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Blackout

Page 13

by Keith R. A. DeCandido


  Reet turned to Leroy. “Do you have the faintest notion what she’s saying?”

  Leroy threw up his hands. “Boss, I ain’t followed a damn thing she said since we found her in the toy store. Like I said, nuttier than—”

  “A fruitcake, yes.” He turned back to her. “What Spike sees in you, I can’t imagine.”

  Now she smiled at Reet, and it was the scariest smile Reet had seen in his long and eventful life as a vampire. “The same thing you all see—blood and death.”

  Just as Drusilla said the word “death,” all the lights went out.

  “What the hell—?”

  “Who turned out the lights?”

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  Other shouts came from around Reet, but he ignored them. His first thought was: Who’s attacking us? The obvious candidates were Spike or the Slayer. But how could they have gotten to the fuse box? There’s no way either one of them could have gotten past the guards without my knowing about it.

  Then Reet turned to the window and saw a sight he’d seen once before, on a brisk November day in 1965. The power had gone out all across the city. Outside, the only illumination came from the cars on the streets. All the streetlights, all the lights in the windows—which would normally be burning brightly in this mostly residential area—were out. The stores and churches and traffic lights had all gone dark.

  “It’s a blackout,” he said, raising his voice over the din.

  “Say what?”

  “You kiddin’ me?”

  “Naw, man, he’s right, look!”

  Reet said, “You all know the drill!” Most of the vampires in his employ had been around twelve years earlier, and Reet had put measures into place to deal with a second blackout.

  “Right on, boss,” Leroy said. “Hobie, get down to the main entrance, check on the guards. Gustavo, whip out the flashlights and candles.” There was a bump and a crash. “Watch y’damn step, fool! Curtis, take Georgie and—”

  The phone on Reet’s desk rang. Everyone was quiet for a second.

  “Carry on, Leroy,” Reet said as he slowly felt his way to the desk.

  Leroy said, “Right on, boss.”

  Reet picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Weldon, it’s—it’s Toby.”

  Toby sounded like pure hell. Judging from the shouts and car horns behind him, he was calling from a pay phone. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Weldon, it’s like someone turned the lights out all over or somethin’.”

  Sighing, Reet said, “I don’t mean that—I know there’s a blackout. I’m more concerned with Spike.”

  “He—he broke m’arm, Mr. Weldon! It’s hurtin’ somethin’ serious, you know what I’m sayin’? Soon’s I mentioned we had his girl, he went crazy. He’s comin’, Mr. Weldon—he’s comin’.”

  “All right, Toby. Get back up here as fast as you can.” The subways wouldn’t be running, and Reet suspected cabs were about to become hot-ticket items. “Eat a cabbie if you have to, but get here.”

  “You got it, Mr. Weldon.”

  Reet hung up the phone. “Leroy!”

  Cutting off his barking of orders, Leroy said, “What’s happenin’, boss?”

  Suddenly a light shone in Reet’s face. He held up a hand and waved it before it lowered toward the floor. When the spots cleared from his vision, Reet saw that Gustavo had come in with a flashlight and was now shining it on the floor. Casting about for Leroy’s legs, he finally found them, clad as they were in purple pants and wing-tip shoes. “I want extra guards out front, as well as around our prisoner here. Spike, it seems, is on his way to claim his lady.”

  “Right on, boss.”

  That was when Drusilla started singing.

  “Ring-a-ring-o’ Rosies, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, all fall down.”

  Reet shuddered. That is one crazy bitch.

  * * *

  There is something fundamentally wrong with a world in which a university-educated Watcher is being beaten in Monopoly by a four-year-old.

  That thought flashed through Bernard Crowley’s mind as he rolled the two dice across the game board on his dining room table. He winced when he saw that the two numbers corresponded to the number of spaces between where his playing piece—the top hat—was and Park Place. Since Robin, who was playing the dog, owned Park Place and had already constructed four houses on it, Bernard was going to have to pay a steep rent. The price would enable the lad to build a hotel, driving the rent of Park Place up to its highest amount.

  Grinning from ear to ear, Robin held out his right hand as Bernard placed the top hat onto the game space with the dark blue line on top. “Pay me, Crowley.”

  “You’re quite the capitalist,” Bernard muttered as he counted out the brightly colored game currency. It was one of several board games that had migrated from the Gem Theater to Bernard’s Central Park West flat over the past few days. Bernard had been surprised to see Monopoly was one of them—he would have thought Robin would be too young for it—but the lad had proven to be distressingly proficient at the game. Given Robin’s intelligence and curiosity, Bernard supposed it shouldn’t have been that much of a shock.

  Nikki hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Spike since she’d observed his tussle with two of Reet’s employees late Saturday night—nor, for that matter, had there been any sign of Drusilla since her rather dramatic entrance to these shores—but the Slayer was still justifiably concerned that he might come looking for her at the Gem. Nikki was, in fact, on her way there now to check in with young Mr. Manguson.

  Since Bernard had become Robin’s full-time guardian, he had finally given in and purchased an item he swore he’d never have in his house: a television set. Nikki had offered to simply bring up Robin’s black-and-white, but Bernard had figured, in for a penny, in for a pound, and so he got a fourteen-inch color set, as well as a stand, which he placed in front of the bookcases between the two windows in the living room. (That was the spot in the flat that got the best reception. Since the stand was on wheels, Bernard could easily move it out of the way if he needed to access the books behind it.)

  Having paid his rent on Park Place, Bernard sat back with his last fifty-two dollars and watched as Robin paid to have a hotel replace the four houses on Park Place—and, for good measure, added a third house to Boardwalk. Then the lad rolled the two dice.

  “Go seven,” Bernard said with a grin. If Robin rolled a seven, he’d land on Marvin Gardens, on which Bernard had built a hotel. A five or a four would do in a pinch, as he also owned Atlantic and Ventnor avenues, but they only had three houses each. None of those would be quite the windfall Robin had received from Bernard’s visit to Park Place, but they wouldn’t hurt.

  Unfortunately, Robin rolled an eleven instead, putting him on Community Chest. The boy started giggling. He handed it to Bernard to read.

  Bernard took one look at the card—which entitled the bearer to collect fifty dollars from each player—and handed all but his last two dollars to Robin. “At least I’ll get my two hundred when I pass Go.” He picked up the dice, hoping for a three, which would land him right on Go itself and entitle him to four hundred dollars rather than the usual two for simply passing it. That was a rule Bernard was unfamiliar with, but Robin insisted it was how Mama taught him to play. Just at the moment, Bernard was grateful for that particular variation, particularly if the fates were kind and granted him a three.

  Before he could complete the throw, however, the lights went out.

  “Hell and damnation,” Bernard said, “not the fuses again!” While this building had many charms, it was not of recent construction, and it had the wiring to prove it. Once Bernard had blown a fuse simply by making the mistake of running the toaster oven and an eggbeater off the same outlet.

  “Crowley,” said a little voice from a body Bernard could no longer see. “Look out the window.”

  Bernard did as Robin suggested—and felt his jaw drop open.

 
The living-room windows provided rather a nice view of the buildings to the south. On a clear night, Bernard could see the World Trade Center.

  Now he couldn’t see them, or much of anything else, without squinting. The lights had gone out all across the city. Even the perpetually illuminated tower of the Empire State Building was dark.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “It’s okay, Crowley,” Robin said.

  “How’s that, Robin?” Bernard asked distractedly.

  “Mama’s out there. She’ll take care of everything.”

  Bernard found himself warmed by a son’s simple trust in his mother. Of course, Nikki certainly inspired that level of confidence, even in her Watcher.

  But Bernard disliked the looks of the situation. There were any number of apocalyptic portents that began with the descent of darkness. While this could be a simple case of massive electrical failure, it could also be the beginning of something awful.

  Under other circumstances, Bernard would light a few candles and start doing research, finding out what prophecy was about to try to come true.

  But he had another responsibility right now, one that precluded too much talk of the end of the world.

  I can do the first part, at least. Rising from the dining room table, Bernard said, “Come, Robin, let’s fetch some candles.” He mostly kept them around for rituals and the occasional spell, but they’d do quite nicely for illumination, especially since most of them were conveniently very large.

  “Right on, Crowley—I gotta finish beatin’ your butt.”

  Robin’s smile was evident even without a decent light source. Bernard returned it, even though he was fairly sure the lad couldn’t see it, then reached out for the boy’s hand. He led him toward the kitchen, where he kept most of the candles.

  As he and Robin prepared to hunker down for the night, Bernard cast a thought outward to his Slayer, Robin’s mother, as she faced whatever it was that this darkness was prelude to.

  Be safe, Miss Wood.

  Chapter Thirteen

  New York City

  July 13, 1977

  8:30 p.m.

  A.J. was working the ticket booth when Nikki came by the Gem, which was showing High Noon. “What’s happenin’, Ayj?”

  Shrugging, A.J. said, “Peg’s sick. Marty’s on his way in, but I gotta run the booth till then. You okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Hey, there been—”

  “No, Nik,” A.J. said quickly, “there haven’t been any British guys with blond hair asking about you—or about Robin. I’ve been keeping an eye out, and so’ve Leo, Alessio, Carmela, Marty, Harry, Wally, and Peg. Nobody’s seen anything.”

  Nikki frowned. He’d just listed all the employees of the Gem, but only Marty and A.J. knew what Nikki was. “What’d you tell—”

  “I told everybody that some guy was hassling you and Robin and to let me or Marty know if he turned up. That’s all.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, sugar.”

  “Nothin’ to it, Nik.” He smiled. “That’s what us landlords are for.”

  “Right on, Ayj.” Nikki chuckled. “All right, I gotta get back uptown and then—”

  Before she could continue, the entire street was plunged into darkness.

  After a second, her eyes adjusted to the dusky dimness. The cars’ headlights were still on, but the lights from all the movie theaters and sex shops, from the nearby skyscrapers, from the ads in Times Square—which kept the place lit brighter than day—had all gone out.

  Twelve years ago, New York had suffered a citywide blackout. Nikki’s parents were still alive then, and they’d told their eight-year-old daughter that there was nothing to be scared of, that they’d keep her safe from whatever monsters might come out in the dark.

  Now Nikki’s parents were dead, and she knew that there were real monsters that were several thousand times more scary than the imaginary phantoms of her childhood.

  “Great,” A.J. said. “I bet Mayor Beame forgot to give ConEd their kickbacks.”

  Nikki could only hope it was something that prosaic. She’d already stopped a few apocalypses in four years, and she knew that the universe had a bunch more up its sleeve—and some of them started with darkness.

  Then she heard noises from inside the Gem, and she realized that the people inside the darkened theater might be panicking about now. She walked gingerly inside, not wanting to risk crashing into something. She could navigate the back stairs to her apartment and the projection room in the dark with little difficulty, but she hadn’t moved around the rest of the theater all that much.

  “What’s going on?” said a heavily accented voice. That was Carmela, behind the concession stand.

  “It’s all right, Carmela, just a blackout.”

  “Nikki? Is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Just be cool, okay?”

  “A.J. forgot to pay the electric bill, didn’t he?”

  “It’s the whole city, Carmela.” By this time Nikki had worked her way to the large double doors of the theater.

  “Dios mio. Just what we need.”

  When Nikki opened the theater doors, a ton of voices were shouting at once. It was pitch-dark, and she wondered where Wally was. He was the usher on shift this evening, and he had a flashlight, but there was no sign of him.

  “What’s happening?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, God, it’s the Son of Sam!”

  “We’re gonna die!”

  Nikki cried out over the din, “Everybody, be cool! It’s a blackout, just like the one in ’65. Everything’s gonna be okay, just come to the back here. It’s all right, it’s not the Son of Sam. Just come on back here and go home, all right? You’ll be safe at home.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s the Son of Sam!”

  Before Nikki could again refute this, someone else said, “Shut up, bitch! Ain’t no Son of Sam. Just the lights goin’ out.”

  Wally finally showed up, his flashlight casting shadows on his long-haired, long-bearded face. “Sorry, man,” he said. “I was, like, in the can.”

  Nikki said, “Everybody come back here—follow the flashlight, it’ll be okay.”

  “We gonna get our money back?”

  “Shut the hell up, Jimmy.”

  People started to file past Nikki, walking slowly at first, but the more people went through, the more lively their steps became.

  One old woman asked as she walked by, “Do you work here?”

  “No, ma’am, I—”

  “Good—because if you did, you’d be out of uniform, and I’d report you to Mr. Manguson.” With that, she exited.

  A young woman, a sister, walked by Nikki and whispered, “You’re the Slayer?”

  Nikki just smiled.

  The sister turned to her boyfriend and said, “I told you!”

  Once everyone was out, Wally and A.J. checked the rest of the theater to make sure it was empty. Nikki took advantage of that lull in the action to grab the flashlight from Wally and run upstairs to her pad.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she shone the flashlight inside and saw that the place was untouched since she’d last been here on Monday to pick up some of Robin’s things. She wouldn’t have put it past Spike to break in without A.J. or anyone noticing and trash the place while looking for her.

  Walking over to the tiny closet in Robin’s bedroom, she pushed aside the old clothes and doodads of her parents and grandparents that she hadn’t been able to part with but had nowhere else to put, and dug out the bag.

  Crowley had gotten the bag from Poland a little while after he started training her—right when she first moved into the Gem, in fact. The Watcher had called it an emergency kit, and it included a bunch of weapons, some old pottery whose magical purpose Nikki had never learned, and a book and a box. Crowley hadn’t said much about those last two beyond, “Pray we never need to use them.”

  For now, though, the main things she needed were the extra stakes. She had a feeling
that a blackout was going to be feast night for the bloodsuckers.

  After tucking the bag back into the closet, she went outside, just as Alessio was coming out of the projection room. He had a flashlight too. “Guess we’re done, huh?”

  “Looks like,” Nikki said. “Let’s get downstairs.”

  They slowly went down the creaky stairs to the lobby, where A.J., Wally, and Carmela were all standing.

  A.J. said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Gem Theater is closed for the night.”

  Wally shook his head. “Totally uncool, man. I guess we better beat it.”

  They all walked to the front of the theater. Nikki said, “I better get—”

  Screams and the sound of shattered glass interrupted her.

  “What was that?” Carmela asked.

  “Dunno,” A.J. said, “but I’m lockin’ up the theater.” He reached into the ticket booth and pulled out a long metal rod, then used it to hook a metal handle that stuck out of the top part of the Gem’s entrance.

  Nikki had never even noticed that before. “There’s a grate for this place?”

  A.J. nodded. “Uncle Olaf never uses it, since he’s open all night, but I think now—” He tugged on it, but it didn’t budge, so he tugged again, this time with two hands, but still to no avail. “Damn, it’s stuck.”

  Shaking her head, Nikki said, “Let me, sugar.” Taking the metal rod, she gave it a gentle pull with one hand.

  With a loud rumble, the grate came falling down, hitting the sidewalk with a crash.

  “Thanks, Nik,” A.J. said with a grin.

  Nikki heard more screams, and more glass breaking. I do not like the sound of that. Looking at the various employees, she said, “All of you stay together, okay? Which of you lives closest?”

  “Ain’t me, man,” Wally said. “Brooklyn’s, like, far, man, specially if there ain’t no subways.”

  Carmela raised her hand. “I’m right over on Forty-seventh and Eleventh.”

 

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