Prepare to Die! (34 page)

Adele ran to the taxi and nearly pulled me out of it, hugging me before I was even standing, so that I was awkwardly half-perched in the doorway of the taxi, suddenly embracing Adele, all the while trying to grab money (for the fare) out of the rather tattered remnants of my pants pocket.

“God damn it,” she said, hugging me, running a hand through my hair. It felt better than anything Siren had ever done. I would have kissed her right then. I would have kissed Adele Layton for the first time in almost a decade, right then, if she would have moved a fraction of an inch away, giving me space to move.

But she didn’t, and we didn’t kiss, and soon Laura was paying for the cab fare (making me feel guilty that she was paying for the cab, because we were only in the taxi because I had Very Much Broken her car) and then we were in the yard and we talking about what had happened. Laura (and the rest of us, too, of course) was shuddering over how Apple had almost died… how we in fact had almost
all
died, and the
light bulb
theory of Tempest’s fall from the skies was again discussed (Laura was
so
proud that Apple,
her
Apple, had come up with the theory that SRD had decided upon) and when I opened the front door (I was told to go first) and walked into the house I had to press through a throng of pink balloons that Adele had taped to the sides of the door, to the top of the door, hanging from above, seemingly a hundred pink balloons tied in bunches, pressing my way through them, delving within.

Laura said, “It’s like we’re plunging into a big balloon vagina,” which earned her a glare from her sister, and then Adele thought better of the glare and started crying and hugged Laura instead. It went on, that way, for a bit.

Apple and I just stared at each other. Wiggles, the cat, came and pawed at a stray balloon that had fallen to the floor. The balloon moved in a way that the cat found interesting (perhaps thinking it was an entirely new type of prey) and batted at it a couple more times, making me wonder how the cat would react if the balloon exploded. It didn’t explode, which I found to be disappointing. I’m one of those types who thinks it’s funny when a cat gets scared.

There was cake on the kitchen table. A party cake. I wondered who had brought it. Wondered who had carried it carefully from what car, then put it there on the table.

We were alone in the house, but there was evidence of other people having been waiting at the party. A couple discarded sweaters. A camera. A purse. The usual clues that a large group of people had just left the room, but in this case they hadn’t just left the room; they’d fled the room, running home, hearing of the fight and its results, fearing for people they knew and perhaps, in a few cases, fearing me, as I was soon due to arrive.

“The party is going to be smaller than I’d originally planned,” Adele said, coming up beside me, wiping the remaining tears from her eyes, smearing her makeup, just a little. I thought that it was strange to see her in makeup. I thought of how she so rarely wore makeup. And then I thought of how little I knew if that was true. Maybe she’d spent the last ten years wearing makeup. Maybe I didn’t know shit about anything. But then she stood beside me, pressed up against me, and it felt like I did… it felt like I knew some things, at least. It felt like I knew the difference between right and wrong.

“Some of the people left,” she said. “Well, all of them. But that’s… that’s more cake for us.” She gestured to the cake. It was large. It had twenty-seven candles. It had a frosting inscription of, “
Here’s to a year that you can’t take away
,” being an obvious reference to my powers. A strangely, possibly offensive reference to my powers. I treasured it. Just like Mistress Mary had loved it (years ago) when someone didn’t do exactly as she said, I loved the feeling of someone I cared about being willing to take the chance of offending me. I don’t get that much, anymore.

Wiggles loped on by, carrying a party streamer in his mouth, like he’d killed a snake. I looked at the cat. The streamer. The false snake. It put some thoughts into my head. I didn’t want thoughts in my head. I wanted a party. I wanted cake.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting cake.

Adele said, “I know it’s not your birthday.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything. I was afraid you’d take the cake away.”

“I’m not that cruel. And I figured that I’ve missed so many of your birthdays that I can plan a makeup birthday party whenever I want. Now, can we have a talk?”

I thought about saying, “We are talking,” but that wouldn’t have been clever, or meaningful, or anything but stalling. I looked over to Laura, and to Apple (Laura was putting balloons into both of their shirts and exclaiming how big their boobs were) and I thought some thoughts, and I decided that it would be okay to have a talk with Adele. Or, at least, I decided it was impossible to avoid having a talk with her.

I said, “Okay. Let’s talk. Here? Where?”

Instead of answering my question, Adele told Laura, “Sis, Steve and I are going for a walk. Back soon, okay?”

Apple, surprised, said, “Leaving the party? But look how big our boobs are!”

Laura, covering her girlfriend’s mouth with a hand, said, “You two go have fun. If you come back anytime soon, best knock on my bedroom door before you come in. In fact, best knock on the kitchen door before you come in. Frankly, you better yell from the sidewalk or something. And… take condoms with you. And, if you’re gone for more than an hour, Apple and I are going to straight up eat this cake.”

Adele and I walked out the door. We were holding hands. It felt nice (unbelievable, a miracle) that someone (a
good
someone) would trust her hand in mine.

“What are we going to talk about?” I asked.

“Don’t be an ass, Steve Clarke. You’re going to stop hiding whatever it is that you’re hiding. You’re going to kiss me. You’re going to tell me your secrets.”

She waited for me to say something.

I didn’t.

She said, “Let’s go to the park.”

***

On the way to the park, Adele and I stopped off at the Mighty Convenient convenience store. We didn’t talk, yet, of anything of any immediate import. We talked of how it had been the two of us, together, at that very store, watching the breaking news of Warp, the first of the superhumans. We talked about how odd it was, the two of us watching that report, not knowing that destiny was standing outside the door, peering inside through the window at me, making its plans. We talked of caramel crab cakes, the local delicacy, made by Grace Shanahan and distributed at stores around the region. We picked up some of those. Some bottled water. When she opened the door to the standing cooler I noticed she glanced at the beer, but it was only a glance, and she didn’t grab any of them or look back at them after taking the water, the way an alcoholic would do, always, every time, so it seemed like she was truly and honestly recovered from the problems of her past. It was comforting to know that such things as full recoveries can take place. She handed me the waters and the caramel crab cakes and said (I was still the only millionaire around) that it was my job to buy them. She wouldn’t let me buy anything else because it would have spoiled my appetite for birthday cake. I said that nothing spoils my appetite. She asked if that was because I’m superhuman. I said that it was because I like cake. No more than that.

And we walked to the park to have our talk.

***

“It hasn’t changed much,” I said. It was true. It was still the same park. Charles Park. Still the same log cabin. A few added names in the rafters. I’d heard that the annual summer book sale was larger now, and while it was managed in the same way as when I was a kid (there were haywagons full of books, subdivided by genres, with
history
, and
fiction
, and
romance
, and
gardening
, and
science
, and so on) there was now always a stand for new books, books about superhumans, books written by local authors, because several locals had taken advantage of living in the town that gave birth to Warp, that gave birth to Reaver, and that was home to the SRD base. It was a cottage industry of people who lived close to the origins of superhumans. I had no doubt that it would only grow (explode, even) when word got out (which it most assuredly would) that Paladin had been Greg Barrows, another Greenway resident. I had no doubt that, somewhere, close by, probably in several somewheres, there were people writing stories about how Tempest had been born (created, anyway) in Greenway, and she had died (squished, as it were) in a Greenway parking lot.

Adele might write one such book herself. I didn’t think, in her case, that such a book would have been living off the luck (good and bad) of the land; she had more right than any of the others. She had made me cake.

Adele led me to a picnic bench. It was only ten feet from the log cabin. I wondered if there was anybody in there, anybody right now, making history or marking it down.

The wind was fluttering at the wax paper that had been wrapped around the caramel crab cakes. I was toying with putting one in my mouth. I was uncommitted.

Adele said, “The list. I need to talk to you about your list.” I put a caramel crab cake in my mouth. Felt bad about it.

“Your list sounds like… it sounds… it sounds like you’re going to…” She paused. I was chewing very carefully. I felt like I could accidentally break the entire conversation.

She said, “Steve Clarke, do you think you’re going to die?”

“We’re all going to die.” I regretted it the second I said it. What a total ass.

“Don’t fuck with me. I’ve waited a long time. I know you weren’t asking me to wait. But I did. I didn’t even really know that I was waiting. Laura knew. And she told me. But I didn’t believe her. I do now. I waited. Don’t fuck with me. Do you think you’re going to die?”

The wax paper was still flapping in the wind. I spent some time wondering about the wind. The mystery of the wind. What I can do, is I can heal. I can lift a lot of weight. I can take a lot of damage. I can’t do anything of the weird powers. Not the truly strange ones. Not reading minds. Not talking with animals. Not controlling the weather. I always wanted to ask Tempest about the weather. Had she controlled the weather by picking it up, moving it from place to place, the way we all do with objects, with tools? Or had she
asked
the weather to do what she wanted,
commanded
it to do things in the same manner that Mistress Mary makes a person do what she says? How did Tempest control the weather? I always wanted to ask her that. But she was a killer. A cold insanity. The question was unanswered. Unasked. So I didn’t know if the breeze that was moving the wax paper was intelligent or not. Didn’t know if it meant to do it, or if it was just something that happened. I suddenly felt like I didn’t know anything.

While almost looking at Adele, I said, “In the last fight, with Octagon, with Eleventh Hour, they had me down. Octagon had me down and I was going to die. I asked him if I could have a couple weeks to do a last few things. I don’t know why I asked him that. But I did. I don’t know why he granted the request. But he did. Maybe it amused him. Maybe he’s like a cat, loving how he’s getting to bat around his favorite mouse for a last couple of weeks. Anyway… I made a promise. So, yes… I’m going to die.”

Adele said, “You stupid son of a bitch.”

I said, “Yes.” I wasn’t going to argue that point. I felt differently about it. But I also felt, from her viewpoint, that she was right.

She repeated it. She said, “You stupid son of a bitch.” This time, she reached out and tried to slap me. I easily avoided it, because I move at different speeds. So… I made her miss. I made her miss because she would have hurt her hand, not because I didn’t deserve the slap. She overbalanced for a moment. Glared at me. Sat back down.

The wind was still moving the wax paper. I decided that there was no intelligence behind it. That it was as dumb as I was.

“Your list,” Adele said. The wax paper flapped. I put a finger down on it. Held it in place.

“Your list,” Adele repeated, after a time. I hadn’t said anything in between. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to have another caramel crab cake, because that would give me an excuse to move my mouth. Maybe that would kick-start things. Maybe I could gain momentum that way. There were two caramel crab cakes left. If I picked up one, it might reduce the weight on the wax paper enough that the wind would carry it away. I considered the ramifications of such an event. They seemed momentous. I knew that my brain wasn’t working.

“You brought the list to Greenway,” Adele said. “You made it. You brought it. In it, you were supposed to be with me again. And you talked with Greg’s parents, and you talked, almost, with Judy. Have you made a will?
Don’t
put me in it. Don’t do that. Goddamn you; don’t put me in it.” She was starting to cry. I was the worst villain in all of creation. I was worse than Octagon. I was worse than Macabre. I was the bottom of the barrel. I was sitting with Adele Layton and I was making her cry.

I took a big long breath.

I said, “I have to tell you something. Will you… will you write it down, for afterwards? Can you do that?”

Adele didn’t answer. Nothing beyond sniffles and a whisper that I was a son of a bitch. I should have bought tissues at the Mighty Convenient convenience store. I should have done that. Why wasn’t I thinking?

There was a rock garden around the log cabin. I stood, picked up a rock about the size of a pineapple, faced away from Adele (to protect her from any flying shards) and snapped the rock in half. It sounded like a gunshot and Adele gasped. I should have warned her what I was doing. I still wasn’t thinking. The interior of the rock had sparkly bits, shiny bits, sections of bright gray, the way that gray can be only if it hasn’t seen the sun in a few thousand years.

I brought half the rock back to the picnic table, and I sat down across from Adele, and I used the sharp edge of the rock to slice open my arm.