Chapter 9: Farewell, New York

Spike wasn’t sad about shutting the door on his dirty, broken apartment for the last time. It had served its purpose. It has also given him some cute gear that looked fantastic on his butt, so thanks and goodbye to all that.

Once again, the lonely sailor travelled through the urban sprawl of Manhattan, a satchel on his back with only the addition of his spellbreaking gear to round out what meager possessions he owned.

It had been almost three months now since he’d been kicked off his ship—three eventful, lifechanging months. He was stronger now, in body and magick, yet still he doubted the road ahead. 

But that was okay for now. He would figure it out. Because everyone does.

Past open market grocers with noisy Italians selling vegetables, and kids playing in the puddles of fresh rainfall, Spike meandered down the byways of Lower Manhattan. The skyscrapers and the titans holding up the highways did not intimidate him anymore. He looked upon them now, glittering in the midday sun, with reverence. In truth though, he was happy to leave New York behind. For now, of course. It was a great city—maybe even the greatest—but he always knew it would never give him the space he needed to develop his mind, his body, or his magick.

That was okay. He remembered the words of the vagrant fortune teller and suspected that he would be back someday. Knowing how his life unfolded thus far, probably sooner than later.

Varla’s office and home looked renewed, the grit and grim of roadway dust having been washed away by the rainstorm the night earlier. It was a humid day, but not intolerable, and the sun was very bright. Spike credited it with his mood. For the first time in a long time, he had gotten a good night’s sleep. Aside from packing his bag, seeing off Sister Patience was the only other item on his agenda that day.

Spike turned the brass key inside the door but did not put it back into his pocket like usual. He wouldn’t be needing it any more. He walked into the sound of a young girl’s voice, providing what sounded to him like a child’s parroting of spellbreaker commentary. Sure enough, Laura, in pink overalls, was belly-pressed against the carpet, playing with two action figures. Spike had bought her one the last time he’d dropped by, as she had burned all the hair off a Colt figure. It the only time Varla had not been upset by her daughter playing with matches.

As an only child, Spike didn’t know what it was like to have siblings or even younger cousins, but in the few weeks he’d gotten to know her, Laura had become something of a kid sister. It helped that she seemed to follow him around while lobbing questions, “What places have you been to?” “How long have you been a spellbreaker?” “Why do you talk like a girl?”

Admittedly, some questions were nicer than others. But Spike was, if anything, patient—and he couldn’t turn down an admirer. If he was going to be a spellbreaker, he was going to have to learn to act in a responsible manner with his younger fans. Be a role model, you know! And Laura could be very sweet and presence.

Laura slammed her figurines together in a plastic collision. “GET ‘EM, DRAGONFACE, RIP HIS LUNGS OUT. MAKE HIS WIFE A WIDOW!”

Okay, maybe not today.

Caught off guard by her violent outburst, Spike muttered under his breath, “Maybe we really shouldn’t be showing pro spellbreaking to kids after all.”

The girl in the ponytail finally noticed his presence. She sprang up from the carpet, ponytail akimbo, and nearly speared him in the chest with a hug. “Spike!”

“Hello, small friend,” Spike said, returning the gesture. He made sure to get down on his knee, at her level. He noticed the figure clutched in her hand, the one she’d gotten him, was already missing an arm. “Looks like you’ve been enjoying the one I got you. Where’s your mom?”

Laura pointed to a latticed, glass door leading out back. “Out on the patio,” she said, before leaning in conspiratorially and whispering, “Mom said she’s ready to tear Mr. Tamberly a ‘new one’. She wouldn’t tell me what that means.”

Spike winced. “I am sure she will when you’re older." He swallowed his fear. He was sure Varla was going to leave him with some final, cutting remarks. He hadn’t been the most obedient employee...

“Oh, almost forgot!” Spike slung his satchel around and dipped into his haphazardly packed pile of clothes. He found his sailor cap, mostly crumpled, at the bottom of the heap. With a dashing whip of his wrist, he expanded it—to little improvement.

“This is for you,” he said, placing the wrinkled cap on the girl’s head.

It may as well have been a crown. Her face lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah! It’ll probably be worth a lot someday, so hold onto it in case you want an autograph.”

He found Varla on the rooftop garden, sunning herself on a deck chair. Today’s outfit was a violet caftan, ornamented with black moths, over a black bikini. Spike wasn’t sure how she didn’t burn in the direct sunlight but thought it best to not ask her this secret. Her shadow guardian, in its three-dimensional state of being, cooled off the reclining woman with a great, lacy, pink fan. Naturally, she had fit two cucumber slices over her eyes.

Spike turned his head, this way and that, getting a good look at the sea of little buildings surrounding them, and the elevated train line in the distance. Just as he dared to open his mouth, Varla got to him first.

She didn’t even need to turn her head. “Looks like our golden boy is ready to hit the road,” she said, as she picked up a large, fruity drink from the little table next to her and took a long, hard sip. “I believe that is a packed bag on your shoulders, no? Did you put the key on my desk like I asked you to?”

"Yes, ma'am." Spike flinched. He was glad she wasn’t a spellbreaker—he would hate to have to fight her someday. “I’m almost as nervous as I was before my fight with Hartley,” he said. He drew closer but kept his distance. “Um...I need to ask you something.”

She smiled, removing the cucumber from her eyelids. “Many dangerous conversations have started with those words.” She popped one slice into her mouth and crunched down with relish.

“Golly, I don’t doubt that. So...I feel like you signed me over to Colt without any argument.”

“Oh. Were you expecting mommy to coddle you?”

“No!” Spike yelped. “I just…I just know your mind for business. I was...er..surprised, that's all.”

She laughed. Her shadow shuddered but kept up its duties. “You think you know my business acumen.” After another protracted sip, the woman adjusted herself in her chair and let free a heavy sigh. “Colt and I have…arrangements. Favors. You just happened to be one that needed cashing. That’s the business half of it.”

Finally, Spike’s old manager granted him the dignity of facing him. “Look, cutie, there’s people who do well when they are signed under me, and there are those who are better off under Colt’s tutelage.” She then gave him an evil smirk. “Besides, I see how your eyes get whenever you laid eyes on his poster. If anything, it will be an amusing arrangement.”

The finer details and negotiations that led to his transfer to the GSA would not be known to Spike anytime soon, in other words. Well, at least I didn’t get chewed out for asking. If this was going to be the last time he saw the woman who had been generous enough to give him a chance, however, then she deserved every bit of his gratitude. Like many New Yorkers he had encountered over the years, he couldn’t exactly call her ‘nice’, but she was still kind.

“Whatever deals you made, Varla, I thank you. A lot. For giving me the opportunity. For this.”

The woman laughed lightly at that. Spike interpreted this as half uncomfortable, half accepting. “Hmm. You may have just made a deal with the devil. I saw you gave your cap to Laura. That’s very cute.”

“Oh, you saw that?”

“Eyes everywhere, darling.”

 Spike looked over at her living silhouette. It gave him a little wave.

“She likes you,” Varla went on. “I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t have her hanging around losers.” The woman paused. Then, with a wave of her fingers, her shadow returned to its usual state. The fan landed onto the asphalt with a soft click.

Varla’s manner of speaking changed, though her upper-handed tone remained intact. “Truth be told...I think she has the gift.”

Spike looked over his shoulder at the glass door, at the vague shape of Laura safe inside, playing (and decimating) her toys.

“It’s hard for me to tell, miss.”

Varla pointed a long finger at him. “That’s something you would do well to train. You should be able to spot other magi. In any case, I caught her talking to the pigeons on the fence the other day.”

“Oh. Well, lots of kids talk to animals, I don’t know if—”

“But do they talk back?” She gave him a hard look. “It’s a glyph called ‘Physis’.” She turned away from him to face the towers and the city. “It does not run in my family.”

“I’m…not sure what that means.”

“Well, what it ultimately means is that I have a feeling I’m going to need to take a very small step back and spend more time with my daughter. Which, to be frank, is something I have been meaning to do for a while.” She shrugged and sat up in the chair, swinging her legs over the side. “They say a girl can’t have it all. I disagree. But balance is important. I want to giver her a fighting chance and she’s going to need some direction.”

Before Spike could dare ask her to elaborate, he heard Laura squeal with delight, accompanied by the tell-tale baritone of John Henry, greeting her. Spike’s ride was here.

John Henry opened the door and stuck his head out. “Hey, Varla. I thought vampires were supposed to burst into flame when exposed to daylight?

The woman returned this jibe with a particular rude gesture, but Spike noted the hint of a smile at the edge of her lips.

Satisfied with his remark, the iron man turned to his pupil. “You ready to go, boy?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Spike said. He slung his satchel back over his broad shoulders. “Varla. Thanks.”

Expectedly, the spellbreaking manager did not rise to see him off. That was fine. If she showed him any affection, he was afraid the world might end.

“Don’t thank me. You did the work, kid. Oh, and remember—if you disappoint Colt, I’ll put you in the ground before he does.”

            __

The bridge over the East River was not as grand as the palatial Victory, but Spike was glad to lay eyes on it, rearing up on the highway ahead. He sat in the back of J.H.’s Cadillac, watching the towers and the titans shrink behind him, yet still they dominated the horizon. Ahead was an airport, a take-off, and a future.

“You know anything about Texas?” John Henry asked Spike, on the passenger seat beside him. He he lowered his paper boy’s cap to help keep out the glare of the summer sun.

“Aside from how many cowboys there are per capita? Nope.” Texas’ navy controlled their side of the Gulf, and Spike had never ported in that part of the world. From what whispers he heard of the South, however, he wasn’t too keen on relocation. He knew more about the Caribbean and the nations of South America than he did Texas and Mexico.

“A lot of powerful, element magi down there,” John Henry explained. “Some say it’s the geomancer capital of the world. It's a breakaway nation from Mexico. The US tried to annex it about some nigh seventy years ago, but they turned it down—now it acts as a buffer.”

Oh God, do I need to be taking notes? History was never Spike’s strong suit. Well, to be fair, most subjects weren’t. “At least it’s not math,” he grumbled.

“Oh, and if you want to feel smart, the capital is San Antonio.”

“Thanks for the lesson, J.H,” Spike said, which was really just his way of trying to change the subject.

The pit in his stomach had almost subsided, though now he was starting to get nervous about flying. Another fear, another challenger, on this endless gauntlet called life. Spike’s life had once been too stagnant, and now it seemed it was changing too fast. Lucky for him, he was the ‘Sailor Boy’, with the combined power of a whole fleet!

“I’m gonna miss you,” Spike said to his coach. There wasn’t much room for sentiment in spellbreaking, but he hoped John Henry wouldn’t neg him for it.

The man smiled, reassuringly. “Sorry to downgrade you to the second best spellbreaking trainer in the world,” he said. He nodded to the road ahead. "You may even see me sooner thank you think. You’ll be fine, kid. You’ll be fine. 

Spike looked over his shoulder, for one last glimpse of glittering Manhattan. “You know, for the first time in my life, I’m starting to believe it.”

Next Chapter!