Intermusings

by David Niall Wilson

  And he came for the third time that day.

  With his third partner.

  They lay there for several tense moments, quivering against one another. His hand was still wrapped around the handle of the Walther PPK. Her jaws were still clamped around his throat. Then she opened her mouth, rasped her tongue across the marks she’d left on his throat, and leaped away. She was gone so fast, across the room and into the bloody bathroom that he could not have shot her if he’d wanted to. The door slammed behind her and he was left, spread-eagled on the bed, uncertain whether he should follow or run like hell. A second later, she began crying out in pain from the bathroom, and he ran to the door to demand what was wrong. Screams and scuffling were all the answer he got. He tried the door. It was locked.

  "Katherine, open up!"

  Another scream.

  He threw his shoulder against the door and it shattered inward. She lay against the tub, neither Katherine nor Kat, but something in between. He stood there in the splintered doorway and watched her change back. Watching, he found himself mumbling prayers from a mostly forgotten childhood, to a God he’d long ago quit believing existed, debating all the while whether he shouldn’t run back into the bedroom for the gun. This was the moment of weakness she had mentioned. This was the moment he had sought for the last year. This was the one moment when he could exact revenge for his dead partner, Tony Saucier.

  When the moment had finally passed, he knelt on the bloody bathroom tiles and gathered her into his arms.

  There was a time, years ago, when I stood on a bridge over a river in South Mississippi and contemplated my own demise. The blood of those I could remember having slain was a weight I could no longer bear. And I knew, beyond everything I had forgotten about who and what I was, that the number of victims I could remember was but a tiny percentage of the total lives I’d taken. I decided then and there to let the river have me. To throw myself into the roiling, eager turmoil building at that exact spot where I would hit.

  What good was life if I had to live it at the expense of these mortals, if the urge to kill overwhelmed me on a regular basis? I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t even map it other than to say that it might be tied to the moon or it might be tied to a body cycle, the way most women have their periods, or it might just come around like an appetite. I could kill. I could suffer. Or I could surrender to the only power I knew ancient and strong enough to destroy me.

  A serial killer interrupted my suicide. He became my next victim. In some strange, dark fashion, his blood was sweeter than any I’d known. It was as if all the lives he had taken, all the blood that he had let, had been stored there within him, waiting for my hunger. It was like killing over and over, only in an incredibly satisfying, euphoric single episode.

  In a way, his death became my rebirth. I left that riverbank vowing that there’d be no more regrets. I left with the belief that, though there might occasionally be innocents like Tony Saucier, for the most part I could confine my activities to those who deserved to die. I left thinking I could do mankind something of a service, while at the same time ensuring my own survival. I told myself the few lambs I slaughtered as I picked the wolves from their midst were a small price to pay, that the greater scales of life and death would balance with the number of victims who never became victims.

  I told myself that it was okay to live that way. To never get close to anyone. To never care. To never want. To never love.

  I never anticipated Martin Zolotow.

  In the cab ride back to his own hotel that afternoon, Zolotow tried to sort out the confusion in his mind. He knew that the woman he had made love to was not entirely human. He could still feel the marks on his throat where she had held him at death’s door. He wanted to think that it had been a Mexican standoff of sorts, him with his hand on the gun under the pillow, but he knew he was only kidding himself. She had held his life in her hands and he’d been powerless, at that moment, to stop her. He knew from experience that the .380 from the Walther would have hardly slowed her down. The moment when he’d had a chance to kill her, he’d let slip by, choosing instead to comfort and hold her through her painful return to human form. Why one change was so instantaneous and painless, while the other was so drawn out and excruciating, he couldn’t say, nor had he the courage to ask, but he suspected it had to do with which of them, Katherine or Kat, was being asked to relinquish control.

  He tried to visualize her as something horrible. As the beast that had torn Tony to shreds. As the monster that he’d tracked across the country for the last year. But the image that hung in his memory, the image that dogged every mental step he made, was of her sleeping there when he left, not unlike Janice just the day before, the covers slipping off her supple form, the sunlight painting her in shadow and slumber. He had paused there at the door just before leaving the room to plant the image in his mind. Please don’t let this fade, he thought.

  It was then that he’d noticed her wound, puckered pink and angry there beneath his makeshift stitches. Scar tissue. Fresh and irritated. But healed.

  He was trying to decide how to fit that miracle in with everything else as he rode the elevator up to his room at the Emily Morgan. As a result, he didn’t realize there were others in the room until the door had closed behind him and Lieutenant Sieber put the muzzle of a gun against the back of his neck. Garza came out of the bathroom with his gun likewise drawn.

  "You’re under arrest," Garza started in. "You have the right —"

  "I have the right to see you and Bennet fry for killing that innocent girl!" Zolotow interjected. "Sieber, your detectives are dirty!"

  Sieber shoved him against the wall. "Hands up on the wall, Zolotow. You know the drill."

  "You’re not listening to me, Sieber. I said that Bennet and —"

  There was a fresh bandage stretching from Sieber’s elbow to his wrist. Zolotow suddenly realized he’d only ever seen the man behind a desk. And the third silhouette had certainly not resembled the stocky Mexican. There was an almost audible click as the pieces fell together like a crazed jigsaw puzzle in his mind.

  "Garza, listen to me, man. Sieber and Bennet —"

  "Shut up," Sieber ordered, emphasizing the point with a sharp jab to the back of the neck with his pistol. "Garza, read him his rights."

  "Garza, just answer me this," Zolotow gasped. "What did Sieber tell you happened to his arm?"

  Garza shrugged. "Some kind of accident working in his yard. What’s that got to do with —"

  "Does Sieber limp? Does he favor his left leg?"

  "Who gives a fuck," Sieber muttered. He suddenly turned and shot Garza. The sound in the small hotel room was deafening. Zolotow flinched, certain that he was the one who had been shot. As Garza went down, Sieber brought the gun back around to cover Zolotow. The moment when Zolotow might have jumped him had passed.

  "You want to be an asshole," Sieber said, aiming the gun at a point just above the bridge of Zolotow’s nose, "we can play it that way, Zolo. You might want to check out what gun I just used though."

  It was Zolotow’s missing Beretta.

  "Pity about Garza. You are truly a fucking psycho, Zolo. I know Bennet’ll be all broke up. He really loved that beaner."

  "Somehow I doubt it," Garza suddenly said from the floor.

  Sieber spun and got off another shot, but all he took out was the ashtray on the end table behind where Garza lay. Garza’s shot took out Sieber’s throat. Sieber went down gurgling and spewing blood. While Zolotow went to check on Garza, Sieber thrashed about and made a sound like a wet balloon losing air.

  Zolotow pried Garza’s hand away from the wound. He’d taken the shot high in the left shoulder. It had missed the bone and, like Katherine’s gunshot wound, had gone straight through.

  "Chingado, I kept telling the Lieutenant to get out from behind that fucking desk and get in some target practice."

  Sieber croaked something that sounded like "cocksucker."

  "You should probably apply so
me pressure to his neck or something," Garza added.

  "Yeah, something like that," Zolotow acknowledged, but he made no move to cross to the thrashing Lieutenant.

  "Him and Bennet used to call me things like wetback and greaser anytime they thought I wasn’t listening." Sieber spasmed one last time and then went still. Garza gave him a bloody finger. "Hell, maybe the pendejos knew I was listening all along." Zolotow staggered to the small table by the bed and picked up the phone, cursing under his breath. His head was pounding like an entire drum and bugle corps was marching through it, he could barely focus his eyes from lack of sleep, and now he had a dead cop in his room.

  He banged out nine-one-one and got an ambulance on its way, then turned to Garza, who had managed to pull himself to a sitting position against the foot of the bed. Quickly, Zolotow told him the events of the previous evening at the strip joint and the warehouse.

  "Bennet said he had evidence connecting you to the Voodoo Killer," Garza offered.

  "What kind of evidence?"

  Garza shrugged, wincing in pain. "Dunno. Something to do with the rum. We got a lead on the killer from the shop where he bought the stuff. Bennet’s got a team out now trying to apprehend him."

  "Knowing Bennet, he’ll bring the guy in in a body bag."

  "Sí, that’s his style." Garza slipped sideways to the floor. "You might want to call and hurry up that ambulance, Zolo. I think . . . I’m going to pass out."

  "Great," Zolotow muttered. "Leave me sitting here with a dead cop. That ought to go over real well." He stood and paced for several seconds. Then he knelt in front of the bleeding homicide detective. "I can’t stay here," he said, watching for a reaction.

  Garza nodded grimly.

  "I owe you two, then," Zolotow said.

  "No problem," Garza grated. He passed over a set of car keys. "Brown Chevy Lumina in the parking garage. City tags. Case file’s on the front seat. You’ll need it to find the perp’s address. They’ll be coordinating the raid on the radio." He grit his teeth as if from a sudden onslaught of pain. In the distance, there came the sound of several sirens. "You find Bennet—I’ll see to bagging this cavron myself." The detective turned to Sieber and smiled. "I don’t think he’ll be telling any more Mexican jokes."

  I was still sleeping when he entered my room—still healing. If I’d been at full strength, I’d have sensed him in the hall, but I was out. Zolo had depleted what strength I’d managed to replenish, and my mind was still unable to grasp the fact that he and I had done what we’d done and he’d lived to tell the tale. Another breakthrough. Another mystery.

  The first thing I smelled was incense—not burning, but worked into the scent of sweat and the warmth of blood. Incense wafting from the serious user. I managed to rise to a crouch before the first dart hit me in the right side. As I turned to snarl at the door, a second caught me in the midriff, and things began to swirl. A third . . . I don’t even remember where it hit me. I was gone to dreamland, and even the beast didn’t seem eager to wake and set things straight.

  Similar to other police operations Zolotow had witnessed, San Antonio’s finest were using an open channel to coordinate their movements. The home they’d staked out and were now closing in on was west of the city, out past the monkey cages at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, just this side of Sea World, in a middle class suburban area known as Westlakes. It was far enough away that Zolotow stood no chance of arriving before they kicked in the door, even with Garza’s magnetic bubble flashing from the roof of the Chevy and the siren clearing the way.

  He was forced to sit and listen as he sped west on Ninety, wondering all the while why he wasn’t hearing Bennet’s voice.

  "Ayala here. Rear guard in position."

  "Uh, this is Jones. I’ve got the, uh, sliding glass doors in my scope. Kitchen’s clear." Sniper, Zolotow labeled that one.

  "A-Team, where are you?" squawked a decidedly older voice.

  Nothing.

  "Jesse? What the hell are you guys doing out there?"

  There came a squelch and the sound of a baby crying. "Sorry, Henry, civilians on the sidewalk. Trying to get them cleared away now."

  "Christ," responded the older voice—Henry. "If the bastard’s looking out his front window he’s going to see you, numbnuts."

  "Can’t be helped," Jesse replied.

  Several minutes of silence followed while Zolotow pondered their ineptness. First priority is always securing the streets and walkways around the target. Any rookie knew that.

  "A-Team in position," Jesse finally reported.

  "Call it," Henry ordered.

  "Rear Guard in position."

  "We’ve got the west side covered." A new voice.

  "East is cool." Another.

  "Let’s do it. Crack the door, but don’t enter. Let’s see if he wants to play nice."

  A-Team rogered that and Zolotow pictured them out front, two guys with a battering ram taking down the front door, others with flack vests and shotguns flanked to either side.

  "Door down." Jesse.

  "Shit, what’s that?" A new voice.

  "Sounds like some kind of recording," Jesse answered. "Boss, see if you can pick this up."

  It came over the radio, a singsong chanting with the vocal clarity of a parrot being strangled. It was Haitian créole. Zolotow, with that odd duality of his cross-wired brain, heard both the native tongue and his approximated mental translation, juxtaposed like the twisted pages of a tattered book opened in his brain.

  Prié poú tou les morts:|Pray for all the dead:

  poú les morts ‘bandonné nan gran bois,|for the dead abandoned in the great wood,

  poú les morts ‘bandonné nan gran dlo,|for the dead abandoned in the great water,

  poú les morts ‘bandonné nan gran plaine. . .|for the dead abandoned in the great plain. .

  Something rolled over in the back of Zolotow’s mind and he scrambled for the radio. Keying the mic, he yelled, "Stay out of there! It’s a trap! Stay out of the house!"

  "Fuck that juju music," Henry replied, seemingly oblivious to Zolotow’s interruption. "A-Team take the living room. Rear Guard, take down that back door and proceed with extreme caution. A-Team will flush him toward you."

  poú les morts tué pa’ couteau,|for the dead killed by the knife,

  poú les morts tué pa’ épée,|for the dead killed by the sword,

  poú tou les morts, au nom de Mait’|for all the dead, in the name of Maître

  Cafou et de Legba;|Carrefour and of Legba;

  poú tou generation paternelle et maternelle,|for all generations, paternal and maternal,

  ancêtre et ancetére, Afrique et Afrique. . .|ancestor and ancestress, Africa and Africa. . .

  "Stay out!" Zolotow screamed.

  It was a Houngan summoning, a call for Papa Legba who keeps the way to the otherworld and for Maître Carrefour because he is the crossroads where all things meet. Whether one wanted to believe the simple chant held any power or not wasn’t the issue. The madman who’d made the tape did, and Zolotow could feel the poised jaws of the trap as surely as if it were situated about his own throat.

  "Somebody answer me, goddamit!" Zolotow yelled into the radio.

  Why weren’t they answering? Papa Legba was raising his staff, the poteau milan of a temple down which the loa would come for blood. Zolotow reached to adjust the radio and noticed the dangling end of the severed mic cord.

  au nom de Mait’ Cafou, Legba,|in the name of Maître Carrefour, Legba,

  Baltaza, Miror. . .|Balthasal, Mirior. . .

  In the rearview mirror, he found Bennet’s eyes.

  I dreamed of strange, chanting voices. I dreamed of the incense, burning this time, filling the air with its cloying odor. My world reverberated to the incessant pounding of deep, bass drums. The darkness held shifting shadows—barely seen and never stationary. Eyes watched me, hands reached out to touch me, to brush shy fingertips over my flesh. In my dreams, I allowed this.


  I awoke in rage.

  My senses were immediately assaulted by the damp, overpowering scent of water—muddy, sucking water. I cringed from that smell, trying to move away from it, and that is how I discovered my bonds. I was tied, taut lengths of nylon suspending me in the air, one for each of my limbs. I hung face down, parallel to the shadow-shrouded ground. I was naked. Firelight danced about me eerily, occasionally hitting the ground and reflecting back a damp, dark surface that gleamed like a pool of blood, but I could not seem to locate the fire itself. I could feel the drumbeats of my dreams pounding through me and it almost seemed as if I were not entirely awake. Drugs, I realized. The darts.

  Out of one mess and into another. I’d concentrated so hard on the Frenchman that I’d forgotten he wasn’t the only danger.

  As I began to exhibit signs of life, they emerged from the darkness. First one, then another, until I was the focal point of a leaping, dancing, convulsing ring of dark flesh. They too were naked, their dark bodies painted in identical patterns of red and white graffiti. No words were spoken—at least no words that I could understand—but monotonous, chanting voices floated out of the shadows, and the dancers insinuated themselves into that sound, into the rhythm of the drums.

  I believed I could break the bonds that held me. I also knew that, though I was greatly outnumbered, I was more than a match for the dancers. The beast was there in the shadows of my mind and it would only take a thought to bring it forth. But there was something else. The air was heavy with it—the shadows pulsed with it. The longer they chanted, the wilder their dance became, the more I sensed it. Something old—powerful. Something I had no knowledge of, but that knew me. Something from my past? Maybe I could have gotten away, then, early in the ceremony, but I couldn’t bring myself to miss a chance at piecing together more of my dark heritage. Like they say, curiosity and cats.