by Steven Fox
“You can’t have him,” she said. “Not until he tells us where our king is.” She looked Jason in the face, grinning. “Even then, he’s for my stomach alone.” Jason resisted the urge to piss himself. “So, I’ll give you another chance. Where’s King Lukoje?”
“I’m King Lukoje,” said Jason, meaning it as a nervous joke. But when Talshe’s smile widened, he couldn’t help himself: He let his bladder go. But Talshe didn’t seem to notice.
She lifted him higher, above her head, pinching the collar of his work shirt between her index finger and thumb. Her mouth opened like a sinkhole far beneath him. He could almost see down her throat, into her stomach. The hot stink of her breath jetted up and his hair billowed. Tears pricked his eyes.
“If you were Lukoje,” she said, “I’d swallow you, anyway. But you aren’t him. Can’t be. King Lukoje was much more handsome than you.” Her mouth pressed into a firm line. “Last chance. We came from your head, Jason. That means you know something. Where he is, perhaps. Come on. Save yourself.”
Jason said nothing. And Talshe shook her head.
“Down the hatch, then.” Her mouth gaped wide, and her throat opened to accept Jason.
Frantic music pierced the air. Jason recognized the flute tone, though now percussive and threatening. Demanding. Even so, Talshe didn’t seem to hear the music as her fingers released Jason into her mouth. A burst of light blinded Jason as he slammed into something hard and cold, his bones rattling from the impact. Nothing felt broken, but his heart pounded too hard for him to tell. The light faded, and Talshe was missing from the sky.
Leech clawed its way up the hood and windshield until it stood before Jason. It appeared the dog was wearing a grin on its gaping mouth. Jason tried to move but electric pain burst in his shoulders. He screamed, and Leech charged.
Another light exploded overhead and engulfed Leech. The hound howled and writhed, but much like a fly stuck on glue paper, it couldn’t move. After a moment, the light faded, and Leech disappeared, its howls echoing in the still air. Jason forced himself to sit on his elbows, staring into the fading light.
The piercing flute melody ceased. On the roof of the house stood an old woman with steel-gray hair. She held a flute in her hands, which she then lowered to her thighs, the sun glimmering off the polished wood. Something about this woman looked strange, but Jason couldn’t figure it out. He closed his eyes as a throbbing pain stabbed at the back of his head. Hot blood thrummed in his temples.
He barely heard: “You okay?”
When he opened his eyes, they fluttered around, haphazardly trying to find the voice’s owner. He searched the roof again, but found no sign of the flute woman.
“Hey, down here, dumbass.” There, in the yard, stood the woman. But she didn’t look like a woman. She did, but she didn’t. “Come down so we can talk.”
Grunting, Jason sat up. He wiggled down the windshield, hoping his weight wouldn’t crack it. Using the fender as a stepping stool, he lowered himself down. Nothing seemed broken. He still felt sore, and so gingered toward the woman. Up-close, Jason could see it: This woman wasn’t a woman, but a girl about Jason’s age. With gray hair. He was too tired to stop his mouth from gaping, which was about as much shock as he could display. Even so, he quickly apologized: “Sorry, I don’t mean to stare.”
“It’s okay. Most people do.” She smiled, and it was huge and sunny, catching Jason off-guard. Jason wished he could return it.
“You helped me,” he said “Thanks. I would’ve been dead without you.”
The girl shrugged. “No problem. My name’s Len, by the by.”
“Len? Mine is—”
“Jason McKinney. Sorry, I’ve known for a while.” She held the flute up, leaning it against her shoulder, as if holding a dearly beloved. “I don’t mean to sound like a stalker, but I needed to know your name.”
“Needed to know?” Jason crossed his arms. With his plain, emotionless face, it may’ve looked like he was growing bored. “Why would you need to know my name?”
“Well, this is going to sound super bad, but I can’t tell you. Not yet. For now, you need to be told as little as possible.” Before he could reply, Len pulled something from her jean pocket: a key, the large, golden one that had been sitting next to the flowers. She held it out to him. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I don’t want the key. I want to know what’s going on.”
“If you take the key, you’ll eventually find out what’s going on. Trust me, I can tell you everything. Eventually. Look, there are things I don’t know, either. But I know quite a bit about you.”
“What do you know?” This sounded more like a curious child than someone who felt freaked out about someone he’d never met knowing lots of things about him.
“Will you please take the key?”
Jason did, appearing more calm and relaxed than he felt. That’s why, when he chucked the key over the van, Len’s eyes widened.
“Wait! What the hell’re you doing?!”
“Exactly what I want to ask you. Showing up out of nowhere. Saving my ass. You’ve been there before, haven’t you? The other times Talshe came after me.”
“Talshe?”
“The giantess.”
Her eyes sparkled, as if he had just told her what her Christmas present would be. Hands behind her back, she leaned in, smiling wryly. “Oh, you don’t say. And how do you know this?”
“Just do.” And she gave him this look, her lips pursed, brows cinched.
Before Len could say anything else, a voice floated up from behind the van: “Oooh! A key! Wonder what it unlocks?”
“Not sure,” said another voice. “Maybe there’ll be treasure!”
“Or sweets!”
“Or boys!”
“Boys like him!”
“Boys like Jason!”
Len and Jason ran around to the front of the van. Only a few feet down the road, the black-haired twins were ogling the key. Jason remembered the playground, the kid separated from his body, and the knife held at the boy’s throat.
“Bootelia. Amor.” The twins smiled and waved at Jason.
“Why, speak of the handsome devil,” said Amor, “and he shall appear!”
“With a scrumptious-looking friend!” said Bootelia.
“You can have her if you want, but I’ll have Jason. His lips are just so…And his bubble butt…”
“Nothing like mine, of course.”
“Of course not, dear sister!”
Something inside Jason wished he could slap the twins. He gave them his sternest glare—nothing more than the halfway-interested stare a student might give his Algebra homework.
“Give us the key,” he said.
They glanced at the key, then back to Jason, then at each other. They nodded.
“We’ll give it to you,” said Amor, “because you commanded us so nicely. And we love to be commanded.”
“He might,” said Bootelia, “but I’m not going to give it away. You have to do something in return.”
“Oh?” said Len. “What’s that?”
“Well…This key’s pretty nice-looking. The price will be steep.” Bootelia turned around and wiggled her hips at Jason. “I think a firm smooch on my right cheek should do the trick.”
Len’s brow knitted up. Jason’s face, despite the weirdness from Bootelia’s mouth, remained smooth, unaffected. “And if I don’t?” said Jason.
Bootelia motioned to Amor and he reached for the waistband of her pants, pulling it back a bit. She dropped the down inside; Amor snapped her waistband shut.
“Catch us if you can!” said Bootelia, and the twins bolted off, giggling.
As he watched them run, something inside him broke. When it did, he balled his fists and ground his teeth. His breath hitched and he shuddered, his vision blurring a bit. Everything faded into darkness and a cold veil slid over his body. Air whooshed against him, whipping his h
air up.
The voices came:
Who am I?
You’re my…
No. I’m not. I know about…
You know nothing.
Then tell me.
I created you, so obey.
The air stilled. Light cut into Jason’s vision, and there he was, just as he had been, staring after Amor and Bootelia. His heart thundered in his chest. He ground his teeth together, and he pressed his clenched fists against his sides. From deep within his chest, a boiling riptide surged through his veins, through his arteries, through his neurons and nerve-endings. It surged toward his throat, then overflowed into his mouth, and erupted from him:
“Come back, you bastards! Come back and give me that fucking key!”
Len placed a hand on Jason’s arm, and he jerked away from her. “Why the hell are you touching me?” he said. “I don’t even know you!”
“Jason, calm down.”
“They just took that key!”
“You’re more important than a key.”
The words halted the vomit of anger. He unclenched his hands, his fingers aching as he stretched them. He swallowed dryly and noticed his throat felt bloody raw. His vision flooded with fireflies. His anger, that sudden burst of fury from deep inside the cauldron of his soul, had faded. Jason stared at his hands and wondered where the anger had come from. Up till this point, all of his emotions had been fuzzy. Hazy. Numb. But they were there. He had just fully tasted his anger, so what of his other emotions? Happiness? Sadness? Love?
Love.
Watching the twins disappear down the block, he wondered if love hadn’t done the same.
FIVE
Len insisted Jason sit back and chill, but he didn’t listen. Thoughts clustered inside his head and every thought was painted in an angry, pulsating red. The thoughts throbbed inside his skull, pounding at his temples like ironsmiths. As Jason crawled back into the driver’s seat of the delivery van, Len followed him and stood outside the driver-side window on the tips of her toes.
“You shouldn’t drive,” she said.
He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine caught, and the van coughed to life. “I’m going home and going to sleep.”
“Let me drive you. You’ll get in a wreck or something.”
Jason gripped the steering wheel—one hand at ten o’clock, the other at two, just the right way. The standard way. Then he dropped his hands into his lap, and they sat there like two dead spiders, each short three legs. He stared at his face’s reflection in the mirror.
Under his breath, he said, “You won’t tell me anything. Just like my dad.”
“Huh?”
“It’s always someone else telling me where I need to go. I can’t do this, so I have to do that. And you keep pushing me further down that way.” He slammed his hands on the steering wheel. “You’re just like everyone else. Shoving me into a hole that doesn’t fit!” He balled a fist and punched the dashboard.
Len said nothing.
Jason gripped the steering wheel again and put the van into drive. She moved away from his window, and he drove off without looking back.
***
Explaining the scratches and dents wasn’t hard. When Tom asked, Jason said a crazy old mage mistook him for an undercover paladin and tried to scare him with Sentry Vase shards. Tom shivered at this.
“God—Sentry Vases suck. Dunno why they ever made ‘em. Don’t worry, Jason. I’ll get ‘er fixed.”
Then Jason went home. He tried to sleep, but didn’t have much luck. He didn’t go to school the next day. It was Thursday, and he had Tara Engel hanging over his head, but not quite on his mind. If that happened, the liquid stone would come. When he went to work, despite the free time he’d had from staying home, Jason felt exhausted. He went to Silver Moon early so he could nap on the couch in his father’s office. He’d done it before, and Mr. McKinney didn’t mind, especially since he was usually walking the store.
He found his father’s snoring bulk passed out at his desk. Jason straightened his work shirt, then turned to leave, but stopped. He glanced back at his father. Sleeping at his desk—Jason couldn’t remember Mr. McKinney ever doing such a thing. Jason tip-toed out of the office.
Before he closed the door, his father said, “Buddy?”
Mr. McKinney sat up in his chair, rubbing bags the color of purple smog under his eyes. The stress marks on his forehead looked more like cuts, and the slight double chin hanging from his neck reminded Jason of a turkey. “Are you going out to deliver?” said Mr. McKinney.
“Yeah.”
“All right. Don’t forget we have a new recruit. Make sure she feels at home.”
“Right. Okay.”
They stared at each other. Jason’s slight annoyance boiled into anger. Why? His father hadn’t done anything. But that was exactly the point.
Mr. McKinney frowned. “Are you okay, Jason? Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“Kind of, not really.”
“Oh, well. Is it…Have you…been having…?”
“No. I just haven’t been sleeping well. That’s all.” He tried to sound sincerely carefree. Instead it came out clipped, annoyed bordering on mad. His father only nodded. “I’ll be okay,” said Jason. “I’m not going to fall asleep at the wheel.”
Mr. McKinney laughed at this. “Well, I hope not. If you worked at a desk like I did, you could afford that every once in a while. Anyway, you should get going.”
“Okay. See you at dinner tonight?”
“Afraid not, buddy. Got a few things I need to work on. If you want, I’ll give you money and you can order in.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Jason walked out, shutting the office door behind him. He looked down at his stomach, the slightly round paunch pushing out from under his shirt. This would make the fifth day in a row he’d eaten take-out. He slid his hands down his slight jelly belly, then headed for the garage.
***
Jason let loose a yawn as he entered the garage. As if on cue, feet padded toward him. He recognized the heavy, echoing footfall of Tom, who rounded one of the vans, beaming. Just under the sound of his footsteps, like the gentle countermelody of a ballad, Jason could hear the walk of another.
“Welcome, Mr. Jason!” said Tom, a wide smile stretching his mustache and goatee. “Are you ready for a grand day of discovery? Our new friend is!”
Jason rolled his eyes. If this person could make Tom, who was usually mellow, this bubbly at the end of his shift, Jason wanted nothing to do with her. She rounded the van and stood beside Tom. And Jason was right.
“Jason, meet Miss Lenmana!”
“Len for short,” she said.
***
They loaded into the van in silence and drove around, doing all the routine Thursday deliveries—nursing home, downtown bakeries, and day cares. Neither of them said anything. It was strange because Len had seemed like such a talkative individual. But, secretly, he was glad she didn’t say anything.
About an hour into the job, Len broke the silence. “We have to get the key.”
Jason glanced at her. “Key?”
“The one you tossed. The one, you know, that girl stuck down her pants.”
“And you want it back?”
“For you.” Jason rolled the van to a stop at the four-way intersection in front of Silver Moon. The light turned from yellow to red. Len resumed, “It’s like you don’t believe me or something.”
“Do I have a reason to?”
“You don’t know me. Why would I lie to you?”
“For that very reason. Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers?”
“My mother’s dead.”
“So’s mine.”
Len narrowed her eyes at Jason. “You’re lying.”
The light turned green, and Jason jerked the van forward. He pulled into the empty parking lot of an American Legion. He turned off the van, unbuckled his seatbelt, and turned toward Len, puffing out his ch
est slightly, hands white-knuckling the arm rest.
“My mother died when I was a kid. Why would I lie about that?”
“Sympathy,” said Len. “People always say their mom’s dead, and then others say, ‘Oh, I know your pain. My so-and-so died not too long ago.’” She pounded her hands on the dashboard. “They don’t care. All they want is to hear themselves talk and have a pity party and…and…”
She cupped her face and snorted back a glob of snot. Tears rolled down her face. Jason’s anger fizzled. A girl, crying in front of him. That hadn’t happened the last time.
Tara just disappeared, he thought.
Len sobbed and snorted. Jason reached out to her. She didn’t draw away from him but didn’t push into him, either. He moved his hand to her back and rubbed, hoping Len wouldn’t choke on her own mucus. No feelings came to him, just a lack of anger. After a few minutes, the back rubbing felt mechanical and forced.
A knock came at the window.
Jason looked up and expected to see cops or a concerned bystander, but instead saw Boone and Ronnie, with their wide smiles and sharp glares. Boone waved his cell phone—the popular choice of wand for today’s magical generation. His mouth formed words that Jason recognized from times with Darlene: an incantation. A dome formed over the van, cutting off the outside world. Jason gulped. Ronnie raised his cell phone and pointed it at Jason. His door popped open and banged against the front of the van, the mirror scraping against the hood. The door’s hinges were black.
“McKinney!” said Ronnie, punching something else into his phone. “See you’re enjoying the job you stole from us. We want to give you a pat on the back. Then we’re going to kill you.”
With a final click, a blue flash jetted from the phone and slammed into Jason. His body seized and he fell out of the van, barely managing to land on his back. The wind rushed out of him, and his head buzzed and ached. His shoulders scraped the pavement as Ronnie and Boone dragged him away from the van. Len was still hunched over, sobbing.
Boone glanced to Len, then back down to Jason. “What? Tell her she’d lose her job if she didn’t blow you?” He chuckled, then spat on Jason’s face.
