“What’s it saying?” he asks. He kneels down in front of me. “Don’t listen to it.”
“I think I know better than to listen to a couple of damn Doors to Hell,” I say before I think better of it.
“But you don’t know better than to touch one?” Ryan puts a hand on my knee. “Allie, don’t listen to it.”
“I’m not.”
“What’s it saying?” That question seems counterintuitive to his order not to listen to the Door, but whatever.
“Nothing,” I lie. “Just my name.”
Ryan looks at me for a long moment, then he stands and goes back to the pile of bodies around the Door. With his boot he starts nudging them, separating them, turning them over just enough to see their faces.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He looks up. “Checking their wounds. I need to make sure we won’t have to deal with a werewolf in the next ten minutes. And . . . I want to know what kinds of demons come out of this Door.” He rolls over a body, a woman, and I can see tiny punctures all over her. “Looks like this one’s mostly vampires, with some mandurugos mixed in.” Before I can ask, he says, “Filipino. Like our vampires, except their victims only have the one mark on their throats—mandurugo wings don’t have separate suckers.”
How does he even know this stuff? Where do you go to learn it? I’ve asked before, and he never tells me. I think he is secretly going to Kinko’s and printing out Wikipedia pages to crib off of. That is my theory and I’m sticking to it.
“It’s strange, though,” Ryan continues, almost to himself. “Usually you get mandurugos with other Aswang—the Filipino demons.”
“Maybe they came out of the other Door.”
He looks at me sharply. “Other Door?”
The tiny voice says, Allie! “Never mind,” I say quickly. “Is it bad that it’s not what you were expecting?”
Ryan looks hard at me, and then back at the bodies on the floor. He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s . . . different. I don’t like different.” He pulls off his hat and runs his hand through his hair.
The Door, very quietly, laughs at me.
We head back upstairs to the food court. I wasn’t kidding about the fries. I get a giant order of them after Ryan steals my cell phone. Grease and salt and the smell of ketchup clean out the smell of rotting bodies and the horrid Bath & Body Works perfumes. When I get back to the table, Ryan is now on my phone. I put a Coke in front of him—always regular, never Diet. Me, I like the diet stuff. I like the aftertaste, and the way there can never be any other taste in my throat.
I ignore his conversation and eavesdrop on the teenage girls sitting next to us. They’re all wearing their jeans a size too tight, with pink belts and tiny T-shirts that wouldn’t even fit on one of my arms.
“I don’t even know what he thought he was doing,” says the one with blonde hair. “He was, like, all totally over me, and I was like, hello, get your hands out of my pants.”
“Oh my god,” says the brunette. “Like, what? In your pants? That is so gross!”
Oh, they will learn.
I turn my attention back to Ryan when he snaps his phone closed. “That was Narnia. Another Door just opened, somewhere in Bay Ridge. A hunter reported it. She thinks it’s in an Italian restaurant.”
“That’s two that have surprised her. Is that weird? Isn’t she, like, supposed to know? Isn’t that her job as the psychic witch or whatever?” I munch on a french fry and offer the container to him. He waves me off. I don’t know how he’s not starving to death already; it’s way past lunchtime.
“It is weird, but she’ll figure it out in a little while. She has to do spells.”
“And then she has to hop on her broom and cackle,” I say sagely. Ryan looks annoyed. I point my half-eaten fry at him. “Hey, this whole time you never said anything about psychic witches. Bad witches, yes. Kids pretending to be witches? Yes. Kids who watch movies about witches and try to make up spells? Yes. But real witches who do real witchy things? No.”
He sighs and rolls his eyes. I eat more fries, and say, “Okay, what do we do now?”
“About the Door? We can’t do anything. Narnia will find a hunter and—”
“Why does Narnia get to decide?”
Ryan shrugs. “We track the demons; she keeps track of us. And replaces us when we die, of course.” He says this like I’m supposed to know it.
“I don’t like to think about that,” I reply, mouth full of salty greasy goodness.
“Well, I don’t like to think about it either, but it happens all the time. And someone’s got to know where we are, how we got there, and whether to be worried if no one’s seen us for a month.”
“So, in conclusion, Narnia does assign hunters to Doors.” I hum a little. “That’s what I thought.”
“Are you satisfied with yourself that you guessed right?” He grins at me a little, the best kind of grin where he just lifts one corner of his mouth. That’s the grin he uses when he’s laughing with me instead of at me.
“Look, you’ve been doing this a lot longer than me. I say that I get points for anything I get right these days.” I grin back. Then I have the best idea ever. “So if there are hunters all over New York City, let’s get them all together. Maybe one of them has an idea about what’s going on.”
“Get them together how?” Ryan stares at my fries and then takes one and chews it thoughtfully. “It’s not like we have a bat signal or anything, Allie.”
“There’s not one single way to get hunters all in the same place at the same time?”
“I’ve never seen it happen—not even once. Hunters don’t trust each other, you know that. The only way I know how to contact the local crew is through the paper. An ad in The Village Voice.”
“Is that why you read it every week?” I knew it couldn’t be for the Savage Love sex column.
“Yeah, but I’ve never seen the ad. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve never seen the ad even once. I don’t think—not since that thing with the Scientologist and the loa. Active hunters just don’t get together.” He takes another fry and swoops it through the ketchup.
“Maybe it’s time for that to change.” I swoop my own fry through the ketchup, use it to draw a little heart. “Maybe there’s a spell to make a bat signal.”
“I don’t want you doing any spells,” he says severely.
“Maybe you could do the spell. Or Narnia. Maybe we can make the letters of whatever the hunters are looking at spell out the address of the diner,” I suggest.
“That’s the stupidest—well, it’s not the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s close. But maybe Narnia knows a way. Or knows someone who knows a way.” Ryan takes a long sip of his Coke. “Smoke signals or something.”
I snort. “Smoke signals? Seriously? And you think my idea was stupid? Jerk.”
He lifts one side of his mouth and grins at me again.
6
We split up: Ryan says he’s going to hunt, but I don’t know what he’s going to hunt. Maybe he’s going to track down Narnia again and divest her of more information. She was so very helpful the first time. I have made him promise that this is not ditching, and he has assured me that it is instead a two-pronged attack. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me.
I head back to the diner. Time to get on the bus again. When I first started working at the diner, I drove one of Amanda’s cars out from her place on Long Island. Then I saved up, found myself a cheap little apartment in a crappy neighborhood off the train. I never took the bus until I met Ryan. For some reason he really likes it. Maybe because he can watch the world go by without ever having to get involved. I imagine demon hunting is enough involvement in the world for him.
I don’t live in the crappy neighborhood anymore. I live above the diner now. When Sally left, she said I could stay in her place, and I took her up on it. I can keep an eye on things up here, and make sure Ryan actually gets to shower with hot water, and that there’s
a decent mattress he can use at least sometimes if the Door is quiet and his cot gets too lumpy. I can do my bit.
I let myself in through the back and go up to my little apartment. It’s stiflingly hot, even though the day is nice and breezy. I pour a line of salt in front of the window and strap the salt in place with a length of mailing tape—which means the salt’ll only work for about twenty-four hours, but it’s worth it for the breeze—and I open the window wide. The salt won’t keep out everything, particularly in the neutered form, but it keeps out the weak, generic demons—any kind of demon–human hybrid.
I strip off my shirt—there’s a little blood on it from the vamp earlier, plus it’s sweaty, plus it smells like bus. I trade it for a black tank top, and pull my hair back into a pink bandanna, then head downstairs.
The place is empty of customers. It feels like I’ve been gone forever.
I want to get down on my hands and knees and kiss the ugly black-and-white tile floor. I think the waitstaff would think that’s weird, though. They’re sitting in Ryan’s booth, playing with mozzarella sticks and looking bored. The place is weirdly empty; not even my Homeless Guy hunter is at the counter. I ask how things are going, and when all I get is a shrug I steal one of their mozzarella sticks, tell them to all go home, and head into the kitchen. I use the stick to poke the blonde beside the chopping block. She shrieks.
When she finishes punching me in the arm and eating the stolen cheese, she says, “Weird shit’s been happening today, Allie.” Her name is Dawn; she’s my day cook. She’s got wild streaks of color through her hair, and an incredible attitude.
She started out in the front, dealing with the customers, because I thought her attitude was entertaining. The customers did not. She’s better in the back, anyway. She can cook anything; sometimes I think it’s too bad that the Sally’s menu doesn’t extend to the experimental. Sometimes when it’s slow Dawn will make crazy things—once she made cappuccino with mushrooms instead of coffee. Okay, it was disgusting, and sometimes I still have nightmares about it. But one day I am sure that I’m going to lose her to some gourmet restaurant and she’ll be the next Bobby Flay.
She was reading what looks like one of Ryan’s books about evil. It could be a novel, it could be a history book; I have a hard time telling them apart when it comes to Ryan’s reading habits.
“Have you read this?” she asks, holding it up. There’s silver on the cover, so I’m guessing it’s a novel. Not too many history books are decorated.
I shake my head. “Has it been dead out there all day?”
“This is wild,” she tells me. “There’s a fairy who looks like David Bowie.”
“Is that social commentary?” I reply. I would wink, but when I wink I look like I have an eye twitch, so instead I just smirk. Which makes me look like a bitchy homophobe, I am sure.
But Dawn takes me seriously. “I don’t know,” she says contemplatively.
“No, really,” I say, and lean a hip against the counter. “The grill looks practically clean.”
“That’s because there haven’t been any orders. Nothing all day.” She puts the book down on the chopping block, and I wince for its binding. And for my diner.
“Nothing all day? What the hell? Well, in that case . . .” I sigh. “Just go home, Dawn. I’ll close up myself.”
“It’s not even closing time yet,” she protests. “What if someone comes in?”
“I’ll handle it myself. Really, just go.” I wave a tired hand. “I’ll pay you for the full day.”
“If you’re sure . . .” She sounds dubious but she hops off the stool and grabs the book. “I’m going to borrow this.”
“I’ll let Ryan know.” I rub my eyes with my hands.
“Is that—is that a hickey?” Dawn comes closer and pokes at the vampire bite on my neck. “Oh my god, Allie. You and Ryan? Finally?”
“I wish,” I reply fervently. “It’s just a bug bite.”
“It’s a bug bite that looks like a hickey.” She sticks her face closer to my neck and I pull away.
“Seriously, Dawn. It’s not a hickey. Ryan would never.”
“I wish he would already. It’s been years, you guys dancing around each other. Like you’re in orbit or something. It is way past time for your orbits to start decaying.” Dawn tucks the book under her arm and pulls off her apron.
“When that happens, don’t things explode or something?” I was never very good at science.
“That’s the point, baby. Explode.” She laughs lasciviously, and winks as she picks up her bike helmet from the worker shelf by the sinks. She does not look like she’s twitching. Her wink is totally smooth. She waves as she heads out of the kitchen.
Exploding. I’d like to explode with Ryan. Dawn is right—we’ve been dancing around each other for years. Six years. But he turned me down both times. The first time I was drunk, and, okay, I can understand that. We were both covered in goo and had only just met. The circumstances weren’t good.
I pick up a knife and start chopping carrots and onions for beef stew for the hunters. As I dump them in the pot, I think about the other time. I don’t think about it very often; who likes to torture themselves with memories of horrible rejection?
We were both down in the basement; he was guarding the Door, and I was doing inventory for Sally. We were so silent; I was just listening to him breathe. Every breath he took turned me on more and more, so I kept my eyes on the stupid cans of black beans and tomatoes.
Then he said my name: “Allie—” and I turned around, and he was standing up, and seemed so . . . so . . . so into me. So ready for me. And I took the few steps over to him, and slid my arms around his stomach.
“God, Ryan,” I said, and lifted my head.
And he kissed me. Oh, did he kiss me. It was a moment like no other I’d ever had. Like a movie, like a novel. My whole body felt like it was burning. His hands were hot on my skin. He slid them under my tank top, had one hand pressed to my lower back and the other hand on my spine. His fingers dipped under my jeans, and he pressed my back so I was arched against him.
Then I moaned, and he jumped away like I was the flame and he was the moth, instead of the other way around. We looked at each other for a moment—a long moment, a never-ending moment.
“No,” he said, and he looked like I’d cut him. “No.” And then he turned away and strode across the room, kicking over his chair as he went. He pounded up the stairs, and I heard him jump over the salt. I thought I could hear him slam the back door as he left.
I just stood there, fingers pressed to my lips.
That was year one, and that was the night I almost died for the first time. A semyazza came out of the Door not five minutes later, and thank god Ryan had only gone upstairs, hadn’t left at all. He was in the kitchen. He came running when I screamed. He saved me. He scarred me.
And he never kissed me again.
“Allie.” I turn around. I was expecting Ryan—not Dawn again. “Allie,” she says, “I’m really sorry, but—could you look outside? Seriously.”
“Seriously, Dawn, go home.” I am busy in here, doing prep work with my good knife. The knife because I’m feeling the need right now for some comfort weaponry (and can you tell I spend all my time with a hunter? Did I really just think “comfort weaponry”? I cannot even believe it)—and I’m doing prep just in case someone shows up. Which I am pretty sure that no one is going to, but just in case Ryan and Narnia figure out how to get the hunters here, I am going to be ready with food. Ryan packs it away, and so do the older hunters who come visiting. I mean, I guess I could just put up a big sign saying “Meeting moved, go to IHOP” on the front door, but that seems uncharitable. You save humanity, you get a decent meal. This seems fair to me.
If Doors show up in populated locations with a lot of bustle and confusion, I wonder if there is a Door in the IHOP that Stan and Amanda and I used to go to out on Long Island. Sometimes we liked to go slumming at three in the morning. Before the smoking ba
n in New York, we could stay awake all night chain smoking and drinking vodka out of water bottles. We never ate anything, of course. Sometimes we’d split a plate of french fries. Mostly it was vodka, sometimes we’d mix it with our Diet Cokes.
We were so hideous. I was hideous.
What’s strange is that I hardly remember who I was back then. I remember the highlights—fighting at parties, doing drugs, drinking too much. I have no idea how I’m not dead from drunk driving, really. I’m like the poster child for the spoiled rich kid—or I used to be. Stan and Amanda are still the same people they were when we were in high school, but I’m completely different.
Or I like to think that I am.
But it’s like . . . it’s like I really became alive when the Door opened and I met Ryan. It’s like that’s when my life really started. All my memories from the last few years are sharp and true—the happiness is brighter, the pain hurts more, and I am pretty sure I remember every single time Ryan smiled.
I can’t remember what my mother looks like, but I can remember every single time Ryan has smiled at me.
“Allie.” Dawn sounds worried. “You’re going to think I’m a huge baby, but I kind of don’t like the look of the street outside. So it would be really good if you could look, and tell me I’m nuts, okay?”
I bite my lip. Dawn’s never been nervous about biking through the city. She’s a New Yorker to the bone. So hearing this? I am concerned. I’ve seen a lot of demon activity today, and now I’m wondering if maybe I brought it home with me.
I put down my knife but, on second thought, pick it back up again. It’s high-carbon steel—that’s an iron alloy, and good enough to kill or seriously maim all kinds of things. I wave Dawn behind me and then slink out toward the window booths. I flick open the blinds, and take a look.
At first, I don’t see anything. I mean, there’s traffic, but no creatures of the night hanging around, you know? It looks normal.
Except. There’s a bright green leaf on the sidewalk. I think it’s oak.
Salt and Silver Page 6
