by Jackie May
The werewolf lumbers past us, leading through the darkness. Hillerman follows, though I can’t imagine how she can possibly see from behind sunglasses. Brenner keeps my hand in his while we walk through a forest of cement columns, outlined by flashes of silent lightning outside the windows. The space is enormous but crowded. Cars are packed wall-to-wall between the pillars, like an insanely popular drive-in theatre. Most of the cars are occupied. Ghastly faces stare out from backseats as we pass.
We head toward an orange glow from dozens of candles in a shrine. It’s a colossal skull made of cement blocks, with red bricks for teeth. Not original, but effective. As we mount a crumbling cement stairway rising directly over the skull, I half expect the mouth to move, and a hollow voice to chant, “Dead men tell no tales…”
Upstairs has a different feeling entirely. The air is hushed; the sound of rain is now accompanied by a deeply hypnotic, thrumming, undulating moan—a woman’s moan—drawn out and quivering, like gasps of ecstasy in slow motion.
We enter a hallway. To our left, the passage leads into darkness. To our right, far down, there is a section of hallway lit in the soft blues of moonlight. The scattered kaleidoscope patterns of rain falling against windows is projected across a door. The door is halfway open, and behind it is a room with just enough blue rainwater glow to see a bed with two naked bodies on it. I can’t be sure, but it could be that the moaning, which seems to fill the entire hallway as though from invisible speakers, comes from those bodies, that woman rearing back on her knees, reaching over her head to pull at the man behind her.
I hear—I feel—a rapid heartbeat and know that it’s my own. The woman’s body is familiar to me. Those long legs folded beneath her, the shock of golden red hair falling into her eyes, the one and only tattoo on her rib cage just beneath the left breast.
A Detroit Tigers logo.
It’s me on the bed. It’s Brenner behind, pressing his bare chest into my back. And it’s obvious from my face that sex is one of the few things in life that I take very seriously. No half-smiles or carefree gestures or winking. My eyes are closed tightly beneath a brow lined with concentration, teeth biting into my bottom lip, fingers clutching desperately through his hair. It’s as though I might, at any moment, expect pain from his hands as they roam my goose-bumped skin, top to bottom, with the careful, slow touch of utter reverence. He would absolutely worship you, if you let him. Yours to command—he’s already said as much himself. And remember…
Remember what?
Remember what you promised him.
I’m lying on my back, legs draped over his shoulders, and Brenner’s lips are sliding down my belly when I see myself press a gun to his temple and pull the trigger.
There’s a sharp squeeze of my hand—the real me, not the sex goddess on the bed—and I’m so startled that I nearly leap out of my skin. Whirling, I lash out and slap Brenner in the face, followed instantaneously by a hoarse apology. I jerk my hand from his.
The werewolf is leading us to the left. I take one more quick look behind me. There is no bedroom, no door. There is no moaning sound. Just darkness, and a whispered mantra coming from Brenner. With head down, his eyes glued to the floor, he repeats over and over to himself, “White Ford car, white Ford van. Actions, not thoughts. White Ford car, white Ford van.”
I feel sure that he also must have looked down the hallway behind us and seen something unnerving behind that door. Somehow, I know that he didn’t see the same thing I saw. I also know that I’ll never ask him, because then he’ll ask me.
Up ahead, I see more orange glow, but far too bright and steady to come from candles. We enter what must have been, back in the old days, a suite of offices overlooking the factory floor. From here, middle-aged men with crew cuts and horn-rimmed glassed could smoke a cigarette at the railing and look down at the lower-class employees working the assembly line of new cars.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpse a mob of black shadows rushing across the factory floor, squeezing between the junk cars, scrambling over them, standing on them to get a better look up at us on the second floor. But when I turn fully to look…the floor below is still. There are no shadow figures. Again, the corner of my eye registers movement, this time from rusted utility catwalks suspended high in the air above us. And again when I look, there is nothing. The catwalks are vacant.
So ghosts are real, I had said.
And though we rarely see them, Hillerman had answered, they can always see us.
The Deep world.
The floor is strewn with rubble, and all the walls have been knocked down. In the middle of the space are three massive tree stumps. They’ve been carved out to serve as seats—or thrones, rather—for a trio of demons with the kind of hideous grandeur that steals the breath away. They sit in the hierarchy of a trinity—on the left and right are hybrid beasts, a baphomet and a harpy.
The baphomet’s goat head is wreathed with a long, sable beard that runs down his human chest and gathers in a thick braid between powerful goat legs capped with cloven hooves. Rising from his head are ribbed, black horns, straight and sharp. Three-foot skewers.
The harpy is half crow and all woman. Below the black-feathered bird head and a beak narrowed to a needlepoint is a female figure of obscene curves. A wide-set and heavy slab of breasts—stark, pearlescent white marbled with a dense network of blue veins—lords high over a torso and abdomen of exaggerated length, as though she has been stretched out on a medieval torture device. Her thick, fleshy thighs narrow into bony kneecaps and scaled, taloned bird feet. For arms she has wings. At the moment, their raven feathers are spread wide behind her head, like some nightmare peacock.
Seated in the middle throne is a human idol come to life. He’s a naked man with a body that might not warrant a second glance if it weren’t so big. I would guess that standing up he might be ten feet tall. Completely hairless, his skin is pulled too tight over muscle and bone. It would take little imagination to picture what he might look like without skin at all, like those diagrams of the human muscular system in anatomy books. His face is shadowed, but I can tell his mouth is open from the faint glints of sharp, pointed teeth. Behind him, the windows show a stormy sky turned the sleazy red of neon lights.
I’ve had just enough time to convince my heart to beat again when Agent Hillerman, turning to the half-naked Brenner, gives a casual gesture with her hand, like Step right up, son. “Your jurisdiction,” she explains calmly. “We always start with local authority first. It’s a technicality—they probably know why we’re here—but just so the record shows, you know. By the book. Go ahead.” It’s as though they’re standing outside the interrogation room at the police station, coffees in hand. You go first this time, yeah? I did the last one.
Brenner opens his mouth. “You mean…” That’s it. Two words is all he can muster. But his face says it all: You can’t be serious.
Hillerman claps him on the back. Hop to it! Brenner looks to me, but gets only a blank stare in return. Like I can even think straight with a harpy ten feet away! Birds of prey—hawks and eagles—are rarely a threat for adult foxes, but the size of that thing! Even in my human form she could swoop down from the sky and pluck my head off with those enormous talons. I curse Hillerman again for getting us out of my car. The car is safe. The harpy couldn’t swoop down and carry away my Crap-pile.
Brenner steps forward. He moves trembling fingers to his throat, absently searching for the knot of his tie, before remembering that he’s not even wearing a shirt. “Hello,” he croaks. “I’m Detective Brenner.” He has to stop and swallow a few times to wet his mouth. He slicks his lips with his tongue, then lets the words tumble out as quickly as possible. “Detective Brenner, Detroit PD. We’re investigating the murder of three females and a male, all formerly of this neighborhood. Wondering if we could ask you a few”—He doubles over and vomits loudly into the rubble at his feet—“few questions,” he rasps, spitting. “Sorry. I…” He points to the ground. “I can get that�
��if you have something. A mop—”
The rain cuts off. The angry red sky blinks out, replaced by a decomposing parking garage next door. Several of the small, tinted windowpanes are missing, allowing shafts of white light to cut through the darkness inside. The middle throne is now empty. There is no sign of the large demon man, though his pets—the baphomet and harpy—remain. The crow demon slouches down and lowers her wings into her lap, gazing at me with unblinking yellow eyes. She can sense the fox in me, I know it.
The sound of labored breathing—a death rattle—approaches from a dark corner of the room, accompanied by the soft, high-pitched squeak of tiny wheels. A man in an undershirt and sweatpants comes forward, slowly, limping. He’s old. Wiry gray hair sticks out in all directions, as if he just got out of bed. His eyes are shadowed beneath a heavy brow and forehead that want to slide down off his skull like an avalanche. The squeaky wheel sound comes from a rolling oxygen tank he pulls behind him. Tubes from the oxygen tank wind up his back and over his ears, splitting into each nostril.
“Detroit PD,” the old man says with a strained, gravelly voice. It sounds like he’s talking while somebody strangles him. “Detroit PD, this is something. This is really something.” With eagerness, he picks his way among the rubble toward Brenner, jerking impatiently at the oxygen tank when it snags on a brick or a tree root. “You know why? Know why it’s just a treat for me to come across a police officer?” Having said all that in one breath, he has to stop and take a few huffs of air and let the redness drain from his face. “Police have such low tolerance…” Breathe. “…for boundaries.” Breathe. “They don’t like…when people get…too close.”
Sure enough, as the man closes in, Brenner steels himself, one hand twitching, as though he wants to raise a palm, Stop right there, don’t come any closer. The man doesn’t stop. He limps closer, now within an arm’s length.
“Do not engage,” Hillerman reminds Brenner. “That’s what he wants.”
The old man pauses. With him standing directly in front of Brenner, I can now see that the guy must have cut a formidable figure in his youth. Even hunched and sagging, he is still as tall as Brenner—their eyes are on level with each other—and the man’s frame is thick, sturdy. Beneath his threadbare undershirt I can tell that his gut has gone to mush, but his arms hang straight and rigid as pistons from powerful shoulders.
“This, see, is about the limit, eh? Any closer…” The man steps in. Brenner leans back, one hand raising toward the old man’s chest but stopping just short of physical contact. One of the man’s piston arms lashes out. He takes hold of Brenner’s neck.
“Don’t engage,” Hillerman says again.
“Not…” Brenner squawks, raising his hands. “Not engaging.”
“See,” the old man says, “this is just the sort of thing…police officers don’t like. There’s no respect in it. We all…” Breathe. “…we have to respect the badge…don’t we? But you don’t have a badge, do you?”
Brenner’s had enough. With both hands he grips the old man’s wrist, but the piston locks up tight.
“Don’t,” Hillerman urges Brenner.
With sudden fury, the old man releases Brenner’s throat. He shouts, “Don’t engage! Don’t engage! That’s just how it is now, isn’t it? No fists, no faces, no boots on the ground. What for? Just send in the drones. Shoot a missile from an air craft carrier halfway across the ocean. Watch it all on a little screen back home. No more fight! No more Gettysburg. No more Omaha Beach. No more Vietnam. No more bloodbaths!”
His fist shoots out, walloping Brenner square in the stomach. Brenner hits the floor, gagging. With an annoyed flourish of hands, the old man rips the breathing tubes from his nose and kicks the oxygen tank away. Then, grunting with the strain, he crouches down low to put his face just inches from Brenner’s. He watches with intense interest as Brenner gasps for air. I want to help, but I’m taking cues from Hillerman, and she does nothing but stare passively at the men.
Finally, after a long, torturous moment, Brenner gains enough breath to ask, “Are you…Arael Moaz?” Slowly, knees wobbling, Brenner rises to his feet. “Are you Arael Moaz?”
“I’ll tell you,” the old man says, “if you tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Your trigger.” The man—who I think we all know by now is Arael Moaz—when he talks, I see the same sharp, pointed teeth I saw in the wide mouth of the demon god—he says, “Everybody’s got a trigger.” He looks to me, then to Hillerman. “What’s yours, Detective Brenner?” His head swivels back to me and seems to click in place. My body tenses, then stutters backward when Arael rushes at me.
Immediately Brenner lunges, overtakes him, and tries to pin the old man’s arm behind his back. But anticipating the move, Arael counters with an awkward spin and wrenches Brenner’s wrist back to its snapping point. Both men cry out—Brenner in pain, Arael with unbridled glee.
Until Hillerman stops the fight with one word. “Empollyon.”
Not just a word. A name.
Arael releases Brenner and staggers back from us, winded and blinking with a sort of shock. The baphomet stands. The harpy pulls herself to the edge of her seat.
“No,” Arael commands them. He shuffles to the railing that overlooks the factory floor below. With a steadying hand on the railing, and after a few deep, controlling breaths, Arael casts a sideways look at Hillerman. From that moment on, the rest of us might as well have disappeared. For Arael, only Hillerman exists now. “You know many demon names, do you?” His finger taps the railing. Tap, tap, tap. “Names like…Boca.” Tap, tap, tap. “Kojot.” Tap, tap, tap, stop… “Hillerman.” His eyes narrow. “But you have other names yourself…” Breathe. “…don’t you, exorcist?” Breathe. He is racked by a sudden fit of violent coughing.
“You should put your oxygen back in,” Hillerman suggests.
He spits blood, and his lips pull back into an oily grin. One red drop of blood pools in the cleft of his bottom lip, then spills over, running down his chin. “I knew. Even all those years ago I knew you were different.” Breathe. “So young, so small. But what a fighter! Boy, they sure pegged you. The girl who fought back. A famous person, here in my house!” He gestures to the air around him. “So you see it all, then? When you close your eyes?”
I’m reeling. One after the other, his words keep hitting me. Exorcist? Famous? See it all? All what? With eyes closed? Are her eyes closed behind those shades? Is that why she wears them in the dark?
Hillerman’s head makes a series of very slight turns—first down toward the factory floor, then up toward the catwalks, then back to Arael. He nods with pride, as though he can guess that she is impressed with whatever it is she saw.
“Thirty years living here,” he says.
“Not much longer, though.”
His face clouds. “Go ahead and cast me out. This body’s giving up the ghost soon anyway.”
“Cancer?” Hillerman guesses.
“That’s the problem with a meat suit, isn’t it? Have all the fun you want, but sooner or later we all have the devil to pay. Once you’re in, only two ways out. Your way is more painful, but at least it’s faster.”
“I didn’t come here to cast you out. I came to talk.”
Sighing, Arael tilts his face to the heavens and rakes fingers down both cheeks. “Talk. I’m so tired of talk. Words, and politics, and cat-and-mouse.” His fists close around the skin at his jawbone. He tries to pull his face off. “Violence is what I want. Fists and guns, mobs of angry men rushing at each other. Can you give me that?”
“We don’t do that sort of thing anymore. What you can expect is black ops—small team insertion that will be in and out before you even realize you’re on their helicopter. Not a single shot fired. At least, not from your side.”
“Some talk!”
“An ultimatum. We have reason to believe you’re involved in a plot to enact a mass casualty incident. You have two choices. Submit to FUA authority”—she ges
tures to me—“and provide a statement of confession, or else become subject to federal jurisdiction, extradition, and be forced to give up all memory assets.”
Arael’s reaction mirrors my own—he’s too outraged to know where to begin with a response. Finally, he spits out, “Forced to give up memories? What forced? Forced how!” As he stammers and sputters, Hillerman retrieves his oxygen tank and places it close to him. He waits until she steps back before snatching an oxygen mask and holding it over his nose and mouth for a deep breath. His eyes go wide—not with the relief of the oxygen but from a realization. “Vampire!”
He’s right, of course. It seems obvious to me now that he’s said it. The federal government has “recruited” a vampire with the power to extract memory—a clan master on Henry’s level of command, maybe even higher, like one of the D.C. clans. Such a tactic, dirty as it is, can’t be surprising, especially to a warmonger like Arael. The problem for him is that this isn’t his type of war. This is cold war. This is information—the side who controls it wins. If the feds have gotten their hands on a vampire willing to abuse his powers on their behalf…game over. No more secrets. And no wonder Hillerman can play it so cool. Her side holds the best hand, and she knows it.
Arael knows it, too. His face turns a deep red behind the oxygen mask. “So let me figure this. My generous options, according to FBI Special Agent Hillerman. Either I agree to cooperate with the Detroit agency, which you all have wanted for decades now, or, if I don’t, you take me into federal custody and rape my mind.”
“Yes.”
“So either way, either way you get something you want.”
“Yes.”
His head shakes. “Well, that’s…that’s some tactics. I’ll be damned, that’s battlefield tactics. Pincer move!” Flinging the mask away, he puts up a finger from each of his hands and draws them close together, side-by-side, with a whistling sound. “Coming from both sides at once, corner the enemy.”