by Rick Wayne
“Mad? I’m already mad! You lied to me about everything.”
”That was his idea! He didn’t want you to get in trouble. Neither of us did. It was to protect—”
“I don’t care! I was your best friend. Not him, Kell. Me.”
“Was?” she asked.
“You know what I mean.”
She stammered for a moment. “You’re one to talk,” she snapped.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You never told me about Kai. You never told me anything. You never tell anybody anything. Probably not him either. That’s probably why he dumped you. You’re never around when I call anymore. You did the school mural thing by yourself. I had to hear about it on the news.”
“Where’s the dagger?” I demanded.
She paused, like she was considering whether or not to punish me by not telling. “I put it in your name.”
“Fuck.” I dropped my head.
“You’re the only one I could trust!” She stood. “I told you I was serious, okay? About changing. I didn’t trust myself even. I wanted to tell you everything that day. That’s why I came over. But then we had so much fun. Right? I just had the worst night of my life and—” Her face twisted. “You made everything better. Like you always do. For a little bit, everything was like before and I didn’t want to ruin it. So I was going to tell you in the morning. But then Lykke’s guys showed up and I had to bail. I looked for you again later. Just like I said. I said I’d find you and I tried. I really did. You have to believe me. I went to your place and waited on the roof for, like, hours or whatever, but then the limo pulled up out front and I recognized it, and then all those birds came again and I freaked.”
Mrs. Suleiman wasn’t the only one watching from the building that day. Kell was on the roof. The crows had followed her. And the chef had followed the crows. Right to me.
“It’s like, ever since that day, everything that could possibly go wrong did. Everything. You don’t even know, Cerise. I didn’t have my purse and—and just a bunch of awful shit. I was so scared. Everything was falling apart. And then that girl, Bastien’s friend, told me where you were. She said you wanted to meet, and I felt so happy.”
That’s who Irfan was texting.
“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. 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. She was looking in the kitchen.
I turned.
Cockroaches. Maybe a dozen or so. They were scattered over the sink and cabinets. But they weren’t moving. They were just sitting here.
A crow landed on the railing of the balcony. I heard its wings. But it made no sound. A moment later another joined, and another. I shook my watch.
Too late.
“We have to get out of here,” I said.
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 gone into the hall.
Kell screamed.
I spun just in time to see them push past the couch. They were in 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. 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, and I looked up to confirm gender. I saw wrapping—strips of off-white cloth, heavier than bandages, like binding straps. But no face. I tried to concentrate, but it was like whatever was attacking me was only half there.
It grabbed my hair and yanked me off the couch as the two others 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 and held on as tightly as she could. 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 its entire body was wrapped with it, as if it had been burned from head to toe and that was replacement skin.
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’d 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 it was, stumbled back and the blade was yanked from my hands.
“Cerise!” Kell screamed. “Help me! You have to help me!”
Her perfectly polished nails dug into the corner of the wood frame.
“Cerise! Don’t let them have it! If they—”
She was struck hard across the face and went slack. Her eyes rolled and she struggled weakly, but it was useless, and I watched them drag her away, my very best friend.
My attacker reached down and pulled the knife free with a grunt. There was blood. It was all 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 his best, but he wasn’t much of a fighter, and the dickless monster threw him off. He landed against the wall, leaving a large divot, before falling on his ass with a painful grimace.
Darren saw the knife in the blurry thing’s hand and went into full-on panic. He came at the thing again with a barbaric wail, but it tackled him back into the wall, which cracked down 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 a part of his body that wasn’t meant to breathe and Darren shivered, like he was freezing, and stopped moving.
The thing stood straight and turned to me. Darren’s blood dripped from the tip of the weapon. I scrambled back and it came forward.
Sirens wailed from the street.
I knew Kell wouldn’t give herself up. Not willingly. I had called Detective Hammond in the hall—I still had his card—and told him Kell had something to say about Lykke’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.
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.
From the balcony, I could see the police move toward the building, weapons drawn. The monster got up and 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?
“I knew she was using me—”
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 a bloody hand and fell back on the floor. My eyes were squinting, 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 was discovered alone with a dead body. The murder weapon w
as covered in my fingerprints. I told the story a million times before the cops 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. He wasn’t some still body dragged from a wreck on the side of the road, 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—warm and thick, like egg soup. He was there. I was talking to him. And then he was just gone. Everything he was. His life. His experiences.
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 help.
The clock on the wall tick-tick-ticked and I just wanted my bed. Not that I could’ve gone home. That was a much bigger deal than I expected—not having a home to retreat to, at least not one where I felt at all safe. It’s an instinct, I think. Regardless of whether you can get back to it, just the knowledge that you have a hole to crawl into is calming. But I had nothing. I was carried through an ocean of fear on a wave of high anxiety that was slowly overtaking me.
Tick-tick-tick.
My big idea was to give the police someone better to look at than me and Kell. Tempt out the chef and then let him explain himself to the men in blue. That was my plan—to drop everything in someone else’s lap. The authorities. Like calling mom and dad. Brilliant, huh? And yet, for some reason I was totally surprised when it failed in the worst way. Kell was missing, Darren was dead, and no one had so much as glimpsed our attackers. Like they just vanished.
Same for the chef.
Bastien was gone. He was already living out of a suitcase when I found him. I had thought that was because he was shacking at the Sour Candy, but I had it backwards. He was shacking at the Sour Candy because he was getting ready to disappear once the job was done. When I left down the stairs that day, he didn’t ask about the million dollars, as if that was nothing. He got stuck on the pregnancy. I think he realized then that shit was fucked, that Kell wasn’t coming, and that if I’d found him, Lykke’s people could, too.
For her part, I think the shock of the pregnancy brought Kell some clarity. Whatever spells or enchantments were on her had been broken by the addition of a proto-person. 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, and that laid bare her whole toxic obsession. Choice isn’t just about ending. It’s about keeping, too.
But after clarity, then what?
She said on the roof that she wanted a couple days. To get her head straight. To come up with Plan B. I think she meant it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she planned to sell the dagger back to Lykke before he got killed. All she wanted was for him to feel some of the fear he’d caused her. She said she was expecting money. That was half the reason she set up a bank account. She couldn’t stuff that much in her purse. I’d had her backwards as well. I thought the big party of her life was ending because she was thinking about keeping the baby, but really she was thinking about keeping the baby because the big party of her life was ending. And there was nothing else. She tried to tell me that day at my apartment. And I wasn’t listening.
A female officer woke me and 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. Waiting for a complete stranger to tell you if your life is over—or just changed forever. I wonder if that’s planned somehow.
“All right,” Hammond said. He sighed deeply as he sat down.
I think he’d been talking to Darren’s family. Man, that had to suck. His partner, Rigdon, 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 you all would’ve believed everything. It’s totally smart to hand your life over to a giant bureaucracy. No one’s ever gotten a raw deal from the NYPD. Especially a foreigner. You guys are like frickin’ saints or something. Seriously, it’s a travesty the department hasn’t won the Nobel Peace Prize for all its—”
“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 Kell and I, even working together, had the strength to dump Lykke from the top of the Watchtower construction site, wheelchair and all. The ME’s report suggested he was alive and conscious on his way down, or so I was told, which meant he would’ve put up a struggle.
Sometimes it pays to be small.
However, be all 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. Which, you know, technically I was.
“Potions?” he asked incredulously. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“What about the guys who attacked us?” I retorted. “Did you find anything? Or is that strike three for the saints of the NYPD?”
“You really haven’t given us much to go on.”
“They were covered in straps!”
“Is there anything else? Anything at all?”
I thought about the chef. “I need to pee,” I said.
“Down the hall.”
I’m sure he watched me go. He was always judging. I stood in front of the mirror for the longest time with the hot water running. Steam obscured my face—all except my eyes. I had a decision to make. If I gave up the chef, I had no more cards to play.
Hammond was typing when I got back. He nodded to the chair next to his desk. It looked like they’d gotten it from a school 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 palm. 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, my expensive vintage Captain Caveman tee. There were smears of Darren’s blood on it.
“Three dead bodies,” he warned. “And counting. You’re right that Rigdon an
d I aren’t the only ones on this case. These guys of yours are the real deal. You gotta stop with the Nancy Drew bit.”
“Who the fuck is Nancy Drew?”
He glanced at my shirt. “How about Scooby Doo? Know who that is? There’s no unmasking here, okay? No old man to complain about you pesky kids. 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, 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 things already failed once. You guys are peeing on all the wrong hydrants.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You believe in magic?” I asked.
He looked through me, like he was contemplating what to say.
“There’s a chef,” I added quickly. “He was asking about Lykke.”
“A chef?”
I nodded. “He was out front of the apartment.”
He looked down at the statement he’d spent forever typing, the one I’d just signed. He looked utterly defeated. “Why you doin’ this? Huh? What is it you hope will happen?”
“You ever had a best friend?” I asked.
“Sure.” Then he bobbled his head a little. “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 oddly dressed foreigner with the strange accent, and introduces herself when no one else will even make 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 the 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 mean a friend like that. Someone wonderful and infuriating and crazy and supportive and kind.”
