Devil Said Bang by Richard Kadrey Page B

Donut Universe. Two Kissi murdered her right in
front of me. She hadn’t done anything and wasn’t a threat to anyone. She’s dead
for no other reason than that she happened to sell me coffee. And I forgot about
her.
    I take her photo and put it in my pocket with
Alice’s.
    Near the photos of the dead are shots of people who
so far have managed to stay out of pine boxes. Candy. Vidocq. Allegra. Mr.
Muninn. Carlos. Even Kasabian and Wells.
    What the hell is this? How do a stalker photo album
and a bunch of mutilated soldiers go together? Was Mason stone-cold crazy by the
end, staring at my life while slicing up the only victims who’d willingly come
into Norman Bates’s rec room?
    I go over to the blackboard schematic. On a nearby
table are wire cutters, soldering irons, a voltmeter, and other electronic hobby
gear. Something like a computer or an elaborate radio lies gutted on the table,
circuit boards and bits of fiber-optic cable scattered around it. It looks like
someone was scavenging for parts. The device is vaguely familiar but I can’t
place it. I push one of the circuit boards out of the way and find something I
was hoping I’d never see again.
    A Golden Vigil logo. It fell off the device when it
was pried open. Now I remember what it is. It’s angelic tech—a psychic
amplifier. I saw a few around the Vigil’s L.A. warehouse. Their Shut Eye
psychics used them to supercharge their powers for interrogations and remote
viewing experiments. As much as I want to be surprised, I’m not. Mason was
working with Aelita, the old head of the Vigil. Maybe she dropped this off with
a basket of blueberry muffins as a housewarming present.
    I pick up a curled metal shaving from the table.
Turn it over in my hands. It’s a dull silver and dense. Not like something that
would go into a machine as delicate as the amplifier. There are more shavings
and half-melted ingots on the floor. I kick through them and there, lying by the
toe of my god-awful, shiny dress shoe, is what I’ve been looking for.
    I pick up the metal and go back to the chair with
the dead soldier. The metal fits perfectly into the divot behind her head. The
same thing for the holes in the hand- and footrests.
    I weigh the key in my hand. It’s heavy and solid
and comforting. I never realized until now that I miss the weight of the key in
my chest. This isn’t like my key. It won’t get anyone out of here but this
possession key has its own charms, and with the psychic amplifier, I bet it’s
how Mason got the thing to work and let him ride people back on Earth like a
voodoo Loa.
    I thought Mason’s workshop was upstairs, but the
forge and tools were just for show. This is the real lab. And the dead soldiers
were his first experiments as he tried to make the key work. These aren’t
Lucifer’s clues and none of this gets me any closer to getting out of here, but
it’s still useful. Whoever has the key must also have a working psychic
amplifier, the one Mason was scavenging parts for. That means I don’t
necessarily have to find the key. If I can find and smash the amplifier, it
might kill the key’s power. Better yet, if I can find the key and the amplifier,
I might be able to talk to someone back in L.A.
    This is good news. Not
break-out-the-champagne-I’m-coming-home good news. More like
open-a-six-pack-of-malt-liquor-I-didn’t-drop-my-keys-down-the-toilet-at-work
good news. But after the last three months, I’ll take any good news I can
get.
    The dissected Hellion is really starting to stink
up the place. I want to go back to my room and sandblast my skin off but there’s
one more thing.
    By itself, in the corner of the room, is an ornate
wooden table holding a black lacquered box. The box is perfectly square and
featureless. When I touch the top, I can feel faint vibrations from inside.
    I feel along the edges and find a subtle seam. Then
others nearby. I push on one and nothing happens. Others move an inch or two.
The damn thing is a puzzle