SHADOWS

by Jonathan Nasaw

  He handed the gum back without looking at it. "Save your feistiness for our next go-round."

  "Yes, great strigoi." She slid the center stick out of the pack, palmed it as she unwrapped the foil, popped it into her mouth. "Now tell me about Callas."

  He propped his head on his palm again. "When I was brought to the Orfelinat as an infant, I had only three possessions—if an infant can be said to have possessions. At any rate, there were only three things that were delivered with me: the scrap of blanket that covered me, the basket I lay in, and a photograph in a small gilt frame. If it had been gold rather than gilt it would have been taken too. Times were hard in Bucharest back then. Of course, times are always hard in Bucharest.

  "It was a photo of Callas, as it turned out, but I wasn't to learn that for quite a few years. And what my mother was doing with a photograph of La Divina at her bedside, I never learned—largely because I never knew anything about my mother, other than that she died giving birth to me. Instead I grew up in the Orfelinat believing that the woman in the photo was my mother. It was not until I was placed in the Institut Limba Strain that I learned the truth. I'd had the photo on my bedside table, and an older fellow down the hall admired it. 'That's my mother,' I told him. He laughed at me. 'So your mother is Maria Callas?' he said. 'Your mother is the greatest diva in the history of opera?' I wanted to crawl into a hole and die."

  "Poor kid," muttered Selene, working her jaws.

  "Yes, but it worked out rather well, actually. My new friend was an opera buff. Had a phonograph and quite a decent record collection, or stack of wax, as you Americans say."

  "Not for forty years," remarked Selene.

  "Thanks for the tip." Aldo was unfazed—better too much idiom than too little, that was his Institut training. "In any event, I was soon hooked on La Divina, as she was known. Saved my money, bought a reel-to-reel, taped every Callas in his collection, and began my own. It was the most peculiar thing: even though I knew in my mind that Maria was not my mother, on another level—my inner child, I believe you say in California—that's current, isn't it?"

  "Close enough."

  "On that level, then, my inner child still somehow thought of her that way. Whenever I heard her voice my heart opened up, like hearing my own mother sing me a lullabye. Still happens. In fact, I'm quite as hooked on Callas as I am on blood. Thank God for Walkmans and Discmans. I can be quite cranky without my Maria."

  "You? Cranky?" said Selene, as her mouth began to burn. She had to fight the urge to swallow, lest the dumbcane paralyze her vocal cords.

  Aldo chuckled. "Take my word for it."

  Selene leaned over the edge of the foam pad, looked into Aldo's chocolate eyes. "Of course I take your word," she said, trying not to open her mouth, or let him see any of her spittle, which was by now pink with her own blood. "I trust you, remember. The question is, do you trust me yet?"

  "As much as I trust anyone." His eyes opened a little wider as he stared back into hers—she'd been counting on that. "But I'm not in the business of—"

  Ptoo. Ptoo. Quick as a viper, cool as if she'd been practicing the move for years, she spat a pink stream into first one of his eyes and then the other. He drew back, astonished; a second later his fingers, both bandaged and unbandaged, were clawing at his eyes as the poison began to take effect. Mashasha—stinging nettle—and Luzan dumbcane, with calcium oxylate crystals as deadly as ground glass, both held in a suspension that had been dissolved by her saliva. Once administered to the eyeball, Granny had assured Selene, there was no getting it out. "De more dey try to rub it out, de more dey rub it in," she'd said. "Tear dey own eyelids to bloody shreds."

  I'd pay to watch that, Selene had thought at the time, but the truth was, she wasn't enjoying watching Aldo writhe in agony quite as much as she'd hoped she would. She spat out the gum, then glanced around the cabin for something to rinse her mouth with, found a half-full bottle of Stolichnaya standing by the ice chest, took a splash. The pain when the alcohol hit the irritated tissue inside her mouth was indescribable. She performed a spit take worthy of I Love Lucy and began hopping around the cabin nude, fanning her open mouth with her hand and making the sort of noises one makes after biting into a jalapeño. Meanwhile Aldo had begun emitting a high-pitched shriek; soon Martha, grunting frantically, joined the choir. Selene looked up; the girl nodded toward the ice chest. Selene hurried over and flipped back the Styrofoam lid, saw the big plastic bottle of Pepsi. She couldn't taste it, but groaned gratefully as the soda put out the worst of the fire inside her mouth. She drank, spat, drank, spat—the stuff might have been water for all she could tell.

  "Thanks, dearie." She looked up at Martha, saw the girl's eyes go round with terror, turned to see Aldo struggling to his knees, eyes dripping gore: from road-show Damn Yankees to Oedipus Rex. Selene dashed over to Whistler, grabbed the sewing packet out of the front pocket of his jeans jacket. He started to topple sideways. She steadied him against the wall, turned back to Aldo, circled around behind him while removing a single pin from the packet, then darted in like a banderillero and planted the pin in the back of his neck just above the black collar of his shirt. He toppled forward onto his face.

  Quickly Selene turned back to Martha and Whistler, propped up against the wall. She'd replaced Jamey's utility knife in the pocket of his jeans jacket earlier, and she used it now to slit the tape binding Martha's wrists. The girl's hands fell limply into her lap. "Shall I?" Selene reached toward the strip of tape that covered Martha's mouth and began peeling it off slowly as Martha tried to rub some feeling back in her hands.

  "Is he dead now?" was Martha's first question.

  "Only for twenty-four hours."

  "What's in the pins?"

  "Zombi paste. It's a way they have of preparing belladonna on Santa Luz."

  "Let me see."

  Selene handed her the packet; Martha had regained enough feeling in her fingers to pull the paper of pins out of the cardboard wrapper. "Help me up."

  Selene slipped an arm around Martha's back and helped her to her feet. Martha swayed briefly, found her balance, tried a step, then another, and another, until she was standing directly over Aldo. Carefully she bent down; one by one she removed the three remaining pins from the paper and jabbed them into the nape of his neck. Only when three pins were firmly planted alongside the first did she turn to look at her godmother. "Now is he dead?"

  With Granny Weed's compliments, thought Selene. Then she remembered the orgomancy. Granny Bensozia's too. She fought back a shudder, managed to nod in response to Martha's question; out of the corner of her eye she saw her shadow on the wall nodding grotesquely in tandem with her. Suddenly Selene wanted out of that cabin as desperately as she'd wanted out of the loft when her house was blazing around her. She knelt down, slipped her arms under Jamey's shoulders. "Grab his feet," she called to Martha. "Let's get him out to the car."

  The skin around Martha's mouth was raw from the tape, mottled with a strawberry rash, and her lips were puffy; still she managed a weak smile as she looked over at her godmother. "Don't you think we ought to get some clothes on first?"

  "Whew." Selene glanced down at herself, then across at Martha. "Do you know, I'd completely forgotten."

  * * *

  Once dressed, they struggled with Whistler's inert form for a few minutes, then gave up and dragged him out backward by the arms, letting his Topsiders drag on the ground. "It's true?" asked Martha as they hauled him down the plank-and-cinder-block steps with his heels bumping. "He really is my father?"

  "To the best of my knowledge."

  "You should have told me—or at least you shouldn't have lied to me."

  "You're right. I'm sorry."

  " 'S'okay. I already forgave you, back when I was, oh god…" In there, she started to say. They were dragging him past the middle cabin. It all started to catch up with her, the nightmare of the past few days. "I can't… I have to…"

  Gently they lowered Whistler to the trodden grass; Selene
put her arm around Martha and drew her close. "My poor baby, I can't imagine…" She tightened her arm around Martha's shoulders.

  "I'll say this for you, dearie: I do admire your instinct for revenge. You'll make a hell of a witch someday."

  For a moment Martha was a child again in her godmother's arms. "Really?" she said shyly.

  "The way you finished Aldo off? Absolutely positively. And what a Tale you'll have to tell." Selene wiped her own eyes with the back of her hand. "Ready to get started again?"

  But Martha was peering past her, through the dark doorway of that middle cabin. "Have we got a minute? I have to do something."

  When Selene entered the shack a moment later, she saw by the starlight pouring in through the holes in the roof that Martha was standing at the edge of a long narrow aperture in the floor. Selene took a step toward her; Martha wheeled, shouted a warning as Selene's right foot went through the dry-rotted floorboard.

  "I was just about to tell you, you have to walk the beam," the girl explained. "See the line of nails?"

  "I do now." Luckily the wood was so soft it had crumbled to sawdust. Selene yanked her foot free and retrieved her sandal.

  When she joined Martha she could see where the floorboards had been removed and thrown to the side to reveal the dark, narrow cavity. Selene wondered what it must feel like, to be seventeen years old and staring down into your own grave.

  "Len told me Daddy Don is dead. Is that true?"

  Selene slipped her arm around Martha's waist. "I'm so sorry, honey. Len—Aldo—overdosed him with morphine."

  "Must have been peaceful, hunh?"

  "I can think of worse ways to go. So can you by now, I imagine."

  "Did Aldo kill anybody else?"

  Selene had to think about it for a moment. "Nobody you know." Not strictly true. Martha had met Nick a few times; she'd even seen her half sister Cora once, when the child was a few weeks old. But it didn't seem necessary to mention any of this at the moment. Perhaps the girl could talk about it with her father someday—might be healing for both of them.

  Of course for now Martha's father was still lying out there in the tall grass, and Selene had nothing but the weed woman's assurances to tell her he wasn't as dead as all the others. "We'd better be going soon, dearie."

  The girl looked up from the hole for the first time since Selene had joined her. "One thing I don't understand. What happened to"—she started to say my father, but the words wouldn't come yet—"Whistler? Did you zombi him too?"

  "I did."

  "How come?"

  It occurred to Selene that she didn't quite know the answer to that question yet. Didn't know whether old Benny's orgomancy had been advice or prophecy. Then she realized that it didn't matter anymore: if advice, it had been heeded; if prophecy, it had been fulfilled.

  "Long story, dearie," she replied, turning away from the empty grave. "I'll tell you all about it on the way home."

  CHAPTER 9

  « ^ »

  Nick Santos's funeral took place at the Church of the Higher Power in El Cerrito on Saturday evening, November 20th. Twelve-Steppers (the recovered potheads still looked like potheads, the junkies like junkies, but the drunks had cleaned up nicely) mingled with computer nerds and tattooed body piercers. A fourth group of mourners, wearing sunglasses despite the late hour, had congregated on the lawn under the live oak tree before the service to sip a toast from flasks of various descriptions—more flasks than El Cerrito had seen in one place since Prohibition, though none of them was filled with bootleg whiskey.

  The eulogy, delivered by the Reverend Betty Ruth Shoemaker, a major player in the recovery industry, dwelt rather heavily on the miracles that Higher Power could perform for those poor benighted souls among the mourners who were still among the afflicted addicted—or so it sounded to Selene, squirming uncomfortably in the rear pew. The Reverend spoke at length about how she and the departed had shared the same dreadful (but unidentified, to the relief of the sunglass-wearing contingent of mourners) addiction; how she had chosen to fight the dragon with a twelve-bladed sword, while poor Nick had attempted to tame it by using the (still unnamed) drug only on weekends.

  "The Dream of the Occasional User," Betty Ruth declared scathingly from the pulpit. "As well try to tame a literal dragon. And it turned on him, as it always does, and it killed him just as surely as…"

  Selene never found out what it killed him as surely as. She had already slipped out the double doors at the rear of the white clapboard church. Damn your sanctimonious hide, Betty Shoemaker, she thought as she hurried down the walk. It wasn't blood that killed Nick—or vodka or weed or cock jewelry—it was Aldo, and although she understood where Betty was coming from (Betty and Nick had passed on their blood-drinking genes to their son, Leon, now fifteen months old: after kicking the blood habit herself, Betty had sworn to protect her child from his sanguinary inheritance), Selene still didn't want to hear Nick reduced to the sum of his addictions.

  Who among us could pass such a test? she thought, writing her own eulogy on the way to the car she'd borrowed from Martha. Nick lived fast, died relatively young, and it wasn't his fault he didn't leave a good-looking corpse.

  A somewhat sardonic frame of mind, but then, this wasn't the only funeral on Selene's calendar this weekend. Daddy Don's wasn't scheduled to begin until Sunday at noon, but the wake was already in full swing, and she wanted to get back to check on Martha. Not that the girl couldn't handle herself—and not that the bikers wouldn't be on their best behavior. But a tanked-up, cranked-up biker's best behavior could veer from maudlin to mayhem at the drop of a hat—or, in the absence of a hat, anything else that could be dropped.

  Selene parked Martha's car by the side of the road, as the driveway was choked with motorcycles of every age and description save brand new or Japanese. A few Vincents and Indians, but mostly Harleys. Tiki torches lined the driveway, paper lanterns hung from the trees, one biker had passed out facedown in the rhododendrons, a middle-aged couple was dry humping against the side of the house, and the room where Don had died was wall-to-wall boogying mourners.

  "Now this is what I call a funeral," shouted Selene over the sound of old Doobie Brothers blasting from speakers in the loft. "Anybody seen Martha?"

  "I think she's up at your place," someone shouted back. Selene left via the back door and hiked up the driveway to her A-frame, where she found Martha seated at the kitchen counter eating Cherry Garcia ice cream out of the carton.

  "When I was… you know," said the girl ("you know" meant with Aldo—it was the only way Martha referred to her captivity), "I kept fantasizing about all the stuff I'd eat when I got out. Now I couldn't care less."

  "Then give it here." Selene climbed up on the stool opposite Martha, who slid the carton across the counter to her.

  "It's a zoo down there, hunh?"

  "Daddy Don would have liked it."

  "Daddy Don would have loved it. How was the funeral?"

  "Funereal. How come you split the party?"

  "I got tired of everybody asking me what I'm going to do next. Next person that asks me that gets turned into a toad."

  "We can arrange that," replied Selene.

  "Yeah right. Like I believe there's a spell for that."

  "Not per se. And not a spell. But there are quite a few substances that'll cause the body to break out in horrendous warts; put them in a verdigris base that turns the skin green, and you can see where the superstition came from about witches turning people into frogs." Selene polished off the last of the Cherry Garcia. Then, slyly: "So what do you tell them, these people who keep asking you what you're going to do next?"

  The girl shot her a dart of a look. "I tell them I don't have to think about anything until after the funeral." Martha slid off the kitchen stool. "I'm going back down to the party."

  "Want me to go with you?"

  "Naah, I'll be fine." She tossed the empty ice cream carton into the trash by the back door, then turned to Selene. "He's up th
ere, you know." Pointing up to the loft.

  "I thought he might be. Did you two get a chance to talk?"

  "You mean did we start bonding? I guess. Mostly he talked about you."

  "Really?" She hadn't seen Jamey since shortly after he'd regained consciousness Thursday night. They'd had a beauty of an argument. He'd accused her of betraying him. She certainly couldn't deny it, but brought up his "What I need here is your blood, not your advice" speech by way of reply. He said he was only trying to keep her out of danger; she called him a liar; he'd stalked out as best he could on shaky legs. "Is he still furious?"

  "Yeah, like!" replied Martha.

  "I take it that means no."

  "Selene, he's crazy about you. He kept talking about how much you meant to him, how much you guys have been through together. Hey, you know what?"

  "What?"

  "If you two ever do get married, that'll make you my godmother and my stepmother."

  "Dream on!"

  Selene locked the back door behind Martha, washed the ice cream spoon, straightened up the kitchen and living room, and was thinking about taking out the trash when it occurred to her that she was stalling. Onward and upward. Selene tugged on the fat tasseled rope hanging from the edge of the loft, and watched the new ladder lower itself smoothly into place. Should have burned that old ladder years ago, she thought. The new one was quite an improvement, if somewhat of a concession to age: three collapsible sections joined by springed hinges, the rungs wider and less steeply angled, the new handrails extending three feet above the floor of the newly shored-up loft.

  Jamey was seated cross-legged on the foam mattress serving as a temporary replacement for the waterbed. He looked up. "Hello there. Hope it was okay that I let myself in."

  "Mi casa…" she replied. "I thought you'd be in London by now."

  "Had to get my passport replaced. My people greased a few palms; I should have it by Wednesday, before they close for the holiday weekend."