In a way, it’s more stock than a lot of what I’ve written, particularly for fantasy. At the same time, there’s more of a horror dimension than a lot of my fantasy work.

It’s also distinctive because it’s one of the few stories to involve Fort Baxter, a fictional Maine town along the Canadian border, meant to be my home town of Fort Kent with serial numbers filed sort of off and a fresh coat of paint over it.

I think I probably wrote this while I was finishing up college. I was really into the idea of language critical theory/linguistic critical theory/the sign-significator-significated trichotomy for a while then. I’m a little surprised this isn’t more pretentious than it is as a result.

Apropos of nothing, the lead is named Karin MacDougal.  In 1997, a Karen McDougal became a somewhat more-famous-than-usual Playboy Playmate and then Playmate of the Year. From the tone of this piece, I believe it was written at least four and possibly more years before 1997, so despite the name, this is not an homage to a hot chick.

Also apropos of nothing, I used to make homemade hot cocoa like is described in here.

*** *** *** ***

I was fourteen the first time I heard Uncle Roger use language.

He’s not my uncle. He isn’t even technically my stepfather’s brother. But they grew up together. They spend a lot of time talking. Well, Uncle Roger talks. Dad listens.

We were in the kitchen. I was making Nestle Quik. He was making tea. I heard a noise — like a tapping. It was a chickadee in the feeder, cracking open sunflower seeds with its little beak. I laughed when I saw it. Chickadees look so silly sometimes.

I must have scared it. It darted out of the feeder, landing on its small roof and looking all around itself. It looked sort of like a cartoon character. I laughed again, but Uncle Roger looked at me crossly. Then he leaned close to the glass and spoke through it to the bird.

I didn’t know the words he used, or what language they were in, but the bird cocked it’s head as though it were listening, looking in the house with one amber eye. And then it dropped back down into the feeder and started eating again.

I watched Uncle Roger as he crouched down a little near the window. He was looking at the chickadee, and whispered something. “Arrebee,” I think. It was tender, sort of,

And then he stood up, and took a deep breath. When he turned around, he didn’t look like my harmless old uncle. His brown eyes were deeper, some how.

“How did you coax him back down?” I asked. “Chickadees are scared easily.”

“Birds aren’t toys, Karin,” he said. “You shouldn’t treat them like they are.” And that was all he said about it.

I was seventeen the next time I heard Uncle Roger use language. He didn’t talk to birds that time.

I had more or less forgotten about the bird. It was weird but not too weird. But I had taken to paying more attention to the way Uncle Roger acted, especially when he thought no one was watching. How he would stare at things for a long time. How he would pick things up and heft them in his hand, like he was measuring them. I remember when my mother gave him a ceramic coffee cup her father had made for her. He spent ten minutes just looking at it, running his fingers along the cracks and patterns. There were times he held it to his ear, and tapped his finger on the rim. It made a hollow ringing sound that he repeated until he could hum the same note, about two octaves down.

And I had noticed the way he talked. The cadences he would get in his voice when he told a story or explained some piece of trivia. The way he built a joke up with words, or wove a musical web when he sang. I noticed these things more closely.

And once or twice, I noticed him noticing me. Seeing my interest, and weighing it like the coffee cup.

But anyhow, I was seventeen. It was October, I think, and pretty chilly. Fort Baxter gets snow in November most years. We’re far enough north so that we get a nasty gulfstream. I was mad, because my boyfriend, Brad, was supposed to give me a ride home. He had forgotten he had an evening shift at Andy’s, so he begged off.

My parents’ house is on Farmer Street, right off of College Street. But I was taking the back way since Brad lived downtown, over Village Square Fashions. It was faster to take the back streets, and I was cold and it was raining, sort of. But the back streets weren’t very well lit.

I wasn’t scared. There was no reason to be. Fort Baxter, Maine has a violent crime rate so close to zero it isn’t funny. Even near BaxState it’s pretty quiet. I was just mad and cold and damp.

The wind came in gusts, blowing my hair in my eyes. I pushed it back for the third or fourth time… and I knew I wasn’t alone.

I just knew. I can’t explain how or why. I knew someone was watching me. That they were following me. Or maybe I was crazy, but I started to walk faster.

I could hear boots on macadam behind me. I began to run.

Something dull shoved me in the small of the back. It didn’t hurt, but I pitched forward, scraping my knees. I screamed, but no one lived very close. The man landed on me, grabbing my shoulders and yanking me up. He thrust me down hard, then slammed me down again. I started to cry.

And everything got very quiet. The wind died. Even the rain stopped. My sobs and incoherent words seemed louder then they were.

The man yanked me onto my back. He was older — forty, maybe — wearing a parka and bonnet. It was too dark to see what color they were — he looked like any of the local loggers. “Shut up,” he snapped at me, looking around like a startled cat. I didn’t stop crying, of course, so he slapped me and shouted it at me.

I shut up, but not because he hit me. Something — some kind of sound or pressure — was building around us.

“Who’s there!” he shouted. His words echoed around us.

The wind stirred again, blowing brown leaves up into a dust devil. The trees seemed to be whispering. I could smell ozone.

“Who the Hell’s there!” my attacker shouted.

There was a sound — like the hum of train tracks before you could hear the train itself coming. Or a string bass being played with a metal bow. I felt goosebumps ripple on my flesh.

There were telephone poles stretching wire along the road. The metal pins and cable guides began to glow green with Saint Elmo’s fire. The smell of Ozone was everywhere, with a mettalic tinge to it.

With a clap of thunder that sounded like an explosion, the storm broke all around us. The wind ripped at us both, causing the man to roll off of me and wrap his hands over his head in terror.

And then I saw my Uncle Roger. He was walking towards us, arms outstretched and he was shouting something I couldn’t understand. It reminded me of Latin or Italian, but I knew it wasn’t either. He looked huge — more a part of the storm than a man caught in it.

He stabbed his finger at my attacker, screaming a word. A lightning bolt split the sky, stabbing Uncle Roger’s finger and reflecting off of it like a living tendril of light. It grounded into my attacker, and the man twisted and shook, his muscles locking.

I screamed again, and forced myself to my feet running. I wasn’t running for home or for Brad’s house. I just ran from what I couldn’t understand. The thunder tore all around me and the rain drove through my windbreaker, but I just kept going until I reached the woods. There were paths but I didn’t take them. Instead I just kept going, branches and boughs snapping at my feet until finally I collapsed, exhausted, and sobbed at the base of an oak tree.

When I finally cried myself out, the rain had stopped. I got up and turned around.

Uncle Roger was standing there, watching me. He didn’t look ten feet tall any more. He looked like the Uncle who used to tell me stories about Odysseus and Heracles. Like my favorite babysitter.

“You have to be cold, Karin,” he said to me.

“Uh huh,” I sniffed.

“Come on. Let’s get you warmed up. Everything’s okay. I promise.” He held his arms out to me, like my stepfather did when I was little and scared of the dark.

Slowly I went to him, and he wrapped his coat around my shoulders and led me through the maze of trees.

“Is he dead?” I asked Uncle Roger.

“Who?”

“The man. The man who attacked me.”

“No,” he said to me. “He isn’t dead. But he won’t be able to hurt you.”

I never found out what happened to the man. Uncle Roger led me to his house, where he cleaned the cuts I got from branches in the woods and checked me for broken bones. He gave me Hot Chocolate he made from scratch and called my folks to tell them I was okay.

I tried to ask him what he had done. How he had bent lightning and shouted up a storm. But he evaded me, for once quiet. As I was leaving, I turned back to him.

“Will you ever tell me what happened tonight?” I asked.

“When you know what questions to ask, I’ll answer them,” he said, and shut his door.

The next time I heard Uncle Roger use language, I was twenty.

I had tried to bring up the subject a number of times, of course. But Uncle Roger either misdirected my question into a different subject or failed to hear me. I cornered my stepfather once and asked him, point blank.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked me. He looked — maybe scared, or nervous. But mostly like I was prying into something private. Something almost embarresing.

“I saw him hit a man with lightning,” I said. “He shouted something and a lightning bolt wrapped around his hand and went where he wanted it to go.”

“Did the man deserve it?”

“He had knocked me over and… and was going to hurt me, I guess.” I had never told my folks about what had happened.

Dad got a slightly angry look on his face. “Did — are you… were you all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Before the guy could really hurt me, everything got all–”

“Don’t tell me,” Dad said. “I don’t need to know. Just… just remember this. If your Uncle Roger felt he had to attack that man to protect you, he had to. He never does anything he doesn’t have to.”

“But how did he do it?” I asked.

Dad got a far-away look on his face. “He went away for a while,” he said to me. “Somewhere on the West Coast, and then England.” He looked at me again. “After he came back… he could do strange things.”

“But–”

“If you want to know, you’ll have to ask him. I don’t know and I don’t want to. But I trust him.”

By the time I was a Junior at Bowdoin college, I had tried to find the right questions to ask Uncle Roger. I had studied folklore and mythology. Literature and anthropology. I had originally thought to major in communications, but consciously or unconsciously I had switched to English. A B to C student in High School, I was an A student in college. My parents were so proud of me. So was Uncle Roger, who himself taught English at Baxter State right in Fort Baxter. When I was home on breaks and during vacation, he would come over and talk about poetry with me. He spoke passionatly, making the subject come to life. And he showed me some of the poetry he had written and published, and asked to see mine. I don’t know how he knew I had been trying to write poetry, but he did.

When I was twenty I was in my senior year, home for Christmas break. I got in around eleven thirty at night and was met by the whole family. It had been a mild winter in Brunswick, where I went to college, so the thick blanket of snow that covered my home town was almost welcome. Winters should be full of snow and ice coating the trees. I stayed up half the night with my mother and stepfather before road fatigue drove me to bed. The next morning I woke up early, had a cup of coffee (I had taken it up at Bowdoin), and walked down Farmer Street to Uncle Roger’s house.

It was snowing. Big, white flakes that made the boundry between sky and ground suspect. I loved the snow. Growing up, snow meant sliding and snowball fights and skating and skiing. If it snowed hard enough, the school buses couldn’t get through and we had a snow day. Up in Northern Maine, the snow was your friend. So by the time I made it to Uncle Roger’s, I was in a really good mood.

There was a strange car in his driveway. A Lincoln Town Car, black. All Town Cars are black, I think. It had Massachusetts plates, so Uncle Roger had visitors. Relatives, maybe. They might have been over for Christmas.

I knocked and looked at the wreath on Uncle Roger’s door. The Jaycees sell them each year, and Uncle Roger paid for a good one. It was woven out of blue pine, with a cluster of broad pine cones in its center and a red ribbon tied in a bow beneath it. It was festive and homey all at once.

The door opened, and a strange blond man stared out at me.

I was almost shocked to see him. I didn’t recognize him, but somehow I felt… nervous. Frightened, almost. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and gold cufflinks. His hair was combed back and immaculate. His eyes were grey and they stared into mine like icicles.

“Yes?” he asked, his voice colder than the outside air.

“Is… um, is Professor Dalton here?”

“What is your business with Doctor Dalton?” he asked, almost mocking. As though he couldn’t believe I had business with ‘Doctor Dalton.’

“Edward,” my Uncle’s voice rang out sharply. “I don’t believe I made you my secretary, so please don’t screen my visitors.” He stepped into view, opening the door wide. “Karin!” he said warmly, opening his arms to me. I melted into them and hugged him, hard. “I had no idea you were back — you haven’t written to me in too long, young lady!”

“Hi Uncle Roger! I know, I know, but I’ve been awfully busy. Look, I can come back later if you’re busy–” I cast a cold look at ‘Edward.’ “–maybe when you’re alone.”

“Oh don’t mind Edward,” he said. “He’s an old friend of mine who’s unfortunate enough to be a lawyer in a large city. He sometimes forgets what human contact is like.”

“Yes,” Edward said crisply. “In my line of work, I get so little of it. Well, are you going to introduce me to your friend or should I go see what Porter is up to in the kitchen.” Edward’s voice was high — a tenor, maybe — and crisply British.

“Of course. Edward Chambers, this is my niece, Karin. Karin McDougal, this is an associate of mine late of Piccadilly, now of Boston.”

“Niece,” Edward asked with an upraised eyebrow. “I thought that – o-hooo… Frank McDougal’s daughter, of course.”

“Stepdaughter,” I said. It might have been unfair to a man who had served as my father since I was ten, but I couldn’t ever quite call him my real father. There were still days I missed my real father.

“Ah. Stepdaughter but not stepniece? Or have I misconstrued the relationship.” I felt a flash of annoyance and let go of my Uncle. I could tell I’d probably never like Edward Chambers late of Piccadilly.

“Probably,” my Uncle said lightly. “You misconstrue so much else in your day.” It sounded like Uncle Roger was joking, but Edward flinched like he were hit.

So there was tension between the two of them, too.

“Well, I’m off to get a paper,” Edward said. “I’ll let you two get reaquainted. I hope I won’t interrupt when I return. Porter!”

Porter was a large man in a black uniform. A chauffer, it looked like. The two of them left and I breathed a little easier.

“Sorry,” Uncle Roger said, walking towards the kitchen. “Edward’s rough around the edges. He grates on people, somewhat unintentionally. But he’s not a bad sort, really.”

“I can’t say I like him,” I said, sniffing. I had a minor cold — I got one every winter, and it was worse in Brunswick, near the coast. It didn’t get cold enough to throw the germs into remission.

“You don’t know him yet, Chickadee. When you know him, you can dislike him legitimately. Hot Cocoa?”

“Please! Thanks.” I grinned. Uncle Roger smiled and set about making it. He didn’t use Swiss Miss or Carnation. Instead, he got out baker’s chocolate and sugar and dry milk and blended them in the mug. The cocoa was thick and had money on top and was bittersweet instead of cloying. He asked about classes and we fell into a talk about William Blake, who I was studying in my Romantic and Victorian Poetry seminar.

Edward didn’t come back for quite a long time, and Uncle Roger didn’t seem to be giving him another thought, so I stayed for hours. Finally, around four thirty, I was staring into the fire (Uncle Roger had a Jørdül in his sitting room) while Uncle Roger made a phone call. I felt safe.

“Such a pretty little thing,” I heard whispered into my ear, and I jumped.

Edward Chambers smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Whatever,” I said tensly. “I better be going.”

“Wait a moment,” Chambers said. “Let me look at you.”

“I’ll be late for dinner,” I said, rising.

“Selth,” he said, his left hand blurring into what looked like American Sign Language. I felt a chill run down my spine and into my bones, and suddenly I couldn’t move. It didn’t feel like paralysis. It was like I had no idea how to tell my arms to push me off the couch. Like I had no idea how to make my legs lift me up.

Edward Chambers circled in front of me, those eyes piercing me. “You are lovely,” he said. “So pretty and fresh. But that’s not it, is it.” He seemed to be scrutinizing me. Not leering — or not much. But probing. Memorizing. Trying to learn as much about me as Uncle Roger had learned about the coffee cup, years before. “No… there are any number of girls as pretty or prettier.

“So what are you? A protegé? An apprentice? Your eyes are quick. Your voice is sweet. The potential is there… but is he going to use it?”

“Perhaps he is, and perhaps he isn’t,” my Uncle said, stepping into the room. “Either way, it’s no business of yours, Edward.” His voice was icy cold.

Edward laughed. “Call it professional interest,” he said.

“Release her.”

“Just answer a question or two first. Is she yours? Are you grooming her? For what? I thought you didn’t play our games, Roger.”

The two locked eyes. Uncle Roger made a pass, his hands twisting in that same American Sign Language varient. Chambers snapped his hands up, twisted into their own odd symbols. He whispered as he did it, and Uncle Roger’s forehead beaded with sweat.

“Eldorr Edward Cinjin Chambers aresti!” Uncle Roger shouted, and Edward’s hands and voice froze. “Orbitse.”

Edward’s eyes held Uncle Roger’s for a long moment, then looked to the floor. “Pandeth.” he said, sounding disgruntled.

“Alke ne porth Karin.” Uncle Roger said. It sounded like he was just talking.

Edward looked at me. “Anti se porth Karin?”

“Banne.”

“Tuke.” Edward spelled a word with his fingers, and suddenly I could move.

But I didn’t. I was scared and angry, all at once.

“I think perhaps you should go back to your Hotel,” Uncle Roger said to Edward.

“Perhaps,” he said. He glanced back at me. “She really has no clue, does she?”

“That depends on the mystery we’re discussing.”

Edward chuckled. “I do love your little word games, Roger. Well, say hello to Franklyn for me.”

“Francis. Frank to you.”

“Of course.” I noticed Porter for the first time — he was standing by the door with Edward’s coat. Edward took it and the two walked into the snowy twilight.

Uncle Roger settled heavily onto the couch in front of the fire. He looked weary. “I really am getting too old for this sort of thing,” he said.

“You’re not old,” I said quietly.

“Really? That’s good to know. I feel old, though.” He looked at me. “I owe you an apology. Edward’s actions were unconscienceable.”

“You owe me more than an apology,” I said, leaning forward. “I think you owe me an explaination.”

“When–”

“When I know the questions to ask, you’ll answer them. I heard you. Uncle Roger, three years ago you controlled the weather to protect me. Three minutes ago you made Chambers back down — I don’t know how. And Chambers froze me in place and made weird allegations about me. So don’t give me chaff about knowing what to ask. I don’t have the vocabulary to ask you what I need to know. Just tell me something.”

Uncle Roger looked wistful and bemused all at once. “That’s what it’s all about, really. Your vocabulary. When you have the words to ask, my answers would make sense.”

“What do–”

“But you’re right. I do owe you something. I just hadn’t thought we would reach this impasse quite yet. Something else I can thank dear Mister Chambers for.”

“You expected something like this to happen?” I asked.

“Not at all. I expected that something would happen that would lead us to talk. I just thought I had more time.”

He rose. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Sure.”

“Good.” He walked into the kitchen and I followed. “What do you want to know.”

“What can you do?”

Uncle Roger laughed. “My Vitae are quite extensive. Explaining all of them would take some time. For instance, I am a poet, I am an Associate Professor of English, which means I’m capable of critical work and of teaching. I–”

“You know what I mean!”

“Do I? If you don’t know what you mean, I can’t possibly know what you mean, Chickadee.”

“But — God, talking to you can be so frustrating.”

“Nolo Contende, Karin. I can’t make this easy for you, I’m afraid. If you’re going to get answers you can understand, you’ll have to ask questions that are specific enough for me to answer exactly. Otherwise, I’ll have no way of knowing what you can understand and what you can’t. If you want answers — ask.”

“All right. Magic. You can work magic, right?”

“Yes.” The answer was quiet and unpretentious, but it still shook me. It was confirmation that the world wasn’t what I thought it was. “And so can you and so can everyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone can work magic. In ways, everyone does work magic. You have a double-dozen magical experiences a day. When you twist the laces of your shoes into a bow, you’re casting a very minor sort of spell. When a man ties a windsor knot in his tie, he’s casting a varient. Tying a bow tie is a more advanced varient. And the Boy Scouts teach ropecraft that is very advanced indeed.”

“But… that’s not magic.”

“What is it, then?”

“Tying knots? It’s a skill. Something anyone can learn.”

“Really? I was a Boy Scout once, but I doubt I could even identify a sheepshank. I never really got past the square knot and the bowline, and I’ve never used a bowline in my life. My father was somewhat disappointed in me.”

This is a fragment — an incomplete chapter one of a book never written, dating back to the early 90′s. As with pretty much every science fiction writer who was once twenty, this was the beginning of my dystopia novel. Back in the days when I figured I was going to graduate school as a matter of course, I had seriously considered Utopia and Dystopia as a concentration and field of study. I was considering that alongside 19th and 20th Century American Poetry, of course. It never entered my head to go for a Ph.D. in the Modern Superhero Story, which is a pity since that’s what I’d clearly be able to nail.

To that end, I started writing my dystopia. I called it America the Beautiful, because I was very, very earnest about it. This was going to be a call to arms — a warning for the ages that would rank with Brave New World and 1984.

You know. Just like all the other dystopias out there.

Well, I never got out of the first chapter. But rereading the first chapter I’m a little amazed — as unsubtle as the title was, the opening, the establishment of tone and character… it’s better than I expected when I went back to reread this. I’m actually moderately interested in what Thomas’s story would turn out to be.

Not that we’ll ever find out. At least, if I ever pick this up, it’ll be significantly different than whatever I intended fifteen years ago.

There is one thing I like in this, as well. To me, a good dystopia — I mean, a really good and scary one — had to be compelling. You had to get the sense that the people living in that society were perfectly content to live in that society. I didn’t believe 1984 would ever happen for the sheer fact that if the entire world was uncomfortable and unhappy, someone would do something about it in a power bid. Brave New World was far more likely, because as scary as that would was, you could believe the people living in it enjoyed themselves. And when people were happy, they weren’t rebelling against the social order.

Anyhow. Here it is. I hope you like it.

*** *** *** ***

America the Beautiful

Chapter One

Thomas had been dreaming when the thunder woke him up. It had been a dream of sunshine and blue skys, in a field that was well mown, so that the smell of hay and grass hung in the air. It was a good smell. A healthy smell.

There were nervous voices all around Thomas. Chattering though it was hours after curfew. It was pitch black except for when the lightning flashed through the windows. There were twenty five windows in the room.

Thomas’s bunk was by a window. He had a window six months, then was placed across the aisle by the lockers. It was fair that way. Fair for everyone in the study cell. It was Thomas’s turn right now to be on the left side in the upper bunk by the window. Then he would be on the left side on the lower bunk by the lockers. Then on the right side on the lower bunk by the lockers, then by the window, and then back to where he was, but on the lower bunk. And then it would start over with him being on the left side in the upper bunk by the lockers, and the whole thing would start over.

There were eight bunks in a study cell. Eight students. And there were twenty-five study cells in a ward, which meant two hundred students per ward. The Hamilton institue had ten Beta wards, so there were two thousand students at the Beta level. Half male, half female.

The chattering was getting louder now, so the Voice-of-WorldNet spoke up. “Beta-stus of Ward Six,” it said in its cool, pleasant female voice. Half the time WorldNet was female, half the time it was male. “It is past the curfew hour. Talking keeps your fellow Beta-stus awake, and that is unfair to them. Please refrain from talking.”

The noise lessened slightly, but not much. There would be two more messages before the Hall Proctor would be summoned. Until then, there wouldn’t even be a record beyond `mild disturbance,’ and that was no big deal.

Thomas thought about his dream. It smelled like the playground back when he was a pupil at the Hall Primary Instruction Center. It had been thick with hay and warm air, out in the country, and students got to run in the fields during recess times. That had been some years ago. Thomas was sixteen now. Two years away from Tertiary Apprentiship. He had been at the Hamilton institute since he was thirteen.

There was another rumble of thunder. Thomas rolled over and faced the window. There was an old tree just outside the window. Old and a little twisted, but with a smattering of leaves still on it. It wasn’t dead. All the outside and inside lights were off, so he could only see the tree when the lightning flashed, giving him glimpses of bark, twig, leaf.

“Beta-stus of Ward Six,” the male voice said. “It is past curfew. By talking, you are acting in a divisionary manner. Please refrain.”

Thomas wondered what time it was. The active ID on his wrist had a chronometer, but at this hour of the evening he’d have to illuminate the dial to check the time, and that would make a record on WorldNet that he was awake and active. That might bring the Hall Proctor sooner, or it might mean a visit to a Medical Proctor to see if he were all right, since his usual routine was off.

Another flash of lightning. The tree branches looked ominous.

Thomas was in Bunk Sixty-Six Upper in Ward Six. Six and six and six were eighteen. One and eight were nine. Three threes made nine. Two threes made six. Three sixes made eighteen. Two three-threes made eighteen, and so did three two-threes. Thomas was sixteen, which together made seven, which had no divisors. It was a prime number. So was two and so was three, but not six, or nine, or sixteen or eighteen. Four fours made sixteen, and so did two eights. There were eight students in a study cell. There were forty students in a class, which was five eights. Five was a prime number. Thomas’s Study Cell was number Eighteen in Ward Six. Six and eighteen made twenty-four, or four sixes. It was also three eights. Factored, it was two by two by two by three. Three twos and a three. A two bracketed by threes.

The field had been warm, and there were children playing in it, and Thomas had been playing with them. He was sure of that, though he couldn’t remember the game. It might have been a counting game, because Thomas liked those. He liked them almost as much as he liked drawing.

Study cell eighteen was part of Class Four, Study Cells Sixteen through Twenty. They were Betas and all of them liked to draw. They were all good at it, too. Class Four was devoted to the draftsmen and the artists, who would one day be architechts and civil engineers, graphic designers and city planners. And of course illustrators and artists. Not too many artists — you didn’t need too many artists. But one or two, maybe. You needed more illustrators, of course. People to illustrate manuals and draw figures and diagrams. Cartoonists and animators to make amusements for the Gamma children and Delta adults. But artists — so called fine artists — weren’t needed in great numbers. Just a few. They worked for the Alphas and Betas.

The hay had been freshly mown, so it must have been late summer in his dream. That made sense. Everything made sense if you thought about it.

The tree glowed with the lightning. It was old and its branches were bare.

The funny thing about sleep was you never knew when it was going to happen. Thomas knew he had still been awake when the final warning sounded — the warning that got everyone to quiet down. He had been awake that long, staring out the window at the occasional flashes of light that let him see the tree. And he was sure he was awake longer than that, though he couldn’t check his active ID to know. He just lay there, staring and thinking about his dream and thinking about the numbers, and then the gentle tones of First Alarm was waking him up and it was six twenty-five in the morning.

It was thursday, so breakfast was oatmeal with skim milk, toast, a banana, three strawberries, a cup of tea or coffee — student’s preference — and juice. It was apple juice today. The oatmeal had brown sugar and maple syrup cooked in with it, so that it was like having a bowl of sweets for breakfast.

Each Ward filed into the messhall one after the other. Each Ward had five minutes to file through the line and collect their trays. They would sit at their wardroom tables, two tables per Ward with one hundred students each, and wait for the tone to sound. They then had twenty minutes to eat before the cleanup tone sounded and the Ward collected their trays and set them in the disposal. Ward One started collecting their trays at seven on the dot and began bussing them at twenty-five after, which was when Ward Six was collecting their trays. In that way, everyone had exactly the same amount of time to eat, which was only fair.

The chime to start eating, which was the same chime for Ward Seven to begin collecting their trays and for Ward Two to buss theirs. Breakfast was kept fast paced to discourage conversation. Later on, lunch and dinner would be leisurely, allowing Thomas and his classmates to discuss what they had learned in the day, what they had thought about this and that, and so forth. But at breakfast-time, you had to eat quickly and compose your thoughts for the day. Thomas’s thoughts were usually about what he was eating — that and counting chimes. They all had their active IDs on, of course — they didn’t come off — but with the passing of the years you just got used to listening for the chimes. Every five minutes, another would sound — Word Seven would start eating, while Ward Eight collected their trays and Ward Three would buss theirs. Then Eight would eat, Nine would collect, and Four would buss. Then Nine, Ten and Four. The next chime would be for Ward Ten to start eating and Ward Five to buss their trays, and then the chime would sound for Ward Six to buss their trays. It was for Ward Six alone, which Thomas liked though he knew he shouldn’t.

As soon as the tone sounded, Thomas dove into his oatmeal, the silver flash of the spoon’s bowl getting cut off as it cut into the brown oats, and then shoveled up the thick, warm paste into his mouth, and then back down, flashing of silver again. Up and down, up and down. It took twenty-three good sized spoonfuls to empty the bowl of all its oatmeal. Thomas had counted once.

Thomas usually ate his oatmeal first, on Thursdays. Then he would eat his toast, and then have his fruit with his tea, saving his juice for last. Today the strawberries were frozen — a little flake of ice in their center. It was wonderfully cold against his tongue, compared with the hot, red tea.

And then the juice. Cold against his teeth, washing out his mouth. He always finished with his juice, because he liked the feel of the cool liquid and he liked the tartness of the fruit, whether it was apple, orange or grapefruit. At the Hall School, the apple juice had been much sweeter, like syrup. This apple juice was tarter, and Thomas liked it very much.

So, this is another incomplete story — the first chapter of an extended fanfic I never wrote a second chapter for. As with a lot of fan fiction I did over the last decade or so, this one’s based on In Nomine, but rereading it now it seems to me it stands on its own, more or less. The non-In Nomine fan might not get every reference, but I think pretty much everything is explained by context. You don’t really need to know what Essence is, for example — just that it’s useful, souls have it and demons want it.

Shal Mari appeared in my last In Nomine story here as well — Shal Mari Apres Vie: Or This Ain’t Bat Country. As with that story, Shal Mari is the grand city of Hell — the closest thing Hell comes to a nice place or a good face. Only, naturally, it’s Hell so it’s neither nice nor good in the end. There was some feeling, back a few years, that Heaven and Hell were woefully underdescribed in the official supplements, and this was one of my drivers for writing the Shal Mari Blues. I wanted to talk about… well, Hell, from the point of view of the poor schmuck condemned to it. And, because I find societies interesting, I wanted to actually examine the society that would form around damnation. Especially when damned souls themselves were valuable to demons without themselves being of value to demons.

Anyway, this is a story about Hell, so expect nasty language, concepts, mature themes and all the rest. But then, the site does have a disclaimer, now doesn’t it?

*** *** *** ***

Four months, three days. Dave had felt every second of it. It was one of the things he hated about Hell. Nothing ever helped you pass the time. Nothing ever made even a second of it better. It was like a paper cut — it didn’t incapacitate you, but no matter what you did you just couldn’t ignore it.

You don’t sleep in Hell. Rest doesn’t seem restful, and it’s not like a Damned Soul can find a bed or even a mat. Most of them huddled around stoops or doorsteps or even the ground and tried to pretend they were sleeping. Others — the ones who bought into the Shal Mari package — hustled or scrounged or stole Essence, so they could get into one of the hotels or brothels and enjoy the thrills that lay before them, only to get thrown out when their essence ran dry.

Dave had been told he had it good. The souls in Abbadon wandered the blasted plains and waited to be torn to shreds. The souls of Hades were chesspieces — pawns of the lowest strata of demon. You just didn’t talk about Gehenna. Shal Mari was supposed to be the ‘good’ choice. The lucky souls ended up there.

Lucky.

Dave kept his eyes down as he walked, hands in his pockets. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Just keep moving. Don’t let the demons know you had Essence. Don’t be drawn into the Casinos or the Brothels or the Theaters. Don’t don’t don’t look distinctive. A few more days, and he’d be full up with Essence. That’s what he wanted. He could do things with Essence. Some of those things even some of the demons couldn’t do.

You asked for this, he thought bitterly to himself. You chose your own damn Fate.

He wondered sometimes what had happened to the others. Not the Soldiers. He knew what happened to them. He’d shot Skip and Warren himself. He’d watched the Djinn tear Abby’s head off. All dead, in the service to the Lord. Either they made their Destinies and even now were enjoying the eternal delights or they didn’t and they were put back to the head of the queue, waiting for their chance to try again.

Chance. Dave had a chance, and he bought into propaganda. He’d be a big shot one day, they said. And he’d enjoy eternal pleasures, at the hands and mouths of Andreaphulus’s finest.

Enjoy eternal pleasures, he thought, stepping around a drunk Calabite on the street who had a death lock on a female damned soul, who looked battered and bloodied and despairing. So long as you can pay for them. So long as you can enjoy them.

“Hey!”

Dave blinked and looked up. A Djinn, long bodied and beaked, ratlike with some hint of bird in there, was glaring at him. “I was eating that.”

Dave looked down. He’d walked through something. Organs of some sort. One of his fellow souls, torn to bits by the Djinn’s attentions. But not torn apart to his Forces. Oh no, that’s too simple. He’d get better. He’d probably felt Dave walking on his small intestines.

Fuck him — Dave had worse troubles. “A thousand pardons, bold Lord,” he said, bowing slightly. “I would be happy to pay you for your lo–”

The Djinn snarled forward, tossing his head to one side and throwing Dave into the wall of the tenement they were next to. “Shut up, you pig — what are you? Oh — you’re a lustie, aren’t you? One of their little pets. I hate lusties!”

Dave spat out blood. His body’d been cut up and drained of fluid and burned at the public expense, probably three months back, but down here he had blood and bones that could break. Break and get better. Blood that wouldn’t stop flowing, and only a scar would remain. “I–”

The Djinn slammed a hoof-like foot into Dave, then another, and spun and kicked him back into the wall. There wasn’t much force behind the kick — Dave was probably more powerful than the Djinn. He almost certainly knew more Songs. But that was a loser’s game. You didn’t try to pull rank on demons. You endured. Oh God don’t let him eat me….

Something warm slopped onto Dave’s back. Warm and slick and smelly. The Djinn was expressing his opinion of lusties it seemed. His warm, brown opinion. Dave could hear the Djinn laughing as he walked down the street.

Eternal pleasure. An eternity of pampering, hand and foot. The rewards of betrayal. The fruits of Fate.

New clothes, a bath, perfuming… this would cost Dave a fortune.

#

“I don’t get why we can’t sleep.”

Dave stared down into his coffee cup. New guy. Sure, he’d only been in Hell a few months himself, but he knew more than the average, and you soaked the lessons up fast.

“What would you want to sleep for,” Fast Johnnie said. “You know how many nights I wished I didn’t need to sleep, back topside? There’s so much you can do when you’re not sleeping….”

“I like sleeping.” The new guy pouted, eating his burger. Idiot — meat cost a lot, and there wasn’t any reason to eat it. You didn’t get hungry after all. Well, not physically. Maybe he hadn’t figured out what they made hamburger out of, down here. Cows don’t go to Hell, you know….

“Well, stop worrying about it. There’s no damn good for it. So shut up.” Fast Johnnie slurped his soup. The cafe was one of several along Fecundity Way — “human joints,” a Balseraph once told Dave derisively. “The greasy spoons of the damned.”

Dave liked the Spread Legs Cafe. Sure, there were nude dancers on the platforms, but they were damned souls, not demons, and they couldn’t care less if you tipped or even watched. The owner was an old lustie soul named Miranda. She claimed Shakespeare wrote the Tempest about her. Dave thought she was full of shit but who cared? He liked places demons felt above going into. That’s why he spent precious drops of Essence on coffee. You had to be a customer to be in the Spread Legs.

“I thought they were supposed to torture us,” the new guy was saying. “It’s like they only notice us to beat us, but if we have Essence we can get anything. They’ll fuck us, they’ll perform for us, they’ll give us work….”

“Bible-thumper,” Fast Eddie snorted. He turned away from the New Guy, putting him out of his world, and walked over to the stage where Amber was dancing. He got out his sax and started playing along with the music. Amber grinned and danced to his beat.

“Bible thumper?” the guy asked. “What did he–”

“You a Christian?” Dave asked, finally.

“Huh? Well, yeah. I mean, I didn’t really believe, but now that I’m in Hell… I mean, you can’t–”

“Look. Let’s say God or Jesus or whoever did write the Bible or inspire it to be written. In what way do they speak for Hell? In what way does Hell have to do what they say?”

The guy stuck his lip out. “What about those Angels? I saw them when they were herding me in–”

“Last angels you’ll ever see,” Dave said. “They keep the riff raff out, and it would take a Prince to tear them down, and they’re not about to. Look — if you really want to be tormented you could ask to be transferred to Abbadon or the right parts of Hades. If you want someone to torture you in Shal Mari you’ll have to pay for it like everyone else. The demons have better things to do than pay attention to you.”

“Or you?”

“Damn straight. If we’re lucky.” Dave finished his coffee and rattled a spoon against the mug. Tina walked over with the hot pot and refilled it.

“So why can’t we sleep, if they care so much.”

“Sleep is an escape.”

“But you said–”

“Shut up and listen.” Dave was annoyed. He didn’t have time for this. “Sleep is an escape. Not of your sad sorry life but of Hell. When someone sleeps, they go somewhere else. Purgatory, or dreamland, or whatever the Hell you want to call it. The Marches, the demons call it. The angels too. So of course we can’t sleep, and neither can the demons unless they work for the Princess of Nightmares or they’re up on Earth. It would be a way out, and there’s no way out.”

The guy stared, and looked down at his burger. “Oh.”

“‘Oh.’ Je-sus Christ.” Dave sipped more of his coffee.

“So… how do you know so much?”

“Fast Johnnie’s right. You’re an idiot.” Dave finished this cup. “It’ll cost you.”

“What?”

“You’ve got Essence coming out of your ears, or you wouldn’t be eating a burger. Or you’re really stupid, but either way — I want some. One note’ll do.”

The guy looked a bit horrified. “I… I thought only the demons could–”

“You want an answer or not?”

He nodded.

“Then fork it over.”

They touched, celestial hand to celestial hand. Dave felt it… the soft touch of luck and creativity, flowing to him like drops of water falling on the forehead of a fever. He withdrew his hand slowly. “I worked for them, back topside.”

The guy blinked. “What? You worked for demons?”

“Ultimately. Most of the time I worked for angels. Learned a lot from them. About the nature of the universe, ways to change it… what Essence is and what it’s for. Lots.” Dave leaned back. “So I got the naked truth, kid.”

The guy looked stunned. “Then… why are you here?”

“The demons made a better offer. Or so I thought at the time.”

“You… betrayed angels?”

“Knife right in the back, yup. It was a slaughter.”

“How could you do that?”

Dave laughed. It was a bitter laugh. “Destiny and fate, boy. Destiny and fate. They made it seem worth my while at the time. What did you do to come down here, mm? Must have been pretty good.”

The guy flushed. “I shouldn’t be here. I went to church, I gave to the United Way, I held doors for old ladies–”

“I thought you said you didn’t believe. So what bad thing did you do?”

The guy’s voice was soft. “He was bleeding to death and I let him die. I was scared of AIDS. I don’t know why that was so bad….”

Dave snorted. “He was probably destined to cure AIDS or something. So, nice and selfish act, coupled with whatever the guy could have done if you saved him, but you didn’t. Good bye.”

“Wait! You promised me answers–”

“You asked how I knew so much. I told you.”

“But — my Essence… that was my last–”

“My heart bleeds.” Dave headed for the door and pushed through, waving at Tina as he went. Not bad. One Essence for coffee. One back from a moron who’d be torn into Forces before too long. Not bad at all.

#They found Dave on the steps of a flophouse, staring up into the eternal reddish ceiling. It was always night in Shal Mari — the lights of the city reflecting off a roof that was Christ only knew how far up. One big cavern. Three of them. A Balseraph leading a couple of female Impudites. Good looking ones — well built, one in a leather thong and bikini, the other in some kind of black toga thing.

“David Masters?”

Dave sat up, then bowed his head. Servitors of Lust — technically, he worked for them. As much as anyone worked for anyone in Shal Mari. “I am honored, Lord.”

“Polite. You are wise. You were a Soldier of Hell, yes?”

“That was my honor, Lord.”

“I’m certain it was.” He judged Dave. “Mm — seven Forces, it seems. Where did you get that extra one?”

“My Lord, if it pleases, it was part of the deal I struck with my Masters on Earth.”

“Deal? But the sixth would be — oh… oh, you were a Soldier of God, and they converted you to the cause….” the Balseraph slithered a bit, managing to look smug and gathering his wings about himself. There were rubies set into them at regular paces. This one was powerful. “Excellent. You have been summoned.”

“Summoned?”

“Mm. Yes. Yes, and I believe I know why now. But never no mind. Come.”

Dave rose. The two Impudites of Lust bracketed him. Maybe he’d offended the wrong person and was about to learn just how Hellish the accommodations could get. Maybe he’d be torn apart — or have his sixth and seventh Forces pulled from him. They’d remembered them now. That had to be a bad sign….

“Mm,” one of the Impudites purred. The toga one. “You’re a handsome one, aren’t you? I can see why you were made a Soldier.”

“Thank you, Lady,” Dave murmured.

“I could just eat you up,” she continued, smiling slowly. Impudites. They were what had gotten Dave into this mess in the first place. She’d be after his Essence. He had to….

No, they hadn’t touched him. Not yet, anyhow — so they were working for someone Badder than they were. That scared Dave. But everything made him at least a little nervous. That was part of being sane in Hell.

They were inside of one of the Casinos now, walking past the gambling and the damned souls and occasional out of favor demoness in the bits of lace serving drinks. Dave could hear the joys and lights and sounds all around. The desperate damned screaming and rolling the dice — feeling just for this moment like winners, like they’re on top of the world, like the demons work for them. In here, you didn’t say Lord or Lady to the help. It’s what tripped you up outside — the rules kept changing.

“Come on baby!” a damned soul shouted, pumping his hand at the Roulette wheel and shouting at his victory. The Balseraph that had draped herself over him licked at his neck contentedly and he cuddled her. Snake or not, they were alluring… because they weren’t snakes. Dave remembered that every time he really looked at one. And they could make you believe they were just what you wanted….

They went through a skybridge over the alleyways. Below, Dave could see a bunch of Calabim tearing at someone. The new guy — the one from the cafe. He must have pissed them off. It’s not hard. How he’d wandered into one of the inner circles, Dave didn’t know. Shal Mari was all one layer of Hell, but you could go deeper and deeper into it… where the damned were worth less and less, and the demons were uglier and angrier and meaner and hungrier.

“Eyes forward,” the Balseraph purred. “You’re not interested in that, are you?” And Dave wasn’t. Not at all. He absently wondered if he ever had been or not — with a Balseraph, belief was slippery and so was the truth. And it wasn’t worth fighting for. Not now. Not ever. What good is truth in Hell. Truth just gets you depressed.

They were in what looked like an office complex. Right down to cubicles and middle management. The damned souls in here wore collars of silk or leather, and skimpy clothing. Well, the demons weren’t much more dressed. Servitors of Lust, Dave thought. I’m in Andrealphus’s domain.

“Master,” the Balseraph hissed to an amorphous Shedite, flowing out of a cubicle at their approach. “We found him.”

“Took you long enough,” the Shedite giggled. “What’s the matter, Ippy? Mm? Get… distracted?”

The Balseraph bristled. “He doesn’t work and he rarely spends time amusing himself. He’s rather anti-social. We had to ask around.”

“Well, go on then. I’ll bring him to the Captain.”

Dave took a deep breath. He didn’t know much about the upper hierarchy of Andrealphus’s Servitors, but there was a noble structure in Hell. You soaked it in with every boot-kick. Knights serve Captains, who serve Barons. If a Captain were interested in him….

What if it were the Game? When he’d first arrived, the Game had… Soldiers know things, and he had betrayed Heaven. They told him he’d been there for less than a week, but it’d felt like years before he’d been given over to the Lusties.

Why would the Game care about him? He was nothing and he knew he was nothing. He deferred to demons and he didn’t use his Songs for anything but healing and to–

The door opened. He knew her at a glance. The black leather wings, the red horns — they didn’t change the face that had burned itself into him six months before. Her lush body, her bright blue eyes, that golden hair.

“Julie?” he whispered.

“Captain Yuliya,” the Shedite said. “Is this the one you wanted?”

“Mmm,” she looked him up and down. “Well, he’s looked better. Never could match his shoes to his shirt, but what can you do, mm? That will be all.”

Dave stared at the Impudite for a long moment, mouth open, as the Shedite made his way out, leaving the pair alone in the ornate office. “Well, Dave — it has been a while, hasn’t it.”

“Yes,” he swallowed, his lips dry. “Four months and three days. Nearly four now, L-lady.”

“Oh, don’t call me Lady. We’re old friends, aren’t we Dave? Mm?” She ran her hand along his shoulders. “Well, you’ve been hoarding Essence, haven’t you? Oh — no no. Don’t be so flinchy. I’m quite well off that way for the moment.” She smiled a hair.

“L– Julie… why… do you–”

“Please — Yuliya. After all, we’re not on Earth now, are we?” She laughed a touch, smiling. A predator’s smile. “And why? Well, can’t I want to see you, mm? I like you, Davy-boy. After all, you got me my Captaincy. Well — your assistance did. Besides, I have some work for you. You’ll like it.” She paused, pursing her lips. “What is that smell?“

Why do we get spam email that’s complete gibberish or random sentences from books strung together?

Streon’s question is a good one. He is careful, by the by, to differentiate between the spam e-mail that uses a block of gibberish like a shield, allowing the spamful content to slide in when we least expect it and tell the wife and children that you can have a large penis and low mortgage rates all at once. No, these are the e-mails that are nothing but sentences from books, nonsense phrases, bits of semi-comprehensible detritus and semiliterate ranting.

It is Streon’s thesis, unstated, that there must be some meaning behind these random e-mails. Some purpose.

As it works out, he’s half right.

Entirely right, I suppose, if one extends the defintion of the word “meaning,” but for the most part I don’t think that’s the right word for it. But that, as you can imagine, is a matter for the myth.

*** *** *** ***

Dale’s background was more interesting than many. He was a linguist, and a computer programmer, and had a solid background in both psychology and sociology. He spoke four languages and could curse in a fifth. He was good at math most people found hard to deal with, and he was a capable and able teacher.

You’ve met Dale, or someone like him. That person who just seems to be good at everything he tries. That person who you’d love to hate, but he seemed so legitimately nice all at the same time. That person who was handsome, charming, committed, reasonable — even heroic in the right circumstances.

Dale’s one failing, if you could call it that, was a persistant belief that one man could make the world — the whole world — a better place. And with that belief came a corralary: one had a responsibility to try his very best to do just that.

In Dale’s case, he saw the internet as the key.

“It’s like this,” he told his friend Sandy. They were out to eat at a Pizza Hut bistro, sharing garlic bread. He had the Chicken Cacciatore. She had bistro nachoes. “What’s the worst problem facing the world today?”

“War,” Sandy replied. “Or hunger. Yeah, hunger.”

“Both symptoms of the same core problem. Try again.”

Sandy frowned. “Population?”

“Indirectly right but not the core of it.”

“Wow, am I sick of playing this game.” She scooped up meat and cheese on a chip.

Dale chuckled. “Sorry. It’s communication.”

Sandy paused. “Communication.”

“Absolutely.” He leaned forward. “Think about it. When two people have a disagreement, at the core they lack a complete understanding of the issue. They lack an understanding of the other guy’s position. They lack empathy for each other’s point of view.”

“You think wars and hunger come from a lack of communication?”

“At its heart? Absolutely.” He spooned up some chicken and marinara. “Think about it. Wars come because two sides have different points of view. Different philosophies.”

“You call ‘I want that land’ a philosophical difference?”

“Deep down, you bet.”

“And hunger?”

“If everyone involved — the hungry people, the producers of food, the distributors… everyone — had a real clear comprehension of everyone else’s position, allowances would be made, production and distribution would improve, and before you know it–”

“You’re nuts,” Sandy said. “People are contrary. They get mad at each other.”

“People get mad because they don’t get each other. If they did–”

Sandy rolled her eyes. “That’s overly simplistic,” she said.

“Yes. Yes it is.” Dale leaned forward. “Because you have to understand — I can’t convey the concepts that I see so clearly in my head to you. Not directly. And you can’t convey your objections clearly to me — not in a way that lets us distill the two sides and find what common ground may be between them.” He leaned forward. “That’s the entire point. That’s what keeps us apart. If we could communicate — really communicate — we would come to a consensus between us. We would understand each other and have some middle ground we could both live with.”

Sandy shrugged. “Sounds a little pie in the sky, but okay. So what do you intend to do about it?”

Dale smiled a bit. “That’s where the net comes in,” he said. “You know from social networking, right? Livejournal? Facebook? Friendster?”

“I’ve been awake and online sometime in the last six years, yes.”

“Look deeper than the surface. These places are a reflection of something innate to mankind. We all have a need, deep down, to form communities. To organize. To find those of like mind, those interested in the same activities, and often possessing the same or similar mindsets.”

“We seek our own kind?” Sandy said, somewhat dubiously. “You sound like an episode of Star Trek.”

“Maybe, but it’s the truth.” Dale smiled a bit. “So, think about the programming and the technology behind eHarmony. Compatibility engines and personality matching. Think about the social aspects of Facebook — the interactive elements. The ways that users are encouraged to play with each other every time they check in. The ways they can communicate beyond simply writing e-mails or instant messages on them.”

Sandy frowned. “It’s… meant to fill in some of the nonverbal cues and gaps.”

“Right. And it’s meant to convey meaning. So. Couple those, and then think about babelfish.”

“Babelfish? Douglas Adams or Altavista?”

“Altavista.”

Sandy shook her head, laughing. “Man, remember when Altavista was going to be the search engine of choice. These days I don’t know anyone who uses it except for babelfi–”

“Not my point.” Dale stabbed chicken with his fork. “This applies as much to any online translator. Or to Google’s ability to translate web pages into other languages. Algorithmic and idiomatic translation is a holy grail on the web, because it fulfills a promise of the web.”

“What promise is that?”

“Global community. A sense that the whole world is one big happy place.”

Despite herself, Sandy smiled a touch. Dale could tell she was interested. “So. What’s your grand plan?”

“It’s not just mine, but the question is — why can’t we develop a real convergence of software and technology on this stuff?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning social networking taken to its logical extreme. Meaning personality and compatibility assessment, interactivity, community building, alternate modes of meaning, and idiomatic translation in real time. It would take years, and a lot of people coming together, but with the internet is there a reason we can’t have an engine for real communication change? A place where meaning and intention can be conveyed, closing the gaps that keep us separate?”

“You’re describing the ultimate website.” Sandy half-smiled. “A place where teenagers from all over the world can come together and pretend to have grammatically improbable sex, regardless of language, race or creed?”

Dale grinned. “At first. But those teenagers grow up, Sandy. And if they’re using it to begin with, by the time they’re twenty… or thirty, or forty… then they’ll have pushed the community or whatever community follows it even farther. They’ll drive evolution and they’ll force it into new areas. What starts as a distraction can become a real instrument of communication. Of negotiation. Of change. And if not this year or next year, then one day it can be an engine that unifies the world — that takes all the cultural and personal variables and conveys them in a form we can understand, so that we can communicate whole intent as naturally as you and I are talking right now.”

Sandy frowned. “I don’t think that’s possible,” she said.

Dale’s smile grew. “You just watch me.”

The sourceforge project was called Minaret. It was open source, and there were any number of interested parties drawn into the concept. Still, at the heart it was entirely Dale’s. He set the development milestones. He coded the engine. He developed the translation algorithms, working to find ways to broaden the code to cover different languages, and then different families of languages. The first alpha had ways to suggest activities. The second took those suggestions and turned them into games. As more people tried it, Dale refined it.

The community grew. Each week brought new development. And each new development brought more people. And more people brought more suggestions and, in some cases, more development. Dale was thrilled. He was working long hours but it was all coming together.

It was inevitable that venture capital would come calling. Different groups expressed an interest. Dale insisted that the source code would remain open, but the community surrounding even the earliest versions of Minaret made money men hungry. Some seed money, some opportunity for Dale to leave his job and work full time on Minaret — some chances for the dream to be given form and make a few bucks in the process? Oh yeah. Dale was down with that.

The most promising meeting came at sundown on a Friday. It was when Dale could get time off to meet the money man, and the money man seemed pretty happy to do it then. Dale got out of his day job. He had a light meal. He got to the meeting on time.

The money man wore a black suit with a red tie. He carried a black mahogany walking stick with a crystal on the end. “Dale? Hi there.” He stood, offering a hand. His handshake was firm, but not overpowering. “I’m Mister Shepherd, of the Shinar Group. Thanks for seeing me.”

“No problem,” Dale said. “You guys seem really interested in Minaret.” He grinned. “It’s kind of a wild feeling, you know?”

“Is it?” Mister Shepherd’s smile was warm and easy.

“Absolutely. I mean… I really believe in Minaret. I really think this can have an impact on the world. I really think that as it develops, everything will develop with it.”

“I know you do,” Mister Shepherd said, not losing his smile. His eyes, however, seemed perhaps a touch sad. Or perhaps it was just a trick of the light.

“And to have you guys come in with an offer — to make this a real company, and make this something that can really happen — happen with server space, with bandwidth, with–”

“We’re prepared to offer you eleven point seven million dollars for exclusive development,” Mister Shepherd broke.

Dale blinked. “What?”

“Eleven point seven million dollars, but you have to agree to develop under our auspices or not at all.” Mister Shepherd leaned back. “That’s all right, isn’t it?”

“The… source code is open source,” Dale said. “Anyone can develop it further.”

“Sure, but the source code isn’t you,” Mister Shepherd said. “Sure, someone else can develop the code, but the real heart and soul of Minaret is you.”

Dale swallowed. “And… you’re willing to offer me almost twelve million dollars… for what? To develop it for your company only? To make it closed source?”

“No, Dale. We’re offering you almost twelve million dollars… to only develop it when we give you the go-ahead.”

Dale blinked again. “I… would need your assurance that you wouldn’t interfere with my ability to keep working on Minaret.”

Mister Shepherd’s smile slipped a little. “I’m afraid that’s the one assurance I can’t give you, Dale.”

“What? Why not?”

“There’s a lot of market factors at work here, Dale. We need to ensure that product development is carefully controlled to ensure that certain conditions remain optimal, now and into the future.”

Dale frowned. “Meaning what? In plain English.”

Mister Shepherd smiled again. “Meaning we’d ask you to walk away from social networking projects for a while. Until things were ready.”

“And you would define when they’re ready?”

“That’s right.”

“And that could be never?”

Mister Shepherd’s smile didn’t waiver. “Dale, we’re offering you eleven point seven million dollars. What are the chances we would pay you that kind of money and then not let you develop your software?”

Dale narrowed his eyes. “I’m pretty sure the chances are pretty good, Mister Shepherd. I’m pretty sure you mean to pour money into this project specifically to make sure I never work on it again.”

Mister Shepherd chuckled. “Do you have any idea how paranoid you sound?” he asked.

“Yeah. But I don’t care. I’m sorry, Mister Shepherd. No deal.”

Mister Shepherd looked at Dale a long moment. And Dale had the sudden feeling Mister Shepherd felt sorry for him. But the moment passed and Mister Shepherd chuckled. “Well, we had to try, Dale. Have a good night.”

Dale thanked Mister Shepherd, and made his way out.

He had almost made it home when he was picked up. It was another man in a black suit. His tie was yellow instead of red. And unlike Mister Shepherd, he didn’t smile at all. He just walked up behind Dale and took his arm. His grip was like a vice, and he walked Dale even faster into Dale’s own apartment building.

“What’s going on?” Dale demanded. “Where are you taking me?”

“Home,” the man said. His voice had almost no inflection at all.

“Let go of me! Help! Help!”

“No one can hear you,” he said, opening Dale’s security door. It was unlocked, even though it was never unlocked.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“My name is Mister Crook,” he said, and opened Dale’s door. He half threw Dale inside.

“What’s going on?” Dale demanded.

Mister Crook looked at Dale, and he began to recite. “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, ‘Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

“What the Hell? Are you quoting the Bible to me?”

“Genesis,” Mister Crook said evenly. “Chapter Eleven, Verse Five. You should know the story. You of all people* should know the story.”

Dale blinked, pushing himself up. “I don’t,” he said. “If you people are some kind of cult, leave me out of it.”

“You’re already in it,” Mister Crook said, walking into the room and pulling the door shut. “You were the moment you went against the order of things.”

“The order of things?”

“As the Book says, Dale. ‘Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the Earth.”

Dale blinked. “Wait… the Tower of Babel? You’re telling me the story of the Tower of Babel?”

“The language of man was confounded and confused, so men wouldn’t know each other’s minds. He was spread all over the world, so he wouldn’t come into one community. Confusion was spread to keep men apart, so they wouldn’t come together and build their tower.”

“But why?”

“Because to build the tower — to come together and really understand each other — is to become as Gods yourselves.” Mister Crook straightened his lapels “And you have to understand. You don’t get to do that without the say-so from the current residents.”

“You’re telling me you work for God? And he told you to stop me? You insane son of a–”

Mister Crook moved fluidly, backhanding Dale, who slid across the floor, pain flooding him.

“Jesus,” Dale half-sobbed.

“Do I work for God? Who is God? Or who are the Gods? Who knows. It doesn’t matter. You’re done with this project.”

“What? You’re going to threaten me? You’re going to kill me?”

Mister Crook snorted. “Of course not.”

“Then what?”

“Same as before,” Mister Crook said, walking to the door. “You would build a community where all language is one and intentions are clear? The result isn’t Minaret, Dale. It’s Babel.” He opened the door. “You’ll find that your needs are attended to. Your fridge will be stocked. You’ll have nice things. The lights and cable will stay on. You’ll even have net access.”

Dale pushed up. “What the Hell are you–”

“Good bye, Dale.” Mister Crook stepped through the door. “For what it’s worth? You would have succeeded.”

By the time Dale reached the door, Mister Crook had already closed it. And when Dale tried to open it, the knob wouldn’t turn, the door wouldn’t rattle… he couldn’t even see light or feel air from underneath it. It was as if the Door were just an odd decoration on the wall.

Dale ran to the telephone and picked it up. The tone buzzed. He punched in 911.

“Boxcar cheese fishmonger,” a bored voice said. “Salmon entrails Arphax’ad horticulture?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“The doctor accepted quite readily the theory that Mrs. Vandemeyer had accidentally taken an overdose of chloral,” the dispatch operator said. “Dr. Hall, I am very anxious to find a certain young lady for the purpose of obtaining a statement from her. I have reason to believe that she has been at one time or another in your establishment at Bournemouth. I hope I am transgressing no professional etiquette in questioning you on the subject?”

“Hello? Hello?”

The phone went dead.

And so it went. Dale realized quite quickly that if he made phone calls — whether to friends, to strangers, or to authorities — they would sound like nonsense. Since no one ever came looking for him, he had to assume that he sounded the same to them. His door wouldn’t open, and his windows showed nothing but fog with strange distant lights behind it. And as for the internet….

He could go to any site. He could do whatever he wanted there. But when he added a comment to items or sent an e-mail, no matter how reasoned, when he hit submit it was clear no one could understand a thing he typed. He intuited that his comments looked like more of the same — deranged, almost aphasic ramblings. The same when he instant messaged anyone.

Desperately, he tried to compensate for this in Minaret. Minaret, even in its early alpha state, was designed to make communication and intent possible where normally it would fail. But he discovered to his horror that as he uploaded new modules or packages, those people following Minaret were stunned and shocked at the incoherence in the code. And when he compiled Minaret and uploaded a new version to his server, it became clear that somehow, the very intent behind it had become corrupt. As it worked out, no one could understand each other with his new version. No one at all.

Tearfully, Dale rolled back to the previous version. At least then people could continue to use what he had built. And that seemed to work out for other folks — it lacked the grand design Dale had envisioned, so clearly the Shinar Group didn’t care about it.

And that became the basis of Dale’s last hope. Because the modules were out there, and it was open source, and more to the point the theory was out there. Which meant someone might still work on it. Someone might solve it, maybe working under the radar, before the Shinar Group knew what they were up to.

And he knew, with an almost religious faith, that if someone developed Minaret or something like it… Dale could communicate through it.

And so Dale tries. He tries every day. He sends e-mail out to broad lists of people. Lists he downloads or culls from the internet. Lists he sends out using all the spamming tools he can find. Perhaps he’s gone insane, but he has to cling to that hope — that hope that someone out there has picked up the work. The hope that someone has an algorithm that can figure out what he means to say.

His message is always the same. It gives his name, and his former address, and explains that he needs the help of the reader. That he doesn’t want money — but that the reader’s technology can decrypt, decipher or translate what appears to be ramblings to anyone else, and Dale desperately needs to access it. It is a plea for help, for companionship — for someone to talk to.

Anyone.

Sadly, to this date no one has developed the tools to decipher what Dale is saying in his e-mails. Instead, they come across as bits of novels, or nonsense phrases, or downright insanity. Sometimes spam filters screen them out, but it’s hard to work out if they’re random or not — at least for a machine. So a good number make it through.

Where they are read, and sometimes joked about, and then deleted.

Dale, undaunted, keeps trying. It’s that or watch television all the time, and he can’t do that. He can’t give up. He knows someone will manage it. He knows someone will hear him.

In the end, the core of the problem is always communication, after all.

Nobilis is one of the primary influences on my Mythology series, though it is (generally) a darker take on it. Humanity mixes with the divine, assuming Estates and powers, and entering into a very genteel warfare between different ‘familias’ of nobility among the demigods.

This is as typical a Nobilis story as I can think of. And I think it stands on its own. If not… um… well, please accept my hope that you win the lottery.

*** *** ***

I remember when first I truly established myself among the Nobilis….

He was drunk, which is never wise for the Nobilis. Alcohol in quantity ruined the judgment and loosened the tongue, and every Dominus had sentences best left unsaid within them.

In this case, the somewhat ox-like Marquis of the Scent was the unfortunate soul who sopped up drink after drink. His boorish behavior had not gone unnoticed by our host – the fair Domina of the West Wind had wrinkled her flawless nose at the boor, and expertly manuvered her guests like leaves in the breeze, until the very newest and least influential of her guests was left to listen to his mewlings.

Which is where I entered the story I am telling. While I was mature in years, it had been less than eight months since I had liberated my enchained heart from Helena’s by consuming hers. Given the unorthodox nature of my entry into Noble society, it was hardly surprising that I had been given a weather eye to that point.

“You,” Hasdrubal Barca said, stabbing toward me with the lit end of his cigar. “You’re the one that did the Redtooth to old Helena Cross, aren’t you?”

I allowed that I was, fingering the smooth, polished bone I wore at my throat. It was a small finger bone – delicate, like the hand of a child. Or a woman.

“Hah! Well enough. The old bitch was a curse on decent society. She dug up innuendos and skeletons – dragging them out at the worst possible moments. You don’t see history that way, do you?”

“I tend to focus on the forces of historical inevitability,” I demurred. There was no point in describing what arsenal I might bring to bear against my foes.

“Hah!” he shouted again. I refused to wince at the boor. “Good enough! It doesn’t mean anything, but what does, eh? Half the blasted Powers you meet have poetry for Estates. Mrph. What’s your name, boy?”

I didn’t rise to that, either. Newly Noble or not, I was hardly a boy. “Miles Cornwall, Lord Barca.”

“Cornwall,” he said, his drunken maw twisting into a dubious shape. “British?”

“American. But primarily of British descent.”

“Pah!” he said, draining his drink and scowling. “Another blasted Brit. Do you know — do you know — that I am the only Carthaginian among the Nobilis?”

“Truly,” I asked. I truly didn’t care, particularly after being so rudely dismissed, but when one is low in the pecking order, one must guard his tongue. I’d learned that much in my academic career before my rapid ascent into Godhood.

“Truly! And it is well known that Carthage is the very jewel of the world! The greatest, most significant land in all your precious history!” He swept his arms out expansively at this, knocking over a glass which a zephyr swept down to clean up. “The Nobilis should be a thousand Carthaginians strong, standing shoulder to shoulder against the Excrucians. Instead — look at them! Frenchmen, British, Americans. Carthage has withstood the very test of time, weathered the centuries, and forever planted their flag atop their enemies.”

“Well, aside from World War II,” I said mildly.

“Pah!” he snapped again. “An abberation. We were deluded by Fascism and the promises of Germans. We were the vanguard of civilization, the founders of empire. None stand before us.” He took another long drink, and waved a bearer over to refill his glass. “Carthage stands eternal, bright and glorious! She could stand before the assembled might of the world, and give them a lesson they could never forget. And should Heaven itself turn against them, the noble men of Carthage could stand before the assembled Nobilis themselves — stand and prevail!”

There was a sudden hush in the room, which Hasdrubal Barca ignored, drinking his freshened drink.

“Surely,” I said slowly and carefully, “you exaggerate.”

“I do not,” he snapped back. “Give me a Carthaginian Army and I could sweep through any Locus I desired, taking what I would. We would follow the hunt like dogs, and prove our supremacy before all who would challenge us.”

“Enough,” Michael Corbett, the Duke of Furniture and one of Barca’s Familia, had stepped close and taken him by the arm. “Viscount,” he nodded to me, somewhat dismissively, and pulled his fellow away. “You’re drunk,” he hissed, “and stupid. Let’s go.”

I watched them leave, considering softly, rubbing my thumb and forefinger along the finger bone at my throat.

***

There are two sides to all things. That which is real, and that which is myth. Mine seems on the surface to be a very dry, real Estate, grounded in Prosaic study. However, History is, in many ways, nothing but mythology codified and agreed upon. The national mythologies become the official history. The legendary figures become the Founding Fathers. George Washington throws silver dollars across mighty rivers and chops down cherry trees without telling lies, and is called historical.If one looks within Mythic Reality, one can find the thunderous Force of History. It is a river, far too broad for General Washington to hope to hurl any coin. The spirits of history sport and play throughout it, but none impede it. History is inevitable. It is undammable. It is undivertable. One can try to use its power, but it is all too easy to be sucked in and swept away.

That is its power. That is also its glory.

For some weeks, I poured over Carthagian history — the rise and fall of Carthage’s dominance. The Holy Carthagian Empire. The Catholic Church’s growing dominance. I saw how powerful it became, and how that power might wane later on… I saw how ther Gods had influenced the world, and their example had become a part of Western Civilization.

And I found where their History was weak — ultimately finding the weakest of points in their past. And then I gathered up my strength, and used the Rites to move some of the power of my Aspect into my Estate. I gripped the finger bone in my hands and climbed to the high peaks, and lifted my hand up high and cried out the thunderous, devestating, ultimate Word — the Word that split open the heavens and called down thunderous power through me. Power that split and injured and left me weak and bloodied. Power that can change the World.

I did not divert the River of History. It carried events to the same place. But some tributaries could be washed away, couldn’t they?

***

It was three days after my Word of Command before my door was slammed in. The servents brought the furious Dominus to my sitting room, where I was slowly recovering from the deep injury. My other guests waited just out of the room. One must prepare these things.”You,” he snarled. “What have you done? What have you done?”

“Lord Barca,” I said lightly. “May I offer you some cognac? Or perhaps a cigar?”

“You can tell me what has happened, before I break you in two, little Redtooth,” he thundered.

“What has happened,” I said, mildly. “That’s simple enough. After some hundreds of years of contesting dominance of the West Mediterranean with Rome, Carthage was divided among its various political powers, allowing for its defenses to be sundered and the city to be destroyed by Rome in the Third Punic War.”

“There was no Third Punic War. Rome declined before Carthaginian Commerce and became a holding in–”

“Read history, Lord Barca. Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus destroyed Carthage in 147 B.C.E. Rome then rose to conquer the known world, and profoundly influenced the course of Western Civilization.”

“You… would destroy history this way? Why?”

“History cannot be so easily destroyed, Lord Barca. Look again. The Holy Roman Empire spread through the Middle Ages. The Roman Catholic Church dominated Christianity until the Reformation. Italy even fell under Fascism and stood with the Axis in the Second World War. All remains the same… save that Carthage has not been a part of it.”

The bullish man stared at me, his face turning different colors in rage and fear, before finally he managed to speak. “Why,” he rasped. “Why would you do this?”

“Because you offended me, Hasdrubal Broca. You mocked my lineage. You mocked my Estate. And you dared to claim your mortal countrymen could stand against the Gods. And because you were foolish enough…” I lifted my hand, holding a crisp bloom of the Flower of the Scent, “…to let your guard down.”

I closed my hand, hard, twisting and nettling Broca. And we drunk deep of his Carthaginian Pride, so solidly descecrated and destroyed now. His very Familia yielded up their strength to mine, in the flush of the moment.

Broca stared as he realized the depths of what had happened. “You’re dead,” he finally breathed. “I’ll kill you now, oh weak little Redtooth–”

Weakened and injured from my Word of Command, I still arched an eyebrow. The mansion was rocked by thunder. “I am Warden of my Locus,” I said, my voice echoing with power. “You beard me in the seat of my power. Do you truly dare to challenge me here?”

Broca dropped his clenched fist, then pointed, letting fly his rage. “I’ve the scent of you now, little man,” he shouted. “I will harry and hound you forevermore. I will break your anchors and sunder your very Estate, and you will break before me! Do you hear me? Do you?”

“Oh, Hasdrubal, do you deny you claimed that the Carthaginian people — mortal men all — were superior to the very Nobilis? And given that, how can you claim injury at all?”

“I stand by all I said! Carthage could and would destroy your damnable Chancel, and the least of Carthage’s sons is higher than you, you worm!”

I watched my other guests quietly enter. “You speak treason against the Code Fidelitatis,” I murmured to the infuriated Dominus. “Treat no beast as thy lord.”

His answer was cut off by the hand falling, hard, upon his shoulder. His anger turned to fear as he recognized Lord Entropy’s dog. “Rosewood,” he murmured.

“You’ll come with us now,” Hugh Rosewood said. “Won’t you?”

Broca looked at me — a look of pure hatred, of malice given form within his skin and eyes — but nodded, and followed the hunters from the Locust Court out.

And this is where the story ends. My Familia, once I had made my plan clear to them, had given certain considerations to the Locust Court. They gambled my plan would work, and the windfall of my Nettle Rite would strengthen us all, and supported me before and after. Broca’s Familia, while not happy to have their own strength reduced, knew Broca’s treason had been half-shouted throughout a room, and were as happy to have him removed with as little fuss as possible. The Domina of the West Wind contributed her own bribe — she hadn’t forgiven him for the damage to her party. And so, soon enough the last son of Carthage joined his brothers in destruction.

And as for me? I had my satisfaction. I had the strength of the Nettle Rite. And following this experience, I had the respect of my fellows in the Nobilis. No longer was my commencement’s method of interest — merely my methods and attitudes. And finally, I had the warm feeling that boorish behavior had been rewarded appropriately.

It is never wise to be drunk among the Nobilis.

I actually think this is a pretty good story. Good enough that I’m sad it has absolutely no prospects for sale, since it’s fan fiction and it’s very vested in the In Nomine intellectual property. It’s also something I wrote as kind of a culmination on the work I did on In Nomine Superiors 4: Rogues to Riches. I wrote an extended writeup of Alaemon, the Demon Prince of Secrets.

This is a story of one Alaemon’s demons. A calabite — one of the demons of destruction, who can destroy with a glance (though the universe — or Symphony — would take notice). Paranoia is a part of daily life in Alaemon’s Conspiracy.

Most everything else should be self explanatory. If not, ask a question in comments and I’ll try to answer it.

*** *** *** ***

Antonio
The Calabite’s Song

He lay on the bed, with no sheet or blanket. He was never cold, and he never slept. The stereo was broken, so he couldn’t listen to music. He didn’t have a television. The newspapers were stacked in the corner. He restacked them every now and again, and it was coming due. Clothing was piled everywhere, with the smell of dorm clothes on the floor. Pizza boxes and the remnants of a few get-togethers lay around the room too.

He never slept. Sleeping left you open. Nightmares waited for you to sleep, to learn things about you. And when they learned things about you, they used them against you. Knowledge was life. Knowledge was death.

So he laid on the bed in the dark, pretending to sleep. His suitemate would come through, and he had to fit the part. And he stared up into the darkness, seeing the lights from Boston streets far below playing across the ceiling. And he saw, and if he did not sleep, still he dreamed, looking into the play of the shadows and light. He dreamed of the pain in his soul pouring through the instrument’s crack, flowing and curling out as whirls of flame, destroying and consuming all that they touched. He dreamed of the fire curling into circles as they tore through the walls of the dormitory, of the cars on the streets, of the mortals as they fled. Human flesh tearing itself apart around the spinning wheels of fire, and the boy at the center screaming out his rage and pain in sympathy, eyes looking at a blood-red sky… he lay in the bed and watched the spinning wheels of fire, playing in the shadows of light and darkness–

The music jarred him. So did the shouts. He sat up slowly, rubbing his arms against each other. The bastards in 202 again. It was a Tuesday. Did they have to have a party every night?

He should be glad. The sound would help him get through the night. But damn it, he hated techno. He shivered and stood, finding his dirty jeans and pulling them on. He ran a hair through his straggly hair — a shower and conditioner would make it look pretty good, but those were hours ago, and nothing lasted very long. Nothing. He stumbled to the door — he didn’t have to, he was very agile, but you had to assume someone was watching. You always had to assume someone was watching. So he had to live the role and in the role, he was just out of bed and overtired, so he had to stumble. He kicked a pizza box out of his way and pushed into the hall, pulling his grey flannel shirt around him. He liked the grey. It looked all right, rumpled and dirty. It made him look artistic.

He nearly cracked the wood of the door with his knock. He took a breath and found his center. He wasn’t here to do any damage. Not so close to home. You had to be careful. And no matter how much he might want to, he didn’t have the right to just kill them. He needed orders for that. Orders that came from unexpected sources.

“Yo?” The door was pulled open, Rob sticking his head out. “Oh, if it isn’t Tony.”

“It’s after twelve thirty,” he said. His name wasn’t Tony, technically. But you didn’t tell your real name. Not to humans. Not even to your fellows. He even called himself Antonio now, though his Lord knew his real name, and who knows who else might. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Whatever, fuckwad. You wanna beer?”

“I want you to shut that crap off.”

“Tough guy. Hey yo guys! Tony here wants us to shut this crap off!”

There was a chorus of laughter in the room. Five or six boys and girls in there. All drinking and laughing. He could see Angie Rocker was down to her bra and jeans, giggling and drunk.

“Wow, Tony — I guess you’re outvoted, aren’t you.”

“I’ll get the RA,” Tony said. He didn’t threaten to tear Rob’s eyes from their sockets and ram his belt ends into it. He didn’t threaten to force the blinded, screaming twenty year old to run down the hall, ridden by Tony as he held the belt like a bridle. He didn’t threaten to force Angie to drink blood from Rob’s still warm heart, then leave their ripped open corpses among the glittering wreckage of Rob’s CD collection.

“Yeah, why don’t you get your momma while you’re at it.” Rob laughed, touching wolfpac to the guy next to him.

Tony didn’t react. To react would be to kill them, and he wasn’t allowed to do that. “I’d like to go back to bed.”

“Oh baby, that gets me so hot,” Nina Danner said, grabbing her crotch and breast, wiggling at him and laughing. All their pathetic dominance games. Idiot humans and their idiot meat bodies.

“Just quiet down, fucker,” Tony mumbled. The role didn’t let him be tough. It’d be out of character. That let him hide away until he was needed. It kept the Angels off his ass and the Game looking for other people. So far as he knew. Play the part….

“Yeah, right.” Rob slammed the door, no doubt to look like an idiot some more, pretending he was a tough black ganger instead of a jewish white boy from Connecticut, driving a beater Honda.

Honda….

Tony walked back into his room and grabbed his key, tied to a long shoelace so he could drape it over his head. He grabbed his backpack. He was angry. Oh yes, he was angry — he wanted to tear their heads off and throw their corpses to the street. But it wasn’t a bad thing, either. It was logical for Tony to be pissed off. Logical he’d simmer and decide to go for a walk — maybe stay out all night. College students pulled those stunts when they were humiliated. And that meant he didn’t have to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling until six A.M. He could go out for a while, get some food and wander the streets, and then come back to shower and clean up before taking his morning walk before class. The walk was important. He was scheduled for the Charles Riverside up to the B.U. Beach then back down Commonwealth route today, six-thirty-six to seven-twenty, before hitting the C.L.A. building.

Five hours or so he could be out. Perfect. Especially since Nina lived on North Campus, and they’d give her a ride back. They always did, even though it was maybe twenty minutes on foot to get there. But she’d be very drunk…

Tony made sure the door was locked before heading for the stairs. He never took the elevator even though his room was on six. He shuffled down to the bottom, half-skipping down, and waved at the bored security guards who watched the door. Out to the street, looking both ways for the Honda.

It wasn’t on Comm Ave directly. He walked to the corner and looked dow– there. Sloppily parked halfway to Bay State Road down the side street. Tony half smiled, looking at it. He didn’t approach it. He didn’t have to walk near it, really. Just see it. See it and think about it, and feel the ache in his arms and up his spine — the crack in his soul that hungered to tear people apart, feel them die, watch their horror as their life boiled out of them….

He felt the ache and reached out with it, but muted it. His Lord’s gift let him use his resonance without visible cause. That gift let him reach into the Honda, ruining delicate electrical equipment, misaligning valves, cracking the bottom of the battery and the oil pan, clogging the fuel line and knocking the fuses out, one by one even as the transmission ever so silently died, a hint of a ripple in the Symphony its death cry….

Petty. And foolish. But there was no way to trace the death of the Honda to Tony. That was his Lord’s gift as well. An Angel could have been in the car and not known where the waves of silent death came from. He allowed himself to smile as he walked through Kenmore Square, looking around. He ducked into the subway tunnel, using it as a corridor to walk across to the other side without fighting traffic or lights, and headed up to hit the IHOP.

He sat in the booth near the window, drinking stagnant coffee and sketching in his sketchbook. He could see the small group walking. It had to be three in the morning. He could see, just barely, them get into the car. He half smiled, sketching the woman who was wiping off the IHOP’s counter. He could imagine Rob swearing, slapping his hand on the dashboard, getting more and more upset as nothing seemed to work. He knew the car was sitting by a meter. Come the morning they’d have to feed quarters or get tickets. And nothing — nothing could bring that car back to life. Any mechanic would tell him to scrap it and hope for the best.

It wasn’t as good as murder. Nothing was as good as murder. But it would do. He nodded as the woman came back and filled his coffee back to the top, leaving a new carafe. “What you got there, hon,” she asked.

“Just a fast sketch,” he said, turning the book to show her.

“Oh jeez,” she said, half-smiling. “That ain’t bad. That ain’t bad at all. You got a good eye, you know that?”

“Thanks,” he said.

The walk came after the shower. He had combed his hair carefully, and found a tee shirt and jeans that weren’t total messes. He didn’t have to look too good as a college student, but it made things easier to not reek. The sunlight on the Charles river was beautiful… it reminded him of his daydream the night before — circles of fire in the sky–

No, best not even to think about them. He half-smiled to a couple of girls sitting on a bench, smoking. That early morning cigarette, curling into their lungs to start their days up. He turned to watch them as he walked, getting a half-smile in return. He couldn’t care less about getting that smile, but he had to give the opportunity, in case he was–

He collided with a black runner, the two being thrown to the ground by the impact. Tony shouted out, resisting the sudden, driving need to kill that flooded into his thoughts instinctively.

“What the Hell’s wrong with you,” the black man snapped angrily, shoving at Tony’s chest and knocking Tony back down.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Tony snapped back. “Jesus — it was an accident!”

“An accident. Oh yeah, it was an accident.” The runner got to his feet. “You just watch your damn step, all right? Stop watching women instead of the road.”

“Whatever,” Tony snarled, getting up too and walking away, anger in his step now.

He clutched a piece of paper in his hand, tightly, handed over by the runner as they fell. He didn’t look at it. He kept it in his hand as he walked through the square, past the chapel and around to the classroom building. He kept clutching it as he hit the Men’s room, sitting in the third stall. He never sat in the same bathroom stall two days in a row — you had to vary your pattern, in case you were being watched. He dropped his pants and sat down, and only then did he open the note, shielding it from above with his body.

"B Line to Park Street, 2:47."

Tony looked at the paper for a long moment, then stood, dropping it into the toilet. He focused on it, letting his resonance into it. It had just a hint of the artifact to it — enough to make it as out of place as he was, so it’d make no noise as the paper crinkled and browned into dust that instantly became mud in the water. He flushed the toilet and watched it wash away, curling into a circle of clear and dirty water. An infinitely spinning wheel….

So. He had to take the 1:36 C Line train to Government Center, where he’d catch whatever the next movie was at the Hoyts just around from the station. They had something for him. Or it was a trap and he was blown. Either way worked. He ran his hand through his hair, which was still wet, and buckled his belt. He had to get to class.

Intermediate Drawing. Two hundred level. The room stank of charcoal and sweat and turpentine. The bench was uncomfortable, the easel back at a good angle. Tony filled in the shading on his piece. It was a freehand assignment — creativity unleashed, his teacher called it. Professor Goodwin believed in the right side of the brain and unleashing whatever you found. She didn’t like it when you found everyday things to draw.

“Oh Tony,” she said, passing close.

“You don’t like it,” Tony muttered.

“Oh, it’s beautifully drawn. Please understand that. But… it’s a boy looking out a window. I thought maybe you could be more… fantastic. Really evocative. Really let your soul out.”

“I don’t think I have a soul,” Tony said. It was a lie. He was all soul, poured into a meat body. But lying was part of what Tony did. What Tony had to do.

“Everyone has soul, Tony. I just wish you wouldn’t be so representational all the time.”

“But — Ms. Goodwin, there is creativity here.”

Tony blinked. Ellen Foley was leaning over. “See,” she said, “look at his eyes. They almost look like embers.” She pointed. “He’s not just looking, he’s smoldering. And look how the shadows are clinging to the walls. The figure is trapped, can’t you see? He can see freedom, but he’s trapped. Confined. Like a candle that’s been hooded or…”

“Now please, Ellen,” Professor Goodwin said. “All right, I guess I can see some of that, but let me be the judge of creativity.” She moved on with clipped motion.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Tony murmured, looking at his own sketch. She was right. The eyes were burning. The shadows confining.

“I wanted to,” Ellen said with a grin. “She’s so up on the magic of imagination, you know, but if you don’t do it her way, it’s not being distinctive, or something.”

“You’re rebelling against the establishment,” Tony asked with a slight smile.

“Something like that, Mister Marks. Something like that. Are all your figures trapped?”

Tony looked over at her. “That depends on what you consider trapped,” he murmured.

“How zen.” She smiled a bit more, leaning back over her sketchbook. Tony angled to look at it. It was a flower, but with a human face, screaming at a shadow over it. “What do you see, mm?”

“Is it about to be pruned, or is it about to be peed on,” he asked.

Ellen giggled. “I hope peed on,” she said. “But let’s face it, pruned is more likely.”

Tony smiled a bit more, and moved back to his own drawing. He continued to fill it in, darkening the shadows a touch and touching the kneaded eraser to the windowsill, softening it as though it had a slight glow of its own.

“Hey, you want to grab lunch later,” Ellen said. “Say, around one, one-thirty?”

Tony paused, and looked back forward. “Are you hitting on me,” he asked, a slightly teasing smile on his face.

“Oh, c’mon. Can’t a girl ask a guy to lunch without hitting on him?” She didn’t look unhappy. “I’m just thinking hot dogs or Captain Nemo’s or something.”

“Captain Nemo’s? That’s botulism on a plate,” Tony snorted. “How about dinner instead? We could splurge and go to Burger King, say four-thirty?”

“Mmmmmaybe.” She smiled a bit more.

“All right, class,” Professor Goodwin said. “Fifteen minutes off — let’s be back at nine-forty, shall we?”

“Hey,” Tony said, as the students began to stand and stretch, “can I take a picture of your sketch?”

“A picture?” Ellen looked a bit surprised.

Tony nodded, pulling his digital camera out. It was one of the cheap ones, though it did take flash memory. He focused, the other students moving past. One ducked in and waved before moving on.

“I’m going to get a drink and hit the bathroom. Be gentle with it, ‘kay?”

“I’m always gentle,” Tony said, nodding to her. She left and he snapped the picture. He then glanced at her, walking out the door. A pretty girl. Sweet, in her eyes.

Tony slowly reached for the sketchbook, and pulled the last page back over. It was a random sketch page — people’s faces, a soda can, a newspaper on a table… He took another picture, then pulled the next page over and took a picture of that, too. He knew the other students in the room saw him get permission, so he could get away with it. Another picture, and another, and another….

Tony dropped his head against the plastic window of the C Line train. There was a bit of squiggly graffiti at the front of the car, but mostly the car was just the polychromatic kitsch of the blue and red plastic seats, the fake wood paneling. The cheap cardboard ads for foreign language schools and Cooperative Extension. Men and women piled on the seats, all ignoring each other.

Tony watched the walls of the tunnel pass, lights intermittently passing by like flares. Like he was running through the streets, coasting with speed, whirling like the wheels of the subway car on the rail, leaving sparks in his path…

The car squealed as it rounded the corner and came to a stop. The speaker scowled unintelligibly. Tony pushed up, wiping his hands on his shirt. It had charcoal and pencil dust on it. Without those, it would just be dirty. Everything was dirty. He walked off the train, ignoring the tear in the seat cushion he’d just been on. It was just another torn seat on the C line. Nothing very interesting.

He climbed up the stairs, hoisting his backpack behind him. The strap was frayed — he’d need to cut a new one sometime soon. He went through two or three a semester, usually.

The theater was dark, and nearly empty. That’s why it was chosen, of course. A bad movie in the middle of the day — perfect. But there were five or six people waiting to watch John Travolta flush his career down the toilet. Including two in the seats four down from the upper left corner of the room. That wouldn’t do. They were laughing, getting their food out, ready to mock the bad movie, laughing and pointing, the boy lifting his drink towards the screen–

Tony watched the drink, and half-smiled as it exploded in the guy’s hand, drenching the two in ice and watered down coke. His date shrieked, and they both stood, trying to wipe themselves down. He watched them stumble out, the girl yelling at her date as they went. He waited until they were gone, then moved to the seats. Their wet coats and her purse were still there. He lifted the coats up and leaned forward, dropping them two rows forward. Her purse he tucked into his lap as he sat down. The seat was damp but he didn’t care. He looked through it. Lipsticks, condoms, tissues, wallet, driver’s license… he took a fast picture of the contents with the digital camera — despite its looks it handled low light well, and he began to take pictures of the addresses in her address book….

Movement in the corner of his eye made him drop the book back in the purse. He closed it and dropped it to the floor, kicking it down the two rows to where the rest of their stuff was. They looked at him for a second, before the guy saw their coats and they walked down. If they examined them, they’d figure out they were moved, but they weren’t likely to care that much. He also slipped the girl’s driver’s license into his pocket, smoothly. It was valuable to her, and it had her social security number as well. He had to hide something of value each day, collecting secrets carefully.

Stolen secrets never looked like they were stolen. Even if she couldn’t find her driver’s license, she wouldn’t believe anyone stole it but left her credit cards. She’d never believe anyone went through her address book. Random? Maybe — but still–

A small man slid into the seat next to Tony — too close for coincidence. His contact or his doom.

“It’s a bad movie, I hear,” he murmured.

“Yeah. But loud.”

“Loud noise covers soft words.”

“But soft words do more damage.”

“The seat’s wet, Florin.”

Tony shrugged. “Mine’s no better. Hasn’t the Revolution endured worse than wet asses and bad movies?”

The newcomer looked at the screen. “Perhaps not this bad,” he said quietly. “Are the humans supposed to wear the nose clips or is John Travolta supposed to wear them?”

Tony shrugged again.

The newcomer passed packets to Tony. “The Revolution has missions for your cell,” he murmured. “Pass these to those you have recruited and lead in our glorious struggle, my friend.”

Tony slipped each into an inner pocket inside his flannel shirt. “And for me?”

“Is not the struggle of your cell your struggle?” the contact asked quietly, even as he slipped a fourth packet to Tony. Tony glanced at him. He was small, and dark, with mustache and close cropped hair. Tony had never seen him before, at least not in that vessel. He wasn’t likely to see him again, even though his own Revolution cell leader must have sent him.

“Have I ever failed to meet my responsibilities,” Tony asked in answer. It was the nature of Secrets — the one bond they all shared. You never answered a question directly. You never told the whole truth. You never exposed yourself. You never implicated yourself. This might be his contact for the Revolution, or a Game agent, or a spy from another faction of Secrets, or his Lord himself in disguise. This might be an Angel. But nothing Tony said directly implicated himself, and nothing his contact said implicated him. Not directly. Tony had been doing this for centuries. Conversational judo was a part of him. He doubted he could give a straight answer if he wanted to.

The contact didn’t answer. He watched for a moment, before leaning over. “I want some popcorn. You want some popcorn?”

“I like Milk Duds,” Tony whispered back.

“All right then. I’ll be right back. Peace, Florin.”

The newcomer slipped to the aisle and out of the theater. Tony leaned back and tried to get into the plot of the movie. The contact wouldn’t be back, of course. Tony would probably never see him again. It was as if they were just links in a chain. Points of connection. Packets in a network. Tony came to rest, and then received information. Some of the data would stay with him, and some would move down the line to Tony’s Revolution recruits. And some of his recruits would pass instructions down to their recruits, and some would stay with them. And somewhere down that line the information would get blown.

Or perhaps get blown closer to home…

Tony remembered how it used to be. He remembered Vienna in 1830, whispering in alleyways and smelling dirty canals, with bits of penmanship passed on parchment and seals with duplicate seals of higher officials, to throw off the scent. He remembered France in 1918, passing communiqués and taking missions. He remembered London in 1962, moving between unhappy men in hornrimmed glasses and three button suits. He remembered caring, passionately. Every movement and every mission, every murder and every order.

He was sitting on the T again. This time the Red Line, heading out past Harvard and M.I.T. It was a dangerous part of town — the Jeanites had this part of town, with bits of other Angels too. Lust had a tether out here too, or so he thought. But it was far away from his own stomping grounds and off his usual paths, so it would be less likely he’d be observed, unless he was being followed. He hadn’t seen anyone, though. Not yet.

He slipped out at the Davis stop, moving off to the edge of the platform and swerving into the brick-clad restroom. All too normal. He took the packets out, and began opening, scanning information. Memorizing. Learning what the Revolution wanted him to direct his three recruits to do. Intricate instructions, arcane and perhaps contradictory — but that’s how it would be. At least one set of instructions was a blind, so Tony couldn’t figure out a pattern to the instructions. And no doubt there was missing information as well. All part of the job. All status quo. Instructions to check out a C.E.O. who’d been taking day sails to Bar Harbor but logging himself throughout Penobscot Bay. Instructions to find out who killed a boy in Vermont. Instructions to learn who influenced a movie reviewer to give a bad movie a good review, and why. At a guess, the last was the most important. The middle was the blind. The first was moderate priority. All would be collected by the Revolution, filtered, added to their treasury of Secrets. Somewhere, the Lord of Secrets may have idly asked about the atypical movie review, and a Servitor started the chain of events through the Revolution to learn the truth before the Master did, or perhaps to be the one to tell the Master.

Tony didn’t know. He’d never know. He wouldn’t even hear the reports his cell gave. Except of course he had other informants — ones of his own — and would learn what he could from there.

He took out his camera and began taking pictures, one of each page. The flash memory held up to thirty-six pictures. He snapped to thirty-five, then popped the chip out and put in a new one, continuing his work. A picture of each page — that was the best resolution. When he was next in his room, he’d write out a list of all thirty-five frames on each chip, and snap a picture of the list. Then he had to eat the paper. He wasn’t stupid enough to use his resonance where he lived. That was too dangerous for words. It would also be a chance to copy the files to other media, and encrypt it and hide it…

That was enough. He wadded the papers up, having committed their contents to memory, but he didn’t destroy them yet. He had one more packet to read, first.

He opened the last. The one with the print of the coin lightly embossed on the envelope. A florin, of course. The Revolution’s all too clever cant. Antonio cared nothing for money. Things simply broke. Money could buy nothing that lasted. Nothing at all. He opened the envelope and began to read.

A name. A profile. A neighborhood. A dangerous one, close to the Michaelite Tether. But Boston was choked with Tethers — more than most cities its size had, mirroring its old, choked streets. A target.

The crack in Tony’s soul growled, hungry. It thirsted to kill, to feel human pain and anguish, to tear the life from humanity. To whirl them away like spinning rings of fire….

No, not like that.

Tony closed his eyes, repeating what he read in his thoughts. He nodded, ever so slightly, and slipped the packet into the mass of paper he had already made. He repeated the thoughts again, rising from the toilet. He turned, and let the hunger, the need to kill, the crack in his soul ache through his fingertips, into the mass of wadding, the secret instructions, which seemed to twist into too chaotic dust before it hit the water. He heard the whisper of the Symphony complain at the paper’s death. This was no artifact.

He hadn’t taken pictures of his instructions, of course. That would be sheer stupidity. His target was only known to the one who wrote the instructions to pass to ‘Florin,’ and to Tony himself. And the one who wrote the instructions might not know anything at all about Tony. Just that one of the Secret Destroyers would need to take care of this. That was how the Revolution worked. No one knew anything.

Which was the sanest thing about it. Tony flushed the toilet. This one didn’t swirl. It just sucked the water away. He nodded and walked outside the stall. He wasn’t too worried about the disturbance he made — it was so tiny as to be almost unnoticeable, and even paranoia had its limits.

Still, he didn’t call his first contact from that T station. He walked for a while, walking for the next T station back towards the City, and used a pay phone to call. She answered on the first ring. Djinn never left home if they didn’t have to.

The Impudite he e-mailed from a Harvard Square Cybercafe. He almost smiled, so close to the minuscule Tether to Litheroy. Thumbing his nose at Revelation, even in secret. He created the e-mail account, of course. Hotmail was so easy to trick when you only had to send one message. He typed it in cypher, with the relay codes worked into the appropriate spaces, so that the server would receive it, send it to the next server it was supposed to go to — the one on the private network. From there, it would relay two times more before his contact received it. He gave the Impudite the murder mystery. If it was a blind it didn’t matter if it was blown or not, and he suspected the Impudite was a double-agent for the Gebbelites. Not that they didn’t all serve Secrets, of course.

The Lilim he used the drop box for. Fedex, of course. This month, they were the secure route. It wouldn’t last — it never did — but so long as it didn’t get blown during this message, and even if it did it would be hard to read. So many ways to hide things, and the Lilim was good.

He took a Bus to M.I.T. He could almost smell Jean and the Servitors of Lightning in the area. A good number of his missions — from any number of sources — took him to this side of the Charles. Try to learn those shining Secrets, so easy to sell to Vapula… but not today. Today, he was just here to walk across the stone bridge back to Boston and the B.U. campus. They called it the M.I.T. Bridge in his dormitory. That kept it separate from the larger Mass Ave bridge on the other side of both campuses.

Cromwell was there, leaning on the railing at the midpoint, looking down at the river and towards the apex of Storrow Drive. Tony leaned next to him, looking as well. Cromwell had a red beard, a balding head, and a cloth overcoat and scarf. Balseraph, the outfit practically screamed. It would get Cromwell in trouble one day. Tony didn’t intend to be anywhere near when it happened.

“There’s a nip in the air,” Cromwell said, almost cheerfully.

“The flowers are wilting,” Tony answered.

“But they will grow again?”

“Springtime always comes.”

“So it does, Antonio. So it does.” Cromwell smiled slightly. “You’re looking morose.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“So I hear. So I hear. Ah, the dear Revolution. Tearing down our beloved Lord. Or so they think.”

“There’s no real need for small talk, Cromwell. I’ve got a busy night ahead of me.”

“Mm? Do I know her?”

“Does it matter?” Tony half-smiled, not meaning it. He was treading too close to a direct answer. To dissonance. He couldn’t afford that with a job in enemy territory.

“It should. The Rosettes should appreciate the bloom, Tony. Its delicious petals opening to reveal its secret pollen. Its fragrant scent, like the hint of scandal. Our Lord would approve.”

“I’ve got business tonight. Charlestown.”

“Charlestown? A bit close to War, isn’t that? I hope you’re getting hazard pay.”

“I’ll be quiet. Promise.”

“Good. You’ll get the details to the Order?”

“When it’s done, you’ll know. I don’t know why the Revolution wants the work done, or who commissioned the order.”

“We can find those things out.” He checked his watch. “It’s getting on….”

“There are some other projects,” Tony said quietly.

“Oh?” Cromwell asked mildly. Never the direct question. Tony couched the investigations into the murder and the C.E.O.’s trips in the appropriate terms, keeping them somewhat blind to the listener, and not telling Cromwell all the details of course. He didn’t mention the movie review. He might be a double agent, but you always held a bit back, at least from the Order of the Rosette. Just like the Revolution held bits back from him. No one said everything. Everyone collected important bits. Secrets they might be able to use later. Leverage. Power.

Cromwell knew that, of course. But knowing Tony was keeping bits to himself meant Cromwell wouldn’t decide to cut Tony loose, perhaps with a shotgun in the night. Not while he thought Tony knew something of use to the Order, or to Cromwell himself.

Cromwell stretched, finally. “I’ve an appointment,” he said. “Watch yourself, Antonio. I should hate to end these little talks. They’re my only good exercise.”

“I wouldn’t give you the pleasure of evenings off,” Tony said absently, with no conviction in it.

“Mm. Until tomorrow.” Their next meeting wouldn’t be until Tony signaled again, the next time the Revolution called for him. That wouldn’t be tomorrow. Or that week, probably. Maybe not that month. Of course, there were other kinds of orders, from other kinds of sources, but the Order didn’t need to know about those. Walking across the bridge, Tony wondered how many of these rendezvous he’d kept over the centuries. Once, he thought he would make a difference to his Lord. Once, he thought there was real purpose behind the organizations that sprang up within the fabric of the Conspiracy.

It was all the same, now. Just another day. Just another betrayal. Just another double cross or triple cross or Lucifer only knew what.

If there was a Lucifer or a God. If all that weren’t some elaborate hoax put on by the Game. He didn’t have those secrets.

If only he could run away. Run through the fields. Run through the clouds. Run past the houses and the fields and the woods. Run until his shoes fell away and his clothes frayed off his body. Run until the crack in his soul split open and let the fire out, rolling desperately away into the spirals of the night, anger and blood sloughing off like old skin as he rolled and ran into eternal, starlit night….

“Hey, you!”

Tony blinked and looked up. The double cheeseburger tasted exactly like every other double cheeseburger he had ever eaten. The clammy meat of the mass-produced kill. There was no satisfaction in this meat. Its death was too remote. It might as well be damp newsprint. “Yes?”

Ellen shook her head. “You looked a million miles away. Don’t you want to be at B.U.?”

“Where else would I be?” he asked, half smiling. “Are you going to finish those fries?”

“Of course I am,” Ellen grinned. “In fact, has anyone in recorded history ever not wanted to finish their fries?”

“I don’t know everyone, now do I?”

“Do you ever just give a straight answer to a straight question,” Ellen asked, laughing. “Ever?”

“Yes,” Tony lied. Lies were legal.

“Good. I was beginning to worry.” She grinned, pulling a handful of her fries out of her carton. “But you were far away, Tony. As far away as that boy in your drawing wants to be. What do you dream of?”

“I don’t remember my dreams. Besides, this is where I am. This is who I am, right?” Tony shrugged.

“I don’t know who you are.” Ellen leaned back, letting her black hair graze the floor. Tony looked despite himself. Pretty. Shapely. So full of life. It made the crack in his soul hunger for her, but it wasn’t his master. Not like some he knew. But they weren’t the silent Destroyers, not like he was. “None of us know each other. Not really.” She leaned her head back forward, looking at him. “Not inside. Our thoughts are islands, and none of us know each other. We can’t.”

Tony looked at her, feeling a cold shiver down his back. His voice was quiet and didn’t shake. “Is that your philosophy?”

“Isn’t it yours? Isn’t it everybody’s?”

“I don’t know everybody,” Tony said. Yes, he didn’t say. Yes, the whole world is alone. Hell is alone. Heaven is alone. We are all alone. No one can really know us. No one can really touch us. We are defined by the secrets we manage to keep close to our chests.

“I think that’s why we try so hard to connect to each other.”

“What do you mean?”

Ellen smiled a bit, leaning forward. She put her elbows on the bright yellow plastic table, folding her hands together and resting her chin on them. “I mean humanity. You and me. The world. We try to reach out for each other because we’re lonely, and we’re afraid of being alone. That’s why there’s so many songs written about soulmates, about finding that one you can ‘let into your heart.’ That comes from being scared that no one will ever know and understand us.”

Tony felt his heart pounding. His fake heart. His Vessel’s heart. His real Heart was in a coffin locked away in a subbasement of a dark chamber in Hell. And it was possible that his Lord had his hand on it right now, and knew exactly what this woman was saying. It was possible she was another Servitor of Secrets. Possible she was one of the Game. Possible she was an ang–

Screaming flowers with human faces….

He knew he should leave. He knew he should get out of the Burger King and keep going. He should call a safehouse. He should fall in front of the T and let this vessel die, disappearing into the obscurity of Hell or another vessel. He should assume he was blown.

Kill her, the crack in his soul moaned. Tear her throat out with your teeth. Push her into the air and force her body’s muscles to tear themselves apart in your hand. Listen to her scream as her heart ruptured into a fountain of blood….

“Will anyone know and understand us,” he whispered, trying to keep his turmoil and hunger hidden. “Is there any hope of that?” He could see cracks in the corner of the plastic table, growing wider. He moved his hands away from it, afraid she would see.

She looked at him, and maybe looked sad or maybe was faking it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I hope there is. I really do. Is there still trust in the world?”

Tony bit his lip and looked back down, forcing himself not to bit through his lip. “I don’t think I’d know trust if I met it,” he muttered.

“Do you trust me?”

“I’m running late. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

Ellen didn’t press. And Tony didn’t kill her. Riding the T, he thought about that. He should have. Taken her out on a trip — some excuse to get her out of the city. Watch her die. But he didn’t want to kill her. Except for the crack in his soul, that always wanted to kill. But it didn’t care who it killed. Ellen or a random passerby — it was all the same. All the same.

He didn’t want to kill Ellen. He wanted Ellen out of the game, the Conspiracy. He wanted her to be a normal human playing with the kind of wild eyed concepts that humans all thought they invented when they turned twenty years old. He wanted to keep Ellen hidden away from the real world, the world of betrayals and lies and evasions. Make her his little secret. And why not? Djinn kept secret things, and Ellen didn’t know anything, really. Not really. She couldn’t.

He couldn’t afford this. He had work.

He changed over to the Orange Line, and rode it to Haymarket. Wandering outside, he could taste Heaven in the air. The Archangel of Trade had a pretty big tether just a few blocks away, at Fanieul Hall and Quincy Marketplace. It was big and it was pretty noisy. It’d be suicide to push the Symphony around here, where angels could swarm out, ready to kill.

Which was why he was up there. He had to make a ripple on his way, and between the noise of the tether and the stupidity of a demon playing tricks so close by, it wasn’t likely a minor drop in the chords would make a difference. Besides, he’d made too many little ripples out on Comm Ave and in Cambridge. He had to keep on the move, and not make a pattern the enemy could figure out.

He stopped in a concrete bunker they called a parking garage, and stayed on the landing between the street and the first basement level. It was dark, the light broken for a long time. He pressed into a corner, and took a deep breath. He drew on himself, on the inner him. On the twisted fire that roared in anger and hunger. The real him, the secret him, the soul behind all this meat. He reached inside, and found the bit of his soul he needed, and pulled it out.

If anyone were watching, they would see the huddled college student, thin with a dirty flannel shirt and hair that was now quite unruly, begin to grow and swell, his backpack seeming to pull inside his shirt as it went, the digital camera dropping into his hand, which grew gloves. His hair grew painfully short and even paler blond. His eyes went from, brown to grey. A tight goatee formed on his face.

Antonio stretched his arms a bit, glancing around. It was just the tiniest bit of essence to shift between vessels, from the one he wore for his Role to the one he wore for work. It felt more solid, more real to him. More of him was invested in this vessel, all the better to survive his trade. It was just over six feet in height, wearing a black silk shirt and pants. It had a flat back fanny pack as well, which he dropped his digital camera into. That was an artifact — it carried from vessel to vessel as he willed. And while his business wasn’t investigation tonight, you always had to be ready.

He saw no signs of angels. No angry Malakim sweeping from the stairs ready to tear him apart. As he climbed back up to the street and walked towards the taxi stand, he almost smiled. There was pleasure in flashing a secret so close to your enemies. A pleasure in being more clever than they were. It outweighed the fear of discovery, at least for now.

He took the third cab in, and gruffly gave the address. It was an address a few blocks away from his Charlestown target’s home. The cab pulled out, and Antonio watched the city streets pass. The cab driver took risks, but didn’t take the fastest route across the bridge. That was good. He wasn’t an angel, whirling through the streets in a burning trail of speed, the circuit complete and the world whipping by….

“Hey — this the place, man?”

Antonio looked around. A pretty normal Charlestown neighborhood. A pretty normal human street. People walking here and there.

“Yeah,” he said, and passed a twenty through the slot. He opened the door and slid out, not waiting for change. Money was nothing. He got it when he needed it. The ATM accounts never went dry. And he didn’t spend much. Nothing to really draw attention to himself.

The night air was cool as he walked. Cool enough that it seemed natural to button his shirt all the way up the collar. No one saw him slip the fold of cloth over the buttons. Nothing to reflect light. Nothing to appear. His black gloves were flat, not reflective.

He stepped onto the street, and looked each way for people. It was quiet, but humans crawled out when you least wanted them. But there was no one, and he was there. At the street. The address. The target. The next one to die.

The house was lit. The family was home. Danny Oliver, the owner of a promising software company, angling for an I.P.O. Graduated eighth in his class. Business degree. He drove the engine, his partners wrote the code. Pyre Software they were called. And Danny Oliver was the key. His wife was Ruth, who worked as a bank teller right now but wanted to be a housewife and take care of her children full time. His children were Ray and Kyle. Ray was in the second grade and played peewee soccer. Kyle was in Kindergarten and sang “You Are My Sunshine” at his Nursery School’s graduation, not forgetting any words.

A normal family, about to be plunged into chaos and horror. Into death. And part of Antonio wondered who they were. Why death had to come to this family. Why that pain had to drive the survivors. He wondered who made the plan. Who commissioned it. Was it the Revolution? Was it the Conspiracy itself? Was it Lord Alaemon? Was it someone else, hiring a death?

The crack in Antonio’s soul didn’t wonder. It didn’t wonder anything. It hungered. It knew why they were there. It wanted to tear through the iron fence around the property, sear through the walls. It wanted to rip the whole family apart into blood and into death. But Antonio didn’t do that. He was better than the crack in his soul. He was more than the crack in his soul. He had to be — quiet was needed.

He took one last look around, and carefully moved over the fence. These things were useless — an affectation humans put up, reminding the world that once they considered their homes precious, their secrets hidden. Humanity was slowly learning, again. Slowly.

The small lawn was well mown, but there was no proximity sensors. The lights didn’t come on as Antonio moved around the edge of the property, then darted to the house proper. Quite a bit of grass for Charlestown. The company must be doing pretty well. He reached the old brick of the building, pressing against it carefully, shielded from view from the street, next to a window.

He looked inside. The family was there. The children. The dog. The parents.

The target. The crack within his soul hungered. He could strike this moment and they would never know, but there were things to do first. Ways to protect himself. He had to do that first. The Angels of War could sweep in within moments of disturbance in the Symphony, and he wasn’t about the be captured or killed. Not for this assignment. Not when it wasn’t necessary.

He closed his eyes, and let the music of his Symphony sing within his soul, not moving. He made no audible noise, letting instead his inner self, his true self sing, pulling at strands of the Symphony around him — he couldn’t hear that Symphony, but he could affect it. Let the strains of his silent Song echo into it, weaving the darkness and even the fence around the property into a shield. A shield that blocked all Disturbance, for a while at least.

He felt the Song thrum, and he knew it was solid. He had five minutes where he could do what he wished. He turned to the window–

The target was gone. He felt a flush of anger, a desire to kill. How dare–

No. Control. Always control. He couldn’t give in. Death would come soon enough, but he didn’t dare lash out. Not that he’d be heard. He wouldn’t. But the target and the target alone had to die. He had to get inside — four minutes, thirty seconds left.

There was no time to break in. He took a breath, and reached into himself, feeling the rush of his angry soul, the crack that defined him and the fire that burned within him. And with a shiver he lifted it up, letting his Vessel fall away into nothingness. His bat wings stretched out, unfurling into a wide canopy. His red skin glistened with sweat. His powerful arms stretched over his head, red muscles shifting. His face was twisted and crimson, huge golden horns burst out of his temples, hooking cruelly above. And, from his throat to the scrap of pants he wore around his waist, a long, jagged scar in the shape of a crack seemed to throb, with angry fire and golden light pulsing just inside it. The crack in his soul, with his soul exposed for the world to see.

But they wouldn’t see. You needed a powerful soul to recognize a demon uncloaked. And the world seemed almost distant with his true celestial eyes. Too distant to hold him back. He let his wings fill and drop, lifting him, and he coasted into the house. When the Shield around the property dropped, the echoes would be that much stronger for his taking his Celestial form, but he would be gone. If he could find the Target, that is. He swept through walls — darting around and avoiding pets and a child in the kitchen. They probably couldn’t see him, but if they happened to catch a glimpse out of the corner of their psyche — some little hint of the Infernal Wrong that was within the building, the scream would bring people running. He didn’t want that. This had to look natural.

He rose through the ceiling, onto the second floor. He saw a light in the bedroom. There. He’d seen everyone else downstairs, so the Target was there. Alone. He flew into the room.

And saw he was alone with the Target. Alone with Ruth Oliver, who had a hamper open. She was digging clothing out. Perhaps to do a laundry. How perfectly mundane. She was quite young, and pretty, though her second child had left some weight on her frame. But it wasn’t unattractive. A perfect Soccer Mom.

Perhaps she was meant to inspire her child to great heights. Perhaps she was her husband’s moral compass. Perhaps she had seen something she shouldn’t. Perhaps this family would be taken over by a new step-wife. A demon in Mortal flesh, sent to corrupt them all. Antonio didn’t know. He just knew she was about to die.

He fell back down into his flesh, silently appearing behind her. He watched her back move with human eyes. Watched the muscles of her back shifting as she pulled a bedsheet out of the hamper.

“Ruth,” he half-whispered.

She turned, startled. Probably expecting to find her husband. Her eyes grew wider as she saw the stranger in black, and he saw her breathe in to scream–

The crack in his soul screamed with pleasure, flooding out for her, for those eyes. It grabbed her soul with his, quieted only by his Lord’s Gift, forcing his angry fire and pain into her veins, into her heart… forcing the heart to shudder and stop, her terror-scream twisted into a silent croak of agony, her hands twisting in the fabric of the sheet, her legs shuddering under her.

And she felt forward, on her lifeless face, the grimace on her face slapping down onto the carpet, hard. Hard enough to make a thump.

Antonio was relaxed, the crack in his soul thrown into a moment’s relief, even as the Symphony clanged its horror around him. Horror that echoed his own pain. Echoed who he was. He lived for this. Lived for death.

“Honey?” Danny Oliver, calling up the stairs. Maybe he heard her fall to the ground. Maybe he just sensed something was wrong. The dead woman on the carpet didn’t answer his call. “Honey? You up there?” And Antonio knew he had to leave. He had perhaps two minutes left anyhow. Perhaps less. But first, he took out his camera and took a picture of the Target. Just one. A record. Proof that she died. Proof she didn’t die naturally. And then, summoning one of the last drops of his precious Essence, he rose out of his Vessel, letting his wings sweep him out of the roof and towards the ground, right next to the fence. There was no sign of people on the street, so he could let himself drop into his Vessel right next to the fence, then hop over it. He couldn’t fly through the shield itself, any more than the Disturbance could echo through it. Instead, it waited inside, rebounding off the shield walls.

He trotted now. He had to get some distance between himself and the house, before the shield failed and the Symphony screamed in anguish for its slain child. He had to be anonymously distant from the event by the time the Michaelites arrived to investigate. He had to have–

There. A convenience store. (It would be any second now. Any second at all.) He stepped inside, and nodded to the man behind the counter. The man nodded back, bored. It was almost nine — business would pick up, but it hadn’t yet. Antonio stopped in front of the cooler, and opened the door–

The sound of a human’s death is like listening to the sobs of the clouds themselves. The sound of murder is the sound of the substance of everything in the world crying in pain and horror. The Corporeal Realm is not meant for Celestials. Human beings are not meant to be killed by demons. The Symphony hates it, and screams its hatred into the night.

Antonio picked up a can of Seven-Up, and walked to the snack cakes. He considered his options. He wasn’t a huge Hostess fan, but it was the rare Store24 that had Tastykakes. He settled for a package of Funnybones, and walked over to the magazines. He picked up a copy of People, thumbing through it absently. He needed to spend a good amount of time in the Convenience Store. If an angry pack of Cherubim swept through the neighborhood, they needed to see an unconcerned man reading People, not a man nervously making his way to the North End, where Haagenti ruled the streets.

Not that there’d be many demons out on the streets tonight. They’d have heard the murder too. It was loud enough to maybe be heard all the way to Copley Place, really, unless the noise of Quincy Marketplace masked it.

A pack of teenagers pushed the door open, looking around. Antonio glanced up, then back down. He didn’t move. He didn’t react. The Cherubim. That was confirmed when they left so fast, not buying anything. They were looking. They didn’t take much time at this. Which was why Antonio switched Vessels back in Quincy Marketplace. This vessel was meant to be suspected. Tony was meant to be hidden.

He walked out, walking without much attitude, carrying his bag of purchases. $2.41 including tax. Expenses, if you will. A woman was dead, her family shattered and in mourning, and he was eating Funny Bones and drinking a can of Sprite. He slowly made his way to the Charlestown Bridge, and started across the narrow footpath, not breaking stride or meeting anyone’s eyes. The picture of a man out walking. With a couple others on the bridge, he didn’t look out of place.

He was ready to throw himself into the water. Once in the water he could blow the air out, sink and spend his last Essence going back into his Celestial form, and from there descend into Hell and Stygia, following the echoes of his Heart. The moment the attack came, he’d get the Hell out. But the attack didn’t come, and then he was in the North End, looking for a good Restaurant — preferably one that had part of the Haagentian Tether in it now.

It was after a small antipasto and a well portioned (but not overly generous) lasagna that Antonio knew there was nothing of the Prince of Gluttony in the restaurant he chose. Well, that was likely just as well. He walked to the bathroom to wash his hands.

His murderer’s face looked back at him from the mirror. Not the face he wore every day — the handsome, adult one. The one meant to attract a bit of attention, all as a dodge. After he got on the Tee and rode back towards Comm Ave, he’d change back. It was like he could hide himself from what he was that way too. He could dream of spinning wheels of fire in the night when he wore Tony’s face. He knew precisely what he was when he wore this face.

“You look content,” the face in the mirror said, a slight smirk on his face. “Are you?”

Antonio froze. He imagined for a precious second that he looked like the Target did before she died. The face was his vessel’s, but it was clearly moving and shifting, differently from his own. He saw the eyes of the reflection, ready to unleash his pain and death into it…

The fire of Hell burned in those cold eyes. The totality of the Labyrinth shifted and turned, the aura and awe of a Prince of Hell twisted into itself and onto itself infinitely, hiding in plain sight….

“Lord,” Antonio whispered. A curious whisper of fear and adoration. Did his Lord know of his dreams of Wheels? Did he know his thousand petty treasons? Could he? Or was Antonio still in his good graces?

“You’ve been busy, Antonio,” he said softly. “Very busy. What do you have for me?”

Antonio reached into his belt pouch, and took out the flash memory cards from his digital camera. The ones he’d transcribed and photographed lists of. Not his last two — he wasn’t done with them yet. They’d be the first two of his next delivery.

Memories and secrets passed through the surface of the mirror, which rippled slightly. His Lord took them. Took stolen diary pages and assignations where the wife and her lover didn’t know they could be seen. Took reports gathered by and passed along to members of the Revolution. Took the tiny little violations Antonio committed against who knows how many people.

His Lord accepted them. “I worry about you, Antonio. You know how much I love and trust you, don’t you?”

“I live for your trust,” Antonio answered. An evasion, which his Lord would expect.

“Did killing Robert Brenner’s Honda make you feel good?” his Lord asked mildly, a slight smile on his face.

Antonio blinked. “My Lord…” he whispered.

“Ah ah ah. You know better. It was too close to where you stay, little Antonio. Too close. And it wasn’t necessary. Unnecessary acts lead inexorably to revelation. Did you forget that?”

“I… try never to forget the lessons I have learned, Master. It was a mistake.”

“Mm? Perhaps. But you know how I love you, Antonio. Mm. Here. A gift.”

He passed an envelope back to Antonio. One in a cream colored envelope, with the address of Boston University’s Dean of Student Affairs on it. The envelope was sealed.

“Do not open this letter,” his Lord said. “If you find yourself enduring your friend’s noxious habits beyond your petty revenge, drop this letter in a mailbox. All will be taken care of from there.”

“Thank you, Lord,” Antonio whispered.

“This is how we get our revenge, Antonio. The quiet, deniable act. Not automotive violence.”

“My Lord is wise.”

“Remember that. When you must act, it should always be out of need, and must always be deniable. Do you understand me?”

“My Lord is merciful.”

“I love you, Antonio. And trust you. You do my work. Do not fail that trust. Never, ever fail that trust.”

“My Lord is fair.”

“Your tiramisu and coffee are on the table, Antonio. Best to enjoy them before the coffee gets cold.”

Antonio bowed, ever so slightly. His Lord wouldn’t want him to prostrate himself. It could attract attention. Antonio loved his Lord with all his heart. Loved him with the cold terror of knowing he had betrayed him, and that one day his own secrets would be laid bare.

That night, he laid on the steps of the College of Arts and Sciences, working on his sketch in the cool night air. It was close to midnight. The passion of the murder. The sight of his Lord. The careful maneuvering to the halfway point, where he switched back to his usual body. And then the T to Kenmore Square, and walking up Comm Ave for a while. He could have ridden the T the rest of the way, but he was restless. He often was restless now. The sketching helped. The figure of the boy, staring out into the sheer freedom of the skies he could never have.

“Hey.”

He looked up. Ellen was standing there, her hands in her pockets. “Is this the most comfortable place to work,” she asked with a grin. “Why not go to the library or something?”

“Don’t libraries close,” he answered, sitting up. She looked pretty in the streetlights. “Where did you come from?”

“Visiting a friend across the street, in Warren Towers. I looked out his window and there you were. So I thought I’d say hi before I hopped the T to go home.”

Tony smiled, and patted the step next to him. Ellen grinned and sat down, looking at him. “You look tired. Long day?”

“I’ve walked a thousand miles and then had to come back,” he answered. “You look fresh.”

“I got a nap early. I had to sleep off our bounteous feast.” She grinned again. “Lemme have a look at your sketch.”

Tony supressed the sudden urge to kick her away, to flee her. It was a reasonable request. He wouldn’t be revealing anything. This was just part of the Role. Just part of the camouflage. He told himself that again as he angled the bed to show her.

“Nice,” she said. “Really nice. I love the clouds….”

“Why?” Tony sat up a bit. He hadn’t really put much into the clouds…

“The way they turn. You can almost see them spinning. It’s like looking at… at wheels on a train, running through Heaven on tracks of the sky. It’s beautiful. You can feel the boy yearning to be on that train.” She looked at him. “The need he feels. It’s amazing, Tony.”

Tony felt the breath catch in his throat. Her smile was so beautiful. Her eyes so bright. And her voice… she understood.

She knew.

He looked. She was right. The clouds were meant to just swirl in the sketch, but there were clear wheels in them. Perfectly clear wheels. Spinning through Heaven. The boy was staring at them with his burning eyes….

“Haven’t you ever wanted to run,” he whispered to Ellen. “To throw yourself into pure speed, just letting everything bad in your out through your legs as you ran, or through your eyes as the scenery sped by, carried by a train?”

“Maybe,” she whispered back. “It’s a beautiful thought. You speak like a poet.”

“Poetry…” he whispered. He looked at the sheet. At his desperate, pathetic wish in the sky on the paper. “Motion…”

“Hey, I have to go,” she said. “But… look, you want to come with me? Crash on my couch tonight? We can talk about it. Just you and me.”

Tony slowly looked from the page to Ellen’s face. Her beautiful, precious face. Her bright eyes, looking into his. He wanted to clutch her, to cry on her shoulder, to beg for help. To tell her the things he kept hidden inside. To let the secrets out, tumbling like dominos into each other, until they all fell and the Dissonance tore him apart.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I have an eight am class tomorrow.” It was a lie. Lies were legal.

Ellen’s mouth pursed a bit. She looked a hair disappointed, but smiled. “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” There was no dissonance. Lies were legal.

Ellen smiled a bit, and rose, and so did he, closing his sketchbook. They walked to the sidewalk, and he watched her walk to the stand, waiting for the T. He watched her, then started walking. He could see the train coming. Watched it pass. Head for her.

He turned at the last second, watching her get on the T, selecting one of the seats. Even in the distance, she was beautiful. He wanted so much to cling to her.

The pain in his arms throbbed. The crack in his soul opened wide. And he reached out through the pain and the crack. Reached out with his Lord’s Gift dampening the effect. He touched her, and felt her twist and die, stiffening and slumping in her seat, even as the T pulled out and headed for the next step, Ellen looking asleep as she passed out of view.

The Symphony screamed its pain as he turned around. He honestly didn’t know if it would or not. She might have been an Angel of Flowers. She still might have been a Soldier. It didn’t matter. She knew too much. Knew things Tony couldn’t ever let anyone know. Not human, Angel or Demon.

He kept walking. This was bad. Two in one night was too easily noticeable. With luck, the Angels wouldn’t be able to figure out what happened here, though. Not with the train having pulled away. Even if they piece it together….

No, someone would have seen her talking to him, before she had the stroke that killed her. He might have to leave. Go somewhere else. And he needed to explain the murder up the line. Explain it. But he could do that. He had a picture of her sketch of the face in the flower. It would be a simple lie — clear Flower influence, and she was getting close, so she had to get out of the way. He was preserving Secrets. Yes. That would work. And if there was more to the story, the rest of his fellows would expect him to keep it hidden anyway. They’d never think he was covering anything up.

With just one problem.

He stopped, on the corner before his dorm, and took out his sketch book. He looked at the sketch, and set it down in a garbage can. Down the way, he could hear Rob arguing with a police officer, who was about to have someone tow his dead car. He ignored him.

The window seemed so far away. And the wheels in the sky were just pencil marks on paper.

As Tony watched, he let his pain out one last time. The paper browned, the pencil marks blurred, and soon there was just fine ash remaining. With his sketching pencil, he reached down and stirred, until the dust was random, sifted into the bag. And then he headed for his room. He needed to wait and pretend to sleep. He couldn’t report until after class tomorrow. Just a faceless student in the crowd, hidden away.

The laws of Gossamer Commons are universal ones, and they’re harsh. Here’s a brief story on that theme.

*** *** *** ***
It was getting on towards dinnertime, and Caleb was pretty hungry. The sun was setting late these days, though, which meant it was still high overhead. Summertime didn’t want to be interrupted by dinner bells, and neither did Caleb. Especially since dinner would also mean washing dishes and taking out the garbage and it’d probably take an hour just to eat what with Grace and Millie talking everyone’s ear off about swim lessons and Dad telling one of his stories about work.

No, on the whole Caleb decided that he could do without it. And that meant being far from the house. If he couldn’t hear his mother call, he couldn’t very well be expected to get home for dinner, could he? It’s not like he owned a watch.

They called the woods out back of the house the swamp, but it wasn’t all that wet. it was overgrown, with some marshy bits, but for the most part it was thick woods and brambles, cattails and tall grasses. There were well worn paths through it, made by generations of eleven year olds just like Caleb. Each and every summer they ran through the swamp over the same ground their parents did, digging their way through brush and hacking at it with pen knives or the hatchets they weren’t supposed to borrow. The swamp belonged to kids. Everyone knew it. And each generation knew it was theirs.

Still, everyone knew there were old places in the swamp. Secrets. Broken remains of treehouses now fallen to the ground, with wrinkled and faded posters of Farrah Fawcett-Majors or Christie Brinkley from another era. Caleb, Tommy and Anne had found a shack in good shape the year before — old, with Playboys from the early seventies in it in good condition. Tommy thought that they were the first people to find the porn stash, but Caleb didn’t think so. There was a Watchamacallit candy bar wrapper in there, and that had to be from the eighties at the oldest.

This year, they’d gone looking, but the shack was nowhere to be found. Anne said they just couldn’t remember how to get there, but Caleb wasn’t sure. Maybe the swamp swallowed it up, until the next group of kids comes to the swamp.

Caleb made his way around the bend over the hill that overlooked the evergreens. There were twenty or thirty fir trees in that grove, which they could run around. The needles underneath their feet crinkled as they walked on them, a red-orange color, with none of the green from the trees, and no grass or shrubs grew down there. Tommy said the light couldn’t get down there, but Caleb thought the needles just choked everything. He skidded through them at a full run. They liked to play Lost down here, but that wasn’t as fun when you were by yourself. Besides, Caleb didn’t really like that show much.

In the background, the birds were calling out a storm, and the mosquitoes were trying to have a field day. They were swarmed as he walked but the liberal coating of Off Caleb’s mom had sprayed on him before letting him go out was keeping them back. If he ran, he could feel them bouncing off his skin, trying to get away from him. It was like a force field surrounding him, keeping the bugs off.

And then the birds stopped singing.

Caleb frowned. He didn’t usually notice birds, but when they went from loud to silent it was like someone had turned off the radio. There was just the wind blowing through the poplars to one side. He was standing on the broader path, red dirt instead of brown, that went up the hill and over to the Roys’ farm in one direction and down to the pond in the other, and suddenly there were no birds.

Caleb looked to either side. There were no mosquitos either, and that was weird. This close to the pond was usually full of them.

Down the path, around the bend, Caleb heard… something. Like a bird singing, but too regular. Like pipes, or Anne’s recorder, but played better. But so soft.

Caleb smiled, and began to creep down the path. Sometimes, teenagers liked to sneak out to the pond to make out. It was fun to watch them and sometimes throw pebbles at them. He bet one of them had a boombox and was putting the moves on some girl. Caleb caught his older cousin Jennie once with this boy from her high school. It was great.

Caleb turned the corner, but ducked off the path to the left. He cut through the undergrowth, going lower beneath the bramble patch, and came around to the side of the old dead tree. The old dead tree was huge, with a limb that reached out over the water. There was a rope for a swing attached to it, and kids would swing on it over the water, though there was a thick green layer of scum on the edges of the pond so no one swam in it. He slowly pushed his head out of the brush, looking to either side for the teenagers….

But there weren’t any. And the music sounded more like some kind of whistling or singing. It was… calming. Soothing. Like nothing he’d heard, though it reminded him of his mother singing him to sleep when he was little. Really little. Caleb couldn’t believe he even remembered it. Hushalittle baby now don’t you cry… Momma’s gonna sing you a lullabye….

Caleb shook his head, looking around. He didn’t see where the music was coming from. There was just the pond with some mist hanging over it like bits of… smoke….

The smoke was moving.

The smoke wasn’t smoke.

It was a girl. A little tiny girl, thin, made of smoke and mist, and she was dancing. Dancing on the water. A wisp. A whisper.

Caleb’s eyes grew wider as he saw a second, and then a third wisp join her. Dancing and darting to the music. He didn’t know what they were, but they were beautiful. Soft, fragile things, like if he breathed on one they’d break. He winced as what felt like hickory smoke touched his eyes, but he wiped them and they were fine. He blinked to see if the dancers were still there. To see if he were seeing things.

No. They were there. He wasn’t seeing things. They were right there.

The wisps darted and danced, the music faster now as they sported over the surface of the water like skitterbugs the kids would trap. They hopped and they skipped and they spun, two girls, two guys, now holding hands, now separating to the banks of the pond. One came within six feet of Caleb as it danced — one of the boys, looking like a little smoke skeleton or an alien with blue eyes bigger than its soft looking skull, but pretty, not creepy. Not creepy at all.

It spun and danced right next to the bank, and Caleb shivered. He held his breath. He didn’t dare make a sound. He wanted to reach out and touch it or coax it closer but he was afraid that if he moved so much as a muscle it would dart away — they were so fast.

“Caaaaaaaaaaleb!”

The call was far away but clearly audible, and the wisps froze, turning to look. Caleb bit his lip. Go away, Mom! he thought with all his might. Go away before you scare them!

But it was too late for that. The four darted together, bunching in the middle of the pond and looking all around. It’s okay, Caleb wanted to shout to them. It’s just my Mom! She won’t hurt you! Don’t stop dancing! Please don’t stop! Don’t ever stop–

There was a sudden loud crack, loud like a gunshot. Loud like a cannon. Caleb whirled to face it. The old dead tree was shaking, one of its limbs falling. There was another crack and it fell towards him maybe three feet. It was coming down! Caleb tried to jump back out of the way but the underbrush had hold and he couldn’t get untangled and the tree was coming down–

It hurt. It hurt badly. It hurt worse than anything, and he couldn’t move or breathe. When he tried it was like there was glass in his chest and the tree was on top of him. He managed to turn his head, ever so slightly….

The four wisps were standing, not three feet away. They were watching him.

They looked sad. They looked sorry.

Caleb wanted to comfort them. To tell them it wasn’t their fault. To tell them that it was the old tree and it had been dead probably longer than Caleb had been alive. But he had no air to speak. And then everything was dark.