Moonshine: A Novel

by Alaya Johnson

  "Judah," I said, bending so I could see him better, "we're going to walk around. You need to tell me if you recognize anything, okay? If anything seems familiar, you let me know. We're going to try to find your mother for you."

  Judah seemed to consider my words for an overlong moment and then nodded. "My mother is very beautiful. She loves me. I remember that."

  "And your papa?"

  "My papa's gone," he said, very sure.

  God, his voice was so high and innocent. But the notes beneath it were too seductive, pure vampire. If he lived a long time, I suspected that his would be a voice capable of controlling me. But for now, I was safe enough. He didn't know what he was capable of.

  It didn't take us long to circle the neighborhood around Water Street and reach Battery Park, with its clear nighttime view of the South Ferry docks. But Judah responded to the place with the polite interest of a tourist. We were careful to walk near any landmarks he might recognize, but he just shook his head when we asked him if he remembered anything. We'd covered most of the park--and I was wondering if I'd ever feel my fingertips again--when a trash barge pulled into view from the East River. Judah stared at it, mesmerized, as the barge turned to go up the Hudson. Suddenly, it let out a deep bellow, utterly uncanny in the January stillness. I could see how a child might be frightened of that. And, indeed, Judah had turned away from the shoreline and regarded Amir with an expression of incipient panic.

  "Do you recognize that?" Amir asked, and I glared at him. He couldn't even attempt to comfort the boy?

  "It's very loud," Judah said, softly. "It's like a roar."

  I would have comforted him myself then, only I was recalling the strange thing Nicholas had said this afternoon. Something about his papa putting him in a cage with a roaring beast. But it now occurred to me that the deep horn blast of a trash barge could sound very much like an animal with the right acoustics.

  I ran until I reached the edge of the docks and looked down. Sure enough, storm drains here emptied into the water. Could this be Nicholas's cage?

  "Amir," I said, when he and Judah came up behind me, "can you go down there and check for anything suspicious?"

  "Those are storm drains," he said, as though I'd asked him to take a quick trip to the moon.

  "Those storm drains might be where Rinaldo turned Nicholas."

  "I think you might have taken the term 'lair' a little too literally, habibti. He's a vampire, not a mole rat."

  "I didn't say he lived down there. But you must admit sewers would be a safe place to hide your mad child sucker."

  I realized after I said this that Judah was still listening to our exchange. Amir glanced at him. "I'll take you back soon, I promise," he said, with a surprising touch of tenderness.

  This shock only increased when Amir flashed me an indulgent smile and turned into a cloud of vapor. I shrieked. Judah grabbed my hand. The cloud that had been Amir hovered for a moment and then flowed over the side. A moment later, I heard something solid echoing off the concrete.

  I cupped my hands over my mouth. "Are you . . . ah . . ."

  "Dirty? Climbing through sewage? Wasting my time?"

  "Corporeal?"

  I trembled a little at his echoing laugh. "How charming. The vampire suffragette, overcome by a bit of smoke. There's nothing down here, you know. Unless you are interested in rat carcasses. Which I am decidedly not."

  "Does it lead anywhere?"

  "Not unless you can turn to smoke. There used to be a tunnel, but it looks like someone smashed it in. Please tell me--ah." He paused for a moment. "Well, look at that."

  "What? What happened?"

  "I've found something."

  I managed to keep a semblance of calm when the smoke flew back up to the surface and reassembled into a fully clothed Amir. A fully clothed, dirty Amir. He held a wet and brown rag distastefully between two fingers.

  "You brought the sewer sludge with you?"

  "Oh, how quickly she turns critical. That isn't as easy as it looks, my dear."

  "That trick could have saved you some trouble with that vampire I popped."

  "That trick is one I find almost impossible in extremity. Unfortunately for my pride."

  This made me smile, for some reason, and we looked at each other for a moment that might have turned to something else entirely if not for Judah standing quietly by.

  "What is that thing, anyway?"

  "You don't recognize it? Imagine it with a less liberal coating of muck."

  I took a step closer and then gasped. He held a knitted blue mitten--the match for the one Judah had been wearing when I discovered him.

  "They turned him here," I said. "In the storm drain."

  Amir tucked the mitten gently in his pocket. "Looks like it."

  A night guard approached us and so we hurried back onto the streets. "You two should go back," I said. "We can't do anything more to night."

  Amir agreed with me, but Judah was moving ahead of us, toward Whitehall Street. He turned the corner and stopped in the middle of the deserted road. He was staring at the wrought-iron electric lamps that flanked the Whitehall subway station.

  "Yes," he said in a quiet, steady voice, "I know those."

  Subway lights? Amir and I looked at each other. "Do . . . do you think you lived nearby?" I asked.

  "I don't know," he said. It occurred to me that his voice was strangely cultivated, like that of a well-educated child. But what well-educated child would ride the subway enough to recognize its lights in the absence of any other memories? We walked closer to the entrance. On one side there was a small municipal garden. The flower beds and bushes were bare of anything but frozen snow, but something made me pause and walk closer to them. I wasn't much of a botanist, but even I could recognize the thorny, tangled brambles of a rosebush. And I could imagine how, in the height of their spring bloom, the scent would be redolent enough to stay in the memory of even an amnesiac vampire.

  "Zephyr?"

  I turned to Amir. "These are rosebushes. We must be near Judah's mother."

  The feeling of success was a better bracer than a strong cup of coffee. I hopped and dashed down the steep steps to the subway station. The teller's booth was closed at this time of night, but the station wasn't quite empty: a poor indigent had made himself comfortable at the foot of the staircase. He had the distinctive smell of a man forced to wear the same winter clothes for months on end without recourse to a bath, with an undertone of something sharp and rotten. I thought I'd grown accustomed to strong smells from my time in the soup kitchen, but this went a step beyond even that. I thought he was sleeping, but he opened his eyes as soon as we approached.

  I fumbled in my pockets for some coins, but Amir rolled his eyes and put a hand on my shoulder. "Do you recognize this boy?" he asked. The indigent apparently recognized a danger when he saw one, because he attempted to sit up. He seemed drunk, actually, which was strange because alcohol was the one smell that didn't waft to my nose. As soon as he saw Judah, he crossed himself and pressed his back into the wall behind him.

  "Christ almighty, what'd you do to him? My blood's no good, I swear, I've spoiled it."

  Amir raised his eyebrows. "Spoiled it? What, you forgot to put it in the ice box?"

  "Alcohol, ashamed to say, sir. Distilled brandy, straight to the vein. Get the shots from one of Rinaldo's fellas."

  He helpfully rolled up his odiferous sleeve in order to give us a better view of the yellowing injection sites all along the major vein in his arm. I held my breath and struggled not to gag. I'd seen a lot in my time in this city, but there were always further depths. This man probably wouldn't survive the winter.

  "Okay, we understand," I said, voice nasal from breathing through my mouth. "But you recognize this boy?"

  "Boy?" His laugh caught in his throat and turned into a sickly hack. "If that's a boy, you're Jimmy Walker. Someone's gone and turned him."

  "But who was he before? Did you know his mother?"

  His e
yes softened a little. "Oh, of course. Lovely lady. Haven't seen her but once this past week. Eyes red like she'd been crying. Gave me two dollars for no reason at all. Shame this had to happen to her boy."

  Amir and I looked at each other with guarded excitement.

  "Do you know her name?" he asked. "Can you tell us what she looked like?"

  The indigent narrowed his watery eyes. "Why? So you can give her that . . . thing? You should stake him and leave her in peace. Beautiful woman."

  Brilliant. I'd really had enough of this. I fished two silver dollars from my pocket and dangled them in front of his nose. "This is yours if you help us. Clear enough?"

  He looked between me and Amir. "You know, it just wouldn't be right . . ."

  Amir, with delightful casualness, allowed a delicate stream of sulfur smoke to flow from his ears. The indigent's eyes widened.

  "Now," said Amir, "why don't you tell us what you know."

  "Never heard her name, I swear. Just saw her and the boy. They'd ride some mornings. She always looked a little posh for the subway, but you know what they say about traffic in the city nowadays." He laughed nervously, and wiped beads of greasy sweat from his forehead. "Brown hair. Long and proper, you know. Thirty, maybe thirty-five. Light brown eyes."

  Now we were getting somewhere. "Does she live around here?" I asked.

  He frowned. "Now, that's the thing. I don't really know. I never saw her leave the station. They were just here, and then . . . gone."

  "You mean they disappeared?"

  "No, no. They'd go over there." He pointed to where the platform continued for a few yards into the dark subway tunnel. He tried to snatch the coins from my hand. "I swear, that's all I know. Leave a poor fella alone, won't you? I need some sleep."

  Amir shrugged, and I let the coins drop. "If you see her again, tell her to visit the Lower East Side Citizen's Council and leave a message for Zephyr Hollis about her son."

  I almost winced to give my name, but to my eternal plea sure, he didn't recognize me. Perhaps I didn't need to move to the Yukon after all.

  The man watched us warily until we reached the staircase. "You should stake that boy," he called, after we were out of range of his smell. "That sort of thing's illegal and you know it."

  To our surprise, Judah paused and turned toward the man. "I wouldn't want your blood, anyway," he said, in a clear, carrying voice. "You smell, and I'm a good vampire."

  A good vampire?

  "Did you tell him that?" I whispered to Amir, when we left the station.

  He shrugged and shook his head. "Maybe Kardal's been at him. Wouldn't surprise me, moral bastard."

  In the distance I heard the sound of snickering and a sudden tinkle of broken glass. There must be a few speakeasies around here, and I wondered how many of them already were serving the new vampire wonder-drug. My jaw cracked with a yawn and Amir turned to me, as though shocked to remember that I was human. He held my hand and Judah's shoulder, and teleported us to the front of my building. The sensation felt like no more than an unpleasant jolt, now. And certainly easier than bicycling or taking the subway. The street was dead silent, but I was oppressively aware of glints in open windows up and down the block. It seemed the vigilante spirit had spread from Catherine Lane. And what if they recognized what Judah was? I shuddered.

  "Take him back, Amir. Everyone's too keyed-up about Faust--there's no telling what they'll do if they see . . ."

  He understood. "Careful," he said. "I'll find you tomorrow." He embraced me and planted a quick, fiery kiss on my forehead. He and Judah walked down the block until they were hidden in a puddle of shadow, and disappeared.

  I pushed open the door to the bedroom quietly, but Aileen was still awake. She perched on the windowsill, chain-smoking in her oversized teddy and nylon-hose turban. Her hands were shaking.

  "You're going to kill yourself, you keep up like this," she said. "Amir must know how dangerous what you're doing is. I don't trust him, Zephyr."

  "Is that a . . ."

  She shook her head and stubbed out a cigarette. "No, not a vision. Just run-of-the-mill concern." She cracked open the window and tipped out the bowl of butts and ashes. "So you believe me, then?"

  I was so exhausted I thought I might faint where I stood. Aileen looked nearly as bad. The shadows under her eyes were almost black in the moonlight. "They haven't stopped?" I asked.

  Aileen shrugged. "I feel like a radio for the other side. Smoking seems to stop them."

  "Poor Aileen," I whispered. I hugged her tightly and waited until she could let go and cry. I couldn't have imagined a more horrible thing to happen to her. "We'll figure this out," I said. "There have to be ways to control the visions."

  "But you thought I was just hungry, this morning. What happened?"

  I sighed. "The thing outside the door last night? It wasn't just a stray cat. It was a revenant. You shouldn't have known it was an Other. I didn't want to believe it, but . . ."

  Aileen pulled herself away from my shoulder. "Zeph, what was a revenant cat doing outside our door?"

  I bit my lip, but I didn't have the energy to lie. "A threat," I said, "from our favorite gangster."

  Aileen hiccupped and then laughed as she blew her nose into a handkerchief. "And I thought I had problems!"

  CHAPTER SIX

  Aileen and I woke up an hour before dawn to the sounds of shotguns echoing down the street. Aileen fell off her bed. I struggled up on one elbow and squinted at the window.

  The next round of gunshots sounded like cannon fire from beneath our beds. Aileen moaned.

  "This is getting ridiculous," I muttered. I stalked to the window and pushed it open. The icy wind blew in immediately, cutting through my flannel nightgown.

  "Zeph, what are you--"

  I grit my teeth and leaned out of the window. "Will you stop it?" I hollered, cupping my hands around my mouth. "This is not the bleeding O.K. Corral! It's Ludlow Street, and I'd like to go to work without getting shot!"

  Aileen yanked me back inside by the arm and shut our window. "Are you barmy, Zeph? Don't answer that. Ugh, it's freezing."

  We both tried to get an extra twenty minutes of sleep, but as soon as the sun rose the noise of gunshots was replaced by the incessant wail of sirens streaming all over the city. Aileen claimed use of the bathroom first, and I followed her, bleary-eyed and feeling more exhausted than I had when I went to sleep.

  I said good-bye to Aileen and fetched my bicycle from beneath the staircase. Not a few street corners I passed had wary-looking sentinels awkwardly toting rifles. It was enough to make even the most sanguine pedestrian feel like she was taking her life in her hands just by going to work. The tensions were even higher around St. Marks, which held more than its fair share of gin joints. The streets were surprisingly empty, and the few people who had dared to go outside huddled under their hats and scarves and refused to acknowledge anyone as they hurried past.

  I heard the commotion outside the Blood Bank before I saw it. It sounded like a prize fight in the tenth round--boisterous, dangerous and full of illicit, disturbing fun. More than a dozen vampires, already blistering red in the weak dawn sun, had smashed the front windows of the Bank with some loose bricks, and appeared to be raiding the stores. They huddled in the shadow of the westward-facing building, laughing drunkenly and guzzling the plastic bags of hard-won blood as carelessly as bottles of pop at a carnival. I looked for the golem and saw it lying among the broken glass. They had torn its squat torso in two, but the animated halves still flailed weakly against the pavement. A small crowd of onlookers stood on the edge of the block--some watching, some pleading with them to stop. The vampires weren't paying them the slightest attention. I let my bicycle drop to the sidewalk and sprinted forward.

  "Ysabel?" I shouted.

  She didn't respond, but I saw her a moment later. She was at the front, being restrained by her husband and a young man I recognized as one of her collection agents. She let forth a string of Yiddish I didn't un
derstand but gathered wasn't entirely suitable for polite company. I pushed my way through the crowd and put my hand on her shoulder. She turned to me, a wild grimace on her face, and I flinched. She was weeping in her rage.

  "Oh, Zephyr, bubbala, look at them! All our supplies . . ."

  "Fellas!" One of the raiding vampires hurled a crate of blood out of the broken window. It smashed apart on the sidewalk, spilling blood bags. "Found the good stuff. It's all M."

  They all rushed toward it, discarding what were, in some cases, nearly full bags of blood. I wanted to cry when I saw the precious red liquid seeping uselessly into the cobblestones.

  "You demons!" Ysabel shrieked. "How can you do this? How can you waste so much! It's not for you!"

  One of the raiding vampires, an older woman, finally deigned to notice her. "Hey, Grandma, you want some?" She squeezed a bag between her hands, splattering our faces and clothes with the dark-red preserved blood. Ysabel sank to her knees.

  "That's it," I muttered. I headed toward them at a brisk walk, unsheathing my knife from beneath my skirt. They didn't pay me much attention. Not until I launched myself at the wide-eyed vampire who had taunted Ysabel. She crumpled beneath me--Faust evidently made vampires clumsy, in addition to reckless. I held the silver knife to her throat, smelled the distinctive scent of charring vampire flesh, and smiled.

  "Let go of the damn blood," I said.

  I thought I sounded eminently calm and reasonable, but apparently her fellows finally saw someone worth noticing. Their laughter died in their throats, and they stared at me in drunken shock. Suddenly the only sounds to break the silence were the strangled gurgles of the unfortunate woman beneath my blessed blade.

  "You want her to die?" I said, when it appeared that they didn't quite grasp the point.