Die Once More
Page 6
My numa tenses, and I press the barrel tighter to his head.
“What’s it look like? Business,” he mutters.
“Whose business? Janus’s?” she asks.
He narrows his eyes at her and nods.
“So he dares to send his muscle a mere ten blocks away from our headquarters, just to put some scare into a bunch of stupid kids? Business must be booming.”
The guy just glares at her.
“You’re in our neighborhood, eight in the morning, full daylight. Know what that tells me about you and your friends?” she asks.
The man looks like he’s thinking it over, but before he can come to a conclusion, she points her own gun right between his eyes. “It tells me you’re expendable,” she says, and pulls the trigger.
As the man crumples, behind me I hear a clink of metal against wood. I turn to see the numa Frosty shot first flex his fingers, as the bullet that has worked its way out of his flesh rolls around on the floor inches from his forehead. He begins pushing himself up from where he lies in a small pool of blood.
“Blades,” Frosty says, and the three of us draw our swords, Faust and his fallen numa just visible in the hallway behind the open doorway. There is a second of silence as we hold them high, then, together, bring them down.
“Deliver us from evil,” Faust murmurs, crossing himself, as he nudges the numa head away with his foot and closes the door behind him. As the surge of dark energy hits us, I see Faust clench his fists and take it like a shot of adrenaline. Frosty closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, storing hers up. I shudder as mine floods me. The big reward for killing numa: We get their energy when they die. And we also gift the world with one less bad guy. It’s a win-win situation.
“Treat the overdose,” Frosty calls to Faust, and he moves quickly to care for the unconscious boy. She turns to me. “Go downstairs and let our backups in,” she orders.
As I leave, I see her go over to the bathroom door and knock. “Is everyone okay in there?” she asks. Muffled affirmations come from behind the door. “Just stay where you are for the moment. Sit tight. You’re all going to be okay.”
Her voice is firm and reassuring, but as she turns away and my eye catches hers, I know she is telling a half-truth. These kids got out of this scene alive, but they’re already chin-deep in numa business. It’s going to take a lot of intervention on our part, if they’ll even accept our help, for them to truly be okay.
Frosty knows how things work here. She’s been around for a while, but not too long. I can tell from her aura . . . from her eyes . . . that she’s a much younger revenant than I. But the power I see in her leaves no question of her nature in my mind. She is trying to appear normal, chummy with her kindred, on equal terms with the others. But I’m from a place where hierarchy has reigned for centuries . . . millennia even. True leaders have come and gone: I’ve read about them in Gaspard’s records, and met a few at convocations. And I know without a doubt that this woman was born to be among them. Born to be a queen. Forget Ice Queen, Frost Queen. I’m in the presence of a girl who has the potential to be the Queen . . . of New York.
FOUR
TWO MONTHS CREEP BY, AND THINGS DO NOT GET better. Every day is like its own separate death, bullet-riddled with memories and gutted by the twisting knife of loss. Entwined with the memories of Kate, and the longing for a love that will never be, is the loss of my best friend. My mood swings wildly between missing the camaraderie of a brother I had for over seventy years, and resenting him for being the recipient of Kate’s love.
And then there’s Jean-Baptiste. Although I was never as close to him as Vincent was, I loved and respected the man. I should be there to help support Gaspard in his grief. So there’s that guilt to deal with, along with all the rest.
Losing Vincent is like losing my right arm. And since Kate has my heart, and I feel spineless for abandoning Gaspard, you could say I’m presently suffering a major lack of body parts.
The only way I survive is to never stop moving. I make sure I’m always surrounded by others, so I won’t have time to think and end up imploding like a dying star.
I walk incessantly. I know the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan, my two chosen boroughs, well enough by now to have an accurate street map in my head. I sign up for three four-hour shifts per day. Although that first day was an exception, and New York’s numa are staying suspiciously out of sight, there are enough cases of suffering street people, suicide attempts, domestic violence, and near-fatal accidents to keep me on a continual high from the life force I absorb from these saves.
“Dude, this isn’t a contest,” Faust says as I trim my hair in my studio mirror. “You don’t get bonus points if you save more humans than anyone else.”
He has been an impeccable welcome rep. He got me moved into my room at the Warehouse and had it furnished with what I asked for. (I didn’t really care, but he pushed me for details until it ended up looking pretty much exactly like my room in Paris . . . besides the floor-to-ceiling windows with an enviable view of the East River.) He got me weather-appropriate clothes, made sure the armory had what I needed (sending off for some antique swords so I would “feel at home”), and introduced me to our kindred artists—of whom there are many. Seems like every revenant artist in America wants to be here.
Faust even gamely accompanied me to my first Midnight Drawing Group meeting at the Warehouse. But after Gina, one of our bardia sisters recruited to pose when our human model didn’t show up, perched atop the stool and dropped her robe, Faust’s jaw dropped too. Her response was, “Draw or scram, Faust.” He hasn’t been back since. His third-generation Italian-American upbringing and his stint in the tough-guy New York fire department never prepared him for people like the artists I hang out with.
It was Gina, drawing next to me one night, who first pointed out that the girl I was sketching looked nothing like the model posing for us on the stool. I didn’t respond—what could I say? Since then no one else has mentioned the fact that every woman I draw is the same. The position matches that of our model, the shadows and light are exactly what they are in our studio, but it is always Kate’s face, always her body. My pencil has its own will, and my fingers are its slaves.
Late one evening, Gold drops by with a message from Paris. He takes one look at the girl on my drawing pad, and I see things click in his mind. Tearing his eyes from the page, he says, “I have something for you.” He waves a creamy white envelope like a flag.
“What’s it look like? Business,” he mutters.
“Whose business? Janus’s?” she asks.
He narrows his eyes at her and nods.
“So he dares to send his muscle a mere ten blocks away from our headquarters, just to put some scare into a bunch of stupid kids? Business must be booming.”
The guy just glares at her.
“You’re in our neighborhood, eight in the morning, full daylight. Know what that tells me about you and your friends?” she asks.
The man looks like he’s thinking it over, but before he can come to a conclusion, she points her own gun right between his eyes. “It tells me you’re expendable,” she says, and pulls the trigger.
As the man crumples, behind me I hear a clink of metal against wood. I turn to see the numa Frosty shot first flex his fingers, as the bullet that has worked its way out of his flesh rolls around on the floor inches from his forehead. He begins pushing himself up from where he lies in a small pool of blood.
“Blades,” Frosty says, and the three of us draw our swords, Faust and his fallen numa just visible in the hallway behind the open doorway. There is a second of silence as we hold them high, then, together, bring them down.
“Deliver us from evil,” Faust murmurs, crossing himself, as he nudges the numa head away with his foot and closes the door behind him. As the surge of dark energy hits us, I see Faust clench his fists and take it like a shot of adrenaline. Frosty closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, storing hers up. I shudder as mine floods me. The big reward for killing numa: We get their energy when they die. And we also gift the world with one less bad guy. It’s a win-win situation.
“Treat the overdose,” Frosty calls to Faust, and he moves quickly to care for the unconscious boy. She turns to me. “Go downstairs and let our backups in,” she orders.
As I leave, I see her go over to the bathroom door and knock. “Is everyone okay in there?” she asks. Muffled affirmations come from behind the door. “Just stay where you are for the moment. Sit tight. You’re all going to be okay.”
Her voice is firm and reassuring, but as she turns away and my eye catches hers, I know she is telling a half-truth. These kids got out of this scene alive, but they’re already chin-deep in numa business. It’s going to take a lot of intervention on our part, if they’ll even accept our help, for them to truly be okay.
Frosty knows how things work here. She’s been around for a while, but not too long. I can tell from her aura . . . from her eyes . . . that she’s a much younger revenant than I. But the power I see in her leaves no question of her nature in my mind. She is trying to appear normal, chummy with her kindred, on equal terms with the others. But I’m from a place where hierarchy has reigned for centuries . . . millennia even. True leaders have come and gone: I’ve read about them in Gaspard’s records, and met a few at convocations. And I know without a doubt that this woman was born to be among them. Born to be a queen. Forget Ice Queen, Frost Queen. I’m in the presence of a girl who has the potential to be the Queen . . . of New York.
FOUR
TWO MONTHS CREEP BY, AND THINGS DO NOT GET better. Every day is like its own separate death, bullet-riddled with memories and gutted by the twisting knife of loss. Entwined with the memories of Kate, and the longing for a love that will never be, is the loss of my best friend. My mood swings wildly between missing the camaraderie of a brother I had for over seventy years, and resenting him for being the recipient of Kate’s love.
And then there’s Jean-Baptiste. Although I was never as close to him as Vincent was, I loved and respected the man. I should be there to help support Gaspard in his grief. So there’s that guilt to deal with, along with all the rest.
Losing Vincent is like losing my right arm. And since Kate has my heart, and I feel spineless for abandoning Gaspard, you could say I’m presently suffering a major lack of body parts.
The only way I survive is to never stop moving. I make sure I’m always surrounded by others, so I won’t have time to think and end up imploding like a dying star.
I walk incessantly. I know the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan, my two chosen boroughs, well enough by now to have an accurate street map in my head. I sign up for three four-hour shifts per day. Although that first day was an exception, and New York’s numa are staying suspiciously out of sight, there are enough cases of suffering street people, suicide attempts, domestic violence, and near-fatal accidents to keep me on a continual high from the life force I absorb from these saves.
“Dude, this isn’t a contest,” Faust says as I trim my hair in my studio mirror. “You don’t get bonus points if you save more humans than anyone else.”
He has been an impeccable welcome rep. He got me moved into my room at the Warehouse and had it furnished with what I asked for. (I didn’t really care, but he pushed me for details until it ended up looking pretty much exactly like my room in Paris . . . besides the floor-to-ceiling windows with an enviable view of the East River.) He got me weather-appropriate clothes, made sure the armory had what I needed (sending off for some antique swords so I would “feel at home”), and introduced me to our kindred artists—of whom there are many. Seems like every revenant artist in America wants to be here.
Faust even gamely accompanied me to my first Midnight Drawing Group meeting at the Warehouse. But after Gina, one of our bardia sisters recruited to pose when our human model didn’t show up, perched atop the stool and dropped her robe, Faust’s jaw dropped too. Her response was, “Draw or scram, Faust.” He hasn’t been back since. His third-generation Italian-American upbringing and his stint in the tough-guy New York fire department never prepared him for people like the artists I hang out with.
It was Gina, drawing next to me one night, who first pointed out that the girl I was sketching looked nothing like the model posing for us on the stool. I didn’t respond—what could I say? Since then no one else has mentioned the fact that every woman I draw is the same. The position matches that of our model, the shadows and light are exactly what they are in our studio, but it is always Kate’s face, always her body. My pencil has its own will, and my fingers are its slaves.
Late one evening, Gold drops by with a message from Paris. He takes one look at the girl on my drawing pad, and I see things click in his mind. Tearing his eyes from the page, he says, “I have something for you.” He waves a creamy white envelope like a flag.
