Dead Harvest

by Chris F. Holm

  In the moment of impact, I glanced back. Though the force of it shook the tunnel like an earthquake, and the sheer volume of the crash rendered me momentarily deaf, it's what I saw over my shoulder that will stick with me always: Veloch, eyes closed, arms clutched to his chest, a beatific smile gracing his warped and twisted features. The demon was near as tall now as the train itself, which crumpled around Veloch like a hatchback around a maple. For a moment, the demon didn't move, didn't flinch – it just stood stock-still while, impossibly, the train cleaved to either side of it, raining sparks as it ground along the tunnel walls, the metal yielding to Veloch's flesh as if it were stone. Then the life drained out of Veloch's face, and its massive body fell beneath the train, which, now unimpeded, surged forward once more.

  The train bore down on us again, this time as a shrieking, flaming mass of twisted metal. The lights of the station loomed large, just a dozen yards ahead of us. But the train was coming fast, and hard as we were sprinting, it was all I could do to keep my feet.

  Kate reached the station first, hauling herself up onto the platform and rolling clear of the tunnel entrance. I was not so lucky. Blood streamed from the wound in my leg, and I was growing weaker by the second. The heat of the flames licked at my back, and I knew the train was close. What's worse, even if I reached the station in time, as battered as I was, there was no way I was gonna be able to haul my ass up onto the platform. As the train squealed ever closer, I realized this vessel would be swallowed beneath it just as Veloch's had been.

  But then, a hand. It reached down toward the tracks from the platform, just at the entrance of the tunnel. As the heat of the flaming wreck singed my neck and back, eating holes through the flannel of my shirt, I leapt, grabbing Kate's proffered wrist as she clamped down on mine.

  And as I swung weightless toward the platform, forty tons of twisted metal bearing down behind me, I closed my eyes and prayed.

  29.

  I tumbled onto the platform, the flaming wreck of the train clipping my ankle as it sailed past and sending me skittering across the tiles. I came to rest in a dingy yellow corner littered with gum and filth and smelling faintly of piss, and as I lay there, taking stock to see if I'd brought all my limbs with me, I thought it might just be the most beautiful place I'd ever seen.

  Kate lay on her back just a few feet away, her chest heaving with exertion, her face beet-red and drenched in sweat. As her eyes briefly met mine, though, I saw they were wild with life, as I'm sure mine were as well. What a sight we must've been, although there was no one there to see us; out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the last stragglers from the platform fleeing streetside up the stairs. I guess nobody wanted to stay to watch the train wreck. Thinking back to the station we'd just come from, I suspected the people in this one had no idea how lucky they just were.

  "You OK?" Kate asked. I rolled onto my side, watching her as she rested her head against the station floor and lay staring at the ceiling, chest heaving with breath after gasping breath. She looked as exhausted as I felt.

  "Yeah. You?"

  "Yeah. But what about Veloch? Is he dead?"

  I shook my head, and then realized that, facing the ceiling as she now was, there's no way she could have caught that. "No," I said. "Just his vessel."

  "Is that why they didn't go all buggy and stuff like Merihem did? Because we didn't really kill them?"

  "Yeah. Most higher order demons, like Merihem or Beleth, have the ability to walk among us unseen – to trick our eyes and minds into seeing them as human. They'll possess someone if it suits their purposes, but it's hardly a necessity. The foot soldiers don't have that kind of power. If they want to hide their demon natures, they're forced to take a human vessel. Of course, a human vessel is nowhere near as powerful as an actual demon, but the upside is, it makes the demon less vulnerable to attack – if they get bounced from their vessel, they just retreat to their physical selves. Merihem didn't have that luxury, and now he's gone for keeps – hence the big, messy exit."

  Kate fell silent for a moment while she caught her breath. "So those people they – what's the word – inhabited?"

  "Possessed."

  "Right. Possessed. Those people they possessed – we killed them, though, right?"

  "Sort of," I said. "I mean, it's complicated. See, when a demon takes a host, it's not like when I do. I was human once, so human is how I see myself. If I remake a vessel in my image, I'm just rearranging their thoughts, the occasional mannerism – and even then, it takes time. When a demon possesses someone, they have a tendency to warp that person in their image. To some extent, they can't help it, although many use it to their advantage, as our friends back there did – they bring with them their strength, their speed, their everything, until not much of the host being remains. Those guys back there warped those bodies faster than I'd ever seen. Even if we had the time for an exorcism – which we didn't – I doubt they would have survived."

  "So what does that mean about me? How'd the demon that killed my family change me?"

  I sat up and looked at her, unsure of how to respond. After a moment's reflection, I decided to tell Kate the truth. "I don't know."

  She seemed to turn my answer over in her mind as if inspecting it, and then she nodded. "So where are their physical selves? Where do they go, when you expel them from their vessels?"

  "I have no idea. Hell's a big place."

  "I thought you said that this was hell."

  "For me, it is. For others, as well. But hell's not just this island, this city, this planet; it's everywhere, just a hair's breadth away from the 'reality' you see. You ask me, that gives them plenty of latitude to hide."

  "Can they come back?"

  I nodded. "All we did was slow 'em down."

  "Well, then," Kate said, climbing to her feet and extending a helping hand to me, "what do you say to not being here when they do?"

  We emerged from the station at the corner of Lexington and Sixtieth. Overhead, the gray sky deepened toward black as evening settled over the city. Sirens wailed in the distance – in response to the train wreck, no doubt. The midtown traffic must've slowed them up, though, because so far, they were nowhere to be seen. My thoughts turned to the hulking mass of twisted metal that sat burning beneath our feet, and the people doubtless trapped within it. I pushed those thoughts aside. There was nothing I could do for them. And if I failed to keep Kate safe, there was nothing I could do for anybody.

  "Come on, we've gotta get moving." I took Kate by the arm, and led her away from the station. But just a few steps later, I stopped cold.

  The squat storefront of Mulgheney's sat huddled before me, spilling neon red across the sidewalk like the last sixty years had never happened. Actually, that wasn't quite true: you could see those years in the film of grime that coated the storefront windows, in the dulling of its chromed marquee; a few feet above the door, an ancient air conditioner – not yet present when I'd last laid eyes on the place – dripped rust down the transom below. But all of that was swept away by the wave of remembrance that washed over me. The reek of the place, all cigarettes and whiskey and cheap cologne. The heady mix of lust and greed, of sin, that I'd mistaken for good cheer, for the promise of a better life for me and Elizabeth both.

  No. Looking back, that wasn't true. I hadn't mistaken it for anything. Even then, I'd known better. Somewhere, deep down, I'd known exactly what it was that I'd so blithely bargained away. After all, I know better than anyone that's the way these bargains work. If the mark doesn't understand the stakes, then the deal is null and void.

  So yeah, I'd known. I'd known it all along. And if I had the chance to do it all again, I'd probably play it the same. Guess I'm not one for learning my lesson.

  As I stood there, staring at the place, a shiver coursed down my spine. A bead of sweat trickled down my side. Kate peered at me with concern. "You OK?" she asked.

  "Just a shiver," I told her. She put an arm around my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
Then, the sound of sirens growing ever louder, we set off down the street.

  "Sam, what are you doing here?"

  I looked at Elizabeth, clad in darkness, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with balled fists. But for the occasional snore from her fellow patients – each separated from one another by curtains that extended outward from the walls – the ward was quiet, and the nurses' station was empty and unlit. The only illumination came from the window at the end of the long shared room: city lights reflected cold and brittle off the walls, the linens, the floors. But even in the dark, her expression wasn't hard to read. Liz was frightened. Frightened and suspicious.

  "I don't know. I – I just had to see you. To make sure you were OK."

  "It must be three in the morning!" she whispered. "People here are trying to sleep!"

  "I know," I said. "I'm sorry." Actually, it was closer to four. I'd been walking the streets of the city since Battery Park, since Dumas, trying to wrap my head around what I'd done, but it was no use. I'd never taken a life before – hadn't thought myself capable – and it was just too much for me to deal with on my own. I didn't know at the time that I was coming here, at least not consciously. But while my thoughts went round and round, my feet had other plans. So here I stood. Broken. Trembling. Wanting nothing more than for her to tell me everything would be OK.

  But Liz was having none of that. She clicked on her bedside lamp, looked me up and down. My eyes were red and swollen, and my cheeks stung from the salt of drying tears. My clothes were peppered with blood. Gunpowder burns had seared the flesh of my right hand, although the damage was hard to see, because try though I might, I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. She said, "Jesus, Sam, what happened to you?"

  "Nothing – it's not important."

  "The hell it's not! I haven't heard from you in days, and now you show up in the dead of night, looking like some kind of crazy person. And what is that all over your shirt? It's blood, isn't it? Oh, God, what kind of work are you doing for that man, anyway?"

  "Believe me, you don't have to worry about Dumas anymore," I said.

  Elizabeth's eyes went wide. She recoiled, her hands to her stomach, retreating to the far end of the bed. "You didn't. Tell me you didn't."

  "You don't understand – this guy was as rotten as they come."

  "Tell me you didn't," she repeated, tears welling in her eyes.

  "I had no choice, Liz."

  "Just please tell me that you didn't," she said, pleading now, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  "I did what I had to do," I said. "I did it for us."

  Elizabeth buried her face in her hands, her body racked with sobs. In the darkness, patients stirred around us, their sleep disrupted.

  "I'm sorry, Liz, but there was just no other way. It's over now, though, and we can start fresh, you and me – maybe head back to California, or get that little place in Maine you're always talking about. But we gotta go now, if we're going. It's like we always said, love: it's just me and you, and to hell with everything else. C'mon, baby, what do you say?" I rested a hand atop her shoulder – a comforting gesture, I told myself, and I was only half-lying. The comfort was real. I just had the who it was comforting part backwards.

  "Don't touch me," she spat, shaking off my hand. Her eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere in the middle of the bed, as though she couldn't even look at me.

  "Liz, please."

  "I want you to leave," she said.

  "What?"

  "I SAID LEAVE!"

  At that last, the lights came on. I heard the grumble of patients in nearby beds, angry at the sudden disturbance. I heard a clatter of footfalls from down the hall, and the officious tones of hospital security ringing off the walls. And last, I heard the thudding of my heart, which threatened to burst inside my chest. I looked at Liz, my face a silent plea, but she was having none of it. So, security drawing closer, I fled.

  I headed away from the nurses' station and hit the stairwell at a run, tears streaming down my cheeks. Four stories' worth of stairs passed unnoticed beneath my feet, and I spilled out into the biting cold night. I was in a narrow alley, the street beyond hidden behind a heaping mound of trash. Pavement bit the tender flesh of my hands and knees as I collapsed, retching, to the ground, my body racked with sob after painful sob. I didn't know if they were coming for me. At that point, I didn't care. I thought I'd reached the bottom, then. The worst that it could get.

  I had no idea how wrong I was.

  "Shit, Sam, I always figured you were kinda gutless, but this? Crying like a little bitch in the street?"

  At the sound of his voice, my stomach clenched, but there was nothing left to purge. I didn't want to look at him. I knew I couldn't not. Almost without volition, I lifted my head.

  Walter Dumas stood beside me, smiling. Black fire raged in his eyes. He was wearing the same suit I'd seen him in this evening, now filthy and blood-soaked. Three jagged holes, redbrown with drying blood and scorched around the edges, graced his shirt in the center of his chest. Beneath them, his skin was knotted and discolored, like a horrible injury decades old. As I stared at him, disbelievingly, Dumas tugged a bloodspattered kerchief from his pocket, and extended it to me. When I didn't take it, he just shrugged and returned it to his pocket.

  "So what's the matter, Sammy-boy – lady troubles? Eh, them dames are all the same. Always squeamish when the killing starts."

  My head was reeling. This couldn't be happening. "You… I mean, I…"

  "Killed me, yeah. Well, tried to, at least. Made a pretty good go of it, too, if you don't mind my saying. Most folks just snap and make for the nearest blunt object, but you had yourself a plan – you even bought yourself a gun and everything. Gotta say, I'm proud o' you, son. Or, rather, I was, till I saw this pathetic little display."

  "You… you wanted me to kill you?" I asked.

  "Hell, yes, I did" he replied, "that's why your pal Johnnie dragged me into this affair! After all, you can't consummate a contract without blood. It's a common misconception in deals of this kind that the blood you sign with has got to be your own. Truth is, blood taken with malicious intent is always far more binding. I gotta tell you, I was beginnin' to think you'd never seal the deal – I been runnin' you ragged for months now, and you just kept on takin' it."

  "'Deals of this kind'? Deals of what kind?"

  "You mean you still haven't figured it out? I guess you always were a little dense. We own your soul now, boy. Or, rather, the Boss Man does, though credit goes to Merihem – 'scuse me, Johnnie, for puttin' the whole thing together. How's fire and brimstone for all eternity sound, kiddo? Cause that's where you're headed."

  "You can't be serious."

  Dumas said, "OK, you got me on the fire and brimstone. I mean honestly, I don't know who came up with that shit, but it sure as hell wasn't us. You kids and your books. It's downright cute, really. About the owning your ass, though, I'm afraid I'm quite serious."

  "So what, then? You're just gonna whisk me off to hell, now?"

  "Aw, come on, Sam, where's the fun in that? Nah, we'd rather let you sweat a bit. Don't you worry, though – your day is coming soon enough."

  "I don't believe you," I said.

  "You know what? I think you do."

  There was no point arguing, I realized. Dumas was right. I did believe. "What do you mean, my day is coming?"

  "Oh, you'll find out soon enough. You wanna know the funniest part?"

  "What's that?"

  "If you had only guessed at what I am, you wouldn't be in this predicament."

  "How's that?"

  "Ain't no sin to kill a demon. But as far as you knew, it wasn't a demon you were killin'. In this-here game of ours, intent is everything, and your intentions were just as black as can be. Tell me that ain't the bit that's gonna keep you up at night." Dumas laughed. "Anyways, this has been fun and all, but I got places I need to be. See you 'round, Sam."

  And just like that, I was alone.

  "Do you think they saw us?
"

  I glanced back through the glass door through which we'd ducked. It was plastered with multicolored sheets of paper – ads for roommates, dog-walking services, and the like, all obscuring my view of the street beyond. "I don't know."

  We were standing in the vestibule of a Vietnamese noodle joint, just a tiny patch of threadbare floor mat stacked high with free weeklies and wedged between two doors. The interior door was propped open, giving me a view of the restaurant's spartan dining room and teasing my empty stomach with the aroma of ginger and lime and simmering meats. What few patrons there were made no attempts to hide their puzzled stares, and I couldn't blame them. What a pair we must make: Kate, scraped and filthy beneath her bluestreaked hair and studded choker, looking for all the world like a punk-rock zombie. Me, pallor ashen from loss of blood, much of which had dried red-brown into my tattered clothes. I, too, looked like a dead man walking, which was funny, cause for a change, I wasn't.