Chapter 21: Strip Poker Anyone?

“Ace of spades,” Roman Michaels says.

Across the green-felt-covered table with its green-felt panel divider, Jordan Tolms lifts the leading edge of the face-down playing card and takes a look.

“Damn!” he says. “Do you know that this go-round you only missed two out of the whole deck?”

“You’re kidding!” Roman combs a hand through his silky hair. Disturbed strands catch the light and provide a momentary halo.

“Come on, now, Roman, fess up! You must have felt it the moment your hyper-perception kicked in. You’ve never had a success rate like this one.”

“Something about the air?” Roman hasn’t made a statement. He’s not sure he’s experienced anything differently. “There’s just, maybe, something different about it?”

“Like what?”

“Like … well, you know how it sometimes feels differently before an electrical storm? Like that.”

“Why don’t I feel it?” Jordan wonders aloud.

“Maybe I’m just imagining it.” As if Roman might actually have an answer.

Silently, this time, Jordan now wonders how Roman’s perception seems on the sudden increase. Jordan’s seem to be failing, more and more lately. The last time Jordan read a deck of playing cards, he only got twelve right. At one time, he consistently got thirty out of fifty-two.

“Let’s try it one more time,” Jordan suggests.

“Sure,” Roman agrees after checking the time. His wristwatch is a very expensive, but unassuming, Piaget that Gregory bought him when Roman read half the playing deck correctly. Gregory will be genuinely pleased by Roman’s latest progress, especially if Roman can provide an equally impressive encore.

“Okay, then. Let’s make it more interesting, shall we, by shuffling two decks?” Jordan says.

Roman frowns. As when his brother, Sydney, smiles, his dimples deepen; the corners of his eyes attractively crinkle. There’s less likely to be another expensive gift from Gregory if Roman’s skills, in reading two decks, don’t match the one-deck read lead-in.

“First, shouldn’t we verify my one-deck success story isn’t just a fluke before we move on to more complex testing?”

“A reading of all the cards but two in a regular deck is spectacular success, Roman,” Jordan says. “I mean, genuinely spectacular.” He should know. He had doubters gawking in disbelief when he was able, in his prime, obviously now passed, to get a correct reading of just thirty.

He doesn’t wait for Roman’s approval but reaches for a new deck. He breaks the seal. He peels off the cellophane. He opens the carton. He spills the cards into his hand.

He reaches for the deck already in use but changes his mind, sliding it to one side. He unwraps a second new deck and adds its cards to the ones already in his hand.

He shuffles. He shuffles again. He shuffles a total of ten times.

He deals the top card, face down onto the green felt on his side of the panel-divided table.

He nods for Roman to begin.

“Ten of diamonds,” Roman says, without hesitation.

Jordan thinks, “Four of spades.”

He upturns the card.

Ten of diamonds.

He deals a second card, face down.

He nods for Roman to continue.

“King of Clubs,” Roman says, without hesitation.

Jordan thinks, “Queen of Hearts.”

He upturns the card.

King of Clubs.

So it goes, until fifty-two of the hundred-and-four cards have been placed, face down, one by one, on the table top.

Score: Roman, fifty-two. Jordan, zero.

“He’s hot,” Roman says and wipes his forehead which is slightly sweaty.

“Who’s hot?” Jordan reflexively asks. Unless Roman refers to the Jack of Diamonds, the last card upturned, his comment is entirely out of context. Jordan pauses and doesn’t continue the deal.

“Timothy Gril’s father,” Roman says. There’s a slight glassiness to his eyes.

“I thought it was your brother who was gay.”

“I don’t mean hot that way,” Roman says. “I mean too-close-to-the-witch-burning hot.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Jordan asks. He deals another card.

Without waiting for Jordan’s nod to continue, Roman says, “Six of clubs.”

Jordan thinks, “Four of diamonds.”

He upturns the card.

Six of clubs.

“Burn, heathen, burn!” Roman says and does so rather loudly.

“Roman?” Jordan is suddenly concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Sure.” Roman runs his hand through his hair. He smiles. His dimples deepen. The corners of his eyes attractively crease. “Why do you ask?”

“You just said the most extraordinary thing about the father of someone called Timothy Gril.”

“Did I?” Roman looks confused. “Don’t really even know Timothy all that well. He doesn’t really run with my crowd, if you know what I mean. As for his father, I’ve never met the man, although I think Gregory knows him quite well. How am I doing with the cards, this time around, by the way?”

Jordan decides not to pursue the Gril line of inquiry. Stranger things happen during card-readings by genuine adepts. Their minds work in entirely different ways from normal folk. Jordan can attest to that from personal experience.

He deals another card.

Again, without waiting for Jordan’s nod, Roman this time says, “Two of clubs.”

Jordan thinks, “Two of diamonds.”

He upturns the card.

Two of clubs.

Once again, out of sight and out of mind, Gyle Gril’s flesh crisps, and he screams for rescue from frustrated fireman who simply can’t manage the intensity of the flames to get to him.



Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

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

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

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

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