Midnight Taxi Tango

by Daniel José Older

  Gio and I get out and follow Reza down a grassy slope into the park. A middle-aged white guy walking a Dalmatian nods at us as he strolls past and says, “Morning!” A group of old ladies genuflect in slow-motion Tai Chi as a chilly breeze sweeps across the meadow. The day is gray and overcast, the sky a murky white.

  When we walk into the shadowy wooded area, Reza sets down her duffel bag and unzips it. “You can shoot, I’m guessing?” she asks Gio.

  “I can, but I prefer knives.” He pats his pockets.

  “Alright, well, take this just in case.” She hands him a small revolver and then takes an automatic rifle out the bag. It looks like something I’d see on the news in a war-torn country. “And you.” She aims a sharp glare at me. “Stay the fuck outta sight if shit pops off. Understood?”

  I nod, my heart galumphing through my ears. We walk deeper into the woods. Reza freezes, one hand up. A young white couple jogs out of the underbrush. They’re wearing the brightest shades of green and pink I’ve ever seen and matching headbands. They stop in their tracks when they see us, their eyes glued to Reza’s automatic. The woman whispers, “Oh my God!” and then we just stand there for a few seconds.

  “Call the police,” Reza says very slowly, “and I’ll find you and burn down your house. Then I’ll kill your parents. Nod if you understand me.”

  I believe her. They both nod, eyes wide.

  “Now, go.”

  They do, first at a jog, then an all-out scramble.

  “That’s why I hate shit like this,” Reza says, falling back into her stride. “They’ll prolly call the damn police anydamnway.”

  I look at Gio and he shrugs. A light drizzle speckles the woods around us. Nearby, two headless chickens lie beneath a tree, one of Baba Eddie’s friends leaving an offering, no doubt. Farther off, an open building foundation has become a sullen pool of dark water, reflecting the swaying trees back up at themselves.

  • • •

  Deeper in the forest, the pale sky blotted out above us, Reza stops again, one hand raised. All those years of killing must’ve gotten to her. I’m sure every twig snap is a gunman moving into position. I mean, really . . . who brings a damn automatic rifle into Highland Park?

  Then I freeze, because up ahead a tall bearded man in a Stetson hat and an overcoat stands aiming a shotgun at Reza. His skin is a dull brownish gray like Carlos’s, and his black beard is tinged with red. He’s smiling—a wide, unnerving kind of grin that shows way too many teeth. Other folks stand in the woods behind him. They’re gray like he is and armed, and that’s all I can tell before Gio shoves me roughly behind him, pulls a knife out of each pocket, and flicks them open.

  “I would say we come in peace,” the man’s voice booms through the forest, “but that would be a lie.” Then he chuckles in a way that sounds forced.

  Peeking around Gio, I see Reza shift the rifle to one hand and unsheathe a Glock from her shoulder holster with the other. She points the Glock at the bearded man’s head and waves the AK in a slow circle around the forest. “Before you do anything else,” she says, “understand that since I have no fear of death, my only concern is taking as many of you with me as I can. Don’t doubt that if I go down, Gregorio here falls too.”

  Gregorio chuckles again.

  “This AK can take out at least four of you in a single spray; count on that. Gio there will probably finish you off. There are what, eight of you? Your organization will be decimated when we’re through.”

  There’s an uncomfortable shifting among the Survivors.

  “And finally, know that my people are converging on the outskirts of this forest as we speak. If I don’t come out smiling, they will hunt down each of you, one by one.”

  “Reza,” Gregorio says, and it’s clear she’s wiped the smile from his face. “No need to be dramatic. You called this meeting, after all. We are your guests. And you know as well as anyone that precautions must be taken. These are precautions. That is all.”

  “Fuck your precautions,” Reza says. “I don’t talk to people pointing guns at me. I kill them.”

  “That’s a shame,” Gregorio says, and I brace myself. In the seconds of silence, I hear the forest breathe, the gentle cricks and cracks of life; somewhere above us a mourning dove coos and another replies.

  “Wait!” I yell, stepping out from behind Gio.

  “Kia, no!” Reza snarls, but I brush past her and plant myself in the epicenter of all that firepower.

  “This is bullshit,” I say. My hands are shaking, so I clasp them behind my back. “We’re here to talk about working together, not to blow each other up.”

  “Kia?” a woman’s voice says. I turn, and Sasha steps out of a shadowy grove of trees. She holsters a serious-looking handgun and, before I can do anything about it, wraps her arms around me. “My God, what are you . . . ? What’s going on, Kia?”

  Last year, when all the shit happened with Carlos, Sasha got herself possessed by some ancient evil dude that shredded up people’s insides. Plus she was pregnant, and on top of all that she helped Carlos destroy the evil dude even while she was basically dying. Again. So she ended up comatose on Carlos’s couch for a few days, as people tend to do, and when she woke I was the first person she saw. I made her tea and told her, best I could, what I knew, and called Carlos and Baba Eddie and Dr. Tijou back, but everyone was away doing stuff, so for a few hours, it was just me and Sasha. She spent most of the time crying, sipping tea, crying some more.

  At first I just looked at her. What was I gonna say? It’s okay? It wasn’t, for all I knew. She could’ve lost the baby. She could still be dying. I didn’t know shit. So I sat there. And then I moved from the easy chair to the couch beside her. When she kept crying, I put my hand on her back, same way I did for Carlos earlier today, and just made circles while she heaved up and down. She wrapped her arms around me and put her face in my shoulder and just sobbed and I made little shh sounds the way my mama usedta do, and eventually she got it all out and I gave her the tea I’d made, now cold, and then we talked quietly until the others came.

  When she left, I felt like I’d just made a friend and lost her in the space of twenty-four hours. I had pictured us hanging out, telling each other secrets even, if nothing else because we’d just been through this moment, huge and tiny, and even though we barely knew each other, there was something easy and true about her that I was drawn to, that I wanted to be like. Plus, I heard she was badass with that blade.

  Now it’s Sasha rubbing my back and I don’t even know why. Somehow, she feels the whirlpool of sorrow and rage that’s been swirling up inside me since Gio showed up. I almost shatter, right there in her arms, because her touch is just right, but I resist. There’s too much firepower around us to go all emo.

  When I look up from Sasha’s hug, I see the guns have lowered. The crew of Survivors around us are staring with awed expressions. I take it they don’t have many non-half-dead friends, these guys.

  Reza holsters her Glock and points the AK at the ground. “First of all, we wanted to let you know that the Blattodeons have you in their targets,” she says. “We got access to their computers last night, and they have Sasha, Gregorio, and probably a few other of your gray asses marked to kill.”

  “They’ve come for us before,” Gregorio says. “We tried to wipe them out last year, after they kidnapped and murdered some of our people. We did some damage and they returned the favor. They are a formidable threat in those tunnels, where they have numbers and the cramped darkness on their side—their natural habitat. But they are clumsy, and those decomposed bodies don’t hold up well under a solid thrashing.”

  “It won’t be the roach zombie guys,” I say. “They’re sending ghosts now. Child ghosts.”

  The Survivors murmur in surprise.

  “How do you know this?” Gregorio demands.

  “That’s how they came for me,” I say.
“It was a ghostling, but trained to kill a specific target. That’s what Carlos said, anyway.”

  His name sends another ripple of conversation through the Survivors. “You are working with Carlos? With the Council?” Gregorio says, his voice almost a roar. “Then we are finished here. The Council is our sworn enemy.”

  “Wait,” Sasha says. “Carlos saved my life. He—”

  “Yes, we all know what Carlos did for you,” Gregorio snaps.

  “Don’t you da . . .” Sasha says, but she stops when a short white woman steps forward, one hand raised.

  “That’s enough, Gregorio.” She’s older, maybe in her sixties, but who can tell with these half-dead folks? She says it calmly enough, but Gregorio looks like he’s been slapped. “We will hear what these people have to say.” She turns to Reza. “What is it you are proposing?”

  “The Blattodeons are a plague on both our houses,” Reza says. “We join forces to annihilate them once and for all. Their leader, Jeremy Fern, and his sister, Caitlin, whatever her involvement is. And all their roach zombies. The elder Ferns were involved in funding their son’s activities. They’ve already been handled.”

  “You killed the Ferns?” one of the Survivors asks.

  “They’ve already been handled,” Reza says again. “Which means the roaches are probably in disarray right now, trying to figure out what the next move is. Carlos is speaking with the Council at this moment, to see what their involvement will or won’t be. Either way, we have a fair amount of firepower from my end—I’m sure you know Charo isn’t one to be trifled with. And Giovanni here has been studying their movements for several years now.”

  “I don’t like it,” Gregorio says.

  “Neither do I,” a tall guy in wraparound sunglasses says. He’s still clenching his pistol like he wants to splatter us all across the forest.

  Gregorio shoots him a look. “Easy, Blaine. Easy.” He makes eye contact with the older woman and then exhales sharply. “Marie is right. We came here to hear you out, and it’s not my call to make. We will take it back to the others and send word through Dr. Tijou of our decision.”

  Reza nods. The Survivors are already fading back into the shadowy woods, one by one. Soon, only Sasha remains. “Can we talk?” she asks in a voice so quiet I want to just wrap around her again right then and there.

  “Of course,” I say. I signal to Gio and Reza and they walk ahead, casting a few dubious glances back at us.

  • • •

  The rain slows to a gentle sprinkle and the sun peeks through the swaying branches above us. Sasha and I stroll along at an easy pace; she could be my older sister or one of those concerned teachers that takes a liking to a student and goes the extra mile.

  “I need to,” Sasha says. And then she stops. Looks up at the sky. Searching for words, I guess. We walk another couple of steps in silence. “I need to talk to Carlos,” she finally spits out.

  I laugh. “No shit. He spent all night trying to track you down after they figured out the roach guys were gonna send their baby-ghost assassins after you.”

  “I know.” She shakes her head. “There was too much going on. The Survivors are in turmoil, as I’m sure you just saw. Gregorio and Marie have been going at it more and more. And with the babies, it’s just . . . I don’t know . . .” She stops walking, so I stop too. She takes a deep breath that’s almost a sob. “I don’t know how to talk to him.”

  “Then you’ll be on equal footing,” I say. “Cuz I promise he doesn’t know how to talk to you.”

  She allows a slight smile. “Some days I’m terrified. Of it, what I’ve done, what’s happened. What he must feel. How angry he must be.”

  “I don’t think he’s—”

  “How angry I still am.”

  I nod. He killed her brother, even if he didn’t know it at the time. “What are their names?”

  She smiles again, wider this time, but still unendingly sad. “The girl’s Xiomara. The boy’s Jackson.”

  “Beautiful,” I say. “Glad you didn’t go the corny petty route and name ’em Trevita and Carl or something. I can tell him?”

  We start walking again. The rolling fields of Highland Park appear in spots of bright green through the trees. “Yes,” Sasha says. “Please do. And tell him I need to speak to him. It’s urgent.”

  “Any details? You know he’s worried sick about you. And them.”

  She shakes her head, eyes narrowed. “I’ll be taking care of myself. He should know by now I’m perfectly capable of that.” Her hand rests on the hilt of a short blade strapped to her belt. “But no, it’s about the past. There’s . . . information. A way to get information. About what happened to us. How we died. Ol’ Ginny, the fortune-teller in Flatbush, as it turns out.”

  “Oh yeah, he’ll be excited about that. So you want me to . . .”

  Another deep breath, this one strong, unbroken. “Tell him I’m ready to talk. Tell him the southwest entrance to Prospect Park, tonight at nine.”

  For a half second, I wonder if this whole thing is some setup. Carlos would be easy to take out if he thought he was going to meet Sasha. Wide-open to attack. But it’s not for me to figure these things out. All I can do is pass the message along and pray he’s pulled it together enough to not get got. Anyway, I trust Sasha. I don’t know why, but I do. There’s nothing put-on about what she’s said.

  “Alright,” I say as we step out of the woods. Up ahead, the wide-open field stretches up a small hill. There, three tall men in gray suits stand looking down at us. Reza is beside them, the duffel bag still slung over one shoulder. They cut an imposing tableau.

  Sasha stops walking. “Damn. Reza wasn’t bluffing, huh?”

  “Nope,” I say. “Reza don’t bluff.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Carlos

  Caitlin Fern looks older in person. Of course, it could be the sudden death of her parents or the wear and tear of being a homicidal necromancer etching those worry lines across her sallow face. Her dirty-blond hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail; some stray strands frame her wide forehead in a chaotic halo. Her eyebrows sit high above her eyes, giving her the look of someone perpetually surprised. She steps outside of the chilly warehouse and stands beside me as a flock of pigeons rush past us down the deserted street.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Caitlin says. It’s still chilly, and she wraps her arms over her chest, shivering a little even in the heavy cardigan she wears.

  I nod.

  Inside, her voice had trembled as she described being called out of an important late-night meeting at the adoption charity. She’d paused, gulped back a sob, and then shook her head, eyes closed. “I’m sure he . . . I’m sure he wants to kill me too,” she’d said as Arsten cooed sympathetically and Botus looked on.

  Now that frightened woman begging for the Council’s protection is gone. The new, unimpressed Caitlin walks ahead of me to a fence blocking off the industrial harbor area. Beyond it, the gray ocean swirls beneath the gray sky. “C’mon, let’s go by the water,” Caitlin says. She lifts a detached section of the fence and ducks through.

  Listen: not only am I half dead with nary a legit document to my name, but I’m Latino. Beneath this gray, I’m still brown; the cops remind me with their suspicious sneers every chance they get. Since I died and came back, all I’ve known is a life under the radar, blending in, avoiding arrest, questions, prisons, hospitals, institutions of every kind. So when I trespass, it’s because I have to. That’s it.

  But Caitlin stares back at me, her high eyebrows arched in challenge, a slight sneer across her face. I won’t kill her. I promised Reza and Kia, and anyway, they’re right; we need to know more about what the fuck she’s up to. Still . . . I’m on a mission, I remind myself. This is work. And anyway, she’s clearly hiding something from the Council that she’s not afraid to show me. I glance up and down deserted-ass
First Avenue and then duck through the fence after her.

  • • •

  “I know about you, Carlos.”

  Again, I resist the urge to draw this blade. We stroll past massive freighter crates along a narrow strip of concrete beside the choppy waters of New York Bay. Way out over the waves, the Statue of Liberty is barely visible in the mist. If things get messy, there aren’t many options for escape. If Caitlin works for the Council, that means she is the one that’s been necromancing all those baby ghosts. I haven’t seen any of the little guys floating around, but who knows? On top of that, I’m pretty sure some security schmo will pop out any second and arrest us both.

  “What do you mean?” One clean slice. That’d be that. I’d reach across myself, grip that handle, and the cut would catch her neck from below, lopping her head clean off. The head would bounce once and then roll into the waves; the body would tumble and with, a little kick, follow suit.

  “I’ve heard about you, who you are, what you’ve done.”

  “All good things, I’m sure.” I force a smile that I’m quite sure looks forced.

  “I heard about Sarco and how you tricked that other halfie from the Survivors into helping you.”

  So that’s the story about me and Sasha the Council’s going with these days. Figures. I shake my head. “Complicated times.”

  “Indeed. So I’m not going to pussyfoot with you. I need your help. I need someone I can trust, a soldier. I believe that’s you.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Find the part of the lie that’s true, Reza had said, and tell everything else to fuck off.

  “First of all, you strike me as the kind of man that can’t lie for shit.”

  I laugh a little too eagerly. “Well, that’s true.”

  “And second of all, I believe you’ll do what has to be done. You’re not overly burdened by conscience or identity like the Survivors. But you’re not trapped by protocol and bureaucracy like most of the Council drones.”