Dark Magic

25

Wolfe waited until dark to hunt Millicent Adams.

According to the information he’d found on the Internet, she was considered the psychic in New York, and counted many of the city’s rich and famous as her clients. She worked out of a luxurious apartment building called the Dakota on the Upper West Side across from Central Park. Finding her would not be difficult, even in a city as big as this one.

Still wearing his elaborate disguise, he left the Hotel Carter at nine o’clock, and walked to the busy Times Square subway station at 42nd Street. Soon he was packed in a subway car with a mob of people hooked into iPhones or reading a newspaper.

Just north of 59th Street, the car hit a bump in the track, and the lights went out. The smell of fear emanated from his fellow passengers like cheap perfume. The day his hearing had changed, so had his other senses, and his sense of smell was better than a dog’s. Human beings threw off a variety of smells depending upon the mood they were in, and Wolfe knew what each smell meant. It had saved his life many times.

He exited at the 81st Street station. At the top of the stairs was a man hawking the New York Post. He bought a copy. Splashed across the front page was his picture with the words HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Everyone in the bloody city was looking for him.

He found an isolated spot outside of the station and opened up the newspaper beneath a dim street light. There was a long story explaining his various misdeeds. The police had upped their reward to $100,000 for his capture. The captain of the NYPD was quoted as saying, “We’re going to nail this son of a bitch, so help me God!”

Wolfe did not scare easily. But the Post story was troubling. It mentioned the tattoo on his neck and included a drawing of it. It was like having a scarlet letter stitched to his chest. He had to get the damn thing removed.

Stuffing the paper into a trash bin, he headed south on Central Park West, walking along the wide sidewalk beside the park. The smells emanating from the park were more varied than in the subway. Joggers panting, lovers in between breaths, a baby needing its diaper changed, someone smoking a joint. At the corner of 72nd Street, he caught another smell coming out of the oak trees inside the park. It made every hair on the back of his neck stand up.

A waist-high concrete wall separated the sidewalk from the park. Wolfe pressed his stomach to it. A mob of black crows stared back at him from the tree limbs. As a soldier, he’d learned about crows. They were meant to guide spirits into the afterlife, and were considered dark omens on the battlefield. He tried to put their presence out of his mind.

A more pleasant smell invaded his head. On the corner, a vendor sold roasted chestnuts from a metal cart. Wolfe bought a bag, and asked for directions to find the famed Dakota.

“You must be from out of town,” the vendor said.

“Is it that obvious?” Wolfe said.

“It’s across the street.”

He had a look. The Dakota took up the entire block, and was as imposing as a medieval fortress. He spotted no less than a dozen security cameras secured to the front, a doorman, and more security people inside the lobby. No wonder the city’s elite chose to live here. Breaking into the building would be difficult, if not downright impossible.

He thought back to the articles he’d read about Millicent Adams. Milly, as her friends called her, was a creature of habit, and dined each night at a quaint French restaurant on West 86th Street, where she sat at her own table, often in the company of a friend, ate a simple meal of broiled fish and vegetables, and drank a single glass of white Chablis. She’d been following this routine for forty years, and had ventured out every night, regardless of the weather. Would tonight be any different? Something told him it wouldn’t.

He ate his bag of warm nuts. To throw off any curious passersby, he glanced at his watch every few minutes, as if awaiting someone’s arrival. He also regularly took out his cell phone, and pretended to be having a conversation.

He repeated the charade until nine-thirty. By now, the vendor had gone home, and the block was deserted. He was soaked to the skin, and his cheap suit had started to fall apart.

Then, his luck changed.

A taxi pulled up to the Dakota, and Milly Adams climbed out, wearing a mink stole and a mink hat. With her was a young woman in jeans and a sweater. The second woman was Milly’s spitting image. This had to be Holly Adams, the last name on his list.

Wolfe smiled through chattering teeth. What was the expression? Kill two birds with one stone. Or two psychics with one pair of hands.

He started across the street.

His victims stood beneath the building’s awning, oblivious to the danger they were in. That was good, because he planned to snap them both like twigs.

The front door opened, and a doorman stepped out. Beneath his blazer was something substantial, perhaps a gun, or billy club. Wolfe decided to take the doorman out first, just to be safe. The element of surprise was his. It was all he’d ever needed.

A new person came through the door. Wolfe instantly recognized him. It was Peter Warlock, dressed in his magic-show outfit. Three birds with one stone, he thought.

“Where have the two of you been?” Warlock said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Milly Adams dismissed him with a wave, and went inside. Her niece gave the young magician a kiss on the cheek, and followed her aunt through the front door.

Wolfe stopped in his tracks. These women were not stupid. They knew their lives were in danger, yet had chosen to venture outside. Had he missed something?

Rain poured down the back of his collar. He heard a noise that was louder than the rain. Like a tornado bearing down on him. He slowly turned around. The army of crows was flapping their wings and shrieking at him in a mad chorus. The power of their wings was so great that the rain was blown sideways. They looked ready to rip him apart.

Wolfe was not fond of animals. A tiger had nearly torn him to pieces in Kenya, and a monkey had chewed off a piece of his ear in India. The crows looked particularly formidable. And there were lots of them.

He who runs away, lives to fight another day.

A soldier had said that. A very smart soldier. He turned away from the building, and headed up the street. The crows’ shrieking was so loud that he couldn’t think. He had experienced fear many times in his life, but nothing like this.

He took off at a dead run. He heard a sound like a page being torn out of a magazine, amplified a thousand times. He glanced over his shoulder.

The crows were after him.

He looked for a restaurant to duck into, or an alley, but there was nothing. At the next corner, a cab pulled up, and a well-dressed couple disembarked. Wolfe grabbed the door before it closed, and hopped in.

“Go north,” he told the driver.

The cab sped away, and Wolfe fell back in his seat. The idea of retirement had never seemed more inviting than it did right now. A banging sound broke his concentration.

“What was that?” the driver asked.

Wolfe turned around. A single crow had caught up to them. It slammed its beak against the glass while its bloodred eyes tore a hole into his soul.

“Something’s attacking my cab!”

The driver drifted over to the curb and hit the brakes. As he opened his door, the crow flew into the cab. Flying through the open partition into the backseat, it bit Wolfe’s face. Wolfe grabbed the bird with both hands, and pulled it away. Clutched in its beak was a piece of his disguise, the rest of which hung off his face like dead skin. The bird shrieked like an angry schoolteacher before going limp in his hands.

Wolfe was shaking as he got out of the cab, and tossed the dead bird into the gutter. The driver stood a safe distance away, looking at him fearfully.

“You’re a zombie!”

Wolfe decided to steal the cab. He’d broken so many damn laws that it didn’t really matter. Soon he was speeding north on Amsterdam, wondering how he was going to explain this to the men who employed him.

Movement in his mirror caught his eye. Two blocks behind him, Peter Warlock was running down the middle of the street, chasing him. He’d seen a lot of strange things in New York, and the notion that the young magician might somehow outrun the cab did not seem as crazy as it might have a few days ago.

He punched the gas, and watched Warlock disappear.