Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,21
I’m grateful for, because my underslept, overthinking ass is not.
“Okay, well, I was up at the Council Library all day yesterday.”
“Yes, we got the inebriated, unhelpful version last night.”
“Can I talk, Riley?”
Riley nods graciously.
“Thank you. They got a whole section on imps.”
“Imps?” I say.
“Yeah, like those annoying little naked guys that fuck up people’s gardens and shit.”
“Thank you, Dro. I know what an imp is. I just didn’t know NYCOD had a Dewey decimal number for them.”
“Oh, well, yeah, there’s an imp section, and there’s some whispering that the ngks have a certain relationship to imps.”
“Like distant cousins?” Riley asks. He doesn’t look like he’s feeling this thought line any more than I am.
“More like evil stepbrothers.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, indeed. The whispers say that imps are like the less lethal, mentally challenged relatives of the ngks.”
“I’m quite sure,” Riley says, “that it doesn’t say imps are mentally challenged.”
“You know what I mean though. And whereas the imps show up in scattered randomosity—”
“That’s definitely not a word,” I point out.
Dro ignores me, which is probably for the best. “And apparently have no greater purpose, other than to make a mild nuisance of themselves. The ngks, on the other hand, come in quite strategic clumps, usually, and serve a very specific purpose.”
“And what purpose would that be?” says Riley.
I notice a throng of kids chasing one another up and down the block, immersed in some wildly complex game they seem to be making up the rules for as they go. Every few seconds they switch directions as one, just like a flock of birds, and then fall out into fits of laughter. Two old drunks enjoy the show from a nearby stoop.
“Well, of course it’s all very shrouded in—”
Riley gets curt again. “Cut to it.”
“Annihilation of the dead.”
All three of us stop short at the gravity of those words. “Come again,” Riley says.
Dro repeats himself, looking quite solemn indeed. “One very old Welsh text stated that it was commonly known that these creatures are summoned with the express purpose of annihilating all the spiritual activity in a given area . . .”
“Must have something to do with how they precipitate tragedy,” Riley finishes eagerly. “Fuck.”
“You said, ‘are summoned,’” I point out. I can tell that phrasing will haunt me for a long time, with all those passive hints of some hidden hand at work.
“Did I?”
I don’t like it when Dro gets sloppy with language like that. His shit needs to be impeccable, considering how serious things are right now. “You did. Made it sound like someone is doing the summoning.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to check. I read through hundreds of books, Carlos.”
He has a point. I’m probably just tired.
“You thinking ’bout the thing you saw?” Riley says. I nod, frowning.
The kids have scattered off to their respective houses, and a nasty winter breeze sweeps through the city around us.
“But did the two ngked houses even have spirits in ’em?” Dro asks.
Riley shrugs. “Who knows? There’s hundreds of loose spirits flitting around, taking up residence in places they shouldn’t. If there were, they’re surely gone now.”
“If there weren’t,” Dro points out, “what’d be the purpose of putting a ghost annihilator where there’s no ghosts? Who’d get got?”
“Us,” I say. “And it’s already almost worked twice.”
* * *
I’m surrounded by Estherness. The old ghost has a way of taking up space and not at the same time. She’s everywhere, fills the aging room with her jovial old self and yet never overwhelms or suffocates. It’s a skill. I feel safe just being near her, let alone immersed in her. A very simple thought occurs to me: maybe everything will just be all right. I doubt it, but still, the thought is there and I decide to go with it for now.
“You look tired, Carlos.”
“Haven’t been sleeping much.” I want to hold on to that thought, tattoo it to my mind, but it’s like trying to grab water. “Rough week.”
“You’re worried about the infestation.”
“It’s not an infestation. Not yet anyway. Just two.” Mama Esther’s look reminds me that she’s not stupid. “You’re not worried about it?”
“Nah,” she says, but I don’t believe her. “I’ve seen this neighborhood through so many changes. You wouldn’t believe some of the ghoulish monstrosities I’ve watched come and go. Some of the horrors I’ve withstood. Ah, Carlos, when you’re young, every new travesty seems like the last. You shouldn’t trouble yourself so much.”
I want to believe her so badly that I almost do. The ngks just being any old passing spirit would be