It took me a year to cross paths with Randolph Corbin. He had last been seen in command of the Hughes Cayuse that strafed the Vatican the day the Mome attempted to deliver a bull concerning the True Revealed Word of The Lady. No one listened. They knew better, now.
I found Corbin in a bookstore in Hollywood, thumbing through a copy of Theodore Golding's latest effort, Contra-Paganism-The Case Against Goddess.
"Happy New Year" were his first words.
I smiled. "New Year falls on Hallowmas now, Corbin. Don't you read the papers?"
"Sure I do," he grumbled. "And if you did, you'd know I'm organizing the Los Angeles Coven of Black Isis." He shut Golding's book. "My thesis is that the Goddess has a dark side, too, and what could be more blessed than-"
"Save it, Corbin. I heard your line of argument on Praise The Lady last week."
"Yeah, they're all trying to horn in on the act."
I shrugged. "They'll drop it like last week's fashion when their spells fail to produce mountains of money. Like that new fellow that lasted one day on HRILIU House. Performed a banishing ritual live on the air and vanished without a trace."
Corbin sighed. "How does it feel to save the world from religion, Ammo?"
My smile didn't even make it to my lips. "I didn't save anything. I just changed things. People still ache over shattered hopes and wasted lives and lost loves. People still kill and people still die."
Corbin slid a couple of books back into the shelf. "If you check the recent actuary tables, they seem to be killing less and dying later." He pulled out another book-one of an annoying series of mea culpa books by theologians who have Seen The Light. Anything for a gram.
"I saw a couple in MacArthur-I mean Hecate Park today," he said. "I overheard them profess undying love for each other. Then they kissed and wept for joy on each other's shoulder."
"Big deal," I said, turning to peruse a rotating rack of plaques. An awful lot of obscure occult books were getting published or reissued these days. At least someone was being rewarded for perseverance. I switched one on to stare at a page without seeing it. All I could see was Ann. Corny, I know, but that's who occupied my thoughts. Endlessly.
"Your assassin's heart should be pleased that the politicians couldn't get anyone to bother voting in the last election."
"Hmm? Oh, right." I put the plaque back. "They're still hanging around Washington uninvited, though." I frowned, reading the cover of another book. This one was about astral travel. Just from the jacket copy I could determine that the author didn't know his elbow from a hole in the ground.
"Give them time," Corbin said. "They can't even stir up a war anymore without God to inspire them or a devil to side with the enemy."
I looked up from my book to stare at the curious man. I'd lost track of our conversation. My only thoughts were of Ann. Her eyes, bright with life, gazed at me from across the chasm between now and never.
I impulsively seized a paperback. Kundalini yoga. And another plaque. On ceremonial Magick.
"Corbin," I said, reaching for a manual for waterscrying, candle magic, and clairvoyance, "you'd know these things. Isn't there a place between dreaming and forgetting that contains all the knowledge of all times and realities?"
He stared at me as if my tie had just caught fire.
"Uh, sure Dell. It's called the Akashic Record. Why?"
"I've got to pop over to another celestial sphere."
I took more books and plaques than I could easily carry to the register. I paid for them and left Corbin watching my dust.
I raced out into the street, into the cold winter air and the bright, clear sky. A couple of street workers watched me with bemused gazes, then returned to erecting a sign that restored the full name of Los Angeles-The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels.
I still called it L.A.
My breath roared in my ears. My heart pounded like a caged man trying to burst free. I skidded left onto Western and raced upstairs to my office in less than ten minutes.
Doors slammed and drawers flew open until I'd found what I wanted. Ann's athame. It was all the psychic link I'd need to find her.
I sat down to read, placing the knife before me with loving care. The light from the desk lamp reflected softly on the silvery blade and ebony hilt. I cracked open the first book.
A wind from the North beat at my window, calling.