by M. R. Forbes
"Looks like someone made a mess," I said to him.
"You can say that again," the janitor replied. "Some drunk asshole busted the door and barfed in that corner over there. Not to mention he knocked over all this crap."
I was curious about something. "Hey buddy," I said. "I just got my hair dyed to cover up some grey. What color does it look like to you?"
He gave me a funny look. "Black," he said. That was just what I wanted to hear.
"Thanks man," I said. I took one last look back at the closet and beat a path out of there. I was on the ferry within the hour.
I sat all the way in the back, not that it mattered. It was early enough that the majority of people were still headed towards Liberty Island, not away from it. We were pretty well spread out, and I appreciated the opportunity to relax a little bit. Even if I couldn't consciously exert my will on anything, at least my subconscious was helping me out. It seemed like as good a time as any to practice the Rain exercise.
I fixed my focus on a small spot below the seat in front of me, and tried to force the rain. The first few efforts were as effective as my attempts in the bathroom stall. Retrain my mind. That was what Dante had said. There is no spoon.
For some reason, my mind wandered back to my encounter with the vampire. Rebecca, she had said her name was. It was strange to think of a blood-sucking creature of the Devil and put a human name to it. It was stranger still to be thinking about the way she looked in that outfit. According to Dante, this was the face of my enemy. Well, one of them anyway. After all, she lived to feast on my kind. In fact, she couldn't live without feasting on my kind. Or angels, I remembered. She said she preferred to drink the blood of angels. That was really creepy.
I looked out at the water breaking off the back of the ferry. I had smashed the phone, and in doing so lost any hope of getting more information about what exactly I should be doing. Would Dante even be able to find me now? Maybe he couldn't, but I had a feeling Mr. Ross could. I had a feeling Mr. Ross could find anyone, anywhere.
Watching the waves became hypnotic, and brought me to a state of mind that I hadn't experienced before. Here I was, sitting on a ferry in the middle of New York Harbor, I had one set of clothes and four grand in my pocket, the bloodlines of angels and demons, both sides itching to put an end to me, and for the first time I felt like I was actually coming to life, or maybe waking up.
I turned my head back to my spot under the chair and willed it to rain. Not with a huge push, an overexertion. I willed it gently, fitting the force of my will to the strength of my desire. I felt the tug in my mind. I felt it grab on like a hook and pull towards me. Water vapor condensed and began to fall in droplets onto my boots. I had told the universe to make it rain, and it had acquiesced. It wouldn't save me from hungry vampires, but it was a start.
By the time I had arrived at Battery Park, I was able to reproduce the raindrops on at least half of my attempts. It was becoming easier to recognize the mental focus that signaled success, and more familiar to feel the pull on my energy. Dante had been right about limits. The few successes I had made had left me feeling a bit drowsy, and super hungry.
As I walked, I kept a watchful eye on all of the people around me. I had no idea who might be playing for one of the other teams, and who thought I was just another average guy going about his business. It would have helped if I could have at least known if they would react, or if they would run off to tell their superiors that they had spotted a diuscrucis wandering around.
Catching the delectable scent of coffee, I diverted myself across the street and into "Gino's Diner" in search of something to stop the rumbling in my stomach and the growing fatigue caused by bending the universe. The place was pretty empty, but I paid close attention to its inhabitants as I entered. Nobody even bothered to look up at me. I love New York!
Susan led me to a table and handed me a menu. I waved it away. "Two western omelets, a cup of coffee, and a slice of cherry pie if you have it. Whatever pie you do have if not cherry."
She looked down to check the size of my stomach. "You one of those competitive eaters?" she asked me.
"Nah, just hungry,” I said. “I feel like I haven't eaten in months."
She didn't say anything, heading off to put in the order. She returned a minute later with the coffee. As she put it down, she looked me in the eyes.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
She looked away. "You just have really pretty eyes," she said. "You need anything else?"
"I'm fine, thanks," I said.
It was weird, but she hadn’t been lying, and I didn't get that feeling from her that I'd gotten from Rebecca. I figured I needed to be cautious but not paranoid, or I'd destroy myself without any intervention necessary from the powers that be.
“Actually," I said. "Do you have a newspaper?"
The date was November 19th. I had been in Purgatory for nearly five months. How many had I spent curled into a ball 'suffering my Regrets', as Dante had called it? I thought about my mother for the first time since I had been killed. I wondered if there were any rules about going to see her. Would she recognize me? Did she know our history? Which side of this war would she be on? I knew the answer to that one; she was a devout Catholic. That raised a more important question. If she could see me, would she see me as her son, or as an enemy? Maybe I was being a coward, but I wasn't willing to risk knowing the answer to that. Better to let dead sons stay dead.
Susan dropped off my two omelets and a peach cobbler. I guess it was the closest thing they had to pie. I downed the eggs in record time, polished off the cobbler, and still felt hungry for more. I decided to satiate myself further somewhere else, in order not to arouse any kind of suspicion. I left forty dollars on the table and walked out while Susan was occupied with another table.
As soon as I got outside, I found the nearest street corner and hailed a cab. I had lost Dante's ‘Guide to Being Awake’, so I needed to start educating myself.
"5th Avenue Apple Store" I said, climbing in.
I would pick up an iPad so I could get online, then take it to a cheap hotel room somewhere and hole up until I heard from Dante. Combing the dark corners of the Internet was one of my specialties after all, and if there was any mortal information about the workings of the Divine I was sure I would be able to find it there. It might not amount to much compared to what I had lost on the smartphone, but it was better than what I had right now.
"Sure thing pal," he said.
He had a strong accent. Polish maybe? He was definitely European, with a black peach fuzz and a chiseled face. I could see him look me over through the rear-view mirror. I thought I saw his eye twinge as he looked at me, but didn't make much of it.
I sat back on the rear bench seat and took a deep breath. I was still hungry, but the headache had gone away, and I was more eager to start learning than I was to continue eating. I was going to start by finding out everything I could about vampires, werewolves, and any other demonic creatures I could branch off to from there. My feeling was that the evil team was bound to be more dangerous, and there was also something in my gut telling me that they were winning this war.
A war I could never win. Everything had happened so fast, I hadn't stopped to think about that simple truth. I was joining the fight for the continued existence of mankind. My goal was to keep things from becoming too evil, or too good. I couldn't snuff one out, or the other would triumph. Would I be spending the rest of eternity like this, or was there a limit to my Awakened life force? The thought was depressing.
When I looked out the window and saw that the cabbie had pulled us off into an abandoned housing project, I realized that I had broken rule number four. I had lost track of my surroundings, and now I was in a place where nobody would hear me scream. I looked up at the driver, who was turning his head back and forth, looking for something himself.
I saw him at the same time the driver did, a lone man in a fine pinstriped suit, sitting on the steps of one of the condem
ned buildings. When he saw the cab he stood and reached behind his back, retrieving a sword that even from the distance looked similar to the one the dark angel in Purgatory had almost halved me with.
"I don't suppose I can talk you out of dropping me here?" I asked.
"Go to Hell," he said. He stopped the cab at the sidewalk in front of the building. The door opened of its own accord. I wasn't about to get out.
"No sense in making this difficult," the man in the suit said. "My associate has already marked you as a demon."
A demon? Dante had said that they would be able to recognize me. That only seemed to be half-true, as both Rebecca and now this guy had seen me only as their direct opposite. I wasn't going to escape, so I slid over and got out of the cab. As soon as I was clear the door slammed shut, and the driver took off.
"That's better," the man said. He looked at me curiously. "You took quite a risk being out during the day. You must have some pretty important information to deliver."
Information? He had taken a look at me and judged me to be no more than a messenger. I did my best to play the part.
"Like I would tell you, asshole," I said.
His eyes narrowed. "Mind your tongue, worm. You can tell me what you know, or I can spit you like a pig."
The eyes. They were brown, simple, human. He wasn't an angel. This had to be what Dante had referred to as the Touched. I decided to change tactics.
"Do you take me for some kind of minor spawn," I shouted. "You have no idea who you are dealing with. The light means nothing to me."
I forced my will, just enough to make my eyes flash red like they do in horror movies. I didn't know if it would work or not, but the tug told me I had been successful. The Touched man's eyes widened and he held the sword up to defend himself. I could tell he felt overmatched, now all I could do was hope he wouldn't call for backup.
He did the other thing I had hoped he wouldn't. Fight or flight, he decided to fight. He came at me in a rush, committing himself and all his power to a single downward cut. Even as unskilled as I was, the desire to not be cut in half was more than enough for my brain to move my body out of the way. I danced to the side as the blade slammed into the cement, throwing up chips of concrete.
He surprised me by adjusting and getting back into a defensive posture. The trouble was, I hadn't even considered attacking him back. His maneuver left him a good four feet away, out of sword reach. It was my turn for fight or flight. I turned and ran.
I had six steps on him before he overcame his surprise and started giving chase. I dashed up the stairs and into the abandoned building, catapulting up the inner stairwell at a speed that I didn't know I had. I could hear his shoes landing on the steps below me, getting fainter and fainter as I rose at a pace he couldn't match. I was winning the footrace, but where was I going to go? The building was a bad decision, because I was going to run out of up, and I couldn't get back down without passing Samurai Joe. All too soon, I pushed open the door at the top of steps and found myself out on the roof, fifteen stories up.
"God dammit," I cried, seeing that there was nowhere to hide. If the building had ever had an air conditioner it had already been removed. The rest of the rooftop was solid cement. I spun in a three sixty. There was another roof about twenty feet away. No way I could jump that. I was considering other options when he emerged from the stairwell in a smoothly executed roll and came to his feet. He had been expecting an ambush. The moment he spotted me, he charged again.
All I could think as I raced towards the edge of the rooftop was that everybody falls the first time. Except here, there was no rubber street to bounce me back up. Here, if I fell… I wasn't actually sure if I would die, but I didn't want to find out. I willed myself to make it across, and I almost shouted with joy in midair as I felt my mind get tugged and my body soar across the gap. I watched the empty street pass under me, and then get replaced by cement. I hit the ground, hard.
I wasn't prepared for the momentum I had built up. I slammed onto the roof and fell, my body bouncing and rolling along the hard ground. The pain was immediate and intense, registering from a dozen places. My shoulder was broken. It had to be. So was my ankle. I may have gotten away from my attacker, but I had completely messed myself up in the process.
Once I had stopped moving, I started trying to assess the damage. I lifted my head and looked down at my splayed out carcass, saw a lot of tears in my clothes and blood trickling out through them. If I could bleed, I could die. I needed to figure out some way to stand up, to start moving, to get myself to a hospital. I needed to do it fast, because there was nothing preventing the man in the suit from going back down the steps, and coming up here.
I heard a faint rustle, and then the familiar sound of Italian leather shoes walking towards me. So the Touched had some mojo. I wish I had known that before my leap of faith. I looked at him. He was smiling broadly, confident of his triumph.
"Care to talk now, worm?" he asked me.
I coughed up some blood in response.
"Guess not," he said. He stood right over me and raised his sword two handed, prepared to bury it like Excalibur. I caught a hint of motion behind his right shoulder.
"Wait," I said, raising my hand. He hesitated for just a fraction of a second. It was the longest fraction of the rest of his short life.
She was on him in a blink, yanking the sword from his hands and throwing it across the rooftop, then spinning him around so he could see her face before she buried her teeth in his neck. His body writhed as he was overcome by the assault, a soft groan of pain, or was it pleasure, escaping his lips. As she fed, she looked up at me and winked.
I didn't know if I should be relieved, or more afraid. What was Rebecca doing here? I had a feeling she was following me, but why? There seemed to be more to this than I understood. Watching her drain her victim, my body wracked with pain, I could feel my stomach churning again.
She was finished within a couple of minutes. As the last of the life force left the poor saps body, she dropped the empty shell to the ground and carefully wiped the excess blood from around her mouth with a handkerchief. She was wearing a lot more clothes now; a form hugging long sleeve hooded sweater that dropped over a pair of black tights, knee high boots and long black gloves. She looked just as good, but much better protected from the sun. She pulled her hood up over her head before she spoke to me.
"Looks like your luck is holding out, worm," she said. I guess she had heard the way the Touched had referred to me.
"You're following me," I said. "Why?"
I was too beat up to be afraid. If she had wanted to take me, she would have done it already. I suppose I should have been disgusted by what I had just seen, and in the back of my mind I was, but she had just saved my life. I could be really forgiving for that.
She waved her arm towards the sun, shining down on the rooftop with a ferocity that was sure to be unpleasant for her, despite the attire.
"Can we talk somewhere else?" she asked.
"I'm a little indisposed at the moment," I replied.
"Come off it diuscrucis,” she said. “You did a great albatross impersonation, but you should be fine by now." She came over and grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet with a harsh jerk.
I had expected it to hurt. I had expected to see stars. It twinged a little where my ribs had broken, but otherwise I was feeling a lot better. I rotated my ankle, tested my shoulder.
"I'm healed," I said.
"Seriously, I know you said you were new in town, but didn’t they teach you anything?" She let go of my arm and walked over to where the Touched's sword had landed. She scooped it up in a gloved hand and tossed it to me. "I think you might need this," she said.
I caught the sword, and then held it out so I could take a look at it. It looked like a Japanese katana, with a narrow, slightly curved blade and a guard less hilt. There were symbols running along the entire length of the steel, symbols I couldn't read.
"Do you know what these me
an?" I asked.
I was so busy looking at the sword I hadn't noticed that Rebecca was standing by the doorway to the stairs, waiting impatiently to get out of the sun.
"Sorry," I said, and ran over.
We went down a couple of flights, then busted through a locked door into a dilapidated apartment that had been stripped bare of almost everything except a bed, an empty fridge, and a couch. Rebecca hopped up onto the couch and perched on the back, her legs bent and spread like a roosting gargoyle. The stillness of her form in that position was more than a little intimidating. Fighting back the reflex to run again, I sat on the far arm of the couch facing her. She started to speak, and I raised my hand to quiet her. Fear was one thing, but she was right - nobody had taught me anything. I wasn't about to let her dominate the conversation. She was following me. She wanted something from me. I wasn't about to provide it without some info in return.
"Question for a question," I said.
She furrowed her brow. "I don't understand?"
"I ask you a question, you answer it,” I said. “Then you can ask me a question, and I'll answer it. Deal?"
She sat motionless for long enough that I started to think she really had turned to stone. "Very well," she said. "You have a deal. What is your question?"
"Why are you following me?"
She was thoughtful before answering. "I'm curious about you."
"Curious?"
She raised her hand and chided me. "You got your answer. It's my turn." She had a point. I started to feel like I may have suckered myself with this deal. "Where did you come from?"
If she was going to be obtuse, I could play that game too. "I grew up in New Jersey, but I was born in London, England."
There was a hint of frustration in her eyes, but she smiled. The game was afoot. "Why are you curious about me?" I asked.
"I've been nesting in the Statue for over fifty years. No one has ever gotten onto the island at night without me knowing it. Yet, there you were. Out of nowhere." There was something about my appearance that was bothering her. I could tell by the way she spoke about it. "How did you get onto the island?"