A vermillion tentacle snaked from the large red artery, dead ending at the center top of the photo. The swirling black hole.
“Map,” Rachael said.
I nodded, numb.
“Yeah,” I said. I knew it. I’d seen it. “It’s a map leading to Daniel Drake’s home.”
We jumped at the sound of thunder.
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony blared from my cell phone’s speaker. The thing jigged on the steamer trunk, vibrating.
Bum-bum-bum-bummmmm.
“Christ, not now,” I growled. I glanced at the others. “It’s Dad.”
“Pick it up, bro,” Lucas said.
I turned to him, surprised.
“Dude, no,” I snapped, appalled. I grabbed the phone. “He wants to sabotage my career for some bloodlust vendetta!” I stared at Lucas, incredulous. “Dad’s been keeping shit from us for years, man, rotten stuff, for fucking years, burying, re-writing…”
I stopped myself. No. Not now. Maybe not ever.
The phone rang again. My thumb jabbed the button that would send the call to voice mail.
Lucas crossed his arms.
“So he didn’t tell us about Sophronia two years ago. So what? Have you told me every girlfriend you’ve ever had”
Faraway, in the bedroom, Bliss hissed again. Dali growled, an air-curdling rrrrreow.
“Knock it off,” Rachael called to the pets. “Lucas, he said he doesn’t—”
“I get it, I do,” Lucas said. “You’re pissed, he’s pissed, it’s a Pissapalooza. But he’s family, and this”—he pointed to the photo—“is windchill shit, too spooky to be anything but real. Can’t you feel it? Dude, look at your arms, you’ve got pebbles for pores. You’re shivering. It’s fucking freaky.”
“Th-that… ,” I stammered, “that doesn’t make it real. This is all explainable. Every bit of it: Drake’s Dark Man, the killings, that map. Just because someone says you’ve been ‘marked’ doesn’t make it so. You wouldn’t even be wigging now if I hadn’t told you!”
Lucas took a step toward me.
“Aren’t you afraid”
“I don’t—”
“Aren’t you”
“Of course I am. How can I not be, with the week I’ve been having? But Luc, being scared doesn’t mean I—”
Another hiss, louder this time. Then came the delicate scratching of cat claws on hardwood. And then: tktktk.
“Did you hear that” I whispered.
The phone buzzed twice in my hand. I nearly screamed.
“Z, please. At least play the message,” Lucas said. “I need to know he’s okay.”
I nodded, because I needed to know, too. Far too much was happening now—this now, right now, this moment, this heartbeat—to ignore the message. I was learning to hate him, but I loved him. I still loved my father.
I tapped the speakerphone button and dialed into voice mail.
The air around us roared; Dad had called from the car.
“Zachary, it’s me. I’m a few blocks from your house right now. I heard about what happened at The Brink today. Incident, ah…”
I heard the flick-rattle of paper.
“…incident report 507-482. My God, young man…”
I pointed at the phone. See? I mouthed. Lucas shushed me. The engine in the background surged, accelerating.
“…Zachary, that could’ve been you,” Dad said. “The next time, it might be you. And it can’t be you, Zach, I won’t allow it. I’m coming there right now to discuss this, and if you’re not there, I’ll sit and wait and whatthehell—”
Car horn now. Tires screeching, sliding. My father, howling.
The phone trembled in my hand, its speaker overpowered by the explosive clap of an impact… and then shredding, squealing metal. Steel laughter.
The line went dead. We stared at each other, immobilized, disbelieving.
From above, from the ceiling: tktktktk.
And then the lights flickered
The lights blinked off, the entire apartment black now, inkswimming
The cat hissed
Lucas moaned, horrified
Light now, on the table, something buzzing on the table
Bzzzzz
Richard Drake’s phone, screen glowing
Bzzzzz
Vibrating
Bzzzzz
INCOMING CALL
Bzzzzz
SOPHRONIA POOLE
In my ear, so close, like a lover
Tktktk.
The three of us moved together. Wrenched open the front door. Pounded down the apartment stairs.
Screaming.
22
We scrabbled down the concrete front steps of our building into a world of darkness. Every light bulb on this block of Avenue B was dead. People around us yelled and cursed with frustration. The sound-scape of the city played kick-drum backbeat to our high, ragged breathing. The wind howled.
Lucas was gasping, his limber knees bent, his pose feral. Rachael’s eyes burned bright with confusion. I was sweating, bone cold, paralyzed by panic and fright and a sudden certainty that’d I’d been wrong all along, that the thing was here, alive, snaking around us, constricting.
“What the hell’s going on, Z?” Rachael screamed. “What’s happening?”
“Blackout,” I said. “I don’t know.”
Oh yes, you do. Tell the bitch she’s been damned, that she’ll be devoured, that you did it, Zach, you killed her just like you killed Emilio, cursssed cursss—
“LOOK!” Lucas wailed.
He pointed north. Far beyond our block—and the darkened block beyond that—was East 14th Street. Blue and red strobes flashed on the horizon, from its major intersection.
“Dad’s accident!”
“Luc, you don’t know th—”
But he took off at full speed, not listening. The door of Seventh City Comics, a ground-floor shop in our neighboring building, swung open. Blake Lafferty, Seventh City’s owner, dashed onto the sidewalk, swearing at the blackout. Lucas was nearly on him, about to plow into—
Lucas leaped sideways, his body soaring parallel to the ground. His hands slapped onto the metal light pole by the curb, and his body tucked into a ball, sneakers screaming toward the pole. Their treads slammed into the metal—bong!—and he shoved off at an angle, flying past Blake like an agile tree monkey. Lucas somersaulted on the sidewalk, found his footing and tore off north again, toward the intersection.
This all happened in the span of an eye blink.
“Come on!” I yelled to Rachael.
We followed him, shouldering past a wide-eyed Blake.
Lucas was an urban kangaroo. He bounded, rolled and slid past pedestrians, every footfall a close call, every leap reckless and magnificent. The world was his Autobahn, his junglegym. Store awning supports became monkey bars. Fire hydrants, rocket launch pads.
We ran and ran, screaming his name.
My brother did not see the shopping cart until it was too late. The homeless man’s cart, overflowing with cans and clothes, rattled directly into Lucas’ path—and from my vantage point a quarter-block away, I thought he was done. But Lucas pushed further, faster and dove… forward.
Again, his hands slapped home first, gripping the top edge of the metal basket… and in an instant—stretched thin like taffy—his arms took over, wrenching his torso skyward. My eyes freeze-framed him there, a Central Park handstander, a Cirque de Soleil performer… and then his momentum propelled him forward, and his hands were free. His body backflipped, feet smacking safely onto the concrete.