Half-Resurrection Blues

by Daniel José Older

Sasha’s looking at me more seriously now. “How did you find me?” I open my mouth, but she throws up a single finger and stops me. “No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

  I make a fair-enough face and wait because she looks like she has more to say.

  Sasha sips at the wine again, looking like she’s enjoying making me wait. “Let’s instead talk about something utterly mundane and ridiculous, shall we?”

  “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all night.”

  “Let’s pretend, for a moment, that we are just two normal people who met in a bar.”

  “Do we like each other or are we just passing time?”

  “That remains to be seen, I suppose.”

  “I see. Well, fancy meeting you here.”

  “Ugh!” she moans with an exaggerated eye roll. “You’re terrible at this!”

  “All right, all right. Give me a chance to get the hang of it, jeez! What do you do . . . for a living?”

  She puts her serious face back on. “I am a contract . . . negotiator.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know! I just made something up. Stop! Let me try again.” I nod at her to go ahead. “I am a construction worker.”

  “Me too!” I say.

  “No!”

  “Yes! I construct.”

  “You’re not even taking this seriously at all.”

  “What’s your name?”

  When she says it, everything gets quiet again. The bar, Park Slope with its boutiquey avenues, the trembling night and all that fresh winter air—the whole world around us takes a breath. Also, I’m pleased she didn’t lie. “And yours?”

  “Carlos Delacruz.” I wonder if the universe performed similar acrobatics for her. Probably not, but women seem to roll in a whole different slipstream of flirtation from men, so I don’t give it too much thought.

  Her eyes narrow like she’s telling me a secret. “From the cross.”

  “Ah, you speak Spanish?”

  She smiles and makes a guilty little mezza-mezza wave with one hand. “Un poquito. ¿Y tú?” The accent’s not a native speaker’s, but it’s not bad either.

  “Sí. Do you know where you’re from?”

  She looks downcast, shaking those curlicues back and forth. “Not a clue. You?”

  “The folks who found me . . .” I slow down, realizing I have to tread carefully here not to give away too much. “. . . decided I was Puerto Rican. And it feels right. But, honestly, no.”

  Now we both sit for a few seconds in the sadness of our own torn histories. I imagine each of our sorrows hanging over our heads, and then I see them merge into one and disperse away like a puff of smoke. I’m just thinking that it actually worked, and a swell of pleasure seems to descend, when Sasha looks up with almost tears in her eyes. “I have to go,” she says, and then she’s gone and the converged cloud of despair settles over me like a bad dream.

  * * *

  Once again, Herodotus is not cutting it. All those damn weird stories just can’t force out the single burning question: why (the fuck) would (fucking) Trevor send his own murderer to protect his (gorgeous fucking) sister? I find that I’m actually angry at the guy for the utter illogic of his decision. And he, he’s safely off in the deeper-than-death netherworld, probably some blissed-out cloud of ether mingling with the cosmos, and I am here, burdened with this irrational, inexplicable quandary.

  That asshole.

  I switch to poetry. Perhaps one of the Nuyorican masters will do the trick. My eyes glance over the dancing stanzas of delicate and ruthless indictments, tragedies, revolutions, love affairs . . . but my mind returns to Sasha. And then, less pleasingly, to her damn brother. I’ve found my job is so much easier, moves so smoothly, when I don’t get into questions of right and wrong. The Council wants someone to be ended, I end them. It’s usually pretty clear why—basically if an afterlifer is minding theirs and staying out of trouble, they won’t be dealt with. If they start acting the fool, begging for attention, well, they know the Council will come calling in the form of some long-legged, blade-carrying motherfucker like myself. And really, bringing a bunch of college kids into the Underworld? Who does that? It’s an ignorant-ass move that’s bound to attract attention one way or the other.

  There’s a little voice, somewhere in the back of my mind. It’s tiny, really. But it’s gnawingly aware of how ridiculous all of this is. Who’s the Council to decide what’s the proper amount of shenanigans a ghost can participate in? Why should they get to regulate that delicate line between the living and the dead?

  This is why my job is easier if I don’t think too hard. These questions lead nowhere productive, obviously, because now I’m thinking about the inevitable moment when some minister up in the Council realizes Sasha’s an errant soul, an unacceptable ambiguity that must be brought in and destroyed. And then to the inevitable moment when Sasha realizes that I am a deceitful bastard who has no right whatsoever to woo or even speak to her. Does she even know her brother’s crossed over into fully dead status? Her whole countenance spoke of mourning, but that could be at his disappearance, not necessarily his death.

  Too. Many. Questions.

  I toss the poetry book and pick up a mystery novel, read three lines, and realize that’s not gonna cut it either. Finally, as dawn whispers in through my windows, I give up and just settle into a confused, star-crossed stupor until sleep comes, and then I dream of killing Trevor, again and again and again . . .

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Talk to me, Dro.” We’re strolling down Franklin again. Well, I’m strolling. Riley and Dro are floating in long, fluid strides that approximate a strut. Riley seems to be back to his old genial self today, which I’m grateful for, because my underslept, overthinking ass is not.

  “Okay, well, I was up at the Council Library all day yesterday.”

  “Yes, we got the inebriated, unhelpful version last night.”

  “Can I talk, Riley?”

  Riley nods graciously.

  “Thank you. They got a whole section on imps.”

  “Imps?” I say.

  “Yeah, like those annoying little naked guys that fuck up people’s gardens and shit.”

  “Thank you, Dro. I know what an imp is. I just didn’t know NYCOD had a Dewey decimal number for them.”

  “Oh, well, yeah, there’s an imp section, and there’s some whispering that the ngks have a certain relationship to imps.”

  “Like distant cousins?” Riley asks. He doesn’t look like he’s feeling this thought line any more than I am.

  “More like evil stepbrothers.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh, indeed. The whispers say that imps are like the less lethal, mentally challenged relatives of the ngks.”

  “I’m quite sure,” Riley says, “that it doesn’t say imps are mentally challenged.”

  “You know what I mean though. And whereas the imps show up in scattered randomosity—”

  “That’s definitely not a word,” I point out.

  Dro ignores me, which is probably for the best. “And apparently have no greater purpose, other than to make a mild nuisance of themselves. The ngks, on the other hand, come in quite strategic clumps, usually, and serve a very specific purpose.”

  “And what purpose would that be?” says Riley.

  I notice a throng of kids chasing one another up and down the block, immersed in some wildly complex game they seem to be making up the rules for as they go. Every few seconds they switch directions as one, just like a flock of birds, and then fall out into fits of laughter. Two old drunks enjoy the show from a nearby stoop.

  “Well, of course it’s all very shrouded in—”

  Riley gets curt again. “Cut to it.”

  “Annihilation of the dead.”

  All three of us stop short at the gravity of those words. “Come again,” Riley says.

  Dro repeats himself, looking quite solemn indeed. “One very old Welsh text stated that it was commonly known that
these creatures are summoned with the express purpose of annihilating all the spiritual activity in a given area . . .”

  “Must have something to do with how they precipitate tragedy,” Riley finishes eagerly. “Fuck.”

  “You said, ‘are summoned,’” I point out. I can tell that phrasing will haunt me for a long time, with all those passive hints of some hidden hand at work.

  “Did I?”

  I don’t like it when Dro gets sloppy with language like that. His shit needs to be impeccable, considering how serious things are right now. “You did. Made it sound like someone is doing the summoning.”

  “Hmm, I’ll have to check. I read through hundreds of books, Carlos.”

  He has a point. I’m probably just tired.

  “You thinking ’bout the thing you saw?” Riley says. I nod, frowning.

  The kids have scattered off to their respective houses, and a nasty winter breeze sweeps through the city around us.

  “But did the two ngked houses even have spirits in ’em?” Dro asks.

  Riley shrugs. “Who knows? There’s hundreds of loose spirits flitting around, taking up residence in places they shouldn’t. If there were, they’re surely gone now.”

  “If there weren’t,” Dro points out, “what’d be the purpose of putting a ghost annihilator where there’s no ghosts? Who’d get got?”

  “Us,” I say. “And it’s already almost worked twice.”

  * * *

  I’m surrounded by Estherness. The old ghost has a way of taking up space and not at the same time. She’s everywhere, fills the aging room with her jovial old self and yet never overwhelms or suffocates. It’s a skill. I feel safe just being near her, let alone immersed in her. A very simple thought occurs to me: maybe everything will just be all right. I doubt it, but still, the thought is there and I decide to go with it for now.

  “You look tired, Carlos.”

  “Haven’t been sleeping much.” I want to hold on to that thought, tattoo it to my mind, but it’s like trying to grab water. “Rough week.”

  “You’re worried about the infestation.”

  “It’s not an infestation. Not yet anyway. Just two.” Mama Esther’s look reminds me that she’s not stupid. “You’re not worried about it?”

  “Nah,” she says, but I don’t believe her. “I’ve seen this neighborhood through so many changes. You wouldn’t believe some of the ghoulish monstrosities I’ve watched come and go. Some of the horrors I’ve withstood. Ah, Carlos, when you’re young, every new travesty seems like the last. You shouldn’t trouble yourself so much.”

  I want to believe her so badly that I almost do. The ngks just being any old passing spirit would be such a blessing, but I know that’s not the case. Deluding myself won’t help now anyway.

  “There’s something else,” Mama Esther says. She could always see right through me. Seems everyone can these days.

  I nod. The story waits hungrily at the edge of my tongue. Speaking it into existence would be like taking off a jacket made of chains. My suddenly unburdened soul would float up into the darkening sky. I want to say it so badly it aches. Esther can see it all over my damn face anyway. “Ah, I’m fine.”

  “Right.” I didn’t lie because I thought I could deceive her, just to signal that I couldn’t talk about it. She looks disappointed. “You know, I’m very good with matters of the heart. I had eleven children and twenty-three grandkids. They all came to me with their hopes and fears about love, Carlos. And they always left knowing what to do. Esther knows things.”

  “I know.” I’m alarmingly close to breaking down, so I scan the shelves for something to change the subject with.

  “Oh, Richard III. Haven’t read this one since I lived here.”

  “What’s her name, Carlos?”

  “Esther . . .”

  “What a beautiful name! I like her already.”

  “Esther.”

  “Carlos?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  For a full minute, we just stare at each other. Esther’s old even by ghost standards. Her smile, always a little whimsical, has diminished in these past weeks, and the strain shows in other ways too. Little flickers have begun to erupt in her voluminous shining girth. Now it seems she’s not just old, she’s aging. I wonder briefly if something else is wrong with her, some ancient ghost disease no one knows about, but quickly banish the thought. I don’t need to make things any more complicated than they already are: Mama Esther is stressed.

  “It must get lonely,” she says. She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Anyone else would’ve gotten some lip in return for the condescension, but the old house ghost manages to say things in just such a way that you can’t be mad at her. Plus, she saved my life.

  Ever so slightly, I nod. I hadn’t ever thought of myself as lonely until Trevor came along with his diabolical plans and beautiful sister. I was just an awkward intermediary, and for the most part, I was okay with that. Now I’m here about to get all gushy in Mama Esther’s library.

  No.

  Not right now, anyway. I’m afraid if I start to blubber I’ll never stop—some ever-present dam I’ve had up since my resurrection will burst and there’s no telling what’s on the other side. This is not the moment to find out. Not with ghost annihilators popping up on the block and God-knows-what-else running around the basements. “Must get lonely being in a big house all by yourself.”

  Esther takes the hint. “Ah, you know, folks come by and use the library often enough. It’s not so bad.”

  A strange thought occurs to me, and then it seems even stranger that it’d never occurred to me before. “Folks come by . . . that don’t work for the Council?”

  “Of course, Carlos!” For no clear reason, Esther is chuckling. “All variations of dead come through my doors to do their research or to find a good mystery to keep them up at night. It’s not odd.”

  “Right.” My mind is moving fast now. All variations of dead. I wonder. I wonder . . .

  “Agent Delacruz.” The staticky explosion of telepathy tears through my thoughts. The Council’s so damn annoying with their damn transmissions at all the wrong damn times. I cock my head at attention so Esther realizes why I’m not speaking. “Agent Washington requests your presence urgently at Franklin Avenue and Bergen Street.” Crap. So much for their no-locations policy. That’s right down the street, but still: crap. “He says to inform you that there’s been a sighting of your . . .” The ghostly voice pauses and then says cautiously: “Your naked friend.”

  “Crap.” I thank Mama Esther and start heading down the stairwell. She doesn’t have to ask to know what happened; it’s written all over my face.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sorry ’bout the page,” Riley says. “I didn’t have time to fuck around with a messenger, and I didn’t know if you’d get the telepathy blast.” All that supernatural mind-talking stuff doesn’t work two ways for me. I can receive the messages, usually, but can’t send anything out. If I know Riley’s trying to reach me, I can get one-on- one messages, but it’s not a sure shot. And we avoid going through the Council to reach each other if we can help it, so when Riley wants to get at me, he usually sends one of the wandering lost souls that zip here and there through Brooklyn looking for something to do.

  “It’s cool,” I say. “I was around the corner at Esther’s. Whatchu got?”

  “Had soulcatcher patrols movin’ up and down the block for the past day or two. One of ’em just saw an unusual-looking character streak past, and by streak I do mean streak, and disappear into this building. He called for backup like a good little newbie, and here we are.”

  “Thing is?”

  “Thing is, then he went in after it and hasn’t been heard from since.”

  “I see.” Ghostly forms swirl around us in a controlled frenzy. The Council soulcatchers wear thick, shimmering helmets shaped more or less like horseshoe crabs without the pointy tail. Their bodies and faces are hidden beneath flowing robes. Ove
rall, they cut an imposing image, but today their nervous energy fills the air till it’s almost hard to breathe. I wonder if the living folks around pick up on all this disturbance.

  Suddenly Dro’s beside us, panting. “What’d I miss?”

  Riley runs it down for him, and we walk to the building—an old brick four-story on Bergen between a clinic and an abandoned car lot. Behind us, the soulcatchers fall into position. I feel their swarthy ferocity carry me forward like a gust of wind. They’re ready to die the final death to help their brother. They’re furious and determined and afraid.

  I walk into the dingy hallway and draw my blade. At a signal from Riley, the soulcatchers flood around us in a torrent, burst up the stairwell and into the various apartments. They howl as they rush forward, a desperate and bone-chilling battle cry that never fails to unsettle me.

  I nod toward the basement, and Riley draws his own blade, a shimmering shadow in the dim hallway. We walk forward side by side, and I feel the long night of confusion blow off me in the fevered charge of the moment. Riley is the most ferocious motherfucker I know. Something sinister and freakish awaits us. Whatever it is threatens not just him and me, but this whole neighborhood, Mama Esther, and possibly the entire natural order of the afterlife. Everything else becomes blissfully petty in the face of all that. No wonder Riley seems to have gotten his swagger back too.

  I open the door slowly, hear nothing, sense nothing from below and sidestep, blade first, down the basement stairs. It’s dark as fuck, but the ickiness hangs in the air like a chemical cloud. From out of the emptiness, someone yells. It’s a living human yell, at once terrified and triumphant. The urgent shriek of someone who has absolutely lost his mind. Beneath it all, there’s another voice, a softer one, blubbering and whimpering.

  I flinch and then flail for a dangling light chain. The voice is sobbing now, sobbing and gurgling, and that thickness in the air keeps getting thicker. I finally swat the chain and then catch it in my hand and pull. It takes a second to sort through the tangled tableau in front of me. The naked man stands on top of something, lifting one pale foot and then the other. He’s hunched forward like he’s about to pounce, and his mouth opens and closes around a series of shouts, sobs, and cackles. A black tangle of greasy hair hangs down over his face and shoulders. His long arms stretch to either side; one hand is wrapped around the face of a soulcatcher, who’s hovering there miserably. Then I realize that the thing the naked man is standing on is actually a person—the one who’d been doing the whimpering. A very tall person. “Moishe!” I say, more out of sheer surprise than anything else.