The Calm Before (Reign and Ruin novella)

  Originally from California, Jules Hedger now lives on a narrow boat in London with one cat and one husband. The Reign and Ruin series is her debut.

  Visit Jules Hedger online:

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  To everyone who gave the weird and sometimes off-putting The Wilds a chance. You readers rock my tiny world.

  First published in 2014 by This Thistle Press

  Copyright © 2014 by Jules Hedger

  Smashwords Edition

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than

  those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious

  and any resemblance to real persons,

  living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

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  Marty

  The Worst Comedown Yet

  "If I have to hear one more preteen degenerate sing in falsetto about his lost baby love in bad harmony, I will literally jump the fence."

  Marty looked over at his friend Ricky and rolled his eyes. Plastic crackled as the discarded shopping bags near their feet shifted in the wind. Ricky stomped one down with his large construction boot to keep it from flying away.

  "No, I am dead serious, Marty. I'll be one of those people you see on E! or TMZ, caught trying to jump the barbed wire around Harry Styles' house with a blunt pair of scissors." He paused to consider. "I would tell them the aliens told me to do it or that he promised me a music career. I would need to convince them I was crazy instead of just plain murderous."

  "Ricky, you are crazy," Marty said and rummaged in the plastic bags. Ricky laughed and slapped him soundly on the back.

  "Yes siree, paranoid schizophrenia. Or bi-polar or maybe the flu. But I'm not right, that's for sure."

  Marty and Ricky sat for a moment on the steps of the drug store. Cars whizzed by on their way to someplace important: dinner and two-for-one Black Russians at Stan's or Chloe's or the Plaza Hotel. Or perhaps they were rushing out of New York to their families in Brooklyn or Stanton Island or some other such residential and less littered place Marty had never been to. He sighed and took a swig of his energy drink, grimacing at the acrid, chemical taste of gasoline and sugar. Ricky was drinking warm beer in a paper bag.

  Marty glanced at his watch and counted down until, as they did every night like clockwork, the neon signs of the liquor store across the street flashed on through the dim, gray dusk light. It was almost time to see Steve, thank the Painter. Quite literally, in fact. He couldn't listen to Ricky for much longer.

  “Feeling a bit nervous, Marty? Got the pains yet?”

  “Please shut up, Ricky,” Marty said with a grimace and heard Ricky chortle.

  These trips always became more and more inconvenient. And yet more and more necessary. Every time he came to visit Steve, almighty Painter of Palet – and a very interesting guy, in fact – it became more and more essential for him to play the part. Become the addict. And at first it was easy.

  At first, he was the Supplier. The Enabler. Simply that. He could give Steve his drugs without taking any himself, but the more the Painter took the more necessary it was to stay with him for protection. Hell, it was his country's livelihood, after all! He wasn't the Caretaker for nothing. But then they became friends. Then he was being invited in, invited to partake. And suddenly he was shooting up with his almighty God and watching alongside him as their dreams morphed into creatures they could both see stretch across the walls. The Council would kill him if they knew.

  The smooth swish of an automatic door sounded behind him. Marty shivered as the cold wind blew strains of a country music song briefly across his ears. Ricky was still talking about insipid teen pop stars and Marty knew he had only a few more minutes before his source came by to drop off his supply. And he really needed it now. His toe was tapping to the lyrics of a heart-broken Texan because he hadn't had a hit of heroin for at least a week. The marble had taken the edge off but still . . .

  Well, seven days in Palet. In this dimension time ran differently and according to every person on Earth he was regular fixture at the drugstore stoop. But in reality there could be breaks for up to a month before traveling back to Earth for a visit. It was a good job Steve was high all the time. He never commented on the mysterious accelerated aging.

  Maggie, of course, was another matter. That girl . . . that girl noticed too much. Marty shook his head to banish the butterflies of her face and eyes and tits that flashed across his brain. Too young. Too damaged. He might be the guy sat on a stoop with a lunatic but she was the one with the mask. But she never talked about it. She only came over and watched in exasperation as he and her uncle got high and passed out on the couch. He had woken up more than once with her wiping his sick off the floor.

  And sometimes she looked at him funny. Like she knew he wasn't normal, knew that when he left the next day he had to report back to another world and make sure there was control over the latest dream her uncle had conjured up. Still trembling and coming down, sweat on his brow and eyes streaked with red. It was the only explanation why she gave him any second looks.

  Staring at the neon lights flicker, Marty felt his toes curl up uncomfortably remembering the chocolate brown eyes and the searching stare they gave him, as if she was trying to see into his mind. In those moments Marty forgot his ticks. It was as if a steady hand was placed gently over his trembling fingers to still their shaking. Now, as the sun set over New York and the withdrawal began its terrors, the shakes were inevitable. He scratched his wrist. Where was he?

  The thought had barely skittered across his mind before he heard a flutter behind him, like the movement of just starched chinos. Ricky didn't notice but Marty turned around, spotting the brightly polished shoes on the step above. They moved off and into the drug store. Marty waited until he heard the swish of the moving doors and the beep of the entry alarm before standing up and following the person into the building.

  "Marty, can you get me another can?" Ricky called after him.

  The overheard fluorescent lights cast everything in a dull, urine-stained shade of yellow and the country music had switched to something a little more RnB. Something from ten years ago that Marty had only heard before from rifling through Steve's sparse music collection. Maggie nearly yanked it from his hands when she had seen it. He smiled as he remembered the lecture in music he had received on one of the rare evenings he hadn't passed out. Cute that she thought he could be her project, but he was hopeless and she soon learned not to bother when he refused to spot the difference between The Decemberists and Black Sabbath.

  He walked past the attendant and followed the click clack of business shoes across the laminate flooring, down aisle 5 and 6 and through a thick set of transparent plastic flaps that separated the heated lit interior of the drug store with the cold, gray air of the back room and warehouse. Marty looked to his left and saw the tail end of a suit disappear behind some cardboard boxes and followed swiftly after. No one seemed to care that a dirty, unshaven man from off the streets had apparently walked into the employees-only area and Marty got all the way to the manager’s office without the alarm being sounded. It was never going to sound, not when the man behind the glass pane of the office se
ttled down in his seat and waited for Marty to follow him in. The manager knew Marty like a brother. He'd sold him enough drugs to hold sway over him like family, anyway. And he had an amused look in his eyes as Marty entered the room and sat sheepishly down in the chair in front of the desk.

  “I don’t know where you get the money for this, you know,” he said in a soft voice. The ticking of the clock behind him was as loud as a jackhammer to Marty’s ears. The man noticed. “You’re coming down pretty hard, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine,” Marty said, ignoring the bead of sweat that inched torturously down the side of his neck. “I just need to pick up for the others.”

  “You’re telling me you sold your entire stash in less than 24 hours?”

  Marty took a moment. 24 hours. Yes, he was in Palet for around a week. That made sense. And then he cursed, because he really shouldn’t be showing up so frequently in this world. But sometimes he forgot the time difference. It was hard to remember when his foot was tapping so much . . .

  “Yup, well. I am anticipating a big party tonight so I just want to be prepared.” The two men stared at each other. Marty tried not to fidget. The man sighed and opened the top button of his white, button-down shirt. He leaned over and unlocked a safe hidden surreptitiously into the wall near his feet, pulling out a bag of white and brown powder separated into smaller, ounce-sized portions. He pushed it across the desk and accepted the stiff paper envelope of cash pushed back over to him.

  Marty tucked it reverently into the large, inside pocket of his jacket and stood up to leave. The manager of the drugstore lifted his feet onto the desk and crossed them with two heavy thunks on the wooden top.

  “You know, Marty, you could do so much better for yourself.” The clock ticked even louder and with the heroin in his pocket all Marty wanted to do was get out of there. “You sell enough of this stuff to be making a mint, but you look awful. You should take care of yourself more. You seemed to have aged nearly a decade since I met you a year ago.”

  Marty forced his face into a grin and ran a hand nervously over the stiff stubble on his head.

  “Just . . . be careful,” the man said. “You sell it. You should never take it.”

  Marty nodded and pushed through the door back into the chilly back room. He sped-walked through the warehouse and into the employees-only bathroom.

  His breath quickened as he pressed his back up against the cold white tile and pulled the bag out of his jacket pocket. Opening one of the ounce bags carefully, he tipped a small line on the toilet bowl and snorted it down. He closed his eyes and, fumbling to close the zip lock, sat down on the floor to wait for the shakes to end.

  And eventually, when the trembling and nausea was replaced with the normal feeling of warmth and self-loathing, Marty splashed his face with cold water and tried to tidy up the creases in his collar.

  Ricky turned around on the stoop when he heard the swish of automatic doors and held his hand up for an enthusiastic high five. Marty smacked his head sharply and handed him a can of beer. Ricky looked up hopefully.

  “Marty, do you have anything else for me?”

  “Don’t be a dick, Ricky,” Marty said good-naturedly. Ricky smiled and held out his hand. Marty pulled out the bag, accidentally knocking a smaller plastic bundle of glass marbles to the asphalt. Marty snatched them quickly up again and Ricky eyed him curiously.

  “Marty, why do you have marbles in your pocket?”

  “Never you mind, just take your smack.”

  Ricky accepted the plastic ounce bag and opened his can of beer with a sharp snap and hiss. As Marty prepared to move off, he grabbed his hand.

  "Marty, man . . . is there something you want to tell me?"

  Marty froze in surprise and looked closer at his friend. He was serious. His face was straight and concerned. Marty didn't think he had ever heard Ricky show concern about anything other than youth culture and getting fucked. And now, on the edge of a Friday evening where all he usually did was get high, he wanted to talk?

  "Ricky, I'm fine."

  "Nah, man. You're not." Marty gaped as Ricky pushed his weight up with a grunt. He placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and looked deep into Marty's eyes. "You look old, man. You look sad."

  Sighing, Marty tried to shrug off Ricky's hand but it gripped harder. Ricky's eyes narrowed and the frown that creased down his face cracked through a day's worth of construction site dust and dirt.

  "Ricky, I'm fine," he pushed.

  "Prove it," he said. "Spend some time with me tonight."

  No no no, there is no time, Marty thought but even as those words rushed frantically across his brain Ricky was pulling him down the steps and hailing a bus.

  "Quality time, my brother. I'll order a pizza and you can tell me why you look like the entire world is on your shoulders."

  Because it is, Marty thought. But the drugs were beginning to feel relaxing and after all, why not? The Painter is usually up later anyway. Some food and another hit wouldn't hurt. Would it?

  *

  The fuck it would.

  Marty jerked awake as the night crept past 3 am. No alarm had sounded. There was no movement in Ricky's basement apartment and the window above was so close to the sidewalk that even the streetlights and any passing headlights couldn't crack into the darkness of the underground.

  Snoring resounded from another room and Marty felt like his eyes were covered in glue. The taste in his mouth was sour as bitter medicine and his dry tongue was sand paper. All he wanted to do was turn back over on the couch and pull the ragged throw blanket closer around his neck. But there was something he needed to do. Right? Somewhere he needed to be . . .

  A creeping feeling stole up his back and settled on his shoulders like a giant boa constrictor. His heart beat an erratic pattern and as he pushed his feet over the edge of the couch and onto the floor, he couldn't help but swallow down a stab of panic. Why did this feel so wrong?

  A van rumbled along the street above and threw a can out of the window. The tinny clack bounced along the sidewalk and knocked against the glass, startling Marty to his feet. And just as quickly as he stood up, the weight of his pockets registered in his mind: the soft, new pressure of the heroin and the hard, shifting bundle of marbles he always kept to transport him in and out of Palet.

  Palet.

  The Painter.

  Oh no.

  Marty gasped and clutched his heart. He had forgotten the Painter. What time was it?! He took a few steps forward, fumbling for his phone, and groaned as the screen lit up his face to display the time. How much would he have taken without Marty there to pull him back?

  But as he scrambled for his shoes, the snake tightened around his neck. There was something else. Something worse.

  Suddenly, Marty's eyes closed and he gripped the edge of the couch to keep from falling. The blackness split open to a blinding white and he heard the scratchy voice of a summoning. A state of emergency.

  "Painter compromised . . . report back immediately . . . apprehend niece." The white light flashed once more as the eerie whisper faded from his ears and his eyes snapped open. The brightness had completely set him back in his adjustment to the dark, so he stood catching his breath in the pitch black.

  Painter compromised. Apprehend niece.

  Marty grabbed his belongings and checked to make sure he had enough marbles. He burst out onto the street, slipping a bit on a piece of slick newspaper, and rushed down the grungy road towards the nearest bus stop.

  He hoped to Painter that 'compromised' didn't mean 'lifeless.' And he didn't even want to think about what they meant by apprehend niece. Painter forbid Maggie gets involved in this. But as Marty jumped over puddles and frantically scanned the road for oncoming headlights, he already knew there was no other choice.

  She would need to be found. All she was had been leading up to this. Marty only wished the news didn't need to come from him.

  Cirrus

  The Man in the Mirror

 
; Cirrus strode into the front entry room of his house and gave his body a furious shake. Sand rained down from his hair and scattered across the floor like a broken hourglass. Three men in white trooped in behind him and immediately sat down on the waiting room chairs.

  Cindy looked up from her appointment book and winced.

  “Sir, would you mind doing your shaking in the yard?” She glanced out the window and sighed as the house rose up from the Wilds of Palet and back into the sky on the purple cloud. “Never mind, Sir.”

  He straightened his gray lapel and smiled apologetically at his secretary.

  “I do apologize, Cindy. I should have thought. I’ll have someone come in and clean this up later in the evening.”

  “No, Sir. It’s fine,” Cindy said in her resigned way as she moved out from behind the counter with a small broom. Cirrus reached down before she swept across the floor and caught a pinch-full of the fine sand in his fingers. He slipped it discreetly into his pocket and moved off through the hallway to his office. Cirrus stood behind his door and leaned back against the dark wood, breathing in slowly and luxuriously.

  He had felt so many things that afternoon. So many beautiful and terrifying things that his body was fit to burst like an overripe cherry He could still hear the silence that he left behind in the Wilds; the rebellion and the lack of shame that Lucan insisted on taking with him up until the very end. But despite that, the feeling that rushed through his blood was pure and an adulterated elation.

  As he moved across the room to kneel in front of the cold fire, he closed his eyes to the memory.

  The Painter was dead.

  Even saying the words in his head shot a strong bolt of excitement through his body close to arousal. The Painter is dead. It was a moment as fine as a knifepoint. Each atom of his internal system shutting down, every last beat of his heart as it slowed and shuttered; even the ebbing flow of his blood through the veins in his arms to his brain and his heart was like a lover’s caress to Cirrus. Because he had felt it all.