by Chris Vola
The lives he had cut short now made their way into the forefront of his brain, not just as a brief and abstract feeling of guilt shelved away in a dark corner, the way they normally did. The taste of their blood and their fear lingered, fresh as ever in his mind. The polio-stunted seamstress in her tiny shop near Borough Hall begging him to just have his way with her and leave, begging even after he removed her vocal cords. The young Lithuanian priest on his knees, praying to a god that wouldn’t save him. The insane cop laughing hysterically until he drowned in his own fluids. The dozens of clean kills, the ones who didn’t see it coming, whose families or neighbors were left to bear all of the suffering.
It didn’t help that of the fenced-in rows of buried bodies to his left, as he followed the cemetery’s perimeter southward on 5th Avenue, there were probably dozens he’d either directly or indirectly had a hand in putting there.
A few minutes later, he turned onto 36th Street at Green-Wood’s southwest corner, a section of the cemetery that faced the beige-and-brick, government-bland façade of an enormous MTA bus depot across the street. Ryan continued a little longer and stopped where a rectangular boulder sat a few feet from the fence, its top smooth and tablelike except for a large indentation near its center. A plaque attached to a stake that had been hammered into the ground nearby read, partially:
Legend has it that, near this spot during our Colonial period, an African American named Joost dueled the Devil in a fiddling contest. When Joost triumphed, the Devil, in defeat, stomped his foot on a rock, leaving the impression of a hoof print. By the time of the American Revolution, the rock with the Devil’s Hoof Print had become a local tourist attraction.
Arthur had shown Ryan the rock the last time they’d visited Green-Wood, saying something about how history had gotten the legend wrong, that Joost was actually Frank, exiting the woods covered in blood and carrying the violin that had belonged to a meal he’d just disposed of, when he ran into a hunting party. Though they seemed to believe the story Frank told them about a contest with Satan, in reality, and especially in the eyes of the traveling musician he’d eaten, Frank had far more in common with a demon than a fiddler.
Ryan took a quick look around to make sure the street was clear and leapt over the fence, landing softly on the grass on the other side. Not wasting any more time considering the Devil or his fake footprint, he headed for the nearest paved section of the cemetery, a winding thoroughfare that was called Oak Avenue, according to a street sign that had been nailed to a large maple tree. Ryan followed the path up a hill dotted with small white-stone military grave markers, each accompanied by a wreath of plastic flowers and a miniature American flag. On the downward slope he passed a collection of obelisks and small crypts surrounding a man-made pond, their peaks and roofs moss-covered and rain-eroded.
Before the next increase in elevation, he veered off the path and navigated a densely wooded area, the rows of stones getting older the farther he walked, their inscriptions becoming less clear. He stopped beside a cluster of crucifix-topped monuments that were permanently shaded by the branches of a horse chestnut tree, a behemoth that had wizened and gnarled considerably in the ninety-four years since he’d last stood under its limbs. The stone closest to his feet was the smallest of the group, its inscription devoid of everything but the most cursory details: LAURA JANE HARKER 1807–1852.
Ryan couldn’t recall the precise wording of most of the conversation he’d had with Arthur at this exact spot, the night before his maker returned to the species he’d forsaken three hundred years earlier. The only part of the exchange he remembered word-for-word occurred after he asked if Arthur was related to the woman buried under the stone. After several moments of uproarious laughter, Arthur explained that Harker had been chosen in jest because it was the surname of a character in a recently published novel called Dracula. He might have laughed more at the idea of two seemingly supernatural beings lurking around a cemetery late at night, but this was still a few years before Hollywood and its tropes had completely invaded the cultural consciousness.
In any case, it was the first time Arthur had shared anything more than the faintest hint of emotion with Ryan, and it would be the last.
Once he regained his composure, Arthur’s tone turned serious. He pointed to a spot on the ground, near where Laura Jane’s coffin would have been placed. “In this location,” he’d said, “I’ve returned all that’s left of our family line back to the earth. Buried near a Harker, so that you will remember this place and perhaps remember me. What lies here, you will know when to use it. Before then, let it rest.”
At the time, Ryan had had no clue what Arthur was talking about, and even if he’d been curious enough to find out, the hunger pains that consumed him during his first months of being turned took precedence over everything else, made all other desires irrelevant. After he’d settled into his new life, the night at the cemetery had receded into a deep corner of his memory, like so much that had happened to him before and after.
Now he had an idea of what the old man might have left for him.
He began to rip through the earth with his hands, piling the warm, dew-soaked soil against the tombstone. About two feet down, his nails scraped metal, in the exact spot that Arthur had shown him nearly a century earlier. He lifted the shoebox-size container out of the ground. It was rectangular and made of dent-scarred tin, its lid held on by a heavily rusted padlock. He could hear the faint rattling of several hard objects inside. He pulled off the lock and opened the lid, its hinges creaking with disuse. Whatever had made the noise was covered by a few sheets of moldy, crumbling paper filled with Arthur’s unmistakable handwriting. Ryan pushed these aside to reveal a small flint dagger with a long, deer-antler handle, on which had been carved symbols resembling those that had appeared on the drawing of the dead warriors Natalia had shown him, and a figurine encased in a glass jar.
It was five or six inches long, a hollow ceramic sculpture in the shape of a body cut off at the waist, humanoid from its base to its neck, its arms crossed over its chest. The head was different. Two gaping slits for eye holes, a pushed-in bat’s nose, tiny feline ears, and large, bared fangs. A dime-sized hole had been drilled into the back of the neck. The faded paint that covered the creature looked like it had originally been a dark shade of orange peppered with black and gray spots.
Arthur’s jaguar.
Ryan removed it from the jar and placed it into the black plastic deli bag he’d picked up on his way to the cemetery from Natalia’s. He was about to rebury the container when he felt an impulse, something instinctual he couldn’t explain. He picked up the knife and gouged deeply into the vein that bisected his wrist. He held the jar’s opening under his arm, guiding a thin stream of blood into it before the wound healed.
He capped the jar, placed it in the container, and closed the lid. Just as he finished covering the hole, he heard the well-rehearsed drone of a tour guide in the distance, getting closer. By the time the group turned onto Oak Avenue, phone cameras ablaze, Ryan was on the other side of the fence, heading north.
9
“Hey, buddy! HEY!”
Ryan ignored the voice as he made his way through the Saturday afternoon throngs of tank tops and genital-hugging legwear swarming the sidewalks of Front Street, until he felt something tap against his shoulder. He swiveled around, grabbed the offender’s wrist, and forced the man to the ground.
The appendage he was about to crush belonged to a skinny waif in his early twenties, wearing black leather pants and a white T-shirt that said I’M ALLERGIC TO BASIC BITCHES across the front, gazing up at Ryan with a combination of terror and indignation.
“What do you want?” Ryan asked, relaxing his grip.
“I was just trying to let you know that the price tag was hanging off the back of your shirt,” the kid muttered as he tore his arm free and picked up a clear plastic cup containing what looked like a thick green sludge. “Fucking dick.”
Ryan apologized and plucked
the tag off the gray short-sleeve button-down shirt he’d bought on the way to meet Jennifer. He felt around his waist to see if a label or sticker might be hanging from his new jeans, but he couldn’t feel anything.
He dropped the tag in the Urban Outfitters bag where it settled alongside his blood-and-dirt-smeared clothes from the previous night, the phone charger he’d just purchased at a Verizon store on Court Street, the antler-handle knife, and the jaguar statue that was still glowing.
He’d noticed the change almost as soon as he’d rehopped the fence and left the cemetery. The statue had begun to vibrate slightly and to feel warm, not hot enough to melt the plastic bag that had contained it, but still more than noticeable, as if removing it from the earth had jump-started some kind of internal mechanism. And its color scheme had morphed from orange and black to an eerie, iridescent green, giving off its own light like a radioactive object. It seemed like the real deal. Frank and Natalia would probably flip out when they saw it, he thought, but they would have to wait.
He crossed the street and passed under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, the landmark that gave the neighborhood its acronymic name. The area that was now called DUMBO—which Ryan remembered as a seedy ferry stop and an anonymous manufacturing shithole that wasn’t worth his or anyone’s time—had attracted almost the same progression of pioneers as nearby Williamsburg: artists, hipsters, foodies, and condo developers, with a healthy dose of the tech industry for good measure. The company that Jennifer worked for did a fair amount of business in the neighborhood, meaning that Ryan had been dragged to nearly every restaurant, gastropub, and wine bar in the vicinity. Superfine, just east of the bridge, was one of her favorites, a low-key, locals-heavy spot that occupied the bottom floor of a recycled industrial building, as good a place as any to pretend to enjoy a Bloody Mary before totally blowing away Jennifer’s conception of reality.
He hadn’t given much thought to how exactly he was going to tell her. It would be easy enough to prove what he was. He could stab himself with the knife the server would provide with her huevos rancheros and show her not only how quickly he could heal but how little blood flowed through his veins. He could show her the draft registration card from the First World War that he kept in his wallet—rejected because of his coal-blackened lungs—and its accompanying photograph. Or he could pull out the statue if it didn’t seem like she would make too much of a scene.
Whatever was going to happen would happen, he told himself, regardless of how much he considered all of the possibilities. The time for figuring out a game plan was long gone. He was running several minutes late and was sure that if his phone hadn’t died he’d be receiving more than a few where the fuck are you texts and calls. He hoped she hadn’t already left.
He entered the rectangular, high-ceilinged former factory space that was reverberating with the upbeat twang of a bluegrass band playing somewhere in the back and was stopped by a petite, bubbly hostess he didn’t recognize. He told her his name. “I have a reservation for two o’clock, but my friend is probably already here,” he said.
“Uh … yup!” she beamed after consulting a list tacked to the host stand. “She’s been here for a few minutes. Follow me.”
Shit, Ryan thought, something else to apologize for. But at least she hadn’t walked out yet. He followed the hostess past a long cherry-wood bar buzzing with patrons and diners waiting for a table, an unoccupied orange-felt pool table, and up a small set of stairs to the raised dining area in the rear.
“Right over there.” The hostess motioned at a table in the back left corner of the space where Nicki was sitting alone, wearing a black spaghetti-string top and chunky, fire-engine-red hoop earrings, scrolling around on her phone. Ryan’s apartment keys were lying in a ball on the table in front of her menu. She looked up, ran her hand through her side-swept bangs, and smiled.
For a moment he stood still, mouth agape, paralyzed by her presence—and her scent. It took a miracle of composure for him to move slowly toward the table, to act as if everything were normal.
“Aren’t you a little old for Urban Outfitters?” she asked as he sat down and tucked the shopping bag between his legs. “I mean, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Those jeans fit great on you. And your skin looks way better than the last time I saw you. Must be that delicious and nutritious dinner you ate yesterday. You’re welcome.”
“What the fuck is this?” Ryan snarled. He quickly scanned the room, overcome by a surge of paranoia, preparing for an imminent, unseen assault.
“Apparently you aren’t very good at checking your phone,” she replied calmly. “And you definitely suck at holding on to important personal items. Keys, wallet, phone, it’s the Holy Trinity, dude, come on.” She slid his keys across the table. “I liked your place, a little bland, a little small—and in the wrong neighborhood—for someone in your tax bracket, but I’ll give you some cool points for the discretion factor.”
“My phone’s dead,” Ryan said.
“Ooh,” Nicki chortled. “That makes total sense. No worries though, I can just show you on mine.”
She looked back down at her phone and started clicking the screen until a youngish waiter sporting a man bun arrived to take their drink orders. “Give us a couple minutes here, hon,” she said, hardly glancing at him.
Ryan’s unblinking eyes remained focused on her neck, the barely perceptible twitching vein that was the only thing keeping her brain from suffocating. Where was Jennifer?
Nicki handed him her phone. On the screen was a photograph of a jaguar statue, identical to the one in Ryan’s bag, except this one was in its original, nonglowing state.
“Look familiar?” she asked.
Ryan shook his head.
She sighed. “Okay, I really hoped it would, because the next part, no matter how I say it, is going to come out all lame and villain-y, but trust me, it’s just business. Like most of your browsing history when you’re not Facebook stalking. Bo-ring. I don’t have like, an agenda or something. My employers do. You probably have a vague idea about the people I work for—do you guys call yourselves people? Never mind, I don’t even care. My employers are super stoked about adding the statue that you claim to not recognize to their collection and are basically prepared to get real gnarly in their, um, quest for it.”
Their collection? How many statues were there?
“I’m not really sure who you think I am or what I am,” Ryan said. “You’ve been through my apartment. You’ve gone through my records. You’ve probably been to my storage units. You know I don’t have whatever is in this picture. If you’re done here, I’m going to go—”
“Charge your phone and call your girlfriend?”
Ryan watched her throat muscles tense as she swallowed too hard, even though she was still smiling, beads of sweat forming at her temples.
“Um, yeah,” she said while clicking her tongue, her voice rising half an octave. “This is where you’re going to hate me. Swipe to the next picture and keep swiping. There’s a few of them.”
The first picture was of what looked like the ground floor of an office building, a mostly glass and sand-colored façade and a chrome revolving door. Something about it seemed familiar to Ryan, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. The next picture showed Jennifer exiting the same door, her hair in a ponytail, wearing a beige jacket that she’d left at Ryan’s apartment on several occasions, a black skirt, and heels. The building, he now remembered, was 881 3rd Avenue, where the company where Jennifer worked, FreshInsights, occupied a portion of the fourteenth floor. He swiped to a shot of her getting into a taxi at 53rd Street, then another in the cab’s backseat from the driver’s point of view.
This is where you’re going to hate me …
The next shot was from the same angle except Jennifer was lying in a fetal position across the backseat, facing the camera, her head covered by what looked like a black garbage bag, her wrists bound in front of her chest, her hands clasped as if in prayer. The two final images we
re variations of the same photograph. In the first one, Jennifer was seated, staring at the camera in what looked like a poorly lit concrete bunker, positioned in front of a naked and masked creature suspended from a metal pipe, its skin slick and waxy, like shrink wrap slowly peeling from slabs of rotting beef jerky.
Seamus.
The montage concluded with a close-up of her face, her forehead and cheeks covered with constellations of welts, her pupils dilated and empty, a translucent stream of snot running from her nostrils, cresting and spilling over her burgundy-smeared lips.
“It’s basically, like, your standard, old-school, one-for-one trade,” Nicki said a few moments later as she snatched up the phone he’d dropped on the table. Ryan was visibly trembling, avoiding eye contact for the first time since he’d sat down. “But I don’t need to explain that to you,” she continued. “You’re old-school by nature, right? You get it. Shit, I’m sorry, that was super cheesy. Oh well, I tried.”
She lifted a small purse from her lap and started rummaging through it. She pulled out a crisp hundred-dollar bill and placed it on top of Ryan’s unopened menu. A phone number with a Manhattan area code was scrawled across the front in permanent marker ink. Ryan recognized the serial number; it was one of the unmarked bills he had used to pay for Nicki’s blood.
“My employers think that twenty-four hours is a reasonable amount of time for your memory to improve regarding the jaguar. We’ll meet tomorrow, same time, at the Starbucks where you took advantage of me in the bathroom yesterday,” she said as she stood up to leave, fluttering her eyelids mischievously, her facial perspiration the only remainder of a temporary lapse of confidence. “Remember, Jennifer for the statue. I mean, it won’t be like a handoff, but we’ll let you see her being released in real time. On an iPad. If you need to reach me for any reason, call the number that’s written on the hundo. Oh, and have a Bloody Mary or three on me.”