Bloodbath

by Stephanie Ahn

  p.s. if ur late i’ll stitch a dick into ur wallet.

  Below the messages is a photo of Joy in her work uniform, which is really just a flowy white blouse and a long skirt, along with a cozy scarf. So, not much different from her casual clothing. Man, I wish I could work from home. The camera is focused on her maniacally grinning face, next to which she’s brandishing my brown leather wallet and a needle trailing bright white thread.

  I check the clock on the wall; it’s ten minutes past eleven.

  Well, I guess I’m going to be walking around with a graffitied dick on my wallet. I sigh. I get a few bills out of the cash stash I keep rolled up in tampon applicators, stuff them in my pocket, and start out the door.

  As I press the elevator button, I see wisps of gunmetal gray hair in my peripheral vision. I turn to see a small, hunched old woman coming to stand next to me, a plastic shopping bag drooping from her hand. A young man almost twice her height jogs to catch up to her.

  “Ah—annyeonghasaeyo,” I say, hastily dropping into Korean and a half-bow.

  “Hello to you too,” Ms. Baek answers, also in Korean, her cheeks wrinkling further as she smiles. “In a city this big, it’s a comfort to greet a fellow countrywoman in the mornings.” Junhyun, her son, silently raises a hand in greeting.

  I take her bag for her, and we all step into the elevator. I press the button for the first floor. The one for our floor, the fourth, is covered by masking tape with the letter ‘F’ written on it in thick Sharpie. Even before I knew Ms. Baek owned the building, that ‘F’ let me know I’d find other East Asians here.

  “Where are you going?” Ms. Baek asks, tilting her chin to look up at me. The backs of her hands are dotted with liver spots and her eyelids sag over her eyes.

  “To see a friend,” I respond, adjusting my grip on the shopping bag. “And you?”

  “To see my son.”

  The shopping bag rustles, and I look down to see a single white chrysanthemum inside. Junhyun leans over my shoulder. For my grave, he whispers, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from across a hollow room. I give a nod small enough that Ms. Baek won’t notice.

  Junyun is dead, and has been for two years. He died in a freak accident in the apartment he shared with his widowed mother, the summer after graduating college. I don’t know exactly how it happened; he doesn’t like to talk about it. The closest he gets is when he laments that all his life insurance money got sucked up by his student loans. Did you know they can tax you for the money you get from having a student loan forgiven? How messed up is that? Anyway, we read comic books and watch movies together while his mom’s asleep. He always beats me at chess, and he wishes he’d smoked more pot in college.

  Technically, it’s my duty as a witch to uphold the “natural balance” by shooing him off to the afterlife. But why would I? He brings comfort to his mom and respects my privacy, unlike a certain leonine demon. And we both know he’s only here to stay as long as his mom is.

  The elevator doors open and Ms. Baek and I walk out, Junhyun keeping step behind us.

  “Thank you, dear,” Ms. Baek says, taking her bag from me. As she does, my stomach gurgles loudly enough to be heard down the hall. I turn pink, and Ms. Baek laughs. “Here you go,” she says, rooting around in the bag and pulling out a shiny red apple.

  I almost start drooling right then and there. But damn it, I don’t want to be impolite. “It’s alright, I don’t need it. I’m going out to eat right now.”

  She shakes her head. “Apples eaten in the morning are as good as medicine. You’re a big girl, and you need the strength. For the busy nights.”

  I blink. “Busy—?” Then I remember how thin the walls are in this building.

  As my face turns the same color as the apple, Ms. Baek chuckles and puts it firmly in my hand. She hobbles away and Junhyun jogs past me to follow her, his bare feet just barely skimming the floor. The pink of his T-shirt shimmers like water—his whole form is wavering, rippling. It isn’t until he turns around, showing me his blurred suggestion of a face, that I realize he’s laughing.

  I flip him the bird. He waves me off, laughing even harder as he floats through the door.

  ***

  “‘Left for emergency,’” I mumble as I read the handwritten note on Joy’s door. “‘Back soon.’” I frown and look down at my phone. The messages Joy sent earlier are timestamped at 9:38 p.m. last night. Fourteen hours is definitely long enough for a crisis to develop. What kind of emergency would Joy be called away to? Not a family thing, since she has no family to speak of. A friend or client in trouble, maybe?

  I squint at the note again. It’s sloppy, but definitely in Joy’s handwriting. I test the doorknob; it’s locked. I start typing into my phone.

  Oi Joy. Im at ur place. Where r u? R u ok?

  I wait about a minute and receive no response. I look back up at the sign, concern rising. Is Joy hurt? Is she in the hospital? My skin crawls. Gods, I hate hospitals. If Joy’s injured somehow, I need to go help her.

  But really, the only thing I can do right now is wait for her to text me back. And it’s not like I’m the only friend she can call. On a side note, it would be rude to bug her about my defaced wallet now; whatever emergency she’s dealing with takes precedence over twelve dollars and an embroidered penis.

  There’s a nice little deli nearby that does club sandwiches and has tables outside, each protected from the relentless morning sun by a faded, candy-cane-striped golf umbrella. I sit at a table with my newly bought sandwich, settling back against a chair with peeling green paint. As I munch, I get a ballpoint pen out of my coat and flatten a brown paper napkin out onto the table.

  The last time Lilith got into my apartment, I checked all the wards and found them more drained than usual, but undamaged and not tinkered with. I even went to the trouble of installing brand-spanking-new ones—yet, somehow, last night happened. It’s not the wards that are malfunctioning then, it’s Lilith who’s getting past them.

  So she’s found a way around general demon wards. How? Hell if I know. It just means I’ve got to make more complex wards that’ll identify and block her specifically. But I don’t know her true sigil, and “Lilith” is definitely a fake name. All I have is the scar on my stomach.

  I sketch the binding sigil onto the napkin from memory. I pen a few more shapes around it, parts of wards and random altering squiggles, then study it as I finish my food.

  The exact nature of the sigil remains a mystery to me. All I know is that it almost seems designed to fit the lines of my body, starting with a small, figure-eight swirl where my sternum ends, extending downward in a straight line, then circling around my bellybutton. As a finishing touch, two serifed, horizontal bars intersect the centerline and play across my ribs. It’s not complicated as demon sigils go, but it sure hurt like Hell when Lilith carved it in.

  I’m still tapping the butt of my pen against the napkin when my phone rings. As I twist to get it out of my coat, a passing breeze snags the napkin and carries it away in a flurry of thin brown paper. I snatch at the napkin; it dodges my grasp, tumbles out onto the street like a cartwheeling child, then flutters around a corner and out of sight. I sigh and pick up my phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello,” a hoarse, pained voice says. “Is this Harrietta Lee?”

  “Yup, that’s me. How can I help you?”

  “My name is Tricia Powers. I heard you were a—a consultant of some kind? A private investigator?”

  “No, ma’am, not a private investigator. Don’t have a license for that. But if you’re coming to me, I’m assuming your problem isn’t one you believe a PI can fix.”

  “So you are a witch?”

  My eyebrows shoot for the golf umbrella.

  I shouldn’t be so surprised to hear that question. It’s entirely possible she’s heard about me from a previous client, and I’m not exactly subtle about the magic thing once the ball gets rolling. But I still choose my words carefully. “Something like
that. It’s what some people call me when they pay me, anyhow. But, Ms. Powers, you have to understand that I can’t guarantee miracles, and whether the, um, methods that I use can be applied depends entire on the situation.”

  “My son is missing.”

  I pause, collecting my thoughts. “…Would you like to discuss this further over the phone, or would you prefer to meet somewhere?”

  ***

  Tricia lives in Queens, and it takes me nearly an hour to get there by subway. Her apartment building is a modest red-brick affair with rough edges but an old, stalwart foundation. I climb the stairs and knock on the door labeled 206.

  The door cracks open, and the chain lock jingles. A cautious brown eye peeks through, then widens as it sweeps up and down my form.

  “You’re the witch?” Tricia Powers says, her voice lined with doubt and incredulity.

  I look myself up and down. “Ah, damn, I must have left my pointy black hat at home.”

  If anything, she looks even more concerned. Alright, keep a lid on the jokes.

  “…Sorry, ma’am. Just wanted to lighten the mood. May I come in?”

  She regards me a moment longer. Then the door shuts, maybe with a little too much force. I hear the sliding of the chain lock, and then the door opens fully to reveal the rest of Tricia Powers.

  Tricia is tired. I can tell by the charcoal smudges under her eyes, her sagging posture, the way there isn’t a single square inch of her worn sweater and skirt that isn’t creased or rumpled. Her hair is bound up in a gray headscarf on the verge of unraveling, and the shadowy wrinkles around her eyes don’t seem to indicate age so much as bone-deep exhaustion. She leads me into the apartment without a word, and I can’t bring myself to break the silence.

  She has me sit on a surprisingly comfortable brown leather couch, my shoes sinking into a speckled gray rug. There’s a coffee table and a small TV in front of me, and when I turn to my right I see a pair of tall china cabinets. If I squint, I can see what’s inside: a few shiny certificates, two trophies shaped like experiment beakers, and a whole host of hand-painted action figures.

  Tricia sits down next to me, moving like more of a ghost than Junhyun. She hands me a framed photograph.

  “This is my son, Aden,” she says, pointing out one of the two people in the image. Aden is standing with his chest puffed up, holding one of the two trophies from inside the china cabinet. He’s a big teenager with curly black hair cropped close to the scalp, a bashful smile pushing up clay-brown cheeks, and a pair of round glasses perched on his nose. An older, taller version of him stands to the side with a muscular arm around Aden’s shoulders, grinning proudly in a blue dress shirt and slacks. “And my husband, Joshua. He works on a cargo ship. I’ve told him what happened, but he isn’t coming into port for another month. He’s been calling over and over again for three days straight.” Tricia pinches the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “I love Joshua. I love him, and I know he feels the need to protect our son just as much as I do. But there’s just no way he can help from that distance. I cannot keep picking up the phone just to hear the helplessness in his voice.”

  I nod ruefully. “You said your husband’s been calling for three days. Is that how long ago Aden disappeared?”

  “Yes. We were arguing. He wanted to go to a party with his friends, but he had an exam the next morning. We fought, I sent him up to his room…” Her face crumples. “…An hour or so later, maybe around midnight, I went back to check on him. He wasn’t there, and the window was open.”

  “Do you know for sure he was at the party?”

  “I know who his friends are, but they won’t talk to me. I think he made it to the party at least, but he never came home. I can’t think of any reason why, other than—”

  Tricia quiets, and it’s like she’s closing an invisible gate around herself. I get the feeling she’s not comfortable putting too much faith in me.

  “Do the police know?” I ask as gently as I can, placing the framed photo on the coffee table.

  Her upper lip twists. “I went to them straight away. They tried to dismiss me, saying they couldn’t class him as a missing child because he turned eighteen last month. They even told me to come back when it had been twenty-four hours, even though I know there isn’t a minimal time requirement to make a report. I filed every complaint possible, went up in the ranks until someone finally did the paperwork just to get rid of me—even then, the missing person alert only just went out today.”

  “Ah, Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  She shakes her head, seeming equally drained by the situation and my attempt at consolation. “Living in this neighborhood, this city, I’m used to it. That’s not a good thing, but it is what it is.”

  “Have you gone to anyone else for help?”

  “Before I heard about you, I tried calling a private investigator. He turned down my case. Told me ‘boys will be boys’ and that Aden would be back soon, that this wasn’t worth his time.”

  I wince. “He sounds like a heel.”

  “He was. But then I heard about you in passing, from a friend’s coworker. She said you got a stalker off her back, maybe a week ago?”

  A week ago? That would be before the Meresti shenanigans, then… ah right, the love spell. “I remember her. Alice Syker, right? She wrote me a really nice review for my website.”

  Tricia sits up a little straighter. “Yes, her. She called you a consultant—gave me your contact information. Said that you help people who can’t turn anywhere else.”

  I nod. “That’s what I try to do.”

  “So will you find my son?” I give her my affirmative, and she gets up to retrieve a purse sitting next to the TV. She sets the purse down on the coffee table and rummages through it while standing opposite me. “What do you charge for this kind of job? Alice said you gave her a flat rate for her, um, curse-breaking…”

  “Five hundred a day would work. But the timing of the payment is up to you because, frankly, I don’t feel comfortable charging up front for this kind of thing.”

  Her head snaps up. Her dark eyes bore steadily into mine.

  “I’m not naïve, Ms. Lee. I’m not a cynic either, but I know full well what happens to young Black boys who disappear in this city longer than a day. But I’m not begging you to find a body. I’m paying you to look for my living, breathing son and bring him back to me.”

  I return her gaze fully, elbows loosely on my knees. “I know, Ms. Powers. Believe me, I know. But I’m not taking your case out of pity, I’m just giving you some flexibility. Honestly, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll find Aden. I’ve seen kids disappear for all sorts of reasons, and I’ve been surprised at how often they come back alive. Traumatized, sure, but alive. But your family is still in a fucked-up situation and you’re taking a big chance with me, so I don’t want to drain resources that could be used on other options.”

  Tricia regards me a little longer. Then she nods. “Half up front, and half when the job is done.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  She’s counting out the cash, but I can’t bring myself to pay attention. My eyes keep straying to the china cabinet were Aden’s action figures are. They’re futuristic superheroes with laser guns and too many pouches on their skintight suits, but they’re somehow colorful and optimistic in their gritty violence.

  I hope that’s all Aden’s story will be. Something lighthearted and fulfilling, maybe with a few punches thrown, but in a bloodless, cartoonish sort of way.

  Here’s to hoping, I say silently, giving a tiny salute to the action figures. I turn back to Tricia just as she tells me the address of Aden’s school and the names of his friends.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Connect the Dots

  I find Aden’s friends smoking behind a corner store. Or… I think they’re smoking, but they’re sucking on this thing that looks like a small plastic recorder. The three of them fumble and squeak as I approach, and one of them—a lanky brown kid in a faux-sports-jacket em
blazoned with a video game logo—shoves it into his pants pocket as far as it’ll go.

  I tell them straight-up that I’m working for Aden’s mom, and they get skittish in that guilty teenage way. You know, when you’re certain something’s wrong, but you don’t have a frame of reference for fixing it other than “don’t tell the adults?”

  I say to them, “Look, you guys don’t seem like assholes. You want Aden home safe, yeah? Just tell me what happened at the party, the night he disappeared. And when I find him, I’ll let him know his friends had his back when he needed it. Sound good?”

  “Yeah, oka—” one of the kids tries to say, but the one in the sports jacket elbows him silent. He takes the plastic thing out of his pocket with all the swagger of a high-stakes gambler—ah, I see, it’s an e-cigarette—and puffs cloyingly sweet smoke in my direction. What do the kids call that these days, vaping? I don’t smoke, but I still prefer the smell of real flame.

  “Here’s the deal,” he says, trying to put some gravel in his voice but mostly sounding dehydrated. “Everyone at school thinks we’re just nerds or whatever, but we’re not idiots. We don’t snitch.”

  “But we are nerds,” one of the kids mumbles. Vape-kid shushes him.

  “You gotta prove you’re really in this to find Aden, and not just to get us in trouble. Be our plug. Get us a six-pack from the store.”

  I shrug. “Fair enough. You ever thought about going into politics, kid?”

  “Nah, I’m gonna do Esports.”

  “Sure, cool. You got ten bucks?” He hands me a crumpled bill. “Meet me down the block that way, less chance of getting caught.”

  I swing into the corner store and do exactly what I said I’d do: I buy a six-pack of fat, squat cans, some version of a famous brand with a label that boasts fewer calories. I meet the kids down the block; they actually look shaken to see me whistling down the sidewalk, brown bag in hand.

  Sports Jacket flips his hair out of his eyes, revealing dark spots of acne on his forehead. He tells me that the party was a bust. Yeah, the kids splurged and pinched from parents’ wallets for weed and beer, but no one who actually mattered showed up. The three nerds in front of me ended up playing video games until Aden arrived around 1 a.m. Sports Jacket was convinced the party might still pick up, so he wanted Aden to stay; Aden just wanted to get back home before his mom noticed his absence. It was awkward for about half an hour, and then Aden left. Everyone assumed he had made it home, so the alarm bells didn’t sound until the next day. Since then, the kids have been searching the neighborhood, and they’ve had as much luck finding Aden as Tricia has.