Michael Prescott: Riptide

His face changed. He picked up the scissors again. The cutting blades gleamed with dangerous scintillation. “Numbers? You’re counting on numbers to save you? What we have, the thing that changes us-it’s in our blood.”

“Our father was twenty-five when he began to show symptoms. You were twenty-six. I’m thirty.”

“It’s not too late for you.”

“I think it is.”

“Never too late. It’s in our blood .” He punctuated the last word with a swing of his hand that passed the scissors within two feet of her. She shrank back. She couldn’t help it.

He would never assault her. He was her little brother.

Except he wasn’t so little anymore. He was six inches taller than she was, and he was paranoid, delusional, crazy.

He stepped closer. The hand holding the scissors was tightly clenched, the knuckles squeezed white.

She reached for the door. “I need to be going.”

“You’re afraid. Afraid of me.”

“I just have things to do.”

“Afraid,” he said again, and with his free hand he grabbed her by the wrist.

“Please let go of me,” she said without inflection.

After a long moment he released her. “Don’t let me keep you. I never wanted you here. You’re a nuisance. Get out. Run away.”

She opened the door and stepped into the hall, daring a backward look. “Take care of yourself, Richard, okay?”

“Fuck you.” He filled the doorway, his face distorted. “You took the house from me. You took everything and left me to rot in hell, so fuck you, bitch, fuck you! ”

He slammed the scissors into the door frame, planting them in the cheap wood. She recoiled, stumbling. He laughed, a raging idiot laughter that echoed down the hall, pursuing her as she fled.

She didn’t start crying until she was on the stairs.

By the time Jennifer left the lobby she had composed herself. Whatever Richard had been thinking, she was still sure he would never harm her, or anyone.

“Checkin’ up on him?”

The voice came from behind. She turned and saw the building manager, a heavyset bald man with a perpetual stubble of beard.

“I told ya the goddamn building didn’t fall down,” he added as he walked up to her, his mouth working on a wad of something black.

“I needed to see for myself.”

“Right. You don’t trust me. Hey, if you’re so concerned about your crazy-ass brother, why ya got him living in this pile?”

It was uncomfortably close to what Richard himself had said. “He likes it here.”

“Yeah? Well, I wish he didn’t. The rest of my tenants ain’t too wild about him bein’ around. ’Specially the ones in number twenty-two, right below him.”

“What complaint could they possibly have?”

“Only that he makes a racket late at night. Every night, at least recently. We’re talking two, three in the A.M., okay? He comes stomping in, all agitated. It drives ’em crazy, hearing all that shit from upstairs.”

“Richard goes out at night?”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ ya, genius. He’s a fuckin’ tomcat, always on the prowl.”

“I had no idea.”

“Yeah, I guess it would be asking too much to have you keep an eye on the crazy son of a bitch.”

“I do keep an eye on him. He’s always around whenever I come by.”

“Try coming by at night. Or in the morning, early. That’s when he hangs out at the graveyard.”

“Graveyard?”

“The one on Pico and 14th. You know it?”

“I know it.” Her voice was low.

“Lady in number sixteen goes jogging every day. Runs through the cemetery. Says he’s there a lot, just standing around, talking to himself. Or maybe he’s talking to the dead, for all I know.” The manager spit out a chunk of whatever he was chewing. “She wants him outta the building. Everybody does. I’d kick his ass out on the street in a minute if the law would let me. Speaking of which, he don’t pay the rent, I’m having him evicted, okay?”

“He’ll pay you. He’s just…forgetful.”

“He’s non compost mentis, is what he is,” he said, getting it wrong. “He’s a freakin’ nutjob, okay? You shoulda had him committed a long time ago.”

“He’s my brother .”

“So what?”

Jennifer turned away without answering. She was halfway down the front walk when she heard him call after her.

“Hey. He ain’t violent, is he?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Some of the women, they say he gives ’em the evil eye. Hostile. Real scary.”

“He’s not violent.”

He couldn’t be.

***

When she got back to the house, her phone was ringing. She picked up before her machine could intercept the call. “Hello?”

“So you survived the quake.” It was Casey.

“Still have all my fingers and toes. You?”

“I’ve got all my appendages. And I do mean all .”

“This is how they came up with the expression, call someone who cares.”

“Harsh, Pee-wee. Very harsh.”

“But accurate. And don’t call me Pee-wee. According to the news, Pacific Area got the worst of shaking. How bad is it?”

“Well, it’s not Northridge, but way worse than Chino Hills. A lot of old buildings are gonna be red-tagged. Hopefully not yours.”

“This house is solid,” she said with pride. “It’s survived a century of seismic events.”

“You’d better hope your luck holds. Anyway, I’m riding patrol for the rest of the day. Emergency protocol. You know the drill, nobody on patrol side goes home. My advice is to stay off the streets. Traffic’s a mess.”

“It didn’t seem too bad to me.”

“You’ve been out already? Gawking at the damage like every other lookie-loo?”

“I had to check on my brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother. He okay?”

“Yes, he’s…fine.” As fine as he ever was.

“See, I’m learning more about you every day.”

“I’m endlessly fascinating.”

“You are,” he said over a crackle of radio crosstalk. “You’re an exotic riddle, like the Sphinx. A woman of mystery and intrigue — ”

“Enough with the compliments.”

“It’s never enough. Just give me time. I’ll wear you down, Silence.”

“Don’t count on it, Wilkes.”

“You know you want me. You’re just making me work for it.”

“Self-delusion is a terrible thing.”

“You should know. So you’re sure there was no damage to your place? Did you check everywhere?”

“I checked.” She decided she had to tell someone and it might as well be him. “Part of my cellar wall crumbled. And you’re not going to believe what I found.”

“I’ve been wearing a uniform for eight years. There’s nothing I haven’t seen or won’t believe.”

She told him. When she was through, there was a brief silence on his end.

“Shit,” he said finally.

Childishly she was pleased to get a reaction out of him. “Is that your professional opinion?”

“How the hell did they get there?”

“Maybe it’s some kind of family crypt from way back when.”

“I’m coming over.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“I think it is. See you in five.”

“Really, I — ”

Dead phone.

It was nice of him to worry, she guessed. But she wished he wouldn’t.

With a dustpan she swept up the mess under the fireplace. Shards from the decorative jars were intermingled with the sea glass. She would have to sift through the fragments later. It was easy enough to tell them apart. Sea glass developed a frosted patina of minute crystalline formations. What began as a fragment of an ordinary bottle underwent a magical transformation into a gem. A sea change.