by Lish McBride
“I don’t know,” he said, “but whatever it is, I don’t think it’s over.”
“Me either.” I closed my eyes and tried to find a somewhat comfortable position to hold myself in, only to realize that there wasn’t one. Frank would need a new bumper and Ramon a new skateboard. I’d have to assess my damages when I got home. At least Brooke had left before anything had happened to her.
3
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
Douglas shifted to the left, delighting in the warmth of the soft leather. Few things on this earth were as heavenly as leather seats. If that kind of luxury was a sin, he’d happily dance his way into hell.
He looked out through the dark in front of the house, letting his eyes get accustomed to the lack of light. The Beetle he’d been following idled in the driveway, and he watched as the girl got out. She pulled out two bags of groceries, balancing one of them on her hip as she shut the door. He would let her enter the house, get settled. It gave him time to prepare. His phone beeped as he turned it off. After Michael’s failure with Sam, he would know better than to call Douglas again. Still, he didn’t want his phone to ring at an inopportune time.
Michael would have been a better choice for this mission. But since he’d botched the earlier assignment—and a simple messenger job at that—Douglas decided to handle the matter on his own. If he couldn’t trust Michael to put the fear of God into that boy Sam, he couldn’t trust him with this. A delicate touch would be needed to sort this mess out.
Douglas sighed. The adage was true: It was so hard to find good help these days. Not that he cared about Michael smacking the boy around. Violence certainly didn’t bother Douglas. No, what bothered him was Michael’s lack of finesse. He’d simply escalated the violence too quickly. Douglas had meant to try to woo the boy first, lull him into complacency. Then, if Sam didn’t come around, well, time for plan B. But he hated having his hand forced.
He also hated surprises. Douglas chewed absently on a thumbnail. How could he have missed another necromancer, even one with so small a power? It wasn’t like they grew on trees. And if he’d missed the boy, what else had he missed? Douglas shrugged off the uncomfortable thought and tried to concentrate on the things he knew for sure. If he’d discovered him earlier, Douglas could have planned better. He could have molded the boy in his image, coaxed his power out instead of using brute force to do the job.
Douglas watched as the girl unlocked the front door. No use debating what could have been. The gloves were already off, and now he was going to have to give a very ungentlemanly kind of warning. Pity, that. Still, a necromancer left unchecked could create all sorts of trouble. Best to put him in his place now.
The little parasite had to be lying. How could he not know? It wasn’t like necromancy was a power one could ignore. Douglas could remember seeing his first spirit when he was quite young.
Douglas hadn’t really understood why he was at his grandmother’s house. He just knew that he was to be quiet and that he had to wear his itchy clothes. He yanked at his collar for the third time, and his mother took her hand off her swollen belly, grabbed his fingers, and pulled them away from his shirt. She glared at him and went back to fanning herself. He opened his mouth to argue, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Auntie Lynn frowning at him, so he snapped his mouth shut and looked at his feet, trying to make himself small.
Douglas was bored. He wished there were children to play with. The adults were busy crying and talking, and if they did come over, it was to greet his mother. He spotted a tray of cookies. With a sideways glance at his mother, he leaned slowly toward the table. Mother was busy talking to someone, her fan doing little to dry the sweaty curls around her face. Douglas made a quiet getaway and headed over to the cookies. He looked for gingersnaps, his favorite, and shoved one in his mouth while hiding a few others in his pockets. He took one last cookie and turned, nearly bumping into a sad-faced little boy. Douglas spoke around the cookie.
“Hi, Charlie,” he said, spraying a fine mist of crumbs everywhere. Douglas quickly looked around. No one noticed the crumbs. If they did, he wouldn’t be let into the parlor ever again. This was what his mother called a “nice room.”
Charlie waved feebly at him. His skin was a little pale, and Douglas was surprised to see that Charlie wasn’t wearing his itchy clothes.
“Your mother’s going to whup you if she finds you in here in your pajamas, Charlie.” But Charlie just shrugged and motioned to the living room. Douglas brightened. “You wanna play trucks?”
A while later, Douglas’s mother came into the living room and asked him what he was doing. “It isn’t right,” she said, “making a ruckus at a time like this.”
“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said. “I was just playing with Charlie.” His cousin looked a little guilty, but he looked a little sad, too. Douglas felt bad. He didn’t mean to get Charlie in trouble, especially for still being in his pajamas. “It’s my fault, Mother. We’ll be quieter.”
The color faded from his mother’s face. “What did you say, baby?”
“I didn’t mean to get Charlie in trouble.” He stared at the floor, stuck his lower lip out, and tried to look contrite. If he got the look right, he might avoid his talking-to. “I was being too loud.”
His mother sank slowly to the floor. “Honey,” she said gently, “do you know why we’re here?”
“I promise to be quiet.”
She shook her head and reached out, clutching his face in her hand. “No, I meant, do you understand why we’re here today at Grandma Montgomery’s?”
Douglas stared back at her.
She rubbed at some dirt on his cheek before letting go of his face. “Dougie, Charles got sick. Real sick.” She paused. “He’s, well, he can’t play with you anymore. Charles has gone to heaven.”
Douglas looked at Mother. Her face was open, honest. She wasn’t fibbing. But he could still see Charlie right there. She was wrong. But Mother was never wrong. He stared at her, trying to figure out what to say.
“What?” Confusion pushed away the honest expression on her face.
Douglas pointed over to Charlie, who sat three feet away from her in his blue-striped pajamas. “He’s right there. See?” His mother looked, but he could tell she couldn’t see anything.
“You can’t see him?” Douglas peeked at Charlie, who shrugged at him and pointed back at the trucks. His mother patted his head, worry clouding her eyes. She didn’t believe him. Douglas felt the rotten sting of disappointment. He watched as she got up and went to find his father. Douglas went back to his trucks.
His mother’s skirt had no sooner whisked out of sight than his auntie Lynn calmly strode over. “What’s your cousin wearing, Douglas?”
Douglas frowned at the question. “Blue-striped jammies,” he said, all the moisture leaving his mouth. He was a little scared of his auntie Lynn. The air around her always felt cold. “You’re not going to tell on him, are you?”
“No, child, I’m not going to tell.” She reached over and brushed his cheek with the tips of her fingers. Douglas froze. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched by Auntie Lynn. He didn’t like it. She smiled at him then and turned the gesture into a light pat. Douglas liked that smile even less.
A few days after the funeral, Auntie Lynn offered to take Douglas away. His parents hadn’t argued much. They talked it over for a few days, mostly at times when they thought Douglas was sleeping. He couldn’t believe they were even considering it. He’d expected his mother to instantly refuse. When she hadn’t, he thought his chest might cave in. What had he done? Then, for the first time, Douglas realized his parents were afraid of something. They were afraid of Auntie Lynn. And now they were afraid of him.
One week after the funeral, he packed his suitcase.
He cried at first, but in the end, it had all been for the best. Auntie Lynn explained that people like him were rare. They had to be trained—he had to be trained—and his aunt could do that. Left alone, she
said, their kind could destroy themselves. Go crazy. Destroy others by accident. She helped him understand how useless his parents had been, how weak, and by being with them, how weak he was by extension. Auntie Lynn made that part very clear. Without her, Douglas would be nothing. Through her, he might become something. Someone.
She taught him everything: calculus and etiquette along with Sun Tzu, Aristotle, and Machiavelli. As he followed Auntie Lynn around the country, he began to understand something else: he wasn’t the only one who was afraid of her. When Auntie Lynn walked into a crowded room, the people parted like the Red Sea he’d heard about from the fat preacher in church, though they didn’t seem to know why they were doing it. Douglas didn’t think it was because Auntie Lynn was close to God like Moses was. The avoidance seemed unconscious, like pulling back from a snake that has suddenly appeared in your path. On some deep level, people recognized her as a predator. Douglas thought it might make more sense for her to blend in better. It’s easier to get prey if they can’t see you’re a predator in the first place. But he kept that to himself.
In time, he learned all about the family curse. That’s what she called it, a curse. Yet she said the word lovingly. Of course, by then, Douglas understood. The curse had brought her all of her wealth and had kept her alive for a very, very long time.
By his sixteenth year, Douglas had learned all his aunt could show him. While most boys his age were chasing skirts, he practiced summoning and speaking to spirits. He could raise the dead. He’d grown powerful, much more so than she. She’d started to figure that out, toward the end. Unfortunately for her, Douglas had fully grasped her lessons concerning ruthless practicality, and he’d noticed that his teacher had grown overconfident. Sloppy. Auntie Lynn never tasted the sedative in her sherry, and she didn’t wake up when he slit her open and stole her gift. As he’d knelt there, covered in her blood, his hand lolling to the side but still holding the dagger, drunk on her power, he couldn’t help but think she’d be proud. He’d become the perfect pupil.
Douglas was no longer weak.
Well, Douglas thought, he’d clean this mess up, too. After all, he was number one. He was Council, and Sam had no right to be here. Douglas had to teach the boy how to get his gift under control. The last thing he needed was to give the Council an excuse to remove him as leader, and a rogue necromancer was a very good excuse. If training didn’t work, he could just kill him. Both plans had their merits. If it all worked out, Douglas would have another servant at his beck and call. And if not, well, he still had Auntie Lynn’s knife. He’d also had decades to perfect the ritual. With all the prep work and fumbling, it had taken him almost an hour to steal his aunt’s powers. Repetition and practice had honed that time down to twenty minutes, and that’s if the victim fought. Sam’s power was almost too insignificant to even bother with. It would be far easier to kill him quickly and leave him in the woods somewhere. But, as they say, every little bit helps. Waste not, want not. Douglas grinned.
First, he had to show the boy he meant business. Well, he’d already done that, hadn’t he? Michael may have gotten ahead of the plan, but the message he sent was clear. Still, Douglas didn’t want to overestimate Sam’s comprehension. The public schools these days weren’t known for fostering independent thought. He’d have to send him something more personal.
Douglas got out of his car where he had been sitting—brooding, really, if he could admit it to himself—and shut his door quietly. He crept up the last bit of drive toward the blue Volkswagen Beetle he’d seen earlier at Plumpy’s. He peeked into the carport, looking for anyone else who might have pulled up earlier, but the Volkswagen sat alone in the driveway. He smiled, singing snatches of a Julie Andrews song under his breath. The soundtrack was one of his favorites, and he often played it at home. Happily humming, he changed a few key words. “People in terror groveling before me, these are a few of my favorite things…”
Douglas slid past the Beetle and went in to collect his package.
4
Brown Paper Packages Tied Up with String
I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment that I couldn’t really afford. When I rented the place, I justified it because I could easily ride a bike to UW’s campus from there and still be nowhere near Frat Row, which was the one place in Seattle I hoped never to live. The neighborhood was nice, with a lot of trees and a small park. And despite the faded gray exterior of my building, the inside of the apartment wasn’t bad.
Once I became a dropout, my flimsy justification vanished along with my student loans. I was forced to rock the Top Ramen lifestyle that is envied by so many. Now, as I stood in my hallway, I took comfort in the quiet of the building and the fact that I had always helped Mrs. Winalski with her groceries, so that when she spotted me coming out of the elevator scratched, greasy, dirty, and already bruising, she didn’t immediately call the police. Sometimes, you had to take the few small comforts life offered you.
“Sam, honey, you look filthier than a hot tub in a brothel.”
“That’s kind of gross, Mrs. W,” I said.
She eyed Ramon and Frank behind me, her finger wagging between them. “Your little boyfriends didn’t beat you up, did they?” she said. “Sam’s a nice boy, and if he won’t call the cops on you two, I will.”
“I’m grateful,” I said. “I really am, but I’m neither gay nor a victim of domestic violence.”
Mrs. Winalski dug around in her purse for her keys and made a harrumphing noise. “You worry me, Sam. I’m seventy, and I get a hell of a lot more action than you, boy. You’re young—take advantage.” She clasped her keys in one hand and patted her short, steely hair with the other. “How do I look?”
“Great. Knock ’em dead, Mrs. W.” Mrs. Winalski had been widowed fairly young. She’d told me she’d spent a lot of time caring for her sick husband before that. I think she’d been making up for lost time since his death. On Tuesday nights, she sang karaoke. Wednesdays, she coached a local roller derby team. I wasn’t sure what a roller derby coach did, but I wanted to go just to see her screaming obscenities from the sidelines. Come to think of it, she went out almost every night. Mrs. Winalski did not screw around when it came to her free time. She made me feel old.
“You’re a good kid,” she said. She waved behind her as she walked toward the elevator. “See you later, boys, and don’t wait up.”
I waved back and opened my door, flicking on the light and looking around before stepping in. I was still a little jumpy after the attack. Frank and Ramon followed me.
“She seems nice,” Frank said.
“Dude,” Ramon said, “did your seventy-year-old neighbor just order you to get laid?”
“What can I say? She worries.” I tried to sound lighthearted, but I think it came out tired instead.
Out of habit, Ramon leaned to put his skateboard by the door. There was a dirty smudge on the wall because he always put his board in the same place. He sighed. “You owe me a new board, Sammy.” His hand started to shake as he stared at the spot. “Not that I’m complaining. You know.” He went silent for a moment, eyes locked on that empty space. “Board well spent.”
I agreed to replace the board, even though we both knew I didn’t have the money. Maybe I could just loan him mine for a while. In the morning. After the night I’d had, I planned to sleep with the damn thing. Skateboards made a great weapon in a pinch, as Ramon had proved earlier. I should get a bat. A big metal bat. And a dog. A giant, creepy-man-eating dog. With rabies. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t afford myself, let alone a dog. To be honest, I couldn’t afford the bat.
I slumped down into my ratty plaid easy chair, not even bothering with the footrest. I hissed when my back hit and had to sit a little forward to alleviate some of the pain. I felt exactly like a brothel hot tub, and it was not a pleasant feeling. Ramon kicked off his shoes and flopped onto the couch while Frank walked through my small apartment. I could hear him methodically checking my closets and under my bed. He caught me watching hi
m as he exited my room, and his face flushed.
“Just checking,” he said. I didn’t want to think what for. I felt stupid for not doing it myself. Maybe I could blame the stupidity on shock. Frank picked at the hem of his shirt.
“Shouldn’t we take you to the hospital? Or the cops? We should go to the cops.”
“And tell them what?” I snapped. “That a man said weird things to me and then another man tore off your bumper? Plus, we almost ran him over. No, I don’t think so.” I rubbed my face with the palm of my hand. “The cops will just say your decrepit bumper fell off or something.”
“But you were assaulted!” Frank continued picking at his shirt. If he kept it up, he wouldn’t have any shirt left. “And he started it.”
“To be fair,” Ramon said, plumping up the couch cushion behind his head, “we did assault him back. And it’s not like cops can tell who hit who first.” He settled into the couch. “I don’t think they can, anyway.”
“But.” Frank looked pleadingly between the two of us before giving up with another mumbled, “Assaulted.”
“And I’d like to not get more assaulted,” I said, rubbing my temples. Cops scared me a little. But the Classic Shiny guy scared me more. On the way home I’d sorted through the night in my head and come to the conclusion that the beat-down had been directly related to the evening’s earlier events. That Classic Shiny guy must have been the Douglas Montgomery that the big guy mentioned. It made more sense for the two bizarro incidents to be connected than for them to be isolated. Either way, laying low sounded pretty good right now.
“I agree with Sammy,” Ramon said. “I think telling the cops on these guys would just make things worse.”
“But—”
“Think about it, Frank. If you were a cop, who would you listen to, us or the guy in the fancy suit with a busted taillight?”
Frank collapsed into a chair, looking even more defeated than a second ago. “So you think it’s connected? The fight with the other guy?”