Butcher Bird

"Shh!"

Fifteen

I LUV LA

They crossed San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz Island with a hundred other tourists and their children. Spyder hadn't been to the island in a couple of years. He'd always regarded the place as a bore and used the foggy crossing and general gloom that surrounded Alcatraz's abandoned maximum-security prison as compelling seduction tools. It usually worked.

Je

When they moored at Alcatraz, Spyder and his companions waited until most of the families had gone ashore before exiting the boat. A park ranger was giving the group a ca

The ranger finished her spiel and the tourists split into smaller groups to explore the island. Spyder and Shrike followed Primo up the hill toward the prison cellblocks. As they climbed the steep grade, Spyder became aware that many of the tourists, especially the fathers in family groups, lumbered under the weight of demonic parasites that were attached to their bodies. Some of the parents bore scars from the Black Clerks. Spyder met one man's gaze-he still had his eyes-and the look the man gave Spyder was filled with such resigned despair that Spyder had to turn away. Out of the corner of his eye, Spyder watched the man herding his wife and children into the prison gift shop.

Past the cellblocks, on the edge of the island looking back toward San Francisco, were rusted steel double doors. They were chained loosely together and, with a little effort, Primo was able to push himself through the opening. Shrike, smaller, slid easily through the gap. Spyder had to take his leather jacket off to get through and even then there was a lot of grunting and dragging himself inside by inches. But he finally made it.

"I probably could have picked that lock," he said once he was inside the tu

"Don't worry. I have a key," said Primo, and walked away into the darkness.

"Then why:?" Shrike elbowed Spyder to remind him not to speak. He followed them, giving up trying to understand his companions' logic.

"This is one of the old animal pens," Primo told them eagerly. "The soldiers kept their horses here during the winter rains. You can still hear them whi

In the near, but never total, darkness, they climbed down ladders and through storm grates. They walked passages with floors of mud, passages lined with planks, cobblestone passages and some whose floors seemed to be some kind of soft, spongy metal that made Spyder want to run like a little kid. He was sure that there was no way all these passages were part of the prison complex. This was confirmed for Spyder as they moved through a rocky tu

They went through underground vaults and what looked like old sewer sluiceways. Occasionally, they would meet another group moving in the opposite direction. Some were dressed in rags, some looked like ordinary city dwellers, while others looked like escapees from some particularly mean and decrepit Renaissance Faire. The groups never acknowledged each other. Spyder got the impression that the passages weren't the safest place to be.

Up ahead, he noticed that Primo had slowed down and was nervously wringing his hands. At a watery intersection that reminded Spyder of the high gothic sewers where Orson Welles met his bloody fate at the end of The Third Man, Primo stopped. The little man turned in slow circles, peering into the distance. He stared hard at the walls, as if looking for a message.

"What's wrong?" asked Shrike.

"Our transport isn't here. A tuk-tuk was supposed to be waiting."

"Did Madame Cinders pay them in advance?"

"Naturally."

"That was your mistake."

"No. She knows this family well. They are reliable. That's why she employs only them to transport her guests."

"Maybe they broke down," said Shrike. "If they were anywhere nearby, we could hear the damned racket from the tuk-tuk's engine."

"We shouldn't remain still too long. It's dangerous. I suppose we should start walking."

"That would be my suggestion," said Shrike. Spyder didn't like the idea of being in the passages any longer than they had to. He looked back the way they had come and saw things moving in the darkness. Golden eyes glinted and slid along the floor. Spyder caught up to Shrike and made sure not to fall behind again.

After what seemed like hours, they were moving through a passage lined with old red brick and dry rot timbers. A cool breeze touched Spyder's face. Sand had piled in miniature dunes where the timbers met the floor.

"Oh dear," said Primo leaning over a broken machine in the tu

"I'm guessing this is the tuk-tuk we were waiting for?" said Shrike.

"It would seem so," replied Primo. "Hmm. I don't believe this was a motor accident. There appears to be an arrow in the driver's eye. I wonder who could have put that there?"

"That would be us," came a croaking voice from the roof of the passage.

Four men (and the gender of the intruders was just a guess on Spyder's part) dropped to the floor. The men weren't holding anything, so Spyder wasn't sure how they'd been holding on to the ceiling. But what seemed more important to him now was the men's elongated faces and crocodilian skin. Each was dressed differently-one in a firefighter's rubber overcoat, another in priestly vestments, the third wore shorts and an I LUV LA T-shirt and the fourth was wearing a high school letter jacket. Spyder didn't want to think about where the lizard-men might have acquired their clothes, but the rust-colored stains on the LA T-shirt gave him some idea.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," said Primo, and he gave the lizards a bow. "I am Primo Kosinski and I am conducting these guests to the abode of Madame Cinders. The Madame has negotiated safe passage through the Blegeld Passage for herself and all her guests."