Page 50 of To Clutch a Razor
“I don’t understand,” Ala says, as she eases her cousin’s beat-up station wagon into a parking spot nearby. “What does a nightclub have to do with sorrow?”
Ala got her voice back from the wila that morning, and they borrowed the station wagon that afternoon to look for a new apartment. The loss of Ala’s voice turned out to be good for both of them—Ala could ask him in writing if he wanted to be her roommate indefinitely, which meant she didn’t have to say it out loud, and Dymitr could pick her up and swing her around without her pretending to be upset about it.
They found a crappy two-bedroom basement unit in Irving Park that suited them both, and Ala signed the lease, since Dymitr—orDawid Mysliwiec,as Ala insistedon calling him—is technically still on a temporary visa forged by the Holy Order. Niko said he knew a guy who could get him some convincing fake paperwork, though, so there’s that.
Dymitr waits for Ala to straighten out the station wagon in the space—it turns out she’s a bit of a parking perfectionist—and then unbuckles his seat belt and gets out.
“The peculiar wisdom of Keeners,” he says, using the slang term that refers generally to llorona and banshees and all other sorrow-eating beings from around the world, “is that sorrow is so plentiful, they don’t need to hunt for it at all.”
“I don’t know howyou’reexplaining this tome,” she grumbles. “Mister ‘I became a creature of legend ten minutes ago.’”
He slides his hands into his pockets and walks next to her on the sidewalk. He doesn’t need to ask where they’re going: their destination is obvious.
The house stands between an empty, fenced-off lot and a foreclosed building with a collapsed porch. The building itself is gray, with a gabled roof and blacked-out windows, the kind of place Dymitr would have avoided if he hadn’t already known what it was. A group of greenish rusalkas stand outside, passing around a single cigarette, each of them with hair down to their waists. They’re dressed for a good time, in skin-baring tops with glittery eye makeup.
The house is a split-level, and upon entering, Dymitr letsAla lead them down to the basement instead of upstairs. It’s dark inside, andhot,from the crowd of bodies that greets them. Purple and blue lights hang in strips along the walls and above them. The ceiling is high—Dymitr thinks they hollowed out the first floor to make the place taller—and there are glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to it.
“My highest priority is beer,” Ala announces. “If I’m going to dance, I need to be a little drunk. Do you dance?”
Dymitr shakes his head. He’s already scanning the crowd for Niko.
“Oh my God, just go find him already,” she says. “Text me when you’re done with whatever errand you guys are running.”
Dymitr waves goodbye, and steps into the crowd.
He had a feeling this would happen—that every sorrow-eating thing in the vicinity would turn to look at him, their wide eyes shining in the darkness. He knows what he must look like to them, every part of him still aching with grief. They brush him as he passes through the crowd, their fingers on his arms, his shoulders. He shies away from their touches, still looking for Niko.
There’s a stage at the back of the room where people are setting up music equipment. A DJ rig, microphones. Someone else is hoisting a disco ball high above the crowd, as if they need more dizzying light than what they already have.
He’s just spotted Niko leaning up against a pillar, red cup in hand, when the stage lights turn on and everyonestarts clapping and cheering. There’s no fear in the air, nothing he can sink his teeth into, but there’s an energy all the same.
All the lights go off at once, and then a wordless note pierces the darkness, quiet at first and then louder, higher, filling the entire room with sound. He feels it settling deep inside him, cold and heavy as water. A Keener sound, a banshee wail. Tears prickle behind his eyes as the note claws into him, forcing emotion he doesn’t want to feel. Instinctively, he searches for the door, for a path to escape, but he doesn’t flee.
The stage lights go on again, and someone standing at the DJ rig taps something in front of him. A beat plays beneath the Keener note, breaking it up into fragments. The woman stops singing and picks up an electric violin, wrapped in glowing tape that lights up her fingers as she raises it to her chin and starts to play.
All around him, people start to dance. And there’s a woman sidling up to Niko, smiling invitingly, her mouth painted bright red. She’s standing too close, smiling too wide. There’s a flare of heat in Dymitr’s chest, harsh and unfamiliar.
Niko’s eyes snap to his.
Dymitr doesn’t say anything. He just slides his hand into Niko’s, nods to the woman—it’s not her fault he feels like he might burst into flames, after all—and pulls Niko across the dance floor with a little more force than is necessary.
Niko, for his part, lets himself be pulled, weaving through the crowd of dancers and then tripping up the concrete stairs behind Dymitr. They leave the thump of the music behind. Outside, on the sidewalk, the rusalkas are done with their cigarette, and all the other stragglers have gone inside to listen to the music and let the banshee’s song crack them open. Some people like to feel more, like to feeltoo much,but Dymitr doesn’t see the appeal. He feels too much already.
He puts a hand on the back of Niko’s neck and kisses him hard, tasting beer on his lips and feeling the scratch of day-old facial hair against his chin. Niko’s arm wraps around his waist and tugs him closer.
The ache in Dymitr’s chest feels distant, now; he’s awash in other sensations. His ears are ringing from the loud music; his ears are ringing from the blood thundering through his body. He tastes beer; he tastes Niko’s lemon-flavored lip balm. He leans closer, runs his hands over Niko’s shoulders, and thinks about what it would be like to peel away each layer of his clothing, one by one.
Niko’s teeth graze Dymitr’s lower lip, and he makes—a sound, raw and desperate. Niko’s hand has come up to Dymitr’s chest. Dymitr remembers how Niko’s hands look when he transforms, fingernails turning into talons, and a thrill of something that isn’t quite fear travels down his spine, his instincts screaming danger and the rest of him calling it nonsense. Niko would never hurt him.
He proved that days ago, in the weapons room with Dymitr’s mother.
Dymitr leans closer, and Niko’s hand shifts, his thumb, with its sharp strzygon nail, pressing lightly into the hollow at the base of Dymitr’s throat. Niko tries to withdraw it, and Dymitr holds him there with a hand on his wrist.
“I’m not afraid of you, you know,” Dymitr says.
“Well, that makes sense, since I find myself incapable of hurting you on purpose,” Niko says, in a whisper, right up against Dymitr’s mouth. “But I still am what I am. You should remember that before you become… attached to me.”
“It’s far too late for that.”
