Psychopomp: A Novella Read online

  “I have no idea. He came by a while ago and asked for it. I said yes, and he invited me to the party. It was the excuse I needed to dig.” He blinked his black-lashed eyes at me and smiled. “Everything is fine.”

  A firm knock echoed through the room. I scurried away toward the machine, feeling faint from the strength of my pulse.

  “Good morning, Ambassador,” Gabriel said as he opened the door.

  “Good morning,” the ambassador replied in a languid tone as Gabriel stepped outside and shut the door.

  That voice.

  No.

  Suddenly I couldn’t breathe, and yet I breathed too quickly. The room became unfamiliar and my eyes couldn’t find any place to land. If I went to my bed, if I pulled the blanket over my head, I would be fine. Eventually the ambassador would leave, Gabriel would come back in, and we would eat together. Like every day.

  But I had to know.

  Gaining some control over myself, I went to the door and wrenched it open. I closed it behind me so the dust wouldn’t get in, even though it always managed to find a way. Then I walked around the building until I could see the graveyard and the line of three trucks, ready for the dirt. A loader attacked the piles and dumped bucketfuls into the backs of the trucks.

  Gabriel and the ambassador walked down the slope side by side. From behind I could tell the ambassador was slim, and he held himself erect. His hair was dark.

  I didn’t want to follow them. But I had to.

  When they stopped at the edge of the graveyard to watch the workers, I caught up. I walked up beside Gabriel, who glanced at me. I looked at the ambassador, who wore the gray uniform of all ambassadors, black stripes on the collar marking his high position in the government.

  “It’s more than enough,” he said to the mortician, nodding his approval.

  Ambassador Killering was maybe in his early thirties, a few years older than Gabriel. He wore a pair of black gloves and held a handkerchief over his mouth. His dark hair was slicked back from his high, smooth forehead.

  His eyes were yellow, like light through amber.

  I knew him in an instant. He had, after all, promised we’d meet again.

  My pulse thrummed and I averted my gaze before he could see me looking, hoping he wouldn’t recognize me from the plasma center. Afraid to retreat for fear he would notice me, I stood with my arms pressed against my sides.

  I felt the weight of his cold, humorless eyes.

  “Who is this?”

  “Marlo, my assistant,” Gabriel supplied.

  Risking a glance at the ambassador, I wished I hadn’t. His sharp, knowing gaze lingered on me, making me squirm. I knew who he was. I felt it in my bones. I saw it in his eyes, a certain emptiness telling of a lack of compassion. It was nearly the same thing I’d seen in Verm, though I’d never known it until meeting Gabriel, who wasn’t cruel at all.

  “You… have such distinct eyes,” I said.

  The ambassador blinked and turned his gaze back to the workers. “The color comes from a high concentration of lipochrome, and very little melanin. It’s unusual, though not quite as rare as blue eyes.”

  I raced up the hill and closed myself inside the apartment until I heard all the trucks leave. I could breathe normally again. But he’d recognized me. I knew he had. And so the fear remained.

  18. la ciudad

  The road out of Rueville was old and uneven, the asphalt sectioned off by wide cracks. Nobody used roads like this anymore. But Gabriel had an old truck that ran on gas—the same one I’d seen from afar that day on the flats. It bounced over potholes and ridges, knocking us about as we sped toward Cizel. I braced my feet against the dash, half exhilarated, half panicked. Gabriel grinned with mad glee.

  Both the side windows were broken and the wind tore into my air. The landscape ahead shimmered in the heat.

  It didn’t take long to reach the city. As we came upon it, I could see the magnet roads, concrete and steel structures gracefully arcing over the buildings. The sun glinted dully off the low-profile cars as they zoomed over the highest points. The rail circled the edges and looped through the center, efficient and clean.

  We had to stop at the edge since the roads down here were for walking or magnet cars, not this monstrosity he’d revealed from under a dust-covered tarp. The brakes squealed. A few people stared, not used to seeing ancient cars that ran on polluting fuel. Overhead, the slender roads crisscrossed the sky.

  Gabriel handed me a vial of clear, slightly yellow liquid. He’d taken a steel box full of organs from the freezer back at the morgue and now hefted it under one arm. “Delivery time,” he said.

  “Why do you do it?” I asked. I wiped at the sweat along my hairline and my fingers came away streaked with dirt. The vial in my pocket was cool against my leg.

  “There’s a repository near here where human organs are cryogenically frozen and stored until they’re needed.”

  “I didn’t know that. Are there a lot?”

  “Oh, yes. Enough for everyone, now that we can store organs indefinitely. The government makes sure of that. There are hundreds of thousands of stockpiled organs, enough to save as many lives. More coming in every day. But, Marlo, who do you think benefits from that stock? Not the people in Marshwick or Rueville. Not me or you. People like us—we just get sick and die, and it’s inconsequential. There’s no money to be made from us. We can’t pay for compassion. We just have to hope someone hands it out for free.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “I saw them. I used to work there.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “Because I decided I would provide healthy, clean organs free of charge. And death, you see, is always a good business.”

  I glanced at him skeptically. “You care that much?”

  “I don’t have much empathy, if that’s what you’re asking. But I do try to do the right thing from time to time.”

  Navigating the low roads angling between buildings, we came to a squat, dark structure full of narrow windows with no light shining behind them. At one time the glass door in front had worked automatically, but now it gaped open. I followed Gabriel inside, nervously eyeing the shadows. I didn’t think I’d ever stop looking for a yellow gaze among them.

  We picked our way among fallen sections of ceiling and the remains of broken furniture. The stairwell was dark and stuffy. Six floors up, we came to a loft. Unlike the first floor, there was no debris scattered about. The floors had been swept clean, cloths secured over the windows. A stark light burned in the corner of one room, illuminating the handful of people lying on cots. Some were sleeping and some moaned softly. Their clothes hung limply, soaked with sweat.

  “What is this?” I whispered.

  “These people can’t just go to hospital,” Gabriel said. “They don’t have the credits for what they need. They have to come here for expensive transplants and other surgeries.”

  Horrified, I glanced back at the room. Among the cots I saw several steel carts containing medical instruments.

  A man approached us, his shadow stretching long across the floor. “Do you have it?” he asked in a clipped tone.

  Gabriel handed the box to him. I expected him to receive some credits in return, but the man gave him nothing except a nod. Without so much as a glance at the people lying about the room, Gabriel swept around to leave.

  “What was that?” I asked as we headed downstairs and crossed the lobby.

  “I bring organs here every so often. It’s the reason I remove them in the first place.”

  “And don’t you get anything out of it?”

  “No.”

  “Was he a doctor?” I asked, hurrying to keep up with his long strides. We exited the building and moved deeper into Cizel, away from where we’d left the truck. It was already getting dark.

  “He used to be. I think he lost his license.”

  “And now he helps people?”

  “As much as he can. Not everyone is horrible, even though
it seems like it sometimes.”

  I fell a little bit in love with Gabriel as we walked. He gathered bodies for credits, but he gave away organs for free. He was strange and maybe a little insane, but under it all he was good.

  And, I realized for the first time, completely dangerous.

  19. el veneno

  In the sticky dark, the city streets glowed softly with turquoise-tinged whiteness. The air was thin and pure. Gabriel and I walked through an aqueous world, cloaked by the din of glittering, laughing citizens of the night. Our plain clothes rendered us invisible in the dark spaces between the lights. We moved in an anonymous lacuna of silence.

  Open doorways in the glassy buildings we passed invited anyone who wished to enter. Flashing lights leaked from within, spreading washes of purple and pink into the bluish river-streets, promising decadence. Groups of lavishly dressed people converged outside the doors, a tangle of gleaming limbs and sparkling clothing. Their voices carried in unintelligible rhythms, words meaningless and light.

  “A playground,” Gabriel murmured, “for beautiful men and women with dirty hands.”

  “What are we doing now?” I asked as we walked.

  “There’s going to be a party tonight. I have to set some things up for it.”

  “Oh.” I was confused, but also scared. That didn’t sound like something a mortician would do.

  We came to a dark building with swirling sculptures in front of it. The doors were guarded, but Gabriel didn’t seem worried about how to get past them and motioned for me to follow him around the side. There was a ladder. He grabbed the lowest rung and took the vial from me.

  “Don’t look down.” The grin he shot over his shoulder made me shudder.

  I climbed up behind him, knowing we wouldn’t have had to enter the building this way if Gabriel had any real business being here. The rungs were warm and gritty beneath my palms. Looking to the left, I could see a car parque where rows of dark cars shone with a dull, chitinous gleam. Hazy patches of air were visible in the muted glow of security lights.

  Gabriel helped me over the edge onto the flat roof. There was a door. I thought it would be locked, but he opened it easily. We went down a short stairway, half blind in darkness. My eyes had adjusted by the time we reached a catwalk. Musty walls pressed close on us. Gabriel’s head brushed pipes hanging down from the black ceiling.

  Some sections of the wall had crumbled away. I peered through the holes down into a wide-open space with a tiered floor. A large white screen took up one whole wall, flanked by curtains in an ardent shade of blue. From the ceiling hung a chandelier made of bone, its soft gold light casting distinct shadows in the shapes of leafless trees on the dark, decaying wallpaper. A few people dressed in black and white milled about, setting the room up for the party.

  “Over here,” Gabriel whispered.

  The catwalk swayed beneath us. Gabriel knelt down and opened a hatch. He dropped down through it and I heard his feet smack the floor below. His voice rose up, beckoning me to follow him, and I guided my body through the opening. His hands closed around my waist, easing my descent.

  We were in a kitchen. Cold dishes lined the steel counters, ready to serve. The salty, fishy aromas of fresh food cooking filled the air, but there was no one else around.

  “What are we doing?”

  His neck was craned as he looked around, and he didn’t answer. “Ah,” he said, spotting something. “Come on.”

  Weaving among the prep areas and industrial appliances, we came to a stop near the double doors leading out to the room with the bone chandelier. Gabriel walked up to a long table with a large glass bowl set atop it. The bowl held a bright pink liquid with bits of fruit floating in it. My mouth began to water.

  “Perfect,” Gabriel muttered.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the sweet-smelling drink. It looked delicious.

  Uncapping the vial, Gabriel poured the contents into the bowl. He grabbed the ladle resting beside it and stirred it in.

  Before I could speak, the double doors opened and staff came pouring through. Gabriel grabbed my arm and turned, pushing past them. Some shouted after us, but we ignored them and burst into the alley behind the building. He tossed the vial into a pile of broken glass, where it shattered. We ran past a dumpster and through the car parque.

  For a few blocks I stumbled after him, slipping behind buildings and through gaps in fences. We ran where there was no light. After a few minutes he began to double back, and we ended up across the street from the building we’d just left. It was lit now, aglow with bright pink light. Guests had begun to arrive for the party, and we watched from the shadows as they turned their magnet cars over to valets.

  “What did you do?” I demanded, out of breath.

  “Just wait.”

  So we did. We waited across the street as the music started and the lights swirled. We waited until the screams began. Voices lifted with the music and overpowered it. The doors flew open and people trickled out, moaning in pain, stumbling on the front steps and into the street, where they dropped dead, one by one.

  Gabriel smiled in satisfaction. I pressed a hand to my mouth.

  “Who are you?” I whispered, trembling. “Who do you work for?”

  He began to laugh, a demented, gasping sound. “Oh, Marlo,” he said as the laughter wheezed from his throat, tendons popping in his neck. His eyes squeezed themselves shut and his lips stretched to the sides of his face, teeth showing in a grimace. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his shoulders shook as he wiped them away.

  20. el secreto

  I’d almost run from Gabriel. I’d almost fled right down the alley. He was horrible. But not horrible enough, apparently, because now I was in the truck beside him, riding back to the morgue. I kept sneaking glances at him. He watched the road, his eyes dreamy in the faded dashboard lights. I felt sick with guilt having helped him kill people.

  My chest fluttered. “Gabriel, I—”

  “Yes?” He waited for me to continue.

  I’d just seen this man dump poison into a drink meant for numerous people. I’d watched his face as the people had stumbled into the streets, and it hadn’t once flickered with anything resembling guilt. No, he’d been delighted his plan had worked.

  But I couldn’t tell him I had to leave him. Not yet.

  He’d been kind to me. Or, if not kind, then not cruel. All through the days I’d stayed with him, I’d held on to the fear he would turn on me like Anden or Verm. I feared he’d hurt me. I feared he’d hate me. I feared he would abandon me.

  Instead, he’d done this.

  “Aren’t you afraid?” I asked softly.

  “Of what?”

  He really didn’t know. He didn’t understand fear like I did.

  “Of getting caught,” I said. “They’d kill you if they knew.”

  “They would,” he agreed in a normal tone of voice, nodding. “But I needed the formaldehyde. That’s what morticians used to put in bodies to preserve them. It’s very poisonous when ingested. And since Ambassador Killering needed the dirt, I had a very convenient excuse for digging up the graveyard to get what I needed. You saw the rest.”

  I didn’t understand how he could trust me enough not to turn him in. But then, maybe it wasn’t trust. Maybe it was just not caring.

  It seemed to me he needed help. And since I was the only one who knew it, only I could help him. It was simple as that.

  Though maybe I couldn’t help. Maybe I didn’t want to.

  Back at the morgue, Gabriel let the apartment door slam shut behind him. “You did well tonight,” he said.

  “I might have to leave soon,” I blurted. I was feeling restless and brash. I regretted the words as soon as I said them, but I didn’t take them back.

  He sat down on the couch to take off his boots. He didn’t look up. “You can leave whenever you want.”

  “You won’t try to stop me? You’re not scared I’ll report you?”

  “No, to both.”
r />   “Por qué no?” I demanded, angry without knowing why.

  He leaned his head back and sighed. Pieces of black hair hung in his electric eyes. I could tell he was tired and didn’t feel like talking to me.

  As I looked at him, conflicting feelings and desires overwhelmed me. Sometimes he scared me, but my body responded to his presence. I wondered what he’d do if I walked over there and threw myself on top of him. I knew what to do. Maybe he would like the attention. I knew this was a lonely place.

  He said, “I won’t stop you from doing whatever you feel like you should do.”

  “But what if I want you to stop me? What if I want you to keep me from leaving?”

  “I won’t, Marlo.” His voice lilted gently.

  “You’re stronger than me,” I persisted. “You’re older. Nobody even knows I’m here. You could have tried something, but you haven’t touched me. You haven’t even looked at me.”

  “Why would I hurt you?”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up and burst from my throat. “I don’t know. Why would you poison a bunch of people you never met? People who did nothing to you? That’s on my conscience too.”

  He’d closed his eyes, but now he opened them and looked at me. “And what’s on their consciences?” he asked, a hint of acid in his otherwise calm tone. “Do you think people get to be ambassadors because they’re nice and follow the rules? Do you think there isn’t blood shed after dark and washed up before morning? Do you think the fishers go out on the water, risking their lives, because they want to? No, it’s so they can sell their catch to the people who were at that party. And if they’re lucky, they’ll earn enough money to make it through the next month.”

  “That doesn’t—”

  “I had a girlfriend,” he interrupted. “A serious one. We probably would have gotten married someday.”

  He spoke abruptly, almost hesitantly, as if he might stop at any second. Lifting his head off the back of the couch, he narrowed his eyes at me. I raised my eyebrows and waited for him to continue.

  “We were happy. But”—he inhaled a shuddering breath—“they took her from me. They replaced her with someone else who looked exactly like her. Only I knew she wasn’t the same. No one else could tell the difference.”