"I'm not talking a little, Sam. You're a fucking gnat right now – an annoyance. Word gets out you killed Beleth, they're gonna think you're trying to jumpstart the End Days. That'd make you priority number one for both sides. We're all happy in our roles, Sam. Comfortable. Isn't anybody on either side that wants to see the balance disrupted."
I fell silent a moment, mulling what he'd just told me. "If I let you go," I asked, "what assurance do I have you'll do as you say?"
Kate balked. "Sam, you couldn't seriously be considering letting him go?"
If Merihem heard her, though, he gave no indication. His eyes were locked on mine, his face betraying nothing. "You have my word," he said.
"Your word," Anders said. "Some fucking use that is."
"Yeah, Sam – let's finish this guy," Pinch chimed in.
"His word is his bond," I said, quietly. The corners of Merihem's mouth turned upward ever so slightly, almost imperceptible in the flickering candlelight. Almost.
"What?" Kate asked.
"His word is his bond," I repeated. "He's obligated to honor it. It's the way of his kind." I didn't say the rest. That his kind is disinclined to make pacts that end well for the second party – witness my day job. I didn't mention it because the way I saw it, we were both desperate. We both stood to lose. And if letting him go bought me enough time to clear Kate's name, then the deal would have been worth it, and the consequences be damned.
"So he'd have to help us?" Pinch asked.
"We let you walk out of here, and you leave us be, you got me? You don't come after the girl, you don't send anyone after her – you don't let it slip you might know where she is. Same goes for any of them. These kids are untouchable."
Merihem nodded. "All I'm worried about right now is my own ass. They tie me to Beleth's death, and it's all over. Far as I'm concerned, I never saw you."
"Anders," I said, "set down the rope."
"Are we really gonna do this?" he asked.
"I don't see we have a choice."
"This is ridiculous," Kate said.
"Anders, the rope."
Anders let go of the rope. It fell to the floor. I let out a breath I didn't even realize I'd been holding.
"Sam," said Merihem, "you're making the right choice."
I swear I never saw it coming. One minute, Kate stood fuming beside me, and the next, she'd closed the gap to Merihem. In one smooth motion, she kicked the chair out from beneath him. He teetered for a moment, his eyes wide with fear and surprise, and then he fell atop the shards. A horrid, guttural scream pierced the air and blew out windows the factory over. Candles guttered and died all around us. Anders crumpled to the floor, head in hands, and Pinch began to cry. But Kate never wavered, never flinched. As Merihem's writhing, fading form burst open, releasing the thousands of nameless scurrying things that passed for his soul, she spat on it, paying no heed to the terrible creatures that crawled, dragged, and scampered across her feet.
And under her breath, nearly lost beneath the echoing screams, she said, "That's for my family, you evil son of a bitch."
18.
Finally all was silent, and the mewling creatures gone. Anders was lying on the concrete floor, his eyes clenched shut, his face twisted in pain. He held his hands to his ears, a useless gesture. The sound he sought to keep out was in his mind: the anguished cries of those nameless, scurrying things that were once Merihem as they faded from existence. I knew, because I'd heard it twice now. Just two more things I wished I could unremember. Two among thousands.
I shambled over to where Anders lay, my borrowed body trembling, my knees threatening to buckle. I told myself that it was just a natural response to what I'd just been witness to, but I knew that wasn't completely true. Merihem's death had rattled me in a way Beleth's had not. Merihem wasn't a friend – not exactly – but we had a history, he and I, and that's not something you can easily forget. Now he was dead. Dead because of me. And it was a senseless death, at that – no honor, no dignity, no reason at all it had to happen. Demon or not, I couldn't help but think Merihem deserved better than that.
"Anders – are you all right?" He looked up at me and nodded. Anders was lying, of course, but that he was well enough to lie was a good sign. "We've got to get moving. Half of Staten Island must've heard those windows blow – we haven't got a lot of time."
I felt terrible for the kid – lacking whatever filter prevented normal people from seeing the world as it really was, only to be branded a nutcase, by them and me at first as well. Of course, if any of those so-called normal people could see the things that Anders had seen, they'd be a little twitchy, too.
I helped him to his feet, and nodded toward Pinch, who had retreated to a far corner of the room. Pinch sat with his back to the wall, rocking back and forth with his knees hugged tight to his chest. "Go help him," I said, "I'll take care of Kate."
Kate, for her part, was nowhere to be seen. Not that that meant much – most of the candles were extinguished during Merihem's exit, and the few that remained did little to push back the encroaching darkness. I noticed a thin rectangle of paler darkness along the far wall – a door, standing slightly ajar and leading to the night beyond. No doubt that's where she'd gone. I gave chase, and prayed she hadn't gone too far.
She hadn't. I found Kate standing with her back to me in the center of the abandoned, weed-strewn parking lot. She was shaking, I noticed, and she held her arms tight across her chest, hugging herself. It wasn't entirely from the cold, I thought. Demon or not, you couldn't just take a life and not have it rattle you a little. I once heard that it gets easier. I think they had it backwards. After a while, you just get harder.
"You wanna tell me what the hell just happened back there?" I asked.
She turned and looked at me, her eyes flashing with angry rebellion. "I ought to ask you the same thing. Did you think I was going to stand idly by as you let that bastard walk out of here?"
"You're damn right that's what I thought! Letting Merihem go was the smart play. I don't know if you've noticed, Kate, but we're kinda short on allies right about now, and thanks to you, we've got one less."
"You think he was an ally? I've got a newsflash for you, Sam – Merihem was a demon. As in evil. I did the world a favor, killing him."
"The hell you did. You wanna do the world a favor? Try dropping this bullshit vengeance trip and get on board with the whole keeping-you-alive thing."
"Bullshit?" Kate spat. "You think that this is bullshit? You said yourself they killed my family, Sam. This was just my way of trying to even the score."
"I said that one of them killed your family. I never said that it was Merihem."
"Does it matter? They're all the same."
"No," I said, "they're not."
"They're demons. End of story."
"You know what separates a demon from an angel? Choice. Angels are beholden to the will of God. Not a bad gig if you can get it, I guess. No doubt. No pain. No fear. No free will, either, but most don't seem to mind. There were some, though, who did – some who thought free will was worth losing everything for. They turned their backs on who they were, which meant turning their back on God. They were cast out for their impudence, forced to live a twisted, perverted existence, forever obscured from the light of God's grace."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you need to understand that whoever killed your family made a choice to do so. Because back there, you just did the same. Demons aren't the only ones with free will, Kate. Be sure you use yours wisely."
"You think that Merihem was innocent," she said.
"Of this, yes."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Merihem was a corrupter of souls, a bringer of pestilence. For his line of work, this world of yours is fertile ground. He had no more interest in seeing it end than you do."
"That doesn't exactly make him sound like one of the good guys."
"I never said he was. But this is bigger than you, Kate. Bigger th
an what happened to your family. If they succeed in collecting you, we're talking about the end of the world. I'll take my help wherever I can get it."
Kate gazed in silence at the pavement for a moment. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper, and her eyes never left the ground. "The last time I spoke to them, it was in anger."
"What? Who?"
"My mom. My dad. My brother. I'd been planning a road trip with some friends for the summer. There's this music festival out in Washington – three days of bands and camping and whatever. It just seems so fucking silly now. Anyways, Dad said I could go, but Mom thought I was too young to go traipsing across the country by myself. I tried to tell her I wouldn't be by myself – that we'd be fine – but she wouldn't hear any of it. We ended up shouting at each other over the breakfast table, and I said some things…"
Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she was suddenly racked with sobs. "Kate," I said, "you don't have to tell me –"
"Yes, I do. I can't just keep carrying it around. It's too much." I nodded, and she continued. "I told her that I hated her. That my real mother would've let me go. That I wished that she was dead instead."
I was taken aback. "Your real mother?"
Kate nodded. "She died when I was very young. Complications from childbirth. And Dad… I mean, I know he missed her, but he never took it out on me. When I was three, he met Patricia. She's the only mother I've ever known. I just can't believe I said those things – and all over a stupid fucking trip!"
"I'm sure she knew you didn't mean it."
"Did she? Did she know I didn't mean it when I killed her husband right in front of her? When I killed her son? Did she know it while I tortured her?"
"Kate, that wasn't you. You have to understand that."
"How can you be sure? How can you know I didn't, I don't know, invite something in when I said what I said? That I didn't open the door for this to happen?"
"It doesn't work that way, Kate. If a moment of anger was enough to invite a possession, there wouldn't be demons enough for the demand."
"You say that, sure, but you aren't certain – I can see it in your eyes. You've seen what I'm capable of," she said, nodding toward the factory door. "You've seen what I can do when I get angry."
"Yeah, I have, but I've also seen your soul. I know you weren't responsible for your family's death, Kate, even if you don't. You've just got to trust me."
Kate brushed tears from her cheeks and looked at me, eyes rimmed with red. "And what about what I did back there? If you looked at my soul now, what would you see? Have I been tainted by what I've done? Can you just collect my soul now, and go on about your merry way?"
"It doesn't work that way, Kate. You knew full well what Merihem was when you did what you did. Besides, you're innocent in all of this – he and his kind had no business meddling in your affairs."
She laughed – a shrill, humorless bark of a laugh. "So I just get a freebie, then?"
"I wish it were that easy," I said, "but taking a life – human or not, justified or not – it eats at you. You take enough of them, it'll hollow you out from the inside, until there's nothing left but a husk of your former self. I don't want to see you head down that path."
"Is that what you are, Sam – a husk of your former self?"
I shook this borrowed head, shrugged these shoulders that weren't mine. "Sometimes I think I'm something even less than that." I took her hand, led her back toward the open factory door. She didn't resist – not exactly – but there was no volition to her movements; I felt like I was posing a doll. "C'mon, kid," I said, squeezing her hand in mine, "time's short. We've got to get you out of here."
The midday sun reflected off the chromed storefront of the bar, casting haloes of light across the sidewalk and causing me to squint. I took a sip of coffee from the mug in front of me, but it was cold and bitter, and seared like acid as it went down. I pushed the mug aside. Really, I shoulda stopped drinking this shit three cups ago: my eyes were dry and itchy, and felt too big for their sockets; my scalp was crawling from the caffeine and the lack of sleep. But I wasn't about to slink off to bed. Not with a fortune in heroin stuffed into the back of a borrowed car. Not without talking to Dumas.
When I left Penn Station, I headed straight to Mulgheney's, but by the time I got there it was nearly 6am, and they'd been closed for hours. I parked the car out of sight around the block, and plopped myself down on a stoop across the street that afforded me a decent view of the entrance to the bar. I was determined to sit here for as long as it took, and anyways, what choice did I have? Dumas never gave me his number or address, so all I had to go on was that Mulgheney's was his favorite watering hole, and he had the look of a guy who had himself one hell of a thirst. The way I figured, it was only a matter of time before he showed.
Eventually, though, the waiting wore on me, and I realized if I was gonna last the day, I was gonna need a little pickme-up, and a bite to eat as well. So I moved camp to a lunch counter just a couple doors down, and ordered up a cup of coffee and a plate of steak and eggs, rare and over easy. The eggs came over hard, and the steak well, but the coffee did the trick, and the refills were free. Two hours later, though, the guy behind the counter lost his patience with me and quit topping me up, hence the cold and bitter. Didn't matter, though. Just as I was beginning to contemplate the odds on another sip being any better than the last, I spotted my mark.
Dumas was half a block away, slouching toward the bar in a sweat-stained camel-colored suit, a matching cap atop his head. I tossed a couple bills onto the counter and slid off of my stool. As I approached, he pulled the cap off of his head and mopped his brow with his sleeve. The cap blocked his view of the street. He never saw me coming.
I caught up to him just steps from the entrance of the bar, grabbing a fistful of lapel and pinning him to the wall. His face was a mask of shock and surprise, and his eyes glinted in sudden anger. Still, he made no move to stop me.
"You set me up, you son of a bitch!"
His prodigious brow furrowed. "Sammy, what is this about? Set you up how?"
"Don't play dumb with me. That package I was picking up? It was smack."
"Now how the hell would you know that? Your orders were to pick it up and drop it off, not to open it."
"Yeah, well, I did."
"Why on Earth would you go and do a thing like that?"
"Why doesn't matter – what matters is what was inside."
"Believe me when I tell you, Sam, it matters very much. That dope, it belongs to some pretty dangerous people – people who would not take kindly to you messin' with their product."
"It didn't fit," I said.
Dumas cocked his head, shot me a puzzled look. "What?"
"The suitcase. I tried to put it in the locker, but it didn't fit, so I figured I'd just take out the contents, leave 'em in the locker like you said."
To my surprise, Dumas laughed – a big boisterous fullbodied laugh that set his chins quivering. "It didn't fit? Shit, ain't that a hoot!"
"Yeah, a regular laugh riot."
"Ah, you know what they say – the best laid plans and all that. You didn't leave it there, did you? All unwrapped and everything?"
"No, I didn't leave it there," I snapped. "It's in the car."
"And where's the car?"
"It's safe."
"Good boy, good boy. So you been waiting here for me ever since?"
"That's right."
"Sounds like you've been having yourself one bitch of a day. Why don't you come inside and we'll discuss it over a drink, like civilized men? Maybe I can explain myself a bit, you'll see I ain't as bad as I might seem."
I don't know why, but I released him. Dumas straightened his jacket, picked his cap up off the sidewalk, and gestured for me to head inside.
He led me to a booth in the back – his usual, it seemed, the one I'd met him in before – and flagged down the bartender, ordering a beer and a shot apiece. When they arrived, Dumas downed his shot and took a pull
of beer. I ignored mine. He eyed me a moment, giving me a chance to reconsider, and then shrugged.
"Listen," he said, "I'm real sorry about this mornin'. You weren't meant to see that."
"That doesn't change the fact I did."
"You're right, of course. I guess I owe you an explanation."
"What good is explaining gonna do?" I said. "I'm no dope peddler."
"Nor am I, Sam – nor am I. But I am in shipping, and if there are people willing to pay mightily for their shipments to arrive in time and unmolested, who am I to turn them away? What is in those shipments is their concern, not mine. And OK, yeah, maybe this time, I knew what was in the suitcase, but so what? These folks ain't giving this shit to schoolchildren, they're running a business. As in, if people wanna buy it, it's none o' mine."
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