Part 3 (1/2)
”You look like s.h.i.+tso.”
”Why thank you, Doctor. Is that your professional opinion?”
With a dandy grin, Book put the car in gear and arrowed straight into Fifth Avenue traffic. Alek had known the man since they were eight years old, growing up with him in the Covenhouse, and he knew for a fact that Book's one weakness was a fast car. He had never endangered their lives, but he always made Alek feel as if they were finalist in the Indy 500. Book steered with his left wrist resting on the wheel, his right hand balanced on the eight-ball gear s.h.i.+ft. His profile was marred by four streaks of flesh several shades lighter than his mahogany skin.
”Your cat?” Alek asked.
”That's what I'm telling everybody.”
”What happened?”
”b.a.s.t.a.r.d took me from behind.” He reached up and pulled his scarf and turtleneck down. Alek spotted the throb of Book's pulse beneath the half-healed bite mark. It was going to leave quite a scar.
”Ouch.” ”That's what I said.” Book laughed. ”Shoulda been there to hear what he said when I paid the f.u.c.ker back for it.”
Scars were a strange thing for his kind, since they faded away everywhere on their body but their necks, as if to serve as a reminder that they could lose their lives just as easily as their quarry. The oldest of their kind bore veritable colonies of bite and slash marks and postured them during Coven Circles like status symbols or badges of honor. Alek scratched absently at the mark in the hollow of his throat. Most of his own scars were deliberate, not accidents at all. Kisses from Debra, though Amadeus had done his best to conceal them.
”Maybe I'll finally get to show up those sn.o.bby elders next time the Father holds Circle, hey?” Booker said.
”Oh good, then you'll really have a scar.”
Book laughed, tightened the scarf. Then he got serious. ”Anyway, what's going on? I drop into the Covenhouse this morning to catch the buzz I missed last night--I mean, Perlman's playing Carnegie and how many times in a lifetime do you get to see that?--and there's Robot, y'know, just being spooky, and I tries to be friendly and he just about rips me a new a.s.shole. And I was like What the f.u.c.k...?”
”Politics. I'll tell you after I get something in my stomach.”
”Oh.” He spun the car onto Hudson Street and slid into a parking slot moments ahead of a silver Ferrari.
Alek swallowed down his heart and got out.
Cinnamon and soy weighed the air like incense as they walked shoulder to shoulder along the narrow sidewalk. Book's stomach growled. There were many Chinese restaurants in the Village, all of them good.
The Panda Bear Paradise was particularly fine though because the chefs worked in a large open window where the patrons could watch them perform their alchemy. The waitresses too were a wonder, all of them outfitted in long black hair and red kimonos like lovely fallen angels. Intriguing. A Cantonese ballad tinkled overhead, and the warm scent of Hunan spices and steamed bamboo mingled with the hot cooking sake coming from the kitchen.
”Lawdy, am I hungry,” Book complained.
”You're always hungry, brother.”
”Hey, cut me some slack, brother. Some of us have real jobs, you know.”
Alek gave him a friendly elbow.
A slender Oriental hostess grabbed two menus and held them to her chest. ”Usual spot, Book?”
”Please.”
She led them down a short flight of stairs and seated them beside a small gurgling fountain filled with pennies.
The water and the soft flutey music made some of the tension leave Alek's shoulders. The hostess handed them menus and quickly left. A moment later a busboy set water gla.s.ses each with a slice of lime in front of them.
Alek set the menu aside without looking at it. Booker glanced at his, then set it on top of Alek's. The owner waited on them herself. Booker ordered Burmese ginger beef and a Diet c.o.ke. Alek asked only for a gla.s.s of sake, but Book added an order of kong pao chicken to it. Alek thought to protest, then simply dismissed it.
”Not hungry, brother?” Book said as they were brought a basket of wantons. He took one and dipped it in the tangy sweet-and-sour sauce before taking a big bite.
Alek shrugged.
”You never eat.” Book finished off the wanton and reached for another. ”Your poor, weak stomach.”
Alek unfolded his linen napkin, smoothed it over his lap. ”You make up for me.”
”Don't worry: I will.”
The waitress returned with their drinks. Alek sipped his sake, enjoying the bitter scorch it brought to the back of his throat. He placed his hands in his lap.
Book polished off another wanton. ”Something's up.”
”Just tired. I didn't get much sleep last night.”
”You look like you went ten rounds with Harvey Wallbanger.”
Alek ran a hand through his uncombed, unbound hair. Felt like fizzled, exposed electrical wires. He remembered waking up this morning with a h.e.l.lacious headache, hangover or misery he wasn't exactly sure.
Probably both. As it turned out, he'd slept the night in his clothes sprawled across his loft bed in the studio, which proved at least that he hadn't stayed over at the Covenhouse the night before. But past that it was anyone's guess what had happened or how he'd gotten there. Feeling like s.h.i.+t, or the closest thing to s.h.i.+t something like he was could feel, he sipped the hair of the dog. He grimaced; it only made the four Tylenol he'd dry-chewed earlier come alive in his mouth.
Booker gave him a puritanical look.
Alek glared back at him. ”It's not like I have a problem. Okay?”
Book raised his hands as if to fend off an affront. ”Hey, okay, just being your doctor.”
”Well don't.”
”s.h.i.+t, man, everyone's strung tight as a G.o.dd.a.m.n bow these days. What the h.e.l.l happened last night?”
For a brief moment Alek considered telling Booker everything, the gathering, the words the Father had spoken, the prophecy, and the sheer absolute unrelenting terror he felt at the thought of leading the Coven.
He and Book had had no secrets as children, had spent hours beneath their bedcovers together, whispering over comics, tuning in the radio to the Sox, gossiping, giggling innocently over dirty jokes they'd found scribbled on the walls of boys' bathrooms. But he and Booker had not been children in a long time, and if Amadeus chose that the Coven should know the full truth, he would hold a Circle for that purpose. Really, it wasn't Alek's decision to make.
He finally recalled now, somewhat hazily but with a fair amount of conviction, that after their communion the evening before, the Father had broken down the gathering and sent the others home with an announcement of reconvention in twenty-four hours to welcome the initiate, this Stone fellow. ”Someone new coming in and we're the official welcome wagon, you know the routine.”
Book frowned like he wasn't one f.u.c.king inch convinced that their howdy party was the main reason for the gathering.
Alek sipped his sake and tried not to shrug guiltily in response. He could spilt his guts, he supposed, it might even make him feel better, but he didn't enjoy watching the light of pity glowing in Book's black eyes, as if he were thinking his brother was some poor white-bread Brooklyn-bred lush who couldn't get his life together. So let him find out on his own. Lushes were known to be unreliable, weren't they?
The waitress brought their food, setting two enormous platters down in front of them, then left as quickly as she had arrived. Booker put steamed rice all over his plate and spooned the entrees on top of it. He waited until the waitress was out of earshot before he spoke.
”I got Eustace.”