Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy

I watched you eat someone, he wants to say. I followed you to a graveyard and saw you break the lock on a tomb with your bare hands. I gagged on the smell, threw up leaning against the rusty iron gate, and, after, my mouth watered. I want to know if your breath smells like dead flesh so that I can prove to myself that I’m not crazy.

“I saw you,” he says instead. He wonders if she imagines sinking her teeth into his flesh, if she’s been patiently waiting for him to ripen in death, like the strawberries on his counter. He should be disgusted, but he’s fascinated.

Agatha has opened the cabinet above the sink in the makeshift kitchen. There are dusty packets of tea in there and some honey. When he speaks, she turns toward him, her hand still reaching. She looks startled, her tumble of dark hair pushed back behind one ear. A normal, pretty girl with sharp teeth.

“In the graveyard,” he says.

Her fingers close on the honey but don’t seem to grip it. He watches as it slips. The bottle cracks on the wooden floor, thick amber fluid spreading slowly from between the shards of glass.

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice shaking, apologizing for more than the honey. He realizes that he was waiting for her denial. He was ready to believe that despite the fact he’d seen her hunched over a corpse, it was some kind of joke—some new phase of his sickness involving hallucinations.

She’s talking, saying something about not knowing how to tell him, saying that she didn’t think he’d believe her, but he can’t seem to focus on the words.

He interrupts her. “What are you?”

“A ghoul,” Agatha says.

Nancy steps into the room, looking at Agatha like she overheard at least the end of that exchange. “Colin? Are you alright? I thought I heard glass…”

They both turn toward Nancy, and there’s something about their expressions that makes her step back.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Nancy looks over at Agatha. “I was hoping we could talk. Just us.”

“And Whitney?” he asks.

Nancy hesitates.

“Go ahead,” says Agatha, with a quick smile. “I’ll make the tea.”

He sighs, trying to give Agatha a look that says: Okay, but if you try and sneak out, I will forget about politeness and I will run after you, and there is no way this conversation is over—and realizing that she’s probably not getting anything like that from his expression. She could interpret his look as I have a headache or I think I misheard you, because I heard “ghoul” and you clearly meant “girl.” He follows Nancy back to the living room and sits down next to her on the sofa. She’s lost some weight since he saw her last, and her fingernails, despite being freshly polished, are bitten to the quick.

He watches her reach over and take his hand. He glances in Whitney’s direction, but she’s looking carefully at his guitar.

“I talked to Mark,” Nancy says. His expression must have been so completely surprised that she corrects herself. “Okay, Whitney talked to Mark. I can’t believe you’re living like this. Are you trying to punish yourself?”

“Punish myself for what?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “All the drugs. You know—you would always say that if it hadn’t been for your job, that maybe we would have never gotten as bad as we did. That it was your fault.”

He remembered saying that, now that she mentioned it, back when they both were trying to stay clean. All their awful flaws and insecurities and desires ballooned along with his career. There was just so much money, and with the money, temptation. “That was a long time ago.”

“Your mother called me. She says you won’t talk to her. She wants you to come home.”

“Why are you here, Nancy? I know what my mother wants. I’m not dying in the same house I spent a lot of years trying to get out of, so if you came all the way down here to suggest it, don’t.”

Nancy flinches. “Someone’s got to take care of you. You were never good at doing it for yourself. If you’re not going to your mother, then I’m going to have to do it.”

Agatha enters the room, carrying a collection of mugs that clink together as she walks. She sets them down on the box near the couch. “I couldn’t find any sugar, but there was milk. I put it in one of the mugs.”

“Does she have to be here?” Nancy asks Colin.

“She’s not going anywhere,” he says.

Whitney starts to speak, but Colin cuts her off. “You’re not going anywhere, either. Everyone just sit down.”

Agatha pours milk from one mug into her tea and takes a sip. Nancy does the same, and then spits out the liquid.

“How can you drink that? The milk’s bad. There’s chunks floating in it.”

“Let me try,” Colin says. He looks right at Agatha when he takes a sip. He knows that it’s going to be sour, but the taste isn’t as bad as he anticipated. It reminds him of yogurt. “Tastes fine,” he says and laughs.

Agatha smiles and gulps from her cup. He wishes that he and Agatha were alone, that they could talk. He wants answers. He keeps thinking about her sharp teeth and what they would feel like against his skin. What her mouth would feel like.

“What’s going on?” Nancy says. “Are you two on something?”

“A dying man gets painkillers, right?”

“He’s not on anything,” Whitney says with a sigh. “He’s messing with your head.”

“Did Mark tell you that?” Nancy demands. “Colin could be scoring anywhere—from his doctors even.”

Whitney crosses her legs and gives Colin a sly look. She speaks slowly, like she’s bored. “I know because I know how he looks when he’s messing with you.”

“She’s right,” Colin said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I apologize.”

Whitney opens her briefcase and takes out some papers. “Maybe I should explain what we’re here about. I brought some papers that would give Nancy general power of attorney. Do you know what that is?”

Colin shakes his head. “Sounds legal. Does Mark know you’re here?”

Agatha picks up the mugs and walks toward the kitchen. He turns toward her, wanting to tell her to stop acting like a maid, but her back is to him. He wonders if years of restaurant work have made bringing and removing food into a ritual.

“This is just a proposal,” says Whitney. “If you sign this, Nancy would be your agent in taking care of things. She can deal with your health care, finalize the details of certain deals your manager is trying to work out with the rest of the band—basically do everything to make sure that you’re comfortable. Nancy feels terrible about the divorce.”

“I do,” Nancy said, touching his arm.

Whitney clears her throat. “She feels like she left you to fend for yourself at a time when doing so was very difficult, and she wants to make that up to you.”

“She thinks I didn’t fight hard enough,” Colin says numbly.

“I said I lot of things I shouldn’t have said.” Nancy’s hand is still warm on his arm, and it makes him realize how cold his own skin is by comparison. “We were together for a long time, and I shouldn’t have just thrown that away.”

“No,” says Colin.

“I’m glad you agree. Look, the first thing I’m going to do is get someone to come in here and put up some drywall. Then we’ll get you some furniture and hire a nurse.”

“No,” he says again.

“No what?” Nancy asks. “You live like a squatter. It’s understandable that you’re depressed, that these things are hard to come to terms with, but no one is looking out for your best interests. Imagine the scandal if your body wasn’t found for days and then found here. Is that how you want to be remembered?”

Whitney flinched visibly. “Nancy—”

He stands up. “I’m already dead in your mind, aren’t I? You’re already planning my funeral, getting your veil