I clenched my teeth. “Why don’t you call Vex and ask him?”
“I thought you wanted me to protect Shock. If I start poking my neck out, Vex is going to take a swipe at me.” His voice grew persuasive. “Why don’t you come over, Allay? We need to sit down together and figure out our next move.”
Actually, I sort of wished I could run up to his feathered nest and relax, even just for a moment. I wanted to check out, sleep for a long time, not think about anything for a while. But that was impossible.
I was responsible for Theo. I had to do whatever it took to get him away from Vex. I also needed to get some sort of leverage on Vex so that he wouldn’t go after Shock.
But as hard as I considered it, I had nothing to hold over Vex. I could threaten to let myself die rather than do as he wanted, but he might just force me to absorb a demon essence somehow. I preferred to keep my intentions a secret because, in reality, it was my ultimate escape route if all else failed. Dying looked easy next to going through the charade Vex had in mind.
Vex’s only weak spot was Dread. There must be some way to put pressure on him so they would turn on each other and concentrate on their own power struggles.
“Allay? Are you still there?” Revel asked. “Shock wants to see you, and you shouldn’t be out there alone. You don’t have any protection right now.”
I hung up on Revel, unwilling to admit my absurd dilemma. How could I make two of the most powerful demons in the world afraid of me?
Then I remembered Phil’s face, and how afraid he was when he thought I would expose him. His eyes had bugged out as if I had jabbed my fingers into his throat. That was some way to get a guy’s attention.
It gave me an idea—a really great idea. What if I blackmailed one of the big guys Dread had bribed, such as the planning and zoning commissioner? I could threaten to expose his dealings with the Fellowship. I would offer to keep my mouth shut only if he convinced the prophet to let Theo go. That would definitely put Dread at odds with Vex. He wouldn’t want his pet civil servant to be upset.
If that wasn’t enough, I could blackmail another one tomorrow, and another one after that. Hopefully the suffering Dread would go through was not worth keeping Theo, now that I had left the complex. It might even cause one of the bribed officials to turn evidence on the church. At the very least, I’d throw a wrench into their payola scam.
Theo was right about me—I couldn’t just walk away. I had to do something to stop them.
I stashed the car in a garage down on Canal Street. There were several quick ways to get out of the city from Chinatown.
Then I ducked into an all-night Internet café, the kind with rows of tables with people staring at the monitors. This one offered a choice of hot Chinese tea or coffee, so I took tea and smelled it rather than drank it.
It took some searching to find out that the New York City Planning commissioner, Dennis Mackleby, lived in Battery Park City. He owned an apartment in one of the high-rises filled with wealthy urban families. It wasn’t far from where I was sitting.
A search through the phone records yielded his home number. I keyed it into my phone, but didn’t press SEND until I was back out on the street. It was just after midnight—no better time for a blackmailer to strike. The phone rang six times before a sleepy voice picked up. “Mackleby residence.”
It was a woman, perhaps his wife. My hands were sweating and I wasn’t sure I could do this. “I need to speak to Dennis Mackleby. It’s an emergency.”
“Who is this?” she asked more sharply.
“Tell him it’s Allay from the Den on C. With bad news.”
She repeated the words after me, and sooner than I would have imagined, Dennis Mackleby was on the phone
.
“Who is this? What is this about, calling me at this hour? I won’t stand for prank calls.”
“Mr. Mackleby, we’ve never met, but I know your driver, Nelson. He comes to my bar to pick up your bribe from Prophet Anderson the first of every month.”
That cut him off at the knees. It sounded as if he were strangling; then he put his hand over the mouthpiece but not quickly enough before I heard him give some excuse to his wife. “Hold on,” he said. Then the sound of the door shutting preceded his terse demand. “You had better rethink what you’re doing. I’m not the kind of guy you want to mess around with.”
“Yes, it would be very messy. Splashed all over the papers, exactly how those waterfront variances for the Prophet’s Arena were bought and paid for with regular installments.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mackleby said. “You have nothing on me. This is a sick joke and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
But he didn’t hang up. His breathing was harsh in my ear. He was saying those things because he had to, in case I was taping him. He was hooked and on my line.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut—forever—if you do one thing,” I promised. “You have to convince the prophet to release the man known as Theo Ram. They’re holding him in the Prophet’s Center, and unless I see him free on the streets by tomorrow with my own eyes, I’m going public with my evidence. Remember, Theo Ram.”
I hung up, shaking. I turned and hurried up Vesey Street. It was tragic, what I was reduced to. I think in that moment I gave up hope for myself as a human being.
I wouldn’t subject myself to Revel’s relentless questions, and I couldn’t admit how much I cared about Theo out loud to anyone, not even Shock, so I spent the rest of the night riding around on the subway, changing from line to line. The clack-clack rhythm of the rocking car lulled me, as people came and went. The stations all began to look the same—the platforms, steel I-beams, and tiles stained with black, brown, and white residue seeping down from the streets.
I felt glimpses of other demons as the train stopped at the stations, but deep in the tunnels, the layers of concrete blocked all signatures. I felt relatively safe, knowing it would give time for Mackleby to pressure Dread, and for Dread to pressure Vex. It was anyone’s bet what would happen next.
At every stop, I glanced at my phone as reception returned. Just as the morning rush hour picked up, my battery started running low. Vex liked to ride the subways during rush hour, irritating the cramped passengers, so I couldn’t stay any longer. I decided to get my car and drive around for a while to charge up my cell. That would also keep any demons from detecting a pattern in my movements.
As I got out at Canal and Broadway, a message that wasn’t from Revel finally beeped through. But it wasn’t the message I was expecting. It was from Lolita
. Hi Allay. I hope everything’s going okay. I talked to Darryl and Pepe, and I’m meeting with both of them this morning to give them their pay. Pepe said he was on his way over to the bar to clean up since we didn’t get to it last night, so you may see him before I do. Give me a call when you get up and get this.
My blood ran cold. Pepe was going to the bar. I called his home, but his wife said he had left a while ago. He didn’t have a cell phone, so I couldn’t intercept him.
I had to go back to the bar to tell him to go home. Nobody should go near that place. It was like nuclear waste, deadly. Any demon looking for me would start there, and Vex had made it clear with Theo that he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt people to get to me.
The Monday morning rush hour didn’t make it easy to get to the bar in a hurry. The subway would take me only halfway. Rather than wait on the crowded platform and shove into a full car, I sprinted up Broadway, heading north. I tried to grab a cab, but they were all full, or people were waiting to step into one as soon as somebody got out.
I had to run nearly thirty blocks to get back home, but I was glad I did when I saw the metal shutter on the bar was halfway up. Pepe was moving around inside, sweeping the floor.
I ducked under the shutter and went inside. With a glance, I saw he had gathered all the glasses we left out and stacked them neatly by the sink to be washed. The tables were wiped down. “Pepe! What are you doing here? Didn’t Lolita tell you the bar is closed?”
Pepe didn’t stop sweeping, smiling his slow grin. “It’s my job to leave it clean. I’ll leave it clean for the boss.”
“We aren’t working for him anymore,” I said firmly. “Besides, this place will be torn down more than likely. Who cares if there’re glasses on the tables?”
“I care.” Pepe was looking straight at me. “I took care of this place for ten years. I’ve been proud to do it. I know you’re proud, too, Allay.”
I looked around. This bar had been my refuge, my pearly conch shell of safety that I could retreat into and make my life my own. For a moment, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it all. But it was only an illusion.
“Come on, Pepe. We’re not allowed to be here anymore.” I gently took the broom from his hands, and he finally realized I wasn’t going to let him finish his job.
Then something slammed against the metal shutter, making us both jump and cover our ears from the earsplit ting echo. Then came more high-pitched popping. I saw Pepe’s look of surprise, and there was nothing more as everything went dark.
14
As I slowly woke up, despite my body’s best attempts at staying under, my head was ringing and it felt as if my lungs were scorched with every breath. I realized I was staring at the ceiling of the bar, its dust-covered ducts and pipes as familiar as the back of my hand.
For far too long I lay there dazed, unable to remember anything. It was disorienting, deeply frightening. I wasn’t even sure of my own name.
The faint tinkling of glass and the harsher sound of gasps next to me got me moving. I turned my head and saw Pepe lying beside me. Blood was everywhere.
Everything came back in a rush. We were lying in the midst of a sea of glass and splintered wood. Someone had shot out the front windows of the bar.
I crawled over to Pepe, not even feeling the broken glass. He had been hit in the lower abdomen and the thigh. Blood poured sluggishly from the dark pits where the bullets had entered. His eyes were wide-open, shocked, and insensible.
My hands fumbled my phone out of my pocket, and I dialed 911, my bloody fingers slipping on the numbers. A perfunctory voice answered, and I managed to give the address of my bar. “A man’s been shot. Send an ambulance as fast as you can.”
I could hear keys clicking as she placed the request. “Are you injured, ma’am?” she replied.
“No. No. I’m fine. But he’s been shot. You have to hurry!”
Dropping the phone, I looked for something to press down on the wounds to staunch the bleeding. I started to unzip my hoodie, figuring it was large enough to cover both holes, when I realized it was soaked in blood already.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, I was hit. One charred hole was centered just below my heart, and the other two were lower down in my belly.
I had been killed.
Dread was right; I could come back to life after a mortal blow. So that was what it felt like. It was awful; I couldn’t think straight, and my body couldn’t function properly. I must have been out cold for a few minutes.
As I pulled off my hoodie, a bullet fell down. It must have been stopped by my ribs—I could feel the residual pain there—and been pushed out as I regenerated. My stomach was smeared with blood, its sharp demon scent, like that of the pool of blood around me, blending with the alcohol-infused wood in the bar.
Using the hoodie, I covered each of Pepe’s wounds with my hands. Pepe groaned and flinched at the pressure, but I couldn’t let him bleed like that. He was muttering in Spanish, so I assured him, “It’ll be okay, Pepe. They’re coming to help you.”
The metal shutter was still pulled halfway down over the front. Shadows moved outside the bar, visible through the windows below the shutter. “Is somebody in there?” a man called through.
“Yes! A man’s been shot!” I called back.
It turned out to be one of my neighbors, a guy with a tattoo on the front of his neck who walked his Chihuahua by the bar several times a day. He pushed up the metal grate and carefully climbed through the busted window. There was a huge piece of plate glass hanging from the other window frame like a guillotine waiting to fall. He crunched through the broken glass on the floor, using his foot to swipe clear a spot on the floor next to Pepe. He looked as shocked as I felt. I didn’t know what to say; from friendly waves and casual talk on the street, to being caught up in attempted murder. It was too much.
I had no doubt I was the target. Poor Pepe had gotten in the way.
Other people were gathering, peering inside in appalled fascination. This was their block, where they lived, and an ordinary Monday morning had suddenly turned into the lead story on the evening news.
An ambulance pulled up with sirens and lights flashing. They seemed to have gotten here awfully quick, and they surrounded Pepe, ripping open his shirt and pants, giving him oxygen and lifting him onto a white-padded gurney. None of them associated me with Shock, for which I was grateful; I didn’t need any special attention right now while I was so rattled.
I picked up the blood-soaked hoodie they dropped on the floor, and threw it into the garbage can behind the bar. I didn’t want anyone looking at those bullet holes. But the tallest EMT noticed—he must have been right out of college, he was so baby- faced. His eyes went to my bare stomach, smeared with blood.
I realized for the first time that I was wearing only my black bra and jeans.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked, joining me. “Here, sit down.”
I sat down where I could watch them working on Pepe. “I’m okay.”
