The Shibboleth

by John Hornor Jacobs

  A flash of light and the jolt of breath. The weight of arms and legs and balls and the scent of tobacco on my breath and the tang of addiction. There I am in a small, bare office, sitting at a desk with a phone pressed to my ear. An open laptop flickering and displaying data. There’s a green blotter in front of me on the desk, papers stacked to the right. A coffee cup full of pens.

  My leg aches. My heart hammers in my chest.

  Quincrux’s chest.

  Across the desk, set at an angle and illuminated by a computer screen, is a woman in a business suit that isn’t a uniform but could easily pass for one if you squint. She has short-cropped, almost white hair and glasses. Bluetooth headphone set. Nose ring, eyebrow ring. Tattoo on her neck. She’s thickset but not fat. From where I sit in Quincrux’s carcass, I can see that she’s almost half tits.

  Quincrux, you dog.

  Face intense and staring into the monitor, she says, “Red Team is en route to Gramercy location. Orange Team on standby with stasis bomb, should things go pear-shaped. Give the order to intercept?”

  Stasis bomb?

  I try to sit forward, but my damned leg doesn’t move like it should, and it is seriously making it hard to think. I have a choice, dive into Quincrux’s memories and take everything he’s got but—

  Something rattles the psychic chassis. Quincrux. It’s like the Hulk and Mr. Hyde have been snorting crank for a week and decided they want inside Quincrux’s skin. Except it’s already got a squatter. Me.

  He’s too strong for me to keep out of his own meatsuit. But I can hold on for a moment.

  Leaning forward, I shuffle through the papers on his desk, until I find an envelope.

  “Director? Is there a problem?” The white-headed woman asks, index finger on her Bluetooth headset.

  I try to remember all the ways military people in movies sound when asked similar questions and can’t think of one way, for the life of me. Maybe because I’m not in my body and I can’t make the connection to those far-off chemical memory banks, or maybe because I’m under pressure. So I just say, “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “One moment.” I hold up Quincrux’s finger in a shushing motion.

  There’s another shuddering jar in the ether, and the crushing pressure in my head almost snuffs my consciousness like wind extinguishing a candle. But I have time enough to pick up an envelope and read what the front of it says. #15, Old US Highway 10, Montana, 59759.

  Another huge push against my—or Quincrux’s—cranium, like water building behind a dam, and I have time only to snatch up a pencil and scrawl across the papers lying there—

  You don’t have to be such a tremendous DICK

  —before I’m kicked out.

  It’s only moments of dislocation and bodilessness and the rush of travel before I’m back in good old Shreve, still holding Miriam’s hand hostage in the drawer. She’s howling and obviously not chock-full o’ Quincrux, so I let her go, grab the phone she’s still holding at her ear, and toss it away.

  “Jerry!”

  I move Miriam, cradling her arm, to a stool. Jerry pops into the kitchen as if he’s been waiting, moving quickly. I can’t imagine how hard it was for him to back out.

  I let Jerry take over, helping Miriam, who’s stopped howling and begun to ask over and over, “Why? Why?”

  The weight of that question tears at me.

  I know. Why?

  I put my hand on Jerry’s shoulder. Squeeze. Try to put what I’m feeling into it. “Jer, I’m so sorry. So very sorry. And I have to go. Now.”

  He looks away from Miriam, to me, his face streaming. “But, wait, you must—”

  “I’m gone,” I say after one last squeeze. I run out of the kitchen and into the living room. I hurdle the sofa, and at the front door, crack it open and peer down the hallway toward the elevators and the other way to the stairwell.

  No one. Yet.

  Whatever I do, I sure as hell ain’t going up to the roof.

  I can’t imagine what the “capture team” might be holding—guns? Brainiacs? Knuckleheads?

  A bunch of explodey people?

  The Witch?

  Oh no. It’ll be the Witch.

  I run back to the kitchen, where Jerry looks surprised to see me again so soon. Some guests just never take a hint, I figure. Miriam’s face is contorted in pain, and she’s cradling her mangled hand.

  “Jerry, where’s your car?”

  “In the building garage.” His mouth stays open. Stupefied, really. I can see this whole morning has been too much for him.

  “I didn’t want to, Jer-bear, but I gotta take it,” I say, grabbing the keys from where they still sit on the counter. “Go ahead and call 911 for her. She’s gonna need it.”

  He blinks. Digs in his pocket for his mobile as I race back to the door and burst into the hall. For a moment I consider taking the stairs, but it seems like that’s what everyone does when trying to escape, so I run down to the double elevator bays and press both the up and down buttons.

  My heart is like two jackrabbits humping away in my chest. It’s hard to wait and watch the LED number indicators count up from 1 and down from 13, but I manage to do it without my brain exploding.

  There’s a ding! and one of the steel elevator doors slides open. Nobody’s home. I jump in, press all the buttons above my current floor—six—and then jump out just in time to hear another ding! as the opposing elevator opens. There’s a young bearded man in it, dressed in what looks like black military garb, lots of doohickeys at his waist. He’s thick around the middle, and he’s got a small Bluetooth headset on, like the white-haired woman in Quincrux’s office. He looks surprised to see me.

  He looks even more surprised when I kick him in the nuts with everything I’ve got. His body reacts to the blow, dropping to the floor, curling up. I press the button marked G—I have to assume that’s the garage—and then reach down and snatch his headset from his ear, drop it to the floor, and stomp on it.

  “What the hell?” he says, miserable. “Why’d you have to—”

  There’s a Taser right next to the handcuffs. I slide that away from its holster with my foot before kicking him in the head. Once, twice, three times. Until he stops moving.

  I check his breath. His pulse. It’ll be a toss-up if he’ll need more ice on his balls or his brains.

  On the second floor, the elevator shudders to a stop. The doors slide open to reveal a young woman—apparently well rested, thank you very much—in expensive jogging clothes, holding a lapdog in her arms. They both look from the unconscious guy on the floor to me and back to the guy with the same alarmed and rather goofy expression. I don’t say anything. What’s there to say?

  The moment hangs until the doors slide shut. They do not get on the elevator.

  The elevator passes the lobby without its doors opening. The only thing that could make this ride worse would be some light jazz, but there’s no Kenny G on the way to G.

  The garage is very small, damp, dimly lit. It smells of mildew and concrete, the exhaust and fluid leaks from cars. There’s a steep ramp leading out to the street. At the top of the ramp is a closed metal garage door. I can only hope there’s a radio-controlled trigger for it in Jerry’s ride.

  I leap from the elevator carriage, pulling the keys from my pocket, mashing the unlock button. I hear a chirp.

  It’s a sweet chariot, this BMW. The leather seats kissing my ass are totally cherry. Jerry likes nice things, that’s for damn sure.

  The car roars to life and thrums underneath my hands. I whip it out of its parking space and up the ramp, stopping at the garage door, which begins to open without any help from me. The light brightens as the door opens and reveals a black van half blocking the drive and exit to the street.

  The driver—another Bluetooth-wearing young man—glances at me, surprised. He’s got partially hydrogenated corn syrup for blood and was born and bred on the backs of Oklahoma football players. I slip from behind my eyes and take a
short, sharp stab at his head. He’s walled up tight, but I’m desperate and I blow past his defenses in a heartbeat. My nose begins to trickle blood.

  Solomon Blackwell, this is your life.

  I can’t banish him totally from his consciousness—he’s that gristly and strong—but I can get enough of a hold to make him shift the van into gear and mash down the accelerator. The van careens forward, banging into a sedan parked in front of it with a massive crunch that sounds like the rending of the world. The steering wheel explodes into silvery white air bag goodness, smacking his face so hard it knocks him unconscious and knocks me all the way back out of his head and into the BMW. Which I now gun out onto the street and down the block.

  Only to be stopped at the traffic light.

  There are a lot of folks out this morning, most looking happy. Apparently, when people sleep well, they want to get out and drive around.

  It’s hard to stay calm waiting for the pedestrians to pass and the light to change. When it does, it’s not like I can race forward, seeing as there’s some sort of small delivery truck in front of me.

  It’s the slowest chase scene I’ve ever witnessed.

  In the rearview, I can see the van behind me. A couple of black-clad people are pulling Mr. Blackwell from the wreckage and pointing in my direction.

  Oh no. One of them—a girl—takes a few steps in my direction and jumps. It’s like she’s disappeared. But it doesn’t take a mind reader to guess she’s got twelve fingers. She’s somewhere above me now. Flying. Glommed onto a building maybe.

  Torpedoes be damned, I whip the Beemer out and around the delivery truck and almost run smack dab into a Yellow Cab that veers to the right just in time for me to pass between and shoot in front of the truck. Then down two blocks at a fast clip until I hit a large avenue. I can’t get any idea of where I am and the traffic is crowded around me, so I cast out my awareness and snag a police officer and go behind his eyes.

  Bruno Conti, you aren’t the nicest guy in New York, that’s for sure.

  I shuffle through the memory banks, trying to avoid the lawsuits and alimony payments and the pulsing urge for a drink and/or sex and dredge up the info I need.

  First Avenue. Take a left, then a right, and head to the FDR on-ramp going south toward the Williamsburg Bridge. Which will, eventually, take me east onto Long Island through Brooklyn-Queens Expressway unless I head north through construction.

  Being stuck on an island is like being back on the roof again.

  Bruno, despite being a brute and as corrupt as they come, has 20/20 eyesight, so it’s no problem picking out the black SUV muscling its way down Twentieth Street toward me. Bruno also spends time in the gym, when he’s not drinking and hound-dogging underage girls, so I set him off jogging back the way from which I came in the BMW.

  Bruno approaches the van. The driver—a middle-aged woman with short-cropped gray hair and a Bluetooth headset—ignores him. But the passenger has a familiar face, one I remember from the old days at Casimir Pulaski Juvenile Detention Center for Boys. Good old Sloe-Eyed Norman.

  That means the Witch, Ilsa Moteff.

  Bruno’s heart and mine jump as one at the sight of him. Jack killed her. Broke her neck in a fierce explosion of desperation and force, but she took over poor, hapless Norman’s body and never gave it up.

  When Bruno raises his sidearm, both Ilsa and the driver show puzzlement ratcheting up into alarm. He empties the clip into the engine block.

  I’d wanted to have him shoot her with all my heart, but it seems Bruno is not a totally bad guy, after all. Part of him struggles with me enough to change the aim. Good for you, Bruno Conti. Now you’ve let a monster live.

  What feels like the mental version of a charging rhino caroms into Bruno’s brainmeat, and I’m booted out of his head. If you can mentally reel, I’m reeling like a steer with a sledgehammer blow between the horns.

  The Witch. Damn, she’s strong. The pressure ebbs as I gain distance. But my brain feels slimy, filmy, like she’s left a residue all over it. There’s really no words for how bad she is. Her mind is a wormhole to hell.

  There’s honking behind me. The light is green. I gun the Beemer onto First Avenue, whipping by people and cars and cabs. I’m nabbing directions from pedestrians’ brains as I drive—steve michonne ahmad tony jennifer another jennifer ANOTHER JENNIFER dj willum joe helen johan eduardo petrova chanda bobbi weston liz jim. Like the car I’m in, I can feel the shibboleth shuddering around me as I play mental ping-pong, bouncing from head to Shreve from head to Shreve again while barreling down the road.

  I’ve got to get off the island.

  Hands at twelve and two, just like I learned in one of my many teenage memories. Up the on-ramp and onto the FDR and into traffic. Heading south and upping the speed now into the fifties, low sixties. That’s as fast as the traffic will allow.

  Approaching the bridge, the cars bog down, slowing. I adjust the mirrors to point up into the sky as best as I can. For an instant, I catch a glimpse of black wings, or the raven’s flutter of the jumping girl. Like Jack. Tailing me from on high.

  The cars grind to a halt, and I feel the mental pressure building again—the Witch is back in range. I crane my head, looking for the van, but can’t see it. And she’s strong. Unimaginably strong.

  Once, when I was in junior high, I smarted off to the wrong guy—Barry Levitt—and when he came after me, I tried to fight him off, grabbing his arms, his wrists. But he was enraged and fueled by whatever hatred or desire propelled him and his arms were like pneumatic pumps pushing toward me. I remember being surprised, thinking, He’s not supposed to do that! That’s what she feels like. The Witch. She’s like a boa constrictor choking out my air. Tightening. The pressure of her mind is a house collapsed on top of me, lumber and stone too heavy to lift. But in the end, no metaphors can match her.

  Blood pours from my nose, and I taste the warm, salty flow of it. My head feels like a watermelon with an unpinned grenade inside.

  The Beemer slams into the car in front of me—making another terrible crunching sound. It’s my turn to have an air bag explode in my face.

  The pain drives off the Witch for a moment.

  I feel stupid and clumsy. I’ve left a nice blood spatter across the silver material of the air bag. Opening the door, I lurch out into stalled traffic and stumble between the cars to the median and pull myself over into the northbound lane, where the cars are whizzing past. A fat man from the car I hit stands by the driver’s door and screams profanities and shakes his fist at me. I ignore him. Look to the skies, buster. You see anything?

  It’s like a game, trying to judge the speed of the oncoming cars, except, unlike a game, if I screw up I’ll be splattered across the pavement. So screw that. Again I employ the psychic whiz-bangery and hop into the head of the nearest oncoming car—hello, Mrs. Schulte!—and make her slow her car and slew it at an angle, blocking most of the lanes.

  I stumble across the road and climb the fence into what Mrs. Schulte’s brain tells me is the East River Park.

  It’s not even eight in the morning, and it’s already been a long day.

  SIXTEEN

  I run. Not movie-star fast. Not fancy.

  My breath comes in great painful heaves and my side is in stitches and the pressure of the Witch is back in my head. Through the canopy of trees shading the promenade, I can make out the dash and flutter of black clothes high above. They’re following me. Many of them.

  I’m not going to make it. The cover of foliage will give out in just a few paces, and I’ll be exposed to them. No telling what they’ll do to me. What she’ll do to me.

  I slow. Stop running. There’s a water fountain. I drink. Let my heart slow and my breath come more slowly. I let my body calm. Joggers and folks with dogs stare at me uneasily. I wipe my nose, leaving a long red streak up my forearm.

  There’s a thick-bearded jogger staring at me intensely, and I don’t even have to peep him to know he’s got a Rider straddling
him.

  “Before the elder awakens!” he says.

  “Yeah, I heard you the first time.”

  “These …” He pauses as if searching for words. Distant. “Embers, they will take you away. Away from the elder.”

  “They’ll try.”

  “You cannot hope to resist. And you must away to Maryland.”

  “Damn, man, why you have to talk like that?”

  “If the elder wakens, all will be lost. You cannot hope to resist!”

  “Resist?” Screw this guy right in the eyehole. “Watch me.”

  I turn and walk to where the trees give way to sky. There’s a short wall with steps down to a lower level—closer to the water—full of planters. Some of the park denizens seem demented and sleepless—there are two hobo preachers, a couple of junkies, some human bits of flotsam and jetsam. Other people in the park seem rested. Some scowl at me and look murderous. None of them seem happy to see me. None of them seem to see the flying people in the sky.

  Maybe I’m shithouse rat insane and gibbering in the Tulaville Psych Ward.

  But they look so normal. No capes or spandex costumes. They look like a floating SWAT team.

  There are six of them out there, hanging above the sluggish gray waters of the East River like ungainly, spastic blackbirds. Two seem to be orbiting each other, as if each one has a personal gravitational field that constantly asserts its power over the other. Two just float like they’re standing on an invisible platform, holding long, slender tools that look too much like hunting rifles.

  There’s the brunette jumping girl hopping back and forth.

  And then there’s Sloe-Eye Norman, current home of the Witch. Floating calmly in the air.

  When she—he?—sees me, she holds up her very male hand and points. She says something to her cohorts that the river wind whips away.

  The cyclists, joggers, miscreants, derelicts, and hoboes of the East River Park stop, keel over, and fall to the ground.

  That’s a neat trick.

  I trot over to the nearest. Check his pulse. Still living and breathing. Just asleep. He probably will appreciate it when he wakes up.