26 (back to normal story)

Some pawnbrokers love to talk about acquisitions. They like implying that everything in their shop has a story and a mysterious heritage. But since Elena actually is involved in weird illegal shit, you know she's not going to talk unless you're careful.

So you take your time, asking first about different knives, then about occult paraphernalia. Elena takes you on a tour of her occult trinkets as you keep circling back to the silver knife.

"Do you remember who sold it?" you ask.

Her expression goes a little vague. You recognize that look: you can't be 100% sure, but you think someone messed with her memory. Now, the world is full of weird, dark shit, and who knows? Maybe witchcraft is real too. But you know plenty of vampires who can do that.

"What did they look like?" you ask. "Try to remember—did you see them in a mirror? Sometimes that helps."

Elena's eyes widen behind her railway shades and she gasps. "I—I did!"

"Someone you know?" you ask.

"No," she says, still piecing it together. "Chinese guy. Young. Like, my age. Blazer over a T-shirt like he was going to give a TED Talk. I…he sold it…shit, I can't remember much. I must've been tired."

There are a lot of Asian techbros in Tucson, but you feel an itch in the back of your mind, a growing confidence: it's Julian Sim. It has to be the Banu Haqim.

Elena shakes her head and says, "Not sure why I can't remember well." You can see her thinking, calculating. That might be bad. She might be trying to put the pieces together. You don't want to be a piece of whatever she's thinking about.

What are your tattoos?" you ask.

Elena hesitates for a moment, then shrugs out of her red leather jacket, revealing the biomechanical sleeve tattoos.

"When my grandmother's first boyfriend died, she turned to opium and art. I couldn't figure out where to get opium, so when my brother died I read a lot of art books."

You place a finger on one bicep, where Giger's Birth Machine slowly tessellates into a blur of abstract mechanical shapes, ringed by tentacles. She permits the contact for a moment, then slides her jacket back up.

"You're going to be in Tucson for a while?" she asks.

"Yeah," you say.

"My number is on the wall," she says. "Call me if you, hm, need help. With work. What is it you do? Wait, don't tell me yet."

A potential ally…this is good. When she turns back to you, she's smiling, though you can see her skepticism. She's going to try to figure out who you are. That could be dangerous.

This was a blisteringly fast car for its price point back in its day, but its day has passed. Still, the Mitsubishi is a big, muscular GTO with excellent acceleration, and handling that is, at least, adequate. And it's bloodred, inside and out.

The problems start when you check under the hood. You can't tell if that circular thing is supposed to be a turbo or some kind of prototype Roomba from the Clinton administration, but it's all fucked up, whatever it is. The electrical is an overengineered nightmare, too. When you take the car out for a spin with Elena riding shotgun, Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" almost blows your eardrums out. You can't figure out how to stop the CD from playing, so Elena just pops the whole CD player out with a screwdriver.

The acceleration is good, but the turbo is wheezy and unpredictable, and the whole car feels like it could fly apart in a hard turn.

"$500," Elena says when you get back, shoving the CD player back into place. "I'll throw in the Korn CDs on the sun visor for free. One of them is live at Woodstock '99."

So you can afford it.