Read Blue World for Free Online Page B

calling him those names all his life, from his mother to the juvenile-home creeps to the L.A. cops. I’m not a little punk! he thought. Someday I’ll show them all! He stumbled to his room, slamming his shoulder against a wall in the process, and had to turn on the lights before darkness totally filled the place.
    And now he saw that the black makeup case had crept closer to the table’s edge.
    He stared at it, transfixed by that silver claw. “There’s something funny about you,” he said softly. “Something reeeeallll funny. I put you in the garbage! Didn’t I?” And now, as he watched it, the claw’s forefinger seemed to… move. To bend. To beckon. Calvin rubbed his eyes. It hadn’t moved, not really! Or had it? Yes! No. Yes! No…
    Had it?
    Calvin touched it, then whimpered and drew his hand away. Something had shivered up his arm, like a faint charge of electricity.
    “What are you?”
    he whispered. He reached out to close the lid, and this time the claw seemed to clutch at his hand, to pull it down into the box itself. He shouted
    “Hey!”
    and when he pulled his hand back he saw he was gripping one of the jars of makeup, identified by the single number 9.
    The lid dropped.
    Calvin jumped. The claw had latched itself into place. For a long time he looked at the jar in his hand, then slowly-- very slowly--unscrewed the top. It was a grayish-looking stuff, like greasepaint, with the distinct odors of… What was it? he thought. Yes. Blood. That and a cold, mossy smell. He dabbed in a finger and rubbed it into the palm of his hand. It tingled, and seemed to be so cold it was hot. He smeared his hands with the stuff. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant. No, Calvin decided; it was far from unpleasant. The feeling was of… power. Of invincibility. Of wanting to throw himself into the arms of the night, to fly with the clouds as they swept across the moon’s grinning face. Feels good, he thought, and smeared some of the stuff on his face. God, if Deenie could only see me now! He began to smile. His face felt funny, filmed with the cold stuff, but different, as if the bone structure had sharpened. His mouth and jaws felt different too.
    I want my three thousand dollars from Mr. Marco, he told himself. And I’m going to get it. Yessssssss. I’m going to get it right now.
    After a while he pushed aside the empty jar and turned toward the door, his muscles vibrating with power. He felt as old as time, but filled with incredible, wonderful, ageless youth. He moved like an uncoiling serpent to the door, then into the hallway. Now it was time to collect the debt.
    He drifted like a haze of smoke through the darkness and slipped into his Volkswagen. He drove through Hollywood, noting the white sickle moon rising over the Capitol Records building, and into Beverly Hills. At a traffic light he could sense someone staring at him from the car beside his; he turned his head slightly, and the young woman at the wheel of her Mercedes froze, terror stitched across her face. When the light changed, he drove on, leaving the Mercedes sitting still.
    Yessssss. It was definitely time to collect the debt.
    He pulled his car to the curb on Rodeo Drive, two shops down from the royal-blue-and-gold canopy with the lettering marco antiques and curios. Most of the expensive shops were closed, and there were only a few window-shoppers on the sidewalks. Calvin walked toward the antique shop. Of course the door was locked, a blind pulled down, and a sign that read sorry we’re closed. I should’ve brought my tool kit! he told himself. But no matter. Tonight he could do magic; tonight there were no impossibilities. He imagined what he wanted to do; then he exhaled and slipped through the doorjamb like a gray, wet mist. Doing it scared the hell out of him, and caused one window-shopper to clutch at his heart and fall like a redwood to the pavement.
    Calvin stood in a beige-carpeted display room filled with gleaming antiques: a polished