Charlie Huston - No Dominion

– What do I tell him?

– Nothing. I’ll let him know you’re coming.

– How you gonna do that?

He gestures to the warehouse.

– We don’t have much, but I do know how to use a pay phone.

I slip the paper into my pocket.

– Any tips on how I can get up there?

He stands on tiptoe to look into the pot, then reaches for a giant wooden spoon and gives the contents a stir.

– You could do what the Duke suggested.

– The Duke?

– Ellington.

– Yeah, what was his idea?

He smiles.

– Take the A train.

– Been saving that one up for a rainy day?

He shrugs.

I look at his skin, trying to find some evidence that he was ever anything but pasty white, ever a guy that could have been with the Hood. Can’t find it.

I point at the pot.

– By the way, what’s cooking?

– Bones.

– No kidding? Thought you guys already ate.

– One of us failed last week. We’ll crack his bones and eat the marrow tonight. You could stay.

– I’ll pass.

I leave him there, stirring his pot. At the warehouse door, I pause. I turn around and look back up at the loft. Daniel is at the top of the stairs, watching me.

I remember what else he told me, what he told me last time, after he told me that he’s failing. He told me someone would have to replace him.

Well, fuck that, that’s none of my fucking business whatsoever.

I haul the door open and walk out into the night, leaving the smell of steaming bones behind.

The A train. As if I couldn’t have figured that for myself. As if I haven’t been trying like hell to avoid it.

I come out of the Enclave warehouse onto Little West 12th and think about the A train. All this territory around here is no-man’s-land. This is the turf no one wants because it’s too close to the Enclave. I can grab the A at 14th, but that will put me right on the Coalition’s southern border. They’ll have spotters. Better I go to 4th Street and catch it there. Stay in no-man’s-land, where no one is watching. Once I’m on the A, I’ll have more than enough opportunities to get caught out.

The Coalition doesn’t like anyone riding the rails under their turf. The major stops, Grand Central, Penn Station, Times Square, Columbus Circle, you come walking out of one of those stations and you’re nailed. They got spotters living in apartments, watching over the exits. Slobs that never go out. They just sit there at the window all night, snapping pictures through telephoto lenses, changing videotapes in their cameras and flipping through face-books to see if they recognize anyone. Rent is paid by the Coalition, along with an allowance to cover takeout from the local diner. Once a week an enforcer comes in, picks up the video and the film and the logbook, and drops off a fresh pint. The smaller stops, they got guys there, too. May only be every other stop, but you don’t know which ones. Just like you don’t know which train one of their enforcers will be cruising, looking for interlopers. If I get on at West 4th and ride express to 145th, I don’t have to worry about those spotters aboveground. But from 14th to 110th, anywhere in there I could end up with an enforcer on the train. How do I know all this? Because the Coalition wants everybody to know. It’s their way of saying, Stay off the grass. Trespassers will be prosecuted. And if they let you know about the spotters and the patrols, that means they’re only the tip of the iceberg.

The A train. Thanks for the help.

I take a cab to West 4th to save time. I think about telling the cabbie to turn the thing around and take me uptown, but that’s a worse play than the subway. On the train I’ll only have to worry about the patrols, and there can only be so many. In a cab, going through rush hour traffic, there are too many chances of getting spotted from the sidewalk or another car. Too random. So the Duke Ellington Express it is.

I get out of my cab at 4th and Sixth. It’s dark and cold, but the lights inside The Cage are on and a half dozen guys in sweats are playing three on three. I stop and light a smoke and watch. I’m in a hurry, but this is a long fucking train ride and I can’t smoke down in the hole. There’s a small cluster of people standing next to the tall chain-link fence watching the showboating street-ballers inside. They whip no-look passes at each other or lob alley-oops. No one plays D. I finish my smoke and light another. 4th to 145th? Even on the express that’s a two-smoke ride.

It’s no-man’s-land. I can take the time for the smoke. No one comes onto this turf. No one risks walking across it, let alone hunting or doing business on it. No one risks doing anything that might offend the Enclave. Piss the freaks off and they come for you. End up eating your fucking marrow.

Eating your marrow?

Doesn’t it have something to do with blood? Shouldn’t they get sick if they eat another Vampyre’s marrow? I mean, even if you boil those bones, the Vyrus has been in there. Shit. That’s weird. And what did Daniel say? That again. What the fuck was that about?

Color me pensive. Color me lost in thought and avoiding getting on the train, lighting a third cigarette without even thinking about it, because that’s my story. That’s my excuse for why I don’t smell Tom until the fucker jams the barrel of his gun in my back.

– What is it, Pitt? Old dog syndrome? New tricks just don’t sink in? Can’t get it through your head to stop fucking around on my watch?

He shoves the gun a little deeper into my backbone, hurrying me east on 4th toward Washington Square Park and the Society border.

– Hadn’t heard no-man’s was part of your beat now.

– Fuck off. You know what I’m talking about. Shaking down pledged members on Society turf, going into their homes and grilling them on Society business.

– Where you get that?

– Think you’re the only one who can pump Philip Sax for information? Get out the rubber hoses and that pussy opens up and spills everything. Didn’t even have to lay in to him. We did anyway, just to teach him a lesson, but we didn’t have to.

He’s alone. Tom’s not the brightest bulb, but he knew better than to follow me over here with a troop. Enclave would have had his ass for that. But he’ll have partisans waiting across the border. We set foot on the far curb of Washington Square East and I’ll be bracketed by his boys right away.

– Not even Terry’s gonna be able to help you on this one, Pitt. Poking on our turf without our say-so. Poking into official Society business. And then crossing over to report to those assholes? Fucking-A, I knew you stooged for the Coalition, but Enclave? That’s just sick. Fronting for those mujahideen motherfuckers.

– Got your head on a swivel, Tom? Keeping your eyes peeled? One of those motherfuckers hears you talking about them like that, they’ll find you in your safe house and flay you alive with their teeth.

– Fuck off. Fuck off and walk.

I glance back at him.

– Seriously, you ever see them in action? Scary shit. Like Bruce Lee on speed. Only like if you had to cut off his head or something to kill him. Saw two of them spar once. One got his arm torn off, kept coming. Other arm came off, kept coming. Got his leg wrapped around the other guy’s neck, brought him down and scissored him. Squeezed the guy til his eyes about popped out. Whole time he’s spraying this white gunk from his stumps. That was sparring. Scaaaaary shit.

– Shut the fuck up.

I glance back again as we cross Washington Square West. His eyes are zipping side to side.

The light is against us at Fifth. I step off the curb as a battered and graffitied delivery van whips around the corner. Tom grabs my left arm and pulls me back into him, the gun getting pinned sideways between us. He knows right away he’s made a mistake. Poor him.