PROLOGUE

New York City2:32 AM

Everyone has a Cordova story, whether they like it or not.

Maybe your next-door neighbor found one of his movies in an old box in her atticand never entered a dark room alone again. Or, your boyfriendbragged he'd discovered a contraband copy of At Night All Birds Are Black on theInternet and after watching, refused to speak of it, as if it were ahorrific ordeal he'd barely survived.

Whatever your opinion of Cordova, however obsessed with his work or indifferent—he'sthere to react against. He's a crevice, a black hole, anunspecified danger, a relentless outbreak of the unknown in our overexposedworld. He's underground, looming unseen in the corners of the dark.He's down under the railway bridge in the river with all the missing evidence,and the answers that will never see the light of day.

He's a myth, a monster, and a mortal man.

And yet, I can't help but believe when you need him the most, Cordova has a wayof heading straight toward you, like a mysterious guest you noticeacross the room at a crowded party. In the blink of an eye, he's right besideyou by the fruit punch, staring back at you when you turn and casuallyask the time.

My Cordova tale began for the second time on a rainy, mid-October night,when I was just another man running in circles, going nowhere as fastas I could. I was jogging around Central Park's Reservoir after two A.M—arisky habit I'd adopted during the past year when I was too strung out tosleep, hounded by an inertia I couldn't explain, except for the vagueunderstanding that the best part of my life was behind me, and that sense ofpossibility I'd once had so innately as a young man, was now gone.

It was cold and I was soaked. The gravel track was rutted with puddles,the black waters of the Reservoir cloaked in mist. It clogged the reedsalong the bank and erased the outskirts of the Park as if it were nothing butpaper, the edges torn away. All I could see of the grand buildings alongFifth Avenue were a few gold lights burning through the gloom, reflecting on thewater's edge like dull coins tossed in. Every time I sprinted past oneof the iron lampposts, my shadow surged past me, quickly grew faint, and thenpeeled off—as if it didn't have the nerve to stay.

I was bypassing the south gatehouse, starting my sixth lap, when I glanced overmy shoulder and saw someone was behind me.

A woman was standing in front of a lamppost, her face in shadow, her red coatcatching the light behind her, making a vivid red slice in the night.

A young woman out here alone? Was she crazy?

I turned back, faintly irritated by the girl's naiveté—or recklessness,whatever it was that brought her out here. Women of Manhattan, magnificent asthey were, they forgot sometimes they weren't immortal. They could throwthemselves like confetti into a fun-filled Friday night, with no thought as towhat crack they fell into by Saturday.

The track straightened north, rain needling my face, the branches hanging low,forming a crude tunnel overhead. I veered past rows of benches andthe curved bridge, mud splattering my shins.

The woman—-whoever she was—-appeared to have disappeared.

But then—far ahead, a flicker of red. It vanished as soon as I saw it, thenseconds later, I could make out a thin dark silhouette walking slowly in frontof me along the iron railing. She was wearing black boots, her dark hairhanging halfway down her back. I picked up my pace, deciding to pass herexactly when she was beside a lamppost so I could take a closer look and makesure she was all right.

As I neared, however, I had the marked feeling she wasn't.

It was the sound of her footsteps, too heavy for such a slight person, the wayshe walked so stiffly, as if waiting for me. I suddenly had the feelingthat as I passed she'd turn and I'd see her face was not young as I'd assumed,but old. The ravaged face of an old woman would stare back at mewith hollowed eyes, a mouth like an axe gash in a tree.

She was just a few feet ahead now.

She was going to reach out, seize my arm, and her grip would be strong as aman's, ice cold—

I ran past, but her head was lowered, hidden by her hair. When I turned again,she'd already stepped beyond the light and was little more than afaceless form cut out of the dark, her shoulders outlined in red.

I took off, taking a shortcut as the path twisted through the dense shrubbery,branches whipping my arms. I'll stop and say something when I passher again-—tell her to go home.

But I logged another lap and there was no sign of her. I checked the hillleading down to the bridle paths.

Nothing.

Within minutes, I was approaching the north gatehouse—-a stone building beyondthe reach of the lamps, soaked in darkness. I couldn't make outmuch more than a flight of narrow stairs leading up to a rusted set of doubledoors, which were chained and locked, a sign posted beside them:KEEP OUT PROPERTY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

As I neared, I realized in alarm, glancing up, that she was there, standing onthe landing, staring down at me. Or was she looking through me?

By the time her presence fully registered I'd already run blindly on. Yet, whatI'd glimpsed in that split-second drifted in front of my eyes as ifsomeone had taken a flash picture: tangled hair, that blood red coat decayedbrown in the dark, a face so entirely in shadow it seemed possible itwasn't even there.

Clearly I should've held off on that fourth scotch.

There was a time not too long ago when it took a little more to rattle me.Scott McGrath, a journalist who'd go to hell just to get Lucifer on the record,some blogger had once written. I'd taken it as a compliment. Prison inmateswho'd tattooed their faces with shoe polish and their own piss, armedteenagers from Vigário Geral strung out on pedra, Medellin heavies whovacationed yearly at Ricker's—none of it made me flinch. It was all just partof the scenery.

Now, a woman in the dark was unnerving me.

She had to be drunk. Or she'd popped too many Xanax. Or maybe this was somesick teenage dare—an Upper East Side mean girl had put her upto this. Unless it was all a calculated setup and her street-rat boyfriend wassomewhere here, waiting to jump me.

If that were the idea they'd be disappointed. I had no valuables on me exceptmy keys, a switchblade, and my MetroCard, worth about eight bucks.

Alright, maybe I was going through a rough patch, dry spell—whatever the hellyou wanted to call it. Maybe I hadn't defended myself since—well,technically the late nineties. But you never forgot how to fight for your life.And it was never too late to remember, unless you were dead.

The night felt unnaturally silent, still. That mist—it had moved beyond thewater into the trees, overtaken the track like a sickness, an exhaust offsomething in the air here, something malignant.

Another minute and I was approaching the north gatehouse. I shot past it,expecting to see her on the landing.

It was deserted. There was no sign of her anywhere.

Yet, the longer I ran, the path unspooling like an underpass to some dark newdimension in front of me, the more I found the encounter unfinished, asong that had cut out on an expectant note, a film projector sputtering to ahalt seconds before a pivotal chase scene, the screen going white. Icouldn't shake the powerful feeling that she was very much here, hidingsomewhere, watching me.

I swore I caught a whiff of perfume embroidered into the damp smells of mud andrain. I squinted into the shadows along the hill, expecting, at anymoment, the bright red cut of her coat. Maybe she'd be sitting on a bench orstanding on the bridge. Had she come here to harm herself? What ifshe climbed up onto the railing, waiting, staring at me with a face drained ofhope before stepping off, falling to the road far below like a bag ofstones?

Maybe I'd had a fifth scotch without realizing. Or this damned city had finallygotten to me. I took off down the steps, heading down East Drive andout onto Fifth Avenue, rounding the corner onto East Eighty-sixth Street, therain turning into a downpour. I jogged three blocks, past the shutteredrestaurants, bright lobbies with a couple of bored doormen staring out.

At the Lexington entrance to the subway, I heard the rumble of an approachingtrain. So I sprinted down the next flight, swiping my MetroCardthrough the turnstiles. A few people were waiting on the platform—a couple ofteenagers, an elderly woman with a Bloomingdale's bag.

The train careened into the station, screeching to a halt and I steppedinto an empty car.

"This is a Brooklyn-bound four train. The next stop is Fifty-ninthStreet."

Shaking off the rain, I stared out at the deserted benches, an ad for asci-fi action movie covered in graffiti. Someone had blinded the sprintingman on the poster, scribbling out his eyes with black marker.

The doors pounded closed. With a moan of brakes, the train began to pullaway.

And then, suddenly, I was aware, coming slowly down the steps in the farcorner—-shiny black boots and red, a red coat. I realized, as shestepped lower and lower, soaked black hair like ink seeping over her shoulders,that it was she, the girl from the Reservoir, the ghost—whatever thehell she was. But before I could comprehend this impossibility, before my mindcould shout, She was coming for me, the train whipped into thetunnel, the windows went black, and I was left staring only at myself.