And It Arose from the Deepest Black (John Black Book 2) (27 page)

7

“John, can you come here?” Mom called out as I lounged in my room later that day. Basically, I holed up there in self-pity. Carrie was pissed at me, and I had no idea what to do about it.

“Okay, Mom,” I said, slowly rolling out of bed and padding to the door in my sock feet.

Coming into the kitchen, I slid to a stop on the tile floor.

There was a man sitting at the table.

Well, not just any man. It was Uncle Marcos. I’d only seen him a handful of times in my life, always at big family get-togethers on my mom’s side. My first thought when I saw him was
I can’t believe my mom called him here without my okay.
Other than that, the only thing that came to mind when I saw him was that he carried matches in his shoes.

I know, right?

“Hi, Uncle Marcos, good to see you,” I said in that flat way people talk when it may not be really all that good to see you.

“John.” He nodded at me with a sort of reverie about him. Weird.

Without thinking, I looked at his shoes, and sure enough there was a little pouch intertwined within the laces. I had no doubt whatsoever that there were matches in the pouch. And then I realized something. Uncle Marcos was the guy knocking at my front door, the guy I ignored.
Oops.
I hoped my face didn’t turn too red. “What brings you by?” I asked, nonchalantly.

Uncle Marcos was quiet, looking toward my mother.

“I thought you two should talk,” she said.

As I suspected.
I tried to play it cool. “About what?”

Mom took on a strange appearance, a large, toothy smile. “John…” she began, far too pleasantly. “I just thought you’d been having so much trouble with…
bullies
that you might want a little advice.” She smiled and nodded toward Uncle Marcos.

Dear God. Did she tell him? No, no way.
But she thought I could learn something nonetheless.

I couldn’t hide my embarrassment, mixed with a healthy amount of annoyance. “That’s okay, Mom. I’m good,” I said, turning to head back to my room.

“John?” Uncle Marcos’s voice was deep and resonant, holding an inherent sense of peace. I don’t know if anyone could resist such a voice. I couldn’t. I turned around. “John, I don’t want to tell you what to do. You’re almost a fully grown man, now. I just had a question for you. One. And if you don’t want to answer it, that’s fine, too. I’ll leave you in peace.”

Do you see what I mean? Uncle Marcos had a way.
One
question. That’s it. How could I be such a jerk to turn down a single question? Despite wanting nothing more than to go back to my room and bury myself under my pillow, I responded. “Okay, that’s fine. What’s your question, Uncle Marcos?”

He smirked. “
Uncle
? Funny how you say that. I think maybe
cousin
is more accurate. I’m definitely not your uncle.” He looked at my mother and shared a smile, not lording it over anyone, but an inclusive smile.
We’re all in on this little joke
, it said.

I liked him. I’d never really thought about it one way or the other. But, yeah, Uncle Marcos — sorry, cousin Marcos, or maybe just Marcos… he seemed pretty cool. Still, I didn’t want him preaching to me.

“Sorry, Unc — Marcos. What’s your question?”

He smiled again. I realized immediately that I’d let him win, in whatever game we were playing, and yet it didn’t feel like I’d lost. Marcos was interesting.

“John, what’s the thing that scares you most?” he asked.

How could I answer that? There were too many candidates. Gorgol Alpha. Jake. Carrie’s rejection. Pip’s scorn. Even the memory of Sol. But, no. None of those took the prize. The winner was something I simply wouldn’t say to him.

Me.

I was afraid of me.

So I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Marcos looked at me without expression. His eyes held mine, in a way that I completely understood. For the second time that day, I could
feel
someone seeing through one of my lies. He knew me. Maybe better than I knew myself. But how?

Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he simply was at home with himself, to such a degree that he was also at home with me. After all, technically he was.

“Mom…” I started. I was about to politely excuse myself.

“I’m sorry, John,” Mom said. “Sorry if I said something you didn’t want me to say. But your cousin knows a lot about how to fight, and more importantly, how
not
to fight. How to, I don’t know…
present
yourself, so you don’t have to fight. And with all those bullies at school…” She didn’t quite wink at me as she said it. She could be really subtle, too. “Marcos is a black belt, fourth dan.” She said the words, though I knew they meant about as much to her as they did to me.

Did she really think that
not fighting
would work with Jake, after all this time? Hell, maybe it would. But Alpha? No way. I scoffed before I could catch myself.

“You think this is ridiculous, don’t you, John?” Marcos asked.

I managed not to laugh, but nodded.

“You think you understand how to handle your own situation better than anyone else, yes?”

Again, I nodded. “No offense, but —”

“But you don’t need my help?”

I stiffened at the interruption. But Marcos’s question was accurate. “Yeah, I guess not. Sorry.”

He thought for a short while, quietly. “No need to apologize, John. Every man — and woman — must walk their own path. I can’t walk it for you. I’ll only offer you a word of advice.”

My left eyebrow raised, the skepticism obvious on my face.

“Know your enemy,” Marcos said. “There’s no way to defeat your enemy without knowing what you’re fighting.”

He sat there, not necessarily smug, but that’s what I envisioned.
Know your enemy?
Marcos didn’t even really know
me
, despite how it felt, so how the hell could he talk to me about my enemy? Besides, after defeating Omicron and Sigma, I hardly feared Alpha anymore. But Jake… He was like me. He could fight like me, move like me. And he seemed crazy. He was the something I wasn’t sure about.

A self-satisfied expression dawned on my face. “What if my enemy was water? What if my enemy moved and flowed like water? How could I defeat
that
enemy?”

I didn’t expect an answer, but Marcos mused over what I’d said, until he finally spoke.

“If my enemy could move and flow like water, then I should study water,” he said. “Water is only a thing, and all things may be understood with study. How does water react? If I push
here
, where does it react?”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “It’s impossible to hit someone who flows like water.”

Marcos looked at me with grave seriousness. “No, John, it isn’t. All you have to do is understand water. Don’t strike where the water
is
, strike where the water
will be
.”

8

I went for a walk. Alone.

What a load of crap.
“Where the water will be.”

Easy to say, wasn’t it?

I found myself at the fence surrounding the self-storage building. Mount Trashmore. Technically, I was at the hole in the fence. Maybe someone had tried to improve security in the wake of Walter Ivory’s death, but time had passed and people get lazy. It was still easy to duck through the hole. The back door was as unlocked as it had ever been, the whole place just as deserted. I soon found myself alone on the roof.

It was weird to stand on that roof. The last time I’d been there, Walter had tried to kill me and Bobby, and we broke his mind. I felt strange, almost dirty, being there, but so much had happened. It was hard to remember the kid who only thought of his power as a novelty.

I considered what would happen if Walter Ivory suddenly appeared again and tried to hurt me.

And I imagined what I would do to him. Not the timid, old me, trying to figure out my power. The new me, the one who killed monsters.

Walter Ivory wouldn’t stand a chance.

I’d been harboring an idea, but the longer it sat in the back of my mind, the more foolish I realized it was. To make peace with the Gorgol. And with Jake.

Peace with Jake was out of the question. What he’d done to that helicopter, to those people. When he tried to cut my head off. Jake wasn’t a good guy. Which meant he was a bad guy. Bad guys had to be dealt with.

And Alpha? What would Alpha do when she finally got to Holly, and Holly couldn’t help her? I had seen the Gorgols’ rage. I imagined my sister as the target of that rage.

And I got mad.

I heard a buzzing in my ear and felt a tickle on my neck. Instinctively, I swatted at the mosquito, but there was no point. I couldn’t willfully penetrate my own skin to draw blood, to try to analyze the thorns in my cells. So how could a pathetic mosquito hope to bite me? It would have more luck biting into the surrounding brick wall.

I was alone on the roof with the forklift, the one Mr. Gerald apparently still kept there despite the accident, and a few storage pods full of people’s possessions. Things so treasured that they couldn’t be given away, even though storing them in a metal crate on some distant roof was perfectly acceptable.

Where the water will b
e
.

Wordlessly, I fell into a fighting stance. No one could see me. I could do whatever I wanted.

What did cousin Marcos know about me, about fighting? He said he was something called
fourth dan
. It represented his commitment, something I couldn’t suddenly recreate. But I could try to flow like him.

I threw punches, lashed out, leapt and twirled just the way I remembered so many martial artists from so many movies. It was a comical scene. I was terrible.

Until…

I caught my stride.

Somewhere along the line, I went from a child play-acting to a blur. A blur so fast that it was no longer a joke. Maybe I had no specific moves, or years of martial-arts discipline, but I could do things. Raw force, raw moves, a raw display that no one saw.

Like water, I flowed.

Where the water will b
e
.

I spun and struck at the air.

I spun again, throwing a punch at nothing.

I spun once more, and damn if I didn’t run right into the forklift.

For a guy who couldn’t be harmed by any normal attack, I still had at least one weakness — speed. I was so fast, my own body couldn’t react in time.

I punched and my fist hit the tines of the forklift, and I bled.

Not a lot, but enough.

A couple of droplets fell to the white surface of the roof.

I stopped, amazed.

And, of course, the cut immediately healed. Like nothing had happened.

But the blood… it pooled on the smooth roof, gleaming like polished steel, until it was disturbed. By a mosquito, maybe the same one that had buzzed in my ear.

As if watching a movie, I saw the bug suck up my blood. Such a small amount, but to the mosquito it must have been like doubling its body weight. I stared.

And then the blood was gone. The insect sat, satiated, for some time. Maybe it was five seconds. It felt like five years.

Until the mosquito went to fly away. And I thought,
That’s
my
blood you’re running off with.
Was it arrogance? The anger in me? Not really. Just the way we always behave, we self-important humans, when we’re confronted by bugs.
You are nothing, I am somethin
g
.

I slammed a fist down to crush the mosquito.

And it
sluiced
out of the way.

My eyes went wide. What the hell was this? My powers? In a damn bug?

The mosquito lifted off, trying to get out of reach, and I swatted at it. It sluiced again. I hadn’t imagined it. The bug had my powers.

My blood.

I’d given the mosquito my abilities by accident, from my stupidity. It was the tale of so many superheroes, but in reverse.
Insect gains powers from radioactive teenager. Full story at 1
1
.

The mosquito flew higher. Desperate, I jumped for it.

I have no idea what would have happened if I’d missed.

But I didn’t. The bug tried to evade me, but I’d been using these powers for much longer.

As the mosquito flowed like water to one side, I remembered something important.

I remembered where to go.

Where the water will b
e
.

And I caught the bug, squashing it to death in my grasp.

Huffing, I looked at the little stain of red and black in my hand.

Damn, that was close.