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.

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The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Anthony Jones

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