The Last Days p-2 Read online

  When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see my face. It wasn’t just that I was thinner, cheekbones twisting at new angles, eyes widening—it was something deeper, pushing up from beneath my skin, remote and contemptuous of me.

  As if someone else’s bones were trying to emerge.

  The crazy thing was, part of me was dying to know what I was changing into. Sometimes I just wanted to get it over with, to let go and slip across the edge. I’d almost said yes tonight when Pearl had asked me to the Morgan’s Army gig, wondering what hundreds of bodies pressed in close would do to my hunger, already halfway to uncontrollable. I imagined their scents filling the air, the crowd noise mingling with the roar inside me…

  But not yet—not without Min. In her arms, I still felt like myself. Besides, I had plenty more to learn down here, playing for quarters underground.

  A woman was watching me, listening carefully, clutching her purse with both hands. She wasn’t sure yet whether to open it and reach in, risking that extra tendril of connection with the strange boy playing guitar in the subway. But she couldn’t pull herself away.

  Union Square Station was almost empty at this hour, my music echoing around us. The red velvet of my guitar case was spattered with silver, and more coins lay on the concrete floor. All night, people had thrown their quarters from a distance and moved on. Even through dark glasses they could see the intensity leaking out of my eyes. They could smell my hunger.

  But this woman stood there, spellbound.

  I’d always wondered if charisma was something in your genes, like brown eyes or big feet. Or if you learned it from the sound of applause or cameras snapping. Or if famous people glowed because I’d seen so many airbrushed pictures of them, their beauty slammed into my brain, like advertising jingles with faces.

  But it had turned out that charisma was a disease, an infection you got from kissing the right person, a beast that lived in your blood. Connecting with this woman, drawing her closer, I could feel how I’d been magnetized.

  She took a step forward, fingers tensing on the purse clasp. It popped open.

  I didn’t dare stare back into her spellbound eyes. There were no police down here anymore, not late at night. No one to stop me if I lost it.

  Her fingers fumbled inside the purse, eyes never leaving me. She stepped closer, and a five-dollar bill fluttered down to lie among the coins. A glance at her pleading expression told me that she was paying for escape.

  I stopped playing, reaching into a pocket for my plastic bag of garlic. The spell broken, the woman turned and headed for the stairs, the last strains of the Strat echoing into silence. She didn’t look back, her steps growing hurried as she climbed away.

  Something twisted inside me, angry at me for letting her go. I could feel it wrapped around my spine, growing stronger every day. Its tendrils stretched into my mouth, changing the way things tasted, making my teeth itch. The urge to follow the woman was so strong…

  I put the plastic bag to my face and breathed in the scent of fresh garlic, burning away the noises in my head, smoothing the rushing of my blood.

  Min had given me the bag for emergencies, but I used it all the time now. I’d even tried to make Luz’s disgusting mandrake tea, which Mom said stank up the apartment. Nothing soothed the beast like meat, though, and nothing—not even Min—tasted as good. Raw steak was best, but there was a shortage these days, the price climbing higher all the time, and plain hamburger ripped out of the plastic still fridge-cold was almost as wonderful.

  I stood there inhaling garlic, listening.

  Min was right—you could learn things down here. Secrets were hidden in New York’s rhythms, its shifts of mood, the blood flow of its water mains. Its hissing steam pipes and the stirrings of rats and wild felines all rattled with infection, like a huge version of the illness inside my body.

  My hearing could bend around corners now, sharper every day, filling my head with echoes. I could hear our music so much better, could almost see the beast that Minerva called to when she sang.

  And I knew it was down here, somewhere… ready to teach me things.

  A little after eleven-thirty, its scent came and found me.

  The smell was drifting up from below, carried on the stale, soft breeze of passing trains. I remembered it from that first night I’d gone out to Brooklyn, when Minerva had led me down the tracks and pushed me into that broken section of tunnel; the scent made me angry and horny and hungry, all at once.

  Then I heard something, a low and shuddering note, more subtle than any subway passing underfoot. Like when Minerva made the floor rumble beneath us as we played.

  I scooped up the glittering change and stuffed it into my pockets, shut the Stratocaster safely into its case, snatched up the little battery-powered amplifier. By then the smell had faded, pulled away by the random winds of the subway, and I stood there uncertainly for a moment. Union Square sprawled around me, a warren of turnstiles and token booths and stairways down to half the subway lines in the city.

  I half closed my eyes and walked slowly through the station, catching whiffs of perfume and piss, the bright metal tang of disinfectant, the blood-scent of rust everywhere. Finally, another dizzying gust welled up from the stairs leading down to the F train. Of course.

  F for fool, I thought. Or feculent.

  Downstairs the platform was empty, silent except for the skitter of rats on the tracks. The push-pull wind of distant trains stirred loose bits of paper and kept the scent swirling around me, the way the world spins when you’ve had too much beer.

  I pulled off my dark glasses and stared into the tunnel depths.

  Nothing but blackness.

  But from the uptown direction came the faintest sound.

  Walking toward that end of the platform, a cluster of new smells hit me: antiperspirant and freshly opened cigarettes, foot powder and the chemical sting of dry-cleaned clothing…

  Someone was hiding behind the last steel column on the platform, breathing nervously, aware of me. Just another late-night traveler scared to be down here.

  But from the tunnel beyond, the other scent was calling.

  I took another step, letting the man see me. He wore a subway worker’s uniform, his eyes wide, one hand white-knuckled around a flashlight. Had he heard the beast too?

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m just…” I shrugged tiredly, adjusting the weight of my guitar and amp. “Trying to get home.”

  His eyes stayed locked on mine, full of glassy terror. “You’re one of them.”

  I realized I’d taken my sunglasses off; he could see straight through to the thing inside me. “Uh, I didn’t mean to…”

  He raised one hand to cross himself, drawing my eyes to the silver crucifix at his throat. He looked like he wanted to run, but my infection held him in place—the way I moved, the radiance of my eyes.

  An itch traveled across my skin, like the feeling I got climbing the stairs to Minerva’s room. I was salivating.

  The fear in the man’s sweat was like the scent of sizzling bacon crawling under your bedroom door in the morning—irresistible.

  “Stay away from me,” he pleaded softly.

  “I’m trying.” I put down the amp and guitar and fumbled in my jacket for the plastic bag of garlic. Pulling out a clove, I scrabbled to peel it, fingernails gouging the papery skin. The pearly white flesh poked through at last, smooth and oily in my fingers. I shoved it in my mouth half-peeled and bit down hard.

  It split—sharp and hot—juices running down my throat like straight Tabasco. I sucked in its vapors and felt the thing inside me weaken a little.

  I breathed a garlicky sigh of relief.

  The man’s eyes narrowed. No longer transfixed, he shook his head at my torn T-shirt and grubby jeans. I was just a seventeen-year-old again, tattered and weighted down with musical equipment. Nothing dangerous.

  “You shouldn’t litter,” he snorted, glaring at the garlic skin I’d dropped. “Someone’s got to clean that up, you
know.”

  Then he turned to walk briskly away, the scent of fear fading in his wake.

  I breathed garlic deep into my lungs.

  Mustn’t eat the nice people, Minerva’s voice chided in my head.

  I was going to try that mandrake tea again. Even if it did taste like lawn-mower clippings, that was probably better than the taste of—

  Down the tunnel the darkness shifted restlessly, something huge rolling over in its sleep, and I forgot all about my hunger.

  It was down there, the thing that rumbled beneath us when we played.

  I grabbed my Strat—leaving the amp behind—and jumped down onto the tracks. The smell carried me forward into the darkness, the tunnel walls echoing with the crunch of gravel, like Alana Ray’s drumbeats scattering from my footsteps. The scent grew overpowering, as mind-bending as pressing my nose against Minerva’s neck, drawing me closer.

  The ground began to swirl, the blackness suddenly liquid underfoot. As my eyes adjusted, I realized it was a horde of rats flowing like eddies of water around my tennis shoes, thousands of them filling the tracks.

  But the sight didn’t make me flinch—the rats smelled familiar and safe, like Zombie sleeping warm on my chest.

  The scent led me to a jagged, gaping hole in the tunnel wall, big enough to walk into, just like the cavity where Minerva and I had first kissed. It led away into pitch-blackness, its sides glistening. The rats swirled around me.

  I could smell danger now, but I didn’t want to run. My blood was pulsing, my whole body readying for a fight. I listened for a moment and knew instinctively that the hole was empty, though something had passed this way.

  I reached out to touch the broken granite, and a dark gunk as thick as honey came off on my fingers. Like the black water, it shimmered for a moment on my skin, then faded into the air.

  But its scent left behind a word in my mind… enemy. Just like Min always said: I call the enemy when I sing.

  The ground rumbled underfoot, and the rats began to squeak.

  I started running down the subway tunnel, feet crunching on gravel, the rats following, anger rippling across my skin. My tongue ran along my teeth, feeling every point. My whole body was crying out to fight this thing.

  Then all at once I heard it, smelled it, saw it coming toward me…

  A form moved against the darkness, shapeless except for the tendrils whipping out to grasp the tunnel’s support columns. It dragged itself toward me—without legs, with way too many arms.

  I staggered to a halt, a nervous garlic burp clearing my head for a few seconds. I realized how big it was—like a whole subway car rolling loose—and how unarmed I was…

  But then the thing inside me tightened its grip on my spine, flooding me with anger. I pulled the Stratocaster from its case and held its neck with both hands, bringing it over one shoulder like an ax. Steel strings and golden pickups flashed in the darkness, and suddenly the beautiful instrument was nothing but a weapon, a hunk of wood for smashing things.

  The rats flowed around me, scrambling up the walls and columns.

  The thing refused to take any shape in the darkness, but it was heading toward me faster now, its body spitting out gravel to both sides. It lashed at the dangling subway work lights, popping them one by one as it grew closer, like a rolling cloud of smoke bringing darkness.

  Then something glimmered wetly at its center, an open maw ringed with teeth like long knives—and me with an electric guitar. Some small, rational part of my mind knew that I was very, very screwed…

  It was only twenty yards away. I swung the Stratocaster across myself; its weight made my feet stumble.

  Ten yards…

  Suddenly human figures shot past me out of the darkness, meeting the creature head on. Bright metal weapons flashed, and the monster’s screech echoed down the tunnel. Someone knocked me to one side and pinned me against the wall, holding me there as the beast streamed past. Cylinders of flesh sprouted from its length, grasping the steel columns around us, ending in sharp-toothed mouths that gnashed wetly. Human screams and flying gravel and the shriek of rats filled the air around us.

  And then it was gone, sucking the air behind it like a passing subway train.

  The woman who’d shoved me against the wall let go, and I stumbled back onto the tracks. The monstrous white bulk was receding into the darkness, leaving a trail of glistening black water. The dark figures and a stream of rats pursued it. Weapons flickered like subway sparks.

  I stood there, panting and clutching the Strat like I was going to hit something with it. Then the creature slipped out of sight, disappearing into the hole I’d found, like a long, pale tongue flickering into a mouth.

  The hunters followed, and the tunnel was suddenly empty, except for me, a few hundred crushed rats, and the woman.

  I blinked at her. She was a little older than me, with a jet-black fringe of bangs over brown eyes, a scuffed leather jacket and cargo pants with stuffed-full pockets.

  She eyed the guitar in my hands. “Can you talk?”

  “Talk?” I stood there for another moment, stunned and shaking.

  “As in converse, dude. Or are you crazy already?”

  “Um…” I lowered the Strat. “I don’t think so.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right. So, like, dude, are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  She led me to an abandoned subway stop farther up the tracks, a darkened ghost station. The stairways were boarded over, the token booth trashed, but the graffiti-covered platform was abuzz with hunters regrouping after the chase. They slipped up from the tracks, as graceful as the dark figures climbing down the fire escape that night I’d met Pearl.

  Angels was what Luz called the people in the struggle. But I’d never figured on angels carrying backpacks and walkie-talkies.

  “Easy with that thing,” the woman who’d saved me said. “We’re all friends here.”

  “What?… Oh, sorry.” I was still clutching the Stratocaster like a weapon. The shoulder strap dangled from one end, so I slung the guitar over my back.

  Confusion was finally setting in. Had I really just seen a giant monster? And wanted to fight it?

  I looked at her. “Um… who are you?”

  “I’m Lace, short for Lacey. You?”

  “Moz.”

  “You can say your own name? Not bad.”

  “I can do what?”

  Instead of answering, she pulled a tiny flashlight from a pocket and shone it in my eyes. The light was blinding.

  “Ouch! What are you doing?”

  She leaned closer, sniffing at my breath. “Garlic? Clever boy.”

  A guy’s voice came from behind me. “Positive? Or just some wack-job?”

  “Definitely a peep, Cal. But a self-medicator, by the looks of it.”

  “Another one?” Cal said. His accent sounded southern. “That’s the third this week.”

  Tracers from the flashlight still streaked my vision, but I could see Lace’s silhouette shrug. “Well, garlic is in all the folklore. Who told you to eat that stuff, Moz?”

  I blinked. “Um, this woman called Luz.”

  “A doctor? A faith healer?”

  “She’s, uh…” What was Min’s word? “An esoterica?”

  “What the hell’s that?” Cal said. My vision returning, I noticed he was wearing a Britney Spears T-shirt under his leather jacket, which seemed weirdly out of place.

  “Probably something esoteric,” Lace said.

  I shook my head. I’d never met Luz face-to-face. “She’s a healer. Some kind of Catholic, I guess. She uses tea and stuff.”

  “Amateur hour,” Lace said in a singsong voice. “So, Moz, how long have you had an appetite for rare meat?”

  I thought of Min’s kiss. “Three weeks and four days.”

  Cal raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty precise.”

  “Well, that’s when I first…” My voice faded. It didn’t seem like a good idea, telling them about Min. “Who are you guys any
way?”

  Lace snorted. “Dude. We’re the guys who saved your butt. You almost got flattened by that worm, remember?”

  I swallowed, watching as two angels lifted a third onto the platform. He was bleeding from a huge gash on one leg, black water dripping from the wound. He didn’t cry out, but his face was knitted in pain, his teeth clenched.

  And I’d been about to fight that thing alone?

  “Uh, thanks.”

  “Uh, you’re welcome.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have you got any girlfriends? Any roommates? Cats?”

  “Cats?” I thought of Zombie’s strange gaze. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Or what that thing was! What’s going on here?”

  “He doesn’t know anything, Lace,” Cal said. “Just bag him and let’s get moving. That beastie’s only wounded; it might swing back around.”

  The woman stared at me for another moment, then nodded. “Okay. So here’s the thing, Moz. Old-fashioned folk remedies aren’t going to keep your head together for much longer. Very soon, you’re going to do unpleasant things to your friends and neighbors. So we’re taking you for a little trip to New Jersey.”

  “New Jersey?”

  “Yeah, Montana’s full.” Lace smiled, pulling a small, thin object from her cargo pants. A needle glistened in the darkness at its tip. “This won’t hurt a bit, and you shouldn’t be there more than a week or two, thanks to your esoterica friend. Got to admit, she kept you in pretty good shape.”

  “Hey, wait a second.” I backed away, holding up my hands. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got a gig next week.”

  “A gig?” Lace glanced at the guitar on my back and shrugged. “Cool. But I’m afraid you’re going to miss it. We need to train you.”

  “Train me for what?”

  “Saving the world,” Cal said.

  I swallowed. “You mean Luz is right? There really is a struggle?”

  “She told you about the…?” Lace’s voice faded, and she closed her eyes, sniffing the air. “Hey, Cal—did you feel that?”

  I had. My magic powers were spinning. I took a step away.