Deader Still

by Anton Strout

  I hurried back through the theater, which, for once, wasn’t running a horror movie, paradoxically giving it an eerie feeling. The general bull pen area of the offices was mostly empty, to my relief. I looked up at the dry-erase board high on the wall. It currently read “It has been 2 days since our last vampire incursion.”

  My feet felt heavy as I climbed the ladder. When I reached the top I wiped away the 2, recalculated the number, and wrote in 738. I slid back down the ladder before anyone could notice and headed for my desk, but there was the sound of someone clearing his throat nearby and I turned to look.

  Godfrey Candella had just come in through the movie theater into the offices, a notebook in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. His suit, as always, was impeccable, his tie knot perfect.

  “Good morning,” I said. “Anything about Cleopatra’s Needle yet? Translate the hieroglyphics?”

  Godfrey shook his head, then cocked it to the side, looking up at the dry-erase board.

  Damn. I had hoped to distract him from what I had just done.

  “Sorry, not yet. Too soon,” he said. “I wasn’t aware that there were any changes in the alert.” His voice was more curious than accusatory. Had there been any accusation in it, I might have just turned and walked away as fast as I could, but instead I stepped closer.

  “Yeah,” I said with a whisper and a sheepish grin. “My bad. There’s probably going to be a lot of paperwork involved in retracting that, but I just thought I’d get it off the board first.”

  “A lot of paperwork?” Godfrey said, his eyes bulging. “Please. That’s the least of it. I already have the Gauntlet updating all the archives in preparation for documenting the antivampire operation. I even had overtime approved by the Enchancellors, and that never happens.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I truly was. I didn’t want to create more work for anyone. I sat down heavily on the edge of a nearby desk and rubbed my eyes. “I just thought it would impress the Order if I had something big like that under my wing, you know? And when I saw all those dead people on the boat, I was almost chomping at the bit to call ‘vampires’ on it all.”

  Godfrey seemed to process that for a minute before speaking up. “So, if it’s not vampires, what is it, then? Do you have any other guesses?”

  “Connor said it’s probably a chupacabra. I hoped to get a little research in before I have to head up to the convention center. I need to grab some reference materials on them.”

  “You don’t need books,” Godfrey said. “Chupacabra, eh?” Behind his glasses, his eyes rolled up and to the right as his brain accessed some little referential nook or cranny. He smiled. “What would you like to know?”

  I pulled out my still-wet notebook. I read through the few notes I had made.

  “So they’re bloodsuckers, yes? Piercing fangs and red eyes?”

  Godfrey nodded. “They can hypnotize with those eyes as well.”

  I flipped through my notes to where I had written down the description that the booze cruise employee Maggie had given me of the strange creature she had encountered on Pier 84.

  “Could this thing be mistaken for a dog?”

  Godfrey thought a moment, then nodded. “I could see that,” he said. “Yes. Some have been noted to have these spiny ridges or thick fur all over them. I’ve only seen a few National Enquirer-level photos of them. A dead one was supposedly found in Nicaragua. But from some of what I’ve seen, they could probably pass for, or at least be mistaken for, a dog.”

  “Good,” I said, making a few new notes.

  “Does that help?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. It confirms a lot of what Connor was thinking.”

  Godfrey smiled, pleased. It made my own shame over calling “vampires” on the case by mistake easier to bear.

  After Godfrey left, I was a lot more knowledgeable than I had been several minutes earlier, but still wondering why a chupacabra was now in New York City.

  I pulled out the photo blowups of the Dr. Kolb crime scene. I had been sure that Cleopatra’s Needle figured in to this. Maybe I had watched Nosferatu one too many times, but I had already imagined a lone vampiric figure skulking around the base of the monolith, finding secret meaning in the ancient hieroglyphs chiseled there. I found it hard to believe there was nothing arcane about it, except now I imagined this doglike creature piddling on the base of it before moving along. If there was any significance to the needle, it was beyond me. I gave the pictures another look, this time checking out everything the camera had captured, ignoring the monument.

  In the photos, there were trees, lots of them. Then there were shots of the crime scene itself. It wasn’t terribly gruesome as far as crime scenes went, except for the bloody bite marks on the victim’s neck. Other than that, there was very little blood left, which was what foolishly led me to think vampires in the first place. Several photos showed the police officers who were blocking off the crime scene, many of whom I recognized. And then I saw one more face that I recognized as well, off in the distance and just barely visible through the trees. I leapt from my desk, folded the picture, and stuffed it into my jacket pocket as I headed for the streets. I needed to get over to the Javits Center right away.

  I needed to know why Illinois gypsies had also been in that area of Central Park that day.

  21

  I stopped by our booth long enough to throw the picture in front of Connor. He was still trying to figure out what was so important in it when I took off at a run through the crowds and toward the stall where the Brothers Heron were set up. I heard him cry out behind me, “Kid, wait,” but I didn’t turn back. I was too pissed off.

  When I spied the quaint old gypsy wagon, all three of the brothers were busy rearranging their wares on the tables in front of it. The older, balding one, Marten, looked up and smiled at me at first, but it faded in an instant when he saw that I was running toward the three of them. I was cruising now and people were getting out of my way. Before Marten could warn his brothers, I leapt up over their table, tackling the weakest-looking one, Lanford. He had been the one I’d spied in the photos. There had been no mistaking his gawky features in the background of Connor’s pictures.

  “What the hell did you release out there?” I shouted. I scrabbled onto my knees and sat on his chest, pinning him down. I pulled off one of my gloves. “You tell me, or so help me God, I’ll rip it out of your mind.”

  I could feel the electricity swirling in me. The more emotional I got, the harder it was to control my power, but right now I didn’t care. I had only dragged information out of one other person before—Faisal Bane, the leader of the now-defunct Sectarians—and it had left me a gibbering idiot afterward. I was willing to take that chance here if I had to.

  If I’d had a chance, that was. Two hands grabbed the sides of my shoulders and lifted me like I weighed nothing. Julius had me completely under his control, like I was a prize in one of those claw vending-machine games. He set me on my feet. Then, before I could move, he wrapped one of his meat hooks around each of my arms to restrain me.

  “I don’t think you want to be attacking my brother,” he said.

  Marten reached up and patted Julius on the shoulder.

  Lanford slowly got back on his feet, but he was visibly shaken. Despite the odds turning totally in his favor, he was still afraid.

  “Do you know what the penalty is for bringing crypto-zoological contraband into the tristate area?” I shouted at him.

  Lanford shook his head. I didn’t know what the penalty was either, specifically, but at least I knew it was illegal.

  “Did you bring a chupaca—” I started to say, but Marten stepped around behind me and shoved his hand over my mouth.

  “That will be quite enough of that on the show floor,” he whispered, leaning in. “We don’t need you screaming that out.” His face softened and he gave me his best huckster smile. “We’re not bad people, Simon, but it’s true we sometimes do bad things. Or bad things happen to us. It�
��s the curse of being born Romnichal, sadly. Still, we can’t have you drawing attention to us.”

  I wanted to shout into his hand or at least bite it, but I decided to conserve my energy for now. I could feel my power coursing wild through my body, and I needed to calm myself down. My fingers were starting to glow with power.

  Marten grabbed my left arm by the sleeve of my coat, careful not to touch my hand as he pulled my other glove off.

  “Very interesting,” he said. Lanford stepped closer.

  Marten flipped my hand over, palm up, and looked over at his skinny brother.

  “Lanny? Will you do the honors?”

  Reluctantly, Lanny leaned over my hand. I closed it into a fist, but Julius put the squeeze on my arms and Marten pried my hand back open. Lanford ran one of his bony fingers across my palm, hovering over the various lines in my hand.

  When he was done, he turned to Marten and nodded. His voice was solemn. “He’s marked.”

  Marked? I thought. What the hell are they talking about? The only thing I saw on the palm of my hand was a sliver of graphite under the skin from when I had accidentally jabbed a pencil tip into it when I was twelve.

  “Do you think so?” Marten asked with a hiss of sarcasm toward his brother. “What? Did you think his hand was glowing just for fun?”

  “Hey,” I heard Connor yelling from far off in the crowd. “Get your goddamn hands off my partner.”

  Julius’s meaty grip on my arms tightened painfully. Marten looked into my eyes as if he was studying me. I tried to look away, but it was no use.

  “Such a pity,” he said, disappointed. “Would that there was more time and we were meeting under more auspicious circumstances . . . Still, we can’t have you hounding us, can we?”

  Marten raised his free hand up to my face, the pinkie and index finger extended and practically touching my eyeballs. I struggled to pull my head away, but Julius’s chest pressed against the back of my head, making it impossible to move. Marten then muttered something barely resembling a language, and all of a sudden I felt like I wanted to throw up.

  Julius let go of me, and I was surprised to find that I couldn’t stand. I fell to the floor, gagging. I turned my head to the left and saw Connor arriving just on the other side of their tables.

  The Brothers Heron stepped over my body, heading toward their wagon.

  “Time to pull the old Baba Yaga, boys,” Marten said. Lanford and Julius looked at each other, total “is he serious” looks on their faces. They decided that their brother was indeed serious and made short work of stuffing themselves through the doorway of the gypsy wagon, Julius barely fitting. Marten backed up the steps. “We’re really not bad guys, honest.”

  He pulled the door shut as he backed in, and smoke started pouring off the tiny wooden wagon, forming voluminous black clouds. It reminded me of those black snake fireworks I’d had as a kid. Cloud after cloud of black smoke rolled off it and rose toward the convention center ceiling high overhead. When it cleared, the entire gypsy wagon had vanished.

  A few of the people who had stopped to watch applauded the spectacle, most likely convinced they were seeing some kind of staged Comic Con event.

  Connor helped me up. I choked on the last of the smoke, but thankfully the sickening sensation in my stomach was gone.

  “You okay, kid?”

  I nodded, winded and unable to speak.

  “Those guys had something to do with the chupacabra?” he asked.

  I nodded again.

  “I kinda figured that after you left me back at the booth playing ‘Where’s Lanford?’ with the crime scene photo.”

  Finally my throat cleared enough that I could speak.

  “Those douche bags are what gives gypsies an evil name, you know that?” I said. “Evil.”

  “One of them actually looked like he was evil-eyeing you,” Connor said, looking me over. He put his hands on my face and pried my eyes open to examine them. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, then stopped myself. “Hold on.” The stomach pain had passed and the smoke inhalation too, but I somehow felt . . . off. I walked over to the table of goods the brothers had left behind as a result of their hasty exit.

  I scooped up one of the totems at random with my bare hands. I pushed my power into it and . . . nothing. I threw it down and grabbed a deck of Tarot cards. Nothing. I scooped up several items at once, trying to roll my power into them.

  All nothing.

  “Kid?”

  “My power,” I said. “It’s gone.” Then, as an afterthought, “I hate Illinois gypsies.”

  22

  While I stared at my hands, Connor checked through the space previously occupied by the gypsy wagon just to make sure we weren’t having the wool pulled over our eyes by some sort of illusion.

  When we determined that the wagon truly wasn’t there anymore, I said, “Well, that’s pretty damn impressive.”

  The crowd that had cheered when the wagon disappeared had dispersed, since it looked like the magic show was over and the wagon wouldn’t be reappearing anytime soon.

  Connor paced in the now-empty booth. He looked hopeful, like maybe the wagon might suddenly reappear.

  “I thought gypsies only did folk magic,” I said. “Trinkety stuff . . . lucky rabbits feet, love potions, wart removal, that kind of thing.”

  Connor stopped pacing and looked up at me. He held his arms out and waved them in the empty space.

  “Usually, yeah,” Connor said. “I guess some folk magic is a little bigger than others.”

  “A little bigger?” I said. “We’re talking David Copper-field vanishing the Statue of Liberty proportions here. I think we should go fill the Inspectre in.”

  Connor agreed and the two of us returned through a sea of geeks and nerds to our booth to give the Inspectre our rundown of what had just happened. Including the fact that I had lost my power.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Connor said once we had finished telling him. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Oh, really?” I said, agitated. “That’s pretty positive sounding coming from someone who hasn’t just lost their abilities. You’ll figure something out? Tell me, Connor, just how much folk magic have you reversed in your day?”

  Connor held up his hand, his fingers tracing a circular goose egg.

  “Exactly,” I said. I turned to the Inspectre. “Sir, I’m sorry. I have to get out of here.”

  “Nonsense, my boy,” Inspectre Quimbley said, giving me an encouraging slap on the shoulder. “There’s plenty you can do around here to help with recruitment that doesn’t require a lick of power.”

  I walked out from behind our table and went over to the next booth. It was just your average Comic Con booth, set up with a wide array of collectible comic memorabilia. I ran my hands up and down through the cardboard coffins of comics.

  “Nothing,” I said, moving to the next table and the next one after that. “Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.”

  I must have looked insane.

  Connor and the Inspectre stared in silence until I calmed down.

  “Feel better, kid?” Connor said.

  “Not really,” I said. “I feel kind of naked without my power, you know? It’s been a part of me for so long, I can’t remember life before it.”

  The Inspectre gave a loud ha-room, stroked his mustache, and walked around the table to the outer side of the booth.

  “Perhaps I’ll give you two a moment to collect yourselves while I check out this disappearing wagon for myself,” he said.

  As he headed off in the direction we had just come from, Connor and I lapsed into awkward silence.

  Several passersby sidled up to the booth, took a few pamphlets, and moved on. I was still shaking from the dawning realization of what losing my powers really meant. In many ways, they had defined my very existence up until this point.

  “Listen, kid,” Connor said after a while. His voice was soft when he spoke. “Up
until you joined the D.E.A., you considered your powers mostly a curse, right? Always messing up any chance with the ladies. So look on the bright side—now you don’t have to worry about your power getting in the way of your life anymore.”

  I didn’t think I could feel worse than I already did, but apparently I was wrong.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I can ruin my life all on my own just fine. Thanks.”

  Connor cocked his head.