“That’s cute,” I said.
“Bing means fat!” Chumele said. “Don’t call me Bing.”
We laughed until Trick asked Mr. Chang how we should address him.
“You may call me, ‘sir.’”
“Like in the movie? To Sir, With Love?”
“Like in The Choir, Mr. Aonghus. We might not have much to do at first, but this is not a pleasure trip. In your free time, I expect you all to train and to improve yourselves.” He fixed me with an icy glare. “And heal, Iowa. We’re going to need you.”
Chumele put her hands to her forehead and gave a little squeal. Her body shook.
“What’s wrong, Chumele?” I asked.
“We don’t have much time. They’re coming.”
“D-Day?” Mr. Chang asked. “Now?”
“Not quite…sure. Yes and no. Not now. Not this now. A now, but not this now. Not quite yet. It’s already happened on another plane.”
Lesson 131: There will be times when a Magical will make you want to strangle them. That’s their way and they rarely seem to be capable of doing better. However, don’t strangle a Magical. They’re annoying, but they might save your life, too.
Chapter 24
Half an hour into the flight, Trick dropped into the seat next to me. “Medicament sounds like predicament.”
“I wouldn’t worry. We’ll be fine. Mr. Chang takes everything seriously. I saw him make an eleven-year-old do a hundred pushups because he swore.”
“Harsh.”
“Well, he was swearing at Mr. Chang at the time. The kid wasn’t that smart and he wasn’t that strong. It took him a good part of the evening to knock out that hundred.”
“Did the kid come back?”
“Yeah, but it was because his parents made him. The kids who were made to come never stay on for very long, no matter how strict their parents are. He stayed long enough that he could do his hundred pushup punishment within a few minutes, though.”
“Did you have to do any punishment pushups?”
“A few times, but Mr. Chang’s training is hard enough, it’s hard to tell what’s punishment and what’s a normal weeknight.”
Trick put his head back and closed his eyes. I missed looking into the clear blue, but with his eyes closed I felt less self-conscious. I could stare, memorizing the lines of his cheekbones and jaw.
“I picture his martial arts school with a big sign out front that reads: Chang’s Change Academy,” Trick said. “Come to me when you’re ready for a Chang Change.”
I giggled — realized I was giggling too hard and stopped. “Dude! You sound like a guy trolling for a round of life-changing pushups at 30,000 feet.”
“Pushups? I can handle those. It’s the sword I appear to have a hard time mastering.”
“Mastery is a high bar. That takes years. But you can get better.”
“Good enough not to be killed by the first swordsman who comes along?”
“Probably not.”
“Great. Maybe I should spend more time on the gun range.”
“Maybe. Mama says the mistake a lot of people make is majoring in their minor. We insist that all kids be decent at math, for instance. However, that doesn’t make sense. The kid who is lousy at math can never be a theoretical physicist, but so what? If he’s lousy at math, the last thing in the world that kid wants to be is a theoretical physicist.”
Trick opened his eyes and stared at me. “I like that. I’ve been feeling pretty bad about being bad at swordplay. I’ve been especially embarrassed since you’re so good at it.”
“I do okay.”
“You’re a legend.”
“Not so much.”
“False modesty is a lie,” Trick said. “You are Iowa, Castrator of Demons. Manhattan says you did the deed before you were really a member of the Choir. Then everybody saw how you handled them on the day of the incursion.”
I looked away. “A lot of people died that day. If you heard that from singers who were there, I think what you’re hearing is people who are trying to make something good out of something terrible. I’m the lipstick on the pig.”
Trick laughed. It was a nice sound and I wanted to hear a little more of that.
“I like your lipstick.”
“I don’t — oh,” I said eloquently.
He smiled. “Tell me about Medicament.’
“Small town just like any other. No Starbucks. They say we’ll get a McDonald’s soon, but they’ve been saying that for years. It was my whole world until I came to New York.”
“Big change. Did you have culture shock, small town hick in the big city?”
“I was never a hick.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t say okay like you don’t believe me.”
“Okay.”
“You still haven’t got that right.”
“Okay.”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.”
We laughed together and I wanted much more of that.
“To answer your impertinent question,” I said, “I didn’t experience much culture shock when I moved to Brooklyn. Sticker shock, yes. My culture shock had nothing to do with the city. I love New York. The misty wistfuls everywhere? That was a shock.”
“Misty wistfuls…I like that. I’ve been calling them the undead.”
“Sounds very George Romero.”
“I like zombie movies.”
“My god, why?”
“They’re a force of nature. It’s not about the undead rising from the grave, really. It’s mortality coming for you. It’s coming for everybody so…I don’t know. Movies about zombies let us confront our fears in a safe way. It’s a trial run for the big show.”
I made a face and pointed to my cast. “I used to like those movies more. Since I’ve had several trial runs, I think I’ll do another genre for a while.”
“Like what?”
“I’m thinking Sound of Music marathons. And Mary Poppins. Anything with Julie Andrews would do nicely.”
“There are remarkably few beheadings and castrations in Julie Andrews’ filmography.”
“I used to watch iCarly even when I should have been too old for it,” I admitted. “Entertainment that’s guaranteed to end well is soothing. I like that.”
Trick shook his head. “I’m more of a Stephen King fan. You may not get a happy ending, but you’re bound to get a satisfying one.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I get that.”
“Do you think we’re headed for a happy ending, Tam?”
“Well, we’re armored up and we’re more ready for the Ra than we were last time. I think the Keep is ready to rain down some hard human justice on the Darkness Visible.”
“I wasn’t talking about a happy ending for the Choir, Tam. I meant for you and me.”
Lesson 132: After love bites you on the ass, you will think you’ll never love another. When you understand how short life really is, you hurry to back your ass up into those fangs again.
“Tam?”
“Hm?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I don’t believe in happy endings. If something good ends, how can it be happy? I am interested in having a really happy now, though. How about a happy now?”
He kissed me.
I kissed him back.
It went on like that, for a while.
Chapter 25
A deep white blanket buried Medicament. A huge locomotive roared through the middle of town. The machine’s nose was a bright orange snow plow that threw snow thirty feet to each side, clearing the tracks. We didn’t have a trestle so, when the train came through, all traffic stopped.
As I listened to the ding, ding, ding of the gate blocking the road, I felt a pang of nostalgia as the lone locomotive rattled past.
I missed Brooklyn but, in that moment, I thought I could stay in Medicament for a while and I wouldn’t be restless. Once you’ve seen a sunset over the Statue of Liberty
from Valentino Pier, though, it’s hard to keep a small town girl in her small town.
Trick and Chumele went with Mr. Chang. Wil was to stay with me. I don’t know if Mr. Chang saw Trick and I together and disapproved but I knew my hapkido instructor rarely missed much. While most people spent their time gazing into the abyss of a cell phone, Kevin Chang spent his time practicing being aware of his surroundings.
Mama yelled to us from the porch. “Peach Pie!”
Wil giggled. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s for real.”
Mama stood at the top of the steps and put both hands high in the air to wave them in glee. “You came just in time for winter to hit! Or did you bring all that snow with you? I made lemon meringue pie for Peach Pie! You must miss my cooking. You look so thin, Tammy, but broader through the shoulders. ”
“They make me hang and swing and do pushups on the rings every day,” I said.
“Oh, my gawd! That sounds wonderful and awful.” Her eyes lingered on my cast. “Kevin said you had a little accident but your arm would be fine. He told me not to worry. He used that same tone the first time you came back from one of his classes with two black eyes and a swollen nose.”
“It wasn’t an accident, but it will be fine,” I said.
She tapped my cast with a long red fingernail. “Your father used to come home all battered and bruised sometimes. Training accidents, he called them. I always had ice packs waiting in the freezer and, of course, as a pharmacist I have an endless supply of painkillers.”
“It wasn’t a training accident, Mama,” I said. “I think I got a few lessons out of the experience, though.”
I didn’t want to talk about what happened at Castille so I moved on quickly to introduce Wilmington as Willow.
“Willow? You from Willow City? Willow City, Texas? I’m from Amarillo originally.”
“No, ma’am. Wilmington, Vermont.” Wil offered her hand to shake.
Mama batted Wil’s hand aside and folded my friend into a bear hug and squeezed, mashing Wil’s face into her breasts. “You’re a soldier. You’re Tammy’s sister singer. A handshake isn’t going to do the job, girl!”
Wil glanced my way and I guessed what she was thinking. Mama knew all about the Choir Invisible. She knew so much, she tried to keep me out of the war. No other singers’ families were so blessed. Knowing what I was up to in New York made her worry more, but I didn’t have to come up with an elaborate cover story, either.
“Have you girls eaten? How about I heat up some stew?”
“I’m a vegetarian, ma’am,” Wil said.
“No problem. Just eat around the meat.”
“Do you have any salad in the house?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said. “Chicken caesar. Does that count?”
Wil laughed when Mama gave her a wink. “Kevin gave me a call. We’re all stocked up on what you need and what you really want, plant and animal and all. Ready for a siege and a long winter, too. Come see this!”
As we stepped out of the cold and into the living room, I could see she wasn’t kidding. Three steamer trunks lay open and much of their contents were spread across the floor.
Three twelve gauge ammo boxes and Mama’s shotgun sat beside her TV chair. Three black crosses marked each box of cartridges.
“He sent you blessed ammunition,” I said.
“Yep,” Mama said. “Thrice blessed by three eunuchs, sad and holy and feeling mighty deprived, I’m sure. FedEx brought all this stuff first thing this morning. It’s like Christmas. There was a locksmith here last night, too. I’m still reading the instructions he left.”
Across the floor was an array of supplies, from MREs, flashlights and extra batteries to a portable toilet seat for backwoods emergencies.
I looked to Wil. She was frowning. I suppose I was, too. We both felt very far from the Keep and our allies.
“What exactly did Mr. Chang tell you, Mama?”
“Just that you were coming home for a visit and he wasn’t sure how long the stay would be. I asked him should I stock up on groceries and he said the Choir would take care of all that for me. Next thing I know, a locksmith is knocking on my door and putting up surveillance cameras. See?”
Mama turned on the television. The screen was split into four smaller screens, each showing a different view East, West, North and South. “Still don’t get HBO, though,” she said.
Wil and I went to each trunk. On the underside of each lid was a manifest of all the Choir had sent us.
“Girls, you don’t think we’re really gonna need that portable toilet seat do you? It’s mighty chilly outside. You shouldn’t be anywhere where you see the steam of your poop and the steam of your breath at the same time.”
“They’re just taking precautions, Mama. Something happened that has us all a bit paranoid.”
“Something bad, obviously. Did we lose the war already? I didn’t see anything unusual on the news.”
“Mama! No, we didn’t lose. We…well, we lost a battle. Actually, I did.”
A gun cleaning kit sat on the couch. Mama pushed it aside and pulled me down to sit beside her. “Tell me about it.”
I began to tell the story of my last night working for Castille. Wil, being the perfect guest, excused herself and disappeared into the kitchen to fend for herself.
When I started telling her about the dead woman speaking to me in the back of the bus, Mama got up to turn on more lights. When she returned to the couch, she pulled her afghan around us and snuggled, as if it was a hot cocoa day.
I put my head on her shoulder, unable to look her in the eye as I recounted the burning of Castille. I didn’t tell Mama about Clyde. I hadn’t told anyone about Clyde. I did tell her I saw my father, though.
“Yeah? That man,” she said. “How did he look?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how did he look?’
“Um…fine, I guess.” I hadn’t realized until that moment, he did not appear to have aged much from the way he looked in my parents’ wedding photos.
“He was a handsome sumbitch,” she said.
“Mama!”
“Well, he was. You think he wouldn’t be? How could I have put up with as much nonsense from him as I did if he wasn’t dead sexy?”
“Mama, please stop talking.”
“C’mon, now. You’re not a little girl anymore. You can take it.”
“Uh, nope! Nope, I can’t.”
She nodded slowly and gave me a hug. “I suppose…I could never picture my parents having sex, either.”
“Mama!” I covered my ears. “Stop!”
She laughed and laughed until I had to join her. Despite being far from the Choir and the Keep, I was glad to be home.
Lesson 133: Home is a slice of Normal. You have to get back to it once in a while to remind yourself what stability (and Mama’s ugly afghan) feel like. Hot cocoa days are necessary.
I pushed away thoughts of Rory, missing in action and returning to us who knew when. I didn’t think about Samantha tied to her desk, her family photographs burning up with the walls they hung on.
Lesson 134: To not think about something, you have to replace the bad thoughts with good ones. I focused all my energy on warm thoughts of Trick and life and living. I focused my attention forward, not back, because life is for the living.
I cried, but I managed to keep my freak out to a minimum. It didn’t end with me ranting and pulling down wallpaper and kicking things. I just felt sad instead of dead inside.
Later, over dinner, Mama quizzed Wil about Vermont, her family and about life in the Keep. I was embarrassed but Wil didn’t seem to mind.
By the time we’d had dessert, Trick knocked at the front door. I felt lighter around my heart as I let him in.
“I heard there was pie,” he said. “Chumele told me I’d get pie.”
Mama looked Trick up and down and frowned. “I’ve got lemon meringue, but I can tell, you’ve come for a bite of Peach.”
“Mama!”
She didn’t embarrass me accidentally. With her Texan accent, she enjoyed playing the hick, but Mama knew what she was doing.
She gave me a wink. “Just teasing, sugar.”
I made a mental note to get Mama a subscription to HBO so she’d have another way to entertain herself besides making my cheeks burn pink in front of company.
“You know, Mama, some demons actually have reason to fear me. Sometimes I wish you were at least a little scared to tease me.”
“If it makes you feel better, Tam,” Trick said, “you absolutely terrify me.”
“Watch this one,” Mama said. “He’s a handsome, silver-tongued devil.”
Chapter 26
I took Trick on a tour of Medicament. Our parkas were heavy enough that we carried our short swords strapped to our backs beneath our coats. Walking around downtown wouldn’t take long, but we dawdled. The thick snow deadened all sound so the town seemed eerily quiet except for the squeak of ice crystals under our boots.
“Medicament didn’t start out as much more than a wide spot in the road,” I said. “Somebody must have got tired of traveling West and decided to name it.”
“Somebody named Medicament presumably,” Trick said.
“Mama bought the pharmacy with money her father left her and that’s how we ended up here. There are a lot of older people in town, so it’s a good spot for a pharmacy. I don’t think many of my high school class stuck around after graduation. Not many jobs here.”
As fresh snow began to fall in a thick curtain, cars slipped by but we saw very few people on the streets. I shivered and Trick reached down to hold my hand. I felt warmer immediately.
“Tell me about Dungarvan,” I said. “Ireland must be pretty exotic compared to small town Iowa.”
“Exotic? Nah…small towns are the same everywhere, I think. Everybody’s up in your business and they all have an opinion to share. Take anybody who has known you since diapers and they’ll act like they own you a little bit, or you owe them something.”
“Somebody’s got daddy issues.”
He looked surprised. “You don’t?”
“Well…yeah. I guess I do,” I said. “I’m sworn to kill Peter Smythe, so there’s no denying it.”
The End of the World As I Know It (The Ghosts & Demons Series Book 2) Page 11