Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel

by T. M. Goeglein

“Something like that,” I said, and the disappointment in his face scraped against my heart. I couldn’t go back and tell the truth—with just a few idiotic sentences I’d taken it too far—and I fumbled, saying, “Our dads work together, so I see him now and then because of, you know, business. But it’s nothing.”

  He nodded, looking at the ground. “No, you’re wrong. It’s something. I just have to figure out what,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Wait . . . is this payback for the Chloe thing?”

  “What? Chloe . . . no. Can we just talk about it?”

  “No, not now.”

  I touched his shoulder gently and said, “I know you want to talk to me.”

  “No . . . I . . . don’t!” he barked, shaking me off, startling me with his tone. He shook his head and said, “Jesus . . . first you keep this thing from me, then I have to coax it out of you, and now you won’t even let me think? Don’t you see how effed up that is?”

  I was quiet because he was right, it was, and I was. My mind was so twisted by habitually keeping secrets that I’d made one up that didn’t even exist. There was no way to take it back without revealing I’d lied—that I was a liar—and so I awkwardly tried to hug him, but he pulled back and I banged into his hand. It was impossible to tell if his pained expression was from the burn or me. “Max,” I said, “are you okay?”

  He nodded slightly, dipped his head, and turned to leave.

  I wanted to ask if he and I would be okay too, but I was scared of the answer.

  He disappeared down the hallway then, opening and closing his hand slowly like a boxer headed toward the ring.

  6

  THE IDIOTIC COMMENTS I’D MADE ABOUT TYLER were like bitter ashes in my mouth.

  Even more disgusting was the frozen “treat” I consumed (gagged on) hours later.

  It was at the end of one of the longest and worst Fridays in recent memory, when I’d electrocuted my boyfriend and possibly sabotaged our entire relationship. Max avoided me the rest of the afternoon; within the crowded hallways full of chattering kids and their friends, being disconnected from him made me feel like the walking dead. When the bell rang at three fifteen, I hurried out of Fep Prep to get to the El stop at Diversey Avenue and back to the Bird Cage Club, failing to pay as close attention to my surroundings as usual. If there was nothing I could do about Max at the moment, at least I could dive back into the notebook. Over the past several nights, I’d plowed through the second half of it, searching “Volta” for clues, but all it yielded was late-night despair. Each time a dark thought crept into my head, it was accompanied by an image of Doug plummeting after me, which was enough to make me sigh and turn back to the stubborn notebook.

  “Sara Jane! For the third time!”

  I’d been hustling toward the sidewalk in a fog; when I turned, Gina Pettagola was looking at me in her particular Gina way—arms (toned and tanned) crossed, eyebrows (precisely plucked) arched, head (showing off hair that shines in a way mine never will) tilted, with a bemused look on her face. Gina is always perfectly put together, a curvaceous little beauty barely five feet tall who, as Fep Prep’s unequivocal queen of gossip, wields the power of an Amazon over the student body. We were best friends when we were little, and then semi-friends, and now just friendly. It’s weird how you can have a history with someone and even like the person, but never think of her unless you need something. She needed something now and it could only be information. Her method of data extraction was never directly asking what she hoped to learn; instead, she started a benign conversation with the sort of opener that forced the other person to talk.

  I didn’t even have a chance to say hi before she said, “What’s with your nose?”

  I touched it, scared something was leaking. “What do you mean?”

  “Forget it. I haven’t seen you all summer. It’s just . . .” She made a motion with her hands that seemed to indicate a balloon filling with air.

  “Bigger?” I said weakly.

  “More ethnic,” she said with a wink. “Personally, I think an Italian nose is a beautiful thing.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Then why did you have yours done?”

  She moved closer quickly and whispered, “That was only to correct my sinuses! Besides, my sister had hers done at the same time. We got a deal. And that’s not for public discussion.”

  “What do you want, Gina?”

  “Nothing. Just a little girl talk.”

  “You know I suck at girl talk. What do you really want?”

  “I was just curious . . . about Max.”

  “What about him?” I asked suspiciously, wondering if she’d somehow found out about our little electrical incident.

  “Just . . . does he realize he’s with someone so naturally gorgeous that she could get a crew cut and wear overalls and still turn heads?”

  “I’m not gorgeous,” I said, feeling a blush on my neck.

  “Okay, you’re not,” Gina said, rolling her eyes. “Except that you are and somehow, magically, it manages to shine through a truly horrific wardrobe.”

  “You mean this?” I said, suddenly acutely aware of my ratty Cubs T-shirt, faded jeans from last year, and shredded Chuck Taylors. “It’s comfortable, so . . .”

  “Anyway, I was wondering about Max’s opinion of what constitutes attractiveness and hotness, since you’re so different from the women in his family.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, confused, until it clicked. “Or should I ask, who are you talking about? You mean his cousin, Mandi Fishbaum, right?”

  “What about her?” Gina said innocently, sliding on a pair of sunglasses.

  “What do you mean, what about her?”

  “I don’t know, Sara Jane. You brought her up,” she said, looking over my shoulder. As she did, a tinkling reached my ears along with Frank Sinatra’s voice, and I turned slowly as Gina said, “Oh, yum! Mister Kreamy Kone!”

  “No. No, Gina . . . ,” I said, seeing the black truck creak to a stop at the curb.

  As always there were kids everywhere after school, chattering in clusters, texting and hanging out, but I was the only one rigid with terror. That’s because Mister Kreamy Kone trucks—or at least ice cream trucks in general—had been around forever. No one noticed them the way I did, but then, they were simply selling other kids ice cream; it was only me they were intent on capturing. Kids gathered around, feeding dollar bills into its side, making selections. It was like a sucker punch seeing it parked there, knowing something inside was staring at me with red eyes through darkened windows. “I . . . I have to go,” I muttered, turning away.

  “Oh, come on,” she said, yanking me back. “I’m buying. We’ll have a little ice cream and you can confirm or deny whether Mandi really had an abortion this summer, and if Walter J. Thurber was the donor.”

  “What? I don’t know anything about that,” I said as she dragged me down the steps. The truck revved its engine while kids ate and joked and howled with sticky crap smeared on their faces, and “Chicago” plunked loudly through the speakers. I planted my feet, Gina skidded to a stop, and I said, “Listen, really, I have to go.”

  “Okay, fine. But in my book, that’s a confirm.”

  “No, look, I barely spoke to Max this summer,” I said, instantly regretting my choice of words, knowing how scandalous it sounded to Gina’s gossip-honed ears. Before she could reply, I said, “He was in California with his dad and now he’s back. We’re together and we’re fine.”

  “Oh?” she said with a catlike grin. “You were in one state, he was in another, and you both remained completely loyal? Seems unbelievable and even a little unnatural, but maybe you can convince me with ice cream and some Mandi talk. Then again, if you really have to go, I can always ask around about you and Max.” I knew what that meant. Even though Gina felt a certain loyalty toward me (I stepped in front of a bully and saved her from an epic ass-kicking when we were ten), she would still send out probing test balloons about me and Max—not lies or rumo
rs, but loaded questions—to see what came floating back. Nothing would, but people talk (people always talk), some of it would reach Max, and hadn’t I just stupidly planted the idea of Tyler? Of course, he would assume that Gina’s speculation was partly legitimate. The truth was that he and I weren’t fine, we were fragile, and I couldn’t afford to further endanger our relationship.

  “Okay,” I said, reluctantly following her to the truck, knowing that there were too many witnesses around for whatever was behind the wheel to make a move. “But I have only a few minutes, and I really don’t know anything.”

  “Everyone always thinks they don’t know anything,” Gina said, “until I get them talking. And then, magically, it turns out that they know something.”

  I can’t tell you exactly what we discussed.

  I know it had to do with Mandi and Walter and that I mainly listened and nodded.

  My mind was on the truck, knowing it was there for me, my every move being tracked, and that it was biding its time.

  Somehow half an hour passed as an ice cream treat Gina insisted on buying for me (optimistically called an Artesian Velvet Delight) melted in my hand. The truck didn’t sell the pink-and-white soft serve; my guess was that the terrifying concoction was reserved exclusively for creatures. Still, the thing that slid out of the Mister Kreamy Kone truck looked like poison on a stick. I licked once, did the gagging-baby-bird thing as my puke reflex kicked in, and then held it politely while Gina prattled on. Her stream of insinuations and innuendo was limitless and hypnotic. When I looked around, the other kids had dispersed and it was only the two of us. Finally she dabbed at her lips, threw away the remnants of something gooey, and said, “You weren’t kidding. You really don’t know anything, do you?” Before I could answer, a car horn sounded, and she turned and waved at her mother. “Don’t sweat it, by the way, about you and Max,” she said. “I’m only interested in juicy stuff and you two are, well . . . you’re juice-less.”

  “You mean we’re normal.”

  “I mean you’re boring,” she said with a smile. “Do you need a ride home?”

  I thought about it, how easy it would be to get in the car with Gina and her mom and make my escape. But then I remembered how deserted our house looked, and I couldn’t ask for a ride into the Loop to the Currency Exchange Building—each of those things was fodder for major gossip. The prospect of remaining behind with the little black truck was terrifying, but when I turned, it was gone. I told Gina thanks but no thanks, she waved once and drove off, and then I was alone in front of Fep Prep. I wadded up the melted gunk in paper napkins and sprinted to the train. There was a garbage can outside the station door, and as I flung the mess into it, the ice cream’s little wooden stick came loose and fell on the ground.

  It was when I bent to pick it up that I saw the feet.

  Unconsciously I slid the stick in my pocket, staring at glossy black boots.

  Dark-blue pants rose above them and then a light-blue shirt beneath a thick bulletproof vest, and then a head framed by a perfectly fitted beard and police hat.

  The face was smudged with flesh-colored makeup, covering its bleached skin and the cheekbone I’d crushed with a volt of inhuman power, while its bunchy clothing revealed only a thin edge of black uniform. Nothing could completely hide Teardrop’s red eyes, but the cop sunglasses obscured them just enough from passersby. Stalking me outside Fep Prep, my sanctuary, had been alarming enough, but this was so much worse. It had disguised itself to confront me in broad daylight, aware of the attention it would draw, and equally aware that I wouldn’t make a scene. The worst kind of fear coursed through my veins—daytime, out-in-the-open, nowhere-to-hide fear. The world honked, walked, and sped past, while I rose slowly, cursing myself for thinking the creatures’ disappearance was anything but temporary.

  It was obvious now that they’d pulled back in order to change their strategy.

  Instead of chasing me through the city, they’d gone from macro pursuit to micro and added the element of disguise. To top it off, the pistol on Teardrop’s hip looked as real to me as the murderous hatred radiating behind its sunglasses. It was the first time I’d been cornered without being encased in two tons of Lincoln Continental, with the steel briefcase and .45 on the seat beside me. I knew cold fury alone couldn’t penetrate its eyes. Whether or not I was in control of the electricity, at least it was a weapon that could save my life, except that I had no idea how to summon it. As I rose, Teardrop laid a hand on the gun and said, “You will walk slowly. You will get into the truck.”

  I glanced past it at the vehicle parked down the block, looking to the world like an innocent ice cream truck, but to me, a one-way ticket to brain invasion. Stomp me, shoot me, twist my neck, whatever, but there was no damn way I was getting in there, and I said it. “There’s no damn way.”

  “I thought so. That’s why I brought you an incentive,” Teardrop said, opening its hand to reveal something familiar, slender, and ghostly white against its black glove.

  I touched at my neck, feeling the chain that hung there, searching for my mom’s gold signet ring bearing the Rispoli R in diamonds that was attached to it. Words caught in my throat and I swallowed thickly. “It’s not . . . you didn’t cut off her . . .”

  “Oh, how she screamed,” it said. “And what lovely hands she has, or had, I should say. It doesn’t count as a complete hand if it’s missing a ring finger, does it?”

  I tasted horror, inhaled violence, bit down hard on vengeance and revenge, but still the blue flame did not flicker, and I knew that for the moment, cold fury had been extinguished by hard truth. The idea that terrible harm loomed over my family had been a wildly motivational idea, spurring me on to constant, frenzied action, but also an abstract one—things could happen or might happen, but surely I’d prevail in time to stop them. Seeing a living part of my mother dead in the creature’s hand was confirmation that terrible things had happened and were happening still. It was appalling and hideous, but far, far worse, it was real. In a blink of tortured silence, the creature took another step, and stood so close I could smell its vomit-sweet breath. “If you want to see the rest of her, all you have to do is get into the truck. She’s waiting for you. Your whole family is waiting.” Teardrop leered, showing rotten stumps and a slick, black tongue. “En pedazos, pero a la espera . . . in pieces, but waiting.” I was frozen by the prospect, and Teardrop, seeing my defenselessness, extended a hand toward my arm.

  I was not percolating with cold fury.

  I was not humming with electricity.

  All I possessed were the secrets of the notebook, and I remembered two of them now, one strapped to my ankle, the other around the corner.

  I’d come across the first in the chapter titled “Metodi” (“Methods”), in a section that described in great detail the many varied ways to collect money from people who don’t want to pay, or how to force them to give up secrets they won’t confess. There are several terms for it—blackjack, slapjack—but my favorite was “sap,” since a person had to be one to get to the point where someone else was about to hit him with a cylinder of heavy lead encased in leather. Mine was small, dangerous, and fit into the palm of my hand, and I’d taken to wearing it strapped to my ankle in case, well—just in case. In fact, I wore it so often I’d nearly forgotten it was there. “Wait!” I said loud enough for Teardrop to pause, “I want to tie my shoe,” and dropped to one knee. It lunged for me, and I came up swinging the sap by its leather strap, cracking Teardrop across the hand. When the thing gasped in shock, I swung it again just as the notebook had instructed, directly on the elbow joint, hearing it slap and crunch in one fluid motion.

  And then I was running for the second secret.

  It was around the corner from the Diversey El stop, on Wolfram Street.

  It was a place for dead people, and I couldn’t get there fast enough.

  Chapter five of the notebook is “Sfuggire” (“Escape”), which contains a list of all known Capone Doors in Chicago
; I’d taken the precaution of memorizing locations close to Fep Prep. Strozcak’s Bohemian Funeral Parlor on Wolfram Street, housed in a castlelike brownstone, had been an Outfit front business for decades. I sprinted through the station, out the back door, and jumped a fence as Teardrop galloped after me. I had a head start but knew it wouldn’t last. The creature was determined to mete out punishment for drowning its friend before delivering me up to have my skull unscrewed. The funeral parlor was only a block from the El, with its peaked slate roof usually visible from the street—except today I saw no slate and no roof. Instead, a sign stood in front of the rubble of a building in the process of being torn down. It read COMING SOON, WOLFRAM MANOR LUXURY CONDOS! I knew that the Capone Door had been located in the basement, and I turned to see Teardrop flying up the sidewalk. Without hesitation I scrambled over the construction fence. The old brownstone looked like it had been hit by a tornado—the facade stood, and parts of the walls, but the roof was gone and mounds of bricks had been clawed free. I ripped away yellow warning tape, kicked open the front door, and ran into the shell of a building as warped wooden slats groaned ominously beneath me.

  “Stop!” Teardrop shouted, and I turned to see it pointing the gun at me.

  It took a step, the old floor creaked painfully, and the creature screeched as it disappeared before my eyes.

  I turned for the door but the world splintered, and all that was beneath me was air as I fell into the basement.

  When I blinked my eyes, everything was quiet and dark. I was bleeding on my back where shards of wood and rusty nails had torn at my flesh as I fell through the floor. In blazing pain, feeling like I’d been hit by a tractor, I pulled myself to one knee, squinting into the gloom, overcome by an alcoholic odor that felt gluey on the inside of my nose. I tried to stand but my ankle gave way, and I grabbed the edge of something cold and metallic to stop from falling. And then my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw that I was leaning on a steel table. There were drains at both ends from which yellowed hoses hung, stained by brown gunk. I’d kicked over a large jar of something milky that was pooling beneath my feet. I looked down at the label.