“Bigger and stronger than a chain.”
Intrigue drew Valdes along behind him. The giant boarded a subway car that immediately cleared as people saw him. The lights flickered, dimmed, and settled into brownout mode.
Whoever Mister Fizz is, Valdes thought, considering the giant, he’s certainly found an impressive messenger.
They rode the subway across the Brooklyn Bridge to 8th Street, where the giant got off and waited for the platform to clear before speaking. “Go upstairs, across the street to the bookstore. I’ll wait for you here.” He started towards the end of the station away from the exit, where only the blackness of the tunnel waited.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?” Valdes asked.
“Mister Fizz said you’ll know it. If you see it.”
Valdes crossed Broadway against the traffic and looked in a window from the dark. The bookstore was crammed into a space that had probably been everything from a liquor warehouse to an apartment building in its lifetime. Nothing made the store either stand out in his mind or jog any memories, so he stood, thinking. Absolutely nothing suggested what he ought to be looking for, nor what to do once he found it. He strolled around the store, riding the escalator to the upper floor and taking the stairs back down.
“Denial is an evolutionary dead-end”…
An employee rolled a cart of books down a narrow aisle, looking for the spots on shelves where they belonged. Valdes paused to let her pass. “Psychology and Self-Help” books were in front of him. On the shelf at his exact eye level, amidst brightly colored trade paperback spines with titles exhorting every way to change your life, he saw a leather book. Its cover was the dark purple of midnight in a graveyard. The girl paused next to him, clucked her tongue and shuffled books like a Vegas card dealer, creating a rainbow of homogenous spines. As she moved off, Valdes noted that she hadn’t touched the leather book. He slipped a finger over the top and leaned it out so he could remove it.
It resembled a ledger or journal, not contemporary but not ancient, nondescript enough to have come from almost any period of human history where bookbinding existed. The leather was visibly textured and warm to the touch, like skin. Valdes held it in his hands. It had some heft for its size. The title, Vade Mecum Flagellum Dei, was visible only when he tilted it away from the light.
Suddenly, inexplicably, dizziness skewed his vision. He felt a great surge, a supercharging burst of energy that made him think he could conquer the world. Eagerly he flipped through the book. Words and diagrams seemed to fill the pages, but only in his peripheral vision. When he looked directly at it, all he saw was white, empty paper.
Hmm.
He made his way down to the counter. Grabbing the first thing he saw, a “Word of the Day” calendar that was eighty percent off, he went to the cashier and set it, and the book, on the counter.
“Find everything you need today?” the cashier chirped.
Valdes considered the book, lying innocuously on the counter. “I think so.”
She smiled and slid the calendar under her price scanner. “One-ninety-nine.”
He waited, nudging the book towards her. Her blank smile remained.
“One ninety-nine?” she repeated.
He gave her two singles and picked up the calendar and the book. “Keep the change.” He had a moment of concern that he’d set off the anti-theft electronics as he left, but no telltale shrieking alerted the staff that he was taking the black book with him.
At the subway station, he discovered he’d given the bookstore clerk his last two dollars. Without pause he smoothly stepped around the turnstile arm. An old woman saw this, and she shuffled behind him to the end of the platform. She wore a plastic kerchief and a scowl.
“You can’t do that! You have to pay like everyone else! I’ll call a cop!”
The book tingled in his grasp. Valdes glanced around. No one else waited in the station. The lights of an oncoming train brightened the tunnel. Silhouetted against one wall, the giant waited. Valdes looked at him, then at the book.
“No, you won’t.”
He thrust the old woman off the platform.
She shrieked as she flew across the tracks and hit the third rail. Enough electricity to power a train shot through her. The train front slammed her to the wooden track ties, its weight grinding her burning flesh into the filth. Valdes watched, fascinated, until the screech of brakes jolted him back to the moment. He blinked dizziness away and looked at the book, then at the end of the platform. Inertia carried the last car into the station, leaving space for him to jump down onto the tracks and join the giant in the darkness.
He followed the monstrous shadow through subway tunnels, eventually climbing onto another platform and riding the C train north. It was raining outside now, and frigid water flowed down into the stations through grates and cracks in the walls. None of it washed things clean; the underbelly of the city now glistened with slime.
Valdes gripped the book tighter. The adrenaline rush from pushing the old woman in front of the train hadn’t subsided. He inhaled, a deep, trembling breath. Cold took root in him, anesthetizing guilt and doubt while his brain tried to process what he was experiencing. In prison he’d come across addicts of every substance. All those in recovery had described a “moment of clarity,” where a Higher Power caused the scales to fall from their eyes and they finally accepted their situations, warts and all. Such perspective allowed addicts an understanding of their lives and places in the world: where they were, how they’d gotten there, what it would take to get them where they wanted to be.
For a moment of clarity, this one is muddy, he thought. I’m not really a murderer…
(Denial is an evolutionary dead end.)
He riffled through the pages of the book. They looked as they had in the store, with writing visible only in his periphery. Frustration bubbled into rage, which curdled into nausea when he thought about the old woman. The nausea churned back into rage at the men who had forced him into a position where he had to do something so vile.
He followed the giant off the C train on the Upper West Side, at 103rd Street. More tunnels—Valdes had had no idea the extent of Manhattan’s subterranean passages—led them to a ragged opening in a wall. Beyond it was darkness as thick as syrup.
“Bigger and stronger than a wall.”
Valdes watched Coeus flick a lighter and hold it to a wad of newspapers tied to a stick. Using this makeshift torch, the giant started inside.
Whatever building they entered had obviously been abandoned for years, if in fact it had ever been fully constructed: the walls down here were made of bare concrete that had never felt the touch of a paintbrush. The smell of urine was strong from every corner, as though the territory had been marked. Stagnant water puddled around the uneven floor. Gnawed bones strewn about suggested that if this was where the giant had taken up residence, he had a healthy appetite. Valdes wondered if the remains were animal or human. I’ll grind your bones to make my bread.
“You gotta come this way.”
Carrying the torch, the giant led him to another room on the same level. They passed a crumbling concrete staircase on the way. Valdes wondered where it led, and where they were. “What’s your name?”
The giant regarded him warily. “Whuh?”
“You know who I am. What’s your name?”
The giant stared at him. Valdes somehow sensed that, in spite of the sunglasses, the giant could see right through him. “Now my name is Coeus.”
“Excuse me?”
“Coeus. Coe-ee-yus,” he pronounced slowly and deliberately. “Ha-ha-ha-ha. I kill people with fear.”
“You don’t say… Where are we going, Coeus? To meet Mister Fizz?”
“Maybe.” The giant shoulders moved. “You don’t choose when—he does.” He walked a few steps further, until the light revealed another room. He handed Valdes the torch. “You got a couple of candles in here, and you can make a fire if you get cold.”
“Where
are you going? Don’t you want the light?”
“I don’t need it. I’m not afraid of the dark.”
***
Who says you can’t go home again?
Valdes sat alone with the book, his back to one cold stone wall, listening to the occasional rumble of passing trains. Candle wax sputtered and dripped.
All those years, all that pulling myself up by my bootstraps, and here I sit, on piss-soaked concrete. Welcome back.
He chuckled.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
His laughed at his situation, a sound which took on an edge as he replayed the scene with the old woman in his mind. When he pictured her head bursting aflame like a matchstick he rolled onto his side, tears spilling down his cheeks. Hysteria rose in his tone. He recalled the sound her brittle old bones had made when the train struck her, sticks snapping in a bonfire. He laughed until his face ached, and when the madness subsided he was left with one reassuring thought:
It wasn’t my fault.
Gasping for breath in the foul dankness, he sat upright.
I could have made Christian Yeoman’s Association an international force for good. All Paolo and the others had to do was stay out of my way. I never intended to keep the money. I would have bought the pictures, used the information to clear any opposition, and returned every cent. But they ruined everything!
Hot rage suddenly swept through him, and Valdes howled. He threw the book at the candles, knocking them over, plunging the room into utter blackness. He shouted and pounded the floor, his fury at losing the last fifteen years of his life enflaming the anger he felt towards the four men who had been his friends until the moment they turned him over to the Justice Department investigators.
I could have done anything!
He ranted and raved, his voice shaking the walls. “I would have made us all princes! They screwed me out of my life and now they barely know who I am? I’m Cornelius Valdes! I dragged myself out of the worst layer of shit in this city and they threw me back down! I won’t stand for this!” His voice dropped to a growl, and he remembered what Coeus had said to him. “I’ll make them really pay!”
A cold wind tickled his skin.
The candles flared to life.
Valdes looked down. The book was lying at his feet. He extended a tentative hand to turn the first page.
Revenge is a universal urge, an integral element of the world, a kind of justice, even. Forgiveness is learned behavior separating us from the natural order. Why should we accept deviation from the intended state of things? Who are others to deny us what is ours? If they do, they must be taught the error of their ways. Methods may vary, but revenge must be exacted. Scales must be balanced, equilibrium restored. Taking pleasure in this is not unnatural, it’s humanity acting with nature. We know it’s right because it feels so. Those who seek to deny us our desire are the antithesis of who and what we are, what we strive to be. They must be overcome, in a way that their removal is useful in the grander scheme.
In our ascent to greatness, are there better stepping stones than the bodies of our enemies?
It was fascinating, powerful material whose astonishing applicability to his own life sparked hesitation within him. Is this some kind of joke? Unable to stop, he read on:
Ancient Egyptians believed thirteen to be the number of rungs on the ladder of knowledge bridging our world and the next, with the thirteenth giving access to heaven. They were right, in a manner of speaking: thirteen is the path to the highest knowledge of power. The association of bad luck is a Christian contribution; at the Last Supper, there were twelve at the table until joined by Judas Iscariot. Far from bad luck, this is actually a valuable point: if it can be accessed, the thirteenth changes the course of history.
“The thirteenth? What does that mean?” Valdes frowned. “Accessed how?” He turned the page. Facing him were two words made sinister by the flickering candles:
“Resurrectus Maledicat”
Eagerly, he turned the page and started to read…
***
The ritual killings uncovered in him a brutality he wouldn’t have suspected was there. Fifteen years of prison life hadn’t driven him this far along the darkest path of his soul, but one night with the book changed everything. He’d always believed building a network for charitable donations, creating a system to help this lowest caste from which he himself had risen, had fostered goodness and kindness within him. To discover such a new, radical perspective was sometimes daunting. He sought refuge in the writings of occult practitioners like LaVey and Crowley, men who had also chosen the path of desire. He buried himself in the planning of the sacrifices, each one a complex mix of timing and daring. Always the book was there, inexplicably guiding him to the right choices. March became April became May and his frozen pile of limbs and organs grew. As it did, he came to truly understand that he’d made the right choice by following the giant that night.
Mister Fizz.
Valdes chuckled at the childish misinterpretation of the name he’d deduced. He lit another cigarette and thought about the ritual’s next step.
***
The following Thursday, Donovan was working the service end of Polaris’s bar. Thursday was always busy; in addition to the usual pre-theater reservations and tourists, Thursday is the night Manhattan people go out before the weekend bridge and tunnel mobs cross into the city from New Jersey and the outer boroughs.
The crowd was three deep. Donovan was pouring a glass of meritage with one hand and shaking a stainless steel cup full of cosmopolitans with the other as waiter tickets came clicking up from the printer. It was backbreaking work in an environment one notch above feeding time at the zoo, but he barely noticed the chaos. Shouts for single malt scotch and house specialty cocktails—even the ones made with cucumber or elderflower liqueur—were laughably mundane after his involvement with Fullam’s zodiac murders. Where once he’d plunged fully into the middle of the frenzy, now he felt a strange lethargy.
“Donovan.”
He glanced over his shoulder, startled. The sergeant stood at the bar, his manner clearing a tight but respectful space around him. He hadn’t raised his voice, but still had made himself heard over the din.
“Hey, Frank. What’s going on?”
“You free this weekend?”
“Why?”
Fullam reached into his suit coat and pulled out a paper-clipped set of papers. “Finally got a hit from NCIC on the giant’s prints.”
Donovan’s pulse jumped. “This weekend?”
“Those are from the aquarium. Check out the next page.”
Ignoring a man waving a black Amex card at him, Donovan looked at the first sheet, a set of oversized fingerprints that were rough and smeared at the edges. He flipped the top sheet over and saw a second, smaller set. “‘Montmorency County School System,’” he read from the top of the page. “School system?”
“The hit came from a place in Michigan, Blue Moon Bay. The schools in that county have something called Project ChildSafe; get fingerprints and DNA samples of all school kids in case, well, in case the worst happens. The second set is from a boy named Coletun Ruscht.”
Donovan flipped back and forth between the two, eyes narrowing. He removed the paper clip and set the pages side-by-side on the bar. The noise and crowd fell away as his eyes widened. Except for the size—Coletun’s were about three times smaller—they matched perfectly. He read the age of the child and glanced at the lieutenant.
“Coeus the angry giant is…a nine-year-old boy?”
“First flight is at six-forty-five tomorrow morning.”
Donovan shook his head. “I’m closing tonight. What else do you have?”
“One p.m.?”
Guzman, who had been working the front bar, noticed their interaction and drifted over. Donovan turned to him.
“Can you cover some shifts?”
TEN
BUSINESS TRAVEL
Fullam picked him up at his
apartment the next morning just after eleven.
“Your flight will get into Detroit about three o’clock.” He deftly steered between cars on New Jersey Turnpike, driving as though he had his siren on even though he didn’t. It was the same Crown Victoria in which they’d returned from the aquarium. Donovan hoped this time he’d have better results. “Transfer to a puddle jumper at the private airfield next door to the airport, then fly up to a local airstrip. The sheriff’ll meet you there. His name is Roy Talling.”
“He’s expecting me?”
“I called to let him know you’re coming.”
“What, exactly, am I looking for? A bunch of empty steroid bottles in Coletun’s toy box?”
“Steroids wouldn’t cause a growth spurt like that. I spoke to an endocrinologist at Johns Hopkins about our problem. Could be a tumor on his pituitary gland. There’s also a hormone called ‘IGF1’ that can cause bizarre growth and acromegaly, but they’d never heard of either case creating someone the size of Coeus. Not in less than a year.”
Donovan gazed out a side window. An edge of condensation from the air conditioning fogged one corner. He swiped it away. “Then—again—what am I looking for?”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll know it,” the sergeant said, sliding the Crown Victoria to the curb at Newark Airport’s Terminal C, “when you see it.
“Have a good flight.”
***
Her real name was Paula, but her red hair and jug ears had earned her the nickname “Pixie.” A happy sort in spite of her occasional brushes with the law, her demeanor suggested she was always on the verge of breaking into a song.
She whistled now, making her way along access tunnels somewhere near the bowels of Rockefeller Center. The damp, the stench; these might have discouraged the less hardy. Pixie welcomed them, for they signaled she was nearly home.
Close by, a B train rumbled towards the Upper West Side.
Pixie had spent the previous thirty days as an involuntary guest of a New York State Correctional facility, so the sight of the steel door was a comforting one. She sauntered a few steps closer before realizing it stood ever so slightly ajar. A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows. Aside from the feeling of peace the space provided her, the main reason she’d chosen this spot was its seclusion. Whether it was the depth beneath the streets of Manhattan, or the subway noise, or the thick stone walls, she could sing as loudly as she wanted or have a hundred yowling cats without fear of being rousted. The idea that someone had moved in to squat in her home while she was away drew a frown that she turned upside down when she realized it meant now she might have someone to play checkers with. Grinning ear to ear, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
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