Blood Day

by J. L. Murray

  “They’re not going to simply kill you if they catch you, Mike. You know that.”

  “I know,” he said, with a grim smile.

  He abruptly turned and opened the door and Viv did the same. Mike stood at the trunk, looking out across the road.

  “That’s odd,” he said, turning the key in the trunk. Viv looked down at the lumpy, body-sized package wrapped up in the trunk. The streetlight reflected off the garbage bags, making it shine.

  “What’s odd?” said Viv. “That I killed a horrible man and you’re helping me dispose of the body?”

  “No,” said Mike. “There was a van here. A Mover van. Someone must have taken it.”

  Viv paused. “Why was there a Mover van here?”

  Mike didn’t look at her, but bent over and lifted the body half out of the trunk.

  “Because there’s a couple of dead Movers down there,” he said. “And a mobster named Matthew. I didn’t kill them. Matthew killed the Movers and Joshua Flynn killed Matthew.”

  “And one more body won’t raise an eyebrow,” said Viv.

  “It’s not like they’re going to investigate,” said Mike.

  “You really need to get some safer hobbies, Mike.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “You’re one to talk.”

  “You think we’ll be alive come tomorrow?”

  Mike shook his head. “If we are, we should go for a drink.”

  “If I make it out of this alive,” said Viv, “I’m never drinking again.”

  “A cup of coffee then,” he said.

  “It’s a date,” said Viv.

  She lifted the dead man by his feet while Mike took his head and they hauled him into the basement. And there they left him, tossing the black plastic garbage bags into a nearby dumpster three blocks away. Viv marveled on the ride home how easy it was, to dispose of a dead man. And she thought about how, in the end, spitting on Tom’s corpse felt far too good for comfort.

  “You shouldn’t have had that last drink, Tom,” she murmured. And then she put him out of her head forever.

  It was that easy.

  Twenty-Two

  Sia sipped coffee by the open window. She felt the frigid wind blow in, making her face numb and her coffee cool. It helped to make her alert. She had always liked the cold, ever since she could remember.

  She hadn’t slept at all. Thoughts and memories of Joshua Flynn washed over her all night long. The dark eyes that haunted her dreams were real, he was real, and he wasn’t someone who she wanted to kill. Just the opposite. She was here for a reason, and now she remembered what it was.

  Ana, her sweet girl, as perfect as a song, was here. And she was going to find her and take her away.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Sia called, not turning from the window. Big, wet, black clouds were rolling sluggishly in from the distance. It would snow tonight, Sia could smell it in the air. A blizzard perhaps.

  “Ma’am?” said a high voice from behind her. “Madame Briar sent these for you. Where would you like them?”

  Sia glanced at the girl carrying a cream-colored garment and something that looked like a hat box. The girl made Sia think of Evelyn Hauser as a young woman. Eager to please those in charge, though this one had not yet found her steel backbone. At least that was how Sia had seen Evelyn Hauser in the beginning. Ever since Sia had played for her, the old woman had seemingly aged twenty years and walked around with a pained expression. Sia avoided her in the halls because the old nurse would just look at Sia with a simpering, pathetic expression, a quiver on her lip. Sia felt no sympathy. Evelyn had tortured her, made her feel like nothing. Before she remembered who she was, Evelyn had showed nothing but contempt for Sia.

  Sia motioned to the bed. “Just leave it,” she said. She turned back to the window and sipped her cold coffee.

  “You didn’t sleep last night,” said the girl. Sia turned to see the girl fussing with the still-made bed.

  “I don’t sleep at night,” said Sia.

  “You’re not sleeping now either,” said the girl, “and it’s daytime.”

  “I don’t sleep much at all any more,” said Sia.

  “I can bring you something to help you,” said the girl. “A sleeping pill to help you relax. It’s a big night tonight. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  “Big for whom?” said Sia, raising a critical eyebrow. The girl quailed under her cold eyes. It didn’t please Sia to frighten the girl, but she didn’t plan to go to any Revenant party.

  “Mathilde said to give you a message,” the girl said nervously.

  “I’m listening,” said Sia, turning back to the window. She watched the trees that now filled up the courtyard. A forest of twisted trunks and black flowers, forever green, even in the snow. She looked for movement, but she saw none. Good. Joshua must let her do this. She was strong enough now. She had to do this by herself. She would not be the weak woman with the powerful lover. She wanted to be powerful too. She would take her daughter and bring everyone to their knees. Joshua and Ana and Sia.

  “She said to tell you that the party wasn’t optional. That if you don’t attend the party, then your deal is off. She said you would know what she meant.”

  Sia set her cup down with a clink. She felt the girl jump behind her.

  “You can go now,” said Sia.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said. She opened the door.

  “Wait,” said Sia, turning. “Are you on the nursing staff?”

  “Of course,” she said. Sia looked at the name tag on her chest. C. Avery.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Christine,” said the girl, blushing a bit in her cheeks and the tips of her ears. Her hair was red and pulled back in a tight ponytail.

  “Christine,” said Sia. The name felt so plain on her lips. “You should stay away from this place, Christine. It’s not going to be very safe here.”

  “Because of the Revs?” she said with wide eyes. “Don’t be silly. They’re our protectors now.”

  “As you wish,” said Sia. “But it won’t be said that I didn’t try. I’m not cruel.”

  Christine left, closing the door silently. Sia went back to the window and closed it. She looked up at the storm clouds in the distance. It may as well have been evening, rather than mid-morning. Sia put her forehead to the cold glass.

  “I’m not cruel,” she said again. “I am not a monster.” The silent room didn’t argue with her as she closed her eyes against the glass and tried to cry. The tears wouldn’t come and she felt colder than the frozen windowpane.

  Sia pulled herself together and washed her face. She rang the bell and asked the bearded attendant to bring her tea, piping hot. Then she held up the cream silk dress Christine had brought. It was beautiful. Simple and elegant, it had no frills or beads or sequins. Just a soft, gathered neckline, and a hem that would come just above the toes of her shoes, which were set neatly beside the dress. Simple cream satin pumps to match the color of the dress perfectly. Sia would have gladly worn such an ensemble for one of her concerts, back when such things were possible. She opened the large hat box, and instantly dropped it in surprise. Recovering, she reached into the box and brought out the odd object. A mask, covered in silk, with pure white feathers adorning the holes where her eyes would go. It looked like the mask of a plague doctor, with a long, pointed nose like a beak, only dressed up like royalty.

  Sia remembered Mathilde’s words then: It is to be a masquerade. Sia had forgotten.

  “A masquerade,” Sia said to herself, holding up the mask. The princess in a plague mask. She set it back in the box, gently so as not to damage the feathers, then sat on the bed.

  She could call for Joshua. He was always nearby. She could sense him now, ever in the shadows, should she need him. She could call him and he would come and help her, take them away from all this, kill everyone who had harmed her here, anyone who even crossed her path. He would kill them all for her.

  What sort of a wo
man would that make her? She’d spent her whole life struggling to be known by her own merit. She’d never used her looks or her body to get ahead. She’d made it clear to everyone she ever met that she was not just her face, not just her body. She had a magnificent gift and she knew it, spending every waking moment from childhood honing her talents. Until she was better than everyone else. Until she was the best. The moment she began to play, it was evident that she was not to be dismissed, she was cold fire within a pleasing package. The only person she could never impress was her own mother.

  Sia remembered now. She’d gone to Philadelphia on the night train, Joshua at her side. He had come to her every night since the night she played for him. For a time, she would awaken confused, her fingers bloody from playing, unaware of the events of the night before. But in time, she kept the memories, she recalled the passionate nights of making the most beautiful music she had ever made, with Joshua watching her quietly, his dark eyes piercing into her. And then, the passionate nights were not all about music, but the two of them. No beginning and no ending to them, Joshua much warmer than she’d fantasized he would be, his mouth much hotter and sweeter that she thought was possible in a man.

  But Joshua was no man. He was so much more. Sia shivered with pleasure to think of him. She could call him and he would come. No matter where he was, he would always come. Sia closed her eyes and willed the inclination away. She would do this alone. If only to prove to herself that she could.

  When they set out for Philadelphia, Joshua whispered into Sia’s ear for the entire midnight train ride. He whispered who he was, and who she could be, if that was what she desired. Even after they arrived, as they looked for a taxi, Sia could still feel his breath on her neck. That was when the lights went out. Even the stars seemed to go dark. And the screaming began.

  Joshua led Sia through the city, pulling her through dark alleys, his dark eyes always watchful, always sharp. As they passed a group of people cowering outside a bar, Sia saw Joshua fighting the urge to stop. His face changed only for a moment, a flash of the beast within, and they were on their way.

  Sia’s mother didn’t come to the door when she rang the bell and she felt her heart stop in her chest when Joshua pushed the door open with a finger. It was ajar. Sia felt the splintered wood where someone had forced the door open. She looked at Joshua, who was in turn watching her, his eyes asking what she wanted to do.

  “I don’t know if I can see,” said Sia, her voice like a breath. Joshua reached out and stroked her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

  “You can,” he said softly. “You’re strong. It’s important to see.” He nodded as if agreeing with himself. “It’s important to know.”

  “To know what?” said Sia.

  “To know who is to blame. To know who to kill.”

  “I’m no killer, Joshua,” she said, but even the hardness in her voice gave her away. She had killed. And she hadn’t regretted it. Looking around at the city, Sia knew she would kill again. Perhaps many times. It was not as troubling as she knew it should be, the idea of killing. But it seemed natural for her. The chill in her chest wasn’t from grief, but anger. She wasn’t afraid, even though she should have been cowering like the others. She peered at Joshua in the dark and she knew she would one day have his strength. She would one day have his hunger. But first she had to see.

  Sia walked into the house. When Joshua moved to follow she shook her head. Alone. This is how it had to be. She needed to be strong, she needed to see on her own. Joshua stepped back to wait motionless on the porch and Sia stepped into the dark house.

  There were familiar smells here, smells from childhood she associated with home: cinnamon, her mother’s perfume, a sharp piney smell from the cleaner her mother used daily on the floors. But there were other smells mingling with the good; earthy, dark smells. The smell of graves. The coppery, meaty smell of blood.

  Sia went by feel through the entryway, across the carpeted living room, into the kitchen. She slipped on something slick on the tiles. Sia grabbed onto the counter to keep her balance, her hand immediately going to a drawer nearby. She pulled out the matches and lit a scented candle that she knew would be on top of the refrigerator. By the smell of too-sweet vanilla Sia lowered the candle to the floor. She saw the heap of what at first looked like rumpled clothing. But the dark puddle around it gave it away. Sia set the candle next to her mother’s face and stared at her unseeing eyes. There was a chunk of flesh missing where it had been ripped out of her neck.

  Sia sat down on the floor and tried to feel something. The absence of feeling was more alarming to her than finding her mother dead on the floor. She looked impossibly old lying there, impossibly small and fat at the same time. This woman who had kept an iron fist over her life for so long, this woman who had kept Ana like a sword hanging over Sia’s head, who had never been satisfied with anything Sia had ever done, was incomprehensibly unimportant now. In the end, she was nothing but food for monsters.

  Sia got up onto her knees, hovering over her mother’s face. She was transfixed on how powerless this woman had been in the end. She could feel the blood, growing cold and soaking into her clothes where she knelt. Sia ignored it. Without realizing she was doing it, she reached out two fingers and dipped them into the wound on her mother’s neck. She stared at the fingers, dripping blood that was surprisingly warm. They’d only been minutes late.Ten minutes earlier, Sia could have killed the old woman herself.

  Sia blew out the candle and breathed in the smoke as she put the fingers in her mouth, swallowing her mother’s blood like the finest wine.

  She was standing before she saw her mother’s fist clenched around something shining in the moonlight. She pulled it away and looked at it in the watery light. A tiny bracelet. A trinket she’d given to her daughter. It was engraved and she read the words over and over, remembering having it made, the sweet smile on the girl’s mouth as Sia had draped it over her small wrist and fastened it.

  Strength, dear Ana. Always strength.

  Sia clutched the bracelet in her hand, the metal cutting into her skin. She could feel the cold blood dripping down her shins where she’d knelt. Ana was not in the house, she knew. But she searched anyway. Nothing was touched, but for her mother.

  The monsters had taken her daughter.

  Sia left the house reeking of blood. And she didn’t protest when Joshua disappeared into a seedy bodega, coming back more calm and at ease than Sia had seen him in days. He wiped his mouth.

  “They have a secret sex club in the back. Disgusting men.”

  Sia shrugged without a hint of concern.

  “You do what you must to survive.”

  “And what do you need?” said Joshua, his breath smelling like the taste still lingering in Sia’s mouth. The taste of blood. She rose up to her tiptoes to kiss his lips, to taste what he tasted.

  “Strength,” said Sia. “Always strength.”

  Sia looked down at the costume Mathilde had sent to her. She pushed the dress away and crossed the room for her boots and pulled them on. Not bothering with a coat, she strode out of the room, heels clicking as she went down the hall. Nurses and orderlies watched her as she went, eyes straight ahead. She had no interest in talking with any of them. She found the door to the courtyard and was slightly surprised to find it unlocked. She had gone outside with Mathilde, but the woman had always used the key hanging round her neck to open it.

  Sia felt the cold wind blow her hair as she stepped outside. Her teeth chattered for only a moment, but she was aware of a chill soaking into her boots, numbing her toes. Ignoring it, she walked across the courtyard, past benches and shrubbery, and into the trees.

  Twenty-Three

  Mike crouched outside the hospital, waiting.

  The last time, the only security was a single guard in a booth at the front entrance road. He watched until he was sure the guard was asleep and walked past in the darkness, like he belonged there. But now there were three guards on foot patrolling
the road. Mike looked up at the ornate front of the old mental institution. It brought to mind old black and white movies and gaslights and gothic stories about mad doctors abusing patients and houses that looked like castles. He shivered and put his hands in his pants pockets. The wind was blowing fiercely and even his borrowed coat was no match for it. Tiny bits of snowy ice hit his face like shards of glass.

  Finally, when he was half frozen, he spotted Viv’s car coming up the road. She seemed to search for him as she passed, but he was hidden well behind the plowed pile of snow from the parking lot. Mike watched her as she stopped the car in front of the guards and got out, her hands flailing and her voice rising as she shouted at them. The guards seemed to quail under her ire and she pointed them inside the hall, and, exchanging glances with each other behind Viv’s back, they followed her inside.

  Mike walked right into the driveway, then the sizable parking lot only a quarter full of cars, and into a transparent shed littered with cigarette butts. There was a magazine with Ambrose Conrad on the cover lying on one of the benches lining the smoking shed, and the walls dripped with sticky brown nicotine. Mike held his breath at the acrid, stifling smell of old cigarette smoke. Smoothing the scrubs Viv had given him, and pulling out the fake badge they had made, Mike made his way to the door marked Employees Only. As Viv had told him, the latch was covered with duct tape by a nursing staff that had tired of being interrogated every time they forgot their keys. He opened the door, closing his eyes at the warm air that seemed to greet him.

  He stepped inside, only barely registering the Mover van he passed, idling on the curb.

  He had to find the girl. Mike thought of Deacon’s screams from a lifetime ago in an abandoned puppet theater and bile rose up in his throat. What would Flynn do if he failed?

  “I must be crazy,” Mike muttered as the door to the Rev hospital closed quietly behind him. The smell of iodine was in the air and he had to take a deep breath to calm himself. After this, Joshua Flynn assured him, he would never have to worry about the Revenants ever again.