Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Chapter 20: BY THE DAWN'S EARY LIGHT?




Uxana is brought back to consciousness with a physically violent jolt. Immediately, she suspects Zila, or what’s left of her, has somehow managed to harness the constant ongoing barrage of emanating power waves electric in the air around them.

However, finding Zila possibly even more languid than when Uxana momentarily left her, it’s suddenly more likely that it’s Uxana’s younger and more receptive mentat to the rescue.

The girl is determined to make the best of a window of opportunity she doesn’t even know for how long will exist.

“I need answers, Zila!” Uxana insists. “Focus! Focus!”

Even assuming Zila’s eyes are somewhere near her mouth, it’s impossible to determine the where of them.

“I haven’t a clue how to handle this, Zila,” Uxana continues by stating what has to be the obvious. “You have to help me. You must know something.”

“For answers, you need the Book of Answers,” Zila says.

Uxana wonders if her wax-and-flesh mentor is being sarcastic.

“Yes, certainly the Book of Answers is one answer,” Uxana agrees. “Not having it, though, you’re going to have to do.”

“I’m beyond doing,” says the blue-wax maw that moves. “In fact, I’m nearly done.”

“No!” Uxana insists.

The combination of flesh and wax flickers as if a magnified version of the flame wavering atop the lop-sided candle beside it. Upon the resulting wavy mirage-like surface, an image of the once whole Zila appears, like a previously snapped photograph projected upon a rolling wave.

“You must be the one to focus, Uxana!” the visage insists, fades, then solidifies into its previously monstrous form.

“Focus on what?”

“On what I need mentat-tell you, now,” the waxy blue hole says.

When finished with its ensuing telepathic telling, it punctuates with, “Now haul me to the lip of this cave.”

“Now?”

“With what little sense I have left, I sense something there that you need see.”

“Shouldn’t I monitor the candle I’ve lit?”

“This candle you have lit is nothing but another pool of dead wax, my dear. You know that. I know that.”

Uxana is reluctant to touch the mass of flesh and wax that Zila has become. When she does, she’s disturbed by the heat and cold, the soft and hard, of the contrasting surfaces.

Somehow, though, she lugs her one-time mentor to the vertical gap that opens this hole in the earth onto the world outside; the once Primary Blue Candle of the Sisterhood has become no more than a seeming sack of speaking potatoes.

“You’ve brought us here to see the dawn?” Uxana wonders aloud.

“What dawn rises in the west?

”Uxana senses distraught and frantic human beings just beneath the pretty pink that tinges the skyline of the horizon.

“One of but many monsters serves up a human barbecue,” Zila says. “More and worse will occur if you don’t find a way to intervene.”

Without forewarning, the flesh and wax monstrosity tips over the edge of the precipice.

Uxana makes a grab, momentarily has hold of it.

“Don’t be a fool child,” Zila pleads. “Not fallen, I’m only a hindrance.”

Still, Uxana is determined not to let go. By way of proof that she doesn’t, are the powdery bits of candle wax that are all-too-soon all that remain in her clutching fingers.

Uxana reflexively, frantically, washes her hands in midair and releases candle dust that begins its slow float to rejoin the majority of Zila, late great Primary Blue Candle of the Sisterhood, that makes a sickeningly loud resounding thud on the dry-as-bone canyon floor.

Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Chapter 19: DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?




“Zila? Is that you?” Uxana asks the darkness.

“I’m weak,” comes the reply. “I can’t see? What is this?”

“There have been rejuvenation malfunctions,” Uxana says. She hopes against hope that her mentor, once fully revived, will have answers. She’s not encouraged by the fade-in, fade-out, quality of her Big Sister in The Sisterhood’s voice.

“Who are you?” Zila asks.

“Uxana.”

“Uxana Uxl? And the others rejuvenated before us?”

“So far, we’re the only two.”“Only two.

And am I suddenly blind in this rejuvenation?”

“Mine is the only wick to have spontaneously combusted. I’ve had to mentat-light all of the others, including yours which is now out. All but you and I have gone to pooled wax. Shall I mentat-light another candle-in-the-line?”

“Why not just mentat an artificial flicker, for the moment, dear? At least until I can get my bearings. I seem strangely lethargic.”

“Mentating artificial flicker isn’t in my repertoire,” Uxana reminds. “I’m newly promoted, remember? There was no time to bring me up to full speed before we waxed for the last flood.”

“Then, let me try,” Zila says.

Moments pass. The darkness stays dark.

“Zila?” Uxana asks finally.

“I’m weak,” comes the reply. “I can’t see? What is this place? What is this happening?”

Uxana shivers and not just because she’s cold.

“A rejuvenation malfunction,” Uxana reminds. “You were about to initiate an artificial flicker?”

“Is that in my repertoire?” Zila asks.

“Most things are in your repertoire,” Uxana reminds. “You’re a Sister of Primary Color — Blue.”

“Do you, my dear, like I, feel an absence of emanated energy to summon from the air around us?”

“I feel quantities never before felt. I fear we may even have overslept to a time when another purging flood, long overdue, is eminent.”

“I don’t feel the excess energy of which you speak. In fact, even what little powers I seem to possess seem draining, even as I speak. Why, do you suppose?”

“Let me try another candle,” Uxana insists.

She finds the pile, feel-sorts through the waxy columns to find one that’s hopefully not too flaky, too soft, too bored with worm holes. The one she finally chooses in desperation seems slightly misshapen, as if sagged slightly after removal from its mold.

She sets the retrieved candle on the flat surface of a rock. She hopes for a spontaneous combustion, but it doesn’t happen.

She finger-locates its wick, squeezes it three times between a forefinger and thumb.

“Lalina prtuxus reonlin,” she provides the initiatory mantra from memory.

She sits back. She concentrates. A mentat-light isn’t easy for her despite all of her practice over the last few hours.

“I thought you were going to mentat an artificial flicker,” Zila says, an obvious hint of whining complaint in her voice.

“I thought you were going to mentat an artificial flicker,” Uxana says, and tries to keep a hint of whining complaint from her voice.

“I’ve tried,” Zila says. “It’s not happening.”

“Qantum-lu splinx,” Uxana continues with the alternative. She wonders if she should start all over, if Zila’s interruption has interfered with the necessary wick-lighting formula.

“I’m cold,” Zila says.

“Flixim palenum plodnominium,” Uxana says. She waits. She thinks she’s failed. She prepares for a repeat.

The wick of the candle ignites.

“Yes!” Uxana self-congratulates. Only to see the full horror of what her conjured light reveals.

Zila — if what exists upon the rock can actually be called Zila — is a deformed conglomeration of live flesh and contorted blue candle wax wildly malformed to resemble neither candle nor Primary Color Sister of The Sisterhood.

“I can’t see,” the thing says. Its mouth is only recognizable by the way a hole in the macabre collage elastically concaves and convexes around its circumference.

Uxana, despite all of her mentat efforts to maintain consciousness, feels her knees buckle and make painfully hard contact with the stone of the floor.

For her, at least, darkness returns.

Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Chapter 18: JOCKS BONDING





“So, how about we take a look at Uranus?” Sydney suggests.

“Don’t you think you might at least want to give me flowers and a box of chocolates first?” Cooper says.

“Very funny,” Sydney grants. He flashes a wide smile of appreciation.

“Come on.”

He tosses Cooper another bag of natural almonds and heads for the stairs. Cooper follows.

“You’re sure Mr. Ranlin isn’t going to mind?”

“First thing Mr. Ranlin is going to suggest, when you two meet up, is that you call him Gregory. As for his minding … he probably would if the telescope wasn’t pre-set. As it is, it’s just a case of my pushing a button, and you putting an eye to a small eyepiece. How easy is that not to screw up?”

“I wouldn’t want him angry.”

“Angry enough to bite you’re studly neck, and bleed you dry, you mean? Don’t worry. Since Gregory is obviously up and out so early this evening, he’ll come back full as a tick. Without my having told you, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that he’s not just another friendly, charming human being. Besides, when he finds out you’re a diviner, he’s going to want you up and about in sunlight, not hampered by forever being in the dark. Which reminds me … did you really see a werewolf in Matty Donnelly’s future?”

“As I’ve said … usually what I see isn’t all that clear. This time was no exception. It’s like a slideshow gone hyper on meth. Whatever I saw, as regards Matty, though, it definitely looked lupine.”

“Lupine?”

“Wolf-like. Definitely hirsute.”

“Hirsute?”

“Hairy.”

“Jeez, why didn’t you just say so? Obviously, you didn’t go to school in Flicker. Here, even some one-syllable words can get us all confused.”

“A slight exaggeration on your part, I would guess.”

“Okay, but not by much; believe me. Just remember if you want to come across as a genuine Flicker High jock, keep your conversation down to a few barely decipherable grunts.”

“I thought Coach Waynright said scholastics count.”

“Coach Waynright says a lot of things that aren’t true. I’ll bet, if confronted, he’d even deny that he likes watching us boys naked in the shower.”

“Does he? I mean, like watching us boys naked in the shower?”

“Don’t worry, buddy, it never goes any farther than an occasional gawk and sigh of jealous envy. The coach is harmless. On the other hand, I….”

On the second-floor landing, they take the skywalk to the observatory out back. From the road out front, few people would guess the large Tudor mansion comes complete with the most extensive sky-observing equipment this side of the astronomy department at the University of Washington in Seattle. Nor that the house’s owner has not only discovered a comet, Gregorran6, but is published in several prestigious scientific journals, and is widely respected by his heavens-watching peers.

“To prove how concerned Gregory is — not! — about any of us accessing his precious telescope, please note…” Sydney tries the observatory door, and it opens. “…how he doesn’t even bother to lock the damned place up. Try getting into his bedroom, though, especially after dawn, and you’ll need a wrecking ball and box of dynamite.”

“He sleeps in a regular bedroom, then? Not in a grave? Surely, in a coffin.”

“Haven’t a clue. I can only tell you for sure that he goes into his bedroom just before dawn, every morning, and shuts the door. I’ve been in there, during the night, though, and I’ve seen no coffin. Just a big bed. Too many windows to let in too much daylight. Drapes not nearly heavy enough. My personal opinion. I mean, if it’s true that daylight for him is a killer.”

“You think it may not be?”

“I only know that he keeps insisting that a whole lot of what people believe about vampires just isn’t so. He even insinuated, once, that a silver bullet wouldn’t kill them.”

“Isn’t that what kills a werewolf?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask Matty?” Sydney laughs.

Cooper laughs, too.

“This way,” Sydney says. “Before that great view of Uranus, I want to show you the great view from the observation deck at the top of the dome. On clear days, you can see all of the way to Dry Falls.”

The two maneuver a series of ascending metal staircases and an eventual narrow metal catwalk that dead-ends at a metal door.

Sydney pushes open the door and steps on out. Cooper follows.

“Whose house do you think is burning down to the ground over there?”

Sydney asks and points.


Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Chapter 17: CANDLE IN THE WIND





It’s dark by the time Timothy mounts the front steps of his house. He hasn’t been doing anything in particular to keep him out so late. He’s just been out to be out. He’s been enjoying the kind of freedom he’s never known with his father holding so tightly to his reigns. Timothy’s new independence feels good but strange. It will, likely, take him awhile, but he’s sure he’ll get used to it.

He unlocks the door and steps inside. He shuts the door behind him and leans his back against it. He doesn’t turn on the houselights. Instead, he slowly scans the darkness of the living-room in front of him. He listens to whatever the sounds above and beyond those the house makes on its very own. He sniffs the air and smells something foul that’s new since he left.

“Are you going to say hello,” he asks finally, “or are you still hoping to jump out and scare the bejezus out of me?”

“Aren’t you the killjoy!” comes the response. A black candle suddenly flares on one end of the far window sill. There’s the accompanying smell of tar (and brimstone?).

Flickering candlelight unveils the darker shadow of Gregory Ranlin parenthesized by the regular shadows of the room.

“I was, indeed, hoping to give you a little ‘Boo!’” Gregory says. “I suppose I should have known you’d expect me. Your powers so quickly on the rise. Certainly, enough so as to keep your dear dad locked in one place for awhile.”

“You’ve sucked dad’s blood so often and for so long, I figured his cries for help would likely disturb your sleep.”

“So many people crying for help, during the course of each and every day, these days. I long-ago learned to tune most of them out. However, when he was still so distraught after nightfall…”

“Speaking of the old man, isn’t he going to join us?”

“Actually, I’ve left him where you left him, much to his chagrin. Although you might consider, next time, providing a bed pan. This way, you’ve his mess to clean up.”

“More likely, he has his mess to clean up.”

“And are you wondering when your powers will increase to surpass even mine?”

“No denying that thought crossed my mind.”

“Best to remember that I’ve been around for a very very long time. Even with my powers admittedly on the wane, I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve that might very well catch you unaware.”

“This is why I’ve decided to work with you. Now able to tell you that the Remoth candle-readers know no more about why Trish Remoth was kidnapped than you do, except to suspect the deed was done by a Native American shape-shifter after information. Demons, as curious as you, it would seem, are standing in the long line to find the meaning to this envisioned girl in blue with her blue candle.”

“And you came upon this information just how? Candle-reading, were you?”

“By asking. Sometimes a direct approach is the best approach. Anyway, Melissa Remoth seems to think so. In fact, I think she’s rather taken with me.”

“Increased powers of seduction among those you’re mysteriously being force-fed?”

“I certainly hope so. I’ve a lot of catching up to do.”

“I’m thinking you should do your catching up at my place, Timothy. Where I can keep a better and a closer watch on you. Think you’d like that? Moving out of this dump, away from your abusive father, into that big old house of mine, where you’ll have long days in which to get into to all kinds of mischief with my other two wards?”

“What will my father do without his punching bag?”

“Let me worry about your father. In fact…” He levitates to the window sill and opens the window. “Come, this very second. Hop on up here with me. We’ll go settle you in to your new digs. I’ll come back later and pacify your daddy dear.”

Timothy takes two steps. He pauses.

“No need to be fearful, Timothy,” Gregory encourages. “I ate before you arrived. Your father, as usual, was most obliging, although less so than usual.”

“Possibly, though, you might be thinking of dessert?”

Gregory laughs, showing fanged teeth white in darkness illuminated only by the one flickering flame.

“I do so love a sense of humor,” Gregory says. “Humor so damned hard to come by, these days. Blood, though, as you may one day be lucky enough to discover, is blood is blood is blood, yours no sweeter than any other.” His right hand extends. His right index finger flexes in invitation. “Come on, now. Over and up. Even I’m beginning to tire of the stench your father is making.”

With Gregory’s assistance, Timothy joins the handsome vampire on the window sill.

“Face me and take hold of both my wrists,” Gregory instructs, “and hold very tightly.”

Timothy does as instructed.

“Information sources so much more difficult to come by than food,” Gregory says. “So many people able to plot mischief in the light of day, while I’m relegated only to the dark of the night.”

Suddenly, they’re both disappeared. The wind into which they’ve been sucked, back-blows into the room, fluttering one of the curtains into the candle flame where it ignites with a loud and ominous POOF!



Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Chapter 16: THE BOYFRIEND






Roger Remoth opens the door to his daughter’s bedroom and stands in the breach.

“Someone here to see you,” he says with a disproving frown.

He steps back and lets Matty Donnelly step on by and into the room.

“Hi, babe!” Matty says to Trish on the bed. He smiles by way of additional greeting.

“Hi, back to you,” she says, glad to see him. She just loves the way his smile lights up a room. Both of his cheeks dimple. Little creases form at the corners of his light blue eyes. The cleft in his chin even seems to sink deeper.

“Don’t make this overly long, Trish,” her father says. “You need your rest.”

Roger leaves but doesn’t close the door behind him.

“Suddenly, I don’t think your father likes me any more,” Matty says. He pauses long enough to deliver a quick kiss to Trish’s forehead. His blond hair smells pleasantly of his tar-based shampoo. He sits in the visitor’s chair already bedside.

“What daddy doesn’t like is that I called you on the cell phone I’d promised him I wouldn’t take with me to Dry Wash Gulch. Then, I’d no sooner hung up from talking to you when I was kidnapped.”

“He doesn’t think I told anyone where you were, does he?”

“He doesn’t know what to think, Matty. Besides, you really didn’t know where I was, did you?”

“What in the heck were you doing there, anyway?” Matty has been wondering ever since he heard.

“You know how my parents have this thing for rocks.” Trish has thought about what to tell him. Importantly, it isn’t exactly a lie. “They think Melissa and I should love them, too. They hear of something interesting, geologically, and they figure we should all go, as a family unit, usually immediately, to see it. Go figure.”

“The police have any clues who took you?”

“Not that they’re saying.”

“You remember anything more?”

“A snake. A cat. A dog. Maybe, even, an Indian.”

“An Indian? Like a surround-the-wagons-we’re-being-attacked-by-an Indian?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone, because that part is really vague. As is the number three.”

“Three? As in Three Blind Mice? Three Little Pigs? Three kidnappers?”

“Whatever, whoever, maybe nothing, it’s probably just left-over hallucinations.”

“I heard the bastard drugged you.”

“You heard wrong. I only got stuck with a needle or needles. Twice. No sign of anything injected. The police say some sadistic perverts get off on weird things, these days.”

Mary Remoth makes an appearance with a vase of red roses.

“From Matty,” she tells Trish. “I’ve put them in water. They’ll have you thinking of him until he comes back the next time. Right now, you should get some rest.”

“All I’ve been doing is resting.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow, babe,” Matty says, stands. He kisses her on the cheek. “Promise.”

He leaves. Heading down the front walk, he feels Mr. Remoth’s gaze nailing him through the house’s front picture window to the paving stones.

“Hey, buddy!” someone calls from across the street.

Matty glances over to see Sydney Michaels and the new kid, Cooper something.

Matty heads in their direction.

“Your girlfriend up to visitors?” Sydney asks. “Some of the kids at school would like to stop by.”

“Probably best for everyone to wait for a couple more days,” Matty decides. Mr. Remoth isn’t exactly welcoming, but that might be special treatment just for Matty.

“You know Cooper, here, don’t you? Soon to be joining us on the wrestling team.”

“Actually, Coach Waynright isn’t going to decide that until tomorrow,” Cooper reminds.

“I’ve seen one of the other guys up for the slot,” Matty says. “Joey Spellman pinned him to the mat within thirty seconds. You’ve no competition from that direction.”

“So, how is Trish really doing?” Sydney probes.

“As well as anyone kidnapped, poked with a needle or needles, and still trying to deal with the aftermath of hallucinations about a snake, a cat, and a dog.” He almost adds — and about a Native American, and the number three.

“She’ll be okay,” Cooper assures.

“If that’s true, you know more about it than the quack-quack doctors do,” Matty says.

“Maybe that’s because Cooper, here, is a bona-fide diviner, buddy,” Sydney informs.

“Isn’t that someone who goes around with a forked stick, looking to find water?”

“Come to think of it... Not in this case, though. Cooper divines the future. Go ahead, Cooper, tell Matty something that’s going to happen to him.” “My insights aren’t all that automatic, if you know what I mean,” Cooper excuses.

“Ah, come on!” Sydney insists. “At least try.”

“Sure, go ahead.” Matty, doesn’t believe it’ll happen, but his interest is piqued.

Cooper bows his face into the fold formed by his two open hands.

“Do…do…do…do,” Sydney chants the theme song from a popular scary TV show.

Cooper opens his fingers but leaves them anchored, claw-like, to his face.

“You’re soon destined to have a close encounter of the third kind with a werewolf,” he informs Matty.

“No shit Sherlock?” Sydney responds.

Matty’s eyes squint. His lips purse. He looks from Sydney to Cooper. He bursts into full-throated laughter.

“Damn!” he chides and gives Sydney’s left bicep a quick and forceful fist-jab. “What’s up with the two of you trying to take me for a bloody idiot?”


Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Monday, March 9, 2009

Chapter 15: SISTERS, OR NOT





Uxana Uxl is young, afraid, and cold.

She can do nothing about her age. She can do nothing about her fear. Unsuccessfully, she tries to make herself warmer by pulling her blue cloak even more tightly around her. The last large candle, blue as Uxana’s smaller candle had been blue, burns the darkness to provide flickering light but little warmth.

Uxana can get warmer by taking the long walk down the rocky corridor to the sunlight entering the narrow perpendicular mouth of the cave perched over the perilous drop-off, but she can’t spare the time. It’s her suspicion that too much time has already elapsed. She has to monitor closely this latest burn-down —that of her mentor Zila Bwl — and maybe others of The Sisterhood. She has to be there to do what she can do, if anything, in case something else goes wrong.

She should have known when she asked the apparition, “How long?”, and the girl obviously hadn’t a clue, that the time lapse was already too long. That is now verified by how, one after another, three of the all-important four larger candles have sloughed all their wax, with no results. All three have become merely lifeless colorful shiny splotches on the black basalt floor. The smaller candles still in the pile are possibly (fatally?) contaminated, too: burrowed by long-dead bugs, made brittle or crumbly from age, split and cracked from a natural temperature regulator malfunctioned (how long ago?).

Uxana is sorely afraid her candle, similar in color to the larger one of her mentor that now burns, might have been the only one, large or small, to survive as viable. Why else had her wick spontaneously combusted when she was fifth in the pre-planned revival sequence of large red, large yellow, large green, large blue, then Uxana’s smaller blue? Granted, one such anomaly of sequence occurred after the first flood, but never since.

She leans back against hard stone. She trembles but not just from the continuing chill. The energy pulses are genuinely electric all around her. They’re more powerful than any she’s ever known here. Another purging of them by flood water must surely be imminent. How can she, on her own, ever vacate the area and prepare for another soon-to-happen deluge?

She tries, again, for not the first time, to mind-contact the apparition. Although it had no answer, it can be an indication of people somewhere near, maybe even within the flood zone. Likely mortals drifted in; no warnings available since the last flood. Maybe some with psyches genetically attuned to the present massive power surges. Newbies with remnant DNAs from previous times before their ancestors chose mortality over magic?

Unfortunately, Uxana’s skills at summoning weren’t honed before having gone candle before the last flood. Even with the extra benefit, now, of magic-boosting emanations registering off-scale in intensity, no visions come. Meaning the girl of the apparition had revived before Uxana but left everyone else dormant? Who in The Sisterhood would have done such a wicked and perverse, not to mention dangerous, thing? Besides, Uxana didn’t recognize the girl who was such a pretty thing.

So, had magic merely reverted to mortals with everyone else suddenly out of the picture? If so, that wasn’t a pretty scenario, either. The magic of this place had never been something in which novices could safely dabble.

Her eyelids grow heavy. How strange that she should desire sleep, having already slept so long. She begins the mental exercises long-ago prescribed to keep those of The Sisterhood alert.

“Oooooooooooooooo,” comes a mournful moan from within the flickering darkness. The lit candle wick flares, briefly and brightly, and then, as if pinched by ghostly fingertips, goes out.



Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Chapter 14: A DIVINE FRIENDSHIP





“Okay, Michaels, turn loose and let the kid up!”


Sydney Michaels does as Coach Waynright instructs and releases his head-hold on his opponent.


Both sweaty young wrestlers scamper to their feet.


“Take a shower, Michaels,” coach says. “Loor, you stick around for just a minute.”


Sydney Michaels again does as instructed and heads for the locker room. Coach Waynright waits patiently, arms folded, until Sydney disappears into the locker-room access corridor on the far side of the gym.


“You should have seen that takedown coming from a mile away, buddy,” coach tells Cooper. “You’re rusty as hell and need some fine-tuning before you’re up to my standards.”


“I’m good at playing catch-up, coach,” Cooper promises. “As usual, I just need time to get back into a regular work routine after my dad’s latest base transfer.”


“I’m not saying you can’t be brought up to speed,” coach says. “In fact, I’m actually impressed by what I see. That said, later today I’ve a couple more kids trying out for the one available slot. I’ll take a look at them and have my final decision to all three of you by first-period tomorrow.”


“Great.”


“So, go take a shower and don’t be late for your next class. Grade-point is important for any kind of ongoing participation in extracurricular sports, here, at Flicker High. I can’t tell you how many good athletes I’ve had to let go because they thought brawn and not brains was all they needed on a wrestling mat.”



Coach Waynright nods toward the locker-room access corridor, turns, heads for the weight room in another direction.


Cooper peels off his sweaty T-shirt in the corridor. At his locker, he discards his shoes, sweaty sweat socks, sweaty shorts, and sweaty jockstrap. He picks up a fresh towel from the convenient wire basket stuffed full of them and wraps his sweaty neck with soft terry-cloth.


In the shower room, Sydney Michaels showers down the way. Cooper turns to the plumbing just inside the doorway. He hangs his towel on the pipes and reaches for the water release.


“Hey, Loors, get your studly ass over here,” Sydney calls and pats the wall tiles of one of the two shower spaces immediately beside his. “You and I have to talk, and I don’t feel like screaming.”


Cooper retrieves his towel and walks the distance.


For not the first time, he’s impressed by Sydney’s physique, tanned, and now made sensuously glossy by soap slick and water. He wonders if his classmate came by his great body naturally, because of good genes, or if he, like Cooper, has had to spend long hours bulking up. Intuition tells him it’s a combination of both.


Cooper hangs his towel, turns on the water, steps into it.


“You ever again hand me a takedown on a silver platter, and I’m going to beat the living crap out of you,” Sydney says. Sounds like he means it. Definitely looks as if he can at least give it a good try. “I don’t need hand-outs to pin your sorry ass to any mat.”


“Actually, I didn’t hand you anything,” Cooper says. He reaches for the soap and begins lathering his tightly muscled chest and belly. “I’ve just been off my regular training regimen, that’s all. Although, I can see where you might think the new kid on the block is out to brown-nose Mr. Popularity in order to gain social acceptance sooner than later.”


“Obviously, you have me confused with my older brother. He’s the one you should be kissing up to if you want quick acceptance around here.”


“Nah, he’s way too unapproachable. Besides, he’s obviously fond of you and includes you in just about everything. Sometimes, it’s just easier for a wannabe to try the backdoor approach.”


Sydney laughs. It’s a nice laugh; low-key and very-very sexy.


“Obviously, you did your homework and know I’m gay,” he says, turning in the spray to face, more directly, his possibly soon-to-be teammate.


“I know you’re gay, and I know you’re the ward of a vampire.” And doesn’t that make Sydney’s attractively square jaw drop just a bit. “And I…” The soapy index finger of Cooper’s right hand reaches out and almost, but not quite, touches down on the deep indent at the base of Sydney’s throat; it slowly air-traces a line down the middle of the young man’s chest to Sydney’s slightly innie navel. “…am a bisexual diviner who divines that you and I are going to become the very best of friends.”









Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Chapter 13: NONE OF YOUR BEES' WAX!

Pitch black. Black. Dark grey. Grey. Clotted cream. Pale white. White.

“Ohhhhhhhhh.” The latter hurts his eyes.

“It’s all right,” a low, masculine voice reassures him.

Maybe, but Johnny Three Spirits doesn’t feel all right, although he is encouraged.

“Grandfather, is that you? I thought I’d killed you.”

“Yes, grandfather, here. For awhile there, thinking you had killed me. As it turns out, though, I’m alive and well, and possibly more enlightened from having had my near-death experience.”

“Where are we?” Not the sweat lodge, unless the rocks are cooled, the heat all gone, electric lights installed.

“Back at my house.”

“You carried me here?”

“Actually, it would seem you carried me here, and then collapsed.”

“I’m sorry. I lost control — again.”

“Not as badly as the last time. Last time you were snake, and cougar, and wolf. Last time, you bit Melissa Remoth. This time you were only snake and didn’t bite grandfather. Progress. Or, so we shall see it until it is proven otherwise.”

“What keeps happening that so puts things out of whack?”

“An answer which obviously still needs more searching.”

“Did chant-to-see-the-future tell us nothing, then?”

“Snake interrupted chant. In afterthought, I’m thinking we need call upon a source far more insightful than chant.”

“Such a source exists?”

“If I can still believe my dreams.”

“You had a dream?”

“If dream is what can occur when losing consciousness from life-sucking squeeze of form-changer grandson as snake.”

“And what did you dream?”

“Of you and I scooping warm wax of angry scrubland bees. Of you and I working the wax to make it malleable. Of you and I rolling a waxy column of crusty gold and creamy fragmented honeycombs with wick.”

“A candle, you mean?”

“So it would seem.”

“Have you become a candle-reader, then, between sweat lodge and now?”

“No. Have you?”

“Not that I’m aware. And for as long as I can remember, I have heard you and the other elders complain because our people have been deprived of one for more than three generations. Which was why we set out to snatch Melissa Remoth to know her latest reading, yes?”

“Possibly why, in my dream, grandson, it’s Melissa brought with us to do the reading.”

“Unless, of course, I again spoil things by snatching her sister.”

Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Chapter 12: THE STAY-AT-HOME


“Timothy!”

No doubt about it. His father’s voice can still send chills up and down the teenager’s spine and literally make the young man shiver. Timothy assumes it will take a long time for that reflex action to cease and desist. He’s determined, though, that it will.

“Timothy!”

Timothy stretches to press the volume button on the kitchen television’s remote control.

A lot of the local morning news, now louder, is devoted to the abduction and recovery of Timothy’s classmate Trish Remoth. Her assailant is thought to be a pervert … a madman … a druggie … maybe, even, a cult of druggies … or … when you come right down to it … no one is really sure; not even — it seems — Trish Remoth.

“Timothy!”

The momentary levitation of morning-breakfast PopTart within toaster slot, hot at cooking completion, almost cancelled that last holler from the bedroom across the kitchen, across the living room, and down the hall.

PopTart eaten, glass of milk drunk, Timothy fills a quart jar with tap water and grabs a box of cereal from the countertop.

He goes into his father's bedroom.

“About damned time!” Gyle Ranlin accuses his son from the bed.Timothy avoids his father’s reach and puts the quart of water on a bedside nightstand.

“What’s the problem?” Timothy asks. “The school bus is going to be here any minute.”

“What do you mean, what’s the bloody problem?” Gyle accuses.Timothy steps back, takes a good look at the way his father is locked in by the bed’s metal frame having been bent up and over to secure the man’s shins ever-so tightly to the mattress.

“This will really have to wait until I get back from school,” Timothy says. “In the meantime, here’s something to eat.” He tosses the box of cereal into bed with his father. Some of the box contents spill and look like bugs scattering among the rumpled blankets and sheets.

“Gregory won’t like this,” his father warns.

“Gregory is even older than you are. If he wants to keep in the game being played, he must rely on young people like me. I thought he already made that perfectly clear.”

Timothy leaves his fettered father and catches the school bus.On board, Jack Plenoc takes the seat next to him.

“Suppose you heard about Trish Remoth?” Jack says.

“I wonder if there’s anyone in Flicker who hasn’t.”

“I hear she was raped.”

Jack is a jackass! “I heard she wasn’t.”

At school, Timothy looks for Melissa Remoth. It’s harder to find her than it once was. The new building complex is large. Within the last year, there’s been more than a doubling of the student body.

He expects to find her in a crowd of curiosity seekers asking about her sister. He’s surprised to find her alone at her locker.

“Melissa,” he says. If not exactly on frequent speaking terms, they’ve shared classes together. Frankly, he’s surprised how cute she is. Before, his whole world centered on his father, he didn’t exactly have time to notice girls.

“Timothy,” she says. “Gril, right?”

“Can we talk for a minute?”

She checks her wristwatch.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything more about what happened to my sister than what you’ve already heard on the news.”

“Actually, it’s not your sister I want to talk to you about but a certain girl in blue, with a blue candle.”

Melissa is obviously surprised but not nearly as surprised as Timothy would have expected.
She tilts her head slightly to one side. Her pretty blue eyes narrow as if to get a better look at him.

“Why is it, I wonder,” she says, “that I was led to believe you’d be Native American?”


Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE