Half-Resurrection Blues Read online

  PRAISE FOR HALF-RESURRECTION BLUES

  “Simply put, Daniel José Older has one of the most refreshing voices in genre fiction today.”

  —Saladin Ahmed

  “A damn good read. All the best dark urban fantasies are about matters of life and death. Half-Resurrection Blues takes that to the limit. A hard-core, hard-driving fantasy.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green

  “In Half-Resurrection Blues, Older has created Noir for the Now: equal parts bracing, poignant, compassionate, and eerie. A swinging blues indeed.”

  —Nalo Hopkinson, Andre Norton Award–winning author of Sister Mine

  “Daniel José Older is here to save your soul. But he might just terrorize it first. Half-Resurrection Blues is the first novel of a fabulous talent, one who mixes the spectral and the intellectual with skill. This book kicks in the door waving the literary .44. Be warned.”

  —Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver

  “Half-Resurrection Blues is so many things at once: a mystery, a suspense, a supernatural thriller. The world Older builds is familiar and alien, and it’s so vividly imagined and rendered that the reader believes the contradictions. This is a fantastic beginning to what will surely be a fantastic series.”

  —National Book Award–winner Jesmyn Ward

  “Half-Resurrection Blues is not just a daring new mode of ghost-detective story; it’s also a courageous effort to celebrate the diverse voices that surround us.”

  —Deji Bryce Olukotun, author of Nigerians in Space

  “Half-Resurrection Blues is a delicious urban fantasy paced like a thriller and scored like a fine piece of music. Daniel José Older hits all the soft, sweet notes of Brooklyn as well as its hard edges.”

  —Andrea Hairston

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Daniel José Older, 2015

  Some portions of this book originally appeared as “Death on the Fine Line” in the Innsmouth Free Press magazine, copyright © Daniel José Older, 2010

  Excerpt from Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Copyright © 1987, 1999, 2007, 2012 by Gloria Anzaldúa. Reprinted by permission of Aunt Lute Books. www.auntlute.com

  Map by Cortney Skinner

  Frontispiece drawing by Cortney Skinner

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-0-698-16679-0

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Maps

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  To Iya Lisa Ramos and Iya Ramona Coleman

  PART ONE

  To live in the Borderlands means

  the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off

  your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart

  pound you pinch you roll you out

  smelling like white bread but dead;

  To survive the Borderlands

  you must live sin fronteras

  be a crossroads.

  —Gloria Anzaldúa

  “To live in the Borderlands means you”

  CHAPTER ONE

  It’s just past eleven p.m. on December thirty-first—that dizzy in-between time when we’re not quite here but not yet there—and hip, young white kids crowd the trendy streets of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Their pockmarked faces flash a theatrical array of expressions, everything from regret to ecstasy to total abandon, but I’m not fooled: they’re bored out of their minds. I can tell because I’m dead—well, partially dead anyway. When you straddle a fine line like the one between life and death, let’s just say you can tell certain things about people.

  I dip into a brightly lit tobacco store for some Malagueñas and a pocket-sized rum. The rum goes into my flask and one of the Malagueñas goes in my mouth. I light it, walk back out to the street, and weave through the crowds. When I move quickly, no one notices my strange gait or the long wooden cane I use to favor my right leg. I’ve gotten the flow down so smooth I almost glide along toward the milky darkness of Prospect Park. There’s too much information here in the streets—each passing body gives up a whole symphony of smells and memories and genetics. It can help pass the time if you’re bored, but tonight, I’m far from bored.

  Tonight I am hunting.

  Music wafts out of a bar across the street—a kind of watery blues that evokes dentists’ waiting rooms. The hipsters roam up and down the block in packs, playing out a whole mess of different daytime-drama plotlines. There’s a few black and brown folks around, but they’re mostly staying out of the way. And me? I’m a grayish off-brown—a neither-here-nor-there color that matches my condition. It would be a jarring skin tone to notice, but I tend to just blend in. That’s fine with me. Whatever it is that’s
been causing all this static is out there tonight. I’m sure of it. The more I can disappear, the more chance I have of catching them.

  * * *

  It’s been two weeks now. Two weeks of a vague and irritating twinge crawling up my spine every time I get near the crest of Flatbush Avenue. I’ve been walking circles around that area like an idiot, trying to sniff out the source. Stood for hours beneath the big archway with its soldiers’ frozen battle cries and elaborate stonework; closed my eyes and just listened, feeling all the damn spiritual vibrations ricochet across Brooklyn. Major throughways shoot off toward Flatbush and into Crown Heights, but I narrowed it down to some indedamnterminate spot in the Slope.

  When I took it to my icy superiors at the New York Council of the Dead, they nodded their old fully dead heads and turned silently in on themselves to conference. A few hours later they called me back in. Because I’m an inbetweener, and the only one anyone knows of at that, the dead turn to me when something is askew between them and the living. Usually, it’s some mundane shit—cleanup work. But every once in a while it gets really hairy, and that’s when I go hunting. These are the times when I forget that I was ever even dead. Whatever shadow of life or humanity pertains to me—I know God put me on this fine planet to hunt.

  Plus I’m good at it.

  But the Council was all kinds of vague about this one. No explanation, just a photo of a man slid across the table with icy fingers. We believe this is the source, Carlos. His name is Trevor Brass. Do your thing.

  “Which thing?”

  An icy pause. Eliminate him.

  And me: “Care to elucidate further?”

  And them: Nope.

  And what can really be said to that? They’re dead. They don’t have to elucidate shit. I don’t mind though. Makes things more interesting.

  Oh, and protect the entrada at all costs.

  See, the dead are good for coming up with some last-minute oh-and-by-the-way type shit. Protect the entrada. An entrada is an entrance to the Underworld. There’s only a couple scattered around the city, and they’re supposed to be well guarded by a team of fully dead COD soulcatchers, impenetrable and all that, but really, it happens. Soulcatchers have other things to do, turns out, than stand around flickering doors to Hell. Protocols tighten and then slack again. The particular entrada they’re referring to is in a shady grove in the middle of Prospect Park, not at all far from all this mess. It’s not hard to imagine that whatever this grinning fellow in the picture is up to has something to do with breaching through. How they expect me to simultaneously track the dude down and keep him from getting to the entrada is another question, but that’s not their concern. The Council hands out whatever garbled-up mandate they’ve regurgitated from their eyes in the field, and it’s on me to sort through the chaos.

  So I nodded, pocketed the picture, and walked out the door.

  * * *

  I swig on my flask and head for the park. I want to check on the entrada, and that swath of urban wilderness is the only place I can clear my head. I’d forgotten that this tremendous pockmarked flock of New Year’s revelers would be here, jamming up all my otherworldly insights. A ponytail guy plows through the crowd to find somewhere to puke his guts out; I swerve out of the way just in time. He’s wearing too much aftershave and looks like he spent three hours trying to make his hair look that carelessly tussled.

  Then I see my mark. He’s standing in the middle of all that hootenanny, laughing his ass off. He’s caramel-colored but still somehow pale gray like an overcast day. He’s got long, perfectly kept locks reaching all the way down his back and a goatee so carefully trimmed it might be painted on. His big frame rocks with laughter. Unquestionably, the cat is dealing with some supernatural . . . issues. Layers of grief, anxiety, and fanaticism swirl around him like ripples in a pond; they’re peppered with a distinct aroma of, what’s that? Ah, yes: guilt. And yet he’s chuckling madly.

  That’s when it hits me: the guy’s not dead. Here I was, assuming that because the NYCOD brought me in, I’d automatically have another faded shroud on my hands, some errant phantom trying to make it back or otherwise disturb the delicate balance of life and death. But this fellow isn’t faded or translucent. He’s breathing. His memories aren’t closed books the way dead memories are. And yet, by the look of things, he’s not fully alive either. I squint through the crowd at him, not even trying to conceal my intentions anymore.

  He is like me.

  Another inbetweener—and not just one of these half-formed, not-quite-here purgatorious mo’fos: Trevor is full-fledged flesh and blood alive and dead at the same time, both and neither.

  I duck into the outdoor entrance area of another bar. The bouncer shoots me a look that says why the fuck you movin’ so fast, cripple? I ignore it, tug on the Malagueña, and observe my prey. The smoke eases me into the excitement of the hunt. He is feisty, this one. I narrow my eyes. Just like the living, this man’s head is full of plans—a map that keeps drawing and redrawing itself, a checklist, an incomplete letter. There’s something else too: a solid chunk of his subconscious attention lingers on a scrap of thick paper in his pocket, probably some piece of whatever diabolical plot he’s enmeshed in. He has all the makings of someone up to no good, and yet I can’t help but feel drawn to this laughing wraith. For all his mysterious schemes and whatever chaos he’s trying to let loose on my city, he’s having a good time, and after all, it is New Year’s Eve.

  Anyway, I’ve never met anybody like me before, so instead of just ending him right then and there, I walk up and offer the dude one of my Malagueñas. Just like that. The very idea of doing this is so ridiculous that it shudders through me like the tickle of an invisible hand, and pretty soon we’re both standing there smoking away and laughing like idiots.

  We’re definitely in the same curious predicament, but unlike me, Trevor’s not at all concerned with blending in. In fact, he’s determined to stand out. “Whaddup, douche bags and douche baguettes?” he hollers at the crowd. I’m mortified and fascinated at the same time. A few passing revelers chuckle, but most ignore him. A blond lady rolls her eyes as if she’s being hit on for like the four hundredth time tonight. “Why so serious?” Trevor yells into the sky. I found the one other being like me in the universe and he is a total jackass.

  Trevor turns to me, his face suddenly sharp, and says: “It’s time. Let’s go.” His glare is penetrating and reveals nothing. A total blank.

  We move quickly, with purpose. He either already knows I’m extraordinarily agile, or he didn’t even notice the cane. I’m dodging a hodgepodge of hipsters and homeless rich kids, keeping my eyes on Trevor’s paisley cap bobbing up ahead. He’s still laughing and calling people douche bags, and I have no idea whether I’m giving chase or being led into a trap. Or both.

  “What’s your name, man?” I slur, playing up the rum on my breath.

  He eyes me and then says, “Trevor.”

  “Carlos,” I say, and I realize with a start that he’s probably reading right through my every move just like I’m trying to read through each of his. The shock of this makes me feel momentarily naked; I quickly gather myself and cobble back the wall of deceit.

  I have never dealt with someone like me before.

  “Why so serious?” Trevor says again, this time at me. He’s still laughing.

  “Not at all,” I say. Then I swig from my flask and he swigs from his.

  He’s meeting someone. The realization comes clear like a whisper inside my head, and I can’t help but wonder if the same voice is murmuring he’s onto you in his.

  We break from the crowd, cut a sharp right on Third Street, and end up beneath an ancient willow tree leaning out of Prospect Park. The wide avenue is deserted except for a few loping stragglers from the party on Seventh. It’s a cool night. The light rain isn’t falling so much as hovering in the air around us in a teasing little cumulus.

  “This is the year, people!” Trevor yells at no one in particular. “The time s
he has come! People, get ready!” He kicks an empty beer bottle into a nearby bush, upsetting a family of night birds. I should just kill him now; that static filling the air hints at untold horrors. Also, I have no idea how hard he’ll be to take down. I don’t even know if I can fully die again. I’m bracing myself to make my move when a few figures emerge from the shadowy park.

  “That you, broham?” one of them calls out as they get close. Broham? Is that Trevor’s real name? I try to make myself as unnoticeable as possible, but we’re a party of two, and we’re both inbetweeners. “Who’s the dude, man? Thought this was a secret and shit.”

  “It’s cool, Brad,” says Trevor or Broham, or whoever my new friend/prey is. “He’s with me.”

  No one’s ever said that about me. I’m flattered and repulsed at the same time.

  Brad is tall and thick. His blond hair is close cropped in a military buzz cut. Of the crew behind him, three are basically Brad clones with different color hair, one is an Asian Brad, and another little guy is definitely Indian/Pakistani or maybe Puerto Rican. Or half-black. Whatever he is, he gets randomly searched every time he’s within twenty feet of an airport. Finally, there’s a hipster—the cats are everywhere—looking extraordinarily out of place and awkward.

  “Okay, bros, let’s do this thing,” Brad says. Shady supernatural shenanigans in the Slope and it involves a bunch of frat boys? Curiouser and curiouser.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We make our way along the edge of the park. One of the Brads falls into place beside me. “Michael,” he says, extending an awkward hand as I amble along.

  “Carlos,” I say. I nod, but don’t touch his hand. People tend to notice how chilly and dry my skin is. And I tend to pick up way too much information about folks when we touch. Sometimes it’s better not to know.

  Michael’s forced smile fades. “Are you going to, you know, help show us, uh, the other side?”

  “Whose big idea was this, Michael?”

  “Well, David, really.” Michael nods toward the skinny hipster. “He gathered us together late one night at his house. He’s Brad’s homey. I don’t really know him that well. Anyway, he said he had a big opportunity, a chance for us to see things no one else had seen. But only if we could be trusted, right?”