Venomous

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Y OU WHAT? ”

I’m with Renée in her room, and she’s staring at me like I just made a joke about her parents. Which, I know, is an uncool thing to say, but the lines that separated the venom and I are getting blurrier by the day. We are separate but equal at this point, and while it used to be helpful, it’s started to get a little intimidating.

I keep my head bowed, trying to keep my focus. “You should’ve heard him, Renée. He’s so bitter and hateful, and at the same time, he’s so alone.”

“This is a joke. Locke, tell me this is a joke.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please, please, Locke, this is not funny.”

“It’s not meant to be.”

Her hand floats slowly up to her mouth. “You really did. You told him. Oh my God.” Her face goes from dead and stunned to creased and bunched. She shoves me, and I have to remember that I’m angry at the situation, not at her. “Why, Locke? Why in the world would you ever do that?”

“Renée, wait, listen, you still don’t understand-”

“No, Locke, you don’t understand!” She jabs me in the chest with the other hand. “We’ve been keeping this a secret from Randall for years. This thing predates me. Jesus, Locke. How could you? After everything that happened last night, he was probably left in an emotional state, but you can’t…JESUS, I can’t believe you did that.”

The venom speaks up, pissed. “Well, maybe you guys should start, I don’t know, being honest with your friend? It’s not my fault that you’ve lied to him for as long as you’ve known him, and it’s not my fault that Casey acts like a shithead nine times out of ten. Last night was a wake-up call for me. Besides, you mentioned Casey’s crush so casually in passing, I didn’t think it was such a huge fuckin’ deal.”

“Yeah, but I also told you NEVER TO MENTION IT. GODDAMMIT.” Renée starts pacing, shaking her head. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“Screw you.” My face goes flushed, my head’s buzzing, but there’s no shame or depression, just pure righteous indignation. “Randall’s one of our best friends, and apparently he’s pretty upset with all of us. Why not tell him that one of the few people he respects, worships the ground that he walks on?”

“Okay, fine, let’s say you’re right, and Randall deserves to know about this. Fine. I’ll agree with you there. But take a second to remember that there’s someone else on this earth who is as short-tempered, melodramatic, and fucking enraged at the world as you are. Think about Casey, Locke, and think about what’ll happen to the black when he finds out that his cover’s blown. Telling Randall about Casey was the only way you could respond, huh? Well, think about what Casey’s about to go through.”

It suddenly all makes sense. If Randall revealed that he’d been in love with me for a while, I don’t know how the venom would take it, and Casey and he have been friends for years upon years. Casey’s black might just explode if he finds out that his cover’s blown. This is a lose-lose situation. There’s nothing about this that can turn out well.

Renée sighs. “This can’t turn out well.”

“I was just thinking that.”

“Glad we’re on the same page. What’re we going to do now, Locke?”

The phone rings. Renée stares at me with a horror-movie look, as if we’d just unplugged the damn thing, but it’s still ringing anyway. Slowly she walks to the phone and glances at her caller ID. She sighs again and looks at me. “It’s Randall.”

“Shit.”

“I’m putting him on speakerphone.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

She doesn’t even look at me, her face oozing contempt. “You’ve helped start this mess, and you’re going to help clean it up.” She presses a button on the phone’s cradle, and then we hear the buzz of the other end. “Hey, hon, what’s going-”

“Let’s skip that shit, okay?”

His voice makes me flinch. He sounds emotionless, cold, dead to the world. There’s nothing in his voice that suggests he’s talking to people he even remotely cares about.

“Honey, look, Locke told me-”

“Shut up, Renée,” he barks. “How long has he felt like this?”

HE JUST TOLD HER TO SHUT UP.

I’m in enough trouble already.

YOU’RE GOING TO TAKE THAT?

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a lie.” His disembodied voice crackles. “How long have you been lying to me?”

The venom drives into my nerves, like a dentist’s drill. “Randall,” I say, “it’s Locke. Listen, man, there’s no reason to act-”

“Don’t try to pull that shit with me, Stockenbarrel,” he snickers bitterly. “I’m no idiot, I see right fucking through you. You didn’t tell me about this because you thought I had a right to know. You told me this because you knew it would hurt me. Well, it worked. I’m hurt. Fuck off and die, you selfish bastard.”

“Watch your fucking mouth, Randall.”

“Or what? Pray tell, what’ll you do, pal? What more can you do to me at this point, Locke? Poison me, beat me up, kill me. I fucking dare you.” He clears his throat. “Now, Renée. How long?”

“Calm down. Let’s talk about this, okay?”

“Last chance.”

“Randall, it’s not that simple.”

“Cool,” he snaps. “I’ll just ask him, then.”

Click.

Renée dives for the phone, screaming “No!” and slapping Randall’s number onto the buttons so fast and hard that I’m sure she’s going to break it. She holds the receiver to her ear with both hands. “It’s busy. Locke, he’s calling Casey.”

My head is shrinking while the buzzing chaos inside it swells and pushes. The venom reaches back and tightens the screws in the nape of my neck. Everything is chaos, like flipping emotional channels, rocketing through my head one after another. I squeeze my eyes shut, clench my fists till they shake, and nothing changes. The venom is barely a voice anymore-it’s like a tone, a low-pitched whine behind my face, splitting my brain in two.

“Hey!” She’s in front of my face, staring at me with tired eyes. “You with me?”

I manage a nod.

“This isn’t unfixable,” she says in the same sharp, clear monotone, “but it’s pretty fucking bad. And I need you for this, okay? You have a lot of fixing to do today, and I need you here, now, not in your head.”

“I got it, okay?”

She puts a hand on the side of my face, and her palm quiets the roar a bit, a familiar sensation calling me back to reality. “Calm down,” she whispers. Her voice is like a gust of cool air. “Think clearly. The venom isn’t going to help here, it’s only going to cause more trouble. Stay with me, kid.”

The phone goes off again, and both Renée and I jump. She breathes deep, leans over, and hits the speakerphone button. “Hello.”

There is only white noise, the endless buzz of background noise at the other end of the phone.

And then the voice comes out. Like a bunny caught in a trap, bleeding to death. Like a child after his first day in hell.

“Renée…”

“Casey,” she says softly. “Casey, honey, you there?”

“Oh God, Renée…,” he moans, hoarser and louder.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” she whispers, “it’s okay, I know. Where are you?”

“RenÉEEEEEE!”

This is like the experiment scene in A Clockwork Orange, like I’ve been strapped down and forced to watch pain. His voice is painful, emotionally damning to listen to. This is torture. Any serenity Renée had given me was running out fast. Casey’s every word set my heart on fire.

She bites her lip and puts a hand over her eyes, hissing, “Fuck.”

“Renée, oh God, he said…he just told me someone told him!” Casey moans again, his voice increasing steadily in pitch and volume. “He knows, and he called me a liar, and he hates me, I know he hates me now, and I’m so fucking scaAAAARED!” Screaming gives way to heavy, racking sobs. I can picture him in a ball in the corner, his eyes wide, staring at the wall in a new shade as the black creeps through him. I can tell what stage he’s in right now, seeing as I’m in it so much myself. And I’m terrified. Jesus doesn’t live here anymore. We’re all gonna die.

“Casey,” she coos, “relax. Deep breaths. Pull yourself together. Randall doesn’t hate you, he could never hate you. Just don’t get too out of control-”

There’s a thud, deep and resonating, on Casey’s side of the connection. My own behavior in the past springs to mind-he’s punching walls. “OUT OF CONTROL? RENÉE, ARE YOU FUCKING LISTENING TO ME? He said, fuck, he wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise, he knows and he hates me, he said so. He told me…” Casey chokes a bit, spits. “He told me that it explained my behavior over the past couple of years, it all made sense now. Oh GOD, RENÉEE…”

“Case. Shhh. It’s going to be fine, and we’ll work together on this. But you need to calm down. You can’t deal with any of this if you’re acting like a maniac, all right, babe? Forget the black. Talk to me, dude.”

“Do you know who told him? Who was it? Who told him?” His voice goes quick and feral. “Was it one of the tarot kids? Do you know when? Jesus fucking Christ, Renée, I need to find out who told him.”

The question hangs in the room like a mist, heavy and ugly, clammy to the touch. Renée stares into my eyes with a look of utter fucking hatred, waiting for me to be the brave one, to step up and tell Casey it was me, and I just can’t do it. My head is a blur of crushing noise, but it seems to be keeping my mouth shut.

Renée finally picks up the slack. “Casey, look, does it matter? Would it make a difference if you knew who told him?”

A pause. “Oh. It was Locke, wasn’t it?”

“Case, c’mon-”

“Why else would you be so defensive?” he snarls, and then softens. “Was it Locke? For the love of God, Renée, don’t tell me it was Locke.”

Under my breath, I hiss, “Fuck.”

Shoulda been quieter, though. ’Cause the phone goes silent. There’s still the background noise, letting us know that he’s on the other end, but everything else, even his breathing, stops immediately. Renée turns to me, wide-eyed and pursed-mouthed, while I feel the blood drain out of my face.

Casey’s voice, careful and measured: “Am I on speakerphone?”

Renée puts her face in her hands.

Now or never, buddy. “Casey, please, you have to listen to me.”

“Oh. My. God,” he whispers, voice dripping with hatred. “Oh my God, you’re a dead man, Locke Vinetti. I’m going to beat the fucking sinews out of you, you angsty little shit. How dare you. I’m gonna…” Then there’s a smash on his end, like breaking plates, and his voice becomes a furious howl. “YOU TOO, YOU BETRAYING FUCKING CUNT. DO YOU TWO HEAR ME? I’M COMING FOR BOTH OF YOU. HERE COMES THE PAIN, YOU MISERABLE FUCKS. HERE COMES THE BLACK. YOU’RE BOTH DEAD WHERE YOU FUCKING STAND.” He starts cackling like a madman, his voice louder and louder until it’s a static electronic whine, until there’s another crash and the call cuts out.

Renée decides that her place “isn’t safe,” as though Casey is a team of highly trained mercenaries. We walk to my place, a couple of New York City vampires-black coats, dark shades, skin with an obvious lack of sunlight. There’s a tension between us that gets worse and worse as the walk continues. We barely speak, our mouths occupied with cigarettes, our minds taut with anxiety. By the time we get to my apartment, I’m almost wishing she would go away and leave me alone with the venom, let me ride its course, but I know her presence is the only thing keeping me from going utterly batshit. The venom’s not abating in the least.

Thank the maker, my mom and brother are nowhere to be found. We get to my room and immediately curl up on my bed, still silent. It seems like the only option available at this point-to clutch each other for dear life.

After about twenty minutes of silent cuddling, when the noise in my head has quieted just enough for me to form a coherent sentence, I ask, “So, do you hate me now?”

“Cut that shit out,” she mumbles into my chest. “It’s as if you want me to hate you at this point. I’m sick of it.”

“Why would I want you to hate me?”

“Because it would justify your poisonousness,” she says in an academic monotone. “You would feel justified in thinking of yourself as a blight on my life.”

“You agree with Randall then,” I snap. Suddenly her touch feels repulsive. “I’m just a melodramatic victim.”

“No,” she says. “I think Randall was over the line in talking to you like that. You’re his friend, and he owes you more than that. But this is a big deal, and I am pissed at you, and he has a point.”

“Is it really, though?” I spit out, speaking before thinking. “So Casey has a crush on him? Does that warrant all the crying and the breaking shit?”

“Look who’s talking, Mr. Takes Me Two Minutes to Cripple Someone,” she says. “This isn’t just a crush, hon. This is years of friendship and embarrassment on Casey’s part. You dealt with the venom your own way, but part of Casey is wanting what he can’t have, and you just yanked the support out from under years of propped-up baggage. What if that happened to you? What if a portion of this crazy-ass life you’ve built around yourself just got smashed?” She shakes her head against me. “There’s no right answer here, it’s everyone’s fault, but it’s not the end of the world. There.”

You don’t know a thing about me, lady.

“I’m sorry. I love you.”

“I know,” she says, and then as an afterthought, “and I think your mom’s home.”

The door clicks and opens to the sounds of my mom and Lon carrying groceries into the kitchen. My eyelids clamp together, and I take a deep breath. The siesta was nice, but we have to get out of here. Considering the state I’m in, I can’t deal with my family, especially if they’re meeting my girlfriend for the first time.

“Locke?” calls my mom. “You here, honey? We got chocolate milk.”

There’s no way of exiting without running into them. Make this quick. “In my room. Be out in a second.”

We straighten ourselves up and get our coats back on. Before I open the door, Renée grabs my face and kisses me, hard, as if we’re on our way to a quick demise. I open the door, and we shuffle into the kitchen.

My mom looks up from a paper bag and smiles. “Hey, babe, chocolate milk’s in the fridge-Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had someone over.”

“It’s cool. Mom, this is Renée. Renée, Mom.”

“Renée? The Renée?” My mom squeals in delight and, in traditional Mom response, sidles over to us and gives Renée a huge bear hug, pulling my girlfriend into her maternal bosom. Renée’s eyes are just visible between my mom’s grasping arms, a look of panic lining her face. It’d be cute if I didn’t want to leave this place as soon as possible.

The person who gave birth to me pulls Renée back at arm’s length and beams into her face, but her smile suddenly wanes a bit, and then she decides to mortify the crap out of me.

“Honey,” she says, inspecting my girlfriend, “do you really need all that mess on your face? You’re so pretty!”

“Jesus, Mom,” I say a little too loudly. “Come on, don’t do this.”

My mom suddenly looks hurt and embarrassed, and I hate myself for it. “I’m sorry, kidlet, I don’t mean to be…It’s just, she’s got this beautiful figure, and this lovely hair, and then BAM! Captain Howdy!” For the first time in my life, I contemplate matricide. Like lightning, I pour myself a glass of chocolate milk and throw it down my throat. It helps. A little. Mostly I just feel nauseated.

Renée stays charming, picking up my slack. “Locke makes me wear it. He doesn’t want any competition, and it scares the other boys away.”

“Well, good. At least he knows a worthy investment when he sees one.”

“Yeah, he’s a pretty perfect kid.”

My mom glances sidelong at me and stage-whispers, “I like this girl,” which sends her and Renée into fits of well-choreographed laughter. I try to force a chuckle, but it dies in my throat. “So can you kids stay for dinner? I was thinking spaghetti, but if we have company, I could do something a little bigger, maybe make some chicken parmigiana-”

“Actually, we have to get going,” Renée interrupts before I can act like an even bigger dick to my mother. “We’re meeting Casey and Randall for dinner in a little bit, and we’ve already ditched ’em a couple of times in the past. You know how it is.”

“Sure, sure, no problem, have a good time,” she says, waving us away. I can hear it in her voice-I don’t mean to cramp your style, you kids go ahead. I feel terrible, like I’m hurting her, but I’m also enraged. Sorry I have my own fucking life to deal with now. If she had any idea what I’m going to have to deal with today-

“Honey? Come on, we have to run.” Renée’s hand is on my shoulder, pulling me away. I wave good-bye to my mom, and we move toward the door, thinking only about the fresh air, the sun, all things outside my fucking apartment.

Suddenly a blond blur darts in front of us, and Renée and I are confronted with ten years of overachieving young man smiling up at us.

“Are you Renée?” asks Lon peppily.

“I so am,” she says with a smile. “Lon, right? How’re those comics treating you?”

“They’re great,” he says, elated to be in front of my comics-savvy girlfriend. “I really liked ’em. Too bad you guys can’t stay for dinner. Locke, we’re having spaghetti tonight. And you can see some of the drawings I did at school today! Here, stay for dinner, I can show you, I did this one of Iron Man. And his armor’s really hard to draw. But I think I got it down. It’s just the chest plate, it’s a real pain, so I don’t think he looks perfect-”

“Lon. We’ve got to go. Back off.”

Lon’s mile-a-minute speech stops dead with a frightened wheeze. Renée looks over her shoulder at me, equally taken aback-the voice that just spoke was commanding, cold, and impatient, exactly not how I should be talking to the best little brother ever.

I clear my throat. “Sorry, man. Rough day, okay? We’ll talk about it later. We need to go.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking down at his feet, ashamed to be shut down in front of company. “Sorry. I understand. Nice meeting you, Renée.”

As we tromp down the stairs of my building, Renée shakes her head. “That wasn’t cool, Locke. You don’t do that to a little kid in front of company. All he wanted to do was impress me, you realize.”

I don’t. Fucking. Care.

The cool New York air hits me, lowering my insane body temperature a few degrees. Every remedy for the venom-chocolate milk, cooling down, Renée-is frighteningly temporary. Every movement of my body is charged with fire. Every thought is murderous, persistent. This day could not get any worse.

And, as if on cue, Renée’s phone rings.

“Hello? Brent, hey, yeah-What…Oh, fuck. Yeah. Locke told him. No, no, we should get to him first…Right, exactly. Where is he? Okay. Yeah, sure, it’s cool. Yeah, I know where that is. Thanks a bunch, man. Bye.” She clicks her phone shut. “He’s at a bar on Seventy-third. Apparently, he’s called all the Major Arcana to try and put out some sort of hit on us or something. They were less than receptive, so Brent called me.”

“So what do we do?”

“We meet him at the fucking bar.” She sighs. “What else do friends do?”

The P &G Café is apparently a dive in the truest sense-it is neither large nor well-lit nor clean nor in any way cool. There’s a bar, some bottles, and a couple of tiny booths surrounding a broken-down jukebox. While its outside is lined with flashing neon depicting martinis and signs for steaks, it’s really only good for holing up and drinking yourself to death. It looks, honestly, like the kind of place I’d normally love to go and drink, probably with Casey. Today it’s the house of Dracula.

“Put on your game face,” says Renée, staring at the bar with the same dread. “You’ve seen Casey bad before, but nothing like this. Fuck, this might even be a learning experience for me.”

“How do we want to do this?”

“I’m gonna go in there and sit down with him and try to talk him down. After that, I’m going to tell him that you’re outside, and if he’s down, we should go somewhere and work this through. I figure we give him the choice, that way he doesn’t feel cornered.” She gives me a wary eye. “The most important thing is that everyone keeps their temper. You need to basically throw your pride away and apologize fully. Remember, in a situation like this, anger never solves any-”

The door to the bar flies open and there he is, standing in the doorway, hunched over and panting. Each time he breathes, a throaty, grating noise comes ripping through his mouth. His hair is mussed, in his face, and even though I know he’s only known about what happened since this afternoon, his clothes look like they’ve been slept in for a week. A line of spittle hangs lazily from the corner of his massive smile, and twitches every time he lets out a breath. His eyes are as big as dinner plates, but for a moment I almost think I can’t see any white in them, that they’ve glazed over with the deepest, darkest black.

“Holy shit,” he says, advancing on me. “I’m going to kill the shit out of you.”

“Casey, wait.”

U P TO my elbows, then my shoulders, in this monster’s mouth. Its huge, shiny eyes were only inches from my face, and the whirling tentacles at its maw seemed to be gibbering at me in hideous, hellish laughter. There was no doubt in this creature’s mind: I was lunch, a hatred-fueled snack.

Fine. If it was going to pull, then I was going to push.

I closed my eyes and felt the dark energies of the city, the fuel for our fires. Like a ham radio, my mind found the core frequency, the seething black heart of the city’s hate-flow, and tuned into it. Be a conduit, Locke. Use it. Your powers are the same as his, just a different form. Attach one to the other.

There. The pain, the evil. Every drop of innocent blood, every life shattered.

Focus it. Move it through your heart and into his.

My costume flared, grew, twisted. With one great push, I used every ounce of darkness I had and fired it into this beast’s obsidian heart with one concentrated blast.

And then, fireworks.

My hands exploded in shadows, sending crackling energy and burnt sludgelike tentacle flesh firing into the sky. The bolts of obsidian light rippled through the future-Blacklight’s system, burning away and absorbing every ounce of power he was deriving from the city’s black core. There was the sound of a thousand people screaming in anguish, and then the monster flew away, its flesh cracking and blowing away with the river breeze as ash, nothing more. I reeled back, taking a deep breath-I’d never released such a concentrated amount of energy before, and I’d never absorbed so much at one time.

My costume rippled and shook. So much darkness. So much avarice and guilt and hatred, pulsing throughout me. I was a god-no, God, the one, the only. I was power and strength, pure and unfiltered. It was incredible.

I stood, watching his slumped form, and remembered the three words he had spoken. The ones that mattered the most.

“I killed her.”

The costume twitched. I knew what I had to do.