Mixcoatl put on his armor, called his sons to his side and took them to war. For years they roamed the earth looking for Huitzilopochtli, but they didn't find him. At night Mixcoatl had terrible dreams and awoke in the morning pale and weak. Finally, Mixcoatl grew sick and his army rested by the banks of the frozen sea at the bottom of the world.

One night, Mixcoatl awoke from fevered dreams to find Huitzilopochtli sitting on his chest. Mixcoatl was too weak to resist and Huitzilopochtli cut out his heart saying, "I've eaten you piece by piece in your dreams, Brother, but don't hate me. I'm not your enemy. I have no choice in killing you and if I smile as I do it, remember it's only the joy a humble servant feels when he restores order to a disordered house, because, of course, there can't be two of us walking the earth."

Huitzilopochtli took his brother's place on the throne of the world. His flightiness and endless cruelties inspired many beings to unwittingly turn their shadows into flesh through acts of treachery or revenge. The different Shadow Brothers-kings and farmers, birds, fish and horses-ruled the Earth. This was the era of blood and massacres that caused the world to be divided into Spheres, because no matter how the Shadow Brothers tried to reason together, they couldn't. They were soulless voids, and even the most cordial exchanges usually ended in murder.

Thousands of years passed before the living things of the earth rose up and killed all the Shadow Brothers in power. To make sure that shadow forms never ruled again, each realm of life appointed auditors to keep the world in balance. These celestial officers had the power of life and death and could roam all the Spheres at will. They had different names among the different animal tribes-such as Soul Weavers, Holy Clerks, Black Scribes, and others. These beings didn't destroy the Shadow Brothers, but they kept their influence in check, even when they sometimes had to collaborate with individual Shadow Brothers to set the world right. The loyalties of these auditors weren't to animal, plant or man, but to the universe. And like the gods themselves, their plans were their own, subtle and unknowable.

They were thought to be beyond the influence of any god or beast in the universe, and this was true. What no one considered were things outside the universe.

Eight

Slow Children

"Did you ever feel like you were a million miles from where you'd thought you'd be when you grew up? Like you thought you were heading for a weekend in Vegas, but ended up in Mongolia instead?"

Lulu was lying across the three wooden garage-sale chairs they kept up front for customers. Her arm hung down and a lit American Spirit between her fingers pointed at the floor, illuminating the scars on her arm with a faint red light.

"Sometimes," said Spyder. "But then I remember the scariest truth about being a grown up: that no one really knows anything. Maybe where most people want to be is as wrong as where they end up."

"We've been taking our happy pills, I see," said Lulu. "Know what we never, ever talked about: What did you really want to be when we were kids?"

Spyder stood up and stretched, saying, "That's easy. A private detective. You know, a Sam Spade thing. The whole world'd be in black and white and the streets would be slick with rain and lit like a film noir set."

"Sam Spade was always lonely and miserable, least in the movies."

"But at least he knew something. That makes him the exception."

"When I was a girl, I wanted to be Mary Magdalene," said Lulu. "The most hated woman in the world, but Jesus saw her true heart and loved her for it. I wanted that so much. To be hated by the riffraff, but loved by that one perfect, bright-eyed soul who knew me from the inside out. I used to jerk off to the picture of Jesus over my bed. He looked just like Jim Morrison before the alcohol bloat." Lulu took a drag off her cigarette. Spyder still wasn't sure how she was able to smoke with no lips. "When I realized I liked girls more, I jerked off imagining Jesus fucking Mary Magdalene. I was Jesus, of course. I wonder, does that make me narcissistic?"

"No, you're more like Mother Teresa."

"I'd have fucked Mother Teresa."

"You'd have fucked Nancy Reagan if she'd of held still."

"If she was in that pink Jackie O outfit she wore to Ronnie's second inauguration, hell yes. I'd've bent her over the big desk in the Oval Office and slipped her the high hard one next to the Bible Ronnie had Oliver North give the Iranians. Hell, I'd have bent Ollie over, too. Gotta love a man in a uniform."

"You're a damned pervert, Lulu."

"What's Dennis Hopper say in Blue Velvet? 'Don't toast to my health, toast to my fuck.'"

"I wouldn't be Dennis Hopper," said Spyder. "I'd be Orson Welles. He can act, write, direct, he married Rita Hayworth and you know, deep in his heart, he's a stone killer."

"That arty fuck never has happy endings. He's always dead or betrayed."

"Yeah, but we all end up there if we live long enough. I love the guy's certainty. He was willing to ruin himself for whatever he was doing. That's the definition of balls." Spyder checked the door again to make sure it was locked, then turned on the light in the studio.

Lulu shielded her paper eyes and softly said, "Shit."

"So, what happens now?" asked Spyder. "Do we open up tomorrow like nothing's different?"

"Things are only different if you act like they're different."

"Bullshit. Everything's different."

"I've been exactly what I am for years and it didn't affect things. Why should that change now?"

"That was before," Spyder said, groping for words. "I was going to say the world has changed, but it hasn't. I'm changed. And I fucking hate it. I take back what I said about Sam Spade and knowing things. I enjoyed my ignorance. Give me three wishes and that's what I'd ask for first."

"Reality sucks," said Lulu sitting up on the chairs. "But, if you wait long enough, everything becomes normal. You'll see."

Looking out the studio window onto Haight Street, Spyder watched the people outside going through their happy, blind lives. Couples were going to dinner, ducking into bars. On the corner, a girl with blue hair was kissing a boy in a cop shirt and vinyl shorts. Softly Spyder sang, "When I'm lyin' in my bed at night, I don't wanna grow up, Nothin' ever seems to turn out right, I don't wanna grow up." He looked at Lulu. "Know that song?"

"Tom Waits. Jenny gave me the CD for my birthday."

"When I see the price that you pay, I don't wanna grown up, I don't ever wanna be that way, I don't wanna grow up:" For the first time, Spyder was glad that Jenny had left him. He couldn't imagine trying to explain all this to her. Where was she right that second? Was she happy? He hoped so.

Nine

Hard Thanks

Spyder straightened up when he realized that he and Lulu were no longer alone.

Three smiling men, dressed like bankers in an old movie, were standing in the studio. One of the men carried a large snakeskin ledger. All three men were very pale and carried long, curved knives in their belts. The banker in the middle was wearing the face of the businessman Spyder had spoken to in the street that morning. The face was held in place on the banker's head by shiny brass clasps that stretched the skin like taffy.

"You are not alone?" said the banker in the middle, the one with the book.

"Who the fuck are you?" asked Spyder.

Lulu stood up and pushed him against the wall. "Shut up, Spyder." She looked at the bankers. "I wasn't expecting you. It's not time yet. I can still see fine."

All three men were wearing skin masks. From under the stolen meat, their flesh seemed to give off a cold chemical glow, like fungus on the walls of a cavern. There was nothing at all human about the men's presence, Spyder thought.