Chapter 2: The Moon

Fate. Up Against Your Will. Through the thick and thin.

Outside, the horizon has been reduced to a starless night, drowned out by the dome of light above the city. Nick dials through the static to find 137 FM. The sultry voice of Lexi Jacques crackles into clarity.

“To all my nightly travelers out there, you’d best keep your eyes peeled. Little birdie told me something is lurking in the shadows. A certain… creature of the night.” The synth percussion of Laura Branigan’s “Self Control” begins playing. Nick parks the car, and Liv hops into the front seat. They drive down 5th near the park, Nick’s favorite coffee spot.

Liv opens the van door with a cardboard tray in her other hand.

“I got an iced americano for…Rick.” Liv delivers with a smile.

Nick snatches the cup from her hands. Liv sighs and sits back in her seat, cradling her small flat white. Nick looks at her through the corner of his eye.

“You didn’t want anything else?” Nick asks Liv.

“I’m good.” Liv’s eyes are trained on the empty sidewalk in front of them. Every passerby tears her gaze off the ground for a brief few seconds. Nick wonders if there’s something in the air tonight that’s making all the women hate him. She lifts her head. “Nick, do you have any siblings?” Her directness is refreshing.

Nick takes a long sip of his Americano. “Yeah, a brother. You know this.”

“No, you never told me. Let me guess, younger?”

“Older,” Nick says.

“I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Why do you wanna know?” Nick’s elbow rests out of the window.

“Dunno…” Liv sips from her cup. “Has he ever done something to you that you still haven’t forgiven him for? Was there ever something you guys never recovered from?” Nick thinks for a few seconds, looking up to the sun visor for his answer. Liv remembers her conversation with Miguel, how upset he was over being dragged into her lie. He used to be her little minion, following her into anything she ever cooked up, covering for her with Mom. His sudden development of a moral compass irked Liv to a strange degree.

“No.” Nick answers. “Why do you ask?”

“Is he the one whose call you ignored last night?” Liv asks. “After we killed the Jorōgumo?”

“You mean after I killed it and you stitched me up?” Nick asks, scratching at his temple. “Is this something about your own family?” Nick returns the question.

“I asked first.”

Nick turns to Liv. Passing cars contour her silhouette in a broken amber line, illuminating her hazel eyes.

“Yeah, that was him.” Nick’s head finds its headrest imprint again. “I’m meeting him tonight.” He opens his mouth to ask Liv about her family, but decides against it. He finishes his coffee and sends Liv to throw the cups in the trash. “Alright, let’s hit it,” Nick says once she’s back.

The two sit amongst the sounds of traffic. Drivers hurl insults at each other.

Liv sighs. “I spy with my little eye…” Her eyes dart around the road and oncoming “Red.”

Nick cocks his head to look around. “Is it the light on the boat antenna?” Liv looks to her left to see a cabin cruiser slice slowly through the black water, like a figment floating in the dark.

“Nope.”

“Is it the jacket on the guy in the green Civic?” Liv sees Nick looking at the next lane, a red sleeve hanging by the elbow out of a car window.

“Wrong again.” Liv derives a smug satisfaction from stumping the boss for once. Nick tries again.

“It’s the light in that guy’s window, isn’t it?” Nick’s head lowers into his shoulders, and his eyes look to the sky. Liv’s eyes follow him. So far away that the sky acts like a backdrop, in the corner of a building, is a single red window.

“I didn’t even see that. Wow, you’re bad at this.” Liv assumed that a smart person is smart even in the mundane. “It’s the red car next to us.” Nick looks past Liv to see a red coupe moving at a snail’s pace. “Your turn.”

“Fine. I spy with my little eye.” Nick’s head doesn’t move as he looks around. “Orange.”

“Is it the numbers on the travel time sign?” Liv looks at the numbers, estimating travel time to Queensboro, Midtown, and Brooklyn.

Nick scoffs, “What a stupid game.”

Traffic begins to shrink and flow; the lines on the orange numbers shift and shrink. On the Brooklyn Bridge, the car glides without much resistance.

“I made my little brother lie to my mom,” Liv says into the silence, “about me working as a doctor.”

“Didn’t tell me you have a brother.” Off the top of her head, Liv recollects six different occasions she mentioned Miguel to Nick.

“Yeah, well… he wasn’t too happy about it. Yelled at me afterwards and now refuses to speak to me.”

“Sounds nice,” Nick says, not having much else to add.

“Were you listening?”

Nick was busy replaying Natalia’s premonition to himself. “No, sorry. I am now.”

Liv continues, “They can be so annoying when they’re that age, little brothers.” Liv looks to her side and sees Nick steering in silence. She turns to look at Brooklyn beach getting closer with every minute. A neon sign for Chachi’s Lemonade stretches across a building looking over the beach, like a lime green bug zapper, humming until sunrise. “When he was little, I was his hero. He’d copy me and ask me to play with him, and I used to think of him as this little pest. Lisping and tripping over himself. Now it’s like I’m a total stranger. I miss when I meant the world to him.” Liv turns to Nick, “Know what I mean?”

Nick thinks of Anton’s light brown hair, all coiffed and careful.

“Not really.” Nick’s voice comes out flat as a board.

On the 278, Liv gets bored once again. “Little Odessa, huh?” She asks.

“Yep.”

“Mermaids, you said, right?”

“Rusalki. ‘Mermaids’ are a combination of a lot of different species. Like a stereotype.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“At least two of them managed to kill quite a few Division agents. They usually aren’t that bad if you know what you’re up against and happen to find them where water is limited, but that’s rare. We rarely have the home-field advantage in our line of work.” Nick looks at Liv, worried now. “Stop stressing. Be glad it’s not a Vodyanoy.”

“A vodya-what?”

“This big frog-looking bastard. Fought one in a Russian bathhouse once.” Nick tugs at his collar and reveals two deep discolored lines running parallel to each other down his clavicle. “Fucker tried to drown me after I refused to play durak with him.”

“What is that?” Liv leans in to look at the scar tissue.

“It’s a Russian card game-“

“No, I meant the scars. Did he bite you?”

“No, tried to claw my neck open.” Liv struggles to imagine why a giant frog would have nails, or how it would even hold a hand of playing cards.

After more stretched-out silence, the van stops under an above-ground station, just in time for the B-train to terminate before screeching back to life and taking off into the night. Nick cranes his neck like a tourist. “Last time I checked, the Sidorov brothers ran their trafficking operation out of Little Odessa. Girls are shipped in, processed somewhere here.”

“I got no idea.” Liv arches like a question mark outside the van. Nick comes from around the front, brandishing his revolver and cradling it.

“The sound of a gunshot alone would deafen us, and likely wouldn’t hit them,” Nick says. He holsters it for safekeeping before opening the trunk of the van and climbing inside. Rummaging in two boxes, he throws something large and floppy to Liv. “Get changed.”

“What is this?” Liv says, rubbing a rubber-like surface between her fingers.

“Overalls and boots. You’re a seven, right?” Nick says, holding up a rigid pair of black boots, reflecting the streetlamps in a dull luster. Liv says yes

“I think I got a pair of those that’ll fit you.” Nick hands her the boots. “Hang on.” He says, returning to the back of the van and fiddling with his belt. He steps back onto the concrete with a box and a female mannequin.

“I won’t even ask.”

“Don’t. Briana here, like so many brave mannequins before her, is going to help us kill some monsters.” Nick sets the box down and brandishes a curved knife with a ring hold. Liv notices it’s longer and less curved than Nick’s regular one.

“Gambit,” Liv says.

“Karambit.” Nick corrects. “This one is iron, my other one is steel, wouldn’t be as effective.” Nick flips it and looks down to meet himself in the reflection. He hands Liv a hunting knife, nestled in a cracked leather holster. “Also iron. Know how to use it.”

“Can’t be that different from a scalpel.” From the trunk, Nick pulls off a small sack. “My special salt.”

He digs around plastic containers and black boxes in the trunk. He continues putting objects into his duffel bag. A sealed mason jar filled with a murky liquid. “Graveyard water and a lock of virgin hair.” Liv makes a gagging motion. “Cover Briana and that, any undead etheric will come running.”

Next, he retrieves a tripod and a jerry-rigged UV floodlight. “They see like fish, so you give ‘em the wrong light spectrum, and they start swimming in circles. Once they’re in position, we flip this on.” Nick scratches his chin, thinking through the plan. Once he notices a hole in the plan, he snaps his fingers and climbs in the van, returning with an audio recorder — “The lure.” He duct tapes it close to Briana’s head. “Voicemail from an ex.” Nick makes sure to avoid covering the play button with tape. “A city rusalka wouldn’t really buy it; it’s useful noise nonetheless.”

After taking turns changing into their overalls in the back of the truck, the two clip on their knives and flashlights on the straps.

Nick looks Liv up and down to make sure everything is in order. “Now, Liv. The plan is to set the trap, a circle of salt, Briana in the middle, covered in the bait, recording on. When they come, your job will be to be quiet and observe, and ONLY if I’m in trouble, help me out.”

Liv holds her knife and thinks of stabbing something, unable to imagine what a mermaid even looks like. “Boss, I don’t know about this.”

Nick pats her on the shoulder. “Too late. I can’t find anyone to stitch me up on such short notice. You don’t like hitting the books, so we’re fast-forwarding to learning on the job. I won’t let anything happen to you. Cool?”

“Cool.”

“Perfect,” He smiles, before disappearing into the manhole. “Don’t forget Briana”.

On her way down, Liv pulls the cover back over the round opening. The night sky, the moon behind the clouds, all replaced by the words ’N.Y.C SEWER.’

Each rung of the metal ladder feels like a cat’s tongue. Her feet touch down on the brick floor. She looks down to see her glossy overalls reflecting a cold blue light. She’s standing knee-deep in the light coming from Nick’s forehead.
“Got them on sale,” Nick says, handing another headlamp to Liv. A small black prism on a worn elastic band. She turns it on and looks at Nick, blinding him.

“Liv.” Nick chides and turns Liv’s head like a statue’s.

The two look down either side of them. They are flanked by great corks of darkness, stuck in the neck of brick and mortar. They turn to each other, two angels with their halos blinding the other. From the tight kangaroo pouch of the overalls, Nick produces a map of the sewer system. He looks back and forth between the two identical tunnels. Nick points to one and leads the way, Liv follows him while committing the night sky to memory for no apparent reason. Maybe its the last time she gets to see it.

Nick observes the clay red brickwork spiraling around them like the lining of an intestine. Ironically enough, PNCD agents prefer the service tunnels of the NYC sewer system over the chaos up top. Animal Control skulking around, socks soaked with urine and rainwater, looking for Matthew, filed agent’s loving nickname for Mutates.

“Romeo, come in.” Nick’s black box buzzes in the bag.

“I could have sworn I turned that thing off,” Nick says, digging around in the bag. “What?” He answers.

“This is Hamada. Where the hell are you? We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes.”

“I’m on 6th.”

“Why the hell are you there?” Hamada asks. Liv listens with intent, surprised that the little black box gets reception.

“Because I got called in to deal with the sewer thing, which by the way, I bet you were the one who was too shit-scared to do.”

“You’re a real piece of work, Romeo, you know that?”

Nick looks around the sewer, trying not to inhale too much. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

“We’re waiting for you on 11th and Ocean View,” Hamada says. Nick sighs.

“This is the first time you get me, huh, Hamada? You boys can go home. That’s how this works. I’m already in the sewer.”

“What do I tell dispatch?”

“Dispatch was the one you went through; they already know. If I die, you’re the one who has to come down here anyway.”

Hamada laughs. “Let’s hope you don’t die then.” He says.

“Let’s hope.” Nick hangs up. “Jackass.”

Nick and Liv keep moving silently. Nick thinks for a while, then speaks up. “There’s a reason they keep dying,” Nick says, almost to himself. “They treat this job like exterminators. Like working with roaches and not things much older than them. If you take anything out of this, Liv, it’s that you never send a fumigator to do a hunter’s job.” He begins muttering to himself. “Why would they even send Animal Control to hunt an Etheric. Do they just think ‘half-fish creatures’ and send in the meatheads?” Despite Nick’s inarticulate way of saying it, in his mind is the same concern he had during his time in the PNCD’s ranks. By the time he came, a fundamentally different school of classification had been in control of the Division. Rather than biological classification, they’ve been training agents with a revised version. Myths are ordered in the way in which they can be subdued or killed. Anguilles have no biological relation to vampires like Xerfit, yet to the Division agent, that doesn’t matter.

“This way,” Nick says, leading them towards an ending in the tunnel. They arrive at an entrance to a water treatment room, with several tunnels joining theirs.

“Which one is Animal Control again?”

“Before you get promoted to be an investigator, you work in one of four sectors. These are the Vampiric, Mutate, Etheric, and Curse control sectors. Each has its own training and methods. Agents get taught to deal with a very specific type of threat and work in a team of five. When you’re SI, though, you and your partner get thrown in the deep end.” Nick’s chest sinks slightly.

“It must have been some twisted stuff,” Liv says. Nick looks through the darkness. “That it was,” Nick says.

The search through the expected location of the target ended with nothing. The two quietly inspect each tunnel. Liv pushes through swollen ankles and a stiff neck. She sees Nick looking for any signs of them. She sees him become concerned as the search goes on. He stops in his tracks and dials someone on the black box she sees him use.

“Hamada, Romeo here, I’ve been around the area, nothing to report.”

“The info is accurate. Don’t know what to tell you.”

“I’ll comb through some more, but if I don’t have anything in the next hour, I’m leaving. I don’t have all night.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Hamada says before tuning out. Nick remembers Hamada from his second year as SI. He imagines a small but sturdy man. Always quick with a remark, anything to pass off responsibility. Nick and his partner didn’t like him.

Nick points to the floor at an intersection and indicates their location on the map.

“It’s close to a storm drain. If they’re smart, the Rusalki are using it for fish. Can’t subsist on humans alone.”

Liv nods. “Let’s set up?”

The two begin mounting small cables along the low-hanging ceilings and walls. The rough black cables connect to Nick’s UV lamps and floodlight. All operated with a remote trigger, Nick shows off post-installation. In the middle, Nick places Briana in the middle, sitting her down as much as her vinyl skin and awkward pose allow. Nick remembers the Roxy Music lyric and chuckles. With the trap set, Nick directs them to a little tunnel opposite the storm drain. It’s small and dark and out of the way. The two sit by the end, where a convenient set of alcoves in the wall, barely big enough to conceal Liv, let alone Nick. At least it’s something, thinks Nick. Liv looks out from their shadowed hiding spot, the trap looking like a spotlight down the hallway, a golden coin with a mannequin in the middle. Nick goes back and presses play on the recording and comes back to sit down.

Liv sees some details of his face shine a dull gold in the light of his lighter. A burning red point is lit. He reclines in his seat, like it’s the most comfortable he’s ever been, and exhales a puff of smoke, clouding up the air. He does his best to blow it sideways. The player starts the message.

‘Hey Nick…’ a calm female voice echoes to their hiding spot from the recorder. ‘I think this is the last message I send you because…’ The tape cuts, and Liv hears the change. ‘I just understand…’ The woman starts crying. Another, more obvious cut occurs. The next line is much calmer. ‘You are who you are.’ Liv listens to these words, all the while staring at the hanging red light hanging in the dark, with Nick’s legs poking out from the darkness. Liv wonders if she should even be listening to this. It feels invasive. She looks at Nick puff away, like he’s a million miles away. Liv picks at her skin as the recording continues, ’And I am who I am. It would be nice if you could just talk to me, but it’s too late for that. I’ve tried to be there for you because I know you so well, better than you think. But maybe we’re just-’ Another cut, the woman sounds more tired, like she just woke up or is falling asleep. ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for. And honestly, Nick, it’s been fun…” The recording, following a few more of these lines crudely cut in with no apparent unifying logic, loops and repeats. Liv continues to stare at Nick, then at the trap. Nick sees her square shoulders and blows another cloud.

“You’re making me tense, Jesus.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, just relax,” Nick says in a calm tone. “This is nothing special, just routine. Follow the rules, think ahead, adapt as necessary. You’ll see.”

Liv thinks of plugging her ears after a fourth time of listening to that recording. She imagines having to listen to this for the whole hour. She thinks she’d rather the aquatic man-eaters come sooner. And one loop later, she gets her wish.

Nick crushes his second cigarette and holds a finger to his lips. Down the tunnel, they can hear scraping and wet footsteps. It grows louder than the dripping water, coming towards the recording. As the sound grows, Nick tries to listen for footsteps. He counts one. Within one second, a small silhouette lunges from the left and knocks the mannequin down. The creature makes no sound besides a strange gulping sound. It bellows like a gator, sniffing the air. Liv’s bones vibrate along with the bellow. A second later, another silhouette appears from another tunnel, the wet pitter-patter barely audible seconds before it too strikes at the mannequin. The two begin slashing, irritated by the constant looping of the sound. One of them finds the recorder and smashes it on the ground. Liv can tell the two figures are humanoid, but their movements are frantic and fluid, like rabid ballerinas.

A female voice echoes down to Nick and Liv from the mermaids. “Someone is screwing with us…” The voice comes out drowned and distorted. Nick frowns at having lost another recorder before unsheathing his blade and flipping on the light. Liv jolts at the lack of any signal from Nick. The next few seconds are blinding, even from their hiding spot. Screeching from the mermaids bounces down the tunnels in all directions. They flail and cover their eyes. Liv squints a bit. In the white and UV light pulsing and stroking in and out of each other, Liv sees Nick’s figure approaching the two mermaids, mad and confused.

The following thirty seconds are, to Liv, mesmerizing. Nick moves like a dancer in a club, his image struggling to keep up with his actions. This is the first time in these few months she has seen him work so closely. She can make out some motions, Nick slicing at the throat of one, kicking the other to control space. He twists the first one’s neck, and before the other can react and close the distance and swipe at his legs, he’s already pivoting and on top of her. To Liv, Nick looks like an instructor punishing sloppy form, performed by students disrespecting the moves of a dance he knows by heart.

At one point, it looks as though the second mermaid slices Nick’s stomach, and Liv gasps and gets up to help. Liv runs with her own knife, gripped unsurely, only to see Nick slam the mermaid’s head into a brick wall and do something Liv cannot make out in the chaos of the light. The mermaid screams, with Nick’s heavy boot on her knee. As Liv is halfway, the lights turn off, leaving a sting behind Liv’s eyelids. She sees the screaming mermaid clawing at the sewer floor, towards her dead friend. Her screams are now less angry. Anguish, Liv can recognize it. She grabs at her leg, just above the knee, and tries to lift Nick’s boot. Looking at Nick, Liv’s neck feels cold; he wears a strange blank expression. Almost unimpressed, like he’s sad, his eyebrows raised as if to say, “that was it?”

He points with a finger, his hand still and steady, towards the mermaid’s arm, covered in deep cuts made by him. “Cuts along the bicep and inner forearm prevent them from using their claws too much.” He speaks over the screaming of the mermaid. Liv is dumbfounded, realizing just how regular the mermaid looks. Besides the gills, fangs, slimy skin, and small fins along the wrists and ankles, she looks like a regular woman, naked and afraid. Nick continues. “The light confuses them, allowing you to make the first move.” He turns to Liv, “The more you do this, the more predictable they become. Rusalki always go for the legs, try to get you on the ground, then they drag you away.” The naked woman keeps screaming, baring her fangs, fearing for her life. “Don’t be fooled, they’re deceptively strong. I saw one crush a man’s skull between her hands.”

“Nick, can we do this later, please? It’s making me sick.”

“Why?” Nick asks with genuine confusion. “If you really want to do this, now’s not a good time to get a weak stomach, Liv.” Liv glares at him, then looks at the mermaid, who is now shielding herself with her clawed hands. Through her fingers, Liv sees her milky pearl-like eyes, reminding her of an angler fish. Nick sighs.

“Fine. I expect a full report tomorrow about mermaids and your takeaways.” He looks down and sees three large cuts in his shirt from the mermaid’s claws.

“Sure, whatever, yeah.” Nick wipes his strange curved blade and sheathes it on the back of his waist. He looks at Liv’s knife.

“That’s not how I taught you to grip it.” He says. Liv scoffs before realizing why he’s saying this now. “Finish the job, and we can go.”

Liv stands over the mermaid, who’s too shocked to defend herself.

“As I taught you, grip the wrist, pull down, and slide it in the neck.” Nick sees the hesitation on Liv’s face, the pity. He frowns. “She wouldn’t hesitate, Liv.”

Liv crouches down, knife gripped. She remembers her father, and her brow wrinkles in anger.

The mermaid pleads one last time. “P-please… don’t…”

Climbing out of the manhole, Liv sees Nick’s outstretched hand. She grabs it and climbs up. Nick dials Hamada and reports a successful mission, before giving the location of the corpses for the disposal crew. Liv climbs into the van after loading back the broken mannequin, lights, and shattered recorder. She looks at Nick talking to Hamada through the glass, then down at her trembling hands. The harder she tries to stop it, the more violently they shake.

Nick climbs in and starts the car up. “I’m gonna drop you off at home. Short night this time, because I gotta go see someone.” He looks at her as they pull out, and Liv turns to the window.
“Ok.”

“You can get the Rusalka report to me after tomorrow, by the way,” Nick says.

“Thanks.”

“Good work tonight.”

Liv smiles, then frowns out the window. “Thanks, boss.”