by S. L. Wright
Cherie was looking concerned, so I touched her, giving her a jolt of my desire to flee as I said, “I want to stay underground, even if it takes longer to get back to Manhattan. It’s too risky up above.”
Mystify found a way. From underneath the on-ramp for the bridge, he led us straight to another utility access tunnel under the street. “This should take us down Bed-ford to the station at North Seventh Street. But we’ll be close to the surface the whole way. Our signatures will leak through.”
“Then we’ll have to move fast.”
I distracted Cherie by feeding her as Mystify jimmied open the panel that let us into the access tunnel.
Then we started crawling. I had to prod Cherie more than the first time, giving her bursts of my adrenaline-fueled fear. She didn’t know I was afraid that Dread was going to find us. I counted off eleven blocks by the tunnels that met at right angles to ours.
By the time we emerged in a small work area adjacent to the subway tunnel at the west end of the platform, I was shocked that Cherie hadn’t complained once. I was ready to complain plenty—in pain and covered with that sooty, clinging dirt that was the city’s own. We all wore shadowy charcoal masks of it, kicked up by our hands and knees. Their eyes peered at me whitely.
My knees were killing me in spite of expending energy to heal them. But I drew in my breath in shock when I saw Cherie’s knees. Blood was flowing freely with dirt ground into the open wounds.
Then she healed herself right in front of me, lifting her face and hands as if to the heavens. “I am perfection. I am one with God now and forever.”
The black stuff fell from her skin like rain as she shifted out from under it. There was no understanding in her expression, only ecstatic faith similar to what I had felt holding her hand during the Fellowship circle.
I exchanged a look with Mystify, whose round-eyed, openmouthed expression was clearly his despite the Missy van Dam guise he wore. He wasn’t even bothering to act like Zeal’s persona anymore. “Just what the world needs, another savoir.”
Cherie didn’t notice. She was too busy paying attention to herself, smoothing the skin on her cheeks, feeling how firm her neck was, rubbing her hands together sensually.
I leaned out over the subway tracks. The platform was back to my right while the tracks sloped sharply down to my left, heading through a tunnel under the East River to Manhattan. Our nook was lit by only one orange lightbulb, casting a lurid light over the blackened I-beams and piles of railroad ties.
Then I saw movement behind the farthest stack. Heads peeked over. People were here with us.
Cherie was practically glowing, her skin was so translucent, her eyes burning with fanaticism. Before I could stop her, she went over to them, circling the railroad ties to get to them.
I was afraid they were going to recognize her. I expected to hear them say her name. They were rapt, staring up at her, and one of them murmured, “Bless me, for I have sinned. ...”
“I bring God’s message,” she told them. “Love yourself and you will become whole.”
She reached out and placed her palm against the man’s forehead, as the Fellows did during a healing. “I give you my blessing.”
Her aura flared as she drew in a healthy dollop of his cringing fear that we would roust him and his friend out of their safe nest and back onto the streets. Cherie drew in her breath deeply, letting the sensation fill her entire body. Then she reached out and placed her palm on the other guy’s forehead, sending off another flare of panicked energy, which she absorbed greedily.
I stepped forward, concerned that she would latch on to them and drain them.
But Cherie turned away beaming, as if she had given those two men the greatest gift they could receive. She rejoined Mystify and me, saying modestly, “They needed me.”
“Yeah, right.” I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but she needed them. Or at least their energy. To Mystify, I whispered, “This is a really long tunnel. How do we get through?”
He also kept his voice down so the people huddled at the back couldn’t hear. “There are alarms on the pedestrian walkways and the utility access along the top. They don’t want terrorists getting in there and planting explosives. So we’ve got two choices. Either we get on a subway like normal people. Or we run.”
“Run? You mean down the tracks?”
“I’d recommend running rather than walking because the trains are off schedule. Delays on all the lines, especially those connecting to Brooklyn.” He pointed at something on his screen. “But there are nooks for workers to stand in if they’re caught when a train comes by. We’d have to be very careful to get to one in time if we feel a train coming.”
“I’d love to ride,” I said longingly. But our clothes were a mess, and Cherie’s famous face was practically a beacon. She would be recognized in an instant. “Run, it is.”
Mystify slid his laptop into his pouch as I took hold of Cherie’s arm. I gave her a blast of my feelings, knowing it would soothe her like a baby at her mama’s breast. “Come on, Cherie. We have to move fast.”
“Are there more people who need me?” she asked brightly.
“Sure, lots more.” I thought of all the people I had seen in the deeper tunnels. “We just have to get back to Manhattan.”
Cherie pulled out some cash from the pocket of her khaki safari pants. “We can take a cab.”
“Not in this traffic,” Mystify reminded her. “It’ll take all day.”
I nodded. “Yes, and the people waiting for you really need you. Now. Running through the tunnel is the quickest way to reach them.”
Cherie didn’t hesitate. She picked her way over to the tracks with Mystify and me stumbling after her. She reached the tracks and jogged off into the darkness alone.
“Should we tell her to wait until a train passes by?” I asked Mystify.
“You think you could stop her?” he retorted.
It wasn’t easy catching up to Cherie, who was dashing along like she had a life to save. Mystify was huffing in the rear. I tripped and fell once despite my enhanced sight, we were moving so fast.
I found myself thinking that if a train came, I doubted we could turn Cherie aside into one of the safety nooks. It would smash into her, maybe causing enough damage and scattering her parts to keep her from regenerating. I hated the thought of it, but it would solve the problem of Cherie. Even if a jury of my peers would convict me of manslaughter.
We made a six-minute mile, or near enough not to matter, and got through the tunnel without being rammed by a subway train.
Not far from the first station, Mystify took us through a hatch with rounded corners set into the wall. A spiral staircase led down to a power room with emergency generators behind a locked door. We headed down a long tunnel that ran under the track and platform level.
I breathed a sigh of relief for the first time. We had escaped from Brooklyn without being detected, and now we were deep enough that demons couldn’t feel our signatures.
As I relaxed, Cherie drifted away from me. I realized I was losing my one hold on her now that I wasn’t fleeing for my life.
“Now what?” Mystify asked, lowering his voice.
“This isn’t her fault. She’s clueless. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“She’s Dread’s puppet. She’s even more dangerous in her ignorance than if she understood her role in all this.”
“I know, Mystify.” I followed idly after her as she wandered into the gloom of the tunnel. “But there’s got to be a better way.”
Cherie suddenly knelt down near the wall of the tunnel. I hurried up to find her pressing her palm against some poor guy’s forehead. He was dazed, either drunk or drugged or maybe so soundly asleep that he couldn’t even wake up properly.
Cherie gave him her blessing and murmured her ritual words, “I bring God’s message: Love yourself and you will be saved.”
The flare of energy passing out of the man lit the tunnel brighter; there were huddled
blankets dotting the floor along the walls. Cherie saw them and made her way to the next one.
I was afraid I had loosed a cannibal on them, but Cherie didn’t show any signs of lingering and taking more than a hit of energy from each one under the guise of giving them her blessing. I was surprised that none of them protested more, though one guy flailed his arms at her until she easily held him still, giving him the blessing in spite of himself. The others seemed bewildered that a beautiful woman would so freely approach them, even touch them! Nobody ever touched them. They took her blessing in the spirit it was offered in, and only stirred themselves to sit up or stand to watch after her.
I kept an eye on those behind us. I had Plea’s memories and the more recent sight of the religious mob to warn me. But these people truly did want to get away from everyone. And Cherie was eating it up.
“I think I know what to do,” I told Mystify.
There were plenty of underground dwellers to keep Cherie occupied as Mystify and I laid our plans. I had to return to the bar as soon as possible so that it would appear I had nothing to do with Cherie’s disappearance. That was crucial. I couldn’t let anyone link me to her.
Mystify would take Cherie to the Grand Central condos. He was doing so much for them, hopefully they would take in a poor, befuddled girl. It wasn’t a long-term plan, but it was something. At least it would keep Cherie off the streets for a while so Dread’s “miracle” could be discredited.
First we had to stage a religious epiphany of our own. Mystify showed us an abandoned water main that we could crawl through for eight blocks to reach Sixth Street. There, it broke off inside a broad utility tunnel half filled with running water. It was so deep that the surface didn’t ripple, and was flowing fast enough to be frightening.
“It’s an underground stream. The water used to be on the surface snaking through the Village, but people built over it,” Mystify explained.
“It’s huge!”
“People do go across.” Mystify gestured to the rope. “But you’ll drown if you let go of the rope.”
“I don’t have to go any further. I can get out and walk home from here,” I assured him.
Mystify gestured to the ledge that ran along the side of the tunnel. “I’ll be right back.”
He didn’t go far, but I distracted Cherie by taking my time getting out of the narrow water main, blocking her view. By the time she emerged, Prophet Anderson was standing inches away from the black flowing water. His silver hair was immaculate, his tan recently refreshed by a visit to the golf course. He seemed bigger than Dread usually made him, and his hands were particularly hamfisted—Mystify was exaggerating the prophet’s characteristics. I gave him a hard look.
At least he definitely felt like Dread. Cherie ignored everything else, including the distinctly shabby clothing he was wearing. “Tommy!” she cried, running to hug him.
Mystify was caught off guard. But he responded lustily enough as Cherie molded herself to his body and planted a kiss on his mouth.
So that put Dread’s relationship with Cherie in perspective. He always did mix his power games with sex, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. I just wondered if he had sealed the deal before Cherie became a demon or afterward. Mystify was clearly uncomfortable with her all over him. He kept looking at me. He felt so much like Dread that I couldn’t have cared less who he kissed.
“I told you I was bringing you to the prophet,” I said to Cherie, firmly in my June persona. “He has something very important to tell you.”
Cherie held on to Mystify’s arm, hanging on him adoringly. Apparently she didn’t hide their relationship from June, which told me a lot about Dread’s relationship with his secretary.
“You’ve found your true calling, Cherie,” Mystify said, imitating Dread’s booming voice. “You carry God’s message to all who need you, all those who hide away in fear of what life has to offer.”
They were the words I had coached him with.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I feel it. This is the first time I’ve felt truly fulfilled since my transformation into the spirit. There was something missing up above. The voices told me so.”
“The images you’ve seen confirm it,” Mystify assured her. She was thinking of Fervor’s memories. “People need you to be their spiritual guide, delving deep in order to reach truth.”
“Yes! Like the whole world is reaching out to me, all at once, like they need something from me.” Her eyes were burning again as she looked upward.
Mystify seemed to like that better than her passion. “You are made to bring light to the darkness.”
Cherie nodded, her eyes once again fixed on his. Paying attention like she never had before. “Yes, it’s too bright up there. All those eyes, those flashing lights ...”
“You’re needed here. Every person you touch is saved. A bit of their soul enters you, and you save them.”
She nodded, too eager, too manic. “Hallelujah! We are saved.”
Mystify leaned closer. “There are people who would take you away from your true purpose. The mob wants you. They want to crowd in close. All those eyes watching you ...”
“I don’t want to go back.”
This was the tricky part. Mystify suggested, “If you could change the way you look, so people didn’t recognize you . . . then nobody would try to take you back.”
Cherie looked down at her palms, smeared with dirt. She had streaks on her face, and her clothes were in bad shape.
She rubbed her palms against her cheeks, turning her face into a macabre mask. “Now they can’t see me.”
It wasn’t what I had been hoping for. I wanted Cherie to change her features. But in spite of healing herself over and over, she couldn’t grasp the concept that she could look like someone else. The idea that she had achieved perfection as herself was too ingrained to shake.
“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully to Mystify. “Hopefully that will be good enough.”
He shrugged. “It’s better than I expected.”
Cherie pulled on his arm. “Let’s go, Dread. The people need me.”
She didn’t even realize she had called the prophet by his true demon name. She could feel Dread’s signature in Mystify, and she was relying more on her demon instincts than her human ones. I could hardly think of her as Cherie anymore, and frankly, this creature was more appealing than the woman who had ritually starved herself for fame.
Mystify gestured to the makeshift ladders roped to the wall. “That will take you up top,” he told me.
I nodded, and because we had been through so much, I reached out my hand. He took it without hesitation. It was strange for a demon to be so willingly vulnerable, almost human in fact. His eyes, his open expression, the pressure on my fingers . . . he bent his head and softly kissed the back of my fingers, a feather touch.
I felt a spark of attraction. Mystify was so genuine that even inside Dread’s guise, he shone right through the facade.
In the darkness underground, time seemed to stop. Then he smiled and turned away.
I let out my breath. Okay, that was definitely something.
I watched as Mystify and Cherie headed back in the direction we came. Cherie wasn’t talking nonstop anymore. She was losing that along with her Cherie-self. Soon the crunch of their footsteps faded away in the darkness.
It wasn’t a final solution, but maybe it would keep Cherie off the radar long enough to shake Dread’s resurrection story. Without Cherie, there was no miracle in Brooklyn.
I hoped.
15
As I emerged into the light of day, blinking like some nocturnal beast, I was thinking more about Mystify than the fact that I had just kidnapped a woman. Mystify and I worked well together. Like we fit together. Like we were on the same level. But I didn’t feel that magic zing right to my core when he looked at me.
Maybe that “magic” feeling was dangerous. Maybe chemistry was nothing more than revved-up lust, and when it came to living with someone, part
nering with a man, it was more important that he was good for you. And you were good for him.
Plus, there was that a spark between us. Maybe Mystify had all of the best parts of Ram with none of the baggage.
Now I’m really confused.
I hadn’t asked Mystify anything about Ram this time. Funny, I hadn’t even thought about it until I’d left him. The real question I wanted an answer to was, Why did Ram kill Hope? I needed to ask even though I was afraid to find out the answer.
The mood on the street was weird. There were a lot of people out walking, but it wasn’t the frantic rushing of the night before, more like a massive street fair that had settled over the Lower East Side. A surprise holiday with work in the city shut down, giving everyone a three-day weekend.
Making my way through the crowds, I could tell the people were generally moving south and toward the river where they could stare and point across at the white sugar cube of the Prophet’s Center. Radios blared out from cars and open windows, announcing a state of emergency in the city with all three bridges to Brooklyn closed to incoming traffic.
As I came down Avenue C, I didn’t sense any demons at the bar. Maybe I was the first one back. Wouldn’t that be lucky? Mystify had refused to cooperate in my plan to hide Cherie away underground until I pledged not to tell anyone, not ever. Not Shock, not Ram, not anyone. Dread would kill us both if it got out. Now we held each other’s life in our hands.
I was opening the front door, warily keeping an eye out around me, when Ram emerged from the pedestrians passing by. He was looking at me steadily, as he always did. He was cloaked, but that couldn’t hide the roiling in his aura—his golden joy to see me flooded over his purple frustration and pain at not being able find me.
My first thought was—where was he last night? Knowing about his other girlfriends made me more jealous than I liked to admit.
“I’m glad you’re back, Allay.” He joined me and took my hand, the same hand that Mystify had held, which finally shook me out of my reverie. I couldn’t stand here on the street staring into his eyes like a lovesick girl.
