As if reading my mind—and maybe she could—Gold said, “There are choices, Detective. God can’t rescue you every time you make the wrong one. There are consequences, and sometimes the consequences are unpleasant. Sometimes the consequences include death.”
We were silent a moment. Then she asked, “How did you know?”
“Honestly? A leap of faith. Your employment record, for example. You’ve shown up in a lot of different places, but there’s one thing those places all have in common. They have huge Orthodox populations, mostly German and Eastern European. I’ll bet if I looked, there’d be a string of dead kids before you moved on. And there was that pendant, of course. But the clincher?” I took a sip of my bourbon, savoring the burn. “Your shoes. Like I said—no burrs. But they weren’t muddy either, or wet. And then it hit me.”
“What?”
“You didn’t have to walk, and do you know why?” I grinned then, not quite believing I was going to say it until I did. “Because you flew.”
When a body isn’t claimed, the city buries it. Or volunteers: churches, synagogues, charities. So I wasn’t surprised when Jews buried that baby the night before Halloween.
It’s a year later now. October, again. Halloween. A lot of fall color left. The sky is gunmetal gray and the weatherman said rain, so it’ll probably snow.
The cemetery’s quiet. King David, it’s called. There are stones, flowers. I don’t know why I’m here. I stare down at a child’s grave. The stone is new: ben Judah, son of Israel. A date. A tiny Jewish star.
I think about Rachel Gold. And I come back to the two questions I faced now that I faced then: how the hell do you prosecute an angel? How do you know you should even arrest her?
When we walked out of the darkness of that bar a year ago and into the late afternoon sun, Rachel had said, “What will you write in your report?”
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. No one would believe it anyway, and I haven’t got a shred of real evidence.”
The sun glinted off her key. “But you believe.”
“Yes.” I stared down at her a few moments. “You’re leaving.” Not a question.
“Yes. It’s a big world, Detective Saunders. A lot of monsters to hunt.”
I nodded. “Mind if I ask you a question? Why did you stay? You had to know about Adam and Rabbi Dietterich. And the way you’ve left your tracks out there for anyone to see . . . you had to know that, eventually, I’d figure this out.”
For the rest of my life, I will remember how she looked at me then: with great compassion and something very close to love.
“Detective, how do you know that you are not the one for whom I remained?” Then, before I could speak, she stepped forward and spread the fingers of her right hand over my heart, and a surge of emotion flooded my chest so that I had to fight for breath. It was like something had come alive in there and was being pushed, no, forced out—and I knew that when I was alone, I would cry in a way that I hadn’t since I was a small child.
“Wounds of the heart are the most difficult to heal,” she said gently. “There are many monsters, Detective. But there are the angels. We are here. All you need to do is know how to look.”
And then I’d watched her move west, into the light of the setting sun. The light was so brilliant my eyes watered and I had to blink. When I’d opened them again, she was gone.
Since then, well, it’s been a long year. One thing, though: I don’t think about Adam as much, and when I do, I’m not as angry. I’m just sad, and even that’s getting less over time, as if the past is bleaching out of my mind like an old photograph, the kind where people fade into ghosts and then penumbras—and then they’re just gone, with only the suggestion of an outline to show that they’d been there at all. So that’s probably good.
I hear the crunch of gravel. Then, a voice I recognize: “Detective Saunders.”
“Rabbi.” We shake hands. “What brings you here?”
Dietterich’s in his standard uniform: long black coat, the hat. A quizzical look creases his features. “I don’t really know. I visit cemeteries, though. I pay respect. There are so many,” he gestures toward the markers, the flowers, “and never enough time to remember them all. And you?”
“Just thinking. Actually, I was getting ready to leave.”
“Ah.” He nods. We stare at the grave. Then, without looking up, he says, “Whatever happened with that case?”
“We didn’t catch anyone.” That’s about as close to the truth as I can go, even with him—because he was right. There are some things people just aren’t meant to handle.
He looks over, and his eyes are keen. “But you found an answer. You found some measure of peace.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
Dietterich nods. “Did you know that Detective Lennox came to see me a few months before he died?”
I’m genuinely taken aback. “No. Why?”
“I think he wanted to unburden himself, but he couldn’t, or maybe he wouldn’t. He came a few times. We had coffee. Then he just stopped coming, and I didn’t call. Perhaps I should have.”
“Adam had a choice.” It’s taken me a while, but now I can say it. “Adam may have had his monsters, but people have to want the help. They have to want to work at being free.”
Dietterich sighs. “Yes. I see so many people in pain, Detective, more than you can know. Sometimes I think God asks the impossible.”
“A leap of faith?”
“Nothing makes sense otherwise, does it?”
“I guess not.” I stick out my hand. “I should go.”
“Let’s go together.” Dietterich smiles. “We’ll have coffee.”
“I’d like that,” I say, and mean it. “Cop coffee stinks.”
Dietterich laughs. He loops his arm through mine, just like I’ve seen all those Chassids do. “I’ll let you in on a secret. So does Miriam’s.”
We walk toward the entrance. As we step onto the sidewalk, into the world of the living, a sudden bolt of light knifes the clouds. Sun splashes gold upon the walk and touches the leaves with fire.
We walk, together, into the light.
Ilsa J. Bick is a child psychiatrist, as well as a film scholar, surgeon wannabe, former Air Force major, and an award-winning author of dozens of short stories and novels, including the critically acclaimed Draw the Dark; Drowning Instinct; Ashes, the first book in her YA apocalyptic thriller trilogy; and the just-released second volume, Shadows. Forthcoming are The Sin-Eater’s Confession and the last installment in the Ashes Trilogy, Monsters. Ilsa lives with her family and other furry creatures near a Hebrew cemetery in rural Wisconsin. One thing she loves about the neighbors: they’re very quiet and only come around for sugar once in a blue moon. Visit her at www.ilsajbick.com.
The Case: Someone has been killed and the dead man wants to know who and why.
The Investigators: Larry Oblivion—with a name like that what else could he be but a private investigator?—and his partner and ex-lover, Maggie Boniface.
THE NIGHTSIDE, NEEDLESS TO SAY
Simon R. Green
The Nightside is the secret, sick, magical heart of London. A city within a city, where the night never ends and it’s always three o’clock in the morning. Hot neon reflects from rain-slick streets, and dreams go walking in borrowed flesh. You can find pretty much anything in the Nightside, except happy endings. Gods and monsters run confidence tricks, and all desires can be satisfied, if you’re willing to pay the price. Which might be money and might be service, but nearly always ends up meaning your soul. The Nightside, where the sun never shows its face because if it did, someone would probably try to steal it. When you’ve nowhere else to go, the Nightside will take you in. Trust no one, including yourself, and you might get out alive again.
Some of us work there, for our sins. Or absolution, or atonement. It’s that kind of place.
Larry! Larry! What’s wrong?
The sharp, whispered voice pulled me up out of a bad dream; something a
bout running in the rain, running from something awful. I sat up in bed, looked around, and didn’t know where I was. It wasn’t my bedroom. Harsh neon light flickered red and green through the slats of the closed shutters, intermittently revealing a dark dusty room with cheap and nasty furniture. There was nobody else there, but the words still rang in my ears. I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to remember my dream, but it was already fading. I was fully dressed, and there were no bedsheets. I still had my shoes on. I had no idea what day it was.
I got up and turned on the bedside light. The room wasn’t improved by being seen clearly, but at least I knew where I was. An old safe house, in one of the seedier areas of the Nightside. A refuge I hadn’t had to use in years. I still kept up the rent; because you never know when you’re going to need a bolt-hole in a hurry. I turned out my pockets. Everything where it should be, and nothing new to explain what I was doing here. I shook my head slowly, then left the room, heading for the adjoining bathroom. Explanations could wait, until I’d taken care of something that couldn’t.
The bathroom’s bright fluorescent light was harsh and unforgiving as I studied my face in the medicine cabinet mirror. Pale and washed-out, under straw blond hair, good bone structure, and a mouth and eyes that never gave anything away. My hair was a mess, but I didn’t need a shave. I shrugged, dropped my trousers and shorts, and sat down on the porcelain throne. There was a vague uneasy feeling in my bowels and then a sudden lurch as something within made a bid for freedom. I tapped my foot impatiently, listening to a series of splashes. Something bad must have happened, even if I couldn’t remember it. I needed to get out of here and start asking pointed questions of certain people. Someone would know. Someone always knows.
The splashes finally stopped, but something didn’t feel right. I got up, turned around, and looked down into the bowl. It was full of maggots. Curling and twisting and squirming. I made a horrified sound and stumbled backward. My legs tangled in my lowered trousers, and I fell full length on the floor. My head hit the wall hard. It didn’t hurt. I scrambled to my feet, pulled up my shorts and trousers, and backed out of the bathroom, still staring at the toilet.
It was the things that weren’t happening that scared me most. I should have been hyperventilating. My heart should have been hammering in my chest. My face should have been covered in a cold sweat. But when I checked my wrist, then my throat, there wasn’t any pulse. And I wasn’t breathing hard because I wasn’t breathing at all. I couldn’t remember taking a single breath since I woke up. I touched my face with my fingertips, and they both felt cold.
I was dead.
Someone had killed me. I knew that, though I didn’t know how. The maggots suggested I’d been dead for some time. So, who killed me, and why hadn’t I noticed it till now?
My name’s Larry Oblivion, and with a name like that I pretty much had to be a private investigator. Mostly I do corporate work: industrial espionage, checking out backgrounds, helping significant people defect from one organization to another. Big business has always been where the real money is. I don’t do divorce cases, or solve mysteries, and I’ve never even owned a trench coat. I wear Gucci, I make more money than most people ever dream of, and I pack a wand. Don’t snigger. I took the wand in payment for a case involving the Unseelie Court, and I’ve never regretted it. Two feet long, and carved from the spine of a species that never existed in the waking world, the wand could stop time, for everyone except me. More than enough to give me an edge, or a running start. You take all the advantages you can get when you operate in the Nightside. No one else knew I had the wand.
Unless . . . someone had found out and killed me to try and get their hands on it.
I found the coffee maker and fixed myself my usual pick-me-up. Black coffee, steaming hot, and strong enough to jump-start a mummy from its sleep. But when it was ready, I didn’t want it. Apparently the walking dead don’t drink coffee. Damn. I was going to miss that.
Larry! Larry!
I spun round, the words loud in my ear, but still there was no one else in the room. Just a voice, calling my name. For a moment I almost remembered something horrid, then it was gone before I could hold on to it. I scowled, pacing up and down the room to help me think. I was dead, I’d been murdered. So, start with the usual suspects. Who had reason to want me dead? Serious reasons. I had my share of enemies, but that was just the price of doing business. No one murders anyone over business.
No; start with my ex-wife, Donna Tramen. She had reasons to hate me. I fell in love with a client, Margaret Boniface, and left my wife for her. The affair didn’t work out, but Maggie and I remained friends. In fact, we worked so well together I made her a partner in my business. My wife hadn’t talked to me since I moved out, except through her lawyer, but if she was going to kill me, she would have done it long ago. And the amount of money the divorce judge awarded her gave her a lot of good reasons for wanting me alive. As long as the cheques kept coming.
Next up: angry or disappointed clients, where the case hadn’t worked out to everyone’s satisfaction. There were any number of organizations in and out of the Nightside that I’d stolen secrets or personnel from. But none of them would take such things personally. Today’s target might be tomorrow’s client, so everyone stayed polite. I never got involved in the kinds of cases where passions were likely to be raised. No one’s ever made movies about the kind of work I do.
I kept feeling I already knew the answer, but it remained stubbornly out of reach. Perhaps because . . . I didn’t want to remember. I shuddered suddenly, and it wasn’t from the cold. I picked up the phone beside the bed, and called my partner. Maggie picked up on the second ring, as though she’d been waiting for a call.
“Maggie, this is Larry. Listen, you’re not going to believe what’s happened . . . ”
“Larry, you’ve been missing for three days! Where are you?”
Three days . . . A trail could get real cold in three days.
“I’m at the old safe house on Blaiston Street. I think you’d better come and get me.”
“What the hell are you doing there? I didn’t know we still had that place on the books.”
“Just come and get me. I’m in trouble.”
Her voice changed immediately. “What kind of trouble, Larry?”
“Let’s just say . . . I think I’m going to need some of your old expertise, Mama Bones.”
“Don’t use that name on an open line! It’s been a long time since I was a mover and shaker on the voodoo scene, and hopefully most people have forgotten Margaret Boniface was ever involved. I’m clean now. One day at a time, sweet Jesus.”
“You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. I need what you used to know. Get here as fast as you can. And, Maggie, don’t tell anyone where you’re going. We can’t trust anyone but each other.”
She laughed briefly. “Business as usual, in the Nightside.”
I did a lot more pacing and thinking in the half hour it took Maggie to reach Blaiston Street, but I was no wiser at the end of it. My memories stopped abruptly three days ago, with no warning of what was to come. I kept watch on and off through the slats of the window shutters, and was finally rewarded with the sight of Maggie pulling up to the curb in her cherry-red Jaguar. Protective spells sparked briefly around the car as she got out and looked up at my window. Tall and slender, an ice-cool blonde with a buzz cut and a heavy scarlet mouth. She dressed like a diva, walked like a princess, and carried a silver-plated magnum derringer in her purse, next to her aboriginal pointing bone. She had a sharp, incisive mind, and given a few more years experience and the right contacts, she’d be ten times the operative I was. I never told her that, of course. I didn’t want her getting overconfident.
She rapped out our special knock on the door, the one that said yes she had checked, and no, no one had followed her. I let her in, and she checked the room out professionally before turning to kiss my cheek. And then she stopped, and looked at me.
“Lar
ry . . . you look half dead.”
I smiled briefly. “You don’t know the half of it.”
I gave her the bad news, and she took it as well as could be expected. She insisted on checking my lack of a pulse or heartbeat for herself, then stepped back from me and hugged herself tightly. I don’t think she liked the way my cold flesh felt. I tried to make light of what had happened, complaining that my life must have been really dull if neither Heaven nor Hell were interested in claiming me, but neither of us was fooled. In the end, we sat side by side on the bed, and discussed what we should do next in calm, professional voices.
“You’ve no memory at all of being killed?” Maggie said finally.
“No. I’m dead, but not yet departed. Murdered, but still walking around. Which puts me very much in your old territory, oh mistress of the mystic arts.”
“Oh please! So I used to know a little voodoo . . . Practically everyone in my family does. Where we come from, it’s no big thing. And I was never involved in anything like this . . . ”
“Can you help me, or not?”
She scowled. “All right. Let me run a few diagnostics on you.”
“Are we going to have to send out for a chicken?”
“Be quiet, heathen.”
She ran through a series of chants in Old French, lit up some incense, then took off all her clothes and danced around the room for a while. I’d probably have enjoyed it if I hadn’t been dead. The room grew darker, and there was a sense of unseen eyes watching. Shadows moved slowly across the walls, deep disturbing shapes, though there was nothing in the room to cast them. And then Maggie stopped dancing, and stood facing me, breathing hard, sweat running down her bare body.
“Did you feel anything then?” she said.
“No. Was I supposed to?”
Maggie shrugged briefly and put her clothes back on in a businesslike way. The shadows and the sense of being watched were gone.
“You’ve been dead for three days,” said Maggie. “Someone killed you, then held your spirit in your dead body. There’s a rider spell attached, to give you the appearance of normality, but inside you’re already rotting. Hence the maggots.”
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