Lizard Men of Los Angeles | Page 3

your physical depravity, nor even your wretched verse. It is your lack of compassion. It renders you less than human, and beneath contempt."
Crowley colored at the mention of his poetry, but quickly regained control. "You are so sanctimonious, Cairo." He waved one massive, long-fingered hand dismissively. "Yet you and I are two sides of the same coin. I debauch young women to feed my self-esteem, you rescue them to the same end. You focus your will through your 'craft' and your petty conjurings, I focus mine through ritual and tantric practice, but both of us know that will is the key. 'Do what thou wilt--'"
"'--shall be the whole of the Law,'" Cairo intoned. "So you have told us, again and again."
"You weary me, Cairo. Begone."
Mrs. Lockhart had not yet returned. Cairo glanced at his watch. "I dispute your comparisons," he said. "We are separate coins, and yours is made of base metal, counterfeit."
Crowley, in a show of indifference, put a pinch of white powder on the web of his left thumb and inhaled it briskly. From one of the darkened corners of the room came a sharp cry, though whether of pain or pleasure was not immediately obvious.
"And whatever else may be true of me," Cairo persisted, "I can at least console myself that I am not the author of poetry so wretched that it is universally reviled in my lifetime and will be forgotten promptly thereafter."
This, at last, reduced Crowley to rage. "Hasan!" he screamed in a high-pitched voice. A young Arab in an embroidered galabeya and turban appeared, carrying a scimitar.
Crowley pointed to Cairo. "Kill him!"
*
Cairo, with an expression of distaste, let his gaze wander around the room. He took three strides to the fireplace where he hefted the brass poker. "Mmmm," he said with some dissatisfaction, and extended the implement from a practiced fencer's stance.
Suddenly wary, Hasan, who had raised his scimitar and seemed to be on the point of charging, glanced nervously at Crowley. "Kill him!" Crowley shrieked again, and the young Arab inched forward, twirling the blade with a circular motion of his wrist. Cairo gave way before it, passing behind a sofa from which two scantily-clad women regarded him with mild interest.
Hasan lunged and swung the curved blade in a murderous arc. Cairo somehow stepped out of its path, letting it carry on unimpeded into a priceless white Chinese vase, which shattered into a hundred fragments. Glancing behind him, Cairo's eyes fell upon a heavily-laden coffee table, and he reached back with his left foot to kick it aside. Powders, liquids, and candles flew across the room in a graceful arc and a teenage boy, who'd been reaching for one of the bowls, let out a sigh of regret.
Another furious scimitar slash failed to connect, reducing Hasan to blind fury. He became a windmill of flashing steel and yet Cairo remained untouched as the young Arab hurtled past him, colliding with a love seat and sending himself and its occupants sprawling across the deep red Oriental carpet of the adjacent dining room.
Stumbling to his feet, Hasan hurled a massive chair at Cairo, who ducked it easily. "Damn you," Crowley shouted at the boy. "Can you not finish him?"
Hasan moved in with the sword again, backing Cairo toward a corner. The boy's confidence was gone and he fought with the desperate intensity of the hopeless. His blade clashed with Cairo's poker once, twice, a third time, and then Cairo said, "Ah. There you are."
With a fluid motion he sent the scimitar spinning out of Hasan's grip, leaving the boy with a purpling bruise across the back of his hand.
Mrs. Lockhart, who had reappeared from the back of the house, stood in the center of the room, staring at the upturned furniture and the shattered vase and bowls. "Shall we?" she asked Cairo.
"Indeed," Cairo replied, and he saluted Crowley with the poker before tossing it into the fireplace. "If you'll forgive us, we'll take our leave."
"I will curse you, Cairo," Crowley muttered. "Carefully, elaborately, and inescapably. You will regret this. Briefly, in the time that remains to you."
"Do what thou wilt," Cairo said, and extended his arm to Mrs. Lockhart.
*
As they walked down the driveway Mrs. Lockhart said, "No sign of Veronica Fleming, but I did find an acquaintance of hers. She claims that her name is Blanche. I assisted her escape through a window, and she's now waiting for us in the car."
Mrs. Lockhart walked around to the front passenger seat while Cairo got in back next to a thin, pale woman with limp ash-blonde hair. She wore a low-cut evening dress of white satin. "Blanche, indeed," Cairo smiled. "What's your real name?"
After a long pause the woman lifted her pale eyes and said, "Mildred. Mildred Davis. Of Hillsboro, Missouri."
"Drive," Mrs. Lockhart said to the