Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,83
to. Either way, I have to regroup. I turn and break out toward the parkway, ignoring the burning of the giant’s eyes against my back.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
You sure?” Riley says. We’re on a rooftop watching Eastern Parkway fill with revelers.
“I am. It makes perfect sense: two million people flooding the streets of Brooklyn in full regalia, raging street parties all through the night and straight on past dawn. I don’t think any supernatural mischief maker could resist such a distraction. Plus, it has the added benefit of culminating mere blocks from Mama Esther’s and in the whole area surrounding Prospect Park’s eastern edge.”
“This is all true.”
“Plus-plus: there’ll be a hundred thousand spirits in the air, taking part in the festivities. And the people will be in masks and feathers. Even folks with the Vision will be confused between the living and the dead.”
“Indeed. Of course, there’ll also be a bajillion soulcatchers swarming through the crowd, sacking folks up and lugging ’em back downstairs.”
“Bah.” I wave the very idea away. “Sarco’s not scared of soulcatchers. Doesn’t mean a thing.”
“And now the real estate Hasid is in play.”
“That ain’t him, man. Whatever it was Sarco did to bring me and Sasha back, it’s not what he did to Moishe. He’s just a shell, Riley.”
“He a corpuscule.”
“A whobascule?”
“A corpuscule’s like an empty body with an angry-ass spirit shoved in it. Rude as fuck thing to do to someone if you ask me.”
“Sounds about right. Whatever it is, it . . .”
Riley’s doing something to his face. “I’m listening,” he says, but he’s busy squinting and probing his fingers along his left eye.
“No, you’re not. What’d you lose a contact or something?”
“Dammit, Carlos, the dead don’t wear contacts!”
“Well?”
“Hang . . . the fuck . . . on.” Suddenly, his fingers slide all the way into his socket and he makes a little guh! noise, something between a gasp and a grunt.
“Riley!”
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” But his other eye tears up, and he’s still squinting and writhing. Then, with a nasty popping sound, he pulls out his fingers. And, I realize, his eye.
“Gah!”
“Here.” He hands me the eye.
“No! The fuck I’m supposed to do with this?”
“C’mon, man, don’t be such a little girl. You put it in.”
“Put it in?”
“In your eye, Carlos. I wanna try something.” He waves the glowing sphere at me. “Take it.”
He’s not gonna give up. Plus, I’m almost as curious as I am horrified. I take the eye. It’s nebular like him, just a gentle tickle against my fingertips and a little mushy. “Put it in?”
“Your eye.”
“Ugh, Riley!”
“Look, we do it all the time ghost to ghost when one goes into the Underworld and the other’s up top. If it works right, you should be able to see what I see once I go downstairs.”
I look at the shimmering ghost eye. “Shouldn’t I give you my eye if . . . ?”
“Carlos.” Riley gives me a Riley look. “Don’t act new. You should know better than to come at me with some anatomy and physiology bullshit. Save it for your living friends, okay? The dead don’t fuck with those rules. We much more holistic than that. If I see some shit with one eye, the other eye gonna see it, even if it’s in you. Intent takes you a long way in the Underworld. Anyway, I said I wanted to try it. I don’t know if it’ll work at all with your damn flesh-and-blood ass, but since we’re splitting up and what I see will matter somewhat to your situation, I figure it’s worth a shot.”
I think I hurt his feelings. I brace myself and then turn the eyeball to face out and place it up against my own. There’s a little resistance at first. I’m sure my body is screaming What the everlasting fuck, but eventually Riley’s eye slides into place and all I feel is a slight pressure.
“There. Not so bad, right?”
“And it should work when you get downstairs?”
“Should.”
“But I’ll still be able to see up here with my right eye, right?”
“Unless you poke it the fuck out, yeah. You’ll get the hang of it. You can kind of toggle back and forth by squinting once it starts working. You’ll see.”
“Great.”
We watch the burgeoning mass of partiers gather beneath us.
“Okay,” Riley says. “How you wanna play it?”
* * *
It’s actually the day before the parade, but the celebrations begin tonight. The NYPD has lined up barricades all along Eastern Parkway and cops in riot gear stand around, shifting their collective