Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,36
taps the list off her big shining fingers. “Um . . . what else? Little people.”
“Shit. Like imps?”
“Imps, gnomes. All of that.” She gestures distastefully at the air like she’s flinging a little person off her hand. So Trevor was caught up with the naked cellar dweller. His research assistant, perhaps. A reluctant minion, as Baba Eddie put it.
“He ever mention who he was working with?”
“He had a sister, a halfie like him. Never met her though. And . . .”
“And?”
“Someone else.”
“Who?”
“He only said the name one time, and I’m sure it was by mistake, barely even mentioned him out loud, in fact.”
“Out loud . . .”
“It was all over him, Carlos. You couldn’t miss it. Fear. Well, fear mixed with something else: a certain admiration almost, or an eagerness to please, better put. Like the guy was a messiah of some kind, some great prophet.”
I control the urge to interrupt Mama Esther. When she’s finished, she just looks at me, a challenge.
“The name?”
She sighs. “Sarco.”
Sarco. It doesn’t mean anything to me. I shrug and shake my head.
“I don’t know either,” Mama Esther says. “The name pops up here and there in some old tomes, but nothing useful. One of these archaic old souls that vanishes and reappears throughout history.”
“Like an overgrown ngk. The research was for him?”
“Seemed like some of it was. But I couldn’t tell how much. He was definitely following his own intuition for part of it.”
For an uncomfortable moment, I see Trevor immersed in Mama Esther’s library, poring over ancient tomes, scribbling notes. This man was more like me than I want to think about. A moment returns to me, unsolicited and obnoxious: Trevor out on that chilly Park Slope street; his eyes suddenly becoming sharp and focused, he looks at me and sees me exactly for who and what I am.
He recognized me.
It’s time. Let’s go.
He wanted to show me what was going on. Maybe wanted my advice. He knew what I was and he wanted to bring me in. The whole stupid setup with the Brads and David could’ve been a ruse to lure me in and then talk to me about whatever the hell they were working on.
Or kill me. Or worse . . .
I wonder again if in some other version of this universe, one where I didn’t take the Council so seriously, Trevor and I would’ve been friends.
“Carlos?”
I shake off the thought. It’s too awful. “Esther, why didn’t you tell us this before?”
Her shining bluish hue flashes toward crimson. “You think you and the Council the only ones out there, Carlos?”
“No! Of course not . . .”
“I know things are tight right now. I know things’ve spun out of control. But what I don’t know is who to trust.” I’ve never seen Mama Esther’s rage. Never known her to be anything but overflowing with affection. Nothing I can say makes any sense, so I stay quiet. “Mama Esther doesn’t take sides. Not for the Council, not for the free-swinging spirits out there. Not for halfies or fullies or nobody. The dead want to come take shelter in these stacks, revive their weary souls within the protection of my warmth, that’s what I can offer. But don’t demand of me that I pick sides . . . Don’t do that.”
“I wasn’t. I mean . . . I didn’t mean to.”
Her whole giant frame sags. “I know, Carlos. I know. There’s so much you don’t understand. You can’t. Hell, there’s plenty I don’t understand.”
“Do you . . . know what’s going to happen?” I’m kind of cringing while I say it, because I don’t want her to get all fiery again, but instead she just sighs.
“No. I wish I did. I really do. I knew there was trouble brewing, but quite honestly, sometimes trouble can be a good thing. The world needs a little trouble to keep moving forward. Seems this trouble may have gone a little above and beyond that though.”
“It does seem that way.”
“Carlos!” Riley calls from downstairs. “Getchyo shit together! We movin’ out!”
Fuck. I don’t like any of this. Too much swirling through my head to focus on this fool’s mission we’re about to go on.
“I suppose,” Mama Esther says wryly, “it just doesn’t make much sense keeping a dead man’s secrets anymore, and I know you’re doing everything you can to deal with those creatures.”
“We are, Mama Esther. We are.”
“Here.” The old ghost gestures to a pile of ancient books sitting on the floor. Post-it notes and scribbled-on scraps