Shifters (20 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
“Ah, I see, the blood-soaked big bad east coast homicide cop has looked into the abyss and the abyss looked back.”
Cordesman clapped. “That’s good, Kerr. At least you’ve read some Nietzsche—”
“What’s the second reason?”
“I expect my immediate subordinate to keep me apprised of relative homicide evidence from other precincts. Immediate subordinates who fail to do that don’t get recommended for their step-raises.”
Exasperated, Kerr turned on Cordesman’s computer. The screen buzzed, then flashed. He dragged the mouse pointer to the LISTINGS menu, then clicked H/A UNIT.
“Read,” Kerr ordered his superior officer.
Cordesman read, his face drooping. Kerr plucked the cigarette from his lips before it fell out of his mouth.
“Oh, fuck me,” Cordesman said.
(iv)
After the deed—and, no, he hadn’t been seen—Locke walked home, that is, he walked home the long way as in about four miles. He hoped the bracing air might clear his head, but not halfway through Fremont, he found himself staring into a bookshop window which sported a handsome display of Lehrling’s first-edition hardbacks, all signed by the now-dead author. An ornate, hand-lettered sign read “In Memoriam.” Locke scowled—the bookseller had probably received the books as gifts from Lehrling himself, and had now raised the price by over fifty percent.
News travels fast.
This commerce of literature disgusted him, this ghoul capitalizing on his friend’s death, but here was Locke himself accepting a commission to pen a volume of poetry for a wealthy eccentric. Contradiction upon contradiction. Where was verity? Was nothing really true any more?
Great is truth, and mighty above all things,
came a lost thought from scripture. Or was he taking the part of the cynic because of his own string of losses? Just an hour ago, in fact, he had creatively acknowledged the end of his love for Clare. And hours before that, he’d witnessed his best friend as a gutted, decapitated corpse.
Not a very good day,
he figured.
News travels fast.
This commerce of literature disgusted him, this ghoul capitalizing on his friend’s death, but here was Locke himself accepting a commission to pen a volume of poetry for a wealthy eccentric. Contradiction upon contradiction. Where was verity? Was nothing really true any more?
Great is truth, and mighty above all things,
came a lost thought from scripture. Or was he taking the part of the cynic because of his own string of losses? Just an hour ago, in fact, he had creatively acknowledged the end of his love for Clare. And hours before that, he’d witnessed his best friend as a gutted, decapitated corpse.
Not a very good day,
he figured.
His trek seemed aimless now. He didn’t know where he was going and he didn’t want to know. More catharsis? The final trimming of the exorcism? Down one street, then another, cutting through alleys and trash lanes. One moment he found himself loitering about a marina dock near Gasworks Park, and the next moment—in reality over an hour later—he was standing midpoint on the Ballard Bridge, watching late cold-front clouds slither before the night.
Oh, weep for Adonais,
he recited Shelley, looking down at black water. Fishing ships sat motionless in their great slips.
The passion-winged Ministers of thought…
Locke felt lost of such ministers tonight, and lost of all passion. Then, Byron:
All heaven and earth are still—though not in sleep. And silent as we stand in thoughts too deep…
Oh, weep for Adonais,
he recited Shelley, looking down at black water. Fishing ships sat motionless in their great slips.
The passion-winged Ministers of thought…
Locke felt lost of such ministers tonight, and lost of all passion. Then, Byron:
All heaven and earth are still—though not in sleep. And silent as we stand in thoughts too deep…
It seemed pathetic to allow his soul to be so completely demolished by something as simple as a broken love affair. Nothing deep there. Just more human dynamics, as Cordesman would say.
I’ll never see Clare again…
All right. Fine.
Get on with your life.
He’d submitted his proof—his poem. He’d taped it to her door. If this was to be a psychical exorcism, why did he feel not all that much different?
Get on with your life.
He’d submitted his proof—his poem. He’d taped it to her door. If this was to be a psychical exorcism, why did he feel not all that much different?
The remembrance of Lehrling’s guts ripped out didn’t help.
A crosswind rocked the bridge; Locke wavered on the narrow walkway, chilled suddenly to the marrow. For some people, creation was life.
But with what would he create now? Tomorrow guillotining his lifelong ideals and taking money for writing?
He’d created with whatever he could. Ashes if need be.
Perhaps ashes would prove the most honest pigment for his whore-poet’s paint.
“Hey—”
Locke turned, faced the north side of the bridge from whence he was sure he’d heard the voice. But no one refaced him. “A man’s voice,” he muttered to himself. He jerked up the collar of the too-light jacket; Autumn in Seattle always sucked.
Poe should have lived here, more fuel for the gloom.
But where was Locke’s fuel? The minute drizzle seemed to dissipate into something foglike, and just as he was ready to dismiss the caller’s voice as imagined, he thought he saw something—no, someone, standing a good fifty yards ahead.
Poe should have lived here, more fuel for the gloom.
But where was Locke’s fuel? The minute drizzle seemed to dissipate into something foglike, and just as he was ready to dismiss the caller’s voice as imagined, he thought he saw something—no, someone, standing a good fifty yards ahead.
Just a figure.
He smelled a trace of something awful but it disappeared with the next breeze.
A bum,
he concluded. Ready to make a plea for spare change or a cigarette. But the figure just stood there, barely visible, an entity half-formed of the gelid mist. A metastasis of the night.
A bum,
he concluded. Ready to make a plea for spare change or a cigarette. But the figure just stood there, barely visible, an entity half-formed of the gelid mist. A metastasis of the night.
“Don’t go there…”
Locke’s gaze thinned; the figure sharpened, yes, he could see it. What’s more, the voice had sounded familiar, no one he knew, but—
Who could it be?
Don’t go where?
To Lethe’s? No one knew about that but Locke himself.
To Lethe’s? No one knew about that but Locke himself.
“We know. Lehrling and I…”
Locke broke from the rigid stance, ran forward down the walkway with speed that surprised him. His footfalls clattered, resounding like gunshots. Yet the closer he got to the figure, the more insubstantial it became, until—
He was there.
—it was gone.
Jesus.
Certainly it had never been there at all. Lehrling’s death, and the final wounds to his heart over Clare—it was leading him to imagine things, or—
A polite way to suggest hallucination.
Even Locke remained rational enough to consider the likelihood. Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome,
delirium auris
, depressive neurosis and hallucinosis. All common symptoms of progressive clinical alcoholism. Admitting that’s what he might be—an alcoholic—didn’t really bother him.
My brain’s a booze sponge.
delirium auris
, depressive neurosis and hallucinosis. All common symptoms of progressive clinical alcoholism. Admitting that’s what he might be—an alcoholic—didn’t really bother him.
My brain’s a booze sponge.
“Why not just jump off this bridge right now?” he asked himself.
He looked down at the water—a black, endless plain which seemed a mile below him. What would he feel? Nothing, or at least not much, but—
No. I may be pathetic but I’m not a sucker.
A last vestige, perhaps. The last hook still punched through the skin of his inner being.
“Maybe next time,” he told himself.
Locke crossed the bridge, headed back toward home.
Hearing voices, seeing things. Terrific.
More time lapsed with the fractured thoughts; next thing he realized he’d passed the Red Hook Brewery, was re-entering Fremont—the full circle. The scenic, lakeside town stood dark, asleep. Even the bars were closed. For the first time, then, he checked his watch and noticed through a start that 3 a.m. was long past.
Time flies when you’re having hallucinations,
he thought. He even chuckled. Now, in the mist-drenched night, alone, he wished he hadn’t quit smoking. An accompaniment for the mood.
Hearing voices, seeing things. Terrific.
More time lapsed with the fractured thoughts; next thing he realized he’d passed the Red Hook Brewery, was re-entering Fremont—the full circle. The scenic, lakeside town stood dark, asleep. Even the bars were closed. For the first time, then, he checked his watch and noticed through a start that 3 a.m. was long past.
Time flies when you’re having hallucinations,
he thought. He even chuckled. Now, in the mist-drenched night, alone, he wished he hadn’t quit smoking. An accompaniment for the mood.
Seeing an imaginary figure on a bridge. A ghost…
But then Locke’s footsteps took him up Woodland Park Avenue, past a trailer-sized pub, its windows dark, and of all things, an alcohol-abuse clinic. The mist reformed, seemed to collapse downward from some unseen point above him—living fog. Sentient. And when he turned onto the next street, he halted, peering out.
Two more figures stood in the rainy mist.
He turned around, looked behind him.
Two more blocked his escape.
Locke had a funny feeling
these
figures weren’t hallucinations.
these
figures weren’t hallucinations.
A second later—
WHACK!
—he knew beyond all certainty, when one of the figures broke a wooden plank across his face.
TWELVE
Feeding Frenzy
(i)
Haunters of the dark. There are many more than you might think. What stood in wait on the bridge was an auspice.
But I, not by choice, am more than that.
I watched him come across the other side of the bridge, watched him follow the waterfront road. My senses felt famished. My blood ached. But I too am cursed, like Locke, like Byers and Lehrling, and like my nemesis. Just in different ways.
The gods, evidently, like variety.
A saturnine night, but then mine are always like that. Think of someone famished, one of your homeless, perhaps, one of those half-persons you turn your gaze away from when you see them begging on a corner. Then imagine such a person set down before a steaming buffet but they can’t eat because their lips are sewn shut. Or one of your addicts holding the rock in their dirty hand…
But there’s no pipe.
Appetite and demand. The constant yearning to be quenched. There are meals all over the place; they’re like gnats.
I could sniff its scent in the air—blood and flesh—but none of the soul-rot that was the only thing which allowed me my sustenance. I could taste this one’s aura with each breath, a taste like my own blood in my mouth when I bite my lip.
Damaged goods. A damaged soul.
Just like me.
But those other men who converged from both sides of the street?
Oh, yes…
(ii)
T.J. wanted to bust a gut when Craze cracked the wood across the geek’s face. The skinny dude hit pavement before any of them could really see it. “Easy pickin’s,” T.J. said, tossing his empty bottle of ‘Bird. What kind of shit for brains must these assholes have to walk the streets this late? But God love ’em, ’cos this was where T.J. and his crew really danced. You need money? Then just wait for some dickbrain like this guy to come your way.
Then take him down.
Simple. Why work when the money walks right up to you and says “Take me?”
As for T.J. himself, whose real name was Thomas Jonathan Cambers (though his rucking pals thought it had something to do with T.J. Swan), he’d left home when he was fifteen—fuck school and all that teachers and books shit. Never knew his father but he supposed his mother was all right. She’d cry and blubber whenever he came home to Tacoma—only when he needed money—and never understood why the regular world wasn’t for him. The last time, she’d refused to give him anything so he’d locked her in the basement for a week, thinking the confinement might loosen up her purse strings. Too bad she’d died the first day—hell, how was he to know she was taking heart meds? At the end of the week, he stuck his head in to be socked in the face by the stench, and there was mom, her eyes black, her cheese-mold face, and the squat body bloated up with putrefactive gas. Oh, well. Shit happens.
Never really bothered him much, at least not consciously. At night, though, most
every
night, he had dreams like to make him jerk upright and scream: dreams of himself getting locked in the basement and seeing that fat pile of rot that was mom get up and give him a kiss. Of course, T.J. never told the others about that part. As leader, he had a reputation to maintain.
every
night, he had dreams like to make him jerk upright and scream: dreams of himself getting locked in the basement and seeing that fat pile of rot that was mom get up and give him a kiss. Of course, T.J. never told the others about that part. As leader, he had a reputation to maintain.
“Check his shit, Craze. Willy, Marlon, eyeball the street.”
They were a rather unique coterie: homeless sociopaths. Willy was constantly drunk or fucked up by drugs, not much good for lookout tonight, but Marlon was okay. And Craze…well, he was just Craze. Streetpersons, the papers called their ilk. The poor and the homeless and the destitute. Well, shit, T.J. would rather sleep under a bridge any day, the rent was just right. When the winters got bad, they stayed at the shelter on 45th; when it rained—showertime. Right now they were cooping in the abandoned church, a good crib. Yeah, it was easier this way; they were their own men. You piss when you want, shit when you want, eat when you want, get faced when you want, no fuckheads telling you what to do. You got a woody, you find someone to fuck.
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