Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

There were no matches so she turned on one of the gas stove's burners and bent, shaking, to light the cigarette. The first intake of carcinogens was harsh relief. Her fingers stopped quivering. She gnawed her lower lip, then took another puff before blowing out a plume of smoke. Her back was to Squire.

"Feel better now? You needed a smoke, huh? I know the feeling. Not that I smoke but… Oh, hey, Oreos!"

When Julia spun to look at him again, Squire had already picked up the bag of Oreos and was helping himself. The package crinkled as he drew out a pair of cookies and popped them in his mouth like they were dog biscuits. She expected him to throw back his head and gulp them down, but instead he stared at her and then spoke up once more, talking with his mouth full.

"So. Sour cream?"

"What?" Julia asked him. "The sour cream… for what?"

Squire rolled his eyes, snatching another Oreo from the pack and then going back to the open fridge. He retrieved a couple of items from within and then closed the door with a bump from his hip. "For the omelets we're making for the hungry troops? Remember?"

She smiled nervously. "Right. Sorry." Eyes darting away, she took another long drag on the cigarette, no longer caring if the house smelled like smoke. She leaned back to look through the doorway into the living room, where the others had gathered. "My head is spinning."

"That's all right," Squire said, returning to the refrigerator. He yanked open the door again and helped himself to some eggs. "Gotta admit, this business has even got me seeing stars, and that's sayin' somethin'."

He asked her for a large frying pan from the rack that hung over the kitchen's center island. She doubted that he could have reached it even with the added help of a stepping stool. Julia retrieved it for him.

"Best thing to do is keep your head and keep thinkin' the good thoughts." He looked at her as he doused the pan with no-stick cooking spray. "That's what I do, and it hasn't failed me yet, except for that business with the Beast of Gevaudan. That shit was just bad news from the start."

He rattled on a bit more and she nodded her head and smiled politely, but deep inside she could feel it building, the urge to scream and throw them all out of her house, her son included. If at the very moment she had been given the choice to crawl back inside her mother's womb, Julia Ferrick would have done so without so much as a second thought. She felt as though there was an electric current passing through her seat and into her body.

She found herself gnawing on the nail of her left index finger, even as she tapped the ash from her cigarette into the stainless steel sink. Great. She'd given into temptation, and now she had two habits to kick instead of one. But, God, the cigarette was a comfort. Just holding helped to steady her.

Squire was using a whisk to beat the eggs inside a bowl, humming busily to himself, seemingly content to ignore the fact that the world was falling apart all around them.

"That's quality," Danny said as he came into the kitchen.

Julia thought for a moment about trying to hide her cigarette, but it was too late. He looked disappointed for a moment and then just sighed. She gave him a small shrug. What could she say? In a situation like this, the kid should understand. She thought about putting it out, but he'd already seen her anyway, and she needed that cigarette.

Averting her eyes from his gaze, she took another drag and let the smoke trail from her mouth. Then she did her best to smile. She put on a brave face for her son — and he would always be her son, no matter if she had given birth to him or not, no matter if he was even human. The tiny black horns that had burst through his skin and now protruded, just above his temples, made her shudder, but she did her best to hide her revulsion.

"What's up, kid?" she asked him.

"I wanted to know more about this Doyle guy. Dude took an interest in me, but how does he know all the stuff he knows? I asked Eve what his story was, but she said to ask Squire." Danny focused on the ugly little man and Julia was grateful he wasn't going to fight her about her smoking. "Says you've worked for him the longest."

Squire abandoned his cooking for a moment to snatch a few Oreos from the package. He popped one into his mouth and went back to whisking eggs. "You want the short version or the long version?"

Danny sat on the edge of the table and crossed his arms. "Let's start with the CliffsNotes. Mom says I have a short attention span."

"Mr. Doyle. The boss. A.K.A. Arthur Conan Doyle. Learned a bunch of magick. Tries to keep the nasty shit from bothering normal people. End of story."

"Come on. There's got to be more to it than that."

Squire shrugged. "Lots more. But you wanted the short version."

"Hold on," Julia said. "Just… just hold on." The cigarette dangled from her fingers, nearly forgotten. Her brows knitted as she stared at Squire. "Arthur Conan Doyle. His parents gave him the same name as the creator of Sherlock Holmes?"

Danny shot them a confused look, his Converse Chucks squeaking on the linoleum. "What, you mean that cartoon? Sherlock Holmes in the Thirtysomething Century?"

Squire snorted, but it wasn't derisive. Danny amused him. "Kid. Sherlock Holmes is one of the greatest fictional creations ever. People around the world know who he is. Like Mickey Mouse and Superman. He was created in the 1800s."

Then the leather-skinned, ugly little creature turned on a burner and started to heat a pan in which to cook omelets. He didn't even look up as he responded to Julia's question. "And, no, the boss ain't named after Sir Arthur. He's the real deal. The one and only. You see the way he dresses? He's not old-fashioned. He's just real old school."

"No shit?" Danny asked, a strange grin spreading across his badly scarred features. "That's just so fucking cool."

"Watch your mouth," Julia snapped, glaring at her son. It was such a maternal thing to do that she had a moment of dislocation, as though none of this was happening. It was all impossible. This latest news was only the latest in a string of impossibilities. But the tip of her cigarette burned and the smoke warmed her throat. She was awake and alive. Julia knew the difference between a dream and a nightmare.

Everything that was happening to them was real and true. Danny was

… what he was. But just with those few words, with the rush of instinct she had to chide him for his foul language, snapped part of her mind back into place. He was her little boy, still. No matter what. She had raised him, put band-aids on his scrapes and cuts, comforted him when he had a nightmare. How could she possibly think of him in any other way?

"Sorry, Mom," he mumbled, averting his eyes.

She reached out and ruffled his thick, curly hair, and gasped when a handful of it came away in her fingers, floating to the floor. "Dear God," she muttered, staring at the bald spot that she had created.

"It's okay," he reassured her. "It's been falling out pretty steadily for the last few days." He moved the hair on the floor around with the toe of his sneaker.

She felt the tears well up in her eyes. It took every ounce of her self-control not to break down sobbing.

Clay and Eve entered the kitchen, their focus on Squire.

"How are those eggs coming?" Clay asked.

Julia gazed sadly at her son and slid down into a chair at the kitchen table. Danny kicked at her chair lightly, playing with her, being a brat, but only to remind her of who they were, to let her know he was still there and still himself. She nodded, smiling weakly.

"Eggs?" Squire barked at Clay, flipping a golden brown omelet with a spatula in the frying pan. "When have I ever merely prepared eggs, compadre?"

Clay laughed pleasantly, and Julia trembled again as she recalled how the handsome man had somehow changed himself into a mirror image of her, her exact doppelganger. How such things were possible she did not know. All she did know was that she was not going to be getting used to them at any time soon. She took another drag of her cigarette, now smoked almost down to the filter, and chose to focus on the kitchen conversation. She was becoming fairly adept at preventing herself from losing her mind. It seemed she had no other choice. What was that old saying? Adapt or die. Her version was a little different. Adapt or lose your marbles.