The scene was almost pastoral. A worn-down country road bordered by dirt, weeds, and gravel. Across the street an old wood-slatted New England-style church, steeple halfway to heaven, persevered like a white sentinel over the souls in the adjacent cemetery. Down the road the only gas station in town still washed your windshield and checked your oil. Across from it was the pastel blue-and-pink brick post office. Built in 1977, it was an enduring reminder of an era hell-bent on destroying traditional aesthetics. One lonely traffic light marked the center of town. It rehearsed unceasingly, waiting to reproach the next vehicle. The buildings were far enough apart, and the town high enough in elevation, that Colby could see the pines, birches, and rolling hills and fields of Dutchess County in the distance-a long way from the steel and glass canyons outside his office in New York City.
He watched the sunrise from the diner window as he ground the remainder of his cigarette into the ashtray. It was still long, mostly unused. He lit the damn things out of habit now, not because of the nicotine plea that had become his intimate companion for the past two decades.
He did everything out of habit at this point, like sitting in a country diner to avoid a chill, even though cold did not affect him anymore. Coffee packed no punch, food sat flavorless and undigested in his gut, and every nick and scrape he collected stayed with him unhealed. There was a tourniquet on his pinky where a paper cut had left him a quart low of A positive. His hair and nails continued to grow, but he didn’t dare shave. Back in the city, Colby snorted cocaine for the first time in a decade in an attempt to jump-start his humanity. Nothing affected him.
Clammy described the overall sensation best. Like a humid, sealed attic on a hundred-degree day, except that the staleness was packed under his skin. Nothing moved internally, nothing vented. Gas occasionally emanated from a twist or a bend, the foulest smell imaginable. As the days wore on, the last vestiges of his humanity dwindled like the final swirl of water circling the drain. He looked at the old cemetery, and even the trepidation of realizing he belonged there was as absent as his heart.
Carla sat across from him. She was clearly more traumatized by what had happened to them and subsisted in a perpetual fazed state. Her hair was a mess and the buttons on her blouse misaligned. She had that “freshly fucked” look cosmopolitan women strived to imitate at great expense, except that Carla strove for nothing these days. She had lost her head the night of the attack and insisted they call the police. Colby convinced her otherwise. They would have been quarantined, subjected to study-two walking, talking, seemingly breathing beings without hearts. There was no guarantee the police could even handle Dorn and his crew. And then there was the matter of the million-dollar payoff, which would be jeopardized if they brought in the authorities.
Soon after, Carla had gone catatonic-unable to accept the reality of their plight. She had become incontinent until their bodies purged the last elements in their systems. Colby had dressed and bathed her at first, until he ran out of patience. She hadn’t said a word in days. She followed Colby when he prompted her, like a puppy tracking snacks.
Colby’s “friends” and acquaintances had disassociated themselves from him long ago. There was nothing like a government indictment for extortion to separate the faithful from the frivolous. There was an older sister living in a trailer park in the Carolinas, but they had not spoken in fifteen years, and this was not a situation that would aid any reconciliation. Even with Carla sharing the same nightmare, Colby felt forlorn. Even when he shamelessly fondled Carla in the bath in another vain attempt to reclaim his humanity and maybe help her snap out of her stupor, he was unable to attain an erection. Colby caught his reflection in the glass; his skin had become almost translucent. Purple veins and the bags under his eyes were darker, probably from the congealed blood. He stopped worrying about going to hell. He was already there.
The diner hadn’t been redecorated since a great man sat in the White House; sparkling stars on glittery aqua-blue tabletops banded with corrugated tarnished steel. Holes dotted the hard plastic top where cigarettes lingered-small brown burns like sculpted phlegm. A graveyard of bug husks withered on the window ledge, held together by dust. The checkered linoleum was decades thick with grit and gristle, mopped around nightly in a futile effort to meet the health code. A fat, greasy-haired waitress in her forties who smelled like yesterday and cheap perfume walked up to the table with a pot of steaming coffee.
“Jeez mister, don’t you get any sun down in the city? You look white as a ghost.”
Colby just pointed at his cup. The waitress poured, glanced at Carla who just stared blankly, then shuffled off.
Colby drank the coffee straight. Milk would only cool it. Flavor and texture had become meaningless to him, but heat was a different story. It was his new addiction, the only sensation that registered. As the black liquid flowed down his gullet, he absorbed the energy from each excited molecule. It would be three to four minutes before the fluid in his stomach cooled to room temperature, and at least an hour before it ran through him, coming out coffee, exactly as it went in.
A yellow cab pulled up in front of the diner. Dorn and two new associates got out. No effort was made to compensate the driver. Colby wondered about the fare from New York City to Dutchess County. Dorn entered alone and sat next to Carla.
“Colby, my good man. Looking quite provincial,” he said, with a rub at his jaw. “Any progress?”
Carla stirred for the first time. She backed as far into the booth as possible. Her arms floundered to get her even farther from Dorn, but the window prevented further regress. Dorn was oblivious. He exuded cold perfection. Chiseled jaw with azure, almost violet, eyes. A Scandinavian god from the scenes of an Abercrombie amp; Fitch polo game, who’d just as soon cut your heart out as say hello. His cell phone rang and he answered in one swift motion.
“Yes?” Dorn’s mood darkened as the buzzing in his ear continued. He rubbed his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his other hand. “No,” he said, cutting short the buzzing on the other end. The next thing he said was in a language Colby had never heard. Dorn’s tone betrayed all was not well. “I’ll deal with them when I get back,” Dorn said, slipping back to English.
Seeing his powerful employer upset gave Colby some vague sense of hope. Someone out there had disturbed his designs, which meant they were playing at his level-someone who could cross swords with a bona fide heart-stealing sorcerer.
Dorn cut the connection in the middle of the other person’s sentence and then turned off the phone. “Mr. Colby, what have you discovered?” he asked again, in a mocked attempt at formality. He looked like he had a major migraine.
Carla’s floundering increased. The gallery of insect husks shuddered off the ledge as she tried to push herself through the wall behind her.
“Can you let Carla out, please?” Colby asked.
Dorn looked to his side, seeing her for the first time. He made a face akin to discovering raw sewage on new shoes, and moved aside.
Carla stumbled out of the diner and ran across the street toward the church.
“That one didn’t turn out as planned,” Dorn said.
“No kidding.”
Colby motioned to an emaciated nearly toothless Vietnam veteran in red flannel wearing a John Deere cap behind the counter. He came over like a man preparing to go onstage.
“This is Sweeny. He was working here thirteen years ago when a strange couple with a baby came in from the rain. Tell Mr. Dorn what you saw, Sweeny.”
Sweeny gave the god the look tax cheats give an auditor. He sniffed, and with the reluctance of a man who had told the same story too many times said, “’Twas about October. I remember cause we was making cakes ’n’ things for the Halloween party at the church. We was having mighty big weather that night. Couple came in to get out of the rain. The missus started changing diapers right here on this very table. I came out to tell her she can’t do that on account of health codes. Woman had no good sense to be changing crap on a table what people eat on. The baby had the dangdest birthmark, like a tattoo of a Camero bird. What kind of damned freak’d ever tattoo a babe? I got me a tattoo in ’Nam. Hurt like hell. Dang if I didn’t near pass out. And I had two bottles of sock-ee in me. Sock-ee couldn’ cut it. Tequila is the best hootch, if you gonna get a tattoo-”
“Thank you, Sweeny,” Colby said.
“Pitiful shame though what happened to them folks…”
“That will be all, Sweeny.”
Sweeny’s mouth gaped like a man who wasn’t used to having the curtain drop on his act. “You gonna git anything to eat,” he said to Dorn, “or just sit there like a fancy boy, taking up a customer’s space?”
“We’ll be going now,” Colby said.
Outside, the detective met Dorn’s new companions who were waiting by the cab. Both looked like Edward Gorey renditions of a Victorian butler. They wore black long-tail tuxedos with bowties, gray pinstriped trousers, and spats. Both held ornate walking sticks, the tall one with a brass ball handle, the other clutched a gnarled wooden cane. The shorter man was stocky, round of face, wore a bowler hat, and looked unkempt despite his classic ensemble. The fabric of his jacket was dusty and frayed. The cut tips of his white gloves revealed brown-stained fingernails. He was in need of a shave and teeth cleaning. The other was tall and thin, clean-shaven, impeccably manicured, and crowned by a silk-lined top hat. Colby half expected Queen Victoria’s carriage to turn the corner any second. The smaller “twin’s” eyes reminded Colby of a kid from grammar school who had been sent to juvenile hall for dousing a dog with gasoline and lighting it on fire. The cabbie, who still sat behind the wheel, was a Middle Eastern type with heavy bags under his eyes, who looked very unhappy.
“You didn’t bring me all the way up here for one fool’s walk down memory lane?” Dorn asked.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”
“The last thing anyone wants, Colby, is an introduction to Oulfsan and Krebe. Why did you bring me up here?”
Colby motioned Dorn to walk. Now that he’d met Oulfsan and Krebe, he preferred to be far away.
“I did some checking in the county office. Since I had a definite time period I was hoping to find a property purchase, tax return, adoption record, speeding ticket, parking violation, you name it. What I found was an accident report.” Colby pulled out forensic photos of a dead man and woman. “Sweeny identified them as the kid’s parents. Said you couldn’t mistake those two.”
“How did they die?”
“Fatal car crash. Driving in a storm when they should have been indoors. They were blown off their lane and went head to head with a semi. The couple were a pair of Does. Their IDs were fake. No way to trace them, no history, no sense of having come from anywhere remotely familiar.” Colby pulled out another photocopy. “They were in possession of a lot of cash and some strange coins, but not from any country the authorities could identify. The coins have since disappeared-they were made of eighteen-karat gold-but here’s a photo of them.” The profile of a nobleman adorned the head side, and an elaborate phoenix flew on the tail side. An unknown alphabet encircled the images.
Dorn’s eyes lit up at the photo of the coins. “Are you telling me the child is dead?”
“No. The child is gone. It survived, but it’s lost in the system. Illegally adopted, possibly kidnapped. For all we know Sweeny could have raised him and he’s washing dishes in the diner for condom money. There’s no trail.”
“Not good enough. I have to see him-if he’s not alive, I need a corpse.”
“What the hell makes a thirteen-year-old kid so important, Dorn? Is there a shortage of acne where you come from?”
“Everything you need to know to do your job has been made available, detective.”
“Not enough when it comes to politics and money. There are always people working for the other side, and that could get a man killed. Again. It is politics and money, right?”
Dorn looked away for a minute, considered Colby’s remark, then said, “It’s always politics. The boy, my second cousin, is an heir, the son of an archduke. What he stands to inherit is an empire.”
“You mean that literally. We’re not talking stock options?”
“Correct. Four hundred million inhabitants, twelve kingdoms, a treasury equal to the GDP of Europe. Head of state. Head of government. Head of religion… head of life itself. The power to shape our society in his image.” There was contempt in the way Dorn ended that phrase.
“But you have other plans?”
“There are closer relations we’d prefer to see inherit the crown. We’ve waited just as long; they merely had a more successful breeding program.”
“What’re you going to do, get him to sign a waiver relinquishing his claim?” Colby said, sardonically. A devilish grin supplanted Dorn’s calm indifference. Colby almost felt a chill. There wouldn’t be any runes or spells used when Dorn went after this boy’s heart.
“Didn’t think so,” Colby said.
They came to the graveyard and stopped. Two Doberman watchdogs approached from the other side of the picket fence. Dorn reached over and petted them. They accepted his graces.
“They recognize one of their own,” Colby muttered.
“What’s the price?” Dorn asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You brought me here to clarify the stakes and renegotiate our deal. I suppose you want your heart back before you go any farther.”
“This kid can be anywhere in the country. Maybe farther.”
“You know how I feel about loyalty, Colby.”
“No one else can dig this kid up like I can. Half the tabloids in the country published off my leads.”
“I don’t negotiate with dead men.”
“I’m not dead, goddamn you!”
“Enjoy any good meals lately?”
“How do I know you can fix me? How do I know you even want to? If you can’t reverse what you did to me, you can go fuck yourself. No little lost cousin for you.” Colby clammed up for dramatic effect, but it was wasted on Dorn.
“Just so we’re clear,” Colby continued, “there are a bunch of envelopes ready to get mailed to various law and news agencies in the event of my death.”
“You are dead.”
“There are still people in high places who will read my mail. I made some serious accusations that may or may not be true, but they would make any cop or reporter’s career, and you can bet they’ll investigate. You might work around the heat, but it’ll slow you down, make life difficult. I’m betting time is of the essence.”
Colby waited for a response. They were playing for high stakes. It warranted some reaction from the other player. Colby was now running on fumes. He needed to see that worried look again on Dorn’s face to fuel his rebellion.
Dorn smiled at the dogs as he groomed them with his hands.
“Whenever one faction doesn’t want to see a group gain power,” the detective continued, “there’s always another that does. My guess is you’re in a race against people who’d be happy to see your cousin inherit his empire.”
Dorn continued stroking the Doberman’s head. “Look at you, Colby. One drawback to being heartless is the accompanying numbness, which always brings about a loss of fear. People forget to be afraid once you remove pain and emotion from their lives. Take Sweeny for example… at home, people have been flayed alive for talking to me that way. That toothless miscreant lacks fear. There isn’t enough pain in his life. But…”
Dorn’s attention wandered for a moment. When it returned, he surveyed the town around him. “I started this search for the prince cautiously, opting for a surgical approach in a world I barely understood,” Dorn said. “A strange land of magical drought that I never knew existed. I’ve since found my footing, Colby-we’re locating streams of magical energy here and there, buried deep. Enough to empower more ambitious sorceries. I’m reluctant because this place might yet have some uses for me and my ilk back in Aandor, but at some point, very soon, I will abandon my ‘surgical’ approach. And that will not bode well for the innocents of this world.”
Dorn’s words were too subtle for his tone. Colby thought of his son, Torrence, and the few others he still loved. It filled him with dread, just when he thought he’d exhausted his reservoir of that emotion. “You’ll never find this kid without me, Dorn. I’m that good,” Colby said, trying to reclaim his leverage.
Krebe approached silently with a large duffel bag from the taxi’s trunk. He unzipped it, revealing dozens of thumping velvet sacks writhing about like a colony of rats. Dorn reached into the bag and pulled out a familiar velvet sack. Krebe and the bag went back to the cab. Dorn twirled the velvet sack around playfully on its drawstring before Colby.
“Is that mine?” Colby asked. He didn’t expect Dorn to have his heart on him.
“I don’t know. Is it?” Dorn pulled the heart out of the bag and scrutinized it as he turned it around. The dogs began to salivate at the scent of fresh meat. “Hmmm. Your left and right ventricles were quite clotted. Only a few years left from what Symian discerned. The color in this one looks healthy. But then, they all look the same from the outside. You know, Colby… we don’t have to replace your heart to restore your life.”
Colby suspected a con. “I don’t follow.”
“Any heart will do, as long as the blood type matches. There are a few spry but not so bright young men in my employ. Take my friend, Salim, in the cab. Doesn’t smoke, never drinks alcohol, and prays to God five times a day. Never underestimate the aerobic advantages of prayer, Colby. Think about it. What use would millions of dollars be if you could only enjoy it for the short while your heart has left.”
“Millions?”
“Millions. My people live by the gold standard. Krakens, Gryphons… Phoenixes,” he said shaking the photocopy of the coins. “It doesn’t matter who adorns the coin, it’s ninety-one percent pure gold. We don’t care about green paper or dead presidents. My coffers here in the United States can be yours after I leave.”
The word “millions” echoed through Colby’s head like a scream escaping a canyon. With that kind of wealth, he could hire a dream team of lawyers; probably buy himself a pardon if he “donated” to the right political candidates. And, Tory would be set for life. Twenty-four-hour medical care with private nurses and the best doctors on earth. That much money bought life. Colby glimpsed at the driver in the taxi-the poster child for despondency.
“What about Salim?” he asked.
“He’ll be grateful. His deity has promised him seventy-two virgins feeding him sweetmeats in a garden after he moves on. Everyone’s happy.”
Colby had known his days were numbered even before the forced coronary extraction. He could feel it in his wheezing breath after a four-story walk-up. Now, Dorn was offering seven figures with a few extra decades of debauchery added in-or redemption. It was the kind of offer that made for great German literature. Some slacker punk would get his decrepit ticker or buy the farm. This was the real thing-wealth and long life. He could find this kid, he knew that. But the offer didn’t change the issue.
“It’s a good deal. But it doesn’t address why I brought you here. I’m not even sure you can reverse what you did to me and Carla. I want it now, before I find the kid. Otherwise, you can go to hell.”
“You wouldn’t be as motivated. Trust me, Colby, your heart is far more into completing the job sitting in my pocket.”
“Goddamn it, Dorn… I’ve conned enough to know a con when I hear one! You don’t give a rat’s ass about anybody that works for you. Everyone’s a mark to achieving your ends. You’ll shaft me just for shits and giggles. Now is that my fucking heart or not?”
“Let’s find out,” Dorn said. He dropped the organ between the Dobermans.
“NO!” Colby cried.
The dogs tore at it. Colby clutched his chest in anticipation. Instead, he heard a tortured yowl. It came from the church.
“It would appear not,” Dorn said.
Colby ran to the church and burst through the doors. Carla lay before the altar convulsing, screaming. A minister tried to help her as black blood shot from every orifice in her body. She was a perforated bag of soy sauce.
“I think she’s having a seizure,” the minister shrieked. “Please, call a doctor!”
No doctor could help her now. Colby sat on the end of a pew clutching his own chest as the aisle became a river. He wanted to cry, but was dry as a bone. Dead men didn’t have tears. He ignored the minister shouting to call 911. Colby felt nauseated, but didn’t even have enough life left in him to puke.
Carla’s torso heaved and she gasped for breath. Her breathing slowed. Then, she just stopped.
The door creaked. Dorn stood at the entrance. He cut a dark silhouette against the winter sky. “A shame,” he said.
“Is that what’s in store for me, Dorn? For the cabdriver, for every other wretch unlucky enough to have entered your sphere?”
“I don’t believe in fortune.” Dorn held up four manila envelopes. Even from a distance Colby recognized them as his “insurance” letters. They burst into flames in Dorn’s hands. He dropped them on the floor and watched them burn. The minister ran for the fire extinguisher, threatening to call the police.
“By the way… everyone these letters were addressed to will be dead within the hour. Don’t ever try to blackmail me again. There are worse things than what she went through,” he said, pointing to Carla. “I’m sure you’ll take my word on that.”
The cab pulled up in front of the church. Dorn turned to leave.
“Are you the devil?” Colby shouted.
Dorn considered the question. “I’m not as forgiving,” he finally said. “Find the boy.”