Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,17

it out—“you were dead. You had no pulse. You were unresponsive. I was about to put a tube in you that would not have been pleasant to wake up with.”

“That was what that blade was for that you were poking at my face?”

Victor grunts an affirmative.

“I see.” It’s turned into an unseasonably warm afternoon, and I suddenly remember I’d been planning to go to the Red Edge to see about Sasha tonight. Also, I have to let Riley know we’re dealing with more than just one ngk, that something foul is lurking.

I stand up.

“Wait,” Victor says. “What are you?”

I shake my head.

“What happened?”

“It’s hard to explain. But I don’t do hospitals. Too many stupid questions.”

Victor frowns.

“I mean, they’re not stupid. But you know. I don’t have answers.”

He nods like he understands, which is endearing even though he obviously has no clue what’s going on. He stands up and shuffles through his pockets for a moment before handing me a business card. “Take this. My girlfriend, Jenny, does natural healing. You know, herbal crap and all that. Doesn’t stand up too strong when you’re in cardiac arrest, but she’s pretty good at what she does.”

“Thanks,” I say. I don’t really know what the hell he’s talking about, but he seems genuinely concerned. I pocket the card, nod at Victor, and trudge off to find Riley.

CHAPTER TEN

There’s what?” Dro doesn’t look too good. He’s the guy who’s always got that unshakable thing about him—pretty much glides on through whatever shit may come. He must still be shook from the ngk, because the fact that he can raise his voice above a calming whisper is a novelty to us. “Get me another drink.”

I signal Quiñones, the surly one-eyed bartender at Burgundy, and he places three more shots of rum in front of me. We exchange a nod that might mean all is understood and might mean he thinks I’m out of my fucking mind. Doesn’t matter either way. I put one down my throat and place the other two in front of the empty seats on either side of me for Riley and Dro to sip.

“The way I see it,” I say as the alcohol runs burning circles through my bloodstream, “it’s still not an infestation. We can’t panic yet. I mean, sounds like these guys do show up here and there and it still doesn’t wind up as a full hive of them.”

“You don’t understand,” Dro says. He’s straining the way some drunks do when they’re convinced no one will ever grasp the simplest possible concepts. “The shit I’ve been reading . . . The ngks don’t just precipitate disaster: they are disaster. There was this plague, one of those nasty European ones back in the fifteen-whatevers, right?”

“Mad meticulous with your details, huh, Dro?”

Dro plows past Riley’s comment without noticing. “The numbers of little people sightings right before and in the early days of the outbreak were startling. Even this local pastor commented on it in one of his journals. And then I started looking . . .” He waves his hands and widens his eyes to dramatize “looking.” “It wasn’t the only time. There was another one, Amsterdam, I think, and it was the same thing: people see these strange little men and then horrible Black Death shit happens. Bubonic and whatnot.”

“Brooklyn’s full of strange little men,” I point out. “But ain’t nobody gone bubonic yet.”

Dro narrows his eyes at me. “You know what I—”

“Look.” I cut him off before he can go into another rant. “I’m just saying, it’s not like every time an ngk shows up, shit goes haywire.” I say it, but his disorganized little presentation has given me something to think about. “Anyway, what I’m more worried about is whatever that thing was that was down there with us.”

“You didn’t get a good look at it?” Riley asks. He’s been pretty quiet this whole time, mostly scowling and grunting as I relayed the past few hours to them.

“It was fast and caught me off guard. Plus the basement was pretty dim.”

“Dead or alive?” Dro asks.

I’ve been tussling with this one since it happened and haven’t come up with a good answer. And I’m the one who’s supposed to know these things. “I’m not totally sure.” Riley grunts irritably, and I ignore him. “The Realtor saw it, so either he’s got the Vision, or the thing’s alive.”

“Or the third possibility,” Riley says.

I get all cold and uncomfortable. I hadn’t wanted to think about that possibility, so I hadn’t.