2
" But, if you've decided to go out on a limb and kill one, for goodness' sake, be prepared. We all read, with dismay, the sad story of a good woman wronged in south Mississippi who took that option and made a complete mess of the entire thing. See, first she shot him. Well, she saw right off the bat that that was a mistake because then she had this enormous dead body to deal with. He was every bit as much trouble to her dead as he ever had been alive, and was getting more so all the time. So then, she made another snap decision to cut him up in pieces and dispose of him a hunk at a time. More poor planning. First, she didn't have the proper carving utensils on hand and hacking him up proved to be just a major chore, plus it made just this colossal mess on her off-white shag living room carpet. It's getting to be like the Cat in the Hat now, only Thing Two ain't showing up to help with the clean-up. She finally gets him into portable-size portions, and wouldn't you know it? Cheap trash bags. Can anything else possible go wrong for this poor woman? So, the lesson here is obvious--for want of a small chain saw, a roll of Visqueen and some genuine Hefty bags, she is in Parchman Penitentiary today instead of New Orleans, where she'd planned to go with her new boyfriend. Preparation is everything. "
― Jill Conner Browne , The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love
5
" Help me,” the girl pleaded softly.
Sam knelt beside her. He recoiled in shock. “Bette?”
The left side of Bouncing Bette’s face was covered in blood. There was a gash above her temple. She was panting, gasping, like she had collapsed after a marathon and was trying with her last ounce of energy to crawl across the finish line.
“Bette, what happened?”
“They’re trying to get me,” Bette cried, and clutched at Sam’s arm.
The three dark figures advanced to the edge of the circle of light. One was clearly Orc. No one else was that big. Edilio and Quinn moved into the garage doorway.
Sam disengaged from Bette and took up a position beside Edilio.
“You want me to beat on you guys, I will!” Orc yelled.
“What’s going on here?” Sam demanded. He narrowed his eyes and recognized the other two boys, a kid named Karl, a seventh grader from school, and Chaz, one of the Coates eighth graders. All three were armed with aluminum bats.
“This isn’t your business,” Chaz said. “We’re dealing with something here.”
“Dealing with what? Orc, did you hit Bette?”
“She was breaking the rules,” Orc said.
“You hit a girl, man?” Edilio said, outraged.
“Shut up, wetback,” Orc said.
“Where’s Howard?” Sam asked, just to stall while he tried to figure out what to do. He’d lost one fight to Orc already.
Orc took the question as an insult. “I don’t need Howard to handle you, Sam.”
Orc marched right up to Sam, stopped a foot away, and put his bat on his shoulder like he was ready to swing for a home run. Like a batter ready for the next fastball. Only this was closer to T-ball: Sam’s head was impossible to miss.
“Move, Sam,” Orc ordered.
“Okay, I’m not doing this again,” Quinn said. “Let him have her, Sam.”
“Ain’t no ‘let me,’” Orc said. “I do what I want.”
Sam noticed movement behind Orc. There were people coming down the street, twenty or more kids. Orc noticed it too, and glanced behind him.
“They aren’t going to save you,” Orc said, and swung the bat hard.
Sam ducked. The bat whooshed past his head, and Orc rotated halfway around, carried forward by the momentum.
Sam was thrown off balance, but Edilio was ready. He let loose a roar and plowed headfirst into Orc. Edilio was maybe half Orc’s size, but Orc was knocked off his feet. He sprawled out on the concrete.
Chaz went after Edilio, trying to pull him off Orc.
The crowd of kids who had come running down the street surged forward. There were angry voices and threats, all aimed at Orc.
They yelled, Sam noted, but no one exactly jumped into the unequal fight. "
― Michael Grant
9
" The Fool in the Tarot deck frequently depicted a boy with a dog at his heels, staring at the sky while he walked blithely off a cliff, burdened only by a bundle on a stick. The diabolist had admitted a relationship to the card.
No single detail was quite right, but much as something might appear similar if one were to unfocus their vision…
The young diabolist walked with the sparrow at his shoulder, eyes on the windows without looking through the windows, walking forward as if he were afraid to stop. His burden here was the gas containers.
No, he was burdened not just by the gas containers, but by some notion of responsibility.
A man, when facing death, aspires to finish what he started.
What had the custodian of the Thorburn estate started? What drove him?
She knew he sought to do good and to vanquish evil, and she could surmise that both good acts and the existence of evil had touched him deeply.
The Fool card was akin to the ace. Depending on the game being played, it was often the lowest card or the highest. Valueless or highly valued. Powerless or powerful.
It all depended on context. He sought to kill the demon, and he would either catastrophically fail or succeed.
This Fool sought to slay the metaphorical dragon. He felt his own mortality, which was quite possibly her fault, in part, and now he rushed to finish the task he’d set for himself. To better the world.
The Fool was wrought with air – the clouds he gazed at, the void beyond the cliff, the feather in his cap, even the dog could often be found mid-step, bounding, just above the ground.
He was a Fool wrought with a different element. The familiar didn’t quite fit for the departure from the air, but the traditional dog didn’t conjure ideas of air right off the bat either.
What was he wrought with? That was another question that begged an answer. "
― , Pact
