SHADOWS

by Jonathan Nasaw

  It was quiet out in the hall—clearly the revelers on the second floor had taken Jamey's threats to heart—but when Selene started down the stairs she saw the littlest prostitute, the one who'd fallen on her earlier, sitting on the landing with a throw rug wrapped forlornly around her.

  "My clothes is in there," the girl wailed, in what Selene was coming to recognize as a Romanian accent. She drew back her feet as Selene passed her. "How I can go home without my clothes?"

  Selene turned back, handed her the expensive Lady Burberry she'd bought at Heathrow three weeks before. "Here," she said. "Now if I were you I'd get the fuck out of Dodge while I still had all my blood. Either that, or give it about fifteen minutes, then march on in there with your pretty little titties high. You'll be weak and sore when you come out tomorrow morning, but if you play your cards right, by Goddess you'll be rich."

  "If you telling me the truth…" The girl handed the coat back. "Here. Weak I know, sore I sure God know. But that third thing—I could stand a little rich for a change."

  "Good luck, dearie," Selene replied. Then, on an impulse, she stooped down and planted a dry firm kiss on the young lips before trotting down the stairs and out into the London night.

  CHAPTER 14

  « ^ »

  No. Not home. Aldo Striescu, lying in his darkness, in his own bathtub, goblet of blood at hand and Norma on the stereo, began to understand with mounting dread that he could never go home again, at least not to that place where blood used to take him. True, it had done wonders in easing his physical hurts: the hangover headache and sour stomach were gone, along with the pain where his eyes had been, and the lesser aches of the body's fenders—bruised shins and forearms, knees and elbows.

  But that was all. No matter how much he drank, that was all. It wasn't just the visuals that he missed, either, the bright colors and subtle shadings, the depth of field, the presence of every object that came into sight, the sense of living inside a starry night, not just looking up at one. All that had been stolen from him. He had already accepted that, filed it under lost loves—and given his sexual predelictions, Aldo had lost a lot of loves in his time.

  What he could not accept was the deeper loss. Always before, with blood had come a feeling of almost magical well-being, a warmth spreading from the inside out until it engulfed the world, imbuing even the most pedestrian of environs—a concrete block of flats in Bucharest, a small apartment in Chelsea—with a rosy sense of all-rightness. But no matter how deeply Aldo drank—and by Friday evening the first of his two bags was an empty plastic husk on the bathroom floor—he couldn't get it back: he was only a blind man in a bathtub.

  He thought back to the cabin, when he still had eyes. What was it he had told the striga? Three things to make him feel alive: blood, coming, Maria. But in his bleak darkness not only did Aldo not feel horny, not only could he not summon up so much as a hard thought even by recalling his most intense orgasms—as long ago as that Algerian girl in Marseilles who'd fought him to the death, screaming in silent orgasm at the end, as recent as Georgie in flames—but as he could no longer bring to mind or body the why of desire, the what and how left him hopelessly limp.

  Having checked off the first two items, Aldo turned his full attention to the music, and found that no matter how hard he tried, he could no longer summon up the face of La Divina. He'd always been able to do that before, blood or no blood. But now in his eternal darkness the voice was only a voice—in a way, it was the worst blow of the three.

  Blood, coming, Maria: clearly the luck of the devil had run out.

  * * *

  Good thing that Aldo had always had a memory for numbers, because his address book was certainly no use to him now. He called Danny Dimitriu first. Danny's femeie answered the phone in English, but called Danny to it in Romanian, to the effect that one of his lowlife friends wanted to speak to him.

  "Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear," said Danny in Romanian when he recognized Aldo's voice. The phrase was much the same as in English. "I just got back from the party at old Whistler's. That's why the wife's so pissed—"

  "Wait a minute." Also in Romanian. "What party?"

  "You have been out of town, haven't you? Why, it's been going on for weeks. Incidentally, thanks for that clean-up job—we'll be eating beefsteak through the New Year. Anyway, to get back to what I was telling you: I was just on my way out when I bumped into this fellow coming up the steps. Asked me out of the blue if I was a Romanian. And proud of it, I told him. Asked me if I knew Striescu. Never heard of him, I said. The strigoi, he says. And the way he grabs me, and the look of his eyes, I'd say he was strigoi as well. Let me tell you, I got out of there fast as my legs could—"

  Aldo interrupted eagerly. "What did he look like, this strigoi?" "Tall, lean, white hair cut short. Money: I could pay my rent for three months on what his coat must have cost. And the woman's Rolex—"

  "The woman? There was a woman with him?"

  "Little thing. Late forties, early fifties. Gray hair done up in a, I don't know, a twist, a braid. You know me, all I saw clearly was that lovely watch. I'd have had it off her in a minute if she'd been alone, and her none the wiser."

  "You didn't tell them anything, did you? About me, I mean."

  "Aldo!" Reproachfully. "How could you even ask such a—"

  "And they were on their way inside?"

  "As surely as I was on my way out."

  Aldo hung up. He could hear his heart beating in the darkness.

  Perhaps, he thought, the luck of the devil hadn't quite run out after all.

  * * *

  "Here we are, sir, eleven Cranwick Square. Thank you, sir."

  "Keep the change."

  "In that case, thank you very much. Sure you don't need some help up the steps?"

  "Just tell me how many there are."

  "Four, sir. Door's to the—"

  "I know where the bloody door is."

  Aldo waited until he heard the sound of the taxi engine receding down the street, then tapped his way up the front steps, kit bag in his free hand, trying to make as little noise as possible with the cane tip, which was a challenge, as the steps were tiled. The front door was unlocked. Aldo closed it softly behind him, trying to visualize the interior of the house. He vaguely remembered a long hallway with some furniture, at the end of which a carpeted staircase led up to the left and a doorway at the right led through to the dining room.

  But the hallway, he soon learned, was now a minefield of litter and unmoored carpets. After stumbling on the overturned coat rack, Aldo took the thermos from the kit bag and drank deeply before replacing it: as the blood came on his senses sharpened until he could feel what was at the end of his cane through his fingers. At the end of the hall Aldo stopped and listened. Silence in the dining room, no one on the stairs, no noise from the second-story drawing room. Whatever party Danny'd been talking about was apparently over. Aldo's heart sank—had he missed them?

  But as he made his way up the stairs, passing the smell of vomit on the first turning of the staircase, he heard voices above him. Slower now, taking infinite care, holding his kit bag so it wouldn't bump the banister, testing each step with half his weight to be sure it wouldn't creak, he approached the third floor. The voices were coming from the bedroom. He couldn't tell whether the door was open or not so he kept his head below floor level.

  He made out the old man's sly voice first: "Not planning to lecture me about women, are you now?"

  Although Aldo had only heard his voice on Selene's answering machine, and once over the phone, there was no doubt in his mind that it was a somewhat incredulous Jamey Whistler who spoke next: "Do us both a favor—just tell me you're insane. If I could believe that, I could almost begin to make some sense out of all this."

  "Nonsense," replied Jonas. "Haven't needed my medication since I started drinking the damned blood…"

  Aldo held his breath. Both strigois, the old man who'd gotten him into this, the son who'd escaped
him twice. An unaddressed prayer arose in his head. If only the striga were up there… Please let the striga be up there.

  "Would that I were, though," Jonas's voice continued from the bedroom. "If I were insane, you see, there'd have been no need for all this. Done myself in long ago. Sick mind, blameless heart. Madman can meet his maker with a clear conscience. Now if you're going to kill me, get on with it. If not, leave me alone with our little naked friend here and get on with your life, and I give you my word I'll leave you alone to get on with yours. But don't tell me you don't want to fuck her every bit as much as I do."

  Little naked friend? thought Aldo. Could it be… ?

  Jamey spoke next: "I've got to get out of here before I do something I'll regret and you'll be glad for." Then, a gentler tone: "Honey? You want to come with me, or stay here with that?"

  The reply must have been nonverbal, but Aldo didn't need to hear her voice: that honey had clinched it for him. Damn, he thought. I should have tried prayer years ago. He started back down the carpeted stairs. The door to the bedroom opened above him as he reached the second-floor landing; he heard a single set of footsteps descending the stairs, and ducked around the corner. So the striga had elected to stay with the older strigoi! Good—make things all that much simpler.

  Aldo grabbed the thermos out of the kit bag, cocked it like a cricket bat, waited. He would only get one swing, he knew, but decided it was worth the risk. Couldn't let Jamey escape him time after time: from the sound of that last conversation, he might never have the three of them together in the same place again. And without the comfort of blood—the high, the bliss, not just the absence of pain—Aldo didn't want to prolong his stay on earth, at least down here and eyeless, a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

  Six, five, four… He timed the rhythm of the descending steps… three, two, one… Aldo swung the heavy thermos.

  * * *

  Leaving Whistler lying on the second-story landing, Aldo hurried down the stairs, turning left when he reached the bottom, feeling his way through the doorway and into the dining room, then circling the mahogany table, shoving dining room chairs out of his way until he'd reached the wall on the far side. Followed that wall until he reached another doorway; cane-tapped through that, found himself in the kitchen, and began feeling around until he came upon an enormous range. Felt for the knobs along the front, turned one, heard a hissing noise, then a pop as a burner ignited. Gas, not electric. Oh, good luck! Wouldn't be long now.

  There were three knobs on the left, one in the center, three on the right. He turned on the other five outside knobs, then leaned over the stove and began blowing out the flames until all six burners were extinguished, but hissing madly, merrily. He backed away from the stove as the hissing turned to a ringing in his ears and he realized he was blacking out from the gas.

  Couldn't let that happen, he thought, fumbling in his kit bag for the tube of jellied gasoline he'd brought with him. Had to see this one through to the end. He unscrewed the top of the tube, tapped his way back to the doorway, then stooped over and began walking backward, squeezing the gel out with a steady pressure onto the floor until he'd backed into the dining room table. He dropped to the floor and crawled backward under the heavy-legged table, one hand dragging his kit bag, the other continuing to squeeze the tube steadily until it was empty.

  Aldo stood up again on the other side of the table. He'd left his cane on the floor on the far side of the dining room, but reminded himself it was no great loss. Another minute or so to let the gas build up in the kitchen, then light the trail of napalm, and in another few seconds, boom—he'd never need the damn white cane again anyhow.

  Aldo found his Zippo in his pocket, flicked it open, sniffed the comforting smell of the lighter fluid, then began counting off the seconds the way they'd counted back in the Orfelinat Gheorghiu-Dej when he was a kid playing hide-and-seek. Un-u o mie, do-i o mie, tre-i o mie…

  When he reached seizech-i o mie, Aldo knelt and flicked the wheel of his lighter with his thumb, lit the end of the long bead of jellied gasoline, and stood up, listening to it begin to sizzle its way across the floor. He started to open the kit bag to take out his Discman. He'd already cued up the cut he wanted: third act of Medea. Took him an hour to find it back at his apartment—his CD collection was scattered all over the living room floor by the time he'd located it—but it would be worth it. All he had to do was slip the earphones on and punch the play button, and La Divina's would be the last human voice he would hear.

  But the kitchen went up before he even finished opening the kit bag. "Ma—" he screamed in the breathless instant of eternity that bridged the sound of the explosion—a dull whomp!—and the hot blast that blew him off his feet, sending him flying backward through the air with his hair and eyebrows on fire, clutching the bag in both hands.

  He must have lost consciousness briefly when he hit the wall. He awoke on fire and staggered to his feet, his clothes fully engulfed. Miraculously, he still maintained a death grip on the kit bag, even after bouncing off the wall a few more times, trying to find the doorway. Then he was through it, reeling down the hall, flesh melting from his bones. He heard a voice shouting; a moment later he was knocked to the floor, felt himself being wrapped in something heavy, then dragged down the hall. He tried to open the kit bag, but his arms were trapped at his sides. "Maria," he cried in agony, in rage and frustration, charred fingers clutching and unclutching impotently. "Momma. Momma. Maria."

  * * *

  The problem was, Selene hadn't been able to get the image of the girl on the stairs out of her mind. The littlest prostitute. Could she have been much over seventeen? Martha's age?

  "What could I have been thinking of?"

  The cabbie who'd picked Selene up on the Belgrave Road glanced over his shoulder. "Ma'am?"

  "What? Oh—never mind me. Just talking to myself." It was one thing to make a mistake, a wrong move. To err is human, and all that. But in this case, Selene knew, with sudden conviction, she'd not only not done the right thing, which would have been to follow her first instinct, give the kid her coat, and get her the hell out of that house, but she'd gone in the exact opposite direction, all but pimped the child. And for what? A smart remark? A desire to wash her hands of both Whistlers?

  She thought of Birgie, a German girl who'd joined the coven briefly in the seventies. Most inept witch Selene had ever known. Screw up the simplest of spells. Then would come the midnight phone call. "Selene? This is Birgie. Please could you help me? I up-geh-fucked again." It was still a catch phrase for the coven long after Birgie had returned to Munich.

  Selene? You up-geh-fucked it good this time. She glanced at her watch—fifteen minutes had gone by since she'd left the girl on the stairs. "Driver, I've changed my mind. I don't want to go back to the hotel."

  "Lady's privilege, innit? Where to instead?"

  "Cranwick Square, please. Number eleven Cranwick Square."

  * * *

  The front door was still unlocked. Selene picked her way down the littered hallway, started up the stairs, saw the white-haired body in the leather jacket lying facedown on the second-floor landing, and thought of Nick. Not again. Please not again. But when she reached him she saw he was breathing. No shit, no blood. "Jamey?" No answer either.

  She turned him over and found a knot just under his hairline, a lump oval as an egg, dark as an eggplant in the dim staircase light. "Jamey, what happened?" She raised one of his eyelids with her thumb; the eye was rolled back in his head, only white showing (of course the white was bloodshot red). She sat down, cradled his head in her lap. Her first thought, naturally enough, was that Jonas had done this to his son. She raised her head, listening, heard the now-familiar squeak of the bedsprings again. Had they quarreled over the girl? Had Selene up-geh-fucked even worse than she'd thought? "Jamey, it's Selene. Can you wake up for me, dearie?" Trying to keep the panic out of her voice. "I need you to wake up for me, Jamey." She patted his cheek, pinched him. "Please, Jamey
, try to wake up. Try to come back to me, Jamey. Come on, let's go—"

  Home, she'd been about to say, when the explosion rattled the house. Sounded as if it had come from the downstairs back, leaving a deep echoing silence in its wake. Even the creaking of the bed-springs overhead had stopped. Selene grabbed Jamey under the shoulders, tried to lift him but couldn't. She was about to drag him headfirst down the stairs when the bedroom door opened above her.

  "What was that?" called the old man. "Jamey? Are you still—"

  Then a second explosion, and a third, and the smell of smoke and the distant crackle of flames. The old man's slippers came in sight above her on the stairs, then the hem of his quilted dressing-gown. "What in the name of—What are you doing here? What's happened to Jamey?"

  Selene looked up. "I don't know. Here, help me get him up."

  "I've got him." Jonas knelt, slipped his arms under his son, scooped him up as easily as if Jamey were still an infant.

  Selene stood, started up the stairs. "Get him outside—I'll get the girl."

  But the girl was already on her way out of the bedroom, carrying her blouse, tugging on her miniskirt. "What—"

  Selene grabbed her by the arm. "Fire. Get out quick—move it, move it, move it!" Tugging from below, ushering the girl past her on the landing, then urging her on from above, Selene followed the young Romanian down the stairs. Smoke was billowing out of the dining room. Selene shoved the girl to the right, hustled her down the long hallway and out the open front door, but as she turned to close it behind her she saw a human torch come staggering through the smoke at the far end of the hall, beating at the flames that engulfed it with one hand, holding a smoking black bag at arm's length with the other hand.