The New York Witch-Queen

THE NEW YORK WITCH-QUEEN

 

     And so begins the tale of the Brooklyn Witch-Slayer on a chilly Spring night. It was two hours before sunrise and the moon, colored an ominous blood red, adorned the skies above Manhattan’s East Village. Thunder roared in the distance, and a strong gust of wind blew from the south. Mist spouted from manholes, consuming Third Avenue in a vengeful cloud, as street lights flickered in unison and died. Lightening crashed behind the Rockefeller Apartment Complex, blowing a two foot crater in the parking lot. And Vincent Diagastino, woken by his wife’s hysterical rantings, gasped for breath, recovering from the sudden rousing.

    

   “Vincent, there was an explosion outside!” she screamed.

   

    “Don’t do that to me, Melissa. You’re going to give me a heart attack,” Vincent said, panting.

  

     “No. It could be terrorists. Please, go look outside. I swear something is happening,” she said, reaching into her nightstand and pulling out a thirty-eight caliber revolver.

   

   Vincent, dazed and half-asleep, sat up to find his wife sitting upright, aiming the gun at the doorway.

  

   “Honey, put that down before you kill someone,” he said. 

   

   “I will when you check outside. It’s New York, remember,” she whispered.

   

   Vincent laid back on his bed, scratched his face, and glanced at the alarm clock. It was five in the morning and he still had over an hour, before he began his morning routine. Regardless, he sat up in bed and placed his feet on the floor.

   

   “Ok, I’ll go. But I want that gun first,” he demanded.

   

   Melissa passed Vincent the gun and told him to hurry back.

  

   Vincent stood up and threw on a white undershirt, almost tripping over his three hundred dollar Allen Edmond’s shoes. Then felt the wall for the light switch. He flicked it up and nothing happened; then flicked it down and then back up but still nothing.

 

   “Honey, I think we’re out of power,” he said, making his way to the living room.

   

   Vincent reached the living room, and an eerie chill ran up his spine, feeling like someone was watching him. Black canvased the room, and the darker black images suggested furniture, but Vincent couldn’t be sure. He took a step into in the room, holding the gun with his right hand and exploring with his left to nativage the darkness. A gust of wind blew through an open window and almost knocked the gun from his hand.

    

   Vincent reached the window and looked down. The street lights glowed in the night like fireflies, illuminating a barren road. The police established road blocks on the entrance and exit of the one-way road, causing a jam up on Fourth Street. Yet, the mist was gone.

   

   “Honey, did you leave the window open?”  Vincent asked.

  

   “No,” his wife answered, “I told you I heard something, should I call the police?”

  

   “I don’t see any reason to get the police involved,” Vincent replied, “We’re fourteen stories up. Only a bird could have sneaked through the window---and I don’t see any pigeons in here.”

   

   Vincent gave another look outside and a taxi cab, attempting to navigate the road block, sideswiped a BMW, setting off a car alarm.

  

   “Just please, shut that window,” Vincent’s wife demanded petulantly, “that noise is driving me nuts, and it’s freezing in here.”

  

    Vincent knew there was no way Melissa could be cold. He was barely cold, standing two feet from the open slat, but didn’t want a fight at five in the morning.

  

   “Cold my a*s,” Vincent whispered to himself before pushing the window shut, locking it, and drawing the curtains.

   

   “Are you sure we shouldn’t call the police,” Melissa asked, yelling from the bedroom.

 

   “Yes, I’m sure,” Vincent responded, “It had to be Miley, I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

  

   “Miley’s only three, Tony,” Melissa said, “how is she going to open a window?”

   

   Vincent sighed and took the question as rhetorical. It wasn’t uncommon for Melissa to ask him questions with seemingly no solution and not expect an answer. In fact, she made such a habit of it that Vincent routinely got in the habit of not answering any of her questions, causing more than a few fights. Still, Vincent made no attempt to explain how a window could mysteriously open itself, since he had no answer to give her. Instead he just made peace with the probability that Melissa opened the window herself and now forgot about it. Not wishing to grab a rattlesnake by its tail, he let it be. Of course, it wasn’t that rattlesnake that he should have worried about.

   

   Vincent  glanced  outside again and saw two police officers with flash lights approaching the taxi. From this height, in the darkness, the figures appeared to be silhouettes. While staring out the window, a cold shiver coursed through his veins and he suddenly felt uncomfortable with his back to the room. With his eyes adjusted to the night, Vincent still only saw shadows in the room. Yet, something about these shadows haunted him. They felt unnatural. Even staring at them was unsettling. They seemed to move with the wind and change shape. Indeed, the room itself felt like a dream. Vincent dismissed the thought and turned to head back. And as he did, one of the shadows moved with him, always ten feet behind. The shadow stopped in stealth when Vincent turned to look back, concealing itself flawlessly next to an antique Grandfather clock. Seeing nothing, Vincent continued, oblivious to the moving shadow behind him. Halfway down the hallway, the shadow bolted left, never making a sound.    

   

   Vincent entered the bedroom, sat on the bed, and placed the revolver on the nightstand nearest to him. Melissa was sitting in the dark with the blanket pulled to her lap. She gave Vincent a blank stare.

   “What?” asked Vincent.

   “Nothing,” she said, making a face with an “Oh” expression.

   

   Vincent could only vaguely decipher her face in the enigma of the dark. The two sat in silence for a moment, staring at the door.

   “Did you put Miley to bed?” Vincent asked, attempting to start a conversation

   “Of…Course,” Melissa answered sarcastically.

   

   Just then the light came on, and Vincent found himself staring at Melissa in color. “Could you turn that off,” she said after a moment.

   

   “Sure, right after you admit you left the window open,” Vincent responded.

  

   Melissa gave Vincent a sardonic stare. And he knew he lit a firecracker: “Don’t give me that, you know that it was you,” he said, “I know I didn’t do it.”

  

   Just then Miley, their three year old daughter, ran into the bedroom and broke the Mexican standoff. “Daddy,” she said, running in her pink Barbie pajamas to Vincent’s side of the bed.

  

   “Not now, Miley,” said Vincent.

   

   “Yeah, not now, Miley,” Melissa said, “It’s bed-time sweat heart, why don’t you go to sleep.”

  

   “But Mommy, there’s a woman looking for Daddy.”

   

   Vincent spent the next few minutes trying to convince Miley that she needed rest, that there was no woman, and that the entire thing was her imagination. Yet, Miley persisted and eventually Vincent relented. Knowing that once he found an empty room, Miley would go back to sleep.

   

   “Come on, Daddy. I’ll show you,” Miley said.

   

   “O.K., if you insist, sweetheart. But I’m telling you, we won’t find anything.”

   

   Then Vincent gave Miley his hand whom led him down the hallway and turned him into the living room. Vincent, although tired, wasn’t quite brain dead.  He dreaded the early morning staff meeting planned for ten. Having no idea that death lay in wait around the corner.

   

   The lights were already on. “See Miley, I told you,” Vincent said, “it’s just you and me.”

  

   “But she was here…,” Miley said.

  

   Vincent bent down to his child’s eye-level and said, “I know she was, pumpkin. Now, let’s get you---,”

  

   “---Hello Vincent,” said a feminine voice behind his back.

    

   The lights flickered and died, returning to life after a brief pause. A slender woman, easily seven feet tall, stood in the corner. Black hair shrouded her face. And yet, she had the appearance of a runway model, dressed in a white sheath skirt with white heels.

    

   “Who are you?” said Vincent, “and what are you doing here? How did you get in?”

   

   The mysterious intruder said nothing. “I said who are you and what do you want?” Vincent said again. And yet again, the woman said nothing. Vincent, a managing broker at Shwartz and Cullivan on Wall Street, refused to take silence for an answer, believing the world, even the dead, answered to him.

   

   “Look, you depraved lunatic, you have thirty seconds to get the f**k out of my house before I call the police.

  

   Just then Vincent’s wife shouted from their room, “Honey, is someone out there?”

  

   “Sweetie, go to your mother,” Vincent said, pushing his daughter gently towards the hallway. Miley stared at her father for a moment.

“O…K…,” Miley said, and then, taking two steps to the right of her father scurried past the woman and down the hall.

  

   “Your thirty seconds are over,” Vincent said, returning his gaze to the intruder.

   

   The woman had yet to move a hair: perfect stillness. A queer feeling ran up Vincent’s spine as he stared at the woman’s face, masked by the hair. Then a moment of silence passed between the two, after which Vincent said, “Look if you’re here for money---“

   

   “---Flesh has returned as fire,” the woman said, inching closer to Vincent, her hair still masking her face.

   

   “What---,” Vincent whimpered, stepping backward as the woman approached him.

   

   “---Flesh has returned as fire,” the woman repeated inching closer and closer.

   

  “Fire?” asked Vincent, back stepping.

  

   “April twenty-third, April twenty-third. The seed of an atrocity, now avenged,” said the woman, closing the distance with Vincent.

   

   “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Vincent said, his back now virtually to the wall.  

   

   The woman repeated herself, “Flesh has returned as---”  

    

   ---Three shots rang out.  Vincent took cover behind a fourteenth-century, Gothic Griffin-Bench. Then after the burst of gunshots, the lights died again and Vincent’s wife sprayed three more rounds into the dark, anticipating her target’s position.

   

   “Honey, stop shooting!” Vincent yelled, crouching in cover, hearing the bullets whistle in his general direction.

   

   “Did you hit her,” he said, after a moment of silence with a voice full of panic.

   Vincent’s wife, unable to see anything in the pitch dark and trembling with fear, dropped the gun to the floor, placed her back against the nearest wall and after a moment of hyperventilating, said “Yeah, she’s---,”

  

   ---The room exploded. Killing all three inhabitants and setting the entire complex on fire. The police observed the explosion from fourteen stories below and radioed for help. Rescue squads evacuated the complex without incident, saving dozens of lives. But for the Diagastinos help came too late, as bits and pieces of their bones and their flesh were blown over a two block radius. Firefighters had the grizzly job of bagging two corpses with neither a head nor a limb, leaving the bodies nearly unidentifiable. And as for the child, the flame melted her into a pool of flesh and blood, permanently affixed to the floor, forcing rescuers to cut a circle around her liquefied remains. Which the city cremated along with the attached plywood.

 

 

   …The next day, in South Brooklyn, Jeff Miller was mopping aisle six after an oblivious customer walked backward into a shelf of Jack Daniels, spilling whiskey and breaking glass, leaving Jeff to clean the mess. The floor stuck itself to the bottoms of his sneakers, and when he moved he sounded like he was walking on two toilet plungers. “I have to get out of this shithole,” Jeff said, sticking the mop in the bucket, rinsing it with a press of the hand lever.

   

   “---I didn’t hear that.” a voice said behind him, causing Jeff to turn around and immediately notice the store owner.

  

   Vladimir, a first generation Russian immigrant, owned Lefty’s Liquor, and he made sure his employees knew it. Standing six feet two inches tall with a hardened, muscular physique and faded black tattoos in Russian covering his forearms, Vladimir demanded respect and gave none in return, sending the message to the underlings that he was in charge and they were at his mercy.

 

     “What is this?” Vladimir began, pointing to the stains on the floor. “What do you call this?”

   “I’m sorry boss…I must have missed it,” said Jeff.

 

   Vladimir wrapped his left arm around Jeff’s neck and brought him close as if to say something silently, then while staring him in the eyes said, “Look at me,” in a think Russian accent. “Excuses are like a******s, everyone has one. Do you know what I had when I came to this country? Nothing. Not even two dollars for bottled water. Now look at this. I didn’t get this by making excuses, my friend. Excuses are for losers and bums.”

  

   Jeff hated Vladimir, he hated his condescension, he hated his broken English, he hated his narcissism, he hated his entire low-rent liquor store and often dreamed of setting the building ablaze and leaving a pile of ash on the corner of Chestnut Avenue. Yet, the only thing Jeff could do was smile and nod his head agreeably as Vladimir degraded him. After his father died, Jeff burned the house he received, hoping to pay his gambling debts with insurance money. Of course, his attempt was amateur. Jeff was arrested, sentenced, and paroled after serving two years. And Jeff’s continued parole required “maintaining suitable housing and employment,” meaning Vladimir had Jeff in a chokehold and a twitch of Vladimir’s arm could land Jeff back in prison, unless Jeff found another job to support his rat-nest apartment. A job which hired ex-convicts, including arsonists. Jeff kept his mouth shut, taking the abuse; Vladimer knew he would, believing Jeff was craven.

   

   “Are you a bum?” Vladimir asked, pulling Jeff in closer but still staring in his eyes.

   

   “No, sir,” replied Jeff.

  

   The door opened and an elderly woman entered the store. Paying no attention to the ensuing drama, she made her way to the vodka aisle, picked up a bottle, and walked to the front of the store to pay.

   

   Vladimir released his grip on Jeff’s slender shoulders, took a glance at the old woman, and then focused his attention back to Jeff.

  

   “Then don’t act like a bum. Now clean the f*****g floor. Do it right. But first, gimp over there and make me some money,” Vladimir said, gesticulating with both hands in a downward motion. Then he turned around and walked back to his office, where he sat in his leather recliner, called his girlfriend for two hours, snorted a line of cocaine, and watched the security camera feed with a spy’s vigilance.   

   

   Jeff didn’t move until Vladimir was out of sight. When he was gone, he propped his mop on the nearest shelf and went to help the old woman. Jeff walked with a limp---to Vladimir’s entertainment---due to a birth defect in his knee. It slowed his pace and by the time he reached the old woman, she already seemed annoyed. After helping the customer, Jeff returned to mopping the floor. The rest of the night went as usual. Then, just after closing time, Jeff inserted a flash drive into the cash register and muttered, “Don’t worry, Vladdy, it’s only a loan” quietly to himself. Picking the drive out, Jeff glanced over the store, put the drive in his pocket, turned the lights off, locked the door, and walked home. On the walk home, he couldn’t be sure, but he felt almost as if someone was watching him, following him even. A superstitious fear he abandoned as soon as he bolted his apartment door.

    

   Having the day off, Jeff awoke sometime around noon the following day. He sat in bed for a moment, admiring the mess he made out of his studio apartment. The only furniture he had was a second-hand recliner with holes and a mattress, which he placed on the ground, under the only window in the room. Both were torn and stained. There was no kitchen included, but he propped a microwave atop a two-decade old refrigerator that was probably leaking Freon into the entire complex and slowly suffocating him in his sleep: when the refrigerator door is opened, the machine makes a humming sound and then whines when closed almost like a dish washer. It wouldn’t take an engineer to understand it’s mechanically unsound. Still, there was nothing Jeff could do, until he got more cash. If the place had one redeeming quality, it was on the first floor. In the back of the complex, behind the boiler room, but still on the first floor. Jeff never knew if the room was a legitimate rental space or a maintenance closet. He didn’t ask any questions either, neither did the owner. Jeff was just grateful for the bare concrete floor and walls, even if they reminded him of his four-wall upstate suit.

    

   Deemed too scrawny and weak to survive general population, the warden placed Jeff in solitary confinement with child molesters and gang dropouts. He called it the easiest time he ever did because he spent those two years alone, studying computer programs and completing his G.E.D. After breakfast, Jeff sat at his flimsy table and activated a computer virus from his laptop. A program, “the Queen Mary’s Revenge,” he designed to steal over a thousand dollars from Vladimir’s account and transfer the money into his. It wasn’t easy to install. First, he had to hack Vladimir’s bank account through his office computer, and then he had to install the virus on the cash register. To avoid detection, the virus wiped a thousand dollars’ worth of sales off the cash register’s memory and deleted the money transfer from Vladimir’s bank statement. A thousand dollars vanished. With the push of a button.

   

   “I’m feeling lucky,” said Jeff, after the funds were deposited in his account. And Jeff spent the next twelve hours in an on-line casino. After he blew the first grand on one bad poker hand after the next, he took another grand to recoup his loses. He played into the night and night became morning again. After calling, “all in,” with a straight and losing to an opponent’s flush, Jeff noticed it was twelve in the afternoon on the following day.

   

   “S**t, I’m going to be late for work,” Jeff said, closing the laptop and changing his clothes.  

   

   Jeff was fifteen minutes late for work. But Vladimir was nowhere to be seen. Regardless, Jeff set up in record time and business began at one-thirty, despite his absence. Jeff planned to repay Vladimir with his poker winnings, doctoring the records to hide his theft. Of course, there weren’t any poker winnings. And that plan went amiss after Jeff blew two thousand dollars with a net return of zero.

   

    The twenty-four poker binge left Jeff sluggish, his eyelids black, his mind disorganized, his nerves shot. A creeping thought crawled into his mind. Maybe the virus wasn’t so infallible. Maybe the fraud department was competent, after all. Maybe the police were on the way. But Jeff didn’t have time for paranoia. Tomorrow was Saint Patrick’s Day, and the customers, some prestigious and some fiendish, crowded the shop and formed a single-file line which led to the store entrance.

    

   Vladimir arrived at the end of the rush. He made a bee-line for his office and shut his door, ignoring Jeff along the way. Jeff’s heart sank when he saw Vladimir, feeding his paranoia and guilt-stricken conscience. Yet, it was a relief to see no confrontation ensued, which suggested the theft went undiscovered. As the day dragged on, Jeff kept to himself, hoping to avoid suspicion. After all, it wasn’t like Jeff had much time for anything else, anyway.  

    

   The rush began to slow around eight at night. And Vladimir emerged from his hideaway.

   

   “Not too bad for a cripple,” Vladimir said. Ignoring the insult, Jeff remained silent and pretended to clean the counter, hoping Vladimir would disappear back to his office. But, of course, he didn’t.

   

   “What happened to your left eye?” Vladimir asked. “Did you get kicked by a horse?”

   

   “No, just a long night,” Jeff said awkwardly.  

   

   Because of the theft, Jeff had a hard time looking Vladimir in the eyes. Yet, Vladimir took this as another sign of Jeff’s weakness. And evidence of the undeniable truth of his own superiority. Jeff, keenly aware of Vladimir’s condescending stare, fought the overpowering urge to gloat about outfoxing Vladimir, the legend.

   

   “I would have guessed the special Olympics,” Vladimir said. “You know, in Russia sleep---“

  

   “---That joke is so cliché.” Jeff interrupted, seizing the opportunity to strike back, knowing Vladimir was as literate as a rock, knowing he had no idea what cliché meant.

 

   “What was that? Did you interrupt me?” Vladimir shouted, scaring two customers out of the store.

  

   “No, I---,” Jeff stuttered.

  

   “---No, you what?” asked Vladimir aggressively. “You see I was talking. Then you cut me off. But, you didn’t interrupt me?” The rest of the customers were now staring at the two of them. 

 

   “No, sir,” said Jeff

  

   “No, sir. You didn’t interrupt me? Or, No, sir your mother never taught you manners when she wasn’t whoring herself?” Vladimir said, his voice now lowered. “Or maybe you think I’m stupid. Huh, too stupid to understand when I’m interrupted?”

  

   “No, sir,” Jeff said again, taking a few steps backward, almost to the point where he knocked the cigarettes from the rack behind the counter.

 

   “No, I’m stupid to understand? Or no, your mother never taught your pissant family manners?”

   

   Jeff knew he couldn’t talk his way out of the firestorm he created. Jeff had challenged Vladimir, and Vladimir would die before he let Jeff win. So he remained silent. When Jeff didn’t respond, Vladimir assumed he won. Then to teach Jeff a lesson, Vladimir ordered him to move the kegs to the opposite end of the store. After which, Jeff spent the next three hours moving, removing, stacking, and restacking the kegs, each time to different corner of the shop, in a circular motion. Until Vladimir closed the store and excused Jeff, his sense of superiority repaired.  

   

   Jeff was too winded to walk home, his legs were dead, his arms hung motionless by his side. And since the daunting twelve block hike to his apartment seemed impossible, Jeff decided to take the subway. As he struggled down the block, he knew Vladimir would kill him to heal his ego. If he ever discovered Jeff’s elaborate theft. Not on principle; but because of the scheme’s complexity. He would have to kill him. Anything less equated to Jeff’s brilliance overshadowing his fearlessness.

   

   On the painful walk down the terminal stairs, Jeff imagined Vladimir to be the cruelest person alive. And he may have been correct. But to his naivety, Jeff never fathomed he could stare the dead in the face. And that the dead could stare back.

   

   The train arrived at two-thirty in the morning. When it did, Jeff boarded an empty car. It was a twenty minute ride to his block, and Jeff fought to stay awake, fearing he would miss his stop.  The train thumped and began moving, gradually building up speed. The underground concrete passed in a blur. And then there was utter darkness. The lights flickered and died. Jeff thought it was a perfect ending to a horrid day, blinded in the dark.  

  

   Then the lights came alive again, almost on command. A tall woman with black hair covering her face sat at the end of the car, eerily still. Jeff stared at the woman for a moment, who apparently came from nowhere. Then back to the moving concrete, keeping the woman in his peripheral vision.

  

   The lights flickered and died again. When they returned, the woman moved. Now seated across the aisle, her straightened hair covering her face, her skin as pale as a vampire, she sat in silence. 

   

   “Holy s**t, you scared the living hell out of me,” Jeff said. The woman said nothing, sitting in the exact same pose as before, only this time, four feet from his face. Jeff wished the woman would speak. But she never did. She just sat in a perfectly still pose. And there was something off about her silence. Something too purposeful. Something about her silence screamed sinister savagery. And with the silence driving him mad, Jeff stood up to relocate.

   

   “Jeff Miller?” the woman asked in a growl.

   

   “Yeah, Ma’am. No, how do you know that?” Jeff said, astonished, offended.

   

   Then the lights exploded, showering the car with glass. Jeff had the premonition his death was imminent. Yet, the train was too dark to see anything. Leaving Jeff to stand helplessly in the dark, his hand clenching a pole, praying for safety, his face cut by shards of the exploding florescent light bulbs, spitting blood. After a minute of terror, the lighting from the Delaware Avenue Station illuminated the car through the windows. The woman was gone. Yet, there was a small note about the size of a driver’s license on her seat. Picking up the flimsy cardboard-like paper, Jeff turned it over. The tarot card Death.

   

   A week came to pass. And the woman in white became coincidence. Yet, for the past five nights, Jeff woke from the same dream, his heart racing, his clothes drenched in sweat. When the dream began, Jeff was standing alone in a room with white walls and no furniture. Then the scene turned black and he found himself strapped to a wooden pole, while a fair-skinned woman chanted. Only the energy felt evil. A flame formed a circle around the pole like a bull’s eye. Jeff screamed, but nobody came. The circle of flame slowly shrank, until it eventually engulfed Jeff, who burned in utter darkness like a torch in the night. And when he cried his last scream, a dark-skinned man in a suit, with dreadlocks, approached his blackened corpse and said, “What was made in fire. Kills with fire.” Then nothing. He was back in his apartment, covered in sweat. Jeff got a glass of water and washed his face. While the tarot card “Death” appeared on his wall, written in blood. The blood dripped down the wall, blurring the card beyond recognition. Jeff wiped the blood on his finger. He tasted it, and the room exploded. Then Jeff awoke, his heart racing, clothes drenched in sweat.

   

   The recurrent nightmare induced insomnia. One day blurred into the next. Customers blurred into a collective. The simple and easy became hard, and the hard became impossible. Vladimir was merciless. Yet, to his credit, Jeff navigated the week like a sailor without a compass, guided by the stars, and with a little luck and a little skill, he avoided the turbulent waters.

   

   Finally the week of torture came to an end. The Friday shift was over, and Jeff headed home for a long-overdue holiday. Upon opening his door, Jeff took a few steps and collapsed on his mattress. Within minutes he was sound asleep. But a knocking sound soon roused him.

   

   “Yeah?” Jeff said and fell asleep again.

   

   Then someone began pounding the door. Police inspections were routine, and Jeff knew he had to answer.

  

   “Who is it?” Jeff asked, exhausted.

  

   “A friend,” said a deep voiced male.

  

   Presuming it was his parole officer coming to inspect the premises, Jeff rolled his eyes, sat up, and then headed toward the door, grimacing when the man knocked again. “I’m coming. I’m coming,” Jeff said, making his way to the door.

   

   Still half-asleep, Jeff opened the door to find a dark-skinned man glaring at him olive green eyes, wearing a suit and tie, his dreadlocks reaching his lower back. Jeff noticed him immediately: the narrator from his nightmare. Fully awake now, Jeff played it cool. Secretly hiding his suspicion that the figure was a hallucination.  

  

   “If you’re here to search my place, I’ll step outside,” Jeff said, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

 

   “I’m not with the police,” the man said, “The name is Damion and I’m a friend. May I come in?”

  

   “I’m sorry a friend? Buddy, if you’re here to sell something, you need to come back later.”

  

   “I’m afraid there is no later,” Damion said, “In a day and a fortnight, you will be a pile of ash, cremated on the street.”

   

   Jeff looked away, his face showing utter disbelief. He wanted to respond but he had no idea what to say, so he began to laugh.

  

   “I know how this sounds. But you must listen. You must head my warning. Leave the city now.”

  

   “You must have the wrong room, buddy. I’ve never been involved with the mob,” Jeff smirked.

  

   “The evil that hunts you could decimate the mob in one breath. Head my warning, please. Leave the city tonight.”

  

   “Evil that hunts me?” Jeff asked, raising his eyebrow and tone of voice.

  

   “The woman you met on the train, Jeff Miller. She’s coming for your life,” the man said, his eyes widening, his voice trembling, his stare becoming more intense.

  

   “What?” Jeff said, “Who are you people and what do you want with me?”

  

   “It doesn’t matter. Leave the city. Leave it now or leave the living,”

  

   “Have a good night” Jeff said, slamming the door, feeling the scars on his face which cost him a hospital visit. “Don’t come back.”

   

   Damion knocked again, but eventually gave up, leaving behind a wooden carving about the size of a fist with a large head and a prominent nose that encompassed most of the face. Ignoring the entire week, Jeff fell back asleep.

   

   Jeff slept through the holiday, waking only to urinate. And the only thing that stopped him from sleeping through the next day was the nagging alarm on his phone. He came to life slowly, feeling rested but unsatisfied. After building the strength to walk, Jeff shut off the alarm. Then believing it was Saturday morning, he crawled into bed to enjoy his holiday. But the sound of a dumpster being raised by a truck consumed his mind with panic: Sunday was trash-day. A bolt of adrenaline coursed to his heart. Fully awake now, he ran across the room to his smartphone, fueled by the shock of the adrenaline---twelve p.m. Sunday. “S**t,” Jeff said. Only now realizing he was asleep for over a day.

   

   On the walk to Lefty’s, Jeff thought about Vladimir, about the stolen money, and about the fragile nature of the internet"If an ex-convict could perpetrate bank fraud, what kind of havoc were the professionals capable of wreaking?---but the question proved too perplexing: an endless sea of questions with no answers. So his mind drifted to the carving he found by his door. Damion didn’t appear to be a villain. There was something truthful in his eyes, yet his words were insane. Jeff was a sales associate at a low rent liquor store. And evil didn’t exist. At least not Damion’s evil. Jeff pulled the wooden figure from his pocket. To say the carving was creepy would be an understatement. A man carved from solid oak with a head twice as large as the body.  It was something straight out of a National Geographic magazine. Still, Damion knew Jeff’s name. And he knew about the woman on the train. The woman who vanished into thin air. “New York really is nuts,” Jeff said to himself. Then his mind drifted back to poker. If he borrowed another grand, he could repay Vladimir in full.

   

   Jeff arrived fifteen minutes early. Vladimir was already manning the cash register. The second shift associate, Sarah, called off, allegedly succumbing to a fever, leaving Vladimir alone. He looked tired and livid. Which was surprising since Sarah was the favorite. Something that Jeff pretended not to care about. After all Sarah was cute, probably everyone’s favorite. Still, Jeff felt good when Sarah burned him. He wandered how she sounded on the phone, how Vladimir took it, and how bad the early afternoon rush was. Which was apparently pretty bad.

  

   Jeff hung his coat in a closet. After which, Vladimir told him to restock the beer and liquor. Even though his shift technically hadn’t started, Jeff inventoried the shelves, rummaged in the back for boxes, and refilled the aisles. He was exhausted two hours later.

  

   “Hey boss, I’ll take over if you want,” said Jeff, hoping to rest his back.

 

   Vladimir stared at Jeff. Not with a warm stare, but the prison stare Jeff became accustomed to, suggesting Vladimir was the predator and Jeff was the prey. Just in case there were any doubts about the hierarchy. Cold and intimidating but friendly for Vladimir.  Following the stare-down, Vladimir looked Jeff in the eyes, spit on the floor, and told him to clean it up. Then he walked into his office without acknowledging him any further. Taking this as an implied assent, Jeff walked to the register, annoyed but relieved for the lighter duty.

   

   As the day was slow, Vladimir’s insult had time to linger. Jeff wandered if he was still sore at him. And if anyone else in the known world became upset over the use of a word they didn’t know. But Jeff assumed that it went to intent. Jeff intended to make Vladimir look stupid, and Vladimir’s radar was just too sharp.

   

   After twenty minutes of nothing, Jeff hauled the empty boxes to the trash. When he returned, a grey haired woman with an oversized coat was standing by the register with a bottle of Grey Goose. Jeff scanned the vodka and rang up her purchase. While the woman told him the price of liquor skyrocketed. That she remembered when it was ten dollars a bottle. And that nobody can afford nothing anymore. Then she paid him. Jeff forced a laugh as if he remembered it too. Then she asked Jeff how old he was.

  

   “Twenty-seven, ma’am,” he said.

  

   “That’s strange. You don’t look a day over eighteen.”

  

   Jeff smirked. He looked young, but nobody ever accused him of being a teenager before.

   

   “You’re not from Brooklyn, either?” she asked.

  

   “No, I’m a transplant from upstate.” Jeff answered.

   

   “Oh. Well, what brings you to the city?”

  

   “Work ma’ am. I came looking for work after my parents died,”

   

   The woman apologized. And Jeff thanked her. When she left, Jeff looked around the store, and then looked outside. With no one in sight, he strolled to the bathroom.

   

   Walking to the rear of the store, Jeff noticed the backdoor was ajar. Getting closer, he overheard two voices in the alleyway.

  

   “It just vanished?” a voice said sarcastically.

  

   “I’m looking into it. The bank fucked us. Probably just an error with the numbers, you know?” said a different voice.

  

   “No, the bank fucked you,” the first voice said.

  

   “Don’t worry. It’s my problem. Not yours.”

  

   The second voice belonged to Vladimir. The broken English was a dead giveaway. Only now, there was humility in it. Eavesdropping, Jeff pressed his body against the back wall to follow the conversation. Jeff never heard the first voice before. It had a rough, ugly characteristic and a deep, masculine tone.

  

   “You’re making it my problem.”

  

   “No, it’s my problem. I’ll have the money for you. I give you my word, I’ll have the money,” Vladimir said.

  

   “You’ll give me your word?” the voice grunted. “You just gave me your word the bank stole my money. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

  

   “I don’t have any other explanation. There’s been a…mix-up.” Said Vladimir.

   

   Jeff felt his heart skip a beat and his breathing tighten. His hands began to tremble and he fought a sudden urge to run and skip town, knowing it was only a matter of time before they, whoever “they” were, put together Jeff’s involvement in the “disappearance” of the money.

  

   “A mix-up?” the man said.

  

   “Yeah, you know an accident. But I’m telling you, it’s nothing to worry about. I’ll have your money and then it’s business as usual,” Vladimir added sounding more confident.

   

   Vladimir never told Jeff about his personal affairs. As he wasn’t the type of man that opened himself up to such, especially not to Jeff. Of course if he did, Jeff would know Vladimir had a string of unpaid drug debts. And more often than not, Vladimir usually spent his extra cash on more cocaine, ignoring his outstanding balances. Still, Jeff noticed the fear in Vladimir’s voice. Whoever he was talking to must inspire a lot of it.

   

   “That’s perfect, you’ll get the money and it’ll be business as usual,” the man said.

  

   “On my word of honor as a Russ---,”

  

   Glass broke outside and Jeff heard Vladimir scream. Jeff, too petrified to move, placed his head against the back wall, only a few feet from the open door.

 

   “Listen to me you Commie prick. I’ll skin you alive and feed your guts to the rats on the street,” the man yelled, apparently making no attempt to conceal his crime. “Then I’ll impale your head on the Brooklyn Bridge and mail your heart to your mother. Don’t f**k with me!”

  

   The man made a few more comments, and then left, his voice getting more distant with each profanity he uttered. Jeff assumed Vladimir was hurt and debated aiding him in the alleyway. But eventually choosing to play dumb, Jeff went back to the register and aided the three customers in line. Just like nothing happened. A couple hours later, Jeff  checked the alleyway, honestly believing Vladimir was dead. The alley was empty but the broken glass and blood on the pavement said everything. Jeff finished his shift, closed the store, and went home. He had the following day off, and the thought of Damion or the carving quickly faded from his mind, replaced by the thought of broken glass and blood.

    

   Guilt and remorse haunted Jeff all through the night. The hours came and passed. And the next morning, Jeff caught the red-line to Manhattan after a sleepless night, wired off nervous energy and caffeine. He made his way up the terminal stairs, through Hell’s Kitchen, up to West Fifty-Ninth Street, and to Central Park dragging his left foot occasionally. People crowded the entrance, either leaving or entering, while vendors sold bottled water and souvenirs. The day was hot, easily in the seventies.

   

   Jeff pushed through the crowd and began to stroll along a manicured path. Shrubs, beautifully trimmed, lined the way, but eventually gave way to much larger trees and the occasional patch of boulders. Spending the entire night awake, rolling in his bed, Jeff came to clear his mind Believing sooner or later either the bank or the thugs who gave Vladimir the once-over would be on his trail. Unless, of course, he disguised the transaction that artfully, but Jeff knew this was wishful thinking.

   

   The tree-line became open field and masses of people gathered in the open space with blankets and lunch. A lot of people, too many of them. Jeff came looking for solitude, but solitude proved elusive in the city that never sleeps. A group of children climbed over the Alice in Wonderland statue, and a pack of New York’s young and trendy passed by, smoking cigarettes and laughing. Jeff turned a corner in the Central Park maze, but he found more people everywhere. This path led to baseball fields. In fact, there must have been dozens, and each one packed with people.

   

   Jeff walked for another hour, only passed by the occasional jogger. Solitude must be near. But just up the hill was another clearing with crowds of people sun tanning. Disgruntled, Jeff kept walking, determined to find quiet. It was then he remembered home: the quiet, rural, upstate roads, the wild forests, and the endless silence. Silence was boring then. Now, he craved it. After another mile or so, Jeff came to a small waterfall that emptied into a creek. Knowing he was close now, he continued. Eventually he came to clearing in the path. It made a wide circle around a statue of a man, Hans Christian Anderson, reading a book, distracted by a bird. And the circle was desolate. Not even a sign of human life. Of course, that wouldn’t last long.

   

   It wasn’t perfect solitude. But it would do. Jeff sat on the bench behind the statue. Spring was here. The warm weather moved in. The birds sang. And the trees budded with green leaves and flowers. Yet, neither the warmth of Spring nor the tranquility of seclusion appeased Jeff, who became locked in a mesh of guilt and introspection.

   

   The move to New York had been a failure. And Jeff knew it. He had no friends. He had no real career prospects. And he was living out of a make-shift broom closet. Of course his biggest concern at the moment was the mental image of  Vladimir’s friends sketching his face on a poster and plastering it all over the city with a “Wanted Dead or Alive” subtitle. The thought kept him awake all night. Who had he ripped off? Was he going to die? Go back to prison? What about Vladimir? Could he save enough money to pay restitution? Living expenses had him strapped thin already. So, that was a no. His mind raced, and he fought the urge to pace around the circle. As it just felt soothing to move. Even if was only a brief reprieve.

   

   Jeff calmed. A gentle breeze blew, rustling the leaves on the trees. His mind drifted again to home. These cherries and oaks were amongst the beautiful he ever saw. Yet, something was amiss.  Jeff remembered the feral trees, overgrown with ivy. To most people an untasteful disaster, still, Jeff saw something scenic in the mess. Something untamed and beautiful.

  

   The wind picked up, whipping Jeff’s face, leaving him blinded. Something hissed. With eyes still burning, seeing double, Jeff looked in the direction of the noise. A vague figure sat next to him. His eyes came more in focus. It was the woman from the train, dressed in white. Jeff stood up. So did the woman.

   

   “Flesh has returned as fire,” the woman said.

  

   The woman walked closer. Jeff stumbled and fell backward, unable to speak.

   

   “Flesh has returned as fire,” the woman said again.

   

   Something told Jeff to run. Yet, sheer panic weighed him to the ground. He was afraid, but not the useful afraid. No, Jeff was the type of afraid that leaves roadkill for the vultures.

  

   The woman came closer. Now she was virtually on top of him. Then the wind picked up. Dirt got kicked in Jeff’s eyes. He was totally blind now, glued to the floor. The wind ceased. Jeff rubbed his eyes. And then rubbed them again. When his vision came into focus, the statue in the middle of the circle was a lake of molten metal, smoking, burning through the pavement. As panicked as he was, Jeff, half-blinded, had the presence of mind to survey the area for danger. She was gone. Leaving a message from the damned scorched on the park bench: “NO ONE CAN SAVE YOU.”

   

   As soon as he left the park, Jeff began to seriously consider that he might be mentally-ill. He became positive that all of the events of last week were a delusion. Jeff studied internet medical websites for hours. Trying to understand what was happening to him. He learned that psychosis can be temporary. So, he decided wait and see if it persisted, before he hospitalized himself.

   

   It disappeared as soon as it began. Not a reoccurrence of his nightmare, nor a vision of an evil giant in the height of New York fashion. Slowly he began to reacclimate himself to normality. Luckily, Vladimir decided to disappear too. And two weeks later, Jeff began to believe Vladimir was dead: a corpse at the bottom of the Hudson River or a skeleton buried somewhere in New Jersey. He continued to believe it, right until he received his paycheck signed and dated by the boss. “I guess you are alive,” he said. Indeed, Vladimir was.

  

   The daily grind of Lefty’s kept Jeff focused, and his mind clear. Around this time, Jeff read that insomnia can induce hallucinations. And by the end of the second week, everything seemed like a simple nightmare brought to life by a sleepless seven days. It was too mad to be anything else. Yet, Jeff did enjoy Vladimir’s absence. He enjoyed doing his job without humiliation or intimidation. And he still got paid.

  

   Baseball spring training was coming to a close by the end of March. Although never previously a fan, Jeff became immersed in the sport, even if a part of him did want to put three hundred dollars on the Red Sox. Not that he had three hundred dollars anyway.

  

   Two weeks into Vladimir’s sudden disappearance, Jeff closed the shop early. He had fifteen minutes before the bar nearest aired a rerun of New York and Detroit. Jeff couldn’t explain his new found fascination with baseball. He didn’t understand it himself. Maybe it was going out. Maybe it was the feeling of comradery, however superficial. Or maybe the sport was just a thrill. Either way, after closing time Jeff always made an appearance at Bonko’s, a block from his room, sporting his new Yankees hat. It made him feel like a New Yorker. Like he belonged. Like a native, and less of an outsider. Cultured in Brooklyn’s working class.

   

   Jeff left the bar four beers deep. His madness was gone. A fossil buried deep in the sands and pressure of time. “It’s been a day and a fortnight, you demented Shakespeares!” Jeff yelled at an empty block, talking mostly to himself. No one responded. And Jeff reflected on the mental fabrication. “What a week,” he said to himself, laughing so hard the dead could hear him. And the dead laughed too. At his arrogance. Tomorrow at midnight was a day and a fortnight, since Damion’s warning, since Damion left the carving, that forgotten totem still in Jeff’s coat pocket.

   

   Jeff arrived at Lefty’s eleven hours before midnight. The store was empty and Sarah already abandoned her post. In fact, Jeff never saw Sarah period, even when he came early. And now he was becoming suspicious that Sarah, taking advantage of Vladimir’s absence, quit her shift altogether. Only to receive a paycheck at the end of the week. But the sign on the door did. read “Open.” Taking a seat behind the cash register, Jeff checked fantasy baseball scores, having joined a league at Bonko’s. Moving only to help an occasional customer, Jeff ignored the more tiresome tasks like restocking the shelves. At five hours until midnight Jeff thought about leaving as well. The store was empty and the rest of the night didn’t appear to be any more lucrative. But he stayed, playing on his phone.

   

   Three hours until midnight came and a group of hoodlums entered the store, purchasing the entire stock of Miller light. With nothing to do, Jeff began to move more cases to the front. And after an hour, he began restocking everything else. Stopping only for customers. Eleven O’ clock came and Jeff began final preparations for closing. Taking a mop, he soaked the floor and cleaned the dirt, rinsing it in the bucket. “At least Vladimir will think I’ve done something,” he muttered to himself. When the floor was clean it was eleven-thirty and he took his seat by the cash register. Times passes slowly with an eye on the clock and the next five minutes took an eternity. A taxi passed outside, while people strolled on the sidewalk. A lot of people for this time of night Jeff thought; maybe there was some kind of event downtown. A flock of pigeons ate the discarded food on the street, flying away from pedestrians only to return.

   

   Jeff checked his cellphone. It was eleven-fifty. And he made his way to the door to remove the “OPEN” sign, sliding his arms into his coat as he walked. But before he reached it, Vladimir entered and removed it for him. Something was off with Vladimir. He had a long black trench coat that appeared wet. Yet it wasn’t raining. His hair was drenched too like he ran a marathon, and his left eye was swollen to the point it was doubtful he could see from it, with a patch of black underneath. Then Vladimir began shaking. Jeff was taken aback. He wasn’t quite sure how to react. Jeff was worried Vladimir might scold him for leaving early. Of course the forty-four magnum tucked underneath his trench coat should have been a bigger concern.

 

     Jeff attempted small talk. But after a long stretch of silence, Vladimir interrupted Jeff by pulling his gun and pointing it at his head. Red drops began falling on the floor by Vladimir’s feet. And then Jeff knew why his coat looked wet. It was drenched in blood.

   

   “Into the office,” Vladimir said, steadying the gun at Jeff’s face.

   

   “Okay Boss, but please point that thing somewhere else,” Jeff said, his voice squeaking like a middle schooler.

  

   “Into the office now or I blow your f*****g head off!” Vladimir screamed.

   

   Jeff began to move towards the office, with Vladimir following closely behind. When they reached the office, Vladimir closed the door behind them. Out of control, panicked, and in shock, Vladimir waved the gun violently. And when he didn’t it shook in his hands. Jeff knew talking to Vladimir would either save his life or end it. Still he had to do something.

  

   “You’re not thinking straight. But I can help you,” Jeff said. “You just need to put down the gun and talk to me. Like reasonable men.”

  

   Vladimir calmed for a second, his weapon stopped shaking. Taking a seat in his recliner, he pointed the gun at Jeff and told him to sit. Which Jeff obeyed. Jeff was now seated across the desk from Vladimir, in a cheap folding chair. Vladimir rested his elbow on the desk, and with an outstretched left arm, levied the gun between Jeff’s eyes. Vladimir was calm now and the aim appeared purposeful, rather than the knee jerk reaction Jeff assumed brought Vladimir to hold him hostage.

  

   “Talk like reasonable men,” Vladimir said, inching the hand-canon closer to Jeff’s forehead.  “You want to talk like reasonable men.”

  

   Something had changed with Vladimir. His voice became sedated. The panic which obsessed him a few moments earlier was gone. Jeff knew if Vladimir was going to kill him, it would be in cold blood, now.

 

   “Okay, let’s talk like reasonable men.”

  

   Blood began to drip on the table, creating a pool over Vladimir’s stationary. Vladimir moved to easy and spoke without pain. So Jeff knew he couldn’t have sustained that kind of injury. It was too much blood for a minor scuffle. No, Vladimir must have killed somebody. And now Jeff could be his next target.

  

   Vladimir turned to his television and re-winded the video. Jeff thought about seizing the moment to grab the gun, because Vladimir had his back to him but Vladimir’s finger was nestled on the trigger, pulling it back as far as it would go without firing. One twitch and Jeff was dead. So he sat quietly like an angel in Church.

  

   Vladimir mounted a flat screen television on the wall behind his desk. And Jeff’s heart sank as Vladimir scrolled with the remote, in his right hand, and opened the file footage from two weeks prior. Coming to the point where Jeff inserted a drive into the cash register, Vladimir stopped.

  

   Jeff knew what was coming. And he could only hope it wasn’t a bullet. Yet, it wasn’t guilt that gripped Jeff. No, staring down a ten inch by thirty-three millimeter barrel, Jeff only thought of living. 

  

   “You’re in too deep,” Jeff said. “But there’s a way out of this.”

   

   Vladimir ignored his comment and played the tape where Jeff said, “It’s only a loan Vladdy.” It was eleven-fifty eight.

  

   “I’ve taken you in. I’ve put food on your table. I’ve given you a chance. And you f**k me.”

  

   “Boss…” Jeff said, squirming in his chair.

  

   “Boss what?”

  

   “Aren’t I reasonable enough?”

  

   “Am I not reasonable?!” Vladimir screamed.

  

   “I know your upset. I would be angry as well. But please don’t do this. I can fix---,“ pleaded Jeff.

  

   “---Hush, child.”

  

   Vladimir cocked the hammer. The clock struck twelve. A drop of blood fell on the table. And the room went dark.

  

   “Son of a w***e. Son of a god damn w***e,” Vladimir yelled.

  

   Then began cursing in Russian. He fired all six rounds into Jeff’s chair. And then began screaming again.

  

   But Jeff had scrambled off the chair and crawled to the door. Bullets buzzing over-top. Outside the office, he knocked over a shelf of liquor and fell. But he crawled to his feet and ran again.

  

   The door was in sight, lit by moonlight. An intense heat to his back. He fumbled through the door and landed prone on the street. As a wall of fire followed him, blowing glass, missing Jeff by inches, singing his coat.

   

   Astonished, Jeff saw Lefty’s burning.  Chanting could be heard across the street. Staring in the direction of the noise, Jeff made out a dark silhouette. Now moving closer. Hidden in shadow. The street lights revived. And Jeff was staring into his nightmare come alive: the woman in white, walking in a steady pace in his direction.

   

   Jeff moved on instinct, dragging his left foot. Down an alley, over a fence, and across the street ran Jeff until he cut into a side street, hiding behind a four-story apartment building. He rested his hands on his knees, panting like a dog. “I lost her,” muttered Jeff.

   

   Then a mist moved in. Slowly, until it blanketed the street. Jeff felt himself chocking. Something told him to move again. But there was nowhere to go. He could barely see three inches in front of him. He walked four feet and then keeled over. Unable to quit coughing but unable to accept death, Jeff charged a backdoor. It was locked and sealed.

   

   He began to feel light headed. The mist somehow depriving him of oxygen. Then he coughed blood. But when he raised his head he saw something above him: a fire escape.

   

   Grabbing the ladder, he pulled himself to the second floor. Now out of the mist, he vomited. But his gut told him to move again. And he did. Up the walkway, up another ladder, and through a fourth story window he climbed.

   

   Running through someone’s apartment, toward the door, Jeff passed a young woman draped in a towel. “Pervert,” screamed the young woman. Jeff, ignoring her, reached the door and headed for the stairs to the roof. The door was locked, but Jeff kicked it in.

   

   The roof was empty. So he walked to the edge and looked over the street. The mist was gone. Safety at last. Into the fetal position curled Jeff, breathless. And there he sat for what must have an eternity. But thunder roared in the distance, and lightening hit the alley.

   

   Jeff stood up, and yet again saw nothing. The storm ceased and Jeff walked to the other edge of the roof. From this height, he could see Lefty’s burning. People crowded around the debris. As firefighters and police roared down the city streets, quarantining the area, they began spraying water on the buildings surrounding Lefty’s, dismissing the store as gone. The crowd grew as entire buildings emptied. Finally, an ambulance rolled down the street, underneath Jeff’s building, turning to head to the store. Only a few minutes too late to save Vladimir.

   

   “Jeff Miller, the seed of atrocity. Come forth and feel the righteousness in vengeance.”

    

   Jeff turned slowly. Standing on the opposite end of the roof was the tall woman in a white skirt with heels, hair masking her face.

  

   “Who are you?” he asked.

   The woman approached Jeff. “Flesh has returned as fire,” she said, coming closer.

  

   “Please, don’t. I want to live.”

  

   “Flesh has returned as fire!” the woman screamed.

  

   “Please,” Jeff yelled as a blast of fire hit him, curving around his body like a wave splashing against a rock. Yet, Jeff was unharmed.

  

   “What…What magic is this that you possess?” the woman screamed.

   

   Jeff, having just been sprayed with liquid flame, was too shocked to speak. Shocked that a woman could spray liquid flame. And shocked that he was still alive.

  

   “Speak, Damn You. Speak and I may spare your life.” She said.

   

   “What mortal fool dares cross the dead?”

  

   “The dead?” Jeff stammered.

  

   The woman’s body tensed. Hurling another bolt of flame. Jeff fell to the floor. Staring in terror at the approaching death. “I’m calling the police. You goddamn pervert,” the lady in the bathrobe said, walking on the roof. The flame smashed into Jeff. Yet again, he was unharmed. The woman in white turned, facing the newcomer, and then growled. And the woman ran back down the stairs screaming, “Oh my god.”

  

   “AAhhhhhh,” said the dead.

   

   Then she stopped for a moment. Her voice softened, and she parted her hair which fell flawlessly down her back. Revealing a face that could easily be posted on a New York fashion magazine. And she began to speak calmly, almost as if Jeff was an equal.

  

   “You possess a totem, do you not? How did you come across it?”

  

   “What. Who are you?” Jeff said, still in utter disbelief.

   

   The woman laughed, “Oh, this age. All questions are answered in science.”

   

   “I’m sorry?” said Jeff.

   

   “You’re facing death, and you want an introduction?”

   

   Jeff stayed silent. And the woman turned away and began talking with her back to Jeff.

  

   “I was born in France. Born with a gift in the supernatural. Fearing their own demise, my parents abandoned me. And I would have died in a forest, alone, if an order of witches had not saved my life.  Raised in the craft, I quickly became the most powerful in the order. But the zealots were ever on our trail. And we fled. From one city to the next. From one village to the next. Until fate would have it, we were trapped. A small number of us escaped to England. Making a life for ourselves and founding a new order. A queen was elected. But it wasn’t long before the English hunted us, too.”

   

   Jeff listened with intensity. But still occasionally staring at the fire on the roof, now dwindling.

  

   “Then on the eve of our lord, sixteen hundred and fourteen, the English came. And with spears and flame the soldiers beat, raped, and murdered every member in the order. Only one survived. Only one found a way to the new world. Disguised, I stowed away aboard the Dutch trader, New Amsterdam. Leaving behind everything I knew. Everything I was."

   

   "There was a young sailor on board, Bach. We wedded and joined the pilgrims. And for first time I became a member of society. Had a place to call my own.  And I bore a son. And so it went for years, hiding amongst the crowd as a common basket weaver."

    

   "But life became dire. Starvation overtook us. And I invoked the ground into fertility. But nothing escaped the town reverend. Convicted of witchcraft, convicted of causing the famine, the town executed my husband and infant son with an axe.”

  

   The woman fixed her gaze back to Jeff. Her voice became angry and her face became wicked.

   

   “Then tied me to a stake and set me on fire. But before I took my last breath, I cursed this island. That I would return from death as fire. That I would not rest until all of their bloodlines were burned from existence.”

   

   Her eyes narrowed on Jeff. And in that moment, Jeff thought about jumping from the roof. Ending it quickly. But he found himself unable to do so.

  

   “You ancestors were there, Jeff Miller. They were there over four hundred years ago. The night I returned, most of the men of your ancestor’s village died in arms, while I layed waste to the town. But amidst the smoke and the gunshots and the screams of pain, your family chose exile, leaving the island and passing from my vision. For four hundred years, I’ve watched this city, strolled its streets. Taken human form when I wished. The wars, the people, the fashion. But nothing that happened in that four hundred years will save you, now. ”

  

   “Flesh has returned as fire. And after four hundred years, I will have vengeance.”

  

   “And you will bur---“ the woman said.

   “---Victoria Séval, Witch-Queen of Wales. Come. And face justice,” a voice screamed.

   

   A crowd of nine people in cloaks with hoods masking their faces made a circle around the witch-queen. The man who spoke revealed himself: the dark-skinned man with olive eyes and dreadlocks.

 

   “Who is this mortal whom threatens me?”

  

   “The name is Damion, witch-queen. Grand Master of this Order. And we claim this one as ours.”

  

   “You fool, I can’t be killed,” said the Witch-Queen.

  

   “Leave this one be. Or face banishment into the depths of netherworld.”

  

   “Banish me? There hasn’t been a witch or a sorcerer in the past 200 years, who could banish me. Leave now mortal and leave with your life.”

  

   Damion stopped for a moment and zen-like silence passed between the two. Then his tone of voice became friendly. Attempting to strike a meeting of the minds. Attempting to find Victoria peace: “Has not there been enough violence? Have not enough people perished? Recant your wicked ways now, and find peace. What has this man done to deserve death?”

   

   The Queen stood a moment and answered Damion with questions: “Is my vengeance not justified? Has my vigilantism not spared this city torment? Have I not spared the worthy and scorned the treacherous? Is this man not a common criminal like his ancestors?”

   

   Damion understanding that reason would not prevail hailed the queen: “We out number you nine to one. Leave this place.”

  

   The Queen laughed: “You mortal fool, do you think numbers will determine this match?”

  

   “Very well your vengeance will prove your undoing,” said Damion, as the nine pulled staves hidden underneath their cloaks. “Victoria Séval, Witch Queen of the Damned, your fate is at hand.”

  

   “Your pride, your ambition has brought you to this end. Not your humanity,” replied the Queen in scorn.

   

   And so began what would pass into folklore as the battle for the soul of New York City.

   

   Damion’s followers froze the Queen in place, attempting to break her mind. While Damion performed the cleansing ritual. When he finished, lightening shot from his staff, sending the Queen to her knees.

   

   But the Queen’s mind proved too powerful to occupy for long. And her soul unwilling to leave. A follower’s concentration slipped and the Queen sent her off the building, after assuming control of her mind. Two more ran. And the Queen now in full control killed three with fire and two with lightening. Fearing death, the last cloaked figure fled, abandoning Damion to die.

   

   Damion’s staff glowed red, and he rose to strike it: “Be gone,” he yelled charging his enemy. But the Queen cut him down with a traffic sign through the heart.

   

   Jeff ran to Damion’s side, grabbed his hand, and watched as the life in his eyes drained. “Finish this,” Damion said, before he passed.

   

   “Where you worth their lives, Jeff Miller?” the Queen said, walking closer.

   

   “If I can’t burn you, I’ll crush you,” she said, lifting her hand in the air. Lightening began to strike randomly, as a tornado the size of the Chrysler building formed on the street.

   

   The Queen closed her eyes. And the tornado came closer, blowing out windows and shaking the building. It wasn’t fear that gripped Jeff now. Only rage. Jeff stood amongst the storm. Apparently the totem protected from more than mere fire. 

   

   “Now die like the coward you are,” the Queen screamed. As the tornado spiraled toward the building, sweeping cars off the street.

   

   “You first, you b***h.” Jeff yelled.

    

   Then he found the glowing staff. And with the force of an apocalyptic hurricane pouring down on him, he ran until he was within arm’s length of the Queen.

   

   She opened her eyes just long enough to see Jeff smash her face with the staff. Upon impact, the staff scolded Jeff’s hands and he  dropped it. But the Queen took two steps back and ignited, falling to the roof of the building in a pile of ash. And as spontaneously as the tornado began, it dissipated into thin air.

   

   Jeff fell to the ground. The adrenaline was still pumping through his veins, but at last he felt some semblance of safety. The street was empty. As the tornado had dug a small trench across the block, destroying a few cars and closed shops along with it.

  

   When Jeff regained his strength he approached the outer edge of the roof. Lefty’s was smoking, but the fire had ceased. Police and firefighters had along since evacuated. Probably because of the tornado that must have seemingly come from nowhere. And so Jeff stood in watch over the city streets.

  

   And after an hour or so. People began to come again. Filling the sidewalks and streets, they came from blocks away. As did the news companies. Within an hour the skies were packed with helicopters doing a fly over, and the vans pushed their way through the crowd. While seemingly small people with video cameras broadcasted the events over national television and radio. Broadcasting the event that the New York Times would call, “The Perfect Storm,” the following morning.

 Looking back to the roof, all the bodies were gone. As if they never existed. So was the staff, and the pile of ash that once was the great Witch-Queen. An ambulance was heard in the distance. Police barricaded the street And more people flocked to the scene, until it was virtually impossible to walk upstream of the crowd. The air reeked of burning rubber and smoke. And those who had gas masks wore them. Yet, the stench was so strong Jeff wandered if they really did any good.

   

   And then he saw her. Walking a full head taller than the entire crowd. And making her way through the crowd as if there was none. But rather strolling lazily through the park. Jeff stared. His mouth dropped. And panic almost made him cower on the ground. The Queen stopped, returned the stare, and smiled alluringly. Then she continued down the street, through the crowd, and disappeared out of sight. Never to be seen again. At least not By Jeff.

  

   Why was he spared? Why weren’t the others? These were the questions that haunted him after he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to thirty years in prison. Guilty of second degree murder of by arson. His sentence was overturned on appeal. And the New York Times quoted, “It was a sore day for justice.” Saved by the rule of law, Jeff returned home. Or what was home. Where he carried the label murderer for the rest of his life.

   

   Every city has its ghosts. And their heritage is difficult to cleanse. When in New York, look for the woman in white, dressed in the height of fashion. Maybe she’ll smile back. But be forewarned: Wrath comes with fire from the New York Witch-Queen.