Streets of Shadows Read online

  She pushed herself up to sit, but collapsed again.

  She needs help. Halulu’s “Stay in the car” order echoed in Kai’s thoughts, but his Samaritan impulse shoved it away. The night’s chill slapped him with fresh shivers when he got out of the car.

  The dumped girl was tiny, maybe two inches over five feet. He couldn’t see any blood. Makeup and night hid the finer details of the girl’s features, but Kai suspected she was around his own age. Maybe nineteen? Dark hair, and dark smudges around her eyes lent her the creepy presence of a Japanese ghost. He wanted to reach for her, but feared his touch might shatter her.

  “Hey, you okay?” he asked. “You live around here?”

  She blinked, focused on him, and emitted a torrent of inebriated giggles along with breath that smelled like whiskey. Drunk girls. He sighed; they could be so fucking annoying. And yet she was no less alluring to him than before.

  “Can I get you to a porch or something?” he asked.

  She offered him dreamy-pleased eyes and a Cheshire cat grin.

  “Look,” he said, stooping down to offer a hand. “Do you–?”

  A firecracker pop stopped his words. He looked back toward the house as the front door jerked open. Halulu and company spilled onto the porch. No briefcase, no satchel. They were running for the car. Patrick still had Halulu’s 9mm, but it could have been a crooked baton for all the good it did him. Shadows approached the yawning doorway: gangbangers with pistols and sawed-off shotguns.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Kai whimpered. Before he could race back to the car, the girl caught his hand and pulled him down for a French kiss. This was clearly not the time, and yet he could not stop her or himself. And the kiss …he could feel something flowing away from him, into her. Heat. Something.

  She broke off the kiss and waved toward the house as though warding off gnats. At her gesture came a new commotion– a noise like a dozen stones ground to gravel under a Bulldozer’s treads. But no gunshots.

  “My name is Alice.” The girl licked her lips. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed a little of your essence. To help your guys.”

  From the car came Patrick’s surprised “The fuck?” and Halulu’s “Kai! Get your ass over here!”

  No gangsters stood on the porch. The front door hung broken and crooked from a single twisted hinge. What had she done? He couldn’t just leave her there. Kai scooped Alice up and hurried back to his Pontiac.

  * * *

  They assembled in the living room so King Halulu could hold court. He took the Barcalounger and everyone else sat on the floor. “They have all the money, the meth, and what’ve I got? A bunch of pantywaists who can’t do their fucking jobs. And a fucking witch.”

  “Meth?” Kai asked, throat suddenly very dry. “I thought it was weed.”

  “Who the fuck wants to buy weed?” Halulu asked. “I got this from Detroit. Now we owe them big, big coin we don’t have.” Then, he directed a pointed glare at Mikey. “And what the hell you doing? Capping Cruz puts us in deep shit, man.”

  “The gun just went off, okay? I didn’t even have my finger on the trigger.” The 9mm in question lay on the floor before him, barrel pointing toward a wall.

  “Guns don’t fucking go off on their own,” Halulu said. “You were fucking around.”

  “What happened?” Kai asked.

  “We tried to make the deal.” Patrick’s face was sheet-pale. “They gave us shit, and the Lone Ranger there showed his piece.”

  “I just wanted to scare them,” Mikey said. “The gun went …it went off. And that big guy–”

  “Cruz,” Halulu said. “His name was Cruz.”

  “He dropped, and they were set to cap us. We ran, and they got to the door, but then, they just flew backward. Like God herself swatted them out of the way.” He indicated Alice with a tilt of the chin.

  “Hey biscuit,” Halulu said. “Look at me. Now, tell me. How did you do that?”

  “My name is Alice, not biscuit. And I did a magic spell.” She enunciated each syllable for extra bitchslap.

  “I’m not playing with you.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard witches are subtle and quick to anger?”

  “Ain’t nothing subtle about you,” Halulu said, his eyes roaming her disheveled loveliness. Then he caught something in Kai’s expression he didn’t like. “What up, Kai?”

  “Dude, don’t be such an ass to her,” Kai said.

  “I’ll be however I want.” Halulu studied his palms, then slowly curled his fingers into fists. “Witchy-tits there should be doing something, since this is all her fault.”

  “All her what?”

  “You heard me, Kai.”

  Alice’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What did you call me?”

  “Bitch, please. You show up and things go bad. Kai forgets his fucking place. And …the gun goes off all mysterious? Sounds like voodoo bullshit to me, and you’re the only one here supposedly does voodoo bullshit.”

  “Clap your hole, Halulu,” Mikey said, finally looking up from the pistol on the floor. He tugged at his Buckeyes Football shirt as though it was suffocating him. “I …misspoke around a witch once. You don’t want one thinking you’re a dick. You really, really don’t.”

  Alice turned to Kai and took his hand. “Take me somewhere we can talk. Your room?”

  “We’re not done here, biscuit,” Halulu scowled at her.

  “Let her go,” Mikey urged. “When they want to go, just let them.”

  With a heavy exhalation, King Halulu dismissed Alice and Kai with a courtly backhand. “You motherfuckers got some explaining to do later,” Halulu said.

  * * *

  Alice paid little mind to the cluttered floor, the spliff stubs and ashes heaped in the ashtray, the hookah collection and the smatter of CDs and comics and dirty clothes. He cleared off the bed, while she performed the complex task of taking off her knee high Doc Martens, and then they sat across from each other, legs crossed and knees touching. She took his hands, laid them palms up on her thighs, and tickled his love lines with her nails.

  He gently pulled his hands away. “What’s the story with the guy who dumped you on the street?”

  “That was Daddy Dedman. Auntie always said I should never ride with Loas, but I never listen.” She chuckled grimly. “I wouldn’t fuck him, so he dumped me. Not even he can take what I don’t want to give.”

  “What …what kind of witch are you?” he asked.

  “Auntie says we’re an esoteric offshoot of the OTO. The Ordo Templi Orientis? It’s all a riff on Crowley’s stuff. ‘Do what thou wilt’ with a splash of Eastern mysticism and whatevs. I call us Passion Weavers because that’s how it all works in my head. It’s all about energy redirection.”

  “What kind of energy? Like flinging fireballs?”

  “Well, maybe. But that’s totally not my forte. See, when I do this?” She ran her nails up his arms. Across his shirt, across his nipples and then higher. She leaned in until their lips met, and then another kiss triggered sensation overload in Kai’s head and heart.

  My God, he thought, she’s so hot.

  “When I do that,” she said, “it makes energy. A little bit of ecstatic charge.” She giggled. “And if I can get enough of it, I can weave an enchantment or a manifestation.”

  “You kiss people to make magic?”

  “I have to find passion to weave,” she said. “Drinking or smoking. Turning on. Kissing and full on doing it. Even singing and dancing can make a little bit. And I can borrow it from other people, too.”

  “How would you return something like that?”

  “Well …maybe borrow is the wrong word. Does that answer your question?”

  Kai had to think about what his original question had been–not easy to do, when she was drawing fiery impressions along his arms–but then he nodded.

  “Why are you dealing with this Halulu person?”

  “He’s sort of new around here. He needed a room, and we needed money. Still needs it. Ha
lulu paid for the attic space, and he had some cash, not a lot. But he had connections, right? We could score weed, or ….”

  “Or harder stuff,” she said.

  Kai nodded. “Well, my trust fund had been what kept us in this house. I mean we all chip in, but I’ve had to cover a bunch of times. Jobs suck, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “And well, my eldest brother wanted me to come back to Boston. He’s been in charge since Father got sick. We argued, and he had Father’s lawyers cut me off. Cold. We were worse than broke. And then Halulu came up with his plan, and …” Kai shrugged, embarrassed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Alice teased him with her nails. “Halulu is a jerk, but your brother sounds like a royal ass,” she said.

  “He is.” Kai exhaled slowly. “And now we’re in a real mess, a man’s dead, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Alice went silent for a moment, then smiled. “I have an idea. Make love to me.”

  “What?” His heart beat faster. “But we just met –”

  “Trust me.” She leaned in, and gave him a melting kiss.

  * * *

  He poured every ounce of energy into her. Muscles twisted along his calves, his sides, his belly. Still he drove into her. Her moans sounded sweeter than any angel’s song. When she spoke his name, it was the only motive he needed to drive harder, faster, now. Yes, he thought, yes, yes, yes.

  She shivered and moaned through two orgasms before it was all too much. “I’m going to come,” Kai said, pulling back. Her nails hooked him, held him inside two heartbeats too long. His dick twitched and spat, and his vision went white with pleasure.

  When he beheld her after that moment, she possessed an unearthly beauty. Then, an ugly realization flowed into him: he hadn’t worn a condom.

  “My God,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Shh,” she said. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want.”

  “I came in–”

  “Shh,” she said. “I’m weaving.”

  Then, she planted both palms on his chest. Like a human defibrillator, she shoved, and kicked Kai right out of his body.

  First thought: The fuck?

  Second thought: Who is that?

  Third thought: That’s …that’s me!

  Fourth thought: It can’t be.

  Yet there he was, hanging in space, over and behind himself. Kai watched his naked body slump sideways onto the bed. Holy shit, he thought, I died fucking. The idea was suddenly not as cool as it had once seemed. Then, Kai saw his chest rise and fall. Shallow breathing. Sleeping?

  Kai tried to moan, but there was no sound. No air. No solidity. No substance.

  Shit oh shit oh shit, he thought. Worst. Dream. Ever.

  “It’s no dream.” Alice glanced up, away from his body and into the ghostly thing he had become. “And you’re not dead. Calm down. Panic screws everything up.”

  What did you do to me? Damn it. He couldn’t speak. He could open his spirit mouth and try to scream, but to what effect? Yet somehow she understood his words.

  “I am giving you a chance to fix the foul-up I’ve been blamed for,” she said. “You can go to the house, you can lay claim to things, and you can return. You don’t have much time so don’t dawdle. Understand?”

  No, he thought. But strangely enough, the panic was flowing away. Alice’s steady voice was a source of stability, of calm. It was a voice he could trust. A voice he had to trust, but more it was a voice he wanted to trust. She had fucked him into this predicament, and she alone could fix him.

  What do I do? he asked.

  “Remember the place with as much detail as possible, build it in your mind and you will go there. Enter the house, find what your guys lost, and mark it.”

  How?

  “Pass your hand through it. When you’re done, come back here the same way you left. You’ll come back no matter what. Time is burning.” She reached into her lap, brushed her fingers across belly and shivered.

  He thought about Karl Road. The neighborhood. That creepy house.

  Then, his room turned and whirled. Visible space coalesced to a bright circle surrounded by impenetrable darkness, and that point slid toward him. Washed over and through him. Soaked him in inky oblivion. This emptiness had presence. It clung and then burned away like film caught in a projector gate. In that place beyond the receding darkness, he saw a nighttime street. A neighborhood. The tract house where a man named Cruz died.

  Then, he was there. Wind whistled around and through him. A sprinkling of dark glitter on the asphalt marked the spot where he found Alice. Twenty feet away he saw drips of transmission fluid from his Pontiac.

  He willed himself to move toward the lawn, and it happened. He willed himself closer to the scary house, the scene of Mikey’s crime. The now-closed door loomed before him. Its was cracked and splintered, as if it had been smashed by a SWAT team battering ram. Duct tape held it together.

  He wondered what was inside the house. The next thing he knew, he was in a living room. Battered red velour couches, amateur artwork in gilded frames on the walls. Blood spattered the grimy carpet. Two doorways led deeper, one toward bedrooms, the other to a kitchen and beyond to a room where a television blared a soccer game.

  Kai followed the blood trail through the quiet hallway into the second bedroom. A man lay on a green tarp on the bed, his arms crossed and a black bandanna over his face. The gunshot wound in his side stained his white tee shirt with blood. At the bedside knelt another guy, dressed in the same clothes, wearing a similar bandanna. He had broad shoulders and a neck lumpy with muscle. His hands were wide, and his fingers were thick as shotgun shells.

  Overlooking everything, a three-foot tall, blackened bronze statue stood on a round table at the foot of the corpse’s bed. It was a feminized reaper, dressed in flowing robes that bulged over her chest, eye sockets filled with twinkling red costume jewelry. Three dozen folded dollar bills were taped to the statue’s base and robes.

  Kai had heard of this in his anthropology class. She was Santa Muerte. Saint Death. Central Americans worshiped her despite the Vatican’s disapproval. Her rictus was too much to behold. He looked down and away as quickly as possible.

  On the floor below the statue’s table sat two cases. One of them was Halulu’s. Still closed, still locked, still holding the meth. The other case stood open, showing plenty of green packets bound in white tape. Benjamins.

  This was more cash than Kai had ever seen in one place. It stirred him, seeing all that paperbound power. His gaze once again moved up to meet the saint’s terrifying face. Did this statue have any real power? Would Santa Muerte stop him from taking back the offerings to her?

  The weeping ganger turned, his tear-streaked face contorted with an apoplectic rage.

  “The fuck you doing here?” The guy’s mouth didn’t move. No breath escaped his lungs.

  Are you astral, too?

  “Astral? I’m fucking dead, pendejo. I’m mourning myself, before they come for me.”

  Who’s coming for you?

  “Whoever takes the dead to Hell. I know that’s where I’m going. There’s no Heaven for me. Not for all the things I’ve done.”

  Cruz’s eyes slit. “You’re with those other guys. The puta who shot me. The king puta who put him up to it.”

  Wait. What?

  “I called him a fat ass Samoan,” Cruz said. “He had your boy draw down on me. So, maybe I invited that bullet.”

  I thought it was an accident.

  “Accident? That little bitch had his nine in hand. He …he ….” Cruz’s shade slumped. “His finger wasn’t nowhere near the trigger, was it? Something else happened. Chance? Ghosts?” Terror dawned in the young man’s spectral face and eyes. “How many more of you are there?”

  There’s only me. Even as Kai thought this, he sensed something moving behind him. It was a cold sensation, like the surprising first autumn breeze that heralded the end of another summer.


  “You are so wrong,” Cruz said. His attention focused on the space beyond Kai. On the door and the hallway and on the dark things filling that place. “Nino, is that you? Jesus, man, I’m so sorry, but I needed blooding. You know I had to …oh God, who’s with you?”

  Suddenly, the ganger turned away. “No, Nino. Don’t let her come in here.” In a much quieter voice, Cruz said, “I’m so sorry, mamasita. I didn’t mean to do it. The gasoline, it spilled. The matches were already going, and ….”

  Something weighty shifted in the space behind Kai. A stink like paint thinner pinched Kai’s eyes shut. From the ensuing darkness, something spoke. A dozen voices, familiar but not quite right, whispered, “Turn around, Kai. We’ve come for you. See our faces.”

  No fucking thanks. He floated forward, and brushed his hand across both cases. In death’s costume jewelry eyes flickered twin candle flame reflections and something else. At once, a dark mass. Like a storm cloud. But in it, moving shapes, nearly human. If he stared, he might discern them. Or might he grant them identities?

  “You can’t run, Kai,” that droning choir said. “Not from us. Not forever. We will catch you up, sooner or later. Best it be now.”

  Kai squeezed his eyes shut and thought about his room, about his bed, about his body and Alice poised near it. Sweet, lovely, lonely Alice. No bending of light.

  Cruz pleaded. “No, mamasita! Please don’t! I’m sorry, sorry, sorry!” The last syllable rose into a shriek, before the sound of wet fabric torn and then lusty lapping.

  None of it was real. It was all illusion. What could affect a being without a body? Spirits?

  “Face me like a man, son.”

  Dad?

  Impossible. His father wasn’t dead. He was alive. He was …he was stuck inside a steel life support tube. Because of the hate-spawned cankers and cancers and a plethora of drug side effects, the old man’s body had been shutting down one system at a time for years. Kai couldn’t bring himself to go see him.