TAMARA FELT THE MEMORIES in her mind shuffling and reshuffling, loud and obnoxious, like music so loud that you couldn’t understand what you were hearing anymore.
The creature from the mirror had come back.
Writhing on the ground, she clutched at the side of her head with one hand while reaching out for mercy with the other. On some level she knew this was futile, that the last thing in the world that this evil thing with no face and long, wicked fingers would ever give her was mercy. But she felt like her mind was just going to collapse, like a poorly built house. As if to prove this notion, one support beam was already giving way: her consciousness. The cave was spinning and the internal night of sleep, wanted or otherwise, was overcoming her.
“Stop. Please,” she mumbled faintly.
Again, the voice of dead dreams and lost hope came to her. “Deny Him,” it said, “and it will all stop.”
On her knees now, only her upper body could sway, and that it did, first to the right, then a bit backwards. “What?” she said weakly. The mental doors in her brain flew open, and sad moments began to spill out: there was the time she had wetted herself on a hike into the back country, and the time she had planted an entire section of corn wrong in Bolivia and covered up her mistake, even though she knew that meant she was damaging a quarter of the crop and people would go a little hungry because of it that winter, and the time she’d kissed Timmy Burcher, a pastor’s son from Idaho, behind her parents’ camp tent in the middle of the night, and the time she’d given herself to a dark, handsome man on a drunken night in Mazatlán on a college trip, because she wanted to know, had to know, needed to know, what that felt like. Just once. Only one time.
“Deny Him. Deny Him now. It’s that simple.”
The darkness and dizziness pushed down on her. Pitching forwards, about to pass out completely, she thrust her left hand out to stop herself, fighting back one last time. “Who? Deny…”
Then it was clear, very clear, who he was talking about.
Of course. She should’ve known. This wasn’t a creature. Not at all.
“You’re the devil,” she said.
It chuckled, the sound not unlike charcoal briquettes when poured out of the bag, a flat sound, like muted stones knocking together. “One of many,” it replied, “but not the one of which you speak.”
“Leave me alone. Get away from me,” Tamara cried. In her mind she was scurrying backwards from it, to a corner somewhere in the cave. In reality her eyes were telling her she’d barely moved. Righting herself momentarily, she felt the spinning of the room increase. More memories. Of Ben now. Of what she’d almost done. Then the mental pictures blurred and changed to the time when Janie was a baby and wouldn’t go to sleep, all night, crying and crying, until Tamara couldn’t take it anymore and gave her Benadryl to knock her out. And how then Tamara still didn’t sleep, because she was afraid she’d given her too much and Janie might stop breathing and never wake up.
The demon stood and waved at the cave walls, all the faces there like stone-encased prisoners, writhing in agony, eyes bulging, mouths falling open to scream into the emptiness of the cave, to add their sound to the screaming memories in her brain, taking her pain to a place that was miles past anything humanly tolerable. “Deny Him,” he said again.
The world melted. The cave became a haze of browns and black. So this was it: her time to testify, to stand for her faith or to cast it aside as false. He wanted her belief. Anchored within her and connected to a point on an eternal horizon, it was something she lived for beyond the pleasures and distractions of this life—or perhaps in spite of them, because the opposite of pleasure was pain, and the real cause of distraction was almost always vicious little hurts. All she had to do now, to end this, to save herself, was to deny her Lord and Savior.
For Tamara Fasano it was the easiest decision of her life. “Deny Him? Never,” she said. “Ever.”
She fell forwards, turning her face sideways so that her cheek and not her nose bounced against the cave floor. It was cold and hard. Pain cracked in her temple, throbbing just hard enough to mercifully make her forget about the pain in her mind.
The faces in the walls began to scream in rage. She looked up at the fearful figure as he approached, his black leather trench coat from another time dragging along the ground in heavy strokes and painting the dusty cave floor in lazy swaths, his black boots, tall toed and with silver buckles, were covered in gristle, as if he’d been walking over dead things before this visit, or had walked over them to get here.
Her eyelids were growing heavy as the creature raised the lantern. She waited for fire to erupt from it, or for one of its small doors, framed in worn brass, to fly open and for a snake to slither out. After a moment, when none of this happened, it occurred to her that it would be nothing that fancy, her death. It would be cruel and crude; he was going to beat her to death with the lantern. He was going to cave in her skull with it.
“You simple, believing little whore,” he said. “I’m so happy that I will be here, in person, to capture your soul, forever, when it tries to leave. You. Here. In my lantern. Forever.”
His laughter was full bellied. “My newest pet,” he said, swinging the lantern upwards. “My… little… angel.”
The lantern was on the downward swing towards her head when Tamara noticed a pinhole of blue light in the cave that swiftly widened, first by a few feet, then by a lot more. Powerful and warm, it seemed to pour into the cave and ricochet in all directions, immediately rendering all the faces mute, some of them peeling of the wall in blown off bits of flesh, others melting like lava.
The creature with no face was bringing the lantern down right at her head and Tamara was almost ready to close her eyes for her end, when she saw it: a piercing, narrow blue beam, that carved a hole right through the left shoulder of the demon towering over her.
Tamara had no idea that she could take such pleasure in the pain of another thing. But when the demon screamed, she did.
Bewildered by what was happening, she thought for sure that it was The Gray Angel, come to save her again. It had to be.
When he walked through the light, his silhouette that of hope and salvation, the demon screamed in rage and spun to face him.
“You don’t stand a chance,” Tamara said, deliriously.
“Fuck you, bitch,” the creature shouted over its shoulder.
The light subsided to a blue glow. “Get away from her,” The Gray Angel said. Except his voice sounded different. Different and yet familiar.
“You’re not ready, heaven spawn,” the creature said in reply, the lantern in its hand beginning to hum with power. “I will kill you for daring to touch me, but I will tear this slut to pieces right in front of you before I do.”
The silhouette moved with blinding speed, shifting like a chess piece in all directions. When he came to a stop Tamara saw that The Gray Angel had no hat this time. And no suit.
He grabbed the demon’s left hand, the one holding the lantern, and held it firm, a blue snap of lightening making them both scream as the powers within them, of good and evil, grasped outward and gripped one another.
But now the man was no longer a silhouette, and Tamara could see that it wasn’t The Gray Angel.
It was Kyle.
“Oh my God,” Tamara said, her eyes filling with wonder and amazement.
Her husband waved his right hand in her direction and the world went into a rainbow of rushing lines and bursting wind. She was in some sort of bubble, iridescent and fragile—like the kinds kids blow out of wands on warm, summer days—and it was transporting her out of the cave and across the desert sky.
“No! Kyle? No!” she screamed.
But it was too late. The cave mouth was a slowly disappearing dot in the distance.
“No!” she screamed out in frustration. “Kyle. Why? Why?”
She’d finally found him.
And he’d sent her away.
“Detective Parker?” It was Trudy’s desperate voice. “Where are you going?”
She had bull-rushed past Klink and out onto the balcony, where she now gripped at the guardrail. The cops froze for a second before Murillo motioned for everyone to get going. Parker looked at Trudy, up there on the balcony, and noticed her, really noticed her, for the first time. Even though she was wearing a faded Aeropostale baseball cap over her red hair, which poked out in all directions, no makeup—or little makeup, he’d never been able to completely tell with women—eyes all fierce and defiant, he noticed that she was simply the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Trudy, I have to—”
“No! You can’t leave us. You can’t leave me and the kids!” Her voice was firm, almost commanding. Klink tried to grab ahold of her but she escaped his grasp. Making her way down the walkway to the stairs, she encountered one of the two uniform cops who had just been sent there by Murillo. He froze and looked down at Parker.
“Let her pass,” Parker said with a sigh.
“You got one minute while I go get the car,” Murillo said.
She came down the stairs in a rush. Her tennis shoes were newish, and they squeaked a bit against the sealant on the steps. “Are you crazy?” she said, walking up to him and punching in the chest.
Parker recoiled a bit and put up his hands. “Hey. Take it easy.”
“Take it easy? Are you fucking kidding me?” The Irish was up in her now; her eyes were watery, but her face was flushing red with anger and her freckles were disappearing by the second. “After what’s happened here? You trust us to anyone else?”
“Not anyone, no. But Klink up there? You bet. And there’s a lot of other good cops here too.”
“And I don’t know any of them.”
“Trudy, you barely even know me.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, clenching her teeth.
“Listen—”
“You’ve gotten us this far. You’re supposed to protect us.”
Parker met her gaze and directed it to the body on the parking lot, covered with a sheet, barely twenty feet away. “Seems to me like you’ve done a fine job with the whole protecting thing.”
He’d noticed that she hadn’t looked in that direction the whole way down. But glancing that way now seemed to push her over the edge. “Jesus Christ!” she said, beginning to cry as she brought both of her hands up to cover her face. “I killed someone, Parker. Oh my God!”
She was only a few feet away, and she fell straight into him. Hugging her, he squeezed tighter than he normally would because, truth be told, he felt like falling too. “You had to. He gave you no choice, Trudy.”
“Maybe I coulda shot to wound him or something.”
“No. You didn’t have time to think, and besides, you knew full well he wasn’t coming in just to wound you or the kids. He was coming to kill.”
She was quiet for a second as the breeze moved a wisp of hair over her cheek and then back up to her ear before Parker had a chance to brush it back for her. “You shoulda seen his eyes, Parker,” she said, putting her hands on his chest. “They weren’t… human.”
Parker simply nodded.
“Does that make me crazy? Am I crazy that I said that?”
“No. You’re not.”
“Then tell me what’s next, I mean—”
Murillo’s tires squealed as he pulled around a car that had partially blocked him in.
“I can’t tell you that right now. But I will. I promise, okay?”
He tried to pull away but she clutched at him and wouldn’t let go. “Where are you going?”
Grabbing her gently at the elbows, he looked deep into her eyes. “Trudy. Please. Napoleon is in very real danger. I need to get to him. Now.”
She let go of him and stepped back. “Okay,” she said, wiping the tears from her face. “But you come back, or I swear, I’ll kick your ass.”
Parker nodded, gave a faint smile and turned to get into Murillo’s car.
He noticed it immediately. The very act of turning his back on her. It hurt.
“We’re about five minutes away after we light it up, so let’s go!” Murillo barked, snapping Parker out of it.
“Thanks, Murillo,” Parker said softly as he got into the unmarked gray sedan and buckled his seatbelt.
“Don’t thank me for shit,” Murillo said angrily. They pulled out onto the street with two black and whites trailing behind them.
Again Parker felt another jab. But this one brought a little bit of fear. “We gotta hurry, Murillo.”
“Oh, man,” Murillo said, shaking his head angrily. But he floored it as requested. The V8 of the Crown Victoria roared to life as Murillo turned on the sirens. A second or two later the black and whites behind them did the same. Good, Parker thought, Nap needs to know we’re coming. The cholos needed to know it too. C’mon Nap. The calvary’s coming, man. Hang in there.
“Murillo, listen…”
“No, Parker. You listen. You were new to the precinct when all this shit started, so I was willing to cut you some slack. But no more. You haven’t been straight with us from the time we picked you up in Monterey, and I still don’t think you’re being straight with us now.”
“I was trying to protect—”
“Protect who? Those kids back in that room? Who almost got killed?”
“I thought—”
“Or maybe their mother, Tamara Fasano? Were you protecting her too, Parker? Tell me, how’s all this shit’s working out for you?”
Parker looked wearily out the passenger window as the city blocks sped by, a random pedestrian reduced to a blotch of clothing and color.
“And now? Even your partner may be fucked to shit because you didn’t want to tell us… right when we pulled up today… that he was alive and off to do some dirty work in the park!”
“We both shoulda—”
“No. Leave Nap out of it. He owns his own shit on this. You own yours. So tell me: what are you hiding from me still? Cause I got a wife and kids at home, Parker, and I’d like to go home to them, you know?”
“You’re gonna think I’m out of my damn mind, Murillo.”
“Try me.”
Parker took a breath. “Nap’s sister, she’s connected. Cuarto Flats, I think. Or Evergreen. I can’t remember. Anyway. She’s already sent some help to the park—”
“What?” Murillo’s rage was peaking. “Great. Again, I have to ask: how many?”
“I don’t know.”
Murillo grabbed the radio instantly and spoke into it. “Lincoln 10, requesting multiple units at Evergreen Park for possible armed gang activity.” He hesitated for a second before taking the situation up ten levels. “Officer involved. Repeat. Officer involved.”
Parker set his teeth. That was going to bring a veritable army of uniforms into Boyle Heights.
The dispatcher confirmed the request and before long the bark of her voice broke over the radio. “All units in the vicinity of Evergreen Park. Immediate assistance requested. Officer involved in situation with armed gang members.”
The radio began squawking madly as one unit after another confirmed their intent to head to the park.
Parker sighed.
It was just like in the war.
When one brother was in trouble, the other brothers came.
Often with a vengeance.