Chapter 2: The Boy with the Anchor Tattoo

Had history gone differently for us, had the unknowable divine blessed us with the gifts of magic, we too might have known Spike’s Manhattan.

Spike stood on the docks, in the shadows of a giant. Greater Manhattan, a ‘Metropolis’ of Fritz Lang’s futurist optimism, combined with Ayn Rand’s capitalist aesthetics, and art deco sensibilities taken to their ultimate extremes. The skyscrapers we might recognize, the Woolworths, the Chryslers, the Empires, were still there of course—but even these were dwarfed by ‘Babels’ such as the Metropolitan Life North Tower or the grand gateway over the Hudson called the Victory Bridge. These fleeting visions, for which technology alone could not devise, would have never come to fruition without the holy synthesis of magic and engineering.

Nor would Manhattan's famous titans—towering statues inspired by the Seven Sages—that would make the Colossus of Rhodes tremble. Towering above towers, the titans of stone held the skyways and byways, and the covered tunnels between skyscrapers that pierced the heavens. Threatening to crush Spike under the weight of its grandeur was Greater Manhattan, the New Babylon, in all of its wicked brass and chrome.

Yet, beyond this mighty island, the other boroughs crumbled—abandoned. This had been Spike’s world as a child. Dark, cold, and so, so lonely. Where the rich prospered and sequestered themselves in their high rise apartments, the rest of New York toiled  under so much impossible weight.

But Spike had taken on titans before and lived. So really, what was but another challenger, be it man or city?

The rotting wharf, reeking of high tide and beset by screeching seagulls, was much preferable to the crowded avenues and choked byways of Manhattan anyway. Spike had been raised by the wharf side, a stone’s throw from St. Magnus House, and he remembered hot, summer days running food for the longshoremen in exchange for a nickel for ice cream. It was a transitory space, a place to wait, to unload, and to move on. Therefore, it felt right standing here with only a bag of clothing (the only thing Spike had in terms of personal possessions) slung over his shoulder, while he contemplated what the hell he was supposed to do next.

Mostly, however, he was just really, really hungry. The sea salt air only served to remind him of a hundred different sodium-enriched foods he could be stuffing down right now. There was, of course, no better eating than stress eating. Fish and chips. Pizza. Pierogis. French fries. Corn dogs. He probably had enough pocket change for one of those things....

That was one of the downsides to his magic, that is, his glyph. Though he knew very little about how it worked, it had given him two things in life--the body of a very short but very strong Greek god, and a monstrous appetite to match. The worse thing about it was that if he didn't eat and keep on to of his workouts, he'd just get skinnier, and not shredded. Such was the blessing and the curse. 

Spike's stomach rumbled as he watched crates of cargo waiting to be loaded or unloaded on the dock. A few storemen smoked cigarettes close by, and otherwise disregarded him. It was a lazy day, without much activity, and considering how emotional the last few hours of his life had been, Spike welcomed it. Beneath a rotting peer, he spotted an encampment of the unhoused, and quickly realized he was—give or take a few privileges—now very close to their predicament.

It was only for the grace of the Goddess that Spike had never spent more than a night on the streets. In Bushwick, where he was raised, your vagabonds and your neighbors alike were always to be treated with the same respect served for the clergymen and the postal workers. In turn, the less fortune, with their faculties still intact, had keen eyes, watching the streets for dangers, and were quick to settle problems—in their own means—without intervention from the police.

Spike had six dollars and seven cents in his pocket. The navy have given him room and board, but payment was a murky area, and Spike’s fortunes—what little fortune there were—was secured somewhere in a bank in Manhattan. Avery, the pinup photographer, had given Spike his cut for the last photo shoot, and all of that had gone back to St. Magnus House.

All Spike had now his last pay check (something he'd never to figure out how to cash) a scant amount of savings (something he'd need to figure out how to withdraw) and that was that. Right now, he had enough for a few hot meals, and maybe a night of lodging if he were lucky.

On one of the islands Spike had toured, there was a local belief that giving alms to the unfortunate would grant one protection from harmful spirits. Half of Spike felt it wasn’t very altruistic to get something return for charity; but the other half of him—the side that relished creature comforts and a stability—needed this luck very badly now. He spotted a woman, sitting crossed legged on a mat, dressed in a shawl and tattered dress. She had leathery skin and long, gray hair—unwashed—but her eyes were lucid and young. She appeared to be preoccupied with something just in front of her lap, just outside Spike’s view. Regardless, the ex-sailor walked up to her.

Based on past experiences with the transient, if the woman didn’t want conversation or charity, she would make it known to him straight away. As it were, she sensed him before he was even close, and smiled at him with chipped and yellowed teeth. She beckoned him over.

That was new. She wasn’t wary, but welcoming. Spike dipped into his pocket and pulled out a coin, ready to hand it off to her and keep moving on.

Instead, she gracefully fanned out a row of old, painted, silk-woven cards in front of her. Fortune cards, Spike recognized right away. “An exchange,” she said. “For your future, of course.”

Spike raised his shoulders, a nervous gesture that Sister Patience (and the navy) had tried to beat out of him to minimal success. He pointed stupidly at his chest. “Me?”

“Who else?” the woman laughed.

There was magick on her, Spike thought. Though you could never know for sure, despite what some people said. He presented her with the coin.

“Pick three,” she said.

As if I couldn’t be more obvious, Spike thought he heard the Goddess whisper into his ear. He was undecided on fate, or even fortune cards, but it didn’t hurt to get a sense of where to go next. Well, besides Avery's photo studio to ask if the smut peddler could loan him his couch for a few nights.

Spike held his hand above the pile and let his heart guide his selections. One. Two. Three. Just like a pinfall, he thought amusedly. He placed the cards in front of the woman, who, with bony fingers, turned them over one-by-one.

“The Punished Sinner,” she said with more joy in her voice than one might expect from revealing a fortune with that name.

“Very Accurate so far,” Spike sighed.

She turned over the other two with little fanfare, or the theatrical flamboyance of most oracles. “The Vagabond,” she said. “And in the future...The Prodigal Child. How very interesting.”

The hand-painted illustrations on the cards were gorgeous, but Spike could scarcely make meaning of these esoteric images. A smiling, naked man in a cage. A dirt-streaked traveller with a satchel (a bit on the nose there, eh?). A queen and king welcoming a knight home from atop the ramparts of a mighty castle.

“My child,” the woman said, more alcoholic grandmother than knowing sorceress. “Cast aside by the world only to imprison yourself in the safety of pleasure. Now, fate has emancipated you from yourself—you are vulnerable. This is a time of learning. You must look to what was lost in your past if you are to gain a hold on your future. You will leave this place, for a time, and when the fates test you once amore, you will return here to seek one last truth.” 

Nebulous nonsense that could mean everything and nothing—Spike didn’t know what else he was expecting. Still, he gave the woman his prize-winning smile, thanked her sincerely, and gave her another nickel to grease the Goddess’ palms.

“I suppose I should ask what all of this means,” Spike said, gliding his hand across these decorated prognostications.

The woman laughed, gathered the cards up again with a child-like glee, and shuffled them back into the deck. She removed a bent cigarette from her breast pocket and placed it tenderly between her lips.

“If you want more analysis,” she said, as she pressed her index finger to the butt of the cigarette, sparking it into being with her magick. “You’ll pay me more.” She took a long drag, turned her head politely, and breathed smoke—more dragon than oracle now. She looked Spike over...for a second longer than comfortable, and then pat his knee gently (her hand was expectedly warm). “But you won’t. And that’s okay. You’re a nice boy. And my, so muscular!” She blushed, giggling.

Something about this interaction felt important, though Spike chastised himself for buying into this well-meaning woman’s parlor tricks. She was a snowwoman, and not a half bad one at that—but he didn’t really believe in telling the future. Magick was wonderous, but it had its limits.

He thanked the woman and stood, a bit uncomfortable and not keen to show it. As he walked towards the skyscrapers and the giants of Manhattan, hoping for the best, he heard the woman call back to him.

“I hate to see you leave, gorgeous boy, but I do so love watching you go!”

Spike looked down at the ground and laughed, a little embarrassed. “Thank you, ma’am. I needed that.”

                    ___

Manhattan’s grandeur did not extend to all its corners. Under the shadow of the East Side Skyway, a stretch of lopsided tenements stretched onward to the edges of the concrete island. Progress had forgotten the neighborhood, a forest of laundry lines and old telegraph wires. Men played dominoes on card tables, and bored fruit vendors eyed Spike with indifference as he tried not to get his feet soaked in the gutter.

Avery's studio, a pre-war walk-up of decaying beauty—cracked marble lobby, chandelier askew, greeted Spike upon entry. It was early spring, and the draft inside the old building felt more like an arctic wind.

Up the creaking staircase. Somewhere, a muted wail of a baby crying. Spike rubbed his hands together and rehearsed his pitch. Just a few days, Aves, that’s all. You’ve been good to me,. I can throw in a photoshoot; no commission.

A hallway of frosted glass doors greeted him. Always reminded Spike of the old detective shows. He had walked this hall several times before, but each time left him with the same nervous pit in his stomach—probably just years of the church’s ‘guilt conditioning’. Spike thought he would have long been exorcised of the demons of purity and chastity by now...

Avery Grant Photography. The lettering on Ave's door had been chipped away long ago, back when the man still aspired to become a wedding photographer. Sadly, happy couples didn’t pay the bills, so he began selling photos of handsome men to those same husbands he once photographed alongside young, doe-eyed brides. I’d rather peddle a naked truth than a sad lie, he’d tell Spike, a few glasses of bourbon into transactions. Needless to say, Avery never spoke of his former marriage.

At this point, there was little need for formality. Spike opened the unlocked door, squealing on its hinges, and walked into a humid, musty office barely cooled by an overhead ceiling fan. It had once been the office for the neighborhood’s magi-run municipalities—water purification, bio-electricity, that sort of thing. The only remnant of this was a mildew-dappled mural that wrapped around the office, portraying electrified bodies and river-channelling magi as gods. Very Diego Rivera, Avery always said. Spike didn't know who that was, of course. From a time when people still remembered who built this city—what once set us Yanks apart from the Albans.

Spike walked the creaking, warped wooden floor (Avery's ‘intruder alarm’, he called it), past desks stacked with old bills, beer bottles, magazines, and castaway film cuts of athletic, young men in various stages of repose or activity. Spike had been so caught up in his head, however, that he failed to notice the woman siting on the old leather couch. That was, until a cold chill drew his attention towards her.

She was dressed all in black; the attire for either a funeral or a gala. She had the raven hair of a sultry lounge waif, and the skin of a Horror show harlot like Vamperella. Spike figured she could be anywhere from her early thirties to late fifties, or even younger or older. Reading a novel, her gloved hands obscuring the title, she flashed her eyes at Spike once. They were dark, violent eyes that shifted between cold annoyance, to sudden intrigue, before they returned themselves to the page.

Spike’s back stiffened and he decided to move towards Avery's office as quickly as possible. He knocked four times, and at the gruff and short ‘Yeah’, let himself in.

It was like walking into a cloud, one conjured up more by tobacco than a refreshing rain. The nicotine halo enveloped Avery Grant, once handsome...now very tired. He sat, crossed legged with his feet on his desk, as he shuffled between negatives with a comically oversized magnifying glass.

Avery said he never slept with any of his models. And Spike believed it...not that it was very hard to get Spike to believe anything. The man was passionate about his work, but more so of money, and jeopardizing any of the two was simply anathema to him. That said, though Avery was plenty respectful, his company was not exactly enjoyable.

Spike waited for him to notice him. Without looking up from his photos, Avery sighed and state, “They kicked your sorry bubble butt out. Didn't they?”

Well, this was going to be a lot more quick-and-to-the-point than Spike had anticipated, which was probably for the best—might as well rip the bandage off. “You know, Avery, I didn’t really believe in fortune tellers until today, but…”

The photographer sighed and put his magnifying glass on the table, then scattered his photos in an eerily similar way as the vagrant fortune teller had done less than an hour before.

“Kid, I don’t need to be fortune teller, magi, or esper to know. You think you’re the first beautiful boy to come through those doors all teary-eyed with nowhere to go because his Corporal caught him rolling in the hay with someone’s Private?”

“…I assume you mean ‘soldier’.” Spike searched the man’s face for signs that his humor had landed. It had not. “Well, I don’t think I’m teary eyed. Annoyed, yes, but not teary eye. Truthfully, I’m glad to be done with that nonsense. I’m too pretty to go to war anyway, don't you think?”

The man wouldn’t have it. The only thing Spike could bank on was his experience with him. Avery treated his models like sons, and not even in the suggestive sense. “Three days, kid. That’s it. And that’s me being generous, I hope you know. I usually only give two.”

Inside, Spike dropped to his knees and gave thanks to whichever deity was watching out for him. Outwardly though, he remained business-like. “And what would you like in return?”

The man rolled his eyes, pushing himself away from the desk and getting to his feet. “You’re cute, Spike, but I’ve had bigger studs than you try to sweet talk their way—”

“I meant money-wise,” Spike clarified, aghast. “Please, Avery, I’m not that desperate. Yet...”

The man looked around the office and picked up a bottle of golden-brown liquid from beneath a newspaper. He poured it into two glasses, neither of them which looked very clean, and handed Spike one of them.

Good brandy in a dirty glass. That was Avery alright.

“Aren’t you divesting all your funds to soot-covered orphans anyway?” the man asked.

Spike tried not to make a face as he took down the swill. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an orphanage before, Aves—and please do not answer that question—but it’s not like those novels by that old English guy with the dicks."

"You mean Dickens?"

 "Yeah, him! It’s sadder.” Spike didn’t want to take the time to nurse the booze. He just wanted the effects and to be done with this transaction and find some moldy mattress upstairs on which he could get a decent night’s rest. “Anyways, thanks. Oh, and who’s that broad on the couch outside?”

The photographer laughed, hoarsely. “She better not catch you calling her that. That’s Varla. Old friend of mine. She’s a shadow magi.”

Spike shrugged. That meant nothing to him. Spike knew next-to-nothing about magick, let alone his own abilities. It simply just wasn’t taught in the military—that is, unless you were a sanctioned battle magus, in which case you were kept on a very short leash and segregated from the other grunts.

“Spooky shit,” Avery, who had not a drop of magick in him, said. “That’s all you need to know. She’s here to poach one of my boys. Clint.”

Spike knew the name well enough. “Oh, that Roman Centurion with the big…spear? I know you’re an asshole because you never had the courtesy to introduce us, or book us on a shoot. But now I’m curious. Are you lending your boys out to other nudey magazines now?”

Avery shook his head. “Not for a shoot, no. Varla’s into male physiques, yes, but not for photography. She’s a manager for a small time pro spellbreaking outfit.” He snorted. “Ridiculous crap, if you ask me. But very sexy if you like beefcakes lobbing magic and muscles at each other.”

"I do very much so, yes." Spike felt his heart do a summersault. It had been years since he’d watched spellbreaking, thanks to the navy’s no-TV policy, but he’d never lost his love for the sport. Now, he was filled with jealousy. Clint, of all people—pretty and beefy, yes, but with the personality of a bag of flour.

“I am in the possession of both of those things,” Spike mumbled into his brandy. He threw it back with one gulp, hoping it would help him fall asleep. This had been a long, trying day.

“You’re more Olympic gymnast than Olympian,” Avery laughed, as if to twist the knife. “Shame, with your magic and whatnot.”

With a clumsy double-bicep flex, Spike tried to prove his point, but even he didn’t believe it. “Stronger than I look! I used to be obsessed with pro spellbreaking as a kid, y'now. I still fight, but it’s not nearly as fun or flashy.”

Truthfully, Spike didn’t like fighting at all—or at least, the clandestine, down-and-dirty kind he’d done back on the ship. It always felt like an obligation, a chore. A point to prove his worth. But no matter who he fought, no matter the victories, it never seemed to scratch an itch. There was just no comfort in it. Where the grand standing? The magick? The pizazz? 

Thoughts spiralling with inadequacy and doubt, Spike nudged his glass towards Avery. “Ah, forget about it. Too bad you’re giving her Clint. I bet I’d make a half-decent spellbreaker with a little training.”

From somewhere beneath Spike’s feet, or somewhere within the walls, an echoing voice hissed, “Oh, would you now?”

Spike looked down at his glass in shock. “Aves, you put something in this drink?”

But the photographer just rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Damn it, Vee, how long have you been listening?”

I can’t possibly be this drunk, Spike thought as he watched the shadows cast by the desk fan, the papers, and Avery's own silhouette, begin to warp and bend around him. The darkness melted, like liquid, and pooled onto the floor, taking on a three-dimensional form. Spike looked to the living shadow, then to Avery, and it was only because the tired photographer appeared more frustrated than concerned, that Spike didn’t trip over himself trying flee the room.

The shadow took the vague—but voluptuous—shape of a woman. Though it had no mouth, it was capable of speech—echoed, like from the bottom of a well, and coming from nowhere and everywhere.

“I heard everything,” the shadow said, icily. “Including that broad remark.”

Feeling a bit like the cat that swallowed the canary, Spike nevertheless was more intrigued than afraid. “How are you...doing that? That’s amazing.”

The shadow wiggled, like someone laughing. “You aren’t afraid, little boy?”

“Petrified,” Spike said, which was somewhat true as well. “But I want to know more.”

Avery looked between the living shadow and his muse and decided to pour himself more brandy.

The shadow woman walked, or floated around to face Spike, whose back was pressed firmly into the upholstery. “How interesting,” she said. “What did you say your name was?”

“Samuel Waterford, but everyone calls me Spike. Private Spike Waterford, until like three hours ago.”

“With a name like that, you were destined to be a pinup boy, weren't you,” the shadow said, a humor so dry Spike couldn’t gauge her sincerity. He decided it would be wise not to talk back.

“I heard the sob story,” the woman continued. “You’re not the typical fighter, are you? A bit light in the loafers, sure, but tough. I can see it. And my, what a sweet babyface.”

A shadow is flirting with me, Spike thought. He heard stories, of magi of old, conjuring familiars and demons for their personal use. He wondered if this was something like that.

“You said that you train spellbreakers?” Spike asked. Why not push his luck, after all? 

Before his eyes, the shadow sunk once more into the floorboards, returning to flat. It glided over to the doorway and Spike followed it, watching the figure slip under the crack in the door and rejoin itself with its human-cast silhouette. The door opened. In stepped the beautiful woman who had been sitting on the lounge outside.

“I have a coach,” the woman said, the same voice as her shadow companion, but without the eerie reverberation. Her voice was like worn velvet, made rough by smoking. “He’s a bit too nice for his own good, mind you, but he’s a gentleman and a very dear soul. Regardless, something tells me you’ve had experience, Mr. Waterford.”

Spike looked to Avery, as if to ask, ‘Is this real?’, but the man was back to examining his negatives, comparing hunks. He didn’t want any say in this transaction, one way or the other.

Men were easy to talk to, but women—especially pretty ones—always made Spike nervous. “I grew up watching spellbreaing matches all the time,” the twenty-two-year-old blurted out, stammering over his words and doing his best to maintain eye contact (a challenge). “I’d sneak them in when the Sisters weren’t looking. I’d never—

“Sisters?”

“Nuns. Order of Deah. St. Magnus Home for Boys.”

“Ah, so Light magi. My so-called ‘mortal enemies’, or whatever those kooks back in the Old World are saying these days.”

Knowing nothing of sectarian magi politics, Spike chose to ignore the remark. “I’d never really considered doing it—spellbreaking, that is—or even knowing where to begin.” He swallowed and did his best to force a smile. “But I’d really like to.”

The woman eyed him up and down and returned his smile. Then she said, “Not a chance.”

Behind him, Spike heard Avery suck air through his teeth.

Now, the ex-sailor was more annoyed, slighted, than nervous. “What? And why not?”

To her credit, the shadow magi was more matter-of-fact than judgemental. “You’re too pretty, for one. You have muscles, sure, but I need bigger guys. Handsome, yes, but mean.”

Spike tried to do his best approximation of a villain. He pushed out his chest. “I’m the meanest,” he said. Nobody believed it. “I can throw men twice my size clear across the room! And that's a fact.”

“I don’t doubt it, gorgeous, but it’s not just one thing I’m looking for. I’m looking for athletes, not a third-rate go-go boy.”

Ouch. Spike was used to taking hits to the face, but this woman had a stinger. “I…I can prove it to you! Look, miss, I just got laid off and I have nothing to lose. Put me out there. I'll show you what I'm made of!”

The woman in black looked over at Avery, but he had wisely chosen to sequester himself from the conversation. Varla pursed her lips, walked around Spike’s chair, and gave him a good looking over. Spike thought he saw her shadow move independently of her, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it was still unnerving nonetheless. 

The dark magi completed her circle. She stood, arms crossed across her chest. “Spellbreaking isn’t for the faint of heart, kiddo. Even with soma coursing through your veins, it can be a damn brutal sport, pulled punches or no.”

Spike sensed he’d gained an inroad, and just as well, could see opportunity slipping through his fingers if he didn’t convince her then and there. “I am more than capable of taking a hit,” he said. “It’s my gift, actually. My magick. Every punch or kick I take only makes me stronger. Well, for a few minutes or so anyway. It sadly wears off…and I’m not always able to control it either, but…”

She laughed. It was not a pretty laugh, but still charming. “You’re still wet behind the ears, aren’t you? But I like how your earnest you are." She paused. "Now, clarify something for me, little boy. You say you get stronger once you're hit?"

"Yes!" Spike said eagerly. "Or like, put in some nasty holds." He laughed a little to himself, and blushed. "I guess you could say I like pain. And then I can dish it out twice as hard!" He punctuated this with a punch to his own fist—and then winced. "Ow."

The shadow quivered again. "That...could it be? The glyph of Dynamis? Now, that's a juicy find. Not the rarest in the world, mind you, but none of my good-for-nothing louts can express that glyph..."

Spike blinked, confused. It was probably best to let her just keep talking.

"Hmm. Well, if anything, I bet the crowd would love watching a cutie like you get beat up by some big, brutal heels.” She nodded to herself, and then considered her options. “Then again, a ‘would-be wrestler’ whose magic is that they’re just really strong? That’s not exactly the razzle dazzle spellbreaking is known for.”

“Well, I’m also quite the showman.” Spike thumbed to a framed photo on the wall, quite askew, of him posing alongside an anchor in his sailor cap. If Haggar had seen that one, Spike thought, he’d have chucked him clear into the Hudson.

“Oh, please,” Varla laughed. She shook her head, and something in the room—a tension—subsided. “Well, Avery-boy, you can go ahead and cancel this Clint fellow. He’s late, and I prize punctuality. If anything, his butt alone could put other butts in seats.”

Avery's magnifying class fell to the hardwood table. He looked up and met Spike’s widening eyes. “You mean…this kid? You serious?”

The fair-skinned woman glanced over at Spike, who looked like he was about to fall out of chair any moment now. “He seems to be. Plus, I’m a sucker for an underdog. Audiences love that stuff. Paying audiences.”

In a way, this was almost worse than being discharged. Spike saw himself from the other side of the room, watching how quickly his fate had changed. Suddenly, he full of anxieties. What have I done? Is this right? Am I taking on more than I can chew? Is this really happening?

Micko once told him once that anticipation and excitement were two side of the same coin, however. And so, Spike forced himself to take a new perspective. He now envisioned himself standing in a real ring, lights shining down, audience cheering as she struck a posed and cameras flashed...

Varla dispelled those illusions with a wave of her hand. “Now, I can’t room and board you, kid. I don’t take in strays for free. But I can pay you enough that you could probably afford a one-bedroom with a leaky pipe and a broken radiator. That is, until I get bored of you.”

All that fell from Spike’s lips was a very quiet, “Please.” He swallowed, and tried to find some of that courage, channelling the confidence of Colt the Bolt. “It’s...it's been my dream.”

He anticipated one of Varla’s sassy remarks. Indeed, she had been nothing but playful with him since her shadow had listened in on their conversation. This time, however, she looked at him with a certain knowing.

“One that you gave up on, probably, long ago,” she said. Was that an ounce of sympathy in her voice? No, couldn't be. “Hmph. You were smarter then, probably, to do so. Oh, well.” She looked at Avery, who looked like he could just not believe what had happened in his office. “Let’s throw the boy to the wolves, shall we, Aves? Besides, there's already one thing you got working in your favor."

“What’s that?” Spike said His legs were like jelly. He thought he might pass out from sheer excitement any minute now.

Varla grinned wickedly, pointing to Spike’s cheeky photo, hanging crookedly on the wall. “A built-in gimmick. 'Sailor Boy Spike'. Has a nice ring to it, no?”

Next Chapter!