Dead Light March

by Daniel José Older

  “Up ahead,” Mort said, his voice barely a whisper. “The steps. The museum.”

  Mina got on her tiptoes and squinted across the street to the fancy stone entrance. A series of tall stairs led up to a glass walkway. The steps were just the right height for sitting, and folks had congregated there in small groups to watch the celebrations. A big ol’ fro caught Mina’s eye, one she recognized from the hallways of Butler High. “Is that … That’s Si —”

  “Lucera?” Bertram gasped, cutting her off. “That who you feel, Mort? Lucera’s here?”

  Mort nodded once.

  Mina looked back and forth between them, followed their glares to her classmate. “Wait … Sierra is … what now?”

  “You know her?” Bertram gawked. “Are we talkin’ ’bout the same person?”

  “The girl with the fro talking to the one with glasses? That’s Bennie. We go to school together.”

  Bertram shook his head and rasped a chuckle. “That’s the queen of shadows, Mina. She desecrated the Sorrows’ shrine and damn near annihilated one of our fellow Children of Light. What Mort showed you he can do in the car earlier? That’s nothing compared to what your schoolmate over there did to Dr. Jonathan over the summer. He’ll probably never recover.”

  “What’s the word on him anyway?” Mort asked. Both men were looking around now, like an attack might come from any side.

  “Last I heard,” Bertram said, “he was stashed away in some hospital recovering, but like, recovering in the forever kinda way. And his light, his magic, all that he was: gone. He’s a shell now, from what I’m told.”

  “But that’s Sierra,” Mina said. “She wouldn’t …” She caught herself. Bertram and Mort were already shaking their heads. And did she really know Sierra? Beyond an occasional nod in the hallway, she really didn’t. She seemed cool, and Mina had worked for the local paper Sierra’s friend Tee had run over the summer, but …

  “She’s a killer,” Mort said with a certain reverence. “And she’s more powerful than all of us combined. You hear me? The other one’s a ’shaper too — Bennie, you said? — but we can’t get close long as she’s near Lucera. No how, no way.”

  “So we abort?” Bertram asked.

  Mina heard a familiar voice in the crowd behind her; she stopped herself from turning around. “And that’s why I just feel like it’s more lust,” the voice said. “You know what I mean?” It was Juan Santiago, Sierra’s brother.

  “No,” a deeper voice said.

  “Cuz it all happened when I saw her in that … you know … in the, yeah, with the feathers and stuff.”

  “The bikini.”

  “The bikini, man! Like, you can’t take something seriously if it starts with you seeing her in a bikini, you know? That ain’t love.”

  “Juan.”

  Mina watched them move past in the corner of her eye, then sighed.

  “Wait,” Mort whispered, suddenly up close. “Nobody move.”

  “What is it?” Bertram grumbled.

  “There’s another one. Another shadow child. And they’re close.”

  Mina suppressed a squeal. What the hell was happening?

  “Follow me,” Mort said. “The night is not lost yet.”

  “There go Juan and ya boy now,” Bennie said.

  Sierra looked aghast. “Did you say my boy? Pulpo? Tall, Delicious, and Dumb? I could never.” She spotted Pulpo’s head above the crowd and then caught a glimpse of her brother beside him.

  “Are we sure he dumb though? Or is that just the working theory? Cuz …”

  “Girl, we better hope so. I mean, he don’t say much. And you’ve spent all day telling me how musicians all trash.”

  “Yeah, I still can’t believe your brother dissed my outfit like that, but anyway: Just cuz Pulpo don’t say much, don’t mean —”

  Sierra pulled out her phone and growled. “See! This is just like Robbie.” The text simply said, You on the parkway? She held it up for Bennie to see.

  Bennie shook her head. “Basura. Hey, ain’t that the weird white girl from school? Minny? Melinda? The one obsessed with serial killers?”

  “Don’t hear a peep from him for literally days and then soon as someone tall and beautiful (and hopefully dumb) bouta walk up, boom, he decides to make an appearances in my texts. I hate boys, B.”

  “I personally don’t care about height one way or the other,” Bennie said, “but your brother making a bold statement rolling with that towering behemoth when he himself barely scratch five feet.”

  Sierra snorted. “He’s five four, but yeah, he looks like a toddler next to Pulpo.”

  Juan bounded up the museum steps toward them. “Wassup, y’all?” he said, leaning in to give Sierra and then Bennie kisses on the cheek.

  Bennie stood. “Takin’ in the scene. Y’all wanna stroll the crowd some?”

  “Sure,” Juan said a little too quickly. “That’d be great.”

  They made their way into the face-painted, flag-waving masses. Air horns rang out overhead and some relentless soca pounded away on a speaker system nearby.

  “I’m just sayin,’” Bennie said as they wandered through the crowd. “Cats don’t know how to dress anymore.”

  A flicker of motion caught Sierra’s eye and she looked up, stopped herself just short of gasping. Spirits filled the sky. She hadn’t seen that many in one place since the night she’d claimed the mantle of Lucera and defeated Dr. Jonathan Wick.

  “What does that even mean?” Juan demanded. Then he hunched over like an old lady and shook an invisible cane at the sky. “Back in my day!” he crowed in a trembly falsetto.

  Bennie laughed. “You know what I mean!”

  Huge, puffy spirits floated slowly past. Others stalked along on those long, translucent legs. A few sputtered through the air like old hoopties. They were all out taking part in the celebrations just like the living. Sierra smiled. Bennie and Juan were shadowshapers too, but they still had to squint to see spirits most of the time, so this felt like a show put on just for her.

  “Take this dude, for instance,” Bennie said, indicating a tall, good-looking fellow eating jerk chicken out a Styrofoam container and watching the partiers pass. “Notice how his dark blue three-piece suit accents his admittedly grayish-brown skin tone?”

  “I did not notice that,” Juan said. “Because I’m not a fashion savant.”

  “That much is clear. Anyway, it does. The dude is foine already but he’s extra foine cuz he knows how to dress. And that cane? Classy.”

  “He is good-looking,” Sierra said. “But is he even alive? Dude looks like a corpuscule.” She watched his gaze track something in the sky, realized it was a passing spirit. Her eyes went wide for a second, and then they were past the strange man and approaching the police barricades by Grand Army Plaza. She shook her head. Of course there were other folks out there who could see spirits. It still threw her off to realize it, though.

  Sierra felt a sweaty hand on her shoulder and then she was shoved to the side as a guy with no shirt hurtled through the crowd. “Come back, Drew!” he yelled, already vanishing into the hordes of revelers. “Shit! Come the hell back!”

  Sierra’s whole body had tightened, ready to spring into action or run for her life. She shook it off. Talking to Bennie had made the load feel lighter, just like it always did. That sinking, all-alone feeling still clung to her with its impossible tendrils, though, even if its howl was less shrill now. And there was something else. Something beyond that feeling. It was like a whisper, reaching her in a hushed trickle beneath the pounding soca and air horns and the murmur of thousands of passing bodies.

  Watch out, it said. Something lurks.

  “Hey, B — hang back a sec, lemme holler at you?”

  “Wassup, Juan?”

  “Well, not holler like holler holler, you know talk I mean.”

  “Right. Wassup?”

  “Nah, just … you know.”

  “I do?”

  “Ha … no, I mean, what
I’m just trying to say is: Sorry I dissed the costume stuff yesterday. If I’da known you were wearing one and right behind me, you know —”

  “Huh? Oh, that? Man, I promise you I haven’t even thought about that since it happened! I literally forgot entirely. Don’t even — nah, man. We cool. Ain’t a thing.”

  “Oh, word? Ha, okay, that’s cool, cuz, you know, yeah.”

  “Totally.”

  “Good.”

  “Yo, watch where you going, jackass!”

  “Jackass. You want me to —”

  “No, Juan, I’m good and he’s gone anyway. Thanks, though.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, whatchu been up to? These days? You guys were s’posta play the parade or something, right?”

  “Yeah, they pulled out at the last second. Did us dirty. That’s why I was salty about the feathery stuff, actually. And like, really? I just wanna play so bad. It’s wild cuz we play pretty often but I still get hungry for it when we don’t.”

  “I get it. I’m like that with — don’t laugh!”

  “I would never!”

  “That’s a blatant lie, but okay. I’m like that with some of my science books. Not the corny ones they assign at Butler. I mean the good, deep ones, the ones that be revealing all kindsa new ideas and tracing the thought processes behind commonly held beliefs we have today. Like, the whole history of science. It’s amazing. And I just wanna read about it all day but then it’s homework and church and family stuff and yada yada, then more homework. I mean, Hemingway! I been reading this dude all week. Ms. Klorn obsessed with stupid Hemingway. Like, bruh. Describe some shit, you know? It’s okay every once in a while.”

  “Damn, girl.”

  “Anyway, school just feels like it gets in the way of actual learning, and I just get itchy for it, you know, to get to the good shit?”

  “Do I! Aka why Juan Santiago dropped out of Butler and hit the road with the band.”

  “Word, but try being a scientist without a high school diploma. Not so much, unfortunately. I just gotta grin and bear it till I can get into some dope-ass college and then really flourish. Research and shit.”

  “That makes sense. I hope you do that. I, ah, just finished a new song actually.”

  “Oh yeah? Sierra told me actually. That’s pretty cool. How’s it go?”

  “Oh I ha wait you guys were yeah it’s just I don’t really you know mmm yeah so okay, yeah.”

  “Juan, what?”

  “I’m not a very good singer.”

  “Okay, but what’s wrong with your sister?”

  The whisper became shrill and then tripled in volume, a shriek that seemed to come from everywhere at the same time. Sierra looked up and realized she’d fallen into a crouch, her hands covering her ears. Bennie and Juan were staring at her. Pulpo had his back turned, thank God, and was staring at something across the street.

  “What is it, Si?” Bennie asked, reaching a hand down to help her up.

  The shriek faded some, unraveled to become a scattering of hushed voices, overlapping and desperate:

  Careful

  It lurks

  It’s near

  Coming closer

  Careful, Sierra

  Shhhhhh

  Somewhere near

  It retreats, it is afraid

  “Not sure yet,” Sierra said. The shadow spirits were trying to warn her about something, but what? She glanced around. They’d reached the towering monument at Grand Army Plaza. The crowd had thinned some, but folks still milled about in wild costumes and face paint. And spirits still stomped and flitted through the revelers.

  “Heads up,” Pulpo said, turning back from whatever he’d been staring at. “Popo excited ’bout something.”

  “Huh?” Sierra said, and then dark blue filled the world as about a dozen cops rushed toward her. She pulled her hands out of her hoodie pockets and held them up, palms out. The cops shoved past in a clutter of riot gear and scratchy radio transmissions and dangling plastic handcuffs.

  And then they were gone, and Sierra let out a long breath.

  “Hoowee!” Juan said. “Thought it was over.”

  “Thought what was over?” Bennie asked.

  “Everydamnthing,” Juan said, and Pulpo chuckled.

  Bennie, whose brother Vincent had been killed by the NYPD a few years earlier, just frowned and looked away while the boys kept up their banter. Sierra wrapped an arm around her best friend and squeezed.

  “I’m okay,” Bennie said. “What’s going on with you, though?”

  Sierra scowled. “Spirits tryna warn me ’bout something, but I don’t know what. I don’t think they do either, it’s just something, and it’s near. Or not anymore maybe? They don’t seem sure.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah. It just got really fever-pitched for a sec back there and kinda took me out. I’m okay though.”

  It lurks, came a whispered voice. Sierra flinched.

  “Still?” Bennie asked.

  Sierra nodded. “I’m still learning how to … all of this.”

  “I get it,” Bennie said, squeezing her back now. “It’s a lot.”

  “So much.”

  “The hell y’all doing?” a familiar voice called from the Prospect Park entrance across the street.

  Sierra looked up. “Izzy? Whatchu doing out here? I thought you and Tee were too cool for the parade.”

  Izzy was decked out in her favorite gear — a red leather jacket, big ol’ jeans, and designer sneakers. Her braids stretched in a tight ponytail from underneath her fitted cap. “Oh, we are. I came looking for these two goons.” She hopped up on the curb and gave a surly nod toward Juan and Pulpo.

  “What it do, partner?” Juan said, trading a dap with Izzy. They were about the same height and both born to be in the spotlight; it was a miracle they got along at all, Sierra thought.

  “I need y’all help again.” Izzy got up on her tiptoes to hug Pulpo and then blew kisses at Sierra and Bennie.

  Sierra threw a quick glance around. It lurks, the spirits kept saying, but where?

  “Whatever you need, Iz,” Pulpo said. “You know we love backin’ you up.”

  A family strolled past, all of them decked out in the bright blue-and-yellow Bajan flag, their faces painted to match. Then a young couple that Sierra thought she recognized from Butler, but who could tell in the dark and with all these costumes?

  “Look, I’m quite frankly tired of Bimbop anyway — his beats just okay to be honest — and that night y’all threw down with me in Coney Island was lit. Like, best show I done in a while, no joke.”

  “Word,” Juan said. “That was fire.”

  “Desmond got me this gig playin’ the Red Edge over in the Slope.”

  Juan made a face. “The Red Edge?”

  “I know, man, when I found out it’s not a lesbian bar, I was disappointed as hell too.”

  “Wait, why did you —”

  “Because what is a red edge if not a vagina, man? Come on. Don’t act brand-new. But a severe lack of imagination led whoever they are to waste the opportunity and snatch a great name — no pun intended — from those of us who know better, so, here we are. Anyway, point is I got a gig there and it’s like, Park Slope, so … white people, lots of ’em, and I put it out on Hoozit for my followers but you know how online folks be — everybody wanna RSVP, nary a mofo wanna show.”

  “It’s like you’re rapping even when you’re just talking,” Juan said.

  Izzy’s alligator smile spread slowly across her face. “Yes, Juan. That’s exactly what it’s like. Anyway, Tee doing newspaper stuff so she can’t make it and basically, I need backup in more ways than one, if you catch my meaning. Feel me?”

  More cops meandered through the streets now; whatever situation they’d rushed off to must’ve been handled. Sierra spun around as a series of firecrackers snapped and popped a few blocks away. The spirits danced through the night around her.

  “We feel you,” Pulpo said. “A
nd we in, of course. But you gotta let us try out this new joint we workin’ on — it’s an instrumental. Deal?”

  “Y’all can play the entire Lord of the Rings soundtrack before I come out for all I care, I just don’t wanna do the joint alone.”

  “Hold up,” Juan said.

  Pulpo ignored him. “When the gig?”

  “When?” Izzy laughed. “Shit, when you think? Tonight, man!”

  “Slow,” Mort said in a choked whisper. “Hang back, hang back.”

  The crowd surged around them, grunting with irritation. Up ahead, Sierra’s huge fro disappeared into the throng of people. The only one from their crew Mina could still see was that tall dude who played music with Sierra’s brother. And then he was gone too.

  “We losing them,” Bertram said.

  Mort shook his head and tapped his nose once. “I still got ’em, don’t worry. But there’s too many of ’em together right now. Not to mention Lucera being there, who I still say should make all of us proceed with extreme caution, but since we doin’ this for the Sorrows — let’s see what’s what and try’n catch one of ’em away from the rest.”

  Mina rubbed her eyes; the weight of no sleep and all this madness clung to her, seemed to drag her toward the pavement. “Frederick Harold Hempstead,” she whispered. “South Dakota, 1907. Rampage of a small village. Caught the same day and executed.”

  “What’s that?” Bertram asked.

  Mina frowned. “Nothing. I just …” Know these kids, Mina almost said, but the words caught in her throat. She knew them and thought they were cool and she was friends with their friends and definitely didn’t think anyone should be stalking them or taking away their powers, even if their powers somehow threatened the Sorrows — surely an understanding could be reached, an armistice. And anyway, no, no way it was okay to be following Sierra and her crew around and plotting on their destruction. The Sorrows must’ve gotten bad intel somehow. Or one of these guys had taken their orders and twisted them into something else.

  “You’re scared?” Bertram said, not unkindly.

  “Um … incoming,” Mort muttered.

  Mina looked up, saw nothing beyond the same churning masses around them, bright police lights cutting the darkening sky, the illuminated archway at Grand Army Plaza up ahead. “Where?”