Skillful Death Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  1 Preface

  2 Early Years

  3 Street Magician

  4 Birth, Midwife

  5 Birth, Boy

  6 Young Boy

  7 Awake

  8 Midwife's Ministration

  9 Awake Again

  10 Dream Email

  11 Harvest Festival

  12 Orphaned

  13 Second Trial

  14 The Plumber

  15 Caught Again

  16 The Bear

  17 Partnership

  18 Decision

  19 Escape

  20 Seeking

  21 First Night

  22 Swimming Lessons

  23 School

  24 Moved On

  25 Work Completed

  26 Escaping

  27 Moon Dance

  28 Magic Explained

  29 River

  30 Staying

  31 Torma

  32 First Medium

  33 Courting

  34 Betrothed

  35 Matrimony

  36 The Bald Man

  37 New Father

  38 Messenger's Return

  39 Star-crossed Lovers

  40 Living with Rejection

  41 Father

  42 Silent Partner

  43 Swimming Lessons

  44 Remembering

  45 Resurrection

  46 Dictating

  47 Grown Daughter

  48 Alone

  49 Extinguished

  50 Reborn

  51 Gone

  52 Arrival

  53 Accidental Billionaire

  54 Home Invasion

  55 Travel

  56 Abroad

  57 Constantine's Home

  58 Negotiation

  59 Forestling

  60 Original

  61 Creatives

  62 Confluence

  63 Battle

  64 Ceremony

  65 Awake

  66 Found

  67 After

  68 Family

  69 Conclusion

  About Skillful Death

  More by Ike - The Vivisectionist

  More by Ike - Lies of the Prophet

  More by Ike - The Hunting Tree

  More by Ike - Extinct

  More by Ike - Migrators

  Skillful Death

  BY

  IKE HAMILL

  WWW.IKEHAMILL.COM

  Dedication:

  To my friends and family.

  Special Thanks:

  Cover design by BelleDesign [BelleDesign.org]

  Proofreader and Editor, Jill S. Weinstein [[email protected]]

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events have been fabricated only to entertain. If they resemble any facts in any way, I’d be completely shocked. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of Ike Hamill. Unless, of course, you intend to quote a section of the book in order to illustrate how awesome it is. In that case, go ahead. Copyright © 2014 by Ike Hamill. All rights reserved.

  1 PREFACE

  DO YOU EVER CATCH something out of the corner of your eye and then spin your head to figure out what it was? When I was younger, it was always a falling leaf, or a passing car, or a cat jumping down off a garbage can. Now, it’s often nothing at all. Perhaps the corners of my eyes are giving out and firing off random signals. Whether it’s something mundane, or nothing—just a random signal—I’m always disappointed. I want it to be a pixie, or demon, or alien death ray. I want the conspiracy to be true. I want the real story to be so much more than I could have imagined. I’m sick of the rational explanation. I’m sick of Ockham’s razor. Unfortunately, I’m an accomplished skeptic with no capacity to suspend disbelief. I stand in the path of my own happiness.

  You can’t trust rich people, so I had a couple of ground rules before I agreed to write/transcribe this. I refuse to document a murder without reporting it. I don’t want to be an accessory to a blubbery, half-baked confession and then be bound to confidentiality. I’m not sure you can be compelled to keep quiet about evidence of a murder, but rather than take the chance, I put it right into my contract. Second, I wanted the ability to inject any background or explanation into the story where I felt it necessary. The boss kept control of his chapters, but just so he couldn’t skew the story too much, I wanted to be able to throw in my own perspective. You’ll see it.

  I guess that’s all the prep you need.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  He seems calm enough talking to me. I’m less worried about the arsenal he’s amassed.

  Bud: It’s roughly the same story.

  Malcolm: Perhaps you should go ahead and tell me?

  Bud: I can’t stress enough—it’s a long, long story.

  Malcolm: I have time.

  2 EARLY YEARS

  CONSTANTINE WAS BORN TO a respected couple on the Shylan Road, but was stolen away beneath the folds of the Midwife’s wrap before his rightful family ever laid eyes on him.

  The Midwife took him home. He was tiny compared to his twin sister, and probably wouldn’t have lived if he’d been left with his birth mother. The vitality of his older sister would have hoarded all the energy and love of their mother just as it had while they were in the womb. But in the house of the Midwife, Constantine survived. Two months later, when he finally looked the size and weight of a normal newborn, the Midwife announced him as her own fresh child. With her generous build and loose clothing, nobody doubted that she could have been pregnant. They should have doubted her ability to conceive, given her long string of beaus and no other offspring throughout the years, but if those rumors existed, they never touched her ears.

  Constantine was considered the bastard child of a Midwife, and was not suspected to be a “Midwife’s baby” until much later in his life. Growing up the bastard child of a laborer in Sokolsky County, Constantine had no right to public education or apprenticeship. He should have counted himself lucky to secure a position sweeping horse dung from between the cobblestones of the square, but Constantine proved more crafty, or perhaps more lucky, than that.

  His home was on the Masty Road, in a tiny little cabin propped between three solid oaks. Constantine grew up under the negligent eye of the Midwife. She didn’t have the wherewithal to supervise him. Once he grew out of her arms, he couldn’t come along with her to do her midwifery, and he wasn’t welcome at the school. He was on his own from an early age. One day, a neighbor on the Yarrow road found two-year-old Constantine suckling at the teat of his old bitch. The boy had strangled three puppies in his ardor for the milk, but the bitch didn’t seem to mind. She had too many mouths to feed. The neighbor was incensed. He’d already promised each of the puppies to a different customer. He carried the young Romulus back to the Midwife’s shack upside down, by his heel, holding the youngster at arm’s length. Constantine never made a sound during the trip and only grunted when the neighbor dropped him on his head at the roots of one of the oaks. The neighbor never got a chance to complain directly to the Midwife. Coincidentally, he died in his sleep that same night. His widow followed the Yarrow road to its end and she wasn’t heard from again.

  By three, Constantine spent most of his days under the bridge of Hyff Lane, where it crossed the Masty stream. Downstream from the bridge, the Masty stream followed the Masty Road, since they were both headed to the same place. However, up where the stream crossed under Hyff Lane, it was a free agent, winding a nonsense course through the woven roots of twisted maple trees. Constantine loved that he could walk down the shallows of the stream all the way home and not leave a single footprint in the soft forest floor.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Malcolm: Wait. At three years old, you we
re exploring the woods and hanging out under a bridge?

  Constantine: Yes.

  Malcolm: That seems a little far-fetched, even for you. Maybe you just snuck down there once or twice when you were a little older and you remember it wrong.

  Constantine: I know I was there every day because the Midwife would kick me out of the house when she’d leave, like a dog whom you don’t trust with the furniture. I know I was three because I had three marks on my forearm when I found that bridge. The bridge had three supports in a triangle, and I had a triangle of marks on my arm. See?

  He removes the cufflink from his left sleeve and raises the starched blue shirt high enough so I see his veined forearm. There, he has seven star-shaped marks. They’re raised like brands, and powdery blue. The ones near the center are blurry compared to the outer ones.

  Constantine: Each year, near the end of spring, the Midwife would catch me and put another mark.

  Malcolm: Why only seven?

  Constantine: During my seventh summer, I ran away. She could never catch me a again to make her mark.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Constantine didn’t talk much and didn’t know anybody. When he heard or saw another person, he’d run away. Even the Midwife didn’t get to spend much time with him. When she got home from her rounds, she’d spot Constantine lurking around the back door and try to lure him inside with food, like a feral cat. His favorite was anything with ginger in it. She could get him to eat a whole plate of bloody liver as long as she shaved some fresh ginger into the frying pan when she seared it.

  The first words the Midwife ever heard little Constantine say came when he was five. By then, the Midwife assumed he’d never talk. With his claw-like fingernails, stringy hair, and unwillingness to stay dressed, Constantine seemed like he’d never be tamed. The Midwife started to assume that he would always live with her, like her mute mascot. She was shocked to tears on the spring day when he spoke.

  “Make fire,” he said.

  The Midwife never spoke around the house. She didn’t see the point since Constantine never parroted back any of the things she said. Now, with those two words, the floodgates opened and the Midwife couldn’t stop talking.

  “Fire? Do you want me to make a fire? Or, do you want to make a fire? Do you want me to show you how to make a fire?” she asked. Constantine didn’t respond. He crouched in the doorway, cracking acorns with a rock and then nibbling at the bitter nuts.

  The Midwife moved over to the cold ashes of her fire pit.

  “I tell you what; I can make a fire and you can watch very closely. If it’s something you want to learn to do, then you can make the fire next time and I’ll help you out. This fire is completely dead. I didn’t bother to bank it before I left this morning because it was such a warm day. I didn’t want the house to be insufferable when I got home. I’ll start with a little bit of dried grass and some moss. I don’t need too much because I do have some really good ashes here. Do you see how I brush out a little hole before I pile the stuff in? You have to get enough wind in there. Air is as important as fuel. You must remember that. Some of these bone-dry twigs will catch nicely and then I can layer on some heavier wood for when that gets going. Do you understand?”

  Constantine threw away his latest cracked acorn and sniffed the tips of his fingers. He didn’t watch or even look at the Midwife.

  “Now that everything’s laid, I just need a spark,” she said. “Here’s the easiest way to do it. You just scrape a knife against the side of this rock. Don’t use a good knife. Use a dull one. Do you see how easy that is?”

  The Midwife hunched over her work and spoke to her hands. “You can’t smother it, but you want to give that spark plenty of fuel.”

  She looked up when she had a decent little flame licking at the sticks. Constantine had wandered off.

  3 STREET MAGICIAN

  “WHO’S NEXT? WHO’S NEXT?” the guy asks. He has a slight accent around the edges of his vowels, as if his tongue needs to wrestle them for a moment before it will let them go. I peg him as originally eastern European, but he’s well assimilated. In fact, his English is so good that he might have grown up in New York in a Russian household.

  His eyes dance all around the crowd, but never touch mine. That’s how I know he wants me to be the next customer. He’s exerting his will on the group—forcing them not to step up, just by stabbing them with a quick glance. They take turns flashing smiles back at him, but then their eyes turn away. They’re unwilling to challenge him. But he doesn’t press me back with his glance.

  I glide forward to the front of the circle which has formed around him on the sidewalk.

  “Yes, sir. What can I get for you?” he asks me. His eyes rest on my chest, only flirting with meeting my gaze. My hand is half covering a twenty that I’ve placed on his green felted table. That’s his hustle. You bring him money and you get to pick the trick.

  I’m studying his hands. They flow like water, shuffling the deck of red-backed Bicycle cards over and over. It must be a fresh deck, I figure. If he worked the same deck that hard day after day, the cards would be in tatters by the end of a week.

  “Let’s go! These folks want to see a trick, dontcha folks?” he asks the crowd. He gets a few nods and grunts. “Come on, folks! Do you want to see a trick or not?” This time, the people get into it and give him back some love.

  A good percentage of his bits are routine. You could get almost any street magician to do them. He doesn’t have any flashy floats, or vanishes, or any dexterity-based stuff, but his hands—the way they move—tell more about his expertise than perhaps he’d like them to. But, he has one bit I’ve never seen before and I’ve been standing here in front of the guy for twenty minutes trying to figure it out.

  “Let me see ‘One of Each,’” I say.

  “Sir, sir,” he begins, “these nice people have just seen ‘One of Each’. It’s a fine trick, but come on, it’s not exactly the flashiest piece. How about a nice classy force?”

  He’s suggesting that I pick a card, any card, but somehow he’s going to force me to pick the card he’s already chosen. Bold of him to tell me he’s going to do it, and it could be a challenge for me to try to disrupt his timing, but it’s not the trick I’m here to see. Anyone with a strong enough will and good practice can pull off a force nine out of ten times.

  “One of each,” I repeat, and I add another twenty to the bill already on the table. This is forty bucks for two minutes of work. I’ve just outed myself as someone who is not a casual customer. Maybe I could be another hustler, or perhaps a scout, but he’s seen me lurking for twenty minutes. He knows I’m no ordinary passerby.

  “One of Each.” He repeats this with authority and begins his singsong patter. “Believe it or not, folks, I’ve been trained to keep track of each of these cards. Every time I shuffle, I know exactly the position of all fifty-two. Each of these cards is like one of my children and I consider it my duty to keep in touch.”

  He flips the top card and flashes it at the group. Before the trick, he had about a dozen watchers. The group slowly collects more walkers as his voice speeds up and he gets into the meat of the bit. The card he flashes is the eight of diamonds.

  “Lucky girl. How are you, darling?” he flips the card back over and shuffles the deck.

  The next card he flips is the two of clubs. He says, “My youngest boy. Bottom of the pile, son.” He tucks the card on the bottom of the deck.

  I stop looking directly at his hands. His hands are trained to fool me. It would be like looking in the eyes of a running back. You’ll never guess which way he’s going to juke if you’re looking at a running back’s eyes, you have to look at his hips. With close-up magicians, looking at the hands will only get you fooled faster. I like to pick a spot right between the elbows, usually about the middle of his chest. That’s where I look. If you keep your eyes fixed on that point, you can let all his movements flow into your peripheral vision and then you can spot his trick before it happ
ens. I’ve been looking at his chest since I walked up and his hands have never stopped shuffling and cutting the cards.

  I’ve been looking for a deck swap, a pinky break, a floated card… anything. But all that’s happening is honest shuffling and cutting.

  “As you can see, all my black cards are my boys. My red cards are my little girls. The numbers are their ages. How many more shuffles, sir?” he asks.

  “Give me three.”

  The cards dance in his hands through three quick shuffles.

  “I know my children so well that I don’t even have to look at their faces to tell you who they are.”

  He doesn’t have a mark on the cards. I’m close enough to see that. That was my first guess, of course. Even in his patter, he’s practically daring you to think that.

  “I’m going to set my family down on this table, sir, and I’d like you to fan them out.”

  He squares the deck and sets them on the left edge of the green felt. He withdraws his hands and folds his arms across his chest. I consider taking this opportunity to monkey with his cards a bit, but I want to see the trick work as planned and see it up close. I fan them out to the right and await his instruction.

  “Thank you, sir. Now, if you would, please choose one of my beloved. Leave him or her face down for now and I’ll prove to you how well I know my kin.”

  Since I’m the one who fanned them, I know there’s no force going on here. He hasn’t somehow influenced me on which one to pick. I coax the corner of a card from about two-thirds through the deck and pull it towards me, leaving the face pressed against the felt.

  “Thank you, sir. Now I will shuffle once more. Please note I’m never going to touch that card.”

  The group is dead silent while he executes his shuffle. We’ve only seen two cards from the deck at this point. He could have anything in there.