Bleak History (6 page)

“Or you're not outside its range. And they're about to bust in on us here.”

“Maybe. Thing is—you think they developed that device just for me? Uh-uh. Had to be for all of us. And you know they want to find all of us.” He shrugged. “Maybe I overreacted. She talked like it  was just recruitment.”

Shoella sniffed. “They always talk that way. But their recruitment—mo' like enslavement. What this detector now?”

“Something new. But I don't think I'm mistaken about it. The Hidden has its own energy signature.”

She nodded. “When we open the gates, it's like canal locks—something has to spill through, into that space, level the energy flow. Power clings to us—and this thing smells it.” She toyed with her glass, tossed her head, making her dreads bob. “That all you know, what's going on? This run-in with one agent?”

“Pretty much. It's CCA. An agent named Loraine Sarikosca all over me like white on rice. And the detector. Kind of disturbing. They can use that thing to ferret us out, make life hell.”

“So maybe you want to come over to La'hood, join up close. Quit being a Rambler. La'hood watch your back.”

La 'hood.
That's what she called the New York-Jersey branch of the Shadow Community. “I come over when I need to.”

“That's more selfishness than solidarity, Bleak,” she said, leaning toward him, eyes glittering. Her accent always thickened when she was feeling emotional. “I've had bad luck with 'solidarity.

“See, little white boy cheats us out of important resources when he don't come round.” Shoella sipped her beer and put the glass down with a clunk. The table wobbled. “We each got our talents. We got some overlap for sure. But we might need your
especiality.”
Another Shoella term,
especially.
“More especialities we have, more we—”

“More power Shoella has?” he interrupted, his tone casual, but knowing it would make her mad.

Shoella tensed—but after a moment he could feel her letting it go. It was something he could feel, when she let it go, as if someone had invisibly grabbed him by the shirtfront...then suddenly loosened grip.

“No,” she said softly. “That's not it,
cher
darlin'. It's not about my power.” There was a peculiar longing in her voice. Her gaze settled on his, for a moment, and he felt her longing psychically, as palpably as Spanish moss whipped by the wind to trail across his face. “Could be that you and I...with all our differences...are still...” She broke off, looking away. Left it unsaid.

“Our differences, anyway, aren't that important,” Bleak said. Not sure if the two of them were talking about the same thing anymore. “The Hidden is a field, and
wind
makes shapes in it...in the
apeiron
field.” He shrugged. Made a sweeping motion in his hand as he tried to articulate it. “And
mind
enters the shapes, and sometimes the shapes survive and call themselves spirits...and it's everywhere.” As Bleak spoke, he was aware of someone across the room looking at him fixedly—he could see himself, talking to Shoella, from the man's point of view—one of those men at the table in the other corner. That attention was hostile. He tried to ignore it. “But it's all one thing, in the big field of the Hidden, Shoella. So the
especialities
don't matter.”

She looked at him with her head tilted, her dreadlocks bouncing with the motion. “And listen to y'all—hidden depths. So t'speak. Oh, here the man comes.”

A figure loomed up at the table, and Bleak groaned inwardly, recognizing him. Donald Bursinsky. A refrigerator-size man in a gray hoodie, with a slack mouth and a faux-hawk and tiny, dirty-blue eyes and an ink-pen swastika tattoo on his neck.

“Yuh the bounty-hunter azzole ahright,” Bursinsky said. “Yuh put me in Rikers jail.”

“No,” Bleak said, sighing. “No, man, you went to Rikers because you skipped out on bail. You should've shown up in court. All I did was take you back to the system—they decided where you went from there. Just doing what I get paid for.” He saw a second, taller, less substantial man coming up behind Bursinsky, looking over Bursinsky's shoulder; second guy was gangly, with his hand in his pocket.

Gun in there,
Bleak thought.

“Yuh know I go ahead 'n' kill uh bounty hunter, it ain't like I kill uh cop,” Bursinsky said. “Yeah, nobody gonna get that worked up about it,” the other guy said.

Bleak was sorry he didn't have a gun. He didn't want to use an energy bullet here in front of these people.

He realized that Shoella was watching him, seeming bemused. “I get to watch your
especiality
now?” she asked.

“Nope,” he told her, sizing Bursinsky up. The damned fool was standing much too close. “Not the technique you're thinking of, Sho'. I work with a team, when I'm bringing a man in. I've got people I  call.”

“Yeah, this bounty hunter was a little bitch,” said the gangly guy. “Had to use a buncha guysta help him.”

“If being professional aboutajob is being a little bitch...,” Bleak said, shrugging. Bursinsky was so close Bleak could smell the big lug's sweat and the corn dog he'd been eating. “You want to go back to jail, Bursinsky?” Bleak asked, levering his feet hard against the floor and leaning forward. “You've gotta be on probation.”

“Now yuh threatening me wit' jail again? Gleaman...?” Bursinsky turned to the skinnier guy. “Give me the—”

The moment Bursinsky looked away, Bleak launched himself out of the chair, slamming his right shoulder into the big man's solar plexus; feeling Bursinsky fold up, wheezing over him. Bleak gave another shove, with his whole body, and Bursinsky fell heavily back onto the wooden floor, making it boom hollowly; making the glasses on the bar rattle. Gleaman gaped, confused.

Hearing Shoella mutter something to her loas, Bleak straightened up and in the same motion brought his right fist up hard into Gleaman's chin; felt Gleaman's jaws clack shut, teeth crunching under the blow. Gleaman spinning, falling.

“Sorry about this,” Bleak told the bartender. “Come on, Shoella,” he muttered to her, turning toward the door. He got three steps—and normally he'd have “seen” Gleaman aiming at his back. But too many people were staring at him.

A gunshot, and the bullet sliced past Bleak's right ear.

Bleak spun and saw Gleaman sitting on the floor, pistol in hand. Bursinsky was getting to his hands and knees next to him—as Gleaman squintingly aimed the Glock nine-millimeter at Bleak through a blue cloud of gun smoke.

“Not gonna fucking miss this time,” Gleaman said.

Bleak began conjuring an energy bullet—but he figured it'd be too late.

Shoella was hissing to herself in Cajun French, and suddenly a translucent creature with a giant vulture's head and a man's body was hunched over Gleaman. A baka loa, one of the dark, “bitter” entities formed in the Hidden by voodoo beliefs. The apparition wore a lion's-hide skirt, and anklets of yellow grass hung over his bare black feet. The vulture's head was proportional with the body, beak  opening wide...

And the baka loa dipped its beak to feed within Gleaman's skull. Its beak penetrated his skull without breaking the bone.

No one here could see this but Shoella and Bleak. All the others saw was Gleaman reacting in paralytic agony, flopping on his arched back, foaming at the mouth, whites of his eyes showing, the gun firing once. A glass fishing float shattered.

Bleak stepped in and expertly twisted the gun from Gleaman's hands. He looked at Bursinsky and said, “You want that to happen to you—what's happening to your friend?”

Bursinsky, getting to his feet now, was looking at Gleaman—who was spasming, chattering, and peeing his pants. Babbling: “Nuh take it out nuh take it out nuh take it out nuh take it out oh please God take it outta my head...”

“No,” Bursinsky said in a low voice. He took a step back. “I don't.”

“Then back off.”

Bursinsky looked at Shoella, sensing it was her doing somehow. He looked narrowly at Bleak. “How yuh find me anyway, last time? Just tell me that, Bleak. Ain't nobody shoulda been able to find me.”

Bleak shook his head. “I don't have to tell you anything except go see your fucking parole officer. You can tell your friend, if he gets his mind working, that his gun went in the drink. And don't think I can't find you again if you piss me off. No matter where you go.”

Gleaman was still spasming, though the vulture-headed baka loa had vanished.

Bleak turned and walked out the door, wanting to get gone before the bartender called the cops. Normally he was okay with the police; today he was as reluctant to see the cops as Bursinsky would be. The CCA might have the cops looking for him. And he wanted to get away from the sound of Gleaman burbling.

Outside, a little breeze from the river lifted sweat from his forehead; the breeze smelled of oil and river reek. Shoella came to him on the edge of the dock, watched as he tossed the gun into the river.
Plunk,
and the pistol sank away. “You don't use your especiality at all, when you bounty huntin',
cher
darlin'?”

“Sure I do—to find them. Not to
catch
them. I want as few as possible to know.” She nodded. “Good sense, I 'spect.”

“You knew that loser was in there, Shoella? That why you picked it?”

Her smile gleamed, gold amid ivory. “My Yorena told me someone with hate for you was nearby, I wanted to see what you do. Only one time I see you summon
les invisibles,
see you work.” She toyed with her dreadlocks. “But I did see something in there—your manhood, that you summon and work. You summon
something
that way. From inside. Interesting to see.” She glanced at him; glanced away.

“That man going to recover?”

“Oh, no, I don' think,” she said disinterestedly.

He shook his head. He could feel she was attracted to him; he felt drawn to her, especially sexually. But at moments like this, it was easy for him to keep his distance.

She looked up into the inky sky, and he heard wings in the darkness. Her lips moved soundlessly. Then she turned to him, nodding. “They waiting for us. I will go to them first, you meet us. You know the dock La'hood use, sometimes, to meet?”

“Sure.”

“It'll take me some time. We'll meet just before dawn. When our strength is high.” He watched her walk into the darkness; then he went back to his cabin cruiser, tied up at the end of the pier.

He had mixed feelings about meeting with ShadowComm. They made him feel less alone. But they were embarrassingly unpredictable—and maybe because he held himself aloof, most of them were vaguely hostile to him.

As he cast off, he heard ghosts, under the pier, whisper warnings to him. But then they were always warning him of something.

Everyone was always in danger, after all. From cancer, from car crashes and plane crashes, from criminals. Most people managed denial; managed to pretend they were safe.

Gabriel Bleak never had that luxury.

***

THE WEE HOURS OF the next morning. Atlantic City.

The noise inside the casino was like a million children's toys, the slots with their bells and tweets and buzzes, endlessly clanging and tweeting, chiming crappy little tunes. It merged together into one warbling. People at the slots banging at the buttons—not just tapping them, but really smacking them hard. All desperation. Funny to see.

“Casinos got rugs in them like my aunt Louella's house,” Jock said, as he and Gulcher walked in past the smiling casino greeter. The carpet in Lucky Lou's Atlantic City Casino looked like paisley had' gotten a disease. “My sister always said Louella had the ugliest damn rugs inna world.”

“That greeter looked like he should be selling vacuum cleaners or some shit,” Gulcher said, laughing.

They were both on a sort of high, saying things they wouldn't ordinarily say and saying them loud. Gulcher, who always knew when cop types were watching him, was aware, as they walked the aisle between rows of slot machines, that he'd already attracted the notice of a couple of thick-bodied, greasy-headed guys in casual suits. They were casino security bulls with headsets, hearing-aid-like pieces plugged into their ears. They had little blue-and-white plastic tags on Croakies bands around their necks, with their names and
LUCKY LOU'S ATLANTIC CITY CASINO
printed on them.

“But you know, this ain't the best casino on the street, man,” Jock said. “This ain't like Trump's or one of those classier places got the spas and fountains and they look more modern and shit.”

“It's just as big, and anyway it's the one I was guided to.” Gulcher looked around at all the clamorous action. “Here it is, like four in the fucking morning,” Gulcher added, talking loud so Jock could hear him over the endless insane chatter of the slot machines, “and we're like five steps in the door, and we got these nice new civilian clothes, and still they already doggin' security on us here.”

“Hey, Troy, these places run hard twenty-four-seven, suckin' up people's hard-earned cash.”

“Yeah, we been in the wrong business, Jock.”

“I hear that. Where we going to start in here?”

“I'll know in a minute, I figure.”

Neither of them had any doubts about what their objective was—they just didn't know, yet, how it would happen. Jock had tacitly acknowledged Gulcher as the leader, and the one with the real connection to the whisperer. Jock waited on Gulcher, and Gulcher waited on the whisperer.

Gulcher was a little surprised that Jock had deferred to him this much, Jock being so paranoid. But then, he'd seen people who were all hostile to you get friendly—temporarily, anyhow-after a few tequilas, or a line of cocaine. The whisperer gave you that stony glow without the booze, without the drugs.

Besides, following Gulcher's lead had gotten them out of high security. It was working out so far.

Sure, it had occurred to Gulcher that he was taking a big risk, hooking up with the whisperer, allying with something he didn't really understand. He was becoming
part
of something, and somehow he knew there was no going back. He was committed now. And committed also meant stuck.