“Because you’re a Wise Virgin?” I glanced at the door to the den as Binah trotted in, her tail arched high.
Vincent’s discomfort visibly increased. “Anyway, around about this time, I start having these dreams about the white land. Well, the Glass Land, is what she calls it. Eden. Every night after this thing is hauled ashore, I dream about her. First it was small stuff, then it got more and more intense. All these fucked-up, vivid scenes of this garden, and her in New York or Chicago getting killed, the world being wrecked and shit. She asks me to choose, but I can never answer her. I dunno what to say. Choose what?”
“I dreamed about her, too,” I admitted, after a pause. “Soon after… being sent to find you by my superior.”
“Lev, right? That guy is a total spook.” Vincent’s mouth quirked. “I got the Eye, man. I can see when someone’s got woo.”
I patted my thigh, and the cat jumped up onto my lap. “But no one can find the Fruit?”
“Nope. Frank, Rob, and Carmine knew where it is, but I saw Jana tear up Frank and Rob, and they both forgot long before she started torturing them.” For a moment, the young man’s face grew sober. “I don’t even think you can use magic to find it. Jana tried a couple of different ways. The only one that knows now is probably Carmine, maybe my dad.”
I thought on it, caressing Binah’s ears and considering the puzzle pieces I’d been handed. “Jana was working for someone in Chicago, and she knew that the only person who can handle this Fruit is a Wise Virgin. That’s a part of mythos related to unicorns. The only humans capable of gentling a unicorn were learned adult virgins, typically maidens. Nuns, priestesses. But not necessarily women.”
For several long seconds, Vincent was silent. I watched him weigh up what to say and what not to say. “Yeah, I guess… But man…do you know how hard it is to find even normal virgins in the Mob? The Families ain’t the place to be looking for virgins, I can tell you that much.”
“Jana wanted to open the Fruit, and so does Carmine. I think he learned of Frank Nacari’s death by accident, and then Jana manipulated him for all this time.” I frowned. “But if he’s looking for you, he’s learned something of this mythos.”
“That’s what I figure, too. Carmine will want that thing, man. He’s like a nuclear reactor deep inside. He loves magic, he loves power. He’s been obsessed with it his whole life. He was in a skiing accident way back. Got stuck in the mountains for a couple days with a broken leg. He survived, and he came out of it with this crazy woo he has now. He ain’t normal. Most guys keep their spooky voices in their heads, but Carmine? There’s something wrong with him. He has Fido and Goofy with him everywhere. Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don’t, but they’re real as shit.”
His Neshamah could project a true physical form. Kutkha had said it, and I agreed: there was something wrong about it, but other than an odd feeling of unease, I didn’t know exactly what. It was unnatural to expose your soul like that, I supposed. “You were close?”
“Me and Carmine? Hell no.” Vincent shook his head. “Like I said, he’s an asshole.”
“Now, this is all fascinating,” I said with a sigh. “But there is one problem. Carmine has no idea who you are.”
Vincent drew in on himself in sudden agitation. His eyes went dark—dark and dangerous. “And it better stay that way. He’d fuckin’ kill me.”
“You need to give me the whole story. It’s not only your life that’s at stake.” I matched his intensity, leaning forward on my knees. Vincent’s eyes flicked from side to side. He was mapping his cover, his escape route.
When Vincent next spoke, his voice held bitterness far too concrete for his age. “You got no idea what’s at stake. There’s different ways of being killed.”
“People tend to exaggerate and distort their personal issues,” I replied. “And I have a reputation for discretion. Whatever it is, it won’t leave this room.”
Vincent glared at me suspiciously for several long moments, his blanket drawn up to his chin. “Mom and Pap had five boys. Two of us were in a car accident as kids. My bro died, and I got real fucked up. Jaws of Life, intensive care for six months, physical therapy. I lost half my colon, and my cock and balls.”
I blinked rapidly. “Is that all?”
“What do you mean ‘is that all’?” Vincent bristled.
“No, I don’t mean it in a dismissive sense. I mean it is as in that was all that drove you from your family? Losing some parts of your body?”
“You don’t understand, man.” He wrapped his arms around his shin. “The Mob’s just like a pack of wolves. They sense weakness, think you’re not a ‘real man’? I couldn’t get a leg up after that. No promotion, no work, no respect. No one let me cover for them, or go on runs. They pretended to be all kinds of sympathy, but called me all sorts of shit behind my back. My dad told me that I was the most disappointing thing he’d ever made. So yeah, that’s why I fell out with them. I faked my death, changed my name and everything. I wasn’t called Vincent back then. No one else but you, Lev, and Georgie Laguetta knows I was part of the family. I’ve had guys put down for trying to speculate, you know what I mean?”
I nodded and clasped my hands together in thought. It was so completely irrational, but as Nic and I had pointed out to one another the week before, the Mafia were not known for their common sense. “It certainly explains why Carmine didn’t know who you are, though I’d warn you now. He’s found your house.”
“He couldn’t have.”
“Jana knew I was going there and tipped him off. Do you know who or what the ‘Temple’ is? She might have called them the TVS.”
“TVS? Nah. I heard her rant on about how she knew someone in Chicago, but she never said anything useful.” Vincent twisted his fingers together. “I tell ya, this thing they caught out in the bay, it’s nothing but bad news. So many guys are dead already, not counting whoever else is going to get fucked up. Dad’d have me done in the ass with a broomstick if they found me now.”
“You’re safe here, for the time being.” It was a hollow assurance, but it was all I had.
“Sure.” Vincent didn’t sound particularly convinced. “So is that it? I need to catch more zees.”
I thought for a space, looking at the spines of the books surrounding us in the den. “You said you saw the girl in your dream, on a dying world?”
Vincent sighed softly, tiredly. “Yeah?”
“Did you… see me with her?”
Vincent scratched his jaw, eyes narrowed in thought. “No. I saw someone, I dunno who it was. I called him the Bird Man, on account of the birds that always hung around him. Crows and shit.”
With a shrug, I scooped Binah up over my shoulder and stood. “Well, time for sleep. Rest well. We’re going to talk again.”
“Yeah, man. I will. G’night.”
With the cat wandering the floor, I stripped off in the hush and sudden privacy of my bedroom, head ringing. It wasn’t until my head hit the pillow and the sheets were up around my ears that I realized the depth of my fatigue. The smallest edge of relaxation, and my bones began to throb in sympathy with the rest of my aching body. When had I last eaten? I reached up and ran a hand over my face. The stubble rasped against my leather palm, and I frowned in consternation. When had I last shaved? It was the last thing I remember thinking.
When the alarm went off, I stirred groggily and looked aside. It was going on six p.m.—only six p.m.? I couldn’t remember the day of the week.
It took a great effort to sit up, and even more to turn on the bedside light and find my diary. Wednesday the 12th, a day ahead of what I’d thought.