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Raze comes back, against his better judgement.

He takes the six story plunge from Nathan Kale’s open window without a second thought. Like a bolt of lightning he streaks under the unforgiving pull of gravity like a flung stone, a parabolic streak of black hellfire silhouetted against the sickly light-polluted stars. When his booted feet meet concrete, there is no harsh snapping of bones, no popping of overwrought tendons, only a teeth-jarring impact as he sinks into an involuntary crouch. He wastes no time. The night will be ending soon, and the thought of the hateful glare of the burning orange sun is enough to make the dead man quicken his pace as he aims his steps toward the desiccated remains of his home.

            The drunk, crouched against the wall of the alley beside the Heron’s Nest, turns, eyes lit from within with equal parts cheap vodka and despair. Even in the half-light of the dimly lit street, he sees the dead man fall, sees him land in that feral crouch. A jumper who was too chickenshit to take a fatal fall, no doubt. But when the dead man straightens up and begins to walk with a purpose, the drunk feels a chill run across his spine like a legion of icy army ants. They burrow under his skin and spread their chill along the nimble pathways of his nerves. Even a plunge from the second story would’ve broken an ankle, strained one of the tendons. No one should’ve gotten up so smoothly after a fall like that.

            The dead man is almost out of sight when he suddenly turns to regard the drunk, feeling the eyes on him. With a cannibal grin of perfect white teeth, bared in the fashion of a triumphant predator, he presses a single long finger to his lips. The drunk can only nod spasmodically, almost involuntarily, speared under that icy gaze, eyes transfixed on those white fangs. The dead man stalks out of sight while the drunk can only pull his tattered coat closer as the chill burrows deeper. He reaches for the empty bottle of vodka next to him, wishing desperately that it was full. Hell, he’d settle for one last nip, just to take the cold brush of death from his blood.

            The dead man follows his feet toward home. There were hours yet before the sun went down, hours before he could hunt again. The first was quick; no more than a mechanical function. The man who pulled the trigger was all too easy. The last four would be more interesting. More sublime.

            He knew why he hated Nathan Kale. The others were a mystery. One that would need a deal of time to solve.

Time he had. Time to burn in thought and silent preparation.

            But he would find out. He would tear it from them, splinter by silvery, burning splinter. The dead man smiles as he shoves his pale, long-fingered hands into the deep pockets of his trench-coat. His lips tighten into a grim line. He has work to do.

***

            “No, man. You don’t get it. You just don’t get it.” Raze’s voice was the same timbre that has served those tellers of unbelievable stories since time immemorial. It was equal parts earnesty and utter incredulousness.

            “Alright, Raze. Tell me what I don’t get.” Az was doing his best to believe his best friend, but the story was thoroughly mind-boggling.

            The two sat on a waist high wall that formed the side of a planter-box. Behind them grew a few hardy shrubs that were tough enough to survive the rigors of high school foot traffic. In front of them, a steady stream of high school kids drifted by, on their way to grab a bite in the cafeteria across the quad.

            “You seem to think that I was dreaming, dude.” He paused for effect. “I wasn’t. There’s no way I was.”

            “That right? Can you be sure, man? Can you be absolutely sure that you didn’t just dream the whole damned thing?”

            “Az, you’ve been my best friend for as long as I can remember. We’ve been through some pretty heavy s**t.” Raze ticked a few off on his fingers. “The cemetery…you remember. The time we both felt that cold thing that brushed past us when we were packing up to leave. All the shadows in that old warehouse; the ones that moved without the light. The time the board told us that your grandma was going to die.” His eyes narrowed meaningfully. “There’ve been times when we’ve touched on s**t that mortal man wasn’t s’posed to f**k with. There’ve been times when we both wanted to bolt, man. There’ve been some times when we rightly wanted to beat cleats for home, because we’d hit something mega-heavy.” His voice lowered as he brought his point home. “This makes all that s**t look like f*****g fairytales. This is huge” He hesitated, closed his eyes, and heaved a small sigh. “And it’s got me scared, man.”

            Az kept his face straight. Raze would never admit he was afraid. In all the aforementioned instances it was always Raze who was so quick to whisper “Let’s check it out.” He took a thoughtful sip of his Coke and swept his eyes over the sunlit quad, letting his eyes drift over the jocks, the preps, and the other singularities in the wash of high school humanity.

            “Alright, man. So you weren’t dreaming.” Az had slipped into his no-nonsense voice. “What do you want me to do about it?”

            Raze shook his head slowly. “No, dude. Not you. Us.”

            Az nodded, still not meeting his friend’s gaze. “Right. What do you want us to do?”

            Raze shrugged slightly. “We’ve gotta go back.”

            Az turned slowly, eyes narrowing and the beginnings of a derisive smirk quirking up the corner of his mouth. “Wait, you’re freaked and you want to go check it out?” He snorted. “You might want to rewind and reconsider, Captain Logic.”

            Raze gritted his teeth and fixed his eyes to Az’s. “Look man, I’m going during daylight hours. You’re coming with me. I’m taking every precaution I can, but that doesn’t change the fact that I need to see if this thing was really a--”

            Az snorted again. “A ghost?”

             Raze nodded lamely. “Yeah, Az. A ghost.”

            “Look, man. It’s cool that you think you found something.” Raze began to retort but Az held up one of his black nail-polished hands to cut him short. “But you’ve got to admit that in the entire course of scientific history there has been no clear cut evidence to lead anyone to conclude that the spirits of the dead can interact with this plane of existence.” He took a slug of his Coke. “What little evidence has been collected still does not include a single incidence of physical violence directed toward a human being. It just doesn’t happen, man.” Again he turned away to watch a blonde sophomore walk by. She wore a skirt so short that it was only a matter of time before the hall-monitors caught her. More’s the pity.

            Great, Raze thought, all of a sudden Az turns into Professor Ghostologist. He shook his head. “So what, you think I made it up, or what?”

            Az shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t say that, Raze. I believe that contact with the entity ‘Rage’ might’ve put you into a highly-suggestible state which may explain your hallucination…” Slowly he turned to face Raze just as his jaw dropped open.

            “Hallucination?!” Raze’s eyes flashed with anger. “So I’m hallucinating now?”

            “Dude, we were smoking some pretty heavy s**t…” Az’s eyebrows raised to his forehead.

            “Weed doesn’t make you hallucinate, Az. You and I both know that.”

            “Still…I don’t know. The facts are that what we’re dealing with has never been encountered in the course of recorded human history.” Az shrugged and took another pull from his Coke. “Plus, I’ve got a date tonight.”

            Raze’s jaw dropped. “A date? You’ve got a f*****g date? You’re ditching me, your best friend, to go and, like, play miniature golf with some chick?”

            Az nodded wordlessly, the beginnings of his trademarked crooked smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

            Raze shook his head as if to clear it. “Great, man. Perfect.” He drew a deep breath and held it, turning away from his best bud. After a long moment he blew it out through his nose. “Who’s the chick?”

            Az’s smile was full blown now. “Tammy”

            Tammy Cartwright was easily an eight on the Richter. Long brown hair, heart shaped face, long legs, curves in all the right places, a pixie’s upturned nose, and big innocent eyes that made your brain go hazy. Not the foxiest girl in school, but definitely foxier than Az could’ve possibly deserved. Raze groaned and offered his hand for a high-five. Az, the b*****d, was totally f*****g justified.

            Az’s hand and Raze’s met. Before the sting was gone, Raze had made up his mind that he had to find out the truth about the house with or without backup.

***

 

            “F**k you, Az.” Raze muttered to himself as he vaulted the wrought-iron gate and walked around the back of the house without so much as a backward glance. It was just after four o’clock, but already the sun was starting to threaten the hills that formed the western horizon. It’d be dark in an hour or so. Raze sighed as he rounded the corner of the house. Wasn’t a whole lot of time, but then he didn’t really plan on spending a whole lot of time inside anyway. In, scope, and out.

            The broken window caught the fading evening light and reflected it back in a searing white that made Raze squint. He closed the gap over the patchy dead grass and crawled between the jagged teeth of broken glass and crunched over the fragments that littered the hardwood floor of the dining room. They ground to dust under his boots with a sound like gravel under tires, but Raze hardly noticed as he moved immediately through the doorway ahead and into the living room.

            His eyes adjusted to the gloom by degrees. The dust-hazed darkness slowly resolved itself into the empty, cobweb strewn living room. Raze drew a steadying breath and crossed to the center of the room, unshouldering his backpack. It fell to the carpet with a dull thud and rattle. Raze dropped to a knee and pulled out the battered Ouija board and began to set up. That done, he retrieved a flashlight and a scuffed minicorder and laid them out beside the board. Casting his eyes about the room, watching the shadowed corners for the faintest hint of movement, he settled himself on the floor, curling his legs beneath him. He drew another breath as he cracked his knuckles and stretched out his hands for the board. All set.

            Before his fingers even brushed the smooth plastic of the planchette, it jumped from away from his fingers, sliding completely off the board.

            Raze drew his fingers back instinctively, pulling them away as if the planchette were a snapping bear-trap. “Holy hell.” He reached over to snap on the minicorder. The little red LED winked on and the tape started rolling.

            “For the record,” Raze whispered, “it is four,” he looked at his watch “sixteen on Tuesday, November twelfth. I’ve just walked in, set up, and was about to start when…” he paused groping for words. “I’ve just had an experience. I was about to start using the Ouija board to communicate with the entity ‘Rage’. When I reached out—“ He paused and drew a breath to steady the quaver in his voice. “When I reached out, the marker jumped away from my fingers. Needless to--”

            A thud echoed from upstairs and Raze’s words trailed off. He waited for a bare moment, waiting for the sound to come again. Thirty seconds passed…a minute. Not a whisper of sound save the steady hiss of his own breathing. Raze’s gaze turned back to the recorder. “Needless to—“

            Thud.

            “What the hell was that?” Raze reached over to snap off the minicorder.  The red eye went dead and Raze sat for a moment in the deepening gloom. The sun was almost a memory now, only the faintest rays still filtered through the broken window in the dining room. The cool metal of the flashlight met his questing hand almost before he realized he had reached for it. His other brought the minicorder to his pocket as he stood. Something was upstairs. There was no way he was leaving without checking it out.

            With a smooth pivot and whisper footsteps across the dusty carpet he edged to the doorway that led to the hall. For a moment he paused on the threshold of the hallway, unsure whether or not the sound was actually echoing anywhere other than his imagination. For all he knew it was only the house…what the hell did they always say?

            “Settling.” He whispered to himself. “The house settling” Old houses like this one always settled. It was just something old, dusty, murder houses did to freak people out. Something as ingrained as scuffed side-boards, dark basements, and ominous scrapes on hardwood floors that all too closely resembled clawmarks.

            The thud came again, so low that Raze almost missed it. But it was there. He took another step into the hall.

            His footsteps were loud over the wooden flooring of the hallway. Too loud. The way they echoed, they came back to him amplified to an unnatural level. They set his teeth on edge, even as he tried to soften his booted footfalls.

            He shook his head as he let out a ragged breath. Keep it together, Raze. All in your head. He squared his shoulders and pressed forward, heedless.

            Another thud, ending in a brittle, hollow crunch echoed from the second floor. Raze drew up short, just past the bathroom, a scant five steps from the foot of the stairs. What the hell was going on up there? The flashlight beam played along the first steps and swept higher, casting a tiny island of illumination against the inky background. Too far along to turn back now. He reached into his pocket to switch on his minicorder.

            In a voice hardly above a whisper he spoke, hoping that the minicorder would catch his words. “Noises from the second floor.”

            Click. The tape stopped short as Raze thumbed the switch.

            He crossed to the stairs and began to climb, slowly; step by agonizing step. The third stair creaked horribly, keening a widow-song as his booted foot bore down on neglected wood. Raze ground his teeth and continued, eyes and flashlight fixed on the landing above. It was only heartbeats away when the hiss of footsteps over carpet pricked up his ears. And then an even stranger sound…a chuckle.

            Raze gained the stairs and thumbed the switch to his minicorder. “Laughter?”

            Click.

            He turned left, gazing down the hallway to the half-open door. It was dark; fantastically dark. To his right, double doors of dark-stained oak with heavy gold knobs. His throat drying with anticipation, he turned left and stepped closer to the door and the half-visible shadows beyond.

            Raze snapped the flashlight’s beam into the shadowy space beyond the door. Swallowing hard and steeling his nerve, he poked his head into the room, eyes sweeping along with the meager illumination of the flashlight. Odd shapes and eerie shadows inhabited the room; nothing moved as the beam passed. He stepped inside.

            Raze played the light through the room again, slower this time. As the argent beam stabbed through the darkness, he found that the room was almost entirely unfurnished. Only a small table alongside one wall and three wooden easels holding canvases stood in contrast to the bare walls. One window set into the wall opposite the door offered a view of the overgrown backyard and, further off, the winking lights of the city.

            Raze crossed the room to the first canvas and swept his light over it. A half-finished landscape glared harshly in the light. Raze took a step back to get the full picture. The image resolved itself into a tangled mass of dark trees framing an empty street. The sky was empty save the pencil lines of the moon and a large red stain in the upper left corner.

            It could only be blood.

            A squeak sounded outside the room; the groan of a footstep on a creaky floorboard. Raze spun swiftly on his heel and doused the light, his breath catching in his throat. Silently he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. But no shadow passed before the door, no movement from the other side of the door. Only silence.

            Raze stepped through over the studio’s threshold and found himself facing the imposing double doors. He clicked on the minicorder and whispered. “I’m facing what was probably the master bedroom. The odd noises I’ve been hearing tonight seem to be coming from—“

            A chuckle from the other side of the doorway cut off Raze in mid-sentence.

            “Hello?” Raze’s voice cracked. “Is someone there?”

            No answer from behind the door.

            Raze reached out a hand for the heavy gold knob. “If there’s anyone in there, I’m coming in.” He waited a moment, reversing his grip on the flashlight. “And I’m armed.”

            Raze threw open the door and recoiled, his throat constricting so quickly that his startled cry issued forth as a dry hiss. He dropped his flashlight and it spun deeper into the room, rolling slowly forward until it struck the carved wooden bedpost of the rumpled four-poster bed.

            Perched upon that bedpost, crouching like a gothic gargoyle against the clinging gloom, clad in black trench coat and worn black jeans, was a figure that wore the shadows like a second skin. His knees bowed out like a bullfrog’s to either side, and his left hand pressed against the carved mahogany knob that surmounted the worn post. His right hand was held at arms length toward Raze. And in it was the dull glint of a revolver, leveled at Raze’s chest.

            “So am I.” A whisper like the rustle of dry leaves on an empty patch of rain-soaked sidewalk.

            Raze caught his breath by degrees, not daring to move. “Rage?”

             The figure looked up, first with his coal black eyes and then with his entire head. He cocked it to one side like a bird of prey, studying his most recent potential meal. Lips split into a half-smile of polished ivory fangs as a flicker of recognition lit the black morass of his eyes from within.

            “Ah, yes. The boy from last night,” He spoke calmly, oblivious to the revolver that he still held, as if chatting idly with someone at a bus-stop. “Come back for another look then have we?”

            Raze nodded mutely, his eyes trained on both the inky pools of the figure’s eyes, darker by degrees than the surrounding shadow, and the equally dark barrel of the revolver. Three cold, dark voids stared back.

            “Do you have a name, boy?”

            Raze drew another breath, finding that he couldn’t seem to get enough air. His head swam, but he managed to push his own name past his lips.

            “Raze.”

            “Raze?” The dead man’s lips split further into an earnest smile. He let the hand with the pistol drop. “What are you doing here, Raze?” There was steel behind the amiable tone of voice, and just the barest hint of mockery.

            A soft breeze played through the room, filtering in through the broken bay window, but it was the menace that lay hidden in that voice that made the hair on the back of Raze’s neck stand on end.

            “I wanted to see if I was crazy.” Raze hadn’t meant to speak, but the words were out in a rush. He watched as the dead man’s eyes closed and the smile became rueful. Raker hopped nimbly from his perch on the bedpost to the floor, as fluid and sinuous as a breath of smoke. His boots made no sound as he hit the floor.

            “And are you?” Raker asked as he closed the gap toward Raze. “Crazy?”

            Raze wrestled with the need to look behind him and assure himself of the door. He was standing in a room with an armed madman…one that was asking him if he was crazy. Raze swallowed hard, running his tongue over his lips to wet them.

            “I don’t think so.”

            Raker searched the boy’s eyes for the hint of a lie, some widening of the pupils, a nervous tic, or a tremor. Finding none he nodded once, a slow bob of his head. “Good,” he turned on his heel and walked to the window, “you couldn’t tell me what you want if you were crazy. The mad never know what they want.”

            The dead man halted in front of the broken window, folding his hands neatly behind his back. For a moment neither of them spoke. Only the soft whisper of the wind through the cracked glass stirred the silence. Raker was the first to break it.

            “That was an invitation, Raze.” Syrup and razorblades dripped from Raker’s lips.

            Raze remembered himself, tore his eyes away from the silhouette of the dead man framed in the frosted moonlight against the battered backdrop of his broken home. For a moment, he asked himself the same question. What did he want?

            “Tell me why you’re here, Rage.”

            Raker did not turn. Instead he issued a hollow little laugh, a frosty tinkle like ice-cubes in a glass of whiskey. “Why I’m here?” He breathed the question, sighed it; he weighed it, measured it against his tongue and did not respond right away. Lids slid over the cold black eyes as the pieces assembled themselves.

            Raze was just considering the option of reminding Raker of the question, perhaps even indicating that it was an “invitation”, when the dead man began to speak.

            “There are times when death comes for you, Raze. There are times when it finds you while you sleep. Your journey is soft and peaceful; you slip into another place and time, gently awakening somewhere where the pain and sorrow has left you. I’ve heard that it is the most beautiful experience one can have.

            There are times when it comes for you and you see it come. You stare down the barrel of a gun; watch as cancer eats away at your body; feel the press of water as it pushes its way into screaming lungs. Your passage is hard, frightening. Those who I’ve spoken to tell me that it is like being reborn. When all is done, death is as inevitable your very next breath. You can run from it, but death is infinitely faster.

            Death is a funny thing.”

            Raze scooted back against the wall and crouched down, intent. He was talking to a ghost. Talking! No board, no medium, just the message. If Az could be here now!

            “Sometimes it has a sense of humor. There are times when it seems that death seems to grin at you; he looks at your last moments and shakes his head. ‘That’ll never do,’ he seems to say.” Raker’s voice had dropped to a threadbare whisper, and the room, it seemed, was getting colder. Raze still crouched, raptly at attention.  

            “Sometimes death knows you’ve had a raw deal. Now, some call it a mercy, and some call it a wicked little game; but game or mercy, Death drops you right back into your husk, your hollowed out shell. He doesn’t tell you why. He doesn’t tell you what you’ve got to do. He just gives you a little piece of the puzzle, a snapshot, maybe. And from there, you’ve got to find your own way.”

            Raze nodded to himself, sucking in air through his teeth. “But why are you here, Rage.”

            Raker turned slowly, his lips split in a small grin. “Dorian Raker was murdered, Raze.” He paused for a moment to let the words soak in. “Dorian Raker was shot in his own home for reasons far beyond the shaking aim of a surprised burglar. He was gunned down in cold blood. There are five people that led to his death. Now, thanks to that funny b*****d, Death, Raker gets to figure out how they did it, and…” He let the thought trail away. His lips split a bit further, the smile growing by fractions of an inch with every detail he let slip.

            Raze’s jaw dropped. “And kill them?”

            Raker nodded sagely. “Vengeance.”

            The pieces began to line up. “One down…four to go. God…” He breathed.

            Raker turned to peer out the window again, eyes of shadow probing further shadow.

            A piece still nagged at Raze. Raker…the artist was Raker. The man who had died was Raker. Raker had to find the people who had killed them. Who then…Who was Rage?

            “Rage?” Raze’s voice was a tiny puff of air against the soaking torrential silence, but it felt as though he were shouting. “If Raker is the one who must solve Death’s riddle…who are you?”

            Raker turned again. His smile split his mouth wide and exposed a mouthful of cannibal white teeth. His eyes burned so black that the very memory of light was tainted, obliterated and shattered so completely that Raze could not comprehend the very concept. Those eyes held his, reached forward, hungry. With an insane little cackle, the dead man spoke.

            “I am Raker’s chance for vengeance. I’m his burning thirst which can only be slaked in blood. I’m the angel on his shoulder, the devil in the depths of his heart.”

            Raze found himself on his feet, taking small steps backward toward the door. Raker--the thing that pulled Raker—came closer, steps whisper quiet even as he strode over the broken glass that dusted the floor in front of the broken window. His grin did not fade.

            “I’m the puzzle-piece Raze. I’m Raker’s screaming Rage.”

            Raze passed through the door, still backing away. No matter what he tried, he could not tear his eyes away from the burning voids in Raker’s skull.

            And then just as suddenly, the ink dripped away from his eyes. The black receded, drifting away in splotches, letting through glimmers of crystal blue. His voice lost its manic tinge as he spoke again, leaving a tired, worn whisper which pressed its way through clenched teeth.

            “It’s time for you to go now, Raze. I’ve got things to do. Rash and bloody deeds, mostly. I’ve got some people to drag back to hell with me…and you aren’t on the list.”

            Raze nodded mutely. He took three steps back before he turned to run.

 

***

 

            Raker swings back toward the window, a grim sigh passing his lips.

            “Cheer up, friend. We’re about to have some fun.”

            Raker’s eyes close for a moment. He blows a stray strand of black hair away from his face. Flashes of half-remembered faces dance behind his eyes, atrocities that tug at the walls of his mind.. One man has already died by his hand. Four others were out there somewhere.

            He opens his eyes and looks out on the vast concrete and steel forest of the city beyond. Out there somewhere. He smells gunpowder and feels the splash of blood. He can hear the pleas become death-rattles.

            “They deserve this, don’t they?” His voice is so quiet that he hardly realizes that he has spoken until the creature which wears his skin when the world goes dark replies.

            “Oh undoubtedly, Raker. Just as much as you deserve your vengeance.”

            “Vengeance,” the word is bittersweet. His life was torn away in blood and pain. He had the right to respond in kind. Didn’t he? “Well, my personal devil, I suppose this is where I say…lead on.”

Reviews

[Kaitlyn M.]

Simply gorgeous. I'm still having trouble breathing. Raze should get a medal for holding it together while talking to Rage. I'd've asked all the wrong questions and likely ended up dead. Or in huddled ball. Holy damn. Rage is a nice, scary-a*s character who makes mobsters look like Valedictorians.

The dialogue is short, snappy, and quick to the point, and your writing is just so damn fluid. Damn you for being so awesome. And I still want more of this. Even now as I'm reading it again after 4-ish months, I still want more. Damn you and your cliffhangers. Guh. So good, and you leave me wanting.

Quit taking away my crack, Drake.