Bleak History

by John Shirley

  “I noticed Joni Mitchell on the record player. Very talented. Never could get into her. I'm more about Polly Jean Harvey.”

  The cats walked over to him and rubbed against his legs. He smiled. “Animals usually like me.” He squatted, to pet the cats with his left hand. Her gun was held loosely in Bleak's right hand. Mongy, the traitor, purred. “In fact they always like me.”

  I could jump him, she thought. I could take one step, brace my left foot, kick him on the point of his chin, grab the gun as he goes back.

  But she had read his file. His experience in hand-to-hand combat was undoubted; his alertness was a kind of charge that crackled the air around him.

  She decided against it and said, “You routinely break into people's homes? Women alone—that a big thing with you?”

  He scratched Mongy under the jaw. “You routinely set up people trying to arrest drug dealers? That a big thing with you? You know I had to shoot that man dead?” He shook his head. “I figure Gandalf was along because it would have looked suspicious if she'd been there alone. And I figure he was supposed to surrender to me, and I'd have been burdened with those two when I took them out of the building, and your people would have closed in and I'd have been pretty hard-pressed to stop them. But you didn't figure on how paranoid he'd get after he tweaked out in that apartment. You can't count on drugged-up people to be your happy little puppets, Agent Sarikosca.” He stood up, looked at her thoughtfully, tossed the gun to his left hand, back to his right. “I hadn't killed anyone since the Rangers. Seeing people die when it's not my doing—that doesn't bother me much. Saw someone shot dead by a cop just the other day. Saw worse about once a week in Afghanistan. But personally stopping someone's path through life, just cutting it off—even an asshole like that...” He shook his head. “I don't like to do it unless I'm forced to. Because of where they're headed, afterwards: to the Wilderness. In the afterlife, right? When you've looked into the Wilderness...” He shook his head.

  “Once you've seen that, you like them to have a chance to get their heads right, in this life. Small as that possibility might be. Now that dumb son of a bitch won't have that chance.”

  What a strange man, she thought, looking at him. Entirely apart from his supernatural abilities. He was angry he'd had to kill Leonard Mearson, the man who'd called himself Gandalf. He shot him in the head and he's angry at me for it.

  The strangeness was in his eyes too. As if they reflected a light that wasn't there.

  And those hands—subtly expressive, gentle with the cats. But he'd used the same hand that was stroking the tabby to shoot a man dead, not much more than an hour ago. And those hands could form orbs of violet fire.

  Loraine made herself look away from him. Feeling some of the uncanny attraction she'd felt, on the roof. Remembering the shock of contact when she'd watched him on the surveillance video.

  The feelings he conjured in her, just by being there, made it hard to come up with the right course of action. A course she needed badly right now.

  “Someone probably saw you coming in here,” she said, glancing past him. “They'll call the cops.”

  He shook his head. Completely unworried. “I was careful.”

  “And—the man you shot wasn't my 'puppet.' His real name was Mearson. And he...none of that was my plan. I was informed they'd set up a kind of sting to lure you to a particular address. And I was asked to help.”

  “You weren't much help, though, were you?” He smiled, a relaxed smile...but again she had to look away.

  “I was supposed to...to interface with you after they got you. They were going to surround you, make you surrender. Or, after the tranquilizer darts.... After you woke up.” He chuckled. “Tranquilizer darts. Like a wild animal.”

  “You're operating like a wild animal,” she said suddenly. “Breaking in here. And you talk about a wilderness—you're in one out there, playing with that power. You people—you should be working for your country.”

  “What happens to people like me who do work for CCA, Agent Sarikosca?” He wasn't looking at her. He was opening the cylinder of her .38. His confidence was irritating.

  Bleak emptied the bullets from the gun so they clattered onto the floor. Mongy and Festus started batting the bullets around.

  He took a pair of needle-nose pliers from his pocket.

  She stared. Was he going to use those pliers on her?

  He used them to pull the firing pin from her gun.

  “That's the second perfectly good gun that you've ruined,” she said.

  “You can put the firing pin back in later. And you didn't answer my question, about what happens to ShadowComm people who work for you? We generally never hear from them again.” “ I... that' s classified.”

  “Things are classified because they're embarrassing to someone.” Bleak put the firing pin and the pliers in his pocket and tossed her gun onto the bed beside her purse. “Now, we're going to meet some people. The kind you want to recruit. You and me.”

  “You're taking me out of here? You're abducting me?”

  He shrugged. “Your people are looking for me anyway. I don't have much to lose if I...abduct you.”

  “What if I don't want to go?” Loraine demanded. “What if I scream, throw things through the window?”

  “I'm armed, and I've got this too.” He formed an energy bullet in his hand, let it glow there for a moment, then closed his hand on it, extinguishing it. When he opened his hand, it was gone.

  “And you'd—what? Throw that little ball of light at me and...set my hair on fire? Burn me with it?” Loraine shook her head. “I don't think you'd hurt me, Bleak. Not unless it was self-defense.” She felt sure of it. But she had no clue how she knew.

  Bleak grunted. “You're right. I guess I wouldn't hurt you. But...there are other ways.” He smiledas broadly and spread his hands. “I have 'magic powers,' you remember.”

  Play along, she thought. Go with him. This was a CCA opportunity.

  That was the reason, wasn't it, she wanted to go with him? It had nothing to do with the way her pulse raced when he looked at her.

  He held her gaze steadily. “You know about a guy named Coster?”

  Loraine shrugged. Not wanting to react to the name. “Just that—he used to work for us.”

  “He's not working for you now?”

  “If he was, I wouldn't tell you.” She'd heard there was more than one track for luring Bleak. Coster was the other one.

  She stood up. “Okay, tough guy, let's go. Maybe—we can negotiate something along the way.” “Negotiate what? My surrender?” He seemed amused. “It wouldn't be surrender. It'd be recruitment.”

  “Your recruitment is worse than the army's. And that's going some. You guys have stop-loss?” He chuckled. “Okay, let's go.”

  As if they understood him, the cats set up a desperate meowing. “Oh, okay, sure,” Bleak told the cats. “We'll feed you first.”

  ***

  IT WAS JUST SHADING from dusk to darkness. The warm air of the new summer night was like a blanket draped over their shoulders. A blanket they shared.

  “So you think we're the oppressive fist of the regime and you're the innocent artists of the supernatural?” Loraine said drily, as they walked down her tree-lined street in Brooklyn Heights. They'd fed the cats, Bleak seeming to take pleasure in spooning out the cat food for them himself.

  “Things are rarely so simple,” Bleak said, with a wintry smile. “But, yeah—that's the main idea.”

  She had her purse on a strap over her right shoulder. Bleak was striding along on her left. She could slip her hand in the purse, trigger the “find me” homing beeper she'd been given in case of emergency. But if she did that, the agency would come in force—and she suspected this little trek with Bleak was an opportunity she'd never have again. A chance to peer into the Shadow Community. They might get Bleak, but they might lose a lot more.

  Still, he'd broken into her place, and that pissed her off. She stopped. He took another st
ep, then turned to look at her.

  “Bleak—you've got your own gun with you. If you're going to shoot me, best shoot me now.” “Do I have to?” He made a tsk sound. “Seems like a waste.” “Of a good bullet?”

  “Of a good woman. Better than you know.”

  She snorted. “Oh, thanks, I'll put it on my resume. Bleak, I mean it—if you're going to try to abduct me, you'll have to shoot me first. But I'm not in the mood to just stand here and passively let you kidnap me. If I go with you, it's got to be my choice.”

  He surprised her by laughing. “Okay! You're not abducted! You called my bluff!” He gestured like an old-time aristocrat, rolling his hand magnanimously. “You want to go home, go! You want to call the police or your agency, do it, and I'll split.” He paused, looking at her more solemnly. “But I'm hoping you won't do that. I think you should come with me. Without telling anyone about it. There are people for you to meet. You want to learn about us—that's part of your job. So maybe that's what you should do. It makes no sense for me to take you with me. But that's the plan.”

  “Making no sense is the plan?”

  “There, see, you've got me figured out. In a way, making no sense is the plan. I'm hoping you'll see we can be trusted with our freedom. Maybe...maybe...in exchange, we can help your agency. Depending on what you want from us. Working with you people...ah, man. We've got mixed feelings. Tell me something.” He looked at her with a probing curiosity. He kept his distance—but she felt as if he were touching her face. “You seem...like someone with a conscience. You really feel like you belong at CCA?”

  The question made her angry and ashamed at once. But she had an answer ready. “You ever hear of a man named Troy Gulcher?”

  “Name sounds familiar. Something from the news. A jailbreak?” “That's right. You don't know him from any other context?” “If I did—to quote a certain CCA agent—I wouldn't tell you.”

  “He's one of your kind. Some version, anyway. And he killed a lot of people, using his connection with...with the thing you call the Hidden. He's killed prison guards—people with families. Gulcher created a—” She broke off a moment, at a loss for words. “I couldn't tell from the files what it was...but it comes across as mass demonic possession. People went mad and killed one another. He used that to get away. And he did something else at a casino in Atlantic City—a lot of people there died.” She shook her head. “I don't really understand howthey died. But Troy Gulcher was mixed up in it. And then there was another man who may have been using magic to start a fire, burn down a restaurant—he killed a police officer.”

  “Yeah. The fire imps. I know about him. I didn't know him personally. You coming with me or not? We can talk about it on the way.”

  She hesitated. But she couldn't let the opportunity slip away. “Sure,” she said at last. “Let's go.” They started down the sidewalk again. Crossing the Rubicon, she thought. “Point is, Bleak—how do you rationalize Gulcher? And how about the man who set a cop on fire?”

  Bleak frowned and waved dismissively. “Those people aren't part of ShadowComm—not the groups I know. They're not La'hood. They seem to be something new.”

  “You're claiming your people 'don't use their power for evil'?” Loraine asked skeptically.

  “They're not my people. I can't speak for them. I'm not really a part of their community. We have dealings, the ShadowComm and me—and I've known some of them for a long time. The ones I know aren't into violence. They aren't into misusing their talents. Not in any bigway. Some you might call a bit borderline, but...As for this Gulcher, he was picked up in Atlantic City, right? We had a spiritual blackout there.”

  The phrase spiritual blackout interested her. “What's that, exactly?”

  “Couldn't see there, in the Hidden—like something was covering it up. Some parts especially. So something is hiding that guy from us. Maybe because we're not on the same side as he is.” “You chose a...a side?”

  “Sort of. And sort of not. Neutrality is good. But you don't want to play ball with anything flat- iaa out evil, either. And some things are flat-out evil.”

  They fell silent as he turned left toward a subway entrance, and she went calmly along, matching his pace, as if they were old friends.

  He said, “Well, here's someone I know.” He stopped at a little kiosk next to a newspaper stand. In the kiosk a small, dark, middle-aged woman sold ice cream. She wore a sparkly blue sari and had a little red dot on her forehead and melancholy black eyes. But her eyes lit up when Bleak approached her.

  “Mr. Gabriel!” Her accent was southern India. “How good to see you, I don't see you at Grand Central!”

  “Of course you don't,” he said, smiling. “You moved out of Grand Central.” She shook her head sadly. “Rent was too high for me, there, even so little a shop, that one. But more customers there.”

  “I just happen to be passing through and here you are. Have to have my rocky road. You still got some?”

  “Sure I got some rocky road! One for the lady?”

  Bleak turned to Loraine “You like rocky road? Maybe chocolate-chip mint?” “How'd you know I liked chocolate-chip mint?” “Just a guess. A scoop of each, Sarojin.”

  Sarojin made up two ice cream cones. Bleak paid, dropped $2 into the tip box, and chatted with the woman for several minutes as Loraine ate her ice cream and nervously watched the sky. Some abduction, she thought ruefully.

  After a moment she found herself enjoying the ice cream, enjoying Bleak's company the way someone would enjoy the sound of the sea though only half aware of hearing it.

  Finishing the ice cream, they walked on toward the subway entrance. They ate companionably, and another thought came to her. “Was that woman—one of yours? ShadowComm?”

  He seemed surprised by the question. “No. Just someone I used to buy ice cream from at Grand Central. Kind of a friend of mine.” He stopped halfway down the grime-blackened steps. She paused— just like a regular companion who wondered why the other had stopped—and he dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a folded napkin. “You're getting clown makeup from ice cream. There.”

  They looked at one another for a moment. Then he shrugged and continued down the steps. She went with him.

  Loraine felt a powerful impulse to trust Bleak. But that feeling might have a supernatural cause. He might be using his abilities to influence her in some subtle way. The CCA didn't know the full extent of his power.

  But she didn't really believe he was “influencing” her—not that way. Somehow...she simply trusted him. She felt as if she'd known him for years.

  Maybe, she thought, as they walked up to the machine selling subway cards, it's the other kind of magic.

  Loraine shook her head. I'm being stupid. Like an adolescent girl.

  It occurred to her that after being with Bleak for only a few minutes she'd already found herself breaking CCA regulations: she'd told him about Gulcher. She hadn't told him everything. But still— she'd blurted classified data to Bleak. And she'd broken situation protocol by not using the beeper; not calling for assistance. Why?

  Then she realized that CCA might be coming anyway. Dr. Helman had hinted she was under surveillance. She glanced around—and saw a nondescript van parked nearby, its windows dark. For all she knew they might be sitting in there, watching, right now. A helicopter was flying over—it seemed on its way somewhere. But who knew for sure? It could be them.

  Were there listening devices in her apartment? They could have heard some of the conversation she'd had with Bleak.

  General Forsythe liked to project cheery comradeship. But she didn't trust him—and she knew Forsythe didn't trust her. That beeper in her purse itself might be something more. It had been issued to her in-house. They could be using it to listen to her right now.

  Loraine made up her mind. She took the beeper out of her purse and dropped it into a trash can.

  After they'd walked on a few more steps, she said, “Bleak—we'd better get into the subway—and get out
of the area fast.” She was a little amazed at herself for saying it. “I mean...really fast. Otherwise...this trip could end up taking you someplace you weren't expecting to go.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  That same night. Upstate New York. Special Facility 23.

  “It's almost a sad thing, really,” General Forsythe was saying, as he and Gulcher walked ahead of the six black berets, the armed guards escorting them into the big, square, concrete courtyard. Their footsteps echoed in the hard-edged, empty space. He didn't immediately explain what was “sad, really.”

  It was a warm summer evening, gnats and mosquitoes buzzing in the open air above their heads, but there was something chilly about this half acre of courtyard. The high, floodlit concrete walls seemed to suck up the warmth. The glare from the blue-white lights blotted out the stars. The night sky was like a black ceiling.

  The courtyard was part of a sprawling, gray, obscurely institutional facility that, to Gulcher, had a “black budget” feel to it. Black budget, because driving up here he'd seen no signs, nothing but a number, and a gate, and razor-wire fence. And armed guards. “Sad how the yubes need human beings to do their work in this plane of being,” Forsythe continued. He sounded to Gulcher like he was acting all the time. Reading lines from a script. “But they can't do that much without people, not in this world. Because this is the world principally designed for embodied humans. Sad they're stuck with human beings to work with.”

  “Is that right?” Gulcher never wasted any time thinking about what was sad, and what wasn't. What was boring, what was frustrating—those were his concerns. He had been both bored and frustrated since surrendering to Forsythe. They'd gone to a federal prison overnight, with the whisperer refusing to respond to him the whole time and Gulcher thinking he was in for hard federal time—but this afternoon he'd been escorted in chains to a military-green bus, most of its windows tinted too dark to see through, with these same unspeaking armed guards, and bused fifty miles north to meet Forsythe here. Just him and the silent marine driver and the six guards on that bus.