Dead Harvest

by Chris F. Holm

  Then the body before me burst – thousands of horrid, nameless, mewling things pouring forth from it and scattering to all corners of the store, disappearing into the murk. After a moment, their unnatural squeaking had ceased, but still my skin crawled from the sight of them, and my teeth were set on edge. I pushed aside furniture, sure they were still there – watching, waiting – but whatever they were, they were gone now.

  I didn't have a fucking clue what had just gone down, but of one thing I was sure: whatever just happened, I was suddenly alone.

  14.

  The morning sun ducked behind a passing cloud, and I wrapped my arms tight around my chest to defend against the sudden chill. The signal changed, and I stepped out into the street, the ceramic shards in my pocket jangling as I hit the crosswalk on Morton, headed northwest toward Seventh Avenue on Bleecker Street. Since I left Wai-Sun's, I'd been wandering for hours, taking refuge in the quiet chaos of the Village. A far cry from the rigid grid of streets and avenues that traversed the rest of Manhattan, the tangled streets of Greenwich Village seemed as good a place as any to get lost – which was fine by me, since beaten and bloodied as I was, the last thing I needed was to be found.

  I still wasn't sure just what in the hell happened back there, but one thing was certain – I was lucky I'd gotten out of Wai-Sun's alive. After I'd dispatched the false Wai-Sun, I'd collected up the shattered remains of the ceramic cat and stuffed them in my pocket. I'm not sure what kind of mojo that cat had, or whether it would work again, but I figured it couldn't hurt. Of all the things the demon had told me, at least one of them was true: Mystical objects need not be as elaborate as one might think.

  After sweeping up the remains of the cat, I'd drawn the blinds, flipped the sign to Closed, and gotten the hell out of there, locking the door behind me. It was only a matter of time before Wai-Sun was found, but I wanted to be well away from there when he was. Besides, the longer it took for word to spread I'd killed a member of the Fallen, the better. The last thing I needed now was a pack of demons with a vendetta on my tail.

  Once I'd left Wai-Sun's, I set out walking toward the neighborhood the top had circled in its last lazy arcs before skittering off the table and across the room. Of course, the top had only narrowed it down to an area of maybe fifty blocks, and it wasn't like I could just go around knocking on doors. Policeman-suit or not, that was liable to arouse exactly the sort of suspicions I could really do without. Still, the top was all I had, and one way or another, I simply had to track Kate down.

  Fun as all that sounded, though, it was gonna have to wait. Right now, I had to deal with whatever it was that was following me.

  I'd first spotted him last night on the way to my meeting with Merihem – a dirt-streaked kid in a jacket a few sizes too big, sitting at a busy corner and begging for change. I wouldn't have given him another thought, except I spotted his reflection in the window of a Korean take-out joint earlier this morning, and then again a couple minutes ago, when he got chased off from a news stand a half a block ahead of me for loitering. The kid didn't look to be more than eleven, and he was thin as a rail, but I didn't let that fool me – plenty of demons like to take a spin in the little ones, and tiny frames or not, demonic strength is all the same.

  I lagged back a while to make sure he caught sight of me, and then ducked into a narrow service alley beside a dingy neighborhood pub. The stained brick walls were a scant three feet apart, blotting out the morning light, and the alley smelled of rotting garbage and piss. I held my breath and soldiered on.

  The alley intersected with a haphazard courtyard, just a couple of picnic tables and a pair of withered birch trees overlooked by three buildings' worth of windows; the rear of the bar and the dry cleaner's next door made up the windowless fourth wall, bisected by the alley I'd just cut through. Clotheslines criss-crossed the sky above.

  Yeah, I thought – this'll do fine.

  Other than the alley, the only way out of the courtyard was through one of the three buildings. I checked the doors – two were locked, but the third was propped open with a dented Folgers can, filled with sand and littered with cigarette butts. I glanced back the way I came. There was no sign yet of my pursuer. Good – that meant I still had time. I dragged one of the picnic tables over to the far wall, and climbed atop it. After a minute or two of wild, flailing leaps, I managed to snag the fire escape ladder. It extended downward, rattling like a rusty chain, and then slammed into the tabletop with a satisfying thunk.

  I hopped down from the table and retreated to the propped courtyard door. I set the can aside and stepped into the building, shutting the door behind me. I'd done my job well – through the narrow pane of safety glass set high into the door, I had an eyeline to the ladder and the alley as well. Now, all I had to do was wait.

  Turns out, I didn't have to wait long. Maybe a half a cigarette after I'd assumed my post, I saw the kid's head duck around the corner of the alley. He was a cautious one, I'd give him that – he stuck to the shadows, his tattered, down jacket pressed tight to the dingy alley wall. He paused there a moment until he was sure there was no sign of me, and then he trotted over to the picnic table, circling it a time or two as though unsure what to make of it.

  "Come on, you son of a bitch," I muttered, "take the bait."

  After what seemed like forever, he did. I watched him scamper up the ladder, haul himself up onto the first landing, and continue on up the stairs toward the roof and out of sight.

  It occurred to me then that I could run – just head out the way I came, and be rid of this tail, maybe for good. But I needed answers, and running wasn't going to get them for me. So instead, I forced myself to sit and finish my cigarette, allowing him ample time to reach the roof, and then, stubbing out the butt on the heel of my SWAT-issue boot, I slipped out the door and followed.

  The pebbled roof bit into my tender stocking feet as I slinked across it, ceramic shard in hand. My boots were tied together at the laces and draped across one shoulder; I'd taken them off so I could ascend the fire escape unheard. But six stories of rusting waffled iron had bit into my soles and left me raw and hobbling, and now the kid was nowhere to be seen.

  The rooftop was dotted with massive air conditioning units, and the odd pyramidal structure that housed the stairwell entrance jutted upward from the center of the building, blocking my view of the roof beyond. I clung tight to one of the air conditioners and crept toward the edge, painfully aware that, should I suddenly have to run, my chances were nil. The best laid plans and all that, I guess.

  I wheeled around the corner of the AC unit, shard at the ready, but there was no one there. I approached the next, and crouched behind it, wary of remaining too exposed. Slowly, I circled, the seconds stretching on for hours it seemed, but again I came up empty.

  Ahead lay the shed that allowed access to the stairwell. The roof behind me was hidden from sight by the hulking mass of the air conditioners. I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding, and approached the stairwell door.

  It was locked, as I'd expected, which meant he had to be beyond the shed. I crept around it, my thumb stroking the smooth surface of the ceramic shard for reassurance. My foot came down on something hard and sharp – a bottle cap, left over from some rooftop party, no doubt – and I stumbled forward. It was then that I saw him: leaning over the edge of the building, a hand on the handrail that curved upward over the low stone wall and provided access to the fire escape below. This fire escape was street-side, opposite the one we'd come up on – he must've assumed I fled down it, eager to be rid of my irksome little companion. But I had other plans. I stepped clear of my hiding place and strode toward him, the cat-shard brandished before me like a knife.

  "Lose something?" I said.

  The kid spun around, eyes wide with fright. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. He tried to back away, but his thighs connected with the rooftop wall – had he not been holding the rail of the ladder in a vise-grip, he would have surely
gone over.

  "Who are you?" I asked. "Why are you following me? Are you one of them?"

  Still, he said nothing.

  I stepped closer, shard held at ready. "One way or another, you will answer me."

  Again I stepped toward him. He flinched but held his ground. Then my head snapped back as someone behind me grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked. I staggered backward. The tender flesh of my neck dimpled as a knife blade pressed tight against my windpipe.

  "Easy, pal," said a voice into my ear, "the kid's with me."

  15.

  The hand yanked my head back. I struggled in vain against it. Knife parted flesh, and blood, warm and slick, dribbled down my neck.

  "Stop fighting," said the voice. "I'll kill you if I have to."

  I fought against the panic and stopped struggling. Instead I reached out with my mind toward my assailant's – probing, searching. If it was human, I could grab a hold, try to get it to release this body, and be back inside my policeman-suit before its owner got three steps. The only snag to that plan was this possession stuff is a little unpredictable – I had no way of knowing whether Stabby here was gonna clench up and dispatch my little cop-friend before I got a chance to play the hero. Between the real Wai-Sun, and the replacement I'd dispatched, I was pretty sure I'd already seen enough death for one day.

  Turns out, fate had other plans. As I grazed his mind with mine, my assailant flinched as if stung. The knife clattered to the rooftop, and he released his grip on my hair. I wheeled on him, my face a tug-of-war of confused and surprised.

  "Anders?"

  "Sam? Jesus, you scared the shit out of me! I could tell this body didn't belong to whoever was driving, but I had no idea it was you!"

  "I left the old one in the apartment," I said. "The place was his, anyway." I pocketed my cat-shard and dabbed at my neck with the palm of my hand. It came back streaked with blood.

  "Sorry about that," Anders said, his furtive gaze regretful. "I thought you were one of them. A dark-eyed one, tired of simply watching." The kid I'd been following had yet to relinquish his grip on the handrail – he was just staring at me and Anders with a mixture of bewilderment and fear. Anders shot him a reassuring smile; it looked out of place on his gaunt, worry-lined face. "It's all right, Pinch. This is Sam – he's one of the good guys."

  That characterization was a dubious one at best, but I wasn't in the mood to correct him. "Anders, what the hell is going on here? Is Kate all right? Who the hell is this?"

  "Kate's fine – I'll take you to her. We tried to wait for you at the park like you said, but things got dicey quick. A bunch of guys were going door to door flashing Kate's picture around, asking if anybody'd seen her. They wore the skin of cops, but I knew better – their eyes shone black as night. I grabbed Kate and we got the hell out of there. Pinch here offered to stay in case you showed, but when you didn't…" he swallowed hard. "We thought you might be dead."

  "Truth be told, you weren't too far off." I looked the new kid up and down, then, not bothering to hide my suspicion. Pinch let go of the ladder, and took a couple tentative steps toward me. "Pleased to meet ya," he said. He extended a hand. I ignored it. It hung there between us for a moment, and then he let it drop.

  "Anders, what the hell were you thinking bringing someone else into this? Does he know where you're keeping Kate?"

  "Relax, Sam. The kid's the best pickpocket in town – wasn't anybody gonna get the drop on him."

  I said, "I just did."

  "Yeah, only that almost didn't work out too well for you, did it?" Again Anders smiled. "Look, all I gave Pinch was the number to a payphone down the street. Told him if he saw anything, he should give me a call. A few minutes ago, he did. Seems he didn't like the look of your little setup, thought maybe he ought to bring along some backup."

  "Still, if anyone had gotten that number out of him, it would have only been a matter of time before they tracked you down."

  "I can hear you two, you know," said the kid.

  Anders replied, "The way I saw it, without you around, we were as good as dead already. The number was a risk I was willing to take."

  "I'm standing right here." Pinch spoke again, his voice tinged with impatience.

  "Why in the hell was he following me in the first place?" I said.

  "I told him if anybody else came looking for Kate, hang back and keep an eye on 'em. I hear you put on quite a show, questioning those homeless guys."

  "You coulda gotten him killed."

  The kid bristled. "I can take care of myself."

  I replied, "No offense, kid, but you have no idea what you're dealing with. You're in way over your head."

  Pinch just smiled and held a good-sized shard of ceramic up to the light and turned it over in his hand, inspecting it. My hand flew to my pocket. It was a whole lot emptier than I remembered. "Did you just almost attack me with a cat?" he asked.

  "Don't touch that," I said, snatching back the catshard. "It's dangerous."

  "Good thing you never tangled with my grandma, then – she had a couple dozen of these things. Coulda gotten messy."

  I said nothing, settling instead for seeing if maybe I'd spontaneously developed the ability to shoot death rays from my eyes. Anders took the hint, and pulled the kid aside. "Listen, Pinch, why don't you take off? I'll catch up with you later, OK?"

  "Whatever," the kid said. He trotted back toward the fire escape he'd come up on. Before Pinch disappeared from sight, Anders stopped him with a shout.

  "Hey, Pinch?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You did good today."

  The kid flashed him a smile, and disappeared behind the stairwell shed.

  "You know you never should have brought him in," I said. "The kid's a liability."

  "The kid's a friend, Sam."

  "Yeah," I said, "same thing."

  Dumas, it turns out, was as good as his word – two weeks after our meeting at Mulgheney's, we got a call from the research group at Bellevue. They said that they had an opening in their program, and that Elizabeth looked to be a perfect match. She couldn't believe her luck. I hadn't told her that Dumas had promised to get her in, so worried was I that he wouldn't deliver. In fact, I hadn't told her much about the meeting at all – I didn't have to. She was so over the moon I'd found a job, she didn't care much what it was. Which was fine by me, since I couldn't have told her what it was yet if I'd tried. I hadn't heard a word from Dumas since our meeting, and were it not for the call from Bellevue, it may as well have never happened. In retrospect, I'm sure that was all part of his plan. Once he had Elizabeth to use as leverage, he knew he had his hooks in me but good – there was nothing I wouldn't do to get her well.

  I got my first call less than twenty-four hours after they'd admitted Elizabeth to Bellevue. The assignment was simple enough: just pick up a package and drop it in a locker at Penn Station. I was given a car, an address, a time and date. The car was a '42 Studebaker. The address was on the waterfront. The time was 4am. I guess that shoulda clued me in that something was hinky, but those were different times. Least, that's what I like to tell myself. Sometimes, it seems to me the times haven't changed that much at all.

  When I arrived at the pier, all was quiet. Though sunrise was still an hour away, the morning air was already stifling, and my clothes clung heavy to my skin. A cargo ship sat, moored and lightless, at the far end of the pier, a ramp jutting upward to her deck. I hobbled toward her, my progress tracked by a trio of crewmen who lounged smoking amidst the shipping crates that were scattered along the wharf.

  By the flag flying from her mast, the ship was registered in Jamaica, but the crew mostly didn't look the part. Their appearance and the occasional snippet of Spanish that drifted to me through the still morning air led me to guess that Mexico had been this ship's last port of call. No one addressed me as I approached, nor did they object as, hesitantly, I mounted the ramp and limped upward toward the deck.

  On the ship, I was greeted by a dark-skinned boy
of no more than sixteen, who led me wordlessly to the captain's quarters, knocking twice on the open door before ushering me inside. The captain was a wiry man with eyes and skin of deepest brown, and an accent to match the flag atop the mast. He sat behind a massive wooden desk, scarred and pitted – and stacked high with books and charts. He didn't rise when I entered, and as I approached to shake his hand, he waved me off, instead nodding toward a worn leather suitcase standing just inside the door.

  "I believe that is what you came for," he said. "Now take it and get the hell off my ship."

  His tone was angry, to be sure, but the quaver in his voice belied the strength of his words. This man was afraid, I realized. Of me. Of Dumas.