blows into it.
“Lucidus.”
At the touch of her breath, the flame grows to twice its original size, now somewhere between the size of a softball and a basketball. The blue tint it first carried is now gone, replaced, instead, with more of that dazzling white. The soft glow surrounding her becomes sharp and wide. The darkness retreats, relegated to far corners and shadows. ow she can see far into the store.
She turns to motion for Karl and Clay to come in, but they are already there, standing right behind her.
“Neat trick,” says Clay.
“Yeah, remind me to bring you the next time I go spelunking.” Karl surveys the visible areas of the store as he speaks, the visible worry on his face betraying the sarcasm in his voice. “As long as we stay on your hip, we’ll be able to navigate around.”
Melissa closes her fingers around the flame, winds up like a pitcher, and throws it out toward the middle of the store.
“Ortus!” she calls as she releases the flame. It flies into the center of the store, rising toward the ceiling as it goes. When it reaches a point roughly one foot from the ceiling, it stops and hovers there.
Melissa brushes her hands together, a look of pride illuminating her face. “There. Now we should all be able to see no matter where we go. But we need to make it quick. The light will only last about 10 minutes. 15, tops.”
Clay slips one of the daggers out of its sheath and spins it absent-mindedly around his hand. “Someone mind telling me why, after all this talk of working as a team, we’re gonna split up?”
Karl, sword held out in front of him, is already making his way up the aisle toward the Men’s Clothing department. “To look for essentials, of course.”
Clay looks over at Melissa as if to say, There he goes again. Aren’t you gonna stop him? But she doesn’t. She shrugs and starts moving down the aisle to her right, past the row of checkout lanes and empty soda coolers.
“Just stay within ear-shot. Move slow, keep your eyes peeled, and see if you can find anything useful.”
Clay tries to swallow, but it sticks like a lump in his throat. “M-Maybe I should a go with you?”
Melissa shrugs, but keeps walking, not bothering to turn around. “Whatever. If you’d rather tag along while I look for tampons, be my guest.”
Clay feels his cheeks flush with color. No, he doesn’t think he’d rather go searching for… those things, thank you very much. He turns to his left and can still make out the outline of Karl as he steps into the jumbled mess that was once the Men’s Department. He unknowingly spins the dagger over his hand again, and then takes off after Karl at a quick jog.
Karl looks at the tangled mess of overturned racks and piles of clothing that once made up the Men’s Department. It looks like a herd of elephants has trampled through it, realized they went the wrong way, turned around and tramped back.. A bunch of Dale Earnhardt hats are scattered atop a jumble of dark green, gray, and maroon sweatpants. About a dozen t-shirts, each proclaiming “If I Cared, I Wouldn’t Be Ignoring You” hang haphazardly from a broken and leaning rack. Ain’t that the truth?, Karl thinks.
He is in the midst of stepping over a pile of $10 carpenter jeans (recently rolled back from $11.99 according to the sign lying next to them) when he freezes. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and his ears strain trying to figure out what it was they’d just heard. He grips his sword, takes a breath in through his nose, and spins around, ready to face whatever monstrosity might be trying to catch him unaware.
Standing there, dagger in hand, is Clay. “What?! What is it?!” Clay whips his head from side to side, expecting to see a massive Bludden, or a squat, sore covered Callip. But there is nothing.
Karl’s shoulders dropand he exhales hard. “Fuck, kid. You trying to get your head cut off, give me a heart attack, or both? You have no idea how quiet you are, do you?”
Clay shrugs, the faintest hint of a smile dancing across his face. He knows that his uncanny ability to move without sound is the reason Mayowen has chosen him. He hold onto it as a source of pride. “I guess not. Sorry.”
“Yeah, well, neither one of us ended up dead, so I guess it’s no harm, no foul.” Karl turns and continues walking through the maze of overturned racks. Clay hangs back for a second longer, using the moment to steal another glance around, and then follows.
“So, I kinda already know what essentials Melissa is lookin’ for. But, um, what about you?” Clay squats down and picks up one of the Dale Earnhardt hats. It is red, black and white with the man’s signature scrawled across the italicized number 3 on the front. “You jonzing for some NASCAR gear or somethin’?”
Karl looks back over his shoulder at Clay. “Not exactly. Although I have to admit I did enjoy watching a race or two on a lazy Sunday afternoon. A good race, some chips, a bowl of fresh, hot salsa, and a cold beer made for one helluva day. But I never much saw the point of all the merchandising. I mean, you end up looking like a goddamn walking Penzoil commercial.”
Clay tosses the hat back onto the pile and stands up. Ahead of him, Karl has reached some shelving units that have been knocked over onto one another. He leans super-sword (as Clay likes to call it) against the downed shelves and rummages through all of the merchandise they’ve deposited onto the floor.
Karl digs through piles upon piles of bags like a treasure hunter in some old movie. With each bag he tosses aside he mutters “Come on, come on.” Suddenly he stops. Both hands grip a bag and he starts to laugh wildly.
Clay thinks he can detect just a hint of madness in that laugh and it makes him nervous. “What is it? What did you find?”
Karl whirls around, still clutching the bag in both hands. A queer, half-mad smile lights up his face. “Underwear!”
“Underwear? You’re jazzed about underwear? Man, you’ve lost it.”
Karl looks at Clay, astonished that the boy doesn’t share in his enthusiasm. “I’m insane?! Clay, these are Hanes boxer briefs! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find new, clean underwear?” He spins back around and snatches up another bag. “Shit, there’s even more than one pack! It’s like Christmas fucking morning!”
Karl piles three additional bags of the boxer briefs into his arms. They’re size 36. Four full inches down from the size 40 he was at this time last year. When he turns back to face Clay, the boy is dismayed to see that the hint of madness has not yet left the man’s face.
“Turn around. Let me get these in your backpack.”
Clay sighs, more than a little annoyed. His backpack has become the catchall for the group. Anything that needed carrying, he always ended up lugging it around. But what could he do? If either Karl or Melissa tried to carry the pack, it would bump and bang around, and every damn Bludden within five miles would hear them coming. So, as usual, he complies with the request and turns around.
Karl unzips the backpack and stuffs the packages of underwear into it. He jams them down, not paying attention to how much force he is using.
Clay winces as the straps bite into his shoulders. “Easy, man! Geez.”
Karl zips the bag shut. “Sorry. It’s just that the prospect of slipping on some fresh new skivvies has me kinda excited.”
Clay rolls his right shoulder, working out a kink. “Skivvies? Gross.”
Karl picks up his sword and looks at Clay. The boy hopes that the mad looking grin still plastered across Karl’s face isn’t going to be permanent.
“What about you, kid? You need anything? I mean, we’re here, so we might as well look.”
Clay thinks about it for a minute, but can’t come up with anything that he needs. But that doesn’t mean he can’t come up with something that he wants.
“I’m