Shadowshaper (3 page)

The commotion from the pool area got louder. Through the forsythia and pumpkin vine, Sierra saw a middle-aged man stomping through the party with an even gait. He wore an old winter jacket and stained khakis that didn’t quite fit. His skin was pale, like hospital fluorescents, and dull, cataracted eyes glared out from his grayish weathered face. Kids stood back, giving the stranger a wide berth.

Robbie shoved the notebook into his shoulder bag. “We gotta go,” he said again.

“What’s going on?” Sierra’s hand wrapped around his arm. “Who is that?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” he said, backstepping deeper into the bushes. He took Sierra’s hand and pulled her toward the garden wall. “Hop over this wall and run. You hear me? Go!”

“But what about you?”

“I’m going to lead him off somewhere else. He’ll chase me. You get out of here.”

“Chase you? Robbie, no —”

But he’d already disappeared into the underbrush. Sierra took a quick look around. The party was trying to get itself started again. Apparently, the stranger had wandered off; she could hear kids carrying on about messing that dude up, wherever he was.

A movement caught Sierra’s eye in the bushes where they had just been sitting. As she turned her head, the man stepped out with a muffled grunt. His unblinking eyes stared down at her.

Sierra’s yell got stuck somewhere in her throat. She took two steps backward.

“Where’s Lucera?” His hoarse whisper sounded somehow dissonant.

“What?” Sierra was whispering too, and she had no idea why. A stank, heavy air invaded her nostrils. It was the same smell they couldn’t get out of their basement after a rat died inside one of the walls.

“Where … is … Lucera?” he growled again.

She took another step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The thing — it didn’t seem like a man at all anymore — tensed as if it was about to pounce. One thick, bluish hand grabbed Sierra’s left wrist. It was cold, like a slab of raw meat. “Tell me.” It pulled her arm toward its face, eyes twitching.

Sierra yanked her hand free. “Get away from me! You talkin’ to the wrong girl!” She walked backward, keeping her eyes on the thing.

“Sierra …”

It knew her name. She glanced up. It was smiling.

Sierra turned around and ran. She reached the wall and scrambled up over it, scratching her fingers badly on the sharp stones but not caring. The only thing she could think about was the thing rushing up behind her, the cool grasp of its hand. She landed on the pavement of a quiet side street, the vibrations of her fall shooting up her legs and back. She broke into a run, glancing back just quickly enough to see the thing lurch off the wall and stumble to the ground. She turned a corner and headed uphill toward Prospect Park.

“Sierra,” it brayed. It stood at the far end of the block, panting.

“Stay away,” she yelled. She dipped around another corner, then another. She heard heavy footsteps clomping the pavement on a nearby street. She ran harder. Where was Robbie? How could he just vanish like that when she needed help?

She stopped to catch her breath on the wide avenue where the spiraling mansions of Park Slope met the edge of Prospect Park. The streets around her were empty — no creepy dead-looking guy.

She sighed. Even on a creepy night like this, the park’s darkness seemed welcoming somehow, its shushing leaves beckoning her from across the street. When Sierra was little, Grandpa Lázaro and Mama Carmen used to take her there for picnics. Each tree and stone brought with it a story, and little Sierra could dance for hours, imagining the adventures those silent field dwellers may have seen. When she became a teenager, the quiet and beauty of the park was her solace when the rest of the world just seemed too overwhelming to handle.

But tonight there wasn’t time for solace or peaceful moments in nature. Someone — something — was after her. It knew her name. It had found her once and probably could again. She had to get home. She took off at a jog toward the bright lights of Grand Army Plaza.

Back in Bed-Stuy, police lights pulsated up and down Putnam Avenue. Ambulances were parked at urgent angles alongside the rows of SUVs and hoopties. Folks from the neighborhood crowded around, gazing down the cordoned-off block to see who had been shot this time.

“You know what happened?” Sierra asked an elderly lady with a handcart full of freshly laundered sheets.

The old woman shook her head. “Another young something-something gone to dust, I’m sure.” She shrugged and walked on, her pushcart squeaking crankily with each turn of its wheels. The cops keeping people away looked bored.
Just another shooting, ho hum.
Sierra scowled at one of them and he scowled back.

“Ay!” someone yelled. Sierra spun around, her whole body tensed to strike, but the corpse-like man was still nowhere to be seen. Some old guy banged on the bulletproof-glass window of Carlos’s Corner Store. “Ay, C!” the guy yelled. “Gimme a loosie, man! C’mon, wake up!”

Further down Gates Ave, a couple of guys were throwing dice in front of the Coltrane Projects. “Why you frownin’, girl?” one of them called out as Sierra walked past. “Smile for us!”

Sierra knew the guy. It was Little Ricky; they’d played together when they were small. He’d been one of those boys that all the girls were crazy about, with big dreamy eyes and a gentle way about him. A few years ago, Sierra would have been giddy with excitement to have his attention. Now he was just another stoopgoon harassing every passing skirt.

“I ain’t in the mood, jackass,” Sierra muttered, hugging herself. She was still shaky from the horrible night and she knew any sign of weakness would encourage them.

The guys let out a chorus of
ohs
and pounded one another. “I’m just saying, Sarcastula,” Ricky called after her. “C’mon back when you in the mood …”

Sierra kept walking. At her block, she paused to make sure the creepy guy was gone for real. The trees shushed their quiet night song and Rodrigo, her neighbor’s cat, strolled by. Otherwise, the block was deserted. She made her way inside, crept up the stairs, and collapsed into her bed, trying not to think of the hideous voice whispering her name.

“Aw, damn, y’all you seen this?” Across the kitchen table, Sierra’s godfather, Neville Spencer, held up a page of the
Bed-Stuy
Searchlight
. The wide grin he usually wore was gone.

Sierra squinted. It was ten in the morning. She’d only gotten about three hours of sleep, and woken up to some weird texts from Robbie saying he was okay and he’d explain later, and another from Bennie, demanding to know where she’d run off to. “I can’t see anything, man,” Sierra said. “I ain’t put my contacts in yet.”

“What happened?” Dominic Santiago, Sierra’s dad, appeared in the doorway, wearing his pajamas. He was short and stocky with black hair exactly everywhere on his body except his face and the very top of his head. “Lemme see. What mess Manny shedding light on this time?”

Neville passed the paper to Dominic. “Bottom of page two. You didn’t work last night, D?”

“Nah, the hospital just hired a bunch of new security guys and I took a much-needed personal day, thank you very much.” He looked at the paper. “Oh, man, that’s a shame.”

“You guys! What’s a shame?” Sierra forked a load of French toast into her mouth.

Neville shook his head. “Nobody safe anymore.”

“Whatsit say?” she asked. “Pass it over.”

Dominic handed her the
Searchlight
.

“Ol’ Vernon missing,” Dominic said.

Sierra almost spat out her French toast. There, squished in between a wedding announcement and an article about yet another double murder at the Coltrane Projects, was a black-and-white picture of the thing that had attacked her last night. Ol’ Vernon had a big smile, and his eyes were wide open like he expected something great to happen at any moment. He looked a world away from the whispering fiend from the party.

Vernon Chandler, 62, has been reported as missing from his Marcy Avenue apartment. Vernon was last seen two days ago; family members stated he had been acting unusually quiet the past week. Vernon has no history of mental illness and no criminal history. No note was found at his domicile. A spokesman for the NYPD’s 38th precinct said that if anyone has any information about Vernon’s whereabouts, they should contact the police or medical services. Otherwise, the spokesman said, “He was probably just out for a stroll.”

“Wasn’t he a buddy of Lázaro’s from back in the sh —” Neville said.

“Yeah.” Dominic sat at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe. “But you know …” He nodded toward the kitchen, where María was preparing another batch of French toast. “She don’t like to talk about all that.”

“Dang, still?” Neville whispered.

Dominic shrugged. “I mean … It just upsets her.”

“Why … what don’t we talk about, Dad?” Sierra said. “What’d he have to do with Grandpa Lázaro?”

“It’s nothing, baby. Old family history. Drama.”

“You want French toast, mi amor?” María called from the kitchen. “I don’t have to be at the graduation till noon.”

Dominic cleared his wife’s paperwork off the table. “Sure, babe.”

“Seconds, Neville?”

“Only if it’s you that’s cookin’ ’em,” Neville hollered a little louder than necessary. “Sierra, baby, why is your hand shaking?”

Sierra put the newspaper down. “I dunno. Probably just too much coffee, I guess.” She stood up. “I gotta … Imma go upstairs, ’kay? Still worn out from the party last night.”

“You going to start job hunting, m’ija?” María called over the din of clanking pots and sizzling butter.

“Of course, Mami.”

“That’s my girl.”

On the second floor, Sierra poked her head into her brothers’ room. Her two older brothers could not have been more different. Gael’s walls were completely blank, while glossy photos of fancy guitars and half-naked zombie girls stared out from Juan’s side. Gael could talk through the night about all kinds of random ridiculous facts, while Juan spent his days crafting a careful casualness and practicing guitar at all hours. Then Gael became a marine, which surprised no one, and Juan’s salsa-thrasher band Culebra got a record deal, which shocked everyone, and both disappeared suddenly and completely from Sierra’s daily life. Now Gael was a three-page letter every month about waiting for something to happen in Tora Bora, and Juan was a rare and awkward phone call from Philly or Baltimore or wherever his latest gig was.

Sierra continued past her own room to the third floor. The murky smell of incense and ramen noodles at the landing meant Timothy Boyd was home and trying to cook. He’d been renting the Santiagos’ extra apartment while he finished up his final visual arts degree at Pratt, and he pretty much stayed out of sight.

Sierra went up another flight and knocked lightly on the wooden door. She always performed this useless
tap-tap
, even though Grandpa Lázaro never opened it or even responded. When she walked in, the gorgeous morning sky over New York unfolded before her.

“Lo siento lo siento,” Lázaro muttered. He was sitting up in his chair, eyes watery. His fingers were clenched tightly around a scrap of lined paper.

“You back to that?” Sierra crossed the room. “What are you sorry about? What is it?” She tried to see what he had clutched in his hand, but Lázaro pulled the paper tighter to himself and turned away.

“You okay, Abuelo?” Sierra plopped into the bedside easy chair. “Cuz I’m not. I found Robbie like you said but … I don’t know what to tell you. I’m in over my head already. I don’t understand any of this. This guy Ol’ Vernon you usedta know? He showed up last night and chased me and …”

Lázaro lifted one trembling hand, his index finger extended.

“What?” Sierra turned and followed an invisible line from his finger to the far wall, where Lázaro’s gallery of family photographs stared back at her.

“Lo siento lo siento lo siento.”

She stood up and walked across the room. She had never paid the old pictures much mind. There was Tío Angelo, who’d fought with the Macheteros rebels outside of San Juan. There was Uncle Neville hanging with Sierra’s mom and dad back in the eighties, all three of them looking wildly happy outside some nightclub that had long since burned down. There Sierra’s mom and Tía Rosa stood next to each other outside a skating rink on Empire Boulevard, all dolled up and smiling. Sierra’s grandmother, Mama Carmen, glared out of another photo; she had that look that used to light up her eyes right before someone got beat. Mama Carmen had died a few months before Lázaro’s stroke. Sierra missed her grandmother’s hugs more than anything — it was like a secret world of warmth and love every time they’d embrace.

But what was Lázaro trying to show her?

In the middle was a large group photo. Grandpa Lázaro beamed from the center of it, wearing the same creased khakis and guayabera that he’d always worn when he was with it. He was grinning that sweet abuelo grin of his, staring down the camera with an almost fevered excitement. Next to him, a young white man with a pouf of dirty-blond hair stood with one arm wrapped around Lázaro’s shoulder. His eyebrows were arched up, his mouth creased into a surprised half smile, as if he’d been caught off guard by the photographer. Someone had written beside him
Dr. Jonathan Wick
in elegant, old-fashioned script. On Wick’s other side, a group of about a dozen men stared intently at the camera without smiling. Each had their name written near their head. Sierra knew most of them from around the neighborhood, but a few were strangers to her. There was Delmond Alcatraz and Sunny Balboa from the barber shop, and there was Manny, looking uncharacteristically solemn, and Papa Acevedo … She squinted at the picture. The man next to Papa Acevedo had a black fingerprint smudged over his face. Beside him was his name:
Vernon Chandler.

“What the …” Sierra said out loud. Her voice sounded strange in the quiet room. She looked back at her abuelo. Grandpa Lázaro had slumped over the side of the easy chair, a strand of drool stretching from his mouth to his stained white T-shirt. He let out a high-pitched wheeze, laughed a little, and then snored again.

Sierra crept toward him, her heart thundering in her ears. Lázaro’s right hand clenched the armrest. She crouched beside him and peered at the edges of his fingertips. There was no ink stain on any of them, from what she could tell. Lázaro snored again and startled himself awake. He looked warily around the room.

Sierra took a deep breath and studied her old grandfather, the blue veins along his crinkled arms, the deep-brown eyes. “Abuelo, your ol’ buddy Vernon went missing,” she said, “and now there’s a smudge over his face in the picture.” The old man shook his head slowly back and forth; the news hadn’t registered. “And last night he showed up at the party acting like a creepy freak and looking for someone named … what’d he say? Lucera.”

Lázaro sat up and sputtered, “Lucera … back?”

“I don’t know. Who is she, Abuelo? Who’s Lucera?”

He snapped his head toward Sierra, his eyes once again sharp. “Sierra, if Lucera is back, she can … she will help you, m’ija. I never should’ve … I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He shook his head, eyes glazing over again.

“Abuelo, I don’t know where she is. Where’s Lucera, Abuelo?”

Lázaro shook his head and placed the crinkled scrap of paper in Sierra’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he moaned.

Sierra uncrinkled it. In the same elegant script as the names on the photograph, someone had written:

donde mujeres solitarias van a bailar

“Where lonely women go to dance,” Sierra translated. “This where Lucera is?”

Lázaro nodded, his eyes faraway again.

“What does it mean, Abuelo?”

“Lo siento lo siento lo siento,” he whispered.

Sierra stood and gave her grandfather a kiss on his forehead. “That’s all you got for me, huh?” She pulled out her phone and dialed up Bennie as she headed downstairs.

“What it do?” Bennie said. “Did you have fun with your secret lover man last night?”

Sierra rolled her eyes. “No, B, I had fun running away from that freaky guy that showed up at the party.” She packed her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

“What? That guy chased you? What the hell happened?”

“I don’t even know what to tell you.” She waved at her dad and Uncle Neville and walked out the front door. “But I need a favor.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m alright.” Outside, it was a perfect summer day. Sierra’s next door neighbors, the Middletons, had set up a kiddie pool, and a bunch of the little ones were screaming and splashing around in it. Mrs. Middleton waved at Sierra from her stoop. Sierra smiled and waved back. “It’s just a lot going on,” she said to Bennie. “Listen, can you check up on someone named Jonathan Wick?”

“
Wick
like candle?”

“Right.”

“What you wanna know?”

“I’m not sure. He’s in a picture with my granddad and some cats from around the way, but like … he’s just a random young white dude. Just seems kinda odd.”

“You seem kinda odd,” Bennie said. “But that’s nothing new. I’ll see what I can find.”

Sierra turned a corner and stopped in her tracks. The portrait of Bennie’s brother Vincent, which was painted along the side of a laundromat, had faded just like Papa Acevedo’s, but there was something else about it …

“Sierra?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Thanks, B. I’ll hit you later.” Sierra hung up and pocketed her phone.

Vincent had been killed by the cops three years back. His towering image stood tall against the cement wall, arms crossed over his chest, his name written in bubbly letters across the front of his favorite hoodie. The artist had painted him smiling that terrific Vincent cheeseball grin he’d flash after making a really stupid joke. Now, his eyebrows arched and his jaw jutted out with a sharp frown as he glared into the distance.

Sierra looked around. It wasn’t just Papa Acevedo’s mural.
What is going on?