by Damien Love
As he came down, he swept his blade violently at the old man on the ground, who just managed to parry it with his cane.
* * *
• • •
ALEX WOBBLED BUT kept going.
He was almost seven, and he was determined to do it, even though it was impossible. Most of his friends already knew how to ride a bike, but no one had been able to explain the mystery to him.
They were out on the street in front of their house. His mum stood away ahead, urging him on, beckoning him. His dad ran behind, holding the saddle with one hand, keeping him upright.
Stop thinking about it so much. That was supposed to be the secret. His elbows and knees stung. He knew he would be sore if he tipped over again. He leaned forward, pedaled faster, and saw his shadowy reflection flitting through the windows. His mum was clapping. She lifted her hands above her head. Yay.
You’re doing it.
His dad had let go without telling him. But he still felt him just behind him, his presence, the sense of him there, just in case.
Alex kept pedaling forward and it felt like flying.
* * *
• • •
ALEX’S GRANDFATHER SCRABBLED backward on his elbows.
The boy who called himself Alexander frowned, then sighed. “What to do with you is a question indeed. But first: the name of God. I can take it from you, of course. But I think I would rather that you give it to me. Just for the symbolism of it: the last belated gift from a dutiful son to his father.”
He walked toward Alex’s grandfather, holding out one hand expectantly, raising his blade with the other.
As sword struck stick, Zia raised a hand to her mouth and giggled.
* * *
• • •
AND ALEX WAS twelve and it was almost Christmas.
They had gone away for the holidays. Just a cheap little cottage by the sea, but they had brought loads of food and there were endless nights of old films and no homework and a real fire. It was cozy and it felt like they were the only people left on earth.
It was evening. Alex was in his room. His mum and dad were in the big room just beyond the half-open door, getting dinner ready. A smell of roast potatoes.
He sat at a desk by the window, wrapping the presents he’d bought them. Books and a Johnny Cash mug for his mum. For his dad, a weird-looking toy robot that Alex had found lurking in a stuffy secondhand store.
Rain rapped against glass. If he looked out his window, he knew he would see the black curve of the shoreline, and off in the distance, the slow turning beam of a high, lonely lighthouse. But he didn’t want to look out his window.
He glanced down suddenly as his finger jagged on the robot’s rough old tin.
He had to be careful. In places, the ragged edges were sharp enough to draw blood.
* * *
• • •
THE CUT ON Alex’s grandfather’s brow bled freely. Alexander stood over him, pressing his sword to the old man’s breast. Dogs barked somewhere off in the forest.
“The life I could have given you,” Alexander said.
“You’ve never lived,” the old man whispered. His eyes were closing. “You’ve spent two hundred years trying not to die. It’s not the same thing.”
“Enough,” Alexander said. “Give it to me, and I will end it quickly. I may even allow Morecambe to live on. Although . . . live isn’t quite the word now, is it? Actually, he has become quite the subject for study, hasn’t he?”
The old man drew in a breath, let it go with a long sigh. He closed his eyes and his head fell back. Rain ran in the lines of his face. He reached a weak hand toward his coat, trying to clutch protectively at the old robot inside. But he didn’t have the strength left. His hand fell back down.
Alexander bent to take the toy.
* * *
• • •
ALEX WAS STILL sitting in his room in the cottage by the sea, still staring at the toy robot in his hand. His mum and dad called in unison for him to come join them. Dinner was ready. Don’t let it get cold.
“Just a minute!” Alex shouted. He dimly remembered: he had cut his thumb on the old toy once. His blood had gone inside.
“By the pricking of my thumbs,” he murmured, wondering where he had heard that.
Another memory was coming now. There had been another boy who had cut his finger on this old toy robot once, too. Not long after Alex had. On the bus to school, that same morning. This other boy had grabbed the robot, and then his hand was bleeding, running red. What was his name?
Kenzie. Kenzie Mitchell.
The lighthouse lamp must have been turned directly toward the cottage, because the raindrops on the glass suddenly glowed with a fierce brightness. Alex stepped to the window and looked out.
There was a figure lying on the ground out there, blurry through the rain. He looked hurt.
Alex opened the window. “Grandad?”
He’d almost forgotten he had a grandfather. Alex looked back over his shoulder as his parents called again, sharper. His dad stood right behind the half-opened door now. He could see his shadow falling on the floor. All Alex had to do was close the window, walk over there, and he would be with him.
He turned toward the frail figure lying in the rain. A little white card had been left on the window ledge outside. Alex squinted to make out what was printed on it.
POWER
His dad wasn’t really there. He knew that.
Everything in him wanted to turn back, back to Christmas, back to his mum and dad. But instead, Alex looked straight into the harsh glare beaming at him from the lighthouse and stepped forward. The light surrounded him, blinding him. He walked farther into it, reached both hands out into the light, picturing a face.
“Come back out.” He sent the words out like a lifeline tossed into the sea. Hands touched his, he gripped them tight, then used all his strength to pull Kenzie gently back out from the light and into the room.
“Sorry, Kenzie,” Alex said.
Kenzie stood trying to speak, but didn’t seem to know how. Alex focused on him, helping him.
“Alex,” Kenzie said, dimly. “There’s something behind you.”
“I know. Stay here, Kenzie.”
Alex thought about the techniques he’d learned while using the flier, about moving his thoughts, about sectioning parts of his mind off from each other. With that, he put a wall around Kenzie, shielding him. Then he turned. The little cottage melted away, and he was back in the small gray room. The tall man stood before him, intently studying the toy robot. He noticed Alex with surprise.
“Get out,” Alex muttered, still weak. It felt as if his mind had been injected with something like the anesthetic the dentist used to numb his jaw. “Out of my head.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The man held the robot aloft and smiled. “The name of God. It recognizes you. Which now means, of course, it recognizes me. And I know how to access it fully. Decades of deep learning, child, not your feeble fumbling at the edges. You could barely begin to understand a millionth of what might be done with this. I know all the words and what they mean. Shall we conduct a little test first, so you can see, before I lock you back in your box? I’ll set the rain on fire, make the forest burn, how about that?”
The tall man began whispering long and low. Satisfaction spread across his face, then disappeared, replaced by confusion, anger.
“Something’s wrong. Something . . . missing? What have you done to this, child?”
The man shook the toy, then closed his eyes as he devoted his full attention to the problem.
His full attention.
At once, the fug cleared from Alex’s mind. Thoughts, memories, and feelings came pouring through him, along with a sharper sense of the tablet than he had ever experienced before. He knew exactly what was wrong, the missi
ng piece the tall man would never find.
“What’s that behind you?” the tall man asked suddenly. “What are you hiding back there?”
Alex took the wall away. Kenzie stepped out to stand by his side. From behind him, the raging light came pouring around them. Alex gestured toward the tall man. A door appeared behind him.
“This guy,” Alex said to Kenzie, “is a real idiot. I need your help. We just need to tell him to get out.”
“Right.” Kenzie nodded and shrugged. “Uh. Get out.”
“Don’t be rid—” the tall man stopped speaking as one foot stumbled back half a step. He paused in surprise, then gathered himself, stood straight, and began chanting quickly and quietly.
“Get out,” Kenzie repeated. This time, Alex threw his mind after Kenzie’s words, caught them, aimed them, and set them flying, dragging bolts of the light with them. Then he sent his own, weightier command racing brightly behind them.
“Get out,” Alex said. The tall figure flinched as if he’d been hit by a combination punch.
Alex gathered his thoughts. The white-blue light was there for him, behind him, before him, waiting to be used, hungry for direction. He knew how to reach the power, and the power knew him. He knew how to move his mind from all his flights with the flier. Two different kinds of magic, light and dark. He took both, pushed them together, and put it all into his words. “Get out. My mind. Get out.”
The tall man staggered back against the door. He stopped chanting and looked helplessly at Alex.
“No. No. Wait. Alexander— Alex,” he said pleadingly. “Don’t you understand—”
“I understand,” Alex said. “Get out.” The door opened.
“Get out,” Alex and Kenzie said, now speaking as one voice, with words of fire.
The tall man lifted a hand in a beseeching gesture. Then he fell backward through the doorway, out of sight. There was no light there.
Alex felt something move in his mind, like a gust of wind passing through a house, all the doors slamming shut behind it. The door vanished.
“Alex,” Kenzie whispered after a long silence. He stood blinking, looking around. “What—”
“Later, Kenzie,” Alex said. “You should get back home. You’ve had a bad dream. We both have. But it’s over now. Let’s leave it alone. Go home. Wake up.”
“I—” Kenzie started. But Alex closed his eyes and stepped back and he couldn’t hear him anymore.
His ankle was aching and he was very tired. He felt wind and rain on his face, wet clothes sticking heavily around his limbs. He opened his eyes.
No gray room. No Kenzie. No tall man. Just trees and rain, wild night and a ruined old building. A scratched tin robot in his hand, and his grandfather bleeding on the ground. Alex threw the sword-stick away and dropped to his knees.
“Grandad, I—”
The old man gestured weakly. “The toy robot, Alex, the tablet,” he said as Alex bent an ear to his mouth. The voice was as faint as a breath. “You must promise to . . .”
“I will.” Alex nodded fast. “I promise. Don’t worry, just . . .”
“Dawn soon.” His grandfather patted his hand. “Sunrise in a forest, always worth . . . Remind yourself you’re alive.”
Then it was as if the old man simply went to sleep.
XXXVII.
FEVER
There was something running at Alex from behind. He wiped his blurring eyes and turned to see Kingdom’s dog Maia galloping toward him. Beyond, Kingdom knelt by Harry, helping him up. The other dogs stood around them.
Alex tried again to rouse his grandfather.
“You all right, son?” Harry called warily as he and Kingdom approached.
“Yeah,” Alex said. He rubbed his eyes and nose again. “I’m . . . me.” He touched the side of his own head as he looked up. “That wasn’t me. Who hit you. Sorry, Harry.”
“Don’t be daft, son, I know that.”
“How is he?” Kingdom asked quietly, nodding at Alex’s grandfather.
“I don’t know.” It come out as a fast sob. Alex looked around without really seeing anything, then noticed Kingdom carried Zia’s flowerpot. His gaze stuck on the evil plant, sagging limply on its stem.
“I met her running through the trees,” Kingdom explained. “Almost caught her, but she’s fast. And rather more vicious than I was expecting.” She displayed a long cut on her inner arm. “She dropped this, though. I thought it might be important.”
Harry had knelt by Alex’s grandfather. He touched his neck, then bent to listen for breath. “Still there. Fever. I’ve seen ’im like this before, Alex. It’s when ’e, y’know . . . When ’e gets older. We really need to keep ’im warm.”
“I dropped the blankets when I was fighting the girl.” Kingdom set the flower down, drew her rapier, and left at a run, Maia bounding beside her.
Alex flinched slightly as one of the other dogs pushed past him. Ignoring Harry’s grumbling complaints, the big animal stretched out and lay across Alex’s grandfather’s chest. One by one, the others followed suit, covering the old man entirely, like a heavy, living rug.
Alex and Harry stood back to watch them.
“Keep ’im warm, I suppose,” Harry said, after a moment.
Alex nodded. “Harry, do you think he’ll—”
“’E’s come through it before,” Harry said brusquely. He softened instantly and shrugged, before continuing with the distinct air of a man changing the subject. “’Ere, so, Alex. ’Ow did you, y’know, get rid of ’im? Your grandad’s dad, I mean? When ’e . . . took you over?”
“He let me go for a second. He was too busy trying to use this.” Alex lifted the toy robot.
“The tablet. Name of God. He knew everything about it, Harry. I think that was what caused him trouble, though. He was expecting to find more than he could get to; the tablet wasn’t working the way it should. He got caught up trying to work out why.”
“So, eh—well, why couldn’t ’e get at it?”
Alex frowned as he tried to explain, still trying to put it together himself.
“Grandad told me he thought the tablet had made a connection with me because of my blood getting on it, like waking it up. Because there was this magical element lying in my blood. But about the same time that happened, there was another guy at my school. Kenzie. He cut his finger on the robot, and some of his blood got inside, too. I think our blood must have got . . . mixed up in there.
“The tablet connected with me, but there was some kind of confused, faulty connection with Kenzie, too. Like, the tall man and Zia—they could focus on people if they had something of theirs, right? Hair, blood, whatever. And I had Kenzie’s blood in there. It’s like I was using him. I had to go through him to get to the power, to make the connection. Or the power went through him before it got to me—he could see things happening that I couldn’t, that hadn’t happened yet, but he didn’t know what any of it was. All he knew was, the more it happened, the worse he felt, I guess. Grandad said there’s always a . . . cost. And Kenzie was paying it. Every time I used the tablet, I was using him. Using him up. Like he was . . . insulating me from it. I got a message he’d fallen into a coma. I think I almost killed him, Harry, without realizing. But, yeah, there was this part missing, or an extra part in the way. The tall man couldn’t work it out. I tried to call Kenzie so we could get to the power together, so it would go through both of us. So that I’d pay the cost. Then I tried to let Kenzie go. I wonder if he’s feeling better now.”
Alex took a step toward his grandfather. The dogs gave a warning growl. He sat down in the mud.
“Harry. Zia and her father, they both said stuff about my dad. What happened to my dad? Do you know? How he died?”
Harry lowered himself with a grunt. “Well . . . Well, ’e crashed in ’is car, son. You know that.”
“There’s m
ore to it than that.”
“Well. Yeah, a little. Not sure it’s my place to, uh . . .” Harry gazed at the still figure on the ground and seemed to come to a decision. “When your dad came along, Alex . . .” Harry paused and looked off. “Blimey. Seems like yesterday. An’ seems like forever ago. Anyway. When ’e was born, your grandad swore off all of this.” He gestured around them with a big hand.
“Like ’e wanted to stop fightin’ and just live a life, y’know. And ’e tried to keep ’is old life away. But ’is father found out about the boy eventually. ’E knew there was something of ’is potion being passed along from your grandad’s blood, see, and ’e wanted to study it, use it. Although, after what ’appened with you tonight, I reckon maybe ’e ’ad other reasons for wanting a male descendant close to ’im. A convenient body to take over, if needs be.
“So, ’e watched and waited, and gradually wormed ’is way into your dad’s life, without your grandad knowing. I dunno ’ow they met, but over the years, ’e showed your dad things, an’ promised to show ’im more. Secrets . . . y’know. Things that would make life easier. A little more every time, drawin’ ’im in.
“But listen, Alex,” Harry continued urgently. “’E never told your dad about the people dying, or who ’e really was. Your dad didn’t know any of that, son. What ’appened in the end was, your grandad found out about these secret meetings. ’E confronted your dad about it. They ’ad an argument and, during it, your grandad told your dad everything: about the deaths, ’ow that was what was fueling it all.
“Well. Your dad was sent into shock. The ’orror of it, the guilt. ’Ow close ’e’d come to joining up with your great-grandad. ’E just ran. Drove off without looking to see what was comin’. And, yeah. That was that. Closest I’ve ever seen your grandad comin’ to, y’know. Givin’ up. But then ’e found out you were on the way.”
“Why didn’t he ever tell me?” Alex said.
Harry shrugged. “Your grandad didn’t want to risk it ’appening again with you. All your grandad ever wanted was to keep you out of all this, Alex. But when ’e was up against it, you were the first person ’e turned to for ’elp.”