by Myke Cole
Desda appeared in the hallway and froze. He recognized her apron from his youngest days: a washed-out heart with the words KISS THE COOK! in letters so faded that he read them from memory. Her gray hair was pinned into an untidy bun, her body still strong and thin despite her years.
He composed himself and descended the rest of the steps.
“Oscar!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck. Her nose only came up to his chest, and he grinned in spite of his misery.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” she asked.
He paused, trying to fix the smell of her in his memory: perfume, sugar, and folded egg yolks.
He crushed her to him. “I love you, Mom.”
“I know, sweetie. I love you, too. Oscar, I can’t breathe.”
No time for good-byes! his mind yelled. Every second you stay here brings you closer to getting caught! Run, you damned fool! But he didn’t. He held his mother, even when the screen-door hinges announced Stanley’s entrance.
He kept his eyes closed but felt his father’s disapproving presence and the rage boiling in response.
“What’s going on, Oscar?” Stanley asked, coming to stand beside his wife. He kept his voice mild, but Britton could feel the judgment just below the surface. “You get yourself into some kind of trouble?”
“Stop it, Stanley!” she scolded.
Stanley waved his hand as if brushing away a fly. “What are you doing here?”
“Dad, can’t I just come home? Can’t a son visit his family?” Oscar asked.
“That’s crap. You never come home unless you want something,” Stanley replied.
“No, Dad, that’s crap. I never come home because it’s like walking into a freezer.”
“Come on, you two.” Desda intervened. “Oscar’s home for five minutes, and…”
But by now the familiar pattern was already playing out; both of the Britton men had their dander up.
“You’ve had a standing invitation!” Stanley said through gritted teeth. “I invite you to First Baptist every Sunday, and…”
“Oh, that’s a great idea! I can sit next to you while you pretend to be Christian.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Stanley asked, the cords on his neck standing out.
Britton held his mother close. Years and bruises had taught him that just about anything could set Stanley off. Better not to risk opening his mouth. But the events of the last few hours, and his one hope of refuge evaporating, made him careless.
“Where in the Bible does it tell you to hit your wife? Where does it tell you to hit your son?” Oscar asked.
“Oscar, please!” Desda’s voice was pleading.
But the magical tide didn’t care. It surged with Britton’s fury and sadness. He pushed against it, but it was useless. The air in the kitchen archway shimmered, folded in on itself, and resolved into the static light of an open gate.
Stanley’s eyes shot wide, but Desda continued to look at her son.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Oscar said quickly.
“Sweet Jesus,” Stanley said, backing away.
“What’s wrong?” Desda asked, turning. She froze as she saw the gate.
“Oh my God,” Stanley breathed. “You’re one of those…one of those damned Selfers. This is un-friggin-believable!” He invoked his single response to all unexpected events—anger, but still moved backward, bumping the front door. He fumbled for the handle.
“My God, Oscar,” Desda whispered, “are you doing that?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Oscar said, his eyes wet. “I love you.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “This isn’t right. I’m your mother, Oscar, I would have known.”
Stanley tore his eyes off the gate. “For Christ’s sake, Dez! Get the hell away from him!” he shouted, reaching for her but not daring to come closer.
Oscar could hear faint keening from the gate. The demon-horses were not far away.
Desda didn’t move. “No, no. This isn’t right. Not right.”
“It’s just a thing, like acne or chicken pox,” Oscar said with a certainty he didn’t feel. “I don’t have a choice. It’s going to be okay.”
She continued to shake her head.
The gate flickered, snapped shut, reopened deeper into the kitchen, then disappeared.
With the gate gone, Stanley found his fight at last.
“Get your damned hands off her!” he shouted, leaping forward and grabbing Oscar’s arms, shouldering Desda out of the way and knocking her to the floor. For all the strength in Stanley’s callused hands, he might as well have grabbed an oak.
Oscar ignored his father, reaching for his mother. Stanley snarled, pounding against his son’s massive chest. Oscar stepped back, raising his hands. “Stop, Dad. This is stupid.”
Desda pulled at her husband. “No! No! No!”
“Shut up!” Stanley screamed. “Get out of here! Leave us alone!”
Oscar tried to move to the door, but Stanley blocked his way.
Oscar backpedaled. Was Desda screaming at him or Stanley? He tried to see her face, but Stanley punched him in his mouth, rocking his head back. He took another step backward, caught his heel on the staircase, and went down hard, bruising his back. Stanley followed, punches raining down.
Desda screamed, the sound merging with the roaring blood in Oscar’s ears. The magical tide drowned him. His skin began to burn. Am I going nova? he wondered. He had heard that Selfers, unable to control their magic, sometimes succumbed to its power, burning themselves to a crisp. A gate half opened above him and vanished. He saw through the window as it reappeared on the lawn, grew, and disappeared.
“Dad! Get off! You’re hurting me!” he shouted. “I’m trying to leave!”
“Fucker!” Spittle landed on his shaved head.
Stanley punctuated his cursing with punches. Somewhere the buzz that wasn’t quite a scream droned on. The magic pulsed.
“Dad! No!”
Oscar lunged forward, throwing an elbow into what he hoped was his father’s chest. The blow struck Stanley’s nose with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed from his father’s face. Stanley’s eyes crossed as he staggered backward, arms pinwheeling.
A gate opened wide behind him.
Oscar reached for his father’s wrist. “Dad, look out!”
His fingers brushed the tips of Stanley’s fingers as his father half stepped, half fell into the gate, tumbling onto the grass beyond and sliding to a halt.
Oscar watched through the portal’s static sheen as his father looked around, his eyes huge. Suddenly, they shot wide and Stanley scrambled to his feet. “Oscar…” he said.
Oscar could hear keening voices approaching fast. “Uskar …Uskar…”
“Oscar!” Stanley shrieked, then the gate snapped shut, and his father was gone.
Oscar stood staring at empty air.
Desda reached one hand to her mouth. Her other hand reached out to the empty air. “Oscar?” she whispered, “Where did he go? Where did Stanley go?”
Britton wrestled to reopen the gate. “Come on,” he muttered. “Open, damn you.” He pried with his fingers at the empty air. Somewhere beyond it, his father was trapped, possibly dying.
“Open!” he shrieked. “Open the fuck back up!”
Nothing. The tide churned within him, eddying uselessly. A gate opened beside his mother, but vanished before he could turn to face it.
“Where is he?” Desda repeated.
Britton shook his head, choking back a sob. “I don’t know, Mom.”
Her knees wobbled, and she sat down hard, her hands still not moving—one on her mouth, the other pointing. “You have to…you have to bring him back,” she whispered. A tear escaped from a corner of her eye. “Bring him back!”
“I can’t.” His voice sounded flat in his own ears.
“What do you mean?” she asked, finally lowering her hands. “Open it up and get him back!”
He shook his head, his
hands making useless circles at his sides. “I don’t know how. I can’t control it.”
She sat in silence for a moment. Then she made a sound between a scream and a growl.
“Mom?” he asked, kneeling and reaching for her. She blinked at the empty space where the gate had closed, her head shaking slowly, her mouth wide.
He stood and took a step toward her. “Mom?”
Her head jerked toward him, her expression blank. Then her eyes registered shocked recognition, and she scrambled backward, kicking out at him. “You get away from me!”
His father had vanished. Britton couldn’t save him.
His mother shrieked.
The need to run overcame all else. He surrendered to it and let his legs carry him away from his mother’s accusing eyes.
CHAPTER V
FLIGHT
…Latency presents a challenge to the American people and the world as unique and as dangerous as the atom bomb. It represents the greatest opportunity, but also the greatest threat we have faced as a nation since the first atomic weapon was tested in 1945. Like it or not—Magic is the new nuke.
—Senator Nancy Whalen
Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on the Great Reawakening
Oscar Britton’s bloodied feet slid inside his father’s shoes, pounding down the road toward the town where he’d grown up.
If the army had taught him one thing, it was how to run, and he did it well despite the screaming of his wounded calf. Somewhere behind him was a horrible thing, something he didn’t want to think about, and if he could just keep running fast enough, maybe that thing would never catch up to him.
The tides of magic went with him. Gates snapped open, teasing him with the prospect of saving his father, never staying open long enough to admit him.
Sirens sounded, drawing nearer. He threw himself into a ditch, watching over the rise as two police cruisers swept past, heading for his parents’ house. He bolted back to the street, racing onward.
And then he stopped, bathed in the glow of a convenience-store sign. He knew this parking lot. His friend Rob Dausman had introduced him to smoking dope here, hidden behind a bread truck and pretending the drug affected him more than it did.
For Britton, it had been a one-time deal, but Rob had made it a lifestyle. That lifestyle had bound him to this spot though he’d moved into the store and behind the counter. Britton could see him through the window, running a hand through his curly blond hair as he laughed with a customer. Britton felt a wave of relief at that smile. With Rob it had never mattered that Britton was black, or twice his size, or better in school. Britton realized why his footsteps had brought him here. If there was a person in the world who would not judge him, it was Rob.
He felt the blast of heated air strike him as the automatic doors slid aside. Elevator music bleated over the speakers. Fluo-rescent lighting reflected off rows of eyedrops, canned soup, and shampoo.
The customer, a middle-aged woman with short hair and a thick middle, was buying a pint of ice cream and laughing with Rob. Britton marveled at them; the world ticked on, blind to the tectonic shift in his life.
Britton looked up at the TV screen hanging from a corner of the ceiling. The news blared a block-lettered footer: RIOTS IN MONTMARTRE DISTRICT OF PARIS. SELFERS BATTLE EUROPEAN CALIPHATE POLICE.
The strict Sharia Islamic law of the EC forbade the practice of non-Suppressive magic, but that didn’t stop some from trying. The screen cut to shots of “Djinn-Born” Selfers standing atop a burning armored police vehicle, SUPPRESSION MAGIQUE printed on the side. French police in riot gear and Islamic Mutawaeen religious police swarmed around it. The Djinn-Born were bared to the waist and covered in winding tattooed Arabic script. One spit fire over the police. The other froze a Mutawaeen officer with a touch, then kicked his crystalline form to splinters.
When Britton took his eyes off the TV, both Rob and the customer were staring at him, wide-eyed.
“Dude,” Rob breathed.
The woman moved forward. Britton lifted his hands, but she only pushed past him and ran out the sliding doors, catching them with her shoulders in her haste to exit. He heard her car door slam and the engine start, and looked back to the TV as she roared out of the parking lot.
The news had been replaced by a mug shot. Britton recognized the image from his military Common ACCESS CARD. ACTION 6 NEWS ALERT! READ THE SCROLLING TEXT. $100,000 REWARD OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE CAPTURE OF A SELFER FUGITIVE IN YOUR AREA. OSCAR BRITTON ESCAPED FROM MILITARY CUSTODY AND IS CURRENTLY AT LARGE. IF YOU SEE THIS INDIVIDUAL, PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHORITIES IMMEDIATELY. THIS SELFER’S BLACK MAGIC IS NOT CONTROLLED AND HE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND HIM ON YOUR OWN!
A toll-free number followed.
Britton looked back to Rob, who looked away, blushing. “It’s been running all night,” Rob said, then his eyes widened.
Britton followed Rob’s gaze over his shoulder. An open gate glittered just inside the store’s entrance.
“Dude,” Rob said again. “This is not good.”
“Rob,” Britton managed, “please.”
“You’ve got to call somebody. This is some serious shit right here. Man, I had no idea you were …I mean, holy crap.”
Britton took a step and winced as Rob stepped back in perfect synchronicity, fetching up against a shelf and initiating a small avalanche of cigarette cartons. “Rob. It’s me, man. It’s Oscar.”
Rob nodded, forcing a smile. “I know, man, I know. It’s not a big deal. I’m just saying. You have to call somebody.” He pointed a trembling finger at a black pay phone below the TV.
Rob’s hand darted under the counter. Britton thought he might produce the store’s sawed-off, but Rob slapped two quarters on the counter. “There you go, man,” he said eagerly. “Call’s on me. Don’t sweat it.” He looked guilty. “I don’t even want the reward.”
But Britton didn’t hear. Don’t waste any more time, his mind said. You’re alone.
Profound weariness followed. His shoulders sagged. For the first time in his life, Britton wasn’t sure that he wanted to live.
He slapped the quarters up into Rob’s face. Rob threw his arms up and crouched, but Britton had already picked up the pay phone. He stared at the receiver.
Rob was right. Britton did have to make this call. Would they kill him? Probably. But maybe that’s what needed to happen. His father was dead by his hand. He couldn’t control what was clearly a dangerous weapon. Why was he prioritizing his own life over others? What gave him that right? That was why they called them Selfers.
He saw his father’s face as the gate closed, heard his screaming over the keening of the demon-horses. He couldn’t bear to face it, and instead took a deep breath and tried to rebuild his world.
Baby steps, he thought. You’re standing in a convenience store. You’re staring at a pay phone. Even that was too much, so he concentrated on smaller details. The phone receiver smells like stale beer. Weeds grow through cracks in the parking lot outside the window.
But reality would not be denied. You’re Latent. You’re a Probe. You’re not in control of your magic. The army has rejected you. You’ve killed your father. Your mother is terrified of you. Even Rob is scared of you. You’re a fugitive. Your life has changed forever.
And, most importantly, you’re alone.
His knees buckled under the enormity of the realization.
There was a click, and a woman’s grainy voice answered. “Operator.”
“South Burlington ANG base,” Britton replied. “SOC liaison office.” His voice sounded alien through the earpiece. Someone else was talking to the operator, someone far calmer than Oscar Britton—Selfer, Probe, and murderer. The thought steadied him. That someone else could handle the situation. He would just listen.
“South Burlington Air National Guard?” the operator asked. “I have the main switchboard number here.”
“I need the Supernatural Operations Corps l
iaison office,” he said. “There’s been an incident. This is an emergency.”
The receiver went silent. He was about to ask if the operator was still there when she said, “You should have called nine-one-one.”
“I didn’t,” he answered. “I called you.”
There was a click, and the sound of ring tones.
Another woman’s voice answered, clearer than the last. “SOC, Captain Nereid.”
He paused. Self-preservation cried out to hang up the phone and start running again. But fatigue cloaked him like a thick blanket.
“This is Lieutenant Britton, 158th Ops Support Flight.”
After a pause punctuated by the tapping of a keyboard, the voice answered, coldly professional. “Lieutenant Britton, we’ve been very worried about you. I’m glad you called.”
Stanley Britton’s screams echoed in his ears. Britton’s voice broke as he answered. “Yes.”
Sympathy crept into Nereid’s voice. “We know what’s happened, Oscar. Are you all right?”
He nodded, tears flowing now, not realizing she couldn’t see him.
Her voice grew urgent. “Oscar. All you have to do is stay where you are. It’s going to be all right. Can you hear me? We’re coming to get you, and we’re going to help you. All you have to do is not move, and you’ll be fine. Do you understand me?”
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. I’m trying to do the right thing.” He cringed at the pathetic whine in his voice.
Her voice was firm. “I need you to calm down and stick by that phone, okay? Whatever you do, do not surrender yourself to the police. The police may not understand what you’ve done like we do. Should you see police vehicles, hide as best you can until we can get to you. Do you understand? Hello? Hello?”
The kernel of self-preservation blossomed. His mind conjured images of Harlequin descending, lightning crackling from his fingertips; the Probe girl on the roof lying helpless in a spreading pool of blood.
Oscar Britton might have a dangerous, uncontrolled power, but the army murdered little girls.
