Control Point (6 page)

His father had converted it to storage the day Britton shipped out; the floor was heaped with cardboard boxes. A yellowing army promotional poster depicting an Apache attack helicopter was the only hint that Britton had ever lived here.

He rummaged through a box at the base of his mother’s wardrobe, packed with clothing intended for Goodwill that she’d never gotten around to giving up. He shrugged out of his flight suit and into a pair of jeans and paint-stained T-shirt. It was inadequate to the cold outside, but it was clean. More importantly, he was out of uniform and would attract no more attention than any black man in Vermont. He kicked the flight suit behind a pile of boxes and grabbed a pair of his father’s shoes and old wool socks. The shoes were a half size too large and without tread, but he was grateful to have something covering his ragged feet.

He returned to the stairs, stumbling in the oversized shoes. He bent to take them off when he heard his mother’s familiar hum.

Get moving!
his mind screamed at him.
You have to get out of here!
But Britton drowned in the nostalgia evoked by the smell of baking and his mother’s contented hum. His legs refused to move.

Desda appeared in the hallway and froze. He recognized her apron from his youngest days: a washed-out heart with the words
KISS THE COOK!
in letters so faded that he read them from memory. Her gray hair was pinned into an untidy bun, her body still strong and thin despite her years.

He composed himself and descended the rest of the steps.

“Oscar!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck. Her nose only came up to his chest, and he grinned in spite of his misery.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” she asked.

He paused, trying to fix the smell of her in his memory: perfume, sugar, and folded egg yolks.

He crushed her to him. “I love you, Mom.”

“I know, sweetie. I love you, too. Oscar, I can’t breathe.”

No time for good-byes!
his mind yelled.
Every second you stay here brings you closer to getting caught! Run, you damned fool!
But he didn’t. He held his mother, even when the screen-door hinges announced Stanley’s entrance.

He kept his eyes closed but felt his father’s disapproving presence and the rage boiling in response.

“What’s going on, Oscar?” Stanley asked, coming to stand beside his wife. He kept his voice mild, but Britton could feel the judgment just below the surface. “You get yourself into some kind of trouble?”

“Stop it, Stanley!” she scolded.

Stanley waved his hand as if brushing away a fly. “What are you doing here?”

“Dad, can’t I just come home? Can’t a son visit his family?” Oscar asked.

“That’s crap. You never come home unless you want something,” Stanley replied.

“No, Dad,
that’s
crap. I never come home because it’s like walking into a freezer.”

“Come on, you two.” Desda intervened. “Oscar’s home for five minutes, and…”

But by now the familiar pattern was already playing out; both of the Britton men had their dander up.

“You’ve had a standing invitation!” Stanley said through gritted teeth. “I invite you to First Baptist every Sunday, and…”

“Oh, that’s a great idea! I can sit next to you while you pretend to be Christian.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Stanley asked, the cords on his neck standing out.

Britton held his mother close. Years and bruises had taught him that just about anything could set Stanley off. Better not to risk opening his mouth. But the events of the last few hours, and his one hope of refuge evaporating, made him careless.

“Where in the Bible does it tell you to hit your wife? Where does it tell you to hit your son?” Oscar asked.

“Oscar, please!” Desda’s voice was pleading.

But the magical tide didn’t care. It surged with Britton’s fury and sadness. He pushed against it, but it was useless. The air in the kitchen archway shimmered, folded in on itself, and resolved into the static light of an open gate.

Stanley’s eyes shot wide, but Desda continued to look at her son.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Oscar said quickly.

“Sweet Jesus,” Stanley said, backing away.

“What’s wrong?” Desda asked, turning. She froze as she saw the gate.

“Oh my God,” Stanley breathed. “You’re one of those…one of those damned Selfers. This is un-friggin-believable!” He invoked his single response to all unexpected events—anger, but still moved backward, bumping the front door. He fumbled for the handle.

“My God, Oscar,” Desda whispered, “are you doing that?”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Oscar said, his eyes wet. “I love you.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “This isn’t right. I’m your mother, Oscar, I would have known.”

Stanley tore his eyes off the gate. “For Christ’s sake, Dez! Get the hell away from him!” he shouted, reaching for her but not daring to come closer.

Oscar could hear faint keening from the gate. The demon-horses were not far away.

Desda didn’t move. “No, no. This isn’t right. Not right.”

“It’s just a thing, like acne or chicken pox,” Oscar said with a certainty he didn’t feel. “I don’t have a choice. It’s going to be okay.”

She continued to shake her head.

The gate flickered, snapped shut, reopened deeper into the kitchen, then disappeared.

With the gate gone, Stanley found his fight at last.

“Get your damned hands off her!” he shouted, leaping forward and grabbing Oscar’s arms, shouldering Desda out of the way and knocking her to the floor. For all the strength in Stanley’s callused hands, he might as well have grabbed an oak.

Oscar ignored his father, reaching for his mother. Stanley snarled, pounding against his son’s massive chest. Oscar stepped back, raising his hands. “Stop, Dad. This is stupid.”

Desda pulled at her husband. “No! No! No!”

“Shut up!” Stanley screamed. “Get out of here! Leave us alone!”

Oscar tried to move to the door, but Stanley blocked his way.

Oscar backpedaled. Was Desda screaming at him or Stanley? He tried to see her face, but Stanley punched him in his mouth, rocking his head back. He took another step backward, caught his heel on the staircase, and went down hard, bruising his back. Stanley followed, punches raining down.

Desda screamed, the sound merging with the roaring blood in Oscar’s ears. The magical tide drowned him. His skin began to burn.
Am I going nova?
he wondered. He had heard that Selfers, unable to control their magic, sometimes succumbed to its power, burning themselves to a crisp. A gate half opened above him and vanished. He saw through the window as it reappeared on the lawn, grew, and disappeared.

“Dad! Get off! You’re hurting me!” he shouted. “I’m trying to leave!”

“Fucker!” Spittle landed on his shaved head.

Stanley punctuated his cursing with punches. Somewhere the buzz that wasn’t quite a scream droned on. The magic pulsed.

“Dad!
No!
”

Oscar lunged forward, throwing an elbow into what he hoped was his father’s chest. The blow struck Stanley’s nose with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed from his father’s face. Stanley’s eyes crossed as he staggered backward, arms pinwheeling.

A gate opened wide behind him.

Oscar reached for his father’s wrist. “Dad, look out!”

His fingers brushed the tips of Stanley’s fingers as his father half stepped, half fell into the gate, tumbling onto the grass beyond and sliding to a halt.

Oscar watched through the portal’s static sheen as his father looked around, his eyes huge. Suddenly, they shot wide and Stanley scrambled to his feet. “Oscar…” he said.

Oscar could hear keening voices approaching fast. “Uskar …Uskar…”

“Oscar!” Stanley shrieked, then the gate snapped shut, and his father was gone.

Oscar stood staring at empty air.

Desda reached one hand to her mouth. Her other hand reached out to the empty air. “Oscar?” she whispered, “Where did he go? Where did Stanley go?”

Britton wrestled to reopen the gate. “Come on,” he muttered. “Open, damn you.” He pried with his fingers at the empty air. Somewhere beyond it, his father was trapped, possibly dying.

“Open!” he shrieked. “Open the fuck back up!”

Nothing. The tide churned within him, eddying uselessly. A gate opened beside his mother, but vanished before he could turn to face it.

“Where is he?” Desda repeated.

Britton shook his head, choking back a sob. “I don’t know, Mom.”

Her knees wobbled, and she sat down hard, her hands still not moving—one on her mouth, the other pointing. “You have to…you have to bring him back,” she whispered. A tear escaped from a corner of her eye. “Bring him back!”

“I can’t.” His voice sounded flat in his own ears.

“What do you mean?” she asked, finally lowering her hands. “Open it up and get him back!”

He shook his head, his hands making useless circles at his sides. “I don’t know how. I can’t control it.”

She sat in silence for a moment. Then she made a sound between a scream and a growl.

“Mom?” he asked, kneeling and reaching for her. She blinked at the empty space where the gate had closed, her head shaking slowly, her mouth wide.

He stood and took a step toward her. “Mom?”

Her head jerked toward him, her expression blank. Then her eyes registered shocked recognition, and she scrambled backward, kicking out at him. “You get away from me!”

His father had vanished. Britton couldn’t save him.

His mother shrieked.

The need to run overcame all else. He surrendered to it and let his legs carry him away from his mother’s accusing eyes.

Oscar Britton’s bloodied feet slid inside his father’s shoes, pounding down the road toward the town where he’d grown up.

If the army had taught him one thing, it was how to run, and he did it well despite the screaming of his wounded calf. Somewhere behind him was a horrible thing, something he didn’t want to think about, and if he could just keep running fast enough, maybe that thing would never catch up to him.

The tides of magic went with him. Gates snapped open, teasing him with the prospect of saving his father, never staying open long enough to admit him.

Sirens sounded, drawing nearer. He threw himself into a ditch, watching over the rise as two police cruisers swept past, heading for his parents’ house. He bolted back to the street, racing onward.

And then he stopped, bathed in the glow of a convenience-store sign. He knew this parking lot. His friend Rob Dausman had introduced him to smoking dope here, hidden behind a bread truck and pretending the drug affected him more than it did.

For Britton, it had been a one-time deal, but Rob had made it a lifestyle. That lifestyle had bound him to this spot though he’d moved into the store and behind the counter. Britton could see him through the window, running a hand through his curly blond hair as he laughed with a customer. Britton felt a wave of relief at that smile. With Rob it had never mattered that Britton was black, or twice his size, or better in school. Britton realized why his footsteps had brought him here. If there was a person in the world who would not judge him, it was Rob.

He felt the blast of heated air strike him as the automatic doors slid aside. Elevator music bleated over the speakers. Fluo-rescent lighting reflected off rows of eyedrops, canned soup, and shampoo.

The customer, a middle-aged woman with short hair and a thick middle, was buying a pint of ice cream and laughing with Rob. Britton marveled at them; the world ticked on, blind to the tectonic shift in his life.

Britton looked up at the TV screen hanging from a corner of the ceiling. The news blared a block-lettered footer:
RIOTS IN MONTMARTRE DISTRICT OF PARIS. SELFERS BATTLE EUROPEAN CALIPHATE POLICE
.

The strict
Sharia
Islamic law of the EC forbade the practice of non-Suppressive magic, but that didn’t stop some from trying. The screen cut to shots of “Djinn-Born” Selfers standing atop a burning armored police vehicle,
SUPPRESSION MAGIQUE
printed on the side. French police in riot gear and Islamic
Mutawaeen
religious police swarmed around it. The Djinn-Born were bared to the waist and covered in winding tattooed Arabic script. One spit fire over the police. The other froze a
Mutawaeen
officer with a touch, then kicked his crystalline form to splinters.

When Britton took his eyes off the TV, both Rob and the customer were staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Dude,” Rob breathed.

The woman moved forward. Britton lifted his hands, but she only pushed past him and ran out the sliding doors, catching them with her shoulders in her haste to exit. He heard her car door slam and the engine start, and looked back to the TV as she roared out of the parking lot.

The news had been replaced by a mug shot. Britton recognized
the image from his military Common
ACCESS CARD. ACTION 6 NEWS ALERT! READ THE SCROLLING TEXT. $100,000 REWARD OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE CAPTURE OF A SELFER FUGITIVE IN YOUR AREA. OSCAR BRITTON ESCAPED FROM MILITARY CUSTODY AND IS CURRENTLY AT LARGE. IF YOU SEE THIS INDIVIDUAL, PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHORITIES IMMEDIATELY. THIS SELFER’S BLACK MAGIC IS NOT CONTROLLED AND HE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND HIM ON YOUR OWN!

A toll-free number followed.

Britton looked back to Rob, who looked away, blushing. “It’s been running all night,” Rob said, then his eyes widened.

Britton followed Rob’s gaze over his shoulder. An open gate glittered just inside the store’s entrance.

“Dude,” Rob said again. “This is not good.”