Sierra Santiago and the Invisible City

Chapter 13 - Lonely Women Waltz

            Sierra crept catlike up her block. Every tick and tremble, every swaying tree branch registered like a shockwave in her perked up ears. The slick streets dully reflected dim lamplight, but besides that, most of her block was shrouded in darkness. All the shadows seemed to move menacingly towards her, but she knew it was mostly her imagination. A fluttering sound followed by a series of taps sent her spinning around in a desperate flurry. The empty block stared back at her. She crept closer to her house.

The past hour had been a frantic dash from building to building. Once she'd made it far enough away from Club Kalfour to feel somewhat secure, the haunting grinding of the helicopters and humvees kept coming back to her, just barely audible in the night wind. Or did it? Sierra was so frazzled, she had no idea which noises she was making up and which were real. Had Robbie really disappeared into a wall? It would match up, she supposed, with Corrales' strange account of him walking out of the mural at the abandoned gas station.

"Go," he'd said to her with that terrified urgency, his face so close to hers she could smell his minty breath freshener mixing with the church scent. "Go as fast as you can. Don't look back."

But look back she had, only to see Robbie hurdle himself violently into the brick wall they'd been standing against and disappear. The thundering copter blades were closing in and there wasn't time to sit and wonder at it though, so Sierra tore down the streets of Flatbush till she found one she recognized. Once or twice she'd looked back to see strange shapes scurrying in the shadows. As she neared her neighborhood she'd tried to circle a few times, hopefully losing whatever was following her, but eventually gave in to exhaustion and headed towards her house.

Now Sierra was almost home and had no idea if she'd brought anyone along with her. Not much to do but walk in the door, she thought, and took off in a mad dash down the rest of her block and into her house. She closed, locked and bolted the front door behind her and threw her body against it, panting. The sound of an acoustic guitar wafted in gently from the kitchen and for a second, Sierra forgot all about the scurrying noises. It was a sad little melody, dissonant bluesy chords falling on top of each other beneath a bass strut. Sierra was trying to figure out which of her parent's CDs it was from and who was up so late listening to it when a wrong note rings out and she heard her brother's voice cursing.

"Juan?" Sierra yelled from the doorway. She ran into the kitchen and found her brother playing his old nylon string and laughing. Across the table from him, Biaque was smoking a Malagueña and humming along.

"Whatsup, li'l sis?" Juan said like it was no big deal that he'd just showed up out of the blue and was hanging out with a floating, cigar smoking city spirit in their kitchen.

"Juan!" Sierra said again, wrapping her brother in a tight embrace and finding herself dangerously close to tears. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm playing guitar, Sierra, and hanging out with Biaque. What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be out with artsy man?"

Sierra wasn't sure what to respond to first. "How do you know Biaque?" she demanded, her excitement fading quickly to sisterly irritation. "And what do you mean artsy man, music boy?"

"Fair enough," Juan conceded, picking his guitar back up and starting into the blues shuffle. Sierra could never stand it when he played guitar while he was talking to her because he was obviously only half there. "Biaque's my boy. We go way back. He was one of the ones convinced me to make a shot at it with Culebra."

"And drop out of high school?" Sierra turned her glare to Biaque.

"That part no," Biaque said. "How was your date, Sierra?"