The Black

by D. J. MacHale

  I didn't want to be dead anymore.

  If I had a chance to go back and pick up life where I'd left off, I was going to take it. To do that, I had to help Damon. So with a shriveled ear in my pocket – disgusting – I left Damon’s vision of the Black and made one stop before beginning my search to find the owner of the ear. I wanted to tell Gramps what I was planning to do. He was the closest thing to a parent I had and I didn't think it would be right to make such a bold move without him knowing.

  Needless to say, he wasn't happy.

  "Coop, you can't," he cried. "You just can't."

  Gramps was in his yard picking tomatoes. I used to love raiding his garden armed with a salt shaker. It made me wish I was six again. And not dead.

  "I don't have a choice, Gramps," I said.

  "Yeah, you do. What'll happen if things don't work out like you think? I told you before, there's trouble brewing."

  "And what if the guy bringing that trouble is Adeipho? You should see what he did to Damon. He's not a good guy."

  "Listen to yourself, Cooper. You've got this all twisted around so it'll work out the way you want it to because you think Damon can give you your life back."

  "And to help Marsh," I added.

  "You can't help Marsh!" Gramps yelled, his face as red as one of his tomatoes. "And you can't get your life back. That's not the way things work."

  "You haven't seen what this guy can do," I argued.

  "You're right," he said, taking a breath and forcing himself to calm down. "We'll play it your way. Let's say he gets this pole-thing and it really gives him the power over life and death. That don't make it right. Nobody should have that kind of power."

  "What if I told you I could bring you with me?"

  Gramps started to answer quickly, then turned away from me and went back to work in his garden.

  "It's possible, Gramps. You said you missed Grandma. What if you could go back to your house in the Light? Where it's real. Real trees. Real tomatoes. It's still there, you know. Just like you remember it."

  Gramps snapped me a look that was so full of emotion, it actually made me take a step backward. "Don't you think I know that?" he exclaimed, his voice cracking. "I spend more time there watching over your grandma than I do here, where I should be, working on my own life. I probably could have been sprung from here ages ago if I did what I was supposed to do instead of living in the past. That life is over, Cooper. No matter how bad you want it back."

  "I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about moving forward. Help me get this done, Gramps. Maybe this is what you're supposed to be doing to make yourself the best person you can be."

  Gramps shook his head. "No. I can't believe that. Even if this Damon fella was wronged a long time ago, that don't justify the things he's doing. Haunting folks. Threatening you. Hell, he killed you, Cooper! He may be justified in wanting revenge, but that ain't the kind of thing that gets you out of here. At least not to the place you want to go."

  "So how are you going to do it, Gramps? What are you going to do to get out of here?"

  Gramps got down on his knees and plucked a few of the plumper tomatoes from the lower parts of the plants. I wasn't sure if he was going to answer me. It was a bold thing to be asking your grandfather to justify his existence.

  "I don't know," he finally said. "Some things I did when I was alive I'm not proud of and I wish I knew what I could do here to make up for 'em. Who knows? Maybe it ain't possible and I'll be living in this illusion for the rest of time."

  "And maybe I'm giving you a chance to get out," I said. "Maybe it's my chance too."

  Gramps looked up at me, his eyes filled with tears. I'd never seen him cry before.

  "Or maybe you're writing your own ticket into the Blood," he said. "I'm sorry, Cooper. If you came here looking for help, you came to the wrong place."

  "No, he didn't," came a familiar voice.

  We both turned to see Maggie standing at the end of the long row of tomato plants.

  "I'll help you," she said.

  Gramps turned cold. "Leave him alone!" he yelled.

  I'd never heard Gramps talk to anybody that way, let alone a young girl.

  "It's okay, she's cool," I said.

  He glared at me and barked, "She shouldn't be poking in other people's business, and neither should you. Go on in the house now. Let me finish up here."

  "I'm not six anymore, Gramps."

  "Then, stop acting like the world revolves around you." He looked past me to Maggie and yelled, "And you! Leave him be!"

  Maggie gave me a sad smile and started back toward her house. I backed away from Gramps, wishing I hadn't come to talk with him. I didn't want it to be this way between us. We were always pals.

  "I love you, Gramps," I said.

  "Don't go with that girl," he warned. "You've already made too many mistakes."

  "I'll let you know what happens," I said, and headed after Maggie.

  "Cooper!" Gramps called. "This isn't a game. You're risking your eternal soul."

  That almost made me stop. It definitely made me think, but I'd made up my mind. If my soul was at risk, then I wanted to be the one calling the shots.

  "Maggie!" I called, and ran to catch her.

  "Maybe you should listen to him," she said, and kept walking.

  I fell in step beside her. "I'm done listening. I want to start doing something."

  "And what's that?"

  "I'm going to help Damon."

  "Are you sure that's right?"

  "No, but I think it's my only choice. There are spirits in the Black who are even worse than him. He wants to bring them back to life so he can kill them again, I guess. I don't know. I don't care. That's his business."

  "He can bring spirits back to life?" she asked.

  "So he says. But first he needs me to find them in the Black. They've got this golden ball filled with blood that he needs smashed."

  "Why?"

  "It's a curse of some kind. There's a bunch of them. Marsh smashed one. That's what put him on Damon's radar."

  "How did Marsh get it?"

  "I don't know. I didn't ask him that."

  "Maybe you should."

  I jumped in front of Maggie, forcing her to stop walking. We had moved from Gramps' vision of the Black into Maggie's. The colorful fall leaves were gone, leaving gray skeletal-looking trees. The sky had transformed from blue to hazy gray and the temperature fell dramatically.

  "There's more to this," I said. "If I help Damon, he'll give me my life back too."

  "And that's what you want? Your life back?"

  "Absolutely! Wouldn't you?"

  Her answer was a silent, blank stare. I felt as if I'd asked the wrong question. Again. Awkward.

  I dug into my pocket to take out the—gulp—mummified ear.

  "This is the ear of the spirit who has the ball o' blood. Damon said it would help me find him."

  I expected Maggie to be all grossed out. Instead she grabbed the ear and examined it, bending it back and forth to test its resiliency. My stomach turned.

  "Who is he?" she asked.

  "His name's Adeipho. He's the guy who cut Damon up and killed him. Damon wants to return the favor but can't do it until this crucible thing is destroyed."

  She handed me back the ear and asked, "You know how to use this to find him?"

  "No. Do you?"

  "The Black is like a sea that we're all swimming in. You already know how to move between visions." She held up the ear and said, "This is something that's important to Adeipho."

  "It used to be, anyway."

  "It will allow you to seek his vision."

  I glanced over her shoulder to see a Watcher standing on Maggie's porch. It reminded me that I was doing something that was probably about as far away from legal as you could get. I was meddling with spirits that could lead to a major interference with the Light. I wondered what penalty I would have to pay when I died a second time. I shook the thought. I never worried
about the future and this was no time to start.

  "So, what do I do?" I asked. "Hold the ear, click my heels together three times, and say, 'There's no place like Adeipho'?"

  "I don't understand what that means."

  "How does it work?" I asked.

  "It's as simple as entering the vision of a spirit you know. I'll show you."

  "No! I'm going alone. You've already got enough problems and—"

  Too late. She grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. I took one step in her vision . . . and a second step in an entirely different place.

  "—I've got enough on my conscience as it is. Whoa."

  Since Adeipho was one of Damon's soldiers, I figured his vision of the Black would be pretty much like Damon's. I expected to land in some ancient village with stone buildings and more grubby guys wearing skirts. Instead I was greeted by a loud, obnoxious sound that was coming from directly behind us.

  We both jumped and barely missed getting hit by a speeding car. I stood there holding Maggie, trying to get my mind around what had just happened.

  "I thought you said Adeipho killed Damon," Maggie cried.

  "That's what Damon said."

  "Then he wasn't telling you the whole truth, because this isn't the vision of somebody from his time."

  We weren't in ancient Macedonia, or any other ancient place. Maggie and I found ourselves on a modern city street.

  The roar of a motorcycle got our attention. We spun around to see a rider flash out from between two buildings, turn toward us, and accelerate. He wore dark clothes but instead of a helmet, he had on a white Halloween clown mask with a built-in hideous grin.

  "I don't understand," Maggie cried.

  The biker turned toward us, reached to a saddlebag, and pulled out a sword.

  A black sword.

  Like a knight on horseback, he raised it high to attack.

  15

  I grabbed Maggie's hand and pulled her up onto the sidewalk.

  The motorcycle didn't stop. It bounced up over the curb but the jolt knocked the guy off balance. He had to fight to control the bike, which gave us time to run. I pulled Maggie along, sprinting down the sidewalk.

  "Go back to your vision!" I yelled at her.

  "I can't," she called back. "I already tried."

  I tried too. I visualized my house in Stony Brook and expected to step into a swirl of color and land back in my front yard. No go. We were still on the sidewalk, running from the clown on his motorcycle, who had regained his balance and was charging after us.

  "What happened?" Maggie asked, frightened. "Where are we?"

  I had no idea. All I understood was that there was no magical way out so we had to save ourselves the old-fashioned way.

  "Here!" I shouted, and pulled her into a narrow alley between buildings.

  We were in a neighborhood of brick buildings. None were more than four or five stories high with shops on the ground floors and apartments above. We sprinted along a narrow alley that I hoped emptied out onto the next street.

  I glanced back over my shoulder to see the guy on the motorcycle scream past the opening, going too fast to make the turn. His tires squealed on the pavement as he jammed on the brakes. In a few seconds he'd loop around and shoot in behind us.

  "We should talk to him," Maggie said, breathless.

  "Not if he's swinging that black sword," I replied. "Spirits can't be hurt, Cooper," she said.

  "Trust me, that sword hurts."

  I heard the motorcycle accelerate, the sound of the engine echoing through the stone canyon. He had entered the alley and was coming up fast. We were ten yards from daylight. We'd make it. But what then?

  We sprinted out of the alley into an empty parking lot. I looked around, desperate to find a place to hide.

  "Across the street," I said. "Into one of those stores."

  Maggie started running before I did. There was a small grocery on the far side of the street. I wanted to speed through, get out the back door, and then lose ourselves in whatever city we were in so we could figure out how to get back to our own visions.

  Maggie hit the sidewalk first and was about to run into the street when she stopped short and screamed. Another guy on a motorcycle cut her off. She had to dive backward out of his way and landed hard on her butt. I pulled her to her feet as a third motorcycle came at us and screeched to a stop, blocking us from crossing the street.

  I pulled Maggie to the right, ready to run along the sidewalk, but we were faced down by a fourth motorcycle that was speeding toward us, cutting off that route. I turned right again to see the first guy blasting out of the alley, headed our way. There was nowhere to go. All four motorcycles closed on us and circled, keeping us trapped between them. Maggie and I held on to each other, helpless.

  Nobody made a move to attack. It was like they were playing with us. They all rode Harley-style muscle bikes that made the pavement rumble. No two of them were dressed alike. The first guy who came at us with the sword wore dark clothes with a black cape that flew out behind him like some twisted superhero . . . and he was the most normal-looking one. Another guy looked to be wearing the same kind of leather armor that Damon's pals wore. A third guy had on what I can best describe as a clown suit. He had green and white striped pants and a loud red jacket. The last guy had on a business suit, complete with a perfectly tied tie. All four wore the same white grinning masks.

  And they all had black swords tucked into saddlebags. "Why can't we leave the vision?" Maggie whimpered. She was asking the wrong guy.

  Holding her around the waist, I made a slow move as if to walk out of the carousel of circling bikes, but the cape guy nudged me back with a quick turn of his front tire. The roar of four bikes made it impossible to talk, not that I would have known what to say. It was looking like my attempt to help Damon was already a miserable failure.

  The guy with the dark suit steered his bike toward us from behind, nudging us to walk toward the building on the far side of the parking lot we had just run through. The others moved to either side of us so that there was only one way we could go. Maggie and I exchanged looks and started walking toward the building, being escorted by the motorcycle clowns. There was no other option. I glanced to the alleyway we had just come through and calculated the possibility of making a run for it. It wasn't wide enough for more than one bike, but one bike would have been enough to run us down and skewer us. I figured it was best to go along and see what these guys were all about.

  As we walked closer to the building, a garage door began to rise directly in front of us. Whoever these guys were, they didn't want to wipe us out right away. Then again, maybe they wanted to do it in private. Which made me think: Where is everybody? Looking around, I realized that for a city neighborhood, it was strangely deserted. It made me wonder whose vision of the Black this really was. It definitely wasn't that of a soldier from ancient Macedonia.

  I expected to see a Watcher or two observing the show, but there wasn't a single one around.

  "I don't want to go in there," Maggie whimpered. She was shaking with fear.

  Every step brought us closer to the dark opening that led to an ominous-looking cave. If not for the swords, I may have taken a chance and jumped one of the riders, but I wanted to be around to fight another day.

  "I'll get us out of this, I swear," I whispered to Maggie as we stepped through the dark portal.

  What we found was a big garage that stretched up a few stories. Parked along one side were a dozen more bikes like the ones that were pushing us inside. I wondered if this was actually some bizarre biker gang and we'd stumbled onto their turf. The roar from the four bikes grew deafening. The throaty engine noise bounced every which way inside the large space. We were pushed to the center of the room, where the four bikers surrounded us again and, thankfully, killed their engines. It was like we had been inside a jet engine that suddenly became a library.

  Maggie and I stood still, waiting for one of them to make a move. The guy with the
cape swung his leg over his bike and strode toward us. He had long, curly black hair that framed the creepy mask. The others stayed on their bikes, watching silently. The cape guy stopped in front of us. He had left his sword back in the saddlebag of his bike. If things went south, I was ready to dive for the weapon and start swinging.

  I couldn't take the silence anymore so I asked, "You guys in the circus?"

  "Who are you?" the guy asked with a deep voice that was muffled by his mask. The mask may have been smiling, but he didn't sound happy.

  "My name's Cooper Foley. This is Maggie, uh…"

  "Salinger," she said, barely above a whisper.

  "Salinger," I repeated. "Maggie Salinger. Who are you?"

  I heard the squeal of a motor and turned to see the garage door slowly lowering. Maggie squeezed my hand. As ominous as that was, it wasn't the worst development. More people were arriving. They walked in slowly from other parts of the building, silently gathering to view the newcomers. Some arrived on small BMX-style bicycles but most were on foot. They moved in silently like they were filing into church. Each wore an odd costume. A few had old-time soldier uniforms. Some I recognized as being from the United States. Others I didn't know. I saw a Union soldier and a sailor. The rest meant nothing to me, though they all looked as if they came from different eras. The guys on bikes wore army fatigues. A few women wore floor-length gowns with big skirts and wigs, as if they were headed for an old-time ball. I saw a guy in a white lab coat, a frail man in a wheelchair wearing a judge's robe, a Viking-looking dude wearing animals skins, and another guy wearing a tuxedo. As bizarre as the scene was, it was made more so by the fact that everybody wore similar clown masks like they were all headed for Mardi Gras.