Dead Harvest

good leg. 'Anders,' I said, 'I have to go. I don't think I can walk, so you'll have to help me. You think you can do that?'

  Anders nodded. 'Is this about the girl?'

  'What do you know about the girl?'

  'Before, in my head, when you were trying to escape – you said she was in danger. That you had to save her. That everything depended on it.'

  'I did?'

  'Yes.'

  I eyed him appraisingly. 'So you in?'

  Anders shrugged. 'I guess,' he said. 'I mean, I'm not busy.'

  I laughed.

  Anders added, 'You said something else, too, you know.'

  'Yeah? What's that?'

  'You said you thought she might save you.'

  I smiled and shook my head. I didn't doubt what the kid said, but I'd been a fool to even think it. After all, I was lost a long time ago.

9.

'Are you all right?' Anders asked. 'You don't look well.'

  'I'm fine,' I lied. Truth was, my head was fucking killing me.

  'You're slurring. You need to sit down.'

  I opened my mouth to argue, and then closed it again. Anders was right. We'd been hobbling along for what seemed like hours, and I was exhausted. My leg was throbbing, my mouth was dry as dust, and my head felt like it was full of angry bees.

  I looked around. The world lurched – my vision was slow to respond. We were heading north on Church, a few blocks south of City Hall. At the corner was a mounted cop, lazily scanning the crowd from atop his steed. I looked away. Beside us was a family of tourists, decked out head to toe in New York gear, and walking hand in hand. Their youngest, a girl of maybe six, caught my eye as they passed. Her eyes flickered with black fire as she spotted me, and her smile faltered, replaced by a look of pure hatred. As soon as it appeared, though, it was gone. She shot me a quizzical glance as though I was to blame, and then she smiled again, turning her attention once more to the sights of the city.

  'I think maybe I should sit down,' I said, 'but not here. We need to get off the street.'

  Anders led me through a narrow parking lot to a side street. Beside a rusted metal door marked as the service entrance for the deli around the corner sat a battered dining-room chair, curlicues of green vinyl arching skyward from its cracked and peeling seat. Anders dropped me into the chair and plopped down onto a milk crate beside it.

  I closed my eyes and willed the throbbing in my head to stop. It seemed my head had other plans. But at least sitting down, my leg was tolerable, and after a couple dozen blocks serving as a human crutch, I'm sure Anders was grateful for the rest. Crazy or not, he sure as hell never signed on for this.

  We sat in silence a while: me stock-still as I waited for my head to clear, and Anders rocking gently back and forth, his gaze fixed at a spot just in front of his shoes. Eventually, though, his curiosity got the better of him.

  'The men who attacked you,' he said. 'They were cops?'

  'Not exactly.'

  'Then who?'

  'That, I'd rather not say.'

  Anders nodded, as though that were answer enough for now. 'But you're not fond of the cops – I've seen the way you look at them. Watchful. Wary. Always quick to look away before they see you.'

  The kid was nuts, maybe, but not stupid. 'I guess I like them fine,' I said. 'Only right now, they're not too fond of me.'

  'Why?'

  'I took something that didn't belong to me.'

  'So you're a thief.'

  I smiled. 'I guess you could say that.'

  'And the others?'

  'What others?'

  'The lady throwing bread to the pigeons. The man at the window in the coffee shop. The little girl, just now. All like you – like someone else behind the eyes – but only for a moment. They've been watching you. They've been watching you, and you've been terrified.'

  'Not like me,' I said. 'Not themselves, but not like me.'

  'Then what?'

  Ah, hell, I thought. If he can see them – Anders deserves to know. 'They call themselves the Fallen. But demons, devils, djinn – you can call them what you like.'