Desperate Souls (26 page)

Edgar let Jake off in front of his building and sped toward the FDR Drive. Jake gazed at Laurel’s storefront, debating whether or not to wake her and give her the zombie’s hand.

It can wait,
he decided, looking up and down the street at shadowy couples shuffling along, then at the Tower. At least he couldn’t blame his current situation on Tower’s corporate royalty.

Taking out his keys, he unlocked the front door, passed through the vestibule, and punched in his security code. Traces of salt remained scattered at each threshold. His footsteps echoed in the lobby as he crossed the polished floor. He tried to focus on the elevator, but the stairway kept drawing his attention, and he felt a slight numbness in his knees and fingertips.

Fear,
he thought. How many of those things had he and Edgar put down? Scores of them, close to a hundred. And they had kept coming after them.

How many of them are there?
And how the hell had a street punk like Malachai discovered how to create his undead army and Black Magic? He thumbed the call button and the elevator door slid open. Boarding the elevator, he pressed the button for his floor, and the door closed once more.

So tired.
It had been an exhausting twenty-four hours. He just wanted to crawl into bed and stop thinking. But what had happened to Gary and Frank? They had been assigned to the same task force as Edgar and Maria, investigating Black Magic and the Machete Massacres. Had they stumbled onto Malachai’s operation as well? He knew them to be opportunists at best and criminals at worst. Perhaps they had attempted to blackmail the drug dealer …

The elevator door opened, and he stared at the dark hallway, a single light illuminating the path to his front door.

Nope. No zombies here.

Had the salt deterred them, or had they simply not returned for him? He contemplated relocating until he had dealt with this situation. Running to his door, he jammed his keys into their respective locks. Inside the reception area, he flicked on the lights, slammed the door, and entered a second code into this alarm pad.

He peeled off his jacket, took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator, and entered his office. He flipped on the light switch, crossed the office to the safe, crouched down, and manipulated the combination dials. The heavy door swung open, and, anxious to rid himself of his extra five fingers, he removed the severed hand and shoved it into the lower compartment.

Then he felt a peculiar sensation: a breeze on the back of his neck, almost too slight to notice. Rising, he faced the window behind his desk and became aware of the traffic sounds outside, louder than usual for this time of night. He crept toward the desk and stared at the blinds. Certain that he had closed and locked the window before leaving the office, he narrowed his eyes. The blinds moved ever so much. And a shadow moved over the blinds.

With his heart racing, Jake turned around just as the source of that shadow lunged at him: not a zombie but a scarecrow with snarling features. Jake flinched as AK raised a knife and drove the long blade down toward him with deadly precision. Jake managed to snare AK’s wrist, slowing the knife’s descent. He reached for his Glock, then realized he needed both hands to take the knife away, so he seized AK’s forearm in a two-on-one hold.

AK surprised him by setting his other hand around the knife’s handle, doubling the power and momentum behind its trajectory. Caught off guard, Jake fell back and sprawled across the desktop. AK leaned over him, putting all his weight behind the knife.

Sweat beaded on Jake’s forehead and stung his eyes as the blade inched closer and closer to his face. The metal tip went out of focus, and AK drove it straight into Jake’s left eye.

Jake screamed in agony as the long blade penetrated his eyeball. He continued to resist AK’s momentum with both hands, which saved his life. The blade’s tip cut into the nerves behind his eye, which multiplied the searing pain. As AK leaned his body against the knife, Jake focused his undamaged eye on AK’s knuckles, six inches above his face.

The blade disappeared from the peripheral vision of his right eye, and AK’s face trembled with effort, sweat beading on his brow and saliva dripping from his yellow teeth. The drug addict looked as bad as the zombies, and Jake supposed that his former snitch and shakedown victim would become a dead thing in another day or two. He already reeked like death.

AK released his grip on the knife handle with his left hand and seized Jake’s throat. Then he twisted the knife back and forth, rotating the blade clockwise and counterclockwise, churning Jake’s ruptured eyeball in its socket.

The intense pain Jake experienced radiated from his butchered nerves. He knew there was no saving that eye, but after everything he had faced and conquered in his life, he did not intend to lie down and die for a foe as inconsequential as AK without putting up a fight. Taking an immense chance, he released AK’s wrist with his right hand, which he closed into a fist, and pounded the side of his attacker’s head.

AK twisted his head away, and when he looked back at Jake, he removed his left hand from around Jake’s throat and tried to claw at Jake’s remaining eye.

No! Not that eye, too!

Desperation drove Jake into frantic action. Putting all his weight on the back of his head, he bridged on his neck and turned his face away, protecting his surviving eye from AK’s rancid fingers. The movement caused AK’s knife to scrape against fresh nerves, and he screamed again.

Upside down, his right eye glimpsed an object that had been knocked over in the struggle: the Maltese Falcon reproduction that Edgar had given him. He grabbed for the stone bird but discovered that his depth perception had been crippled. His hand floundered around the reproduction until his fingers finally closed around its neck. Turning back toward AK—which drove the blade even deeper into his eye socket—he swung the statue over his head and brought it crashing down on top of AK’s, braining the man with a terrific cracking sound.

AK turned rigid, his eyes rolled up, and blood erupted from his oily scalp as he collapsed to the floor, leaving the knife protruding from Jake’s eye.

Whimpering, Jake sat up, his right hand hovering around the blade, but he was afraid to touch it. Summoning his courage, he gripped the knife’s handle. Even that little bit of movement sent shock waves of pain through his brain. He sucked in his breath and jerked the knife out of his head, praying that his eyeball remained intact but knowing that could not possibly be the case.

The knife came free without the ruptured eyeball skewered on its end like a shish kebab, and Jake immediately cupped his left hand over the socket. Clear liquid oozed out between his fingers, followed by clear jelly, then blood that seeped into the other fluids.

Looking down at AK’s corpse, blood spooling on the Oriental rug, he kicked the dead man in the ribs. “You piece of shit!” He kicked the corpse again.

Still holding the knife, he resisted the temptation to stab AK in the chest until nothing remained of it.

Instead, he dropped the knife on the rug and staggered into the bathroom. Clicking on the light, he stepped before the sink and gazed in horror at his face. AK’s knife had turned Jake’s eyelid into a miniature mouth through which his head threatened to vomit the remains of his decimated eyeball. The blood-water-jelly mixture continued to ooze out of the two slits in his lid, carrying with it chunks of the white of his eye, which resembled pieces of a hard-boiled egg. His face collapsed into a defeated expression, and tears rolled out of his right eye. Covering his left eye again, he gritted his teeth, his face scarlet as he wept.

How the hell did I get myself into this?

Wiping snot from his nose, he washed his hands in the sink one at a time.

It doesn’t matter. I’ll make Malachai pay for this.

Jake popped four Tylenols into his mouth and washed them down with Diet Coke. In his bedroom, he snatched a pair of clean underwear from his top bureau drawer. Balling it in his left hand, he pressed the fabric against his eye, producing a fresh wave of pain and an extended groan. Then he picked up his cell phone and pressed autodial.

“Yeah?” Edgar said on the other end.

Pain throbbed in Jake’s head. “Where are you?”

“I’m almost on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.”

“I need you to turn around and come back here.”

“I take it you’re drinking again or worse.”

I could use a stiff drink. Or something better.
“This is no joke. But it is a matter of life and death. I can’t say more over the phone.”

Seconds passed before Edgar answered. “I’m on my way.”

Returning to his office, Jake sank onto the sofa. The entire left side of his head ached. What had Malachai’s people promised AK in exchange for his services?

As much Black Magic as one junkie could possibly want.
Enough to make him climb a fire escape and through a fourth-story window.

Ever on the case, Jake stood and made his way over to the corpse on the floor. Crouching, so as not to get blood on his knees, he searched AK’s pockets. His right hand came out clutching plastic packs of black powder. He estimated he held ten little bags.

Maybe two hundred bucks on the street,
he thought.
That’s all my life is worth to them.

He shoved the bags back into AK’s pocket, then removed his hand. A single bag lay centered in his palm. He focused on the fine black powder.

What if I snorted one line, just to kill the pain in my eye? That might even give me some insight into what this shit is doing to people …

He closed his fingers over the bag, feeling its texture.

No! Not a chance. Don’t even think about it.

He shoved the bag into AK’s pocket with the rest, then picked up the knife and carried it into the bathroom, where he rinsed little pieces of himself off the blade. Returning to the office, he stored the knife in his safe. No telling when that might come in handy. Then he settled into the chair behind his desk, stared at the security monitors, and waited.

Ten minutes later, Jake buzzed Edgar into the building and waited for him in the suite’s doorway.

Edgar stepped off the elevator and strode in his direction. “What the hell happened?” he said, nodding at the underwear Jake clutched against his eye.

In response, Jake gestured to his office.

“This better be good.” Edgar crossed the reception area to the open office doorway and came to a sudden stop.

Jake joined him, and they stared down at AK’s corpse together.

Edgar said nothing until he located the bloodied weapon Jake had used to crush AK’s skull like an eggshell. “Don’t expect me to get you a replacement.”

“The zombies couldn’t get in here because of the salt, so they sent someone who was still alive. A scarecrow. I bet AK couldn’t wait to spill his guts when he went out to score.”

Edgar cocked an eyebrow at him. “Salt?”

“Yeah, they can’t cross any doorway that’s protected by salt. It’s some ancient voodoo superstition. I guess I forgot to tell you that.”