The Blue Blazes (2 page)

“Poisoned you?” She laughs. “Just a little.”

He tries to step forward. His leg doesn’t comply. It feels mushy. Like a rubber band dangling.

“Something big is coming, Mookie. I’m going to change the game.” Nora waggles her fingers. She mouths, “Buh-bye.”

Then Mookie drops like a hammer-struck bull.

 

2

 

The saying goes that there is more below the streets of New York City than there is above them. An exaggeration by those who say it, perhaps, but they don’t know just how accurate that statement truly is. Hell’s heart, as it turns out, has many chambers.

– From the Journals of John Atticus Oakes, Cartographer of the Great Below

 

Daddy… Daaaaaaddyyyy…
 

I need your help, Daddy.
 

I’m hooked on Blue. These awful things sold it to me.
 

Goblins. They hurt me. They hurt my boyfriend.
 

If only someone would kill them for me…
 

Daaaaddyyy…
 

He awakens in the morning. Still alive. The poison ran its course, scraped him out like a knife. Every movement feels slow. Like he’s walking underwater. Glances up. Sees the time. He’s running late. For the Boss’ meeting. Shit.
Shit
.

He grabs a stool and shatters it against the bar top, then staggers out the door.

 

Mookie takes the train out of Edison.

Train’s late. And it’s not the express. Time escapes. His body’s starting to rebound from whatever Snakeface venom his daughter must’ve used to poison his meat – and now everything feels toothy and raw. Like coming down off the Blue.

His feet tap. He keeps cracking his knuckles.

Finally, the train moves. North on Jersey Transit toward the city. Through trees and tracks, past Rahway, Elizabeth, into the bleak industrial waste that is Newark, and finally down through darkness toward the city proper.

When the train hits the tunnel, Mookie stiffens. His whole body, tensing up like he just stepped on the third rail. Out there in the shadows of the underground, anything could be hiding. Monsters of known quantity: a band of war-whooping gobbos, a handful of all-mad half-and-halfs, a cult of Blazeheads looking to score. Or creatures of unknown measure: they exist, too. Things that have no name. That have never been seen before and will never be seen again once they crawl back down into the deep. They could rush the train, break the windows, drag passengers out through the holes screaming into the black.

It won’t happen. Probably. Hasn’t yet. Most know better. And the trains move fast.

But Mookie knows what could happen. He’s seen worse.

So when the train plunges through the tunnel before Penn Station, when his cell signal goes dead and out there in the darkness he sees the sparking blue of powerlines snapping, he feels his teeth grit, his eyes water, his balls cinch up toward his belly. He thinks he sees something, or someone, standing out there on an abandoned platform, lit by the sparking blue, but then the train moves and the shape is gone.

Then it’s light and the muffled voice coming over the speakers.

Penn Station, New York City.

Mookie gets off the train.

Everyone avoids him as he exits. It’s not just because he’s a big sonofabitch. It’s because he looks like he could knock the heads off their shoulders with but a flick of his wrist. It’s because he looks like he might eat them if he gets hungry enough. It’s because he looks like something out of a bad dream.

Maybe he is.

 

Dreams of hands pulling her down through water. Then into the muddy bottom. Bubbles in black muck. Down, through the mud, wriggling like a reverse worm, into the catacombs. The maze like a bundle of snakes, loops and whorls against loops and whorls, her running through tight tunnels that empty out into epic chambers, past glowing rock like tropical coral, past fungal shelves that smell of rotting meat, past an overturned shopping cart with a human skeleton draped upon it – skull-teeth
clack-clack-clack
ing.

Something chasing her. Away and into the dark.

A black shape. Flinty, silver eyes – like hematite catching light.

It’s faster than she is.

Suddenly she’s above. City streets. Flickering lights. People are screaming. The earth shudders. Something dark coils around the Chrysler Building.

Then: another sound. Feet stomping on rock. Like hooves on cobblestone.

A hand falls on her shoulder–

Big hand. Hard hand with scabs on the knuckles. A hard shove and she’s down on the ground. Palms stinging against asphalt. She rolls over. She sees. It’s him.

“Daddy?” she says, voice damp and smothered – something in her throat –

Nora awakens. Mouth gaping as if emerging back up through the water in her dreams, gasping and then gagging and then coughing. Mouth thick with the treacly mouth-breather spit-crust. She makes an
ugh
sound, fumbles on the coffee table – she fell asleep on the couch last night – for a bottle of iced tea. Not much in it and it tastes foul, but wet is wet and she doesn’t feel like getting up, not yet.

There, next to the bottle, on the far side of a cat-chewed remote control, lies a small Altoids tin. She grabs for it, gently opens it, the little metal hinges squeaking.

In the corner of the tin sits a small residue of blue powder.

Just looking at it makes her heart flutter. Makes her brow hot.

So little left. Less than a thimble’s worth. One use, maybe two.

Part of her itches to use it. Grab it. Smudge it. Give into it.

But she doesn’t. There’s no point. She has to be practical with this stuff. Reserve it for when she’ll need it most – and that time may be coming soon.

As though on cue, her phone vibrates on the table. Screen lights up with a text.

From her boy-toy:

Will I see you tonight? <3 C.
 

Another swig of rancid tea to wash down the bad taste and the worse dreams.

“You bet your ass you will,” Nora says, texting him with a more moderate:

l8r, yes.
 

She holds the phone to her chest and smiles. The whole thing will flip soon enough. Thanks to her. And then she’ll have all the Cerulean she could ever want.

And Daddy will have to ask
her
for permission to get a taste.

 

Mookie gets a text from Werth. It’s the address. Then a follow-up text, all caps:

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU YOURE LATE
 

Mookie doesn’t know what to say so he texts back nothing.

He knows the address, at least. East Village. Little Poland. Tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Wila’s. Good golabki. Killer kielbasa.

He thinks to take a cab, but most the time they don’t stop for a big scary bastard like him. And fitting into the back of a cab sucks. It always feels like one of his elbows is going to bust out a window, or his head is going to pop up through the roof. He’s been in tighter places – the Great Below isn’t always roomy, what with its tight labyrinthine hallways and suffocating chambers – but somehow the back of a cab always makes him feel claustrophobic. And out of control.

And Mookie doesn’t like to feel out of control.

But today, no choice. Cab’ll move quicker than he can on foot. And he’s already late.

To stop a cab he steps out in front of one. Brakes screech.

He gives the chipmunk-cheeked Sikh behind the wheel the address. The Sikh gives him a look of bewilderment and maybe even fear. But Mookie just growls and the man flips the meter and drives.

At this hour, the streets are crowded. People going to work. Or looking for work. Or tourists coming into the city. A hippy woman on her cell bumps into a reedy little black dude struggling past with a Great Dane that looks more horse than dog. A Korean pushes a bike with a bent wheel. Homeless guys push shopping carts filled with cats and blankets, booze and busted-ass dreams. Men with loud ties pass women with short skirts. Children run to school, mothers trailing after.

None of these people get it.

It’s not their fault. He knows that. They’re ignorant.
Blind.
Eyes stapled shut. It’s like how nobody in this city looks at anybody else. They don’t look because they don’t want to see. Someone gets mugged, another yells “rape,” and nobody comes calling. People get beaten to death in stairwells, cries rising up through the building so that half the apartments can hear it, and by the time someone calls the cops, the body is cold, the blood is thick, and the killer is on the L train ten blocks away.

They don’t know what lies beneath. What walks around them.

Maybe it’s because they know. Secretly. They feel it vibrating in the deep of their bones, twisting in their stomach like an unspoken and misunderstood fear. Some part of the primal animal mind tells them,
hey, right now, something awful – not someone, but some
thing
– might be walking right next to you. Sizing you up for a snack. Thinking to drag you down into the dark and stuff you full of its fingers and tongues and lay eggs in all your holes. The monsters are here. You know it, I know it – so why even look?
 

Mookie’s not blazing. Not right now. So he’s just as blind as the rest of them.

But that doesn’t change what he knows.

He knows that the monsters are real.

And they’re here. Hidden in plain sight.

 

Skint is an ashy, dry-skinned albino. Sells flowers all around TriBeCa to make a buck. At least, that’s what he wants people to think. Nora knows him for something else: he’s a guy who brings people together. He knows everybody. Sets up meetings. He’s not an info broker like that Snakeface in Chinatown, but he can plant a whisper in every ear that matters.

He’s also not human. Not all the way, anyway.

He’s a half-and-half. Were she Blazing, she’d see a long-limbed freak with skin like cracked vellum and eyes like unpopped blood blisters.

Thankfully, right now she’s Blind.

She shoves a cuppa coffee in his free hand. In the other hand, he holds a bundle of roses. Other flowers sit in makeshift containers around his feet.

“Little Miss Thing,” Skint says. “Whadda you want?”

“Bought you Starbucks,” she says, smiling.

“I don’t drink Starbucks. Their coffee tastes like burned pubes.”

“I think you’ll like it.”

“I said I don’t drink this nasty-ass–” Suddenly he stops. Weighs the cup, finds it lacking. Skint’s dusty eyebrows lift in a curious arch and he pops the top. He sees the money curled inside. “Yeah, OK. What?”

“Don’t act so surprised I’m coming to you.”

“I just figured you were done in this town. Hadn’t heard much from you in the last few months. One minute you were selling Blue, next minute, poof.”

A jogger in a blue knit cap almost knocks her off her feet. She gives him the finger and barks some profanity about the jogger’s mother, then turns back to the albino. “Yeah, well. Things cooled down. But I’m back. I need you to get word out.”

“To who?”

“To everybody. All the gang heads.”

He looks at the cup. Then back at her. “This for that?”

“It’s enough. Besides, when I’m done, there’ll be more. A lot more.”

He’s dubious. That’s fine. Let him think she’s blowing hot air. He says, “I think you’re a bad investment, so let’s just call this charity, eh? What’s the message?”

“I want you to tell them that the Boss is a dead man. That it’s time to take back the city. You tell them I have a guy on the inside and a plan to bring it all crashing down.”

He laughs. “Big talk. And sounds like bullshit.”

“Just tell them, already. Unless you like all this?” She sweeps her arms as if to encompass the grandeur of standing on a shitty city corner. “The Organization doesn’t think a split-skinned freak like you is fit to kiss Zoladski’s dirty shoes. You’re a nobody out here. A piece of monster trash. But that can change. You can make
them
kiss
your
feet. Then kick them in the teeth as they pucker up.”

He pauses. Shifts from foot to foot, all anxious-like.

“Yeah. Yeah, fine. I’ll tell them.”

“Tell them all. And let them know I’ll be in touch.”

Skint lifts the coffee cup as if to toast. “To the future, then.”

 

Wila’s.

Counter on the left. Register. Seats at the counter and a bunch of rickety tables and ratty booths. Everything cast in a color like old lemon meringue pie.

No hostess here. Just a tired-looking waitress with hound-dog eyes and hair dyed so red it’s almost purple. She shows off a set of nicotine teeth, tells Mookie he can sit anywhere. He shakes his head. Points upstairs.

“Oh,” she says. Then she gives him a sad smile. “You look like a growing boy. You want something to take up? Pierogie?”

He does. He wants a pierogie. Or a link of kielbasa. But no time. He feels his mouth water like a dog staring at a steak.

The waitress leads the way upstairs.

The smells of the kitchen are strong here. Paprika and vinegar. Sharp bite of fennel. Garlic, too. Mookie wants to pause here on the steps, take it all in.

But–

The Boss awaits.

At the top of the steps is a door with peeling blue paint. Mookie walks through.

 

Nora stands across the street. Under the awning of a little café, pigeons dancing around her feet.

She watches her father go into the Polish joint. Dumb monkey. The old man looks rougher than usual. Her poison did a number on him, but here he is, anyway. She knew it wouldn’t kill him; that was never a question. The Snakeface that sold it to her made sure it wasn’t the deadly stuff – just the “go the fuck to sleep” stuff. (She’s not sure how they know to milk different venoms from their nasty little… fang glands or whatever, they just do. And she’s content with that answer.)

It’s in this moment that she realizes she has a lot of power.

Right now, she’s privy to a secret meeting of lieutenants and higher-ups in the Organization. All gathered under a single, ill-defended roof.