Dead Harvest

8

Charcoal-smudged clouds scudded westward across the Manhattan skyline as the first faint rays of sunlight peeked over the eastern horizon. The city was quiet as I left the ferry terminal and strolled west toward Battery Park. I'd walked the streets of Staten Island all night, trying to process what Merihem had told me. But no matter how I looked at it, it just didn't make sense.

I mean, I was sure of what I'd seen. Something had been inside Kate's head. Something powerful. Something vicious. Something certainly capable of the horrors I'd seen in the morgue. Not to mention, if I was wrong and Kate was to blame, then why torture the mother? Why wait for an audience to arrive before slitting her throat?

No, whatever killed Kate's family had been putting on a show. It wanted no doubt in anyone's mind that Kate had done the deed. Why? That, at least was simple. It wanted to ensure I'd finish the job — no fuss, no mess, no questions. It wanted her taken, and that's the part I couldn't square. I mean, in a war between heaven and hell, who wins?

As I wandered, lost in thought, across State Street, I tapped out a cigarette, cursing as it slipped from my cold-clumsy hands. I bent to retrieve it. Only then did I hear the roar of the engine. Loud and low and approaching fast. I looked up. An old Crown Vic skittered around the corner off of Pearl, tires squealing. It leveled the yellowy gaze of its headlights on me and bore down hard. Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten. I was running out of time.

I leapt aside. Not fast enough. My hip exploded in pain as bumper met flesh.

The impact spun me end over end. I tumbled to the pavement like a rag doll, cracking my head against the centerline. The driver laid on the brakes and the Crown Vic came to a screeching, crooked halt amidst a cloud of thick blue smoke that reeked of melted rubber. I tried to move. It didn't take. My left leg felt like it was full of hot lead. My head didn't feel much better. Then the car clunked into gear, and the reverse lights came on.

I was beginning to think these guys didn't like me.

The engine whined as the car swerved backward toward me. Close and coming fast. With all I had, I threw myself aside, or tried. With my leg still not cooperating, I barely moved a couple feet. As I glanced toward the car, I caught a glimpse of my own frightened stare, reflected in the chrome of the bumper. But in an instant it was gone, replaced by a blur of fender as the Crown Vic whizzed past, scant inches from my face. I collapsed backward onto the pavement. My chest heaved with every ragged breath as I stared, spent, at the gray morning sky. Two for two, I thought — not too shabby. I was out of gas, though, and I knew it. If they came at me a third time, I was toast, and this body was heading right back where I found it. I wondered queasily whether the docs would even recognize poor Jonah once that Crown Vic had its way. It wasn't a comforting line of thought.

But they didn't take another pass. Instead, the engine cut out. Four doors opened, and then slammed shut. Four sets of shoes clattered across the pavement. Three stopped well short of where I lay — they spoke in hushed tones, their words lost to me on the breeze. The fourth approached me, blotting out the morning sky as he hunched over my crumpled form. He was fuzzy, hard to see — as if lit from within. I was pretty sure that wasn't just because of the crack I took to the noggin. My breath caught in my chest. My vision dimmed. I tried in vain to stretch my consciousness, to find myself another vessel, but the effort was too great — all I got for my trouble was a searing pain between my temples and the copper scent of blood prickling in my sinuses. Sirens, faint as hope, echoed in the distance. In that moment, I didn't care I was a fugitive — I just prayed they'd be in time. Whatever these guys wanted with me, it wasn't good, and it's not like I was gonna go down swinging.

"Is it dead?" called one of the stragglers.

"No," replied the one above me. "It lives."

"Come, Ahadiel. We have to go. Perhaps next time, we will finish him."

And then, sirens drawing closer, they fled.

I woke by degrees. The first thing I was aware of was my leg, which throbbed in time with the beating of my heart. Next came the sirens. They were everywhere, reverberating off the walls around me. I opened my eyes. Light flooded in, and my head erupted in whitehot pain. I clenched them shut again and retched. That meant concussion. Explained the fuzziness.

Again I opened my eyes, slowly this time. My stomach clenched, but I didn't vomit. It was progress. I looked around. I was lying in a broad trash-strewn alley, tucked between a dumpster and a loading dock.

And I wasn't alone.

By instinct, I tried to find my feet, but my hip felt heavy and out of joint, and my leg couldn't take the weight. I got to one knee before collapsing to the ground with a scream.

"Quiet," said the young man who sat beside me, nodding toward the mouth of the alley — toward the source of the sirens. "They'll hear you."

He was a wiry kid of maybe twenty-three, in a tattered army surplus jacket and dirt-smeared jeans. His pallor was gray, his face gaunt, his black hair was longish and matted. His eyes darted this way and that, looking anywhere it seemed but at mine. His frame and clothes suggested homeless. His furtive gaze suggested crazy. In his hand he held a knife, matte brown with rust and filth.

Christ, I thought — this day keeps getting better and better.

"What makes you think I don't want them to hear?"

"You told me. In my head."

I eyed him, suspicious. "I did."

He nodded. "In my head, I heard you calling. Afraid. Trying to escape. So I came to help."

"Look, about that — I appreciate the help, but I really gotta go."

"You are not who you are."

My heart skipped a beat. "Come again?"

"You are not who you are," he repeated. "Your body — it fits you funny, like borrowed clothes. And the voice you used to call me is not the voice you use now."

The kid rocked back and forth as he spoke, and still his gaze avoided mine. It was clear he wasn't quite right in the head — but could he really see me?

I rested my weight against the loading dock and stretched my consciousness toward him — probing, testing. The pain in my head redoubled as I struggled to focus. My body went slack as I pulled away. My vision dimmed.

I brushed against his mind, and he flinched as if stung. I settled back into the Friedlander body. The kid stared at me with wide-eyed terror.

"That isn't very nice," he said, shaking his head, his knife held ready between us. "My head is crowded enough already."

"I'm sorry." My hands were raised palm-out, my tone placating. "It's just that most people, they can't see me. What I am. Their minds won't let them."

He scowled. "You thought I was crazy."

"Of course not!"

"Everyone thinks I'm crazy. I guess maybe I am. But the pills, they dull everything. The tastes, the smells, the sounds. They reduce it all to ash. You ask me, I think crazy seems the saner option."

"Listen, kid, you got a name?"

"My mother called me Anders."

"Nice to meet you, Anders. Mine called me Sam. You think maybe we could do without the knife?"

He looked down at the knife in his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and then at me. From his jacket Anders produced a makeshift scabbard of duct tape; he slid the blade into the scabbard, and both disappeared into his jacket.

"Sorry," he said. "I was worried they'd come back. The ones who hurt you."

"Did you see them?"

"Yes. They were not like you. They were fuzzy. Hard to see. Like looking at the sun."

Shit — angels. That's what I was afraid of. What they wanted with me, I had no idea, but it was clear it wasn't good.

I pushed myself up off the ground and clambered awkwardly to my feet, careful to keep my weight on my good leg. "Anders," I said, "I have to go. I don't think I can walk, so you'll have to help me. You think you can do that?"

Anders nodded. "Is this about the girl?"

"What do you know about the girl?"

"Before, in my head, when you were trying to escape — you said she was in danger. That you had to save her. That everything depended on it."

"I did?"

"Yes."

I eyed him appraisingly. "So you in?"

Anders shrugged. "I guess," he said. "I mean, I'm not busy."

I laughed.

Anders added, "You said something else, too, you know."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"You said you thought she might save you."

I smiled and shook my head. I didn't doubt what the kid said, but I'd been a fool to even think it. After all, I was lost a long time ago.