by Sandy DeLuca
“What happened, Miss.” Daniel moves towards her. His hand is on his holster.
Lilly shakes her head back and forth. “Couldn’t make it work. You gonna arrest me, officer? I didn’t do it. I swear. I went to my sister’s a few blocks away, spent a few hours there. Went to the liquor store, but it wasn’t open. Nothings open in this fucking city—”
“Gina, that you?” Someone calls from the top of the stairs. I turn and move towards the door. Dave is standing there awkwardly. Blood spurts from his chest as a dark figure moves up behind him. It spreads elongated fingers and presses them against Dave’s back. “Gina, old lady Tilton is all cut up—” Dave puts both hands on his chest as if to stop the explosion of blood but it runs between his fingers. “Run,” he says, gagging, then he falls down the stairs, tumbling like a broken marionette, the bones in his legs and arms snapping and breaking with each violent roll. A shower of blood explodes when he hits the bottom step, spraying the hallway and walls, creating crimson patterns like spidery legs and twisted tree limbs. I move toward him, hypnotized or perhaps still unable to quite grasp what I’ve just seen.
Daniel yells. “Gina, don’t move. I’m calling for backup. Just stay put. Don’t touch anything.” Daniel talks fast, the words coming out in a rapid-fire cadence. He deftly handcuffs Lilly to a radiator with his free hand and then draws his weapon.
I feel like I’m going to faint. Lilly is still babbling. Snow piles up at the door. Daniel curses then shakes his head as he puts his cell to his ear. My instinct is to run, to get away from here, but there’s nowhere to go. I wish the snow would clear so I could leave this city, all the death, all the lunacy, all the pain. But I can’t. The snow keeps coming, locking us all in tight, holding us here like prisoners.
19
“Phone’s out, can’t get through. Shit. Let’s get upstairs. Maybe we’ll have better luck with your landline. This whole fucking building is a crime scene, try not to touch the banisters and don’t step in the blood, it’ll taint the evidence. We’ve got to preserve as much of it as we can.” Daniel wraps his arm around me. “Just move with me, don’t be afraid.” His voice is shaky. He’s being strong for me, but I know he’s afraid too.
We move past Dave. His fingers are still twitching, his eyes are glazed over and blood seeps from dozens of wounds on his neck and chest. I didn’t like the guy, but never wished him dead, never wanted to see him this way. Guilt fills me as I think of all the times I wished bad things for him, how I’d once visualized a cab hitting him as he jay-walked across a block, or how I imagined him falling off a platform as a subway blasted down the tracks. I never meant any of it.
“Poor bastard was dead before he hit the landing.” Daniel looks to a deep wound in Dave’s neck. “Don’t look. I’ve got you. You’re shivering.”
“The killer could be—”
“Don’t think, just walk.” Daniel listens as the house settles, as if it speaks to him with its subtle creaks. “Just walk.”
We begin our ascent up the stairs. Daniel wraps one arm tighter around me, his hand gently rubbing against my shoulder. The other clutches his gun. He looks to both sides then above us. Slowly, he turns and looks behind us. “Keep moving, kid.” He maneuvers me around a puddle of blood. The wind howls and fast falling snow pummels the old building. The lights repeatedly flicker on and off as we continue upward.
When we reach my door, it’s still ajar. Daniel disentangles himself from me, puts a finger to his lip and whispers, “Don’t move. Stay in the shadows and scream your fucking head off if you see anyone.” He quietly moves ahead of me, turns and levels his gun in front of him. He looks from left to right.
I stand near a lopsided coat rack, hopefully blending with the jagged shadows it casts. I wait as Daniel moves through the rooms, probably peering beneath furniture, looking behind open doors and curtains. I swear I hear heavy breathing beneath me, footsteps slowly climbing the stairs. Boots thump twice then stop. Soft, menacing laughter erupts from the second floor landing.
Below, Lilly lets out a blood-curdling scream.
The lights go out. This time they don’t come back on.
“Daniel!” I whisper to myself, to the walls and to the darkness around. No answer comes. I move against the wall, try to make myself invisible. I don’t want to die here in darkness. “Daniel,” my voice is lost within the sounds and fury of the storm. I’ll be swallowed up alive by it, by this tumultuous night and by the evil lurking somewhere in this building.
Finally Daniel appears at the door. “Gina, don’t speak. Come quick, it’s ok, come on inside. It’s safe in here.”
I let out a deep sigh of relief as Daniel takes my hand, pulls me inside then bolts the door behind us. “No lights, no nothing, I heard something downstairs, I heard a voice, I—we’ll never get out of here alive, we’ll never—”
“It’ll be OK.” He grabs my shoulders firmly and looks me in the eye. “Gina, look at me. It’ll be OK. You got to hold it together, you hear me?”
I nod and try to stay in control, but in my mind I’m still pleading with him to get us out of here, my voice coming from a place I don’t know, a place of fear and death.
“We’ve got to lay low. You got candles, a kerosene lamp or something?”
“Yeah, there are candles on the bookshelf, matches beside the big one shaped like a cat. I love that candle. It was a gift from Allie, I never lit it, I always wanted to preserve it along with the others, wax objects in the shapes of stars, moons and assorted small animals, I—”
“Easy,” he says, “it’s OK. Deep breaths, Gina, deep breaths.”
I somehow stop the flow of words tumbling from my mouth as Daniel strikes a match, lights the beautiful cat candle and then a crescent moon splashed with glitter next to it.
“I heard Lilly. I think she was screaming.” I tell him. “But maybe I’m wrong. I wish she’d do something—I wish she’d sing. I wish she’d chant like she used to.”
“I locked the door behind her. She’s as safe as we are right now if that’s any consolation. I’ve got to get back down there. Check out the rest of the house. If I can I’ve got to try to bring Lilly back here with us.” He removes his cell phone from his pocket, punches in numbers and then listens. “Shit, still not working.” He puts the phone back in his pocket. “I doubt Lilly’s behind all this, but you never know. I’ll keep trying the phones. Your landline is out too, tried it while I was checking the place out. Either the storm knocked down lines or somebody cut them. Either way, they’re of no use to us now. What a surprise. I need to get the building secured as best I can.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, you stay here, keep trying your phone. If you’ve got a cell phone try that too, you might get lucky and get a signal, they come in and out in weather like this.”
“Who the hell is doing this?”
“When the storm’s over we’ll know the truth.” He looks to the bookcase as if he notices something odd. “Funny.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember putting that book back.” Daniel grabs a book from the shelf, holds it by the binding. The pages fan out and something falls free. He bends down and picks up one of Allie’s miniature paintings.
“It was Allie’s,” I tell Daniel. “She called them Artist’s trading cards, used to sell them on eBay. She told me it was the latest rage. I’m not sure how it got inside that book, though.”
“Odd piece.” He studies it in the palm of one hand but holds it so I can see that it’s a collage with strange magical symbols and torn, yellowed pages of text. He points to an odd-shaped pattern. “These odd shapes, Allie must have studied them, known a lot about them. She’s painted them in all four corners. I’ve seen them used before. These are signatures, supposedly of beings—and people—who serve the Devil, but she’s made crosses over them. Paper she used is old, looks like it came from an old journal or some kind of handmade book. Symbol in the middle, the rose, along with the crosses, supposedly keeps eve
rything hidden from the Devil.” He continues to stare at the little painting in his left hand. In his other hand he clutches the book, his thumb holding it open to a page of photographs. The stills are a series featuring black men and women, sepia-toned, vintage. One subject stands out, his eyes dark and haunting, his suit and hat strangely familiar. It’s the demon I’ve seen in bars, in subways, standing next to the beautiful woman in the church in Harlem.
“Who’s that?” I ask Daniel, pointing to the photograph.
He gently places Allie’s artwork on a stack of books on the shelf then studies the photo. “Mojo DeCanne,” he says quietly, almost hesitantly. “The legendary evil one from Harlem, the founder of the church where they found Allie’s—”
“I’ve seen him before.”
“Yeah, he’s in a lot of these books on magic. The old bookstores on Fourth Avenue always had them. They had an entire section about him at Samuel Wisner’s Occult and all Subjects Bookstore back in the day. I had an elderly aunt who had an entire collection she’d bought there. She used to call them Manhattan Grimoires. DeCanne—you must have seen his picture in one place or another in this city.”
“No,” I tell him, swallowing with some difficulty. “Daniel, I’ve really seen him.”
“You imagined it. You probably saw a photo and dreamed about him.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“He’s dead, Gina, long dead.” He waves his hand. “How about opening some of the canned goods you’re saving? Got gas or electric cooking?”
“Gas.”
“Good, we can have hot soup when I get back, OK?” He smiles, obviously trying to relax me in the midst of this dizzying madness. He puts the book atop the art then winks at me. “Go ahead and start on it, it’ll keep your mind focused on something.”
I’m not hungry. Mojo DeCanne is haunting me. He’s come back from the dead, maybe he never died at all and he’s after me—just like he was after Allie. I know it in my gut and I’m so afraid he’s in this house, afraid he’ll burst in here any minute and kill both of us. No matter how adept Daniel is with a gun, no matter how much of a skilled fighter he is, he can’t defend us against bad magic, against evil both ancient and potent.
“Listen to me,” he says firmly. “You’ll be OK.”
He holds my stare until I offer a slight nod, then moves to the door.
Before his hand reaches the knob something thumps against it.
Despite the candlelight it somehow suddenly seems darker than before. I think about how Daniel once told me there are things in this city that can never be explained, and I notice him looking at me again, his eyes intense now and laced with fear as another thump erupts against the door. I know he’s thinking the same thing I am, and despite his attempted façade, despite his apparent disregard for what I’ve just told him, I can tell he understands we’re dealing with something beyond that which we can fully understand.
I watch as he draws his weapon with one hand then pulls the door open wide with the other, his gun panning back and forth across the darkness. Whoever or whatever was thumping against the door has retreated.
“Bolt the door behind me,” he whispers without looking at me. “It’ll be all right, just do what I say.”
He steps into the darkness carefully, gun leveled in front of him and leading the way. Holding a stance, he moves forward with stealth and skill years of training has made second nature to him. I latch the door and secure all the chain locks then listen as Daniel’s footsteps move down the hallway and eventually become soft patter on the stairs.
Be strong, I tell myself. Control your nerves.
A voice in my head whispers: What if he doesn’t come back?
I go to the kitchen. But for wavering candle flames, the room is dark. Yellow and orange tongues of fire dance above a wax cat head, hypnotic and alluring. My sister once told me that witches can cast spells while looking into the flickering light of a candle and sometimes visions materialize where the past and the future play out like a movie if they stare hard enough.
My sister told me lots of crazy things.
The cat’s face starts to melt as wax drips across his almond-shaped eyes and obliterates his whiskers.
“Gina?”
This time the voice isn’t in my head, and even as my mind feels like it’s coming apart, I know exactly whose voice it is.
I turn. Allie is sitting at the kitchen table, a knife in her hand.
20
Despite my fear I move closer until I can see her face clearly. There are deep cuts in her skin, entire pieces of flesh scooped away and puddles of crimson on the table. Blood drips slowly from the knife blade in her hand.
“Allie.” Her name escapes me as a quiet gasp.
“I’m imperfect,” she says through ruined lips. “Mojo said I needed to be remade, needed to cut away what’s ugly, what’s soiled.” She raises the knife to her right eye and begins to carve away at the lid.
“Allie, stop.”
But she’s not listening. A fresh piece of flesh falls like spiraling ribbon to the table. She smiles. “Don’t give Mojo the art I made. It’s not his. If you do I’ll never be beautiful again.” She licks blood from her chin. “I’ll never be beautiful again.”
“Allie, what the fuck is happening?” I feel lightheaded, rub my eyes quickly.
And then she’s gone. The room is empty. No Allie, no blood, no knife.
Just as I’ve become convinced I’ve completely lost my mind, I hear an unsettling noise that sounds like a snake hissing.
A dark shadow crawls across the floor, and for a moment I see the face of Mojo DeCanne glaring back at me from the darkness on the far side of the room. Demon lips speak, but words come from another world, from someplace evil and forsaken. “Give me what’s mine, bitch.” Laughter breaks out. “I carved up your boyfriend. He’s down in the basement in a thousand pieces.” The shadowy thing stands, waves an elongated finger then extends its hand, turning the palm upward. A vision of Daniel appears, lying there with his throat cut, his fingers strewn across the floor and his intestines falling from his belly.
The demon whispers something else but it comes out as an indecipherable hiss. As the pitch rises and intensifies, I slide to the floor, cover my ears and close my eyes. Insane or damned, it hardly seems to matter now.
And then there’s a pounding sound. Hard and fast, it’s comes from the living room or maybe the bedroom. It continues, harder and faster.
“Gina, open the fucking window!”
A muffled voice, but one I recognize as Daniel’s. He’s alive, thank God, he’s alive. I get up and quickly look around the kitchen. I’m alone.
I run to the living room and find Daniel standing on the fire escape still pounding on the window. I open it, tearing a nail on the latch.
He climbs in. Snow covers his clothes and his hair. “I’ve been knocking for five minutes. Where the hell were you?”
“I was scared.”
“You can get frostbite real quick in this weather. Christ, I’m freezing.” He pulls the window shut, locks it then speaks rapidly. “Look, I checked the whole house. Nobody’s alive. Not even Lilly. Someone got to her, windows were all open. We gotta make sure all of yours are locked.” He treks through my apartment with me following. “I didn’t see anyone. They could be hiding. Maybe they left, I don’t know. I checked outside as best I could. There’s blood all over the walk, down in the alley. It’s fucking blinding out there and nobody’s around. We wouldn’t get fifty feet on foot out there in this mess. I tried my phone again too. Nothing.”
“I tried too,” I tell him. “My cell. I can’t remember where—”
“Everything’s out. City’s crippled, you don’t see storms this bad more than a couple times a century.”
“Lilly…how…”
“You don’t need to know.”
“I heard him. He called to me. I know it sounds insane, like I’m some crazy fucking bag lady or something, but I’m telling you I heard
him.”
“Heard who?”
“Mojo DeCanne.”
His expression fails to hide his annoyance. “Gina, get it together, come on. Whoever did all this is alive, a person from this century, not some dead sorcerer. We’ve got enough real shit to worry about, OK? There are dead bodies all over the building.”
“You know it’s him. You can feel it. I know you can.”
“I’m a cop. I can’t let my imagination run away with me. Not now.”
“You feel the evil the same as I do. You heard the thumping on the door just like I did.”
“Mojo DeCanne is dead.”
“Maybe we are too.”
He doesn’t say a word, just wraps his arms around me and we stand there in silence. I can feel his heart pounding and our bodies trembling.
If we stay like this forever it’ll be all right, I tell myself. If only we could stay this way until whatever is out there comes to claim us then at least our last moments would have been worthwhile.
21
If things were normal, we’d be lovers by now. We would have tasted each other from head to foot, known intimate secrets of flesh and carnal ecstasy and felt the connection of two souls becoming one. But nothing is normal. Daniel and I exist inside a tomb sealed with ice and snow, side by side with the dead.
I hold my sister’s miniature painting, study the color, form, text and odd symbols. Daniel sits on the couch, a small taper candle burning on the table by his side, the book containing Mojo DeCanne’s photograph in his lap. “Gina,” he says, “bring the art here, I want to show you something.” His voice is tired, his movements slow.
I do as he asks, and sit beside him. Gently, he lifts the art from my palm and lays it side by side with another photograph of Mojo DeCanne, the man with devil eyes and deadly incantations tattooed on his soul. Daniel moves his index finger from book to painting as he speaks. “See? Mojo’s ceremonial robe has the same markings as the signatures on Allie’s art. She must have studied about him. The text must be from one old book or another, probably one she found in the basement of The Strand or something she bought on a street corner. Makes sense, no?”