Rick Wayne's Blog, page 84

A Simple Exorcism

He was making a proper nuisance of himself, whoever he was. I could hear the screams from the street.

I stepped out of the car and met the officer in charge, a woman named Ballantine, who I didn’t know personally but who I’d seen around once or twice.

“Thanks for coming,” she said, extending a hand in greeting. “I know this isn’t really your thing, but I’ll be damned if we’ve had any luck talking him down. Word is, you speak this guy’s language. If you know what I mean.”

The yelling resumed and she led me in silence to the narrow, five-story building across the street. The fire escape zigzagged down the brick facade. Window-mounted AC units stuck out like bit tongues.

“Speaking of language,” I said, “any idea what that is?”

Ballantine shook her head as we walked up the stoop. “One of the patrolmen is the son of a rabbi. He said it sounded like Aramaic.”

“Do people still speak Aramaic?”

She shrugged. “This guy does.”

Another bout of shouting filled the foyer as we entered. Mailboxes were on the left. Stairs were on the right. The super’s residence was at the back. Somewhere not too far away, a baby was crying.

“Fifth floor,” Ballantine said, making it clear she wasn’t coming. The noise was louder inside, and she had to raise her voice. “The sarge is up there. Fair warning. He’s not real good with female officers.”

“And the family?”

“Taken away by ambulance. Father, mother, adult daughter, unmarried.”

“Hurt?”

“No.” The sounds stopped again and her voice fell to a whisper. “Just really shaken up. The mother has some kind of illness, I gathered. Supposed to be serious. The ambulance was mostly for her. The other two went to make sure she was okay.”

“Anyone else in the unit?”

“Just the evil spirit.” Ballantine smiled in jest.

I started up the stairs, four flights to the top. The yelling came and went and got louder around each turn. Residents, who I’m sure had been directed to stay inside their homes, peered from behind cracked doors. As I passed the third floor, I smelled cumin and coriander. On the fourth, I smelled new carpet. The scent itself was pleasant enough, but I figured it was a mixed blessing for the tenants who had to wonder, as I did, what had happened in one of the units that was serious enough to leave the landlord without a choice but to spend the money.

A patrolman was crouched against the wall on the final landing, just below the fifth floor. He looked to be about half my age. I removed my firearm, holster and all.

“Hold this.”

He looked at it. “You know he’s armed, right?”

“That’s what they said on the radio.” I kept the weapon extended.

He looked at it. “Your funeral.”

He took it with a shrug.

“Just follow your damned orders!” The uniformed sergeant at the top of the stairs barked down in an urgent whisper.

I walked up as the screaming started again. Our guy was in 507. He was pissed about something and letting the whole world know. Language definitely sounded Semitic, like Arabic or Hebrew, with lots of soft consonants and recurrent syllables.

I stood close to the sarge and kept my voice down. “How long’s he been in there?”

“Not sure.”

The man’s name tag said Rollins, and he was as haggard as you’d expect for a sergeant into his 50s. His ruddy jowls had started to sag, along with his uniform, but he had hard eyes that I suspected had gotten harder every year. He used them to glance over me. Nothing sexual. Just checking me out, deciding if I was up to snuff.

“Few hours maybe,” he said. “A few of the residents mentioned they heard sounds of fighting a little after lunchtime. Walls here aren’t real thick, in case you haven’t noticed.”

I heard the baby cry again, fainter this time.

“Family were frightened out of their wits when they left,” he added.

“We have an ID?”

He shook his head. “Supposed to be some kinda faith healer. Family’s from Nigeria or Ghana or something like that. Wife had meningitis and they brought this asshole in to take the evil spirit away. Then he went nuts. I dunno.” He squinted the side of his face like it was all a bunch of hooey.

“You been inside?” I motioned toward the half-open door just down the hall.

He nodded in the affirmative.

“Any mirrors?”

“Mirrors?”

“Yeah. You know, reflective glass. Shows you what you look like.”

He scowled. “Didn’t notice. I was too worried about the raving asshole with the gun. And getting the family to safety.”

“What about a TV?”

He thought for a second. “Yeah. Flat screen in the living area. Why?”

I took off my sport coat and tossed it over the balustrade. It would only constrict me if there was a tussle. I unwound the chain on my wrist, the one dangling the little silver talisman, and fastened it around my neck like an ordinary necklace. The chain was visible but not the carved silver disc, inlaid with a drop of polished obsidian, which hung below the line of my shirt.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay in there? Patrolman Meyers is an ass,” the sergeant said, motioning to the kid holding my gun, “but he’s not wrong. Guy’s got a gun.”

I nodded as I rolled up my sleeves. “Just keep everyone back. No matter what you hear. No matter how crazy it sounds. Alright? Keep the trigger fingers out until you hear from me. You’ll only make things worse.”

“Whatever you say.”

He was being sarcastic, but I didn’t care. Sgt. Rollins had the demeanor of a man who knew how to keep control of his men, which is all that mattered. I trusted him—in a way. I trusted that after 30+ years on the force, he would do everything he could to make it the last few to retirement. He wasn’t going to play hero.

I stepped lightly to the door and peered in. The guy must have caught sight of me, because he started screaming again in that unusual tongue. Now it was the same phrase over and over, like he wanted me to do something—get back, maybe. Or let him out. He was on the floor in the living room kneeling near the inside edge of a large, heavy salt ring. He definitely had a gun, but judging from how he held it—over the cylinder—may or may not have known what it was for. I pushed the door open slowly, my body turned in profile to make myself less of a target—just in case.

I took a step and waited for a reaction. There was a closet door to my right and a small enclosed kitchen to my left, where a light was flickering randomly. There was a couch and a tall potted plant across from the worn Ikea bookcase next to the TV. There was a slider door at the back, bolted shut. And no balcony.

Only one way out.

The room had bright, colorful African decor. A zigzag-patterned rug had been rolled up and put out of the way, probably to make room for the salt. An open thirty-pound sack of the stuff sat next to the TV stand, topped with an inverted steel funnel. The ceiling glistened slightly as if covered in a thin layer of sweat. A few a few drops ran down the walls.

The guy inside the ring was clearly African. He wore a white kufi cap on his head and matching gown. There were dots of white pigment across his cheeks and brow. His right hand gripped the cylinder of a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. He was white-knuckling it. His left hand held a wooden figurine.

He yelled again and the gun went up, properly this time.

There went that theory.

I opened my hands and arms wide. “I’m not armed.”

He uttered what I’m sure was an insult—terse and angry. His voice didn’t quite match his body. Too deep. And there was a slight lag between the sound and his lips, like a movie soundtrack just a bit out of phase with the film.

I pulled my eyes from the gun barrel pointed at my chest and stole a quick glance at the earth-stained figurine in his other hand. It was about a foot tall and shaped like a fat peg or stake. He gripped it by the tapered end, which wasn’t needle-sharp but definitely wasn’t dull either. The top and center of the piece had been carved to resemble a head and body. The face had a simple, snarling visage. There was a thin, angular chain wrapped five or six times around the torso. It was the color of cast iron and looked hand-made. No two links were the same size or shape. Dangling from one of them was an open padlock, also cast iron. I guessed it was a spirit totem of some kind. I hadn’t seen one like it, but the symbolism of lock and chain are darn-near universal.

“Who’m I talking to?” I asked as I shut the door behind me. I reached back and locked it without looking.

He laughed desperately. His dark skin had the kind of crosshatched wrinkles you get after a life in the sun, especially at the corners of his mouth and eyes, which were crazy bloodshot. But under that, he looked like someone’s grandpa.

“So what do I call you?”

He laughed again, longer and louder, like I was a real hoot. He wasn’t stupid enough to tell me his real name. That’s always the easiest way to bind an entity, which is why all the old medieval texts had three or four names for every “demon.” It was a ruse on their part to evade capture. Most of them weren’t true demons, of course, just plain ol’ malignant spirits, like this one—opportunists, for the most part, no different than a wasp or scavenger, and just as skittish. Easily frightened by guardian statues and sacred objects. They almost never jumped hosts, even when they had a chance. As long as you came with the right tools, they’d flee and take their chances on an easier target.

But this one hadn’t. Seemed pretty clear it had moved from the sick wife to the healer. The question was how. And why.

“What do you want?” I asked.

His bloodshot eyes glanced to the salt ring.

“Well, see, that’s a problem.” I took another step forward.

He cocked the revolver calmly and deliberately. I heard the click in the now-quiet room. I had the sense that everyone in the building was holding their breath, trying to hear our words, which I’m sure rumbled through the thin walls as an undecipherable baritone.

I looked at the gun barrel. I was very aware that at that range, there wasn’t much chance he’d miss and that any hit had a decent shot of being fatal—or at least making sure I had to shit into a bag for the rest of my life.

Best guess, the witch doctor had managed to get the bastard out of the sick wife but something went wrong and he couldn’t lock the chain in time. Maybe his hands shook. Maybe the lock was stuck. Who knew? But at least he’d made a good-sized salt ring—not just wide but thick as well. That, plus the protective dots under his eyes, suggested experience. Pouring a ring like that takes a lot of salt and a lot of time and is a bitch to clean up after. Folks who don’t know any better read the instructions in a book and think any old ring will do. They use half a box of Morton’s, make a thin circle barely big enough to move in, and call it a day. But all it takes is one misstep to scuff a ring like that and break the seal, and then it doesn’t matter how good you are. It’s game over.

This guy had played it safe. He knew not to take chances. But then, he also hadn’t been too worried. He’d used a salt ring rather than something durable, like a painted conjuring circle with binding runes. That said to me he’d probably done simple exorcisms all the time back home, wherever that was, and hadn’t expected this one to be any big trouble. It was a mistake—one I wasn’t going to repeat.

I needed to know what I was up against.

I kept my arms open and nonthreatening. “You can shoot me if you want. I can’t stop you. But if you do, my friends are gonna shoot back.” I nodded toward the hall. “I’ll be dead, and so will that man you’re in, which means this whole place will turn into a crime scene and no one will touch anything until the forensics guys get here, which could take a while, especially since we’re coming up on rush hour.”

I nodded to the round plastic clock on the wall, just over the TV. I didn’t need to. I knew what time it was. It was just an excuse to glance down at the blank screen and confirm, up close, my suspicion that the two of us were alone and that the man’s reflection matched his appearance. Which it did. That ruled a few things out.

Easier things, unfortunately.

I took another careful step forward. I wasn’t more than ten feet from the ring by then.

“You’ll be trapped in that circle,” I said “for hours, unbound and without a host. How long can hold your breath?”

His hand clenched the gun in anger. He was sweating. The walls and ceiling were sweating with him.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat nonchalantly, but it was as stubborn as the ghoul.

Here’s the thing. Exorcism is tricky. It’s not a fight as much as a hostage negotiation. And a process of elimination. You start by ruling things out. I could’ve been facing a witch possessing the old man from afar. But then, a human probably wouldn’t be speaking Aramaic—or whatever it was. More than that, a salt ring doesn’t have any effect on the living, except to annoy whoever has to clean it up. He could’ve gotten up and walked out hours ago.

I was also pretty sure it wasn’t a demonic possession either. True demons are powerful entities that aren’t trapped by salt rings and the like. You need a ring of living wills, people strong enough to stand against a demon, to trap it. And anyway, the saints locked them all up ages ago.

It could’ve been a ghost, I figured, the free-floating spirit of a dead person, but they generally can’t possess the living—at least, not unless the host is a medium or other sensitive. And ghosts aren’t rational. They don’t realize they’re dead, which is why they’re stuck here reliving the trauma of their lives. It’s also why a ghost is always dangerous, like a wild animal. Even the friendly ones can turn violent without warning. And because they’re reliving an old trauma, their actions are detached from their surroundings, which is creepy as fuck when you see it. They speak in strange non sequiturs and move through walls where once there were doors. They don’t do things like calmly point guns and ask to be set loose.

Given the mirror test, and Ballantine’s report that the wife was seriously ill, I was 99% certain this scratch was a “carrion ghoul,” for lack of a common name. They’re pretty much everywhere—opportunistic spirits that pray on the sick and sinful. In the Philippines, they’re called Aswang, and it’s said they appear as the living in daytime but with a nervous tic and bloodshot eyes—like this guy. At night, they become intangible and wander the streets in search of the sick and dying so they can slurp their intestines.

Those kinds of details are usually exaggerated, but relevant. Intestinal disease, for example, is how most people get sick in the tropical parts of the world. In other climates, it’ll be a different story. What’s the same is the remedy. People all over the world, from Peru to Siberia, consult a witch doctor when a family member falls victim to a sudden, strange, and undiagnosable illness.

If I was right, that meant neither vinegar nor iron nor running water would have any effect—a fact confirmed by the totem he was clutching in his hand, which had enough raw iron to throw off anything susceptible to it, just one more reason why carrion ghouls are just about the worst kind of infectious spirit. Because their hosts are sick, they can burrow deep and get a tight grip. You can’t just scare them out with talismans and holy water. It takes violence. You have to pry them away. From the inside.

That meant two things. First, I had to know where the sickness was. That’s usually not a problem for a witch doctor, who has the help of the family to share all the relevant details.

I had fuck-all.

Second, I absolutely, positively could not be wrong. If you go stabbing things into the wrong body part, or if it’s not a carrion ghoul after all, well . . . You get the idea.

The good news, if you could call it that, is that there’s a foolproof diagnosis, or so our ancestors have taught us. If you can get close enough to see it, the reflection of the world in the glisten of the eyes is always upside down.

I looked at the heavy salt ring. I didn’t have a choice. I was gonna have to get inside with it. My adversary seemed to understand my thoughts, because he smiled an awful, knowing smile and lowered the gun.

“Alright,” I whispered. “You wanna fight, let’s fight.”

I had exactly one advantage. It takes a lot out of a spirit to worm its way into a new host, especially a witch doctor, who would know how to resist. On top of that, this one had been yelling, on and off, for an hour or two at least. Already his breath was long and irregular. He looked tired. Thirsty, too. I needed a distraction.

I showed him my empty hands, like a magician before a trick. He watched them intently with those horribly bloodshot eyes as I reached into the pocket of my slacks and pulled out my keys. A small pocket knife dangled. I showed it to him, as if to say “See? Nothing to worry about.” I opened the inch-long blade. It was sharp. It slit the skin of my forearm with no trouble.

I clenched my teeth and hissed. It stung. It wasn’t a big cut, but it was enough to draw blood.

The old witch doctor licked his lips.

I slipped my keys back into my pocket and stepped toward the circle, arm bared. He stood and stepped back from the edge, making room for me, but his eyes didn’t move from the deep red liquid slowly growing into a fat drop on my skin.

I lifted my foot to step inside the ring when he shouted and shoved the .38 in my face. I was close enough that I could hear the metal jostle with the motion and I froze.

He sniffed the air once. Then twice. He was still clutching the totem in his left hand—no doubt to keep it away from me—and he lifted it and tapped his chest.

I knew what he meant. He could smell the silver.

Fucker.

I scowled as I unhooked the talisman. But since my arm was still bleeding, the drop ran as soon as I moved. He watched it jump from my elbow and hit the floor in a tiny splatter.

It was only a moment.

But it was enough.

I ripped the talisman from my blouse and thrust it forward. It spun in the air, glimmering, and he flinched and turned with a growl. I sprang forward and the gun discharged the very second I knocked it away. The bullet hit the wall as I tackled my adversary to the floor.

See, kids. This is why you always, always, always supersize your salt rings. His head landed right next to the far edge. If that circle had been any smaller, my tackle would’ve forced him across and broken the seal, and then who knew?

I had all my weight on him as I dangled the talisman in front of his eyes. I was sure I’d got the better of him then.

But I was wrong.

He was strong. I could feel it immediately. That was why the old man had had so much trouble. In an instant, I knew I’d never be able to hold him. I leaned down quickly and caught my reflection in the glisten of his bloodshot eyes.

Definitely upside down.

He lifted me. Like I was nothing. He couldn’t approach the talisman, so he let go of the totem and lifted the whole of me with hardly any effort. That kind of strength was unusual. It meant he was old—damned old—which made sense, I suppose, given his language of choice. I should have paid more attention to that.

Lesson learned.

Only now I was in real trouble.

I sacrificed the talisman by throwing it in his face, which cause him to flinch and swat it away. He had to let one hand go for that and I fell on my ass. The action pulled me free of his other hand, and I scrambled to the fallen gun and threw it outside the ring. It landed hard on the bathroom tile just as I felt my adversary bite into my calf. In the scramble, my nice department store slacks had worked up my leg, revealing my skin. I felt teeth puncture my flesh. To the muscle. He hadn’t bit me the way an angry child bites you, to inflict pain. He bit me the way you bite into a tough steak, the way you bite something you intend to tear loose with your canines and swallow. He was eating me.

I screamed. It hurt. It hurt so bad my hands started shaking involuntarily and it took every last ounce of self control not to turn around and push and kick and fight him off, which is every creature’s natural response to being eaten alive. Instead, I whelped and whimpered as I used my flat palms to drag my torso in an arc across the hardwood. My quivering fingertips brushed against the wooden figurine, but they only managed to knock it further away.

“Fuck!”

That’s when he pulled with his head and tore a flap of blood-wet skin from my leg.

It’s the weirdest thing, let me tell ya. It hurts like a motherfucker, of course, but it’s the raw sensation that gets you. Your dermis lifting. Air on your muscles.

I screamed again. And I meant it this time, every last unintelligible syllable. It was primal—a completely irrational, uncontrollable wail. And with it came panic. There had already been a gunshot. If my scream was enough to convince my colleagues to burst through the door, if they saw us like that, they would’ve opened fire. No questions asked. Not only would the old witch doctor be dead before he hit the floor, I would be fucked. Because now I was seriously wounded, which meant if his host died, the carrion ghoul would rush out of him and into me, which I’m pretty sure was the whole point of the attack. He had seen that I was some kind of authority figure. Once in me, someone was sure to let him out of the circle, or so he figured.

There was no was I was going to let something that powerful loose in the city.

I kicked the old man with a heeled boot, right in the mouth. Once. Twice. Three times. But all I did was loosen some teeth and bloody the guy’s lip. Not that I’m weak or out of shape or anything. I was quite the kickboxer there for awhile. This ghoul simply didn’t care.

I went to kick again and he knocked my leg out of the way and lunged for my face. I got the old man’s dirty, sweat-salty, nicotine-stained fingers in my mouth and up my nose and I gagged. The ghoul forced my head back and down the floor. Hard. He opened the witch doctor’s mouth over me, like he was going breath himself out. It stank like cigarette ash.

That was it.

“Thanks,” I said.

I head-butted the guy. It didn’t do much, but it was enough for me to lunge for the totem. The ghoul’s powerful hands grabbed me immediately and pulled me back. But I didn’t fight. I let him take me, turned, and rammed the wooden point right into the old guy’s chest, into his lungs.

The room dropped underneath me—as if the entire building, the entire city, had suddenly sunk four feet in space. I fell hard, along with everything else. The TV toppled and smashed on the hardwood. Books and pictures scattered. Water burst from the toilet.

The lock in my hand clicked shut from the force, and that was it. I collapsed, panting hard and in hella pain.

I heard banging on the front door. The handle jiggled and there were loud calls for a battering ram.

“Shit.”

I didn’t have long.

I struggled to my feet, where I discovered immediately that my right leg could no longer support my weight. Blood trickled down my skin into my shoe. I grabbed the unconscious old man by the arms and dragged him, limping, through the scattered salt to the bathroom. I pulled a heavy bath towel from the rack, wet it in the still-churning toilet, and wiped the blood off his mouth. I checked the hole in his gown from where I’d plunged the sharp end of the figurine. The skin underneath was clean and bare. And he was breathing.

The first swing of the battering ram cracked the frame but didn’t completely dislodge the bolt. I hobbled back to the living room and snatched the totem. When the door gave way and the patrolmen ran in, I was sitting on the toilet seat next to the moaning witch doctor. I had the rolled towel pressed to the back of my bloody calf.

“What took you so long?” I asked. I showed them the blood on the towel. “I’m gonna need a stretcher.”

My colleagues swarmed around, Ballantine and Rollins and everyone, trying to make sense of the scene—the scattered salt, the shattered television, the fallen books and pictures, the wet walls, the blood on the hardwood. They tried to carry me out of the apartment, but I absolutely refused to move from my porcelain throne until the paramedics came. Once I was on the stretcher, one of the EMTs tried to take the towel but I pointed across the room instead and demanded my necklace. I used some nasty cuss words to make everyone feel awkward and forget about the towel.

Ballantine took my statement at the hospital while a male young resident stabbed my leg with a series of fat needles. I got a local anesthetic, a bunch of precautionary vaccines, and a shit-ton of stitches. He didn’t say that he knew I’d been bitten, but he knew I’d been bitten. I said the old man was basically harmless but that he might’ve had dementia or something and that I’d tripped and fell over the TV, which was why it was broken, and that was how I’d gotten cut.

“What about the gunshot?” she asked.

“He didn’t understand why the cops were there. He was scared. He was sweating. His hands were shaking. I convinced him he wasn’t in danger, and when he went to lower the weapon, it slipped and discharged.”

She didn’t believe me. At all. But she didn’t ask too many questions. Cops afford each other a certain amount of professional courtesy. Since no one had died and I wasn’t pressing charges, there was no real incentive to make a big deal out of anything. That would’ve elicited nothing but more paperwork.

That night, I treated myself to a Cuban from my secret stash. I sat on my balcony in my underwear with my bandaged leg on the railing and smoked that cigar to a nub while pulling swings from a bottle of fancy champagne. Just me and my drinking buddy: a foot-long wooden figurine, wrapped in a tarnished chain and locked tight. I snuck it out it swaddled in the towel like the little baby Jesus. We had a nice chat that night. Pretty sure all he did was curse me in Aramaic.

The next day, I left the pain pills at home and walked with a pronounced limp into the office. I sat at my desk. I unlocked the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet and pulled it open with a grunt. It was getting heavy. And full. There was a painted mask, a goblet, a small collection of carved votive candles, a handful of polished stone bezoars, feathers, false talismans, a pygmy head, ampules of holy water, the teeth of a saint laid into a tarnished silver Coptic cross, a broken wand, a rabbit’s foot, the taxidermied claw of a giant extinct salamander, wood-framed eyeglasses with crystal lenses, and more. I tossed the wooden figurine onto the pile, rolled the drawer shut, and locked it.

I looked around the office. “The Killing Field” was stuffed. A few of my colleagues were chatting. Lieutenant Miller was getting herself a coffee at the fancy new grind-and-brew vending machine.

I turned on my computer and typed my password and a pleasant ding welcomed me back. I wondered how many different chimes the software company had tested before they settled on that specific one.

I sat back and looked at the screen.

I couldn’t prove it, but it sure seemed like there was a helluva lot more shit happening lately. And of the serious kind, too.

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

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The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

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Don’t ever play cards with a sorcerer

We approached the pond through tufts of long grass which bent over before us, heavy with dew. It was so peaceful there, I could hear each muffled rustle as we stepped. Except for the narrow clearing before us, ferns and bushes encroached on the water from all sides. They sprouted from the banks and reached with leafy arms over the surface, which rested motionless like glass. Wisps of fog moved lazily like smoke from a campfire, while the evergreen forest stretched away in every direction.

We had driven out of the city and through the night and the day and another night. I remembered staring out the window, half awake and half asleep, as we passed mile after mile of lighted gas stations and dark farms and fields.

I was asleep when we finally stopped. Mr. Étranger woke me. The light was dim and the air cool. It was just before dawn. He was still wearing his smoky gray coat. He needed it now. It was cooler where we were. I sat up in the back of the car and looked for the others, but they were gone. I looked for the dagger. It was gone, too. And then I remembered, at some point he’d asked me if he could have it and I said yes. He took it away and I watched it disappear.

We parked on open dirt at the rear of an A-frame cabin. Behind the car, a dirt road wound around a hill and disappeared into the fog. All around us the tips of the evergreens poked through the earth-bound clouds. It was beautiful.

The distant echo of a calling bird broke the still air.

“Where is this place?”

He pointed to the far side of the cabin and began to walk in silence. He led me around the house, past a rick of wood and down a shallow slope. And there was the pond. It was as clear as an alpine lake and perfectly still. I could see the rocky bottom, no more than a few feet deep across most of its expanse. The still reflections of the trees hung on the surface like ghosts. Some twenty meters away, the distant bank was barely visible through the fog. To my right was a rocky outcropping. Directly below it, halfway to the middle of the water, there was a hole in the pond’s stony floor — a submerged cave maybe two meters by five. It opened like a throat and disappeared at an angle as it narrowed. The sides were lined in bright green moss. I think it was the source — a spring or maybe an underground river.

He stopped me at the edge. “Do not disturb the water,” he warned in a whisper.

He motioned for me to kneel, and I did, and we stayed like that a long time. I didn’t mind — even though it was chilly and the dew soaked through my jeans and got my butt all wet. Every moment there was a break from everything that was wrong with the world.

“I thought they had all gone,” he said in the slightest whisper.

“Who?” I asked in an equally slight voice.

He was watching the water. I was watching his face. It was a nice face, not especially handsome or beautiful — in fact, he had a bit of an odd-shaped head — but that’s what made it comforting. It was real.

“The worshipers of the one god called them monsters,” he explained softly, “and drove them from the dells and valleys. The philosophers called them curious and payed hunters to take their heads and fingers so they could be displayed in cabinets of wonder. The men of business clear-cut their homes, dammed their rivers, polluted their lakes. The Masters shut and locked every door to their realm they could find.”

He paused, as if listening for a silent approach.

“Our adversaries have their Nameless gods, great tentacled beasts that whisper to them through the flames. Once upon a time, we too had allies. The Others. The child-race. Woodfolk.”

He was quiet a long time. I heard the bird call again in the distance.

“I thought they had abandoned us.” He took a long breath and let it out with a single nod. “But it would appear I was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s no accident the dagger found refuge on holy ground.”

He meant that the bank was a converted church. That’s why they couldn’t find it — with their spells or whatever.

He stood. I did the same, but he motioned for me to stay.

“What am I supposed to do?” I whispered.

“Wait until I am gone,” he said. “Wait until you can neither see nor hear me. Wait for the silence to return. Then, ask for forgiveness. Ask for help.”

He walked back toward the cabin and I sat back on the dewy grass. I could feel the moisture seep down my pant legs and into my socks. I was getting soaked in the dew of that place. But I didn’t care. It was so peaceful. And beautiful. I could see why native people worshiped at places like that, and believed their gods lived within.

A curse was on me. Ancient and powerful. It would destroy everything I loved. It would make sure I was witness to it all. And then it would destroy me.

“I know I don’t deserve it,” I said softly. “Forgiveness.” I ran my hands through the tufts of grass as if through the hair of a lover. “I had so many opportunities to make things different.”

I should never have left. At least, not the way I did. I should’ve asked the school for delayed entry. I should’ve tried.

“How can I ask for what I don’t deserve?” I asked the trees.

There was a soft splash on the water. My eyes shot to it, but I couldn’t see anything. The central depth of the pond was obscured by concentric waves that rolled slowly outward in all directions, like a clear note strummed from the string of a harp. I saw an upturned leaf. It was as green as the moss in the pond, curled at the edges, and fluted at the tip, like a pitcher. It floated from the center, bobbing on the surface as it was carried by the undulating water.

Right toward me.

As the tiny waves subsided, it stopped bobbing and turned back and forth on an invisible current. As it approached, I saw it carried something at its center: a single bead of water, glowing like ice in a winter’s dawn.

The leaf hit the grassy lip of the pond, bounced, and spun, and I lifted it. I looked around, as if asking permission, but I saw nothing. The disturbance on the surface had reached all corners of the pond and been reflected back, and the ripples danced over each other and about.

I looked at the leaf. I looked at its shiny cargo. I tilted my head and let it fall on my tongue. It was cool and sweet, and I closed my eyes and felt it run down my throat.

I laid on the wet grass clutching the leaf in my hand. I stayed like that for a long time.

By the time I heard him approach, the fog had lifted and the sun was halfway to its peak. Birds chirped.

“It won’t stop anything,” he said from some twenty feet back. “But with luck, the magic of this place will hold the curse at bay. Or slow it for a time.”

I sat up.

He started toward me, hand outstretched. “I smashed your phone.”

I took it. “Yup,” I sighed. “You did.”

I felt the bent casing and ran a finger over the shattered screen. A piece of it came off in my hand. He’d done a very thorough job.

“If the curse cannot easily bring its tortures to you,” he said, “it will have to work harder. And that may also buy us time.”

He showed me his phone. He’d smashed that as well.

“Where are we?” I asked.

Judging from the temperature, I guessed mountains. I wanted it to be very, very far from everything where no random stranger would ever wander.

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

I nodded. I stood and looked at the pond. The disturbance had long since abated and I could once again see the cave that opened in the shadow of the rocky outcropping.

“What’s in there?”

“Not what,” he said. “Who.”

He bowed deeply to the water and with great respect. I did the same.

“I suspect she comes and goes these days, following the course of the underground river to and from the faraway lands. I suspect she checks in on us, from time to time.”

“She?” I looked to the moss-covered cave again.

“The lady of this place,” he said. “Come. We have bothered her enough.”

The cabin had well water and no electricity. I asked if they could find me there, like they had before, but Etude said no. He said it was a holy place, before Columbus even, and their spells wouldn’t be able to penetrate it. But just to be sure, he took one of the side mirror off the car and broke it. Then he put one piece each over the cabin’s doors, facing out, and over all of the windows, too.

The interior smelled of earth and campfire. There was a stag’s head hanging from the railing of the loft that opened to the main room — big antlers and everything. But it wasn’t scary. It was like it was looking after us. There wasn’t TV or internet or phone service or anything. It was a big deal just to get a newspaper. There wasn’t much to do, so I took hikes. Étranger said it was safe as long as I kept by the little lake. I was sure to follow his instructions. To the letter.

There were water birds nesting, including a pair of cranes, a male and female. I spent hours watching them: from the bank, from the porch, through the front windows of the cabin. He was so attentive. He brought her fish and cleaned her feathers. Etude was around — he never left — but he was busy with preparations. I sensed he needed to concentrate so I tried not to bother him. But we played board games some nights. Mr. Dench was there most of the time as well. My silent guardian, usually patrolling the woods. But he’s not much for conversation. Turns out he doesn’t have a heart. Go figure.

“Why me?” I said.

We were sitting at the little table, just the chef and I, while the crickets chirped outside and the fire crackled under the hearth.

“Is it very selfish of me to ask?”

He was staring intently at the playing cards in his hand. “Our ancestors noticed how the whole world, from the animals to the heavenly bodies, were split into opposing principles, pairs of opposites: day and night, water and land, male and female, sun and moon.” He shifted a couple cards from one side of his hand to the other. “Even modern physics suggests that is the very nature of the universe, that creation itself is carpeted in particles — spontaneous matter-antimatter pairs — that merge and separate, separate and merge in a continuous froth, and that if you combined everything with its opposite, you would reduce the universe to one. The cosmic equation.”

He stopped, like that explained everything. “Go fish,” he said.

I scowled. I had like ten times more cards than he did.

“You’re cheating somehow. With magic. I just haven’t figured out how yet.”

Believe it or not, I managed to make it through everything with the tarot deck intact, and given that it was just about the only diversion we had at the cabin — outside of a combo chess/checkers board and the board game Life, which was missing some pieces. Etude said in Europe, that’s mostly how the deck was used, for play rather than divination, which is one of those things I think I knew but never really thought about. It makes you realize just how much the material doesn’t matter, just like how learning another language teaches you that the magic isn’t in the words, and doing art teaches you the magic isn’t in the paint. It’s in the act.

He taught me a bunch of new games. I sucked at all of them.

“I do not cheat,” he insisted.

“Yeah. You don’t brood either.”

I drew a card. Seven of Wands.

“Do you have any sevens?” he asked.

I groaned and handed him the one I just drew. He placed a book of four sevens on the table.

“You are so cheating!”

“You never answered my question,” he said as he readjusted the last cards in his hand.

“Huh?”

“Why a phoenix?”

I lifted my shirt and looked at my tattoo. Honestly I think I just wanted to make sure it was still there, that it hadn’t come to life at some point, as Fish suggested, and flown away. Nothing would have surprised me anymore.

“Because nothing can keep her down,” I said. “No matter what happens, she springs eternal. Like hope.”

He nodded toward my cards. “Your turn.”

“Do you have any fives?”

He shook his head. I sighed and drew another card. The Ace of Wands. I handed it to him before he even asked and he took it without looking.

Don’t ever play cards with a sorcerer.

Like, ever.

I set my cards face down on the table and sat back. “So, wait. You’re saying I’m like a free radical or something. Is that it?”

“Unbounded feminine energy,” he corrected.

I thought for a moment. “Someone told me my soul sparks.”

“It is an odd way to put it.” He set his cards down, too.

“Have you ever been in love?” I asked. “I mean, like, really in love? Not just lust or infatuation, but the scary kind of love, where it feels like if you give into it, you’ll lose yourself completely? I mean, everybody acts like ‘true love’ is this amazingly awesome thing, but I really don’t think any of them have ever actually experienced it. They want the movie version, where it’s all puppies and laugh tracks and there’s no terror or doubt.”

I stopped finally. He was silent a moment and wouldn’t look at me and I thought I’d committed some horrible breach of magical etiquette or something by babbling on in defense of myself. When he finally spoke, his voice was very soft.

“From birth, I was trained to be the shaman of my village. The conclusion of that training began on my thirteenth birthday, when I was blindfolded and abandoned deep in the jungle, there to remain until I returned a man. Or not at all. The purpose was to discover — to know — the great source of life in whose service I would spend the rest of my days. As healer of my people. We called her Ixhua’ti. You might call her Gaia. Or Mother Nature.”

“You saw her?”

Etude looked down at his open, tattooed palms.

“I see her every day. As do you.” He held up his hands again. “She gave me these.”

I stared at the intricate designs. Like Nazca lines meet Egyptian hieroglyphs.

“Wait.” The reality of his words hit me and I closed my eyes. “You’re telling me that you fell in love with the earth?”

They way he talked, with the past tense and everything, I got the sense they weren’t seeing each other anymore, the sorcerer and the earth-mother, and that made me sad. If someone like him couldn’t make it work, how could any of the rest of us?

But then, those days, everything made me sad. I thought about Kell all the time. Almost every minute, if I let myself. I wasn’t going to let her death be for nothing. I wasn’t going to let them have the dagger. I wasn’t going to be a victim. I wasn’t going to put everyone I loved in danger. My new friends. My mom and dad. The Suleimans. The world.

So.

I have to die.

It’s the only way.

Really, really, really, really, really really sucks though.

He told me the plan one night and I just sat at the table in silence. Here I’d said nothing would surprise me anymore.

I was wrong.

When he finished, he waited for probably twenty minutes while I just sat there, staring at nothing.

“Are you serious?” I asked him. “Like, no joke? Not symbolism or metaphor or whatever? Like, really really?”

“Of course,” he said, as if the implication was insulting.

“But.” I shook my head. “I mean. How?”

He nodded to my side. “Because you are the phoenix.”

So, okay. This is how it works. I have to swallow something called the jewel of many colors, the big cut gem that his hostess, Milan, wears around her neck. It’s like the size of a walnut! Etude said it refracts the light of what can’t be seen, so he’ll be able to find me in the dark of the underworld. Then he has to perform some kind of ritual — at the end of which he stabs me in the heart.

Zoinks.

After I’m dead, he’ll drain every last drop of blood from my body and burn it away. With that, the curse will definitely be broken.

“Why blood?” I asked.

“Hebrews 9:22,” he said. “Everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

He’ll cremate my body and bury the ashes in the place of my birth, sort of the reverse of how vampires have to lay in the soil in which they were buried. But that means they’ll have to take me to Hong Kong and sneak onto the hospital grounds somehow — him and Dench and Milan. Not that I’m worried. I get the sense they’ve done this kind of thing before. Lots of times.

Next the mixture has to sit for three days. Étranger says Jesus wasn’t wrong there. Then my new friend will don his mask and the bright feathered garb and take his drum and descend to the underworld, like the shamans of old. To do battle with Death, I guess.

Man, I wish I could see that.

Shit.

Maybe I will.

Anyway, while he’s down there, our friends up here will exhume the soil containing my ashes and seal it in a large urn, which represents the womb. The urn will be baked the moment my soul returns. He showed me a big old book with a bunch of pictures, like the pages I saw in Lyman’s office.

“It recapitulates the vital heat of creation,” he said.

But this is the most dangerous part because the seal can’t be broken. If any part of it is cracked for whatever reason, the “humours” escape, and I’m lost for good.

He keeps telling me not to worry. Like that helps.

After that, their part is done, and that’s where it gets tricky. The urn has to be incubated. Etude said that just means watched, looked after, for a full cycle of the Moon — its death and rebirth, one turn of a woman’s womb, the life-creator. The kicker is, it can’t just be anybody sitting there. Even someone who loves me, like Mom and Dad. To pull me back, it has to be the other half of my spontaneous pair. The Sun to my Moon. The sky to my earth. The yang to my yin. The guy I’ve known since forever. The one with the very same birthday. The first one I kissed. The only one I ever really loved.

So.

Yeah.

I have no idea what he’s going to do when he hears about all this. But if he doesn’t totally flip, if he figures what the hell and he sits patiently by the urn and reads to me, or catches me up on all the silly pop music he likes, I’ll have a totally new body. Etude says most of my memories will be there but it might be spotty. He also said he’s not sure if the tattoo will come through. That’ll be new for him. We bet fifty bucks. I said it will because it’s part of me. I’m totally gonna win too, because karma. We played so many games at the cabin and he never let me win. Not even once!

So . . . that’s it, I guess. They’re kinda waiting on me now. Little bit nervous. Never died before. It’s so crazy not knowing what’s going to happen in, like, an hour.

But then, we never really do, do we? We just think we do, until something happens to wake us from the illusion. Etude says that’s where Life is lived — with a capital letter. Not respiration and metabolism. Not work and school and laundry and groceries. Not the long sleep of existence but where it shatters, those few brief flashes where we’re awake to our own consciousness. That’s where the angels live. I think that’s where he lives more often than not.

But not me. I’m just a dumb human and I’m terrified. But I guess we’ll see.

I guess we’ll see.

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

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The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

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The sower of discord

Standing inside the bank, you could hardly tell it had ever been a church. A row of teller stations followed the right wall, locked behind overlapping plates of inch-thick bulletproof glass. There was a single camera suspended from the ceiling in front of each station, and another on the wall behind each teller. To my right were a set of four identical desks and chairs used to open new accounts and resolve other business. In the center were the standing desks with the deposit slips and big boxes of pens plastered with the company logo. You were encouraged to take one. So I did.

A round woman in a red tweed jacket came and asked if I needed any help and I showed her the keys I’d found in Kell’s purse, and she took me to the back, through a swinging half-height door to a standing computer station where an unusually tall man with pencil-thin eyebrows checked my ID. I gave a tight-lipped smile and said nothing as he led me into a steel-lined room to one side of the big vault at the back. I was led through a steel cage, which the tall man shut and locked behind me, and then to a closet-sized nook, like a dressing room or voting booth maybe, one of several in a line, and asked to wait. After a few minutes, a different man came with the long metal safety deposit box and left it on the standing counter at the back. There was no chair. He shut the curtain on his way out and I slipped the key into the lock. It went in smooth.

My hand lingered on the lid for the longest time.

Detective Hammond had asked the desk clerk to change my release time by three hours. Anyone keeping tabs on me would think I was still in the clink. Hopefully. Then he had me wait with a patrolwoman — the same African-American lady in the tight uniform who had come to fetch me from the holding cell. She didn’t say anything and I got the sense she never would — to anyone, if she could help it. She had a permanent dissatisfied frown, as if the whole world were one big disappointment and she wanted nothing to do with any of it. But she helped me all the same, and I was grateful for that.

After a short silent wait, Hammond came around with his car, and I climbed in the front and slid down so as not to be seen. Sometimes it pays to be small. He asked a few questions on the way, which I didn’t answer. But I did flip him off as I walked away. I circled the block a couple times and changed direction suddenly. I can’t say I was a master at losing a tail, but it certainly didn’t seem like there was any way someone could be following me without being spotted.

It took me the better part of an hour to make it to the bank. And there I was. Hand stuck on a metal lid. Unable to move. I think I stayed like that for at least a minute or two. Finally, I took a long, slow breath and lifted the top. The joint at the back creaked once. Inside was a fancy red hand towel with gold stitching at the ends. It was thick and soft, like something a rich man would keep in his bathroom, and wrapped in a long bundle. I lifted it. It was heavy. I pulled back the cloth as if peeling an apple and pulled out the dagger.

It was cold. I mean, you’d expect something made of stone and metal to be cold. But it stayed cold. It never warmed next to my skin. It was beautiful, too — in an absolutely brutal sort of way. It was so crude and yet so elegant, like the carved “venuses” they find buried in the ruins of prehistoric Europe. It was bigger than I expected. No one would confuse it for a letter opener, that was sure. It looked more like a snub spear than a dagger. The blade was roughly triangular and stained faint red. There was a sharpened ridge that ran halfway down the center on both sides such that if you looked at it straight on, it made the shape of an uneven cross. But I didn’t see any joints. It seemed to be carved from a single piece of stone. The edges were irregularly chipped, presumably from use, which made it appear serrated, like a snaggle-toothed shark.

The metal hilt was twice as long as the blade and looked like it had been crafted much later, although it was clearly ancient as well. It was one long chunk of tarnished copper alloy, turquoise-hued and speckled in flaws. The handle was wrapped in straps of cracked leather. The crossguard, if you can call it that, was pair of faces — a bearded man and wild-haired woman — twisted in anger. They were carved crudely, one on each side, facing opposite directions, like an arguing couple who’d never see eye-to-eye.

You could just tell. It was wicked. The sower of discord.

I wrapped it back in the towel and put it in my bag and closed the box and locked it and pulled back the curtain. I waited for the gate to open with my heart pounding in my ears.

I had no idea when they would descend on me.

It could’ve been at any moment.

I walked through the smartly decorated lobby toward the front, which is when I noticed a familiar face sitting in one of the chairs off to the side. He didn’t seem to have any business. He was just waiting. His face was still gaunt. His clothes were still pressed sharp. He had the same hat, the same thin tie, the same polished alligator shoes, the same skull-topped cane. He smiled at me as I passed and tipped his hat politely, like we were members of the same church who just happened to pass each other at the supermarket or something.

I stood a little straighter and pulled the strap of my now heavy bag further up my shoulder and stepped out the front door and walked down the street for one block, two blocks, five blocks, half daring anyone to jump me right there in broad daylight. But no one did. No one even looked at me. They passed with their faces in the screens in their hands, or laughing with the person next to them, or lost in the worries of tomorrow. I was just some Asian chick with flower-print Keds and one eye that was a tiny bit crooked. No one noticed me at the train station either. I glanced at every face I passed on the steps to the platform. I wanted one of them at least to scowl or gasp or do anything that suggested they might understand something here was very, very wrong. That I shouldn’t be carrying what I was carrying, certainly not in some ridiculous lavender bag. That such a thing should even exist!

But no one made eye contact, except for one guy in jogging clothes who almost ran into me as he hurried to the gym or whatever. But he looked away just as quickly, before the word sorry even escaped his lips.

I waited on the platform. The heavy bag had slipped a little on the walk and I pulled the strap back up my shoulder. A man in jeans and a sport coat stood behind me to one side, and I had visions of him leaping forward to push me in front of the train and snatch my cargo, so I wandered further down, and I kept moving like that, turning every ten feet or so like I was just impatient to get where I was going.

The train came and the people sitting on benches got up at nearly the same moment and waited for the doors to open. I let them pass and stepped on board after, ready to jump back through the doors at the last second if need be. I stood in the same spot, never budging, for the entire trip out to Brooklyn Heights. The sun was getting low in the sky as I stepped up to the street again. It shone yellow-orange between the buildings and right at my face and I had to squint. No one looked at me as I zigzagged between blocks toward my destination. No one called me a silly girl. No one shrieked at the evil I carried. There was just the people and the city.

I stopped in front of the lot and looked at the formidable black-and-white sign that completely filled the temporary wall in a repeating pattern down to the corner and around the other side:

WATCHTOWER

Apex Partners, LLC

The wall had been erected to keep pedestrians like me from wandering into the construction site. The building inside, visible over the top, was barely more than a skeleton. Steel girders crisscrossed to a height of about five stories. They were bare at the top like the ridges of a spine, ready to accept the weight of more levels. It seemed the building was going to be a kind of twisting oval shape. A large crane rose from the center and dangled its hook above. No one was working. The entire structure was completely silent. It was a crime scene after all, and two strips of yellow caution tape had been stretched across the plywood door built into the wall. It didn’t have a lock or anything — there wasn’t even a handle — and I pushed it open and ducked under the tape. It swung shut behind me.

Standing on the other side, I was a mere three feet from the sidewalk, but it seemed like I had passed into another world. The whole of the city faded to background noise. I saw a backhoe, several pallets of materials, two large trucks for hauling, a cement mixer, and off to the side, one of those temporary offices for the foreman or whatever that looked like it had been made from a shipping container. Anything that might have been easily pilfered — nail guns and table saws and hand tools — seemed to have been removed. There was nothing left that didn’t require heavy machinery to lift and carry.

I walked forward and saw the slab with spires of rebar where Lyman met his end. You couldn’t miss it. Orange cones surrounded it, along with three wraps of caution tape. The sides of the metal bars and most of the base were still covered in dried blood. I looked for a moment before walking into the husk of the oval structure, just as it got dark enough to trigger the automatic floodlights. They clicked on and I looked all around, to every nook and shadow. The hollow, concrete-walled basement dropped two floors into the earth. Lines of rebar poked from the floor and walls. The space was only navigable via a network of wood planks the workers had laid between square gaps in the concrete. To the right and toward the back corner, exactly where a structural pylon was supposed to be poured, there was an open dirt pit that descended even lower.

That was when I realized why Detective Rigdon had mentioned the name, Watchtower. I recalled seeing something about the project in passing on the news, one of those stories that pop up and fade away — like the one about a giant mural that appeared out of nowhere on the back of a retail center. Construction of the Watchtower building had been halted because of what had been unexpectedly unearthed just under its foundation. The workers hit something really old and weren’t sure what it was and university people were called and now there was a fight between the developer and the historical society and the city over what to do and who would pay for it. We get those things in China all the time, too, only there it’s a lot easier since the government takes control of everything and does whatever it wants.

I saw a partially-finished platform above me and to the left, and I climbed the bare concrete stairs as high as I could go so as to get a better look. I stood on the edge and looked down three stories. In the center of the square dirt pit there was an old tree. It sprouted from the floor in the middle of a kind of stone vault. The tree was bounded by a circle carved into the floor. It’s bare branches were wide but blunted, and they ended in round and uneven nubs, as if the sprouts had been trimmed each year to keep them from filling the space. There were no leaves, either on the tree or the floor. Instead, there were candles, dozens of them, unlit and resting inside nests of old wax. In fact, so much wax had accumulated, it seemed doubtful that the tree had ever been cleaned of it, that when one candle was done, it was simply replaced with another, and that the wax melted into cup-shaped nests, where it either overflowed and ran in dribbles and cooled into waxy stalactites that hung from the branches, like sinewy arms, or else it fell in drops and collected on stalagmites on the floor. In a few places, the two had met to form narrow pillars.

When lit, I’m sure that tree was an amazing sight, an altar to light and life. But it was dark now and stained with dust and centuries. Several of the branches had snapped and lay on the ground like severed limbs amid shards of shattered wax.

I think I stared at it for a good fifteen or twenty minutes, wondering what it was for, before the birds finally came to let everyone know where I was. The whole city. Those who knew what to look for, anyway. I heard the flock approach from down the street, like a speeding motorbike. The sound got louder and louder until I was awash with flaps and tweets and the staccato caws of the ravens, which turned twice around the structure before settling on the crisscrossing girders above me. They chirped and cawed and chatted with each other like an audience before a concert. Even as they shuffled about, I felt a thousand eyes on me, shifting and stirring and watching my every move.

Then the rats came. Up from exposed pipes and gaps in the foundation. They crawled up and over the rebar, scouring every inch of the basement for the feast they were sure was coming.

I shivered and turned to the open lot. I wanted to get it over with, but no one was there. Just trucks and dirt and pallets of wood and drywall, tarped and chained. I reached into my bag and took out the tarot cards I’d collected: The Devil and The Fool. I added the third to the stack, the last card from my reading with the chef, the one I’d slipped into my back pocket and left there. I slid them back and forth, one over the other. I sat on the edge of the platform and let my feet dangle over the side. A sea of rats churned below. There were roaches as well, but not many. The rats were eating them.

The stone vault buried in the earth had walls of cut stone slabs, which appeared to be adorned with a continuous mural, faint with age, that moved clockwise around the space. I could see a great darkness out of which a few faint stars appeared. I saw the dome of the earth under a tangled conflagration of dark figures bearing swords and pikes and standards. I couldn’t tell who was friend and who was foe, nor was there enough detail even to tell if the combatants were human. One group emerged victorious and they stood, weary, in a staggered formation with one figure at the center, raising a lighted staff.

My eyes stopped on the last segment as the birds chattered restlessly over my head and flitted back and forth between perches. I saw the northern hemisphere of a crude earth, like something from an old map, with a dusky band separating night and day on a tilted axis.

“Once the earth was covered in darkness.”

The voice, accented and resonant, penetrated the din of the animals. Its owner stood on the floor below me, still in his fantastic coat. He appeared to be alone. He pointed to the murky darkness at the beginning of the mural.

“One speck of a vast empire which persists to this day. You can see it whenever the night sky is not obscured by clouds.” He looked up.

“What happened?” I asked,

“Mankind rebelled and threw off the shackles of the dark in a great cataclysm that lasted a thousand years.”

I looked at the scene of the conflagration, like a great battle.

The chef motioned to the black stillness at the beginning of the mural. I hadn’t noticed before, but there were faint shapes hidden in the darkness, behind the marks and scuffing — snarling, grasping, tentacled things with wings as large as mountains.

“That is why they covet it so. They know the earth stands as a beacon to the other realms, a scion to the singular truth that evil can always be defeated.” He turned to the other side, to the tilted earth. “But although mankind rejected the dark, we were not strong enough to embrace the light, which is why our planet rocked and turned crooked on its axis and now spends half its days in light and half in darkness. And there she has spun, for millennia, waiting for us to pull ourselves up. Or to fall back down.” He put his tattooed hand back in his coat.

“It’s a nice story,” I said.

“Alas” — he stepped closer to my perch — “most of it is false.”

I stood again and looked down at the tree. “What was that?”

“A beacon, once. And a sanctuary. Built when the Dutch still commanded this place, built to overlook the island across the river. There used to be many such places. The tree was lit when darkness fell, so our allies beyond would see and know we required their aid, and they would send a champion.”

He was looking at it. “He will destroy it soon, now that he’s discovered its location. As soon as his agents have secured the property, he will hack it to pieces. To isolate us. And to deny us shelter from the coming storm.”

“You let her be taken,” I said.

It took him a moment to respond. “Yes.”

A lump sprung up my throat. “Why?”

“Any answer I give will sound cruel.”

“How could you just stand there and let it happen?”

Another voice came. “Don’t listen to him.”

Bastien. He walked up the metal stairs at the back of the open structure and stood opposite the chef on the platform below. My perch was above and between them.

“Don’t listen to him,” he repeated. “He’s lying.”

“And you.” I glowered.

He held up his hands. All his rings were identical now: thick metal bands. But not steel or silver. Platinum maybe, or some kind of hard metal.

“I know it looks bad. I do. But it’s not what you think.”

“It can’t be.” I laughed. “Because I have no idea what to think. Not anymore.”

I looked between the two men. One of them was a talented deceiver.

Well, that wasn’t true. They were both talented deceivers. But one of them was also an agent of genuine menace, while the other was just a giant prick.

Or maybe they were both allies. Or both foes. I had no idea anymore.

“Cerise,” Bastien urged. “Just listen to me for a sec. Please.”

“No. I’m not listening to either of you.”

I lifted the seventh tarot card, the final draw from my reading. I showed them the 2D bar code on the front. I held it out like a talisman.

“I had a lot of time to think in jail. And I’m listening to this.”

I clutched the other two cards in my left hand. I was certain they were us. The set of three. I was pretty sure I was The Fool. That was no big stretch to figure out.

I pulled out my phone and loaded the app.

“You don’t think he can manipulate that?” Bastien accused. “How do you think magic works? You can’t always see — ”

“STOP!” I yelled. “Stop talking.”

The birds seemed even more agitated now. There was more shuffling, like the rustle of racehorses right before the bell. But it was the rats that sent a cold, slithering shiver down my spine. They weren’t moving. They had stopped. They were frozen and looking right at me.

I expected some retort from the chef, but nothing came. He was as calm as the tree in the vault below, as if all of this were a scene in a rehearsal, that none of it really mattered, that we were just going through the motions and he was waiting for his turn to read from the script.

I scanned the tarot card. There was a beep and an image filled the screen. An androgynous figure in long robes stood behind a table that held all four suits: a wand, a sword, a pentacle, and a chalice, as if they were all his tools and he could draw any of them he chose. He looked directly at the viewer, resolute but calm, without fear or menace. His belt was the snake eating its own tail. His right hand raised a candle lit at both ends. His left hand was lowered toward the earth. Hanging over his head like a halo was the symbol of infinity. Bright blooming flowers burst from the base of the card, while above, the crackling glow of ethereal power turned the stars and planets to his will.

The label read: The Magician.

Fuck.

What the hell did that mean? They were both magicians!

I blinked once — just once, I swear — and there they were. They didn’t bother with the ski masks this time, and they were in robes rather than street clothes. The heavy off-white strapping was wrapped tight around every inch of exposed skin. There were five, and each held a two-edged sword with a dull, charcoal-colored hilt above a white blade. Or maybe the blades weren’t white. Maybe they were just brightly reflecting the floodlights above. Either way, when held before their robes, they almost seemed to glow. They had surrounded us, seemingly in an instant.

The chef yelled suddenly and angrily to the air. “Even still you sacrifice your pawns! Coward! Show yourself!”

I heard laughs, human laughs, amid the now-quiet shuffling of the birds. The rats, seemed to quiver, as if bursting with energy, like a dam about to break. Their whiskers twitched as their black eyes stared. Then a man’s voice rose over the din, but amid the low drone of caws and chirps, it was impossible to tell where it came from. It fluttered on the air like any other pair of wings. It seemed to be whispering, but I had no idea what it said.

Bastien grabbed me from behind. I hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs.

“You need to get out of here.”

The monsters broke formation at once and I was sure we were dead. It would only take them moments to reach us. But no sooner did they lift their feet than the chef pulled both hands from his pockets and thrust his fists to the sky. The floodlights quit and the chorus of birds broke and feathers swirled around us as their owners leapt from their perches and dived and swooped and weaved in and out of the skeletal tower. It was chaos.

I ducked. It was dark now, and I could barely see. But then neither could my attackers. I ran down the steps, and Bastien followed.

“Cerise!” he called.

We reached the bottom and a strap-covered face broke through the feathers, almost as if by accident. It seemed surprised, giving Bastien time to push me behind him. The bright sword with the charcoal hilt rose and fell against Bastien’s hands. I heard the clang of metal and was certain it would call others to our location. I saw blood run down Bastien’s wrist. But his rings had stopped the attack. The robed monster swiped his sword free, taking one of Bastien’s fingers with it, and he screamed. It seemed whatever magic he had wasn’t enough to protect him.

The rats came then. They broke upon the severed finger like vultures, and in a moment, it was covered in a squabbling ball of fur and whiplike tails. So help me, I could hear the crunch of their teeth on bone.

“Cerise!” Bastien thrust out a bloody hand. He was on one knee, grimacing. “Give me the dagger!”

I looked at it. I looked at him.

“Cerise! Please!”

And then it happened. I don’t even know how really. I don’t remember thinking it. All I remember is that sword raising in the air and the thought that if Bastien died, I’d be alone. I definitely don’t remember doing it, although I can recall that it was done. I looked down and there it was, in my hands. I had plunged the dagger two-handed into the monster’s back. It went in easy, far easier than Samir’s little blade. It went in easy like the key of the safety deposit box sliding into the lock. As if the blade fit. As if it was supposed to fall exactly there, into that thing’s chest. Into its heart, which I felt quiver and stop in vibrations through the copper hilt.

The sword fell. The body slumped free of the dagger and fell over the side into the pit, where it was greeted by the shrieking of the rats.

I think if my mind had been there, I would’ve thrown up then, given what I saw. But it wasn’t there. It was far away, because that was the exact moment I knew. It was almost as if, in using the blade, I had been allowed to know. I knew that everything that had happened — Lyman, Kell, Bastien, everything — happened for one single reason. The sequence of acts and reactions played forward in my mind like the memory of a dream, both instant and long. Kell humiliated. The shock of pregnancy. One lover seemingly abandoning her. Another getting murdered. The suspicions of the police. The strange coincidences that kept her alone and on the run. The discovery that her best friend had lain with the man she loved. The death of the man who loved her — who might have saved her, had she let him. Her terrible, terrified face as she was kidnapped. Her beatings and tortures, bloody-lipped and drooling amid tiny sobs. And finally, after there was nothing left of her life to destroy, the brutal slaughter of Kelly Ann Sobricki, who died with the knowledge that her unborn child would die with her.

Everything that happened, all of it from the very beginning, wasn’t a riddle needing to be solved. It was a curse — a curse so powerful that even an innocent man, guilty of nothing but lending a stranger his phone in a coffee shop, had his bones broken. He was punched and kicked over and over until Lyman’s goons were satisfied he was telling the truth and he really didn’t know anything about Kell or the dark treasure she’d stolen.

I looked down at the weapon in my hand. The blood on it disappeared into the blade.

Étranger was right. It was destruction incarnate. With no effort, it took everything from Lyman Raimi. It teased him with everlasting life. It swallowed his fortune in the act of being found. Then it disappeared from right underneath him, from his very home, before abandoning him to his death. Then it turned to my best friend. And it ended her, too. In the worst way. Painfully. Helplessly. And utterly, utterly alone.

And now it had come to me.

That’s what it wanted, I think. To be wielded in sin. To be bargained in greed. To be stolen and loved. Over and over and over. To betray. To deceive. To kill. And with each vile, covetous act, to build into a great storm, stronger and stronger, until finally whole nations fell before it.

Why had I not given it to Bastien? Why had I not let him defend himself? Is it because I wanted for myself? Its power was like a tempest daring you to subdue it, to turn it to your will, but I didn’t know how.

I held it in my shaking hand. I tried so hard not to think of those I cared for, of everyone I loved. I was terrified that merely bringing them to mind would reveal them to the evil in my hand. But in having the thought, the inventory came. I couldn’t stop it, and their faces flashed before me.

Mom & Dad.

Uncle Wen.

The Suleiman family.

Kai.

My God, Kai.

I kept seeing his face. His smile. His eyes on the pillow next to me, watching me sleep, like all he wanted to do was stay there forever.

I started hyperventilating as Bastien pulled me to my feet, bleeding badly and clutching his hand to his chest. I didn’t even remember falling. But I had. I was on my butt. He pulled me up and all the warmth in his face was gone and I had no idea if he was just scared or if it was all another enchantment.

“Cerise . . .” His voice was haggard. “Give me the dagger. Give it to me. Cerise!”

He reached for it and I pulled away.

Was the curse starting already? Could it work that quickly? Before I even had a chance to catch my breath?

It wasn’t that its magic made false things true, I realized. Everything that was had always been. And yet I knew, if I hadn’t been cursed just then, things would’ve somehow been different. That’s magic. Real magic. The power to unfold the world as you want it without changing a thing.

I tried to pull away, to run, when I felt the warm spray across my cheek. I felt Bastien pull hard against me, as if he were stopping me. But when I turned to look, I saw that he wasn’t pulling. He was falling. His head had been severed from his body, just like Lyman’s driver. It rolled away. And then the rats came.

I shrieked and turned and ran —

Right into someone’s chest, like a wall. I felt strong arms encircle me. I was held fast by a steady hand. Another raised a gun. A really, really big gun. It was aimed right at the sword wielder. The shot rang out and the bullet struck a passing crow, which didn’t have time to squawk before being obliterated on the wing. And the things kept coming, as if they knew they had nothing to fear from so crude a mechanism. My savior wrapped both hands around my waist and pulled me, still clenching the dagger with white knuckles, down the stairs to the lot. There didn’t seem to be an escape. They were nearly on us when the animal swarm broke out in all directions — blindly and wildly, like an explosion. The force knocked our attackers to the ground, and the chef appeared, hands in his coat. He didn’t seem afraid, just annoyed — like he’d arranged a big dinner party and no one had showed. He walked down the steps after us as the monsters got to their feet.

In a blink, a black car crashed through the barrier wall. Its tires spit dirt as it swung to a hard stop in front of us. The chef’s hostess was at the wheel. She looked like she knew what she was doing there, too. She had leather gloves and everything. The engine roared like a great cat. My savior threw me into the back as the chef climbed into the passenger’s seat. The strapped men closed the distance in another blink and were reaching for the car as its spinning tires caught something solid under the dirt and we were propelled onto the road with whiplash force.

I shut my eyes. I could see bit of Bastien being carried away in beak and maw. There was nothing of him left. It was like he’d been erased from the world. One hand went to my mouth. I started shaking. I watched the man Dench clean his gun next to me, like it was just another chore he had to do. I was aware that my left ear was still ringing so loud from the shot that I couldn’t hear anything out of it. The chef wasn’t even looking at me. It seemed like he was pouting, like things hadn’t gone his way and he was mad at everyone.

“What the hell?” I yelled in between gasping breaths.

I felt so cold. Not like cold in my hands and feet, but cold inside. I was shaking. I knew I was going into shock, but I was panicking didn’t know what to do. And still I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let go of it. Even though the muscles of my hand burned, I clenched it tight.

Dench turned to me expressionless. There was nothing. He was stone cold. It was eerie. The car roared down the street, turning left, then right. I saw the signs for the freeway to Jersey.

“Bastien . . .”

I pressed my free hand to my ringing ear. It hurt. I coughed. I had bile in my throat. I wiped my mouth. I coughed again and cried in slurping sobs.

“You lied to me!”

Finally the chef turned. “We could not afford a lengthy courtship, if only for your sake.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I have been doing this a very long time. No one accepts the truth or falsity of grand claims, like evolution or magic, on reason and argument. Especially not from a stranger.”

“But you could have said something!” I leaned forward and grabbed my scalp through my hair. I was angry. Furious. I wanted to choke the smug bastard. “This is my life! I’m not an ingredient in — in one of your stupid recipes!”

He stayed calm. He was always calm. “If I had come to you on the street that day and told you of the dagger, of its curse, of the Lord of Shadows and his Nameless gods, what would you have said?”

“Ugh.” I sat back. “Fine! Be right. You’re always fucking right.”

“Yes,” the hostess whispered from the front. She totally got it.

Etude scowled at her.

I could see my faint reflection in the dark glass of the car window. “Kell . . .”

I sniffed. I doubled over and started bawling. I clutched my stomach and bawled and heaved. I dropped it then. Finally. It hit the floor of the car with a thump. It seemed so harmless.

“It’s started already. Hasn’t it?”

He nodded.

“I’m afraid it will take everything from you. You will watch, powerless, as all you hold dear withers and dies like flower in winter. And then it will consume you as well, and so be passed to another, and another, and another. And with each passing, the storm of ruin will grow.”

“Did you know?” I looked up. “Did you know what was going to happen?”

He shook his head. “I knew only that the mark of Death was upon you, not how or why.”

I sniffed again and wiped my nose.

“I . . . I — So . . .” I looked around in confusion. “So, I mean, what happens now? I mean. What do I do? Where . . . Where can I go?”

My lips turned and I broke down in earnest. I was bawling. I had a hand to my mouth and I could barely talk.

“I can’t go an — anywhere, can I? It’ll find me. Wherever I go, it’ll follow. I’ll hear about Uncle Wen or something and I’ll go home and I’ll find out Kai is married and has a kid and is all happy and he’ll pass me on the street and not even recognize my face and while I’m there, there’ll be a freak fire at the restaurant and my parents will burn to death in front of me while I scream helpless on the road.”

I covered my mouth, if only to stop the words from coming out, words that did not feel like my own.

The hostess gave a worried glance to the chef. “Do something.”

“I am,” he said to her indignantly. Almost too indignantly, as if being scolded by her actually hurt, as if she were the only one who could do it.

“The young lady and I made a bargain.” He turned and looked out the window. “And now I will honor it.”

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

Sign up here to be notified when the book is released.

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Daniel Zrom

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They pulled her out of the river

“Suzie Lee Song!”

I sat up. A hefty African-American woman in a uniform that was at least two sizes too small was standing impatiently by the holding room door. I looked at her expectantly, waiting for whatever announcement was forthcoming.

“You made bail,” she explained, even more impatiently.

She waved her hand for me to hurry up. The clipboard in her hand suggested I was just one of a long list of offenders whose release she had yet to process.

Jail was different than I expected. There were no bars. That was a little disappointing. When one has the misfortune of going to jail, one wants a tin cup and bars to strum it against. Instead, the room where I was held could just as easily have been a conference space at some towering government agency — except there were no windows. And it had that kind of prickly wall covering that’s uncomfortable to lean against in a thin shirt. Not that I had a thin shirt. Orange jumpsuit all the way, baby.

When Kell and I had been arrested for fighting, we were processed right away and released. Both of us got a piece of paper that had our scheduled court date in big bold print, followed by a stern explanation of all the bad things that could happen if we didn’t show up. The following week, we both got letters in the mail informing us that the charges had been dropped and we didn’t have to appear before the judge after all. But this time I was held. My belongings were bagged and tagged and I was given a folded, pressed, numbered jumpsuit and shown to the ladies-only side of the lockup. I half-expected butch lesbians with gang scars to stare me down as I walked down a long cell-lined hall. But really, no one looked at me at all. To my fellow inmates, I was another walking jumpsuit, a bright orange reminder that they were just another number, like me — one more case for our handlers to process without incident. They didn’t even look us in the face.

The worst part though was the lack of a clock, which at least would’ve given me something to watch, and some sense of progress. No matter how slowly it moved, I’d at least be able to see that it was now three minutes later than it had been, and three minutes closer to whenever I’d be released. But there was nothing on the walls. Time passed and I didn’t know if I’d been there two hours or ten. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, I got really tired and slept, which suggested I was there at least through the night and what seemed like an age after. But then, boredom has a way of stretching time toward the infinite, so who knew.

The first clock I saw was in the hall where the thin older man with the gray goatee handed me my belongings through a window, but neither him nor it were no help.

“What time is it?” I asked.

11:30. Which 11:30?

I was allowed to shower and change, after which I had to sign a stack of acknowledgments whose purposes seemed utterly redundant. I was certain there were probably only five or six lines in the whole stack that were really important, but I had no idea where or what they were. I signed and was finally thrust out a heavy door into the waiting area marked RELEASE in stern lettering.

Amid the smattering of worried parents clasping hands and frustrated spouses flipping sullenly through magazines, I saw the Suleiman family. The three of them were clustered together, and they waved me over anxiously, as if now was my time to run and if I didn’t hurry, the relentlessly ticking bureaucracy behind me might change its mind and snatch me back through the one-way door with a big hooked cane, like in a vaudeville act. Cue laugh track.

I realized then I was very, very tired, but I was tired the way a traveler is tired after a long journey to someplace new. I had a kind of bubbling exhaustion. And I felt older. Way, way older.

The Suleimans radiated warmth. All three of them. Even Abdul. You couldn’t see it on his face, but if you knew the man, it was there loud and clear. He had a hand resting casually on his wife’s shoulder. For him, that was practically gushing.

I stopped a few yards from them. My lips turned down then. I choked back the lump in my throat, and with it the tears.

I felt like such a burden.

Samir stepped forward and hugged me. I just stood there, arms at my sides, waiting to break down. But I didn’t. My lips quivered. My heart was hollow. But my eyes stayed dry. It was like something had broken in me, some lever attached to my heart had snapped and was spinning wildly without effect.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said to his chest.

He stepped back and rubbed my arm.

“We didn’t do anything,” Mrs. Suleiman objected. She was wearing a beautiful blue-and-yellow pattern-print hijab.

“It was your money,” Abdul said, proudly.

I looked to Samir, whose eyes were wetter than mine.

They’d used the money Lyman gave me to bail me out. Two days before, I would’ve said that was too crazy of a coincidence. Now I knew better. It was so obvious to me. And it was obvious it wouldn’t be to anyone else, that if I started yammering about magic they’d all think I was nutty.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “For everything.”

“Come on,” Samir objected. “Don’t do that. It’s been almost three years, man. You’re family now.” He stepped closer.

I stepped back. “That’s not it. It’s . . . You just — ”

“It’s okay.” Mrs. Suleiman said. “Sami told us all about it. About the rich man and how you were protecting your friend.”

Mrs. Suleiman’s first name was Daria. She had pale skin and painted eyebrows. I’d never seen her hair. She always kept it covered. But I was pretty sure she was blonde. She was from a family of Russian Jews who’d emigrated to Israel. I think that was part of the reason the family fled, and why Abdul was as resigned as he was. Paranoid, even.

“Cerise,” he said in his heavy accent. “You did the right thing.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I didn’t. But I want to. That’s why I have to go. Please.”

“Go?” Samir asked. “What are you gonna do?”

I gripped the plastic bag in my hand full of my personal effects.

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

Detective Hammond was waiting in a short hallway on the other side of the lobby area. He was leaning against the wall, just as he’d been leaning against the door in the interview room where I met him. He had a closed file in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the Suleimans. I hugged Samir again. I hugged Daria. “You all have been nothing but nice to me and I brought this crap into your house.” I even hugged Abdul. He patted my back awkwardly with two hands.

I stepped away, stopping only once to wave. The three of them waved back. And then I turned and didn’t look back. I wasn’t being fair to them. But it was the best thing for them.

Hammond led me around a corner, presumably so we could talk in private. I stood in front of him and said nothing. I was probably glowering. I wanted to punch him in his misshapen head. His eyes darted from right to left, quickly confirming no one was in earshot.

“The evidence against you seems to have been misplaced.”

The baggy.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

He shrugged. “It’ll take a week or so before your case gets before someone who can make a decision, but at that point the charges should be dropped.”

It was bullshit that he’d arrested me at all. But I wasn’t going to jeopardize the situation by saying anything to piss him off.

“Is that it?”

“No.”

He looked to me like he was thinking how to phrase his next statement. I looked at the closed filed he was clutching in his hand. I caught the first four letters on the tab at the top, SOBR. The rest was obscured by his thumb. I didn’t have any reaction. I suppose some part of me had been expecting it.

“They found her early this morning,” he said with a crack in his voice. But it wasn’t grief or regret. It was exhaustion. I had gotten a little rest. I don’t think he had. One side of his shirt was half-pulled from his belt.

I nodded in basic acknowledgment.

A moment passed.

“How?” I asked.

He looked down and opened his mouth to give what I’m sure was a list of reasons why it was better if I didn’t know.

“How?” I insisted.

He took a second to gauge whether I could take it or whether the news would send me over.

“They pulled her out of the river,” he said. Then he added, “She was beaten.”

I nodded again.

Kell hadn’t been stabbed or shot or even drowned. She’d been beaten. I’m sure she held out as long as she could. I’m sure that wasn’t very long. It wouldn’t be for me either. It didn’t matter whether they thought she was lying or not. The mere fact that it was possible was reason enough for torture, just to be sure. I’m sure she told them where she stashed the dagger. I’m sure she also explained how she couldn’t get it.

I looked up at Detective Hammond. I looked him in the eye. “Is there a back door to this place?”

He inhaled sharply and stood out of his lean as if to object.

“You owe me,” I said.

He looked at the file in his hand.

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

Sign up here to be notified when the book is released.

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Niklas Wesner

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Politics is a sport

It has regular contests in which score is kept.

It has seasons ending in scheduled championship contests.

It has teams, complete with managers (and even owners).

It has plays and strategies, many of which fail.

It has scandals and career-ending injuries.

It has a daily highlight reel.

It has major and minor leagues and recruitment between the two.

It has a large media establishment that fosters uncertainty and division by focusing exclusively on preparations for the next contest, where former players become the anchors and talking heads dissecting the next crop of aspirants on “opposing view” talk shows designed to replicate the drama of the field and which encourage you to identify with a side and hate the other guys.

And, most importantly, everyone involved is making way more money than they should.

It’s not a sport I follow. I don’t know who’s up or down this week. I don’t know the score. I don’t know the predictions for the midterms. But it’s not because I don’t care. I don’t follow politics because very little of it — almost nothing in fact — has to do with governance. Those who enjoy it do so because they’re being entertained by its sport-like qualities, although they typically tell themselves (and you) that all the strutting and fretting really does amount to something — journalists above all.

The best description of this I’ve read was penned by the British historian and philosopher Bernard Williams (one of my all-stars) in a paper titled “The Politics of Self-Deception”. In this excerpt, he asks the question:

But how far does truth matter to politics?

It is hard to deny at least that some reliable types of inquiry and transmission of truth are necessary for administration. It is hard to resist, too, the force of the anti-tyranny argument, that the fear of abuse is always urgent enough to discourage, from the point of view of mere prudence, institutions of deceit, mystification, and concealment.

But beyond those lines–and it is, of course, a good question how far and in what directions those lines themselves extend–what follows? If we were deeply participant citizens, then each of us would have an immediate interest in truth in politics. But we cannot all be, and few of us want to be, and in this situation the fact that our institutions of education and communication, in particular the nature of the media, are not well designed for the discovery and transmission of politically relevant truths may seem less to the point.

What they are better designed for, besides selling things, is certain kinds of entertainment. This might be seen, if charitably, as resting simply on a tacit agreement between the consumers, the providers, and those who shape the space in which the market operates that what is provided is most of the time concerned neither with truth or with politics. But apart from the point that this is clearly an exaggeration, it is also too simple, since an important contribution to entertainment in many modern societies is made by what is supposed to be politics.

Political leaders and aspirants certainly appear before the public and make claims about the world and each other. However, the way in which these people are presented, particularly if they are prominent, creates to a remarkable degree an impression that they are in fact characters in a soap opera being played by people of the same name. They are called by their first names or have the same kind of jokey nicknames as soap opera characters, the same broadly sketched personalities, the same dispositions to triumphs and humiliations which are schematically related to the doings of the other characters.

When they reappear, they give the same impression of remembering only just in time to carry on from where they left off, and they equally disappear into the script of the past after something else more interesting has come up. It would not be right to say that when one takes the view of these people that is offered in the media one does not believe in them. One believes in them as one believes in characters in a soap: one accepts the invitation to half believe in them.

The world in which such characters exist is often thought to be a creation of television, and there is certainly a lot here that comes from television, with its disposition to make everything mediatedly immediate. But in itself the basic status of figures of this kind is as old as storytelling. It is the status of myth.

With regard to myths, when they are actually alive, questions of true and false are elided: indeed, one might rather say that in the most naive presentations of myth those questions are not even elided, since they had not come up in relation to these stories. It was something of an achievement eventually to raise them, as Thucydides did, when he started to work on the economics of the Trojan War. It is no accident, of course, that many myths have their origins remotely in what we would recognize as real events: some battles somewhere underlay the Iliad or the Chanson de Roland. The tale that is told, though certainly it is not presented by these poems as a piece of positivist historiography, is not presented as merely fictional either.

I mentioned earlier the idea that in self-deception there is a kind of conspiracy between deceiver and deceived, and in those terms there can be such a thing as collective self-deception. This applies to the representation of politics in our societies now. The status of politics as represented in the media is ambiguous between entertainment and the transmission of discoverable truth; and rather as the purveyor of living myth is in league with his audience to tell a tale into which they will enter, so politicians, the media, and the audience conspire to pretend that important realities are being seriously considered, that the actual world is being responsibly addressed. However, there is a difference.

Those who heard the songs about Troy, when those conveyed living myths, were not at Troy, but when we are confronted with today’s politics, we are supposed to be in some real relation to today. This means that in our case, more than with living myth, the conspiracy comes closer to that of self-deception, the great enemy of truthfulness, because the wish that is expressed in these relations is subverting a real truth, that very little of the world under consideration, our present world, is in fact being responsibly addressed.

I am frequently heard to say I care less for truth than for understanding. You can weigh yourself against another’s understanding, whereas truth — pillar of the universe — neither budges nor reveals itself no matter how many facts you heap on your side of the scale.

In my search for understanding, I’ve noticed a couple things. First, we have no choice over where or when we enter the world or what it looks like when we get here, and we are always in the grip of history. This is where we are as I’m writing this: How We Got Here (understanding our century in two short acts).

Second, the mechanisms of our democracy are badly in need of a tune-up, which is the main reason why the score doesn’t matter, and why it’s so difficult to enact any real change even in cases of widespread support: The Rationality of Disenfranchised Non-Voting.

There is an idea, offered with grade school zeal every two years, that the Pavlovian yanking of a lever connected to nothing is somehow a moral obligation. I would suggest instead that voting is a right rather than a responsibility, but that if you want to vote well, you should support candidates, regardless of team, who speak openly about the need for:

an amendment specifying that corporations are not people and money is not speech — which is the current Orwellian state of the law — on the theory that people are people and speech is speech;
an amendment extending term limits from the office of the President to members of Congress (and potentially even to the Supreme Court);
an open discussion of related proposals, such as the requirement that all legislation have an expiration date not greater than a human lifetime (overridden only by supermajority), or the empowerment of a citizen ethics panel, or the modification of the Second Amendment to allow for reasonable safety controls, as with automobiles, and so on.

The need for these structural (rather than policy) changes is simple and logically demonstrable. In an open society, you can never censor a priori. That is, you can’t decide in advance which laws or politicians should be permitted or excluded, as they do in Iran or North Korea, because doing so empowers a group of censors who are inevitably corrupted.

The eternal cost of an open society is an unfiltered funnel at the front end of the machine, which admits angel and devil alike. That means, from time to time, very bad laws will be passed (see the Espionage Act of 1917) and very bad people will find their way into public office (cough cough). To avoid the slippage to despotism, our open system requires a vigorous, multi-pronged process of removal that automatically enforces healthy turnover, subject to the will of the people and given certain triggers.

Of course, there will always be those who will say it’s too risky, despite that, for example, limiting the president to two terms has been a resounding success. These cautious naysayers, willing to hold out for a riskless option, one without pain or uncertainty, are the genuine privileged. Saying “let’s not make any knee jerk decisions” or “we shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken” only sounds good if it’s not your house on fire. Those less privileged, he ones trapped inside the burning home, are acutely aware that the greater risk is trying nothing.

 

 

cover image by Sachin Teng

You get a phone call

I was discovered alone with a dead body. The bloody knife with my fingerprints was in the hall. I told the story a million times before they finally let me crash in the back of a squad car. I didn’t care if I was under arrest or not. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I’d had a serious adrenaline spike, and once it faded, I crashed. Plus I was in shock, I guess. I was taken to the station and given a little cell. No bars or anything. Just a closet-sized room with a heavy locking door. I curled up with my head against the wall, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Darren’s face, his expression right before he died, and I woke in a panic.

I still can’t believe it. He wasn’t some still body dragged from a wreck on the side of the road that I glimpsed for three seconds while rolling past in a friend’s car. Darren Tully with the smiling friends and the nice parents and the middle senior manager job was alive right in front of me. I had my hands on him. I felt his blood on my skin — hot and thick, like egg soup. He was there. I was talking to him. And then he was just gone.

And in those moments when I didn’t see his face, I saw Kell’s. I saw her eyes as she was lifted and dragged away. Fear. Disbelief. Confusion. And I heard her pleas for me to help her.

The clock on the wall tick-tick-ticked and I just wanted my bed. Not that I could’ve gone home, which was a much bigger deal than I expected — not having a home to retreat to, at least not when where I felt at all safe. It’s an instinct, I think. Regardless of whether you can get back to it at any given moment, just the knowledge that you have a hole to crawl into is calming. But I had nothing. I was floating through the world on a wave of high anxiety that was slowly overtaking me.

Tick-tick-tick.

My big idea was that the police would know what to do. That was my plan — to drop everything in someone else’s lap. Brilliant, huh? And yet I was surprised when it failed in the worst way imaginable. Kell was missing, Darren was dead, and the police didn’t find anything in his apartment other than a few of her things. She didn’t even have any trash bags with her when she showed up.

Bastien was also living out of a suitcase, I realized. I had thought that was because he was shacking at the Sour Candy, but that was backwards. He was shacking at the Sour Candy because he was ready to run. When I left down the stairs that day, he didn’t ask about the million dollars, as if the news of big money wasn’t a surprise. He got stuck on the news of her pregnancy. I think he realized then that shit was fucked and she wasn’t coming and that if I’d found him, Lyman could, too. For all he knew, I’d led them there and they were waiting on the street.

For her part, I think the shock of the pregnancy brought Kell some clarity — not just the results but how it went down. I promise, news like that fucks with you in all kinds of ways. Some people act like ending a pregnancy is this super-easy decision. Fun even. That girls do it over and over, like shots at a bar, just to be crazy and have a few laughs. But that’s not my experience. In my experience, it changes everything. Your body. Your life. Your relationships. You lose friends. Some people lose family. I think Kell realized that if she went to him, Bastien would only talk her into doing something she wasn’t sure she wanted, or he’d at least try, and that laid bare her whole toxic obsession, and that broke the charm.

But after clarity, then what?

She said on the roof that she just wanted a couple days. To get her head straight. To come up with Plan B. I think she meant it.

I was woken by a female officer who took me to a locker room where I was told I could clean up. I thought that meant a shower, but there was only a sink.

“Can I at least have a toothbrush?” I called through the door.

Then it was back to Hammond’s desk. He wasn’t there, which meant more waiting. That’s all there is in police stations and hospitals — waiting. I wonder if that’s planned somehow, like some big important people upstairs want everyone to take a few moments and contemplate the life choices that brought them there.

“All right,” Hammond said, waking me.

He sighed deeply as he sat down. I think he’d been talking to Darren’s family. Man, that had to suck. His partner was nowhere in sight. Probably out investigating shit.

“I suppose I don’t have to tell you,” he said, “that this would’ve all been a lot easier if you had been honest from the start.”

“Yeah, because it’s totally smart to hand your life over to a giant bureaucracy, because no one’s ever gotten a raw deal from the NYPD. You guys are like frickin’ saints or something. Seriously, I’m surprised the department hasn’t won the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“All right, all right.” He waved me off.

Hammond didn’t think I killed Darren. Murderers don’t generally call the police before the act, he said, or wait around after the deed is done. He also didn’t believe there was any way I could’ve cleanly decapitated William bouncer-man, who was over six feet, or that even Kell and I working together had the strength to dump Lyman from the top of the Watchtower construction site.

However, be that as it may, Detective Hammond was still having some real problems with my story.

“Tell me more about this ‘Bastien’ guy.”

“I already told you everything. Three times.”

“So tell me again.”

The city had no record of Bastien Rops. He could’ve been anyone. I told Hammond what happened at the theater. I’m pretty sure he thought I’d been tripping.

“A potion?” he asked incredulously. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“What about the guy who was following me?” I retorted. “Did you find anything? Or is that strike three for the saints of the NYPD?”

Since all we had was my shitty description, Hammond suggested I look at mug shots to see if I could identify him. He said it was just a fact that most of the guys who did that kind of stuff had done it before. Makes sense, I guess.

Their system is pretty cool. You choose a set of descriptions and it gives you examples and then you can narrow it down by clicking on the faces that most closely resemble the person you saw. It’s totally like internet dating, swiping profiles and stuff.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Still, it took a long time. And with so many choices, I could only narrow it down to five. There were no names or any information that could identify them. Just a mugshot on a screen. I looked at their faces, the final five. They were all middle-aged. Three of them looked like they easily could’ve been cops put there to make sure people weren’t cheating. I sighed and walked back to Hammond’s desk. He’d been typing up my statement.

“All done?” he asked.

“I dunno. Am I?”

He nodded to the chair next to his desk. It looked like they’d gotten it from a library. The odd-colored green fabric was rough. I sat.

“Almost finished,” he said, typing.

I heard the click-clack of the keys. He was a good typist.

“That’s what you said two hours ago,” I protested.

He shook his head at me, like I was a hoot. He finished typing and printed the statement and handed it to me.

“If that sounds good, just go ahead and sign the bottom.”

I held up the printout to speed-read it. It was pretty much what I said. I held out my hand for a pen. He slapped one in my hand. I signed and gave it back to him.

“Are we done now?”

“Where are you gonna go?”

When I didn’t answer, he motioned to my shirt. I had smears of Darren’s blood on me.

“Three dead bodies,” he warned. “And counting. These guys of yours are the real deal. You gotta stop with the Nancy Drew bit.”

“Who’s Nancy Drew?”

He sighed and scratched his block head.

“You need to let us find your friend. Believe it or not, we have people here who are good at that kind of thing. Like it’s their job even.”

“Sarcasm,” I said with a nod of approval. “Very nice. Well done, sir.” I saluted weakly.

He chuckled. I think by then we were both really tired.

I shook my head at him. “You guys don’t even know what they’re looking for you, do you?”

His smile faded. “I’m serious.”

“Yeah? Good. ’Cuz so am I. I had a lot of time to think in the clink and this whole sitting by and letting someone else handle thing isn’t gonna work.”

He looked through me, like he was contemplating what to do. It was serious, from the looks of it.

“Have you ever had a best friend?” I asked.

“Sure.” He tilted his head. “Yeah. I guess you could call it that.”

“I’m not talking about a friend you’re closer to than others. I mean the real thing. Someone who walks right up to you, the weird foreigner with the strange accent, and introduces herself when no one else even makes eye contact. Who patiently holds your hair back every time you puke in the toilet because you’ve never really partied before and you’re too stupid to know when to stop. Who drops everything and rushes over in the middle of night after you make a stupid decision and some jerk nearly rapes you in the back of his friend’s car. Who completely changes her life and moves in with you because now you’re too scared to be alone at night. Who knows how to pick your clothes and do your hair and order your favorite pizza. Who forces you not to quit on your dreams after you drop out of school and the only thing you want to do is crawl home a failure. I’m talking about a friend like that. Someone wonderful and infuriating and crazy and supportive and kind.”

Detective Hammond leaned back in his chair with his legs spread like guys do. It was the most relaxed I’d seen him.

“I had a partner like that once,” he said, nodding.

The soft tone in his voice suggested there was more.

“And?”

He shrugged. “She went somewhere I couldn’t follow. After that, things weren’t quite the same.”

“Then maybe you get it.” I stood.

He motioned for me to sit. Very seriously.

“What the fuck? I did everything you said. You can’t seriously think that I killed Darren. Or Lyman. Or anyone.”

“Sit,” he ordered.

I did. With a heavy, exaggerated sigh.

He looked at me for a moment. “You’re really not gonna give this up. Are you?”

I made a face like “duh.”

He nodded. He opened his desk drawer and took out another labeled evidence bag, this one much smaller. He tossed it on top of the stack of files in front of me.

My mouth opened.

“Your door’s busted. Legally, we’re allowed to enter.”

It was my baggie. From my kitchen. The one with the illegal pharmaceuticals. I had been freaking out about finding Kell and everything that I had totally forgotten. I mean seriously, of all the things to worry about at the time, a couple pills and a tab of LSD didn’t really seem important.

I looked at Hammond, mouth still agape. “That’s bullshit.”

“You’ll be out in a couple days.”

“Okay . . .” I raised my hands. “Okay, look. I know you think you’re trying to help,” I began.

“I am helping. I know you don’t think so, but this is the best thing — ”

“For who? I’m not a kid. And I’m not absent a father figure. I’m not your daughter, man. You can’t swoop in and — Fuck, why are dudes always doing this shit? Seriously, sometimes all we really need is for you to fucking back off.”

“Like I said.” He turned back to his computer and started typing. “You’ll be out in a couple days. At most.”

“You can’t do this. Please.”

Nothing.

“You’re killing her!”

“No. I’m saving you. We have people — ”

“Do any of them believe in magic?” I asked. “The occult? Anything like that?”

Hammond dropped his arm, like I’d just punched him in the kidney.

“Hari,” he said. “Detective Chase.”

“Is he here?”

He looked at me for a moment. “No. She works downtown. But of you want, I’ll see if she has some time to talk to you tomorrow.”

“Some time tomorrow? Kell doesn’t have ‘some time tomorrow.’ She — ” I stopped mid-syllable when it was clear he didn’t care.

He lifted the receiver on his corded desk phone — a big business job with a panel full of blinking red lights and a bunch of single-button presets — and handed it to me. “You get a phone call. Dial nine to get out.”

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

Sign up here to be notified when the book is released.

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Chiba Kotaro

[image error]

The Three of Swords

I didn’t know his last name, let alone his address or phone number, but I remembered he had bought her a new phone. I didn’t remember when, but a quick check of her social media accounts, once my phone was charged, cleared that up. There was a picture of her holding it in the store and smiling. I could see the name of the carrier on the sign in the background. And the website had tagged the post with the city: Sunnyside, Queens. She didn’t mention anything about him in the post — just that her “awesome friend” hooked her up — but lost among the forty or so comments, 95% of which were from random flirty dudes whose names I didn’t even recognize, I saw one I did: Darren Tully, AKA Darren Freebooty. Now I had a last name and a probable city of residence.

A quick click on his profile confirmed Sunnyside, although he was smart enough not to include an address on a public account. I scrolled through his social media profile for clues. He wasn’t very active. Sometimes there was a week or two between posts. And he didn’t have very many friends. But those he did seemed to be genuine. There were pictures of them at the ballgame or at a restaurant — mostly other white guys, a little geeky like him, always smiling, like they really enjoyed each other’s company. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t particularly attractive either. He was a little out of shape, and his fashion was limited to polos with shorts — or jeans and fleeces in cold weather. But he seemed nice enough. He got promoted last year to middle senior managing something-or-other, and his parents had come from Connecticut or somewhere to celebrate. There was a nice picture of them in front of his building.

A web search of the name Darren Tully turned up thirteen in the city, but only two in Sunnyside, one of whom was an African-American over 40. The other lived in an upscale corporate block of flats with a round courtyard set back from the road for privacy. Google street view confirmed it was the same block in the picture. But the heavy glass-and-steel doors were locked, and no one answered when I buzzed his unit from the fancy touchscreen directory. And while the machine confirmed we had the right place, it didn’t give out his unit number.

“Nearly 6:00,” I said to my strange companion. I tugged on the heavy locked doors again. “Pretty sure this guy has an office job. I say we give it a bit.”

He agreed and we sat on the little stone block wall that lined the courtyard, just out of sight of the front door, thanks to the tree in the middle of the space. My companion seemed especially pleased at that. He sat quietly, legs crossed, and admired it in silence, almost like the two of them were having a polite chat about life in the city and how warm it had gotten lately. After a few moments, he noticed me looking.

“What’s with the coat?” I asked.

Honest to God, he looked down like he didn’t even realize he was wearing it. He admired it for a moment.

“It belonged to one of your countrymen, a man named Zhang Jiao.”

“How’d you get him to part with it?”

“He’s been dead for the better part of two millennia.”

“That’s serious vintage. I’m surprised the communists let you have it.”

“I doubt they are aware of its existence. It was a gift. From a man named Wu.

A quiet moment passed and he turned back to the tree, as if it were a better conversationalist. Not to be outdone by the foliage, I asked him if he’d spent much time in China.

“I have been once or twice.”

“Oh yeah? Which is it? Once or twice?”

“It depends,” he said with a hint of impatience, “on whether or not you consider Tibet to be part of China. Tell me,” he added quickly, “is there a dragon?” He nodded to my side.

“How did you know about that?”

“A simple deduction. The dragon and the phoenix are the symbol of the emperor and empress, whose union begets the state, just as the union of yin and yang begets the universe.”

“No no no no. How did you know about my tattoo?”

“Ah. When you slept, you fell sideways on the sofa. Your shirt lifted some.” He pointed.

I eyed him.

“I replaced it,” he said.

“Uh huh.”

He motioned to my bag between us. “And that?”

I took out the tarot deck I’d gotten at Sour Candy. It was wrapped in plastic, all glossy and ridiculous. I ripped off the covering and read the 2D bar code on the back with my phone. While the app downloaded, he unfolded the little instruction manual stashed with the cards. It took him all of four seconds to scowl, crumple it, and add it to the trash trapped on the ground under the prickly bushes behind us.

“Excuse you,” I objected. “That wasn’t yours.”

He turned his lips down like he’d just drank heavy bitters.

“Any idiot could invent a better system than any of those, and off the top of his head.”

“Any idiot, huh? Alright.” I pulled the deck from the box and handed it to him. “Prove it.”

He gave a little annoyed sigh. Then he actually cracked his knuckles. It wasn’t until he started shuffling the deck that I noticed there weren’t any pictures on the cards.

“Wait.”

I pulled one just as he set the deck down for a third shuffle. There was a classic interlocking design on the back, and on the front, a 2D bar code on a white background with a simple border flourish around the edge. According to a note on the back of the box, it was a feature, a mechanism to prevent cheating. You had to draw a random card. You had no choice. They all looked the same, so there was no way to stack the deck to get the “reading” you wanted.

“That is your first card,” he said. “Set it down.”

The cards were crisp and they snapped loudly as he shuffled. He cut the deck once, shuffled twice more, then cut a second time, at which point he spread the cards on the flat surface between us and directed me to choose six more.

“But do not think,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah,” I objected. “I know.”

After I chose, he placed all seven cards in a kind of pyramid shape: three on the bottom, two in the middle, and one one top, with the final card floating above and to one side.

“The first position,” he explained, pointing to the bottom left, “is the cardinal, the cornerstone of the castle, also called the House of the World. It tells us something about ourselves, our overall personality.”

He directed me to turn it and I did so.

I had the option of using the classic Rider Waite deck or two alternate designs. There were also additional, fancier designs available for in-app purchase. I used the first free alternate, which the makers of the app recommended, with art by someone called Pixie. I scanned the 2D code with my phone, and a picture of filled the screen.

The Moon.

The orb itself shined in full between two flanking towers. A dog and a wolf brayed, while a lobster crawled from the water at the bottom.

“Ah,” he said. “You are a very creative person. Intuitive, as well.”

“That’s the nice way of telling someone they’re artsy and flaky, but thank you.”

He ignored me. “In the first position, The Moon represents mystery, and all that follows will be its unraveling.”

He motioned to the middle card on the bottom row. I turned it.

“The second position,” he said, “is the House of Water, which flows over the world. It is movement, activity, transition — our life goals and the unexpected changes we encounter.”

I scanned it with a beep.

The Knight of Wands.

A man in shabby chain armor rode an unsteady horse rising on its back legs. His right hand raised a rood sprouting green leaves.

“Impetuosity,” he said, “and the pursuit of a foolhardy adventure.”

“Okay,” I acknowledged grudgingly. “Fine. Two for two.”

He went on. “The third position is the House of Life, which grows from the wet earth. This is the house of family, love, and relationships.”

With some hesitation, I took the third card and scanned it.

The Three of Swords.

A red heart was suspended in the air, pierced clean through by three crossing blades. Blood dripped from the bottom as rain fell from storm clouds in the distance.

“Heartbreak,” he said, “either yours or one caused by you.”

“Okaaaaaaay. We’re not gonna dwell on that,” I said and flipped the next card.

He hurried to give his description before I scanned it. “The fourth position is the House of Animals, which feed on the plants which sprout from the wet earth. This is our roving passion, our weakness, our foibles and limitations, which can also be our strengths.”

The Tower. I set it down where he could see.

Lightning fell from a black cloud and struck a stone tower, like a battlement, which shattered, sending the pair at the top, a man and a woman, tumbling to the ground.

“Ah,” he said. “Your foolhardy quest will end in tragedy, a ruin of the highest order.”

I frowned. When it was clear nothing else was forthcoming from me, he pointed to the second card on the second row.

“The fifth position is the House of Man, both saint and sinner, who was given provenance of the animals that eat the plants that sprout from the wet earth. This is our rational mind, our hobbies and activities. Work and career also fall here.”

I turned the fifth card.

The Eight of Cups.

A lone figure dressed in a red hood and cape and carrying a walking stick followed the course of a river. The traveler moved away from the viewer, toward the dark and distant mountains, so it was impossible to say if it was a man or woman. An eclipsed sun hung in the sky, shining only as a thin halo around an otherwise black disc. A scatter of eight gold cups, all broken, lay in the foreground, as if they’d been smashed and discarded by the departing traveler.

“This symbolizes abandonment of old plans and aims,” he explained. Then he thought for a moment. “But in the fifth house, I think it more likely means that magic has been used against you, driving you forth against your wishes and sending you on a journey that you would not have otherwise undertaken.”

“Greeeeat.”

I turned the sixth card, at the top of the pyramid.

“The sixth position, at the apex of the tower, is the House of the Devil,” he said “who yearns to replace the divine and who plagues all below. This represents our enemies — the friends that act against us — as well as the impediments and barriers to our own ascension.”

I scanned it. I paused when I saw it on the screen.

Death.

I looked at the image for a long moment. A skeletal figure in black armor rode a pale horse. He dipped a long scythe over the ground, which mowed a garden of men, women, and children. A priest in a high hat knelt before him, hands pressed together in silent entreaty.

The chef could see the look on my face. “It may not be as you think. The Death card merely signifies an end, not necessarily the end of life.”

“How did you know it was the Death card?” I asked. I hadn’t turned the screen. “Do I smell like dung or something?”

He gave a little shrug.

“Why is the last card apart like that?” I asked.

The seventh and final card stood above and to the side of the others, like a sun rising over a castle. Or a moon, I guess.

“That is the House of the Divine, of life and fortune — long or short, good or bad. It is not the future but rather what waits for us outside time, what may or may not come to be, depending on our actions. It is a caution and an encouragement. You are woman, so we draw in the converse position, the Sun, on the right.”

My eyes caught a scattered grouping of people approaching the building across the street. It happened every fifteen minutes or so — after each train. And there he was. Heading for the front door.

“Shit!” I dropped the cards in my hand into my purse. I swiped the last and stuck it in my back pocket as the two of us trotted across the courtyard as nonchalantly as possible.

We made it just in time. Darren had already walked into the building, and the door was swinging shut.

“Wait here,” I said to my companion in an urgent whisper before slipping through the closing door without opening it further. Sometimes it pays to be small.

The door shut hard in front of him. He scowled through the glass.

Darren Tully was checking his mailbox. He’d gained a little weight since the picture I saw was taken. He had headphones in his ears and wasn’t paying any attention to us.

“She doesn’t know you,” I said from the other side of the heavy door. “Just chill here for a sec. I’ll bring her down.”

I noted the open mailbox number — 314 — and pressed the button for the elevator. It came a moment later, and I hit the button for the fourth floor just as Darren stepped in, mail in hand. He’d sorted out the junk and had a couple white envelopes.

The elevator dinged on the third floor and I kindly held it open for him. He gave me a polite smile — one of those pressed-lips jobs — and stepped into the hall. The doors closed and I got off on four, found the stairs, and went back down to three. I stopped in the stairwell and made a quick phone call and set my trap. It might end up destroying my friendship, but I was going to bring everyone together. I was going to give the police everything and get them off my back. I was going to give them the chef. And Kell. I was going to do what was right for her unborn child, whether she wanted it or not. No more running. No more secrets. Time to face the music. Time to face real life.

I walked back down the hall and knocked on 314. Darren Tully opened the door almost immediately, like he’d only been a few steps away. I planted my foot inside immediately. He was bigger than me, as most people are, and if he’d braced himself to slam the door, I never would’ve been able to push past him.

“Hi Darren.”

Kell was on the couch, which faced the balcony, and she had to turn to see. She stood immediately and backed toward Darren’s big flat screen television. Leaning against the wall next to it was a bulky Calloway golf bag full of sock-covered clubs. A stack of six golf ball boxes sat on the hardwood near the fallen leaves from a large potted plant. Over it was a framed Georgia O’Keeffe print. I guess he wanted to show off his feminine side.

“Nice TV,” I said.

Things were quiet for a moment.

“How did you find me?” She cut herself short immediately. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. It’ll only make me feel stupid.”

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t playing that game anymore.

“You must be Cerise,” Darren said behind me.

I nodded without turning. I wasn’t going to take my eyes off her.

“I’ll, uhh . . . I guess I’ll give you guys a minute.”

“You can stay,” I said.

He looked to Kell for approval, but she wasn’t having any. He could see her answer in his eyes, and he walked into the bedroom and shut the door firmly so as to announce his intention not to eavesdrop.

“You know,” I said, “he’s probably the only guy in the city who actually really cares for you.”

“Can you please not do the mom thing? It’s really fucking annoying. I’m not stupid, okay?”

“Then why do you keep using him?”

“I dunno.” She was quiet. The room was quiet. “Because he lets me.”

I bit back a retort. I tried for a middle ground.

“That’s not good enough. Not anymore. And that’s not me being your mom. It’s me being your friend.”

She rubbed her palms flat against each other like they were covered in filth. I watched her do it a few times. Her face seemed torn between anger and fear.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

I opened my mouth to say more, but nothing came.

She shut her eyes, as if anticipating what I would’ve said and getting frustrated with it all the same.

“Did you fuck him?” she asked. “Tell me the truth.”

I breathed in.

Be honest, Cerise. “Sort of.”

“How do you ‘sort of’ fuck someone? If you blew him, that totally counts.”

“I didn’t blow him.”

She looked at me. Her face turned slowly from anger. “Why not?”

We smiled. I walked over and sat on the ground with my back against the couch and she slid down and joined me. She locked my arm in hers and we rested our heads against each other, just as we had that night at my apartment.

“Not what we expected, is it?” she asked.

“Not at all,” I breathed.

We were quiet for a long time.

“You stole something,” I accused.

She didn’t answer right away.

“He’s got so much money, Cerise. You don’t even know.”

“Yeah . . .” I said.

“I’m serious.” She sat up to look at me. “He’s got a wristwatch that cost more than all my student loans. It was like sixty thousand dollars or something. For a watch.”

I nodded. “I hope it sucked his dick every night.”

“I know, right? And you know how he made his money? He created some kind of online market for patents. People buy and sell patents, did you know that? I didn’t. They buy and sell ownership of other people’s ideas. It’s so fucked up. And sometimes they buy them for no other reason than to sue someone else for using it.”

“I know what a patent troll is.”

“He’s not even that!” she objected. “He’s, like, a troll broker. He got rich off a troll market. My dad worked for like fifteen years or whatever for this company in Minneapolis that made some kind of software routing thing. I remember he used to come home all the time and complain that there was a company in China doing the same thing, only cheaper, so everyone was buying from them even though they didn’t have the rights and the Chinese government wouldn’t enforce our patent laws. Eventually it got serious enough that dad’s company sued to keep anything with their product out of the US market. But it wasn’t his company’s patent. It was owned by some patent troll who lived off the royalties and shit. Dad’s firm had the US license, which they paid for. But rather than fight the lawsuit, which would’ve been expensive and which probably would’ve cost them all their American business, the Chinese company bought the patent from the troll and just canceled all the licenses. Just like that, everyone in my dad’s company was out of work, and some places in Europe too, I guess. They played by the rules and got punished. The other company cheated and won. And nobody did anything. Nobody cared.”

I didn’t know what to say. Kell hated her dad. Everyone knew that. Even Lyman.

“Is that when things got bad?” I asked.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything.”

“Yes, you are. You’re thinking that I’m blaming Lyman for what happened with my dad.”

I shrugged. “No wants to believe their parent is capable — ”

“Stop!” she yelled.

She shook her head and we sat next to each other in silence, heads turned in opposite directions.

I think that’s when it hit me — the extent to which her life was run on impulse. Kell was winging it, all the way through, from blood to bones. She even said so. If Darren got tired of her giving him blue balls, there were ten other guys who would take her in, for a night or two anyway. The persistent prevalence of easy options like that overwhelmed every worthwhile avenue in her life. It was the real reason she’d quit school — she couldn’t wing that, and she had no idea how to be different. And no incentive to try. After dropping out and losing Rey and Bastien and everything, just as the promise of adult life was fading, there was Lyman flaunting a life of leisure, positively leaking surplus cash, damn near daring her to take it.

“So what happened?” I said after a minute.

“I told you before. He kicked me out. Or, he was going to.”

“So you told him you were pregnant.”

“I thought it would buy us a couple days. Bastien knew some people who would buy the dagger. We had a plan, okay? It wasn’t just some stupid thing. But Lyman didn’t believe me. He wanted a pregnancy test right then. That night. He wanted to see it for himself. He even sent William to the pharmacy. He came back with like eight boxes. Cleaned them out. I tried to say I was tired and all that but they kept shaking me.”

“That when he hit you?”

She nodded.

“Did you know you were pregnant when you told him?”

She shook her head meekly.

“Ah. So you both got a shock.”

Her eyes clouded. “They held me,” she said softly. “They pulled my panties off. They pulled my legs open. When I wouldn’t go, they hit me in the stomach until . . . The pee went everywhere. Down my legs. All over William’s hands.” She curled up tighter next to me. “It was so humiliating. Like I was a dog.”

She shivered, but it wasn’t out of cold. It was like the memory of cold, the recollection of a chilly winter from childhood.

“I took it that night. All the guards were out front. It was in the middle of that big empty room. In a case with a stone lid, like a tiny vampire or some shit.”

“Is the baby even Lyman’s?” I asked.

Her eyes turned back to me again. She shook her head.

I ran my hands through my hair. “Fuck, Kell. This is a mess. I mean, this is a serious fucking mess.”

“I know.”

“What did you do with the dagger? Where is it now?”

“I hid it.”

“Where? Somewhere good, I hope, because that thing is just about our only way out of this.”

“Don’t be mad.” She waited a moment. “Okay? I put it in your name.”

“Wait. What?”

She stood. “I told you I was serious, okay? About changing. I didn’t trust myself. I wanted to tell you everything that day. That’s why I came. But then we had so much fun. Right? Everything was like before and I didn’t want to ruin it. So I was going to tell you in the morning. But then Lyman’s guys showed up and I had to bail. I looked for you again later. Just like I said I would. I said I’d find you and I tried. I really did. I went to your place and waited on the roof for, like, hours, but then the limo pulled up out front and all those birds came again and I freaked.”

So Mrs. Suleiman wasn’t the only one watching from the building that day. Kell was on the roof. The crows followed her. The chef followed the crows.

“It’s like, ever since that day, everything that could possibly go wrong did. Everything. Things you don’t even know. I didn’t have my purse and I was almost raped. I was so scared. Everything was falling apart. And then that girl, Bastien’s friend, told me where you were, and I felt so happy. I just wanted to see you. I just didn’t want to be alone. I tried to hurry. But there was this horrible car accident. It happened right in front of the taxi. I saw it. This guy died and everything. We had to wait for the cops and then traffic was terrible and I couldn’t get across town. And then when I got there — ”

She stopped.

When she got there, she saw me and Bastien with our pants down.

I heard the door open behind me. At first I thought it was Darren, but then I realized he was in the bedroom in front of me waiting patiently like a good dog and had never left. Kell was facing that way and went white with panic.

She screamed.

I spun just in time to see them push past the couch. They were in ski masks and dark clothes that covered their arms and legs. The first one grabbed me while the other two grabbed Kell with gloved hands. She started kicking and screaming as I was forced back onto the couch. Hearing the commotion, Darren burst from the bedroom and went right for Kell. Thinking I was clever, I kicked my attacker in the balls. But “he” didn’t have any. She must have been a girl, I thought. Looking at her then, at her bloodshot eyes, I noticed something wrapped around her skin. I could only see it at the gaps of her ski mask — strips of off-white cloth, heavier than bandages, like binding straps.

She grabbed my hair and yanked me off the couch as the two men lifted Kell straight up and carried her into the hall. I got kicked in the stomach. Hard. I lost breath and panic took over. I started flailing uselessly.

Kell grabbed the door frame as she past and held on as tightly as she could.

“Cerise!” she screamed. “Help me! You have to help me!”

They yanked hard but she held on. Her perfectly polished nails dug into the corner of the wood frame.

“Cerise! Don’t let them have it! If they get it, they’ll — ”

She was struck hard across the face and went slack. Her eyes rolled and she struggled weakly to hold on, but it was useless, and I watched them drag her away, my very best friend.

I felt hands on me, and I dove for my bag. Gloved fingers went to my mouth and up my nose. I was being suffocated. I could feel the tight strapping under my attacker’s clothes, as if her entire body was wrapped with it, as if she’d been burned from head to toe and that was her replacement skin. As my eyes rolled back into my head, I realized she was awfully strong for a chick. She was built like a man, too, which is why I had assumed that in the first place.

After a frantic moment, my loose hand found what it was fumbling for and I plunged Samir’s knife into the thing’s leg. But I was stupid. I’ve never stabbed anyone before and was so focused on making a powerful thrust that I didn’t think about holding on after. My attacker, whatever ti was, stumbled back and the blade was yanked from my hands.

The thing reached down and pulled the knife free with barely a grunt. There was blood. It was over everything. The blade. Its hand. Its clothes. Thick and red. I was on the floor, gasping. It had Samir’s knife and I thought for sure I was dead. It came at me as Darren launched himself wildly at its back. He wrapped his arms around the thing’s neck and held on. He was yelling and punching trying his best, but he wasn’t much of a fighter, and the dickless monster threw him off and against the wall. He hit his head hard, which left a big divot in the drywall, before landing on his ass with a painful grimace.

But in his fall, he managed to pull the ski mask free. I’d been right. The thing’s skin was replaced by that heavy knit strapping. Underneath was something I was certain had once been human. I didn’t know what it was anymore.

Darren saw the knife in its hand and went into full-on panic. He came at the thing again with a barbaric wail and it tackled him back into the wall, which cracked from the divot to the floor. The thing stabbed him again, right in his gut. I heard the wet thump. Then again. Then again and again and again and again. Air gurgled from some hole and Darren shivered, like he was freezing, and didn’t move.

The thing stood straight and turned to me. Darren’s blood dripped from the tip of the weapon. I scrambled back and it came.

Sirens wailed from the street.

I knew Kell wouldn’t come. Not willingly. I had called Detective Hammond in the hall — I still had his card — and told him Kell had something to say about Lyman’s murder. But if he wanted her, he had to get here quick because she was about to run. It was a lie. But it was the truth.

I’ve never been more happy to hear the police.

The faceless thing paused when it heard the patrol cars. Then it turned back to me, like it was going to do a fast job on my throat before the officers got up the stairs, but by then I had one of Darren’s golf clubs and swung. I didn’t hold anything back. I was fighting for my life. I connected with the side of its head and heard the chime of the metal. It went down and I beat it across its back. I don’t think that hurt it much, not with that strapping under its clothes, but it was still bleeding from the gash in its leg, and I’d rung its bell pretty good. It wasn’t rushing to get up.

When we heard the sounds of the police entering the building, the monster blocked my swing with an angry swipe of its hand. It grabbed the shaft of the club and shoved it away. Then it hobbled out the door, gripping its leg.

I ran to Darren. There was blood. Everywhere. A pool of it was spreading slowly across the floor from under his butt. I had to stop it. That’s what you do, right? But how? There was so much! I looked around for a kitchen towel or something.

“I knew she was using — ”

He choked and then gasped three times in succession. He was in total shock. I think he was even more surprised than I was.

“But. I didn’t mind. So much.” He choked again. “I was just glad she . . .”

His arms relaxed. He exhaled. His body slumped and his head turned to the side. But his eyes were open. I covered my wide open mouth with my hand and fell back on the floor. My eyes were squinted, but I couldn’t cry. I’d never seen someone die before. I felt so hollow.

I was almost catatonic when the officers arrived. It was hours before I realized the chef had vanished.

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

Sign up here to be notified when the book is released.

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Anthony Jones

[image error]

On this, all depends

In my admittedly limited experience of the world, the police of any country tend to take the murder of a rich man very seriously. I was sure Hammond and Rigdon would follow up on every aspect of my story. I was clearly one of the last people to see Lyman Raimi alive. There was a witness to our altercation a day or so before his death. Sooner or later the police would find the ten grand locked in the safe at the market, if they hadn’t already. That, plus a million dollars’ worth of liquidated assets, suggested a very serious motive. Blackmail maybe — perhaps over the contents of Kell’s womb. Short of some forensic evidence to the contrary, she and I were likely the chief suspects. It was only a matter of time before I was questioned again, if not detained. Next time, I figured, they wouldn’t be nearly as polite. Telling the whole truth would only implicate my friend. Being caught in a lie would implicate myself. And my alibi, if we got around to that, sounded like a complete fiction. I’m not sure I believed it myself. And anyway, I had no idea where to find Irfan, or Bastien, and no idea what either of them would say if questioned by the police. Fish, for his part, would be happy to tell them whatever story he figured was most likely to send me upstate.

All things considered, I would’ve said I was fucked. But I’m an optimist, and as it happened, there was still one person I hadn’t talked to, someone who knew the deceased, who had been inquiring after him. Someone I suspected the police didn’t even know was involved.

I knew enough by then to appreciate that wasn’t an accident. He stayed in the shadows on purpose.

I told the cops that my phone had been stolen and got them to spot me a single call. I asked directory assistance to connect me to a cab company. The dude took his sweet time getting there, but he got me home. To be honest, I stiffed him out of the fare. I do feel a little guilty about that. I ran inside as he yelled after me. I cleaned up quick and changed. Fresh panties, matching socks from the clean pile — I think — and my best vintage green Captain Caveman tee. But I was purseless, walletless, and phoneless, and it totally sucked ass. But I wasn’t totally without luck. In a desperate search for loose cash, I found an old train card I thought I had lost. It had a little over four dollars on it, which is why I hadn’t spent very much time looking for it before. With the additional $1.56 in loose change I found scattered throughout the mess on my floor, I had just enough to get me where I was going. I snuck down the fire escape, just in case the cabby was out front, and exchanged both the card and the loose change at the station office for a little paper ticket. The woman behind the window looked at the change and my black eye, then at Captain Caveman, but she didn’t say anything.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

She nodded as she handed me the ticket.

“Do I smell like dung to you?”

She didn’t answer.

Let me just say, Bistro Indigenes is legitimately amazing. There’s this big stone hearth with a raging fire looking out over an open dining room. The hostess was so graceful and classy. I would feel so completely fugly standing between her and Kell. I could never pull off short hair like that. In fact, she set me back a second. I had come expecting an over-made teenager at the stand, with lightened hair and a pre-summer tan, someone I could bully my way past, but the woman before me had such poise and casual grace that I was instantly certain there were no string of words I could utter that would convince her to act against her employer. Especially since I had come to a fancy restaurant wearing a shiny, multicolored jersey jacket over a cartoon T-shirt and flower-print shoes.

I took a deep breath as I approached, contemplating what manner of devious lie would get me to the chef, but there was no need.

“Ms. Song,” the woman greeted me warmly before I could utter a word. “I’m afraid he got pulled into an unexpected meeting, but he should be done soon. Can we offer you dinner?”

“Um . . .”

I looked at the dining room. It was so busy. And everyone was so nicely dressed. I looked down at Captain Caveman.

Before I could answer, the hostess nodded to a heavily mustachioed Latino man, who took me to a seat at the counter that ran around the open kitchen where I watched the chefs put on a little show. They were all pretty young. And relaxed. Joking with each other. It was nice. And the cuisine . . . The menu had two options. “Man” or “Woman.” Guests were encouraged to choose the one “with which they most closely identified.” I’m sure the chef pissed some people off with that. Good for him.

A woman in a dark bandanna, about my age, produced a basket from under a counter. It was full of spindle-like rolls of thread. Spider silk. She put three or four of them on a wire spoon and dipped them in boiling water. Then she set the blanched, sanitized, and deflated nests under a heat lamp to dry. She took some dry ones and put them in a round machine — like those rotary tubs carnivals use to make cotton candy, only smaller — and added a spoonful of thick crystals, sugar maybe. Finally she rolled a wafer twirl, a tubular cookie, around the center of the machine so that it accumulated a filamentous layer of red-violet fluff. I have no idea what candied spider web tastes like, but for the “Men,” that was dessert. Their entree was fatty chicken. The meat was stuffed on the bone and fired in clay that had to be smashed open after cooking. The chefs brought out this big mallet. It took several hours to make, so they always had a few extras. Each time they smashed a pot, it was loud, and the crowd cheered. I guess since it was cooked at such high temperature and pressure, the meat fused with the marrow and spices and melted in your mouth.

I chose “Woman,” because duh, and got sliced ox penis — which was like four feet long before they cut it into individual servings. It was soaked in chili oil, grilled over open flame, and served with a cold puree of parsnip, egg white, and flowering-cactus jelly. The palate cleanser was a tiny glass of alcoholic chrysanthemum sorbet — sweet and sour, earthy and floral. And a little buzz to boot.

Before I had a chance to sample the dessert, the hostess came to get me. She took me back out the front and around to a side door. I could see the lights of downtown. I got a little jittery. We walked up the stairs and the door swung open and — BOOM. There was a head, like a giant shrunken head — nine or ten feet, all gray and shriveled and nasty. Its eyes are stitched shut. Its mouth is pursed, like it’s frozen in a perpetual wail. I slid past it and stepped into the living space. The floor-to-ceiling windows had a killer view of downtown. The sun was low and the light came in beams from between the distant skyscrapers.

The room was like a little museum. A metal mobile hung from the high ceiling. A pair of couches faced each other in front of the windows. At the back was a little bar. There was a big battle club and a mummified hand and some killer art on the walls, and that great view. In between the couches was a worn Buddhist stelae that he was using as a coffee table.

The hostess, whose name was Milan, motioned for me to sit and said he would be out soon. I nodded and she turned to leave just as a blustery man with a thick comb-over walked in from a side hall, through an open pair of French doors. He looked so out of place in his tired suit and loose tie. At the other end of the hall I saw stacked stone cubes. Each cube was deep red and capped in a different Chinese character. I recognized the radicals but I didn’t know the script. It looked like some kind of ancient calligraphy.

The man spun and yelled. “I don’t know what you expected. You can’t keep venomous spiders in a kitchen — ” He stopped when he noticed me. He scowled. He took a deep breath. “Young lady, I hope you’re not here for a job.”

Then he stormed out.

I turned back to the hall and there he was. The chef.

“Ms. Song.” He was flat. Like he’d just gotten horrible news but was trying to be polite. “How nice to see you again.”

He had some folded papers in his hand. It looked serious. Like legal stuff. You know, where the back page is blue. I caught the words New York State Department of Health at the top.

“Is this a bad time?” I stood.

He handed the papers to Milan, who had stepped out of the way of the retreating man.

She read them. “Again?”

“Please talk to Raul and finish the service immediately. We can begin calling next week’s reservations in the morning.”

“And the staff?” she asked.

He looked at me as he thought, as if I somehow figured into the equation.

“They may leave after the kitchen is clean.”

I pointed to the door, like I was happy to show myself out, but the chef was already walking toward those stone doors, which swung open as he approached. I looked to Milan. She nodded and I scurried after. It was so quiet up there. I passed the open door of a small office and bathroom. I think he lived up there.

I stopped in the stone doorway. “Wow . . .”

There was a high vaulted ceiling. And a tree! Like, a whole live tree inside! And this giant wall of books behind faintly tinted glass. And you could totally see where the new building had been on the remains of something a lot older — like, there was a broken brick wall at the far end which sloped to the carpet at an angle.

Étranger walked to a semi-circular kitchen that arced around the tree trunk. It was raised a step above the floor. Around it were piles of reclining pillows. To the left, huge windows covered in symbols and writing.

But I barely saw it. My eyes went right to the chair.

No, not a chair. A throne. A bone throne.

It rested inside an arched brick nook under the wall of books, which was flanked on both ends by cast iron spiral staircases. Like pillars. It was made out of skeletons. The arms were arms. The feet were feet. In the middle of the back, which was an array of spines, sat a human skull, wedged between the vertebrae. It stared out at me through empty sockets. Like a sexual predator.

“Thank you for coming.” Étranger washed his hands and wiped them on a towel.

I was frozen. I couldn’t move my eyes. “That chair . . .”

He turned. “Hm?”

“It looks like it wants to kill me.”

“It does.” He was serious.

“What?”

“Don’t worry. It is quite secure.”

He was right. It was chained crosswise and the links bolted to the floor in six places, as if it required it — that if one of those locks was loosened just a little, the whole thing would break free and slaughter us both.

There was a Japanese screen resting against the nook, and he walked over and stretched it across the opening, hiding the chair.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye and I turned. “Oh!”

Behind me, next to the doors, was an upright, man-sized terrarium with ferns and a few large branches. It was full of spiders. But not just any spiders. Fiddlebacks. Black widows, too. I stepped back when I saw the red marks. I could actually feel the absence of the terrarium’s front panel. It was completely open. I could have reached out and touched them as they perched silently on their silk.

“Won’t they crawl away?”

I had visions of sitting down to talk business and finding one crawling up my leg. One of them moved just then, and I fought the urge to shiver.

“Only if I stop feeding them.”

I didn’t want to ask what they ate. I turned away, but my eyes didn’t know where to go. There was something amazing in every direction. There was a mask and a colorful feather suit and writing on the windows and a stained glass in the ceiling and on and on. I spun around slowly.

“You’ve been having me followed,” I accused with my eyes on the ceiling. “Haven’t you?”

He didn’t deny it.

“The big guy,” I said. “With the hunch. He wasn’t one of Lyman’s. Lyman and his people were too busy getting brutally murdered to follow me all over the city. He was yours.”

He walked to the other side of the kitchen area and looked in one of the cupboards. He stood straight holding my bag.

“Fuuuck me,” I blurted. Then I covered my mouth. “Sorry.” But I couldn’t believe it.

He handed it to me and I looked inside. Phone was dead. Big surprise. But everything was there: Samir’s knife, my wallet, the compact, the unopened tarot deck I bought at Sour Candy, even the last of my cash.

While I was looking, I noticed the faded symbol on the back of my hand. Time and repeated hand washings had reduced it to broken lines and blurred color.

“And this?” I asked holding it up. “You did this as well, I assume. In my flat the other day.”

“You could not have appreciated the darkness circling you, even then,” he said, like it was worse now.

I ran my thumb over the remnants of the symbol. “Someone I met called it a dispel.”

He nodded. “It is a ward. Effective, but only against minor magicks.”

“When I went to see Lyman,” I said, “he had a picture on his wall. It was from an old manuscript. A man stood in a circle surrounded by all these daggers impaled in the ground. There was a noose around his neck and a gallows above, but the rope had been cut. I hadn’t thought anything about it at first. I hadn’t thought about any of this stuff. Why would I, right? But it’s an allegory, isn’t it? Or something like that. Cutting the noose. That’s what all this is about. The escape from death.”

“The dream of the alchemists,” he said softly. “The dream of man,” he corrected himself, “since he first woke to his own mortality. Sought by kings and paupers alike. First as a Holy Grail, the receptacle of the Water of Life, also sometimes imagined as a fountain.”

“All that alchemy stuff, turning lead into gold and everything. It was another allegory, or a cipher, I guess. The philosopher’s stone wasn’t a thing. It was the jewel of ultimate knowledge. How to perform the ritual.”

“Ah, but there are two universal principles, whose union begets all things. Male and female. Sun and Moon. Heaven and Hell. And so two gifts were made. One, the chalice or fountain, is the source of life and its master. The other . . .”

“It’s an athame, right? Sort of like a dagger.”

“Not an athame,” he corrected as he walked back around the counter. “Theathame. The original sacrificial blade, carved from the dome of the earth by ancient gods and gifted to the first dark priest, who was to be their emissary on our world. Cain, if you’re Christian.”

“I’m not.”

“Much of its history is lost. We know the Spanish took it from the Aztecs. Where they got it is less clear. It might have been carried by fleeing Easter Islanders, who found it in the wreckage of an imperial Chinese trading vessel, blown far off course by unnatural winds. Before it was banished by the emperor, it came to the Chinese from India, where it had been enshrined at the temple of Kali. How it came to be there is also a mystery. Before that, it had been buried in a tomb in Bactria by the priests of Alexander, just before his great army — which nearly conquered the world — fell to chaos and turned back. Alexander himself took it from the Persians, who took it from the Hyksos, who took it from the Pharaohs, who took it from the Hebrews, who took it from the Babylonians, who took it from the Akkadians . . . And everywhere it went, ruin followed. The fall of the Aztecs. The Muslim conquest of Hindustan. The untimely death of Alexander. The plagues of Exodus.”

There was a long silence.

“In the sixteenth century,” he explained, “after the mighty Spanish Armada — whose ships stretched from horizon to horizon — was decimated in a freak gale that swept across the North Sea, the High Arcane had finally had enough.”

“The Masters,” I said.

He nodded. “Their agents wrested the blade from the Inquisitors, who had thought they could keep its evil contained, and buried it in a place of forgetting.”

“Apparently someone remembered,” I joked.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Unfortunately, the magic of that place was broken. Many years ago.”

I caught a touch of guilt in his voice, but it didn’t seem like he wanted to explain.

I looked up at the tree behind him. I hadn’t noticed before, but there were tiny red fruits, like berries, peeking from between the leaves.

“Ms. Song,” he said pointedly, “you are in far, far more danger than you know. Courtesy dictates I suggest retreat, that we find you shelter. But in truth . . . we must recover the dagger before the Lord of Shadows — at any cost. On this, all depends.”

“The Lord of Shadows,” I repeated.

He nodded.

I took another deep breath and let it out. “I had a feeling you’d say something like that. Good job on the delivery, by the way. I was totally expecting it but I still got goosebumps.”

“Where is your friend?” he asked directly.

“Yeah. About that . . .”

Thing is, I was pretty sure I knew. It was the pullover she wore, the one she’d swapped my jacket for. It was off-the-rack but very high end. Expensive. Sak’s maybe. Whoever bought it for her was almost certainly a man, one with a little money but not a ton. That ruled out Lyman as well as Bastien, who wouldn’t be caught dead in Sak’s anyway. It also rules out most of the other guys Kell knew. Except one.

“If I help you,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat, “I’ll need something in return.”

He bristled a little but tried not to show it. “What is it you require?”

“Well.” I stood and grabbed my bag. “I’d like to not die.”

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

Sign up here to be notified when the book is released.

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Daniel Zrom

[image error]

He called it the moon

As a kid, I thought Uncle Wen knew everything. He used to tell Kai and me stories on the tiny patio behind his flat. Of course, as we got older, we thought that was all kid’s stuff. We wanted to be mature and sophisticated, so we stopped listening to an old man’s fairy tales.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Looking back, story times in his shop were some of the happiest moments of my life. I guess everyone takes that kind of thing for granted at that age. Idiot.

The last story he told us was right before we got our tattoos. We’d just turned seventeen and we’d planned the trip in secret. He found out and made us sit and listen to the story of how Dragon, the water spirit, and Phoenix, the fire spirit, met and fell in love. He told us how they became so enraptured with each other that they abandoned all their responsibilities and sought only to be in each other’s company. But without Dragon, the waters did not run and the rain did not fall. And without Phoenix, the universe was cold and heavens did not turn. The rivers dried and the earth was covered in frost and the people became hungry. They begged the pair to resume their duties.

Fearing they would be separated, the two lovers fled to the Western Paradise where no mortal could follow, and so the people called out to Pan-ku, the first man, born of the cosmic egg, protector of tradition, and pleaded for help. Pan-ku saw the suffering that had befallen the world and was angry. He turned his high gaze over the earth and soon found where Dragon and Phoenix were hiding. With a single step, he reached the Western Paradise and hid behind the great bamboo grove at its eastern border. There, he drew the character for yin on one hand and yang on the other. And he waited.

The next morning, Dragon woke and, turning to face his beloved, was so enthralled by her beauty that he was overcome and vowed to find her a gift every bit as brazen as she so that she would always know his love. When Phoenix awoke and found her beloved had gone, she too scoured the Western Paradise for a gift every bit as handsome and lustrous as he so that he would always know her love. As soon as the lovers parted, Pan-ku opened his hands. Seeing the character for yin and thinking it was his beloved, Dragon rushed to show her the blazing gift he had found burning at the top of the cliff, and he was captured. Seeing the character for yang and thinking it was her beloved, Phoenix rushed to show him the shimmering stone she had found shining in the still pond, and she was captured.

Holding the pair in his hands, Pan-ku decreed that if fire and water should ever be brought together, they would each extinguish the other. Then he released the heartbroken lovers to their heavenly duties. Pan-ku took Dragon’s gift and put it over the day and called it the sun. Then he took Phoenix’s gift and put it over the night and called it the moon. Then he pressed his hands together and made the shape of the yin-yang as a sign to all creation that the universe is in harmony only when opposites are balanced, when we are neither stingy nor wasteful, neither foolish nor foolhardy, and when we are respectful of tradition and of each other.

That was what I was thinking about as I was falling to my death — an old man’s myth.

Only I didn’t die.

I landed in a bin of debris from inside the theater, including a bunch of old seat cushion foam. It was not a pleasant experience by any means, and I walked away with three cuts, two of which were rather deep, several new bruises, and a sprained neck. But I lived.

The funny part is that I remember glancing down when Fish’s guy leaned me over the edge. It’s instinctive. You look to see what you’ll land on. I remember seeing brick and concrete, not a giant bin of theater rubbish conjured out of nowhere. But it’s not like I was going to go back up and ask Fish for a do over. Besides, my luck ran out almost immediately. I had some trouble climbing out of the bin — after I laid there for awhile and let my heart calm down — and when my feet finally touched the street, a couple uniforms were waiting to nab me, like I was a fleeing junkie or something. As they put the cuffs on, I swore there was a man at the other end, standing behind the plume of smoke that erupted from an alley door. A bald man with his hands in a coat. But I blinked and he was gone.

I was at the station before I realized I didn’t have my purse, which is exactly why I don’t carry one. Not only that, I had no idea where I’d lost it. That meant no phone and no wallet. No phone meant no Kell. No wallet meant no money. My one satisfaction was in the thought that whoever found it would be left with less than fifty bucks and a couple maxed out credit cards.

I slept in the back of the squad car while they rounded up everyone they could. Eventually a van came for us. I slept there, too. The chick next to me told everyone very loudly that I smelled like vomit. I slept again on the floor of a bench-lined hall that was standing-room only. I think we were all locked in there, but I honestly can’t remember. At some point, I was shown to a bathroom and allowed to pee and clean myself up. I could see sunlight through the narrow opaque window near the ceiling. I thought I was going back to the big room, but instead, I was taken separately to a squad car and driven to a different station where there was even more waiting. I was slumped sideways in a chair, legs pressed to my chest, sleeping soundly, when a lady officer woke me and told me I might want to wipe the drool from the side of my face. She handed me a tissue. Then she handed me the box.

I was asked to sign something, and after another short wait, I was taken to the second floor. The carpet was thin and navy blue. A woman in a uniform took me down a hall to a room marked Interview B. She knocked and a detective opened the door, a black guy in a tousled suit, sans coat, who introduced himself as Detective Rigdon. There was another detective, a white guy with broad shoulders and slightly more hair, standing near the mirror. He said his name was Hammond. He had a kind of rounded block head that I thought it might be nice to sculpt.

There was an empty chair on the far side of a faux wood table.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked.

“For?” Detective Rigdon asked.

I thought that must be a trick, sort of like “When did you stop beating your wife?” where any answer I gave might be an indirect suggestion of guilt.

I walked around and took a seat. “Does that mean I can go?”

Detective Rigdon sat down opposite me, in front of the two-way mirror, and placed a notepad and a couple pens on the table next to a manila file folder. Detective Hammond with the broad shoulders and the block head leaned against the closed door. Not menacingly or anything. More like he just didn’t feel like sitting, like maybe he expected this was going to be over quick.

“We like you to answer some questions,” Rigdon said.

I shrugged like “whatever.”

“Just make it quick, huh guys? I’m playing golf with the Mayor this afternoon.”

“Lyman Raimi was found dead yesterday,” Detective Hammond said from the back. “Along with his driver,” he added.

Cue long silence.

I looked to the detectives. They were so serious.

Detective Rigdon looked to me. “How did you know Mr. Raimi?”

I shrugged. They definitely had me on the defensive then.

“I met him once. A couple days ago. Shit. Wait. How did this happen?”

Rigdon thought for a second like he was deciding whether or not I was allowed to know.

“He appears to have fallen from the upper floors of one of his properties, a place called Watchtower. Out in Brooklyn Heights. You know it?”

“Fallen? As in jumped or pushed?”

Detective Rigdon pulled some photos from his file. “It’s a construction site. Gonna be condos or something.”

I saw Lyman’s body impaled on a row of ridged rebar poking from a recently poured concrete slab. One of the bars had pierced his ear and twisted his head into an odd shape. The other looked wet and sticky, and there was a pool of dark red blood on the concrete. His wheelchair rested on its side near him, as if it had followed him to its end like a faithful dog.

I covered my mouth as Rigdon slapped another photo on top of the first.

“He appears to have been taken from his home by force.”

A headless body was slumped against the wall near the waterfall on the fourth floor of the Raimi mansion. It was William bouncer-man. I recognized the turtleneck. There was a splatter of blood on the wall over him, smeared down, as if he’d been cleanly decapitated while standing.

“We still haven’t found the head,” Hammond explained dryly from the back.

Rigdon scooped up the photos and put them away.

“Mr. Raimi’s day planner indicated he had a meeting with you recently.”

I nodded. I’m sure my name stood out, sitting there next to his business contacts and wealthy associates.

“Care to tell us what that was about?”

“He was looking for someone. A friend of mine.”

“Would that be Kelly Ann Sobricki?”

I nodded.

“After his meeting with you,” Hammond spoke again from the door, “he had his accountant begin converting some rather large investments into cash, and there’s evidence he planned to leave the country.”

“From what I understand, he was always leaving the country,” I said. “For work.”

“What work is that?” Hammond asked.

I shrugged. “I told you. I just met him.”

“Then how do you know he was always leaving for work?”

“Kell must have mentioned it.”

“What was your relationship with Mr. Raimi?”

“Relationship? Dude, are you deaf? I keep saying, I met him one time.”

“So he didn’t stop by your apartment the other day?”

I shrugged again.

Detective Rigdon fiddled with the pen in his hand. “Where were you between the hours of eleven and two a.m. last night?”

“I’m pretty sure you guys already know the answer to that question.”

“Can anyone confirm you were there the whole time?”

I looked between them. They both looked back. Emotionless. They waited for me to answer. The longer I didn’t, the more tense it became.

I pressed my hands together under the table. “Bastien.”

“What’s Bastien’s last name?”

“Rops,” I said. “But that’s not his real name. I don’t think.”

“It’s not?”

Now the two men were definitely all ears.

I shook my head. “Pretty sure it’s a reference to Felicien Rops.”

“And who’s that?”

“French artist. Or Belgian maybe. From the 19th century. Painted all kinds of decadent and transgressive stuff. Black masses and stuff.”

“Is that important?” Hammond asked.

I moved my head like I had no idea.

“So what’s Bastien’s real name?” Rigdon asked.

I shook my head again.

“You’re dating a boy and you don’t know his real name?”

“We’re not dating.” It was like trying to explain modern art to my dad. I kept my head down and tried not to say anything that would get me in more trouble.

“Bastien have a phone?” Rigdon asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“What about Ms. Sobricki?” Hammond said.

“What about her?” I asked.

“Her phone seems to have been disconnected. Any idea where we might find her?”

“It’s in my apartment, actually. You’re welcome to it. And no, not at the moment.” I paused. “We had an argument.”

“Mr. Raimi’s housekeeper indicated she’d been living in a guest room for the past several months, but that she left in a hurry.”

I nodded. “She told me he kicked her out.”

“She say why?”

“No.”

Rigdon scratched notes. “Did you ever get the sense your friend wanted to hurt Mr. Raimi?”

“She’s not a murderer, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“I’m not suggesting anything, Ms. Song. I’m just trying to understand everyone’s role in this man’s life. What did you think of Mr. Raimi?”

“I didn’t. I told you. He was Kell’s thing.”

“So you two were never romantically involved?” Hammond asked.

“Involved? No. God.” I made a face. “No way.”

“Why ‘no way?’ He was a sophisticated guy. Rich. Traveled all over the world buying art and attending fancy galas and all that. I’d be impressed.”

“Then you should’ve dated him.”

Rigdon wrote a few more things down. Or maybe he was catching up.

“What about your eye?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“It’s quite a bruise. How’d it happen?”

“I passed out at the club. Hit my head.”

Rigdon wrote more. It seemed to take awhile, like maybe he’d thought of something and wanted to make sure he didn’t forget.

“How did Ms. Sobricki and Mr. Raimi meet?”

I told the two of them the whole thing, or most of it anyway — Bastien, Rey’s suicide, the gala at The Met, all of it. Rigdon jotted down more notes.

“We found a large stock of pregnancy tests at the Raimi house. What can you tell us about that?”

“Come on. I know you guys are only policemen, but give yourselves a little credit. I bet even you can do the math.”

They didn’t react.

“Did she tell you the name of the father?” Hammond asked.

“She said it was Lyman.”

“Did the two of you talk at all about what she planned to do?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

He didn’t flinch. He never flinched.

“Did she plan on asking Mr. Raimi for support?”

“What? Like a paternity suit or something?” I made a face again. “No.”

“What is Ms. Sobricki’s occupation?” Rigdon asked.

“She was working retail.”

“And now?”

I shrugged. I bit my lip.

“And you?” he asked. “What do you do?”

“I work at the Halal market. Under my flat.”

“And they can confirm that?”

“Of course.”

He took more notes.

On and on it went like that. They asked me the same question more than once, but in a different way, like they were trying to trip me up. Then Rigdon said, completely casually, “We’d like to get access to your phone records if that’s okay.” Like it was no big deal. Like he was a checkout girl asking if I wanted to apply for a store card and get a 15% discount. Like it was just something he had to do and didn’t care whether I said yes or no. He didn’t mention I had the right to say no, and that if I did, they’d have to get a warrant.

An innocent omission, I’m sure.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “You know. Whatever.”

Hammond stood straight finally. “Just one more thing, Ms. Song. You have plans on visiting family any time soon?”

I raised my eyebrows. “In Hong Kong? Ha. No. I can’t even afford to pay my cell phone bill.”

“All the same, We’re gonna have to ask you to let us know if you plan on leaving town.” He reached over and handed me his card while his partner finished writing on a piece of paper folded over at the top so I couldn’t see.

I took it. “You think I had something to do with it?”

He shrugged. “A man is dead. We’re just trying to understand why.”

And with that he opened the door and I shuffled out. Three minutes later, I was standing in shock on the sidewalk.

“Shit!” I screamed. Only not in English. “Shit shit shit! Ce-ze-lei, you fucking idiot.” I stomped my foot.

People coming out of the building looked at me. They stepped wide as they passed. That’s when I noticed Detectives Hammond and Rigdon in the second floor window. Watching. They totally didn’t care I saw them. They didn’t flinch. They never flinched.

I don’t think they believed anything I said.

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

Sign up here to be notified when the book is released.

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Erte

[image error]

The primal seed

There wasn’t room in the narrow alley for two fire escapes, so the buildings on either side shared one, which I thought was nice of them. Below the fire escape was a chain link fence, which meant that the entire alley was blocked by metal up to a height of four stories. A fat man with a goatee and a red Waldo hat sat in a lawn chair on the sidewalk and took people’s money. Twenty bucks got through the gate in the fence. I’m sure, if the police ever came, his defense would be that he didn’t know, and wasn’t responsible for, whatever people did on the other side.

Irfan paid and led us under the fire escape and around a corner. Someone had painted a road sign on the alley wall, like something Wile E. Coyote would stick in the ground to tempt the Roadrunner. It was really well done too, with a huge cartoon arrow and everything. It said ESCAPE THE GORILLA CITY, like everyone in New York was just a bunch of mindless apes living out their biology and we were treading the only way out.

Concrete steps to our right led down to a basement door, which was propped open. Beyond was a wide hall with carpet that had been worn flat. It was also torn up in places, and there was some bits of debris huddling in the corners as if it had been kicked there over years of use, rather than swept. On the floor were bits of plaster and other litter — anything small enough to be pressed into the flat carpet rather than swept aside by swinging feet. It seemed like this place had been abandoned. Smelled like it, too, but only in the background, under the haze of cigarettes and weed.

We walked a good two hundred meters down the subterranean passage in near total dark, following the giggling college kids ahead of us. Another group of friends was maybe ten meters behind. We turned right and went through a set of double doors, chained open. The space beyond was illuminated by black light, and I heard music. Some crappy neo-industrial warm-up band. There were some punk kids milling, too. Just past them on the right side of the hallway was a wide, shallow-stepped staircase going up to a large open space above.

“Oh, shit.” I smiled as we walked in. “Is this a theater?”

I hurried up the steps.

It totally was — one of those fancy movie houses from the pre-war era with the balcony seating and the single giant screen. Only this place had clearly been abandoned long ago. The screen was gone, leaving a stage-like gap over the mezzanine. The box seats that ran around the walls on two levels gave the place a Colliseumlike vibe. The high, domed ceiling had been painted midnight blue back in the day, but the paint had chipped and fallen in spots, revealing the white plaster underneath. In the dim light, it looked exactly like stars, as if the ceiling itself were a shadowy portal to a real night sky. Lines of neon lettering filled the apex of the dome where I’m sure a chandelier had once hung. It seemed like they were floating in space:

THERE WAS NEITHER NON-EXISTENCE NOR EXISTENCE:

THERE WAS NO REALM OF AIR, NO SKY BEYOND IT.

THERE WAS NEITHER DEATH NOR IMMORTALITY.

THERE WAS ONLY ONE, BREATHED BY ITSELF:

AND APART FROM IT WAS NAUGHT.

AND THEN CAME DESIRE,

THE PRIMAL SEED.

-RIG VEDA

Graffiti filled the walls, and not just the usual names and colorful street slang. There was some genuine street art, some of it quite good. Rows of folding seats sloped up under the large balcony to the original entry two stories above us. Someone had hung heavy curtains in the archways. A small crowd was already inside, hanging in small clusters, as people do. Near us, there was a group of three people standing together. They had turned to look at us as we walked in. The woman in front had a Mohawk and some kind of reflective contact lenses that made her eyes glow blue-white, or so it seemed. There was a tattoo over a heavy scar that ran around her neck that made it look like her head had been completely severed and then sewed unevenly onto her neck with dark cord.

Sitting with a handful of people on the upper level, looking out over it all, was the Kingfish. He was far enough away that I don’t think he could see me in the crowd.

I walked up the slope to get a better view of the place, and that’s when I saw him. Behind the bar. I think it had been the coat check or something like that, but someone had erected a long hutch and filled it with bottles. Bastien was one of three bartenders. The other two were girls. Figures.

Irfan stood next to me in a very self-satisfied way, like a bellman waiting for his tip.

“You’re not gonna survive this. You know that right? No matter which one of them you choose, you’re still going to die.”

“Everyone’s going to die.”

“Not me,” she said, taking out her phone and fading back into the growing crowd.

A guy across the way from me nodded at Bastien. He had a shaved head and a long beard and he was standing near a giant circular pit that had been built in the middle of the open space. The vertical metal spikes that lined it, like a wicked fence, were charred black. I caught a whiff of ash.

Bastien raised a hand in greeting.

He knew everyone. And everyone knew him.

I made my way through the crowd. People eyed me. I admit, I was looking pretty tame in my flower-print Keds, Gordon Liu T-shirt, and lavender purse, but then I’m sure it was the black eye more than anything. I stood next to the bar and waited for a chance to push to the front. It look awhile. Everyone was fueling up in advance of the show. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror in a gilded frame on the wall. It had been broken, but one fractured piece remained. My eye was starting to heal. The dark under it had faded from the day before. I could maybe hide it if I went full-on Goth.

I saw an opening and pushed in. It took him a minute to notice me leaning against the bar. He stopped when he saw me. He smiled that lazy Elvis kinda smile.

“You didn’t have to send your pet, you know,” I said. “You could’ve just asked me to come.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to find the place. Besides, I didn’t want to take the risk of you saying no.”

First Lyman. Then Bastien. “Why do guys think that’s some kind of justification?”

“You’re in trouble, Cerise.” He was serious. “Be mad if you want, but I was just trying to help.”

“Me in trouble? You’re the one who ran. Both of you, actually. Tell me, why is that?”

“See.” He looked up in frustration. “This is what you always do. Why do you automatically assume those things are related?”

“She had one of your tarot cards.” I nodded to the deck resting on the hutch behind him.

“Did she? Sure it was mine?”

He swiped it and shuffled once, faster than I expected, and drew a card again one-handed. He slapped it down in front of me with a ring-covered hand without even looking at it.

“Was it this one?”

The Devil. It was facing me upright, which means he drew it reversed.

“I’m sure you have more than one deck,” I objected and pushed it back.

He took it. “What can I get you? On the house.”

“Umm.”

I looked at the back shelves to decide. Next to all the clear vodka and neon blue gin, were odd-shaped jars and bottles, some stopped with frayed cork and labeled in handwriting: Dried Mockweed, Anthemum, Malefoil Extract. The latter was a tiny vial barely larger than my thumb. I had to lean across the bar to read it.

“What the heck is malefoil?”

“An astringent.”

He pulled down a clear jar down the third shelf. It was full of dried caterpillars with strange spindly growths erupting from their heads, like over-sized unicorn horns almost as long as the animal itself.

“And this is ophiocordyceps. Used to make love potions.”

“Potions, again. Is this some kind of new hipster thing?”

He blurt-laughed and shook his head, like I was a real hoot. “What’s wrong with a good potion?”

“To make someone fall in love?”

“Absolutely. You ingest chemicals that alter your mind on a regular basis, along with half the city. And the other half takes pills to improve their mood or to stop being anxious or to get an erection.”

I scrunched my face.

“The parasite hacks the nervous system of its host. Alters its mind. Urges it to do things it wouldn’t normally do.”

“Such as?”

“Such as turning ants into suicide bombers. Once infected, the insects climb to a spot above the nest — the home they’ve spent their whole life defending — and clamp their jaws down on a leaf in a death grip. They die, and the fruiting body of the fungus erupts from their heads and rains spores down on all their little comrades.”

Someone bumped into me as they passed. The place was packed now, more than The Couch ever was. I didn’t like it.

“So what does a love potion taste like? Please don’t say semen.”

He laughed again, genuinely, bending over slightly with the giggle, and then smiled at me warmly. He reached down and produced a long-necked, blue-green glass bottle from under the counter. It had a geometric pattern etched across its exterior.

“Share one with me?”

“No, thanks.”

“Why not?” He uncorked the bottle and handed it across the bar. “If we drink together, we’ll fall madly in love with each other forever and ever.”

I sniffed. It smelled like urine and beeswax.

“So what you’re saying is that you’d need a potion to fall in love with me.”

I handed it back, and he leaned closer and smiled, his face inches from mine. He looked at my lips with his smoky eyes. We stayed like that, neither of us moving.

“You need one of those cool names,” he said. “Like Banksy. Or Invader.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You should take credit for the school mural. Lots of people are impressed. I doubt you’d get in much trouble.”

“What mural?”

“Okay. Whatever. But why do it then, if not to make a splash?”

“Because people don’t think art matters,” I answered too quickly and more than a little defensively. “They think it’s silly, the first thing you can cut from the school curriculum when money gets tight. But it does matter. It’s important, maybe the most important thing there is. If I take credit, then it’s not about the work anymore. It’s about me and what kind of person I am and how many guys I’ve slept with and whether I broke any laws. It shouldn’t be about me. It shouldn’t even be about the art. It should be about the effect it has, how images can change someone’s whole perspective on the world. In an instant. Prison to playground. It’s almost — ” I stopped.

“Magical?” he said.

I shrugged.

“You know, I think that’s the most you’ve ever said to me at one time.”

He took an order from a man in front of him, and I watched him fill it, deftly turning bottles with his ringed fingers, dropping ice into the plastic cup, and handing it on.

“How come we never went out?” He set a glass of water in front of me.

“Because you hooked up with my best friend,” I said, taking a drink. “Practically on sight.”

“Whatever.” He leaned back against the hutch, relaxed. But it was bittersweet. He almost seemed hurt. “I’m not a mind reader, Cerise. You said like two words to me that whole night.”

“I’m shy.”

“You were wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Please Don’t.’”

“I’m really shy.”

“Come on . . . You were encouraging her to flirt with me. I saw you. What was I supposed to think?”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, I was not encouraging her to flirt with you.”

“Then what do you call it?”

“You were both sitting at a four-spot. Separately. Next to each other. Taking up eight seats total. I was just being respectful of the other patrons waiting for a table by suggesting you sit at a table together since you weren’t doing anything but talking to each other anyway.”

“Patrons?” he mocked.

“Whatever. It’s not like you left me much of a chance to say anything in the three seconds between when we arrived and your tongue was down her throat.”

“Hold on. That thing with the seats was at the all-night diner. After the party. You do remember the party, right? As I recall, you got blitzed out of your mind and were dancing shirtless with Chaz the Magnificent.”

“Chaz is gay.”

“Chaz is bi,” he corrected.

“Really?”

He nodded solemnly, as if to underscore it was a true fact, 100% verified.

“Wait. How do you know that?”

The music got louder then and drowned out all conversation. I sat at the bar and listened to the DJ set while Bastien took orders from patrons, glancing back to me at every chance. He joked and flipped bottles as he mixed and jerked his head a little to shake the wavy locks out of his eyes. He flirted with the ladies — but not too much. I tried not to watch him. Whenever he caught me, he smiled back. I glanced around the crowd and up to the small groups standing near the edge of the balcony. Everyone was drinking, but I didn’t see any bottles or anything. Just red Solo cups.

The mood shifted quickly as the DJ set got harder. The music was shit, but whatever. That crowd didn’t want music. They wanted sonic rage. Very quickly, head bobbing turned to pushing and a mosh pit opened directly in front of the stage. Those at the back ran up the sloped walkway and began smashing and tearing at anything they could break free: loose drywall, wood molding, seat cushions, whatever wasn’t so solidly attached that human limbs couldn’t kick or rip free. They flung it around like beach balls as a concert, but eventually each piece made it to the spike-lined pit. In minutes, I could see a good-sized pile poking from the gaps between the bars.

And then they lit it. It burned slow at first, but as the fire grew, it stirred the air, hot and dry like a dust devil turning in the desert. Bastien hopped back over the bar then, pulled his vest down, took my hand, and led me into the crowd. We went right to the pit, when the music stopped suddenly. There was a second of silence, but before anyone could speak, a discordant mix of overlapping audio clips burst through the speakers on the stage: political speeches, the explosions of war, sitcom laugh tracks, drilling, logging, traffic noise. It got louder and louder and louder until I actually had to squint. I was about to cover my ears when the sound collage broke and I heard the simple spoken words from the beginning of an old familiar song.

I am the god of hellfire and I bring you . . .

“Fire” by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. 1968.

I practically shrieked. I turned to Bastien, mouth wide open.

“You totally told them to play this!” I accused. I had to yell it into his ear in order to be heard.

He raised his arms like he was an innocent man and he had no idea what I was talking about. I grabbed his hand and pulled him deeper into the crowd, my hips swaying. His hands went on them right away and we started dancing as the song hit the first refrain,

Fire!

To destroy all you’ve become.

While we were dancing, his friends at the bar passed a dozen or so large metal goblets into the crowd. The revelers kept the cups high to keep from spilling, lowering them only to take sips as they passed. Bastien took one and put it to his lips. He grimaced as he swallowed and passed it to me.

“What’s this?” In the dim light, all I could see was dark liquid.

He closed his eyes and his head fell back like the high was hitting him. He lifted his hands in the air and let the jostling push him to and fro. I took a sip and coughed. It was thick like runny syrup and tasted sour-bitter, like vinegar and yellow bile. With the swallow, a prickly mash of ground peppercorns poked the back of my throat like tiny needles and made my eyes water. I felt my heart burn — not my stomach. It was like my heart really was on fire inside my chest.

“Shit . . .”

My eyes watered. I sniffed. My stomach gurgled angrily. But I held it and passed the goblet along. It went around like that a few more times. I took a tiny sip when it came back but passed the third time around. Bastien saw, stopped the cup, and tilted it to my lips so far it ran from the sides of my mouth and down my shirt between my breasts. Across the swaying crowd, I saw Mohawk-woman take a drink from a goblet and breathe green fire, like she was a dragon. People cheered. She took another swallow and did it again. Another man’s eyes glowed red. Not the whites. Just his irises. He stared at me in hunger.

Whatever I had drank was working. A strange high came, like a dark hood pulled over my mind, and I felt the pang of uncertainty, that feeling I got every time I tried something new, unsure how my body would react or what would come next. I had the sensation first of floating in visible sound. A murmuring chant vibrated into my ribs and yanked my mind left and then right like a whiplash current, like it was trying to shake my last inhibitions out of me.

“Let’s go up to one of the booths.”

Bastien pointed to the old box seats that rimmed the floor.

I looked to him, eyes dulled from the high. He smiled and kissed my neck. My skin was dewy with sweat and I felt hips lips slide over them. He had his ringed fingers on my curves and was playing them like a violin. His erection was pressed hard to my ass and I leaned my head back as his hands slid up over my chest. I opened my eyes and saw symbols floating across the ceiling, moving but not moving, like how a room spins when you’ve had too much to drink. I hadn’t seen them before. They glowed, and I thought they must have been painted in some kind of reflective chemical that caught the firelight.

Bastien led me out of the crowd and up the sloped archway that ran along the far side of the old theater, and from there to to the box seats on the second level. There was another bounced there keeping the VUPs — very unimportant people — from going up, but Bastien just nodded to him and the man let us pass.

He knew everyone, and everyone knew him.

“Irfan said my soul sparks,” I breathed, barely able to walk straight.

“Like a live wire,” he said.

We went right to the front, to the first box, which had a high view of the stage and the pillar of fire that turned now like a dancing god. There was a fancy bench with a maroon cushion. It looked like something you’d find in a hall or foyer. We dropped onto it and his hands ran up my body. I was so aroused and high by then that I did nothing but bend sideways and stick out my ass. He slid closer until our pelvises were touching. His hands went up my shirt and under my bra. My nipples were already erect and his fingers brushed back and forth over them. I moaned and he pulled my jeans down in hard tugs. His fingers fumbled between my thighs. And before I knew it, he was in me. A single thrust that barely made it across my labia. Because my body rebelled instantly.

I stumbled forward, leaving him sideways on the bench. I braced myself against the balustrade, skirt still hiked over my waist. I wanted to say “I feel sick,” but I was going to puke, and if I even opened my mouth, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop it.

I had only moments.

I stumbled out of booth and down the hall, using the wall for balance as my hands alternated between fixing my jeans and holding back the inevitable. I took a wrong turn at the base of the sloping hall and stopped abruptly at a doorless nook that I imagine had been a closet. There was a heavy curtain drawn across it, which is exactly what I wanted: privacy. I ripped it open and saw three animal skulls on poles that fanned out from a heavy base of polished stone. In front of the poles sat a skinned rat with a crown of wax, as if a candle had burned to the skull and left the hardened dribbles as spires. Someone had painted words on the wall:

REAP THE HARVEST

I lost it right there. I vomited with such force that it knocked the carcass over. The rat tumbled against the three poles, which were braced against each other, and they fell with a clatter, like brooms. I stumbled back until my butt hit the other wall. I laid my head against the crumbling plaster for a moment while I regained control of my stomach. I didn’t look in the nook again. I stole a glance at the mark on my hand. That’s when I was aware someone was looking at me. Whoever it was stood on the wrong side of the hall for it to be Bastien. I thought it must be the bouncer, come to see what had made all that noise. But it wasn’t.

“Kell.”

She said she’d find me. And she had. She was standing there, staring. Her hair was up in a clip and she had a new bag. She was wearing a brand new loose knit pullover that hung off one shoulder. I knew it was new because I’d never seen it before and because it was totally in season. Looked expensive. But not Chanel expensive.

I smiled. I was so happy to see her.

She saw my open jeans and the panties pulled awkwardly over my crotch. Bastien appeared just then, fixing his belt. He stopped when he saw the two of us.

Just then I caught a pair of eyes watching us mischievously from just around the curve. And a collar.

Irfan.

Kell pulled my colorful jersey from her bag and tossed it to the ground next to me before turning and heading for the door.

“Kell!” I struggled to my feet, snatching my jacket on the way.

“Stay away from me,” she said as she walked.

I was closer than Bastien and I stumbled forward, half propelled by the downward slope of the hall, and reached her first. I ran into her, nearly knocking her down, and grabbed her arm and she turned to pull away. I saw her face then. She wasn’t mad. Or maybe she was, but more than that, she was scared. Terrified, really. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and I could see where she’d been crying, even before she saw me.

“You act like you’re this really good person,” she said. “But you’re not.”

I knew that face. I’d given it to her before. It was the ‘Please take the world away, I can’t handle it right now’ face. I’d given her that face at least twice before. And she had done it. She rolled up her sleeves and pushed it all back. Now it was my turn and I was fucking it all up.

I had my jacket in one hand, so she pulled out of my grip pretty easily and trotted for the exit.

“Kell . . .”

Bastien passed me then. Without Kell’s support, I fell back on all fours. I grabbed his leg and he tripped. Kell passed the bouncer and disappeared into the heavy crowd. Bastien stood to go after her, but I jumped up pushed him back, hard, and he stumbled into the wall. I think he was tipsy, too. He tried to move around me to the left and I stepped in front of him. He moved to the right and I did the same. I was holding onto him, using him like a crutch, and there was no way he could shake me short of pushing me down.

I think part of him really wanted to.

Irfan stepped closer, like she was enjoying it.

“Gonna hit me?” I asked him.

I tried standing straight and found it easier than before. I slipped on my jersey jacket for courage. The tiger logo on the back was from Uncle Wen’s kwoon. I put up my fists. They swayed with my balance.

Bastien’s jaw was set and thrust forward. His gaze caught the bruise around my eye. He turned to Irfan.

“This is you, isn’t it?” he accused.

“Pick on someone your own size,” I said.

“You think she’s innocent?” He pointed. “You think this is an accident? She’s trying to cause trouble.”

“You don’t know that,” I objected.

“For fuck’s sake, Cerise. That’s what they do! You have no idea what her kind used to do to people. You have no idea how long it took to bind them or how many people sacrificed everything to see it done.” He turned to Irfan. “You’re going back in. Tonight. She let you out and I felt sorry for you and that’s on me. But now you’re going back.”

Irfan looked like she wanted to rip his eyes out. She hissed at him then. Like an angry cat.

But she had planned her revenge well.

“POLICE!”

The single voice broke loud over the crowd and chaos fell like a thunderclap. The music cut and everyone started yelling. I remember thinking that it was very important for some reason that I not get arrested. Again. Wait, had I been arrested? Yes, I’d been arrested — a couple times, thank you very much. I couldn’t remember why just then, but it was all very cool, I assure you.

I think my idea was to follow Bastien, who seemed to know a way out. Or at least, he was confidently leading Irfan away from the scrambling, yelling crowd, which suggested that was a good way to go. But I couldn’t move. I looked down at large black hands around my waist. I felt myself being lifted from behind as if I weighed nothing. I was slung over a man’s shoulders and hauled off.

“This isn’t over,” I yelled to Bastien as I was carried away in rapid, shuffling steps.

The bouncing action put up-and-down pressure on my stomach and I vomited again, all down the man’s back. He cursed at me, over and over, with a raw talent that would make any sailor proud, including quite a few about my cunt, which made me realize my jeans were still open. But he didn’t let me go and he didn’t slow down. He took me to a stairwell. He started panting heavy on the way up.

“Let me go!”

I wanted to hit him, but his back was now wet with red-purple slime from my stomach amid bits of chewed pizza.

My next distinct memory is of looking down at my flower print Keds, planted on the lip of the roof. I remember wanting to make very sure they had a good grip because the rest of my body was leaning backward over the side. The very large black man who had carried me now had ahold of the front of my jersey jacket, which was Kai’s jersey jacket that he gave me the night we found out I was pregnant. The flaps were bunched in the man’s hands. A square yard of silk were all that was keeping me from falling.

It was dark on the roof, so it took me a moment to see Kingfish walking toward me. He didn’t look happy. But then, he was still wearing his sunglasses, so it was kinda hard to tell.

“You know how much money this place makes?” he asked. “No fire code. No liquor license. No liability insurance. No minimum wage. If it weren’t for the payoffs, this would be the best business I got.”

I smelled smoke. Like, a lot of smoke. Like maybe the building was on fire. And there were sirens approaching.

“We gotta go, boss,” the big man urged.

“It’s not my fault!” I objected. “I didn’t call the cops.”

“Woman, do I look like a fool? First night you show up, the cops put the squeeze and the building catches fire. That ain’t no effin coincidence. You connected to it. Somehow.” He held up a heavy finger. “I told you, Spence. I told you, you was trouble. I told you to stay away from my man. I told you to stop scaring my peeps. I want you to contemplate that. On your way down. With some luck, you’ll survive and get a chance to make it right.”

“Make it right? Falling four stories isn’t enough?”

Just then I noticed someone else on the roof — not as tall as the guy who held me but tall enough, and stocky. He was in a short leather jacket. He was walking toward us expressionless, as if he were taking a stroll in the park and not across the roof of a burning building. Fish and his guy had their backs to him, and with the dark and noise, they didn’t notice at first. Not until he was just steps away.

I recognized him. It was the cop-looking guy who’d followed me into the Sour Candy. Fish’s man heard the scuff of gravel and turned. Feeling spry in my colorful tiger kwoon jacket, I took the opportunity to bust out a little wing chun — not that I really know any. I twisted free, ready to kick some ass. At least, that was the intention. But I was still a little wobbly and not thinking terribly clearly and when I pivoted, my foot landed awkwardly on the lip of the roof and I tumbled over the side, just as Fish had wanted.

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

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The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Chiba Kotaro

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