Squirrelman - Sins of the Past 13
We split up one more time, to go get our costumes and stuff, agreeing to meet at the old factory at the corner of King Street and Koontz Avenue. In the cab back to our place, I ask Kimmy, “You sure about this?”
“As sure as I’m going to be,” she answers, looking out the window at the passing scenery.
“Kimmy... it won’t happen again.”
“Would you bet your life on that?”
She turns to look at me, totally serious. I don’t know what to say - anything can happen. I won’t promise her something I can’t deliver. At my silence she just turns to look out the window again.
Back at my place we suit up and head out. My new place is further away from Weirdsville than my old place, so we hitch a ride on the roof of an elevated train.
Bebop named it. It wasn’t always called Weirdsville.
It’s 1958. Franklin Miller, Mayor of the City of a New Era and his lovely young wife announce the birth of their beautiful daughter, Barbara. Four months later, little Babs is kidnapped. City wide manhunt. APB. The whole thing. Action City’s costumed crimefighters go all out, trying to find the baby.
Action City at the time is the fastest growing city in America. It’s spread out from the crater that the White River has filled, swallowing whole the nearby townships of Lawrence, Speedway, and Beech Grove - not that there was anything much left after the Disaster. The parts of the Indianapolis that have survived the Disaster have been incorporated into Action City, declared a historic landmark.
It’s the first historic team-up of Bebop and Hep Cat. They come out of the oldest part of town, carrying little Babs. The story they give the media includes, but isn’t limited to, making deals with a group of vampires, getting rescued by the ghost of a dead superhero, and saving the baby from a secret cult who worship ancient and nameless gods, dedicated to the eradication of the human race.
“That place,” Bebop tells the reporters, “It’s weirdsville, daddy-o.”
The name sticks. Reports start to surface about ghost sightings, ghouls, vampires, werewolves. Witches and warlocks. Secret cults and ancient rituals. Covens and coteries and creatures, oh my. Things that go bump in the night. Later on, psychics will explain that the whole area is a ‘psychic resonator’ - attracting the kinds of beings that feed on psychic energy. Weirdsville is a psychic battery that got supercharged by all the deaths of the Disaster.
Whatever. It just creeps me the hell out.
We get off the el at King Street and run along rooftops toward Koontz. Ace is waiting for us.
“Hey,” he calls to us.
“Ready?”
“Yep.”
Ragdoll and I grab on to his flying card and we cross Koontz. We’re officially in Weirdsville now. I look at Ace.
“We appear to still be breathing.”
“But for how long, Squirelly?” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s joking.
We head along King, following Ace. He knows where he’s going.
Anna Kimble runs a little occult shop in Weirdsville. I can’t say what street it’s on, because it seems to change places. It’s one of those places you can only find if you truly need to find it. Well, we truly need her help, according to Ace, so I’m hoping it won’t be too hard to find when suddenly Ace swoops down to street level. I climb down the wall head first and Ragdoll does a somersault off the roof, grabbing onto the streetlight on her way down, does a backflip dismount and lands next Ace. She’s gone public, so three masks walking into her shop in broad daylight isn’t that unusual.
“That was easier than I expected,” Ace says, pointing to the basement shop. There’s stairs leading down to the door.
“Is that good news or not?” Ragdoll asks as we head down the stairs.
Ace opens the door. There’s a little bell over the door that rings with a surprisingly pleasant ch-ching that makes me twitch out of the way. Ragdoll gives me a little mocking smile. I take a deep breath and step into the shop.
It’s you average occult shop - incense burning, Enya playing. Books and candles. Weird little jars of different kinds of powders and oils. Daggers in a display case by the cash.
Darklight steps through a beaded curtain from the back room and smiles at us.
“I was expecting you,” she says.
She’s shorter than I remember, but then, she always is. It’s something about her presence. She’s got a lot of presence, but if she’s five feet one I’d be surprised. She’s a tiny petite little thing, with long blond hair that falls dead straight to her hips. She’s dressed, as always, in black, a dress that covers her to her wrists and ankles. No jewelry.
Behind me I hear the door lock shut with a click. I’m so twitchy I’m facing the door in less than a heartbeat, I watch the Open sign switch over to Closed. I turn around, glad I’ve got a full face mask on to hide the blushing.
“Sorry.”
“Not at all,” she says, inviting us into the back room. Candles light on their own as we walk in, and she waves us over to a table and chairs to sit down.
“How may I help you?” she asks when we’ve all sat down.
We look at Ace.
“The UnSeelie have set up a Court in Downtown,” he says simply. “Under Weirdsville.”
The only sign of how upset this makes her is she goes very still, and her lips press together in a thin little line. And all the candles in the room flicker, flaring once.
“Have they.”She takes a deep breath and smooths out the black tablecloth.
Finally she looks at us.
“My... distaste aside, why come to me?”
“They’re running Pixie Dust out of Downtown.”
She goes still again, and I make a note to myself never to get her mad at me. The candles don’t flare this time.
She smiles. It’s not a nice smile.
“You’ll give me a moment to get my things?” she says, standing.
“Um... Anna...” Ace says. “You don’t have to come with us. We just wanted some advice.”
“Of course, Richard,” she says from another back room. “I don’t have to come - I want to.”
I look at Ace. He shakes his head.
“Who are you talking to, Anna?” he plays dumb.
She comes out of the other back room wearing a leather trenchcoat with a double row of silver buttons. It reaches almost to the ground. She’s wearing heeled boots, too, giving her a little more height. She has a odd look on her face.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “You’re not public yet, I keep forgetting. Shall we go?”
She’s got a back door we use - which strikes me as odd, given it’s a basement shop. On the way out, I say to Ace, “Public?”
“It’s the ‘yet’ that bothers me.”
We follow her to an old apartment building. There’s a basement-level door we use to get into the building, and a staircase leading down. When we’re definitely out of the reach of sunlight we start seeing coffins, set in small rooms to either side of the stairwell.
It’s a vampire hotel.
“Have I mentioned I really don’t like Weirdsville?” I whisper to Ragdoll.
“Not today,” she answers.
The staircase ends and we enter a tunnel. Darklight sets a little globe of light hovering at her shoulder, and Ace lights up one of his cards. The tunnel sort of spirals around to the left, and Darklight leads, walking purposefully, heels clicking on the rock floor.
I have no idea how deep we’ve gone when the tunnel widens up to a large-ish room. Torches flare to life, making us squint in the sudden light. There’s a woman laying seductively on an altar. Her skin is blood red, her hair pale blonde. She’s wearing a black hardened leather bikini top and black leather bell-bottoms. A pointed tail curls around one leg.
“About time you got here,”she smirks.
“Jesus, Pandy, we don’t have time for this,”Ace says, stepping forward.
Pandy Monium, demon lolita. Great.
“Oh Acey... I think you do.”
The torches flare once. The flames separate from the torches and become humanoid shapes made of fire.
We’re surrounded.