S
arco looks me up and down. I’m just a flickering shroud, but I sense his gaze penetrating me, searching out my innermost secrets. “You have to take up the mantle,” he says carefully. “It begins right here. I will rent open the gateway. The change will commence. There will be trouble, like I said. It won’t be easy. A mad rush of souls will begin. Already they swarm, keen with the sense that something gigantic is about to happen.” He seems suddenly tired, as if now that he’s closer than ever to attaining his goal, he just wants to collapse and be done with it. He waves a lethargic hand toward the masses of ghosts closing steadily on us. “I can’t force you to do it. If you say no, you can leave. I swear to you. But mark my words: it will be done. One way or the other. You would do well to be on the right side of this great moment.” He pauses, maybe to catch his breath. The rain claps against rooftop around us; the clouds swirl overhead. “Will you help me, Carlos?”
“I will,” I hear myself saying. “I will.”
Sarco doesn’t smile. Instead he drops his head, panting. For a second I think he’s just going to collapse right there and become the most anticlimactic fatality of a grand world-changing scheme ever. Instead, he turns around,
raises both hands, and lets out a howl that sends a tremble through me. The sky convulses in response. Thunder bursts out, and seconds later a shock of white lightning breaks the clouds. “Then step forward,” Sarco whispers. He nods toward where Mama Esther hangs in the air like an overripe pumpkin.
I take a step toward her. The ngks have begun shimmying up their ghost threads toward us. The mass of hungry dead stretches out for miles to either side of the building. They’re writhing and frothing, desperate to get to this strange new freedom. They can smell the living world, suddenly closer and more palpable than it’s ever been.
I step forward, just an inch or two from my sad old friend the house ghost. The energy crackles and trembles around me. “Yes!” Sarco whispers. “Yes.” The first ngk crosses onto the roof and stops its manic shimmying beside Sarco. It doesn’t look at him—Ngks aren’t big on direct eye contact—but its long mouth stretches all the way across its face and tiny sharp teeth appear. Sarco shakes his head, mumbling something under his breath. The other ngks have paused just shy of the rooftop. “No,” Sarco says. “This is the one. Yes.”
Are they negotiating? Can one negotiate with an ngk? Sarco’s massive shadowy form sags. “Fine, then,” he mutters, and the ngks all move as one toward Mama Esther.
Sarco responds to my unasked question. “They are not interested in humanity or magic. They care nothing for matters of equilibrium. They are fiercely loyal to one another and no one else.”
“That much I gathered.”
“That is always first and foremost for the ngk: its fellow ngk. Beyond that, they care only about one thing.”
“Sexy lady ngks?”
“Food.”
“Come again?”
“The ngks are scavengers. They appear every few centuries, feed off the festering souls of the dead and dying, and vanish back into the shadows of time. They know I’m on the brink of changing the world order. They are nothing if not strategic, dedicated. When the gateway is opened, the ngks will begin a feeding frenzy. They agreed to take part, but they want to be sure they can continue their runs when things settle down.”
“Why don’t they just feast on all these dead geriatrics heading our way?”
Sarco gets very close again. I suppress a shudder. “Because ngks like their meat fresh, Carlos, and they have long game. They’re not just wild animals, eating anything that’s in their path and then dying of famine. Ngks are the spiders that meticulously build their traps and then lie in wait, for centuries if need be. They serve their purpose—cleansing the ranks of death. And then they get out of the way. Their presence here means that they believe in what’s about to happen. The future. Soon you’ll understand. Now step forward, Carlos. Stand with us.”
When I enter the space within Mama Esther’s shroud, the first thing I feel is a shock of pain course through me, and I wonder if the whole thing was some cruel joke. Within seconds though, the pain turns to something else: power. A surge of crisp, living energy runs from my head to my toes, a vitality I’ve never known or imagined. I gaze from side to side, aghast at this sudden burst of potency, this life in my veins. This power. The ngks are all around me, grabbing at the folds of Mama Esther’s cloudy edges and pulling outward. She flickers as she expands: an impossible darkness appears inside her that I realize is the
night sky in the living world. Soon the opening will cover the whole building and then stretch all the way out to each of the ngkified surrounding ones.
Power. It’s the collective energy of all those frothing souls; it’s the bursting of history and lunacy and culminating sorcery, and it belongs to me. I can swish my right hand and collapse a city block. I am life and death incarnated, so much more than the bumbling manservant the Council abuses for their dirty work. The hungry dead surround me, base and pathetic little creatures, and I know in seconds they’ll swarm forward, through this brand-new gateway.
“And so it begins!” Sarco yells.
And then I jump him.
H
ow to explain combat physics in the realm of the dead? Those phantom bodies are like watery sacks; they hold weight but only in the most slippery, translucent kind of way. You can feel the dead as a kind of dull, tingling pressure, the pressure of the spirit. They can rise up into the air as if buffeted by a supernatural wind, but it wears them out; flying is exhausting. The closest comparison would be an underwater fight that isn’t in slo-mo and with a touch more gravity.
It takes effort for a soul to rise, so I make sure to catch Sarco nice and off guard before I ram him. He really is shocked—I hear a horrified gasp as our bodies connect and I heave us both forward over the edge of the rooftop. About halfway down, he seems to recover himself and I feel the sudden pressure against our plunge. It’s too late though—I already have momentum on my side. I tighten my form and thrust us hard into the murky ground below. A crowd of old ghosts scatters languidly out of the way and we land in a heap.
They won’t stay scattered for long.
As Sarco scrambles to recover himself, I make a grab for his blade, the only real chance I have. He darts away,
waving his arms, but not before I wrap my translucent fingers around the handle and yank it away from him. “No!” Sarco yells. I slash him once, twice, and then stab forward, tearing his loose spirit flesh into shreds. Then, for good measure, I kick him backward into the swarm of hungry ghosts.
I don’t wait to see what happens. There’s no time. Between me and the entrada there are hundreds of starving souls and more on the way. I slash out cruelly, slicing a few that got too close, and begin cleaving a path back up this shimmering, hellish version of Franklin Avenue. They’re furious, these ghosts—already been held at bay once, and now here comes another swashbuckler to tempt and then thwart them. A few times I feel them close in on me, but some well-placed slashes hold them off.
By the time I reach Eastern Parkway, I’m exhausted. I wonder, vaguely, whether my physical body is even still alive and what the hell would happen to me if it expires while I’m running around the Underworld. Then an icy hand slaps across my shoulder, pulling me down. I swing Sarco’s blade over it, chopping it at the wrist, and when I turn around, there he is, towering before me and howling as the hungry ghosts clutter over him like ants. He reaches out again, and I stumble backward, almost lose my balance, and then turn and run, cutting ghosts out of my way as I go.
I pass the emptiness of the Deeper Death. Up ahead, haunted treetops glower over the fog of Prospect Park. The ghouls are thick and enraged on all sides of me, and I’m losing my strength fast, but . . . I’m so close. I brace myself and dive forward. Sarco’s probably still behind me, grappling with the masses. I think I hear his scream carried on the howling wind, but there’s no time to bother checking.
The park. Everything becomes a frantic blur as I slash and slice my way toward the entrada. I close on it, shoot a last glance behind me at the ghost riot—no Sarco to be seen—and plunge through, gasping for air.
* * *
My frail spirit body screams at me to rest, but I can’t.
I can’t.
Not with that creature on my trail. Not with the chance of him somehow making it through that hellhole alive. No. Just the thought of his empty face coming through the entrada is enough to get my distraught ass up and staggering in the direction of home and my poor, skewered body. The rain stopped, but the air is still wet and the streets are slick with its aftermath. I’ve never felt so blessed to be outside in the beautiful world, the world of the living, where things are real, you touch them and they stop your hand from going any farther. I’m alive, I think, somewhere and somehow, even if divided and exhausted and damn near dead.
I will make it home. I will get my body back. I will get that damn sword out of my gut, and I’ll recover, somehow, and then I’ll find Sarco and finish him off completely.
One way or
amotherfuckingother.
I slip my knots and garments,
utter the first no.
It begins where it ends.
Memory
Ignites like kindling
The time when I filled the sky.
Parting brought death.
Now, I drum on the carcass of the world
creating crises to recall my name
—Gloria Anzaldúa
“Canción de la diosa de la
noche”
I
might be one of the last people in Brooklyn to have a landline. It’s a source of endless amusement to Kia, but I’m glad of it tonight. Who knows where one of those ridiculous little cellular phones would’ve ended up in the course of all that fighting and fucking? I don’t have it in me to go searching for shit right now. There’s about ten seconds of life force left by the time I barge back into my apartment—just enough to grab the phone off the cradle and leave it by my barely breathing body. The number I need is in my jacket pocket. My jacket is draped over the couch, thank God.
I collapse over my own body, partially because I’m spent and partially because I have no earthly idea how to get back into it. Turns out, that’s pretty much the deal: after a confusing jumble of physicality meshing with spirit, I’m staring up at the ceiling again, exalting in the searing pains running along my midsection and gasping for air. I grab the phone, very, very carefully, hunt the paper out of my jacket, and dial.
“Hello?” A groggy female voice.
“Victor . . .” All I can do is gasp. It must sound horrifying. “Victor . . . Please.”
She’s irritated. “Hold on. Babe . . . Babe! Some asshole’s on the motherfucking phone for you, babe.
M
y phone.” I hear a rustling of bedsheets. “Victor! Wake the fuck up.”
“What?”
“You gave some freak my phone number, and now he’s calling at four o’clock in the morning. Handle it.” From the chaos that ensues, I deduce that she just brained him with the mobile. A few curses later Victor gets on.
“What? Who is this?”
“It’s Carlos. The guy that isn’t dead.”
“Oh . . . shit. What happened? You sound horrible.”
“I need . . . help.”
“Jenny’s kind of in a mood right now, Carlos. Maybe this isn’t the—”
“Not . . . fucking . . . Jenny, Victor. I need a doctor. I’m . . . impaled.”
“You’re what?” He sounds a little more excited than horrified. Bloodthirsty paramedics.
“There’s a twelve-inch blade pinning my gut to the couch. I . . . need . . . help.”
“I’ll be right over.”
He takes down my address and hangs up. Just before I pass out, I remember that there’s supposed to be a long-haired junky standing in the corner.
But there isn’t.
* * *
“Well, damn,” Victor says when he walks in the door.
“Can you stop gawking and do what you do, please.”
He walks up close and stares in utter amazement at the blade. “It’s just . . .”
“Victor, I’m dying!”
“No, I know, Carlos, but this is out of my . . . You need a doctor, Carlos. A surgeon.”
“Then find me one. Please.”
He looks puzzled for a minute. I can’t tell if he’s flipping through some mental Rolodex or still just entranced by my wound. Then he snaps his fingers. “I know just the one: this crazy Haitian motherfucker. A resident trauma surgeon at King’s County. Renowed across the world apparently. Yes. Dr. Tijou will be perfect.”
“Can Dr. Tijou keep a secret?”
“I guess we’ll find out. Lemme make a phone call.”
“Victor, wait. Get at this guy too.” I pass him Baba Eddie’s card. “Ask him if he could make a house call.”
* * *
Baba Eddie shows up while Victor’s out tracking down Dr. Tijou. He’s dressed head to toe in white and looks more serious than I’ve ever seen him. Kia comes in behind him carrying a few heavy boxes, also in her whites. She disappears into the kitchen and starts mixing things up while Baba Eddie takes a long hard look at my situation.
“I don’t know where you’ve been,” he says finally, “but there’s death all over you. It’s like you took a bath in dead people.”
“That pretty much sums up my night.”
“It’s not good. A limited amount of exposure is one thing, but you are covered in it. It’s corroding you.”
“There’s also the small matter of the blade.”
“Bah—not my department. Let the surgeon handle that. What good is getting unstuck if you’ve got death pervading every fiber of your aura?”
“Fair enough.”
He shakes his head. I feel like a kid that stayed out too late binge drinking and now has to clean up the mess. “Kia,” Baba Eddie yells over his shoulder. “Add some more basil.”
“Whatchya cookin’?”
“Shush. You need to conserve your energy, so stop wasting it on boberías. Try to sleep.”
* * *
When I wake up I’m once again being gazed at curiously, this time by a small, serious-looking dark-skinned woman. By her face you’d think she was young, too young to be a world-renowned trauma surgeon, except for the alarming streaks of white that run along either side of her otherwise pitch-black hair. She frowns at me, cocks her head to one side, frowns some more. Victor comes up beside her.
“What you think, Doc?”
Dr. Tijou considers, ponders, sighs, frowns some more, makes a
hmm
ing noise, coughs, and then shrugs. “Not bad.”
“Word?” I say.
“Don’t speak.”
“What’s the plan?” Victor asks.
“We pull it out.”
“Just like that?”
“Of course not. You’re going to start two large-bore IVs, and then we’re going to prep the site with disinfectant and give the patient a prophylactic dose of amoxicillin. We will set up all the surgical tools necessary in case he decides to exsanguinate.”
“Decides?”
“Don’t speak, I said. And
then
we will pull out the blade.”
Victor nods. “Sounds good.”
“Are you sure that’s the right way to do it?” I ask.
“I am sure that’s not the right way to do it, actually,” the doctor says matter-of-factly. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?”
“I can’t.”
“Well, then, we are both sure of things. Now, be quiet.”
They work with startling efficiency. Victor wraps rubber tourniquets around my arms and stabs me with two very large needles. He attaches a bag of saline to each site and hangs them on the lamp next to the couch while Dr. Tijou scrubs her hands and prepares some medications.
Baba Eddie comes in from the kitchen and says, “Oh, you guys go ahead.”
“Ah,” Dr. Tijou says. “Dr. Voudou!”
Baba Eddie opens a wide smile. “Dr. Bonecutter.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“The pleasure is all mine.” They shake, both grinning widely. I don’t think anyone knows whether they’re kidding or not. Probably not even they know.
“Would you like to go first?” Dr. Tijou asks.
“No, no, ours can wait till after. Body first, then spirit. You go right ahead, my dear.”
Are they flirting? Mocking each other? I can’t tell. I don’t really care as long as I don’t die.
“Very well,” the doctor says with a courteous smile and a slight bow.
“Anyone want coffee?” Kia calls from the kitchen.
Everyone wants coffee except Dr. Tijou, who prefers tea.
“You ready?” she says a few minutes later when everything’s in place.
I nod. “I guess so.”
“I was talking to Victor.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I’m ready,” Victor says, putting down his coffee mug and standing over the makeshift surgical table they set up.
“Then pull.”
“Me?” Victor says.
“Him?” I say.
Dr. Tijou laughs. “It doesn’t take any special medical
knowledge to pull a sword out of someone. It’s what happens after that matters. It seemed like something you might enjoy doing, as a medic. If you want, I could—”
“No, no,” Victor says, a little too hungrily. “I would love to. I just didn’t know . . . Yes.” He takes a deep breath, gloves up, and puts both hands on the blade handle.
Dr. Tijou nods. “Straight out, Victor. No twists, no turns. Just pull.”
“’Kay.” Victor’s sweating. So am I. He braces himself and then pulls. I groan as sharp blasts of pain explode through my abdomen. Then it’s gone and Dr. Tijou is peering gingerly into the hole it left behind.
“Bon Dieu!” she whispers.
“What?”
“The blade. She passed through your entire abdomen and out and somehow managed to miss every major organ and blood vessel, some by fractions of millimeters.” Her eyes are wide. “I have never seen anything like that in my life! There are many . . . There are so many organs there, and the blade simply . . .” She dabs some gauze around the wound to stave off a little pool of blood that’s formed. “Incredible.”
“I’m going to live?”
Dr. Tijou takes her face out of my abdomen and straightens her back to alert the room she’s about to say something important. “Either you, sir, are a very lucky man, or someone has gone out of their way to keep you alive.”