Dying Is My Business

by Nicholas Kaufmann

  “It doesn’t change anything,” I said. “You’re not in any shape to go running after her.”

  “What is she talking about?” Bethany asked me. “What did you see?”

  “Something happened when she was inside my mind,” I explained. “Somehow, I got inside hers too for a second, and I saw … something.” I stopped myself there. It didn’t feel right that it should come from me.

  “He saw that Thornton and I were engaged,” Gabrielle said, closing her eyes. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to say the words out loud. How much it hurt. But she braced herself, opened her eyes again, and said, “It happened a few days ago. He wanted to tell you all right away, but then the new job came up. Securing the box. Thornton only took the job so we’d have money for the wedding.” She closed her eyes again, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “It was my idea to wait until after the job was over to tell you, so we could celebrate properly. I thought we had time.”

  “Oh, Gabrielle,” Bethany said, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Isaac said.

  “You want Stryge’s head back. I want Thornton back,” Gabrielle said. “We have to go after them.”

  Isaac didn’t answer.

  “I won’t let her use Thornton like this,” she insisted. “I won’t let her desecrate his body. He deserves better than that. Isaac, we have to go after them!”

  Isaac looked down at the floor. I could see in his eyes that he was wrestling with something inside. A promise he’d made long ago.

  “She said to tell you she was wrong,” I said.

  Isaac looked up at me. “What?”

  “Ingrid,” I said. “She was still hurting from Morbius’s death when she told you to keep your head down and not get involved, but she regretted it. Right before she died, she asked me to tell you to keep fighting the good fight. To not let Morbius’s dream die with her. She said she was wrong. She wanted you to know that.”

  Isaac nodded and closed his eyes, as though a great weight had been taken off his shoulders. When he opened them again, he said, “I spent so much time worrying about drawing attention to myself that I asked others to risk their lives for me, and all the while I stayed hidden away here in Citadel. Thornton paid the price for that. No more. It ends today. Reve Azrael brought the fight to us. Now we’re going to bring it to her. Together.” He started pacing the floor, thinking out loud. “She’s crazy if she thinks she can just wake Stryge up and make him do her bidding. He’ll kill her the moment he opens his eyes.”

  “So why don’t we let him?” Philip asked, coming over from the couch. He’d taken off his black turtleneck and draped it over his shoulder like a towel. Remarkably, the wound had already closed and scabbed over, leaving only a thin white scar across his hairless, dirt-smeared chest. Apparently dirt helped vampires heal faster. Good to know. I filed it away with the hundred other ridiculous and impossible things I’d learned over the past twenty-four hours.

  “And then what?” Isaac asked. “Once Stryge is awake, there’s no way to stop him.”

  “Willem Van Lente did it four hundred years ago, right?” I pointed out. “We could do it again.”

  “How? No one knows how Van Lente brought Stryge down, and he didn’t leave any clues behind.”

  “Reve Azrael’s plan doesn’t make any sense,” Bethany said. “There’s no way to control an Ancient.”

  “Maybe she found a way,” I said. “Maybe there’s a spell no one knew about.”

  “It’s possible,” Isaac said. He sighed and brushed his hands through his cropped red hair. “Reve Azrael craves control. It’s why she surrounds herself with revenants. All that nonsense about the city being too loud, that’s just a symptom of her madness. It’s life she hates. Life is messy and loud, and she can’t control it the way she controls the dead. She wants to snuff it out.”

  From the start, Bethany had insisted that if the box fell into the wrong hands it could be used as a weapon. I couldn’t think of any worse hands for it to be in than Reve Azrael’s. She was planning the full-scale destruction of New York City. I couldn’t even fathom it. I had as strong a love-hate relationship with New York City as anyone else who lived here, but no matter how many times I cursed this city while sardined into an overcrowded subway train or stuck in endless Midtown traffic, actually trying to destroy it never crossed my mind. You’d have to be completely insane. The people who’d tried to destroy this city before—and even with my limited memories I knew about that; you couldn’t live in New York without knowing—only proved the point. Now Reve Azrael was proving it again. She was even more unhinged than I thought.

  “She makes revenants from the dead,” Bethany said. “The more people she kills, the larger her forces grow. If she wakes Stryge up and really can control him somehow, the death toll would be astronomical. She’ll have an army of the dead, with each new revenant another weapon in her arsenal. The slaughter would spread exponentially, until eventually there wouldn’t be anyone left alive in New York City but her and Melanthius. Reve Azrael and her servants in five boroughs of rubble.”

  “My guess is, once she gets a taste for destruction on that scale she won’t stop with just New York City,” Isaac said.

  “All the more reason to go after her,” Gabrielle insisted.

  “She could be anywhere. No one has seen her true form. No one knows anything about her, including where her lair is. We’ll never find her in time,” Isaac said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t stop her. We just have to beat her to the punch.”

  “I’m not following,” Bethany said.

  Isaac began pacing again, thinking out loud. “If she’s going to make Stryge whole again, she has to join the head to the body at the moment of the equinox. The exact moment. And that’s tomorrow at … Philip?”

  “Eleven twenty a.m.,” Philip answered.

  “Tomorrow morning, eleven twenty. She won’t miss that window. If we’re going to stop her, our best chance is to get to Stryge’s body before she does.”

  “Fine, so where’s the body?” Gabrielle asked.

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Isaac said. “It’s got to be somewhere in the city. Come on, Keene, think. After the battle, Willem Van Lente tried to destroy Stryge’s head, but he couldn’t, it kept putting itself back together again. So he hid it instead, and while he was doing that the Lenape Indians hid Stryge’s body. They knew what would happen if the two were brought together again, so to be safe neither party told the other where they were hidden. They didn’t tell anyone. To this day, there are no historical documents, no scrolls, not even any oral histories that give away the locations. Reve Azrael must have some clue where the body is, or she wouldn’t go through all this trouble to steal the head this close to the equinox.” He stopped pacing and took a deep breath. “For four hundred years, magicians, researchers, and scholars have tried to find Stryge’s body and failed. We have until eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “And how exactly are we going to pull that off?” Bethany asked.

  Isaac tented his fingers under his chin. “Over time I’ve amassed the most extensive library of arcane and secret knowledge in the city. If there are clues anywhere, it’s there. We’ll search every book, front to back. We’ll start with the major works, The Libri Arcanum, The Book of Eibon, then work our way down from there. It’s got to be there somewhere.”

  Gabrielle struggled to her feet, gritting her teeth through the pain and putting one hand on the bandage Bethany had affixed to her shoulder. A second, larger bandage covered the exit wound near her shoulder blade. “Then let’s get started. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

  “Hold on,” Isaac said. “For God’s sake, Gabrielle, you just got shot. You need to rest until you’re strong enough—”

  “Try to stop me and you’ll see how strong I am,” she said. “Don’t argue with me on this, Isaac. I can’t just sit on the sidelines while she’s got Thornton’s body. When she show
s up to put Stryge back together, I want to be there. I’ll pull that bitch out of his body with my bare hands if I have to.”

  “If you go after Reve Azrael half-cocked, you’re going to get yourself killed,” Isaac said. “We’ve already lost enough people today.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you dare lecture me on what we’ve lost. I know better than anyone.”

  While they continued arguing, I walked over to the monitors on the wall. They were still broadcasting the feed from the traffic cameras. Fire trucks had gathered outside the burning Shell gas station now, cordoning off the area and turning their hoses on the flames. I’d put the fallout shelter out of my mind during the fight, but I hadn’t forgotten. Now that things had quieted down, it demanded my attention again.

  “I’ll catch up with you guys later,” I said. “There’s something I need to do.”

  Isaac turned to me, his eyebrow raised in surprise. “We could really use your help, Trent.”

  “You know what you’re looking for in those books, but to me it’s all gibberish,” I said. I nodded toward the monitors. “I have to go back to Brooklyn. I have to see it for myself. I have to know.”

  “Know what? If Underwood’s dead?” Bethany asked. “No one could have survived that.”

  “What if he’s not dead?” Isaac asked. “What then?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that. I didn’t want to think about what I would do to Underwood if I ever saw him again.

  Bethany touched my arm, the unusual warmth of her hand coming through my sleeve. “Trent, you don’t have to do this. You can walk away from that life.”

  “No, I can’t,” I said. “Not until I’m sure.”

  She frowned. She didn’t like it, but she didn’t argue, either. Even Bethany knew when she couldn’t win.

  Isaac pulled a small cell phone out of a drawer in a table by the door. He handed it to me. “It’s got my cell number in the contacts. If you run into trouble, call. I’ll call you if we find anything. Otherwise, let’s regroup here in a few hours.”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  He shook my hand. “We may have gotten off on the wrong foot, Trent, but you’re one of us. You proved that today.”

  “I’m full of surprises,” I said.

  “So I’m learning,” he said. “Stay safe out there, and don’t stay away too long.”

  I said my goodbyes. Gabrielle said, “Don’t take too long. We can’t do this alone.”

  Philip said, “Go already. What do you want, a hug?”

  Bethany crossed her arms and wouldn’t look at me. “This is stupid,” she said.

  I left. Walking out the door was harder than I thought it would be. Part of me already knew I belonged with them and wanted to stay. Outside, the afternoon was wearing on toward evening and the storm clouds hadn’t budged. The sky was as dark as coal. The rain had grown chillier, and as it battered me I hugged myself, shivering as I walked away from Citadel. I had almost reached the paved path when I heard Bethany’s voice.

  “Trent, wait!”

  I turned around. She left Citadel’s porch and walked across the grass toward me. She looked even smaller soaked to the skin like that, her long black hair plastered to the sides of her face.

  “Look,” she said, “you’re stubborn and annoying, and you’ve been nothing but trouble since I laid eyes on you, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you go and get yourself killed.” She paused a moment, then said, “Okay, killed again. Someone needs to keep an eye on you. I’m coming with you.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be all right. I know how to take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time. Besides, I thought I was the one who kept saving your life.”

  “What, are you keeping score now? Put the headstrong macho crap aside for a second and just accept that I’m not letting you do this on your own.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” I said. “The Black Knight is still out there looking for me. I can handle him if he comes for me, I’ve done it before, but you…” I shook my head. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “You have to stop thinking of me as someone you need to protect. I can take care of myself, too.”

  “People keep dying because of me, Bethany,” I said. “Ten people I barely know died just so I could keep living. Ingrid is dead because of me, because Reve Azrael followed me to the safe house. She followed me here, too, and nearly killed Gabrielle. Now she’s got the box, and she’s got Thornton’s body, and it’s all because of me. I’m tired of getting people hurt. I’m tired of all the death.” She just looked at me, her bright blue eyes shifting slightly as she looked into mine. “You’ll be safer here with the others,” I said.

  “It’s not me I’m worried about,” she said. “Who’s going to protect you? You’ll be out there on your own.”

  I recognized the words, and smiled. It was the same thing I’d said to her when she’d tried to get rid of me after the warehouse. It already seemed like a lifetime ago. But I shook my head. “You can’t come with me, Bethany. The others need you.”

  “And you don’t?”

  I hung my head. That wasn’t what I’d meant. “This is something I have to do alone. It’s a part of my life I have to close the door on, once and for all. I’m no good to anyone until I do.”

  She looked at me like she wanted to say something but didn’t have the words. I knew the feeling. There were things I wanted to say to her, too, starting with thanking her for showing me there were good, decent people out there, not just men like Underwood. People worth going to the mat for. But just then my tongue felt too thick to move.

  Finally, she said, “Have I mentioned how annoying you are?”

  “I picked up on it,” I said.

  She stood up on her tiptoes, and kissed my cheek.

  “Try to come back in one piece,” she said.

  I wanted to say something witty, something charming and memorable, but all I could manage was, “Okay.”

  Then she went back inside, and I walked away, into the storm.

  Thirty-one

  I took the 2 train to Brooklyn. By the time I got to Empire Boulevard, the fire had been completely extinguished. All that was left of the Shell gas station was wet, charred wood and exposed metal beams poking out of the wreckage like the ribs of some enormous dead beast. I stood across the street and watched the firefighters pull what was left of the furniture out of the station and pile it all in the parking lot. There wasn’t much. I was angry at myself for it, but I couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret. This was the only home I’d ever known, and now it was gone. Gone, too, was the list of names I’d kept inside my mattress, and the old TV that had kept me company through countless sleepless nights. Even my copy of The Ragana’s Revenge was ash now. All of it, nothing but ash.

  Two ambulances were parked nearby, their lights flashing, their back doors closed and guarded by police officers.

  The sight of cops made me nervous. Old habit. I backed up deeper into the big crowd of locals who’d gathered on the sidewalk to gawk at the show. But the cops weren’t the ones I had to worry about. The Black Knight had come looking for me. He’d done this, and there was a good chance he was still nearby. There was also a good chance this was a trap, that he was waiting for me to come back and walk right into his clutches. Losing myself in the mass of umbrellas and rain parkas on the sidewalk might keep me hidden from the cops, but it wouldn’t hide me from him. It was dangerous to be here, stupid even. But I had to see it with my own eyes. I had to know for sure that Underwood and his crew were gone.

  I turned to the person next to me, a thin, West Indian man wearing a plastic poncho, and I put on my best innocent act. “What’s with the ambulances? I thought that old gas station was closed a long time ago.”

  He crossed himself and answered in a thick Jamaican accent, “They found four bodies inside, God rest their souls.”

  Four bodies. So it was true, then. Tomo, Big Joe, and Underwood were dead. The dark-
haired woman, too. The one who used to stare at me all the time, silent and watchful, like a cat focusing on its prey. It occurred to me then that I’d never even learned her name.

  “They found an old fallout shelter from the sixties under the station, with a bed and some furniture,” the man continued. “There must have been some homeless people in there.”

  “And you can bet they’re the ones who started the fire,” an old woman in a rain hat interjected, tsking loudly. “Probably doing drugs. I heard the police say they kept a faulty generator down there. One spark and the whole thing blew up.”

  Bullshit, I thought. I’d gassed up that generator myself dozens of times. Underwood always kept it in meticulous condition. He was too smart, too careful, to let an accident take him out. No, if the firefighters had traced the explosion to the generator, the Black Knight must have done something to it. Isaac was right, sneaking around and sabotaging machinery didn’t seem like the Black Knight’s style, but I’d seen the crows on the video feed myself. I knew what it meant.

  “I hear they found other things down there too, bad things,” a second man said. He was tall with dark, craggy skin and a curly beard.

  “What’re you talking about, Winston?” the first man scoffed, rolling his eyes. It was clear Winston was the local gossip, the busybody nobody quite liked. Every neighborhood had one. “What bad things?”

  “Drugs,” the woman said with unshakable certainty.

  “Guns,” Winston corrected her. “Enough for an army. Makes you think about what was going on down there. Who they were. Why they needed so many guns. Too many suspicious people in this neighborhood, you ask me.”

  That was my cue to leave. I slipped away, leaving Winston and the others sharing their theories about everything from street gangs to terrorist sleeper cells, but I didn’t get far before the back of my neck started tingling. Someone was watching me. I scanned the crowd and picked him out immediately.

  There are a lot of dead things in New York City, things you usually don’t see. Dead rats in the sewers. Dead roaches under floorboards. Dead squirrels in the park bushes. The dead are everywhere, and in New York you probably aren’t more than a few feet from a dead thing at any given moment. I just never expected that rule to hold true on a crowded sidewalk. Still, when you’re dealing with an entity with the power to raise and control the dead, you have to stay flexible.