James Swain - Dark Magic

Carr ran out of Penn Station with a mad rush of adrenaline. He hadn’t felt this good in forever, and wondered why he’d waited so long to seek his revenge. A long line of yellow taxi cabs were parked at the curb. Their drivers, mostly Russians, stood outside their vehicles, smoking cigarettes and talking in their native tongue.

Carr hurried toward them. Then, he stopped. His legs felt like they were made of lead. Worse, there was something wrong with his bowels, which felt ready to explode.

“Which one of you is available?” Carr stammered.

“You sick?” A Russian wearing an I LOVE NY tee-shirt eyed him suspiciously.

“Not sick,” he managed to utter.

“Get away from my cab, you stinking drunk,” the Russian declared belligerently.

A taxi appeared, and cut in front of the line of parked vehicles. The driver flashed his brights, signaling he was free. Carr poured himself into the back seat. He was on the verge of passing out, and struggled to speak.

“Times Square, and hurry,” he gasped.

The taxi practically leapt off the ground. As it did, a small army of policemen burst out of Penn Station. Carr went low in his seat. Within moments he was out of danger. He sucked down air, and gradually started to feel better.

The taxi hurtled down Seventh Avenue. Carr had taken his share of dangerous cab rides in New York, but nothing like this. His driver swerved between lanes like a stock car driver.

“Where are you going? This isn’t the way to Times Square.”

The driver ignored him. Carr tried to get a look at his face. The partition separating them was covered in advertisements and public service announcements.

“Slow down. You’re going to hit someone.”

The driver gazed at Carr in his mirror. His eyes were a sickly yellow, and looked jaundiced. Something was clearly wrong with him.

“Didn’t you hear me? I said, slow down!”

Instead of slowing down, the taxi picked up speed. Cars and buildings flew past at breakneck speed. Carr heard a noise from the trunk. A loud banging sound.

“What’s that sound?” he asked.

The driver ignored him. At the intersection of 27th Street, he blew the red light. The banging sound grew louder. It was accompanied by another sound. A voice.

“Somebody help me…”

The voice sounded Chinese. Carr looked at the driver’s license posted on the dashboard. Wei Lin. Only the man behind the wheel was clearly not Wei Lin.

“Who the hell are you?” Carr shouted at the driver.

At the intersection at 26th Street, a truck was stopped at the light. The driver swerved to avoid a collision, and went into the opposing lane. A city bus was coming right at them. The bus’s driver hit his horn. They were going to crash. The irony was not lost on Carr. His wife and daughter had died in a wreck, and now, so might he. But he didn’t want to die just yet. That would come later tonight, when he released the nerve agent. Remembering the instructions they gave on airplanes, he curled himself into a ball, and tucked his head in to his chest.

The bus sideswiped them. The crash was deafeningly loud. The cab pitched sideways, and began to roll. It did a complete revolution before landing upright in the middle of Seventh Avenue. The tires deflated, and it sank into the earth.

“I’m hurt bad,” said the voice in the trunk.

Carr quickly examined himself. He should have been dead as well. The impact that had taken his wife and daughter’s lives had been far less severe. Yet nothing on his body felt broken or even badly bruised except for the cut in his tongue.

“You’re insane,” he said to the driver.

The driver was slumped over the wheel. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, his neck obviously broken. Carr snorted derisively.

“Serves you right,” he said.

The driver stirred, and snapped his head back into place. Before Carr’s disbelieving eyes, the dead man climbed out of the taxi, and came around to the passenger side. Throwing open the door, he reached in, and pried the knapsack from Carr’s hands.

“You won’t be needing that anymore,” the driver said.

Carr looked at the driver’s face. The skin was a violent purple, and his eyes had no life. Carr knew that the dead did not walk, or talk, or crash vehicles on busy city streets, and that this was a horrible illusion, courtesy of his poisoned mind.

People had started to gather around the cab. The driver pushed his way through them, and staggered away. Carr watched him leave, thinking surely he’d seen the Devil.

Then he broke down, and wept uncontrollably.

The West 30th Street heliport was located next to the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan. The rain let up long enough for the FBI chopper to land. As Peter and Garrison jumped out, they were greeted by the female agent on Garrison’s team who’d arrested Snoop years ago, a no-nonsense blonde named Nan Perry, who spoke with a thick Boston accent. Perry briefed them as they crossed the asphalt with the rain whipping in their faces.

“Dr. Carr arrived at Penn Station on the four-forty-five from Hunters Point,” Perry said. “Although a gang of undercover NYPD detectives was waiting for him, Carr managed to escape by causing a riot outside the boarding gates. He got outside, and grabbed a cab. The cab got into an accident on Twenty-sixth Street, and Carr was apprehended.”

“So we got him,” Garrison said, sounding relieved.

“Yes. The doctor’s in custody,” Perry said.

The tension left Garrison’s face, and he looked like a normal person again.

“Ready for the bad news?” Perry said.

“What do you mean? What happened?” Garrison asked.

“The person driving the cab wasn’t the driver. It was an imposter, who hijacked the cab, and threw the driver in the trunk. Right after the accident, the imposter snatched Carr’s knapsack and took off. You know what they say. Only in New York.”

“Please tell me someone saw this person,” Garrison said pleadingly.

“We’ve gotten a couple of eyewitness accounts, most of them sketchy. Our thief was a six-foot-tall male. He was walking stiffly, and may have been hurt in the accident.”

A town car with tinted windows was parked at the curb, its engine spitting black fumes. They finished the conversation driving into Midtown.

“What shape is Carr in?” Garrison asked.

“He’s banged up, but there doesn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with him,” Perry replied, riding up front beside the driver.

“What about the guy in the trunk? Did he see anything?”

“He wasn’t so lucky. He died on the way to the hospital.”

Garrison blew out his cheeks. “When it rains, it pours. Where’s Carr now?”

“The police have him in a holding cell at Penn Station. A pair of detectives questioned him, but everything Carr says is nonsense. They can’t tell if it’s an act, or if there’s something seriously wrong with him.”

“What’s your gut telling you?”

“I think Carr’s flipped his wig,” Perry said. “We do know one thing for sure. The knapsack is loaded with enough Novichok to take down half the city. The recipe was in a hidden compartment in Carr’s wallet. There are a hundred variants of Novichok, and he chose the most deadly strain. He manufactured several pounds of it.”

Peter watched the passing scenery, the images from the seance still fresh in his mind. Wolfe wasn’t the Grim Reaper, it was Carr. How could the spirits have gotten it so wrong?

“What’s the NYPD doing to catch this guy?” Garrison asked.

“They’re conducting a manhunt,” Perry replied. “He got away on foot, so they think he’s still near Twenty-sixth Street, where the crash took place. The mayor’s been briefed on the crisis, and has decided not to shut down the city. He’s afraid it would cause widespread panic.”