Vigilantes of Love

by John Everson

  The mountain top was rocky and icy and not very pleasant at all. Nobody proclaimed him a hero. He didn’t feel very strong, either. Heck, Kyla had to hold onto his arm to keep him from blowing away.

  David’s teeth chattered as the sprite led him along the spiky, slippery tip of the mountain. “Even I can’t make you feel very warm up here,” Kyla apologized. “Not enough air. Not enough magic. But look. You can see the sunset.”

  The sprite was right. David turned to the west to stare, as the solid orange globe of the sun crept closer and closer to the edge of the earth. The sky merged from red to purple to black above them as the dot of fire grew smaller, weaker, and then abruptly went out. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he was the most uncomfortable he’d ever been.

  “Sometimes you have to suffer a little for the reward,” the sprite announced. “Had enough?”

  David nodded quickly, and they were airborne again.

  “Hidden in the Western Aerenvil Mists is the lair of an ice dragon,” Kyla announced. “His name is Hrrrl and he’s a very cross beast. They say his dreams are the source of nightmares to children all around the world. And those are his good dreams.”

  David’s eyes grew wide as golfballs. “Is it safe to go near him?”

  “You’ll soon learn that nothing in life is safe, child. But you can approach any sort of beast with caution and, if you’re lucky and brave, come away with all your limbs still attached.”

  “Why go near the beasts at all?”

  The sprite laughed, his cackle the sound of ice breaking and shattering.

  “Why, indeed! Why have you come near me?”

  “You’re not a beast!”

  “Aren’t I?” The sprite grinned again, teeth glinting like daggers. David shivered.

  “Know this, boy: approach any beast with a cool head and a brave heart and you will, at the very least, earn its respect, even if it still slays you. Try to avoid a beast and it will seek you out when you least expect it, and sink its fangs into your back before you even know it’s there. It will toy with you and tease you, and mock you for your fear.”

  David thought about that for a moment, imagining himself spearing a snorting, howling, scaly dragon with the tip of the broom his mother kept behind the door in their utility room. He’d pretended in the past that the broom was a lance, and the pile of laundry a deadly dragon. But now that he was actually to meet up with a real dragon, and not a collection of smelly socks and shirts and underthings…

  “But what if I’m not strong enough to beat the beast?” David asked. “Shouldn’t I hide?”

  “Strength comes from the heart, not the biceps, boy. You can beat any beast if you believe deeply. If you run away to hide all the time you’re likely to become a beast yourself.”

  “How could I become a beast?” David asked. “I’m a kid!”

  “Beasts aren’t born as such,” the sprite replied. “But as they grow, they hide and plot and fear. They stew poison and watch it curdle in hidden spaces. Their faces draw up grey and wrinkled. Sometimes they grow scales and fingernails the size of lawn darts. Sometimes they turn to ice. Whatever they grow into, they rarely like to face the light. And they rarely admit what they have become.”

  “Was Hrrrl a boy like me once?”

  “Why don’t you ask him? He’s right over there.”

  Kyla pointed to their right, and David sucked in a sharp gasp. Towering above a mountainous cloud was the largest dragon he’d ever seen. Well, it was the only dragon he’d ever seen, but it was truly monstrous. It was a jeweled beast, geometric scales of ice stretching from haunches to head in a blinding prism of violet and electric blue and emerald. But mostly, Hrrrl was ice white. And his eyes, which looked larger than David’s whole body, flashed from crimson to black as the dragon became aware of its visitors.

  Hrrrl’s legs and tail disappeared into a dense canopy of fog, but there was no mistaking the beast’s intentions. Its forelegs stretched, and twin iridescent wings unfurled from its sides like gargantuan kites. The dragon was readying itself to pounce.

  “He’s going to kill us!” David shrieked.

  The beast’s mouth opened, and from it issued the loudest, most terrifying sound David had ever heard. It was louder than the engines of a jet taking off, more tortured than the wail of train brakes when the engineer sees a car blocking the tracks just a couple hundred yards ahead. With the sound came a blast of arctic cold that washed over David and Kyla like a tidal wave.

  David felt his eyelashes turn to ice.

  “Ask him.” Kyla said again. He squeezed David’s hand.

  “I can’t,” the boy cried. “He’s going to eat us!”

  Without so much as a “See ya,” the sprite vanished. The dragon roared again, this time taking two steps through the clouds so that his monstrous snout leveled with the boy’s eyes. David could have reached out and touched the beast’s frozen teeth. They spiked up and down in its mouth like the icicles hanging off Mom’s gutters at home. He floundered in the air, waving his arms like a drowning infant. In terror he looked up and down and around for the sprite, and called out the little man’s name.

  “Kyla! Kyla, help!”

  Then he thought, I’ll fall. And if I fall, I’ll get away from the dragon. Then I’ll be safe for awhile.

  But David stared into the burning blue eyes of Hrrrl and knew that he wasn’t going to fall this time. He could not run away. For a second, he wondered if his own eyes mirrored those of a trapped mouse. Or the bird.

  In his head, he heard Kyla’s earlier admonitions. “Strength comes from the heart. You can beat any beast if you believe.” And, “Ask him.”

  In front of him, the stakes of ice gleamed, slowly drawing apart. Hrrrl was preparing to eat him. David shrugged his shoulders, What have I got to lose?

  “Were you ever a boy like me?” David said, his voice a tremulous whisper.

  The dragon dipped its head, raising a frosted brow. “Eh?” it growled.

  David repeated his question. Louder this time. “I said, were you ever a boy, like me?”

  Hrrrl didn’t move. Didn’t answer. One eyelid closed. Then the other.

  David didn’t know what to think. Had the dragon just gone to sleep? If it had, maybe he could try to escape…

  …No. He had asked a question, and he wanted an answer. There was no outracing a dragon in its own cloud. Heck, he couldn’t even keep himself aloft without the help of the frost sprite. Although he seemed to be holding his own now.

  “Hrrrl,” he said, raising his voice another level. “I asked if you were ever a boy. A human boy.”

  “Yeeessss,” the beast hissed, its eyes springing open. The force of its breath knocked David backwards. He tumbled through the moist fog, coming to rest many yards away from the icy beast.

  “I was a boy. I had parents, just like you,” the dragon growled. “But I hated them. I hated everybody. But that’s all over now. Because now I’m the most powerful beast in the world!!!”

  David thought for a moment. “But you’re up here in the clouds, all by yourself.”

  “I LIKE to be alone.” the dragon bellowed, fountains of fog steaming through his craterlike nostrils.

  “Aren’t you lonely?”

  “Leave me alone!” the dragon turned tail and dove deep into a veil of cloud.

  “Not bad,” a voice chimed in his ear. “I told you, be brave and face your foes. Even if you don’t have a broom.”

  “How do you know about the broom?” David asked, turning to see the frost sprite. Kyla lounged in the air beside him, legs crossed, head resting on his hand. He looked like a frozen genie.

  “I know a lot of things about you,” the sprite said. “Why do you think I chose you to take from the plane and not another kid?”

  David shrugged.

  “How about a stop in Halla, the Frost City?”

  “Can I get a drink there?” David asked.

  “You can get whatever you want there,” the sprit
e replied, “as long as it’s made of water. And it’s cold.” With a whoosh of speed, they left the cloud of the dragon behind.

  It was beautiful! Sweeping spires of intricately molded ice rose from turrets of fog and snow to make a fairyland scene. The streets were endless, and wreathed in flowing cotton. The sprite held David’s hand as they walked along a path through swirls of cloud dust closer and closer to the peaks of the city. There was music in the air, a high, pure, angelic wash of sound that made David’s heart leap. It was cool and perfect, and utterly devoid of the aching passions of pain and love. Suddenly he yearned to be inside the twin towers of ice that marked the city’s entrance. He wanted to stay here, to be a human boy living in a castle in the clouds. His life would be a fairytale. People would write about him, the boy in the sky.

  Kyla nodded at the keepers of the gate, twin wraiths of many arms, eyes and motions. They shimmied away from the opening, allowing the boy and sprite passage into the city. As they passed through the gate, David saw a wondrous mix of beings dancing through a crystalline square. Winged creatures fluttered delicately above, while many-legged white beetles skated dizzily across the open ground. The song floated in the air. Frost sprites dashed between doorways, and snowy hummingbirds feasted at frozen nectar in a garden of glass.

  They passed through a door, and walked quickly down a blinding hallway.

  “You’ll stay here,” Kyla said, escorting David into a small room. A cot was set up in one corner, across from a window that looked onto the square they’d just crossed.

  “I’ll be back for you at breakfast. Sleep tight.” And with a wink, the sprite was gone.

  David stared out onto the frozen square, watched as cool white lights flickered on in windows across the way. Slowly, the skaters and flyers disappeared and the fairy garden was left still; an ice sculpture hidden in a cloud.

  Sighing, David climbed into the cot. Ice crystals crunched beneath him as he shifted in the bed. The heavy sheets did nothing to warm him, and he couldn’t find a comfortable way to rest his head. He missed his own pillow. His own bed. Even the bed at Dad’s! Idly he wondered if sprites from this city ever left to try to make it on their own in a human town.

  The night passed slowly. David felt the cold creeping through his fingers and toes. But it wasn’t coming from Halla, or even the frozen bed. The cold was steaming out of his heart. He felt it knotting up like a fat icicle inside as he reminded himself of the dull weeks he spent with his father and the heated flashes of temper that drove him to wish for escape from his mother. Wasn’t it better to stay here and hug the ice to his chest? To become a frost sprite himself, maybe?

  He lay still in the bed of ice and pictured the frost covering him completely. He felt his lips turning blue and his cooling blood flowed ever more sluggishly.

  Sometime during the night, he thought his heart stopped.

  Kyla picked him up the next morning.

  “What’s for breakfast?” David asked, stuffing a fist into his mouth to stifle a yawn.

  “Slept well, did you?” the sprite asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Hmmm.” The sprite looked grim for a moment, then dropped its eyes to the ground.

  “There are two menus to choose from,” Kyla said. “But whichever one you choose is the one you must live on for the rest of your life. After this meal, there is no going back. Follow me.”

  They walked through a maze of icy corridors. Tiny gauzy fairies zipped out of their way, while snow beetles sunk like water through the floor to avoid their steps. At last they stepped into a huge open room.

  Twisting spires of ice rose from the floor, glittering with a faint rainbow tinge all across the room. At each stalagmite, a transparent creature, or two or three, fed, licking greedily at the delicate spikes of ice.

  “If you choose the ice, you will stay here in the clouds,” Kyla said. His eyes were dead stones. “Forever.”

  The sprite looked at David with its frighteningly still gaze.

  “In the clouds you will not feel the pain. Your heart won’t ever feel like it’s being sliced in two by an electric knife. But the ice doesn’t taste anything like a hot stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup. It tastes like ice. It will leave you numb, kyla.”

  “Your name means numb?”

  The sprite nodded grimly. “You will sing and fly and dance… but you will not really feel. You won’t get that pit in your stomach that you get when you visit your father, but you won’t feel that hot maple syrup feeling that you get when he tells you he’s proud to be your dad, either.”

  David thought for a moment, watching the crystalline creatures of the cloud flit and flutter.

  A distant chime sounded like a tinkle of tiny bells. The whole scene looked so fragile, he felt as if he could shatter it with a sneeze.

  “You must choose.”

  “If I stayed, it wouldn’t be very brave, would it?” David asked.

  Kyla shook his head. “Not if you stay only because you are running away from your parents. From your fear. From the possibility of pain.”

  “But I can beat any beast if I try, right? If I’m really brave?”

  “There’s a good chance, yes.”

  “Then I’ll choose…”

  David looked longingly at the scene around him. Thought of shivering on a mountain top while seeing the most beautiful sunset in the world; thought of feeling afraid, but still beating a dragon with a simple question. Thought of Dad’s apartment and Mom’s mousetraps.

  “…pancakes.”

  * * * * *

  David ran ahead of his father down the narrow hallway and into the airport waiting area. The sprite had dropped him back in his seat just before landing. Dad didn’t seem to have noticed that he’d been gone.

  “Be brave,” the icy creature had said, and then David was staring at a window of intricate frost lacery. Try as he might, he couldn’t locate anything in the crystal pattern that looked remotely like the tiny man. The page of a newspaper crinkled familiarly next to him, as his dad folded up the Wall Street Journal into a neat, complete stack.

  After awhile, David began to hum. Not the cool beauty of the Frost City square song, but the friendly tones of his father’s Simon & Garfunkel records and his mother’s Barry Manilow tapes. His fingers and toes warmed to the glow of the songs of home. And Dad didn’t tell him, “Cool it.”

  “David, over here,” his mother called. The boy ran to her and hugged her tight.

  “Was he good for you, Merle?” she asked when his father came up from behind. David could hear the brakes she put on her voice whenever she talked to his father.

  “Good as gumdrops,” Dad growled, ruffling David’s hair with a hand.

  “Did you have a good flight?”

  “Not bad. Kinda cold on the plane, I thought.”

  His mother felt David’s hands to see. “Did you get cold, kiddo?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, pulling his hands back. “It wasn’t that cold.”

  “How about I buy us all breakfast before I head to the hotel?” Dad volunteered. “The food on the plane was…” he wrinkled his mouth in disgust, “…plane food.”

  His mother didn’t answer right away, her face wrinkling as if to sneeze… or complain. But then David could see her expression shift.

  “Okay. But then we’ve got to get going.”

  * * * * *

  They all sat down at a noisy IHOP near the airport. There was music playing on the radio with bells and strings and guitars, and David thought it sounded somehow… dirtier than the music of the clouds. Certainly not angelic. And yet, he liked it better.

  The waitress set a plate of steaming pancakes in front of him, along with a rack of flavored syrups.

  His parents looked at each other with tight mouths, but then smiled as they watched David dig into the food. It warmed his stomach like a big, bright fire. He mixed the syrups indiscriminately, pouring boysenberry, strawberry and maple syrup all over the cakes while his paren
ts beamed.

  “Merry Christmas, son,” his dad said.

  His mom sighed and then nodded her head. “Yes, Merry Christmas.”

  In his heart, David felt a rime of frost melt away.

  ~*~

  ANNE'S PERFECT SMILE

  The Post-it hadn’t been there long.

  Every night since Anne’s disappearance I’d kept vigil before this framed photo of her. Long silken hair of moonlight and shadow, eyes crisp in a silent smile, teeth gleaming straight and white against lips pursed to say, “Darling, I love you.”

  And this morning, when I woke, there was a Post-it stamped crookedly across that smile.

  Written in her loopy hearts and hugs script it read, “Tonight, if you would see me one last time, come to 139 Rue de Mort at 10 p.m.”

  She had been here! Why hadn’t she woken me? Why this cloak and dagger game? It occurred to me that the note and its “one last time” meant perhaps she had not been kidnapped, as I had suggested to the police.

  Maybe she had left me of her own accord, to live with another man. Or joined a cult? She’d always had an untoward fascination with the dark side. Our bookshelves were lined with the evidence.

  I paced the house, trying to understand. Reread the Post-it again and again. What if she hadn’t delivered the note? That thought chilled some of the tears from my eyes. Could some thug have been in my bedroom last night? I dismissed the idea quickly. If this was a kidnapper’s scheme, what was the ransom? The note had asked for nothing.

  Rue de Mort was a tiny street on the outskirts of town near the acreage of St. Mary Cemetery. I’d never been in this particular area before, it didn’t look inviting. The handful of houses were rotting and dark; I suspected most to be uninhabited.

  There was no light on in the house, but I climbed the creaking wooden steps anyway and knocked. The door fell open at my touch.

  “Anne?” I called inside.

  There was a thump, and then I heard her voice for the first time in weeks.

  “In here,” she called. Two simple words, but my heart leapt with relief. She was all right!