Dark Magic

by James Swain

  Carr raised the knapsack above his head. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Don’t do that, Dr. Carr.”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” Carr bellowed.

  “Calm down, Dr. Carr. Do as I say, and no one will get hurt.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Lots of people are going to get hurt.”

  “Please, Dr. Carr.”

  Carr was determined to go down fighting. He was surrounded by cops, who in turn were surrounded by mobs of anxious commuters watching the scene unfold. The presence of so many people gave him an idea. Drawing the Sig Sauer from his jacket, he aimed at the ceiling, and let off a round. It sounded like a cannon in the enclosed space. Women in the crowd screamed. It was exactly what Carr wanted, and he fired the Sig again. The commuters headed for the exits, knocking through the circle of policemen in a mad stampede for safety. Detective Emener started to move toward him, only to be swept aside by the rush of people. Slipping the Sig into his pocket, Carr joined the fleeing mob, the knapsack clutched protectively to his chest.

  * * *

  Carr ran out of Penn Station with a mad rush of adrenaline. He hadn’t felt this good in forever, and wondered why he’d waited so long to seek his revenge. A long line of yellow taxi cabs were parked at the curb. Their drivers, mostly Russians, stood outside their vehicles, smoking cigarettes and talking in their native tongue.

  Carr hurried toward them. Then, he stopped. His legs felt like they were made of lead. Worse, there was something wrong with his bowels, which felt ready to explode.

  “Which one of you is available?” Carr stammered.

  “You sick?” A Russian wearing an I LOVE NY tee-shirt eyed him suspiciously.

  “Not sick,” he managed to utter.

  “Get away from my cab, you stinking drunk,” the Russian declared belligerently.

  A taxi appeared, and cut in front of the line of parked vehicles. The driver flashed his brights, signaling he was free. Carr poured himself into the back seat. He was on the verge of passing out, and struggled to speak.

  “Times Square, and hurry,” he gasped.

  The taxi practically leapt off the ground. As it did, a small army of policemen burst out of Penn Station. Carr went low in his seat. Within moments he was out of danger. He sucked down air, and gradually started to feel better.

  The taxi hurtled down Seventh Avenue. Carr had taken his share of dangerous cab rides in New York, but nothing like this. His driver swerved between lanes like a stock car driver.

  “Where are you going? This isn’t the way to Times Square.”

  The driver ignored him. Carr tried to get a look at his face. The partition separating them was covered in advertisements and public service announcements.

  “Slow down. You’re going to hit someone.”

  The driver gazed at Carr in his mirror. His eyes were a sickly yellow, and looked jaundiced. Something was clearly wrong with him.

  “Didn’t you hear me? I said, slow down!”

  Instead of slowing down, the taxi picked up speed. Cars and buildings flew past at breakneck speed. Carr heard a noise from the trunk. A loud banging sound.

  “What’s that sound?” he asked.

  The driver ignored him. At the intersection of 27th Street, he blew the red light. The banging sound grew louder. It was accompanied by another sound. A voice.

  “Somebody help me…”

  The voice sounded Chinese. Carr looked at the driver’s license posted on the dashboard. Wei Lin. Only the man behind the wheel was clearly not Wei Lin.

  “Who the hell are you?” Carr shouted at the driver.

  At the intersection at 26th Street, a truck was stopped at the light. The driver swerved to avoid a collision, and went into the opposing lane. A city bus was coming right at them. The bus’s driver hit his horn. They were going to crash. The irony was not lost on Carr. His wife and daughter had died in a wreck, and now, so might he. But he didn’t want to die just yet. That would come later tonight, when he released the nerve agent. Remembering the instructions they gave on airplanes, he curled himself into a ball, and tucked his head in to his chest.

  The bus sideswiped them. The crash was deafeningly loud. The cab pitched sideways, and began to roll. It did a complete revolution before landing upright in the middle of Seventh Avenue. The tires deflated, and it sank into the earth.

  “I’m hurt bad,” said the voice in the trunk.

  Carr quickly examined himself. He should have been dead as well. The impact that had taken his wife and daughter’s lives had been far less severe. Yet nothing on his body felt broken or even badly bruised except for the cut in his tongue.

  “You’re insane,” he said to the driver.

  The driver was slumped over the wheel. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, his neck obviously broken. Carr snorted derisively.

  “Serves you right,” he said.

  The driver stirred, and snapped his head back into place. Before Carr’s disbelieving eyes, the dead man climbed out of the taxi, and came around to the passenger side. Throwing open the door, he reached in, and pried the knapsack from Carr’s hands.

  “You won’t be needing that anymore,” the driver said.

  Carr looked at the driver’s face. The skin was a violent purple, and his eyes had no life. Carr knew that the dead did not walk, or talk, or crash vehicles on busy city streets, and that this was a horrible illusion, courtesy of his poisoned mind.

  People had started to gather around the cab. The driver pushed his way through them, and staggered away. Carr watched him leave, thinking surely he’d seen the Devil.

  Then he broke down, and wept uncontrollably.

  53

  The West 30th Street heliport was located next to the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan. The rain let up long enough for the FBI chopper to land. As Peter and Garrison jumped out, they were greeted by the female agent on Garrison’s team who’d arrested Snoop years ago, a no-nonsense blonde named Nan Perry, who spoke with a thick Boston accent. Perry briefed them as they crossed the asphalt with the rain whipping in their faces.

  “Dr. Carr arrived at Penn Station on the four-forty-five from Hunters Point,” Perry said. “Although a gang of undercover NYPD detectives was waiting for him, Carr managed to escape by causing a riot outside the boarding gates. He got outside, and grabbed a cab. The cab got into an accident on Twenty-sixth Street, and Carr was apprehended.”

  “So we got him,” Garrison said, sounding relieved.

  “Yes. The doctor’s in custody,” Perry said.

  The tension left Garrison’s face, and he looked like a normal person again.

  “Ready for the bad news?” Perry said.

  “What do you mean? What happened?” Garrison asked.

  “The person driving the cab wasn’t the driver. It was an imposter, who hijacked the cab, and threw the driver in the trunk. Right after the accident, the imposter snatched Carr’s knapsack and took off. You know what they say. Only in New York.”

  “Please tell me someone saw this person,” Garrison said pleadingly.

  “We’ve gotten a couple of eyewitness accounts, most of them sketchy. Our thief was a six-foot-tall male. He was walking stiffly, and may have been hurt in the accident.”

  A town car with tinted windows was parked at the curb, its engine spitting black fumes. They finished the conversation driving into Midtown.

  “What shape is Carr in?” Garrison asked.

  “He’s banged up, but there doesn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with him,” Perry replied, riding up front beside the driver.

  “What about the guy in the trunk? Did he see anything?”

  “He wasn’t so lucky. He died on the way to the hospital.”

  Garrison blew out his cheeks. “When it rains, it pours. Where’s Carr now?”

  “The police have him in a holding cell at Penn Station. A pair of detectives questioned him, but everything Carr says is nonsense. They can’t tell if it�
�s an act, or if there’s something seriously wrong with him.”

  “What’s your gut telling you?”

  “I think Carr’s flipped his wig,” Perry said. “We do know one thing for sure. The knapsack is loaded with enough Novichok to take down half the city. The recipe was in a hidden compartment in Carr’s wallet. There are a hundred variants of Novichok, and he chose the most deadly strain. He manufactured several pounds of it.”

  Peter watched the passing scenery, the images from the séance still fresh in his mind. Wolfe wasn’t the Grim Reaper, it was Carr. How could the spirits have gotten it so wrong?

  “What’s the NYPD doing to catch this guy?” Garrison asked.

  “They’re conducting a manhunt,” Perry replied. “He got away on foot, so they think he’s still near Twenty-sixth Street, where the crash took place. The mayor’s been briefed on the crisis, and has decided not to shut down the city. He’s afraid it would cause widespread panic.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Garrison said. “They have to shut down the city, until this guy is caught.”

  “I’ve got his number if you’d like to call him,” Perry suggested.

  “I’ll save my breath.”

  They had reached Penn Station. The front entrance was blocked by police cruisers and unmarked police cars. Next door, a long line of people was wrapped around Madison Square Garden, waiting to see the Knicks play basketball. It occurred to Peter that not a single one of them had any notion of the danger they were in. Their lives might end tonight while watching some highly paid athletes throw a round ball through a hoop. He’d seen this coming on Friday night, and it was his duty to stop it.

  “Let me talk to Carr. Maybe I can get into his head, and find out who stole the knapsack. If I gain his confidence, I can read his mind.”

  “Can you read a crazy person’s mind?” Garrison asked, sounding skeptical.

  It was a question that Peter did not have an answer to.

  “I can try,” the young magician said.

  “You’re on, hotshot.”

  * * *

  They sifted their way through the mob of police and entered Penn Station. The terminal was filled with news crews jostling with one another to get a story. Peter kept his head down, and tried to avoid being seen. Entering an elevator, they descended into the basement where the police station was housed. The car landed with a dull thud, and they got out.

  Penn Station was a magnet for the city’s homeless, and the plastic chairs inside the station lobby were occupied by dispirited bag people. Garrison approached the booking area, holding his ID in front of his face. “I need to see Dr. Carr,” he announced.

  “Carr’s being interrogated,” the desk sergeant replied.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” Garrison told him.

  The desk sergeant glared at them. Cops were fiercely territorial, and reacted unfavorably when their turf was encroached upon. Perry stepped between the two men, and batted her eyelashes.

  “Please,” she said sweetly.

  “What’s this about?” the desk sergeant asked.

  “We think there’s going to be an attack on the city.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  The desk sergeant escorted them down a hall to a small room with a two-way mirror. On the other side of the glass, Carr was slumped in a chair with a deranged look on his face. The doctor was wrapped in a wool blanket and shaking uncontrollably. A pair of balding, overweight detectives were raking him over the coals. Their voices were harsh, and carried through the glass. “No more screwing around. Tell us who took the knapsack,” the first detective said.

  “He was the Devil,” Carr replied, hugging himself fiercely.

  “You ever see this devil before?”

  “Never.”

  “How close did you get to him?”

  “Close as I am to you,” Carr replied.

  “Think you could pick him out of a book of mug shots?”

  Carr cast his eyes downward and laughed hoarsely.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” the detective said.

  Carr looked up. “He was the Devil. That was who took my knapsack. The Devil incarnate. That’s all I have to say.”

  “He’s been giving us this same line of crap since we hauled him in,” the desk sergeant said, cracking a piece of gum in his mouth.

  “Think you can get into his head?” Garrison asked Peter.

  “I don’t see why not,” Peter replied.

  “Go for it.”

  Peter moved for the door. He’d never plumbed the thoughts of a crazy person before, and supposed there was a first time for everything. The desk sergeant blocked his way.

  “Hold on a second,” the desk sergeant said. “What are you going to do? Put him under hypnosis?”

  “Something like that,” Peter replied.

  “You don’t look like a shrink,” the desk sergeant said.

  “I’m not. Tell your detectives to stop. I need to be in the room alone with Dr. Carr.”

  “No can do. It’s against department rules,” the desk sergeant said.

  “Do it anyway,” Garrison told him.

  The desk sergeant didn’t like it. He looked at Perry, thinking she might come to his aid. When Perry didn’t respond, he left the room in a huff.

  54

  Fear had a smell. It tinged the air like rotting flesh, and so much desperation. The room in which Carr sat had such a smell. It was pouring off the doctor like bad cologne. Peter got up close to him anyway, and pulled up a chair. He sat so their knees were touching. Touching was important. It established intimacy, and created a physical bond. Carr stirred in his chair.

  “Who are you?” Carr asked.

  “My name’s Peter. I need to talk to you.”

  Carr rocked forward in his chair. “You look like that young magician fellow. What’s-his-name. My daughter dragged me to his show once. It was dreadful.”

  “You don’t like magic?” Peter asked.

  “Hate it.”

  “But your daughter does.”

  “Katie loved magic,” Carr said. “She always made me hire a magician for her birthday party. Had to have a rabbit.” His eyes glistened with tears. “I loved my daughter so much. When she and my wife were killed, it was a like a piece of my heart was torn out.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said furiously. “There’s no way you could understand. You’re too young to know that kind of pain.”

  “My parents were killed when I was a boy,” Peter said quietly.

  “You’re not making that up?”

  Peter shook his head. “No,” he added for emphasis.

  Carr hugged himself with the blanket. “I’m sorry to hear that. Were you angry after they died? I was so angry after I lost my wife and daughter. I lost control, and did a terrible thing. And now I’m going to pay for what I did. Both in this life, and the next.”

  Carr had let his guard down. Peter gazed into his eyes, and read the doctor’s thoughts. It was like watching a disjointed movie, the scenes cutting into each other for reasons that only the doctor understood. In the first scene, Carr was taking his wife and daughter to a show in the city. In the next, a car was tumbling down a ditch on a darkened road. Badly shaken, Carr climbed out, but his wife and daughter did not. It was there that the movie ended. How ironic that Carr’s last good memory with his family had occurred seeing a show in the city. Just like me, Peter thought.

  “Tell me about the Devil you saw this afternoon,” Peter said.

  “Who told you about the Devil?” Carr asked.

  “I heard you tell the detectives.”

  “You were listening in?”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “God sent him to punish me.”

  “How did you know he was a devil?”

  “Easy. He wasn’t human.”

  Carr wasn’t making sense, so Peter took another look inside his head. The doctor sat in the
back of a cab with a child’s knapsack resting on his lap. The door flung open, and a man reached in, and stole the knapsack. The man was only there for a brief moment; just long enough for Peter to get a fleeting glimpse at him. What he saw did not make sense. The man’s clothes looked burned. His face was dark. Not black or brown, but a sickly purple color. There was no life in his eyes. Peter wondered if the man was real, or a figment of Carr’s distorted imagination.

  “How did you know this man wasn’t human?” Peter asked.

  “It was his skin,” the doctor replied.

  “What was wrong with it?”

  Carr glanced suspiciously at the two-way mirror. He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It was the skin of a dead man. He wasn’t alive.”

  “He was a corpse? You saw a corpse?”

  “That’s right,” Carr whispered.

  Peter felt his body slowly deflate. Carr was insane. Dead men did not hijack cabs and steal knapsacks loaded with deadly nerve agent. The images he’d seen inside Carr’s head weren’t real, but the product of a sick mind. He was wasting time. He needed to help the police find the man with the knapsack. Rising from his chair, he went to the door.

  “Are you leaving?” Carr asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  Peter was not going to lie, and shook his head.

  “Just wait,” Carr said. “You will.”

  * * *

  Peter entered the hallway outside the interrogation room to find the two overweight detectives waiting for him. Both were smoking cigarettes. It was against the law to smoke inside buildings, but these were not the kind of men you said something like that to. Peter started to tell them that Carr was crazy, but stopped the words from coming out. He’d been reading minds since childhood, and not once had a person been able to substitute an image. Why should it be different for a crazy person?

  “Learn anything?” one of the detectives asked.

  “He told me a dead man took the knapsack from him,” Peter said.

  “Hah,” the detective said.