New York City — the early ’90s. A killer’s shadow falls over Central Park, as a few brave souls plunge into its darkness.

But the spiral will not surrender its secrets that easily…

Now everyone knows that the scene has been dead in New York since the great big Bogeymen of the Underground rolled into town a few decades back. I’m sure the folks in the Undergrounds of Chicago, Los Angeles, and well just about any other place have repeated the same old lines – that the Five Boroughs is one big booby trap with thaumopages tagged to every manhole cover and subway car or that every duke has a special place on the Mafia’s black list.

Now I think that’s a lot of exaggeration (well, ok a lot of its true too), but if one took the time to talk to someone involved in New York’s Underground, they’d know the real scoop. Yes, Virginia, there is an Occult Underground in New York. We just happen to be smaller and a lot quieter than the rest of you out-of-towners. I’d argue that gives us a better sense of community, kinda like the cornerstreet kids who spent their youth sitting on the same brownstone’s steps or hanging out in the neighborhood pizzerias. Alright alright, perhaps that’s a bit of a romanticization, but i can’t help myself. Its who i am.

Oh i’m sorry, i forgot to introduce myself. My name is Ira, Ira Singer, and pardon i know I sound a little nasal, but that’s how i normally sound so you don’t have to worry about catching a cold. I was once an aspiring doctor, to my mother and father at least. Back when i was a kid living in Flatbush they hoped i’d go to Columbia University and become a world class physician beyond compare, you know, just like every other Jew. I only got as far as New York University, and I kinda became the black sheep of the family (now my elder brother went to Yeshiva and then graduated from Columbia Law, so he’s the successful one…a fact my mother reminds me off every time i visit ) since i wanted to get into television.

TV is a magical thing for me. It takes you to places that never have been or will be and yet can somehow speak about the truths of the world we live in. I mean, just one episode of Seinfeld can reveal more about the inner workings of humanity than all the philosophy correspondence courses in the world.

Anyway enough about me, the reason your here is to ask about what happened back in October at Central Park one cold and lonesome evening. Cold and lonesome, i like the sound of that don’t you? I think I’ll use it in a screenplay. Anyway, enough about me.

Earlier in the summer there were a number of terrible, just terrible, incidents in the Park. Four women were sexually-assaulted, two actually died. The other two survived though, one committed suicide a day later while another ended up as a near-catatonic wreck and was committed to Bellevue. Now you’d think this would get the kinda coverage in the media that was raised in ’89 during the Central Park Jogger incident. It didn’t though. Strange isn’t it?

Some thought it was downplayed because all the victims were Hispanic or Black as opposed to some hotshot Wall Street whiz kid, but i don’t buy that explanation either. It wasn’t a lack of care, but probably due to the fear of increasing ethnic tensions given the “preferred type” of the assailant. The Dinkins adminstration was already embroiled in the after effects of the Crown Heights riot, they didn’t need another problem. Can’t blame them though since a few wanted to take advantage of the situation. Hell I remember Gordon Knox, the Preacher whose well connected with Sharpton, the Urban League, and some other heavy hitting Harlem politicos making an on-the-air and off-the-cuff comment about how all serial killers are isolated white males. Preacher Knox has always been a force to reckon with, living proof that you followers don’t even have to know any magick to shape the Underground. Geez, come to think about it they don’t even know what the Underground is. Even Mordecai Thanatos’ sychophants in Los Angeles have an inkling.

At the time, the whole Underground knew that something was going on. The few of us who ventured into the Park days after the second incident would feel weirded out enough to want to leave the area fast. Even the cops got the willies from this case, as they chose not to linger in the various crime scenes for too long.

Rumors were flying around about a Cannibal Cult from Brazil, although i think that was just a few schmucks reading a little too much Dirk Allen. Others were thinking Satanists, after all we were just exiting the ’80s and when something weird went down, everyone thought “Hey, it must be Satanists.” Of course there were the more bizzare speculations such as some unlucky schmoe whose father was related to Jack the Ripper and whose mother could trace her ancestry to Lizzie Borden thereby making him, well, some sort of “golden child” serial killer extraordinaire.

But to a committed few, the wise few, oh hell the few who were actually thinking about doing something – the only theory that made sense was that the Park had become the personal killing grounds of a Dark Stalker. The thing that we couldn’t figure out was: Why weren’t the Sleepers doing anything about it? Oh sure sure, from the outside of things it seemed like just another “run of the mill” serial killer in the rotting cesspool that New York supposedly was at the time. It was Martin D’Angelo who made us think otherwise. Marty’s a Messenger, works for the Post doing their crime reporting and a bit of muckracking on the side. He got the scoop from his friends on the force, about how they discovered these bloody red spirals beneath each of the victims, spirals that kept on growing. He also told us how some of the lead detectives were being personally effected: bizarre nightmares, increased alcoholism, and violent fits of rage. “Victimized frustration” was what he said, i think he meant something like the angst a victim feels. It made them all feel vulnerable.

Now, like i said earlier, most of the dukes that call New York home do have a sense of community, that is of course when were not at each others’ throats. And most of us knew that whatever was prowling the West side of the Central Park in the dead of night just had to go. Since the Sleepers seemed, well, asleep at the wheel, it was time for some good old fashioned community action. Of course, if it was coordinated community action, we might have wrapped this one up quickly.

Unfortunately what resulted was the death of Fat Al Hibert, his wife Karena Roberts (making her the fifth victim, although the police chalked their deaths up to “gang violence”). This was followed by the dismemberment of an entropomancer named Slick Mike the Revenger (foolish kid thought he could charge up on the situation and do some good – and no i have no idea what a Revenger is), the hospitalization of an unconscious Vasily Andropov after he tried to bait the Stalker with his living Matryoshka doll trick, and the imprisonment of Kyle Smith, an Infomancer who just happens to be a highly educated single white male whose a computer whiz and generally shy around the ladies. Classic serial killer stereotype. Poor Kyle, the cops, the papers, and Preacher Knox bit into him hard. Poor fellow lost his job too.

That’s when two of my friends took matters into their own hands, and i figure that’s what you really wanted to hear about……

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Central Park – North End/W96th Street, Rudin Family Playground ~ 8:55 PM

Jake finished his last Oreo and picked up his walkie talkie.

“Yo, Guido, come in. Where the heck are you? Been freezing my ass off here.” Not that it mattered too much, all his major shows were cancelled tonight due to some stupid made-for-TV movie. Pulling his windbreaker closer, he slipped off the tire swing and started for the gate. He’d been doing this quasi-vigilante thing with his partner for 2 nights now with nothing to show for it.

“Come on Guido, tell me you’ve kicked the shit out of Lizzie Borden’s Hellspawn or somethin already.”

His partner didn’t have much of a sense of humor, not the way that Ira had at least. “You’d think a guy who worked a decade knee-deep in this shit would have developed one by now,” he thought as he pulled down down his Yankees cap. At the end of the day though, Jake couldn’t fault Adam too much. Once upon a time he was a cop’s cop, the guy who would never make it past Sergeant but whose name rang out amongst the rank and file. Punched a Gambino capo in the face in broad daylight after he spat in the general direction of his captain, intimated a Dominican crack dealer to turn himself in without firing a shot, ran down a purse snatcher through the service tunnels along the A train line. List kept on going. Heck, from what Jake heard the boys in Internal Affairs used to say that if Adam ever went bad it was a sure sign that the apocalypse was just around the corner.

A static filled crackle shot from his walkie-talkie, “You know Jake. I am half Irish.”

“Yeah, but apparently i might be too. Like 1/1000th or somethin like that.” Jake said as shifted his gaze from left to right. Nothing but trees, the wind, lights from the buildings beyond the park, and darkness.

“Whatever, anyway i cleared it with some of the folks working the detail here tonight. We’re good to go. Meet me at the recreation center. You going to be alright traveling alone? I mean with with that scrawny frame of yours, well you’d make a pretty tempting target to this perv who might want to tap that candy ass if…”

“Shaddap!” but over the walkie-talkie he could hear fits of laughter from Adam and his friends.

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Central Park – North End, North Meadow Recreation Center ~ 9:10 PM

They had been doing this private detective thing for a few years. To be precise, Adam had been doing this since he left the force and Jake helped him on the side when he wasn’t trying to get a gig at CNBC or watching TV. Ira had introduced them to each other and after a night of beer pong they had it off pretty well. Adam was a crusader, and criminals were his dragons to slay. And since a lot of dukes in the Underground had broken the law in one way or another, they fell right into Adam’s favored category of offenders. Every once and a while though there came along someone with the mojo, brawn, or smarts to give him a headache. That’s where Jake and Ira came in. Both Vidiots were cop drama fanatics, although they watched different shows, and like wanna-be cops they started hanging out in all the bars and delis that the boys in blue went to.

Fanboys. That’s what he thought at first. In a certain sense he was right though, as they seemed more in love with the idea of being a cop than the harsh realities or the dull drudgery of the paperwork. But Ira took a knife to the gut for Adam when the Gambino he clocked in the face sent a “return gift.” Putting on his best tought cop impersonation that time, Ira only brushed it off saying “Its just a flesh wound. I’ll live.” As for Jake, he had proven himself a few months back when the Tres Reyes gang decided to jump Adam one night at the 168th street 1 train station. By the time the cops arrived, all of them were down to their boxers and covered in guava jelly while wrestling inside a nearby bakery. A “side effect” of Jake’s mojo apparently.

However, this time it was different. It wasn’t some two-bit criminal or your pack of adolescent hooligans. A Dark Stalker. That’s what all these egghead occultists were telling him. That’s what they thought at least. Whomever the culprit was, he left Karena a bloody wreck without leaving a trace of his own blood at the scene – a near impossible feat since the girl could have charged up by ripping one of the piercings from her body and taken out a pound of flesh from her assailant.

Back in normal land, his friends working the case told him that they couldn’t make out the murder weapon. Clean slices, saw marks, screwdriver like holes, and what appeared even to be teeth or claw marks were found on each of the victims. “As if he carried a walking menagerie of pain..” the coroner said. They were out tonight, working in groups of 3 or 4 trying to lure the culprit in. But Adam could tell that something wasn’t quite right with them either, it seemed like everybody working this one was on edge. They were snapping at each other and jumping at shadows.

Adam had fed the lead on this one a line about being hired out by a citizen action organization, hoping to at least get a chance to observe what was going on. Next thing he knew he had been taken into the confidence of the folks on the task force who were on the ground. None of the true brass were here, at least not the rules-sticklers who cared and Adam had told them straight up that he’d want it go down as an NYPD collar and preferable kept out of any public attention afterward. Win-win.

“Look old times eh Adam?” Sergeant Callahan spoke as he handed him a cup of coffee. “Words spreading amongst the boys hoofing it right now. Adam Kerrigan is here tonight and he’s going to pound the crap out of this sicko when we find him so we can all go home early.”

“Sure thing Danny. After all, i’m not the one whose going to have to write that up.”

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Central Park – Great Lawn, Cleopatra’s Needle ~ 9:30 PM

He was pensive. He thought that visiting the needle would calm him down and distract his mind a little bit as he attempted to translate some of the hieroglyphs. Maybe that would have been possible in the day time, but with the bad lighting at night that wasn’t an option.

An much older man with graying hair and a shaggy beard dressed in sweat and a plaid shirt was running up toward him as he turned his attention away from the obelisk.

“Trying to charge up off the obelisk? I wouldn’t do that if i were you.” exclaimed the older man as he tore into a piece of jerky.

“No Henri, i wasn’t. It was probably one of the first places they jinxed with a thaumophage back in the day.” He put his gloved hand on the Quebecer’s shoulder and cracked a smile, “So, since you are the best ex-pat Hunter in the Northeast…. What do you make of all of this?”

Pushing aside his salt and pepper locks, Henri huffed and shrugged his shoulders, “I am committed to this hunt. But i can’t seem to pick up a trail of any sort since i started this morning. I’d feel much more comfortable if i had my rifle with me though. If this is a Dark Stalker…”

“My contact in the Sleepers said they’d be sending a man capable of dealing with the more physical portion of our investigation. He’s supposed to be here by 9:45. Fret not old friend.” he said as the man reclined against one of the park benches. “What about the cops?”

“Oh, i could sniff them out pretty easily. A decoy female and 2 men trailing behind seems to be the MO. Other than that they seem to be grasping at straws. How did you make out with the Martinez girl at Bellevue?”

Picking up his cane, the younger man re-adjusted his black trenchcoat and looked at his watch again. “She was a bit incoherent but I have some ideas. Could be a Thanatomancer for all i know at this point. But i think i have a better inkling of his fetish.”

The older man sat down beside him, his eyes darting back and forth into the darker areas surrounding them while the younger man seemed lost in thought.

“Kiddo, why do you think the Sleepers passed the buck on this one to us?”

“I don’t know Henri.” He turned his head to stare directly into the big blue eyes of the Quebecer, “Something is not right at all with this. Too many unclear details. Too many things left unstated. What i do know old friend is that we should keep our wits about us. Its going to be a long night.”