Dead Harvest

27

The chopper shook so badly that my vision blurred and the horizon was rendered indistinct, but still I gripped the joystick between my knees, struggling with all I had to keep the chopper on course. Even in the best of circumstances, there was no way in hell I was gonna land this thing smoothly, but minus one skid, and with the controls unresponsive, I figured my only shot was to drop us in some water. Even then, I didn't know if we'd survive.

We rocketed over the intersection of Sixth and Central Park South, and the buildings of Midtown dropped away. The treetops of the park scraped against the underside of the helicopter like the scrabbling of some unholy scavengers, eager to partake of the tasty morsels within. I tried my damnedest to gain a little altitude, but the scrabbling continued. It looked like we were out of up.

I considered my options. The reservoir was damn near two miles away — no way were we gonna stay up that long. Besides, the reservoir is huge — even if I brought her down OK, we'd likely drown before we reached the shore. The lake was a better bet — a little closer, a little shallower — but still, I didn't see this bucket getting that far. That left the pond. Plenty close, if a bit shallow for my liking. Would a few feet of water be enough to cushion our impact? I suddenly found myself wishing I'd done a little better in physics as a kid — or, failing that, that I'd taken it more recently than seventy-odd years ago.

Oh, well, I thought — only one way to find out.

I yanked the joystick to the right. The chopper banked. She lost a little altitude as well, and a maelstrom of leaves and branches raged around us. I caught a glimpse of shimmering water just ahead before the chopper plunged entirely below the tree line, and then I saw nothing but green.

There was nothing left to do but pray.

We emerged from the canopy like a slug from a barrel, our rotor twisted and unmoving above us, our landing skids both certainly gone. The cabin tilted, and I fell from the pilot's seat, slamming hard into the window beside me. Through it, I saw the water rise to meet us, and then a murky nothing as it engulfed us in a roar of surf and a screech of rending metal. And then my forehead met the windshield, and the world went dark.

The gun was a dull, ugly affair, all scuffed and gray and worn. A tiny little revolver with a nasty snub nose and a peeling leather grip, it had the look of a featherweight boxer gone to seed. I hefted it in my hand, marveling at its weight. Then I extended my arm outward, lining the sight up with the clock that sat behind a wire cage just a few feet above the countertop.

"Whoa, pal, that iron's hot! Do me favor and maybe don't go ventilating my shop, huh?"

I looked at him and set the gun down on the counter. He was a wiry guy of maybe forty, with beady close-set eyes and nervous hands, which at the moment were tapping out a jaunty number on the countertop. He wore a pair of baggy wool trousers, held up by a set of suspenders over a greasestained T-shirt. Except for me and him, the hock shop was empty. I looked him up and down, and wondered was he always this nervous, or was it my sparkling personality that had him on edge. Then again, I guess it coulda been the gun.

"You always keep 'em loaded?" I asked.

"No, not always. But guys like you, they come in wantin' a piece, I've found it ain't wise to keep 'em waiting."

"What do you mean, guys like me?"

"You know," he said, looking suddenly uncomfortable, "guys like you. Made guys."

So that's what I'd become? A made guy? My friend here said it with such reverence it made me want to puke.

"So how much?"

"For you? Twenty-five bucks."

"That seems a little steep."

The drumming on the counter sped up a bit. The guy looked a little green. "Hey, that thing's got no serial, no history. That's a good deal I'm giving you — Scout's honor."

I looked him up and down. "You were a Boy Scout?"

"Hey, we've all been something we ain't anymore, you know what I mean?"

Yeah, I knew what he meant. I tossed some bills down on the counter and stuffed the gun into my pants pocket.

"There's thirty here," he said.

"Keep it," I replied. I left him grinning like an idiot behind the counter as I left the shop and stepped out into the cool September night.

On the street, I hailed a cab, and told the cabbie the corner of Whitehall and Bridge. I was headed to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, where I was to exchange the envelope in my pocket for another that I'd deliver to Dumas later tonight. The envelope in my pocket was full of cash. God knows what was in the other one. Documents, I'd guess — the kind of documents that could slap a veneer of legitimacy on whatever illegitimate shit Dumas was bringing in through the harbor. Or maybe they were raffle tickets. Truth be told, I didn't care.

This wasn't the first time I'd made the customs run for Dumas, or even the fifth, and every time it was the same. This time of night, the building was pretty quiet. My contact would meet me at the service entrance around back. We'd make the exchange and go our separate ways — no fuss, no mess, no complications.

So if everything was roses, why'd I need the heater? Because like I said, every time it was the same. Make the swap, bring the papers to Dumas. Always a spot of his choosing, always far from prying eyes. The only difference was, this time he was gonna get a little lead along with his envelope.

I wasn't happy with the thought of it, but I'd gone over it a thousand times, and every time, the outcome was the same. Elizabeth's program ended in just under a week, but she'd been off the drugs for days — the docs just wanted to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn't relapse. Once she was out, Dumas and I were done, at least to my mind. But when I'd broached the topic to him, he just laughed and shook his head. "Hate to have you get her home all healthy, just to have her take a nasty spill," he'd say, eyes dancing with mischief all the while. Always friendly, jovial — like he thought that it was cute. But I meant to get out, and if he didn't mean to let me, then I was gonna have to find another way.

The Custom House was an imposing Federal structure, six stories of cold granite overlooking Battery Park, and New York Harbor beyond. I set fire to a cigarette and made my way to the service entrance. Three cigarettes' wait, and the exchange went off without a hitch. My hands trembled with anticipation as I handed over the envelope, but if my contact noticed it, he didn't let on. The envelope he handed me, I folded, and stuffed into my pocket. For maybe the hundredth time, I thought myself a fool for going through with the swap, when I could've just taken the money and used it to help us disappear once the deed was done. But even if I could stomach taking it, the people it belonged to weren't likely to let its disappearance slide, and that'd result in a whole lot of the wrong kind of attention for me. No, it was best for me if they thought the hit and this transaction had nothing to do with one another. If that meant Elizabeth and I fled broke, then that was just how it had to be.

The walk across Battery Park seemed to take forever. My nerves were jangling, my knee was killing me, and despite the chill breeze that blew in across the harbor, my hands and neck were slick with sweat. Dumas and I were to meet at the entrance of the old fort. Designed to protect the harbor from the British navy in the War of 1812 but never once seeing battle, it now sat squat and lifeless beneath a starless sky. A little more exposed than I'd have liked to be, but I've since learned these things rarely go as smoothly as I'd like.

Dumas was chomping on an unlit cigar when I arrived. "Evening, Sammy," he said, though the words were garbled by the fact that he never removed the cigar from his mouth. "I trust you got something for me?"

"Yeah," I said. I thrust my hands into my pockets, producing the envelope from my left and handing it to him. My right hand stayed in my pocket, wrapping tight around the gun grip.

"You all right? You don't look so hot."

I laughed, cold and bitter. "Truth is, I don't feel so hot," I said. "But I think things are looking up."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

I wanted to have something cool to say to that. Something bad-ass. Something that let Dumas know that I was done playing the patsy for him. But when I opened my mouth, the words just wouldn't come.

Dumas cocked his head, eyeing me with sudden suspicion. "Sammy, what the hell is going on?" Then I pulled the gun, and he knew exactly what was going on.

I stepped in close. Grabbed him by the collar, shoved the gun into his gut. One, two, three, and it was done. His body muffled the reports, but still my ears rang. I didn't have long before the bulls arrived. I let go of him, then, watched him slump to the ground, eyes wide and blank and dead. Three blooms of red spread out across his chest. So much blood. I looked down at my hands, and they were spattered with it — that and gunpowder burns. The gun fell, forgotten from my hands. I stood trembling in the chill night air, tears stinging my cheeks. I thought that once the deed was done, I'd feel relief, but I didn't — I just felt sick. Sick and hollowed-out.

It felt like an eternity, standing there, looking down at the body at my feet, but really, it couldn't have been more than a few moments. I was shaken from my reverie by the sound of sirens, distant but approaching. I should have thought to take the gun. I should have thought a lot of things. But the truth is, I didn't think anything at all. I just ran.

Problem is, some things, you just can't run from.

When I came to, my head was throbbing. By the digital readout on the console, I'd been out less than a minute, but it felt more like a week. For a moment, I didn't move, didn't blink — I just lay there, still as death, so spent was I by our mad flight across Manhattan, not to mention our sudden descent. My everything hurt, but the way I figured it, that meant my everything was still attached, so that wasn't all bad news. In the sudden absence of the helicopter's droning wail, the cabin was so quiet I wondered briefly if I'd been struck deaf. Then I heard a low groan from the back of the cabin, and I realized my ears, at least, were fine.

The groaning was coming from Kate, who lay prostrate atop our pilot. It seemed he'd cushioned her impact, because she looked pretty much in one piece, if a bit dazed. There was a welt above her right eye from when she'd slammed into the ceiling, and blood ran freely from a scrape on her chin, but when my eyes met hers, she smiled.

Our pilot had not fared so well. He was still out, and his leg was bent beneath him in a manner not possible given the usual number of joints and bones. His face was a swollen, bloody mess, and his bullet-grazed forearm had soaked through the fabric of his flight suit. Looking at him, I wanted to feel anger at Bishop for forcing me to hurt that man, or horror at what I'd done; I wanted to feel regret for having put the pilot in this position in the first place. I wanted to feel those things because they would have given me something of my past life to hold on to, something human and decent and kind. Mostly, though, I just felt tired.

"Ugh," Kate said, rolling off of the pilot and collapsing against the cabin wall that now served as the floor. "That sucked. Next time you steal a vehicle, make sure it's one you know how to drive, OK?"

"I didn't steal it — I hijacked it. There's a difference. And I don't think you 'drive' a helicopter."

"I think it's pretty clear you don't."

"Funny." I hauled myself up onto my knees. It felt like I was trying to lift a bus. "What about our pilotfriend? He still breathing?"

"Yeah," she said. "You think he's still a bad guy?"

"I don't know. If he's out, Bishop's out, so there's a chance Bishop's still around. But if I had to guess, I'd say Bishop bailed the last time our guy came to — I would have. The way that leg's bent, though, I don't think we've got to worry about him giving chase either way."

"So what now?"

"Now we run."

I lifted myself up off the chopper window, now buried in the thick, brown-green muck that lined the bottom of the pond. An earthy stench permeated the cabin, and as I rose, I was surprised to find my clothes were damp with muddy pond water. It bubbled upward from the cabin wall beneath us; it oozed from the control panels. I helped Kate to her feet, and looked down at our pilot-friend, the inky water pooling around him.

"We've got to take him with us," Kate said. "If we leave him here, he'll drown."

"The water's barely three feet deep, Kate, and coming in slow. He'll be all right till someone gets here."

"You can't know that."

"I don't know that — but it's the best we can do."

"No, it's not. You can help me get him out of here. I can't do it on my own."

"Kate, that's nuts — we don't have time."

"Yeah? Well, I say we do. You plan to sit and watch while I try, the cops approaching all the while? Or would you rather try and drag me off? Carry me or carry him — it's your choice. At least with him, you've got help, and unlike me, he won't be kicking the whole way."

The way that leg looked, he might not be kicking ever again, but I wasn't gonna tell her that. What I said instead was: "OK. But we'd better hurry."

First, though, we had to find a door. The one we'd boarded through now lay beneath our feet — not to mention a good inch of pond water. I scanned the cabin. If there was an emergency hatch, it sure as hell wasn't obvious. That left Plan C.

What was once the left-hand side of the cockpit window was submerged, the water thick with particles churned up in our landing, but the right-hand side was clear, slate sky hanging low above a canopy of leaves.

"Cover your eyes," I said. Kate complied.

The gun thundered in my hand, painfully loud in the small, quiet space of the cabin. I, too, had covered my eyes against the threat of spraying glass, burying my face in the crook of my elbow. Once the reverberations died down, I allowed myself a peek.

The glass had buckled outward, the pane a tangled web of cracks framing a hole the size of a quarter. I climbed atop the now-horizontal seat and braced my good leg against the window, my heel atop the hole, and my back pressed tight against the seatback. Then, with an animal cry, I pushed.

The pane snapped free of its frame, not in a thousand tiny pieces as I expected, but all at once. It smacked into the surface of the water with a slap. Cool air kissed my face, and carried with it the sound of distant sirens. Been hearing those too often lately, I thought.

"Grab his feet," I said, looping my arms under the pilot's arms and around his chest. "And mind that leg."

Together, we wrestled him to the window and tossed him out. He splashed into the water about as gracelessly as the window had, bobbing face-down as we scampered after. The water was bitterly cold. It came up to my waist, and seeped into the knife wound in my thigh, bringing with it a dull, woozy ache that set my head reeling. I pushed past it, dragging the pilot to the shore and collapsing to the grass as Kate emerged dripping beside me. Just a couple dozen yards away, the Fifth Avenue traffic roared and honked, but I barely noticed. I was shivering and exhausted, and all I wanted to do was lay on this bed of grass and sleep. But Kate was having none of it.

"Sam, c'mon, we've got to go." She grabbed my by the wrist and yanked. I stayed down. She tried again.

"Sam, those sirens are getting closer. And we've got an audience."

I raised my head and looked around. Dotting the park were a couple dozen onlookers, watching us with expressions of confusion and surprise. Then, one by one, their faces changed, each becoming a twisted mask of hatred. Black fire raged in their eyes. As one by one they began to approach, I found my feet, putting an arm around Kate and ushering her toward the low stone wall that marked the border of the park.

"Sam, what's going on? Who are those guys?"

"Demons — foot soldiers, I'd guess. Ever since I first failed to collect you, they've been watching me."

"It doesn't look like they're content to watch you now."

"No, it doesn't. Mu'an blamed me for the attack at Grand Central — for the war that's brewing now. I'm sure he's not the only one. I suspect they've tired of waiting for me to do my job."

"So what happens if they catch us?" Kate asked.

"Torture, death, an eternity of torment. You know, the usual."

"Let's make sure they don't catch us then, OK?"

"That's the plan."

We reached the wall, and I helped her up and over. When she reached the other side, she gasped.

"Oh, Jesus, Sam — they're gaining."

A glance over my shoulder told me she was right. There were maybe a dozen of them, approaching at a brisk walk. I noticed then that they were not alone — the park was dotted with figures in suits and trench coats, fedoras worn low over faces obscured as if by an inner light. Angels. They weren't pursuing us like the demons were; they just hung back. Watching. Waiting. For what, I didn't know — and I wasn't about to stick around to find out.

I vaulted over the wall, and hit the sidewalk at a run, dragging Kate along by the wrist. The pain in my leg wasn't so much forgotten as rendered unimportant. The promise of eternal torment does wonders in adjusting one's priorities.

We darted into traffic amidst a squeal of brakes and a blast of horns. A dozen shouted curses hurled our way. I paid them no mind. Behind us, the demons had broken into a run, and were one by one hopping the wall, as graceful and powerful as a pride of jungle cats. As traffic resumed behind us, I headed south-west along Fifth. Across the street, our pursuers followed suit. As a delivery truck rumbled past, obscuring us from view, I reversed directions, darting north-east with Kate in tow. She let out a yelp as I jerked her arm, and then got wise to the plan, sprinting beside me with all she had.

A roar of anger, guttural and animal, sounded from the other side of the street. The demons had spotted us, and once again followed. The truck had provided meager cover, and our head-start couldn't have been more than half a block. The demons ate into our lead with glee, scrabbling across the hoods and rooftops of the midtown traffic as easily as bricks on a walkway. As we reached the corner of Sixtieth, I felt a surge of adrenaline. Before us was a subway entrance, just two narrow sets of steps leading downward to the darkness below. If only we could catch a ride, I thought, we might just shake these guys. Together, Kate and I descended, our feet barely touching the steps, while behind us, the demons closed the gap.

We were greeted by the warm breath of subway exhaust, stale and sickly sweet. As we descended, we passed beneath a mural of birds in flight — once no doubt brightly hued, they'd been beaten a dull graybrown by years and years of grime. They hovered like vultures, circling in anticipation of a meal soon coming. I hoped to God we'd disappoint them.

A snarl behind us, a frightened gasp. One of the demons had reached the entrance to the subway stairs. He wore the flesh of a bike messenger, though he no longer moved as if human — he scrabbled along, half walking, half prowling on all fours, his eyes so full of raging darkness that it spilled outward from them, flickering black across the tiles of the stairwell. He pushed aside a woman in a jogging suit — the one who gasped, no doubt — and she tumbled down the stairs, landing in an awkward heap at my feet. Two others joined him at the head of the stairs — a woman in a brown tartan business suit, now streaked with dirt and grime, and an overweight man in a hot-dog vendor's apron, his face sweaty and purple from the unnatural exertion, a set of greasy tongs dangling forgotten from the apron tie around his waist. The bike messenger spoke then — just one word, and in no language that I understood, but I recoiled nonetheless. Those two syllables seemed to rise from the pit of hell itself, rendering every curse, every epithet ever uttered by Man a mere shadow, a trifle, a charming colloquialism.

It was then that they came for us.

I would say they came like animals, but that's not exactly true. Animals must abide by basic laws of nature and physics, but these things hold no sway over a demon. No, they came at us like death, like damnation, like the devil himself. They clawed and scratched their way down the stairs, crawling and bounding along the floors, ceiling, and walls — as if all three surfaces were the same, as if all three had been put there for the express purpose of conveying them to us. Soon the stairwell was filled with the dust of broken tiles and the spatters of their vessels' blood, the vessels that were so much more fragile than the monsters they disguised. I'd like to say I fought, or schemed, or even ran, but the truth is, in the face of their imminent arrival, I did nothing — just stood there, stock-still, watching. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I surrendered to my fate. I'm not proud of it. I'm not even ashamed. At that moment, there was simply nothing else that I could do.

Lucky for me, Kate didn't feel the same. Maybe it's because, deep down, she still had hope to cling to, where I had nothing but regret. Maybe I was just a coward. Maybe it doesn't matter, because when she yanked on my arm, she shook me from my dazed and sorry state. We hopped the turnstiles and sprinted together across the platform, in that moment denying the inevitability of our fates. Whatever had come over me had passed. But that didn't mean we were out of it yet. We were cornered, and they were coming fast.

Scratch that — they were here.

The platform was crowded with afternoon commuters, serious folk in business suits jostling for position with uniformed wage slaves as they waited for their trains to arrive. At least, that was the scene when we arrived. What happened next was more of a nightmare.

As we shoved through the crowd, no goal in mind but to get away from the demons at our heels, we were greeted with muttered curses and the occasional elbow in return, so annoyed were they to be disrupted in their routine. But when the demons reached the platform, that annoyance became fear. A scream rang out, and then another, and soon, the entire crowd jostled to get away, pressing tight to the far end of the platform as if those precious few feet would save them from the monsters that stood before them.

It didn't. The three demons, that followed us down the stairs tore into the crowd with savage delight, rending limbs and gouging flesh before tossing them aside like so much litter. I watched in horror as they took to the walls again, climbing toward us with chilling ease. Others charged across the crowded platform, pausing only long enough to toss aside whoever stood in their way. Though they were clad in human clothes, their vessels no longer looked human in the slightest, so warped were they by the demons within. They were impossible, horrible; their shapes refusing to resolve themselves in my borrowed eyes, my borrowed mind.

A cry rang out in the center of the crowd, quickly silenced. What replaced it was a low, wet gurgle, and as I wheeled to see what had happened, I saw an older gentleman in a blue blazer holding a girl in a waitress uniform up by her neck. She scratched and kicked at him to no avail, while he cackled with delight, black flames dancing in his eyes. His eyes met mine, and he threw the girl aside, starting toward me through the quickly parting crowd.

Beside me, another cry — this one from Kate. I wheeled toward her in time to see the woman beside her writhe as a demon overtook her, spilling sick across the floor as her eyes filled with dark flames. She reached toward Kate, who stumbled backward into me, narrowly avoiding the demon's grasp. My hand went to my shirt pocket, fumbling for the last remaining cat-shard, but it had been pulverized in the crash — that, or my fight with Bishop — and nothing remained of it but dust. Instead I dragged Kate through the crowd, the demon trailing behind.

Screams reverberated off the station walls, and the yellowed tile was streaked with blood. One by one the commuters fell, or worse, were possessed as yet more demons joined the fray. One by one the lights went out, smashed by accident or design I didn't know. Soon, though, it would be black as pitch, as death, and there would be no one left alive but me and Kate. If that happened, we were as good as damned, and this world was damned as well. The problem was, I couldn't see any way around it.

My foot came down on something soft and round beneath me — a leg, limp and unmoving — and I pitched forward, dragging Kate with me as I fell. I braced myself for the impact against the concrete, for the sudden grasp of the demon just behind us, but neither came. Instead we just kept falling, eventually slamming to rest some six feet beneath the level of the platform. Something hard and uncomfortable jabbed into my ribs — a subway rail, I realized. Above, the slaughter raged, but down here, all was quiet, with nothing but the occasional discarded body to keep us company.

I climbed gingerly to my feet, and extended a hand to Kate. She took it, and I lifted her wobbily upward. She was filthy, and a little dinged up, but she looked mostly OK. I looked around. Two sets of tunnels extended outward to our left and to our right — a commuter rail nearest the platform, and beyond it the express. We stood atop the tracks of the first of them, closest to the platform, the tunnel's overhead lamps a string of Christmas lights, disappearing into the gloom on either side of us. For the first time since the demons had arrived on the platform, I allowed myself a ray of hope. If we could reach the tunnels unnoticed, we might just get out of there alive.

But as the demon on the platform spoke, I knew that we'd have no such luck. It was the messenger again, or what was left of him, now that the creature inside had had his way. Again, it said only one word, but this one I understood just fine.

"Collector."

My eyes met the demon's, but this time, I did not freeze. I wrapped my arms around Kate and pulled her close. Her jaw was set in fierce determination, but she was shaking like a leaf, and her heart fluttered in her chest.

The demon eyed the two of us and smiled. "Give us the girl, Collector, and you and I have no quarrel."

"Go fuck yourself," I said.

"Actually," the demon said, "I had a certain someone else in mind." It licked its lips, and a chill worked its way along my spine.

"You don't know what you're doing," I said. A cool breeze buffeted my face, and I realized the chill I'd felt was not from the creature's words alone.

"I rather think I do. The two of you have brought war upon us. I intend to set things right — to restore the natural balance. They shall sing my praises in heaven and hell both. And all for the pleasure of devouring this lovely little morsel."

"The girl is an innocent," I said. My eyes were filled with the grit of dust suddenly disturbed. I blinked it back, tried not to react. "These skirmishes you've seen are gonna seem like a holiday compared to the world of shit that'll rain down on you if you devour her soul."

"Do you dare attempt to deceive a deceiver? I know what the girl has done. Nothing you say can change her fate. The only hide you can save today is your own."

"Actually," I said, as the rush of air became a roar, and the glare of headlights kissed my face, "I think I'm gonna have to disagree with you, there."

I threw Kate backward with all I had, lunging after her as the train roared past the place where we'd just stood. It screeched to a halt at the platform, blocking the demon's path, and the walls shook with a wail of fury so pure that there was nothing Kate and I could do but cling to each other, trembling, as we lay sprawled across the second set of tracks, its darkened tunnels stretching off to either side around us.

But as the echoes of the demon's cry faded into nothingness, we found our feet, and sprinted hand in hand into the darkness.