Rule 23

Name Names & Avoid Getting Hurt

Statement: Aristotle once said that “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” I’m not one hundred percent sure on this, since it was on a T-Shirt an old friend used to wear to finals, which he always failed. I got hung up on the saying being in English. Shouldn’t it have been in Greek or Roman or whatever he spoke. Latin, maybe? Regardless, the truth is, in this new world, I don’t know anything about who I am.

To be clearer. I know who I was before this event. The me post-change was an unknown. Midge, or Pix’s nonsensical words were absolutely useless in helping me determine who I’d become. It was like a blind person hearing another describe a beautiful sunset over the ocean. Full of words but missing depth.

I crawled to a wall for some form of security. Gunshots blasted. Two distinct female voices screamed. The wall thudded.

It made no sense. My vision watered and an arm buckled. The wound would heal, but then I’d probably get hurt again. There were four more shots. I flinched with each one. My feet weakly kicked me the last few yards to the wall and I turned around.

A blob of shadow tussled with Nix. It had to be Little Shade. She and her enemy punched each other ruthlessly.

Toymaker stood over Coach Madison wearing a glove with sparks arcing between the fingertips. I admired the effect for a moment and searched for an exit.

Honestly, at this point I was upset with the lot of them. I’d killed a man and listened to a faerie babble at me. I’d been shot in the shoulder. It was time to leave, and if Little Shade had an issue, well, I’d simply say I upheld my end. These deals came with consequences that weren’t worth it.

I didn’t want to get shot again, or zapped by the nonsense Toymaker wielded. From here on out, my fights would be more covert and involve as much forethought as possible.

Survival came first.

I moved on three limbs down the hallway. The arm that’d been hit by a bullet refused to hold weight. It would heal but not soon enough to throw anything useful. My fingers might work in an hour or two, but signals weren’t making it past the shoulder.

“You little bitch!” Nix screamed. I turned and caught a quick glimpse. Nix had a grip on a dark mop of hair.

“I freed you,” Little Shade yelled. They spun around the room, slamming into objects, knocking over Midge’s desk. There were books being scattered around. Gibberish lined their covers and spines.

“What are you…” Coach Madison snarled then yelped.

Toymaker, thankfully, said nothing. Only the sound of flesh sizzling and electric zaps let me know the man was still in the fight. I assumed he was hitting the Coach repeatedly with his electric gloves.

Midge flew in my face. “One more secret, yes? One more?”

Money meant nothing to me at this stage. Her hints might help but the first one had been a mixed bag. Right now, people fired weapons and tried to throttle each other behind me.

“Okay,” I said. “Not now.”

There were corners ahead of me. Corners were nonsense that required pivoting with only one good hand. I wouldn’t stand until the bullets stopped flying or I was out of sight.

“One more secret!”

“Not now.”

Post Note: Of course now wasn’t the best time. But you try having a faerie float in your face saying “one more” over and over and not address it somehow.

The ground chilled and my leg went numb. Midge flew around my face like a glowing mosquito.

“Go away!” I waved at her.

“Or you buy now? Now is good. Prices go up next week. This is a discount celebrating the final mortal’s return. Yes?”

A loud roar made my skin crawl. Something thudded into the wall and shook the roof.

“Where is he?” Coach Madison shouted.

The sudden increase in noise was my cue to stand. I moved quickly while trying to figure out what would shut Midge up. She flew beside me, demanding money for secrets in her high pitched accented voice.

The four people in the room would finish fighting soon. One would run away, another would get shot. I suspected Coach Madison and his beefy body that reminded me of a professional wrestler would be one of the survivors. Little Shade might not survive against Nix, whose powers had somehow stopped a vending machine rampage.

“One hundred bucks. You have money, I can smell it.” Midge continued fluttering in my face.

I waved her away and she simply bobbed to the side. Then it hit me, there was only one method to get her to stop shouting in my face. I lifted the card and stumbled onward. She touched the card and the number flashed.

That satisfied her. We stopped around a corner and Midge quickly whispered in my ear, “Beware anyone who tries to name you. They’re worse than those who ask your name. This can be used, this knowledge. By you. By them. Yes? But beware them all. But wear them all. Yes. Be ware, but wear. Be air. Yes?”

It made absolutely no sense. I filed away her statement and smiled. She smiled back and I wondered why she acted so amused.

“Go away.” I waved before she could ask me for more money.

Midge fluttered off. Her body glowed briefly in the darkness between library stacks before growing too far away. She got freedom and two hundred bucks out of me. I got shot, the exchange was not fair at all.

Escape was still the priority. I heard loud stomping footsteps behind me. I glanced back and tried to find a way to see around corners. There were no mirrors, and they’d be useless without real light. Even my crazy night vision magic didn’t help a lot. I hunkered into a corner where the shadows were darker than normal and waited. After a minute, or whatever, a large person strode into the open room. A hundred feet away, across a small row of computers that used to be for looking up books, Coach Madison stood and held a gun.

He yelled, “Come out, Little Dick! Come on! You pussy, fight me.”

I would do no such thing. Coach Madison was an idiot. There were a few possible exits to the room but there might be other enemies outside them. The window behind me would be easy enough to open, if it hadn’t been boarded up.

“You’ll never be a team player. You and that little bitch, Charlotte.” He turned. “Just like that idiot Shawn! No matter what he made, he always resented me!”

Shawn might be Toymaker’s real name. I filed away the information and slid toward an uncovered window. Part of me dissected the distance between Coach Madison and me. It might be possible to stab him in the side. Maybe it would be easy to gut him like a fish or slash his throat. By the same token, I’d already killed enough for one week.

He screamed threats, and I did what any sane person would do with an egocentric little league coach expressing the desire to beat them senseless; I opened the window, threw a book to another corner of the large room, and left while he was distracted. Shouts from behind me faded rapidly.

Post Note: I honestly believe Coach Madison couldn’t understand a man who simply left the fight. He was a sports player. He believed in conflict, two teams, “Us versus them”—and I simply chose not to fight. Survival was, and is, more important. But, don’t get me wrong—I will knife him if it comes down to it.

I moved quickly to the north, away from the main barricade and red houses. After a few blocks passed, my steps slowed. There was no indication of people following me. I stopped at a house and searched for supplies. There were none. Even the clothes had been picked over.

Post Note: In a post-apocalyptic world, there are never any clothes in the right size.

The rest of the place had been turned upside down and the furniture was well abused. I finally found something new to wear in a second house. An ugly brown sweater in a closet became my new top.

Our temporary safe house was another half mile away. I crept down the street, weaving between buildings. That first night, the one where those stewardesses had showed up, there had been creatures between the houses, nearly unseen beings made of teeth and smiles. Now I was that creature, albeit, fleeing the scene of a disaster. The path home was once again remarkably clear. There were faint sounds in the distance and occasionally I saw another lost soul fleeing through the street. No one noticed me, but I did two laps around the building, just in case someone was tailing me.

There was nothing. I made it back to the safe house and went to the back door. Both elves stood at the sliding door, with their faces pressed against the glass. I waited while rocking onto my heels until they realized they were in the way. The elves backed up.

Once inside I said, “I made it. Did Little Shade?”

They raised their hands to point farther into the house. It served as answer enough. I nodded and stumbled onward.

Little Shade sat in a corner of the room. She put the hat back on, but I had a brief glimpse of her face before the shade reappeared. There were bruises, and part of her eye had been bloodshot.

She stood and wobbled. “You bring Midge?”

“She flew off,” I said quietly. We’d both been wrecked by that tussle. I wasn’t sure the entire event had been worth it, not for Midge’s nonsense responses.

“Good enough for me, that is. I know the secret to finding her again. Loves roses she does. Always find her near a bush, chomping away. Better if you sprinkle them with pepper. Weird, innit?”

Pepper on roses made as much sense as anything else. I had no heart to tell her that Midge claimed to have eaten all the roses. Regardless, it was time to get farther away from Coach Madison’s compound.

“Are you ready to go?”

“That I am,” she said from right next to me. I blinked and turned. A flash of movement and sudden pressure in my side caused me to gasp as air escaped.

My body went slack and fell. The blade was cold, so extremely cold that I’d almost missed the pain. Then it came, in a brutal wave that tingled along my spine.

“What?” I stuttered from the ground.

The realization hit. She’d stabbed me. Sharing the hydra kill made sense because Little Shade wanted funds to escape. Talking me into sneaking back to Coach Big Balls’ camp made sense if she was a slave and couldn’t do it on her own. Stabbing me made zero sense.

Little Shade kneeled and yanked out the knife. It vanished into the dark shroud she cast.

Breathing hurt. “Why?”

“Ain’t personal, it’s not. I heard what Midge said about you, I did. You’re a scary man, what with your big Lance and wide grin. But I ain’t out to kill you. I just need you to stay put for a while. No use letting a scary man like yourself follow a girl home.”

Stabbing me was simply rude. I grunted, groaned and crawled with one good hand toward the exit. My other arm weakly pressed at my stomach to keep the innards inside.

Little Shade’s voice was close but I couldn’t see her anymore. Maybe because seeing anything was difficult. My mind clouded. She’d said “sneaks” could see each other, but Little Shade had also said she wanted to go with me. How much of our actions together was a lie? Her abilities were more than advertised, and I hadn’t been smart enough to hide anything of my own.

“I’ll repay you for the stabbing with a small reminder of secrets we’ve already learned, and maybe you’ll think kindly on a girl wanting some privacy.”

I wanted to be rational but couldn’t concentrate well enough.

“You remember what those ladies said, yah? A chance at a life. It wasn’t a coincidence, a lifetime. Then there’s the secrets. It’s all connected, Little Lance. All of it, and Midge the Tattletale is going to help me stay ahead. We’re going to hunt down the Secret King, we is.”

My escape was blocked. The blob of shadow stood in the doorway. I assumed Little Shade wanted to gloat, or talk. I moved an arm toward the spell book but couldn’t keep steady. My hand kept jerking erroneously.

“Ain’t no time for that. See, you’d try to toss them little booms you’re so proud of, and being blown up ain’t part of my plan. I went easy on you, because I know you’ll heal. I seen it. Took two days to get your arm back, yah?”

I grunted.

“So, you’ll heal all right. Then you’ll take the elves and go meet up with your friends. See, I’ve been to Mayor Kent’s place too. They’re a decent enough bunch, you’ll see. Better than Coach Big Balls. Should be okay enough there until Coach figures out what happened.”

I understood why she’d done this. It made sense that Little Shade wanted to get away while she could. Coach Madison’s slavery ring was probably very frightening and compelling. Little Shade might be scared of me, or Coach Madison, or a number of others.

Post Note: Like so many other events, part of this is me simply portraying the past as it happened while not letting my emotions cloud things. Was I angry? Yes. Was I gasping in pain? Yes. Was I partially afraid that she might summon that darkness and kill me where I stood? God yes. But did I hate Little Shade? Only for a moment, and that’s the truth. Because I understood why she acted as she did.

“He might come to kill you though. Coach doesn’t like tricks or liars or thieves. No he does not. He’s also partial to putting his dick where it don’t belong. Though that’ll be harder since his friend is gone. All that means I gotta git now.”

I could make out enough of Little Shade’s form, blackened though it was, to see her practically spinning in place. She paused and pointed at me with her hand turned palm up.

“Don’t know why I’m telling you this. You barely said five words to me. Maybe it just feels good to know that someone out there listened, yah? Not like Theo or the others who act like I’m some precious jade or somethin’. No. Not you. You listen and store it all away. I can see it. My momma, she used to say Little Pitchers gots big ears. You and me, we’re littles.” She pointed at herself, then toward me. “Little Shade, Little Lance, with your horse cock.”

She went toward the bedroom door, bent over a bag, and gathered up belongings. Some food was placed in a second container and put within arm’s reach. I could have easily grabbed an item, pooled a rune together, and thrown it at her, but chose not to. She’d been rather friendly despite stabbing me.

It felt like I should say something. I rasped her name. “Little Shade.”

“Yah?”

“You’re right. I listened.”

“I know.” She nodded, causing the dark nimbus around her to tilt. “But I can’t trust you, not until I know more. And until then, you and me ain’t goin’ nowhere together. Go, be somewhere else. Then I’ll find you. Got a line on treasure that your other friends will want.”

Part of my mind was so exhausted that simply falling to one side was a relief. I wanted to be mad but had no energy to feel real ire. It was as though my mind and emotions were separate creatures and refused to talk to each other.

“Okay,” I said. She could have simply left without me and I’d have let her go.

Little Shade nodded. “I ain’t trustin’ you not to try to track me down. But, you stay alive, yah? And like I said, don’t follow me. I don’t want to stab you again. You may be a sneak, but I’m sneaker. That I am.”

She was talking in circles now. Little Shade was full on rambling.

“Okay.”

She paused and stepped closer. The shadow from her head tipped over me, bringing a cool feeling that was like stepping into freezing water. Her voice was a whisper as she asked, “A kiss for luck?”

The thought made me grunt, which turned into wet coughing. I couldn’t see her well, even this close. My magically enhanced eyesight, or whatever, still couldn’t penetrate her darkness.

“Yah, best not. Might not make it out of here. Give the witless wonders a bit of a show if I stick around too long. Don’t worry, you’ll find another sheath for your lance I’m sure.” The backpack disappeared into her dark cloud.

She pulled away, stepped into the house’s hallway, and vanished from my life. I sat there wondering if Little Shade had simply dipped out, as she’d done to me a few times before. I couldn’t tell and just waited while my side slowly healed from the knife wound.

My body hurt more today than it had since the accident. I stopped trying to stay upright and fell to one side. A bed frame within reach had dusty pillows and a blanket, which I pulled down. Eventually I tipped into unconsciousness.

When I woke, both elves stood over me like mute statues, their eyes wide and hands locked together like scared children clutching each other. I smiled at them, attempting to be friendly or reassuring, but knowing that for some reason my grin had changed into something more sinister.

They, oddly, smiled back. As if we were two of a kind. A sharp edge to their mouths reminded me of the stewardesses. The general in-humanness of their lanky features, thinner limbs, and pointed ears somehow made the grins feel almost normal.

A chill ran down my spine and stopped at the gut wound. I fumbled for the card in my pocket and read through it a dozen more times. It had new words, [Slaver’s Bane], right next to [Runed Rogue]. I didn’t know what that meant and wasn’t about to ask someone.

There were few places to go. Our small house had enough food to last a couple of days, provided the elves didn’t eat everything like pelicans. The idea of getting up and simply trudging onto the next destination made me feel exhausted. I’d been marching ahead with life for days now and hadn’t any time to simply exist.

I spent the day walking around slowly. My path went all around the house, searching over scant supplies and checking the doors and windows to see if they were locked. It was pointless but I got really good at finding items behind run down couches. Plus, I learned elves love little knick-knacks pulled out from china cabinets.

They were nosy, but only when I wasn’t looking. They acted like they had dozens of secrets squirreled away somewhere, while I only had one. I practiced reverting to my normal self while locked in a room but kept to the brown-skinned form of “Hawthorn” while in their presence. I couldn’t remember if I’d messed up my personas after Coach Madison, but I wanted to keep them separate.

Between spell practices, I pondered this new world. It had started with a bus ride and line at the stadium. That went on for ages before dropping me into a changed version of home. I was honestly surprised I’d survived the first trip back to the family house, and hadn’t been eaten by something that night. I had my own broken body to be thankful for on that front.

Without being in the car accident, I wouldn’t have had those crutches. The crutches were an iron composite and probably helped me retain consciousness on the way to the end. Being so slow had earned me a discount on items, which gave me an edge to survive thus far. Everything flowed into the next, and I worried that maybe Midge was right.

“Was I crafted?” I said quietly.

The day came and went, along with another two. My body had completely healed from being stabbed, shot, and a missing limb reformed. I spent too many hours poking at my regrown flesh and wondering how magic could spawn a new hand. The lines and cracks looked the same as before. Even a scar along my thumb from a can opener accident years ago was exactly the same.

The elves wandered around the house. Their steps were light and they often sneaked up on me. I nearly knifed them multiple times, finding it easier than ever to pull the black spell together. The voice in the back of my head giggled at the thought of not stopping myself.

By the third day I’d made some progress. I stored my debt card inside the black spell so it couldn’t be stolen. It ended up being on my ring finger, as opposed to the rope which was my middle finger. This left me with one slot left, which I almost used on the spell book. I wasn’t sure I dared do that yet.

My body had rebuilt nearly all of its mass after devouring most of our food stockpile. The two elves sat by watching me eat with their perpetually wide eyes. They annoyed me, because they could talk, but we didn’t seem to speak the same language. I tried anyway.

“We need to go somewhere safer than this.” Only one viable direction was available for me to go. My supposed father could command a being that walked through walls. That creature had a ton of power but I couldn’t wrap my mind around Dad having a pet monster. It was also Leon who’d said Mayor Kent was my father, matching the note on my door and him showing up out of the blue.

One of the elves held out a piece of paper I’d all but forgotten about. It was the one with illegible words on one side, and Allegra’s dancing pictures on the other. The location a few blocks away was still marked.

“Well,” I said, and sighed. “Let’s go.”

Starting with the location cited by Allegra’s picture would be the best bet. I stepped out the door, not really caring if they came or not. Saving someone from slavery was different than ensuring they survived in the wilderness.

The elves followed behind, whispering to each other in their musical language. I ignored them and kept a shovel I’d stolen from a shed ready. They, of course, had no weapons at all. It was as if they didn’t have a single thought about fighting the monsters roaming my city’s streets.

Sure enough, Allegra, Callisto, and Leon were waiting for me three blocks away. They sat in the back of a cart which reeked of weed. Allegra had her head down and a hand pointing in my direction. She must have been watching a piece of paper.

“He’s coming. Finally,” she said loudly.

I stood half a block away and wondered if they were a mirage or some magical trick. Everything about this world made me suspect traps.

“Hawthorn!” Callisto waved. She actually smiled, which was downright wrong in conjunction with her chain mail, torn shirt, and pitch black hair. It was like seeing a bubbly storm cloud.

“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here and back to somewhere safe. We’re lucky Madison’s people have turned on each other and can’t fight off the monsters.” Leon’s armor clinked as he rolled a shoulder.

“Who would flight off a mons tear?” Arson asked, once again misunderstanding someone else. He shook his head and got into the driver’s seat of their carriage.

“Monster,” Callisto said. “Mon-ster. Big teeth.”

“Oh. Big briefs, got it.” Arson nodded and turned back to the horse.

Leon stood on the side, helmet under his arm and hammer sitting on the wooden tailgate. He pushed objects to the side, grunting all the while from effort.

I struggled to remember our few hours together and decided it didn’t matter anymore. If they were a trap, disguised as potential allies, then everything would become obvious eventually. They were my key to uncovering the mystery of my “dad.”

Figuring that out felt worth the risk. Once I knew for sure, then I could decide if I’d stay here, in a madhouse version of the town I’d grown up in, or go out into the world to search for secrets. Part of me wanted to explore and uncover all the hidden gems of this place. I wanted to learn if each and every secret led to a magical treasure.

But I needed to know if anyone in my family had survived.

As I walked toward the cart, I thought of Richard and his wife. I thought of my nephews I had fallen out of touch with in my post-accident funk. I thought of my niece, Stella, who I’d only seen twice since her birth.

I prayed that they hadn’t sold their children to those stewardesses, and I feared that they might have done worse.