The Stolen Karma Of Nathaniel Valentine (The Books Of Balance Book 1)

by Justin Bloch

  What happened next did not immediately make sense to Darren. It was so unexpected, even after what the bitch had just said to him, that he couldn’t immediately comprehend what she had done. He only knew that she had finally taken her hands out from behind her and that the hand that had been reaching for her, his hand, no longer seemed to be functioning properly. It took him several seconds to realize that she was holding a long, thick billy club in her hands, just like the one his pop used to have, twirling it on a piece of rawhide strung through a hole in the handle. It took him another few seconds to realize that the reason his hand was not responding to his demands was that she had smashed him across the wrist with the club and the hand was now hanging limply, throbbing with an intense, hot pain.

  Once Darren had come to grips with these two vital facts, he was faced with a choice: fight or flight. Fleet of both mind and feet, he showed the formerly subdued Ginnie his back and ran. He was the aggressor, he was the one who taught the lessons, and he decided that the reversal of roles did not suit him well. He’d had enough of that from his old man. He did not worsen his situation by running away from the heavy foot traffic near the store, but nor did he better it by running toward the people. Instead, he ran parallel to the building and across the parking lot, his heavy boots pounding the pavement with every long step.

  He heard her caw laughter from far behind him and then suddenly she was there, clawing at his shoulder. He shrugged off the leather jacket in one fluid movement and cut to the left through a gap of two parked cars. He nearly made it away from her then, almost escaped whatever insane wrath had fallen over her. She swerved and followed him and darted out from between the same two cars he had just passed between when a third car smashed into her, and little Ginnie flipped over the hood, crashed into the windshield, and catapulted over the car, crumpling into a heap on the other side.

  Darren heard the thump as the car hit her and he turned, watched her progress all the way across the car. When she was down and still, he began to run again, throwing horrified glances back over his shoulder. He would have been home free if not for another car which slammed on its brakes and blared its horn at him. He managed to avoid the car, but it blocked his progress, and Ginnie was on him as soon as he halted.

  The billy club fell across his back and lightning rushed up his spine. He had no idea how she could still be attacking him, he had seen what that car had done to her, but the club crashed against his thigh and he knew it was her and he shrieked, high and girlish. He dropped to his knees and the third swing of the heavy club struck his skull. His vision exploded with bright light and all of the bones suddenly went out of his body. He slumped to the ground, cold asphalt scraping his cheek.

  “Oh, you’re going to learn your lesson now,” Ginnie said from above him, and there was unmistakable glee in her voice as she began to pound his body with the billy club.

  When the man in the long, dark jacket came from nowhere and tackled Ginnie, Darren Gast was already dead.

  “I visited with her once, you know,” Sol commented from his position in the passenger seat. On the other side of the lot, Darren was just getting out of his Camaro.

  Nathaniel said nothing, immersed as he was in watching the auras, but Nova spoke up from the back seat. “What do you mean?” she asked, leaning forward.

  “Stella,” he explained. “I spent the day with her once.”

  “I thought that wasn’t allowed,” Nova said. “Middling chil—”

  “Yes, I know,” the karma policeman interrupted. “‘Middling children are not to be contacted by any members of their immediate family so as not to disrupt their development.’ It is one of the first things that they tell you when you begin to arrange these matters.” He paused for a moment, looking through the window. By this time, Nathaniel had also begun to pay attention. “But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stand to be away from her any longer. I heard her heartbeat wherever I went, and I needed to be close to her, just for a day.”

  Nova reached forward and put a hand on her brother’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “It’s all right,” she said. “What did you two do?”

  “I took her to the beach,” the karma policeman answered. “I knew she’d like it. Because of Bertha. Because Stella was part Siren.” He fell quiet for a moment. “We went to one of the Florida Keys in May of the year she turned ten years old. It was warm, not yet summer, but on the edge of it. The waves glowed blue-green, and we watched the sandpipers dash away from the water as it rushed up the sand, then hurry back down to dig up food before the next wave came. Stella collected a bag of seashells, scallop, conch, razorback clam, a few broken pieces of mother of pearl. She used them to decorate the walls of a sand castle she built at the water’s edge. She looked beautiful that day, and I could see the first hints of the young woman she was becoming. We stayed at the beach for the entire day, and we watched the sunset together at day’s end. The most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Stella stood and walked to the water, held her arms out to it, her hair streaming behind her, and I watched her wings slip into being and I saw the sun reflected in her green eyes, eyes like cut emeralds. I knew that it would be the day upon which I judged all others.”

  The karma policeman said nothing for several moments. The silence remained unbroken until he spoke again. His eyes glistened brightly with a sheen of wetness; in the back seat, Nova cried quietly to herself. “That is what I think of when I remember Stella,” Sol whispered huskily. “Whenever the pain grows to be too much to bear, I focus on that day and on her by the water, standing with her arms spread and her eyes full of light.”

  Nathaniel moved to put a comforting hand on the karma policeman’s shoulder, but even before he had made it halfway, a shriek rolled across the parking lot. Only the barest of moments passed before they were out and running. Nova and Sol easily outpaced Nathaniel, moving with a fluid, unnatural speed more like flying than sprinting.

  He saw Sol leap and tackle a slim girl who was beating at some huddled form on the ground, and then there was a blinding flash of light and the karma policeman was thrown to the ground. The girl was gone from his grasp, already rising to her feet. Nathaniel noticed an odd thing about her as he pulled up just behind Nova, who stood solemnly, her arms hung by her sides and her pearl-handled straight razor pointed toward the ground. The girl seemed to be having trouble keeping hold of her form. She would be solid, real, factual, breathing hard and with a bloody lip where she had struck her mouth against the asphalt, and then she would go fuzzy and seem to almost pull apart in the middle, like a television with bad reception, one half of her body going one way, one half going the other. It made Nathaniel’s stomach feel queasy to watch, but since the alternative was a view of the pulped version of Darren Gast, he stuck with the girl.

  The Allamagoosalum.

  “So. You’ve come,” it said. It spoke with the girl’s voice, but it sounded manufactured somehow, as if it were coming through a filter.

  Sol had regained his feet and stood directly across from Nova and Nathaniel, the beast between them. His razor glimmered in his hand. It was the karma policeman on whom the Allamagoosalum focused its attention, its pale gray eyes lively, excited. “Yes,” the seraph said. His voice was volcanic. “We have come. To finish things between us.” Nova began to edge away from Nathaniel, widening the space they covered.

  The creature experienced another of the odd shifts. “We shall see about that. The sun shall set and never again rise, if I have anything to say about it,” it replied. “I still have one to take, and then the game begins again. And I’ve enjoyed playing.”

  The karma policeman made a move toward the creature, but it danced back a few steps. “Ah, ah, ah,” it said, waggling its finger back and forth, “you’re not allowed to touch me, policeman. One of the benefits of this form.” It broke suddenly to the left, seemed to melt through the air. It grabbed a hugely overweight woman who had come to see what the commotion was and whirled about with her in its arms. Her feet flew off o
f the asphalt as if she weighed no more than a baby doll. “I’ll kill her,” it whispered through clenched teeth. Its pale gray eyes flicked back and forth between its hunters. “I’ll end her filthy life.”

  The karma policeman walked across the parking lot to Nathaniel, his heels clicking loudly on the parking lot. “No you won’t, Raymond,” he said in his soft voice. “She’s not next.”

  “Oh really?” it asked, baring its teeth. “Are you so sure about that, policeman? Would you risk it?”

  Sol said nothing, only stared at the face of the monster he had hunted for twenty-five years.

  The Allamagoosalum did not release the woman, whose eyes had rolled up until only the whites were visible and who looked like she might faint at any moment, her aura pulsing a pale blue. “And who is this?” it inquired, jerking its head at Nathaniel. Its disguise, the girl’s face, shifted, became blurry, and returned to normal. “The mighty Cipher, here to slay the dread beast?” It laughed and the sound was like glass being crushed beneath the heel of a boot.

  “Let the Resident go,” Nova said, her voice cold and sharp as her weapon. “She is nothing to you.”

  “She is a bauble,” it answered, stroking the woman’s cheek. She made a strangled noise deep in her throat and went slack in the creature’s arms. It did not drop her, though, did not even lower her the slightest bit. “She is a trinket. I like her. I think perhaps I’ll keep her.”

  Nathaniel felt Sol press something into his hand, and when he dropped his eyes to it, he bit his lip and looked at the karma policeman. The seraph nodded once.

  “What’s going on?” said the Allamagoosalum. It was striving to sound playfully curious, but Nathaniel thought he could hear unease in its voice. “What did you just give him, policeman?”

  Nathaniel stepped forward. His heart pounded furiously in his chest, and his head seemed to swim with the enormity of what he was doing, but he breathed calmly. He moved his hand to where the beast could see it and flicked his wrist. The long blade of the karma policeman’s straight razor shot out and gleamed silver.

  “Let go of the woman,” the Cipher Nathaniel Valentine said in strong, even tones. “Your fight’s with me.”

  The Allamagoosalum eyed him warily for a moment, seemed to take stock of him. “You should fear me, Cipher. You should run scared from the sight of me, for I am your demise. But of your own free will you have challenged me, and I accept, as I must. And you will regret this. Mark my words, I will show you fear worse than the Darking.”

  A faint bell rang somewhere deep in Nathaniel’s mind at the mention of the Darking, but he dismissed it and raised the razor higher. He wasn’t sure how best to handle the weapon, only that the sharp side of the blade was meant to cut things, but it felt right in his hand. He drew strength from it. He took another step forward, now a mere five feet from his nemesis. “Come on,” he said.

  The Allamagoosalum nodded and the battle began.

  Chapter XXIII

  The creature shoved the unconscious woman at him and took off across the parking lot, toward the front of the store. Nathaniel stumbled backward, but before the body could crash into him, Sol was there, had caught it.

  “Go!” Nova screamed and Nathaniel did.

  The Allamagoosalum had a lead, but its diversion had lasted only a moment and Nathaniel wasn’t far behind. The beast was changing somehow, no longer the girl but something else, running on all fours like an ape. When it reached the store, the electric eye doors were sliding closed, and it did a spectacular diving leap to make it through before they did, somersaulting when it hit the ground on the other side and back on its feet without a single break in its motion.

  Nathaniel flicked the razor closed and gripped it tightly in his hand. He was coming up on a lot of unsuspecting people and he didn’t want to accidentally crash into and injure one. As soon as he was inside the Walmart, something changed, like a ripple rolling across the world. But nothing was different, shoppers pushed rattle-bang carts, blue-shirted associates milled around or stocked merchandise. Nathaniel could feel the change, but wasn’t sure what might have happened. He looked around, trying to sense the Allamagoosalum, and saw nothing.

  He grabbed hold of a passing man’s arm. “Did you see someone going running through here?” he asked. The man completely ignored him, slipped through his grip. Nathaniel stared at him for a moment, then jogged past the rows of shopping carts and further into the store. It was crowded, and people kept jostling him. No one seemed to have any idea that something out of the ordinary was happening.

  He tried to catch the attention of a young woman pushing a stroller. She was petite and pretty, with dark brown hair, a bent nose. Her baby babbled to himself, swatting at a suspended toy fish. The woman seemed oblivious to him.

  A man in a stained white t-shirt pulled tight over a beer gut and a hat that said “Joe Bob” did the same. Nathaniel yelled “Hey!” at him with no effect, then put himself directly in the man’s way. Joe Bob halted, reached into his pocket, withdrew a cell phone and pressed it to his ear. “Hold on a minute,” he grumbled. “The reception’s bad, lemme go outside.”

  A teenager with a ring through his lower lip caught sight of a display of jewelry cleaner.

  A man in a Ravens jersey noticed his shoelaces had come undone and stooped to tie them.

  A woman’s name was called in the pharmacy, even as Nathaniel screamed into her face.

  No one paid any attention to him. No one even noticed him. He had become invisible.

  Nathaniel Valentine began to panic.

  It set in like a clamp around his chest. His lungs felt tight and hot and his esophagus was suddenly thick, swollen. He couldn’t breathe, there were too many people around him and he couldn’t breathe, the air just wouldn’t come, and why wouldn’t any of them help him, couldn’t they hear him gasping, couldn’t they see him clawing at his throat?

  You’re not even here to them, his inner voice informed him. They can’t hear you because you’re a nothing, they can’t see you because you’re a nobody. You’ve gone ghost. And isn’t it time you gave up that ghost?

  And Nathaniel realized that yes, it was indeed time to give up the ghost, far past time in fact. This was his worst fears come true, this was a nightmare come to life.

  And where are your “friends?” The great and powerful karma police have abandoned you in your time of need. Deserted you to nothingness.

  His heart seized up at that, felt like a balloon that is suddenly squeezed in the middle and is very close to popping, and he clutched at his chest, pain rioting through his body. A siren wailed in his brain, crying high and low and high and low. His mind worked only in fits and spurts because his friends, his friends, his only friends had forsaken him, left him for derelict, and he didn’t know why, he couldn’t understand why. People, far too many people, walked and passed and ambled around him, close enough to brush their pants legs against his madly trembling body, but he was gone, he was a ghost, he was invisible, and oh god, he could not take it, could not take it, could not take the loneliness-emptiness-nilness of this life.

  Cry it off, his voice whispered. You have a razor and you have a wrist, make use of them, and that was a voice of reason, that was a voice that knew what it was talking about, but it was also a voice that was not his. It was the voice of the Allamagoosalum trying Nathaniel’s voice on for size, as it had with the girl who had beaten Darren Gast to death.

  Nathaniel considered this interesting new piece of information for a moment, his head cocked to one side like a man contemplating his next move in a game of chess. The Allamagoosalum’s voice, he thought, this time with his own, true voice, and in a burst of insight so obvious that he surprised a laugh out of himself, he followed this up with, That’s probably something I don’t want to pay too much attention to.

  On the heels of that, he noticed several things simultaneously. The siren in his head had been silenced, his throat seemed to be opening up, his shakes had abated, and he was holding the k
arma policeman’s razor just a hair’s breadth away from the thin skin of his wrist. He yanked the weapon away quickly.

  You are a nonentity to them, a thing that does not exist, the voice said in the warm tone of a true friend.

  “No,” he replied, his own spoken voice weak and quavering. He pressed his hands against the floor and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Customers continued to brush past him, but he ignored them in kind. “No, I am someone.”

  You are not known, not even forgotten, because you have never been.

  “No,” Nathaniel repeated, louder now. His words moved the crowd around him like a stone cast into a pond.

  You are nothing.

  “No!” he cried, and at last believed it. “I am Nathaniel Valentine. I am the Cipher!”

  The endlessly moving crowd vanished, leaving him deserted and confused in the middle of the floor.

  Panic threatened to overtake him again, but he focused on Sol’s straight razor and found some measure of serenity there. The metal of the blade was polished to mirror-quality and he aimed the flat of it toward his face so that he could see his reflection and assure himself that he was still visible. He calmed down some, but he had no illusions that he had defeated the beast already. It could be anywhere in the store by now, hiding, waiting for him.

  As if on cue, as if waiting for him to think this very thing, the Allamagoosalum came within range of his ability to sense it, a vague blur somewhere in the middle of the store, near the border between the regular merchandise and the groceries. It was coming toward him. He thought about venturing further into the store and leaving the entranceway behind, but he worried about the cramped spaces and limited sight in the aisles. Here, there was room to move, room to run. He would be safer here, he thought.

  Nathaniel forced his mind, which wanted to slip back into its terror state, to call up the few scant facts he knew about the Allamagoosalum. He had barely anything to go on, but he had to figure out how to get the upper hand. No retreat would be possible in this battle: one of them would live and one of them would die.