had a look around?” Daniel asked.

“In order to radiate more,” Jo supplied.

“Sure, brother, of course.
Mi casa es su casa
. But, hey, can I sing you a song first? I just wrote it, so it’s still all locked away inside me. Music is light, and you can’t keep light shut in or else it’ll start to burn.” He laughed his stoner laugh.

“We’d be honored,” Daniel said.

“Hell, we’d be irradiated,” Jo said.

The stoner laugh.

Bryant reached beneath the covers for his guitar, and his hand emerged holding a handgun with a bore the size of a golf hole. The goofy, enraptured smile was gone.

“What the fuck are you fuckers doing in my fucking house? Fucking thieves! Fucking spies!
You’re not going to steal my fucking light!
” His glassy eyes searched for something to aim at.

Daniel flicked his index finger in a barely perceptible signal, and Cassandra and Jo pulled the triggers of their guns. There were four puffs of air, and four needles in Bryant’s chest. His gun hand sank to the mattress, and he sagged back into his pillows. He snored and was smiling beatifically once more.

*   *   *

Jo lay in the bathtub, cheeks puffed out, her face three inches under the water, with a clip pinching her nostrils shut. Part of the Ossuary job required underwater work, and Daniel had cooked a mixture of kolowisi, bagil, and panlong to give his crew the powers of aquatic creatures, at least for several minutes. It was Jo’s turn to get used to the sensations of being submerged without having to breathe, and she was doing great. Daniel waved a thumbs-up over the bath, and she returned it with her own thumbs-up, stretching the web of skin between her thumb and forefinger. She’d grown webbed fingers and toes as a joke, but Daniel thought they might prove useful.

“You’re a champ!” he screamed into the water over her face. She beamed happily.

“No way she’s beating my record,” Moth said from the bathroom doorway.

“She’s at seven minutes, and your record is officially a sad artifact of your former glory.”

“I miss my former glory,” said a morose Moth.

“Keep an eye on her for me while I go check on Emma?”

Moth sat on the edge of the tub with Daniel’s stopwatch. “Hey, Jo. How’re your lungs feeling? Kind of bursty? Good old oxygen, your gassy friend.”

Jo’s middle finger emerged from the water like a periscope.

Daniel found Emma in his workroom, examining a military-surplus folding shovel. An earthy aroma hung on the air. Without putting much muscle into it, she stabbed the blade into the wall, and the concrete flaked away like talc, scattering into motes that vanished before reaching the ground. The shovels were like an all-access backstage pass. With these and the seps venom, the crew would be able to breach walls, dig tunnels, go wherever they wanted.

“Good job getting the grootslang to adhere without dissolving the metal,” she said, handing him the shovel. “I was worried you might be more of firework than osteomancer.”

“I can go boom if I need to. But I can also measure stuff out and stir things.”

“You’re being modest. I’m told you’re actually quite a talented cook.”

“I know what most of the buttons on the microwave do. It’s been days since I burned popcorn.”

“You don’t take compliments well. Power and skill don’t always come in the same package. They do in your case. You’re a true osteomancer. And I wish we had time for me to tutor you. It would be a privilege for me, and it might help elevate you closer to your father’s ambitions.”

“Ambitious and dead are synonymous in my dictionary, Emma. But I’m glad you’re happy with my shovel. I’m going to go back to work now.”

He left her alone with the gouged wall.

Things were falling into place. His crew was well equipped and prepared, and he knew they could work together. Except for Emma, they were family.

There was one last ingredient he required, because they still needed an out from the Ossuary, and for that, Daniel had decided to make an earthquake. So he went alone to Dogtown.

Tucked between Santa Monica and Venice, Dogtown was a dozen blocks of shops with boarded windows. Frayed wires jutted from decapitated streetlamps, like pistils and stamen from shattered glass globes. The slender moon cast just enough light for Daniel to spot the occasional shadowed figure making a furtive dive into a building. Incoherent mutterings and laughter and moans filled the salt air. Sounds that started as screams faded into silence or quiet weeping.

Daniel walked along the dry-weed banks of the old canals and tried to decipher the graffiti slathered on the peeling stucco walls of the shops. He spotted some V13 tags, some Venice Shoreline Crips, the fish symbol of the long-gone St. Mark’s Parish, and the skeletal glyphs of the Dogtown Leeches. But this place belonged to no one in particular. He kept kraken electricity at his fingers and held his leather messenger bag close.