Knocking.
Ugh . . .
More knocking. Harder this time.
Then again. Over and over and over and over.
“Fuck off already!” I called without opening my eyes.
My fucking flat was turning into fucking Grand Central. Fucking hell.
Samir pushed in. Abdul’s son. My eyes were still shut. I couldn’t see him. But my nose caught a whiff of woody cologne.
“What did you do to my door?” he asked.
I tried sitting up but failed the first time and had to push harder than I expected to make it. It felt like my chest was made of lead, not just heavy but unyielding. It dawned on me then that Bouncerman might’ve cracked a rib.
“Ow.” I opened one eye and winced.
“Does this have anything to do with yesterday?”
“Yesterday?” Fuck. “What time is it?” I looked around for a clock.
“Yeah. Yesterday. You know, the day before today. Mom mentioned it. She saw you on the street through the upstairs window. She said she came down later to check on you but you never answered the door.” He looked at me disapprovingly. He leaned closer and did the same. “Have you seen your face?”
I touched my eye.
“Ow.” It was still tender.
I got up and went to the bathroom and whistled at myself. I got me good. I had a swollen nose and a nice, fat bruise around my eye.
“Shit.”
“Cerise, what’s going on?”
“It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Fine? You look like the frickin’ Bud Light dog. Who hit you?”
“Just some asshole in over her head.”
He shook his. “Whatever. I don’t even know why I asked.”
He turned in a hurry and accidentally kicked my book, the one I had stolen from Bastien. It slid and he picked it up.
“What’s this?”
“It’s called a book. It holds words so you can see them over and over any time you want.”
“Someone’s a bitch today.” He tossed the book on the couch. “I gotta open the shop. Mom and Dad are at immigration, remember?”
“Shit . . .”
“Yeeeeeah. That was you. They called me when you were AWOL. Thanks for that, by the way. Totally had this chick on the line.”
“No, you didn’t,” I called to him as he walked down the stairs. “You were playing Xbox.”
“Fuck you!” he called back.
“Hey wait!”
I got up and ran to the door, but I was woozy and almost fell. He watched me feel my way along the wall from the bottom of the stairs.
“Did your mom mention seeing a guy? Bald, wearing a funny coat?”
“A coat?” he asked. “It was like 80 yesterday.”
“Dude . . . It wasn’t my coat.”
He shook his head. “No. She just said she came to check on you and you didn’t answer the door.”
Daria was probably the only person in the world who wouldn’t just walk right in.
Samir headed toward the store. I heard his keys jingling. “Fix my damn door!”
I grabbed my head. “What did he do to me?”
I plopped on the couch again and landed awkwardly on the book. I pulled it out from under me. It was Bastien’s, the one with the ornate cover. I had slipped it into my handbag while sliding around on the bus floor. I opened it and something fell out—another tarot card. I could tell by the design on the back. But it was from a different deck, a modern deck. I picked it up and turned it over.
The Devil. A naked man and woman stood on either side of a heavy stone, chained by their necks to a ring at its center. Standing over them on the stone was the Great Horned Beast. Bat wings stretched from his back. An upside-down pentagram was carved on his chest. I think he was using it as a bookmark, but having fallen, I didn’t know what it was marking.
“Crap.”
I opened the book and read the title. “The Compendium of Lesser Travesties.” I laughed. “Wow, someone wrote my biography.”
It had an elaborate frontispiece and a red ink stamp on the facing page, like something from a library.
THE BARROWS
NEW AMSTERDAM
Directly above it was a blind stamp—raised letters pressed into the page, sort of like embossing. It was three times larger than the print and said:
THIS BOOK WAS STOLEN
RETURN IMMEDIATELY TO:
Under it was a simple map that marked an underground shopping arcade just off 46th.
I turned to the index. Sure enough, there was an entry for SACRED MARRIAGE. I found the page and verified that it was the same book Lily had photocopied. She’d been looking for something. But what? I flipped through the book, looking for dog ears or underlined passages. Instead, I found a missing page near the front. It had been torn out. There was no table of contents, but the entries were alphabetical, which made it easy enough to find the missing section in the index: ATHAME.
I lifted the Devil card again. The old goat-headed Scratch stood there with the naked man and woman chained before him. They looked like they wanted to screw each other, despite their bonds. The devil looked straight out at the viewer wearing a douchebro smirk. Same as Luke’s.
Something bad was gonna happen.
I just didn’t know what.
Whatever it was, it seemed certain Luke Rottheim wasn’t trying to save his baby, or his ex from herself. If there had been doubt before, now it was gone. Still, Lily Ann Sobriecki was a complete stranger to me. I felt bad, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to risk my life for her. What could I even do?
My drawings were scattered on the floor from where I had dumped them, and I saw Kai’s face in colored pencil. I laid down next to it.
“I need your advice,” I said to him, looking at the ceiling. “You were always good at that. Very reasonable. You told me going to New York was a mistake.” I paused. I almost didn’t say the words out loud: “You were right.”
Apparently, I fell asleep again, because the next thing I remember is Silkie nudging me with his foot.
“Come on, wake up.”
I groaned and turned to the side. My head still hurt. Maybe the chef was right. Maybe I did have a concussion.
The sun had moved and I covered my eyes. “Go away.”
“Your girl’s in trouble,” Silkie said on his way to the kitchenette.
“Yeah, well, we kinda guessed that.”
I heard the fridge open.
“That milk’s turned,” I said.
But he was already drinking it from the carton.
“I mean BIG trouble,” he said between gulps. “You gotta count me outta this one.”
I lifted my head. “Seriously?”
I’d never seen Silkie afraid of anything.
“Word is, she stole something from that club. Something spensive.”
“A dagger,” I said.
“Like a knife?” He took another swig. Then he scowled at the carton from under his thick glasses. “This milk’s gone bad.”
“More like a ceremonial blade. Antique. Her boyfriend’s a fence. His place was full of stolen shit. I don’t think he knew how to move it.”
“Yeah, well, some folks want it back real bad, and they’re willing to kill.”
“They’re running,” I said softly.
“Yeah, well, they ain’t gonna get far. Tellin you, only a matter a time. Everyone and their uncle is lookin.”
“We knew that already.”
“Naw, I mean everyone. Hoods I talked to had already been hit up. Some had been beat. Some . . .” He shook his head.
“What?”
“I don’t even know what they done. But there’s a army a guys turnin every damn stone in town. It’s not safe to keep asking questions.”
“So that’s it?” I demanded. “A little push back and you hide?”
He scoffed loudly. “Don’t even gimme that. What you know about this shit, Cerise? You a art school dropout. Yeah, you partied a bit. Then what? What you doin now?”
It was a fair question. I covered my eyes with both hands, ostensibly to block the sun.
Luke was right. I was hiding—waiting to get deported. Go home and face the music. I knew I had to eventually. But I was doing everything I could to avoid it.
Almost like I’d rather die.
Silkie tossed the empty milk carton in the bin I used for recycling and walked over to hand me something. “Here. Clear your head.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you ain’t.”
“What do you care?”
“Ain’t your job to find this girl.” He nudged me with his hand. “Upsy-daisy.”
I groaned and did as he asked. He handed me something. I thought it was a round tablet, like a chewable vitamin, but it wasn’t. It was grainy and bitter, and I made a face.
“Oh. Crap.” My eyes were watering. “Water?”
“Over there.” He pointed to the sink.
He had poured me a glass but left it on the counter.
“You couldn’t bring it?”
He ignored me and walked to the radiator, where he removed the loose panel at the back and took hundreds from the stash.
I gulped the entire glass. It was tap water and tasted terrible—and also delicious. I drained it.
Silkie folded the bills, his payment, and held them inside his track suit pocket. He walked to the fire escape and waited for me to say something.
“So, that’s it?” was all I came up with.
“Leave this one alone, Cerise. This ain’t like rescuing some dog. You can’t win against these guys.” He motioned to my face. “You already got hurt. What you think is gonna happen next time? Huh?”
He made a gun with his fingers and shot me dramatically.
“Why do you keep coming here?” I asked.
“What you mean?”
“I mean, you’re always in my place. In my shit. Why? Am I like your little pet project or something?”
He shrugged. “Guess I felt bad.”
I returned the glass to the counter. “I don’t need your pity.”
“You a good person, Cerise. Shit, maybe the best person I know. Maybe you don’t see it. I don’t know what you runnin from. But fixin this girl’s problems ain’t gonna fix yours. Maybe it’s time you went home. You got the money. Just go.”
He stepped out the window.
“Ain’t no shame in takin care’a yoself.”
Then he shut it behind him.
I walked over to lock it and saw the Compendium on the floor. I opened to the front and looked at the map again.
RETURN IMMEDIATELY TO: