"I made my choice a long time ago. Save your talk of redemption for someone who deserves it."
His eyes danced with mischievous cheer. "Like, perhaps, the MacNeil girl?"
"So that's what this is about."
"Again you persist in this fruitless quest for understanding."
"Yeah," I said, "I'm funny that way." Then my brain played a little connect-the-dots and I flashed the angel a rueful smile. "The guys in the Crown Vic this morning – they were your boys, weren't they?"
"An unfortunate misunderstanding," the angel replied. "I was laboring under the misapprehension that you were willingly subverting the ancient balance, and I reacted accordingly. Now I understand that your intentions are pure, and that you've simply been misled."
"So what – you're here to scare me straight?"
"I'm not here to scare anybody, Collector. I'm simply here to remind you that this détente of ours has lasted for millennia, and it has done so because the balance has always been carefully maintained – by those like me, as well as those like you. I would be loathe to see anything disrupt that balance – the results would be catastrophic."
"And if the girl is innocent?"
"Not a soul among us is innocent," he replied, "but of course that is not what you mean. You might be surprised to know your concerns have not fallen on deaf ears. I've looked into the matter myself, and I've been assured that she is anything but. To put it plainly, she's been deceiving you."
"I don't accept that."
"Whether you accept it or not is immaterial. The girl's collection is inevitable. If you truly care for her, the best thing you could do is collect her yourself. If you fail, they'll send another, and I doubt that Collector will share in your compunctions. You could spare her a world of pain with a simple act of mercy – and in the process, spare this world a war the likes of which it's never seen."
The angel gestured toward the cell door. It slid open as if of its own accord.
"So you're just going to let me go?" I asked.
"Yes."
"And what about the cops? They're going to wonder where the hell I went."
"I assure you, they'll remember nothing of this. It's best that way, don't you think?"
"You have to know I still mean not to take her."
"I have faith that when the time comes, you'll do what's right."
What's right – sure. I untied my shirtsleeve from the bed frame and slipped on the shirt. The angel conjured a business card from thin air, extending it to me. "If ever you need assistance," he said, "don't hesitate to give me a call."
I glanced at the card. It was a white so bright it seemed illuminated from within. On it was no number, no address, just a single embossed word, printed black as moonless night: So'enel.
"Thanks," I said, tucking the card into my pocket. Then I shuffled out of the cell block and through the oddly silent precinct house, fetching back my belt and laces from the abandoned guard's desk along the way. Outside, the sidewalk was flush with foot traffic, folks in business suits headed home from work.
With a glance back to be sure I wasn't followed, I descended the steps of the precinct house, disappearing into the crowd.
11.
Night had settled over the city by the time I made my way to the park. I was relieved for the anonymity the darkness afforded, but I didn't relish the prospect of tracking Kate and Anders down in it. At just a single city block, Chelsea Park wasn't a ton of ground to cover, but when you've got an angry horde of demons on your tail, you don't feel too compelled to stray from the cold comfort of the sodium-vapor lights and into the shadows beyond – missing girl or no.
Twice I wandered the perimeter of the grounds – up Ninth to Twenty-eighth, then over to Tenth and back down to Twenty-seventh – but Kate was nowhere to be seen. I hopped the low metal fence-rail and cut across the grounds. At this late hour, the park was devoid of patrons, with the exception of the derelicts who took refuge beneath her trees and sought comfort on her benches. As I wandered the footpaths beneath the canopy of leaves, I shivered. Sheltered as it was from the stone and brick and glass of the city, which seemed to radiate the sun's heat for hours into the night, it was colder here – achingly so. I shoved my hands into my pockets and pressed on, hoping against hope that I would turn the corner and find them there, waiting.
Eventually, my head caught on to what my gut had known all along: Kate and Anders were gone. The thought of Kate wandering the city with just a mental case with a bowie knife to protect her made my stomach lurch. I mean, Anders was a good kid, but what the hell was he gonna do if they came across another Collector, sent to do what I wouldn't? And if she were taken, what then? Apocalypse?
All of which meant there was no plan B: I had to find them first.
"Hey, pal, you got a smoke?"
He was huddled under a tree at the edge of a basketball court. With his matted gray beard and his ratty, timeworn clothes, he nearly disappeared into the gloom.
I patted my pockets reflexively, but of course I didn't have any. Whatever Flynn here had in his pockets when I snatched him had been confiscated before I ever came to.
"Sorry," I replied. "I wish I did."
"How 'bout a little cash, then?"
The second voice was lower, raspier, and dripped with Bond-villain menace. All of which was secondary to the fact that it was coming from about six inches behind me.
I said, "Listen, friend, you don't wanna to do this – I've got nothing you could possibly want, and believe me when I tell you I'm more trouble than I'm worth."
"I think we'll be the judge of that, friend." Something cold and hard jabbed into the small of my back as if to punctuate his point. By the look of his cohort, I doubted it was a gun; more likely than not, I was being held up with an empty bottle of Night Train.
This day just kept getting better and better.
Guy One found his feet and clambered over to me, a look of demented glee pasted on his face. Guy Two had a death grip on my shoulder and continued to jab the not-gun into my back like if he pretended hard enough, maybe this time it'd go bang-bang for real. "Check his pockets," he called over my shoulder. His breath reeked of garbage and decay. His buddy didn't smell much better.
Guy One's fingers found my pants pocket and dipped inside. I saw my chance and took it. I slammed my head into his nose and he went down screaming. Blood spattered across the concrete. I grabbed Guy Two's wrist and twisted, hard. Something snapped, and he folded like a cot. My knee connected hard with his throat as he went down. He crumpled into a writhing, wheezing mess, his precious bottle shattering on the ground beside him. I stood at ready between them, my feet straddling the three-point line of the ball court, but they were all out of fight. Damn shame, I thought – I was just getting warmed up.
"Now, boys, I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions."
"Fuck you," said Guy One. Of course, with his nose a twisted wreck, it sounded more like fug-OOH. Still, you had to give him points for trying.
"I'm looking for a girl. Sixteenish, pretty. She would've been traveling with a guy about her age. Either of you gentlemen see her?"
"Ead shid ad eye."
"Sorry," I said, "didn't catch that one. Wanna give it another try?"
"Ead shid ad eye. Eadshidadeye!"
"Ah – eat shit and die. Charming. But I'm done playing."
I hunched over him and plunged my hand into his chest. He shrieked like a frightened child. Then I wrapped my fingers around his soul, and his shrieks died down to a whimper.
"Now," I said, bathed in the black light of his soul, "I'm going to ask you again. Did you see her?"
His eyes were wide with terror. Guy One said nothing. Then I gave his soul a tug and he started singing, his voice thick and nasal, his broken nose mangling his consonants.
"Y-yeah, I s-s-saw her. They l-left a coupla hours ago, when the cops came through to shake us out."
"Any idea where they went?"
"N-n-no!" The Ns like D
s.
I released him. He crumpled to the ground, crying like a newborn. "W-w-wha…what did you do to me?"
"Gave you a taste of what your eternity's gonna look like if you're not careful. You're gonna get the hell out of here and get yourself clean, you hear me? Stay off the drink, get yourself a job, and if ever you end up running this racket again, I'll be back for you. We clear?"
Guy One nodded, his face full of fear and awe. I was full of shit, of course, but what's the harm of a little white lie every now and again in the service of a good deed?
I snagged a handful of crumpled bills from the man's pocket – his take of the night's spoils, no doubt – and left him shaking on the pavement as I headed back toward Tenth. My head was reeling from the glimpse into his withered soul, and what little information he'd given me was ringing in my head. So Kate and Anders had made it this far, and they fled before the cops had seen them. That meant I still had a shot. But if I was gonna find them, I was going to need some help.
And so I set out to find me a payphone, oblivious to the eyes that tracked me through the darkness, watching.
I found a bank of payphones on the corner of Ninth and Twenty-sixth. One of them was missing entirely, and the second's handset was nowhere to be seen. I snatched the third off of its cradle and pressed it to my ear. It was dead. I muttered a silent prayer, to which side I wasn't sure, and punched in the number Merihem had given me. For a second, nothing happened. Then, somewhere in the city, the other phone began to ring – an odd, queasy, reluctant sort of ring. Still, I coulda done a jig.
After three rings, Merihem answered.
"I was beginning to think I wasn't going to hear from you, Sam." The voice was breathy and feminine, but there was no mistaking Merihem's tone. If I had to guess, I'd say he camped one of his girls out by a random payphone somewhere in the city in anticipation of this call. Locked up as I'd been, I wondered how long I'd left her standing there. I decided that I didn't really care.
"We need to talk," I said.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea."
"Yeah, well, I ran out of good ideas a few days back, so it'll have to do. If you'd like, I can come to you."
"No!" Merihem's voice quavered for a moment – panic? fear? – but then he caught himself, and his composure returned. "That won't be necessary."
"Where, then?"
"The corner of Eleventh and Sixth. One hour. Don't be late."
"I'll be there," I replied, but there wasn't any use. I was speaking into a dead receiver. Merihem was gone.
12.
My muscles ached beneath the thin fabric of my uniform shirt, whether from my recent exertion or the chill spring air, I knew not which. I popped into a Duane Reade to buy a lighter and a pack of smokes, and then I struck out south toward my meeting with Merihem.
Though the night was cold, the streets bustled with people, and the air was redolent with an intoxicating mix of meat and spice and cooking oil from the sidewalk carts I passed, which mingled oddly with the scent of subway exhaust pouring upward from the ventilation grates beneath my feet. For a while, I wandered the streets at random, ducking down side streets, doubling back the way I came, but if anyone was following me, I didn't see them. For a time, I thought I caught a pair of eyes watching me through the crowd, but it was just a young boy begging for change, his face streaked with dirt, his jacket three sizes too big. I tossed him a couple bills from my would-be assailant's stash and kept on walking.
The corner of Eleventh and Sixth was quiet – aside from the Chinese place down the block, the place was mostly residential, all red brick and white trim and Woody Allen charm. Why Merihem would have chosen here to meet was beyond me. And speaking of, he was nowhere to be seen. I lit another cigarette and waited.
Three cigarettes later, I was getting antsy. I began to pace. I strolled up and down the length of the block, watching for Merihem all the while. Looking back, I must've passed the place a dozen times before I spotted it.
It was a low stone wall, wedged between two buildings and discolored with age. Hidden in the shadows as it was, it's no wonder I nearly missed it. I approached it cautiously, wary once more of being watched. Atop the wall, a wrought-iron fence stretched skyward. At the center of the wall was a gate, a lock dangling open from its hasp. I touched the gate and it swung aside.
"I was wondering when you'd come."
I squinted into the darkness. Eventually, an image resolved: Merihem, sitting propped against a tree amidst a sea of clinging ivy, a large obelisk headstone jutting skyward beside him. The graveyard itself was small, just a handful of weathered old headstones sticking improbably out of the ground and surrounded by buildings of towering brick.
"You could have told me where to find you. Speaking of, what's with the digs? You got something against meeting someplace we could get a drink?"
Merihem smiled, teeth flashing white in the darkness. "This cemetery was intended as a resting place for the sick. For nearly a quarter-century, those riddled with disease were interred here, in this soil. In 1830 city planners put a halt to that, insisting they be buried elsewhere; it seems the living have a limited tolerance for pestilence and plague so near to where they lead their desperate, fruitless lives."
"Look, Merihem, as fun as it is for me to reminisce about your salad days, we've got business to attend to."
"Hold your tongue, Collector. You think I selected this place so that I could regale you with tales of times gone by? I am the bringer of pestilence – this place is hallowed ground for me. Here, I cannot be harmed."
"What do you mean, harmed? Harmed by who? Merihem, what the hell is going on?"
"I did as you asked. I looked into this girl of yours."
Merihem fell silent, as if unsure what to say next.
I didn't have time for this. "And? What did you find?"
"A world of shit is what I found! This girl, she's caught the attention of some higher-ups – it seems they like her style. The way they tell it, she's destined for great and terrible things, Sam, only here you are, fucking it up for all of us."
"What do you mean all of us? All of us who?"
"You. Me. Everybody. Since word got out you've gone off the reservation, the angelic world is in an uproar. They've been leaning pretty hard on their Fallen brethren, convinced your little rebellion here is the first volley in some sort of insurrection. Now the demon-world is pissed – pissed at you."
I thought back to the black stares from the passersby on my way back to Friedlander's apartment. "Yeah," I replied, "I got that feeling."
"Did you now? Well, believe me when I tell you, Sam, the folks we're talking about, it isn't a far cry between pissed and murderous. We may be lowly creatures in the eyes of God and Man, but a good many of us enjoy our little fiefdoms in this world, and would take personally any attempt, perceived or otherwise, to wrest them from our grasp. If they come for you, I'm not going to stand in their way – I'm pariah enough just for asking around. We go back a ways, you and I, but I'm not about to die for you. You go down, you're going down alone."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"There is no supposed to – supposed to implies options. I hate to rain on your parade, Sam, but that whole free-will thing? Kind of the dominion of the living. That isn't you anymore. You're nothing, now. Carrion. You just collect the fucking girl – period. If you're very, very lucky, that will be enough to spare your soul. There are worlds besides your own, Collector, and trust me when I tell you your hell is Paradise in comparison."
I hesitated, suddenly unwilling to tell him what I came to tell him. But as he said, I was out of options. "Listen, Merihem – even if I wanted to collect her, I couldn't."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's gone."
"I don't understand."
"Yes, you do."
"Are you telling me you lost her?" Fear crept into Merihem's tone. It didn't exactly fill me with warm fuzzies. If Merihem was this spooked, things were even worse t
han I thought.
"Look, the cops musta tracked us to where we were staying – they were waiting for me when I got back. I was able to keep her out of custody, but we were supposed to meet up after, and she never showed."
Merihem looked me up and down. "I guess that explains the new vessel. Police issue, no doubt?"
"Not that it matters, but yeah."
"And your girl – she just up and disappears? Sounds like the actions of an innocent to me." His tone dripped sarcasm.
"There were extenuating circumstances."
"Of course there were," he said.
"Merihem, I have to find her."
"I should say so."
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