Nocturnal: A Novel

Pookie heard two noises — a double tap from back down on the street, and a deep, bass thong from up on the roof. He swung his pistol over the roof’s brick retaining wall, letting the gunsight lead his vision through the pouring rain. The bottom of his forearms rested on the narrow wall’s flat top, leaving only his hands and head exposed to danger.

What the fuck?

A snap-sequence of visuals — a man wearing a mask with a long, curved beak, an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, rolling weakly in a puddle on the black-tar rooftop. And a second body, this one wearing a black sweatshirt, lying facedown and motionless: Issac Moses. Past them both, barely visible on the dark roof, a man standing, holding a bow, wearing some kind of … hooded cloak?

The standing man turned toward Pookie. The deep hood hid his face in shadow. He let go of the bow and reached into his dark green cloak, reached in so fast.

The bow hadn’t even hit the roof before the man drew two pistols and fired. Pookie pulled his trigger twice even as he dropped behind the wall, bits of masonry spinning all around him.

Bryan sprinted in, gun raised before him. The blanketed man rolled off Alex. Bryan saw blood staining the back of the man’s white tank top — he had taken at least one round.

Bryan rushed in to see if he could stop the bleeding. As Bryan reached for him, he felt a strange warmth in his chest.

What the hell …

He didn’t see the big boot kicking out until it was too late. The sole drove into his stomach and sent him flying backward. So strong! Bryan knew he’d lost his wind before he even landed. The Sig Sauer was still in his hand. His ass hit hard on the concrete. He let the momentum carry him in a backward roll. At the apex, Bryan pushed hard with his head and shoulders, bouncing himself into the air and letting him land on his feet.

He brought up the gun.

The bearded, bleeding man reached for the wet hatchet lying on the sidewalk.

“Don’t do it, asshole! Don’t even move!”

The man stopped and looked up at Bryan. Then his eyes widened and his mouth opened in an expression of pure shock.

Pookie’s heart kicked inside his chest. He’d been shot at. He couldn’t just sit here, he had to move, he had to act and do it now. He licked the rain off his lips, sucked in a fast breath, then stood just enough to swing his gun over the wall.

The cloaked man was only a few feet away, rushing forward, bow in his hand. Pookie again ducked behind the wall as the cloaked man sailed overhead, out into the night.

Pookie clung to the fire escape as he turned to watch the man plummet to his death, but the man didn’t plummet — cloak flapping behind him, the man sailed through the air, legs and arms kicking and pumping like an Olympic long jumper. It was like watching a special effect, a high-wire movie of someone arcing down through the rainy night.

The man soared clear across the street. He hit the flat, black roof of a four-story building and rolled once, twice, three times. Pookie watched in disbelief as the man stood and walked back to the building’s edge.

Fifty feet away and six stories down, the bowman was little more than a mound of dark green fabric that blended into the black roof. And yet, Pookie could see the man was staring at the street. Pookie snapped a glance in that direction; on the sidewalk ten stories below, Bryan Clauser had his gun pointed at a man lying on the ground.

Then, Bryan slowly lowered his gun.

Pookie looked back to the man on the roof — he felt a dagger of horror when he saw the man holding the bow, drawstring pulled all the way back to his now-exposed cheek. Before Pookie could say a word, the man released.

The arrow ripped through the air.

Bryan and the blanketed man stared at each other. What the hell was this?

That blossoming warmth in his chest, so peaceful. It beat a rhythm, ba-da-bum-bummmm, the sensation overwhelming in its intensity.

A staccato hiss, a half-second whisper of something passing scant inches from his ear, then an even shorter crunching noise.

Both men looked down.

An arrow shaft stuck out of the bearded man’s chest.

Bryan instantly turned, his brain following the arrow shaft’s angle, his gun whipping around to point up and across the street. There, a shape that might be a man

          [savior! monster!]

                     and an outline that might be a bow.

His finger flicked the trigger

            [kill it now kill it NOW]

                               five times before his training kicked in, before he realized he was shooting at a building that had people in it.

The muzzle flashes screwed with his vision for just a second. By the time he could focus on the roof again, the outline that might have been a man was gone.

The rain poured down.

Bryan turned back to look at the bearded man, at the arrow sticking out of his chest. Only then did he think to look for Alex Panos.

But Alex was nowhere to be seen.

The arrow had missed Bryan. Thank God. Pookie looked back to the archer’s position, but now the roof was empty — the cloaked man had vanished into the shadows.

Had he just seen what he’d thought he’d seen? No. No way. Shit like that couldn’t happen. Maybe someone had slipped some acid into his coffee. Maybe he was tripping balls right this very second.

Bryan Clauser was still standing. With no archer/sniper in sight, Pookie had to deal with the situation at hand. He climbed over the wall and onto the roof.

Issac Moses was still there, but the wounded man wearing the mask was gone.

Pookie’s gun snapped up to eye level. He quickly walked toward the center of the roof, to the small hut there that probably led to the building’s internal stairs. Pookie circled the hut, letting his barrel lead his vision. Nothing. He tried the handle: locked.

There was nowhere else on the roof a person could hide. The roof door was locked. Pookie had come up on the fire escape, the only other way down.

So where was the masked man with the arrow in his shoulder?

The rain kept pouring. Pookie moved back to Issac.

Oh, God …

The kid’s chest and stomach were flat on the roof, but his head had been turned 180 degrees — Issac’s dead eyes stared up into the night sky.

Susie Panos

Pookie stood inside the apartment, looking down on Susie’s body. She was on her back, eyes wide open, an expression of shock etched onto her still face. Something had punched a half-inch circle through her chest and into her heart. Her pajama top had been driven into the hole as well; the blood-soaked fabric lined the newly exposed flesh and bone.

Outside, patrol cars blocked the street. An ambulance had already arrived, but the paramedics had made