by S. L. Wright
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t plan on seeing him again, so I didn’t ask. He’s caused me enough trouble. But he paid some of that back by helping me out last night.”
“If you see him again, get his contact information for us,” Markman ordered.
“Uh, sure,” I agreed. “But I don’t think he had anything to do with the shooting.”
Bliss suddenly spoke up. “I think he kind of likes Allay. But she’s not so sure about him.”
I shot her a “shut the hell up” look that both men caught. “I don’t want anything to do with him,” I said doggedly.
But Markman finally seemed pleased to see a real reaction from me. “Where did you have dinner?”
I gave him the name of a sushi place off Delancey. It was usually so busy they wouldn’t notice even someone as markedly gorgeous as Bliss. In fact, it looked like her breasts were growing rounder by the minute, drawing Detective Paulo’s eye as I told my story. It made sense from a demon perspective. Bliss instinctively pleased people so she could feed off their delight.
But now she had caught Markman’s attention. “Miss?” the lieutenant said pointedly to Bliss. “Can I see your ID?”
My throat closed. It was too bad our brief cover preparations hadn’t extended that far.
But Bliss gave them both a brilliant smile. “I’m Belissa Madrigal. You can call me Belissa, Officers.”
Madrigal, that was the name of a family who had lived down the street from my house when I was growing up. Bliss knew that because she had my memories. But I couldn’t get distracted now by the thought of her wrinkling her nose at my boring childhood in the endless bedroom communities of Orange County.
Paulo looked slightly stunned as Bliss came out from behind the bar and walked over to them. I could almost hear the boom-chick-a-wow-wow music going. The way she moved, she could have been in a porn shoot. All I could see were breasts and hips and wet lips.
Shock rolled her eyes, but I was glad Bliss was taking some initiative. I couldn’t carry this by myself. Shock was a city EMT; surely she could be talking to the cops to put them at ease. But she was standing there with her arms crossed, acting as suspicious as they were.
“I’ll have to get it from my purse,” Bliss told them. “It’s upstairs.”
They both watched her leave; then Paulo had to shake himself awake as the door closed behind her.
Markman retreated to his notebook, while the detective sat there looking dazed. I did my level best not to laugh. After a few moments, Markman said, “We checked on your janitor. He’s still in the hospital, but should be released tomorrow, they tell me. He claims he doesn’t have any enemies. He’s clean, paid up on taxes, has children on the honor roll. So why do you think someone shot your bar, Ms. Meyers?”
“I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt me,” I said plaintively. “Maybe it was all a huge mistake. Maybe it was a random drive-by shooting.”
“At the same time some mystery man is telling you that your bar belongs to someone else? That’s some coincidence.”
“What about that man who attacked me on Saturday?” Sure, blame Pique, the guy I killed. Might as well slander him now that I had offed him. “Do you think it could be him, or some other patron who has a grudge against me? People get set off by the stupidest things.”
“Yes, there was something else. ...” Markman flipped through his book. “The surveillance camera recorded an altercation between you and a guy on Sunday evening. Late forties, leather jacket, shoulder-length dirty blond hair. You were trying to open the gate to your car, but he stopped you. You do remember that, don’t you, Ms. Meyers?”
Whoa, these cops were well-informed. I would have to blame Revel’s surveillance cameras for this one. “Yes, that was Phil. Phil Anchor. He’s just a patron.”
Actually, he was one of the men I passed off payments to from the Fellowship of Truth—their pet journalist who dug out the dirt on their enemies.
“Why were you arguing?”
I sighed. “Phil’s troubled. A cocaine addict, in fact. He’s been coming to the bar forever. He wanted a drink that day, but I refused to open for him. He comes around after hours all the time, and I have to turn him away.”
Phil had come by the bar to complain that I hadn’t made his drop to the prophet. And I had gotten so exasperated with him that I had threatened to expose his petty crimes. It’s what gave me the idea to threaten Mackleby in order to get Vex to let Ram go.
“Hmm. ...” Markman was good—his suspicions were raised, but on the face of it there appeared to be nothing of concern. “I think this Rick, aka Theo Ram, is our prime suspect. Are you sure he didn’t say anything about where he lived?”
Slowly I shook my head, as if thinking back. “Last night’s a wash. Sorry. I barely would have remembered it if Belissa hadn’t told me this morning. And everything else he told me turned out to be a lie—”
Bliss suddenly returned in a pounding rush down the stairs, bursting open the door into the bar. Her long blond hair was ruffled up and her eyes huge with fear. “M-my purse! I can’t find it. Oh, Allay, what if I left it in the park last night? It had everything in it! My money, my credit cards ...”
Bliss turned to Lieutenant Markman with a beseeching expression. Where sex appeal had no affect on him, her innocent helpless act melted him instantly. It was perfect—not in the least bit overdone—trembling as her eyes glistened, she radiated sweet despair.
How did she know that would get to him? Did she sense it somehow?
I hadn’t been able to make a dent in the hardened cop. Now he fell all over himself to be reassuring. Markman ordered one of the officers outside to go retrace our route through the park. Bliss turned to me when asked where we walked, so I sketched it out, feigning hung-over vagueness about the entire thing.
Bliss insisted on going out to the park to search for her lost purse. I knew she was just angling to get out of the bar, and who could blame her? It had been a lousy birthday for her so far. So I agreed we needed to go search, hoping to end the interview, while mentally reminding myself we needed to get Bliss a fake ID ASAP.
As Markman got into the car, he cautioned us both to be careful. “If this guy Rick contacts you again, Ms. Meyers, let us know right away.”
“I will,” I agreed fervently. “And I’d appreciate it if you would be discreet about my previous relationship with Prophet Anderson. You understand why I don’t want it to become public knowledge.”
“Of course,” Markman agreed, smiling good-bye to Bliss.
She touched his arm, sucking off his pleasure. “Thank you very much for helping me, Lieutenant Markman. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
They let us go with more goodwill than I would have dared to imagine a half hour ago. It looked like we had pulled it off, Bliss and I. She had completely distracted them from grilling me.
If only all of my problems could be solved so easily. “Okay, Bliss. Let’s go for a walk in the park. Are you coming, Shock?”
She snorted. “As if I’m letting you two out alone. Let’s do this thing.”
“That was quick thinking,” I murmured to Bliss. “Good job.”
She just smiled, much more smugly than I would have. She seemed to delight in showing me that she was already a better demon than me.
That was all right by me.
3
We walked through the Wild Houses Projects, on the sidewalk that curved between the squat brick apartment towers. Then across the turquoise pedestrian walkway over the FDR Drive to reach the park, making a pretence of looking for Bliss’s lost purse. It was a nice day; the trees swayed lushly in the breeze off the river, and there were lots of people out eating their lunch or taking a midday jog.
“If any cops are watching us, they’re going to wonder what you’re so happy about,” Shock muttered.
I realized I had a big, sloppy grin plastered across my face. “I can’t help it. I was supposed to be dead today.”
“I told you it wouldn’t change you, Allay. The only thing different is that you’ve gained two centuries.”
Bliss added, “And there’s one less asshole in the world.”
My smile faded. It always came back to Pique. I couldn’t be happy about killing him. It was wrong—premeditated murder, for my own gain. The worst thing anyone could do. It was as if Pique would always be with me now that I had consumed him, as if he were an alien head sprouting from my back. Always watching me. Waiting for me to remember. I could forget him for a while, but he was right here, leering at my demon nature that I tried so hard to deny.
But I had fought hard to survive this past week, and I had come out far ahead of where I had started. I had a real chance to live now, on my own terms. The threat of Vex forcing me to die and live again for his church was gone forever.
Then there was Ram. With all the confusion I felt about him, there were a lot of possibilities that made me start smiling again. How could I not think about him here, in this park, where we had joined together to create Bliss? I stared out at the water, lost in the swoony feeling of his arms around me, holding me as if he couldn’t let go....
Bliss straightened up from where she had been looking under a bench. “Wow! Check this out.”
She held up the front page of the New York Post. The banner screamed THE PROPHET STRIKES BACK? The question mark was the barest nod to journalist ethics while the article examined in lurid detail the connections between the prophet of the Fellowship of Truth and the man who had been wounded in Crave’s backyard—“in the garden of their love nest,” as described by the tabloid. The man had once been Dread’s driver, and performed jobs for the church in various capacities. For the Post, that was evidence enough of the prophet’s complicity in the midnight attack against Crave and Lash. Apparently the wounded hit man wasn’t talking.
“That’s about as bad as I expected,” I conceded. Vex’s raid on Harlem had been ill-conceived from the start. But it was unusually sloppy for him to send a man who had obvious connections to the church to back up the demon horde sent to kill Glory’s demons.
“The only thing worse would be if you were mixed up in it,” Bliss agreed. “Good thing you hid in the closet when the police came.”
Shock grimaced. “I don’t see why you had to go warn Glory, Allay. Stay out of other demons’ wars, I always say.” She tucked the paper under her arm. “Come on, let’s keep moving in case the police are watching.”
I sighed. “If the cops don’t have anything better to do than follow me, then the city is doing pretty good, I’d say.”
Shock’s phone buzzed. She stared at the keypad for a few seconds. “It’s a text from Glory,” she said grimly.
My phone had been stolen by Goad. I didn’t want to know what he was doing with it. “What does she want?”
“To meet with you, Allay. On the Upper East Side.”
“Now?” I asked.
“Yeah, now. Ninety-eighth Street.”
Bliss had flung herself down on a bench, giving up the effort of looking for her purse. “That could be very interesting. Maybe Lash and Crave will be there.”
I knew she was thinking about the scene I had watched, unbeknownst to them, as Crave fed Lash’s masochism. I was no better than a cheap Peeping Tom, and Bliss knew it. I didn’t like it that she had a window into my head, but she had been very useful with the cops.
“You want to come with me?” I asked her, then turned to include Shock.
“You bet,” Bliss said eagerly.
Shock didn’t even try to argue about it. It made sense for us to stick together. Safety in numbers. At least until everything settled down. “There’s a walkway across at Delancey,” she said. “We can take that to get to the subway.”
It was only a few blocks from the station to the address Glory had texted: Ninety-eighth Street and Madison Avenue. It was an old brownstone town house sitting on the corner, with bow windows along the side and stained glass ovals in the stairwells. The shrubbery in front was as manicured as a toy poodle, and even the sidewalks were scrubbed clean. There was a jewelry store on the ground floor, but Glory had instructed us to go upstairs.
It was only as we entered the side door that Bliss whispered, “I bet this is Crave’s shop.”
I realized she was right. Several demon signatures were waiting for us at the top of the stairs—Glory’s lifting, swirling sensation was enhanced by Crave’s whirlpool-like effect, as if I were being sucked into a tornado. I also felt the stinging of Lash’s signature, but it was so much like Shock’s that they melded together.
Piano music was playing, soulful in a minor key. In one of the round alcoves formed by the bay window, Glory sat at a desk looking down onto the street. She was clicking away on the keyboard, firmly in her Selma Brown persona—voluptuous, bold, and boundlessly confident. Her dress and head scarf were patterned in white, yellow, and red flowers bigger than my hand, setting off the darkness of her skin.
Glory had made the right choice when she bought dozens of homes in Harlem for her entourage in the mid- to late nineties. She had cashed in at the right time on the gentrification she had helped instigate with her renovation projects. She was a well-known figure in the community, a regular on the stage at the Apollo Theater singing backup for a lot of big names.
Crave was at the grand piano that mostly filled the parlor space, playing like a seduction. His Mark Cravet persona wore all black, from his dark hair to his ebony boots. His skin was dusky and his eyes big and soulful, as if he had aristocratic Spanish ancestors. He was compelling, and never seemed to try very hard to get women to fall for him.
“Hello, Allay,” he said with a special smile, reminding me that he had fed me yesterday.
I knew he was doing it to piss off Lash, who was sitting next to him on the piano bench, staking her claim on him from the moment we walked into the room. Her impeccable silhouette-hugging Marc Jacobs dress was made of creamy satin, matching her perfect blond hair and Grace Kelly features. She didn’t bother with her guise of the aging prophet’s wife among other demons, and was giving Bliss a run for her money. But I thought Bliss’s young hipster beauty was preferable to Lash’s patrician elegance.
Lash flicked a glance at me. “I knew it. She did consort with Ram last night.”
Glory turned away from the keyboard with a final click, and fastened her dark eyes on me. “Is it true, Allay? Is that how you got Bliss?”
“Surely that’s old news by now.” I didn’t look at Bliss, but I knew she was smiling and looking around curiously.
“I was wondering if you would deny it,” Glory said.
“Why should I?” I held out both hands innocently. “I’ve told you everything that I know about Ram. As long as you don’t hurt people, he won’t hunt you. The demons who do will continue to disappear. Whether we can trust his word is another story.”
“What about Dread?” Glory pressed. “Does he have an alliance with Ram?”
I sat down on the upholstered chair closest to her. She hadn’t bothered to invite me to sit, but I wasn’t going to stand in front of her like a child being scolded. “I don’t know what Ram intends to do about Dread,” I said honestly.
“Someone has to kill him before he kills us all.” Lash was defiant, too loud in the small room.
“Who? Dread or Ram?” I asked.
“Both!”
Glory was pointedly not looking at Lash. Crave quietly played a tinkling melody in the background. Neither seemed interested in placating Lash right now.
“I tell you what I’m worried about,” I said. “The new ERI machine. Dread said it’s supposed to hit the market in a couple of months. It can show the difference between humans and demons. Dread said the FAA already has it in production to replace their old metal detectors. What are we going to do?”
“I’ve got a lab working on it,” Glory said dismissively. “They think we can disrupt the electrical field with low-frequency waves. We’ve always gotten around technological
advances before, and this one won’t be any different.”
“But they’ll be in place next month.”
“If we have to stay off planes for a while, that’s all the better. Dread has to send back all of the Vex demons who flew in for Goad’s raid. That’s nonnegotiable. It would help stabilize things if everyone stayed in their own territory.”
I didn’t think she understood the seriousness of the situation. It was almost intoxicating to think about—what if we were all exposed and I didn’t have to lie about who I was anymore? “But the ERIs will be in government buildings. Shock, you’d be seen for sure. You have to go everywhere with your job.”
But Shock was shaking her head at me in a mirror image of Glory. “I think it was a trick Dread and Vex played on you, Allay. There is no ERI. They just wanted to scare you into cooperating with them.”
Now, there was a possibility I hadn’t considered. I wished she had said something about it when we were alone. We’d have to talk about it later, not in front of Glory.
Glory pounced on my moment of weakness. “What’s happening with you and Dread, Allay?”
So that was why she ordered me up here.
“We made a truce—he leaves me and mine alone”—I gestured to Shock and Bliss—“I won’t go after him. He said he would offer the same truce to you. Since he claims to have half the demon population more or less under his control, I thought it was a good bargain.”
“He’s not in control of Goad.” Glory glanced at the screen. “Goad and his horde took down Amaze last night.”
I vaguely knew Amaze. She was harmless; she worked at the Carousel in Central Park, soaking up the kids’ delight. She had been Glory’s last offspring, born a hundred and fifty years ago, around the same time as Shock.
No wonder Crave was still tinkering softly away at the mournful music. No wonder Lash was glaring at me so indignantly. Vex was dead, but their people were still being killed.
“Is that who Dread consumed?” I asked.
Glory narrowed her eyes. “No, he took Petrify, Shock’s recent offspring. Goad tracked him down in Jersey City, on the piers. He was hiding in a sea of cars, probably hoping to be shipped overseas.”
