Shadow People

43

“Call her,” Ray said.

Early Wednesday morning, the sun was barely up. Munns stared at the cell phone lying on his kitchen table. It was a clamshell Motorola, ancient by today’s standards. He would have bought a newer model if he’d had friends to talk to. But Munns had no friends. Few serial killers did.

“Come on, call her,” Ray implored him. “You need to set this thing up.”

Munns lifted his eyes to stare at the tattoo artist leaning against the sink. He didn’t like the tone of Ray’s voice, or that Ray had driven to Munns’s house so early in the morning, and banged on his front door like an irate bill collector.

“It already is set up,” Munns said irritably. “Rachael is coming out on the train Friday night. If I call her now and tell her to come early, she’ll get suspicious and stop trusting me.”

“You’re not going to do it? Not even for me?”

“Nope, not even for you.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

Munns’s silence was his answer. He knew how to draw victims into his web, and did not appreciate Ray’s interference into the one thing he did rather well.

Ray pulled up a chair and sat backward in it. Whenever he could, he liked to show off the demonic-inspired tattoos that covered his arms. Like wild reptiles moving across the jungle floor, they slithered across his skin in perfect synchronicity. “I had a dream last night. Rachael came out on the Friday night train, and she had a pair of detectives with her. Something happened on Friday morning that made her suspicious, and she decided to call the cops.”

“You saw this in your dream,” Munns said.

“I sure as hell did. The detectives busted you and searched your car,” Ray said, not missing a beat. “They found rope and handcuffs and a bottle of chloroform. Then they came here, and tore your house apart. They found your trophy collection of clothing and jewelry of the women you’ve killed. They threw your ass in the county lockup, and the judge refused to grant you bail. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Munns shuddered, and drew his bathrobe tightly around him. When a judge didn’t grant bail, it meant the system thought you were guilty, and was not going to let you back into society no matter how fancy your lawyer was.

“I know,” Munns whispered.

“Then call Rachael right now, and get her to come out on the train tonight. You know how to talk to women. You told me so yourself.”

“But why tonight? Why so soon?”

“Because she still isn’t suspicious. I saw that in my dream, too.”

Munns understood the power of dreams. He’d started having them right after Ray had stamped the shimmering silver tattoo on his neck. They’d given him glimpses into the future, and he’d watched himself kill several of his victims before it had actually happened. He’d seen these dreams as gifts, for it had allowed him to watch himself and hone his skills. But they had not come without a price. Each time he’d had one, he’d awakened in sweat-soaked sheets and he knew that he had ceded another chunk of his soul to the Devil.

Finally, he gave in. “All right.”

Ray seemed relieved. From the fridge he grabbed a long-neck beer. Perhaps he’d seen himself going down on Friday night as well. No doubt he had some skin in the game.

“You gonna stand there and listen to me?” Munns asked.

“What-I make you nervous?”

“Everything makes me nervous. Go in the living room.”

“Whatever you say, Doc.”

Ray walked out of the kitchen, and Munns pulled up Rachael’s number from his cell’s directory. He’d talked to her many times, knew her schedule by heart. She worked at a cancer research center in New York affiliated with one of the universities, and got to work by seven thirty each morning so she could feed the rats that she used in her experiments and would one day have to inject with pink juice and put to sleep. She’d told Munns this was the most difficult part of her job, and always made her cry. Munns hadn’t understood how anyone could feel compassion for a rodent, but had pretended he did, just to make her happy.

The call went through. Munns quickly made up a story. Rachael lived by herself on the Upper East Side and had no close friends or social life. A single woman living in New York who didn’t get out much or have any attention showered upon her. It gave him an idea.

“Hello?” she answered, sounding out of breath.

“Rachael? This is Doc Munns. How are you? I sure hope didn’t catch you at a bad time. I have some wonderful news to share with you.”

“Not at all. I just came through the door and was pulling off my coat. It sure is cold for April. And I’d love to hear some good news.”

“The dean of the college called me last night, and said he wanted to hold a party at his house tonight so he can introduce you to the faculty. I thought it was a great idea, so I said yes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Tonight? But I’m not coming out until Friday night.”

“I know. But I didn’t think you’d want to pass up this opportunity. Kevin and Bob and Marty and Roland will all be there, and I know they want to meet you. Roland’s a long-distance runner, just like you. If I’m not mistaken, Kevin attended the same college you did. And Marty and Bob are both great guys. They were all thrilled to hear they’ll be having a nice young lady in their ranks.”

He heard the hesitation in her voice. Four single men, one single women. Those were a lot better odds than she was going to find in some stinky bar in the city.

“But I have to work tomorrow,” she said rather lamely.

“I realize that. Here’s what I’d like to suggest. When the party’s over, I’ll drive you back to the city in my car. The trip won’t take more than an hour and a half. It will be a late night, but I think it will be worth it. You game?”

“You sure it’s no trouble?” she asked.

Munns smiled into the phone. “Not at all.”

“But I don’t have anything to wear. This is too sudden. No.”

He frowned. “The party is strictly casual, jeans and sweaters. No one will be dressed up.”

“Casual is different between men and women. You know what they say. You only get one chance to make a good first impression.”

“Trust me, you won’t make a bad impression.”

“You sound awfully determined to get me out there. Is there something else going on here I should know about?”

Rachael’s intuition was kicking in, and intuition was the messenger of fear. If Munns didn’t put this fire out now, she would not enter his trap. “Of course not,” he said in his smoothest tone. “It’s just that I already told the dean that you’d come, and his wife is making a special dessert to serve the guests. They’ll both be terribly disappointed if you cancel.”

“Oh, God, now I’m backed into a corner,” Rachael said. “I really wish you hadn’t committed for me. That wasn’t fair.”

“I didn’t feel comfortable saying no,” Munns replied. “The dean’s my boss, you know.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”

“Do you want me to cancel for you? I can, you know.”

Rachael hesitated. It was at that moment that Munns knew she was coming.

“I’ll call him the moment we hang up,” he threw in for good measure.

“No, I want to come,” his next victim said.

“You sure?”

“Yes. It sounds like a good time.”

“That’s wonderful. You’ll love the dean, and everyone else, too.”

“I’m sure I will. I’ll finish up my work early, and grab a late afternoon train out of Grand Central. I’ll text you when I know my arrival time.”

“That works for me. I’ll see you at the station. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”

“Same here. Good-bye, Doc.”

Munns ended the call. That hadn’t been nearly as difficult as he’d thought. A woman’s greatest weakness was her desire to be loved. It blinded them to so many things.

“All done,” he called into the next room.

44

Ray skillfully maneuvered down the twisting gravel driveway outside Munns’s house. He hadn’t liked setting Munns up, and hoped it did not come back to haunt him.

At the bottom of the hill, the road turned smooth. The lassitude of highway driving took over, and he fired up a cigarette and settled in for the ride back to town. Tonight was going to be the end of the line for Munns. The elders of the Order of Astrum had said as much, and they were never wrong.

Ray took a deep drag on the cigarette. He needed to get out of town. He didn’t like leaving on such short notice, but had no other choice. There would be bloodshed tonight, and he needed to distance himself from the carnage.

But where would he go? To the hinterlands of upstate New York? The wilds of Maine? Or to a remote town in Vermont? They were good places to hide, with plenty of farms and wide open spaces. He’d grab a map when he got back to the tattoo parlor and make his decision.

Music came out of his radio’s speakers like a funeral dirge played extra slow. As the noise grew louder, he fiddled with the dial to make it go away. Instead, the sound became deafening, and the interior of his car turned black.

He hit the brakes, fearful of hitting something in the road. When the lights returned, he found himself sitting in a deserted theater, dead center with the stage. The strange music he’d heard was coming from the orchestra pit, where a quartet of skeletons plucked discordant notes on violins and blew savagely on wind instruments. Had he died, and gone to hell?

“Hello, Ray,” a voice said.

Three men wearing black robes appeared. One sat to his left, the second to his right, the third directly in front of him, positioned backward in his seat. Ray was trapped. Were these the elders? He had to think so. They were handsome devils, with strong facial features and good teeth, and appeared to be in their late twenties, although Ray knew the elders were much older, having been granted eternal youth as part of their pact with Satan. It was not a bad deal, only the spark of humanity that colored all human beings was missing, and they looked like ghouls.

“You’re the elders of the Order of Astrum,” Ray said respectfully.

“We thought it was time we had a chat with you,” the elder facing him said. “You’ve been an outstanding recruiter, the best we’ve ever had. You’ve done such a good job, we decided you deserved to be rewarded. Would you like that, Ray?”

Ray started to get excited. He’d become a member of the Order in prison after hearing stories about members gaining mystical powers as rewards for pleasing their masters.

“Are you going to give me special powers?” he asked.

“We can. Is there something in particular you’d like?”

“I know this is going to sound stupid, but I’ve always wanted to bend silverware with my mind. You know, like spoons. I always thought that was really cool.”

The elder facing him smiled like a department store mannequin. The elder didn’t possess a soul, and it showed through in everything he said and did. Ray imagined himself as an elder one day, immortal and able to wreak havoc on the world whenever it suited him.

“Consider it done,” the elder said.

“Cool,” the tattoo artist said.

“There’s something else we’d like to give you as well.”

“What’s that?”

“Call it the gift of knowledge. It’s time for you to be enlightened.”

Enlightened. That was a strange word for the elder to use, and Ray nearly laughed.

“I’m game.”

“Good,” the elder to his right chimed in. “You see, we have a master plan which involves the good citizens of New York being exposed to something that will forever change their lives. A portentous event designed to alter their souls, so to speak. We cannot put this plan into motion with Peter Warlock in the picture. Warlock must be erased.”

“I thought that was Munns’s job,” Ray said, uncertain where this was going.

“You must make sure that Munns does not fail.”

“Whoa. I was going to leave town.”

“You cannot leave,” the elder facing him said sternly. “You must stay, and make sure that Munns does away with Warlock.”

Ray shifted uncomfortably in his plush velvet seat. He didn’t like when plans got changed at the last moment. Yet at the same time, he understood the elders’ concern. Munns was erratic, and could very well screw up. If Peter Warlock was going to be taken out of the picture, it would probably be better if Ray hung around and made sure the job got done correctly.

“If I say yes, will I become like you?” Ray asked.

“You will be given the opportunity to become like us,” the elder facing him replied. “The process takes time. First, your old self will fall away, then your new self will be born. With your new self will come new responsibilities. You will become one of Dante’s disciples.”

“Who’s Dante?”

“Dante is the anti-conjuror. For the past thousand years, he’s performed his magic for the delight of Satan and his guests. Satan has decided that it’s time to unleash him, and is sending Dante to New York. You will have the honor to be one of his assistants.”

“Will this make me like you guys?”

“Yes. It will bring you one step closer. Would you care to meet Dante?”

Ray had always wanted to join the inner sanctum of the Order, for he knew that one day it would lead to him standing at Satan’s side and becoming immortal. Whoever Dante was, he was sure he could find a way to get along with him.

“Bring him on,” Ray said, unable to hide his excitement.

“Splendid. Enjoy the show.”

The elders vanished, and Ray found himself sitting alone in the theater, shuddering from a burst of cold air. He could no longer remember what the elders looked like, their memory having been erased. He would have given anything to be so powerful.

The house lights dimmed. The curtains parted to reveal a darkened stage. A single spotlight shone down, its beam so bright it reminded Ray of a light coming out of a flying saucer in a Spielberg movie. Smoke filled the stage, followed by a flash of light, from which stepped a wild-looking young man wearing a flowing purple robe. This had to be Dante, his new boss. The guy was a trip, with spiked purple hair, pierced eyebrows, lips, and nose, and Gothic designs smeared across his face. He moved in a slight crouch while staring sinisterly from side to side, and looked like a jackal that had learned to walk on its hind legs. Plucking two black scarves out of the air, the anti-conjuror bunched them together, and made a screaming vulture appear.

The vulture was released into the theater, and flew in a lazy circle over Ray’s head. More vultures appeared from the same scarves, and were also set loose. The birds weren’t hidden in Dante’s coat or stuffed up his sleeves, but were molded to life right before his disbelieving eyes. Ray had once seen a magician at a birthday party, and thought the whole thing was a bunch of crap, the tricks obvious if you looked hard enough. Dante’s magic was different. It looked real, and something told him it probably was.

Ray started to applaud, figuring he’d better make his new boss happy. The hollow sound echoed throughout the theater. Dante silenced him with a menacing glare. Clearly, he did not like interruptions.

A final vulture was brought to life, and sent airborne to join the flock. Ray kept one eye overhead, noticing that the vultures had positioned themselves directly over his chair.

“What’s your name?” Dante’s voice was high-pitched, like a woman’s.

“Ray,” he replied. “Nice to meet you.”

“Do you know what the purpose of magic is, Ray? Magic is supposed is to reveal the secrets of the universe and life itself. Magic is not supposed to create illusion, it’s supposed to strip illusion away. It’s about finding eternal truth.”

Ray didn’t know what the hell Dante was talking about but nodded anyway.

“Here. Let me show you.” Dante cupped his empty palms together while his eyes bored a hole into Ray’s soul. “Think of a thing which truly frightens you. Don’t tell me, just think of it.”

That was easy. The one thing that truly frightened Ray were rats. One had bitten him in the foot as a kid, and he’d never shaken the experience.

From Dante’s cupped hands appeared a rat with a curled tail. It leapt to the stage, and was quickly followed by another. Soon, rats were pouring out of Dante’s cupped hands in such great numbers that they flooded the stage, and began to pour into the audience.

Ray had seen enough, and jumped out of his seat in fear. Too late. A rat was attached to his pant leg, tearing at the fabric. Several more jumped on his shoe, their weight dragging him down. Within seconds he was covered in furry rodents whose sole intent was to scare him to death. Then the vultures swooped down, attaching their beaks to the tattoo artist’s shirt, and lifted him into the air with the rats still clinging to his body.

“Don’t do this to me,” Ray cried.

Dante stepped to the foot of the stage to appraise his handiwork. He had peeled back the darkest layer of his subject’s soul, and seemed pleased with himself. “You now work for me, Ray. Do as I say, and you’ll do fine. But if you disobey me, my furry friends will skin you alive. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes. Please make them go away,” he begged.

“When your job is finished here, you will join me in the city. We’re starting rehearsals soon, and I want you to be there. Does that sound good, Ray?”

“Yes. They’re biting me!”

Dante howled with laughter and lifted his arms into the air. The vultures released their grip on his clothes, and Ray let out a blood-curdling scream as he fell into the audience.

A car horn’s blast brought Ray back to the real world of Westchester County. A delivery truck idled behind him at an intersection, the driver fuming. Ray could still feel the rats on his body, and tried to swipe the invisible creatures away. The delivery truck passed, firing its horn.

Ray pulled off the road and started to cry. Dante had made him want to die. He’d never felt that way before, and his fear was tearing him apart. This was not what he’d bargained for, and he told himself there was still time to escape to Maine or upstate New York and get out with his soul. He would live in the woods if he had to. He was ready to do just about anything to get away from this madness.

A shadow fell over his van. It was a perfectly sunny day, without a cloud in the sky. Rolling down his window, he stuck his head out. A mob of vultures hung directly overhead. Try to run, they dared him, and see what happens. He wiped away his tears, knowing he was doomed to serve a master far darker than any he’d known before.

45

Every day began with the promise of a new beginning. Peter had read that in a book while growing up. The message had stayed, and had helped him get through the dark times.

Wednesday morning was a perfect example. Sunlight flooded through his bedroom window and delicious breakfast smells floated up from the kitchen. It was enough to make him forget what a nightmare the previous few days had been, if just for a little while.

He tossed on a bathrobe and bounded downstairs. The brownstone had been sold to him with a warning. The previous tenant had fallen down the stairs, and broken his ankle. The staircase was treacherous, and not using the handrail was a serious mistake.

Soon after moving in, Peter had learned that the staircase wasn’t treacherous at all. The problem was a cantankerous ghost named Zachary Nathaniel Harrison who’d inhabited the brownstone for over a century, and occupied the spacious guest bedroom on the second floor. Zack, as he liked to be called, was a light sleeper, and punished those who woke him up by tripping them during their stair runs.

Ghosts could be reasoned with. Peter had conducted a séance in the bedroom, and summoned Zack to the table. The old ghost had obliged him, and they’d sat and talked and eventually worked out a deal. When the sun was up, Peter was free to run the stairs as much as he wished. When it was down, there would be no running. They had shaken hands on it, which had felt strange, since there had been nothing there to physically shake.

The kitchen greeted him with a spread of food fit for a king and Liza at the counter squeezing fresh oranges. It still amazed him that she’d not packed her bags and split after yesterday’s revelations. The expression “love was blind” had taken on a whole new meaning.

“If it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” she said.

“What’s the special occasion?” he asked.

“I just thought you needed a fresh start after yesterday.”

“Why? What happened yesterday?”

She wiped her hands on a paper towel and wrapped her arms around Peter’s thin waist. “We have a lot of talking to do, you know.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

“Good. How about later this afternoon?”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m game.”

They sat down at the kitchen table and dug in. Liza had hit the nail on the head. A fresh start was exactly what the doctor ordered. He couldn’t change the horrific things he’d done as a child, but he could make sure they never happened again. He was an adult now, and his own boss. He would stop the demon inside of him from controlling his actions.

Finished, they stood at the sink with Liza washing the dishes and Peter drying and putting them away. “Do you remember that antique wristwatch that fell out of the sky while we were standing in the courtyard the other night?” she asked.

Peter remembered the watch well. Made by Cartier, it had belonged to the shadow person he’d confronted in the lobby of Grand Central Station. He’d never understood its significance, and wondered if Liza had plumbed it secret.

“I may have found its owner,” Liza went on. “I noticed it wasn’t working properly, so I found a store online that repairs antique watches, and sent them an e-mail along with a photo I shot on my iPhone. The manager e-mailed me right back. Come to find out, he thinks he’s repaired the watch before. His shop is called Time After Time, and is in the West Village. He asked me to come by this morning, and show the watch to him so he could confirm it.”

“Did he say who the owner was?”

“No. The manager’s name is Walter, and he was very mysterious about the whole thing. Maybe he can tell us who the owner is, and that will lead to figuring out what the shadow people want. It’s a stretch, but who knows.”

Peter hung the dish towel on the hook next to the fridge. The other world was a difficult place to understand, the motives of the spirits never fully clear. Liza was reacting the same way he usually did, which was to plunge ahead, and hope for the best.

“I’m game,” he said. “Let’s go talk to Walter.”

“I’ll go change,” Liza said.

Peter took out his cell phone and called Herbie. “Be at the brownstone in half an hour,” he told him. “We’re going on a fishing expedition.”

The West Village was old New York, its streets twisting and narrow. Time After Time sat in a dusty storefront filled with grandfather clocks and rare timepieces in glass display cabinets.

Peter told Herbie to circle the block, and entered the shop with Liza.

The cramped interior was a mess. Any more than a handful of customers, and the place would have felt crowded. An eccentric-looking manager with a halo of curly white hair stood behind the counter, and nodded courteously as they entered.

“You must be Walter,” Liza said. “I’m Liza. We spoke yesterday on the phone.”

Walter said nothing. He probably got a hundred phone calls a day. Or he didn’t get any phone calls, and was playing stupid. From her purse, Liza removed the antique woman’s watch that had fallen from the sky, and placed it on a felt mat on the counter. Walter stuck a loupe in his eye and studied the exquisite timepiece. “This is an original Cartier, special limited edition, very rare to find these days. May I ask where you came upon this?”

“Is that important?” Liza asked.

“I just would like to know, that’s all.”

“My boyfriend and I found it.”

Walter studied Peter briefly, then looked back at Liza. “May I ask where?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s none of your business.”

They’d been in the store less than a minute, and Walter was already giving them the third degree. Something wasn’t right with this picture, and Peter scanned the store’s interior. Not one, but three surveillance cameras were trained upon them, two from the ceiling, the third bolted to the wall behind the counter. The wall camera was a recent addition as evidenced by the sales sticker glued to the side. And there was a large rottweiler lying at Walter’s feet behind the counter. The dog was panting and its tail wasn’t wagging. Dogs fed off their owner’s emotions, and Walter was subliminally telling the dog to be on alert.

Peter thought he knew what was going on. The watch was hot, and on a list of stolen items that the police sent to store owners in the city. Walter had recognized it from Liza’s photo, and had decided to set a trap. Better start telling the truth, he thought.

“Look, we know that this watch belongs to someone else,” Peter interrupted. “How we came upon it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that we return it to its rightful owner. Right, dear?”

The corners of Liza’s mouth turned up in a smile. He’d never called her dear before, and she seemed to like it.

“We just want to do the right thing,” Liza continued. “Yesterday when we spoke, you indicated you knew who the owner might be. If you’ll tell us, we’ll return it to her right away. Or you can do it. Whatever you think is best.”

Walter looked perplexed and let out a deep breath. “Oh, my,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” Peter asked.

“You’re not thieves. I can tell by listening to you. Thieves come into my store often, and try to sell me hot timepieces. You’re not like them.”

“Of course we’re not thieves,” Liza said with a little laugh.

“Well, I’m deeply sorry, then. Truly, I am.”

The shopkeeper took a deliberate step away from the counter. As he did, a black sedan pulled up in front of the store, and double-parked in the street. Four plainclothes detectives wearing silver NYPD detective shields pinned to their jackets piled out, and rushed through the front door. Each had a gun drawn. At the same time, a door behind the front counter parted, and two more gun-toting detectives appeared.

“Don’t tell them anything,” Peter said under his breath.

46

Peter had lived on TV cop shows as a kid, and knew what was about to happen. The detectives would separate him and Liza, and grill them. They would ask each of them a series of questions, and write down their answers in spiral pads. Then the detectives would reconvene, and compare notes. If the detectives caught either of them lying, the drilling process would continue until they got to the truth.

Liza was sent to the back room of the store while Peter remained in front. As she was led away, she winked at him. She didn’t appear the least bit nervous or afraid. She’d been through a lot lately, certainly a lot more than any of his other girlfriends had ever put up with. He winked back.

“Cut the crap,” the detective in charge barked.

The detective’s name was Velasco. Short and balding, his most prominent feature was his beach ball stomach. Who needs a six-pack when you can have a keg? Peter thought.

Velasco pulled a stool out from behind the counter, and made Peter sit on it. The detective towered over him while another detective covered Peter’s back. A third detective stood by the locked front door. The shades had been pulled over the window for privacy.

“What’s your name?” Velasco asked.

“Peter Warlock.”

“Very funny. Your real name.”

“Peter Warren. Warlock’s my stage name.”

“You some kind of performer?”

“I’m a magician. I have a show in town, Anything’s Possible.”

Velasco nodded like he’d heard of him. Early in his career, Peter had performed a number of stunts around the city to gather much-needed publicity for his show. As a result, there were a lot of people who had heard his name but who’d never seen him perform.

“All right, Mr. Magic, tell me where you got the antique watch,” Velasco said.

“I found it,” Peter replied.

“Be a little more specific.”

“Do you know who the owner is? I’ve been trying to locate her.”

“I’m the one asking the questions, pal. Now tell me about the watch.”

“It fell out of the sky,” Peter replied truthfully.

“Oh, boy, a regular comedian. How do you think it’s going to look if I run you and your girlfriend in? Think that kind of publicity is going to help ticket sales?”

“Are you going to arrest us?”

“I will if you don’t come clean with me. That watch doesn’t belong to you.”

“That doesn’t mean we stole it. You don’t have a case, Detective. Let us go, and I’ll be happy to explain to you how the watch came into our possession.”

Velasco didn’t like being told how to run his investigation, and wagged a finger in his suspect’s face. “Keep up the banter, and I’ll throw your skinny ass in jail.”

“Which jail?” Peter wanted to know.

“MCC. Ever been there?”

MCC was the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Park Row behind the U.S. Federal Courthouse. Peter knew the facility like the back of his hand, and said, “Matter of fact, I have. I was locked up in a cellblock in the basement that the warden claimed was inescapable. I managed to escape in four minutes flat, and beat Houdini’s record by thirty seconds. There’s a video on my Web site if you don’t believe me.”

“I remember that stunt,” the detective guarding the door said. “You moved all the other inmates in the block into different cells. That took a lot of nerve.”

“Thanks,” Peter said.

“Shut up,” Velasco told both of them. Looking his suspect in the eye, he said, “I think you’re hiding something. I’m hauling you in.”

“On what charges?”

“I’ll think of something. Get up.”

Peter gazed into Velasco’s eyes and read his mind. The detective was having a bad day. He’d started his morning by having a knock-down, drag-out argument with his teenage daughter. Then the battery on his car had been dead when he’d tried to start it. Now this wiseass magician was giving him a hard time. Peter and his girlfriend were going to spend the rest of the day in jail if Peter didn’t think of something quick.

Velasco pulled open his sports jacket and removed a pair of nickel-plated handcuffs from his belt. Peter wanted to tell Velasco that he could escape from those, too, but didn’t think the detective would appreciate the humor.

“I’ll tell you about the watch, but first you need to call a friend of mine,” Peter said.

Velasco eyed him suspiciously. “Who’s that?”

“His card’s in my wallet. You’ll understand when I show it to you.”

“All right, show it to me.”

Peter pulled Special Agent Garrison’s business card from his billfold and handed it to the detective. Velasco stared at the embossed lettering on the white card.

“The FBI? What do they have to do with this?”

“Just call him,” Peter said.

Garrison barged into the watch shop with his badge pinned to the lapel of his sports jacket and a disgruntled look on his face. Peter wondered what pressing matter he’d pulled the FBI agent away from. New York was the greatest city on earth, but there were plenty of bad people here as well, and the life of a law enforcement agent was nothing but a challenge.

“Thanks for getting here so fast,” Peter told him.

“Who are these guys?” Garrison asked.

“This is Detective Velasco. He wants to arrest me.”

“What for? You tell him one of your jokes?”

“Possession of stolen property,” Velasco said. “You know this smart-ass?”

“He does consulting work for me. Now, tell me what he did,” Garrison said.

“He was caught with a stolen wristwatch whose owner has been missing for over a year,” Velasco replied. “When I tried to question him, he started talking in riddles.”

“Peter’s a psychic, he does that sometimes,” Garrison said.

Velasco’s jaw dropped open. “Cut it out.”

“I’m dead serious. Don’t tell me you’ve never worked with psychics before.”

“Tried to. They were worthless.”

“They were probably fakes. Peter’s the real deal.”

“I’m having a hard time believing this.” Velasco spoke to Peter, “So read my mind.”

Peter was boxed into a corner. He tried to avoid public displays of mind reading whenever possible. When mind reading was performed onstage, all sorts of explanations were possible; when done in person, there was only one explanation-the person doing the mind reading was a psychic. He lowered his voice so the other detectives would not hear. “At breakfast this morning, you had words with your daughter over her choice of boyfriends. Then your car’s battery died, and you had to carpool with a cop you can’t stand. When you got to work, the coffeepot was empty. That good enough for you?”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Velasco said.

“I told you he was real,” Garrison said smugly.

The antique Cartier that had brought them together lay on the counter. The watch was a mystery, along with most of the events of the past several days. If Peter could plumb the watch’s secrets, then perhaps the rest of the puzzles would solve themselves.

“What can you tell me about the watch’s owner?” Peter asked.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Her name is Barbara Metcalf,” Velasco replied. “Single woman, early fifties, lived alone, got a couple of PhDs, is one of the top brass at the CDC. Went missing about a year ago and hasn’t been heard from. We suspect foul play, but don’t have a suspect or a motive. Metcalf had a nice collection of antique jewelry. This watch was one of her favorite pieces, which she often wore. When she went missing, so did several pieces of her jewelry, including this watch. We asked every jewelry store in town to be on the lookout for it.

“Yesterday, your girlfriend e-mailed the manager of this store a photo of Metcalf’s watch, asking if he could repair it. Walter immediately recognized the watch, and contacted the police. We laid a trap for you, and you walked into it. That’s it in a nutshell.”

Peter felt numb. The story wasn’t what he’d expected to hear at all. He’d assumed the shadow person he’d confronted in Grand Central Station was a thoroughly evil spirit whose human life had been filled with crimes against society, as well as humanity. A person wicked through and through, and in league with the Devil.

“What’s does CDC stand for?” Peter asked.

“Centers for Disease Control,” Velasco explained. “Metcalf ran their research department. She was responsible for finding cures for things like bubonic plague and anthrax.”

“So she was a good person,” the young magician said.

“That’s what Walter told us,” Velasco said.

“The shop manager knew her personally?”

“Yes. They were friends.”

“I need to speak with him.”

Walter was led into the front of the store. There was nothing more powerful than the truth, and Peter’s head was still spinning from the things Velasco had told him. If Barbara Metcalf had been a good person on this earth, then it was not possible that she’d turned into an evil spirit in the afterlife. That was not how things worked. Which meant that there had been a black mark in her background which Velasco didn’t know about. It was the only explanation he could think of, and now he needed to hear the shop manager confirm it.

“What can you tell me about the owner of this watch?” Peter asked.

Walter’s face softened as he was overcome with memories. Peter took a look inside Walter’s head, and saw the woman he had known. Short and rather petite, her clothing suggested a person who appreciated the finer things in life, while the way she carried herself indicated she was used to getting her way. The description strong willed came to mind.

“How do I describe Barbara?” Walter scratched his chin. “Brilliant, headstrong, filled with passion about her work, demanding at times. She had quite a temper. I remember one time, this is going to sound funny, but once I promised to repair her watch, only I stuck the watch in a drawer, and forgot about it. You should have seen the look on her face when she found out.”

“Did she get mad?” Peter asked.

“Mad was not the word. She became furious. She started to stomp out, and then she turned around, oh, I shouldn’t be telling this, not with her missing for so long.”

“Please. It’s important you tell me everything.”

“Very well. Barbara went to the front door like she was going to leave. Then she spun around in a huff, lifted her foot, and pulled off her shoe. She threw it across the store at me!”

“Her shoe,” Peter said in shock.

“That’s right. Of course she immediately apologized. I later learned from a mutual friend that Barbara had done this before.”

“She threw a shoe at someone,” Peter said.

“Yes. It happened in the lab where she worked. Another doctor made a mistake, and ruined a week’s worth of work. Barbara pulled off a shoe and tossed it at him. She had a boiling point. When she got mad, she threw shoes at people.”

Peter thought back to Friday night, standing on his front stoop talking to Garrison, when a shoe had come flying through the bedroom window, and landed at his feet. Was this Metcalf’s not-so-subtle way of telling him that she was angry at him? If that was the case, then he’d gotten this whole thing terribly, terribly wrong.

He broke out of his thought. Liza had returned to the front of the store with two of the detectives. The look on her startled face said she’d heard every word Walter had said, and was thinking the same thoughts that he was thinking.

“Oh, my God, Peter,” she exclaimed. “Oh, my God.”

47

“I need to talk to Peter in private,” Garrison said to Velasco. “Do you mind?”

The FBI had jurisdiction over the NYPD, and Garrison didn’t need to be asking Velasco’s permission for anything. Velasco appreciated the gesture, however, and said, “Be my guest. Be careful. He’s a slippery one.”

“That’s one way to describe him,” Garrison said with a laugh.

Peter and Garrison walked outside. It was bitter cold and blowing hard. Peter’s limo was parked across the street by the curb.

“Want to talk in my limo?” Peter asked.

“Beats freezing to death,” Garrison replied.

They crossed and climbed into the backseat. Herbie looked up from the sports section. Peter shook his head and his driver went back to his reading. The interior was toasty and they spent a moment getting comfortable. Peter handed his guest a bottled water.

“Thanks. Now tell me what’s going on,” Garrison said.

“Up until now, I thought the shadow people were trying to lure me over to the other side to have me killed,” Peter said. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“Then what’s their purpose?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they’re trying to show me something.”

“In a good way?”

“I think so.”

“Hold on a second. You told me the other night that you were taken into the future, where Dr. Death shot you in the leg, and was just about to put a final bullet in your head when you returned to the present. That doesn’t sound very good to me.”

“Perhaps something else was going on.”

“Like what?”

Peter had journeyed to the other side many times, yet still could not fathom much of what he saw. He’d always assumed that as he grew older and more mature, the unexplained would untangle itself, and the truth would become clear. So far that hadn’t happened, leaving him to wonder if the other side would ever be fully explained. “I don’t know what the shadow people are up to, but I plan to find out. There’s a psychic in town named Selena who communicates with the shadow people on a regular basis. I need to track her down, and have a chat.”

“Think she’ll talk? You psychics are a cagey bunch.”

Garrison was right about that-psychics were as secretive with each other as they were with the general public. It came from a lifetime of secrecy, born out of growing up knowing you were different, and also knowing how that difference would be perceived. Getting Selena to talk wouldn’t be easy, but he didn’t see that he had any other choice. She was a keeper of secrets, and he needed to gain her trust.

“I’m willing to give it a shot,” Peter said.

“You and your girlfriend are free to go. I’ll deal with the cops. Call me if you learn something.”

“I’ll do that. Would you mind giving me another of your business cards? Detective Velasco kept the one I gave him.”

“What for? You’ve got my number in your cell, don’t you?”

“It’s my Get out of Jail Free card.”

Garrison pulled a dozen cards from his wallet and stuck them in Peter’s hand. “Take ’em all. Something tells me you’re going to need them.”

Garrison went back inside the watch shop. Moments later Liza came out the front door, and was soon snuggled up beside Peter. She had not enjoyed being detained by the detectives, even if just for a little while. Peter told Herbie to head to Washington Square Park, then pulled a club soda out of the minirefrigerator, twisted off the top, and handed it to Liza. She took a long swallow.

“Are psychics lives always this eventful?” she asked.

“Most psychics lead pretty normal lives,” he admitted.

“What makes you so special?”

That was a good question. Of late, there never seemed to be a dull moment. Perhaps one day he’d find out why, along with the other unanswered mysteries which consumed his life.

“I wish I knew,” he said.

The blind held a special place in most New Yorkers’ hearts. They rode the subways and walked the sidewalks with their Seeing Eye dogs without a worry in the world, their calm demeanor in sharp contrast to madness swirling around them.

Homer, the blind psychic, spent his days beneath the Washington Square Park’s famed marble arch. Built two centuries ago, the arch resembled an ancient Roman artifact, and dwarfed everything around it. Long ago, the police had run off the fortune-telling gypsies who’d held court at the arch, but out of kindness, had allowed Homer to stay.

Homer sat on a folding metal stool and told people’s fortunes. Part of his charm was that he dressed in a similar fashion to the professors at nearby New York University. Today he wore a brown cashmere sweater, a navy scarf, and brown corduroy pants. Unlike most fortune-tellers, he did not have a plate or tin cup for donations. If someone wanted to give him money, it was tucked into Homer’s breast pocket. If not, he did not complain.

Peter’s limo pulled up to the northern entrance to the park, and the partition slid back.

“Tell him to do his trick for you,” Herbie called from the front.

“What trick?” Peter asked.

“Homer can make himself invisible,” his driver said.

“Cut it out.”

“No joke. I heard a bunch of other limo drivers talking about it. One minute Homer is standing there, the next minute, poof! he’s gone. I hear it’s a real mindblower.”

“I’ll be sure to ask him.”

Peter and Liza got out and entered the park. The arch acted as a gateway to Greenwich Village, and was a favorite meeting spot. During the arch’s construction, a perfect set of human remains had been found in a spot directly below where the park’s only hanging had taken place. Rumors claimed the arch was haunted, and that the ghost of the dead man, a convicted ax murderer named Witten, ventured out at night to dance in the park’s enormous fountain. Peter had never confronted Witten, or his ax, and had assumed that it was only a matter of time before they became acquainted.

Homer was in his usual spot. As they approached, his head bobbed up and down.

“Hello, Homer,” Peter said. “It’s Peter Warlock.”

“Hello, Peter. What a pleasant surprise.”

“I brought a friend. Her name is Liza. Liza, meet my friend Homer.”

“Hello, Homer,” Liza said.

“Hello to you as well,” Homer said. “You picked a chilly day to visit the park. A group of classical musicians are warming up near the south entrance. You might want to hear them. They’re quite good.”

“Perhaps some other time,” Peter said. “I need to talk to Selena about the shadow people. You told me the other night that you knew her. Please tell me how to contact her.”

Homer scowled. “You know the rules, Peter.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Yet you ask me to break them.”

“This is urgent, a matter of life or death.”

“That does not change how the game is played.”

“It doesn’t?”

Homer shook his head. “No.”

“What rules? What are you two talking about?” Liza asked.

“Psychics play by certain rules,” Homer explained. “We are not supposed to ask each other questions about the mysteries of the universe for fear that one question will lead to another and then another until the end of time. The answers to these questions must be answered through self-discovery and inner examination. Then the truth will be revealed.”

“But a woman’s life is at stake,” Liza said.

“Do you know this woman?” Homer asked.

“I heard her voice on the phone. Her name is Rachael.”

“Well, then go find her, and save her,” the blind psychic said.

“But I don’t know who she is. Why won’t you help us?”

“Because it’s not allowed.”

Homer rose from his stool. The sun had come out and it was warming up. He removed his scarf, and Peter stared at the open neck of his sweater. Homer was not wearing the five-pointed star that he’d told Peter he wore to ward away the shadow people. Without thinking, Peter blurted out, “Damn it! Why didn’t you tell me that the shadow people weren’t a threat?”

“Because I’m not supposed to,” Homer replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I must be going.”

“You’re leaving?” Liza said. “What kind of friend are you?”

“I’m Peter’s friend, and always will be,” Homer said stiffly.

“You’re not acting like a friend.”

“You’re not one of us, are you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re not a psychic.”

“Afraid not.”

“An ancient Chinese philosopher once said, ‘A secret is no longer a secret by the time it gets to you.’”

“Come on, Homer,” Peter implored. “A woman is going to get murdered if I don’t figure this thing out.”

Homer started to reply, but pursed his lips instead. People lived and people died, but the rules that governed a psychic’s existence remained constant, and to break them was unthinkable. Picking up his metal stool, he folded it with a snap of the wrist.

“Would you mind hailing me a cab?” Homer asked.

There was usually a taxi or two parked at the park’s northern entrance, ready to whisk people uptown. Peter and Liza both turned around. Today, there were none.

“I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Peter said.

When they both turned back around, Homer was gone.

48

“Where did he go?” Liza said in disbelief.

Peter scanned the area beneath the arch where Homer had just stood. It was not entirely impossible for psychics to make themselves invisible to the naked eye. Peter had seen it done, and hoped someday to master the art himself. Had Homer just made himself invisible?

The answer was immediately obvious. Homer had not.

Psychics could make themselves invisible, but they could not make inanimate objects invisible. And Homer’s folding stool was gone as well. Which meant the blind psychic had tricked them in the brief instant it had taken them to turn around to hail a cab.

“He’s somewhere nearby,” Peter said. “Start looking.”

“How do you know he’s nearby?”

“Because blind people don’t move very fast. Check the bushes.”

Liza scoured the nearby bushes while also checking a number of homeless men sleeping on benches. None proved to be Homer. Peter walked around the arch, looking for a hiding place that Homer might have ducked into. Liza joined him a moment later.

“So where is he?” she asked.

“Like I said, he’s nearby.”

“Peter, he’s gone. I looked everywhere.”

The greatest lie is the one which we tell ourselves. The lie Liza was telling herself was that Homer had slipped away and could not be found. But what if Homer was still right here, hiding in plain sight? That was a more likely explanation, even if the evidence did not support it.

He examined the spot where Homer had stood. His eyes drifted to the arch. Had the blind psychic somehow managed to get inside of it? And if so, how?

A door was usually the way people entered things. Peter went to the arch and ran his fingertips across the smooth marble. The original arch had been made of wood in celebration of George Washington’s birthday. It had been such a hit that a permanent marble arch had been commissioned and built. He ran his forefinger across a break in the marble, and saw that it was the outline to a hidden door. He’d passed beneath the arch countless times in his life and never imagined that it had a door that went inside. He felt Liza’s breath on his neck and glanced over his shoulder into her unblinking eyes.

“You are so smart,” she said. “Should we knock?”

“Let’s surprise him.”

“How are you going to get in?”

“Watch.”

Peter didn’t think Homer had locked the door behind him. Most people in a hurry usually didn’t. Kneeling, he slipped his fingers beneath the door’s sill and pulled. It popped open, revealing a darkened space inside. He entered while Liza hesitated.

“There’s no light,” she said.

Taking out his Droid, he went onto the Internet, which caused the screen to light up. It was as good as having a flashlight, and he pointed it into the darkness. “You coming?”

She entered and they ventured ahead. The air was dank and chilly and very still. Just to be sure he was in the right place, Peter pointed his Droid at the floor, and saw a fresh set of footprints in the dust. So this was how Homer made himself disappear.

They came to a spiral staircase. With his Droid, he looked up the twisting stairs. The staircase went to the very top of the arch. There were fresh footprints on the steps as well.

“I’ll flip you to see who goes first,” Peter said.

“Very funny. You sure you want to go up there? It’s awfully dark.”

Peter had never been afraid of the dark. Not even as a child had it bothered him. He wondered what that said about his personality as he headed up the stairs.

They were breathing hard by the time they reached the top. Peter checked out their new surroundings with his Droid, and found himself standing inside a vaulted room with an ornate tiled ceiling. He would never have imagined such a room existed on top of the Washington Square Arch. Tucked away in the basement perhaps, but not at the very top. Several windows were blackened by dust and age, and a smattering of light seeped through them.

“Who’s that?” Homer’s voice called out.

“It’s Peter and Liza. We found your hiding place.”

“Why won’t you leave me alone?”

“I won’t let an innocent woman die. Now, are you going to help us, or not?”

Homer let out a pronounced sigh. “Only if you promise never to ask again.”

“I promise never to ask you again. Where are you, anyway?”

“Sitting against the far wall. Whatever you do, don’t turn on the light.”

“There’s a light in here?” Peter asked.

“Long ago, this room was the park manager’s office, if you can imagine him climbing those stairs every day. The room has electricity and running water. It’s quite comfy.”

“Why don’t you want me to turn on the light?”

“Because it will anger my guests,” Homer replied.

“What’s he talking about?” Liza whispered.

“Beats me,” Peter replied.

Peter made Liza stand behind him. With the light of his Droid, he located Homer on the far wall, parked on his folding stool. Behind him stood a mob of angry ghosts hovering just off the floor. Judging from the forlorn expressions on their sunken faces, they had suffered heavily during their previous lives. One member stood out. Tall and thin, with a pinched face and a scowl, he had a bloodstained ax clutched in his hands. The infamous Witten.

Peter wondered how fast he and Liza could make it down the stairs. Probably not fast enough. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?” he asked.

“These are the ghosts of the park. I’m sure you’ve heard of them,” Homer said.

“I’ve heard of Witten, but not the others. Who are they?”

“Remember, you only get to ask me one question.”

“I know who they are,” Liza interrupted. “Before Washington Square Park was built, this area of land was a potter’s field where the city’s poor and homeless were buried. I read it in a book. Those ghosts are people who are buried right here. Right?”

“There’s more to it,” Homer said.

Peter again studied the ghosts with his Droid. One held a bloody butcher’s knife, while another clutched a thick lead pipe. Their necks were badly discolored and pulled to one side. The city’s criminals were buried here as well, he realized.

“These ghosts are criminals, and were hanged for their crimes,” he said.

“Eek,” Liza said under her breath.

Homer nodded approvingly. This was how the game was supposed to be played. Peter noticed that the ghosts stood behind Homer instead of in front. Clearly, they sensed danger.

But from who?

Certainly not Liza. That left only one other choice.

They were afraid of him.

It didn’t seem possible. They’d all died long before he was born, and nothing in his life had ever touched them. He decided to find out, and took a step forward.

“Where are you going?” Liza said under her breath.

“Just wait,” he whispered.

The ghosts retreated into the wall, making them half visible, half gone. The fear factor was real. It had never been that way before. In the past, ghosts had been his friends, and he’d confided in many of them while growing up. Some deep spiritual change had caused his physical presence to be feared by even the most dangerous of spirits.

“Tell me how to find Selena,” Peter said.

“Selena can be found at the corner of Forty-second Street and Seventh Avenue,” Homer replied. “She will explain to you the meaning of the shadow people. Go now, or you will miss her.”

Forty-second Street and Seventh Avenue was in the heart of Times Square, and some of the most expensive real estate in the city. No fortune-tellers or psychics could afford to work out of storefronts there. Was Selena a street person?

“Are you sure that’s where she is?” Peter asked.

“Positive. Tell her I said hello.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks for the help. Say good-bye to your friends for me.”

“Have a nice day,” Homer said.

Peter took a last look at the ghosts with his Droid. They had pulled out of the wall, and seemed relieved that he and Liza were leaving. That makes two of us, he thought.

49

Liza sat in the backseat of the limo with her head resting against Peter’s chest. Peter could not remember her ever looking so vulnerable.

“That was scary,” she said. “What were those things going to do to us?”

“Something unthinkable,” he replied.

“So why didn’t they?”

“I’m not sure. Ghosts are strange. They have the ability to see through things. You know, like when a person lies or tries to pull a fast one, a ghost will know it in a second. The ghosts inside the arch saw something inside of me they didn’t like, and got frightened.”

“Have ghosts ever acted that way before?”

What had happened inside the arch was a brand-new experience. Had his demon come so close to the surface that Homer’s otherworldly friends had wanted nothing to do with him?

“No,” he said. “Never.”

Liza clasped his hand and gave it a healthy squeeze. “Remind me to bring you along the next time I visit a haunted house.”

They rode the rest of the way uptown in silence. Liza still hadn’t run away from him. If anything, she seemed even more committed to making their relationship work. That was good, because he had a sneaking suspicion that there were plenty of other surprises still in store. The limo braked at the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, and the driver’s partition slid back.

“No place to park around here, unless I go into a garage, and they’ll charge me thirty bucks an hour,” Herbie said. “How about I circle around until you need me.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Limo drivers knew the city’s streets like the back of their hands, and Peter wondered if Herbie had ever encountered Selena. “Have you ever seen a female fortune-teller working this corner? She goes by the name Selena.”

“Can’t say that I have,” Herbie replied.

“You sound pretty sure about that.”

“Cops ran all the mimes and musicians off. Fortune-tellers, too.”

Peter felt defeated even before he started. Perhaps Selena was inside one of the many office buildings in the area. It would only take about a year to check all of those. He climbed out of the backseat along with Liza. His driver’s window lowered.

“Check down below,” Herbie suggested.

“The subway?”

“Yeah. A lot of street performers work down there. Transit cops leave them alone.”

“Got it.”

The Times Square subway entrance was about as wide a city street. They went down the stairs and entered the city’s noisy underworld. The station was the linking point for five different lines, and contained five different sets of platforms. It was another needle in a haystack, and he approached a pair of transit cops flipping their nightsticks.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for a female fortune-teller named Selena.”

“Describe her,” one of the cops said.

How was he supposed to describe someone he’d never met?

“She’s wise beyond her years,” he replied.

The cop pointed straight ahead. “I think I know her. She sits by the platform for the Number Three train. Take the escalator down. You can’t miss her.”

They bought Metrocards and followed the arrows to the Number 3. An escalator took them down to the lower level. Beneath a ripped poster for a rap artist sat a sixtyish woman wearing a black dress that could have belonged to a nun, no makeup, her gray hair tied in a bun. The contours of her face said Russian, perhaps Ukrainian. Two empty folding chairs were positioned to either side. Had she known they were coming?

“You must be Selena,” Peter said.

“And you must be Peter Warlock and Liza,” she said, without a hint of an accent. “I was reading a man’s fortune earlier, and you both popped up. Make yourself comfortable. I hope you don’t mind the noise.”

They sat to either side of her. A train pulled in and disgorged people wearing business attire. A particularly well-dressed man carrying a leather briefcase dropped several bills into Selena’s dented tin cup. They were big bills, a fifty and two hundreds.

“He a regular?” Peter asked.

“Hedge fund manager. I saved him a billion dollars last year,” Selena said.

“Holy cow,” Liza said.

“Got him on retainer?” Peter asked with a smile.

“Come to mention it, I do. His partners as well. Does that seem vulgar to you?”

“You have a right to make a living as much as anyone else.”

“Good answer.”

Selena fished the money out of her cup and stuffed it into the pocket of her dress. It was not easy making a living telling fortunes. There were so many fakes in the city, it was hard for a real psychic to get by. Selena had obviously found a gold mine inside the subway station, and Peter guessed her drab appearance was more costume than real.

“So tell me why you’re here,” Selena said. “It’s not often that another psychic seeks out my counsel.”

“I’m having a problem with a shadow person,” Peter explained. “Actually, several of them. They keep kidnapping me and my friends, and taking us into the future where we nearly die at the hands of a serial killer. I just learned that one of them was the victim of this same serial killer. I’m having a hard time understanding all this. Will you help me?

“Does your boyfriend always talk so fast?” Selena asked Liza.

“Only when he’s on edge,” Liza replied.

She addressed Peter. “The answer is obvious. You’re just not seeing it.”

“Will you tell us?” Peter asked.

“Bad question. Try again.”

“Will you guide us?” Peter asked.

Another businessman stepped up and dropped big bills into the dented tin cup.

“Investment banker,” she said as the man departed.

“Did you save him a bundle?” Peter asked.

“Just his bank. You don’t need me, Peter. You already know the answer.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel much better.”

“Repeat the words you said to me a moment ago. Dissect them one by one. One of those words holds the key to your mystery. Do it, and see if I’m right.”

Peter played back to himself what he’d just told Selena. While he did, a third man deposited more good tidings in Selena’s cup. Not a gold mine, but a mint.

“He runs a foreign embassy,” she said.

“Friend or foe?” Peter asked.

“Friend, of course. The only information I’d sell to a foe would be bad information. Have you got it yet?”

“I think so. The word nearly.”

Selena nodded approvingly. “That is correct. You said the shadow people were taking you and your friends into the future, and that you nearly died at the hands of a serial killer. But none of you have died. You’re assuming you will die, but that may not be the case.”

“I was taken into the future, and the serial killer put a gun to my head,” Liza jumped in. “He pulled the trigger right as I was yanked back into the real world. I would have died.”

“But you didn’t,” Selena said forcefully.

“I got lucky.”

Selena’s eyes laughed, and the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly.

“Why is that funny?” Liza asked.

“No one gets lucky,” Selena said.

“Sure they do. Haven’t you heard of Lady Luck smiling down on you?”

“Tell her,” Selena said to Peter.

“Luck is controlled by the spirits, and they only dole it out to babies and drunks,” Peter explained. “Everything else that happens in life is a role of the dice.”

“Next you’ll be telling me there isn’t a Santa Claus,” Liza said.

“Come to mention it…”

“What about you and Snoop? You were both taken to the future, and escaped before you were shot in the head,” Liza said. “Isn’t that luck?”

“No, that was fate. There’s a big difference.”

“Now I’m really confused.”

Selena’s eyes were still laughing. She rose from her chair and headed for the escalators. They followed and were soon standing in bustling Times Square. Down 42nd Street they went to one of the area’s many overpriced parking garages. The afternoon light was beginning to fade, and Peter realized he needed to get to his theater and prepare for tonight’s show. Selena’s day might be over, but his had just begun. Selena handed a parking attendant a stub, and the uniformed man hustled away.

“You don’t take the subway?” Peter asked.

“No. I live outside the city,” Selena said.

She removed a giant wad of cash from the pocket of her dress and began to count it. Her take for the day was well into the thousands of dollars.

“I think I’ve figured out what’s going on,” Peter said. “Will you hear me out?”

“Go ahead,” she said, still counting.

He spent a moment collecting his thoughts. When he finally spoke, it was with the conviction of someone who’d finally found a truth that had been evading him for the longest of times. “I was wrong from the start. The shadow people aren’t trying to hurt me, and in fact, aren’t evil spirits at all. They’re victims who are taking me into the future to reveal things that will help me stop the killer from claiming his next victim.”

Selena’s face was a blank. A shiny black Mercedes with New Jersey license plates came out of the garage. Selena tipped the attendant handsomely, then nodded good-bye to Peter and Liza as she climbed in.

“At least tell me if I’m getting warm,” Peter said.

She looked at him before shutting the driver’s door.

“You’re on fire,” she said.

50

Peter’s limo raced downtown. In less than two hours, he would be performing a full-evening magic show for a packed house. Solving crimes was important, but so was satisfying the people who paid to see him perform.

Liza fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. It was rare to see her so unsettled. He was tempted to read her thoughts, but fought back the urge. Their relationship was never going to work if he kept stealing looks inside her head, and he told himself the practice had to stop.

What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I guess I’m going to be taking a trip to the other side.”

“You mean you’re going to let the shadow people kidnap you again? Don’t you remember what happened the two previous times? If you go back again, that crazy serial killer will shoot you.”

Liza was wrong. This time would be different. This time, he was going to figure out who Dr. Death was, and bring him to justice. “The shadow people aren’t trying to harm me. They’re trying to show me something that will help me figure out who Dr. Death really is. I need to go back.”

“The shadow people may not be trying to hurt you, but Dr. Death is. You think you can escape from him? I couldn’t, and neither could Snoop. I know you have special powers, but do they work on the other side?”

Peter shook his head. When he was in the spirit world, his psychic gifts were weak at best.

“Then how can you stop him from killing you?” Liza asked.

He didn’t know the answer to that question. Dr. Death had come close to putting a bullet in his head the two previous times he’d paid him a visit. Going back a third time was a definite risk, but he needed to discover what it was the shadow people wanted him to see.

“I’ll find out when I get there,” he said.

Liza became angry with him and stared out the window. “What if I say no?”

“No, as in, don’t go?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then I won’t go,” he replied.

“You won’t?”

“We’re a team, remember? If this upsets you, then no, I won’t do it.”

She faced him. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

“Now let me ask you a question. What about Rachael? If I do nothing, she’s probably going to die.”

“You don’t know that. The police or the FBI might still find Dr. Death.”

“Maybe so. But it might not be in time to save her. She’s going out to see Dr. Death on Friday night, and he’s going to kill her, just like he did his other victims. And you and I will have to live with that for the rest of our lives.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we know what’s going to happen. That’s the curse of knowing the future. If we don’t do anything to prevent the horrible things we know from happening, our consciences will eat at us, and we’ll walk around feeling like shits because we didn’t act.”

“Has that ever happened to you?”

He nodded stiffly, the memory still fresh. “About ten years ago. We did a séance one Friday night, and I got pulled over to the other side. I found myself standing outside an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood where I used to live. The owner was a nice old guy who got along with everybody. Two punks went in and tried to rob the place. The owner pulled a gun and ran them off. I was standing outside when the punks ran out with the owner chasing after them. I thought it was funny as hell. When the séance was over, I told the psychics in our group what had happened. They told me that I had to warn him. I didn’t see the point.”

“Did you warn him?”

“No. And it still eats at me.”

“Why?”

“The owner got robbed two days later. It played out just like I’d seen it. Except there was one thing I didn’t see during my séance. The owner chased the punks down the street and around the corner. Then he had a heart attack and dropped dead.”

“Oh, Peter, I’m sorry. If he had a bad heart, he probably would have had a heart attack eventually.”

“I still should have gone to see him. It was my responsibility, and I let him down.”

“How often do you think about it?”

“Every single day.”

The back of the limo fell silent. Being a psychic was a gift, and it was also a curse, and sometimes, quite strangely, it was a little bit of both.

“So the moral of the story is, we have to let the shadow people take you over to the other side if we’re going to save Rachael,” Liza said.

“Only if we want to live with ourselves.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Peter. I just don’t know.”

A magic show took as long to prepare as it did to perform. Every prop that Peter used in his act needed to be tested to ensure it was working properly. Musicians and comics could have things go wrong and still salvage a show, but that wasn’t true with magic. If a trick went haywire during a performance, the mystical illusion of wonderment that Peter had worked so hard to create would be shattered, and the audience’s evening ruined.

Each night before his show he did a prop check, a light check, a sound check, and a music check. Only after those were completed to his satisfaction did he retire to his dressing room, and change into his performance clothes.

He took his time dressing. He got nervous before going on, and dressing helped calm him down. Soon, his fans would begin lining the sidewalk in front of the theater with tickets clutched in their hands. Mostly families with kids, but lots of couples as well, and plenty of squealing teenage girls. The front doors would open, and they’d file in. Sometimes, he’d peek out the window to the street to glimpse their expectant faces. They came from all over, yet shared one thing in common: They loved to be fooled.

He stood in front of a mirror as he dressed. A strange motion in the reflection caught his eye, and he watched a shadow person seep out of a crack in the wall, and stand directly behind him, hovering a few inches off the floor. He turned around, and faced his unwanted guest.

“Leave me alone. I have a show to do!”

It made no sound, and continued to hover. From the same crack seeped a second shadow person, followed by a third and a fourth, until six otherworldly spirits were crammed into his tiny dressing room. He tried to reason with them.

“I know what you want. Come back later, and I’ll go over to the other side with you, and you can show me whatever it is you want to show me. But not now. I have a show to do.”

His guests didn’t budge. That was a problem, because he wasn’t going to back down. He shook a finger in what would have been their faces, if they’d had them.

“I’m not kidding. Get out of here.”

The wall of black closed around him. He heard a sharp scraping sound as a chair was pulled across the floor, and his body was forced into it. The lapels of his jacket were tugged back, the front of his shirt unbuttoned. He roared his disapproval.

“Damn you!” he shouted.

His buttons popped as his shirt was pulled open. A black hand grabbed the five-pointed star hanging around his neck, and yanked on it.

“Stop that!”

There was a loud banging on the door. He jerked his head, fearful a stranger might step into his dressing room and see this insane scene. “Yes?”

“Peter, what’s wrong?” Liza said fearfully through the door.

“The shadow people are here. They’re trying to take me away.”

“Hold on-I’ll help you!”

Liza started kicking the door. He tried to summon the demon within, wondering how it would fare against a band of spirits. Before he could find out, the black hand ripped the five-pointed star from his neck, and tossed it to the floor.

He entered the next world still fighting.

51

It was déjà vu all over again.

Peter was transported from his dressing room to the snaking dirt road on the hill beside Dr. Death’s house in Westchester County. As before, Dr. Death was chasing him, the Volvo’s headlights dancing in the darkness as the vehicle raced down the hill.

Damn the shadow people! Peter thought as he ran for his life. Why couldn’t they just come out and tell him who Dr. Death was? Or at least point him in the right direction? Why did each visit have to be a hair-raising experience that made his heart beat so hard that he could hardly breathe?

At the bottom of the hill he took a hard left, sprinting ahead. Something felt different from his two previous visits. The air was noticeably cooler, the sky not nearly as dark. He’d been brought back to the same place, but it was not at the same time in the future.

The Volvo’s wheels skidded as Dr. Death took the turn and goosed the accelerator. Peter knew what came next. Dr. Death would stick his handgun out his window, take aim, and shoot him in the leg, delivering a nasty flesh wound. The beginning of the end, unless he did something drastically different from the two previous times.

He bolted to his right. Maybe he could change the outcome of this. At the edge of the road he tried to jump into the forest, only it was as dense as a jungle, and there was nowhere to escape to.

“Damn it,” he swore.

He wondered if the shadow people heard him, or if they cared. Ghosts and spirits were bad that way. Divorced from human feelings, they often forgot what it was like to suffer.

A gunshot ripped the still night air. He groaned and grabbed his thigh. Blood was pouring down his leg, and he pressed his hand against the gaping wound to stop the flow. The Volvo parked in the road, and Dr. Death climbed out. The serial killer wore the same college professor clothes and the same lunatic smile. Gun in hand, he told Peter to kneel. The young magician complied.

“Want to say something before you die?” Dr. Death asked.

Peter told himself that he was going to somehow escape, and that he must learn who Dr. Death was before he was sent back to the real world.

“What day is it?” he asked.

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Dr. Death replied.

“I was brought here against my will. I want to know.”

“Very well. It’s Wednesday evening. Happy now?”

Today was Wednesday. The shadow people hadn’t taken him to Westchester County on Friday night like the previous times. Instead, they’d transported him to a Westchester County in the present. Had Rachael’s encounter with Dr. Death been moved up two days?

“Close your eyes, and I’ll make this painless,” the serial killer said.

Dr. Death glanced at his watch as he spoke. Was he going to meet someone? Then it hit Peter why the shadow people had brought him here.

“Rachael is coming out tonight instead of Friday, isn’t she?” Peter said. “You’re going to the train station to pick her up, aren’t you?”

Dr. Death blinked. Peter had nailed it.

“You know too much,” Dr. Death said. “Shut your eyes, and I’ll get this over with.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What did you say?”

“You heard me. I’m not shutting my eyes.”

Dr. Death shoved the barrel of the gun against his temple, its muzzle still warm. “I’ll splatter your brains across the road.”

“You don’t have the guts.”

“I didn’t have the guts. But I do now. Let me show you why.”

Reaching up with his free hand, Dr. Death undid his necktie, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and jerked back the collar. Tattooed to his neck was the shimmering symbol of the Order of Astrum. The tattoo looked alive, and glowed mysteriously in the dark. “I have the Order of Astrum on my side,” he said with a sick smile. “Now say good-bye. I have a train to meet.”

He’s really going to shoot me this time. The expression “three strikes and you’re out” came to mind, and he prayed for Liza to pull him back to the other side.

Then the shot rang out.

Peter had always wondered what it felt like when you died. He’d imagined the sensation would be similar to hurtling at the speed of light through the universe with no idea of his final destination, if there even was a final destination. A journey that would be both amazingly beautiful and terribly frightening at the same time.

Wrong.

The afterlife felt surprisingly like this life. In fact, it felt exactly like it. He was still kneeling on the side of the road, with blood streaming down his leg. Dr. Death had not moved either, and was still holding the gun to his temple.

Nothing had changed.

Except the look on Dr. Death’s face. The sick smile had been replaced by a mask of fear. His eyes were trained on the forest directly behind them.

“Munns-let him go!” a woman’s shrill voice called out.

Peter turned his head to see a rather small woman in hiking clothes burst through a dense wall of shrubs. In one hand was a flashlight, in another a smoking handgun. Moments later a panting chocolate Labrador with a huge stick clenched in its mouth came through behind her.

“Gladys Hadden,” Dr. Death said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking my evening constitutional with Brewster, just like I do every night.” She stopped a few yards from where they stood, her gun pointed at the ground. “Oh, my God, you shot him.”

“He was breaking into my house,” Munns said defensively.

“You don’t say. Do you know who he is?”

“I think he’s a drug addict. He was going through my things when I caught him,” Dr. Death lied, his gun still pressed to Peter’s temple. “He ran away, and I got into my car and chased him. I was just about to shoot him when you fired your gun.”

“Why were you going to shoot him, Doc?”

“I just told you, he was robbing me.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to shoot him. I’d suggest you call nine one one, and let the police deal with this. I’ll call them myself if you like.”

Gladys Hadden was talking down to Munns like he was a child. Munns acted confused, and didn’t seem to know what to do. His cell phone rang. He jerked it from his pocket to stare at the face.

“I need to take this,” he said, and stepped away.

“Thanks for saving my life,” Peter mumbled under his breath.

“You’re not a drug addict, are you?” Gladys Hadden asked. “You certainly don’t dress like one.”

“It’s a long story. I’m helping the FBI catch your neighbor.”

“Really? What did Doc do?”

“His name’s Doc? Is he a doctor?”

“No, it’s just his nickname. He likes to pretend he’s one. He’s really the janitor over at the local college, has been for God knows how long. Now, tell me what he’s done.”

“He’s a serial killer,” Peter whispered. “He brings women to his house, and kills them.”

Gladys Hadden gasped. “No.”

“Yes.”

Munns was talking excitedly into his cell phone. They heard him say, “Your train is running ahead of schedule? I’m glad you called to let me know. Yes, I can be at the station when you pull in. I’m sure the dean won’t mind if we show up for dinner a little early.”

“Who’s that?” Gladys Hadden asked in a whisper.

“His next victim,” Peter replied.

“Oh, my Lord. What should we do?”

“Shoot him.”

“You want me to shoot him?”

“Yes. Otherwise, he’s going to kill her.”

“You’re certain about this?”

“On my parents’ graves.”

Flipping his cell phone shut, Munns stared at Peter and his neighbor. The glint in his eyes said a decision was being made. Peter didn’t have to use his psychic powers to know what that decision was. Munns was going to shoot them in cold blood, and deal with the consequences later. Rachael was drawing closer, and he could practically taste his next kill.

Munns stepped forward, prepared to gun them down.

Brewster stopped him.

The Lab had been lying in the grass gnawing on his stick. Sensing that his owner was in danger, Brewster jumped up and tried to bite Munns’s hand off. He jumped back in fear. Brewster kept barking, and Munns started backing up.

“He’s getting away,” Peter said.

Gladys Hadden aimed her gun. “Stay right where you are.”

“Gladys, you can’t shoot me,” Munns begged her.

“I’m calling the police, Doc. Don’t you dare move.”

Munns turned his back and ran to his car. He pulled away in a swirl of rubber and raced down the twisting hill. Gladys Hadden lowered her gun to her side, and sadly shook her head. She was a good person, and good people did not shoot their neighbors.

Peter felt an invisible tug on his shoulder. Liza was pulling him back to the other side. He resisted, knowing he must stop Munns from picking up Rachael at the train station. He was dealing with real time now, and every second counted.

“Call nine one one,” he said.

“What do I tell them?” Gladys asked. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Tell the police that Munns is a serial killer. If they call Special Agent Garrison with the FBI in New York City, Garrison will confirm it.”

“The police will think I’m a nut.”

“Do it anyway. Please.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving.”

“But you’re wounded. You need to get help.”

She punched three numbers into her phone. An operator came on, and she said that a man had been shot, and requested an ambulance. She gave her address and Peter memorized it. His world started to change, the image of his dressing room taking soft focus.

“Do you walk your dog every night?” Peter asked.

“Why yes, I do,” she replied. “Why do you ask?”

It explained everything. The shadow people had brought him here twice, and both times it had seemed that Munns was about to shoot him in the head right before he was pulled back. But that hadn’t been the situation at all; the gunshot he’d heard each time had come from Gladys Hadden’s gun, and had been meant to stop Munns from killing him. His life had never been in danger at all.

He began to slip away. He wished he had a camera to take a photo of the startled look on Gladys Hadden’s face as he disappeared. Brewster would not stop barking.

52

Washed in cold sweat, Peter awoke lying on the couch in his dressing room. Liza sat beside him, forcefully shaking his shoulders. “How long have I been out?” he asked.

“Too long,” she replied. “The curtains go up in ten minutes. Can you go on?”

“I don’t know. Let me check.”

He pushed himself up to a sitting position. The bullet wound in his right thigh had miraculously healed itself, and he felt no worse for wear. Garrison leaned against the far wall with a grave look on his face.

“Have a nice trip?” the FBI agent asked.

“Come to mention it, I did,” Peter replied. “How did you get here so fast?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

Liza brought a water bottle to his lips. “Here. Drink this.”

Peter took a long swallow. His dressing room was void of spirits. He had expected the shadow people to follow him back, but they’d chosen to remain with Munns. Perhaps they were hoping to stop Munns from claiming his next victim. They hadn’t succeeded in the past, and were going to need some help. “I know who our killer is.”

Garrison pushed himself off the wall. “Start talking.”

“His name is Doc Munns, only he isn’t really a doctor. He lives in a town called Pelham, and is a janitor at a local college.”

Garrison produced a notepad and started scribbling.

“You need to call the Westchester police immediately,” he went on. “I saw Munns in real time. His next victim is coming out on a train tonight, not on Friday like I originally thought. When I left, Munns was racing to the train station to pick her up.”

“You’re sure about all of this?”

Peter nodded and drained the water bottle.

“Do you have any proof?” Garrison asked.

“What do you mean? I was just with him.”

“I can’t tell the Westchester police that. I mean I can, but they won’t buy it.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re not going to take the word of a psychic and detain someone. It’s not how the law works. I need to offer up some proof to what you’re saying.”

Peter felt stymied. He’d seen it, hadn’t he?

“Can’t the police at least detain him?” the young magician asked.

“Not without a good solid reason.”

“Tell them to make one up.”

“The police won’t do that.”

“This is crazy. A women’s life is hanging in the balance. Isn’t that enough reason?”

Garrison flipped the notepad shut. “We have to work within the law. This isn’t the Wild West. We can’t just go grab someone because you think he’s a killer.”

“It has nothing to do with what I think. Munns is a serial killer.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

Peter threw the empty water bottle at the trash can in anger. When he visited the other side, there were no illusions, subtleties, or nuanced shades of gray. It was all black and white. Munns was their killer, and needed to be stopped. “You’re a fool,” he said.

“Peter,” Liza said.

“Watch your mouth.” Garrison simmered.

“I just risked my life to go to the other side, and now you’re disputing what I’m saying,” Peter said, not calming down. “I should throw you out of here.”

“Peter!” Liza said.

A loud rap on the dressing room door snapped their heads. The door opened a foot, and Snoop stuck his shaggy head in. “Why, Detective Garrison, fancy seeing you here. What a pleasant surprise.”

“It’s Special Agent Garrison, wiseass,” Garrison said.

“Sorry. Do you mind if I talk with my boss for a second?” Snoop asked.

“Be my guest.”

“Are we going on?” Snoop asked.

“How much time do I have?” Peter asked.

“Five minutes. I can get on the PA, and say we’re running late.”

Peter wore many hats. The biggest hat was that of a professional magician, and there were rules which he needed to follow. Starting the show on time was one of them. He’d never been late before, and wasn’t going to start now. “No, I’m going on right now.”

“Beautiful. I’ll be up in the booth,” Snoop said. “Nice seeing you, Detective.”

“You’re pushing it,” Garrison said.

Soon, the three of them were walking down the hallway toward the back of the stage. Peter’s usual nervousness started to set in, just like it did every night before he went on.

“There has to be some solution here,” Peter implored the FBI agent.

“I’ll call the Westchester police and ask them to send a cruiser to the train station, if you think it will do any good,” Garrison said.

“You can’t pull Munns in for questioning?”

“I need tangible proof. It’s how the law works.”

Peter came to a short stairwell that led to the stage. Through the back of the stage he could hear the crowd’s murmuring. They were ready to see a magic show, but was he ready to put one on for them? No, he wasn’t, and he realized that he had to get Munns out of his mind. That sounded easy to do, only there was an unsuspecting woman named Rachael whose life he was supposed to be saving. He thought back to his encounter with Munns on the hillside. Munns had been carrying a loaded firearm. That was illegal in the state of New York without a concealed weapons permit, and he had a feeling that Munns didn’t possess one of those.

“I’m going to get ready,” Liza said. “Good luck.”

“Thanks for being there for me,” he told her.

“Always,” she said.

They kissed and Liza hurried away.

“Munns is carrying a loaded gun,” he said. “If you told the Westchester police that you had reason to believe he was a dangerous person, would they haul him in?”

“Of course,” Garrison said.

“Then please do it. Right now.”

“You’re sure he’s carrying a loaded gun?”

“He shot me with it.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. Are you certain he’s carrying it right now? If not, the police will have to release him, and Munns will know we’re on to him.”

Peter didn’t know if Munns still had his gun. Maybe he’d thrown it out the window of his car after his encounter with Gladys Hadden. But Peter felt certain that Munns still had his kill kit, which had contained a rope, handcuffs, and a bottle of chloroform.

“Munns has a leather bag filled with the stuff he uses to capture his victims,” Peter said. “Tell the police to look for it.”

“You’re sure about this?” Garrison said.

“I saw the bag in his house.”

Garrison hesitated. Something was clearly wrong, and Peter gazed into the FBI agent’s eyes and read his thoughts. If the Westchester police blew this, Munns would go home and destroy evidence linking him to his crimes. The FBI would be back to square one with the case, and Garrison would have to sleep at night knowing that a dangerous killer was roaming free.

That was a bad scenario, but Peter’s was much worse. A woman who pushed back at the darkness was going to die tonight if Munns wasn’t arrested. The shadow people had chosen to save Rachael because she was someone who made a difference in the world. Peter was going to save her, the law be damned.

“Promise me you’ll talk the police into arresting Munns,” Peter said.

“I’ll do my best,” Garrison replied.

“That’s not good enough.”

“What did you say?”

“Munns’s next victim isn’t an ordinary person. She’s going to do something extraordinary in her life that will make a tremendous difference in the world. That’s why the dark side wants her dead. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Is this woman some kind of saint?”

Peter nodded, and a look of recognition spread across the FBI agent’s face, along with the weight of knowing that if he didn’t act fast, he’d be responsible for her demise as well.

“Then I’ll order the police to arrest him,” Garrison said.

“Can you do that?”

“Yes. I’m putting my ass on the line, but I’m willing to take that chance.”

“Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

Peter climbed the steps to the back of the stage as Garrison began to make the call. The music had already started, his other life about to begin. He cleared his head, and prepared himself to enter the world of make-believe.

53

The parking lot of the Pelham train station was deserted as Munns parked and killed his headlights. During the day, there was not a space to be found, and cars often parked illegally on the street. Nighttime was a different story, and most of the spaces were empty.

Munns lowered his window. The sound of the northbound train from New York could often be heard a mile or more away as it lumbered into the station. Each of Munns’s six victims had come on the train to Pelham, where Munns had picked them up with the promise of a nice job at the local college but instead had taken them to the basement of his house where he’d tied them up, laid them out on a long table, and ended their miserable lives in whatever fashion struck his fancy. He never decided ahead of time, preferring to follow his impulses and go with the flow. Rachael would be no different.

The train’s whistle caught his ear. It was time. On the passenger seat sat his kill kit. From it, he took the bottle of chloroform, which he put into his left jacket pocket. Next he removed a folded handkerchief, which went into his right jacket pocket. The kill kit was moved to the floor of the backseat. He climbed out of the car.

He waited on the platform. He was not alone. A woman had come to pick up her husband, and was chatting on a cell phone while holding an infant in her arm. That was the extent of his worries.

He glanced at his reflection in the window of the station house, fixed his necktie, and patted down his lapels. If Rachael stepped off the train and got a bad vibe, she wouldn’t get in his car. He had to win her over right from the start.

The ground shook as the train pulled in, and a handful of passengers disembarked. Dark suits and ties for the men, power suits and fancy shoes for the women. One passenger stood out. A tall, sallow women with prematurely gray hair and a slightly lost expression. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her.

“Rachael?” he called out expectantly.

She smiled and came toward him. Not too fast, not too slow. Sizing him up like any intelligent woman would do. Munns stepped forward and opened his arms in welcome.

“It’s so good to finally meet you. Welcome to Pelham,” he said.

“You must be Doc Munns.” She stuck out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Her handshake was firm but also friendly. He waved to his parked car. “Your chariot awaits. The dean is expecting us. I’m told his wife has cooked up a wonderful meal with all the trimmings. I hope you brought your appetite.”

“Matter of fact, I did. I’ve been so looking forward to this,” she said.

They continued to chat as they walked to Munns’s car. Out of the corner of his eye, Munns saw the woman with the kid drive away with her husband. The other passengers were piling into cars and heading home. No one was paying them the slightest bit of attention. Munns opened the passenger door for his guest.

“Such a gentleman. I like that in a man,” Rachael said.

“My pleasure,” the serial killer said.

The routine that Munns used to abduct his victims never varied. Like a short one-act play, he’d memorized the lines that he would say, and had choreographed the individual steps that led to his victims being knocked unconscious in the passenger seat of his car. He had performed his play in the railroad station parking lot, and in the supermarket parking lot down the street where he’d taken several of his victims after picking them up. It had seemed bold at first to perform the abduction in public, but time had proved it a smart tactic. His victims did not think anything could happen to them while in a public place, and let their guards down. As a result, none of them had seen it coming. He did not anticipate Rachael being any different.

He fastened his seat belt and requested that his passenger do the same.

“Sorry,” Rachael said, buckling up. “I hardly take car rides anymore.”

“How do you get around in the city?” he asked.

“Mostly by the subway, sometimes when I’m late I’ll take a cab.”

“You don’t own a car?”

“On my salary? You’re funny.”

No one had ever called him funny before, and he grinned. He found himself liking her, but that feeling would soon fade. It always did when he brought his victims to his house and carried them downstairs to the basement. Each step down the creaky staircase was a painful journey back in time. By the time he reached the basement, he was ready to kill.

He fired up the ignition and threw the car into reverse. Then he started to wheeze and cough. It was an ugly sound, and he pounded his chest with his fist.

“Is something wrong?” she asked in alarm.

He threw the car back into Park. More pounding on the chest and heavy breathing followed. Pointing at the glove compartment, he said, “If you don’t mind. I need my pills.”

“Is this serious? Do I need to call nine one one?”

“Not at all. I just forgot to take them, that’s all.”

“Do you have any water?”

“No,” he gasped.

“Have no fear.” She produced a water bottle from her purse and stuck it into the cup holder jutting out of the dashboard. Then she turned her attention to the glove compartment. The latch was tricky, and she fumbled opening it. She rummaged through maps and car junk.

“I’m not seeing any pills,” she said.

“They should be there,” he wheezed. “Keep looking.”

She obeyed, paying him no attention. Sticking his hand into his left pocket, he unscrewed the chloroform bottle with a quick twist. His right hand removed the handkerchief, which he doused liberally. He kept his face turned to avoid knocking himself out with fumes.

“I’ll still not seeing them,” Rachael said.

“Do you know what it’s like to be beaten as a child?” he asked in a normal voice.

The words caught her off guard. Rachael turned her head, and Munns placed the handkerchief over her nose and mouth. It was important to get his victim to turn into the chloroform, and not shove it into her face. Her eyes rolled into her head, and she slumped into her seat.

The hard part over, Munns felt himself relax. As he started to back out of his spot, a police cruiser rolled into the lot and pulled up behind him, its headlights bathing his vehicle.

“Shit,” he swore.

In his mirror he spied a grim-faced cop at the wheel. Before the economy had taken a dump, the Pelham Police Department had employed pairs of officers for its nightly patrols. Budget cuts had changed that, and officers now rode solo at night.

Munns strained to make out the officer’s face. He’d gone through school with many of the cops in town and knew most of them by first name.

The cop was someone new. A clean-cut rookie with a square jaw and straw-blond hair. Munns decided to have a talk with him. He had talked his way out of tight jams before, and felt confident he could handle this rookie. Opening his door, he placed his foot on the ground.

“Stay in your car,” the officer barked over a bullhorn.

Munns pulled himself back in, and slammed the door.

“Hands on the wheel,” the officer commanded.

Munns placed his hands on the wheel. He wondered if was going to have to kill a police officer tonight. He couldn’t hide a dead cop the way he’d hidden his other victims, and would have to figure out a clever way to dump the body. Perhaps he’d cut it up first, and dispose of the pieces in Dumpsters behind different restaurants. The rotted food would hide the smell perfectly.

A flashlight’s beam touched the back of his head. Munns turned in his seat to glare at the officer.

“Look straight ahead,” the officer barked.

Munns turned around. The flashlight beam traveled to the passenger seat, and rested on Rachael’s slumping profile.

“Who’s that in the car with you?” the officer demanded.

Munns rolled down his window and stuck his head out. “Look, can’t we talk?”

“Answer the question!”

“My wife. She just got off work.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She fell asleep. She’s had a long day. May I ask what this is about?”

“Be quiet, and turn your head around.”

“But I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Do it!”

Munns turned back around. Killing the police officer seemed a certainty. No other real choice. His gun was in his kill kit and not handy. He would have to use his hands, like he had with Clyde Jucko at the storage facility, and tear the officer apart limb from limb. Thinking about it brought a faint smile to his lips. Tonight was going to be a two-bagger.

He devised a plan. He’d let the officer come up to his window and ask for his ID. He would stick his driver’s license out the window. When the officer took it, he’d grab his arm, pull him into the car, and tear his head off. Easy as pie.

He tapped his fingers on the wheel. When the officer did not come, he glanced into his mirror. The officer was talking on his car radio to a dispatcher. He tried to lip-read what the officer was saying. He caught a couple of key words, and realized the officer was calling for backup like he’d just apprehended a dangerous criminal.

It was time to make his move. Opening the driver’s door, he hopped out, and marched toward the cruiser with his arms outstretched in a placating manner.

“Get back in your car!” roared the officer over the bullhorn.

Stopping, he struck a neutral pose. “Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Back up!”

“Have I broken any laws? Is my tag expired?”

“Do it!”

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

The officer reached for his gun. The look in his eyes bordered on pure panic. Pelham was a sleepy place, and the officer had probably never dealt with a situation like this before. Munns decided that was in his favor, and took a giant step forward.

“Son, you’re overreacting.”

“Listen to me!” the officer shouted.

Munns raised his arms in mock surrender. “What are you afraid of? Do I scare you?”

“Son of a bitch,” the officer swore.

Squealing rubber tore a hole in the still night air. A black van had entered the parking lot and was flying. Its headlights flashed and the driver mouthed the words, “Get out of the way!”

It was Ray.

Ray plowed into the back of the cruiser without hitting his brakes. The impact sounded like a bomb going off, and the officer flew through the windshield like a human cannonball, his body landing on the rear of the Volvo with a sickening thud.

Munns pulled himself off the pavement. He was covered with broken glass, but otherwise unharmed. Ray jumped out of the van and joined him. Together they stared at the officer’s crumpled body. The surprised look on his face said he’d never known what had hit him.

“Did you get Rachael?” the tattoo artist asked.

“She’s passed out in the car.”

“Get her out of here. I’ll deal with this guy.”

Ray pulled the dead cop off the trunk and dragged him to the van. For a skinny guy, Ray was strong, and Munns felt certain he would figure out a way to dispose of the body.

Munns drove away knowing he was in good hands.

54

Fight or flight.

Ray had never understood the meaning of the expression, until now.

He had murdered a cop. If that wasn’t bad enough, the cop’s broken body was lying on the floor of his van, bleeding on the carpet. He had to dispose of the body, and then he had to run. Ray didn’t know where he was going to go, and he supposed it really didn’t matter.

Just run.

Hanging around Pelham was a bad idea. The police would haul him and Munns in, and question them. Munns would squeal like a fat boy in a candy store, and point the finger at Ray. No fancy lawyer could save him. Ray would spend the rest of his life in the slammer.

Ray cursed the Order of Astrum. They had sent him down this path, and told him to make sure Munns got the girl no matter what. When Ray had driven past the train station and seen the cop about to arrest Munns, he’d lost his head, and crashed his van into the cruiser. Looking back, the smart thing would have been to let Munns take the fall, and not get involved. Ray knew that now, not that it was going to do him any good.

He navigated Pelham’s narrow roads while trying to keep to the speed limit. More criminals got busted speeding away from the scene of their crimes than just about anything else. So he kept it under thirty and fought to stay calm.

He thought about the places he might escape to. Canada seemed like a wise choice, or perhaps a remote town in Mexico. Let Munns take the heat for the dead cop.

He drove down a dead-end street on the outskirts of town. Pulled down a dirt road that was part of a wooded lot where nobody lived. Parked and got out to look around. Didn’t see a soul or hear anything that would suggest people nearby. A perfect spot to dump a corpse.

He lit a cigarette and filled his lungs with smoke. This whole damn thing was crazy. He’d let the elders kidnap his soul, and make him do things that he’d never dream of doing on his own. Before joining the Order of Astrum, he’d placed limits on the crimes he would commit. Not anymore. There were no limits to the depravity and suffering he’d been asked to be a part of.

He finished the cigarette and ground the butt into the dirt. Walked back to the van and saw a figure sitting in the passenger seat, waiting for him. Was it Munns? It was too dark to tell, and he fired up his lighter and held it with his arm outstretched.

It was the dead cop, come back to life.

Ray let out a savage yell.

The dead cop rolled down the passenger window and stuck his bloody head out. It was said that the eyes were the last thing to die. The dead cop’s eyes had died long ago, and all that was left now was the shell of the man inhabited by the most evil of spirits.

“Get in the van, Ray,” the dead cop said.

The dead cop’s voice had a British accent. One of the elders had inhabited his body.

“Nothing doing,” the tattoo artist stammered.

“Do as I say. There’s nowhere for you to run. Canada is terribly cold this time of year, Mexico is too far, and the police will eventually track you down. You need to stay here and finish the job. You made a promise, which we plan to hold you to. Get in the van.”

Ray thought he was going to lose it. Killing the cop had been bad enough. Talking to his dead corpse was worse. And he couldn’t imagine sitting next to it. Not on his life.

“I ain’t getting in that van with you,” he said.

The passenger door swung open and the dead cop piled out. His broken neck left his head sitting on his shoulder blade like a bowling ball, and Ray recoiled at the sight of him. He stood in front of Ray with his arms hanging limply at his sides.

“Do I repulse you?” the dead cop asked.

“That’s one way to put it,” Ray said.

“This is nothing, Ray. I can show you things that will twist your soul inside out, and make you wish that you had never been born. Would you like that?”

“No thanks.”

“Glad to hear it. Now, let me explain to you what the future holds. Munns is going back to his house with Rachael. The police will soon follow. Not long after that, a black FBI agent and Peter Warlock will appear. Warlock and Munns will square off, and fight to the death. We need the police and the FBI agent kept out of the way. That’s where you come in.”

“Me?”

“You own a hunting rifle with a telescopic lens, yes? Go get it, and perch yourself on the neighboring hill. Keep the police and the FBI at bay, while Munns and Warlock do battle. That doesn’t sound too hard, does it?”

“You’re nuts.”

“Are you afraid of being caught? Don’t be. We will whisk you away and give you a new life. You will become one of Dante’s disciples, and have powers beyond your wildest dreams. Doesn’t that sound good to you?”

“What kind of powers?”

“Prescience, incredible strength, the ability to live forever. Do those things excite you?”

Ray nodded, even though he didn’t know what prescience was.

“Would you like a taste?” the dead cop asked.

Ray nodded again, this time more enthusiastically.

“Step forward so I can touch you.”

Ray moved closer to the man he’d killed a short while ago. The dead cop lifted his arm and stuck his cold palm against Ray’s forehead. A sharp current passed between them, and Ray gasped as a bolt of white light illuminated the theater of his mind. The dead cop removed his palm and pointed at the forest. “Look. See for yourself.”

Ray gazed into the dense forest. Despite the darkness and abundance of trees, he was able to see a deer sleeping on the ground a hundred yards from where he stood. A raccoon came into the picture, followed by squirrels, chipmunks, and an overly large owl. The animals had been there all this time, only Ray hadn’t been able to see them, until now.

“You gave me night vision,” he said under his breath.

“Do you like it?” the dead cop asked.

“It’s way cool. Yeah, I like it a lot.”

“Good. Now go. There is more work to be done.”

The dead cop staggered into the forest. Ray nearly told him to stop. What was he supposed to do after Munns killed Warlock? And how was he supposed to meet up with Dante? The dead cop read his thoughts, and turned stiffly around.

“Everything will be revealed to you. Trust me.”

That was good enough for Ray. He watched the dead cop walk to a clearing. His body shuddered, and he dropped like a stone as the elder inhabiting his body abandoned him. Ray looked to the sky, imagining he could see the evil spirit floating overhead.

Then he went home to get his hunting rifle.

55

There was no such thing as a perfect show.

Every night, something went wrong in Peter’s performance of Anything’s Possible. Usually it was minor, like a cue being missed, or a prop malfunctioning. Rarely did it interfere with the audience’s enjoyment of the act. Most of the time, they hardly noticed.

But those mishaps rankled Peter no end. Details made perfection, but perfection was no detail, just a goal that could never be reached, only strived for.

Tonight’s mishap had taken place during the show’s opening. A puff of smoke had filled the center of the empty stage from which the young magician emerged. Stepping to the footlights, he engaged the audience with a brief introduction. When he finished, the lights were raised to reveal a stage filled with gorgeous props that had materialized out of nowhere. The trick never failed to garner a gasp of astonishment, followed by a sustained burst of applause.

Except tonight.

Tonight, there had been no gasp, and the applause had been polite. The audience had been given a clue to how the trick worked, just enough to spoil the illusion.

The trick’s secret was based upon the lazy Susan principle. The stage was actually two stages. One of these stages was bare, the other filled with props. The stages were secretly rotated while Peter gave his opening speech, which was enough of a distraction to keep the audience in the dark. Only tonight a squeaky gear beneath the stage had given the secret away. It had told the audience that something was going on, and spoiled the illusion.

Peter was furious. At the show’s end, he went beneath the stage to fix the squeaky gear. Liza held a flashlight while he squirted WD-40 lubricant onto the culprit.

He heard footsteps too large to be Snoop. Liza heard them, too.

“Who’s that?” she whispered.

“Beats me. Can I help you?”

“Garrison, FBI,” a familiar voice called out. “I need to talk with you.”

They crawled out from beneath the stage to find Garrison by the stairwell. He was smiling, always a good sign. “We found the son of a bitch,” he announced.

Liza squealed with delight and hugged Peter. The news made everything Peter had gone through the past few days through seem bearable. Now the shadow people would stop harassing him and his friends, and he could get on with his life.

“Your information was all good. His name is Harold Munns, and he lives in the village of Pelham where he works as a janitor at the local community college,” Garrison went on. “I spoke to the Pelham police chief, and he knew exactly who I was talking about. The chief said Munns had a history of problems dating back to childhood. The things I told him weren’t a surprise.”

“Have the police arrested him?” Peter asked.

“They’re scouring the town for him. Sent a pair of cruisers to his house, and another cruiser to the train station to see if he was there.”

“So they’re all over it.”

“They most certainly are. Now here’s the funny part. I explained to the chief how we used a psychic to track Munns down. The chief didn’t sound terribly surprised. Seems he used a psychic to find a missing kid, and the case had a happy ending.”

“So he’s a believer.”

“A true-blue believer. He expects to catch Munns tonight and haul him in. He asked if you’d drive up to Pelham with me, and feed him any details about the case that you uncovered during your trips to the other side. He really wants your help.”

The exhaustion of the past few days had caught up to Peter, and he wanted nothing more than to go home with Liza, share a hot bath, and watch a scary zombie flick. Sensing his hesitation, Garrison put his hand on the young magician’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to come, but it would be a huge help if you did.”

“Right now?” Peter asked wearily.

“Afraid so. I’ll drive. You can sit in the passenger seat and sleep on the way up.”

Peter looked at Liza. “You cool with going home by yourself?”

“Not really. How about I come with you?” she said.

“You sure?”

“Positive. We’re a team, remember?”

His whole life he’d been facing the unknown by himself. He hadn’t minded, but it had gotten lonely at times. Having Liza by his side was going to make his life a lot nicer. To Garrison he said, “Give me five minutes to get out of these clothes.”

“I’ll be waiting outside in the car,” the FBI agent replied.

Peter went to change. Opening the door to his dressing room, a cry escaped his lips. The room was trashed, his props and clothing scattered across the floor.

He’d been burglarized. It happened all the time in New York. The question was, how had the burglar gotten in? Certainly not through any of the theater’s entrances. There were only two, the front and the back, and they were watched 24/7 by surveillance cameras.

That left the window in his dressing room. It would have been hard, considering the room was on the second floor and there was no fire escape, but burglars were a resourceful lot, and would go to any means to enter a building if there was something worth stealing.

He went to the window to check the latch. To his surprise, it hadn’t been touched. So how had the burglar gotten in? He pulled out his cell phone, planning to call Snoop and ask him to check the surveillance videos, when a movement stopped him cold. A curling wisp of black smoke was seeping out of a crack plaster in the wall. Before his eyes it took shape. He had seen the shadow people enough times to differentiate them by their sizes. It was the same shadow person who’d dropped her antique watch into his hands a few nights ago, Barbara Metcalf.

“What have I done to upset you now?” he asked.

No response.

“You know that I’m trying to help you, don’t you?”

Nothing.

“I’m going to Pelham to track down Munns. That’s what you want from me, isn’t it? To stop this crazy guy before he kills Rachael.”

Still nothing.

“I’m getting tired of you messing with me,” he blurted out.

She made an angry squeal. Across the room, five black wisps came out of their hiding place to join her. They swarmed around Peter like a hive of angry bees, threw him into the chair in front of his dressing table, and held him down.

“Cut it out!” he protested.

A pair of scissors on his dressing table were crawling toward him, its blades snapping like an alligator’s jaws. His left hand was pinned to the table; as he watched, the shadow person that was Barbara Metcalf began to snip off the tip of his left forefinger.

“Not my hand,” he howled.

The scissors were dull, and it took tremendous effort to break the skin and cut into the bone. Before his disbelieving eyes, the tip of his finger fell to the table. Bright red blood spurted from the wound, and he struggled not to pass out.

“Peter, let me in,” Liza shouted through the door.

“They’re back,” he gasped.

“What are they doing to you?”

“Bad stuff.”

“Tell me!”

“Cutting off my finger…”

Metcalf wasn’t done with him. Grabbing his hand, she brought his bleeding finger up to the three-way mirror on his dressing table, and used his blood to write a message. Peter thought he would be sick, and shut his eyes. The next thing he knew, Liza was standing beside him, shaking his arm with both his hands.

“Peter-don’t let them kidnap you!”

His eyes snapped open. The dressing room was back to normal, all the broken furniture and scattered things returned to their rightful places. It had all been a trick of the mind.

He stared at his severed finger. It had miraculously healed itself. No blood, no missing tip, he flexed it several times, found it in good working order.

Liza knelt beside him. “Oh, God, are you okay?”

“I think so.”

One thing hadn’t gone away. His dressing mirror was smeared with blood. He leaned forward to make out the single word left behind as a memento:

HURRY

Grabbing Liza by the arm, he ran from the dressing room.