You, I think, you stay the FUCK away from him. You stay away now, and you stay away in the future. You never, EVER, come near my brother, because I guarantee that if you approach him-and I’m not saying you will, I’m just saying that IF YOU DO ever come near him-I will do whatever it takes to keep you from ever raising your ugly head again. Let’s keep in mind here that, as much as it pains me to say it, I am afraid of you. And when the person you live in is AFRAID OF YOU and is giving you an ORDER, you will fear it. I will destroy you. Any. Way. I. Can. And if you try to come anywhere near him, I will set you on fire and shoot you in the fucking ankle, so I can watch you hop around and bleed to death while screaming in pain. I will cut your screaming black head off and send my foot right through the back of your repulsive, rotting skull. You will be NOTHING. And once you don’t exist, he will be safe, and I will have won. Do I make myself CLEAR?

I wait for a response, a laugh or some kind of cruel little quip, and hear nothing. Behind my door there’s the flipping of pages in Lon’s book, and out of my window there’s the sound of tires and sirens, but here it’s quiet.

Did it actually speak in the first place? Was there really any reason to go on that mental rant? An idea strikes me, sending ice through my veins: Did I say that out loud? Was I mentally responding to words that came out of my mouth? Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, no.

Chocolate milk is of the utmost necessity right now.

My mom finds me in the bathroom with a determined look on my face, downing gulp after gulp of rich, brown emotional anesthesia straight from the carton.

“Good day?”

I take the time to belch before I answer. “It was okay. Got in an argument with Andrew Tomas.”

She shakes her head and clucks, “That boy needs to be locked up somewhere, I swear. He’s the kind of guy who gets cheerleaders pregnant. What was the argument about?”

“A girl,” I say casually, hoping my mom reacts the way I want her to so she can finally assign me the title of Normal Kid.

Her face explodes in joy. “A girl? Have you been seeing someone lately? Oh, wow, is it someone he’s interested in too?”

“Yes, a girl; yes, I’ve been seeing someone; and no, she’s his sister.”

My mom doesn’t say a word, just stands up, snatches the carton from me, and walks into the kitchen. She returns with the chocolate milk in a glass and a single black-and-white cookie, and then drags me by my hand into the living room and onto the couch. I begin to sip, and we talk. Our conversation takes the serious-talk-of-the-day form: She asks, I answer, and vice versa.

“When’d you meet her?”

“Saturday night, while I was out with Randall. She was with us.”

“What’s she like?”

“She’s a Goth. But she’s really sweet.”

“What’s a Goth?”

“It means you dress like Alice Cooper or the people in the Cure. Do you know who the Cure are?”

“Yes, I know who the Cure are, thank you very much. Does she wear all that horrible schmutz on her face?”

“Yeah. She looks good in it.”

“Pff, sure she does. Where does she live?”

“On Fifty-third Street in a nice little apartment.”

“What do her parents do?”

“Lie in the ground.” It sends an electric current through my heart and down my backbone. That’s not how I meant it to sound. It’s not funny, and it’s not cool. It’s the most desolate, hopeless thing that can happen to someone, and that someone is mine. I can’t control the venom enough for even a little tact.

Mom frowns. “That’s terrible. Don’t say things like that.”

I bow my head a little. “Yeah, sorry. Tough situation to deal with, though, y’know?”

She nods, still put off by my bluntness. “Did she bring it up herself?”

“No, not yet, anyway. Randall told me, and I just don’t know what to say to her.”

“Then don’t. It’s not the kind of thing that you ask someone to tell you about. She’ll tell you when it’s time. Besides, you’ve only known her a few days.”

“She’s nice. I think I might date her.”

My mother goes back to planning her grandkids. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You going to ask her about it first? That’d be a good start.”

“Am I-Yes, I’m going to ask her about it! Mom!”

“Honey, some guys don’t realize that you have to ask before you can move in.”

“Was Dad like that?”

She doesn’t even flinch, and I love it. “God, no. Your father worked every angle until I couldn’t take it anymore and finally degraded myself by accepting his invitation to dinner and a movie.”

I smile. “I wonder why he was so cautious.”

She winks. “You know it.”

I tip back my glass until all I’m getting is the grainy chocolate mix sludge. Mom balls up the dish towel in her hands and throws it at me. It slaps across my unsuspecting face damply.

“Now be a good boy,” she says with a chuckle, “and wash that.”

“You want me to wash…a dish towel?”

“No, the glass. Jesus, we send you to all these nice New York schools and listen to you…”

T HERE, ON top of the El Dorado. I could see it. Whatever it was.

I leaped through the air, and soon the wind was rushing past me as the powers of the city’s sorrow sent me sailing into the night like a god. Flight-arguably the best part of the job. A moment later I was fourteen stories off the ground, hovering over the left spire of the El Dorado apartment building, where the creature hung apelike from the roof, an oversized gargoyle dressed in a nightmare. My costume shuddered as I hovered closer. This thing was disrupting the flow of its energy. I had my work cut out for me.

“Don’t move,” I snarled, reaching out to the creature. “I mean you no harm. Your mission seems to be the same as mine. I only wish to know what you are. Can you speak?”

The tentacles at the beast’s mouth reared up, and from them, there came a mighty roar, like a soul spewed out of the depths of the pit. It pointed one taloned finger at me, calling me out, and gibbered at me in a language that might have been spoken on the ocean’s floor. Every tentacle on its body vibrated in my direction, its whole body targeting me.

And then it froze and quivered. The tentacles at its mouth spread wide, flesh spreading back from it, like water or smoke, and suddenly a human face, the pale, terrified face of the bum from the park, appeared amid the mess of its body.

“Blacklight, Locke, for the love of God, stay back!” screamed an all-too-human voice. “I can’t keep it from attacking you! I only have so much power over it!”

I floated closer, the core of my being running cold. “How do you know my name?” I hissed. “What manner of monster are you? Who are you?”

“Please, you have to get away! It knows what you are, how it can hurt you! If you don’t-oh GOD!” The face wrenched its mouth wide, as though to scream, and then the black fleshy tendrils swallowed it back up. Where the face had appeared, those two eyes, insectoid, cold and dead, focused in on me with clinical resolve.

“Release him!” I said, raising a crackling hand. “I only want to speak to your host! I repeat, I mean you no harm-”

The beast gurgled again, and then sprang through the air and tackled me. The wind left my lungs, and suddenly the city went silent. My suit flickered, sputtered. Lightning exploded from me; my head became a blur of horrible thoughts and sweaty panic. We spiraled downward toward the sidewalk, a collage of emotional electricity and putrid squirming meat.