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Winter's Blade (Trouble)

"You weren't supposed to see that." Chester's head was still in his hands. He took a deep breath and sighed a weary sigh.

"What the hell is it?" Alex asked.

"Is that what's going to happen?" Em repeated, her voice rising. "Because of me?"

"No, of course not," Chester replied. "I mean... we don't know what form it'll take. But we're better prepared for this than ever; I'm sure they've already mobilized, and once they identify it... there's a response plan for every scenario in that book."

"Better prepared? Like you were prepared for elves slaughtering Em's whole family? Like you were prepared to protect her?"
"Hey," Chester warned. "I told you, there's gotta be a glitch somewhere in the calculations. They'll figure it out."
"A *glitch*?" Alex wrested the book from Em's hands. "Was this a *glitch*?" He threw it in Chester's lap, his Mag-Lite beam glaring off the white pages. Chester looked away.

"It's my fault," Em said, her eyes downcast. "I should have told my boss I wasn't going to the party. I should have taken it more seriously. I mean, it's the only thing Granddad ever asked me to do, and I should have known it was important. But instead I... I almost *wanted* to screw it up." She looked at Alex. "I *did* screw it up."

Chester tried to comfort her. "You didn't screw up. The elves... none of us expected that. If your grampa had any idea, he never would have asked you. And anyway, it's not over. It's just... it's going to be harder now. But that's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Of course I did," Em said. "I abandoned my family. If I'd known--"

"You didn't abandon them. It was your grampa's burden. He felt like he'd drafted his first son, never gave him a chance to do anything else. It's why he wouldn't let your dad work for him right away -- and when he joined up later your grampa still felt guilty. And when your gramma pointed out what he was doing to you with those stories, he stopped -- or at least he tried. He never wanted to recruit you. He wanted you to live your own life. He figured if you were curious, you'd ask, and if you didn't..." Chester sighed. "He never wanted you to see this book."

Alex was confused. "I don't understand."

Em said a word Alex didn't recognize. "Ku'Lahs."
"What?"

"Ku'Lahs," she said again. "It's a game I played when I was little -- I pretended to be a monster, hiding in the closet or around the corner, then jumping out and grabbing things and pretending to rip their souls out. I didn't even know what a soul was. I'd do it to Mom and she'd get mad, until finally she whipped me for it." Em looked off in the distance, seeking out the memory. "I must have been four; we were at Grams and Granddad's house for Christmas and he told me he'd just come back from Australia..."
Chester piped in. "Austria, actually."
Alex gave him a questioning look.
"I have detailed files," Chester said in a thick Austrian accent.
Alex scowled. This was hardly the time for Arnold Schwarzenegger jokes.

Em continued. "He said he had to go there to keep the Ku'Lahs from getting out. He told me about a monster that used to hunt children and pull out their souls, but I didn't have to worry as long as I was a good girl."
Alex shook his head. "That must have given you nightmares."
"Not really. It was a game; he'd catch me trying to sneak a piece of chocolate from his office and he'd say something like, 'you better ask before you take that, or else the Ku'Lahs will sneak up behind you and rip out your soul!' and then he'd run up behind me and put his hand on my head and then pull it off real fast, and then he'd grab me and tickle me all over until I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. It was fun."

The happy memory only seemed to bring Em lower when she finished. Alex could understand why -- connecting the story to the last image he'd seen in the book made him shiver.

"So if the Smiths don't get their magic axe and have their secret ceremony, this Ku'Lahs thing... that book, that's Ku'Lahs? He's come before?"

"It's Claws, actually," Chester said. The lights suddenly came on; the building had power again. "Satan's Claws. It's one of the old names. We don't use it, but they say the old man'll use it sometimes when he really gets going."
"What do you call it?" Alex asked.
Chester seemed surprised. "I don't know. Never really thought about it. The records refer to Satan's Claws, Saint Nicholas' Beast, sometimes just the Beast... but we don't really call it anything, as far as I know. It's just... *it*. It doesn't really come up much. They refer to the Crossing more -- that's the time and place where the ceremony..." Chester must have noticed Alex's lost look. "Why don't I start at the beginning."

Jovie popped up behind Em. "Hey, the lights came on!"

"We noticed," Chester drolled. "Hey, how'd you find this?" He hoisted the book.
"I looked in the back of the file cabinet. Under your Penthouse collection," she said matter-of-factly. Chester turned red. She rolled her eyes. "Like *I* care. I just figured, if you were gonna hide something important, that's where you'd put it."

Alex frowned. He was going to have to move those "archive" CD-Rs...

"Anyway," Chester said, "I guess you got all those records boxed."
"All 'cept that one. I told her we didn't have time for browsing..."
"It's okay, Jovie. Why don't you... why don't you come over here and have a seat."
"We're not going?"
"Not yet."
"Okay." Jovie minced over and hiked herself sideways onto Chester's lap.
"There are enough chairs for everybody," Chester said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh." Jovie seemed a little miffed, but she took the chair in the corner. Alex took Chester's comment as a cue; he gestured to the chair propping open the door for Em, and took the one on the other side of the doorway for himself.

Chester spun around and shoved back toward a window, peeking through the blinds. Satisfied, he shoved himself back to the middle of the room. "If anybody thinks they smell soda pop, don't be afraid to interrupt me."
Jovie cocked her head in confusion, but both Em and Alex nodded.

"Okay... Every Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, the barrier is at its weakest between this world and the... the beyond."
"The beyond?" Em asked.
"Heaven, Hell, Hyperspace, Hoboken, I don't know. Doesn't matter. --So, in the whole world there's this one spot, this one night, at a specific time, where it's weak enough that something can cross over."
"Something? You mean Satan's Claws."
"Satan's Claws," Jovie whispered. "Cool name."
"What exactly is it?"
"Death, basically. At least that's what it wants. Or maybe it wants life and death is what it leaves behind. I guess it depends on your point of view."
"But what's it look like?"
"That's the thing -- it changes. Once it's crossed over and running loose, it basically looks human -- until the next new moon. Then it's free to wreak havoc. Still human form most of the time, but also more."
"More?" Alex asked.
"Whatever it's chosen to be, I guess. Sometimes a disease, or a poison mist, or locusts, or fire, or just the touch of death."
"Basically all the worst parts of the Bible," Alex blurted.
Em gave him a raised eyebrow. "Sorry," he apologized, "reflex."
She smiled.

"What's a new moon?" Jovie asked.
"Opposite of a full moon. No moon."
"Oh, like tonight," she bubbled. The others shared grim looks. "What?"

Chester continued. "Anyway, the Smiths' task now is to hunt it down and kill it, and contain whatever damage it does. Which sounds bad, but keep in mind we've got a lot more help these days -- the CDC, the military... really we just have to give them leads if it's a disease or disaster or something, and we focus on... it... itself." Chester seemed to acknowledge that the lack of a name could be awkward, but moved on. "So whatever it is, we'll get through it." He looked at Em. "In the meantime, we need to keep you safe, because the same thing's gonna happen next year."

It still sounded like Chester was underselling it. And he looked anxious.

Em's forehead wrinkled. "So the ceremony... keeps him from crossing over? How?"
"I don't know," Chester answered, shrugging. "The ceremony itself isn't documented anywhere, and it's not something a guy asks about more than once. You Winters, like the other bloodlines before, when you carry the blade, your... immunity, I guess, it rubs off, and somehow they use that to close the hole."
"Maybe they chop Santa's head off!" Jovie gushed.

Chester glared. "It's not Santa. And anyway, it's supposedly more... ceremonial than that. There's this saying I keep running into--"

"By Winter's hand the blade is brought; it is our blood that binds," Em intoned.

"Yeah. See, 'binds' is the thing. They never talk about killing it -- well, they never really talk about it at all, but you know, still, you put stuff together, and when they talk *around* it they use words like containing, sealing, repelling, restraining... *binding*. It's like if something with their essense is present, it can't break through. I guess."

"Sounds weird," Jovie said, scrunching up her face.
"Yeah, well, the Crucifixion and Resurrection seems weird when you just lay it out in under two minutes."

Em seemed lost in thought. So Alex asked a question. "How long has this been going on?"

Chester let out a low whistle. "A long fuckin' time. I mean I've haven't seen anything before the 18th century in these records, except what's in this one about the Black Death and the Plagues. Other Smiths have other records, but if they have anything older they're not sharing. So everything before that's just tall tales. Em's grampa probably told her more than what anybody else knows. I think he's got older records, maybe everything the Smiths have... but *anyway*... the oldest stories are about a beast that appeared in the wintertime, roaming the countryside at night, stealing the souls of children and sick people while they slept. And this guy Nicholas, and later Sons of Nicholas, who were unaffected by the beast's touch and would hunt it down and kill it. That's where the name Saint Nicholas's Beast comes from, I guess. I think this goes way back, hundreds of years before the Black Death."

"Like what, the 3rd century?" Jovie piped in.
Chester stroked his chin. "Yeah, I guess."
"So maybe it was *the* Saint Nicholas." she said.
"Huh?"
"You know, Santa Claus. He was an actual historical figure, ya know," Jovie chided. "He was a bishop, and he gave away lots of stuff to charity, only anonymously." Alex was surprised to hear the word roll right off her tongue. "That's where the presents thing comes from. He was made a saint, and later his bones were stolen and taken to Italy."

Chester's eyes looked like they'd pop out of his head. Clearly this was a side of Jovie he'd not seen before.

"What? So I kinda dated my History teacher in high school."
"Most girls do that so they don't *have* to learn anything," Em sneered.
"Hey, I *liked* History," Jovie pouted. "You know I'm not as dumb as I look. These are a *business* investment," she said, thrusting out her massive chest.
Alex cringed, afraid one of her vest buttons might take out someone's eye...

"Ladies!" Chester admonished. "Please... so anyway, it's been a long time. I've been told all the old records were lost, because the first record-keepers were wiped out, along with the Nicholas clan, or we'd know more."
"The Black Death," Alex guessed.

"Well, there's a theory that maybe that's what happened *because* they were wiped out. But either way it sucks. After that there's supposedly a few wanderers who chase outbreaks of plague and stuff, but it's not until after Copernicus that things start to gel. There's this group -- started by a guy named Ruprecht, what eventually becomes the Smiths -- that starts backtracking where 'it' came from each time, and looking at the movement of the planets and tides and census figures and all kinds of shit, and they start getting pretty good at predicting where this thing's gonna pop up next. Problem is they don't have a Nicholas, so all they can do is follow it and throw enough at it to eventually overwhelm it. Well, and in the case of disease, they're quick enough they can usually set up quarrantines and contain it, which is a good thing I guess."

"So what *do* you have records of?"
"Picking up in the early 1700s, the Smiths stumbled on a Nicholas among their ranks -- I mean, somebody immune to whatever 'it' threw at the world. A Russian Molokan -- Zima Alekseev."
"I like Zima," Jovie enthused.
Chester continued. "He was soon married and had children, and they'd send him off to wherever they predicted the Crossing would take place, and he'd lead a team of guys to attack 'it' as soon as it appeared. Sometimes it would escape and they'd haul off after it, and sometimes they'd kill it on the spot. But one year it got smart I guess and... see, they'd use spears to try to fence it in and keep it from getting away as well as from getting close enough to kill them, and then Zima would cut off its head or something."

Em interjected. "I thought you said they didn't do that."

"They *used* to -- they used to wait for the beast to appear. Zima's wife wasn't too happy about her husband trekking all over the place only to have some *thing* try to kill him. And this one year it almost succeeded -- grabbed a spear and ran it right through him. The others managed to fight it off him and eventually killed it, and Zima survived -- the spear hit him in the shoulder, missed the important stuff -- but when he started packing the next year, Polina left him. Fortunately, that was the year Zima figured out the binding thing, and she came back, and things have been safer ever since."
"The 'binding thing.'"
"I told you I don't know, exactly. But every year, the Smiths look at their charts and stuff, and somebody hammers out whatever bladed weapon is deemed appropriate, and Zima and later his sons and grandsons would take it to wherever and the local Smith assigned to the ceremony would meet them and seal the hole."

"So what happened to the Zimas?"
"Alekseev. In 1850 the whole family was lost coming to America." Chester held up his hand to stay their concern. "Fortunately, by that time, the Smiths had some test that could identify someone with the immunity or whatever, and they'd already found two people with the trait." He looked at Emmeline. "The first one didn't work out, but the other one was your great... great-grampa," he said, hesitant about whether he'd gotten enough 'greats.'

Alex eyed the terrible book, still in Chester's hand. "How often does it get out?"
"Whew," Chester said, "a lot, I think, back before Zima. The Black Death for sure, and probably most of the plagues. Not having anyone immune really hurt, but on the other hand, it was kind of a rut -- plague sucks but it can be contained. With the Alekseevs, they got it down to a science -- a few escapes in the early years, but away from major cities where it wasn't so bad -- one time it chose fire, and burned several villages and crops across rural France, but nothing serious. With the Winters, it only got loose twice -- 1917, when your grampa's uncle died on the way to Nebraska -- that became the Spanish Flu -- and 1956, when your grampa got stranded in China and didn't make it on time -- that was the Asian Flu. Fortunately, that one didn't get too far outta hand. That's it." Then he frowned. "Until now."

Em took a deep breath. "So... you need me until you can find someone else with this immunity."
"Or, after a while, at least your genes, yeah."
Alex didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean, her genes?"
"Well, she *is* the last. If we lose her..."
Alex got hot. "Why haven't you been looking for others all this time? What, you just figured 'the Winters are still around, why bother?'"
Em gave Alex a look. "Alex..."
"No, Em, seriously. If this is so fucking important, why don't they have a dozen other people lined up? Why is it all on your shoulders?"

Chester sighed. "You don't understand. They've *been* looking. There isn't anyone else. They don't know if there'll *be* anyone else."
"Well then maybe your test is no good."
"Maybe. That doesn't change the fact that Emmeline here is the only thing keeping us from going back to the dark ages."
"She's not a *thing*," Alex snapped.
"You know what I mean. --Look, they've probably got sperm samples frozen or something. Maybe your dad even had a bastard. But even so, in the meantime..."

"In the mean time you've got me," Em said.
The way she said it sounded like more than acknowledgement -- it sounded like a commitment.

"Are you sure?" Alex asked.
"Alex, what am I gonna do? You saw what was in that book. I can't turn my back on that."

"And it's not like she has to get knocked up or anything," Chester said -- Alex's red-hot glare immediately cutting him short. "Sorry, bad choice of words. But you know, I'm sure they can harvest eggs... there's female Smiths too, I'm sure some'd be honored to be the mother of the next Nicholas."

Alex rubbed his temples. It was a lot to accept -- and he wasn't even involved. He could hardly imagine what Em was going through. He wondered what was going to happen next -- for her, for him... for everybody.

"Will Em have to go after this thing?" An image of Em bleeding out with a spear in her chest hit him like a gut-punch.

"Hell no," Chester said. "We can't risk her. Not until we know we've got a viable... Not until... offspring is tested. At least, that's how I think they'll play it. They didn't let the first Winter go out until he'd had a son."

"So she's gonna be locked up for months?" Alex said incredulously.
"Dude, I don't know. That's not my decision."
Alex felt his face flush. "You're damn right it's not--"

Em interrupted him. "Alex, it's okay."

"Hell," Chester slipped, "it might be better than bein' anywhere else the next few months."

That brought everyone down. Chester started to say something, probably to put a better spin on things, but gave up.

Alex was unsurprised when Jovie recovered her spirits first.
"You should make a movie about this, Chester. Magic blades and secret cults and little Play-Doh people and demons crossing over... it'd be cool. I could play Emmie."

Em shot a decidedly unamused look -- at Alex.
"And we could get Taye Diggs to play you, Chester. His series just got cancelled..." Jovie looked at Alex. "And you... maybe that guy from 'The Girl Next Door.' Or the boyfriend from 'Joan of Arcadia.'" She cocked her head slightly. "Or maybe you could just play yourself; you're kinda cute."

Em's head whipped around. "*Hey*," she snapped, "you've *got* a boyfriend."

Jovie didn't acknowledge the hostility; she was still wrapped up in her idea. "But you'd have to change the ending, though. I mean, going off into the mountains to have babies, it's too depressing, like 'Revenge of the Sith' but without 'Star Wars.'"

Chester glared. "Jovie, *hush*."
Jovie pouted. "I was just *saying*," she said half under her breath.

No one spoke for a while.

Chester finally stood up, walking over to the window to peek through the blinds again. Alex got up and stood next to Em; she took his hand.

Chester turned around. Alex thought he was about to suggest they get moving when Em spoke.

"You didn't tell us about the elves."

Chester's forehead scrunched for a moment, but then he nodded. "Yeah, I guess you would want to know about that, seeing as how you've already met them."
"And you said there'd probably be more of them," Alex added.

"Yeah. Well... I don't know much. I've never seen one -- almost no one has. They're like... connected to... 'it.' It uses them to go after those with the immunity, try to prevent them from getting to the Crossing. They only appear when conditions are right; there's supposedly measurements or formulas or something that tell which years they'll show up, usually when the full moon's close to the solstice, though there's more to it than that. The table has to be redone whenever 'it' gets out -- that creates some kind of surge, and they appear for a few years in a row after that, which means we're gonna see a lot more of those nasty little fuckers -- but the table's never been wrong before. I guess somebody forgot to carry the one somewhere."
"What do you mean, appear? Where do they come from?"
"Don't know. They're just... there. I mean, they don't like disappear or teleport or anything, just we don't know how they're formed. Or at least it's not in the records and nobody talks about it. Once they're here they move around pretty much normal."
"But don't people notice them? Wouldn't they call the police? How come they haven't been all over the news?"
"From a distance they just look like kids. Most people, they ignore kids, or at least they don't look at 'em real close. And they usually travel at night. They can figure out how to drive--"
"Not very well," Alex interjected.
"--but for the most part they're not real interested in machines, or weapons except the occasional weapon of opportunity like a club. Mostly they try to smother you. They don't have eyes or mouths or anything, but they act like they can see pretty well, especially in the dark. As for the cops and stuff, we think if they get caught or something they decompose, kind of like what happens after somebody chops them up. Within a couple minutes they dry out and..."
"And what?"
"...and turn into a pile of sugar."
Alex wasn't sure he'd heard right. "You mean like 'C and H, pure cane sugar, that's the one?'"
"Yeah, basically. I mean, not granulated white stuff like you pour out of a bag, more like the unrefined brown stuff, or sometimes if it's humid, a puddle of molasses."

"Killer gummi bears," Jovie breathed. "What a trip."

Chester ignored her. "We don't know how the elves find you guys, exactly, it's like they have some kind of homing signal. Most there's ever been is a hundred and change; that was back in the teens. Usually it's more like a couple dozen. They always showed up around Halloween."
Alex nodded. "They'd blend in better -- if anybody did see them, they'd just think it was kids in costume."
"Nowadays, yeah, I guess. Anyway, they're not exactly subtle, just persistent, so they're not hard to see coming, if you know what to look for." Chester suddenly looked embarassed. "Well, they used to be. I don't know what the fuck happened. They're not even supposed to be here this year."

Alex tried to lighten the mood with a movie quote. "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

Chester and Jovie gave him confused looks. Em squeezed his hand again. Alex looked down, thinking he screwed up; but she gave him a crooked little smile. "Clerks," she said, identifying the reference.

"Um, yeah." Chester shook it off. "I can tell you they're hard to kill. They don't really bleed, it's like this thick syrup that hardens up real fast. You basically have to chop them up into pieces. Guns don't really work, unless you use something with a lot of kinetic energy and blow 'em apart."

"They burn," Em said.
Chester stroked his chin. "You're right. Your grampa fought them off with a torch back in '61. And it was flaming arrows that did them in back in the 1300s or 1400s. --But usually Nicholas or the Alekseevs or Winters would just fight them off until they could escape and then just outrun them."

Alex felt Em squeeze his hand. She stood up. "Jovie, you got anything in that bag I could wear?"
Alex wondered if Jovie should be getting something *Jovie* could wear...
"Yeah, prob'ly." Jovie stood up and hoisted her bag onto the desk. Em shucked Alex's coat and handed it to him. Jovie looked at Em, noticing the ripped front of her dress, then started digging through the bag. "Let's see... Oh, I need to change my shoes..." She started to pull out an ankle boot but tossed it back in; then she pulled out a long black shiny thing and threw it on the floor; it thumped and writhed briefly before settling down. Another joined it. Thigh-high platform boots. "Oh, here."

Jovie pulled out a small wad of black fabric. "My friend Krystal gave it to me, but it's too small. I bet you could wear it, though."

Em held it up in front of her; Alex couldn't quite see. A t-shirt? Too small... Em reached behind her head and undid the top of her dress, then pulled the black thing on -- it was a t-shirt, or at least a half-shirt, fitted for a girl. She refastened her dress over the tee.

Jovie had pulled out what looked like a rolled-up black plastic tarp; she snapped it open with a quick Fwwhip! She laid it on the desk next to her bag; it was a long raincoat. "This is prob'ly too long for you," she said, "but you can wear the red one; it's behind the door." Em slipped neatly past Alex and pulled the chair away from the door, swinging it half-shut to reveal a blood-red belted vinyl coat, no longer than her dress. Em slid into it with a twirl, her grace reminding Alex of a dancer. Once she tightened the belt, the top halves of the coat fell open. Alex could see the black babytee fell a few inches shy of her belly button. He also saw something was written in bright pink letters across the front...

ROUB...?

Em noticed Alex's furrowed brow; she grabbed the sides of the coat and pulled them all the way open as if flashing him. He read the tee, the letters curved a bit on either end: TROUBLE.

She gave him a wink. "Perfect, huh?"
Alex just shrugged.
"Well it gets better," she said.

Huh?
She had a look in her eye. She looked... pissed.
"What are you thinking?" Alex asked.

"I'm thinking Jovie's right."
"Wha-?" Jovie said, nearly falling over with her second boot only half-on.

"It's a neat story, but the ending sucks. I'm gonna change it."

She turned toward Chester, who was still at the window. "You got a lighter?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"A lighter."
"Well, yeah..." He looked guiltily at Jovie. "I have a cigar every once in a while..."
"Give it to me."
"What for?"

She ignored the question and held out her hand. Chester reached into his pocket and pulled out a chrome Zippo.

Em flicked it open and thumbed it; a bright yellow flame sprang up. Em nodded her approval and snicked the lid closed. "Is it full?"
"I filled it this morning. You smoke?"

She ignored the question again and dropped the lighter in her coat pocket. "Alex," she said, turning around, "you recognize that truck they were driving?"
"Yeah..."
"You think we could find it?"
"Wait," Chester sputtered, "you're not-- there's no-- you can't--"

Alex remembered the truck's hair-raising turn back at the gas station. He tried to picture the neighborhood...

"What kinda truck?" Jovie asked.
"Mom's Cookies. Why?"
"Oh I love those! Especially the Cookie Parade with all the different kinds in one bag... Hey, ya know they used to have a factory or whatever over off International. It just closed a couple months ago."

Em looked at Alex. "What do you think?"

"I think they tried to kill you twice," he said cautiously.
"I think we can come better prepared this time."

Chester was trying to hide the fact that he was about to pop a gasket. "Emmeline, you don't know how many there are. You don't even know the axe is still in one piece. They might not even be there. And there isn't enough time."
Em shrugged. "Alex, what time ya got?"
"Nine-ten."
"What, about ten minutes there, maybe twenty minutes to downtown?"
"Maybe twenty-five."
"So that's..."
"Two hours, fourteen minutes."
"Know how to make a Molotov cocktail?"
Chester tried to butt in. "The axe handle's wood, isn't it? Wood burns... *people* burn."
"Never tried it," Alex answered. "How about torches?"
Em looked at Chester. "You got any rags?"
Jovie answered. "We've got these towels. And there's a box of shop towels in the bathroom."
"Get 'em," Em ordered. "We'll need to stop for a gas can."
Alex spotted something useful on the wall. "We should take this extinguisher, in case of friendly fire."
Em chuckled at that. "Chester, you got any ideas?"

Chester's face was red. "I think this is crazy. Think about what's at stake."

Em's eyes blazed. "I *am* thinking about what's at stake. I'm thinking about what's in that book, and making sure it doesn't happen!"

Chester dug out the cell phone. "Let me call my boss."
"You do what you gotta do," Em said, heading out the door. "I've got an axe to find."