Under Cover of Darkness (22 page)

Three brothers from a small village on the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad lived in 1C, and they helped her maintain the garden. Ali told me they also shoveled snow for our building in the winter. I thought of them as “The Brothers Karamazov,” though they weren't mired in angst like Dostoevsky's characters. They were always energetic and in high spirits despite having the thankless job of city sanitation engineers. Most of the tenants contributed to some aspect of the building's care. Mrs. Thomas in 3C, generally known as “That Bitch,” and the guy in 2A were the exceptions.

I pursed my lips and turned the page. Everyone bartered for something. I could give manicures in my sleep now. When I'd studied the art of nails at the age of twelve so I could freak out my friends, I had no idea how valuable a skill it would be. It was the most popular form of barter I had.

There were a few merchants over the years that had expressed interest in another option, but I was determined never to go down that road.

I turned the page and folded it neatly. The article at the top proclaimed: “Hydro Issues Continue.” Like that was news. My parents had lived through the economic changes, and I grew up hearing all about it. For twenty-five years Ontario had dealt with brownouts and blackouts and “no lights between 8:00 AM and sunset.” The struggle for electricity along the eastern seaboard had played havoc with essential services until the Special Permit Program had given them the unconditional right to run required equipment by restricting other usage. The average citizen could apply for more time so they could use their computers, lights, and so on into the night, but they had to pay extra, by the hour. The population of the GTA had initially panicked and Internet addicts had to make life choices. They adapted quickly, though, as Canadians were stereotypically known to do, a “fact” right up there with everyone north of the forty-ninth parallel owning a team of sled dogs.

“Well, I gotta go.” Ali drained the rest of her juice and stood.

“What's up?”

“Mrs. Petrovich needs her massage.”

We grinned at one another. Mrs. Petrovich was very good to us. A massage meant we were having chicken for dinner.

“It isn't as exciting as it might seem, you know.”

“What isn't?”

“My family tree. I'm Canadian, right? This kinda thing is normal.” I released one side of the paper long enough to make quotation marks with my fingers. “We're a ‘Mosaic.' ”

Ali shrugged and grabbed her knapsack. “Hey, I'm Canadian, too, but I'm just a boring white chick. Whatta I know? Later.”

“Later,” I echoed and returned to the paper.

There was a short blurb on the back page regarding the latest homicide. It was the third bizarre death in the last two months. The police were frustrated and the answers seemed to elude them like the threads of a spiderweb. You'd think it would be front page material, but no, that was reserved for some fluff actor who was in town to cut a ribbon on a new theater.

Thirty-three years into the “clean slate” of the twenty-first century and we still had our priorities screwed up.

I reread one of the sentences.
Third
bizarre murder? Surely they meant the sixth? I sighed. Journalism was going down the tubes. I could keep better track of what was going on than the pros.

The sun was getting hot, and it was still fairly early. Such was the nature of the weather my generation had inherited from our great-grandparents. No doubt there was an article about that on page nine. I sighed again and turned my baseball cap around so the brim shaded my face. My sunglasses had shattered the previous week during a short struggle with a thief on the TTC. The driver and I had the kid pinned on the floor of the bus in fairly short order but not before my knapsack was crushed in the struggle. They'd been nice glasses, too, found them at the Salvation Army soon after I'd arrived in Toronto. I hadn't made the time to replace them. They didn't help my headaches, either way, so what did it matter?

At least the lady was happy to get her purse back. Mission accomplished. I thought of the sunglasses as a small price to pay for being a Good Samaritan compared to other ways that situation could have ended. It turned out the kid had a knife in his boot.

I glanced at my watch: almost nine. The paper was due at Mr. Bernard's in 2C in seven minutes. He was a spry man in his sixties who had a huge laugh and didn't leer at me. Ali thought she knew what he shared with Mrs. Wu in exchange for his turn with the paper and fresh vegetables. None of my business: they were both widowed, consenting adults, after all.

I didn't want to think about it.

Mrs. Wu was scheduled for a wash and set at ten. Her son and daughter-in-law were visiting around noon and bringing grandchildren and lunch. I eased from the chair.

Carrying the paper and the rest of my juice, I spared one more glance at the radio below me, rather pleased when it lost the signal, giving the guy nothing but static. Maybe there was a God. Listening to his curses, I sought refuge from the sun—burn in five minutes, the paper reported about yesterday's weather—and focused on planning my day.

 

The TTC at street level was running slowly so lots of people were walking. There was a joke about that, referencing a time when it wasn't really “slow,” just not always as frequent as the commuters would have liked. That was before I was born. The fact that remnants of the Toronto Transit Commission still functioned at all said something about the persistence of humanity in the face of adversity. The surface vehicles were usually on schedule—when they worked.

The subway was another matter, only running during the day and sometimes not at all. There were designated hours when pedestrians used the tunnels as sheltered routes around the city: no sun and low pollution. Steps and ramps were placed into position and then folded away when the subway was operational. The tunnels provided refuge from the winter storms, too, and some people lived down there, staking claim in the disused areas. The city evicted them periodically, but that didn't seem to deter them from returning. An exception was Union Station, which was still a very busy spot for commerce but could definitely be considered an official community. The merchants and restaurant owners lived at their stores, raised their children, and held worship there.

A modern Depression with its own evils and ingenuity. What was it some wit at the sushi bar had said? “Economic collapse is a bitch, but sometimes the puppies are cute.”

In the summer, it was still hot under the city, as vents were free but air-conditioning was prohibitive. I walked there now, pushing my precious bike and moving east from Bathurst Station with a throng of others. I was wearing my standard uniform of sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt, so I was fairly comfortable. Above us, Bloor Street was probably equally busy—but down here, I didn't need to use my sunblock.

I emerged at Yonge Street, deciding the crowd going south on the subway was a little too much. Catching the sun in my eyes, I silently cursed the thief who had destroyed my sunglasses and made another mental note to replace them. After liberally applying sunblock from a bottle I kept in my knapsack, and pulling on my nylon jacket so my arms were covered, I mounted my bike, pulled my cap as low over my face as I could, and entered the rhythm of riding south with the traffic. My shift at Levar's started at one; I had half an hour to make it to Front Street.

No matter what, folks needed to eat and “Levar's Kitchen” was there to ensure groceries and home-cooked meals could still reach the customer, even those without gas for their cars. At the current price of fuel, many couldn't afford any drive that didn't involve an emergency or abandoning the city for a better place.

Marie and Extreme Phil had loaded their bikes and were leaving as I arrived.

“Lots today, Natalie,” Marie commented, sounding tired already.

“Busy, busy,” Extreme Phil added, chipper despite the shiner he sported on his left eye. I raised an eyebrow in question, but he just said his usual response: “You should see the other guy.”

I laughed and went to check my route.

 

By nine that night I had one delivery left.

The Taylors were nice folks and bought from Levar's regularly. They always placed their orders early, so I'd known since six o'clock that I'd see them that evening. We'd chat a bit and they'd offer me a slice of the pizza I was bringing, then I'd be off home to eat my share of Mrs. Petrovich's chicken.

I parked my bike in the lobby of their Bloor Street apartment. It was more a narrow hall than a lobby as the access door was squished to the right on the ground floor next to a used bookstore.
Living above books wouldn't be too bad
, I thought, having been an enthusiastic reader as long as I could remember.

I could feel the heat from the bottom pizza even through the insulated bag. Both of them smelled delicious. One had mushrooms and pepperoni, and I couldn't wait to sit at the kitchen table and catch up on all their news while I savored the gooey cheese. The wooden stairs creaked as I climbed to the dimly-lit landing and looked up at the apartment door, expecting Mrs. Taylor to be waiting for me with a big smile.

My own smile was stillborn as I froze in place, like a butterfly pinned in a display case. A crease of light crept from the lower hall to meet the faint light leaking down the steps to my feet. Shadows flexed around me and I held my breath. Something was very wrong.

The door to the apartment wasn't quite closed. This alone wouldn't have caused any alarm—it helped to have the door open on the really hot nights. It was the silence. There was no sound, no footstep or snatch of conversation or laughter. For a moment I couldn't move or think through a sudden rush of panic. A part of me wanted to run, but the Taylors were good people. I couldn't abandon them.

My headache was off the scale. It had been irritating me with bursts of static during the day, but now it surged to the fore with a vengeance. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Transferring the insulated bag to one hand, I climbed the final flight of stairs, mentally noting the ten steps like they were part of the countdown to a launch. I avoided all the spots I thought might creak and made it to the top silently.

It turned out I needn't have bothered.

As I reached for the door it swung open suddenly. A strong hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me inside. Amazingly, I kept my hold on the pizzas.

“Look what I found,” a woman said, her voice like frost on winter glass. I was pushed toward the sofa and landed awkwardly.

“It smells like cheese.” A man's voice spoke from the window on the other side of the room. He sounded barely interested in my arrival, and I had the impression he only spoke because the aroma of the pizza confused him.

“Maybe it tastes like cheese,” a deeper male voice suggested, sounding hopeful, and I lifted my head to look at them.

Slaugh.
They were all Slaugh, in long black coats. Immediately I looked away. The female had stayed near the door. The deep voice came from the kitchen table. The one at the window had seen me arrive and they had waited, perhaps curious as to why I was here. It was disorienting to focus on them and my headache . . .

“It doesn't look well,” the female stated, sounding amused. I christened her “Ice,” though I doubted the damned would appreciate the concept of being christened.

“It can see us.” The one at the window moved so quickly that he was suddenly there, in front of me, a shadow blocking some of the light from a table lamp behind him. I tried not to look at any of them and remained silent. “It can hear us.” I named him “Leader,” though I got the impression each of them considered themselves the one in charge.

“Can we eat it, too?”

Too?
The excited tone of his voice and the implication made me nauseous. I chose the name “Hunger” for him. I glanced around the apartment, careful not to make eye contact as it made me dizzy as well.

“If you're looking for your friends,” Ice said, sounding bored and waving her hand toward the kitchen. “They're in the refrigeration unit.”

“Well, what's left of them, anyway,” stated Leader. I fought the sudden urge to vomit. This couldn't be real, couldn't be happening. My phantoms were just figments of my imagination pulled from stories I'd read as a kid, desperate for an explanation for Mrs. Hudson's death. That's what I'd been told, over and over again. They were representations of a distant event that gave me shudders just to recall. Perhaps my headache was causing hallucinations. There was a perfectly logical reason why the Taylors weren't here—and it wasn't because they were in the crisper.

“No,” I said through clenched teeth and stood. Leader pushed me back down firmly.

“Hmmm,” he mused. “What are we going to do with it?”

“I'm still hungry,” Hunger announced and I shivered.
I'm going into some kind of shock
, I decided, the buzzing in my ears increasing with the distant promise of passing out.

“Maybe
this
one knows where she is.”

“She isn't here, I tell you.” Ice seemed to glide over to the refrigerator without moving her legs. “The ones who lived here were favored by the Queen. If anyone could provide information about her location, you would think
they
would have known.”

“My lead was solid.”

“Your lead was useless and is now feeding the earth.” I found myself recalling the details of the last murder. A troop of camping Girl Guides had found the body parts of a man while digging their fire pit at the Scarbor ough Bluffs. Could this be whom they were talking about? Ice opened the door to the freezer and pulled something out. My mind couldn't wrap around the nature of the item. She tossed it to Hunger, saying, “And no more until after the job is done.”