Pettigrew was silent, looking at the floor in front of him, as if he'd found a crack that made an interesting pattern in the concrete. "I hear things, all kinds of shit," he said finally. "It's hard to know how much of it's true, and what's connected to what, you know?"

  "Yeah," I said. "So?"

  "I get a feeling it's not going to stop with the witches," he said. "Pretty soon, other supies are going to turn up as members of the true dead, and you know what I call that?"

  "What?"

  "A good start." He frowned at the floor. "But this is some crazy shit, if the whisper stream has it right. These motherfuckers are looking to start the Big Party." He looked up at me then, and I saw something in his face that was a mix of eagerness and fear. "Helter Skelter, man. Helter fucking Skelter."

  Helter Skelter. Years ago, a crew of Charlie Manson's bloodthirsty wackos had written that in blood on the interior walls of a house, out in the Hollywood Hills. The blood came from the bodies of four women who'd been having a social evening when the killers broke in. One of the women was the wife of the famous were actor, Larry Talbot.

  The next night, a different bunch of crazies, also sent by Manson, had invaded an elegant house in LA, not far from the La Brea tar pits. Armed with holy water, wooden stakes, and an Uzi that sprayed silver bullets, they'd left behind three dead vamps and "Helter Skelter" written all over the place in vampire blood.

  The Talbot-La Brea murders had scared the shit out of undead Southern California, but it wasn't long before the police, acting on a tip, busted Charlie and his bunch of misfits at some ranch they had out there in the desert. It was at their trial that the prosecution explained to the jury in detail what Manson's conception of Helter Skelter really was.

  The name came from an innocent little song on the Beatles' White Magic album, but there was nothing innocent about what Crazy Charlie had in mind for America: race war.

  Out of Manson's deranged mind had come the notion that the Bible predicted a final showdown between humans and supes, or what Charlie called the "Children of Light" and the "Children of Darkness." When it became clear to the supes that humans were targeting them, courtesy of Charlie and his troops, they would strike back indiscriminately. This would bring a swift response from humans, prompting a struggle that would eventually result in the annihilation of every supe on the planet.

  Or something like that.

  Charlie was currently serving ninety-nine years to forever, and the rest of his tribe also went down for long stretches. A few of them were released eventually, and one of the women actually tried to assassinate President Ford. But somebody in the crowd grabbed the gun away before Betty could take a bullet.

  In any case, the visions of Helter Skelter were locked up with the madman who had dreamed them, and that particular brand of craziness wasn't going to trouble the world again.

  Or so everybody thought.

  I looked at Pettigrew. "If you really believe that, you oughta be happy as a pig eating garbage," I said.

  His mouth tightened at my insulting metaphor, but what he said was, "I don't know, man. I just don't know. It's a cool idea to rap about over a few beers or some weed, but making it really happen…" He let his voice trail off.

  "You afraid you might get killed, is that it?"

  He shook his head. "No, within the context of the struggle, my life is nothing."

  I just looked at him. After ten seconds or so, his somber expression broke and he snorted with laughter.

  "Guess you still know bullshit when you hear it, huh?"

  "I encounter so much, you might say it's pretty familiar," I said.

  "Yeah, well, sure, I'm afraid I might die, if the capital 'S' shit hits the capital 'F' fan. I've got a wife and kids that I love the hell out of, most days. And I'm pretty damn fond of myself, too. But that's not the real reason why this Helter Skelter stuff scares me."

  "What, then?"

  "I'm afraid we just might lose."

It was time for me to go to work for real. When I got to the squad room, I saw that Karl had already arrived. He was alone in the place, apart from Lieutenant McGuire, who was in his glass-enclosed office at the far end.

  Karl looked up, said, "Hey," and went back to work on his computer. I wanted to let him know about my conversation with Pettigrew, even though he might be pissed that I went there without him. I walked around to his side, grabbed an empty chair from somebody's desk, and wheeled it over to where Karl was sitting. As I plopped down he turned and looked at me curiously. "What's up, Stan?"

  "I got out of the house earlier than usual tonight. Christine and I have some shit going on, and I didn't feel like dealing with it right now, so I left before she got up."

  "Is she OK?" I sometimes wonder if Karl has some kind of a thing for Christine. I hope he doesn't, although I couldn't have said why, exactly.

  "It's complicated, but, yeah, she's OK. I'll tell you about it sometime. Maybe you can even give me some advice, since you're uniquely qualified. But now you need to hear about the conversation I just–"

  That was far as I got when McGuire came out of his office and yelled, "Markowski, Renfer – you got one." He didn't need to yell, since we were the only ones here, but I think it's just habit with him now.

  I swiveled the chair around and stood up. "We've already got two cases going, boss," I said carefully. "If you count the snuff film thing, that is."

  "And now you'll have three. You see anybody else around here to catch it?"

  Karl was on his feet by now. "What and where, boss?"

  "Looks like a dead werewolf in Nay Aug Park. Your buddy Scanlon is on the scene and asked for somebody from what he likes to call the spook squad."

  "The park's a pretty big place," Karl said. "Got any info about where the scene is?"

  "Yeah," McGuire said. "The tree house."

  There's this company that goes around the country building enormous tree houses in parks and other public green spaces. They charge a lot, but the city was able to get a matching grant from some Federal agency a few years back, and I have to admit the final product was impressive.