Brigitte blows apart a cobra as it leaps for her and an eagle as it dives, talons out and aimed at her eyes.

Something slams me down on the first Moseley’s busted carcass. Then it roars in my face like a drunken 747.

A fucking grizzly bear. It rears back, but before it can drop down and crush me, I roll out of the way, pulling the Colt .45 from under my coat.

On its hind legs, the bear is ten feet tall and half a ton. I wait until it comes down for me. When it opens its big wet mouth, I aim inside and put two slugs through its upper palate. The top of its head pops off like a toaster full of clock parts and it falls.

I look around for Candy and Brigitte, but a flock of birds—crows, starlings, and buzzards—flies around the room at jet speed, screeching and pecking at everything, including us. The air is a gray blur. I’m blind and deaf in the noise and I can’t see what might be creeping up on me.

I yell, “Hit the deck,” as loud as I can and bark some Hellion hoodoo.

The ceiling sizzles with flames. The fire licks down the wall like liquid. I get down on my knees and spin the na’at in circles over my head. It won’t stop the fire, but it gives me something to concentrate on as I try to control the flames so they burn the familiars but don’t get low enough to cook us.

It gets hard to breathe. The flames are burning off all the oxygen in the room. I bark more hoodoo and the fire dwindles to glowing ghost wisps.

“It’s okay,” I say.

Candy and Brigitte get up from the floor. I was expecting the hotel sprinklers to go off until I see that they’re melted and fused to the ceiling.

Except for us, the room is a charred pile of splinters and crispy critters. I look at Brigitte and nod at the apartment door.

“You wanted to kick a door in.”

She smiles and blows the lock off with her pistol. Kicks the door open, throws herself forward, and rolls upright, her gun out. It’s nice when those reflexes kick back in. Not that they’re going to do us much good. The door to the hall is open. I close it and kick a rug against the crack at the bottom so the smoke from the workroom doesn’t set off the hall fire alarm.

Rose is long gone. My guess is he won’t be coming back. Keeping wild animals and bloody cyborgs in a room charred like a bad night in Dresden might violate the terms of his lease.

Candy is back to human again.

“You all right?” she says.

“Fine. You?”

“Coolio.”

“Brigitte. How are you doing?”

“Lovely,” she says. “I haven’t had this much fun in months.”

Her necklace is broken, dripping pearls onto the floor. Her face and arms are scratched and bleeding, covered in soot. But she smiles like it’s New Year’s Eve.

“Thank you for bringing me along, Jimmy.”

“Thank you for saving my ass back there.”

“That was fun,” says Candy. “Do we get to trash this place too?”

“No. The workshop won’t do us any good, so look around here for anything like customer records or names or phone numbers. Any papers that look important.”

After half an hour no one comes up with a single useful thing. Brigitte steals a mechanical parakeet in the bedroom and names it Szamanka. Candy thumbs through a big leather-bound book.

“I think this is the book Atticus was talking about,” she says. “It has all kinds of drawings of the 8 Ball.”

She hands it to me.

I was expecting a moldy, crumbling relic. But the book doesn’t look more than a few years old. I put it under my arm and say, “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take this to Father Traven.”

“I can take it to Liam, if you like,” says Brigitte. “I’ll be seeing him tonight.”

I look at Candy. She moves her head microscopically. A secret nod. So that’s who Brigitte is seeing. Two nice Catholic kids. A killer and an excommunicated priest. Sounds like a match made in Heaven.

“You should come and see him soon,” Brigitte says. “The weight of things is hard on him. I think he drinks too much these days.”

“How about tomorrow?” says Candy. “Perfect. He’ll be happy to see you.”

“I didn’t just get eaten by a bear,” I say. “I’ll be happy to see anyone.”

MAYBE HAPPY ISN’T the right word. Maybe relieved is better. There isn’t a lot to be happy about. Yeah, it was fun busting up the Tick-Tock Man’s place, but now I’m back to square one. All my leads are blown up, burned down, run off, or dead, or as dead as a windup toy can be. Declan Garrett is still around, but he was trying to buy the 8 Ball from two different sources, so it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have it. I haven’t even heard anything useful about Aelita or Medea. I think all I’ve really accomplished in the last month is making Mr. Muninn really depressed. I’m nowhere. More wasted time. Why am I doing this? I’m ridiculous. No one cares. Most people don’t even believe the Angra exist much less are coming back. Hell, I’m starting to wonder myself. Am I playing this game because I’ve run out of legitimate things to kill? No. I saw Lamia and I know she was real, so the Angra are real. Still, maybe it’s time to just walk away and let things work themselves out. We die or we don’t. I’ve been there before. Will I have time to shout one last “I told you so” when the Angra burn the world? That’s a hell of a last request. Maybe I should have given Candy her Christmas present after all. I need a drink.

WE DECIDE TO meet at Bamboo House of Dolls. It’s a holy place. My second home. The best bar in L.A. A punk tiki joint. Old Germs, Circle Jerks, Iggy & The Stooges posters on the wall. Plastic palm trees around the liquor bottles. Coconut bowls for peanuts. Martin Denny and Les Baxter on the jukebox. And there’s Carlos, the bartender, mixing drinks in a Hawaiian shirt. I met him my first day back from Hell. Helped him out with a skinhead problem and now I drink for free. Ain’t life grand?

“Sir Galahad returns,” he says when he sees me. “How’s the saving-the-world biz?”

“Slow. But it’s a growth industry. I expect a lot of investors when Godzilla takes a shit on Disneyland.”

“Hold a place for me in the lifeboat. I’ll bring my cocktail mixer and we can toast El Apocalipsis with Manhattans.”

“Sounds yummy,” says Candy.

“How are you doing, ma’am?” he says.

“Great. I’ll be spectacular with a beer in me.”

“You got it,” says Carlos. “Aqua Regia for you?”

I shake my head.

“Black coffee. I’ll be setting a saintly example tonight.”

“Better you than me,” says Carlos. “Hey. Put that back.”

There’s a skinny blond guy in a red Pendleton shirt trying to palm the cash the drunk next to him left sitting on the bar.

I reach for the guy, but before I touch him he screams. His hands have shrunk to doll size.

I don’t see any witches or Coyote tricksters around. Carlos is holding a crushed paper cup in his hand. Holy water, amber, and spots of what look like red mercury wormwood drip from between his fingers. Fucking Carlos just used hoodoo on someone.

“Where did you learn that?”

“Get up and get out,” Carlos tells Tiny Hands.

The money is too big for the guy to hold on to. He drops it on the floor. I think he wants to scream, but his brain has vapor-locked.

“Your hands will be okay in a couple of hours. But your head won’t be if you ever come back here,” says Carlos, grabbing up a baseball bat from under the bar.

Still staring at his mangled hands, Tiny Hands backs out the door.

“Neat trick, huh? Cutter Blade taught it to me for a bottle of Gentleman Jack. I keep the potion back here, and when someone gets untoward, I crush a cup while giving them the hairy eyeball. I’m the new brujo in town, right, motherfuckers?”

People bellied up to the bar clap and hoot. Carlos bows like it’s Las fucking Vegas.

“Why do you need that hoodoo?”

Carlos moves his head from side to side like he’s thinking.

“I can’t have you cleaning up my messes forever. And you can’t be here all the time. I decided that with all you abracadabra types around, learning a trick or two was better than taking one of those pepper-spray courses.”