Dangerous Angels with Bonus Materials Read online

  I’m out of breath. I lean against the icy-veined marble wall and it makes my bones ache. I feel like I’m in a tomb. I wipe my forehead. My whole body is pounding with fever-fear.

  Charlie’s light is doing the nerve-jig so I keep following him through the maze and into a room made of mirrors. And there in the mirror, jiggling like a puppet made of light, like the plastic charm-bracelet skeletons, like a life-sized Day of the Dead doll, is Charlie. He waves his hands all excited, his face scrunched with worry, and I figure out he wants me to press on one of the mirror panels and it opens. Out of the mirror he turns into a light again and we go down a staircase. At the bottom is a metal chamber room. It’s so small and crowded with naked mannequins that I feel like I can’t breathe, like the mannequins are hogging up all the air. A mannequin falls against me, hitting me with its jointed plastic arm and I look at its face and I see that it is Angel Juan. He’s bald but it’s him. I try not to scream but I jump back and bump into another mannequin and that one is Angel Juan too. I start slamming around and they’re all falling on me and every single one has Angel’s face. This is a room full of Angel Juans. What does this Cake want? What is happening here?

  Then I notice the Charlie glow lighting up a corner of the room.

  I touch the silvery angel that sleeps in the hollow part of my neck.

  A boy is slumped against a wall with the mannequins all around him and a guitar with the Virgin Mary in a wreath of roses painted on it leaning against his chest. His hair is long and falling in his face and he looks like he hasn’t eaten much in a while but even though he’s changed a lot I know right away who he is. And it’s like I understand stuff all of a sudden.

  Dear Angel Juan,

  Do you know when they say soul-mates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. “Soul-mate wanted.” It doesn’t mean too much now. But soul-mates—think about it. When your soul—whatever that is anyway—something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape—when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to—even if you can’t be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul’s wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. It must be like all the weddings in the world—gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets, showers of roses. And after that happens you know—that’s it, this is it. But sometimes you have to let that person go. When you’re little, people, movies and fairy tales all tell you that one day you’re going to meet this person. So you keep waiting and it’s a lot harder than they make it sound. Then you meet and you think, okay, now we can just get on with it but you find out that sometimes your soul brother partner lover has other ideas about that. They want to go to New York and write their own songs or whatever. They feel like you don’t really love them but the idea of them, the dream you’ve had since you were a kid about a panther boy to carry you out of the forest of your fear or an angel to make love and celestial music with in the clouds or a genie twin to sleep with you inside a lamp. Which doesn’t mean they’re not the one. It just means you’ve got to do whatever you have to do for you alone. You’ve got to believe in your magic and face right up to the mean nasty part of yourself that wants to keep the one you love locked up in a place in you where no one else can touch them or even see them. Just the way when somebody you love dies you don’t stop loving them but you don’t lock up their souls inside you. You turn that love into something else, give it to somebody else. And sometimes in a weird way when you do that you get closer than ever to the person who died or the one your soul married.

  I run over and fall down next to him and put my arms around him and he looks up like his head is almost too heavy to lift and his jaw drops but he doesn’t say anything. He almost looks as blind as those mannequins himself. But his heart is beating and he’s not made of plastic and I have my arms around him. He is in my arms.

  Charlie-light starts doing his nervous dance like he wants us to hurry.

  I try to get Angel Juan to stand up but it’s like he’s too weak or something—he just slumps down again, his fingers catching in my sweater and bringing me down with him. I try to think of what to do but every time I see the plastic mannequin faces staring at me and the plastic smiles made from my boyfriend’s lips and teeth I just go blank. I just keep thinking over and over again, What is Cake trying to do? How could this be? How can anything I do save us from this kind of a ghoulie demon-thing?

  And then we hear something that sounds like glass shattering. For a second I think of how I smashed that mirror in Charlie Bat’s apartment and how stupid that was and that I’ll be lucky if I’m around long enough to get seven years of any kind of luck at all. And then before any of us can move, the Cake demon comes storming into the room, pushing over the mannequins. He has blood on his hand. Maybe he cut himself on the mirror he broke in the mirror room. The blood is so red against his white hand and dripping onto his white silk robe. It almost seems like he wouldn’t have red blood because he is so white. Like he’d have white icing coming out of him or something. But it’s blood. I just stare at it. Then I see that he’s holding something wrapped in a sheet and his blood is getting all over that too.

  “What are you doing down here?” he says in his very soft voice. “Who said you could come down here?” He is King Clutch Warthog.

  “I was just kickin’.”

  “Well, it’s all right,” Cake says. “I have something for you anyway.”

  He starts to unwrap the thing he’s carrying. I see that it’s another mannequin and it’s smaller than the Angel Juan mannequins. I see the back of its head and it reminds me of the time when I shaved off all my hair with my dad’s razor. Then I realize that the reason I’m thinking that is because this mannequin’s head looks exactly like the shape of my head without any hair. Cake spins the mannequin around and there’s me, Witch Baby—it’s my face with the pointed chin and the tilty eyes. I hold on tight to Angel Juan’s hand.

  “When?” I say.

  “I made her while you were sleeping. You’ve been sleeping for a few days. I’m going to put you inside of her.”

  “Why?” I say.

  “Do you know about mummies? It’s a little like that. I give you a place to sleep. All the children that I find. It’s like you are immortal.” Cake strokes the cheek of one of the Angel Juan mannequins. “Usually I just make one. But he is so beautiful. I just keep wanting to make more of him. Now I guess I’ll have to put you both away for good.” He looks at us with his pale-crystal eyes.

  He comes toward me and puts out his hand—the one that’s not bleeding. I want to go to him. I feel drowsy. I wish I had the globe lamp Weetzie gave me to ward off evil.

  But:

  Believe in your own magic, Weetzie said. Maybe my own magic gave me Charlie Bat.

  Look stuff right in the eye, Vixanne Wigg said. Look at your own darkness. Maybe Cake is that. Maybe Cake is me. The part that wants to keep Angel Juan locked in my life.

  All the ghosts and demons are just you, Charlie said.

  Look stuff right in the eye.

  But I can’t look in Cake’s eyes. I’ll be under his spell. So I take my camera and look at him through that.

  My own magic. Maybe magic is just love. Maybe genies are what love would be if love walked and talked and lived in a lamp. The wishes might not come true the way you think they will, not everything will be perfect, but love will come because it always does, because why else would it exist and it will make everything hurt a little less. You just have to believe in yourself. Look your demons right in the eye. Set your Angel Juans free to do the same thing themselves.

  I snap a picture of creepster Cake with the last shot in my camera. There is a flash like lightning.

>   My wishes are: my beloved Angel Juan is free, Charlie Bat finds peace, Cake becomes who he really is. These are my wishes.

  Cake starts to shake. He is a white blur. Then he gets very still.

  Angel Juan’s limp fingers wake up in my hand. “Nina Bruja,” he says. I look at him. We are both crying like babies. I feel my fever break into clean sweat. Angel Juan takes my hand and presses it to his lips. We put our arms around each other in our brother grip. And we watch Cake seal up inside himself, becoming a bleached plastic mannequin man without a breath or a heartbeat. He’s not any different from before really. This is who he really is.

  We can leave.

  Charlie’s light leads us out of the chamber, down the halls. Angel Juan doesn’t ask about the light that looks like it’s coming from an invisible flashlight. He leans against me, holding my hand.

  We get to the gold-and-white room with the mannequin smoking a pipe and the family having a tea party and the grinning boy. None of them will ever leave. They look so real that it seems like we could wake them and take them with us but I know if I shook one of them the only sound would be the clatter of bones against plastic. Angel Juan knows what I’m thinking. He holds my hand tighter as we go through the door that leads back to our life.

  It’s dark when Charlie, Angel Juan and I come up into the empty diner. The jukebox is still playing “Johnny Angel” like it never stopped. My dirty dishes are still on the counter. But the Angel mannequin isn’t in the window anymore.

  I put on my skates. We go outside and it’s so cold that Angel Juan and I can see the ghosts of our breath on the air. We put our arms around each other in our perfect-fit brother grip. We stumble-shake-skate back to the apartment following Charlie’s light.

  If Charlie’s building reminded me of a beat-up old vaudeville guy when I first saw it, now I think all the rooms are like songs he still remembers in his head. And the best song is on the tenth floor in the Rag Mop room.

  There is a note on the door.

  Dear Lily,

  We are home. The ghost is at peace. We hope you don’t mind but we let ourselves in to give you a few things. Come by as soon as you can. We are worried about you. Love from your benevolent almost-almost uncles, Mallard and Meadows.

  We go in. Charlie flies right over to his trunk and slips inside.

  I look in the cupboards and the refrigerator. Mallard and Meadows filled them with food—apples, oranges, scones, bagels, oatmeal, raisins, almond butter, strawberry jam, tea and honey. Angel Juan and I chomp-down lap-up almost everything and fall onto the Persian carpet wrapped in each other like blankets.

  “Thank you, Niña Bruja,” he whispers, taking me in his arms. “You set me free, Miss Genie.”

  His eyelids flicker closed and I can hear his breathing getting deeper. I get up and go over to the trunk.

  “Come on, Charles,” I say.

  I look into the mirror pieces. “Grandpa Bat?”

  Slowly, like when ripply water in a pool gets still so you can see yourself, his face floats up out of the murky murk of the mirror.

  “I’ll miss you, Witch Baby.” His voice fortune-cookie crackles, old-movie pops.

  “You can come back with me to L.A. Weetzie would rock.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Well then I’ll visit you.”

  “No. I’m going to leave now. I needed to finish some things and now I’m done.”

  “Finish what?”

  “I wanted to stay and meet you, little black lamb. And make sure you would be all right. I wanted to help you but I messed up and really you helped me.”

  “You didn’t mess anything up.”

  “I didn’t help you find Angel Juan.”

  “You helped me find me. You helped me rescue Angel Juan.”

  “I guess I did. I did something right finally. Something besides Weetzie.”

  “What did I do for you?”

  “You made me see how I was—what is it you guys say—clutching? Onto Weetzie. Onto you so you couldn’t do what you had to do. Clutching on life.”

  “How did I do that? I just hung out with you. You’re the one who showed me all around.”

  “I saw you learning how to let go. And I have to remember I’m not alive anymore, honey.”

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Take your pictures, play your drums. I should have kept writing my plays.”

  “Don’t go away, Charlie.”

  “Good-bye, Baby. Send my love to everyone. Especially Weetzie. I love you.”

  “Charlie. Grandpa.”

  But Charlie Bat smiles. It is strange and slow-mo. Real peaceful like the Buddha. It seems like his eyes are smiling along with his mouth now for the first time, the pupils almost disappearing into a crinkle of lines, just shining out a little. He lifts his hand and waves it back and forth, long fingers leaving a trail of light. Then he disappears into the darkness like a candle blown out. The shiny restless whistling whirr of energy that was my grandfather ghost is quiet now. All I see in the mirror is a kind-of-small girl. Maybe she looks a little like an Egyptian queen.

  I open the window and look out. Blast of cold air makes my snarl-ball hair stand up on my scalp. There are stars, electric light bulbs, candles, fireflies. There are a million flickers, glimmers, shimmers, flashes, sparkles, glows. None of them will sing “Rag Mop” to me. None of them will take me through the city. None of them will tell me that we have the same blood. But in all of them is some Charlie Bat.

  “Good-bye, Grandmaster Rag Mop Man,” I whisper, lying down to sleep next to Angel Juan.

  Dear Angel Juan,

  I dream we are inside the globe lamp. But this time we just sleep there for a little while like two genies. In the morning we will fly out of the lamp. We will be able to travel all around the world on our magic carpets, you and I, seeing everything—sometimes parting, sometimes meeting again.

  It’s almost the next night when we wake up, shy like we’ve never touched each other before or something.

  I get the rest of the food and we munch it sitting on the carpet talking about the things we’ve seen. Angels and fireflies, temples and flea markets. How I found his photo booth pictures and his lost postcard. We don’t talk about Cake though.

  “I started playing my songs on the streets,” Angel Juan says. “People give me money.”

  “Can I hear?”

  And Angel Juan plays the song on his guitar.

  Panther girl you guard my sleep

  bite back at my pain with the edge of your teeth

  carry me into the jungle dark

  lope easy past the eyes that watch

  stride the fish-scale river shine

  and the pumping green-blood vines

  we will leave my tears behind

  in a pool that silver chimes

  we will leave behind my sorrow

  leave it in the rotting hollows

  when I wake you are beside me

  damp and matted from the journey

  your eyes hazy as you try to know

  how far down we tried to go

  and the way I clung to you

  all my tears soaking through

  fur and flesh, muscle, bone

  like a child blind, unborn

  whose dreams caress you deep inside

  are my dreams worth the ride?

  In all the time we’ve made music together I have almost never heard his voice by itself without the rest of our band. It’s a little scratchy and also sweet. I look at him and think, he’s not a little boy anymore. He can go into the world alone and sing by himself. I am so hypnotized that at first I don’t realize that the words are almost the same as the letter I wrote to him and never sent.

  “How did you know?” I say when he is done. I am out of breath.

  “What?”

  “You just know me so much. How do you know me so much?”

  He grins. “Do you like it?”

  I don’t have to say anything. He can see in my
face.

  “Baby, I missed you,” he says.

  “Do you need to stay in New York still?” I ask it looking right at him trying not to crampy-cram up inside.

  He looks back into my eyes and nods. “I think so. A little while longer.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “It’s okay now. It’s over.”

  It is.

  “Maybe you could stay with me,” he says.

  “I have to go back to school and everything.”

  “Do you want me to go home with you?”

  I look out the window. I think about Angel Juan playing his music down there in the streets. I think about the crowds rushing past. Some of the people stopping. Breathing in his music like air. Feeling it warm their skin and take them to places where it is green and gold and blue. Taking them into their dreams. Suddenly they can remember their dreams and walk through the city streets wearing their dreams. They turn into panthers, fireflies, trees, fields of sunflowers, oceans, avalanches, fireworks. It’s all because of Angel Juan and his guitar.

  “No,” I say. “You stay. You can stay in Charlie’s apartment.”

  “Niña”

  I put my finger to his lips. They press out firm and full and a little dry against the pad of my fingertip. I can feel my own lips buzz.

  “I don’t think I should stay in your family’s place,” he says.

  “Weetzie would want you to.”

  “Only if you ask her.”

  “Angel Juan,” I say, “I found your tree house.”

  He looks at me, his eyes so sparkly-dark. “Niña,” he says. “Only you could do that.”

  “Were you with anybody else?” I ask.

  “No, Baby. I thought about you all the time.”

  “What about that thing you said about us being together just ’cause we’re scared of getting sick.”