I sat down. “So Mason can tell people what to do? Does that mean he’s the carver or not?”
The Seraph shrugged.
I realized that we were up against something totally out of my league. Even with an angel working out the plan of attack, I felt grossly insignificant. What the hell were we supposed to do against a lunatic jackass who can order me to take a long walk off a short short pier and I would have to oblige him?
“Hey, Grey!” a muffled voice called. The last face I needed to see at that moment appeared in the makeshift tape window I had made. Donaldson signaled for the front door and let himself in waving two sheets of paper. “Have something to share. A few days ago―”
Spotting Barnem, Donaldson stopped talking. Barnem’s face, for some reason, got really sour as he approached. “Jeffrey,” he said, extending his hand, and when the Seraph didn’t shake it, he added, “I live upstairs.”
“Apparently you do,” Barnem replied, and turned away.
Donaldson, unfazed, turned to me and held up the papers. “I know that the last time I was in here, you kind of fell apart when we found out about, you know, the murders. Hilary Clamp.”
Her name was the last thing I needed to hear. I tried my best not to totally look like it, but a burning knot had seized up in my stomach. It felt like I had swallowed a hot stone.
Donaldson dropped his hand. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to push this, but it made me feel bad.”
“It’s okay,” I said, and tried to escape to my kitchen. “I’m all right. You should go.”
“Wait. It’s because of your name being there. I know,” he continued pressing. “It’s spooky. I ran a search on how many Greys there are in New York and found only two listed. But that doesn’t mean you’re this crazy’s target. In fact, I don’t think you should be so down on yourself about anyone dying.”
The room started flaring up in greens and reds and purples. I tried shoving my head in the freezer, but the anger inside of me took over. I came out spewing fire. “Tell me again when we became best friends?”
Donaldson chuckled. “C’mon, Grey.”
“No. Remind me. I would love for you to help me piece this together because it seems you think I’m one of ‘those people’ who constantly needs help. When did you become anyone that could tell me how I should feel? Since when did we become so chummy that you could inform me how I should look at life and death? Because it seems like we skipped a few steps.”
The knot in my stomach twisted further as I got angrier and angrier. Part of me recognized that Petty was now out of my life, now (thankfully) thousands of miles away, but she had left something behind—a wound that was poisoning me. Barnem had backed me into a corner with the demon business, so I couldn’t rage against that, I couldn’t tell him to leave me alone, and my dear sister wasn’t there to take the brunt of my frustration. That left my nosey neighbor.
“Donaldson,” I told him firmly, “I rescind my invitation into my home.”
Donaldson stood there, looked at Barnem and then at me. “You ‘rescind your invitation’? I’m your neighbor, Grey, not a vampire?” His smile disappeared. “You’re serious?”
He took a few seconds to digest it all. I realized, in that moment, watching the expression on his face, that Donaldson was falling down the same stupid rabbit hole I’ve seen other people disappear into. I don’t mean to push people away, honestly. And I will never admit this to anyone, but I do get lonely sometimes. However, aside from my parents, I felt undeserving of anyone’s attention. I would cycle through these two—wanting and rejecting—or maybe I was both simultaneously. I’m not even sure. Whatever was inside of me always made sure that control was never in my hands, which would make sure that everyone around me was emotionally spent after I was through. I saw this all in Donaldson’s face, in the way he slammed the door behind him, his head passing my kitchen portal without looking back.
“I don’t want to give you advice in how to live your life, Grey,” Barnem started. He got up and walked to the door.
“But you’re going to anyway,” I cut in. “Out with it already.”
“It just seems like that guy is kind of an asshole.”
“All-right?”
“But not as much of an asshole as other people are assholes.” Conceding that that was the best he could do, Barnem looked up at me and shrugged.
As he walked out of my apartment, I called after him, “You should write fortune cookies. I’m sure you would make a killing at funerals!”
Right after Barnem left, the demon popped out of the bathroom, walked right up to me, and chucked a sandwich bag with my remote sealed inside of it into my hands. The bag was wet.
Before I threw up on myself, a patriotic commercial for the Brand New Pundit Mason Scarborough came on with the words “Make New York Nice Again” in big glittery words across the screen.
I could only scrunch my nose at it.
“There’s no way he can win,” I mumbled to myself.
CHAPTER 18
Four days later, Mason Scarborough was leading in the polls. It wasn’t even close. In a matter of days, his brother went from obvious frontrunner to scapegoat for everything wrong in the city. This meant that with only one week until the city voted in its next mayor, it would take a miracle to stop Mason.
On paper, a miracle should have been quite easy with an angel on your side. Unfortunately, this is Barnem I’m talking about. Instead of coming up with a foolproof plan, he spent the afternoons coming to my apartment to practice summoning his holy sword, the one he claimed could slay the beast. This entailed a lot of ground quaking, air gusting, and floating three feet off of the ground, but it only ever resulted in him summoning a small silver butter knife instead.
It was frustrating and also annoying because after the twentieth time, I ran out of space in my utensil drawer.
According to him, his power—the same that had been MIA the night Palls came knocking—was slowly coming back. But as much as we needed his holiness to come back, Barnem seemed locked into having my roommate do the heavy lifting for us.
“But if he eats the Shade, wouldn’t we be making this one more powerful?” I questioned, nudging the sleeping demon with a broom. “It just seems we’d be blowtorching our own faces to spite our noses.” When Barnem squinted at me, I added, “It’s a turn of phrase.”
“No it’s not. And besides, I’d rather this guy over Mason. At least he stands still long enough for me to slay him.”
The demon popped up, snatched the broom from my hand, tossed it out of the window, and then collapsed again on the couch.
I took it as a perfect time for a break.
“You’re saying we should get to Mason before he gets voted in, but have yet to tell me how that’s even possible at this point. Mason is a celebrity. He’s a thoughtless prick, but one the entire city’s watching carefully. They are saying that he hasn’t even given out his address. No one knows where he disappears to.”
Ignoring me, Barnem focused himself, set his hands together as if holding a massive weapon, and out plopped another knife that could barely cut a piece of lettuce without dulling.
“Wait,” I said, jumping up. “We need a way to track Mason, right?”
Barnem wiped the sweat from his forehead and nodded.
****
This is what my lunch looked like later that day: I was sitting in a place of honor in a darkly lit room with candles along the edges and surrounded by cultists.
Okay. Maybe some hyperbole.
The darkly lit room was the Fuscher-Ballard Community and Rec Center basement in the heart of Bed Stuy. The candles, in order not to break fire code, were actually electric plug-ins. My place of honor was a wobbly foldable chair. The Beguilers were probably the only real thing in the room, sure, but I was waiting for the cultists to finish their usual Tuesday meeting.
�
�So I would like to thank Tim in the back for being kind enough to let us rent out the space here at Fuscher-Ballard. I would likewise like to remind everyone to please fold up your chairs afterward to prepare for a Bat Mitzvah later this evening.”
Spotting Gary from a distance, three cases of donuts stacked high in his large hands, Phil saw the perfect spot to segue. “So, this concludes our meeting. Don’t forget that dues are coming up. And we have our Cult Family Mixer at the end of the month! The theme is: adventures in the rain forest.” A few people in the group let out a “woohoo”. “And last and never least. We are blessed tonight with her black radiance. With the lighter of the dark flame. She has come.” Phil cupped his hand over the carving of the eye on his forehead as if making a telescope for it and recited, “Of ruin. Of blood. Of pain …”
And the other cultists finished with, “Come fire and wither my flesh to the bone. For his song is the cry of the strangled cribbed child. May the bitter milk squeezed of the rotten corpse serve at his bounty. And let my slit throat croak his ultimate gaze. Ye, Beast of the Crown! Ye, Raper of the Swollen Womb! Come swallow the night.”
Then they all looked at me.
I shrugged. “Oh. Um. Ditto.”
The small reception afterward wasn’t too bad. The Beguilers were an interesting mix of people, nothing like I was expecting. I had this thought that everyone who joined a cult was white, average looking, but all different types of crazy. Instead, they all appeared to be average in the “crazy” department with simply average looks, representing every race and age, both men and women. Everyone was either five seconds from a ritual sacrifice or ten seconds from opening up a cheese booth at a Farmer’s Market. The only thing that these random people seemed to have in common was a certain “lady of shadow.” And they all took their time to come shake my hand and talk.
The conversations spanned everything, every topic. But it was always about what I thought about the problem. The MTA fares, the Pope visiting, a husband’s lower back pain that his wife was worried about. It was all seemingly ordinary stuff that they wanted my opinion for. I don’t know what I expected of having my own cult, but it sure as hell wasn’t that.
As the crowd thinned, Gary came up to the table I was sitting at, shoved a cruller in his mouth, and smiled. I made sure Phil was off talking to someone when I tapped the big lug.
“Hey, Gary. You can see auras, right?”
His red eyebrows raised. He nodded.
“What are you two talking about?” Phil came out of nowhere. I didn’t like the look he was giving me. Sure, he was singing my praises in front of everyone, but I could tell that he wasn’t buying too much of my unholiness. I thought that made obvious sense: who would want an outsider coming in and stealing your thunder―or hellfire I guess, in this respect. The Shade said that there was another one of them hiding inside The Beguilers. And for me, his story didn’t quite add up. The bird disappeared after showing itself?
I knew I had to watch what I told him. “Just asking about the membership numbers. These folks are all pretty cool. You, er, set up a good vibe in here considering it’s a Revelation cult that celebrates the future enslavement of mortal souls. Ooo, are those krispy treats in the shape of swoosh marks?”
“They are shaped like the Horn of Disfigurement, that which sounds when the dragon prepares to eat the stillborn child of the Western world. And, yeah, they’re for members only.”
Gary’s gaze bounced back and forth between us, but he didn’t say anything.
“So,” I said, breaking the pregnant pause, “where does everyone come from? All around the state, huh? Must be a tight group, then. Everyone knows everybody else?”
“Mhm.” Phil crossed his arms. “We’re legit, regardless of what you think, Grey. Nothing like Smilie.”
“Smilie?”
“A cult that opened up when we did,” Gary explained jovially. “Phil calls them ‘posers’.” Shyly he leaned in and whispered, “They’ve been a bit … aggressive with our members on the outside.”
“Cult gang warfare?” I chuckled but this only pissed the little guy off more.
Phil grabbed Gary by his flabby arm and pulled him away. “Cult leader meeting. Sorry, you’re not invited.”
Though Phil definitely acted weird and was number one on my list, I felt that I should check the other members. And this turned out to be the most awkward thing I had to do. Floating from one little island of people to the next, holding onto my drink while people rambled on about weather, about their worries regarding what their dogs are dreaming, pineapples. I walked out of there emotionally spent and wondering how anyone in the world could manage being social at all.
I’m not too sure how or why this was possible, but I left that cultist meeting feeling really good about myself. I mean, I wasn’t delusional or anything. I wasn’t going to be drinking the Kool-Aid anytime soon―both figuratively and in real life―but even in that first meeting, I understood the draw to the whole thing. Sure it gave off a “I’m weird, you’re weird, let’s be weird together” vibe, but as I walked out onto the street and looked around, I could tell that there was something else to it. It was the same as the guys dressed up in their Mets gear on the way to the stadium. The same as the folks handing out flyers and buttons and other nonsense for the mayor to get re-elected. I wouldn’t call it hope. It’s the rest stop before it where you get to use the bathroom, stretch your legs, or buy greasy fast food. A familiar place that is safe and warm and inviting before the deep plunge. It was then that I realized that most things in this society are Religion Lite.
I carried these thoughts with me as I made my way down the block. And it was maybe because of this that I didn’t see the guy invade my space bubble until he was right up in my face.
He wore a pristine white suit, but his dirty blond hair and skin were a mess, like he hadn’t showered in days. His face was a likewise contradiction. Where his eyes were bloodshot and puffed purple around the bottom, the way his mouth was turned up into a smile took up 90% of his face. The edges seemed to reach back to his ears. His lips were thin, so it gave a particularly drawn-on look, as if with a pencil.
Before I could blast him about minding his space, he held up his hand. Carved into the palm, scarred brown, was a semi-colon and parenthesis.
The next thing I knew, I was jumped from behind. A van door rolled open and a black bag was thrown over my face. Someone on the street screamed, and I swung every knee and fist and foot I could to get free. But with so many hands grabbing me, so many people pulling me into that van and slamming me down so hard that every bone in my body shook, I could only lay there and hear the engine rev beyond the celebratory high fives my kidnappers were dishing out.
CHAPTER 19
I only had one thing in mind when they pulled my black hood off. So as soon as my eyes focused, I quickly searched the faces surrounding me. There were over twenty people standing around me, so it took me a while. I found who I was looking for standing toward the back.
“Excuse me. I need to … yeah. Just gotta get to the back here. Pardon me,” I asked of a small woman. She moved aside and let me go through. “Let me squeeze back here. One sec, one sec. Yes, thank you. Just have to give my friend something.” I approached the messy guy that had served as the distraction on the street. He didn’t seem alarmed, probably because my hands were zip-tied behind my back. He held up his hand again.
“May all the smiles—”
My knee to his groin punctuated his sentence. Something hot and wet flew from his mouth, pure vomit. But instead of dropping off to the side in the fetal position, he smiled even harder. Grinned even deeper on either side of his face. I had basically knocked this guy’s nuts into his throat and he was still smiling.
“Leave her to me,” a loud voice shouted. The cultists around me all did as they were told, walking passed me sporting those unnatural grins.
The space we we
re in seemed like a stripped down store cellar, complete with dangling naked bulbs and columns featuring chipped paint.
When they were all gone up the nearest staircase, he finally stepped forward, wearing a highly elaborate white robe with flowing gold tassels featuring little dainty bells on each end. The hood he wore over his face was also made of white satin, but only featured an opening for his large mouth.
“Amanda Grey. Been so long.”
“If you’re that kid who was forced by my parents to invite me to your birthday party when I was nine, I still stand by my story. That cake was full of spit before I got there.”
He laughed. But it wasn’t his laughter that I heard. I heard maybe twenty different voices coming from all around. “You’re in the spirit now, Grey. Funny, funny. But I wonder …”
Leaning in, he ripped the hood from his face.
“… how funny you would sound if I ripped out your tongue.”
His head was white folds. Stripped of hair, the albino skin looked more like it had the texture of a leather handbag. The mask had no eyes because this creature didn’t have any. His mouth took up 90% of his head and sported sharp teeth and purple lips.
“So a Shade running his own cult,” I said, seeming bored. “Kinda cliché at this point.”
He laughed again, and again the chorus of voices mixed with his. “Yeah, yeah. It’s a living. In this city, you get it where you can.”
“I feel you.”
“You know, I had you come here not to kill you,” he stated, walking away and dragging his pudgy white fingers in through the sleeve of his robe. He slowly began to undress. “I actually want to propose something to you.”
“I’m almost sure you’re not my type.”
“You’d be surprised,” he replied, and let the robe fall to the ground. He was naked, round, and pretty disgusting. Most of his skin was that awful white color, and even his shriveled penis seemed to be rotting. What made things worse was that he was pretty light on his feet, even with all of that dead girth jiggling around.
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