Feast of Shadows, #1

by Rick Wayne

  It was at The Corn Cob Couch, this underground venue out in Flushing. He was in a vintage formal dinner jacket over a colorful ’70s cartoon T-shirt almost identical to the one I was wearing. We passed in the crowd and approved of each other’s choice of garment with a silent nod. He got up on stage and introduced one of the bands. I made sure I stayed in sight and he found me after and invited me to a party. I took my best friend. It’s not like I was gonna go alone.

  In hindsight, I think it was also a test. I mean, I could’ve asked someone else. But if he was gonna be around, which I’d hoped, then he’d meet her sooner or later, and I’d learned it was better to just get it out of the way—before I got my hopes up.

  “Here’s my super-gorgeous friend. Are you sure you’re still interested in me?”

  As it happened, it wasn’t him I needed to worry about. Kell’s whole demeanor changed when she saw him. She walked right up and started flirting. She asked later if it was okay—like a million times. I’m pretty sure they hooked up that night. They went out again and she came home in a rapture. She had their whole future planned: wedding at the drive-in with a slasher flick playing in the background, honeymoon in some Mexican border town sharing hookers and doing every kind of drug known to man, home to a loft with a view of the river, maybe a kid or two down the line. Adopted, of course. She’d talk to me for hours about everything that happened on their dates, usually longer than the date itself. It was unnatural—the worst kind of fatal obsession—and when the inevitable happened, she cratered.

  That was right around when Rey died. I went over to her place and found her strung out on God-knew-what. Nearly catatonic. She’d hung all her stuffed animals. She had a collection of fuzzy monsters with neon fur, and she’d strung them from the ceiling with tiny nooses wound out of toilet paper. So I made her puke in the sink and stayed with her a few days to get her straight. I took her to the grocery store. I took her shopping for dinner dresses and we crashed the big gala at The Met, just for shits and giggles. It was her idea. I think the two of them had talked about doing it and she was hoping to “accidentally” run into him there—you know, show him how gorgeous and happy she was without him. But he wasn’t there. Lykke was. He didn’t need much encouragement either. Kell had planned her revenge well. She was a knockout in that dress, boobs saluting like sailors. She swore the whole thing with him wasn’t serious, that she wasn’t even sleeping with him, that she had her own room and he was gone most of the time and she had full use of the mansion, so why the fuck not, right?

  Thing is, I believed her.

  Now she was pregnant.

  I peered into the sleeping area. I saw a lidless cardboard box full of leaning LPs. I stepped to them as a toilet flushed across the hall.

  “Love Like Blood,” he said, standing right behind me, looking at the record in my hand.

  I smiled without turning. He knew that was my favorite track on the album. The Killing Joke. 1985. It was a first press and unopened.

  I replaced it. “Why do you have these when you don’t even have a record player?”

  “You don’t collect something like that to play it. Except once in a blue moon maybe.”

  “Says who?”

  I turned to glance at him. He was in sweatpants. Other than that, he was barefoot and shirtless. I could see the tattoo of the church that covered his abdomen. Kell always said it had a Russian prison vibe. I think she was right. The spire rose between his pecs, which sported a sun on one side and a crescent moon on the other. His shoulders and forearms were spotted with various objects and icons: a leaping dolphin, a dripping flask, an eye, a tree, a five-pointed star, a raven in flames, and so on.

  “The needle wears down the grooves, slowly but surely.”

  He lifted another album from the set. Neil Diamond. Touching You, Touching Me.

  “Nice,” I said with a laugh.

  I looked at his hands. All ten of his fingers sported a different ring. I saw a turquoise band and a silver skull and yellow plastic with a green gem. I’m sure he got that one out of a cereal box or something.

  “Each play is a tiny act of destruction,” he said. “That’s why people like vinyl.”

  “I thought it was the superior sound quality.”

  “Whatever, man.” He gripped the record. “This is a living thing. It gets born, grows old, and dies.”

  He put the vinyl back carefully. He smiled down at me, genuinely. “It’s good to see you, Cerise.” His voice was soft and warm.

  God, he was so gorgeous.

  Okay, let’s be honest. Women are at least as hung up on appearance as guys. And he had it. All of it. The stylishly messy hair that hung in front of his smoky eyes. The chiseled jaw. The lean abs with the line of thin hairs in between that led your eyes straight down. He was tall but not so tall I’d need a stepladder to kiss him, stylish but not obsessed with it, confident without being completely and utterly cocky. He was the guy every girl in the room wished would notice her, if not for a night of carnal desire then at least for the selfish pleasure of shooting him down.

  “This is the part where you ask how I’ve been,” he said within inches of my face. “And I lie and ask you the same thing. And you lie and we both pretend not to know the other is lying.”

  He was sporting the faintest beginnings of a Tony Stark stache. I wasn’t sure about that. He was also close enough that I could tell there was nothing under his sweatpants but his naked body.

  I stepped away. “So be a rebel,” I said. “Tell the truth.”

  “I’m great. And you? Let’s see, shall we?”

  He picked up the tarot deck that rested on a stack of old magazines and plopped down on the seat cushion on the floor, next to the hot plate, jerking his head to move his hair out of his eyes. Resting in boxes here and there was the oddest assortment of bric-a-brac I had ever seen. It looked like he’d robbed an estate sale. Several of them, actually.

  “What is all this stuff? Did you steal it?”

  I saw a brass oil lamp on the floor in the corner. I thought it was a hookah at first because it had a similar shape, with a long fluted neck, but up close I could see the reservoir and the wick poking from the lip at the top. It looked like a giraffe sticking out its tongue. I put my hand on it so I could tilt it and see the crisscrossed carvings, but Bastien raised a hand.

  “Ehh. Better not touch that.”

  I pulled it away, but it was too late. My hand had already touched the lid, which was on a hinge. It had opened slightly, and it fell with a clink.

  I rolled my eyes where he couldn’t see. “Carrier pigeons and whale oil lamps . . .” I muttered.

  He cut the deck in two, and with one deft move, he spread the entire deck out on the floor. “Pick a card.”

  I crouched and looked.

  “Nononono.”

  He swiped the cards up and started shuffling again.

  “What?”

  “That’s not how you do it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t use your head.” He looked at my wrist, at my watch.

  Okay, so, technically his watch. He said I could borrow it. It’s not my fault I hadn’t seen him in forever. I wore it all the time and forgot I had it on. I wondered if he would think it meant something that I wore it to see him, where I had to know he would see it on me.

  That’s too many sees.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  I did, and I heard him spread the cards on the floor again.

  “Now, relax. And when you open your eyes, listen to the little voice. It’ll take you right to a card.”

  “Oka—”

  “Wait.” He put his ringed fingers to my eyes. “I’m serious. Don’t think about it. Just go right for the first one.”

  “I got it,” I objected with a smile.

  He took his hand away. I took a breath. I opened my eyes and went right for the first card I noticed.

  “Okay?” I asked him, my hand resting on it.

  H
e nodded and I turned it and set it down.

  “The Seven of Pentacles,” he said. “Reversed.”

  “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  He held it up to explain it to me. “A man with a hoe is admiring the harvest he’s just reaped. He’s tired, but months of hard work have paid off. If the card was drawn upright, it would mean success through perseverance and long-term planning. But reversed . . .” He tsk-tsked and put the card back.

  “Whatever. That card would apply to, like, 99% of the population.”

  “Very Occupy of you.”

  He studied me while his ring-covered fingers deftly maneuvered the tarot deck like a stage magician. That’s why Fish called him Ringo. Because of the rings. Fish had a name for everyone. Kell was Vicky. I was Spence. We got them at the same time. Fish said Kell was all Victoria’s Secret—you know, the classic voluptuous look—whereas he said I looked like I bought my clothes at the corporate novelty shop in the mall. It was not a compliment.

  “You’re wearing my watch.”

  I shook my wrist and the pale triangle floated up from the dark.

  Take your time.

  I started to undo the clasp, but he held up his hand. “Give it to me next time.”

  “That’s what you said last time.”

  “Oh, yeah. Shit, when was that?”

  “At the Couch.”

  “Ah. Hang out at there much these days?” He started shuffling the deck.

  “The Couch? Dude. They totally shut it down. Last year. They’re turning it into condos or a theme park or something. It’s really sad. I cried.”

  “Cried?” He snorted.

  “Hey man. It’s like the death nail of my youth.”

  “Knell,” he corrected.

  “Whatever! We spent so much time there. As long as it was going—I dunno. It’s like I could go back, you know? Once it closed . . . that’s it. Youth over. Exit here for adulthood.” I studied him. “How did you not know it shut down?”

  He shrugged. “Been busy. That’s too bad, though. That place was great.”

  The Couch was an abandoned factory with a giant fence-lined lot crisscrossed in weeds. Facing the lot was a high loading dock which served as a wonderful stage. There was even a large overhang to keep the rain off. It was perfect. Some guys started getting high there, probably because there was no way the cops could sneak up on the place, and no way they could stop anyone from running even if they did. It was just too big. Years before, someone had dumped a ratty old brown couch in the lot, which was the only furniture, so that became their meeting spot. One day, one of the guys brought a corncob pipe in lieu of a bong, as a kind of joke, and the name stuck. By the time I’d heard about it, there was a big eclectic mix of old furniture people had brought, including a wooden student’s desk that had to be a hundred years old.

  “Best. Venue. Ever.”

  “Eh . . .” Bastien made a face. “I could take you someplace.”

  I couldn’t tell you how he did it, but he drew a card from the middle of the deck with one hand. He had cut it and held one half propped between the fingers of his right hand. He twisted them around the deck such that his thumb pushed a single random card free, which he snatched with his left.

  The Seven of Wands, upright. A man on a ridge held up a staff with two hands as six others jabbed up at him from below. He braced himself, legs wide, and there was a look of anger on his face, as if he were defending his high position from many enemies. Interestingly, his shoes didn’t match.

  “Both sevens,” I said.

  “That significant?” he asked coyly.

  I looked up from the card and met his eyes—all smoky and gorgeous.

  “I dunno. Seemed like a funny coincidence, I guess.”

  “They always are, aren’t they?” He took the card back and began shuffling the deck again in that fancy one-handed way, giving me that look. “It’s good to see you, Cerise.”

  “You said that already.”

  Things were quiet for a moment. I looked down and noticed a short stack of books in the corner. Not just books but old books, hardbound in thick expensive leather. I walked over to them and lifted the first. It had a velvet inlay on the cover on which was pressed the title in gold lettering.

  “Ogrosticon Orduum?” I asked.

  I ran my fingers over the fabric, which was matted with age.

  “The ancient order of the art of duplicity and misdirection,” he said, smirking.

  I picked up the next one, which had a plain blue cover and no title. It was also much thinner. I opened to the frontispiece. There was a red ink stamp on one side.

  THE BARROWS

  NEW AMSTERDAM

  On the other was the title.

  “Compendium of Lesser Travesties?” I asked. “Did someone write my biography or something?”

  “There’s also Smales’s grimoire of lost relics,” he said. “And The Complete Enchanter. And volume six of the Reign by Massius Crane. The unredacted one that includes the rediscovery of the Necronomion and the start of the war. Very hard to find.”

  “Seriously? Where do you even get books like this?”

  I bent to pick up the third book to get at the fourth, which poked out just enough to reveal an ornate cover that I wanted to see, but the Ogrosticon fell from my arms and hit the floor. Bastien flinched, and the noise woke the sleeping girl, the one under the covers that I hadn’t even noticed. She pulled the blanket off her head and squinted in confusion.

  “Bastien?”

  She had dark African skin and perfectly symmetrical C cups with playfully perky nipples. Her head was shaved and she wore absolutely nothing but a dog collar around her neck.

  A dog collar.

  “Who’re you?” she asked.

  She had a British accent. She didn’t seem upset, just curious, like she expected I was there to deliver the drugs or pizza or something.

  I gave Bastien a look and dropped the rest of the books on the floor with a crash.

  “Hey!”

  A card fell out of one of them and slid under the badly scuffed hutch against the wall. I didn’t bother to retrieve it.

  “Fuck, Cerise.” Bastien jumped to inspect the volumes.

  I turned to leave. I stopped when I saw the sketch on the wall behind the door. It was one of mine. He’d hung it. It was the only thing he’d hung, in fact—a fuzzy pencil sketch I’d done of him and Leindre-with-the-big-hair. The funny thing was I remembered crumpling it and throwing it in the trash. And yet here it was, hanging from an exposed stud without so much as a crease.

  “Where did you get that?” I demanded.

  After stacking his books, Bastien stepped around me to block the door. “Come on, Cerise. That’s just Irfan.” He waved to the girl in the bed, who was smiling wryly like she was really enjoying watching him squirm.

  “She’s my fam—” He glanced to her like he needed help coming up with the rest of the word. “Family,” he said. “She’s like family.”

  “Family?” I looked at her dark-skinned breasts. “Your adopted sister from England you’ve never mentioned before who sleeps with you in the nude? Please.” I rolled my eyes.

  “I promise.” He put a hand on my chest gently to stop me. “You’d like her, actually. You two have a lot in common. You both hate me.”

  He threw her an accusing glance before pleading me with his smoky eyes. I was close enough to him that I could feel his heat. I smelled leather and honey.

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “You hungry?” he whispered. “We could grab something.”

  I laughed once and pushed past his shirtless, tattooed chest. “If you see her, tell her that her douche billionaire play toy offered me a million dollars to bring her pregnant ass in. I’m pretty sure he thinks she’s gonna do a Sid Vicious on his kid and is trying to head her off at the pass.”

  “Pregnant?” he asked, wide-eyed.

  “I’ll cover for her as long as I can.” I walked down the stairs.


  “Pregnant,” he repeated.

  “I figure she’s got maybe a day before he sics the dogs on her for realsies.”

  “Wait. Are you serious?”

  I kept walking down. “About which part?”

  “Cerise!” he called.

  But I left.