CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The old house smelled of mothballs and disinfectant and something else. Mrs. Willis had failed to answer the door. Padraic O’Connor forced it open and entered, his anxiety growing as he walked further back into the stifling atmosphere of the old lady’s house.

An ungodly smell came from the kitchen. O’Connor recognized the unmistakable odor of death.

He found Mrs. Willis facedown on the linoleum floor, stretched out stiff and cold. She’d been dead for several days. He looked around and saw that the ancient texts were still spread out on her kitchen table, the pen still clutched in her skeletal hand.

She’d been working on the final translation when she died. Her handwriting was nearly illegible, but O’Connor could see the columns of Gaelic phrases and their English translations.

He studied the words, trying not to breathe through his nose. He gathered all the papers on the table and stuffed them in a folder.

He couldn’t escape the oppressive biosphere of the old lady’s house fast enough. As he hurried through the living room to the door, he happened to glance at the old lady’s menagerie and noticed something strange—all the glass figurines of animals were shattered. They hadn’t fallen off their shelves or been smashed; they stood exactly where they had always been, each one shattered individually in place.

He looked closer and saw that many of the tiny glass legs still seemed to be standing at attention, but the rest of the animals were disintegrated.

O’Connor shivered when he saw those shards of glass.

Only sound waves could have destroyed them so cleanly, he thought. Another aspect of the Banshee? Has she been here?

O’Connor hurried back to his hotel room and placed all the materials he’d gathered on the bed. The time had come to pull together all the phases of his plan.

The time is now.

He carefully unwrapped the metal cylinder and two human skins.

On the streets, later that day, Padraic O’Connor was relentless. He heated up his karmic poker and burned a hole in the side of New York big enough to crawl through. Driven by a new level of apprehension since discovering the old lady dead, he had became obsessed with finding Bobby.

O’Connor had visited three band rehearsal facilities before he found this one, the one with the ska music coming out of the filthy glass warehouse windows. The speeded-up reggae tempo caught his ear like a razor.

He smiled. This one could be it.

It was a huge building, almost half the block, made of old brick, divided into a warren of studios. The entrance stood crowded with scruffy musicians, smoking and drinking beer. O’Connor decided to check the rear. He found a locked metal door and a loading dock facing a garbage-strewn alley. He was about to leave when the loading dock opened.

The corrugated garage door raised with a metallic clatter and a man as big as O’Connor stepped out. He stopped when he saw O’Connor.

“What are you doin’ there?” he said menacingly.

O’Connor stepped forward. “I’m lookin’ for somebody.”

“You a cop?”

O’Connor shook his head and took another step. He moved like a cat, light for person of his size, up on the balls of his feet as a dancer would.

The man he was talking to had a Mohawk haircut and two muscular arms covered with tattoos. The shaven sides of his scalp rippled as he addressed O’Connor. “This is private property, man. You’re trespassing. You can avoid trouble by leaving now.”

“I’m lookin’ for somebody,” O’Connor said again.

“Hey, man! I’m not gonna tell you again! Get the fuck outta here!”

O’Connor smiled. Mohawk came forward.

“I’m lookin’ for a guy named Bobby Sudden.”

Mohawk came threateningly close and poked his finger sharply into O’Connor’s chest. “OK, last time, asshole. Move it!”

O’Connor casually raised his hand and grasped the offensive finger. He expertly bent it back until it cracked. Mohawk shouted and brought his other arm up, fisted and ready. O’Connor pushed the elbow of the arm attached to the finger he had just broken into the man’s face. As he did this he pivoted, drawing Mohawk down in a swift circular motion.

O’Connor’s attacker went down hard, uttering a short profanity as the breath went out of him on impact.

In one smooth motion, O’Connor pulled Mohawk’s arm back and inserted his thumb on the small fleshy pad between Mohawk’s thumb and first finger on the outside of his wrist. He twisted the hand back into his body and applied pressure.

Mohawk tried to roll onto his side, but O’Connor countered. With a grunt he screwed Mohawk’s arm 360 degrees counterclockwise. This time the sound was more like that of branches breaking on a dead tree.

Mohawk screamed, blocking out the satisfying crunch of breaking bones to O’Connor’s ears.

The Irishman leaned over and spoke quietly, directly into the side of Mohawk’s agonized face. “I just broke your arm in three places and your wrist in two, and I’ve only just started. Do you understand?”

Mohawk nodded, wincing back all manner of tortured sounds.

“I said I was looking for somebody. I think you know who it is. Now where is he?”

“I don’t know,” barked Mohawk through the pain.

O’Connor’s voice rose in anger. “Don’t piss me off!”

He twisted again; there were a few more sounds like rubber bands snapping; then Mohawk began to shriek.

“You broke my fuckin’ arm! You broke my fuckin’ arm!”

“Shut up!” O’Connor put his foot on the man’s neck and pressed down. “I’ll take the cracked bone and shove it up your ass.”

“No! Please … don’t! I’ll talk. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Somewhere, a few blocks away, a car alarm went off. O’Connor looked up and down the alley.

“I’m not convinced. I’ll have to do some more damage. You see, what I want from you is your undivided attention. The only way to get it is with pain. Lots and lots of pain.”

“No! Please, I’ll tell you anything! Just let go!”

O’Connor released Mohawk, who rolled over in pain, whimpering like a child.

“All right, let’s try again. I’m looking for Bobby Sudden. I have reason to believe he rents a studio here. Which studio is it?”

Mohawk looked on the verge of passing out. “Bobby’s in the secret studio in the back, last room in the corner. There’s a black dog painted on the door.”

O’Connor picked up Mohawk by his pants and heaved him into the dumpster, where he collapsed among the garbage. The physical exhilaration of the violence had invigorated O’Connor. He’d been fallow too long. He believed a warrior must fight to remain himself.

Padraic entered the building stealthily, threading his way down the corridors, past the doors behind which thrashing rock bands of every description played at deafening volume. As he approached the corner, he heard a ska band playing louder. O’Connor’s face tightened.

The door with the black dog painted on it was at the end.