Awakenings (6 page)

Seth didn’t see the humor. He checked his watch. They’d only been gone for three hours. How could he lose his home—again—in such a small span of time? No one should be so unlucky as to have his home burned twice in one lifetime. He hid his ziplock full of pot behind a neighbor’s trash bin and approached a police officer who ordered him to step back behind the line.

“That’s my place, man!” Seth shouted.

“When we get the all clear from Fire, we’ll let you up, sir,” the officer said.

Seth spotted two of his neighbors, Ramone and Chad, huddled beneath a quilt under Mr. Cho’s awning. Ramone held Hoshi in his arms.

“Oh Seth! Thank God you’re okay,” Ramone said.

“What happened?” he asked them.

“Explosion,” Chad said. “It tore through our wall.”

“An explosion?”

Lelani stepped away from them to face the activity. From her satchel she pulled something that looked like a compact.
Great time to fix your face,
Seth thought.

“Where’s Joe?” he asked.

Ramone and Chad looked at each other, expecting someone to answer.

“Where’s Joe?” Seth asked again.

“We thought you … we heard shouting from your … We didn’t realize…”

“Where is he?”

Chad pointed to an ambulance outside the cordoned off area. Sobbing, Ramone braced himself on Chad’s shoulder. Seth ran toward the ambulance. The surreal scent of barbecue permeated the air. He saw a draped body inside. The paramedic held him back.

“Whoa, where do you think you’re going?”

“My roommate is in there. How he’s doing?”

“He’s not— Look, I’m sorry. There was nothing we could do.”

Seth felt punch-drunk. His breakfast clamored to come up. “But … I just talked to him an hour ago.”

“It was a powerful explosion. He died instantaneously.”

Seth burped. He could taste his stomach acid. It was short warning—he threw up on the street, just missing the paramedic’s shoes. The medic pulled paper towels from his truck and handed them to Seth.

“Sorry,” Seth said, then hurled again.

“Don’t worry. Here, take these with water. They’ll settle your stomach.” Seth accepted the tablets. “You should talk to that detective,” the paramedic added, pointing to a fiftyish-looking man in a brown trench coat. “And I’m sorry.”

Lelani joined him as he approached the detective. She looked concerned. “We should leave,” she said. “It’s not safe here.”

“Shut up.”

“This fire was not an accident.”

He faced her. With a stiff accusatory finger he said, “What did we say about the crazy talk?”

Lelani bit her lip and remained quiet. She looked up and down the street, examining the crowd surrounding them.

“Hey you!” Seth called to the detective. “The guy in the ambulance is … was my roommate.”

“Sorry,” the detective said. “If it’s any consolation, Mr. Raincrest died quickly.”

“I’m Raincrest. My roommate was Joe Rodriguez.”

“Oh,” the detective said. He scribbled the correction into his notepad. “Good thing I hadn’t started the paperwork yet.”

“What happened?”

“Near as we can tell, the gas line erupted and a fireball engulfed the place. Took out your neighbors’ apartments, too. They said they heard some yelling and your name came up a few times. Maybe that’s why they thought it was you in the blast.”

“Joe and I had a disagreement before I left, but we weren’t yelling. Maybe he was on the phone.”

“Where were you?”

“At a friend’s house. I was with her…” Seth realized that Lelani wasn’t behind him. She was scouring the crowd again.

“Who?” the detective asked.

“Her.”

“The redhead?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“She a roommate, too?”

“No, I just met her today. I think she escaped from Bellevue.”

“Lucky you. Look, I can’t let you in yet. Once the Fire guys give the okay…”

“Thanks.”

Seth walked over to Lelani.

“We should go now,” she repeated.

“Hey, nutjob, my goddamn home was fireballed! I’m not going anywhere. I have to see what I can salvage.”

“Do it quickly.”

“We can’t, yet.”

Lelani took him by the arm and led him toward the entrance. She mumbled as they walked. Seth expected to be stopped at any moment. They were already up the stairs before he realized they’d snuck through. When they got to his floor, she told the firemen they had permission to be there. The city workers handed them face masks.

“How’d you do that?” Seth asked.

“They teach us these things in Bellevue,” she said, with a wry smile.

A gray haze saturated the room. Even through the mask, the acrid air made its way into his mouth and nose. Piles of black ash sat where walls once stood. Charred floorboards remained of varnished woodwork. They had to watch where they walked. Electrical wires dangled from the ceiling. Lelani hung back. Seth made his way to his studio. All the photos were melted into slag. His cameras were destroyed, his computer, his stockpile of film—everything was gone. A puddle of plastic sat where the phone used to be.

“Motherfucking goddamn shit!” he yelled. “It’s gone! All of it! Everything I own is shit.” He shoved his fingers into his hair and balled his hands into fists. Seth was on the verge of crying, but didn’t want Red to see him that way, so he swallowed the pain and pushed it into his gut.

Lelani pulled her compact out again. She held it before her and gingerly circled the room.

“Why are you doing that now?” Seth demanded.

“Pardon me?”

“You just had that compact out ten minutes ago. Your face needs less work than anyone I know.”

Lelani followed his line of sight to her hand. “I’m not putting on makeup,” she said. “I’m checking for residual … well, it’s more ‘crazy talk.’ I’ll spare you the details.” She handed him the device.

It was a heavy, ornate brass disk. There was a concealed hinge on one side and a clasp opposite it. On the inner lid was a mirror, but not the cheap kind mass-produced by Revlon. This was the cleanest reflection Seth had ever seen, pure liquid silver, as though you could stick your hand through it to the room on the other side. On the inner base were a series of assorted gems, and lines of pearls embedded in the brass. Around the jewels were intricate designs and patterns etched into the metal. Some jewels blinked, others remained lit. They cast a laser-like grid onto the mirror. It looked like a Victorian-era version of a Palm Pilot.

“What the hell is this thing? A tricorder? It must be worth a fortune.”

“It’s hard to explain. Just think of it as a Geiger counter for now. The gas line did not cause this fire. The explosion was the result of an attack. I’m quite certain you were the target.”

“Oh, here we go again.”

“Listen, before you lecture me; I’ve come a long way to find you—not to insult your intelligence, not to make your life miserable, not to start a friendship, but to help you discover yourself and in so doing, help my cause. I don’t want money and I don’t want pity for my mental state. I understand what you are going through … the loss of a home and friends is a terrible thing. I know because I have lost my own home.”

Her fierce sincerity almost succeeded in making Seth forget she was a nutjob.

“I don’t know what to make of you,” he said. “And I don’t have time to figure it out. My roommate’s dead. My home’s a cinder. I might be sleeping on a park bench tonight.”

“Then perhaps I can give you some practical help. I have a room on Twenty-third Street. You can stay with me until you decide your next step.”

“What’s the catch?”

“You accompany me to the Bronx. I have to find someone. This attack means that my timetable has been shortened. I can’t leave you alone.”

“Screw that.” Seth dug out a tin box from the burned out closet. Inside were two twenty-dollar bills and a ten. “Who has time to trek up to the Bronx? All I have to do is get to a pay phone.” Then he stormed out of the remains of his apartment.

4

Seth bought a five-dollar phone card at Mr. Cho’s. By four thirty, the sun was sliding past the horizon and a cold drizzle replaced the snow, washing away the pristine blanket of white. Seth had only a dollar credit left on the card. He was still struggling to find a place to stay. A few friends offered to put up the cat who slept peacefully on the stoop. Lelani stood at a respectable distance from the deli payphone. Seth knew she wasn’t there for moral support.

“Hi Earl. I need a favor … can I crash with you tonight? No, Kevin’s still away on his honeymoon. Why not? She’s still pissed at me? Look, I’m in dire straits, man. My place burned down. I’ll sleep on the floor. C’mon, she’s not even your wife. You’re gonna pick a chick over your bud? Yeah, thanks a lot, man. Happy fucking holidays to you, too.” Seth slammed the pay phone. “Asshole.”

“He’s being unreasonable?” Lelani asked, breaking her silence.

Seth’s first instinct was to tell her to buzz off, but he realized her offer of shelter was the only option on the table at the moment. It was looking better with each call.

“No.”

“Then why would he not…?”

“I sold photos of his girlfriend to the amateur section of a few nude magazines—without permission. She got drunk at a party and stripped. Got off on my taking photos of her.”

“Hmmm?” Lelani murmured.

“I gave her half the money. She’s hot. It was a good way for me to get noticed at these publications.
She
needed the cash because she was about to get evicted from her apartment.”

“Clearly, she has no sense of gratitude. So you photograph nude women for cheap periodicals?”

Seth regretted bringing it up. He heard condescension creeping back into Lelani’s voice.

“I don’t photograph anything anymore. I’m out of business. My cameras, my archives, a thousand dollars’ worth of film, all gone. Even the graces of my employer … gone. I missed an important deadline today.”

Seth picked up the phone and dialed another number.

“No one will help you,” Lelani said.

“I’m getting that, yeah. Did you cast a spell on me?”

“You do not inspire loyalty within your circles.”

Once again Seth made his appeal on the phone, this time to an ex-girlfriend who always needed money. He offered to pay her rent and then heard the click of the disconnect.

“Why is this happening to me?” he wailed.

“You have disappointed these people once too often. They feel no allegiance to you.”

Again, Seth suppressed the urge to punch her out. He considered a homeless shelter, but knew he’d never make it out by morning with the few dollars he had left.

“These friends of yours, did they know your roommate as well?” she asked.

“Yeah, so?”

“You did not mention his death. Not even once.”

Seth realized she had a point. Concentrating on his own problems, he had neglected to mention Joe’s death to anyone. What was worse, he couldn’t undo it. His friends would be furious at him once they learned about it. The chasms he had just discovered expanded faster than his ability to bridge them. He had helped foster this shortage of goodwill toward him through the years. Joe probably put in a lot of effort on his behalf into soothing the rifts among their friends. Now his advocate was dead and he had yet to shed a tear. Add in a crazy woman’s accusation that he was partly responsible for Joe’s death—a case of mistaken identity—and his shame only deepened. He sat on the stoop in front of the deli stroking Hoshi’s neck. No progress had been made since his eighteenth birthday, he was still alone, and he couldn’t blame the fire this time.

“Come with me and you’ll have a place to sleep tonight,” Lelani offered. “Do it for the cat.”

“At this point,” Seth said, “I don’t have anything more to lose, right?”

Lelani remained quiet for a moment. Then she offered her hand and helped him off the stoop. “We’ll drop the cat off at my room, first,” she said.

“Uh—I don’t have
anything more
to lose,
right…?
” Seth repeated.

“Certainly,” she answered—but would not look him in the eye.

CHAPTER 3

THREE-RINGED CIRCUS MAXIMUS

1

The man with the yellow eyes dropped from the ceiling and knocked the pistol out of Cal’s hand. Cal tried to twist away in time, but found himself pinned under this strange person with oozing pores. Sharp talons slashed at him and tore his bulletproof vest. Cal couldn’t get any leverage. Every way he twisted, the assailant was able to twist just as far. His assailant’s proportions were off, as though his limbs were stretched beyond human capability; the lack of sleep must have been screwing with Cal’s perceptions. Although he couldn’t get free of the perp’s viselike grip, Cal was stronger and could move the attacker’s limbs wherever he brought his own arm, so he brought the full force of his steel-jacketed Maglite against his attacker’s head. The man yowled and fell off.

Cal rolled out from under the man-thing and quickly checked the cuts on his face and chest. His attacker now stood between him and the hallway. That little bit of distance between them gave the officer his first full view of the creature. It looked gaunt and emaciated, its skin dolphin gray, but it was essentially a person, albeit disfigured, and there was an intelligence in its gaze. It had no intention of letting him leave. He scanned the floor for his gun, but it had fallen into the darkness. There was no time to search. He quickly pulled out his nightstick and stood up.

“You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer!” Cal shouted. “Please, feel free to do this the hard way.”

The yellow-eyed perp smiled. Cal was perplexed when it attempted to throw a punch from ten feet away. He was more confused when the fist actually connected with his jaw. Just as his vision cleared, he could see the creature’s arm snapping back to its former proportion.
This isn’t sleep deprivation,
Cal thought. Whatever it was, the assailant moved like it was triple-jointed and stretched better than his wife’s yogi.

They circled, trying to decide their next move. The gray man never relinquished his position at the doorway. It didn’t run, even though the element of surprise was gone, and this worried Cal. He was much larger than his attacker, and despite its unique abilities, this thing was not as strong as he was. Something else occurred to Cal. This assailant did not match the description of the suspect.
It was waiting for backup! It was stalling.