Chapter 3: Kennedy Learns the Facts of Life and Death

Kennedy celebrated her tenth birthday in style with Mr. Glastonbury at a small, hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in China Town in New York City. It was not a particular surprise to Kennedy to learn that Mr. Glastonbury spoke Chinese; it was only a surprise when she found something he didn't know.

He was unusually quiet at dinner, while Kennedy was unusually unrestrained. She didn't care, she was now ten, a double-digit age. She didn't care what other people thought, but in her mind she was no longer a little kid, she was a young person and that was very, very good!

Of course it was enormously frustrating not to have grown as much as she'd hoped, but Mr. Glastonbury assured her that she wasn't anywhere near her full growth. She could but hope!

At the end of the evening, when they were leaving the restaurant, the proprietor slipped Mr. Glastonbury a bag that Kennedy was pretty sure contained a bottle of liquor. She thought that because of the furtive way it was passed, if nothing else.

They walked to his car and he opened up Kennedy's door, but instead of letting her in to sit down, he opened the glove compartment and slid the bottle in the brown paper wrapper inside.

Then, the car door still open, he turned to her.

"I thought long and hard about what to do for your birthday. You are, Miss Kennedy, a very special young woman. It is growing more and more clear with each passing day just how special. Normally all of this would wait; I don't think that's a good idea any more."

He smiled at her. "One gift you will receive when we return home: your heart's desire."

Kennedy looked at him. She had more than one desire, but she knew which of them was most important to her. No, that wasn't true. To be treated with respect; she wanted that more than anything else. She understood that she wasn't going to be treated as a peer for a long time, but in the meantime there was respect.

"That gift, Miss Kennedy, is conditional on a promise, here and now. That you promise you will do exactly as you are told, no matter what you see, what you think, what you figure will happen. And afterwards, you will never, ever tell anyone about what you saw."

"Sure, Mr. Glastonbury."

"Don't be so glib, Miss Kennedy," he cautioned. "There is more. A friend, another special young woman, has offered to help us this evening. If you say anything, if you make any noise, if you do anything you have been told not to do, you could get her killed. Dead. Or worse."

"There's something worse than being dead?" Kennedy asked.

"You have no idea how much I wish you had appended 'sir' to what you just said," he told her. "If you have trouble with the simplest of orders, it reduces anyone's ability to trust you on something larger. Think on that, Miss Kennedy."

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir. I promise to try to be more careful, sir." Kennedy couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Mr. Glastonbury, you've been my tutor and teacher for more than two years. I can't believe you think for a second I don't have an enormous respect for you. Certainly I have more respect for you than any other adult I've ever met. I don't understand why you don't understand that."

"As I don't understand why you can't do such a simple thing as saying 'sir.' I think it's laziness, which isn't a good thing. Miss Kennedy, you must promise me. You will say and do nothing, no matter what you think is happening. The only release from this promise is my death. Do you understand that?"

"I'm having a little trouble accepting the melodrama, sir," Kennedy told him.

"Do you know what a stalking horse is, Miss Kennedy?"

"That's someone who goes in front to trip an ambush, or be the one attacked first."

"That's what my friend is going to do. All you have to do is be silent and watch, Miss Kennedy. Use your eyes, your brain and not your mouth. Be a student, not an actor."

"Okay, I'll do it. I promise, sir. Cross my heart."

He dipped into his coat and handed her something about ten inches long and about an inch in diameter that tapered to a point. "Do you know what this is, Miss Kennedy?"

"A wooden pointy thing, sir. I believe they call these 'stakes.'"

"Exactly. You take it and keep it. It won't be much help if something goes wrong, but there is always a chance."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to think or act, sir?" Kennedy didn't bother hiding her sarcasm.

"And I told you that my death releases you from your promise. Or would you, Miss Kennedy, be content to stand defenseless before that which has just killed my friend and myself?"

"And this is a defense, Mr. Glastonbury?"

"It's small, easy to hide and might possibly be a surprise. That's about as much as you can hope for. Do you understand that this isn't melodrama, Miss Kennedy? That this is real?"

"Sure, sir."

"Good. Put it in your pocket; keep your hand on it. If you need it, you'll know in plenty of time to get it out, Miss Kennedy."

He turned his back on Kennedy and started walking away. She caught up with him in a few steps and continued to hurry. Her legs were much shorter than his and he was walking fast. He went two blocks along streets that were progressively further from the beaten path... not to mention much darker.

A woman seemed to fade into existence from a shadow. Not a woman, Kennedy realized a second later. She was sixteen or seventeen.

"Kennedy, this is Amanda," Mr. Glastonbury announced.

"Hello, Amanda," Kennedy said and held out her hand to shake the other's. Her grip made Mr. Glastonbury's feel like a baby's kiss.

The woman turned and walked about ten feet ahead of them before Mr. Glastonbury followed along and Kennedy moved after him.

A half block along, a pitch black alley yawned, with only the faintest of illumination. Amanda turned into it and went just a few steps before stopping and turning to them. "You'll need to stay further back, Friar Geoffrey."

"I know. I just wanted to make one final demonstration for Miss Kennedy's edification. Look up, Miss Kennedy, directly over Amanda's head."

It took a few seconds for Kennedy to see it, but there was a fire escape ladder up there, perhaps twenty feet above the alley. It was one of those weighted ones that you could climb on from above and it would sink to the ground.

"That's about twenty feet, Miss Kennedy. Do you remember the exercise on the trampoline?"

"Yes, sir. I don't see a trampoline, though."

"Amanda, if you would, please."

The woman dipped a bit, and then swung her arms up and jumped. Kennedy's jaw dropped. The woman grasped the bottom rung of the ladder, flipped up so that her body was flat against the ladder, her head now pointing down. The ladder didn't move. Then she dropped headfirst straight down. Only just at the end, did she flip and land in a crouch.

"I was wrong about the trampoline," Kennedy said, in awe.

"No, no trampoline," Mr. Glastonbury told her. "Like I said, Amanda is special. We will talk about the different ways of being special people have, but for now just accept it."

"I saw it with my own eyes," Kennedy said, her eyes glowing with astonishment. It had to be a trick, but what a great trick!

"Now," Mr. Glastonbury said into the silence that followed, "we will become auditory black holes, Miss Kennedy."

The girl, Amanda, turned on her heel and started down the dark alley. There was a little light and even the short delay had helped Kennedy's eyes adjust. When the woman was about a hundred yards ahead, Mr. Glastonbury moved silently to follow her. Without a word, Kennedy followed at his side, taking a great deal of care to be utterly silent.

The alley seemed interminable, and then there was an intersection and even more alley. Inside Kennedy's brain her thoughts buzzed and hummed, thinking about everything she saw or sensed. There wasn't much, just Amanda a hundred yards ahead and Mr. Glastonbury a few inches to her left.

There was the slightest stir, something right on the edge of Kennedy's awareness. A dark shape appeared out of the night, directly in front of Amanda.

"I declare!" The speaker was a woman in her mid-twenties, speaking with a broad Southern accent. "Ah's done died and gun t' heaven!"

There was a nasty laugh. "Well, maybe ah's just died and gone nowheres! Lookie here! Da Slayer come to calls on me!"

"I told you that you should leave. That this wasn't a hunting ground," Amanda said levelly.

The woman facing Amanda was wearing a dress so short that the least movement revealed blue panties underneath. The woman was wearing just a thin wisp of fabric across her breasts. Her lips were garishly splashed with red lipstick, her eyes painted with eyeliner and eye shadow.

A lady of the evening, Kennedy thought. She'd read about them, sure. But the reality was a little startling. It was, in a way, a lot like Mr. Sullivan's faulty math. Impossible for Kennedy to imagine anyone dressing like that woman or wearing makeup like she was.

The woman facing Amanda looked up, beyond her, towards where Mr. Glastonbury and Kennedy had stopped. "Ah'll be jiggered! A Watcher, come to watch! And lookie der! A moppet! Oh, Slayer! What a treat ya's brought me tonight! Ah's gunna feast on you first, den ah's kills dat stupid Watcher. Later, when ah's a bit peckish, ah's 'l have that delicious tidbit ya's brought me!"

Amanda moved; it was so fast that Kennedy barely discerned it. Her fists hit the woman in the face, a sudden tattoo that rocked the other back on her feet.

But only that. For an instant the woman stared at Amanda, then she laughed. Then it must have been the pain of the blows, her face twisted into a hideous rictus of anger, and she slashed her fingernails towards Amanda.

Amanda grabbed her attacker's wrist, stepped slightly forward and rolled the woman over her hip, dropping her heavily to the ground. Amanda's hand rose and fell; Kennedy was amazed to see she had a stake too.

There was a sudden scream, abruptly cut short.

Kennedy was shaken. Amanda had just killed someone with no more compunction than Kennedy when she stepped on ants on the sidewalk. True, she flushed spiders down the toilet instead of crushing them in her shower, but that was a girl's natural fastidiousness, not compassion.

Still... this...

Mr. Glastonbury whispered softly. "They often come in packs; they rarely travel alone. They prefer their own kind."

Out of the darkness another shape launched itself at Amanda. Amanda turned and then fell backward while lifting a foot into the other's belly. The second attacker somersaulted through the air, slamming into the bricks of a building facing the alley. In a move that Kennedy wished she could duplicate, Amanda was up, slamming a fist into the belly of yet another dark shape that came hurtling out of the darkness to attack Amanda.

A fourth appeared, slamming a heavy piece of wood into Amanda's stomach. Amanda grunted in pain as the board splintered into a million pieces. She fielded one of the pieces and drove it into the shape. The heart, Kennedy was sure.

What happened next was very, very odd. There was an instant where there was no change, then the other turned to a long dead corpse that was just a skeleton, then the corpse was dust blowing on the wind, sifting to the ground.

There was a sudden tattoo of feet, fading into the night.

Amanda came back to them, smiling. "Can you believe that, Friar Geoffrey? One of them brought more ammunition to the fight!"

"We should go," Mr. Glastonbury said. "They too could have friends."

"Yes, of course. Not mind you, that I want to go."

Kennedy was startled when Mr. Glastonbury walked up to Amanda and leaned close and kissed her cheek. "Amanda, fight thoughts like that! The idea is to live to fight another day!"

"Yes, Mommy! Watchers are all alike!"

They walked back the way they'd come, this time making no effort to be quiet or stealthy. What had seemed to take forever before went past in moments.

Amanda grinned at Kennedy when they once again reached Mr. Glastonbury's car. "You and I are half-sisters, Kennedy. Pray to God above that we never become full sisters!" She turned and ran a few steps; she kick started a motorcycle and vanished into the night, her blonde hair flying loose behind her.

Mr. Glastonbury turned to Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy, ask questions about this tomorrow, during the light of day, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then let us be getting on home and your other present."

"Do you want your stake back?"

He smiled at her, a little sadly, she thought. "No, Miss Kennedy. Put it under your pillow at night, when you sleep."

Kennedy raised an eyebrow. Fortunately her mother would never notice, but what would the housekeeper think?

They reached the house in Scarsdale; as usual the only light on was the one left by the doorman, who waited up for them. They went inside and Kennedy bowed graciously to Mr. Tiller and he bowed back.

Mr. Tiller was, in fact, someone known to Friar Geoffrey at Faire, and he'd seen to it that the older man had gained employment with Kennedy's father. Mr. Tiller might be over sixty-five, but he was a burly man, and he was always alert whenever Kennedy called on him.

Kennedy had only been back to the Faire twice, in spite of Mr. Glastonbury's original promise. And each time he'd cautioned her ahead of time about being careful not to show off. That's what he called it.