Personal Effects: Dark Art Read online

  Drake leaned back, the wood settling around him.

  “He was the one who told me, you know. Alexandrov. I don’t know how he found out—either he had a mole, or one of us had gone hostile. Doesn’t matter. My career was finished, fucked. He told me that I’d killed his family. He sat there, chained to that chair, bleeding out of every hole God gave him, and he laughed and spat and cursed me. ‘Eye for eye, pig-fuck-American.’ Payment in blood. Spoke in a language I didn’t understand. Then told me that I’d be haunted for the rest of my days. I’d be the eyes of death, ‘the black harpoon.’”

  His voice was flat now, businesslike.

  “And so I hit him until he stopped laughing. Damned-near all of his teeth were gone already, so that part was easy. I took his tags and dumped him in the Volga.”

  I stared at him, silent. His face was slack and expressionless.

  “Eye for eye,” I said.

  He nodded. A tear slid down his cheek.

  “Your orders killed his wife and daughter—and a month later, you lose your wife and daughter. That’s not the work of a demon, Richard. That could be the bloodlust of a man you tried to kill. And perhaps the debt hasn’t been paid in full, not in Alexandrov’s mind. Perhaps he watched from afar, followed, preyed upon your friends, creating the illusion of the Dark Man … and you, so damaged from Russia, driven so desperate by the blood on your hands, made the illusion a delusion. The sinner needed punishment. What better punisher than Chernobog, Servant of the Black”

  Drake began to moan as he wept freely now. His chest heaved, wracked by his sobs. He wasn’t a killer now, wasn’t a cruel man. For this moment, this heartbeat, he was a child, lost in the dark.

  “I don’t know if he’s out there,” I said quietly. “But I think he could be. You didn’t physically kill these people; you’ve admitted that. If Alexandrov is out there, pursuing a vendetta, then that could help prove your innocence. You could even help me, feed me enough information that the cops—the feds, the CIA, whoever—might find this guy. If he’s still alive, he’s a ghost now. That means he’s safe. You could give him bones and blood again, make him catchable … again.”

  I couldn’t tell if Drake was listening anymore. He covered his face, shuddering and weeping. He gave a low wail inside his hands, and now my vision was blurring, moved by the movement of his soul.

  “Richard,” I said, “I can’t … Jesus … I can’t begin to imagine the fear you’ve felt, the terror of feeling watched, or hunted. I don’t know what it’s like to flee a new home, a new life. I’ve never lost friend after friend, town after town. What happened in Russia, I can’t fathom the pain … the ache … of that mistake—and I’m sorry that I can’t reach that, imagine it.”

  My hand fumbled to the wallet in my back pocket. The chair creaked as I tugged it free, flipped it open, pulled out the photo from Gram’s shoebox.

  I stared down at the trembling thing: me, Rachael, Lucas and Dad. Taken a year ago, when things were less complicated, less broken. I began to weep now, too. I wept for the face that wasn’t there.

  “But I know … God, do I know … what it’s like to lose family. I saw her die, Richard. A soul doesn’t recover from that. It’s bruised, crushed. Your wife and daughter, gone. There’s no worse punishment. But …”

  I looked at him now. His long fingers smeared the tears into his skin. His eyes were closed, but he was pulling out of it, listening again.

  “Alexandrov might be alive,” I told him. “The Dark Man might not be real. Can you open your mind to that? That sliver of possibility”

  I reached out, slowly, and placed my hand on his shoulder. His body flinched, but he did not pull away. His face turned toward my hand.

  “Can you open your eyes and see that world, a world that might be”

  The room was silent.

  And then, Drake did.

  He sucked in air through his teeth, squinting at the comparative brightness of the room. His eyes fluttered, cataloging the hand on his shoulder as if it were a new thing. His expression was exquisite and bittersweet.

  Something that sounded like a laugh—a genuine, joyful laugh—surged from his throat. It sounded gruff and rusty, out of practice. I watched his eyes roam from my hand to his shoulder, then down to his chest. He pressed his hands there, drummed his fingers along his ribcage. His eyebrows raised, hopeful.

  I’d never seen a smile so beautiful or truthful. He laughed again, more confident this time.

  His gaze shifted down to his slacks, his loafers—he was tapping his feet now—and then racked focus to my Vans.

  The smile changed. The glee transformed into something more serious and straightforward.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  His pine-green eyes followed up my leg, to my knee and to the hand there, holding the photo. And then they flicked to my face. Tears spilled anew, down his red cheeks. The expression on his face was new, too.

  He was … terrified.

  His voice was hushed, quaking, barely audible. “Oh no. You’re wrong, so wrong.” His eyes flicked over my shoulder, and he uttered a low sound: rrrrrnnnnn

  The light above us flickered. The strobe show was back.

  A noise, wicked and unholy, rumbled from my right. The sound of something large scraping against the cinderblock mural … now the screech of knives, sharpened on stone … of breathing now, lascivious and wet and hungry … and the clickity-click of dogs’ claws on tile.

  “—nnno God, no.” Drake’s face had turned pale, sick. “The Dark Man is here, behind you, whispering, showing me how you’re going to die. Here. With me.”

  And that’s when the room went black.

  I gasped, reeling back into the chair. It was black and cold and oh no, black, no, dark, oh dear Christ Almighty, breathe, please help me breathe, no air, no light, no anything—

  Richard Drake screamed. I felt a rush of air, blisteringly cold, rush between us. I saw nothing in the ink, but yes-no-yes, I could sense something growing there, growing taller between us, rising from a feral crouch, now towering above us. The frigid wind came in waves now, as if hailing from a paper fan.

  As if it were dancing.

  And then, that sound. Autumnal leaves.

  Tktktk.

  “No! God, no!” Drake shrieked. “Not just you. Your family. It’s showing me … how your family will die, too. No! NO!”

  The light blasted bright again, and began its manic Morse Code stutter, bzzzt bzzzzzt, bzzzzt.

  I bolted from my chair, whirling around, eyes wild, searching for the thing I’d heard. Nothing. Not a goddamned thing but me and the painted walls and Richard Drake. I turned to him, chest heaving, my heartbeat a thunderstorm in my ears.

  He’d covered his face with his hands, was screaming like a damned man. I stumbled backward, toward the door, my gaze irresistibly locked on the crazy man in the chair.

  “CURSED!” he howled. “TOO LATE! Too late for me, Mr. Taylor, and too late for you and yours. I warned you, and now it’s free, the cage broken, I can see, it’s here to play … and it’ll play, Mr. Taylor, play with you like a cat plays with a mouse …”

  His next word was either prey or pray. I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t care. My back pressed against the metal door. I slammed my palm against it. I made a fist, and pounded. My voice was high, cracking like a teenaged boy’s.

  “EMILIO! For fuck’s sake, GET IN HERE!”

  The bolt clacked open and Emilio’s hands were on my shoulders, yanking me from the room. I was airborne for a half-second … and I then was bounding into the hall, nearly spilling onto the floor.

  Emilio was a tree-sized blur, cannonballing into Room 507. His massive form was soaked in the stuttering light as he reached out, ready to restrain the still-sitting, still-screaming Drake. Emilio tore Drake’s hands away from his face. He leaned low to give Drake a verbal warning, per procedure—calm down.

  Their faces were inches apart. Drake’s scream rose in pitch, impossibly raw now, like shattering
glass.

  I dashed from the doorway, down the hall, head spinning, brains popping like a bad fuse, emotional overload, tilt, tilt. Tilting, the world was tilting.

  The lights out here weren’t flickering, weren’t growing dimmer. They were getting brighter. How is that possible …

  Emilio bellowed, like a tyrannosaur. I spun on my heel, eyes focusing on the doorway.

  The world went slow.

  Emilio Wallace ran full-speed from the room, his muscled arms flailing, as if aflame. His voice was a tornado, a battle cry, a thing his fans heard years ago in Southwestern convention centers. Nuh-nuh-no, not them, he was screaming, I wuh-won’t do it, not my boys . .

  … and then his six-foot-five, 260-pound body smashed into the tiled wall opposite the door.

  He bounced off and staggered, stupid. His broken nose gushed crimson, covering his mouth and Superman chin in a horror-show goatee. He swayed once, then slapped his palms onto the wall to steady himself.

  He stared at the cracked tiles and snarled. He swung his head forward, bashing it against the wall. Ghoul’s paint sprayed against the pale green.

  “Nuh-NO!” he howled.

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

  Emilio drove his forehead into the tiles again and again, growling, now howling. A nightmare of flesh scraps and blood spritzed forward—then upward—as he hammered his skull against the wall. His face was covered in gore. His forearms and hands were slick, misted with blood.

  And bashed again.

  A tile broke loose and shattered on the floor. It was like a pistol shot. I ran toward him.

  Roaring, he bashed again.

  Meat spilled into his face.

  And again.

  A sickening, soggy crunch rang in the hall. My friend’s shoulders sagged. A terrible gurgle pushed through his blood-soaked lips … hhkkkkk … and he fell.

  I stopped at his bloodied body. My eyes refused to work, to blink. It was impossible to look away.

  The lights in the hall began to flicker. I shivered.

  From behind me, I heard a skitter-slide of feet, the sound of millipedes and bad dreams. I felt something watching me, a thing old and awful, and very cold. And then, a blast of ice. A breath on my neck.

  My eyes fluttered, rolled upward.

  For the first time in my life, I was grateful for the dark.

  21

  My bicycle weighed less than twenty-five pounds, but it felt oppressively heavy on my shoulder as I trudged up the steps of my building. The carpet-covered wood creaked beneath my feet. The old light fixtures struggled against the dimness of early evening. My Cannondale’s rear tire spun sleepily as it skipped against the wall.

  Tick-tick-tick, went the wheel. And then, skitter-slide: tktktk.

  I stopped, clutched the banister, sensing something unfamiliar. There was no breeze here in the stairwell, but it was chilly, as it always was this time of year. I sniffed, smelled plaster and wood polish. The air felt damp, heavy. It pressed against me like fog, another skin, claustrophobic.

  Tktktk.

  I shuddered, resisting the urge to turn around.

  It was the Cannondale, yes. It was the Cannondale’s tire whirling round and round, and the air had changed because people were heating their apartments now. That was all, an elementary deduction; my Spock-side would be proud. I leaned against the handrail, inhaling deeply. The whirlwind days and sleepless nights were catching up with me. They’d come, finally, to collect.

  Tick-tick-tick, went the wheel.

  “Oh, shut up,” I said.

  I clomped up the second flight, relieved to be home.

  Rachael and Lucas were waiting in the living room, their faces pinched and fretful. I smiled. It was a weary-faced farce. They knew it, too, and I loved them for that.

  My brother pulled the bike from my shoulder and wheeled it to the hallway closet. I heard him hang it on the door rack.

  I gazed at my woman standing in the center of the room, surrounded by our red halo of chili-pepper lights, drinking up the sight of her. I went to her, hungry to feel warm, held, beloved.

  Her inked arms pressed me closer. I sighed. The steel cables in my shoulders slackened a bit. I kissed her, breathed in her scent of shampoo and skin. Goddamn, this was perfect. Holistic. Necessary.

  “You should’ve let me pick you up,” she whispered.

  I pulled away, gave her lips another quick kiss. “No. I needed to be alone. Needed to think.”

  Lucas stepped into the room, a fresh beer in his hand. I accepted the bottle and slid onto our couch. Compared to the stiff hospital bed and metal chairs in which I’d spent nearly my entire day, this felt luxurious. Rachael joined me. Bliss hopped into my lap, delighted. Her other half, Dali, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Tell, bro,” Lucas said.

  I sipped the beer, unsure of what to say. Drake’s personal effects lay strewn about the steamer trunk before me: wallet, phone, envelopes, letters …

  “Failure,” I said finally. I suddenly wanted to cry, but I didn’t have it in me.

  They waited. Lucas sat on the floor.

  “So there was an accident,” I said. “I told you that. And I’m fine. But … I … this morning, I watched my friend head-butt his brains all over a wall.”

  “Oh my God,” Rachael said. “Why?”

  “Because he’d been hacked, like a computer,” I murmured. “He’d been reprogrammed by that son of a bitch. Our CIA interrogator spent days spooking him, slow-boiling him like an egg. Today … today the shell came off. Jesus. Emilio is … Emilio was always a little off-center. Drake exploited that.”

  “He’s dead?” Lucas asked.

  I nodded slowly, my lips trembling.

  “He must be. They took him topside. A chopper medevaced him out. No one’s told me anything, but there’s no way a person could survive that.”

  In my mind, I heard the Brinkvale tile shatter against the hallway floor. I shuddered.

  Emilio was dead.

  “No way,” I repeated.

  “This just … happened?”

  I turned to Rachael.

  “It’s my fault. I told Drake my theory about Alexandrov. He broke through, he actually saw … and then he broke down. Starting screaming about the Dark Man, how it was going to hunt us, kill us.”

  “Oh, babe,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Who’s ‘us?’” Lucas asked. His voice was low.

  “Us three, and Dad.”

  I watched him. He pulled his knees up to his chest. Now, he hugged his shins. An incisor dug into his bottom lip. Oh, no.

  “Lucas, relax,” I said. “It’s bullshit.”

  But it’s not, cooed a slippery voice inside me. You’ve been marked. Time’s running out. Tktktk-tock.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s a con, Luc. A way he controls his life, and others. It isn’t real.”

  The voice in my mind tittered.

  “It’s not,” I said again, more insistent. “Paranoia only has power if you buy what it’s selling. You have to believe, man. Emilio was like that, God love him. He was eager. He was unbalanced. He bought into it.”

  And you? the slippery voice said. Aren’t you in line to buy? You heard it, scritch-scratch, tktktk. You felt its breath on your neck. And now the voice was Richard Drake’s: You’re wrong, so wrong …

  “Don’t be eager,” Lucas was saying. “Heh, right. Dookle. What’s the opposite of ‘eager?’”

  “Skeptical,” Rachael and I said simultaneously.

  The three of us smiled. I felt a little better. I rubbed Bliss kitty’s head. She hopped from my lap.

  “Are you done with Drake?” Rachael asked. “Is it over?”

  I shrugged.

  “After I watched Emilio … ah, jeez … after I saw it, I fainted. Woke up in the infirmary. They fussed over me. Dr. Peterson came down, personally conducted the interview for the incident report. That was awkward. Cops took a statement. Of course, no Zach Taylor screw-up would
be complete without a cameo by Nathan Xavier.”

  “Is that the prick who looks like a Ken doll?” Lucas asked.

  I nodded.

  “Plastic prick,” Rachael said. “Doctor Dildo.”

  I smirked, grateful for the joke. “I spent most of the afternoon in a counseling session. I had questions about Drake, but everyone was giving me the ‘wait and see’ line—probably because Xavier is gunning for the job. All I know is that the man has completely shut down. He isn’t moving, talking, eating. Near-catatonic state. Oh, and he’s blind again.”

  “Everything’s undone,” Lucas said.

  “Pretty much.”

  I sighed.

  “I don’t know what to do. I was ready to sign him off as unfit to stand trial, I really was. He’d never given me a reason to believe otherwise. Therapists and patients are supposed to work together. You give, you get. But Drake never gave an inch.”

  I pointed at the belongings on the table.

  “I had to steal whatever I got,” I muttered. “Goddamn. Do you realize that I’ve been more like Anti-Zach in the past four days than I have in the past four years?”

  “That’s not true,” Rachael said. “You’ve been trying to help.”

  “I haven’t helped anybody. I killed my friend.”

  “Z, you didn’t—”

  “He gave you the song,” Lucas interrupted. “‘Night On Bald Mountain.’”

  I paused. Yes, the song. But Drake hadn’t given that willingly, either. I never told him the Casio recorded his every note. Sure, the tune was another glimpse inside him—another validation of the Dark Man. But that was worthless now. Everything I’d done was worthless. In fact, that stupid song had been the only “art” this stupid art therapist had extracted from his patient. I was a fraud, a boy pretending to be a man. I’d been so desperate to—

  Wait.

  Wait just a damned minute. It wasn’t the only art …