Sacrifice (19 page)

It was still almost 75 degrees in San Francisco, warm for November, but Alex shivered, despite the unseasonable heat. She was leaning forward on the park bench, staring at a spot a couple feet in front of them. No one was there. But as Joe watched her silent exchange, he noted that none of the hurried pedestrian traffic in front of them ever physically crossed that spot. Maybe because Alex was acting like a street freak. Or maybe because innately, they could sense something occupied that space, however ghostly and unseen. Where the spirit stood was a dead zone. Invisible but potent. Gently, Joe put a supportive hand on her back. “What do you see?” he whispered.

Alex didn’t answer immediately. Then she shook her head, and leaned back on the bench to press tight into his shoulder. “I’ve talked to ghosts all my life and never been afraid,” she said. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him. “That was fuckin’ freaky.”

Joe squeezed her arm and pulled her closer. “What happened?”

Quickly Alex related how the ghost had told her it had been “waiting” for them, and that it wanted them to “close the door.”

“Did it say what room she killed in?”

She nodded. “255. But it said to stay away, or my soul would be in danger.”

Joe frowned. He looked around at the march of people, a hustling melting pot of pin-striped suits, high-heeled business women, tourists in baseball caps, college kids in khakis and jeans, and the occasional unkempt bum. They jostled elbows as they moved down the street, mixing races and missions and perfume (Joe had smelled everything from the background scent of a eucalyptus tree to overpowering, cloying perfume to urine in the ten minutes he’d sat on the bench). All were probably oblivious to the spirits in their midst. “Then how are we supposed to close this door?”

“It said ‘she is the key.’ ”

“Yeah, well, we don’t know who she is! Did it offer a picture or some insight on how we’re supposed to find her?”

Alex shrugged. “No. But it did say one thing I thought was weird.”

“What’s that?”

“It called her a nun.”

After Joe and Alex left the park, they walked some more through the crowded downtown streets of San Francisco. At the corner of Hyde and Market, they found the line for the cable car that would take them up Nob Hill out of downtown and into the wharf district on the far side of the Embarcadero.

“You up for it?” Joe asked.

Alex looked at the long line of people waiting to hop a short ride on the historic tourist trap that was the San Francisco trolley, and shook her head. “I’m starved, actually. Can we get something to eat first?”

Joe grinned. “You like Chinese?”

“Sure, why not?”

He wrapped an arm around her and turned them towards the ascent of the hill. “Then you, my dear little witch, are about to visit one of my favorite places on earth.”

“What’s that?”

“Chinatown.”

Stockton Street was just as Joe remembered it.

“I came here for a job interview when I was in college,” he explained, pointing out the pink temple peak of an upscale restaurant a block away. “I stayed over a couple days and beat around the city. It was great—they have absolutely everything here. Beaches, beautiful parks, great food. I think the best place I ate was at a cheap little dive here in Chinatown though.”

“Can you find the place?”

“No way,” he grinned. “I was just out wandering one night, and stopped at this little hole-in-the-wall place. No idea where it was or what it was called. But I never forgot the food!”

They walked up the hill, stopping at every storefront to peer in at the mélange of touristy postcard racks, Oriental statuary and colorful sarongs and other clothing. It seemed almost every storefront included many, many racks of T-shirts, all displaying some emblem denoting the landmarks of the city, from pictures of the trolley to the Golden Gate.

Finally they came to a corner, where a dim sum restaurant provided a long backlit sign with photos of its many dinner offerings. Joe’s stomach rumbled at the sight.

“How about here?” Alex asked, and it took no prodding.

“Works for me.”

A golden Buddha larger than any living man welcomed them inside the doorway. The restaurant was dimly lit, and Alex marveled at the rich red tapestries that covered the walls as a man the very opposite of the Buddha led them to a table. He was so thin you could almost see through him, and shorter than Joe or Alex. His hair was shock white; it seemed to almost glow against his black suit collar. He bowed as he gestured to the table.

“Is okay?”

Joe smiled and said yes, and in seconds they were both poring over the menu, as a waifish girl in a red and gold dress poured them each a cup of green tea. The restaurant was quiet, the few scattered white table-clothed tables of patrons separated by as many empty ones. Joe picked up a set of chopsticks and tried to fit them correctly between his fingers. He clicked them like pincers, and reached out to use them on the container of sugar and Sweet ‘N Low. After fiddling with the sticks for a moment, at last he pried up a white packet of sugar and clumsily unseated it from the holder. It fell to the table before reaching his empty plate.

“You’re gonna starve if you try to use those,” Alex warned.

Joe grinned. “Do you like spicy, or no?”

“Spicy, yes,” she returned mimicking a Chinese accent.

“How about a curry, then?”

“Never had one. Will I like it?”

“You never know ‘til you try. Let’s find out!”

When the young Oriental girl in red returned, they ordered a red pot curry and some ginger chicken and when the food arrived, they dove in hungrily, loading their plates with rice from a large ceramic bowl and dowsing it alternately with hot curry and colorful spoonfuls of chicken surrounded with spikes of ginger and red and green shards of pepper. With her mouth still full, Alex declared it the best thing she’d ever had.

“Told you,” Joe smiled. “Course, it could have something to do with surviving for the past week on my camp cooking and diner food. We haven’t exactly lived well the past few days! But this is good.”

When they had both stuffed themselves to the point of pain, Joe leaned back and sighed. The owner or manager stood silently across the room near the cash register.

“I wish we could stay here,” he said. A cool breeze rippled the hair on the back of his neck. He reached around and scratched at his hairline. The good feeling was instantly replaced by something tenser, colder.

“Have you seen any ghosts in here?”

Alex frowned. “Yeah, they’re always around. Why?”

“Not sure,” he said, looking at the other tables, where both Chinese and Caucasians chattered and lifted chunks of noodles, rice and chicken to their mouths with sticks that Joe had long since decided were ill-designed to carry a mouthful of anything.

“Just a weird feeling.”

A busboy who looked as if he’d just gotten off the boat from the Orient quietly slipped their plates out from beneath their arms, and as he disappeared through the drapes into the kitchen, the old man appeared once more at their table.

“Food is acceptable?” he asked.

“Very good,” Joe and Alex said together.

“Dessert now?”

Joe put a hand to his belly. Alex laughed.

“No, just the check I think,” he said.

The older man returned with the bill and two fortune cookies. Despite being full almost to bursting, they both grabbed for the cookies. Joe pulled the plastic off with his teeth and cracked open the thin cookie to get at the white paper slip with his fortune inside.

“I love these,” he grinned.

“Me, too!” Alex said. “Although we didn’t eat at these kinds of restaurants much when I was growing up.”

“Your parents probably didn’t like the whole Buddha thing.”

Alex nodded. “We wouldn’t have gotten through the door if a restaurant had had a statue like that one. Or that one,” she pointed to the back wall of the restaurant where there was what looked like a shrine to the statue of a half-nude woman with six arms fanned above her head. Alex opened the paper to read her fortune. Her smile clouded.

“What’s your fortune say?” she asked softly.

Joe opened his, and the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. “Ah shit,” he whispered. He held it out for her to see as he mouthed what it said: “They’re coming.”

She held hers out to him to read and Joe saw the same two words:

They’re coming.

Alex didn’t talk much on the way back to the hotel. Before dinner, the bay breeze that slipped between the buildings and ruffled her hair had made the city feel vibrant, alive, exciting. Now the air just put a chill in her bones. She had never been afraid of ghosts before, but now…she wasn’t so sure. They were manifesting in ways that were unlike any she’d experienced before. How had they altered the fortunes in the cookies? Certainly the Chinaman running the restaurant couldn’t have done it…he couldn’t have known about them or their quest. And what about the ghosts who’d spoken to her on the elevator, and in the park? They’d instantly known who she was, and what they were about. There were a lot of players in this game, Alex realized, and she and Joe hadn’t begun to meet them all.

You’ve got that right,
a familiar voice whispered in her brain.

Malachai!
She spoke with her inner lips.
Where have you been? What’s going on?

There are those who’d like the Curburide to come through, and those who would do anything to stop them. The former will coalesce around the Caller as if she’s a lightning rod. And the latter…will look for you.

But why me?
she asked.
What makes me so special?

You can speak with the dead. And you’ve broadcast your interest. When you agreed to become involved, you became the focal point. The witch who would stand against the incursion, who would lead the opposition.

Alex shook her head visibly, and Joe watched her from the corner of his eye. She was speaking silently to someone, he could tell. But he said nothing.

I’m just a girl,
she insisted.
I don’t know shit about evil spirits or Curburide demons or what ever the hell they are. And I certainly don’t know how to fight them. You dragged me into this.

You came willingly,
Malachai said, his voice a silky sonorous whisper.

Well then I can go willingly.

I don’t think so.

Why not?

Look around you.

Alex stopped focusing internally and looked at where they’d been walking. They were nearly back to the hotel, walking along the red brick sidewalk. It was dark on Market Street, but the streetlights and the solid row of storefront building lights, neon signs and even the occasional adult theatre marquee kept most of the shadows at bay on the red bricked walkway.

But at the edge of the shadows, Alex could see a disturbance. The air shimmered like a strip of tarmac at high noon in the desert. Normally when she hadn’t completely focused on a ghost, that was the isolated effect. The world often looked a little shivery to her. But this was different than that. This wasn’t a pocket of potential here or there on the street awaiting her concentration to bring it to focus…this was all around them.

“What’s going on?” she whispered out loud.

“What do you mean?” Joe asked.

She could see faces now, and outstretched arms through the spiritual fog. The shimmering dissolved before her eyes into a host of translucent, but distinct silvery forms. Men in torn shirts, children trailing rags, women clutching scraps of worm-eaten dresses to their bosoms as they moved steadily forward. A jogger in a striped running outfit leapt ahead of the wall of souls and ran straight at Alex. They were coming from all sides, from in between the adult theatre and the run-down hotel. They stepped into the street from the secondhand clothing store, and cars ran through their foggy forms without impact. They slipped into view from between the closed doors and the locked bars that protected the closed storefronts from entry at night. They materialized in the bus shelter in the center of the busy thoroughfare.

And they were all converging fast on her and Joe.

“They really are coming,” she answered him aloud.

They won’t let you give up now,
Malachai said.
I think you’ll find them, um, very persuasive.

“Who’s coming?” Joe asked, still oblivious to the mob of souls about to catch up with them.

“Ghosts,” Alex said, clutching his arm and stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “They’re everywhere.”

Joe peered up and down the street, trying to see the spirits that Alex said were all around them, but to no avail. An electric bus slipped with a screech to a stop at the glass enclosure a few yards away, and a stream of people got off and filed across the street to disappear in opposite directions down Market. Stragglers—all men—sauntered back and forth near the adult theatre just down the block, and Joe avoided making eye contact with any of them. An old woman pushing a small personal grocery cart passed them by.

The street was alive with walkers, but none of them looked see-through to Joe.

But next to him, Alex shook in visible fear, and clutched his arm.

“No,” she whispered. And then, louder, “NO!”

Her eyes grew wide and Joe reached an arm out to cut the air in front of her. It met no resistance, but suddenly Alex screamed.

“What is it…” he began, but then her grip on his sleeve loosened, and the green of her eyes rolled back in her head until all he could see were the whites. “Alex,” he cried, and grabbed her as her knees gave way, pulling them both to the ground.

“Malachai!” he yelled, oblivious to the stares from people all around.

Yes, master.
The spirit cawed.
How can I be of service?

“What’s going on? What did she see?”

She saw what would happen if she doesn’t stop the Curburide from coming through the rift between the worlds.

“God damnit!” Joe yelled, gently slapping Alex’s face in an attempt to bring her around. When that didn’t work, he held her by her shoulders and shook her. Her head lolled back, jet-black hair swimming on the bricked pavement. “Why did you show her that?”

I didn’t show her anything,
the demon said.
I told you that there are many who are watching your progress very closely. I wouldn’t procrastinate, if I were you.

Alex opened her eyes, but she didn’t seem to see Joe’s face in front of her. Her face was blank for a second. Then she opened her mouth to scream again. Joe covered it with his hand. “Alex, honey, it’s me!” he said, shaking her a little. “It’s Joe.”

The glazed look slipped away. Her eyelids fluttered three, then four times. “Joe,” she said softly. “Oh God, it was awful. It’s going to be awful.”

“Shhh,” he said, helping her up from the street. “Let’s get back to our room and then you can tell me.”

She nodded, but kept shooting glances all around them as they started to walk again. The ghosts had disappeared as completely as they had overwhelmed her, but not everyone had left the street. As they walked past the porno theatre, one of the dreadlocked, tattooed men leaning against the wall let out a whistle. And it wasn’t at the photo of a bronze-skinned nude woman perched on a motorcycle flaunting her enormous breasts next to him. Someone else started clapping, and Joe put his arm around Alex and urged their steps faster.

She’s popular with the living and the dead,
Malachai jibed in his head.

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Joe hissed.

The winning one.

Back in their room, Alex kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of her bed. She hugged herself and closed her eyes. Joe stood by, not sure what to do. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her and let her know it was all okay, but…no. That wasn’t right. She was just a kid. He was supposed to be supportive, but not fatherly…he felt something stir inside him as he looked at her, and clenched his jaw in argument. She was just a kid, for Christsake.

An image of Cindy passed through his mind. She’d been too young for him, too, but not this much. And look how that had turned out.

He blanked the thoughts from his head and denied the desire to take her into his arms. Instead, he paced in front of the bed.

“What happened back there?”

Her voice sounded small when she answered. “The ghosts,” she said. “They…they came from everywhere. It was like a stampede of the dead. They were all pointing at me, and saying things. And then they just closed all around until I couldn’t breathe. I know, you couldn’t even see them, but I was drowning. They kept saying ‘they’re coming’ over and over and then all of a sudden I was falling. It was like…I was in a cloud of something bad. Everything was red and black and the air smelled like rotten eggs and sewer and someone was screaming.”

“I think that was you,” Joe suggested.

“Maybe. It was just…horrible.”

“It’s alright now,” he said, trying to sound strong. But inside, he could feel it all slipping away. Malachai had dragged him into this to help her, but there was nothing he could do. Hell, he couldn’t even see the ghosts that she was going to have to fight. All he could do was drive her around and pat her shoulder.

Maybe that’s all you need to do,
his inner voice said.

“When I lifted the axe to kill my father, I knew there was no going back,” Alex was saying. “When I let the blade down to chop off his head, I felt a lot of my friends slip away, as if they were ashamed to be near me. And when I killed my mom, I knew it was a horrible, horrible thing. Something you will go to hell for, no matter how much you’re sorry later.”

She sniffed, and Joe reached over to wipe a single tear from her cheek.

“But Joe, I wasn’t sorry then. And I’m not sorry now. I’m a terrible person. My father was right. All of those ghosts wanted me to do something to save them. But I can’t save anyone. I’m not a good person. I’m going to hell.”

Joe brushed the hair from her face, and tilted her head up to look into his eyes. Her gaze was eerily bright, electric, as tears pooled at the edge of her lashes. “You’re a good person who did what she had to do,” he said. “You’re not going to hell.”

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

“Me, too.”

And then she put her arms around him and pulled him tight. She hugged him so close he could feel her heart beating through their clothes.

“Hold me,” she pleaded. “Just stay here and hold me?”

“I will,” he promised.

Alex looked up at him then, and suddenly Joe didn’t think she looked 15 or 17 or any age at all. She just looked beautiful. He bent to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned in his arms and met his lips hard. She was warm and wet, and pulled him into her mouth with her eyes and tongue. They kissed for a long time, and then Alex pushed him away.

“Wait,” she whispered, and pulled down the sheets on the bed. The maid had already taken off the bedspread for the night.

Alex slipped off her jeans and socks, and climbed into the bed in her T-shirt and pan ties. Then she patted the empty space next to her.

“Stay with me to night?” she begged. “I need you to be close.”

Joe didn’t say a thing, but mimicked her preparation and kicked aside his jeans and socks. He worried about what she would say when she felt the bulge of his erection against her through his underwear. But he turned out the light and slipped in to bed beside her. She pressed her back against his chest and he put his arm around her, covering the soft swell of her chest with his forearm. She didn’t seem to mind the hard-on that snuggled into the cleft of her ass. She only shimmied her hips until there was no air between them at all.

In a faraway place, Joe heard a low, familiar chuckle.

Legend has it, that the strongest witches are virgins,
Malachai said.
Of course, the bitch who’s calling the Curburide clearly isn’t. So maybe that’s just an old hard-up witch’s tale. Care to test the theory? Looks like she’s willing.

Shut up,
Joe said silently.

Mmmm. You think you can keep your wick from her wax for awhile? I’m betting not.

The demon laughed again, and Joe felt the girl in his arms begin to breathe deeper as sleep took hold. He was painfully aware of the faint smell of her sweat from their walk through the city, mixed with a flowery scent of shampoo. His cock begged to be set free on her,
in her,
and he closed his eyes hard, struggling to picture something non sexual. But whenever he tried to imagine her as a child who needed him to protect her, the child in his mind opened her piercing green eyes, pulled her shirt over her head to expose her naked breasts. They were small, as he liked them, and flawlessly creamy. Her nipples were pink and wide, and they stood erect as she grew from child to woman before his eyes and stepped forward to slip her pale, pink tongue between his lips.

It was a long time before Joe fell asleep.