Dead Harvest

by Chris F. Holm

  Unsure how else to respond, I did as the captain said, retreating from his cabin without another word. The suitcase was heavy, and cumbersome as well. Twice as I descended the narrow ramp to the wharf, I stumbled, and nearly fell. But if the crewmen watching from behind the glowing embers of their cigarettes found my lack of grace amusing, they sure as hell didn't let on – there was nary a snicker or chiding comment to be had. It seemed the captain was not the only one who was frightened by my new employer. I was beginning to wonder if I ought to be as well.

  It was just past 5am when I arrived at Penn Station, suitcase in hand. A far cry from the modern monstrosity now crammed like an afterthought beneath the hulking behemoth of Madison Square Garden, the old station was a soaring structure of glass and granite, its imposing colonnades oddly out of place alongside the deserted sidewalks of early morning. I left the car at the curb and wrestled the suitcase inside.

  According to the board, the first train of the day – an overnight from St Louis – wasn't scheduled to arrive for another twenty minutes. Aside from an old man in coveralls, pushing a mop around like he didn't give a damn if the floor got clean, the concourse was deserted. A bank of lockers sat along the far wall, and I dragged my payload toward them, wincing as I heard my awkward, shuffling gait repeated back to me as it echoed through the vast empty space.

  When I reached the lockers, it was clear I had a problem: with its stiff outer frame, the suitcase was just too damn big. No way was it gonna fit. But I wasn't about to blow my first assignment, so I decided to improvise. I'd just empty the contents of the suitcase into the locker, and drop the empty suitcase off when I returned the car and the key.

  When I unzipped the suitcase, a sudden vinegar tang tickled my nostrils, and something else as well, earthy and unpleasant. It put me in mind of Mission Street out in San Francisco, where the hopheads used to beg for change to support their habits. The case was stuffed with paper bags, each dotted with oil spots and wrapped around something the size and shape of a brick. I took one out and looked inside. A compressed block of yellow-brown powder stared back at me, confirming what my nose had known all along.

  Heroin. Musta been fifty grand's worth, maybe more. Whatever it was worth, it was more money than I'd see in a lifetime, that's for sure.

  And there was something else for sure, too: no way was I gonna stand here in full view of anybody who cared to look and unload this thing into a locker. Which meant if I didn't figure out what I was gonna do with this shit and quick, I was pretty well screwed.

  Footfalls echoed like gunshots through the concourse. I dropped the bag back into the open suitcase and wiped my hands off on my pants. Three bleary-eyed kids trotted past, dragged by their mother toward the platform, no doubt there to greet their father upon his return from St Louis. My eyes tracked them for a moment, but they never gave me a second glance. I zipped the suitcase and lugged it back through the station to my waiting car. I circled the terminal until I hit Eighth, and then I headed northeast toward Mulgheney's.

  Dumas and I were gonna have ourselves a little chat.

  The walls of the narrow corridor seemed to tilt and sway by the light of Anders' match-like reflections in a funhouse mirror. I followed behind him in the darkness, dragging one hand along the wall beside me to orient myself. The air around us reeked of moisture and rot, and the concrete beneath our feet was cracked and chipped – and littered with pots and pans and empty cans of God knows what, their labels faded to sallow obscurity.

  Match burned flesh, and Anders cursed, dropping it to the floor. The match's flame guttered and died, plunging us into total darkness. My heart thudded in my chest as I remembered the eyes of the false WaiSun, their blackness so absolute it reduced all thought of light to the fleeting recollection of a half-remembered dream. I clenched my eyes against the panic and willed my heartbeat to slow.

  We were three blocks and seven stories from the rooftop, in the basement storeroom of an abandoned restaurant. It looked like they'd ditched the place midrenovation; the stenciled storefront window read Molly's, but the lettering was only half filled-in, and the entire storefront had been papered over with yellowed pages from the New York Post, the headlines eight months old. The front door was chained shut, but Anders led me around back to a secluded alley, wheeling aside a small dumpster as far as its chain would allow, to reveal a sidewalk-level service entrance, one scarred and rust-flecked corner peeled skyward just enough to get a grip. Anders grasped the corner with both hands and jerked it upward. Rusty metal squealed in protest, and then gave. Once we clambered inside, he bent the door back into place, reducing the bright afternoon sun to a mere trickle, watery and insubstantial. By the time we rounded our first corner, even that faint light disappeared, and we were reduced to traveling by match-light.

  I had to give it to him – he'd stashed her someplace nice and hard to find. Wai-Sun's top coulda done a dance on the fucking roof and I still might've never found them.

  Anders struck another match and we continued down the hall. I realized the detritus that lined the hallway was anything but random. By the light of the match, Anders zigged and zagged between makeshift walls of cans, and stacks of pots balanced precariously atop each other as if by a precocious child.

  "Your work?" I asked.

  "I figured if they found us, I didn't want 'em coming quietly," he said.

  As we climbed the stairs, the darkness lessened. To our right was what used to be the kitchen. Once doubtless stuffed with ovens and dishwashers and stainless steel countertops, all that now remained were a series of black rubber mats and a wide double sink collecting dust on the far wall. To our left, a short hall led toward the dining room. Light trickled amber through the papered windows beyond, bathing Anders and I both in a peculiar golden light.

  The light reflected yellow from a set of eyes glaring at us from a darkened corner of the kitchen. They locked on mine a moment, and then disappeared without a sound. Just a rat, I told myself. Nothing to worry about. Still, I suppressed a shiver as again I was reminded of my meeting with the demon – and of the horrid creatures he'd carried inside.

  Just beside the stairs was a door. A small placard that read "Office" hung crooked at its center. Anders approached it and knocked: first twice in rapid succession, and then thrice more.

  "Kate, it's me," he said.

  From behind the door came the clunks and scrapes of furniture being moved. The lock disengaged with a click, and then the door swung inward. Kate stood in the door frame, looking haggard but beautiful as ever, a smile dying on her lips as she saw me.

  "Kate, you've no idea how relieved I am to see you," I said, but she just backed away.

  "Anders, who is this?" she asked.

  "Kate, it's me – Sam!"

  "Anders, he told you that? He told you that and you believed him?"

  Anders was struck dumb by her response. Looked like I was on my own.

  "OK, I took you from the hospital. I saved your life when you took those pills. I made you an omelet!"

  "If you have Sam somewhere, you might've made him tell you all those things!"

  I racked my brain for anything that might convince her. "When you were young, you used to be afraid of the man who lived downstairs. For years, you refused to take the elevator alone, and at night you'd sleep beneath your bed, your pillows under your blankets as a decoy in case he came for you."

  She stared at me for a long moment, but I don't think Kate really saw me – she had a faraway look in her eye, like she was suddenly somewhere else entirely. "He had a glass eye," she said finally.

  "What?" Anders said to her.

  "He had a glass eye, and it didn't fit so well. Once, when we were talking in the elevator, it fell out. He popped it back in like nothing had happened, but from then on I was terrified of him. But how could you possibly know that?"

  I flashed her a wan smile. "Comes with the job, kid." Truth was, my head was crammed full of countless such moments, every one of them but Kate's ser
ving as a painful reminder of a soul I had dispatched. They filled my dreams in my sleep, and when sleep would not come, it was those stolen memories – those cast-off echoes of a life misspent – that robbed me of my rest. They were my punishment. My burden to bear. And they were never very far from reach.

  But Kate didn't need to know any of that just now. She beamed back at me and threw her arms around my neck, squeezing until I thought I might pass out.

  "Where are my manners?" she said once she released me from her grasp. "Come in, come in!"

  Anders and I followed her into the office. She swung shut the door, and Anders helped her drag the scarred metal desk back in front of it. They tilted it on its side such that the desktop was wedged beneath the doorknob, bracing the door closed. The room itself was small and cramped, and flickered with the light of a dozen candles, which dripped wax on every filthy surface. Besides the desk, there was a ratty desk chair, its black vinyl cushions cracked and peeling, a hulking gray filing cabinet, and a dusty old floor lamp, its cord chewed through just inches from the base. I fingered a stack of unlabeled cans piled high atop the filing cabinet, and Kate smiled. "Pickings are kind of slim around here," she said. "We never know what we're gonna get until we open them. They're mostly just beans, but Anders swears he can tell which ones are peaches by the sound."

  My eyes settled on a pile of old clothes in the corner, arranged in a sort of makeshift bed. "Church up the street is having a clothing drive," Anders said. "I snagged those off the steps last night. Figured we're as needy as anyone. We're sleeping in shifts," he added lamely, as if I might have assumed otherwise.

  I tried to raise an eyebrow at that last, only to find that Flynn here couldn't manage it. "I'm just glad you two are safe," I said.

  "And what about you?" Kate asked. "When last we saw you, you were convulsing on the floor, and now you show up here days later in a new body, only this one already looks like you put it through the wringer. Spill it, Sam – I want to hear everything!"

  And so I told them. I told them how I shot my way out of the apartment, and how I'd requested all units to the front of the building, allowing them an opening to escape. I told them how the rookie got the jump on me, and put a bullet in my vest. I told them about the hours of interrogation, and my subsequent release. I told them of my meeting with Merihem, my run-in with the demon in Chinatown, and my unlikely deliverance at the hands of a small ceramic cat. They listened rapt throughout, asking only the occasional question of clarification, and I was suddenly struck by how young they both were – far too young, I thought, to have to deal with such unpleasantness. Then again, if life is suffering, these two were old beyond their years.

  Funny, how that thought failed to comfort me.

  What I didn't tell them were the circumstances of my release, or indeed of my meeting with the seraph at all. Even now, I'm not sure why. Maybe I didn't want to frighten Kate with the knowledge that the angels were aligned against her. Maybe I wanted to spare her the seraph's accusations of her treachery and deceit, and the fear and doubt they would instill. Maybe I didn't want to plant the notion in her head that I'd eventually betray her, as the seraph said I would.

  Or maybe, just maybe, there was some small part of me that wondered if what the angel had said was true.

  16.

  "I'm coming with you."

  Kate's statement hung in the air like a trial balloon, daring me to shoot it down. After two days of itchy, nerve-jangling wakefulness, I'd curled up on the office floor for a little shut-eye, waking just moments before to the sound of clanking pipes. Kate and Anders were busying themselves in what was left of the kitchen, their candlelight reflecting orange off the open office door. I propped myself against the wall and rubbed sleep from my eyes with bloodied knuckles. I had no idea how long I'd been asleep. Long enough for the soreness to set in. I don't know if you've ever had the experience of being tossed about like a rag doll, but I gotta tell you, I don't recommend it.

  "Are you off your nut?" I called back, my voice echoing through the dark expanse of the basement kitchen. "That's completely out of the question!"

  "Oh, come on, Sam, I'm not some helpless little girl. If this guy knows who set me up, I want to help you get him."

  "First of all, Kate, Merihem is not a guy – he's a demon. As in powerful and evil and, whether he's involved in framing you or not, very interested in getting his hands on you. Or have you already forgotten why I got my ass kicked just yesterday?"

  "I haven't forgotten. I just figured maybe you could use me – you know, like bait."

  I said, "Bait only works when you've got yourself a trap to put it in."

  "So then – what's the plan?"

  "I don't know yet – but it sure as hell involves you staying here."

  "You're being ridiculous."

  "Am I? Let's forget for a second that the entire demon-world is looking to deliver your immortal soul to eternal damnation, quite possibly triggering a war of literally Biblical proportions – you're also the target of a citywide manhunt on the part of New York's Finest. You can't exactly flash that face of yours all over town."

  "No?" she asked, strolling through the office door and giving me a catwalk twirl. "How 'bout this one?"

  I had to admit, the transformation was impressive. Kate's long auburn locks were now shorn into a jagged bob that traced the line of her jaw. She'd bleached it all a platinum blonde, with a streak of blue framing her face to each side. Thick hoops graced her ears, and another wrapped around one nostril. A studded leather choker wound its way around her neck above a vintage T-shirt and tattered jeans patched with bits of plaid. A pair of work boots worn shiny from years of use finished off the outfit. She grinned at me with blue-painted lips, eyes sparkling from beneath streaks of metallic blue eyeshadow.

  "Well? What do you think? The clothes are mostly from the bag we snagged – Anders ran out for the rest this morning. The nose ring is a fake, but it looks legit enough, I think."

  "I gave him that money for food, not so you could play dress-up."

  "All the food in the world isn't going to do us much good if I can't ever leave this basement."

  A fair point, I had to admit. But still, going after Merihem was a far cry from simply walking the streets unnoticed. "Kate, I'm sorry, but there's just no way. You're staying here with Anders, and that's final."

  Hot breath clouded the windshield of the van as I sat watching the stoop of Merihem's Staten Island lair, smoking cigarette after cigarette as much for warmth as out of boredom. The engine skipped a bit, and the van shuddered as if from a sudden chill. I knew how it felt. I'd snatched this rusty piece of shit from a parking garage over on Prospect Avenue, and swapped its plates with another just as ugly at a liquor store a couple blocks away. The way I figured it, even if anybody reported this baby missing, the cops would spend their night chasing down the wrong van. By the time they sorted out what happened, I'd be long gone. Still, if I'd known the heat was busted on this one, I might've opted for Door Number Two.

  "You want to give me one of those?" Kate asked, eyeing the cigarette as she shivered inside her leather jacket.

  "Not a chance."

  "Come on – it's freezing in here."

  "Hey, you're the one who wanted to come. Besides, these things'll kill you."

  "I thought you were supposed to kill me."

  "Yeah, well," I said, "the night is young."

  "I still don't see why we couldn't stop off for coffee and doughnuts – I mean, this is a stakeout, after all."

  "Maybe if you hadn't blown all our cash on that get-up of yours, we might have."

  "Hey – this get-up is what got me here. Not to mention, you just stole a car. You can't find a way to score a couple bucks?"

  "Sorry – I'll try to snatch a body with a debit card next time."

  For the first time in the three hours we'd been sitting here, Kate fell silent. We watched the flophouse for a while in the sudden quiet, nothing much happening but the occasional junk
ie heading in, or a john coming out. Wind whipped down the street, tipping trash cans and rattling the low-slung shrubberies that clung, gray and dead, to either side of the stoop. Though the doors and windows of the van remained closed, the wind cut through them like nothing at all. My knuckles ached from it, and Kate, in the passenger seat, pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged herself for warmth.

  "I don't know how you do it," she said finally.

  "Do what?"

  "Swap bodies like that. I mean, I changed my hair and my clothes and I feel like a different person. It's got to be hard not to lose track of who you are."

  I shrugged. "It's not so hard, really."

  "No?"

  "I once read that nothing fixes something so intensely in your memory as the desire to forget it."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing," I said. "Looks like we're on."

  A figure had approached the stoop. Not an inch over four feet, and a slight four feet at that, he looked tiny and afraid in the orange glare of the sodium-vapor street lights. A filthy down jacket hung loose around his frame.