by Sandy DeLuca
For several minutes Daniel and I remain quiet, reflecting on what’s happened and what might still be to come. Emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted, we decompress just a few feet from each other, needing to do this alone in our own individual spaces for some reason. It’s been a hellish night, and somehow we’ve survived it, and there is an odd satisfaction in that, in still being alive despite the odds, but it is mixed with heavy sorrow for the others, and for the evil that still lurks out there in the snow, in the shadows beyond the light of a new day.
I hear sirens and voices downstairs some time later. An internal switch apparently thrown, Daniel snaps out of his reflection and heads for the door. “Got work to do,” he tells me flatly. “Stay here.”
I nod and think of Dave’s body sprawled on the floor. They’ll take him away and I won’t be able to do what I need to do. I sigh and shake my head. “You’re fucking crazy,” I mutter. “It was all just a dream, a nightmare. A flesh and blood killer is on the loose, not some dead man from your imagination.”
Policemen and criminal scientists talk downstairs, and I hear Daniel recounting the details of what we went through. Then I hear a new voice, rich and deep. “Heard it on my police scanner.”
“Sir, this is a crime scene,” someone tells this intruder, “we’re going to need you to step outside and we can—”
“I’m Martin DeCanne, the owner of this building. I have every right to be here.”
That voice is familiar.
I walk to the landing, look down then move slowly down the stairs. Somebody is examining Dave’s chest wound, swabbing blood and God knows what else. He’s stoic, cold and detached as he puts his death samples in a box and then gets up and walks away.
“As the owner of this property, I have rights.” DeCanne, an African-American man in his mid-thirties, talks to Daniel but looks rather suddenly up at me. His eyes are like Mojo’s, and I remember the dream and how relatives still own the building.
My fear returns.
Martin is still speaking, saying something I can’t quite make out. There is a smile on his face when he reaches into his pocket, removes a gun and points it at Daniel. The blast is loud, and the building shakes as a spray of blood spatters the wall. Daniel vaults backward and falls.
People are moving quickly, taking loudly, some surrounding Daniel, but I can no longer see Martin DeCanne.
Everyone has gone insane, yelling, telling me to go back upstairs. Stunned and still not able to fully comprehend what’s happened, I do as they tell me, moving slowly and sluggishly back up the stairs. “Daniel?”
With my ears ringing from the gun blast, I go to the kitchen, open a drawer and remove a carving knife. What I have to do is insane—and I know it—but that can no longer stop me from what I now know has to be done. I get one of my oversized purses from the closet then walk slowly through the hall, through the living room and toward the landing. No one is near Dave. Someone says Martin got away. Cops are running out of the building, getting into police cars, others move down the street on foot searching for him. The CSI people have collected their samples and have gone up the stairs, searching for clues. No one seems to notice me.
I kneel down near Dave. His eyes are open and drool runs a path down his cheek. He grabs my arm. “You’re dead, you fucker. You’re fucking dead.”
I look down at him again and his eyes are shut. His hands are by his sides. I take a deep breath then plunge the knife into his already damaged chest. As bile bubbles up into the back of my throat I choke it down and begin to cut, severing the heart from the surrounding arteries. Gagging, I place the knife by his side and slowly lift the organ. Cupping it gently in my trembling hands, I ease it into my purse.
No one’s here now except Daniel and some paramedics who are working hard to save him. As I move closer I see them leaned over him, blocking my view.
“It’s ok,” I tell him softly, even though he may already be dying.
My shock and sorrow has already turned to rage and determination, reminding me of what must be done, of what I must do.
I will end all of this once and for all, or I’ll die in the attempt and take my chances on the other side with Mojo DeCanne and his devils.
Unnoticed, I clutch my bloodstained purse to my chest, and step out into the snow.
27
I’m not wearing a coat or gloves, and the temperature on the marquee at the corner store reads fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. I should be freezing, but there’s too much adrenaline pumping through me to feel anything but rage and hatred for the man who shot Daniel, for Mojo himself. I need to get to the church. Anna was there when I cut out the heart. She showed me things I couldn’t understand until now. I know what I need to do. I saw her pouring the blood from Dave’s heart over the altar, throwing dead flower petals into the crimson puddles left behind and then burying the evil thing in snow piled against the church’s cold stone exterior. She told me, “Do as I’ve shown you and the world will be safe from Mojo, from Martin.”
A few people walk down the normally bustling Avenue, but don’t seem to notice me standing here on the apartment stairs. I wait until they reach the corner before I step onto the walk, not even sure where to begin.
I can’t drive my car. The streets are treacherous. The buses or subways are probably shut down. How the hell am I going to get to Harlem? Something in my gut tells me I’m meant to go back to the church and that someway, somehow I’ll get there. I look to the snow at my feet, see something shining within the white. I bend down. There’s a tiny charm, a caged bird, red with silver speckles, glimmering in the snow. I pick it up, unable to stop staring at it. I once lost a similar charm in the snow, when I was kid, still in grammar school, and looking at this one now brings me back to when Allie and I used to walk to the corner drugstore after supper every night.
The place was run by an elderly couple who kept the store well supplied with sweets and penny candy. It was furnished with an old fashioned soda fountain where ice cream sodas and fries were served on shiny counters, and there was a bubble gum machine set on that counter filled with fat balls of gum for only a nickel each. A little plastic charm always accompanied the gum. Allie and I lived for those things, had boxes filled with them. On a cold December evening, a little charm, red and speckled with silver, fell into my open hand after I’d plunked in my money and turned the machine handle. I stuck it in my pocket, happy with the beautiful treasure I’d gotten. We drank sodas and giggled when a couple high school boys, tan and donned in tight jeans, strolled into the store. “I’ll take that one,” Allie whispered in my ear when the taller of the two smiled in our direction. “In your dreams,” I whispered back, motioning to a long-legged cheerleader that strolled into the store and hooked her arm through the boy’s.
Undaunted, we finished our sodas then spent an hour or more checking out comic books lined up in wooden holders at the rear of the store. When the black and white clock above the soda fountain read seven we quickly paid for the books we wanted and made our way home, giggling, pushing each other playfully and having the kind of innocent and carefree fun neither of us would ever truly know again. Our father was waiting at the door for us, and as always, he scolded us for taking so long, his eyes twinkling, probably remembering he’d done the same when he was a kid. When I got up to my bedroom I reached inside my pocket. The charm was gone. It snowed that night and snowy weather continued on and off for the next several weeks. The walks remained snow-covered and icy until a thaw, until another evening when Allie and I ventured to our favorite store. I always looked at my feet when I walked, and that night I watched the melting snow trickle off the walk and into the gutters. I found my little charm I’d lost atop a mound of snow. It was as perfect and shiny as when it had tumbled into my hand weeks before.
I wonder what happened to that little charm. Could this be the same one? Could Allie have put it here so I’d find it? Maybe she’d saved it all these years and waited for this moment so I would remember her, remembe
r us.
As the memories fade, I am unsure of how long I’ve been standing on the empty street. I push the charm into my pocket and look at my blood-soaked purse. Somebody’s going to call the police if they see this. There’s a newsstand a block away and I walk toward it quickly. I turn to see if anyone is following me and notice a trail of crimson behind me. My stomach turns. I swear I can feel the heart pulsing.
There’s no one at the newsstand, just papers piled high. A plastic raincoat hangs on a hook behind the counter. I try reaching for it, but can’t quite get it.
A long arm suddenly reaches past me and unhooks the coat. “I’ve been looking for you, girl.”
I spin on my heels. “Rico! How did you—”
He gently slides my purse off my shoulder then wraps it inside the yellow slicker. He smiles, but his eyes are sad.
“They released me, told me they had new evidence. Told me everything they had on me proved to be a setup. No apologies, though. They gave me bus money and told me to get lost. Fuckers, I should sue them.”
“I’ve got to get to the church. Sue them later.”
He chuckles softly. “Anna told me everything. I know what happened to the cop too.”
“You heard about Daniel?”
“Harris? Yeah, he got shot. I also know they found a room full of shit way upstairs in your apartment house, notebooks filled with stuff about how to plant evidence on suckers like me. They sacrificed people for years, made it look like murder and then set people up. Fucking city. How long has this gone on? Think of all the sick ways some people have died over the years. Could all be related to DeCanne, to his sick rituals.” He holds the raincoat close to him. “Damn if I can’t feel this thing beating.”
“You know what it is?” I ask, barely able to believe it myself. “I slept a lot in jail. Anna DeCanne visited me in dreams. I know what you did, and I know what needs to be done.”
“The church,” I say softly.
He nods, motions to a yellow cab parked across the street I hadn’t realized was occupied until just then. The driver looks kind but exhausted, and seems to know Rico. He rolls down his window. “I’m going to 150th, no farther.”
“Perfect.” Rico takes my hand and leads me to the cab. “Nice guy. He was stuck outside Rikers when I got out. I helped him get out of the deep snow. He’s determined to get home. We almost got killed a few times in this shit, but we’re here. We made it. He needs to get back to his family in Harlem, make sure they’re OK.” Rico opens a door, I slide in and he gets inside behind me.
“If I didn’t love my wife and kid so much I’d still be sitting outside that prison,” the driver tells me. “Rico here is good people. He helped me. I’ll help him. Only fair.”
He pulls onto the street and begins creeping his way through the treacherous remnants of the storm. We see an occasional plow, police cruiser, state or city vehicle and some other cars, but they are few and far between. Most vehicles lie trapped in the snow or buried in the enormous drifts on the sides of the road, and there are barely any people on foot. The famously exciting and vibrant metropolis that is New York City has been reduced to an alien frozen landscape sparsely inhabited by beings emerging from a lengthy hibernation. It doesn’t seem possible such a great and strong city like this could be so crippled. But then, nothing seems real anymore.
The driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. “What happened to your coat? You must be freezing.”
“I don’t—”
Rico interrupts and tells the driver where we want to go. The driver shakes his head. “I could take you to a shelter instead. You even got money? It doesn’t matter. This storm fucked up a lot of lives.”
“Church is good,” Rico says pleasantly. “Just get us there, and thank you.”
The driver nods and doesn’t say another word as we move through Manhattan, through the labyrinth of white and toward a place where even more madness waits to greet us.
Rico hands me the bundle containing Dave’s heart. I move my hand over yellow vinyl and I wonder if Daniel is dead or alive.
28
Trucks spread sand on the avenue, and police cars are parked at corners. Pedestrians are few, but those I see are wrapped from head to toe in scarves and bulky coats, faces covered as they plod through snow, carrying brown bags perhaps filled with needed staples, milk, bread and pet food. I wonder if what lies beneath layers of cloth, wool and knitted things hides evil in one form or another. Perhaps the storm has stripped away, or frozen, most of what’s good in this city and now only those who have come here from Hell walk these streets. Maybe Rico and I were spared because we’re truly evil as well. I’ve wished people dead who have hurt me. I’ve lusted for men who were bound to others. My soul has a dark tinge to it, something not evident on the surface, but it lurks there. It torments me, and sometimes I whisper prayers learned in catechism and suffer because I will never be the saint I’d wanted to be as a child. Rico has cheated and scammed his share of tourists and naïve women looking for affordable designer handbags to show off. He’s dealt drugs and gambled with his soul. Maybe we deserve to join Mojo on a path of destruction and cruelty, his children, born into this world to spread his diseased message.
The storm played out in Mojo’s favor. I wonder if he conjured magic to change weather patterns, to cripple the city, to bring Rico and me to this moment in time. Could any of that be possible? Could he really be so powerful? My logical mind tells me how silly that all is, and yet somewhere deep inside me, I feel differently. Maybe anything is possible.
Rico turns to me as though he’s read my thoughts. “None of us are perfect, you know. Being human means we think things and want things and sometimes do things that ain’t all pure, but we get lots of chances to shape up. We try but beat ourselves up when we fail. That’s what being flesh and blood is all about. People like the DeCannes are different. They don’t want to change. They got no guilt, no remorse. But we do, and we gotta fight this, Gina.”
“Hope you’re right,” I tell him.
He nods then gazes at a couple walking past a bodega. They’re old and bent over and I wonder if this is the last winter they’ll be on this earth. I wonder if they’ve erased the darkness from their souls. Does anyone ever die without it?
“Turn left then take a sharp right,” Rico tells the cabbie. “Pull up alongside the church.”
The driver’s tired eyes find mine in the rear view mirror. “Bad place. Real bad. Maybe I take you to my house. My wife can make soup. You can sleep in the spare room, my older son’s room. He’s in Iraq. He’s—”
“No, man,” Rico touches the thick plastic separating us from the man. “But thanks anyway. We’ll be OK, I promise.”
The cab pulls up to the curb. The driver gazes at the church, quiet pain in his eyes. “Devil DeCanne killed my grandmother in that place. Old woman believed he could cure her cancer. He cut it out of her belly. Butcher. People say he’s buried in the cemetery in back of the church. Every time I pass by I want to stop and spit on his grave.” The driver looks back at us. “DeCanne’s ghost is there. I’ve seen it.”
“Yeah, he goes downtown a lot too,” I mumble through a smirk.
Rico pushes me towards the door, unlatches it and guides me onto the snowy walk.
The driver makes the sign of the cross then pulls away, leaving us alone in this desolate part of the city. The church is ominous, looming over us like an ancient beast, ready to crumble and crush us on this Harlem street. Snow and ice cover its ancient stone. Cracked gargoyles carved into the doorframe glare at us like sentries. I notice something I’ve never seen before. A lone statue sits at the top of the frame, hands spread and seeming to call the other figures into his fold. The Devil, with two women chained to his wrists, a figure I’ve seen in Tarot decks, but in the decks the chains don’t bind and the Tarot’s subtle symbolism implies that we create our own bondage, that we can free ourselves if we try. I have a feeling we won’t get off so easy. DeCanne’s chains bind forever.
>
We walk across the snowy walk, making our way to the stairs. Wind erupts and snow tumbles from canopies sheltering windows above. I imagine the Devil bending and brushing my face with crooked fingers, but it’s only dark shadows made by birds flying overhead, by the sun moving in and out of gray clouds. I step back and look up at the King of Demons. He’s silent, still a creature carved from stone, but I’m sure evil spirits reside in him. I’m sure old Mojo rubbed potions all over him and said incantations before he was placed above the door. I know everything and anything Mojo did was for a reason, all of them evil and vile.
Rico turns to me, “Ready?”
I nod.
I remove the yellow slicker from my purse, watch it fall to the sidewalk and then I drape the blood-soaked satchel over my shoulder.
“Lead the way.” My voice cracks.
Rico’s fingers touch the door, and as it creaks open, I think about Daniel. The voices of the dead stop whispering whatever it was they were whispering before our intrusion. I hope Daniel’s not among them. Have they rushed him off to a hospital where he’s now being cared for, or has a coroner already pronounced him dead and carted him away in a body bag?
The door opens easily, and those mammoth saints tower above us, eyes seeming to mock, lips seeming to move slowly as we walk past. Joan of Arc pulls her shoulders back and raises her sword, but it’s just candlelight creating an illusion. It’s got to be. I jump slightly when something-someone-touches my arm, but I tell myself it’s only my imagination. There’s something under a rack of burning candles, wrapped in a dirty rag, with brown liquid stains. It rolls slightly and part of the cloth moves. An eye peeks through the opening and I flinch.
“He’s in our heads,” Rico whispers. “I-I’m seeing stuff.”
“Me too.”
“Ignore it, girl, none of it’s real. If we believe it he’ll have us.”
