Friday Fiction: Blake

 

BLAKE

 

     Blake drove his athema into another brown hairy spider with a satisfying thud that splattered acid-green blood down the wall. The spider, big as two hands, curled up as if it were trying to grab the blade. Blake pulled back and jerked the dead thing off into the shadows.

     "Enough! Show yourself, unless you're afraid to face me!"

     A slow harsh hiss curled around the stained walls, finally turning into words.

     "So brave it is. So brave for one so young. So little, too. The sendings can take care of it. Yes, I don't think we need trouble ourself."

     "I can squash as many bugs as you can make," said Blake. "You'll have to match your power against me personally."

     "So confident...so contemptuous," the voice crooned. "Try this!"

     A bulky shadow in the corner burst into legs and sprang at Blake, vaulting ten feet and knocking him to the filthy floor. A spider the size of a Rottweiler scrabbled and snapped at Blake, its multiple eyes gleaming blackly in the light of the athema's blade. He had raised it in anticipation in the fraction of a second, and now it was the only thing keeping the venom-dripping jaws inches from his face.

     "Clever and quick. But how strong is it? Not enough, I think."

     "We'll see," said Blake through gritted teeth. He held the blade flat in the armored jaws, which were too tough to cut and clinked unscathed against the sharp metal. But there was a soft inner part visible for an instant when the spider unclenched to bite down again. Blake timed it twice, then twisted the athema and ripped downward.

     The spider squealed and fell over, its belly seaming open like a rotten garbage bag. Blake backed away from the final spasms and heard the voice suck itself away in shock and silence. He grinned.

     "That was it, wasn't it? That was your big boss, your last defence. It's just you and me now." Blake held the gory athema out in the palm of his right hand. "Going to find you."

     He stepped forward cautiously. For three paces nothing happened. Then the blade twitched to the left. Blake stopped, then turned left. As he went the knife raised itself until it was pointing at the roof.

     "Upstairs. Interesting." He pulled a flashlight out of his coat pocket and flashed it at the cieling. There was an old attic door. its grimy pull string broken short.

     He dragged a side table over, tested its strength, and found it adequate. He climbed up and pulled the door open. Folding stairs clattered down, along with dust and several hand-spanning spiders. Blake edged back, but they lay still where they fell. He looked up. There was a faint light.

     Blake checked his watch.

     "Almost sunrise. Out of time."

     "Leave us alone," the voice whispered. "This is our place. Go away."

     "It's not yours," said Blake. He started up the stairs. "There's no place for you in this world anymore."

     The attic seemed empty and completely bare except for dust. Blake cautiously came up the last stair and looked around. The pre-dawn light was already filling the room, but in one dark corner he saw that something was hanging pendulous from the roof-beam.

     He thought it was a real body, at first. The twisted rope around the neck had snapped the head sideways, and the eyes bulged and the mouth was open wide. As he watched, one last gelid spider rolled out of the mouth and down the tongue, to splatter inertly to the floor. Then he saw that the creeping rays of sun were turning the bare feet of the ectoplasmic appearance transparent.

     "Got you," Blake said.

     As he walked nearer the shape he saw that it hung in the center of three concentric circles, drawn in chalk, faintly visible under the dust, and ornate with signs familiar to him from his studies. This was the concentrator that bound the thing to earth. He held the athema high, drew a breath, and stepped into the first ring.

     He was in a dead forest, the trees bare and black, and overhead were bitter, pitiless stars in utter vacuum. Under his feet were fallen leaves that rustled stealthily in an uneasy wind. All around he heard the voice, the whispering spell-speech, of his enemy. Suddenly it focused into clear venomous hate.

     "I curse you," it said. "I curse you with Fear, Fear that paralyzes the will and freezes the heart, Fear so that you cannot take another step, I curse you..."

     Blake almost laughed. "I'm always afraid, stupid. Fear is part of why I do what I do. No-one knows my fears better than I. But you were afraid of what comes after death. Your circle is broken."

     He stepped forward. For a second everything around him flickered, and he saw the attic room. Then he was plunged back in darkness.

     He was in a vast open field, under night unrelieved by any star. Stretching in endless rows around him were stones, gravestones shaped like books, and in front of each were rusted athemas or the ruined heads of staffs. No grass grew on the mounds of broken earth of each grave. Blake shuddered when he realized where he was. On every stone was written "Killed In The Line Of Duty."

     "I curse you with Pain and Loss," hissed the voice. "So that all that you you achieve may fall to dust, and all your victories will be hollow, and all that you suffer be useless, with Pain and Loss I curse you..."

     Blake was silent. Then he spoke quietly, his eyes closed.

     "Pain and Loss is what all living things pay for everything. Nothing good is gotten without pain, and everything is paid finally with loss. But the brief moment of achievement is the glory of the living."

     He opened his eyes. They narrowed, and he frowned.

     "But you wanted to be beyond pain and loss, to be here forever, and never pay the price. But the price is always paid, by anything that is born."

     He stepped forward.

     "Your circle is broken."

     He was back in the attic. There were no more illusions. He stood in the final circle, the rotting semblance of what was once human dangling a foot from him.

     Blake looked up into its eyes. They glinted with malice.

     "Now you face me at last." The lips did not move. "But I do not curse you. I will only foretell. You think you triumph over me. But I tell you with the foresight of the dead, that you will get everything that you want, fulfill all your dreams, and they you shall find that they are an empty cup. That will be my satisfaction, though you destroy me today."

     Blake shook his head.

     "You destroyed yourself, a long time ago. I'm just...cleaning up your mess." He held out the athema. The tip touched the thing's chest.

     "Be purified."

     Blue flame blossomed from the blade, engulfing the ectoplasmic corpse instantly. The voice screamed briefly, fearfully, a scream that dwindled to silence as it's phantasm was devoured away into nothing. In three seconds it was gone. There was a blast of wind as something invisible passed Blake, leaving the world, scattering the dust and the last fragments of the chalk circle as it did.

     Blake looked around the attic. The sun had definitely risen now, and in its light there was no trace of anything unnatural.

     Blake put his athema in its sheathe at his side.

     "Spiders," he said, shaking his head again. "What a cliche."

     He looked at his watch.

     "Damn it. I'm going to be late for class."

 

     Jean had decided to leave the car and go in looking for Blake when he came out of the old house's boarded door, combing back his short black hair and hooking his backpack off the porch as he came down the steps. She settled behind the wheel in relief. Exploring an old decaying building for revenants might be her sixteen year old brother's idea of fun, but it certainly wasn't hers. She pulled her gray sweater closer against the morning chill and squinted at him in the rising sunlight as he opened the door and slid in next to her.

     "Hey, sis, thanks for waiting." He put the backpack on the floor between his feet and pulled the seatbelt down with a click. "I think we'll have to go straight to school. No time for home."

     "Not even for a shower?" She brushed his shoulder briskly. "You smell like dust and yuck." She smiled. "You'll never get a girlfriend like that. Not a live one, anyway."

     "We're on the other side of town, Jean." Blake unzipped his backpack and pulled out a clipboard loaded with a wad of crumpled, curling papers. "I'll shower in gymn. That's only fourth period. While you drive I'll see if I can get this report filled out."

     "Okay, boss. Jean, Jean, the driving machine, at your service." She started the engine with a roar that assulted the quiet morning air and pulled out into the sparsely inhabited suburban road. "You're just lucky I don't have any of my courses until one today."

     "I appreciate it, Jeannie, I really do. With this mission I've finally got enough field hours to take the Training Permit Exam, and today's the last test for three months." Blake ticked a quick series of boxes off on the form. "Damn. If I knew there was so much paperwork, I don't know if I would have ever started this crap."

     "Kind of left it to the last minute, didn't you?" They were driving through the outskirts of town, where the houses were beginning to show signs of life, porch lights going off and kitchen lights on, and in a few driveways cars chugging exhaust as they warmed up.

     "They never can tell when a suitable job will turn up. Though I don't know how they missed this one. It must have been almost a hundred years old. Look at this." He pulled out a manila folder dossier from the pile and flipped it open. Jean glanced over and saw a sheet with several columns of run-off pictures with data. It was labelled "Suspects."

     Blake tapped a yellowed reproduction near the top.

     "The original owner. It's not in the records, I think it must have been hushed up, but it appears he committed suicide in the house. A clear case." He shuffled the folder away and wrote an entry on the forms. "Of an Arachne syndrome haunting."

     "And what does that mean?"

     "People who hang themselves have an affinity for spiders. It's an old Greek legend. But he was a spell-weaver too, so that accounts for the persistence of the manifestation," he added thoughtfully, and made another entry. He turned the pages over. "Peculiarities."

     "The whole damn thing seems peculiar to me." They were in town. Jean was nervously watching the growing traffic.

     "You're telling me. I almost got eaten by a spider the size of a pony."

     "Blake!" She reflexively tapped the brakes, almost squealing to a halt. The car behind her honked angrily.

     "Nothing I couldn't handle, sis."

     Jean stared at him.

     "What? I was fine. Really. No big problem. Really."

     Jean finally looked away and slowly started driving again. Blake looked down at his papers.

     "Peculiarities," he mumbled. "It used the royal plural pronouns at first, then switched to the singular personal as I got closer to its focal point."

     "Real megalomaniac type, huh?" Jean spoke lightly.

     "Well, he did want to cheat death and never give up his earthly habitation. He sure fits that pattern. But it can sometimes indicate a multiple haunting, or an arrangement with...other powers. Or maybe that he was just lonely. Talking to his spiders for a hundred years like a crazy old lady with her cats." He looked up. "What are you doing?"

     Jean pointed with one finger off the wheel at the shop whose drive-through she was turning.

     "The Donut Palace." She smiled. "breakfast is the most important meal of the day, kid. Good morning, Mabel. Large coffee, large juice, and six cherry-filled doughnuts, please."

     "Thanks, Jeannie," he said as they pulled out. "I hadn't even thought about eating." He gulped some juice and took half a doughnut in one bite.

     "Got to keep those energy levels up." She smiled and sipped her coffee, keeping wary eyes on the traffic. "But you don't have to wolf it down."

     "I don't have time. The test starts in...shit, eight minutes!"

     "Don't panic, we're almost there. You finish your report and let me worry about getting you to class on time."

     "Okay, but if you don't, that's more field work for the next three months."

     They were quiet for the rest of the drive, Jean maneuvering with hawk-like excitement and skill through the sluggish morning traffic and Blake concentrating on his work forms and stuffing two more doughnuts down as he did. By the time they pulled into the Gothenberg High School complex his forms were stained with jelly and grease, but done.

     "Still the old snake-pit, I see," said Jean in mock nostalgic tones. "I'll let you off in front of the building. Where are they holding it?"

     "The 200 Wing. Math rooms. I guess they think the build-up of negative energy is a good simulation of adverse conflict situations." He grinned and gathered up his backpack.

     Jean rolled her eyes.

     "You and math. Well, here we are, with minutes to spare." She touched to a stop. Outside was the plain, industrially grim 200 Wing. She turned to Blake as he struggled with his seat belt.

     "Good luck, little brother. Give 'em hell."

     "You know it, Imperious Leader. You know it."

     Blake got out, paused as if to say something, then knocked twice on the car roof.

     "Got to go." He slammed the car door, turned, and loped hurriedly toward the building's doors, papers flapping in one hand and pack swinging in the other.

     Jean watched until he was safely inside, then drove away, heading for her dorm room and a few hours of snatched sleep. As she pulled out of the tangled school traffic system, she couldn't help feeling that, although she hoped Blake passed for his sake, she wouldn't mind three more months before he got his Training Permit and the real danger began.

     Blake flashed his I.D. at the hall monitor, who waved him along. Blake could see down the corridor the short, straight figure of his instructor Mr. Guthrie, waiting stiffly outside a closed classroom door. For all his urgency Blake slowed down as he approached those icy blue eyes and dour, scar-pitted face. He held out his papers like a shield or an offering between them.

     "I did it. I've got the hours."

     Guthrie took the papers, flipped through them, nose wrinkled. He lowered the forms and raised his eyes.

     "I don't have time to review these properly. The test starts in five minutes."

     Blake felt his stomach fall to his feet. He seemed to shrivel in front of his teacher, who was actually a few inches shorter than he was.

     "However, I think we might be able to squeak you in, Mr. Martin."

     Blake's hope rose.

     "If you will consent to be Read."

     Blake hesitated for the fraction of a second. He trusted Guthrie with his training, but the idea of his teacher probing his mind was disquieting. He looked into those cold assessing eyes and decided.

     "All right. Go ahead. Do it."

     "Close your eyes. Clear your head. And relax." The instructor was all clipped tones and precise, practiced movements. He raised the index and little fingers of his right hand. "Don't resist. I'm only going to look at the last eight hours. All your big secrets and personal opinions will be safe."

     He gave a wintery smile. Before Blake shut his eyes he saw Guthrie's red chapped fingers closing in, then felt their cold touch on his eyelids.

     He had been told that for people who Read minds to recover experiences was like living them again in the actual time it took, though the Reading might last only a few seconds. It was not that way being Read. Blake saw nothing. But it was as if he felt all the emotions he had felt all night, all at once, in a blazing instant. He exhaled like he had been kicked in the solar plexus. Then the fingers were removed from his lids.

     Blake opened his eyes, blinking against the sudden tears trickling down his cheeks. Guthrie drew back, eyes unfocused and staring, then snapped to attention. He pulled out the pen from his top pocket in a business-like manner and riffled the mission forms to the back. Blake could see beads of sweat on his forehead.

     "I believe that performance merits a Beta-Plus, Mr. Martin." He coughed deep in his chest, then marked the last page. "I'll discuss the details with you later. In the meantime, this more than qualifies you to take the Federal Paraskills Training and Requirements Test." Guthrie drew out a jangling ring of keys attached to a chain, unlocked the schoolroom door, and held it open.

     "Let's begin, shall we?"

     Blake started through the door, but the instructor held him back a moment with a hand on his shoulder.

     "And Mr. Martin?" Guthrie smiled wolfishly. "That is exactly why we chose the Math Wing."

Notes

"The second strand [of The Bureau of Shadows]showed signs of life around 2006, when I began what was projected to be an entire book on the adventures of Martin Blake, a high school student seeking to enter the government Paraskills Program. I had finished the first chapter, printed it out, and started on the next when my computer crashed, obliterating many files. That made me abandon the project in despair."