able to have a two-way conversation. No blade. And Rasputin the Invincible Giant that I just fucked up has already run off.
“Yeah, anyway, I guess we’ll deal with the preggo thing later, cuz right now, ya girl is making her way very quickly . . .” Riley pauses to catch his breath, and for a second all I hear is his heavy panting in my ear. “Sorry, she’s fast. She’s going to the entrada, Carlos. I don’t know . . . I don’t know if Sarco’s somewhere, or what the deal is, but like it or not, what we gotta deal with right now is that Sasha’s making moves. Pregnant and everything. Sorry, man. Maybe it’s not yours.”
I wish he would stop talking.
“Anyway, when we get underground, the Second Sight should kick in, and you’ll be able to see for yourself, so that’s . . . nice. Ah, fuck. I gotta catch up with this chick, man. I’ll check in with you in a bit.”
Terrific.
Sasha’s heading for the entrada. Which means she’s either meeting Sarco somewhere in the Underworld or . . . or she really is masterminding this whole fiasco. Or maybe some other wildly plausible explanation I just can’t think of right now. Either way, she’s surely heading for Mama Esther’s.
I have to get there first.
As I think it, the dead giant lopes out of the shadows again. He’s limping badly but otherwise doesn’t seem nearly as worse for wear as he should. I don’t have time to fuck around with Andre anymore. I got places to be. I hurl one last trash can his way for good measure and make a break for it.
CHAPTER FIFTY
But nothing is ever simple. I am, after all, limp-legged. I’m fierce with it, of course, got it down to a nice rhythmic swagger, but that’s with my cane. Without the damn cane, I just hobble. Still, the giant’s leg is freshly busted and he hasn’t gotten used to the shifting of weight, the trembling off-balance feeling with every step. Then again, he’s huge. So we’re about even, and must be quite a sight to behold, tearing through the crowded midnight streets.
If it wasn’t Carnival, I’m sure we’d get even more stares, but as it stands, Brooklyn is bursting with strangely swaggering people. Moishe and I are both a little paler and a little more desperate than the rest, but otherwise, no one pays us much mind. There’s a strip of Flatbush Avenue that’s four lanes wide and surrounded by wilderness; the park on one side and the Botanical Gardens on the other. Hundreds of revelers crowd the street, dancing and yelling and carrying on. I push through, working my way north toward Eastern Parkway and trying not to hurt anybody or start a fight. Every time I look back, the giant is gaining on me. Halfway to Grand Army Plaza I’m already winded as hell. This no-cane-having bullshit is really not the way to go. I pause for a few seconds to catch my breath. The giant’s huge pale head bounces above the crowd toward me.
Then, all at once, I’m in the Underworld, surrounded by ghosts. It takes me a second to realize that it’s just Riley’s Second Sight kicking in, and even then it’s freakishly disorienting. Those same horrible, slow-moving ghouls crowd all around, and some kind of tumultuousness is erupting up ahead. The ghouls lurch forward as one and then a few of them back up suddenly.
“Carlos, can you hear me? Ugh! Stupid question, my bad. Anyway, hopefully this shit is working and you can see that I’m surrounded by your old nursing home friends, and Sasha’s up ahead somewhere, fucking shit up. Gonna try to get you a visual. Stand by.”
Just what I need: a visual of the woman who’s probably carrying my baby tussling with a gang of ancient death creatures.
I squint my left eye so the real world around me comes back into focus and then duck into Prospect Park. Everything on the ground is useless twigs, but up ahead I see a felled tree. I limp over to it and snap one of the branches free, maybe a little more aggressively than necessary. This’ll do.
I don’t see the giant anywhere, so I pop back out onto Flatbush and, now with at least a semblance of a cane, make my way north with a quickness.
* * *
Sasha is in rare form. At first, all I see are ghost bodies falling over themselves to get out of the