I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (8 page)

Warrior and Leroi walked the floors and
furniture of the five room apartment, their territory.

There were things they needed for the coming
ceremony, things from Eddie’s bedroom. Olga couldn’t bring herself
to go in her boy’s room and asked Sarafina to go for her. Sarafina
searched out what was needed. Eddie’s car key on his bureau. His
black football jersey with gold stripes on the arms, the number 32
in gold on the back. There were twenty-five pairs of sneakers in
the walk-in closet; Sarafina found the pair Olga had specified,
blue on white hightops.

It would have been better if they’d had more
of Eddie’s personal items, his pager and money clip, the things he
kept on his person. The thing was, he’d gone out with these on his
last night, so the items were forever lost.

Eddie’s t-shirt rested on his bed, which was
made.

Sarafina retrieved the shirt, freshly
laundered, a scary looking person and the words
Smells
Like
Children
on it. Olga must have laid it here
after drying it. Sarafina imagined her friend coming in here, what
it must have cost her emotionally. She couldn’t imagine. She
wondered if it’d been Olga who’d made the bed.

In the living room, Olga sat on the floor
consecrating the tools. The censer for the herbs was immersed in a
bowl of salted water. Olga was passing the
athame
—a double
bladed knife with a black hilt—through a candle’s flame.

Sarafina placed Eddie’s clothes on the floor
next to Olga. Leroi sat on the window sill, his back to the screen,
watching Sarafina through heavily-lidded eyes, purring a mile a
minute.

“Thank you,” Olga told her friend.

Olga was Sarafina’s friend, had been for a
very long time. Olga was also
magistra
, high priestess of
their coven. Sarafina held Olga and her powers in very high regard.
And she shared Olga’s grief. Though she had no children herself,
Eddie and his brother Billy had been like family to Sarafina. She’d
watched the boys grow up, been there for Olga when what had
happened with the boys’ father happened, comforted Olga and Eddie
when Billy passed.

Sarafina shared Olga’s grief.

She shared her anger.

She knew whatever she herself felt paled in
comparison to what her high priestess must be going through. And
yet, knowing all this, knowing it was whoever had done what they’d
done to Eddie that had set all this in motion, the normally quiet
Sarafina felt compelled to speak.

“Olga, if this is successful,
they
will know.”

Olga didn’t look up from the floor, drying
her censer. “Then let them know.”

“If they know, they will come,
Magistra
.”

“If they will come, let them come.”

Olga had made up her mind and Sarafina knew
it. The high priestess would do that which she intended to do. And
Sarafina would help her, willingly, though she was all too aware
that by their actions something terrible would be loosed upon the
earth. Something terrible. The consequences unimaginable.

Sarafina wondered if Eddie’s Uncle Paul on
Long Island knew of this, if Olga had spoken to her brother. It
didn’t matter. When this was done, all covens and all coveners of
any real ability would know.

Eddie’s bare feet jutted out from under one
end of the sheet on the couch.

Their course decided, Sarafina went about
making herself useful, preparing the black bread in the kitchen.
From this point on she would voice no questions, no doubts. She
would assist her friend with diligence if not a little
trepidation.

A necromancy, Sarafina knew, was serious
business, never to be taken lightly.

Paperwork and a hangover had conspired to
keep Gritz’s behind his desk and off the street the day before and
most of today, but Gritz knew good police work meant getting out
there and pounding some pavement. At the precinct he could sit
behind his desk and look busy, his desk littered with sheaves of
paper and files, empty coffee cups, his computer screen crammed
with text and open windows. He’d sat back and read through
Faust
, occasionally glancing over to the original
German-language text on the left side of the book, periodically
looking something up online.

Mephistopheles was an interesting character.
A demon, but not the devil himself. Mephistopheles introduces
himself to Doctor Faust as
the
spirit
that
negates
,

I
am
part
of
the
part
that
once
was
everything
,

Part
of
the
darkness
which
gives
birth
to
light
,

That
haughty
light
which
envies
mother
night

Her
ancient
rank
and
place
and
would
be
king
—

Yet
it
does
not
succeed

The captain walked by and saw Gritz pushed
back in his chair, looking comfortable with the book, Gritz’s tie
loosened, the top buttons on his shirt open. Captain Rose gave
Gritz a look. Asked him: “What are you doing?”

“Research.”

Captain Rose poked the book with a finger,
got a look at the title. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to see
where Gritz was going with this. Where Gritz
thought
he was
going with this.

“That’s not even your case, Bill,” Rose shook
his head, like he was sad. He asked Gritz how things were
progressing on the porn murders, on the body they’d fished out of
the river. Gritz told him the truth, they weren’t.

The captain gave Gritz another look before he
walked away, the look saying it all.
What
happened
to
you
man
? They used to call him True Gritz,
not so much anymore.

Gritz typed a few words into a search engine
on his computer, his hands heavy and clunky on the keyboard. He
typed with the index fingers of each hand. Couldn’t understand
these younger guys, the way their fingers flew over the keyboard.
Their “skill set” different than his own. He found an article on
the etymology of Mephistopheles and started skimming it.

The reason they called him True Gritz:

When he was twenty five years old, seven
months on the job, they used to joke about his name, make jokes
about breakfast foods—grits, obviously—donuts and coffee. Police
Officer William Gritzowski was patrolling midtown Manhattan. 42nd
Street around Times Square was an eyesore back then: the porn
theaters and live sex shows; purse snatchers and other assorted
lowlifes; the whores openly plying their trade, their pimps decked
out like Goldie in
The
Mack
.

Gritz’s beat included the jewelry shops up
around West 47th between 5th and 6th Avenues.

He was passing a small store when he glanced
up and saw a robbery in progress, three men with their heads
covered inside the store, the three toting shotguns. Gritz went
through the door—the crooks had left it open behind themselves—with
his revolver drawn.

The fireworks commenced the moment they saw
him.

Gritz wounded one, killed the other two.

The wounded one took a hostage: pressed the
muzzle of his sawed-off to the head of a young blonde worked there.
The blonde crying hysterically. Gritz stared the man down over the
barrel of his Colt official police .38, the revolver with the
four-inch barrel, not sure how many he had left in the cylinder.
Never letting on to the crook that he might be tapped out.

A true Dirty Harry moment.

Do
you
feel
lucky
punk
?

Gritz never actually saying it, said
something else to the piece of shit. The man lowered the shot gun
and surrendered. Gritz’s .38 maybe not as intimidating as
Eastwood’s .44 Magnum, but good enough.

Ever since then, he’d earned a nickname. And
he never heard anything about grits again.

The reason they called him True Gritz.

Twenty five years later he sat at his desk
with his book and his thoughts. Gritz knew good police work meant
getting out of the department and walking the streets, keeping an
ear to the ground, having people you could talk to out on the
street. He looked up at the clock on the wall.

The Long Island Expressway took him east to
the Southern State Parkway. The going was slow, people commuting
home to the suburbs from work. Gritz listened to Q-104.3 the whole
way, annoyed he’d missed Scott Muni’s show at noon. He got off in
Riverdale and drove over to the house he’d been to before, parking
his Ford further down the street.

He sat in the car and thought about things he
missed from his early days on the force. That four-inch .38 for
instance. Gritz had “upgraded” to a Smith & Wesson Model 36
Chief’s Special when he’d made detective, a snub-nosed .38.
Everyone else these days was carrying some kind of semi-automatic.
This Crown Vic was nice, but Gritz found himself missing the light
blue Chevy Caprice he used to roll around in. Another thing he
hadn’t known about in the early days was the extent of the
politics, the bullshit.

Gritz took a slug from his flask, put it back
in his blazer pocket. He got out of his Ford and went up to the
house, rang the bell.

A little boy answered.

“Hi there. Is your mother around?”

“Who is it, Carter?” The kid’s mom came to
the door, tired-looking but pretty. “What do you want?” She put
herself between Gritz and her kid.

Gritz flashed his shield, told her who he
was.

“I’ve told
you
—” she meant the police
“—everything I know. Get inside, baby,” she stepped outside the
door, closing it but not all the way. “If you haven’t come to tell
me you know who killed my husband—” Gritz saw the way she looked
down the street, looked to where her husband had died “—then I
don’t have anything more to say to you.”

“I was just wondering maybe I could ask you a
few more questions?”

“I have nothing to say, officer.”
Detective
, but Gritz didn’t correct her.

She was stepping back into her house, Gritz
saying “About a friend of your husband’s, man named Frank,” Gritz
seeing the recognition in her eyes at the same time she closed the
door on him. He stood there a few moments more, thinking maybe
she’d relent, come out and talk to him.

She didn’t.

He left one of his cards in the mailbox next
to the door and got back in his Crown Vic. He hit the flask again
and thought about it as he did so. This is how her husband had
died. Sitting in his car like Gritz was. Somebody’d come up on the
driver’s side in the street and blown out the window with a
shotgun, taking the husband’s head with it. Gritz took another
swallow and stowed the flask.

Even though he was going against traffic, it
took him the better part of an hour to drive over to Queens. All
the goddamn construction on the L.I.E.

The staff at the Oasis Smoke Shop eyed him
suspiciously as he entered, the only customers this time of day a
bunch of old men sitting around playing narde, sipping juice, and
hitting the hooka.

“May I help you?” The man who approached him
was five feet tall and about that wide, gold in his mouth and a
tasseled fez on his head.

Gritz went through his routine with the badge
again, asked if the proprietor was around.

“He is not. Perhaps I can assist you
detective?”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine, know he
used to come by here sometimes. Named Frank, sometimes called
himself Gossage.” They’d called him
Goose
sometimes because
someone mistook Gossage for Gossitch and Frank’s
nom
de
guerre
for the Yankee legend.

“I have no knowledge of such a person.” The
short, rotund guy played it cool, didn’t blink an eye. Like he’d no
idea who Gritz was speaking about. But Gritz could tell he did,
just like the woman. Guy kept talking, like he was trying to be
helpful. Gritz recognized the ruse.

“Thing is,” Gritz dug around in his jacket,
found his card. “This isn’t official business.” Handed the man his
card. “I’m worried about my friend is all. Haven’t heard from him
in awhile.”

“If I hear of such a man, I will call the
number on this card, yes?”

“Yes. And your name is?”

“Fakhri. Would you care for a pomegranite
juice, detective?”

Gritz told the man
no
,
thanks
,
said he appreciated it, left.

He sat down in his Ford across the street.
Gritz took a swallow from his flask, warming up.
Come
on
,
Frank
. Tapped the flask against his steering
wheel.

Where
are
you
Frank
?

DeAndre Watkins lived on the ninth floor of
Tower Three in the Moses Houses. He lived there with his older
brother, Terrence, and their momma. Their momma, who referred to
the projects they lived in as the
development
, like it was
someplace fancy or somethin’. Whatever you called it, DeAndre knew
he lived where the poor people lived. His momma working multiple
jobs, still getting vouchers each month towards food and the
rent.

Seated on his bed with his back against the
wall, DeAndre could lean over and look out his window to the quad
below, a square of ground and grass between the Moses Houses’
towers. The quad was alive now, more people than earlier. Small
groups of men standing around talking.
Liming
what his
Caribbean momma would call it. Steerers directing geekers and
fiends to the spot; some apartments established rock houses, others
temporary. DeAndre had never been inside one of those places, but
he’d heard what went on. Base crazies on their hands and knees on
carpet patrol, looking for crumbs. Females trading sexual favors
for rock.