Blood Lite II: Overbite (26 page)

Keshia came to me. “Sit down, Magda,” she said. She grabbed my hand.

A hot jolt ran through me. My muscles tightened; then I relaxed and heaved a sigh. My power worked best with physical contact.

Keshia froze, then thawed. She stared up at me, tilted her head, and smiled the kind of smile a catalog kid smiles when she’s wearing a very cute outfit and knows it. “Will you play with me?” she asked, and she suddenly sounded like a little kid instead of a calculating midget.

“Sure, honey,” I said. I’d practiced my Like on the kids I babysat for in the old neighborhood, until His Infernal Majesty started making interested noises. I didn’t want to snatch kids I knew.

Now that my Like had engaged, Keshia wouldn’t think of doing anything evil to me. I said, “What do you want to do? We could read, or—looks like there are a lot of cool toys here.”

She kept hold of my hand and looked at the wall of cubbyholes. She shook her head. “You pick.”

“Hey!” yelled Ian. “What just happened?”

“Interesting,” said Dwyn. “Sorta like mine.”

Elly straightened and stared at me, her eyes widening. She lifted a hand and flashed some finger symbols at me, but I didn’t know any sign language, so I just shrugged. Maybe she was casting a spell?

Keshia tugged on my hand, still smiling. “Mags?” she said.

If the kids weren’t impervious to my power, I’d better touch them quickly, before they got any warier than they already were. “How about some more art?” I asked. I settled Keshia on her chair and brushed Jezra’s hand with the back of mine. The jolt heated me again, and I smiled at him. He smiled back, then frowned, then smiled.

I moved around the table and gripped Fanny’s and Ian’s shoulders, though Ian tried to duck.

“Don’t you touch me, intruder!” Fanny yelled.

My jolt hit, twice. Fanny struggled against it, her face twisted in fury. She pointed at me. An orange glow surrounded her hand, then concentrated at her fingertip. She shook her hand toward me, but at the last second she pointed away. A sizzling bolt of orange fire shot up into the ceiling and left a smoking, ember-edged hole a foot across.

“Gosh,” she said. “What was I thinking?” She hugged me around the waist.

Ian’s face unfrowned for the first time since I’d entered the room. He looked confused. His hand plucked at my overalls. “Mags,” he said, and he, too, sounded like a little kid.

I exchanged glances with Dwyn. He dropped to the floor from his high chair and backed away from me.

“Not gonna let you touch me,” he said. “How long does it last?”

I smiled at him. “For always.” As far as I knew.

“Damn,” he said. “You’re the most dangerous one we’ve ever had.”

“Why don’t you let me touch you now? I’ll catch up to you sooner or later. Your power bounces off me.”

“The power I tried first does, anyway,” he said, “but I have others. Did you make the other kids stupid?”

“Shut up,” Keshia said.

“You’re the stupid one if you think we’re going to let you get away with that, Dwyn-Dull,” Fanny said.

“Who you calling stupid?” Ian said. He kept his grip on my pocket, but with his other hand, he flicked fingers at Dwyn. Dark feathers shot from his fingertips and splattered over Dwyn, who choked and dropped to the floor, spasming. Ian nudged me with his fist. “Get him, Mags.”

“Traitor!” Dwyn managed to say between coughing fits.

I knelt beside Dwyn, with Fanny and Ian still clinging to me, and Keshia and Jezra close behind. I reached toward Dwyn’s face. He tried to roll away. Jezra put his foot on Dwyn’s stomach, holding him down.

The black feathers melted. Dwyn stopped coughing. He stared up into my eyes. “Now that you’ve done whatever you did to the others, will you give us to your Master?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I’d never used my Like on anybody with powers of their own before. The kids had gone mushy on me, but I wasn’t sure my power could overcome their survival instincts. If I did the summoning here, and Mr. Ugly showed up—

Anyway, I was having doubts about the whole thing. I’d done dumb things before, and I wanted to learn to think through consequences better. It occurred to me that if I actually gave kids to His Awesome Awfulness, my soul wouldn’t be in very good shape when I got it back.

“No,” I said. My dream of getting out of my first contract melted like snow in summer sun. Colors dimmed.

It wasn’t like I knew what to do with my soul when I had it.

Dwyn sighed and stopped squirming under Jezra’s foot. I touched his cheek. My jolt didn’t come. We stared at each other. He smiled a half smile. “We’re too alike,” he said.

“Have to work it the way normal people do,” I said.

“Okay.”

Though if Dwyn had other powers—I just had the one. . . .

Oh, well. “Let him up, please, Jezra, and thanks for your help,” I said.

“Anytime,” said Jezra. He took his foot off Dwyn’s stomach.

Dwyn sat up, then leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. My heart twisted; I felt again the overwhelming urge to adore and worship him.

It passed.

Fanny smacked Dwyn. “Quit it,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah. Just had to check.”

Elly sighed and put a smile on her face. “Well, now that that’s all sorted out, shall we get back to work, children?” Her grin was eerie and extra wide.

“Is that what you want, Mags?” Fanny asked.

“Sure,” I said. We all headed over to the table. The children climbed back into their chairs, picked up their brushes, and got back to work.

I edged around the table to Elly. She held up a hand, palm toward me. “Don’t touch me,” she muttered.

I shrugged. My Like could work without touch. It just took longer.

“Are all the kids at Exceptional like these?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Some are worse. Some are normal. Well, special in a different way.”

“Huh.” I wondered what powers, exactly, my kids had. It would be worth finding out.

I couldn’t give these kids to His Mighty Maliciousness, but maybe, just maybe, I could give His Mighty Maliciousness to the kids.

Season Tickets

DEREK CLENDENING

Drew couldn’t believe that some schlemiel would actually fall for it! He’d pulled a few fast ones in his day, but this was one for the ages. Maybe it wasn’t the most honest move he’d ever made, but it was for a good cause.

Since his parents had booted him out of their basement, he’d been forced to find his own apartment, which meant that he now had expenses to cover and he had to count his pennies. He was only twenty-eight and knew people older than him who still dwelled in their parents’ basements, extra rooms, and attics. At least he was employed and took out the garbage once in a while. Why couldn’t he stick around a few more years?

But he’d gotten over it. Well, almost. Each time he ate a frozen dinner, or had to scrub his own underpants, he couldn’t help but feel bitter. Still, he’d weathered self-dependence without giving up too many of his favorite things. The apartment had tapped out most of his paychecks, but he’d learned how to stretch the remains. But, when Dave, the ticket agent from the Buffalo Bills, had called to ask why he hadn’t renewed the season’s tickets that he’d owned since he was eighteen, he couldn’t answer. Worse still, he couldn’t afford them.

He’d tried to talk himself out of buying the tickets. First, he told himself that the cash wasn’t there. Next, he reminded himself that the owner hadn’t fired the head coach in spite of the highway billboard that had been erected to demand it (and to which he had contributed financially). But no amount of self-convincing worked. Drew was hooked and needed help. But next year. He could go and seek help next year.

And so he ventured onto eBay for the first time. But what to sell? He didn’t have diddly-squat kicking around the apartment, unless he could hock the expired bottle of mustard in his fridge. He needed to scrape together something that someone would actually want to buy, but it seemed impossible. His only valuable possession was his collection of Bills memorabilia, and that was out of the question.

And then he offered to sell his soul.

But who would want to buy
my
soul?
he thought.
I’m just Drew Wilson from Buffalo, New York. I’m a Walmart associate without any prospects for promotion, and if you need a tailgating buddy, you could do a lot worse. But why would someone want
my
soul?

He put it up for sale anyway, wrote a description (clean, shiny, and in mint condition! Motivated seller!), affixed an outrageous price, and awaited an interested buyer. Before long he had a hit, and he popped up in his chair to stare at the screen. Mister Lawrence Adams sounded as determined to buy as Drew was to sell. All that was left was to make sure that no strings were attached. When he found none, he clapped his hands together, rubbed his palms, and accepted his offer.

But he would sign nothing over until he was sure that Mister Lawrence Adams wasn’t shitting him.
Show me the money!
Drew thought. He wouldn’t sell his soul with nothing to show for it.

For a moment he did wonder why this Adams dude wanted his soul so badly.
What’s he going to do with it?
But the prospect of ticket money wiped all that out.

So, once the money appeared in his account, he decided that he should send Mister Lawrence Adams something tangible. He composed an email to say that he, Drew Wilson, did solemnly sign his soul over to him for an amount of three thousand dollars. That sounded official enough. He fired the email off and decided that he needn’t hold his laughter in.

And then it dawned on him: with that kind of dough, he needn’t renew the same old shitty upper corner seats where he’d toiled for years. He could have the best seats in the house! He phoned up Dave, the ticket agent, and upgraded his account to lower bowl seating, smack dab on the fifty-yard line.

Of course, he knew that some poorer fans would be jealous of his new seats. His best Bills-backing bud Frank would be pissed when he learned that he’d been jilted in the upper corner. But Drew decided to phone him up and explain just how kickass his new tickets were. Friends had to understand.

“Ten years and you’re just gonna up and leave me for better seats?” Frank said.

Drew heard the jealous
Put yourself in my shoes. If you could have tickets to die for, wouldn’t you take ’em?
, whiny tone in his own voice already.

“Come on, dude,” Drew said.

“I don’t get this. Yesterday you couldn’t even afford to renew the seats you had and now you’ve got the fifty-yard line. What did you do? Sell your left nut to science?”

“Oh, that’s for me to know and for you to worry about, ha ha ha ha!”

Drew couldn’t tell his friend the truth, not Frank, who devoured Sylvia Browne and obsessed over the occult. Besides, he had come across an idea and meant to stick by it. Maybe his personality would be auctioned off next. Or his wit and charm. To him, the free enterprise system allowed a man to sell off whatever the hell he wanted.

“Dude, really, I can make it up to you,” Drew said. “We’ll still tailgate together, so the first box of steaks and case of beer is on me. Sound good?”

“Least you can do now that you’re friggin’ rollin’ in it.”

“’Kay then, bud. See you bright and early Sunday morning.”

He clicked the phone off, kicked back in his chair, and laced his fingers behind his head. This was going to be one hell of a season.

Bars of sunlight peeked through his blinds the next morning and Drew covered his eyes. Morning wasn’t his friend, but then it seemed like there were so few times a day that he wanted to be up and hopping. Not unless it was Sunday and he was going to a Bills game. Then he had the stamina of a champion. He decided to drag himself out of bed and crawl into work, otherwise his three grand wouldn’t stretch very far.

When he pulled the covers off of his naked body, he saw that his skin had turned a shade of light green, from head to toe. And he felt slippery to the touch. His stomach was still ivory white, which made him wonder if he would grow gills next and turn into a fish man.

He leaped out of bed, struggled to catch up with his breathing, but he couldn’t calm himself. How the hell had this happened overnight? He’d only sold his soul, not traded cash for a gypsy curse!

In the bathroom mirror, he saw that his face had changed for the worst. Dark lines circled his bloodshot eyes, and his cheeks had sunk. His once muscular arms now sagged below the armpits and his tongue had turned black.

When he checked below his beltline, he saw that his dick and balls had shriveled up like raisins. He threw his hands over his face and tried not to cry. He’d had enough bad luck with the ladies before he’d sold his soul, and it would be worse now that his twig and berries had gone to seed.

But he refused to believe that this was the result of selling his soul. No, he’d come down with something rotten, something vile, but not something that he couldn’t fix. He’d get some rest, or go to the doctor, but he wouldn’t live with this forever.

Deep breaths. Nice and slow. In and out. He decided that if he closed his eyes and opened them, it would all go away. The Drew Wilson that he knew and loved would be back to normal.

So he closed his eyes.

And when he opened them to see that he still looked like a zombie, Drew knew that he was in serious trouble. There was no way in hell he could go out looking like this. And he sure couldn’t go to work either.

When he phoned in sick to Walmart, he didn’t know what to tell them. He’d been so consumed by the changes that he hadn’t bothered to try and sound sick.

He could only imagine what they would’ve said had he told them that he’d sold his soul

Who the hell would want to buy
your
soul?
he imagined Bonnie, his supervisor, asking, and then maybe laughing.

But that wasn’t foremost on his mind. How the hell would he get rid of this? Surely he couldn’t just mosey down to the emergency room and ask the doc to give him two of whatever and call him in the morning.

Frank would know what to do. All that reading had to have armed him with some information on this, even if he didn’t want to admit that it was because he’d sold his soul to Mr. Larry Adams. But if it meant swallowing his pride to make this go away, he would do it.

When Drew skipped up to Frank’s apartment, he pictured his reaction, and pulled his trench coat over his face. He’d said nothing of his condition when they’d spoken on the phone. He’d only said that he was desperate for help. The years he’d spent teasing Frank for being a grade-A kook he now regretted and he prayed that Frank would know some weird-ass magical cure for him. This was not like a scraped knee, a broken toe, or the clap. Normal medicine meant nothing, he thought.

When the door swung open, Frank nearly barreled over with laughter. Drew stuck his hand on his hips, forced air out his nostrils, and waited for Frank to pull himself together. At this point, his reaction seemed more vapid than anything.

Frank held on to the door, sighed, and calmed himself. “Sold your soul, didn’t you? Silly bastard.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Drew said, “dumbass thing to do, I know.”

“But who’d want to buy
your
soul? I mean, seriously. Well, unless you want to backtrack in life then maybe I can—”

“Would you shut up and help me already?”

He motioned Drew inside the apartment.

“Wait,” Drew said. “You can tell that just from looking at me?”

“’Course! Classic zombieism from selling your soul. You’re nice and empty and hollow inside without it, I can see that. Symptoms are usually the same, but everyone has their nuances. Don’t take long for it to kick in.”

“So, you’re telling me people do shit like this? I mean, exchange their soul for something, then have some bodily change?”

“More common than you think, my good man.” He slapped Drew’s shoulder. “Happens all the time, just never hear about it. Why would someone admit they’re turning into a zombie?”

A
real
zombie? Drew patted himself then knocked on his temple. His brains hadn’t eluded him and he hadn’t felt the voracious appetite for human flesh. How he could be a genuine zombie was beyond him.

But what the hell was he thinking? That was all assuming that this stuff was for real. But why else would someone buy his soul? Still, he understood that Frank’s advice was his only chance.

“All right, so I’ve turned into the walking undead,” Drew said. “No soul, no brain, no nothing. But if that’s true, you’ve got to know how to get me out of it.”

Frank grinned. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? What the hell do you mean
maybe
?”

“Why should I help you? After all, you just ditched me in the upper corner for seats on the fifty-yard line. Could’ve been charitable, too, but you and your big bucks couldn’t be bothered to take me with you.”

Drew almost dropped to his knees. “Come on, man, I’ve gotta get out of this. I’ll do anything. Seriously.”

“Okay, I’ll take ’er easy on you, dude. One price sounds right to me.”

“What price?”

“How ’bout you turn over those juicy season tickets?” Frank yawned and stretched. “Then we’ll talk.”

And if that wasn’t the sweetest plum. If he had to give up the very seats that landed him in this mess, the cure hardly seemed worth it. Before he decided to sooner be a zombie, he convinced himself to be cured at any cost.

“’Kay, whatever you want.” Drew wiped his forehead. “Once the ticket book comes in the mail, I’ll turn it over to you. Promise.”

Frank paused and slanted his eyebrows. “I’m gonna hold you to that. All right, so you’ve sold your soul and you’re practically a zombie. Remember who you sold your soul to?”

Larry Adams was his name and Drew figured that he’d remember the name until his dying hour . . . or until he became a total zombie.

“Yeah, so what do I do?” Drew asked. “Hunt the bastard down and steal it back from him?”

Frank slapped Drew upside the head. Drew curled up and nursed the stinging spot.

“No, you dumbass,” Frank said, “you can’t steal a soul, even if it used to be yours. It’s all buy, sell, and trade in this racket. No exceptions.”

“So I go to the guy and tell him I need my soul back so I don’t turn into a goddamned zombie?”

“Hope to God he’s got a heart, number one. But don’t expect him to sell it back to you at face value, no matter who he is. Any customer wants to make a profit on his investment on resale.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Drew asked.

“This dude could be a soul broker, for all you know. And if he is, he might’ve sold it to someone else by now.”

“A soul broker . . . now I’ve heard ’em all.”

“Don’t make fun.” Frank sat up straight. “If he still has your soul, he might charge you a lot more than he paid for it.”

“So what else is there to it?”

Might as well buy something worthless and sell it for ten times more
, Drew thought.

“Nothing, man. Just hope to God this guy is in a giving mood.”

“Wait.” Drew stood up and pointed at Frank. “I just forked over my season tickets to hear something that simple? You’re a fucking crook!”