Burke sat on the bus bench, his left hand holding onto his overstuffed backpack beside him, his feet propped up on the duffel bag in front of him. He was in a bad part of town that he had rarely visited in the five years his father and him had lived here, and then only passing through in a car. He tried to ignore the mild anxiety he felt as he watched the occasional passerby eye him with what felt like suspicion but was more likely some mixture of apathy and the mildest form of curiosity at why he looked uncomfortable in the first place.
He knew he needed to be less uptight, less judgmental, more embracing of new experiences and people given his sudden transition from a relatively cloistered existence to one that was filled with unknowns. He also knew he had at least an hour before the bus arrived, so he might as well be comfortable. It was his birthday, after all.
“Wake up, birthday boy.” His father’s gruff growl was coming from above him, and as he opened his eyes he saw the shadowy outline of the large, crewcut man towering there. His father had always seemed a massive figure made of stone, and as Burke had gotten older that impression hadn’t changed despite his own growth. He sat up slowly and his father nodded. “Got breakfast for you. Come on down.”
As his father left the room, Burke had his first sense that something was off. His father had always been a slightly distant and reserved man, but he had always treated him with signs of love and good humor. Whatever mild disconnect he had always sensed between himself and the older man he’d attributed to differences in their personalities and age, as well his father being career military to the bone. But something certainly seemed off, and as he padded downstairs to find his father sitting at the table waiting on him, the feeling only grew. Burke sat down and thanked his father for breakfast before starting into the eggs and bacon before him. He tried to make a bit of small-talk, but it evaporated quickly in the space between them, and halfway through the meal he went ahead and asked if something was wrong.
The large man across the table sighed and gave a grim smile. “You were always smart and perceptive. Whatever else, you got that from your mother.”
Burke felt slightly confused but pressed the point. “What’s up? Did something happen?”
His father nodded. “Yes, something happened alright. You turned eighteen.” Burke started to ask another question but his father picked it up again. “I was raised by just my mother, your grandmother. You know that. My father was a philandering drunk and left my pregnant mother when she was little more than a teenager. It was hard on her, and it was hard on me.” He could see lines of resentment creasing the tight skin around the man’s jaw.
“Well, I always said that I would never do that. That I would be better than that. If I had a child, I would be a father to it, give it love and support and the best upbringing I could provide.”
Burke nodded. “Sure, you have alw…” His father raised his hand.
“I’m not done.” His steely gaze withered the tongue in Burke’s mouth and he fell silent.
“As I was saying, I was determined to do right by a child, and to love that child with all my heart. And then you came along. You came along and killed my Polly.”
Burke felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He knew his mother had died giving birth to him, but they had never talked about it before, certainly not like this. He wanted to respond but his father was talking again. “You killed her, and when I saw you the first time, it took everything I had not to tear your soft head from your worthless pink body. If it would have helped anything, I would have. But it would be like cutting out a cancer after its killed a person. What’s the point?”
“But it wasn’t my f…”
“It wasn’t your fault, sure. I’m not insane, I don’t think you intentionally killed her. Neither does a drunk driver, but would I hate them less because they didn’t mean to cross into oncoming traffic? No. It’s not entirely logical, I understand, but there is logic to it. Causality. If you didn’t exist, she would. If you didn’t exist, I would have had a happy life instead of being chained to the cancer that killed my life for the last eighteen years.”
Burke was still in shock, but he could feel tears coming to his eyes now. His father stared at him, his gaze unrelenting and his tone one of banal finality.
“Still, I kept to my word and promise. I provided for you, supported you, pretended to love you and raised you as best I could. There were times it was easy—you’re not a bad kid overall and I almost enjoyed some of the time we had together. But then I would remember how much I hate you, and I’d feel ashamed for almost forgetting that. “You have to understand that I understand how hard this all is to hear. I’d like to say I take no pleasure in it, that I’m bigger than that, but I do take some pleasure in it and I’m not bigger than that. I’ve done my duty by you, done right by you, I think. I gave you a good, stable home and I never gave into the darker urges I know I have in me every time I see your face.” The man’s expression was darkening now, as though reflecting on his anger was deepening the bitter taste of it on his tongue. He rubbed his mouth and went on.
“But you are eighteen today, a grown man, and no longer my problem.
I’m about to leave and go to the base. I’ll be back about six o’clock
this evening. When I get back, I want you to be gone and gone for good.
On the table in the hall there is an envelope with fifteen hundred
dollars in it. That is my final gift to you. It should be enough to
get you away from here, get a place to stay, and get you started in
making a way for yourself in the world.
“Also in the envelope is a
new cell phone with prepaid minutes on it. I don’t know the number.
Don’t want to know the number. Your old phone is off my service plan as
of today. Take the time you need today to pack your things and leave.
I trust you enough to know you will limit anything you take to items I
have given you and that you will not steal from me.”
Burke was steadily crying now, but he still took in every word that was being said, and when his father stood, his gaze followed.
“Two final bits of advice. One, don’t waste your money on some piece of shit car. Blowing through that money will get you a junker and then you’ll have no money for food or lodging. Wait for a car after you have settled somewhere and have a job and money saved up. Two, if I ever see you again, it’ll be as a man, not a child. The man that killed my wife eighteen years ago. And I swear before all that is holy that I will not suffer that man to live.”
Six hours later, sitting on the bench outside the town’s bus terminal, Burke still felt a kind of unreality about the whole thing. He didn’t doubt the truth of what his father had told him today, but he was still having some difficulty reconciling it in his mind with his memories of growing up with his father. It was like rewatching a movie after you knew the twist, he was looking for clues he’d overlooked before, signs that he had missed or taken as something else. He was still lost in this contemplation when the girl sat down next to him, and she had to poke him in his side before he even realized she was there.
She wasn’t an especially cute or interesting looking girl—not unattractive, just bland looking—but she was still a girl, and he immediately felt himself getting the first buzz of nervous excitement as he tried to figure out what she was saying.
She stared out at him from underneath a tattered ball cap, her intense eyes studying him intently as her mouth began to twitch down in stages until it came to rest in a frown.
“I know your situational awareness isn’t awesome, but are you also deaf?”
“Huh?” He was mildly irritated now, but he still winced at his clever retort. “What did you ask me?”
“Do. You. Want. To. Make. Some. Money?” She punctuated each word with what appeared to be made up sign language, her words and gestures exaggerated for maximum mockery.
He tried to look cocky as he spoke. “I’m not a prostitute, ma’am.” Good one!
The girl rolled her eyes. “Too late to try and convince me you’re not a retard. So you. Money. Do you want some?”
Burke couldn’t help but feel mildly stung, but he nodded. It occurred to him that she could just be trying to goad him into agreeing into doing something stupid or illegal, but he did need money and it wouldn’t hurt to hear her out. If he didn’t like the sound of it, he could always back out and just catch the bus. “Yeah sure. What’re you offering?”
She studied him for a minute more and then sighed. “Okay, do you know Gunderson’s uptown? Super fancy restaurant in the middle of the super fancy hotel?”
He shrugged. “I’ve heard of it yeah. So?”
“Well, my associate and I need a third person to help me distract security while he takes something there.”
Burke frowned. “Steal something, you mean.”
It was her turn to shrug. “Technically yes, but the person who has it, the owner of the restaurant, stole it himself, so it’s not that big of a sin. And you and I have zero risk of being connected with the theft. My associate will be the only one trying to steal or having possession of the item. All we have to do is cause some commotion, disrupt people’s meals, and keep security distracted.”
He almost left right then, but he didn’t want to appear cowardly to the girl, as stupid as he knew that was even as he thought it. But it did seem a fairly mild thing so far. It wouldn’t hurt to listen.
“So what’s the item?”
“No, none of your business and better you don’t know.”
“What’s the security like then? Can you tell me that?”
The girl nodded, licking her lips. “I can, yeah. And try to hear me out before you bail, okay?”
Burke cocked an eyebrow but nodded. “Yeah, I guess. What’s the deal?”
She tried to put on a winning smile. “The deal is the security is invisible. Like an invisible creature. Look at it like a guard dog.”
He stifled the urge to edge away from the crazy girl on the bus bench with him. “So it’s an invisible guard dog.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, but that description is as good as any. It’s magic. Basically,”
“Wait, it’s magic. Like, magic?”
“Wow, you really are super articulate in your queries. Yes, fuck. Yes, magic. Magic is real, booga booga, whatever. Look, I’m either telling you the truth or I’m crazy and there is no invisible security to worry about. Either way you’ll get five thousand dollars when it’s done.”
Burke felt his next question shrivel on his tongue. It could all be a con or the delusions of a crazy girl, but she didn’t seem crazy, and if she wasn’t lying the money would be huge for him at the moment. But why make up such a bizarre story? It didn’t…
“Look, pay attention, ok? If we’re going to do it, it’s going to have to be fast. Approaching strangers on benches is not my normal vetting process. But it has to happen today, pretty soon. So I need to tell you what the deal is and you can either agree or I’ll find someone else. With me so far?”
He nodded and she went on.
“So the invisible guard. It’s there to keep people from stealing this thing. It is very dangerous, and if it touches you, even for a moment, you will drop dead of a heart attack or something very similar. My associate will be cloaked from it, but it’s not a perfect spell. It will only work if the guard is also distracted, which is where we come in.”
“We distract the invisible killer monster.” He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice and failed.
The girl grimaced but went on. “Yeah. Basically, it works like this. We will be sharing a similar cloaking spell between us. Before we go in, the spell will be coded to bounce between us based on our verbal command. Specifically, if you have the cloak and you yell “switch!”, it goes off of you and onto the other person until they yell it.”
Burke nodded. “So the idea is we split up and yo-yo the guard thing between us by taking turns being bait.”
She smiled for the first time, her face lighting up at the change. “Yeah. That’s it exactly. But the spell is finicky and fragile. We only get three swaps each. So we have to be out of there before we’ve run out or the guard will stick on one of us and it will catch us and that will be it. The guard can’t leave the boundaries of the restaurant, so once we’re out the door we’re cool. Questions?”
“How will we know when to switch if we can’t see it?”
The girl nodded. “Good question. The person without the cloak will be get the other part of the spell—they’ll be able to see very small changes in the air. You won’t be able to see the creature exactly, but you will be able to see where it’s at, especially when it’s moving. Next?”
“Can’t it just hear us if we’re telling each other where it’s at and get us by sound?”
“No, the spell delocalizes the sound for everyone not affected by it. So it can hear us make noise, but only we will be able to tell where its coming from. What else?” She was studying him closely as he thought about it.
“What’s to stop the people who have this thing from finding us later and killing us?”
“Another reasonable question. The cloak spell disguises us, and the air sensory spell blurs our features. We will see each other normally, but that’s it. And from the time we’re approaching the restaurant, no surveillance or guards will be able to see our faces clearly, and any customers will just remember some people running around who’s faces they can’t quite recall, not any magic.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Ok, this sounds cool and all. Very teen fantasy section. Probably a pet dragon or demon or something else with a d at some point. But what’s the real deal? You can just tell me.”
The girl shrugged. “What I’ve said is the truth. I’m not trying to sell you on it. You can do the job or not. If you do, you’ll see it’s all real soon enough. But you need to allow for the possibility that it’s real now, so when the time comes you don’t freeze up. If you freeze up in there, you’ll die, and I’m not looking for that on my conscience.” Burke still had mixed feelings, but he could feel a strange excitement growing in him, a kind of anticipation. He already knew he was going to do it. Maybe she did too. “Okay. I’ll try to keep an open mind, and if I see an invisible monster coming towards me I’ll believe its real.”
“You do more than that. You run like hell. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Standing outside of the restaurant, Burke felt more uncertain than he had all afternoon. It wasn’t the fancy restaurant—while it was way nicer than any place he’d ever been to, he’d been given what had to be an extremely expensive and well-fitted suit to wear. It wasn’t even his growing certainty that magic might be real. In the last hour he had watched the girl—she said her name was Lark—do several things casually that appeared to be some kind of magic or miracle to him.
His suit, for instance, had been pulled from a tiny velvet bag too small to hold it and then stretched like salt-water taffy as Lark eyed him to make sure she got the dimensions right. The symbols that she had drawn on the inside of his wrists and ankles and the back of his neck, that seemed to be drawn with a normal black marker, burned in time with the strange words she said once she’d finished.
And then there was the overall sense of seriousness to it all. He didn’t get any indication of self-consciousness or improvisation in what Lark was doing. He didn’t understand any of it, of course, but he could tell that she did and that she believed in it. That could still just make her a nut or part of some weird cult or religion, but that didn’t seem right either. Because the things that she did and said, they somehow made sense to him. Felt right. It was almost like hearing a song for the first time and knowing it was a well-made song even without knowing anything about music. There was a truth to it.
But if there was a truth to that, then there was likely a truth to the invisible death monster in the building before them. That was what made him uncertain. He felt like he was at the threshold of a new start to his life and possibly to a whole new world he’d never believed existed, and now he was both excited and terrified at the idea of passing through. Lark was studying him and poked him in the stomach.
“Time to sack up. I know what you’re thinking. Big, scary monster might be real now that you’ve seen some magic shit, right?” She smiled and tapped her fingers as she went on. “Well, one, told you so. Two, you’re with people who know their shit. Three, do you really want to turn your back on all this and wonder the rest of your life?”
He frowned down at her. “Wonder what?”
It was her turn to frown. “What fucking if? When you’re fifty and in a rut, what do you think you’d say to current you? Go get on a bus and start a mundane life, or take a chance and have something extraordinary first?” She glanced around on the street, and in a lower voice said, “Who knows, this could be the start of a whole life for you.”
He stared at her for a moment before nodding. “Okay. Why not. Shit. Okay. Let’s do it.” He started forward but she caught his arm.
“Hold up a second, chief. Let’s go back over things. When we hit the threshold, I will say ‘switch’. That will start the spell running and put the cloak on you. There are four stories to the restaurant, with two sets of curved stairs to the left and the right between the first three levels and spiral staircases on the left and the right of the top floor. When I say ‘switch’, I will go to the left. I will always stay to the left. You will always stay to the right. Directions are based on the directions when we enter the front door.
“When I use magic, the guard will come after me. It will not run, I don’t think at least, but it will move quickly. I will keep it occupied and kited as long as I can, but when it’s close, I will call to you and you have to yell ‘switch’. If you don’t, I will die.”
He was nodding, and though they had gone through all of this before while getting ready, he knew it was important to hear every word. “I understand.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t, not really. You’re seeing all this magic stuff and you might think, ‘hey, I bet if I chicken out she’ll have some way to beat the monster or teleport away, or some other bullshit’. No, I don’t. Not in that place, not with this thing. If we don’t both do our part, don’t both trust each other, I will die. You will die. Okay?” Her eyes were dark and serious, boring into him until he looked away.
“I get what you’re saying. But why would you trust me? I’m some random dude off a bench. It makes no sense.” She smiled, her eyes sad. “Because honestly, we don’t have a choice. My partner, who I know you haven’t met but is really great, doesn’t have a lot of time left if this doesn’t work out. And we don’t have anyone else we can rely on for this. And it’s a three-man job. So yes, I trusted my gut in picking you as the random stranger to pull into something you have no experience or point of reference for. Yes, I’m trusting you won’t freak out or betray us. Not because I’m stupid or crazy, but because we’re that desperate.” She paused, her eyes brightening slightly. “Plus, you do seem fairly cool.”
Burke smiled and shrugged, her answer not doing much to ease his mind. “Okay, well thanks. Go on.”
“As I said, we can each say ‘switch’ three times. Me first, you, me, you, me, you. If we ever got to the end of that chain, then the cloak would be on me and there is no way to get it off of me and back onto you until we leave the building. But, of course, we won’t ever get that far. My hope is that at most you’ll have to say it once. Rupert, my partner, is fast and knows what he’s doing. He’ll hopefully be through any protections and back out before we’re in there more than three or four minutes. That being said, do not panic in there. Think before you say it, and don’t accidently say it when you don’t mean to. And if by some tiny chance you have to say it a third time, you make sure you’re very near the door to get out. The guard can’t leave the building, so that’s the failsafe, though it shouldn’t be needed.”
He nodded again.
“Any questions?”
“No, I’m good I think. I hope.”
Lark grinned at him. “Look at you, your first caper. It’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
“Switch!”
Even though he knew she was going to do it, her yell made him jump as they crossed into the restaurant. She immediately headed off to the left, past the maître d’ and across the large room beyond. The people waiting to be seated, nor the late afternoon patrons at the tables, paid any attention to her yell or her rapid movement.
“I see it, it’s coming across from the second level but I can beat it to the third. Get your ass moving!” She yelled over her shoulder, and he could hear the strain in her voice. He couldn’t see anything, of course, but he had a rough idea based on where she kept looking back to. He ran into the dining area and between several large and small tables, accidently bumping into a couple of them. The customers barely glanced his way, and he kept on going.
He was up the stairs to the second floor and starting up the third when she yelled. “Ok, time to take it. Say it!”
He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He stopped midway up the stairs and looked for where her voice was coming from. It seemed like she was on the far side of the third floor somewhere. So if he…
“Now, please, it’s getting faster as it gets close.”
“Switch!” As soon as he said the words he felt a slight cooling of the air, as though he had lost some invisible blanket he’d been unaware of until it was gone. “Where is it?”
“It’s on the third floor, it’ll probably head across towards your stairs.”
“Okay, thanks!”
Burke turned and began running down the stairs, not looking back until he reached the bottom floor again. When he did, he felt his balls draw up into his stomach as he saw the air shimmering at the top of the stairs above him. “Ah, it’s fast! I see it, it’s fast! Where should I go?”
“Just keep tables between you and it, it’s faster than I thought, but it still has to touch you. Get it where you can make it back up the stairs. But don’t bring it over here. Keep to your side.”
He looked up at her voice and saw she was on the second floor near the stairs on the far side, parallel to where the guard was starting to come down. He thought about asking her to switch, but he held off. He could do this. Moving toward the middle of the room, he kept his eyes on the shape in the air as it approached. He wondered how smart it was and if it could understand them. The thoughts just chilled him further so he pushed them away. When he felt the guard was far enough into the room, he ran around the other way, pushing between oblivious tables of people eating overpriced meals and hit the stairs again on his side.
“Doing good, doing good. Where is it now?” Lark was now at the bottom, heading toward the front. He felt a stab of panic that she would just walk out the front door and leave him, but she stopped and turned to watch him.
“Um, it’s on the second floor coming up to the third.” As he headed into the third-floor space, he realized that the space was laid out differently than the bottom floor or even what he had seen of the second. There were far fewer tables, but there were pieces of art and heavy serving boards taking up space, and the overall floorplan was much smaller due to the design of the floors, with each floor essentially being a large, open terrace balcony that overlooked the floor below it. Getting around the monster on the third floor and back to the stairs up there would be hard, especially if it got any faster. “Um, yeah. Say it please.”
“Switch!”
The stirring air reaching the top of the third-floor stairs faded away, replaced with the slight comforting warmth of the cloaking spell. He took a shaky breath and rubbed his face. “Thanks! Where is it?”
“No problem, you’re doing great. It’s coming back down now. This is taking longer than I thought it would, but we’re still fine. I’ll let you know when I’m in position for another switch, if we need one.”
“Okay.” There were no customers on this floor other than one old man against a far wall, and he was intent on some kind of thick soup. Fighting the urge to stay where he was, he headed back down toward the bottom floor. Across the restaurant, he saw Lark moving back up her side. He waited at the bottom of the stairs, tense and dreading her voice. Three minutes later, it came.
“There’s something wrong here. It’s faster than it should be. Not a lot, but faster. And I think it’s figuring it out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, these things are dumb, like super dumb. But this one is….shit, yeah it’s learning what we’re doing I think. Fuck, I need a cloak now!”
“Oh fuck. Goddamn it. Switch!”
From where he was at, he could see the edge of the thing, a distortion like a wound in the air, over the edge of the third-floor banister. It wasn’t moving, or at least not much and not towards the stairs. Instead, it seemed to be searching the area where Lark had just disappeared. She was silent, at least where he could hear, but what if she wasn’t?
“Hey! Fucker! Down here, you spooky sack of shit!” Burke saw the distortion stop in its path and then turn toward the stairs, moving faster than ever. Oh, God. It worked, but that means it understood you. And now its pissed off.
The creature worked its way swiftly down to the second floor and then disappeared out of sight as it crossed into the middle. Burke backed away from the foot of the stairs and towards the maître d, who was softly telling a couple that there was simply no way they could seat them today or in the near future. Then the thing was at the head of the stairs and speeding down towards him. He suppressed a yelp and moved out into the front room.
“Are you sure your friend is okay? How do we know he isn’t done or been caught?”
There was an interminable silence as he waited for a response, moving back into the dining area at a dead run and pelting for the stairs. Then finally, “He’s still working. Not too much longer. How’re you doing?”
He could feel his chest burning, and a stitch was starting to grow in his left side. “I’m okay, but I’m getting near the third floor again. It’s getting faster.”
“Switch!” Then a pause. “That’s my last one. I’ll keep it occupied til we’re done. Where was it when you last saw it?”
He felt panic surge through him as realization struck him. His voice was hoarse and high when he yelled. “I didn’t! Fuck, I didn’t see it follow me once I got on the stairs!”
“Wait what? You didn’t look?” He could hear the tension in Lark’s voice as well.
“No, shit. Fuck. I was looking. I remember looking but it was all so fast and no, I don’t know where it is. Where it went.” He felt dread filling his heart like a poison as he looked around for signs of her. He started down to the second floor again, catching a glimpse of movement on the third floor as she headed back up. He was about to ask her if she was okay when she began to scream.
“Get out! Run! It’s blocked things off. It’s moving things and trapping me! Just get out now and I’ll keep it busy!”
In the moment it took for him to process what she was saying through his stress and fear, Burke understood why he hadn’t seen it this last time. It had been tricking them, leaving its pursuit so it could create a snare for Lark by blocking paths on the upper floors. And it was his fault for not warning her quicker. Furniture and support columns blocked his view of that side of the third floor almost entirely, and any moment the thing could be reaching her if it hadn’t already.
“Switch!”
Everything was quiet for a moment beyond the hushed din of eating below him and the slow, contemplative slurping of soup from the old man nearby. Then he heard a loud crash on the far side of the floor above him. “Did you see where it went?” He knew he sounded shrill and terrified, but he didn’t care.
Several seconds passed before she said, “It went down the stairs on my side. Sorry, I gave it a second because I’m starting to think it can tell where the sound is coming from. I don’t know. You need to run and get out now!” He was about to run down the remaining stairs and on to the ground floor when a thought struck him. “Wait, what happens if I leave before you do?”
Another pause. “I’ll be ok.”
“No, what happens?” He was scanning the stairs above and below him between glances across the second floor’s tables. No sign of the monster so far, which scared him far more than seeing it.
“The spell breaks if we aren’t both in here.” Her voice sounded tired and strained.
“So it could find you.”
“Sure, but I can…”
“No, fuck that. You go first. I’ll keep it busy until you do.” Up the stairs, nothing. Down the stairs, nothing. On the bottom floor he could see…nothing. Across the second floor, no sign at all.
“It threw things in my way before it left. I’ll have to move tables and chairs, it’ll wind up just coming back anyway if it’s not just waiting already. I’m pretty sure it can tell where the sound is coming from. I don’t know why it hasn’t attacked me already. You need to go.”
“No.” Pushing himself before he could think better of it, Burke cupped his hands and began to yell louder. “Hey, fucker! If you can hear me and understand me, know you have a way better chance of getting me than her. You can hear me and see me. Come on, pussy! Come get me!”
He heard something shift on the ground floor and took it as a sign. Turning, he ran up to the third floor and considered running across but realized that would just put him and the thing in the path of Lark as she tried to escape, if she tried to escape. To his relief, he heard a scraping crash that he took for her clearing a path and he turned back to the spiral staircase nearby and began to climb.
“Come on, shit for brains! How have you not caught me yet?” Oh God, he thought, I’m going to die, and I just hope its fast and that she appreciates this bullshit because fuck I’m a moron and I hope she’s heading out the door. He reached the top of the spiral and found himself faced with a heavy wooden door. He felt a cold certainty it would be locked, but it unlatched and swung open easily at his touch. The space inside was small, dimly lit and only contained two tables, with the small balcony glassed in to make a closed room. And it was a truly closed room, he realized, because there was a wall in the middle, with no access to the far side of the fourth floor and the other staircase going down.
“Fuck no.”
He turned and saw the shimmering shape curling up the last of the staircase, the wrought-iron spiral groaning slightly at its weight. As it entered the room, he realized he could see more of it in the shadowy space he was trapped in. It had the outline of a man—or at least a blocky, meaty statue of a man—except for its arms, which seemed to trail down into slowly moving things whose silhouette reminded him of vines or tentacles. He backed as far into the room as he could, but there wasn’t enough space to get away from this thing. Picking up a chair, he held it in front of him like a lion tamer, his panicked brain trying to decide between using the chair as a paltry weapon or weak distraction.
Then he saw Lark through the distortion, her face focused and her hands palms up in front of her face. She blew some kind of black powder or dust and it clung to the creature. It made no sound, but it froze in place before beginning to shudder violently.
“Come on, we have to go now. It won’t last long.”
His heart hammering, he edged around the room, keeping as much distance as he could from the thing in the center, his eyes watching for some sign that the monster was faking or recovering. Then they were out of the room, heading down the stairs. He made her go first, and every floor he waited for some terrible touch on his back, but it never came. Once they were outside, he kept running until he was a hundred yards into the park across the street, looking back several times to see Lark walking casually and smiling at him as she slowly caught up.
When she got close, she laughed a little, her hands up. “It’s ok. It’s done. We’re safe. I mean, we need to not hang out in the area, but I can take us away from right here.”
“Okay, great. Do that please.” He was gulping for air, and wondered if this was what a stroke felt like.
Lark nodded and grinned again. “I will. But real quick. Do you want to go with us, or do you want me to put you back at the bus stop? With the money you earned, of course. I’ll do either one.”
He straightened and looked at her. “What do you mean, go with you?”
“Well, don’t be pissed, but this was kind of an interview. You did great, by the way.”
“What the fuck? That was fake?”
She looked surprised and glanced back at the hotel and the restaurant entrance they had raced out of moments before. “That? No, that was very real. Rupert did need something from in there, and he got it thanks to you. Very big deal.”
“And the monster? It was real?” He was feeling a strange mix of anger and confusion, and combined with the fear and adrenaline he just wanted to throw up.
“Oh, very real. A polong. Nasty motherfuckers. Malaysian demon. One touch, you die and all that.”
He was alternating staring at her and looking anywhere else. “So…the powder? You could have stopped it at any time? It was all a trick?”
She frowned and shook her head. “The pepper stuff? Nah, that only fucks it up for a few seconds. Worthless for what we needed. No, it was all real except for me being stuck at the end. I wouldn’t let a fucking polong trap me. They really are pretty retarded.”
Now he had settled on anger. “So what the fuck—“
She held up her hands again. “Interview, remember? There’s no better way of seeing who a person is than putting them in the position to lose badly and giving them an easy way out. You could have just run out. As far as you knew, I would likely have died. Instead you were willing to risk your life, die even, to help someone you don’t even know.” She moved forward, putting her hands on his shoulders. “I don’t think you’re stupid or crazy, Burke, so that means you’re kinda a badass.”
He stepped back, his next protest ready when he heard a strange, soft but deep voice to his left. He looked over to see a fox walking toward him. If foxes walked on their hind legs, were over four feet tall and wore an oddly dapper little hat. And talked. It was talking.
“What did you say?” It seemed the only reasonable response since he had clearly gone insane.
The fox made an odd clucking noise that might have been a chuckle. “I said, I know this all seems very unfair and reckless. Very careless with your life and all. And it is, I suppose, but we are inviting you to join us, to join the world that we’re a part of. It’s a wonderful world in some ways, but very terrible in others. And above all, extremely dangerous.” His bushy fox eyebrows went up at this last for effect. “We can’t waste time with cowards and fools, and if you couldn’t survive this, there’d be no hope for you later on. Understand?”
Lark smiled at the fox and then back at Burke. “This is Rupert. He’s a kitsune. And he’s usually right. And we’re sorry about not telling you everything before, but that would kinda defeat the point.”
Burke rubbed his forehead. “Okay. Um. Okay.”
She laughed a little. “Yeah, I know. It’ll take a bit for it to soak in. But we really do have to go now. So what’ll it be? Bus bench or with us? The bench will be safe, but kinda boring.”
“Um, what are you interviewing me for?”
Her face turned mock serious. “That would be telling. An education? An adventure? A reason to be? A whole new life?” She grinned again. “Yeah, it really is all those things. Or none of them. It’s going to be kinda what you make of it and how long you can survive it. But me and Rupert are both in the triple digits, so it can be done, right?”
Burke started again. “Wait, you’re over…”
She shook her head. “Later. No time. Pick now.”
He paused a second, looking at them, thinking about what his life looked like now compared to just a few hours ago. It seemed like a pretty good upgrade.
“I kinda hate buses.”
Rupert gave his strange clucking chuckle again as Lark nodded happily and approached him. The next moment, they were off.
---
Credits
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