Crime Spells

Eye Opening by Jason Schmetzer

Eddie Timmser didn’t know where Gong had gotten the pistol, but he did know he didn’t like looking down the barrel of it. He leaned away from the safe and held up his hands. “Hey, come on, man,” he said. “It’s not my fault. I can’t see this one.” Jesus, I should have stayed home tonight.

“What’s your deal, Eddie?” Gong asked. The light from Eddie’s penlight reflected from the burnished steel of the safe door and cast shadows across Gong’s narrow eyes. The pistol jerked an inch closer. “All the places we been together, buddy. Now you can’t see this one safe?” A sneer twisted across Gong’s lips, making the perspiration on his upper lip shimmer in the light. “I’m not buying.”

Buddy? The last time they’d worked together, Eddie’d spent three months in lockup before his public defender got him out on a technicality. Gong had make it clear away, with the loot and the rep to go with it. And now he was back, forcing Eddie to work again, to use his sight to make a fast score. As if there weren’t enough honest jobs where a guy who could see through walls could make a living.

“I can’t see it,” Eddie said. “It happens.”

He resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose, between his eyes. It hurt to look through metal, hurt right behind his nose when he concentrated and squinted and looked with the eye he couldn’t see. It hurt more when he looked at something he couldn’t see through, like now. There was a mother-big headache brewing behind his eyes, and his pills were in the truck.

This always happened to him. Every time he tried to go straight, something happened. Someone would call with a big score. A favor he’d forgotten all about would get called in. He looked at Gong. Someone would threaten him.

He looked away from the gun and played the light across the surface of the safe again. Something flickered. Eddie leaned in close, ran his fingers across the metal. There was a pattern etched in the tough steel, just barely there. He held the light close and moved his head alongside the safe.

“What is it?”

“There’s something here,” Eddie said. “Some kind of pattern.”

Gong lowered the gun. He bent down and held his head close as well, close enough that Eddie smelled the sweaty stink of fear and the beer on his fetid breath. Eddie wrinkled his nose and slid back a bit. “That’s got to be it,” he said.

“Got to be what?”

“That’s what’s blocking me,” Eddie said. “I don’t know how this works, but maybe somebody does. Maybe somebody knows that there are people that can see through metal like freaking Superman. And they know how to block it.”

Gong frowned. “What, like magic?”

Eddie stared at him. “I can look through metal, Gong. What the hell do you think that is?”

“It’s called magic,” a deep voice said from behind them.

Gong spun, the pistol already coming back up. Eddie just let himself fall backward off of his haunches, against the safe, and twisted to see what was going on. He didn’t have a gun-hated guns-and wouldn’t have used it if he did. Gong was shouting something, brandishing the gun, but Eddie barely heard or saw him.

Eddie was thinking about going back to jail. Not today, he thought.

A small man stood in the doorway to the study, an Asian man. His expression was calm, and he wore a simple white shirt with black trousers. His hairline was receding. He wore large wire-frame glasses. Eddie stared at him, blinked. Looked again, concentrating. He blinked again and then saw something else.

“Jesus Christ!” he muttered.

A black haze flowed around the man in the doorway. It filled the corridor behind him, peeking through over his shoulders and whirling like angry tendrils of dark-white cloud. When Eddie looked again at the man, a symbol burned in gold on his forehead. Eddie blinked again, lost his focus, and the cloud and symbol disappeared. The man appeared smaller.

“That is my safe.”

“We was just looking, man,” Gong said. His pistol was pointed straight. “And now we’ll be leaving. Come on, Eddie,” he said. He took a step forward, leading with the gun. The man in the doorway smiled, then shrugged his shoulders. Shivers raced up Eddie’s spine.

Gong screamed. His arm-and the gun-vanished. Eddie stared at it in horror. Gong screamed and screamed and screamed, waving the steadily shrinking stump of his arm as if he could fling whatever was eating it away. Eddie concentrated and looked again.

The cloud was climbing up Gong’s arm. Tendrils were already starting to encircle the small man’s head, caressing the loose ends of Gong’s hair and his ears. The screaming stopped. The Asian man at the door chuckled.

And then Gong was gone.

The Asian man smiled with satisfaction and turned to Eddie. Eddie felt the blood drain from his face. The cloud-was Gong really gone, or had it eaten him, or what?-rolled backward through the air and whirled around the Asian man’s head. “You can see it,” he said.

Eddie grunted and shoved himself up off the floor. The desk was between them, with Gong’s case still lying open. Rows of gleaming tools, a drill, and little odd-ended picks for locks flickered as the penlight played across them. Behind the case, off the edge of the blotter, were two ornate golden goblets.

“He called you Eddie,” the man said, softly, as if it were an everyday occurrence for a shimmering monster cloud to eat someone in his presence. “Is that your name?” The cloud flickered, shimmered a deepening blood red, and slid forward.

“Nope,” Eddie said, and took two steps forward-Jesus, here it comes!-and grabbed the goblets. The man’s eyes widened behind his glasses. He reached out, taking a step forward. The goblets were heavier than they looked. Eddie looked around, desperate. The window was large, a few feet behind him.

“Put those down,” the man in the glasses said. His voice held a tinge of steel, all the softness and humor gone.

“Where’s Gong?”

“Nowhere you would like to be,” the man said.

“Bring him back.”

“That’s not possible.”

Eddie shivered. The cloud was hanging between them, a malevolent mist, the haze a harbinger of pain and death and somewhere he’d rather not be. He hefted the goblet. “I just want to leave.”

“You never should have entered,” the man said. His mouth moved, whispering words in a language Eddie had never heard, not Korean or Chinese or Japanese or anything else he expected. The haze pulsed, deep golden, and then undulated larger, redder. The golden symbol glowed brighter. Eddie looked down at the goblet, expecting to see the golden light playing across the decorations, but he saw nothing. There was nothing to see.

Light reflected… not whatever he saw, whatever let him see through metals and walls and safes and the dressing room doors at Macys. What he saw wasn’t real. What he saw didn’t affect the real world.

But Gong was still gone. Damn it.

Eddie spun and hurled the goblet in his left hand at the window. It was heavy enough, but if the man had spent as much money on his windows as he had on his safe it would be transparent plexi and not glass, and the goblet would just bounce off it. He dove after the goblet, toward the window.

The window broke.

Eddie fell through, tearing his arm and his sleeve on the jagged glass. He heard the man scream from behind him, and then the first crash of thunder as a storm rolled in. He hit the ground hard, grating his arm to the bone on the pavement, but he forced himself up and into a run. He still held the other goblet.

Peeve would know what to do. If he could get that far. Lightning crashed around him, casting great shadows against the alley walls.

He didn’t look back.

There was a guy at Peeve’s when Eddie got there, a big black man in a nice suit with a wet overcoat. His head was shaved bald-not just his hair, either… no eyebrows, no beard, no nothing-and he was standing near the end of the counter, ignoring Peeve.

Peeve was Peeve. He stood about five-ten, two hundred pounds. His hair was receding, but he kept spiking it up in the front like he had a shark fin on his head. Hawaiian shirt, shorts, flip-flops. He was four or five stereotypes rolled into one. He looked up when Eddie came in, frowning.

“You’re dripping all over everything,” he said.

“Sorry. Listen, Peeve… I need you to look at something.”

“Did you get them?” the black man asked. Eddie looked at him.

“Get what?”

“The rings,” the man said. “The things you were sent to retrieve.” He looked past Eddie at the door. “Where is Gong?”

“Gong’s dead.”

“What?” Peeve hustled out from around the counter. He locked the door behind Eddie and then turned around. “How?”

“Did you get them?” the black man asked.

“Who the hell are you?” Eddie snapped.

“Edan Boukai,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I am the one who hired Gong to enter Mr. Kim’s home.” He looked at Peeve and then back at Eddie. “This was to be our meeting point.” His voice was think with accent but understandable.

“We never got the safe open,” Eddie said, and turned away from him. “Listen, Peeve-” he began.

“How did Gong die?” Boukai asked.

“That guy-what’s his name, Kim?-he killed him, all right?” Eddie snarled and shook his head. “Listen, Peeve, I need you to tell me what this is.” He reached into a pocket and brought out the goblet.

“It’s a cup,” Peeve said.

“God damn it, Peeve,” Eddie started, but Boukai cut him off.

“Where did you get that?”

“It was on his desk,” Eddie snapped. “Shut up a minute, will you?”

“Were there two?”

Eddie waved the goblet. “I’ve only got the one.”

Boukai looked down at his hands. “Then they are separated…” He turned away, muttering under his breath. Eddie stared at him for a minute, then looked at Peeve.

“Tell me what happened,” Peeve said.

“We were working on the safe, but it wasn’t going well.” He told him how Gong had pulled a gun on him. He explained the markings on the safe and how he couldn’t see inside it. “It was like the markings blocked me.”

Boukai spun around, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, blocked you?”

Eddie steeled himself. He didn’t advertise, but the guy had already heard most of the conversation. “I can see through things, okay? Walls, doors, metals, anything. Just like Superman. Except I couldn’t see through the safe.”

Boukai’s eyes widened, white-rimmed against the black of his skin. “You are a seer?”

“A what?”

“You can see the inside of things?”

“I just said that, didn’t I?”

“Prove it. What do I wear around my neck?”

Eddie stared at him. He opened his mouth to argue, then thought about it. His head already hurt. His friend was dead. There was a good chance this guy was nuts anyway, and if nothing else, the whatever-that-ate-Gong might catch up with him. He concentrated. “A horse.”

Boukai stared. “Who trained you?”

“No one trained me.”

“A natural…” He shook his head. “How did you come to learn this?” Then he saw the goblet and shook his head. “Never mind. Tell me of these markings.”

“Why do you want to know?”

Boukai took two steps until he was face-to-face with Eddie. “Because I hired you and your friend to retrieve something from Kim’s safe, a pair of rings. Because I recognize the chalice you bear and know that it has a mate that appears identical.” He paused. “Because I know it hurts you here,” he tapped between his eyes, “to use your Sight.” He looked past Eddie, out the window to the rain-filled alley.

“Because I know what is coming, boy. Now tell me everything, beginning with how Gong died.”

“You are very lucky to be alive,” Boukai said when Eddie was finished talking.

“That’s messed up,” Peeve said.

“Yeah.” Telling the entire story again made Eddie’s stomach tighten. He rubbed his sore arm and looked at the cracked linoleum floor. It could have been much closer.

“The cloud you describe is a fakir. That is not its true name, but it serves. It is a servant from another realm, and Kim controls it. He has bound it to his command using black sorcery.” Boukai faced them, Eddie and Peeve, as they sat on the counter. “He uses it to get what he wants.” He spat the last sentence with a vehemence that even Peeve couldn’t miss.

“You really hate this guy, don’t you?” he asked.

Boukai ignored him. “The reason you could not see through his safe door to the tumblers beneath is indeed magic. There are charms that can be worked into metal that protect it from seers or other magical attacks.” He reached into his coat and produced a silver flask. When he held it up, it flashed in the light. “Look inside this.”

Eddie frowned and shook his head. “It’s got booze in it.”

“You haven’t looked. I didn’t ask what was in it. I asked you to look inside.”

Eddie swallowed the angry reply that his headache wanted to shout and concentrated. He stared at the flask in Boukai’s hand. He saw the metal. He set his mind, saw the metal again, and pushed. Then he gasped.

Golden letters flickered on the inside edges of the flask. They were written far too small for him to make out from that distance, and yet they showed clearly in his vision. The letters glowed brightly. He didn’t recognize the alphabet.

“I can’t read it,” he said, after a moment.

“It’s not a language of man,” Boukai said. “I could teach you.”

“Not in an hour,” Eddie said, shaking the Sight from his head. “So I’m a seer. So what? That’s not going to stop Kim from siccing his fakir or whatever its called on me.” He hopped down from the counter and stumbled. His leg had gone to sleep. He bent over to rub the blood back into it, cursing under his breath at the pain of the pins-and-needles sensation.

“You are right. We must deal with Kim first.” Boukai looked around. “He will surely be here soon.”

“Whoa,” Peeve said, standing. “What do you mean, he’ll be here soon? Why would he come here? Why would he even know where here is?” He walked past the two of them and peered out through the store’s front window into the steadily falling rain.

Boukai pointed to the goblet sitting on the counter. “Because of that. Its mate will lead him here as soon as he recovers it. They are linked, you see. In the other realm.” He picked the goblet up and cradled it in his hand. “But perhaps…” He looked at Eddie. “Have you attempted to See this?”

“It’s right there,” Eddie said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do you have any idea how much my head hurts?” Eddie turned away from him and leaned over the counter. He wanted to rub his head, to reach beneath his skin and stamp out the pain between his eyes. But he couldn’t. He knew if he tried it would only hurt more.

“Your pain is a manifestation of your Sight. Because you’re not trained, you’re forcing it. If you could learn to control it more easily, the pain would lessen.” Boukai’s voice trembled and dropped an octave. Eddie looked over his shoulder. The black man was holding his hand over the top of the goblet and chanting. The words were similar to those Kim had said but not the same. “It’s possible,” Boukai said, a moment later in his own voice, “that you could be shown.”

“How?”

Boukai held up the goblet. “Look at this, and we’ll see.”

Eddie turned back to face him. “Why are you doing this?”

Boukai straightened. “Because Kim Lu stole something from me, something very dear. And because he took that, I will take everything from him.” He held out the goblet. “And you’re going to help me. Now concentrate.”

Eddie held his gaze for a moment. Looking at Boukai’s eyes was like looking at rocks. Finally he sighed and lowered his line of sight. The goblet beckoned at him. He concentrated on the goblet’s rim. Lightning flashed outside. The light flickered against the golden cup but didn’t fade. Eddie’s eyebrows rose. The light kept growing. And growing.

Until finally it became so bright and white and the pain replaced everything else.

“Eddie?”

The pain was gone.

“Can you See?” Boukai asked.

Eddie opened his eyes. He was flat on his back on the floor. From the feel of things, lying in his own puddle of rainwater. He squinted as the fluorescents in the ceiling cut at his eyes. And suddenly he was looking at the stars. He snapped his eyes open. Ceiling. Squinted.

Stars.

“Wow.”

“I will take that as yes,” Boukai said. “Can you stand?”

Eddie shrugged and sat up. His head swam a little. He put a hand to the side and waited a moment. It passed. Taking Peeve’s hand, he stood.

“What’s it like?” Peeve asked. Eddie gave him a look. “Sorry.”

“We need to find out what you’ve learned,” Boukai said. “He will be here soon.”

“Why aren’t we running away?” Eddie asked, looking around for the goblet. “I mean, that’s what you do, when someone is chasing you. You run away.”

“We cannot escape the fakir.” Boukai brought the goblet around from behind his back. “Tell me what you see.” But Eddie had already stopped listening.

The goblet existed in four dimensions. That was the only way Eddie could express it to himself. He saw the goblet in Boukai’s hand, radiant gold against the soft brown of his skin and the deeper black of his coat. But he also saw the ones next to it, on either side, that shifted out of his sight if he tried to look directly at it. “It’s like it’s shaking,” he said.

“That is because this chalice exists in all realms,” Boukai said, looking down at it himself. “You see this one and the two nearest it. When you bring it together with its mate,” he brought his hand overtop the goblet, coverings its mouth, “you can open the way to another place.”

“That’s neat and all,” Peeve said, looking out the window again, “but if we can’t get away from the faker or whatever you called it, what are we going to do?” Eddie looked at Peeve and then at Boukai.

“That’s a fair question.”

Boukai smiled. “We shall take it from him.”

Peeve stared. Eddie stared. Boukai laughed.

“First I need to see what Eddie has learned,” he said. He held up his flask again. “See again.”

Eddie looked at the flask and squinted. The letters appeared before his eyes again… but this time with more meaning. He read them. He could read them. He looked at Boukai. “How did you do that?”

The black man smiled and bowed. “I am not untrained myself,” he said.

Peeves looked at them. “What’s going on?”

“I can read the words,” Eddie said. He looked again at the flask-through the fabric of Boukai’s pocket this time-and read them again. “Who is Mariel?”

Boukai’s face hardened. “She is dead.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and held his breath for a long moment. Eddie waited. Finally the black man exhaled and opened his eyes.

“When Kim arrives, he will have the other chalice.” He held up the one in his hand. “It is important he not join them.” He held the goblet out to Peeve. “You must hide this somewhere out of sight, but somewhere you can reach it when we need it.”

“Where I can reach it?” Peeve asked.

“We?” Eddie asked.

“When Kim comes, he will have the fakir. We must be able to overpower him and get the chalice away from him. If we can, we must get the rings from him as well. They control the fakir. It is through them that he binds it to his will.”

“The thing that ate Gong. The cloud.” Eddie traded glances with Peeve. “You want me to fight that.”

Boukai smiled, a predatory smile a wolf might have worn. “No. I want you to manage Kim. I will handle the fakir.” And then he laughed, a great and terrible laugh, and shrugged out of his coat. He threw the overcoat on the countertop and stopped laughing as suddenly as he’d begun.

“Hide the chalice,” he said. Then he spun to face the door. “He is here.”

Peeve scooped up the goblet and ran behind the counter. Eddie moved halfway down the counter, out of direct line of the door. “What do I do?”

“You must See,” Boukai said, unbuttoning his shirt halfway. His sleeves were already rolled up, revealing blue-ink tattoos covering both his forearms. When Eddie squinted, the tattoos shimmered as the goblet had. “I will fight his magic. You must fight the man.”

The plateglass window exploded.

Eddie looked out into the storm and screamed.

In Kim’s study the fakir had been a cloud, a hazy harbinger of death and dread. To his new Sight it was much more. It was a wraith. A demon. A creature of mist and malice with wings and talons and great gaping teeth. It wove its way through the window even as the door opened and Kim stepped through, the other goblet clutched in his hand.

“You!” he shouted, when he saw Boukai.

Boukai smiled and gestured. The tattoos on his arms flowed forward, dark and shiny tendrils to duel the fakir. Where they touched, arc-white sparks danced. Sounds crackled inside Eddie’s head, and he realized he was standing still. What the hell do I do know?

“Get out of here!” Peeve shouted. He popped up from behind the counter with a pump-action shotgun leveled. Eddie swore and dove to the side. The gun’s explosion was just as loud as the sound of the demons fighting, but this sound shook his chest and echoed through the small shop. Eddie twisted his head to see the shot, expecting to see Kim’s bloody body slumped to the floor.

He was still standing, arms outstretched, watching the fakir duel whatever Boukai had summoned.

Peeve ratcheted the slide and fired again. This time Eddie was looking that way, and he Saw what happened. The buckshot blazed into the fakir’s center and sparkled like fireworks for a brief instant before it disappeared to wherever Gong had gone.

“Son of a bitch,” Eddie whispered.

“You cannot fight it,” Kim screamed.

The fakir circled the black man like a hound on the hunt. Boukai kept his eyes on it, his arms raised. Eddie tried to focus on whatever was growing out of his arms but they moved too fast. Like the goblet, they were there and they weren’t. What if the fakir was like that? He looked at it, but it still appeared hazy.

Kim lunged two steps forward. The fakir advanced, crackling with energy, struck the tendrils along their length. Eddie was forced to look away. The light was so bright it hurt his eyes, but when he looked down he saw it cast no shadow. Just as at Kim’s place.

“Eddie!” Boukai cried.

Eddie looked. The fakir was high off the ground, with just enough of itself lowered to guard Kim from Peeve’s gunfire. As he watched, Peeve ratcheted and fired again, but this shot went the same way as the rest. He squinted, and looked. The goblet was inside Kim’s coat, tucked there as he used both hands with the fakir.

There was a crack, and Boukai fell. The fakir flickered at him, caressing his head and shoulders, but the tattoo tendrils were still there and held it at bay. Eddie’s brow furrowed in amazement as Boukai himself seemed to shimmer and bounce between realities, but he steadied back to one person. Eddie ground his teeth and looked around for something, anything. It was obvious Boukai was losing. He had to do something. He looked around him, around the store, trying.

But there was nothing to See.

“Do something,” he whispered to himself. And then he Saw it.

Kim was holding his elbows tight against himself, holding the goblet secure around its side. Eddie concentrated, squinting with his mind even as his eyes narrowed. A slender chain appeared, trailing off the goblet toward the counter, toward Peeve. Eddie twisted that way, thinking to warn Peeve, when it hit him.

The other goblet. And then he looked again and saw the chain pulse and undulate, toward Kim and his rings. When the pulse reached him, the gold symbol on Kim’s forehead glowed a little brighter. And then the fakir advanced, a bit stronger. It was feeding off the goblets somehow. It was magic.

“I will fight the magic,” Boukai had said. “You will fight the man.” Eddie frowned.

The magic is kicking his ass, Eddie thought. But Kim’s still a man. And that was it.

“I know how to fight a man,” he said, and clambered to his feet.

He charged.

He was within two steps before Kim dragged his attention from the battle with Boukai to see the threat. All he had time to do was shout “No!” before Eddie slammed into him. He hit Kim in the midsection, crushing the goblet between them. The rim of it cut painfully into his shoulder even through the fabric of Kim’s coat. They fell in a pile on the floor.

Boukai screamed. “The chalice!”

Eddie fumbled for the goblet. Kim brought one hand down on it and wrapped his other around the back of Eddie’s neck. His touch burned like fire. Eddie screamed and lashed out. His fist connected with Kim’s chin. The fiery touch disappeared. He looked down. Kim was conscious, but his eyes were wandering. Eddie dug through the man’s coat, found the goblet, and flung it behind the counter toward Peeve. He heard it clank against the floor. He glanced back long enough to make sure the ethereal chain had gone with it and then looked back at Kim.

“Got it!” he called. There was no answer. He looked.

Boukai was on his knees, his arms held above his head. The tendrils that had so adroitly fought the fakir were slender shadows of themselves, and white had leached its way up the tattoos on his arms. Eddie looked at the fakir, writhing above him, probing with taloned wings. He turned back around, cupped Kim’s head in his hands, and slammed it against the floor. The man whimpered. Eddie did it again. And again.

He stopped.

The rings. He reached down and grabbed Kim’s limp hand. He clutched at the ring there. It burned his fingers. He yelped and let go. Checked over his shoulder. Boukai was on his back, but the fakir was motionless, waiting.

“Peeve!” Eddie called.

“Is he dead?” Peeve asked, peeking over the countertop.

“Get over here. I need you to take his rings off.”

Peeve crept out from behind the counter, leaving the shotgun where it was. “Why can’t you do it?”

“Because they burn my fingers.”

“Why are your fingers more important than mine?”

“Peeve, damn it. Just do it.”

Peeve reached out with one finger and tapped the ring. Nothing happened. He tapped again. Then he grabbed it. “It’s barely even warm,” he said.

“Take it off,” Eddie said, watching the fakir. He felt something nibbling at the edges of his awareness. He hoped it wasn’t the cloud starting to gnaw on him the way it had taken Gong’s arm off. “Then the other one. Be careful.”

“Careful of what?”

“I don’t know, do I?” Eddie waited. Peeve got both rings off, and nothing happened. The fakir didn’t move. Neither did Boukai.

“Now what?” Peeve asked.

“The chalice,” Boukai whispered. “Get the goblets.”

Eddie scooted over to where the man lay motionless. His arms were at his sides, all the color gone from the tattoos. The skin beneath them was as white as porcelain. Eddie looked closer, saw the lines etched in Boukai’s face. His breathing was shallow. Peeve came back with a goblet in each hand.

“The rings,” Boukai breathed. “Put one in each cup.” Peeve dropped them in. “Now hold the tops together.” Peeve tipped them against each other. Boukai’s hand came up and grasped Eddie’s wrist weakly. “Now, seer. See the words inside.”

Eddie looked at the goblets, squinted. He saw many goblets, one after the other. Where there had been three before there were ten, twenty, a hundred. He concentrated on the center. He saw inside, saw the rings swirling in a vortex of light. He saw the words flare to life on the inside of the cup. He spoke the words.

There was a great tearing sound, a flash of light and pain, and then cold.

“Ow!” Peeve cried, dropping the goblets. “They’re frozen.”

“It is done,” Boukai breathed, letting his head roll to the side. Tears leaked down the side of his face. “Mariel, it is done.” He looked back at Eddie, smiling. It seemed some of his strength was returning. “Look,” he said.

The fakir was gone. Eddie picked up the goblets, looked inside. The rings were gone. Behind them, Kim moaned. Peeve looked over at him and then stood. “I’m calling the cops,” he said.

“Go ahead,” Eddie said. “They’ll never believe it.”

Boukai shuddered and laughed. “You are right,” he said. “But it does not matter. Without his fakir Kim is nothing.” He rolled onto his side and reached toward his coat. “We must be going, Eddie,” he said.

“Where?”

Boukai sat up. “You’ve learned much tonight,” he said. “Think of what I can teach you tomorrow.” He chuckled and jerked the coat down from where it had lain across the counter. He dug in the folds until he produced the flask. A swig seemed to give him the strength to sit up and start rolling his sleeves down.

“What else can I learn?” Eddie asked, standing. He looked down at the exhausted man sitting beside him.

“You can See,” Boukai said, extended a hand. “Now you must Do.”

After a moment, Eddie took the proffered hand.