I stopped playing, reaching into a pocket for my plastic bag of garlic. The spell broken, the woman turned and headed for the stairs, the last strains of the Strat echoing into silence. She didn't look back, her steps growing hurried as she climbed away.
Something twisted inside me, angry at me for letting her go. I could feel it wrapped around my spine, growing stronger every day. Its tendrils stretched into my mouth, changing the way things tasted, making my teeth itch. The urge to follow the woman was so strong...
I put the plastic bag to my face and breathed in the scent of fresh garlic, burning away the noises in my head, smoothing the rushing of my blood.
Min had given me the bag for emergencies, but I used it all the time now. I'd even tried to make Luz's disgusting mandrake tea, which Mom said stank up the apartment. Nothing soothed the beast like meat, though, and nothing - not even Min - tasted as good. Raw steak was best, but there was a shortage these days, the price climbing higher all the time, and plain hamburger ripped out of the plastic still fridge-cold was almost as wonderful.
I stood there inhaling garlic, listening.
Min was right - you could learn things down here. Secrets were hidden in New York's rhythms, its shifts of mood, the blood flow of its water mains. Its hissing steam pipes and the stirrings of rats and wild felines all rattled with infection, like a huge version of the illness inside my body.
My hearing could bend around corners now, sharper every day, filling my head with echoes. I could hear our music so much better, could almost see the beast that Minerva called to when she sang.
And I knew it was down here, somewhere... ready to teach me things.
A little after eleven-thirty, its scent came and found me.
The smell was drifting up from below, carried on the stale, soft breeze of passing trains. I remembered it from that first night I'd gone out to Brooklyn, when Minerva had led me down the tracks and pushed me into that broken section of tunnel; the scent made me angry and horny and hungry, all at once.
Then I heard something, a low and shuddering note, more subtle than any subway passing underfoot. Like when Minerva made the floor rumble beneath us as we played.
I scooped up the glittering change and stuffed it into my pockets, shut the Stratocaster safely into its case, snatched up the little battery-powered amplifier. By then the smell had faded, pulled away by the random winds of the subway, and I stood there uncertainly for a moment. Union Square sprawled around me, a warren of turnstiles and token booths and stairways down to half the subway lines in the city.
I half closed my eyes and walked slowly through the station, catching whiffs of perfume and piss, the bright metal tang of disinfectant, the blood-scent of rust everywhere. Finally, another dizzying gust welled up from the stairs leading down to the F train. Of course.
F for fool, I thought. Or feculent.
Downstairs the platform was empty, silent except for the skitter of rats on the tracks. The push-pull wind of distant trains stirred loose bits of paper and kept the scent swirling around me, the way the world spins when you've had too much beer.
I pulled off my dark glasses and stared into the tunnel depths.
Nothing but blackness.
But from the uptown direction came the faintest sound.
Walking toward that end of the platform, a cluster of new smells hit me: antiperspirant and freshly opened cigarettes, foot powder and the chemical sting of dry-cleaned clothing...
Someone was hiding behind the last steel column on the platform, breathing nervously, aware of me. Just another late-night traveler scared to be down here.
But from the tunnel beyond, the other scent was calling.
I took another step, letting the man see me. He wore a subway worker's uniform, his eyes wide, one hand white-knuckled around a flashlight. Had he heard the beast too?
"Sorry," I said. "I'm just..." I shrugged tiredly, adjusting the weight of my guitar and amp. "Trying to get home."
His eyes stayed locked on mine, full of glassy terror. "You're one of them."
I realized I'd taken my sunglasses off; he could see straight through to the thing inside me. "Uh, I didn't mean to..."
He raised one hand to cross himself, drawing my eyes to the silver crucifix at his throat. He looked like he wanted to run, but my infection held him in place - the way I moved, the radiance of my eyes.
An itch traveled across my skin, like the feeling I got climbing the stairs to Minerva's room. I was salivating.
The fear in the man's sweat was like the scent of sizzling bacon crawling under your bedroom door in the morning - irresistible.
"Stay away from me," he pleaded softly.
"I'm trying." I put down the amp and guitar and fumbled in my jacket for the plastic bag of garlic. Pulling out a clove, I scrabbled to peel it, fingernails gouging the papery skin. The pearly white flesh poked through at last, smooth and oily in my fingers. I shoved it in my mouth half-peeled and bit down hard.
It split - sharp and hot - juices running down my throat like straight Tabasco. I sucked in its vapors and felt the thing inside me weaken a little.
I breathed a garlicky sigh of relief.
The man's eyes narrowed. No longer transfixed, he shook his head at my torn T-shirt and grubby jeans. I was just a seventeen-year-old again, tattered and weighted down with musical equipment. Nothing dangerous.
"You shouldn't litter," he snorted, glaring at the garlic skin I'd dropped. "Someone's got to clean that up, you know."
Then he turned to walk briskly away, the scent of fear fading in his wake.
I breathed garlic deep into my lungs.
Mustn't eat the nice people, Minerva's voice chided in my head.
I was going to try that mandrake tea again. Even if it did taste like lawn-mower clippings, that was probably better than the taste of -
Down the tunnel the darkness shifted restlessly, something huge rolling over in its sleep, and I forgot all about my hunger.
It was down there, the thing that rumbled beneath us when we played.
I grabbed my Strat - leaving the amp behind - and jumped down onto the tracks. The smell carried me forward into the darkness, the tunnel walls echoing with the crunch of gravel, like Alana Ray's drumbeats scattering from my footsteps. The scent grew overpowering, as mind-bending as pressing my nose against Minerva's neck, drawing me closer.
The ground began to swirl, the blackness suddenly liquid underfoot. As my eyes adjusted, I realized it was a horde of rats flowing like eddies of water around my tennis shoes, thousands of them filling the tracks.