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"You don't want to hurt Susannah, Melanie. I know this. You're a good person. You've been caring for her since she was born. She loves you, and you love her."
Alexandra Eames stood to the side, watching her partner closely, and when he finished speaking, she offered him a sip of fresh, steaming coffee from a foam cup. Robert Goren, his face exhausted, shook his head. She pointed to a chair, and again he rejected the suggestion, preferring to lean forward with a hand on either side of the worn doorframe, his head bowed as he spoke to the person behind a cheap hollow-wood door that had once been brown but was now grey with age and wear. Now and then, he rested his head on the door.
"I know it's been hard, Melanie," he continued to coax in a gentle voice with the edge of a rasp. "Tom didn't go into all the things that would happen. He must...not have wanted to frighten you. You didn't know his plan would lead to this."
Behind them, in an aged living room furnished with a ten-year-old flat screen television balanced on a plastic milk crate, a chipped-paint green wooden chair, two folding wooden TV trays that had seen better days, and a lopsided futon covered with a faded old quilt, stood three uniformed police officers, the lieutenant coordinating the operation, a patiently-waiting CSU tech, a restless social services officer, a representative from the mayor's office, a cameraman with a video recorder, and the terrified parents of 11-month-old Susannah Griffin, waiting as Goren continued his negotiations with Melanie Imprezzo, the seemingly innocent 25-year-old nanny who was holding the child hostage.
"I never meant to hurt Susie. I do love her!" wailed Melanie from behind the door. Goren and Eames had seen only a photo of her briefly before they were hustled to the venerable apartment building where her manipulative boyfriend lived, a wide-eyed waif with fluffy light brown hair and the palest of blue eyes. In the photo, she was cradling Susannah as a newborn, having been hired just before the baby's birth, a beatific expression on her thin face as she stared at the bundle. "But Tommy said...we could make a lot of money--Susie's parents have so much that they wouldn't miss it, he told me...and then we could get married and have babies of our own."
"I know, Melanie. He made it seem all so easy. It's not your fault."
Except for being gullible enough to believe a shyster like Thomas Dolan, Eames thought grimly to herself.
They had been at this since noon. Melanie had locked herself in the bedroom of Tommy Dolan's residence in the aged building on 84th Street. Dolan himself had told the police that a means to kill the child was in the bedroom, and Melanie had been instructed to do so should the terms not be met. Melanie, he'd said with cockiness, would do whatever he told her to--she was "the perfect woman." The Griffins, a mid-six-figure power couple (he a bank executive, she on the board of directors at a healthcare organization), at first did not believe "sweet Melanie" could do any such thing...until she had described a syringe with "drugs" in it, something that would put Susannah to sleep painlessly if the proper dosage was given. An overdose would result if more were administered. And, indeed, Melanie's first encounters with the negotiation personnel at the 20th precinct had not been favorable. Tom was her guiding star. She had to carry out his instructions, or he would not love her. She couldn't let him down.
"What about Goren at Major Case?" someone had suggested to Lieutenant Elle Harambi. "I hear he's an odd duck, but he and his partner Eames have a sterling record with kidnap negotiations."
Robert Goren had read her file on the way there and wanted to save Imprezzo as badly as he also wanted Susannah out of the room and safe. Her scant biography and input from the Griffins told him Melanie was a naïve, guileless woman who'd attended a rigid convent school and had even more rigid Catholic parents, fair game for a handsome, slick talker like Tom Dolan, whom she'd met walking Susannah in the park and fallen hard for. When the two detectives arrived, the first thing Melanie begged of Goren was to permit her to talk to Tom, to have him advise her what to do--"It's the man's job, after all, Father Aloysius always said; the man always rules the household."--and upon being told that he could not be contacted, she had collapsed into such a weeping fit that Susannah had begun screaming.
Goren immediately fell into hypnotic tones, the voice he used frequently with small children to put them at ease. It had quieted Melanie, and then she had put the baby to rights--thank goodness she had thought to bring food and changing supplies into the room for the child!--and Susannah's whimpering "Mama" and "Dada" finally subsided. Melanie would not be able to speak to Tom nevertheless; he had attempted a shootout and escape with two uniforms six hours earlier and come off the worse in the encounter. He was now in the morgue with the rest of that day's victims.
"I don't dare tell her he's dead now," Goren had argued in low tones with Lt. Harambi, who was supervising the operation. "She's on the edge. The Griffins tell me she was fairly hypnotized by Dolan, and losing him might mean she'll give up and bring Susannah out unharmed, but after that outburst, there's a better than average chance she'll go unhinged and give Susannah whatever drug Dolan supplied her with. I'm not willing to take that risk." Harambi had agreed.
By the clock, one day had slipped into the next, but he was still talking to her through the door, taking the occasional sip of coffee and sucking on cough drops to keep his voice from failing, discussing everything from Melanie's love of babies to books she had read about childrearing, from cooking healthy meals to the poetry "Tommy" had read her. Someone named Dylan Thomas, she said, and Goren had made an immediate connection by reciting "Fern Hill." She revealed herself as a dreamy girl whose old-fashioned parents had instilled into her a fixed goal of motherhood, a fantasy of an enchanted marriage with storybook little ones hanging onto her apron as she baked cookies and ironed Tom's shirts.
"Boy, is she in for a surprise," Eames had muttered to the social services representative, a tough-looking Latina named Elena Castillo who was, contrary to her appearance, soft-spoken and genial.
"That's pretty cynical, isn't it, Detective Eames?" Castillo had asked.
Eames thought of her mother, raising three children on a beat cop's salary, and the daily terror no one spoke aloud: that Dad might be hurt in the line of duty. Luckily, Johnny Eames had suffered no more than several flesh wounds, two from stray bullets and one from a knife attack, and she hadn't had to endure the long cavalcade of a fallen officer's funeral like several of her friends whose fathers worked law enforcement, with bagpipes wailing "Amazing Grace."
"Yeah, there are sweet times," Eames admitted. She remembered cuddles with her mother, hikes with her father, the family gatherings on Christmas and Easter, even baking cookies, but the specter of death affected Alex Eames more than her sister Liz and her brother Jack. Despite it all, she had followed her father into the profession. "But being a mother is more than baking cookies for the PTA and reading the kids Goodnight Moon."
Later, she would ask herself when she became so jaded.
She was worried about Goren. At one point, he had been relieved by a woman from the Victims Services auxiliary, one with experience in dealing with rape victims. The representative had spoken encouragingly to the young woman, but after fifteen minutes, Melanie had asked fretfully for "Mr. Bob," who had "a kind voice, like Mister Rogers. Men are always more trustworthy, don't you think?"
Eames had ground her teeth, wondering what type of subordinate role Melanie's mother had taken in her life.
Goren had only blinked at Eames, sighed, then shrugged. He'd used the break to urinate, wash his face, wolf down a sandwich, then pop an antacid--he loved his pastrami, no matter what it did to his digestion--and gulp some coffee. Since then, he'd continued talking to Melanie about children and anything else to engage her.
Ten minutes earlier, Harambi had crooked a finger at Eames, and they had retreated to a corner, keeping their voices low. "What do you think?"
Eames yawned and stretched, keeping half an eye on her partner. "I think he's close. He's made her doubt Dolan without running him down. She's admitted she can't hurt the baby, even if Dolan told her to do so. And I can tell she's tired from her voice. Susannah has food, Melanie doesn't--she must be getting hungry, too."
"You two are experts at this," was Harambi's approving response. "I'm glad I called. How long have you been working together?"
Eames rotated her head, trying to unkink her neck. "It's been a few years," she admitted.
"Your skills make it seem longer. I've seen 20-year partners who don't mesh as well as you."
Eames nodded, attention elsewhere. She saw Goren straighten and arch backwards to stretch his spine. "Let me see if he'll take some more coffee. He looks all in."
She padded back to what had become her post, next to the bedroom door at his side. This time, Goren thirstily gulped the coffee, which was now lukewarm.
"It's almost Christmas, isn't it?" Melanie said suddenly.
Goren looked surprised, and Eames ducked her head, biting off a smile. He was always so immersed in his work that sometimes she wondered if he had ever noticed holidays as anything but a time when he could have a longer visit with his mother at Carmel Ridge. She always imagined him, even at Thanksgiving and Easter, poring over his psychology books or boning up on other criminology tomes.
"Yes," he said, glancing at his watch. "Four...no, three days. It's past midnight. The winter solstice was almost twelve hours ago, at 12:47 p.m.. The shortest day of the year."
Eames smiled to herself. Of course he knew the precise time.
Melanie sounded spent. "It's been such a long day for me."
"I'm sure. You've had Susannah all day, longer than usual. Why not come out with her, Melanie? I'm sure you need someone to spell you. I'll hold her for you. You know, I would love to hold Susannah. She's such a good girl because you've cared for her so well. You could take a nap, have something to eat--maybe some hot soup?"
"I'm so hungry," Melanie agreed, sniffling.
"Someone can get you hot soup. What do you like? Tomato? Chicken with noodles?"
"Something with pastina," she said faintly. "Hot soup would be so nice."
Goren flashed eyes at one of the uniforms, a rookie by the look of it, picking at his cuticles as they waited.
Eames hissed to the man, "Get some soup. Now."
"Where?" the bewildered young man asked.
"There's a bodega over a block," Castillo answered, low. "If they're closed, bang on the door if you have to." Then, seeing his startled expression, she burst out in a whisper, "Oh, for God's sake," and dragged the rookie off with her.
"We're getting you some soup, Melanie. How's Susannah? Is she hungry?"
"She's sleeping, like the angel she is."
He looked at Eames, she back at him, with one thought: a natural sleep, or something from the threatened syringe?
In ten minutes, Castillo and the officer returned with a dented can of Campbell's chicken and stars, which they opened with the rusty can opener Eames had extracted with two-fingered distaste from one of the battered kitchen drawers and rinsed off, then dumped into a chipped bowl from an equally disordered cupboard. The microwave was in similar shape, but Castillo shoved the bowl in nevertheless.
"We've got some soup coming for you, Melanie," Goren said softly, hypnotically. "Won't you come out to eat it?"
"I...are you sure I can't speak to Tommy?"
"I'm one of the contacts with D- Tom's search team," Eames lied in the sweetest, gentlest voice she could muster, as if she were talking to her five-year-old nephew. "We're still trying to locate Tom. We've got our best team on it, and I'm sure we'll find him soon. Then you can explain things to him."
"He said...he said he would stay close, guide me..."
Instead, he left you holding the bag, honey.
"We'll find him, Melanie. I can guarantee it."
"Detective Eames never lies, Melanie," Goren added, swallowing.
Except about the liars themselves, she thought.
The microwave beeped, and Castillo swiftly retrieved the bowl, placing it on the rickety table, along with the least objectionable spoon from the untidy silverware drawer.
"Everyone back off," Goren said softly, waving his hand at the assembly. "Please. Back away. Let me handle this. Please." He saw the parents' wild eyes, realizing what it was costing them. "I know, Mr. and Mrs. Griffin, it's hard--but do as I ask-"
They complied, and he cupped the bowl in his hands and waved it next to the old-fashioned doorknob with its keyhole. It was piping hot, and the appetizing scent of chicken soup filled the kitchen. Eames saw him wince as he balanced the steaming bowl in his palms, but he said softly, "Can't you smell that, Melanie? Nice hot chicken soup. Come on out. I'll hold Susannah for you while you eat. It smells so good!"
"I can smell it. Oh, Mr. Bob, I'm so hungry..."
The worn brass doorknob turned. One of the officers stepped forward, and Eames threw herself at him, hissing, "No!"
The door opened, revealing Melanie looking like a tattered Ghost of Christmas Past, hair rumpled and eyes bloodshot with grief and stress, in a pink sweater and a white skirt, barefoot in the chilly apartment, holding a sleeping Susannah clad in a teddy-bear patterned onesie. The child's head was pillowed on her shoulder. There was a sharp intake of breath; whether it was Susannah's mother or father, they didn't know.
"You've taken such good care of her," he continued in a soothing voice, setting the soup back on the table. "Here. Hand her to me. Let's not wake her."
"Mr. Bob?" Melanie said doubtfully, evidently not expecting a tall bear of a man with a scruffy beard to go along with Goren's coaxing voice and gentle eyes.
"Yes, Melanie. It's me. Here, let me take her. You look so tired. I'll be careful with her, I promise." And he lifted the baby as if she were a doll, relief flooding his face as he realized she was breathing. "See, she's safe. Sit down. Have your soup."
Melanie, unsteady on her feet, stumbled to the table, collapsed into the chair as if not even seeing the motionless group staring at her. Her face was blotched with past tears, and now she began crying afresh. Castillo shifted as if starting forward, and Goren raised his free hand to make her halt. "Go on, Melanie. Have your soup. No one will bother you."
Sniffling, scrubbing her eyes with the back of her left hand, Melanie dipped a spoon in the soup and took a sip, then began to wolf it down. Now that she was occupied, Goren backed up, one step, two steps, more, until he turned and put a finger to his lips. "Shhhh." Then he set Susannah in her mother's arms.
"Eat up, Melanie," he said gently, returning to stand behind the chair. "We'll talk when you're through."
He staggered slightly sideways then, and Eames was at his side, balancing him. "Good job," she whispered.
Castillo slipped between the lieutenant and one uniformed officer to check on Susannah, who had awakened, and her mother was rocking her back and forth, kissing her face and crying simultaneously; her father had his hand over his mouth, stifling relieved sobs. The uniformed officers shuffled and murmured. Someone sent away the cameraman, but a hollow-eyed Goren gulped the coffee Eames gave him and stood guard over Melanie while she finished her soup. Then he laid a warm hand on her shoulder. "You did the right thing, Melanie. Thank you."
"But I did a bad thing," she said, swollen blue eyes cast upward at him, "didn't I? My penance will be so long."
"Yes," he said quietly, "but now you'll be able to make it right, with us, and with Mother Mary. You'll come away from the darkness."
Eames had fished Melanie's shoes from the untidy bedroom. "Can someone find a jacket for Ms. Imprezzo? I don't see one in here. It's cold outside."
Castillo had one of the uniforms fetch a blanket from her car when no extra jackets were to be found. Then Eames read Melanie her rights while handcuffing her--she no longer resisted and stood silently, tears pooling on her chin and then dripping freely down to the pink sweater, making darker spots that looked like blood--and had two female uniforms lead her away.
Goren reminded gently before she left, "You did a good thing, Melanie. Thank you."
He always remembered their humanity.
Eames noticed his unsteadiness again, as did Harambi.
"You two are dead tired. You can file your reports after you've had time to wind down," Harambi said decidedly, and when Goren opened his mouth to protest, her threaded eyebrows swooped in a dangerous "V" between her dark brows. "Don't argue with me, Detective Goren. You need a meal and some rest. And that goes for you, too, Eames. You both take a day; I'll square it with Captain Ross, and you come back Wednesday and get those reports in first thing, understand?"
"Yes, Lieutenant," Eames said for both of them, because Goren had his hand over his mouth to cover his relief.
"Foster tells me there's a 24-hour coffee shop a block over, just opened to serve the folks who hit the Urgent Care on 82nd. They have breakfasts, sandwiches, and soup," and she smiled wryly at the ravaged kitchen behind her, "unless you want my officers to find you another couple of cans of Campbell's."
Eames shuddered at the decrepit rooms. "No, thank you, Lieutenant."
Goren held out a large paw of a hand, and Eames noticed, disturbed, how it trembled slightly. "Thank you for your help, Lt. Harambi. I w-wanted a positive outcome for this case, and…um…you let me have the leeway."
She firmly shook his proffered hand. "It was my pleasure. I'll let your captain know how well you handled this. Now, get some food into you, and then sleep. You're off the clock with pay, and if the Chief of Ds protests, I'll give him a piece of my mind he won’t forget."
They emerged to police personnel keeping the curious away--even in the wee hours, there were always the curious in New York City--and the police presence outside was changing: traffic control officers had removed street barriers and were leaving, and two more CSU officers had just arrived. The squad car taking Melanie Imprezzo had already departed for the 20th. On the corner, an expensively dressed man, hatless despite the frigid cold, was arguing with a square-shouldered street officer.
"I think that's the new building owner," Eames said as they skirted the quarreling pair.
"Prime real estate like this, just around the corner from Fifth?" Goren said blurrily. ""How in hell did…did they manage to keep it out of the developers' hands for so long that it turned into a slum?"
"Held up in probate," Eames said. It was so chilly now that she tugged a watch cap from her parka pocket and pulled it over her ears, unmindful of how she might look, as they trudged up the block, puffing white smoke as they went. "I pulled the papers while you were dealing with Melanie. Apparently, there's been a contested factor on the ownership for years. The deceased's family said they owned it, and his wife's family said the property went to them. Harambi said they've been duking it out for a decade or more."
Then she smiled at him. "You blew the socks off the Lieu. She said she knew 20-year partners who didn't work as well as us."
Heavy-eyed, he gave her a quirk of the mouth. "Like I said once, complementary skills." He indicated ahead with his left hand. "Looks like the destination du jour."
At the corner of the cross street, they could see the welcome lights of the coffee/sandwich shop "Up All Nite," and the closer they approached, even from outside, their nostrils filled with the combined, heady scents of coffee, bacon, and ham. Her stomach growling, Eames pushed the glass door open and shooed Goren inside to warmth, and dancing multicolored Christmas lights twisted around a gold tinsel garland wrapped around and draped under the cash register. From an audio device discreetly tucked behind the counter, old Christmas standards played.
The coffee shop/diner, consisting of a long line of booths on the left under the windows painted with Christmas motifs, including a fur-robed Ded Moroz in a troika drawn by three white horses, and a long counter at right with vintage red and silver rotating counter stools, was occupied but not crowded, mostly with tired-looking people seated in ones and twos in booths, a few slumped over the counter. She assumed most were taking a break from the Urgent Care a block over, noting furrowed brows and at least one woman crying into her companion's coat collar. Seeing an empty booth, she directed Goren to it, then hurried to greet the short, dark-haired, and bearded man at the front counter and explain their predicament.
Happily, the counterman turned out to be Gregor Malikov, the owner, who was a staunch supporter of the NYPD--he waved a collection jar for the Police Benevolent Fund at them to prove his support--and who swiftly set down a menu, paper placemats, silverware, and some drinking glasses, then hurried back to the kitchen. Three minutes later, he emerged with four slices of toast and some butter on a plate, which he laid between them.
"Here, detectives," said Malikov genially, "start on this. Are you ready to order?"
Goren certainly was: the words "scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns" tumbled from his lips in quick breaths, followed by a hasty request for a short stack of pancakes. Eames, following the lead of her infamous sweet tooth, ordered over-easy eggs with applesauce and a double side of French toast. Both ordered coffee, and Goren, with a teasing smile, said, "Bring lots of sugar."
"I will help assemble the order myself," Malikov promised, and vanished.
Goren pushed the plate toward his partner with a "Have some toast," and she took the top slice and smeared a good dollop of butter on it. Slowly, a grin formed on his face as she devoured the bread. "You were as hungry as I was, weren't you, Eames?"
"I don't see how," she said matter-of-factly. "You did all the work."
His face darkened. "That's not true," he said, laying down his toast. "You were there to s-support me. You dealt with Castillo and that busybody newsman while I worked with Melanie. You brought me…um..the intel I needed from the Griffins and the uniforms, and about her parents to make the outcome successful. That's just as important as my negotiations. I don't w-want you to think..."
Breathing hard, she held up her hand in a "stop" motion, knowing his next words. Her own bitter voice, with a knife slash in it, emerged from the past and rang in her head: "I get it. You're the genius; I just carry your water. Right?" Followed by days of her simmering fury and his following behind her like a whipped dog, obsequious, ashamed. It was the first thing she had thought of when Harambi had praised their teamwork.
She had only wanted him to know how hurt she was, how excluded she felt--and how stunned and sick she had been at having almost blasted a hole in his face with her Glock. (Once she was out of sight of everyone, she had dashed into a toilet stall and vomited until her throat was scalded.) She had not intended that he lick her boots and grovel. It hadn't been her intention at all.
He needed to know, her brain insisted.
I shouldn't have been such a cunt about it, another part of her retorted.
She was too exhausted to allow her brain to debate this for the 100th time.
"So," she said, deflecting quickly, looking at her watch, and asking in as gentle a ribbing voice as she could, "The winter solstice is today. Shortest day of the year. I remember that from science class. And that the earth is actually closer to the sun in winter than in summer, but because the earth tilts, the light falls at an angle, making it colder instead of warmer. Did your teacher demonstrate with a flashlight, too?"
To her relief, he had relaxed again, his eyes grateful as he consumed his toast. "Yes, she did. The tilt is about 23 and a half degrees."
Of course he knows.
Goren's eyelids sagged as he bit into a second slice of toast, this time topped with a heaping spoonful of strawberry jelly. "I remember imagining as a kid the Australians celebrating the longest day just as we reached the shortest. Until I understood the science behind it, it seemed like magic." He smiled a bit dreamily. "Of course...this is the time of year for magic. Not sleight-of-hand or misdirection, but the real thing."
Eames rested her chin on her fist as she continued eating her first slice. "How so?"
She recognized the symptoms: he was going deep into what she called "librarian mode" and wondered briefly if, when he did so, it brought him closer to his late mother. Occasionally, she pondered why he had chosen law enforcement as a career when he would have made a fine lecturer on obscure traditions, but knew in her heart it was due to his overwhelming desire to make things "right" as well as to keep himself occupied with puzzles. Even now, exhausted and expending energy with eating, she could feel the slight tremor of the table as he jiggled one of his feet.
Was he restless even in bed?
"Eames?" he said suddenly. "Are you all right?"
"Sure," she replied hastily, "why?"
"You're...flushed," he observed.
"Am I?" she joked, covering her embarrassment. "Maybe I'm starting on hot flashes already, like my sister. Anyway...how so? Magic, I mean."
"Supposedly, during certain polytheist holidays, the veil between this world and the next becomes thin…um…spirits from the 'other world' can slip into ours. Halloween, of course, is the obvious one," he continued, finishing the second slice of toast. "So we get spirits at Halloween--the tongues of fire that used to be in the jack o'lanterns--you know the original ones were turnips, right? Not pumpkins...it became pumpkins when the tradition was brought by the Irish to the United States--the fire inside was supposed to…to represent spirits, will-o'-the-wisps, the souls of those dead floating over the graveyard. Witches, ghosts, goblins, kobolds-"
She smiled at him. Pumpkins, turnips, witches, and kobolds, all in one fell swoop. "Have the last slice of toast."
He sighed, then divided the slice and handed the larger portion to her. It was such an unconsciously sweet gesture that she dimpled and accepted, nibbling on it as he continued, "Christmas, due to the birth of the Saviour, is considered another interstice when the veil weakens. That's why A Christmas Carol is a ghost story--why Dickens wrote other ghost stories, and why it was a tradition to tell ghost stories at Christmas. There's a famous English author, M.R.--Montague Rhodes--James, who was provost of King's College and was known for his annual ghost story at Christmas-"
Their breakfast plates emerged in Malikov's hands, redolent with the heavenly scent of hot eggs and bacon and warmed maple syrup on the side. Goren gave her an apologetic look and dug into his food; Eames just smiled, because she would have been the last to admit that she was as hungry as the proverbial wolf that probably haunted the ghost stories he'd been going on about. For a few minutes, it was quiet, but when they had both slowed down, initial hunger satiated, Goren took a deep breath. "James wrote only thirty-three stories, but they're considered classics of the genre. The BBC adapts them to this day, in...um...both audio and video form." He dug his fork into the eggs and ate a few more bites as Eames' eyes danced at him. "Then we have our own supernatural traditions here. The spirit dances and animal tales of the various Native American tribes, then...'Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' anyone?"
"But that wasn't really supernatural, was it?" Eames returned, dissecting her French toast with a knife and fork. "Just Brom...Brom Bones, wasn't it? Trying to get rid of Ichabod Crane so he could claim the 'fair Katrina'? Especially since what Crane wanted most was Katrina's dowry...sounds like one of our cases, doesn't it! Now, 'Rip Van Winkle,' on the other hand-"
Goren chuckled at both her comment and the expression of sheer bliss as she bit into French toast drowned in maple syrup. "Time travel story with mysterious little men playing ninepins involved, yes. Not to mention a whole tradition here in Manhattan. Look at the Morris-Jumel Mansion--there are always paranormal investigators wanting to try new tracking methods."
"But you can't believe in all that stuff," Eames objected, making a face. "I mean ghosts, wailing spirits, hauntings...it's just fairy tales. Like the stories my grandfather told about the banshees and the Little People. You don't believe in all that, Bobby, do you?" And she tilted her head at him just enough that he smiled again. The color was coming back to his face, the exhaustion receding.
"Totally...no. Most of them are tales told in the dark--but there are still things we can't explain, aren't there, Alex? What would the world be like if everything were explained? Even I..I have to admit there needs to be some mystery left. I don't believe in Ghostbusters, but think about...well, think about the Morris place, the historic figures who lived and worked there. Even more, think about the poor souls found buried at the African Burial Ground. The Morrises and the Jumels at least had monuments. If there were a veil becoming thin at this time of year, wouldn't it be appropriate if those unknown souls in unmarked graves could breach that veil and tell us their identities, their stories, rather than being unidentified silent victims, their remains bearing signs of the abuse they endured from their masters?"
Eames nodded. It was always his way to think of the marginalized.
The idling part of her mind considered another word: Alex. He must really be mellowing out.
"And then," Goren said puckishly, "there are always the rumors of faeries in Central Park."
She looked startled. "I always thought those were...well, slurs about the clandestine hookups in The Ramble."
"Some are," Goren said with a look of disgust. "And, of the mentions of real Fae, most of those come from fiction. But--there's a persistent rumor of the Fae living somewhere in Central Park, in the Ramble, sometimes in the Sheep Meadow--and the unique one I heard once that said the Fae hang out with the shade of John Lennon in Strawberry Fields on the anniversary of his death."
"Presumably coming from someone who'd sipped at a bottle of Three Buck Chuck in a paper bag beforehand," Eames said scornfully, but gave him an almost mischievous "pull the other one" look, so he grinned, and they finished their meal in companionable silence.
"May we have the check, please?" Goren finally requested of Malikov.
There followed a five-minute wrangle with the little Russian, who bristled at the idea of their having to pay for their food. Did the NYPD not protect him and his wife, Grete? Should he not be properly grateful? It was a common occurrence in the city, and many police officers didn't argue with it. If a restaurant owner wanted to say thank you with a freebie, all power to him, and they were particularly thankful. But the practice made Goren and Eames uncomfortable, especially the former, given his difficulties with the department in the past. There was no way he was going to permit even the slightest infraction to make its way onto his current record.
Finally, Goren laid three ten-dollar bills next to the cash register. "You can take this, or you can leave it here for s-someone to take away, or you can contribute it to a good cause, but I will be paying you. It's Christmas--if you feel you want to donate to something on our behalf, please do so."
Malikov finally nodded in resignation and rang up the sale. Eames, struggling with both sleepiness and her parka, arched her eyebrows at him and smiled. In return, he held the parka for her until she was bundled up once again, and then he buttoned his own heavy overcoat, turned up his collar, and pulled a watch cap down over his fast-silvering curls.
She checked her watch. "My God, Bobby, no wonder I feel punch-drunk. It's nearly three a.m.!"
"Almost the witching hour," he said, amused.
"We've already passed midnight," she objected as they exited the coffee shop.
"Almost everyone thinks it's midnight," he said carelessly, "but it's 3 a.m., exactly twelve hours opposite the time that Christ was crucified. It used to be called 'the Devil's Hour,' too."
Of course he knew, danced in Eames' head.
The frigid air struck them like a blow. They huddled close to each other for a moment, then Goren suggested, "Why don't we hit the Met? It's only a few blocks down, and even at this time of the morning, there's always a hopeful cabbie or two there. We can make his night--he'll take me out to Greenpoint and then you to Forest Hills."
She managed to nod a yes, even with her teeth chattering. In a moment, they had rounded the corner and turned back on Fifth Avenue. The air was so chill and relatively silent that they could hear the bells of St. Patrick's, and the bells of St. Thomas' in echo, sound the hour.
"I think I see a couple of cabs-"
One... two... three... came the strokes.
After the final echo, the air changed.
After dark, any breeze over Manhattan flowed west to east, making the cross streets into wind tunnels and, on a winter night, both frosty and biting. It was on nights like this that the homeless ached in their cardboard boxes or curled up with a street dog to stay warm and alive. Even as the subdued nighttime city lights blotted out the stars, though a waning half-moon hung in a cloudless sky, fine specks of snowflakes appeared to be falling--or was it glitter?
"Bobby?" Eames' voice broke through his look of wonder at the sparkles drifting in leisurely spiral eddies ahead of them. The odd illumination had taken on a slightly bluish hue, and there was a silvery sound in the air, like microscopic bells tinkling all at once. The scent of the sea was suddenly strong, as if the wind had reversed.
"Are they filming a movie?" she asked as they stared down Fifth toward the sprawl of the building that was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, confused, then rubbed her eyes. Everything had a peculiar glow that she couldn't identify.
"There would be crew…police…traffic barriers out here, though, wouldn't there? Not a thing but the cabs. Not…even traffic."
Eames tilted her head upward. "The light seems to come from the roof. Filming there?"
Then there was a more familiar sound at their left, the thud of rubber trash receptacles being shoved against one another. Scavenger flashed through both their minds. But human or animal? That question was answered by a yelp and finally a soft whine.
"Maybe a stray," Goren said, the presence of a dog temporarily diverting his interest away from the odd light.
Eames slid sideways a step and bumped into him. "But what size stray?" They'd encountered big dogs during searches before, and sometimes the encounters ended badly. "A big one, by the sound of it." Inwardly, she thought, Will I have to shoot someone's dog just before Christmas? Make some kid cry? Her Glock was snug in its holster, but she abhorred the thought of using it.
When the animal appeared in the shadows, it put them both on guard, because it was not only large, it was huge. It was shaped like a foxhound but taller and more heavily muscled, with long legs and equally long dangling ears that brushed the ground as it sniffed at the dirty grey pavement under its oversized paws. As it emerged from the passage, they realized it had not been in shadow at all; the hound was completely black, with a bluish tint to its coat, over thirty inches tall at the withers. It wore no collar, and when it raised its head, its large, drooping jowls were flecked with saliva. Equally startling were its eyes, the distinctive color of raw amber mined from the earth.
Eames's breath hitched, and Goren cleared his throat as the dog inclined its head toward them, its nostrils visibly twitching in the bluish light. Then it waved a whip of a tail at them and lolled its tongue, as if it were simply an ordinary city pet out for a stroll.
"Here, girl," Goren coaxed, and the dog merely wagged her tail harder and padded the few feet to sniff at Goren's gloved fist. After the foray into the trash cans, Eames would have expected a far worse odor to be on the creature, but as she stroked the dog's sleek head, the animal smelled of fresh pine forest and the autumnal vestiges of leaf mold and wood smoke.
"What breed of dog is this?" she wondered aloud, depending on Goren to know the answer, but instead he scratched the hollow depression between the hound's eyes and smiled wryly, "Um...American foxhound crossed with a pony, I think. Must belong to whoever's in charge of those lights. We'll find out what's going on when we return her."
"We need to get home," Eames fretted with a sigh.
Some activity must have happened up ahead, because above and around them, the silvery sound amplified, the swirls of snow--or was it glitter?--became more animated, and, as if far away, came the sound of a hunting horn. The hound pivoted, danced away from their attentions, and then bayed in a clear bell tone, and from the top of the Met came the answering voices of other hounds.
"If there's a film crew up there, they must be doing a remake of Old Yeller," Eames said dryly.
"Listen!" Goren hushed her, and to her surprise, she made out clopping sounds coming from above, each strike echoing in the air. She stared at him in disbelief.
"Horses? What's going on, Bobby? They can't possibly have horses on the roof of the Met-"
"Just one horse." Goren stood frozen, staring. "Look!"
An impossible horse, as black as the dog, but with eyes like fire, leaped from the roof, the rider on its back sitting straight and tall as the horse dropped twelve feet, arms outstretched and a cloak billowing behind like a flag on a stormy day. Then the impossible creature and its even more impossible rider swooped upward until they were as small as a Christmas ornament. Their breaths caught in unison as the pair dropped from that height, swerving and stooping like a hawk after its prey, while the great hound next to them pranced on its hind legs, eyes now blazing coal-bright like the horse's.
"That's what, a hologram?" Eames said in disbelief. "Some kind of special effect?"
"This dog isn't a special effect, though," Goren pointed out, and indeed, the very heat emitted from the hound's body had already warmed them so much that Eames had unzipped the throat of her jacket, mouth agape as she watched the horse and rider come straight for them.
Five feet away, as if reaching some invisible barrier, the horse's slashing gallop ended, and it stretched out its forelegs as if to land after a jump at an ordinary hurdle.
"Herne," Goren uttered, transfixed. Now they saw the rider clearly as well, balanced without the benefit of saddle or stirrups on the horse's back, a man of between thirty and sixty, his chin up proudly, russet and silver hair flowing over his shoulders, and a beard of the same flowing hair swirling down his partially bare chest. His cloak was of soft fur in shades of brown and lay full over his shoulders, covering a reddish tunic of deerskin. His thighs were bare, the remainder of his legs covered knee to foot in fur boots. In one powerful fist, he held a rod made from the branch of an ash tree, with a softball-sized tangle of mistletoe at the tip.
"Are those..." she breathed.
"Antlers," Goren said, staring at the man's...was he even a man?...head. "It's Herne the Hunter."
Of course he knows. Even if she didn't.
"The Wild Hunt," he explained further, not having taken his eyes off rider and horse.
Sure, she thought dazedly, that explains it perfectly.
The rider seemed unaware of them and instead smiled at the dog as his steed touched ground, then stepped forward more delicately than one might have expected from something larger than a Clydesdale. "Ósnjallr hundr sér þik eigi. Kom til mín, Ylva." [Foolish hound, they do not see you. Come to me, Ylva.]
Eames knew his curiosity would win out, and indeed Goren took one step forward. "Am I addressing Herne? Or Cernunnos?"
"Bobby-"
The rider tilted his head at Goren in much the same manner as Goren did with his suspects, surprise flooding his face. "Þú sér mik, mannfólk?" [You can see me, human?]
The intensity of Goren's face burned. "I'm sorry...I don't understand your words."
The hound called Ylva danced on its hind legs once more, baying, and the rider, patting the neck of his restless mount, tried again. "Jo kinne my sjen, minske?" [You can see me, human?]
Goren spread his gloved hands, and the rider bowed his head and attempted his inquiry a third time. "Þu miht geseon me, man?"
"Almost...almost..." Goren requested, recognizing the fragments of German, translating, then repeating, "Fast...fast..."
A grin split the rider's face, plumping his rosy cheeks and narrowing his green eyes in amusement. "Wæt...Englisc sprecst þu?" [Wait, it is English you speak?]
"Yes, English."
Now the rider's voice boomed genially, "And thou dost see my hound and my steed and myself? Thee and thy warrior woman both?"
Warrior woman? Eames licked her lips, wary of ridicule. "We do see you," she said boldly.
"Thou must be rare humans indeed!" the rider laughed. "The other humans' eyes skim past us, eyes to the ground or on the thin, shining wafers they carry. Notice the men in their iron wagons," and he waved the mistletoe-decked branch at the taxi stand. "They see nothing, just their wafers. Ylva, she is a young, foolish dog who spends too much time in mortal pursuits, but she knows."
"Am I addressing Herne?" Goren repeated with a mixture of surprise and eagerness in his voice. "Or Cernunnos?"
"Call me what thou wilt. I have many names, from many ages. Herne will do. What art thou called, visionary one?"
"Robert."
"Hrōþiberhtaz. Fame-bright. And the warrior woman with thee?"
Eames' voice was firm.. "Alexandra."
The rider smiled again, seemingly sincere. "A proper name for a warrior woman! Alexeinanēr...defender of man."
"Why are you here tonight?" Goren asked.
"We are always thus in winter; we remain so, and 'tis the hour of our ride...thou sees me now, yet thou hast never seen us before?" Herne seemed puzzled.
"We...we're usually ab-abroad by day," Goren explained. "Our work takes us to places you...um...wouldn't frequent, inside locations of steel and concrete."
His mount tossed its head impatiently, and Herne firmly but gently tugged at its mane, intertwined with stems of holly leaves, to quiet it. "The open air is best, and the winter nights our home."
"Our?" The rider's quiet acceptance of her as a warrior had mollified Eames, and she stepped forward confidently and stretched out her hand, emboldened by the terrible beauty of the fire-eyed horse and the energy pulsing in the uncanny light. The animal dipped its massive head and snuffled at her hand, its jet-colored nose as silky as a mortal horse, and its breath smelling of hickory smoke and fir branches.
"My Hunt!" Herne laughed. "Thou who can see me must have heard them! Humans deny so much--turn the sounds of our passage into the call of the grágás or refuse to hear at all."
"The Wild Hunt," and Goren's eyes shifted to the roof of the Met, "you're up there?" He too was no longer bowed by exhaustion, new energy almost visibly coursing through him.
"And have been for so many years, human. And tonight is Yule! We ride tonight, especially."
"Is this the reason why we can see you? Because of the solstice?" Eames watched as her partner's face shone bright with discovery.
"Is that what you call it? For us, 'tis Yule. The turn of the year as the sun reclaims his territory and the Holly King reigns. The veil is down," Herne chuckled again. "So many things thou may see if thou wilt permit it." He smiled at Eames. "In truth, I still know not how thou sees me, Alexeinanēr warrior woman. Thy mind is only of the mortal world. Thy mate here, yes. He has spent time in the spirit world, trying to leave behind flesh-and-blood, as the shamans do."
"No..." Eames' mind stuttered. "We're not-"
"Partners," supplied Goren hastily. "We work together...in law enforcement. She is a warrior in that respect."
"Oh?" And Herne's voice boomed out his skepticism.
So fixed was their attention on Herne and the uncomfortable conversation that only the sharp tapping behind them drew their attention away.
"Thee makes such hasty conclusions," said an amused woman's voice with a Nordic accent, and they wheeled, dazzled by the sight behind them.
The stag she rode caught their eye first--like the horse, it was larger and more heavily muscled than its earthly version, as black as its equine counterpart, with reflective silver eyes. Twelve points graced its gleaming antlers, glinting bluish-silver in the uncanny light. Around its neck, it wore a collar of holly, the berries so brightly red against the sharp green waxy leaves that they practically glowed.
Astride was a woman as tall and arresting as Herne, with a tawny face seemingly carved from wood: an ample brow, wise dark eyes, a straight nose, and full lips drawn up in a smile. Dark, raven-sleek locks spilled on her shoulders over a long-sleeved tunic of deerskin with belled sleeves, from under which showed loose leggings that reached to boot-top, the last at mid-calf. Her left hand rested on a thong of rawhide around the stag's neck; her right held an ash tree branch very like Herne's, also tipped with mistletoe.
"I am Skaði," she said, clearly intrigued by their presence. "Thee be mere humans? And can still see us? How odd and amusing."
"Skaði, goddess of the hunt and of winter," Goren said, nodding his head in acknowledgement.
Of course he knows.
"Thee knows me as well! But, ah, thou art the scholar," Skaði said as if in echo, with a dazzling smile at Goren, then she frowned as her eyes searched his face, the tiredness still visible under his eyes, an edge of pain reflected, the grey flecks noticeably in the stubble of his beard, "by need as well as by choice. The emotions of others, especially their sorrow, cut you to the quick. A retreat was needed to keep your mind sound. Thou chose the volumes of knowledge that thy kind now use--no more Skáld, no more scrolls. Indeed, in a past age, thou wouldst have been Skáld.
"But thou," she continued to Eames, "thee did not choose retreat. On firm earth from thy birth, thy roots strong. There were...complications, but no chaos. Thou chose the comfort of the earth, of the community around you. Thou art the ground, the foundation. Yet thou still sees us."
"Yes," Goren said reflectively, and he suddenly smiled at his partner. "You have described her perfectly. Grounded, but with foresight."
Eames felt a shiver run through her, from her toes up her spine to her head. Her father had a saying for that: A goose walked over my grave.
"Perhaps because thou art bound together, always thus," Skaði said decidedly, "if not by eros, then certainly by philia--and my sense says agape. Paired not only by friendship and deep respect, but also as two portions of a whole. The bow and the arrow, the flint and the steel, the paired blades of the scissors. A gift given to very few."
From above, the hounds began to bay, first one voice, then a pair, then the pack. And now they could hear, all the way down to the sidewalk, the arresting clatter and click of multiple solid hooves and cloven ones. A voice called impatiently, "Mál er at vera laus! Cernunnos, Skaði, þú skalt leiða!" [It is time for us to go. Cernunnos, Skaði, lead us!]
"Thy time here grows short," Herne advised. "Observe the wonder. Take it into thy bones and soul."
Eames saw her partner shimmer and drew in a quick breath, for overlaid on his solid form was a second, translucent Bobby Goren in robes like a priest, yet not a priest, in a nubble-surfaced cream-colored robe with a hood and a yoke of dull scarlet, a dozen scrolls tucked under his right arm, his left arm outstretched holding a lantern as if searching for something. Lantern light reflected on his silver-and-dark hair, making a halo of the curls and of the questing expression in his eyes.
In turn, Goren saw Alex Eames' own shade, her proud face tilted upward to reveal a gleaming, jeweled gold torque on her slim neck, her long hair bound with strands of silk and coiled in a crown upon her head. She wore a deep green tunic and trews like Robin Hood, and over the tunic a russet leather breastplate incised with runes. Held tightly in her right hand was a spear, razor-sharp iron bound to a shaft of rowan wood with rawhide thongs. Her left arm, like Bobby's, was extended to hold a lantern, this one with a jewel-bright blue light.
He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, and she shook her head, and the spectral doppelgängers vanished. Herne was laughing, the big, bold laugh that had inspired the "Ho-ho-ho!" of Santa Claus. "Thou hast never truly seen thyself, hast thou? As was, as always."
Skaði had already wheeled the stag, its muscles tensed for the leap that would send it skyward, but suddenly she twisted her body to face them, her eyes suddenly afire like the stag's, fixed on Eames.
"Alexeinanēr--soon, thee will be forced to make a choice. It will come sooner than thou thinks, wrapped in loss, before the Wheel rolls around once more to Yule. Thou art the foundation, and of the earth. Thou hast regrown and nurtured a precious thing almost lost. Mind it well."
"What?" was Eames' uncomprehending response, but she was drowned out by Herne's summons.
"It is now, my partner!" shouted Herne to Skaði and set his heels to the spectral ebony horse. It gave a pealing neigh that bounced off concrete and asphalt and steel, echoing so loudly that Goren and then Eames put their hands to their ears. Above, hunting horns began to blare. "Glaðligr jól, humans with farsight." At the same time, he raised the mistletoe-adorned ash bough high above his head. "Reiðið, félagar mínir, reiðið!" [Ride, my companions, ride!]
The black horse leaped into the sky, gaining altitude by swirling up in a tight spiral that whipped Herne's cloak around him like protective armor. Twinned with him, the stag rose, with Skaði also holding her mistletoe limb aloft, and their wild cries melded with the baying of the hounds, the trumpeting of the hunting horns, and the voices of their followers.
Now pulled out of the spiral, they headed south toward the Battery, and Ylna the hound gave a final, swift lick to Goren's hand and leaped after her masters, in wild cry with her canine pack, who surged, eyes glowing and baying as one, after Herne and Skaði, and then, in a torrent, more human-like riders mounted on black horses and stags followed, all dressed in furs and deerskin, their wild whoops and trumpeting horns filling the air, and, even though there was no surface for them to strike against, their mounts' clattering hooves added to the uncanny noise.
Like a long pennant whipping in high winds, the Wild Hunt streamed down Fifth Avenue in a shower of bluish light, the glitter so like snow--or was it snow so like glitter?--swirling around them and after them, forming a gleaming comet's tail that grew thinner and thinner until it had faded, then vanished, like the sound of the Hunt itself.
"Bobby-" Eames was finally able to manage.
Goren breathed, "'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"
Eames shook her head as if to clear it. "Hamlet. Even I know that one."
The chill settled into their bones once more, and, shivering, Eames zipped the collar of her parka, unaware of having opened it and puzzled about why it was down.
"What happened to the dog?" Goren asked suddenly, turning up his coat collar once more.
Eames peered down the alley, then pulled a compact flashlight from her pocket and aimed it down the narrow passage, seeing only an uneven line of plastic trash containers and, in a corner, a dumpster overflowing with noisome trash. She wrinkled her nose. "If there was a dog here, it's gone now."
"But," he said with a shrug, "I was right; there still are some cabs here."
They hurried across the street and down a block to where floodlights lit the Beaux-Arts façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and his son, Richard Howland Hunt. Three yellow taxicabs were indeed still parked in a hopeful queue before the museum, their drivers slumped in their seats, the closest man poking desultorily at the screen of a smartphone.
"Luck of the draw?" Goren proposed with a tired smile.
The cabbie in the closest vehicle looked at them gratefully when they knocked on the passenger-side window. He had a lilting Persian accent and greeted them with a broad smile rather than a surly manner. When Eames asked if he would drive all the way to Forest Hills, he seemed delighted. "You do me a great favor! I am having...what you call 'Secret Santa' with my American girlfriend's family in three days, and your fare will help me afford a fine gift!"
Goren told her with a grin, "Make sure to save the receipt."
Eames, contrarily, opened the door for him. "Quit talking, Bobby, and sit down before you fall down."
He chuckled and clambered into the cab, his eyes darting to the cabbie's ID card, addressing the driver by his first name, while she paused, sensing something missing, her eyes raking the imposing white façade from foundation to roof, perplexed. Surely there was something else she had wanted to say before they crossed the street?
A stray morsel of frozen moisture pulled out of a wisp of cloud somewhere--or perhaps the tiniest fleck of glitter--swirled before her and landed on the tip of her nose, then vanished. "Remember," it whispered in a voice too quiet to be heard by human ears.
Then she scrambled into the cab and slammed the door.
"Alex, this is Sepehr Sadeghi," Goren said cheerfully, and the cabbie laughed and pulled out into traffic, finishing Goren's introduction in a teasing voice, "...and I shall be your driver tonight! So lucky for me...such a quiet Shab e Yalda. Sometimes you would not believe how wild it is on this night."