Crime Rave

By Sezin Koehler

Women, survivors, warriors­—the hardcore ensemble from "American Monsters" survive the worst act of domestic terrorism ever to occur on American soil when 35,000 ravers are murdered in cold blood.

Regathered, and regrown from their remaining body parts, they must work with the LAPD detectives Atticus Red Feather and Synthia Günn to put together the pieces of this monstrous act and face a new horror.

The science experiments of an elite underground lab team, led by Colonel Ripper Ransom—of Mai Lai massacre fame— want out, and the smog goddess Kaleanathi wants more souls to devour.

What will happen if the survivors fail? The world is full of monsters, but the worst are yet to come.

In the long-awaited follow-up to her first novel "American Monsters", Sezin Koehler has surfed a genre shift in "Crime Rave" from postmodern feminist horror to a crime and urban fantasy crossover with an all-monsters-in approach to satiate even the most hardened horror fan.

Vampires, werewolves, serial killers, war criminals, zombies, aliens, hybrids, psychics, and mutants: there’s something for everyone in this fresh take on a supernatural crime novel.

Picking up right where "American Monsters" left off—and written with first readers in mind—Koehler weaves us into her tapestry of an alternate universe in which goddesses have free reign over humans, trauma goes hand in hand with superpowers, and Marilyn Monroe not only lives, but has a daughter. These are only some of the many impossible things you'll believe while reading this uniquely told tale of destruction, survival, and redemption for some.

If you’re a new reader, welcome.

If you’re an old one, welcome back. The scenery has changed some.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sezin Koehler
• Release date: Nov 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311505378

Sezin Koehler

Sezin Devi Koehler is a multiracial Sri Lankan/Lithuanian American, and author of upcoming 'Much Ado About Keanu: Toward a Critical Reeves Theory' (September 2024, Chicago Review Press). Her bylines also include Entertainment Weekly, Scalawag Magazine, Teen Vogue, Tasteful Rude, and many others. You can also find her on Twitter ranting about politics (@SezinKoehler), Instagramming her newest art creations and lowkey cosplays (@zuzudevikoehler), and microreviewing horror movies on Facebook (@SezinDeviKoehler).

Book preview

Other books by Sezín Koehler:

American Monsters

Stories by Sezín Koehler:

Karma’s A Bitch, in Red Phone Box

Acknowledgements

My husband Steven has been a steadfast cheerleader of love as I struggled with life and completing this novel through what was constant geographical transition. I love you, Schmoopie. Your support means everything to me.

A massive thank you goes out to my book doulas1© Tammy Salyer, Jon Stonger, my mom Marty, and husband Steven, who worked with me through the labor pains of writing, rewriting, and some more rewriting of the rewrites of Crime Rave like patient midwives during a difficult birth. Y’all rock some serious Casbah. Thank you ever so.

And of course I must mention my brilliant final editor, Helen Southcott, for catching all those last little things and for generally being one of the top women on this planet. Thank you, m’dear.

Another big thanks goes out to my team of first readers Christina Brzustoski, Kira Stegman, and Farrah Macy, who helped me figure out just when the book was ready to set free into the world.

My amazing college advisor and now friend Jeffrey Tobin also needs a special mention: It’s because of him I decided to resurrect my characters at all. Even though there were times writing this book I wished I hadn’t, I now know it was the right thing and a great thing to do. Gracias para siempre, Jeff. You are forever an inspiration, and your words and advice never seem to stop resonating.

So much thanks and gratitude go out to Curtis Wong and Jessica Rotundi of Huffington Post, Lisa Wade of Sociological Images, Maya Garg of Al Jazeera, Michele Kort of Ms. Magazine, and Tim Dedopulos and Salomé Jones of Ghostwoods Books, for their amazing help publishing and promoting my writing over recent years.

A hearty thanks to the dozens of creators and writers of the myriad television shows that got me into a crime-fighting and superhero-y mood, like Hannibal, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Cold Case, Law & Order: SVU, CSI, The Killing, The Closer, Dexter, Heroes, True Blood, Dollhouse, Hemlock Grove, Medium, Misfits, The Profiler, Top of the Lake, The Fall, Veronica Mars, and The X-Files, along with literally hundreds of films I can’t possibly begin to list here. Molto grazie.

A special thank you to the Boca Raton and Lighthouse Point Public Libraries for the hundreds of books I borrowed, without which I never would have found my crime novel voice.

A dancy thanks to Alexi Murdoch, Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra, Daft Punk, Eddie Vedder, Karen-O, Lady Gaga, Lana del Rey, Patti Smith, Pearl Jam, Prince, Prodigy, Skrillex, Sqürl, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, and my mother-in-law Eileen Koehler for the Apple Television that allows music to fill our home. The final revisions just wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Or I’d have no hair left on my head. One or the other.

I have too many amazing friends and chosen family members to thank by name otherwise we’ll be here all day and we have a book to get to. You soul sisters and brothers all know who you are because I make a point of telling you regularly how important a person you are in my life. You already know how I couldn’t have done this without your friendship, love, encouragement, and support. So, once again, I thank you.

Last, but definitely not least, a monsterlicious thank you to my readers, who are among the most intelligent, savvy, and coolest people out there in the world. Thank you for reading and more importantly, understanding my strange little book babies and making them feel welcome in this bizarre new world of publishing. The bee’s knees haven’t a thing on you wonderful lot.

1A delightful turn of phrase coined by musician and writer Amanda F. Palmer.

Author’s Note

Unlike American Monsters, which was born from an uncomfortable cocktail of trauma and immersion in the horror genre, Crime Rave is the result of years of crime novels and visual media inspired by the stylings of the Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child horror-crime novels and the hardboiled crime fiction of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy. I wrote American Monsters when I was nineteen years old. I finished Crime Rave at thirty-five. I like to think I’ve learned a thing or two about the craft of writing during those many years in between, and part of the challenge I set up for myself was to write a (mostly) straight narrative and put the experimental leanings on the side. This proved a gauntlet that lasted more than five years.

While technically Crime Rave is a sequel, I’ve fashioned it as a stand-alone novel in a more traditional narrative style for a few reasons: First, for all the readers who wanted to read American Monsters but couldn’t due to the violent content. Second, for my own mental health in not revisiting the kind of emotional pain and soul rippage that the first book channeled. Third, I don’t see myself as someone who will ever write in one genre, and continuing the story as a crime novel made perfect sense given the context of a massive terrorist attack in Los Angeles. Fourth, this gives me the opportunity to explore all the original characters from the perspective of law enforcement, a very different view than what you might have experienced in American Monsters. Fifth, genre jumping is serious fun and not boring at all.

I also took a number of liberties in Crime Rave with the way law enforcement works in my fictional universe. I figured that since the US has never had an act of terrorism this grand take place on its soil, the easiest way to approach it would be as any other crime until protocols would be set up by the government in the case of future attacks. It’s generally what they did during September 11, 2001, so it’s pretty much what I did here, too. Any inconsistencies on that front are my bad.

Further, in case you take issue with a non-Native person featuring Native American characters in their novels (I’m saying this because I often do myself) please feel free to read the Afterword on p. 379 before beginning Crime Rave. Including Native Americans in my narrative was not a decision I made lightly, and I explain in further detail how these characters came to be as well as my own history and ties to a variety of Native American communities as an ally in their human rights, independence, and sovereignty struggles.

During the course of writing Crime Rave I lived in Prague, Czech Republic; Cologne, Germany; and Boca Raton, and Lighthouse Point, Florida. Yikes. While the transition from Europe to the US couldn’t have been more difficult, I humbly admit that I could not have written this novel without the hundreds of books that the Boca Raton and Lighthouse Point Public Libraries offered me. I never would have been able to afford buying all those amazing Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy, Neil Gaiman, and other books I devoured while writing Crime Rave had I still been abroad. And this story would never have come together without my mainlining of these amazing authors’ words. Libraries rule.

Oh, and feel free to imagine the auditory punctuation made famous by Law & Order (dun DUN) at the end of each section, or whenever it feels appropriate. It adds a little something, I think.

If this is your first journey with me, welcome. If this is your second, then welcome back. The scenery has changed some.

Love,

Sezín

January 4, 2015

Lighthouse Point

Warning

This book contains scenes of sexual, gender-based, and extreme violence that some readers might find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

Part One:

The Party’s Over

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

The sleep of reason breeds monsters.

—Francisco Goya

Prologue: Saturday October 31, 2000

11:59 PM

Griffith Observatory

Los Angeles

A coven of witches convening for an All Hallows’ Eve séance chant their praises to the full moon, pregnant over well-lit Los Angeles. As the clock ticks into All Saints’ Day the women call the corners: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit, connecting with their lost loved ones in soul embraces. A sudden sharp pain goes through the heart of each witch, an ethereal stiletto piercing a meditative trance. Eyes tear open. Looking out to the Hollywood Hills they see an unholy sight: Red swirling air funneling upward into the heavens, an explosion that rocks the ground upon where they stand. A blast of heat singeing their eyebrows and hair, even from so many miles away.

Screaming, the witches stand, tears streaming as they watch the sky open into the maw of a goddess, toothed and wicked, sucking into it dead souls, a deified vacuum. The witches take hands and pray as they watch the entire hill subsumed into the creature’s great cavern of a mouth. The goddess cackles and shouts words that only the witches can understand:

I am Kaleanathi! Goddess of Smog! Eater of Souls! Bow down to your queen!

Kaleanathi’s war cry sends the witches to their knees, clutching at their throats. They can’t breathe. The agony of such great loss overwhelms, sending their hearts palpitating. One witch will not survive this trauma, she who calls Water.

The smog goddess burps. Cackles again. Disappears into the ether as fast as she arrived. The witches sob, a fierce lament for the souls of the dead, thousands of whom rise with their fallen sister.

Sunday November 1, 2000

2:00 AM

The Wreckage

Crime tape marks the scene of the Hollywood Hills Massacre in a brutal ring, the yellow and black harsh in floodlights against the muted gray of rubble, marking the spot where more than thirty thousand partygoers danced to their deaths. Save four: a woman in a werewolf costume missing a leg, a pale man dressed as a vampire with no discerning wounds, a middle-aged lady whose screams shut down the entire site until medics tranquilize her, and fourth, an exotic South Asian bird girl with bleach-blonde hair. Four survivors of the largest explosion Los Angeles has seen since the SS Sansinena blow-up at the Port of Los Angeles back in ’76. The difference is on that day in December only nine lives were lost. Today goes down in history as the biggest hit the city has ever taken. In fact, it’s the biggest attack ever to take place on American soil, the 168 deaths in the Oklahoma City bombing now dwarfed by this new magic number of roughly 35,486. It was a bad night, turned into a morning with no intention of getting better.

LAPD Homicide Captain Ward Anderson’s voice booms through a megaphone, instructing hundreds of patrol cops to keep press at bay and for the canine unit to release their dogs in the search for bodies and other survivors. Captain Anderson: tall, slim, African-American, with a deep voice that belongs to a much larger man, doesn’t need the mic but uses it anyway. He likes the weight of it and the ever-further gravitation of his words. With him are Homicide Detectives Atticus Red Feather and Synthia Günn, who survey the site that once housed eccentric motel magnate Charles Wallace Crane’s mansion. Half Lakota, half white Detective Red Feather, thirty-nine, wears his long dark hair in a braid down his back, secured with leather cord. Thirty-one-year-old Detective Günn’s Scandinavian roots are evident in her white-blonde hair and sharp features, framed by a severe pixie cut and a perpetual scowl that give her Nordic features a cruel edge.

Around them, LA’s most notorious landmark is now a glorified pile of dust and scattered body parts that the crime scene investigators bag and tag, double and triple checking their work, anxious for the hundreds more people needed to cover what’s left of the now-demolished hill.

The governor’s on site in a state of shock, adding work to the already-stretched patrolmen who shield him from the press hounds. The mayor is en route and a task force sets up along the perimeter to deal with the evidence, awaiting dozens more members flying in from around the world, torn from war zones and covert missions to deal with problems closer to home. On the other side of Los Angeles, family members of the dead queue up at the Beverly Center with DNA samples to assist the ID process. Not that there will be anything with which to match their hair and toothbrushes: The site is vaporized, through and through.

A cordon of police officers pushes back eager press coming from all over the country, vying for the story of the century, already assigning blame, shouting questions and clicking their telephoto lenses in spite of repeated yells to move away and stop. Someone’s gonna get a baton in the face, it’s that kind of morning.

News helicopters buzz overhead, ignoring the no-fly zone Captain Anderson declared over the explosion site. Despite the chaos, despair hangs over the site in a mushroom cloud. The metaphysics of tragedy. Disbelief gives way to resignation as the scale of devastation hits home moment by moment, too vast to comprehend. Underneath it all the question of who’s responsible itches worse than shingles. But the show must go on. And each cop knows his part, plays it like it’s his last.

The captain clips off the megaphone and turns to Detectives Red Feather and Günn. Here’s what we’ve got so far. Captain Anderson’s face is creased with sleep and he’s missed several spots with his razor. The white stubble against his dark skin belies his otherwise youthful appearance.

Charles Wallace Crane was the organizer of this Halloween night ‘rave’ party. Anderson makes air quotes with his fingers. Tickets went on sale thirty days ago at the usual points; clothing stores, Ticketmaster, etc. Vendors were informed if they ran out of tickets they could call a one-eight-hundred number and more tickets would be delivered. At last count, they sold approximately 35,486 tickets.

Thousand! You’ve gotta be kidding. Red Feather’s mouth drops open.

I shit you not, Atticus. Captain Anderson hands him the party flier: A glossy Technicolor display of a haunted mansion framed by speakers emblazoned with a skull and the words FULL LUNACY. The captain continues. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all thirty-five-thou-plus were in attendance, some might have left early, some might have been on their way—

But not many, Günn interrupts, once the drugs kick in, they stay all night.

Always Miss Sunshine. The captain pulls a wry smile.

Günn shrugs, her scowl transforms to disgust. It’s true, Boss. Got a niece up in San Fran who loves these things. Wears these huge baggy pants that look like a skirt until she walks, plastic bracelets like a five-year-old. She wears a goddamn pacifier around her neck. Günn has the urge to spit but reins it in.

A pacifier? Captain Anderson is getting too old for this shit.

Ecstasy makes you grind your teeth, Boss, so they chew on those instead.

Oh for God’s sake. The generation gap gets wider and wider.

Yeah. Günn spits anyway.

Captain Anderson shakes his head and continues. The lifestyles of the young and stupid aside, we got thirty-five thousand potential vics here, making this the single largest terrorist act to take place on American soil. Feds will be here, so we gotta make sure everything goes copacetic. Anderson looks at the mess around them. He has a smear of ash on the sleeve of his black jacket. The explosion took place at approximately twelve thirty in the AM, November first, but paint me pink and call me cotton candy if this doesn’t go down as the Halloween massacre. The press is gonna have a field day with this one.

Wasn’t it a Halloween theme rave, Boss? Günn’s social skills leave much to be desired. She holds up the orange and black flyer that features a menacing haunted house surrounded by flying bats and a set of speakers adorned with a grinning skull.

Captain Anderson’s face flashes with annoyance, the kind that results in a write-up for insubordination.

Red Feather intervenes, shooting Günn his now-patented shut the motherfuck up look. She puts her hands up and takes a step back.

The captain takes a deep, composing breath. About twenty minutes after the explosion we received a video at Hollywood PD from a group calling themselves the Bad Vibe Kids. They claim responsibility for the explosion. We’ve got ’em on the surveillance tapes, but they covered up their license plate. In the confession they said, I quote, ‘We did it for their own good.’

Red Feather fills his mouth with air and expels it fast. Fuuuuck.

Prints all over the video and the envelope, all with priors, drug dealing, DUI, arson, reckless endangerment. Patrol’s on the way to pick them up at their last-knowns. Günn and Red Feather nod.

We got four survivors, one male and three females. One female in a werewolf costume badly wounded, her leg’s been severed. Male, shaken up but otherwise unharmed. Hysterical middle-aged woman—she’s the one whose screaming damn near shorted out all our equipment—and I’ve got no fucking idea what she’d be doing at a ‘rave’ party. He does the air quotes again. Another female who looks more like a bird than a human, but I leave that for the hospital to sort out. Witnesses to the explosion from around the city said they saw a bright flash and then the boom went up into the sky, like a reverse tornado.

A what? Günn cannot keep the annoyance from her voice. That’s not even possible.

Anderson shrugs. "Multiples corroborated that the explosion—well—imploded into the sky. They saw the debris flying upward, every last bit of the hill with it."

Red Feather looks up, thinking of the Sky Gods his father told him about as a child.

I’m not the religious type, but fuck me if survivors at all isn’t some kind of miracle. Captain Anderson runs his hand through his thick batch of hair.

Günn scoffs. I don’t believe in miracles. I believe in evidence.

Then you’d better take a hard look around here, Detective. And we’re just getting started.

Anderson, Red Feather and Günn eye the acreage that just yesterday housed one of Los Angeles’s strangest landmarks. The Crane Mansion and the hill upon which it rested had been man-made. The gonzo Crane and his billions from a global motel industry went toward constructing the eyesore of a hill and its nonsensical mansion atop. Angelenos protested, arguing that the structure would ruin their iconic skyline. Crane’s money won and ten years later the Motel Chain Mansion—as it became known around town—was complete, jutting through the heart of Hollywood. A thorn in the side of a concrete city.

Anything else, Boss? Red Feather looks back at Anderson as Governor Bernard Brooks arrives with his entourage. The captain’s cue for publicity hour.

Keep an eye on the CSIs for now, make sure they bag whatever body parts are still here. When you’re done, head to Spruce-Musa Hospital, I want witness statements from the survivors before the Feds take over. You get every last drop on what they remember, I don’t care if they are traumatized or what, you grill ’em. Then get back to the station. We’ll have those Bad Vibe goons in custody by the time you do.

You got it, Boss.

Captain Anderson hitches up his pants, fixes his tie. Ok then, time for my close-up. Günn brushes the smudge of ash from his sleeve in a rare gesture of kindness. Anderson nods in thanks and strides to the mass of paparazzi craning their way for a peek around the cordon of police officers.

The detectives watch as Pete Mazzotti, head of Hollywood PD forensics, extracts the four-foot remnant of a lizard tail costume from under a layer of ash and calls to Detective Red Feather. Mazzotti photographs it in situ with a Polaroid camera. The machine hums and haws before spitting out the image. Mazzotti holds the photo like it’s glass, waits for the image to develop. He’s satisfied, puts the photo with the growing pile of crime scene snaps and turns to Red Feather, showing him the piece.

This must have been some wild party. Mazzotti studies the prosthetic detail that went into this lizard tail. It looks almost real, a prehistoric relic.

Red Feather shakes his head. What a fucking mess.

Royal. Pete makes a note on his clipboard and places the tail in a body bag.

You find anymore costume bits you let us know. DNA’ll take forever but if we got descriptions we can make public…gonna be a hell of a time putting names to what’s left. Tell your team.

You got it, Detective.

Red Feather looks at Günn. I just don’t get how anyone managed to walk away from this.

Günn tilts her head and frowns. I guess we’ll find out when we interview them. Maybe they were, I dunno, somewhere else when it all went down. There has to be a reasonable explanation.

She was missing her leg, Red Feather reminds the pedantic-to-a-fault Günn.

I know. Aren’t we lucky we caught the night shift? Günn flashes an uncharacteristic smile.

A yell from one of the CSIs gets everyone running over to the far side of the site.

You’re fucking kidding me! Mazzotti wonders if he’s still sleeping.

An investigator holds up a decapitated head, purple hair, one eye. Not a costume.

A cyclops? Red Feather’s brow furrows.

Mazzotti pries open the eye, bloodshot, bright green iris. Birth defect, I’m guessing. There’s herbs that’ll stop the brain from splitting into two lobes in uteri. The mom must’ve been big on alternative meds and didn’t realize until it was too late. Mazzotti shrugs. Or she could have been poisoned.

Well, Günn says, her mistake, our gain. A one-eyed girl is gonna be a piece of cake to ID.

Always the pragmatist, huh Günn.

Günn scowls. Mazzotti places the head into a plastic baggie. Tags the location, scribbles on his clipboard. Rave parties. What a bunch of freaks.

What about Charles Wallace Crane? Weirdo recluse living on his homemade hill goes and actually throws a rave, God knows why, that gets blown all to hell? Entitled Richie Riches like him get Günn’s blood boiling something awful.

Red Feather feels a tinge of sadness as he looks at the one-eyed girl, her skin made opaque by the plastic bag. She looks so young, too young to be at a rave. Now dead.

Mazzotti places the head in the growing pile of bagged body parts recovered from the wreckage. It’s strange that we have body parts at all, truth be told. Taking into account the state of vaporization on the hill, I can’t even begin to explain how these bits and bobs made it. He’s going to win Criminalist of the Year after he publishes on all this. Maybe he’ll get that raise he’s been promised, even before the salary freeze ends.

And the four survivors? Günn added.

Mazzotti shakes his head. Yeah, I got nothing. Except maybe divine intervention, but that ain’t gonna fly when this all goes to court.

Red Feather’s cell phone rings. He walks away from Günn and Mazzotti. Talks. Hangs up. HQ. They’ve got three of the perps in custody. Captain says two are brothers, other’s a friend. Oldest one is twenty-five, youngest is eighteen-flipping-years old. Red Feather feels that same sadness steal over him. What happened to these kids to drive them to mass murder?

Günn wishes she’d be the one to interrogate the little shits.

Oh for God’s sake, Mazzotti says. They on drugs?

Guess we’ll find out soon enough. Red Feather does a three-sixty of the site.

Günn snorts. Not with the Feebs on the job. Those tools couldn’t get a call girl to talk if they paid her.

Red Feather and Mazzotti laugh, but it’s a hollow sound. There is too much death around them as they breathe in the ash of what was once people, scattering to the wind.

Pete, you got any other notable pieces here? Red Feather looks at the nearby stack of plastic baggies.

Actually, yes. Take a look at this one. Mazzotti shows them a half a head with neck and shoulder attached. The eye is open and shines metallic through the plastic. I thought it was some kind of paint or contact lenses at first, but it’s not. Her eyes are silver.

No way, Günn says, taking the bag to examine it. You’ll test it at the lab to make sure. It can’t be silver, she thinks, not possible.

Goes without saying. And here, this one. Mazzotti rifles through the pile and pulls up a piece of torso bagged in clear plastic. When Miller handled it he got real sick, puking and then he passed out. I took a swab, but my guess it’s got some kind of poison on it.

Wasn’t he wearing gloves? Günn asks. Idiot.

Mazzotti leans over and picks up another bag. Check it out. Whatever’s on this body ate right through the gloves. Red Feather sees the gloves are full of holes, moths gone wild.

How’s it not eating through that baggie then? Günn feels a familiar sense of anger arise when things don’t make logical sense.

I thought of that, too. Must be a reaction to the sweat from his hands inside the glove. Reacted with whatever is on this woman’s skin. Mazzotti shows them.

Woman?

See here? That’s the top of her uterus.

Red Feather and Günn’s eyes widen.

Mazzotti bends down and picks up another bag. Another strange one. Look. Mazzotti pulls the plastic tight over the kneecap of a whole lower leg and foot. It appears her bones are made of metal.

Surgery? Implant, maybe? Red Feather asks, turning the bag over.

Nope, it appears to run all the way through and look at the vessels around the bone—also metal. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is some kind of cyborg. Mazzotti raises his left eyebrow and sighs.

What, like The Terminator? Günn wishes she still smoked. Then again, the day’s still young.

Exactamundo, Detective. But that’s not possible. We’re years from that kind of tech. Mazzotti rifles and picks out a bag that could either be a thigh or a fleshy arm. Last strange one. Check it out. Mazzotti squeezes and blood seeps from each amputated end.

Red Feather and Günn are speechless, a unison gasp.

Yeah, I barely believe it and I’m looking right at it. Mazzotti clears his throat, giving the dumbfound a moment to clear. So, anyway, Detectives, I let you know when I get this all back to the lab and we do our tests. In the meantime, we’ll keep sifting through all this and see what else we got under all this dust.

Thanks, Pete, Red Feather says, his voice returning, we’ll check back in later. He nods, Günn follows suit and they head back to the car.

Mazzotti turns and surveys the strange pile of body parts that should not exist. He sees a hand with long acrylic nails about to burst from its bag. Goddamn rookies, he mutters, taking note of whom originally processed the item and puts it in a larger bag. Mazzotti checks the rest of the baggies, sees that many of the body parts look like they’ve been forced into too-small receptacles. He growls, striding off to give his team a what-for.

Kaleanathi, the Smog Goddess

You are the daughter of Kali and Athena, banished from the heavens by your angry grandfather Zeus, and Kali’s jealous husband, Shiva. In the pantheon of Ethereals and Elementals, you are a hybrid, a goddess between the ephemeral and the actual. A borderdweller with no place. A new goddess with no value to the old ones, left to your own devices without a thought.

You made your home in the smog above Los Angeles as the eater of souls. So many to choose from here. Gang violence, gun violence, car crashes, drug overdoses. You eat them all, trapping them in a limbo of your own creation, drawing power from their pain. Oh, the feast you had tonight over the Charles Wallace Crane mansion. Thousands upon thousands of oblations, screaming into your poison womb. The first night of its kind. You’re already hungry for more. Your goal is to surpass Kali and Athena’s powers. Maybe even Mother, The Ancient One’s. You’re almost there already.

However, The Ethereals have stolen some of your tribute. Four souls who walked away from your night. You will have these offerings back. They’re marked by your stain. Their lives belong to you, and only you. Finally, you have the power to match the pantheon of your ancestors as you manipulate human fear in a toxic alchemy.

Double, bubble, toil and trouble. Your black skies percolate over the city in anticipation of your next bold move. The dozens of thousands of souls in you wail in protest as you feed on their sadness, savoring every drop of misery.

3:00 AM Hollywood Police Department

The Hollywood PD station is a squat brown frog of a building set back from the street, demarcated by a line of trees, and back-up cop cars. The station’s a ten-minute drive from the site of the Crane Mansion Massacre without traffic. And there’s no traffic today. Inside, Detective Finian Murphy, also squat and frog-like with a wide jowly face, watches as patrolmen cart Preston Reid, and Frank and Tommy Cullen in through the back, press vultures already gotten wind that the punks are here. The Bad Vibe Kids they called themselves in their initial statement to the press before they were arrested on charges of mass murder and conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. Their response? Some nonsense about wanting to purify the party scene, whatever the hell that means. Murphy had been waiting to see a bunch of leather-clad black-coat goth weirdos courtesy of Columbine, not these three fresh-faced and colorfully bedecked youngsters. If he didn’t know better All American would be the description that sprang to mind. But he knows better.

Captain Anderson, back at the station after his interview, gives Murphy a cursory glance. With two complaints for sexually inappropriate and racist comments already under Murphy’s belt, he’s the last person Anderson wants anywhere near this case, what with his scarily low IQ and general sense of entitlement. The slightest fuck-up from this end and Anderson imagines every single person under his watch will have a compromised job. Anderson prays for the day Murph’ll screw the pooch ‘til Sunday and he’ll finally have an excuse to park him behind a desk for good, or better yet, give him a nice early retirement package. Captain Anderson sighs. If only Murphy’s dad hadn’t been the one to save his life in the cartel shoot-out that earned them both medals of honor.

When do I get to interrogate ’em, Boss? I passed my cert with flying colors, you saw. Eagerness drips from Murphy’s too-high voice.

Murphy. You listen and you listen good. Captain Anderson pokes a finger in Murphy’s chest and speaks slowly to make sure the mental deficient gets it. "You are not to go near those suspects. This is a terrorist case. Means the FBI will come in with their best confession-wrangler. You are not even assigned to this case. I’m still waiting for your report on those break-ins in Silver Lake. You make that your priority. Have it on my desk by the end of the day."

Murphy puffs up. No way, Boss. Not if you’ve given Tonto and Tweaker first dibs on the Crane Massacre. No way, nuh uh.

Captain Anderson gets right in Murphy’s grille. You cut that shit out, you hear me. The next complaint you get is gonna bring you back a pay grade. I won’t care who your father is. Got it? Murphy deflates, looks to the floor. Captain Anderson nudges him in the chest again. "Detectives Red Feather and Günn are on site. I repeat: You have not a goddamn thing to do with the Crane case. Got it?" Anderson has to work not to yell.

Yes, Boss. Nothing gets through to Murphy like threatening his cash flow. How else would he keep himself in noir-inspired custom tailored suits and video box sets of black and white detective films? Anderson shakes his head and walks to his office, leaving Murphy to pull himself together.

Fuck that, Murphy whispers, thinking of all the times he’s heard his colleagues and patrolman snickering about him behind his back. How they call him half-wit. Retard. Dumbo. How his daddy pulled so many strings to get him into the academy he should be a puppeteer for a second career. Murphy’s gonna show ’em, and show ’em good. He’s gonna crack those kids open like Christmas chestnuts. Ok, punks, he sneers as he turns up his collar, thinking he looks like Humphrey Bogart but looking more like an Irish Joe Pesci. Here comes papa.

3:15 AM The Wreckage

CSI Mazzotti is in a state and a half at the site of the Crane Massacre. He waves baggies of body parts in the faces of his team. What the hell is wrong with you people? Your eyes don’t work? You can’t fucking manage to bag these pieces in appropriately-sized receptacles?

Tina Vasco, slight, long dark hair pulled back into a bun, vintage cat’s eye glasses with gems in the sides, steps up. "Calm