My name doesn’t mean anything if you don’t read comics, but if you do, you are famous with my signature scrawled on the end frame of many Dark City comics: Justin P. Moore, and don’t ask what the "P" is for because I won’t tell you. I am a comic book artist and writer, and I also am a high school student. Each day, I spend countless hours in my room over my desk in my chair drawing and painting the black steel skylines of Metro behind the Dark Man of Metro, Blade, when I am not studying for a test.

Blade is a combination of a street vigilante/medieval warrior who roams the streets of looking for adventure and vengeance. He came out as part of a high school assignment, a looming man with long, jet-black hair and green eyes with a drawn sword, from which I derived his name. I have a full painting of him in my room, set against a black backdrop with his sword raised and a few smudges of blood on his coat, ready for the killing stroke. His face is set with a grim determination and a piercing look to his dark eyes, Blade has three rules: Blade never resorts to guns, one-on-one battles of honor are his style, and he never leaves an enemy alive. He is confident, brave, and viscous.

I finished up the final frame of my latest episode, one in which Blade tracks an alien creature to New York City and destroyed it in a hellacious firefight. The only problem was that I had never been to New York City in my life. I explained that to my editor, Austin Dawes, and he was less than sympathetic.

"Come on, Justin, work a little. The fans want to see Blade somewhere where they can identify with, and according to the comics, Metro is just north of New York City."

"Metro is fake. New York City is real, and I don’t know anything about New York except the Tower of Pisa is there." That last crack was a joke, but Austin flew right over it.

"Pick up a few tourbooks and old photos. Just work on it." I opened my mouth with more protestations—and shut it again when I heard the electronic click of the line disconnecting. I muttered a few coarse suggestions into the dead receiver and slammed it back down before returning to my desk and beginning the preliminary drawings of Blade in New York.

The resulting storyline was quite well-done, if I say so myself. To draw away Blade, I invented a plot line where Blade follows a trail of bizarre murders done by seemingly ordinary people to New York. It turns out that an alien spirit possesses these people, and Blade, aided by a parapsychologist, finds and destroys the last of the alien’s hosts, a petty bookkeeper who looked like Mr. Limpet. For the geography, I took Austin’s advice and borrowed some books from the library. I don’t know how accurate they were (the earliest was printed ten years ago), but I figured they would work.

The last frame was the masterpiece, though. A full-page shot, it showed Blade, injured severely but not that terribly (like fine wines, I won’t kill a hero before his time), walking away from the battle in the alley. His sword drags in the dirt to show his tiredness, and a yellow thought balloon hovers over his head in the night sky.

"I don’t want to kill, I don’t want to destroy," he thinks, "but everywhere Death hounds my steps, and people die because of it and me." Good and theatrical, "but somehow I do not think my battle with Akron (the name of the spirit) is over." Behind him, lying in the ground, is the body of Steve Wright, Akron’s last victim. His body is nothing but charred remnants now, and from his empty eye sockets rise a pale grey fog with a faint face in it. Perfect, I thought, seeing the heated debates in the chat rooms and mailing lists about what that face meant.

I scanned in the images into my computer and sent them to LoneWolf Publications by e-mail. Stretching my arms out, I felt that energy I always feel when I have finished a project.

Unfortunately, this project was not finished with me.

The first sign of trouble came about two weeks later, when the comic book came out. I should have known that it was a bad day when I slept in and missed my bus to school. I looked up at my portrait of Blade, put on my shoes, and looked back up. My eyes scanned the picture frantically. Was I still asleep? I saw nothing different, but had Blade been…smiling?

"You’re seeing things," I muttered to myself, before becoming the center of a whirlwind of clothes, then bursting out of the front door. Before I left the house, I checked the calendar on the wall, a collection of pictures from my favorite artist, Norman Rockwell. I marked off another day, and looked ahead to the 30th, when my father would be home from his business trip, and counted five days until that day. Not that having dad home would be any different from not having him home. Dad and I did not talk that much.

It took me ten minutes to run the long, winding path from my house to Jefferson High School, a perfect model of fifties track housing applied to the educational system. On this day, I didn’t even notice the drowsy gray paint or the yawning Wildcat in the front of the school.

Racing through the doors of the gym, I tried to go into the doors to the lockers, but found them locked. "Oh, look who has decided to grace us with his presence!" A booming voice announced. Whirling around, I saw the bloated body of every kid’s worst nightmare incarnate, Coach Bilby. Bilby was the stereotypical gym teacher; in his fifties, putting on more than a few pounds in fat, bald, and wearing shorts that were way too tight and short for a man of his age. It was hardly ten in the morning, and Bilby’s sweat already bled through his "Property of Jefferson High" sweat shirt.

"Coach," I said in the humblest voice I could manage; this tub of lard sickened me. He didn’t even coach a team since they threw him off of the girl’s volleyball club for that "incident", but insisted that every student he had called him "coach". "I’m sorry, but my alarm clock was late, and…"

"Well, it’s too bad for you that your alarm clock isn’t here, now, is it," Bilby replied, and drug me out onto the gym floor. In the gym, from what I could see, the rest of the boys were playing a game of basketball. The coach pushed me on the floor and blew the whistle. The game stopped.

I tried to get up, but Bilby’s shoe pressed into the small of my back, keeping me on the floor. The intense smell of sweat filled my nostrils, and I already felt tired.

"Mister…" Bilby began, and then stopped. Jackass doesn’t even know my name, I thought. After a moment of thought, he resumed in that booming voice he used to tear out freshmen trying to fulfill a senseless gym requirement. "Mister Moore has decided to be ‘fashionably late’ to our class. Well, I think that since he wants to impress us so badly, he should show us a bit of his endurance. Give me fifty push-ups!"

At that moment, I could see Bilby’s head flopping to the ground, with Blade standing over his lifeless body, but fantasies did not help my current situation. I started the push-ups, counting them off in my head. One-two-three. . .eight-nine-ten…

"Come-on, Mister Moore!" Bilby screamed. "Move it, move it. I could do fifty push-ups in my sleep. Start over! Start over! You’ll start over until you do them right!" I pushed my body up, and I felt the presence of Bilby’s body hovering close to me. The vapors coming from the old man’s crotch, heavy and toxic, filled my nostrils, and I was getting nauseous.

"You’ll never be able to complete it, slacker!" he whispered in a voice. "Just like you couldn’t complete anything, you slacker little punk. Your parents should be ashamed of you, you slacker!" The rage boiled up in me again, like it always did when somebody like Bilby pushed me around, rage mixed with frustration over my inability to do anything about it. I knew my physical strength would never match his, but I forced myself to do the fifty push-ups correctly. It took me half the hour, but I did them. Then, getting up and looking Coach Bilby in the eyes, I shot back with one of the two weapons I had.

"Gee, Coach," I said in a young girl’s voice, "I thought you only liked young volleyball players. That your idea of bump, set, spike?" The coach’s grin was gone in an instant, but the mocking grins of the most of the boys around us were not. Only now the grins directed at me were directed at the coach. Sweat ran around and in Bilby’s bulging eyeballs, and he shook with anger.

"Funny guy, eh?" Bilby said quietly, then walked away. He turned back, and then whistled. "What are you punks staring at?" he said. "Back to the game!" I picked up my backpack and put it against the bleachers, and then joined one of the games, feeling hopelessly inept but struggling to keep in the game. In a way, the game was a distraction of sorts; I could forget what would happen next.

After the game, I picked up my bag and started to leave, not going towards the locker rooms. I could feel the heavy footsteps behind me. I prepared myself. Two steps, and my shoulder was roughly pushed around. A fist shot out, and I fell to the ground, feeling the blood run from my nose slowly. That always felt funny, like a sort of narcotic release in the struggle between fainting and staying awake. Above me, the huge figure of Bilby hovered.

"You ever say something like that about me again and I will kill you, you little punk." Bilby said. I looked into his eyes, eyes without focus or reason, and knew he was telling the truth as far as he saw it. His voice was a scream-whisper, like he was trying to make himself believe something. He turned away, muttering, "You got that tripping over your shoelaces," I stood up, holding a hand to my face and examining the blood. This was not a good day, I thought as I left for the bathroom.

It would get worse.

After cleaning up, I went to the rest of my classes without much comment. Not much to do just before Christmas break, so I amused myself by drawing a rough sketch of a comic strip of Bilby being tracked and stalked by Blade down the halls of Jefferson High. The last frame was beautiful: Bilby’s eyes popping out of his head, while the Blade’s sword went through his heart. Bilby was doing push-ups, and Blade’s sword went through him all the way to strike the gym floor. All right, I admit it; maybe I was working on this thing for a couple of weeks. But what was the just cause? I went back, and drew Bilby in his office reading a bunch of dirty magazines, illegal drugs, and Soviet weapons he was hawking on the street. Perfect, I thought.

I checked my e-mail briefly on my computer. The only thing of interest there was a note by Austin telling me to call him. The note looked terse. I figured it could wait until my day had ended, and I went to the cafeteria, not so much to poison myself as to view the other zombies that inhabit Jefferson. I joined a group of them, the ones commonly known as "vampires".

The vampires of Jefferson High wore black, and I mean they wore black. Black eyeliner, black lipstick, black nailpolish, black everything. Had the principal, parents, and civil rights people allowed it, they would have worn blackface. It didn’t do with race, or even with a desire to drink blood; it was the simple desire to be noticed admist a society where external individualism had replaced internal individualism. Most people laughed at them, and some sneered, but most stayed wide of them, which suited them and me just fine.

"What’s cooking?" I asked the tallest of them, a slim-looking male who wore a perpetual sneer on his face. The male smiled.

"Nothing much, hun," Tommy said in an effeminate voice. He pointed to the other kids lining up to get lunch. "Nobody’s fallen over from poisoning yet, so we might have to wait for our daily blood." I liked Tommy; for starters, he didn’t take this whole vampire thing seriously. The others looked up at him with painted faces.

"What are we gonna do tonight?" a male with long dark hair asked. I couldn’t remember any names other than Tommy’s and another girl, sitting in an adjacent booth. Sara wore black dress and jewelry, but unlike the others’ jet-black her hair was a light blonde. Tommy replied.

"Oh, I don’t know. Rob a few graves, seduce a few virgin girls, the usual gig,"

Sara leaned over the bars between the booths and poked me in the shoulder. "I hear what that homophobe Bilby did to you in gym class." I shrugged too easily. The anger in me had been simmering, but Sara’s remembrance brought it back up to a fever pitch.

"Yeah, Justin. I hear Bilby has some red neck blood in him, and," his voice changed to a southern drawl effortlessly, "you sho do have a purty beehind." I laughed.

"He probably doesn’t like an audience," I replied. Tommy looked at my nose critically, squinting at it. I cut him off before he could begin. "Yes, he hit me, but I don’t think that it’s broken."

The other guy, the one who had spoken, said, "Why don’t you report him? I hear he likes to sit in his desk and jack-off every time he sees the guys and girls in the pool." I had heard the same thing, and worse, but I didn’t think that the principal would listen to me attentively considering my mouth.

"Forget the principal, why not try the school board?" Sara asked. Damn, I thought, I didn’t think that you could ever speak your thoughts out loud like that. She continued, and I knew I had kept my lips shut. "Bilby should have been thrown out twenty years ago when…" she stopped, then continued, "anyway, it isn’t right what he did to you."

"I know it isn’t right, but I just don’t think anything would come of it." I said, the talking fueling my anger. "My dad talks about Bilby like he’s a god, and I know that most of the parents see Bilby in the same light. They’d shrug off my comments at least long enough for Bilby to retire and nothing would ever come of it." I looked down at my shaking fists. The rest of the vampires had grown silent.

Before I could say anything more, Tommy said, "Well, maybe you could make Bilby the next victim of Blade." They all laughed, but I laughed even harder. Tommy and his friends were the only ones who knew who was the creator of Blade. "What would you think, Billy? Make him run laps until he has a heart attack?" Billy, the guy whose name I had forgotten, nodded.

"Why not just lop off his head?" Billy asked. Tommy tsked.

"Billy, Billy, Billy, do you have no romanticism in your soul?" he asked. I got up, and left my stuff to get my food. Tommy, Sara, and Billy made a cross in the air, and I repeated the gesture, muttering, "my God save my soul and the school district save my bowels," I intoned sarcastically. Another great ritual of high school, I thought.

I got at the end of the line, behind a cheerleader with a body of a goddess. The blue and white cheerleading outfit she wore seemed a little lacking in material, hugging her body tighter than a teenager with a hard on. Her long, flowing blonde hair seemed more fitting to a Grecian princess. No matter what you thought about cheerleaders, girls like Diane Kennedy always found a way to take your breath away. It didn’t seem very fair that girls like Diane roamed the same halls that you did, girls so drop-dead sexy that you knew you never had a chance with them.

The line moved up a step, and I felt a heavy arm holding onto my shoulder, widening the space between me and Diane. Turning around, I saw a group of jocks with huge shoulders bulging under blue and white coats, the big "J" seemingly stretched by their girth. One of them, a blonde-haired, brown-eyed football quarterback, stared down at me menacingly. I held my breadth, and knew the beating that was going to follow.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Ted Cottons asked rhetorically. I knew what the answer was going to be. "A scrawny little punk looking at my woman. I heard what happened to you in gym class Moore." Why do jocks always use your last name: were they preparing to go into coaching if that NFL contract didn’t come in? "Personally, I thought Bilby let you off easy. I would have rammed your nose through the floor."

I backed off a little bit, careful not to bump into Diane. "Easy, guys. I wasn’t trying to catch a look at anybody’s woman. Heck, I didn’t even know that she was your woman." I caught myself from adding I thought you were into barnyard animals. No need to aggravate a situation any further.

Ted picked me up by my lapels, drawing me towards his face. "Do you know who I am, punk?" he growled into my face. I saw the other friends of his, smacking their bubble-gum, laughing, and tossing their footballs into the air, and I felt that uneasiness of no escape. No way out of this situation. The principal wouldn’t be here for about another two minutes, even if somebody contacted him. And with no way out, came nothing to lose. I smiled.

"Hmmmmm," I said loudly, looking at his face with a sarcastic interest, "It would appear to be an extinct breed of Neanderthal. Can you say Neanderthal?" Looking back, his fists didn’t hurt so much as did when he threw me into the brick wall. I faded in and out of consciousness, and back in again when I heard a woman’s voice.

"Teddy, don’t waste your time on this scum." Diane hopped up and down in front of her "Teddy". Ted looked down at me, my nose busted open and bleeding for the second time, and smiled, before turning away. Diane, her figure still beautiful through the blood, looked down at me, inhaled deeply…and then hocked a lugie on my face. The unwomanlyness of the act was what shocked me the most.

"Keep your dirty hands and eyes off of me, you freak," she said, and then turned away. I looked at her, wondering had my eyes played a trick on me. Shock turned to anger, though, and the frustration at anger that I could only get rid of through my mouth welled up in me even further.

I got up, and found somebody helping me up. Looking around, I saw a slightly-chubby girl helping me. She seemed oddly shy to me. Her dark eyes gaped out at me behind dark-rimmed glasses, and she seemed unable to speak.

"Thank you," I said, and that broke the spell. She looked at my nose, and winced.

"You certainly are braver than anybody I’ve seen," she said. "Are you hurt?" I arched my back, feeling for broken ribs. No, none that I could feel. I was lucky in that, at least.

"No, I’m not hurt," I told her, "and I’m not so much brave as resigned to the position that I’m going to get my ass kicked anyway, so why bother on civilities?" I turned away without another word, and went back to the vampires, who were still at their table. "You could have helped," I told them.

"You pick your own battles with that mouth of yours," Tommy replied, "besides, you aren’t that hurt." I nodded. Just a bloodied nose and a bruised body, I thought sarcastically. I picked up my books and stuffed my sketch pad into my backpack.

"Tell Mister Mayo that I got sick and went home," I told Tommy, referring to the art class we took together. "I handed in all of my work, so I should be fine." With that, I turned and exited the cafeteria, walking back home. It couldn’t get any worse than this, I thought.

When I finally got home, I decided to call Austin and ask him what was up. Unfortunately, I got his voicemail, so I left him a brief message and worked on my sketches that I had started before, all the while thinking about what Tommy had said to me.

You pick your battles with that mouth of yours. That really wasn’t fair. After all, I only shot off when I knew I couldn’t win, when I was backed into a corner. What other options were there left to me?

Working with the paints and the oils was a perfect release. I didn’t even feel the pain of my nose after a while. All there was the paper and the color, and I painted slowly, feeling every vein on Blade’s neck as I drew it in.

I heard the telephone ring, and I grabbed the receiver. It was Austin. "Hey, Justin, I got your voicemail. I have some news for you."

"Bad or good?" I asked. Austin seemed unsure.

"News. It seems that the New York cops found the body of an accountant this morning, hacked nearly to bits. They say that if it weren’t for the fact that whoever did the job decapitated him, the head might have been hacked into sausage." I was getting an uneasy feeling. An accountant.

"Are they trying to say that somehow my comic strip…" Austin cut me off.

"The accountant’s name was Steve Wright." Austin said. I could hear his breathing through the receiver, and he could probably hear mine as well. We said nothing for two minutes. What the hell type of chance was that? I thought.

"Austin, what the hell is going on?" I asked.

"Personally, I don’t know. Police aren’t saying anything, but my guess is some nut case with a fondness for your comic got excited about your latest installment, bought a knife, and played Make Believe We’re Blade. Listen, it was luck that you chose that name. I could make up a name and it’s probably in the phonebook somewhere."

I was pacing up and down, now. Good God, why did this happen to my comic strip? I had read about kids imitating their heroes, but I never thought that my hero would be imitated by a psycho? What in the hell was happening?

"What should I do?" I asked him.

"Do? Do nothing, I just called you up in case some reporter comes a-lookin’ your way. Don’t get upset."

"Upset? What the hell is there to be upset about?" I said calmly; well, maybe calmly isn’t the right word. "Some psycho-nut uses my comic as his Bible and you’re telling me not to get upset?"

"Justin!" Austin said. "Listen to me, and I will tell you how it is going to go. Right now, the police aren’t doing anything. Hell, they probably don’t even know about the comic book. It will be a couple of days before the press notices, and right after them, the police. The police won’t be interested in you; they’ll be concerned with the real murderer, whomever he is.

"What happens when of if the press makes the link and comes to you, you say nothing at the moment. I’ll put out a press statement with something to the affect of ‘although LoneWolf sends its greatest sympathies to the family of Steven Wright, we accept no responsibilities for the actions of a murderer who is obviously emotionally and mentally impaired.’ Nice, sweet, and politically correct."

"Great, bad news on a bad day." I muttered.

"Who said anything about bad news?" Austin asked. "After a month or two, you could maybe go on the interview tour. Talk about your comics, get people’s minds off of this situation. Who knows? Maybe we could get a movie deal when we are all said and done." I couldn’t believe Austin.

"Austin, a man is dead and you are talking about…Jesus!" I pulled my thumb off of the table. It had been cut, and was bleeding moderately. Sucking on it, I looked down at where it had been. From my guess, it had been on the frame of Blade with his sword drawn in front of him. A bit of blood stained the sword and the paper. I had never heard of anybody getting a paper cut in the middle of a page.

"I am talking about Jesus, eh?" Austin said, amused. I was still sucking my thumb. "Well, I am talking about the Commandments of Public Relations: sometimes even bad news is good if you can generate publicity from it. Look, I feel bad about it, but it’s not my job to go off the deep end whenever some psycho reads a comic book I publish. I thought that you would want to know."

"Just let me enjoy some of my vacation," I said, "I’ll have the next comic to you as soon as possible."

"Never doubted you," Austin said. "Keep in touch, and what was that about a bad day."

"Forget it. Bye," I told him, and hung up the receiver. For a few moments, I stared at my image of Blade, hunting Bilby down the halls of Jefferson Hall with sword drawn. Bilby had a gun in his hand, but even with that, it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Blade would kick his heinie from coast to coast. I also had sketched some preliminary drawings of Blade stalking the Prom Couple (what I now used to refer to Ted and Diane) through the ruins of the CF&I plant, not even bothering for a cause. Diane wouldn’t spit on Blade. I looked up at my clock, and tiredness sloshed over me like a wet blanket. I turned off my lights and fell into my bed amist the mess. I thought I heard quick footsteps, like the footsteps of something being hunted, and another set of steps, more careful and methodical, and then I was in the world of Dreams.

I jolted up the next day from my bed, then relaxed when I saw the 7:00 flashing on my clock. After breakfast, I walked out the door and towards our beloved Jefferson High. As I walked, I smelled the acidy scent of my own blood. I passed my hand underneath my nose, and it came back clean. That was odd, I thought. I could smell the blood thick in my nose, yet I wasn’t bleeding.

When I saw the first police car parked a block away from the school, I didn’t think of it. But police car soon followed police car, and I saw a scene of confusion and excitement. It seemed the entire school body of Jefferson stood on the front lawn, pushing the yellow police tape as far as they dared. It struck a nerve in my body, but I went on.

Pushing through a crowd, from past experiences, is like walking through a World War II minefield. You never know who will let you go and who will explode in your face. This time, I was lucky, weaving my way through the crowd quickly and without jostling anybody, or anybody who cared. I got to the opposite side just in time to see a white ghost carted off on a pathologist’s gurney. Oh God, no, I thought, and meant it. That couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I was on the verge of a heart attack when I turned around and recognized Tommy. "Tommy," I said, "What the hell’s happening?" I don’t know how many prayers I was saying in my head, but Tommy shattered them all.

"Didn’t you hear the radio?" Tommy asked. "Somebody killed Coach Bilby." I felt myself dizzy, and I had to sit down on the grass. I thought I sat down; the next thing Tommy dragged me to my feet and out of the crowd a few feet. I saw that Billy and Sara were there as well.

"What happened?" I asked nervously. I was afraid I already knew.

"Nobody’s talking," Billy said. "All I saw was Mrs. Reckrodt being brought out of the school. She’s as white as a sheet, muttering nonsense, and nothing can scare Mrs. Reckrodt."

"Yeah," Sara said, "school’s dismissed for today and tomorrow. We were thinking of going down to the Nature Walk. Wanna come?" I shook my head. Tommy must have read something into that shake.

"Come on, you can’t think that you had anything to do with that? We were just talking the other day." I tried to find the words to express what I was thinking, when I glanced over Tommy’s shoulder. On the hill I saw Diane and Ted talking with a person taking notes in a small black book. A very official looking person with a bulge appearing just under his shoulder beneath his suitcoat. I looked back at Tommy.

"Glance over your back when I say to glance," I told Tommy.

"What are you talking about?" Tommy asked. Ted pointed off in the distance somewhere—not somewhere, but in the direction that I lived—and Diane and the other person looked.

"Glance," I told him, and he looked. Sara and Billy looked as well, and then looked back.

"The pigs," Sara said, with a hint of a whisper in her breath.

"And I can imagine what they are saying," I said, "‘Yes officer, I know who your killer is. He has black hair, black eyes, 165 pounds, and is named Justin Moore.’" Spending a day explaining myself to the cops would not be the most fruitful endeavor, at least not here. I grabbed Tommy and Billy, and pulled them up.

"Walk with me up to the crowd, and then leave," I told them, slowly marching. The others complied wordlessly. Tommy was talking frantically.

"Come on, Justin," he said. "You can come with us, and that cop isn’t going to be looking at you as a serious suspect."

"I don’t want you guys to get into the mess I created," I responded. We were at the start of the crowd, and I pulled them in a little ways. "I have to go home, so go out to the Nature Center." I pointed the other way, and they looked at me for a second.

"This sucks," Sara said, "you don’t have to explain yourself to the pigs."

"Come on," Tommy said, pulling Sara along with him. "Justin’s right. Just lay low until the heat disappears," he said comically, pulling off a Colombo accent perfectly. The three left the crowd, and I melted back in, moving my way through the crowd. I thought of myself now going through elephant grass, trying to evade the snakes and the enemy. It was ridiculous, but the chased mind is not the rational mind.

Stepping out of the crowd, I walked casually around the building, keeping the crowd between me and the cop Diane and Ted were talking to. All the while my thoughts were a mixed jumble. What had happened? Had I unconsciously sleepwalked to Jefferson and shot Bilby. The ridiculousness of the thought almost made me laugh.

Luckily for me, the teachers had only thought to secure the one door in front. The rest of the doors were wide open. I chose the one closest to the gym and stepped in. Footsteps echoed like falling stones on the wooden floor. Nothing was out of place here on the west side. Why are you assuming he was killed in here simply because he was killed in here in your comics?

I walked over to the other side slowly. My mind heard the occasional groan of the air conditioning system, and extrapolated that cop coming in here and arresting me for murder while Tad laughed and Diane spat on me. Nothing I said could calm the fears, but I kept saying it.

"Come on Justin it’s just a hell of a coincidence nobody’s gonna walk in here they’re all out here oh god why did it have to happen today what am I saying…," my voice dropped off the moment I saw the tape outline of Bilby’s body. The suddenness, the solemnnesss of seeing where a real body was never leaves you. You try to imagine what thoughts, what feelings the victim had before a final sleep left them in that position. I kneeled down, and saw a chipping in the floor. The chipping felt sharp along the edges, too sharp for a bullet to make.

I stood up expressionless when I realized that this wasn’t a bullet mark. It was the mark of a sword driven into the ground.

"Oh god no," I whispered. I had to get out of here fast, but my feet held to the floor, frozen by fear and disbelief. This couldn’t be what I was seeing. It was impossible. Blade was a fiction, a fiction of my mind. He wasn’t flesh and blood. Comic book characters don’t step off of pages and kill, do they?

I heard footsteps, and swore. Fleeing the scene of a crime would add to my suspicion, but sneaking into the gym didn’t exactly put me on the list of "innocents". I almost ran out of the gym, and then sneaked out quickly, moving my feet on the floor so as to muffle any sound.

I got out of the gym, walked down the hall a third of the way, and nearly dropped dead when I saw a man in a trenchcoat at the far end of the hall. "I didn’t kill him, officer," I blurted, before noticing the spikes around his black boots. Those weren’t police issue. I saw the black trenchcoat, and part of my mind reminded me that the cop had worn a suit, but that was far from my mind. I was coldly assessing the blood on his coat while my soul screamed and slammed its screams against my chest. Those cold green eyes and black hair regarded me curiously, and I, for the first time in my life, saw Blade as he would have been in real life.

Blade looked at me for a moment, and then drew a long sword from his side. It was razor-sharp, and was spattered with blood. He pulled a white handkerchief from the opposite pocket and slid it along the blade, meticulously and at the same time casually cleaning the blood off. I wanted to sick up, but I couldn’t. My whole throat was frozen solid like a metal pipe. I stood there, watching, waiting.

Blade stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and then saluted me with his sword before exiting to the left. I followed at a lurching run, the half that wanted to follow struggling with the half that wanted to run the other way and damn whoever was in the gym. At the end of the hall I looked at where Blade had left. Blade was not there. I strained my eyes, mentally calculating the time that it would take to get to the exit at the end of that second hall. I should have seen Blade just before he hit the door, but he was not there.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing in here?" I jumped around to see a janitor just behind me, and I almost shouted. I backed up. The janitor, a lean man with overalls, leaned on his broom chewing on tobacco or gum. "School’s closed, boy." The janitor said around the wad in his mouth.

"I’m sorry, I came in through that exit," I said, pointing the way Blade had gone. The sentence was hardly out of my mouth when I realized the stupidity of the statement. He would have obviously seen me come up the hallway to the gym. The janitor smacked on his wad a few times.

"School’s closed, boy, so git," he pointed back the way that I had supposedly gone. I backed up halfway to the door, and then nearly ran the rest of the way. I hoped that the janitor would simply look at this as eagerness to be out of school. I burst through the doors, but did not think of going after Blade. I knew he wouldn’t wait up for me.

I finally got home about an hour later, having taken a long way home in case anybody had followed me. I almost instantly cursed myself out for being a moron. What cop would follow me home when he could simply look up my record and wait for me at home? Hello, son. See you got back from a long day of murder, eh?

I stood in the hall for a few minutes, then suddenly thought of something. If the police searched the house, they would find the comics that I had drawn the night before. They wouldn’t need a written confession; they would have my own drawings to convict me.

I think it took me about two seconds to reach my room, and my feet touched the ground maybe once. My eyes widened as I viewed my room. A tornado couldn’t have done more damage; I was certain I couldn’t have caused as much damage. A million papers covered the floor, my bed, the windows. My drawing table was overturned; inks slowly seeped through the fibers of the carpet. My computer, surprisingly, was still in its place, but the phone wires had been sliced and ripped out of the wall.

I fell to my knees and scrambled among the pages, trying to find what I had worked on before. My hands, at first calm, twitched out of control when they failed to find those drafts. I grabbed something that looked like what I had been doing, and then just as quickly ripped it to shreds. It was just some of my work for an art class from a few weeks ago. I curled my hands into balls, and tried to calm down again. It was a futile effort.

The doorbell rang at that moment, and I had no illusions about who it wasn’t. I quickly slammed the door to my room, and ran to the door, stopping just in front of it. Behind the curtains I saw a man figure with his arm raised, banging on the door. My mind thinks of a dark ghost, in fact the Dark Ghost of Death, and I laugh softly at the ridiculousness of the thought.

The same official-looking person that I saw in front of Jeffferson stepped in through the doorway without so much as a word. He was tall, and I could see that, although clothed in a demure worksuit, his body had been intensly built by months in the gym. I blinked my eyes, and suddenly he was transformed into Blade, blonde hair flashing into black and green eyes burning with…not hate, but something more powerful, more intense…

"Mister Moore, are you alright?" Blade spoke, and just as quickly as that the man was back to his normal self. He held out a badge and a hand. "I’m Lieutenant Mitchner of the homicide bureau, can I come in?"
Why didn’t you ask that before you came inside? The thought boiled in me, but I kept it down. Keep it cool, and all it will be are a few questions and this Mitchner will be back on the street chomping on his doughnuts, even though a doughnut looked like the last thing he would stuff through his piehole. "Of course," I muttered, "Come right on in, Officer."

I led him to a chair in the living room, and pulled up on the couch. Something bumped me, but I ignored it. Right now I was concentrating on Mitchner, who seemed cocked like a loaded gun even at his ease. He declined to drink anything, instead looking up at the pictures and around the room.

"Did you know Mister Brian Bilby?" He asked me first off.

"Yes," I said, "I guess this means he has been killed." Mitchner looked at me hard.

"What means that he has been killed?" he asked slowly. Easy,a voice inside of me said, don’t say too much, but don’t say too little either. I tried to remember what I had heard my father say to his all-too-often guilty clients about talking to police.

"It’s obvious that you didn’t come here to discuss Coach Bilby’s hygiene." I said, and he nodded.

"Yes, we found his body today," Mitchner said. He lightened up a hair. "You saw him yesterday during class, didn’t you?" I guessed he not only talked to the Prom Couple Ted and Diane, but also to the administration office.

"Yes," I said slowly.

"Did he seem anyway unusual that day?"

I shook my head slowly. "Not that I remember, no." I felt my feet underneath me, and realized that I had pulled my legs up onto the couch and under me so that I was crouching, facing Mitchner, who didn’t seem to notice.

"Yes," Mitchner said, pulling a notebook from his suit, "Do you know a Diane Kennedy and a Ted Cottons?" I held my breadth for a moment, and then expelled slowly. No need for him to realize that I was any more nervous than I really was.

"I know of them," I said, "I don’t exactly walk arm-in-arm with them."

"Yes, well, they said that you had an altercation with Coach Bilby, threatened to kill him when he chewed you out." He left the accusation in the air, and for a moment it floated between us, pointed dagger-sharp at my throat. I broke the accusation with a laugh.

"So, that’s what they told you?" I asked rhetorically. Probably also told you that I smoked weed as well. Keep calm, and this will be over in a few minutes. "Look, I arrived a few minutes late, Coach made me do some push-ups, I mouthed off and he popped me. Nothing big enough to kill him over."

"He hit you?" Mitchner said, and I nearly swore. Damn him, I thought. No, damn me and my big mouth. I had just now dug my grave, and only smooth talking would keep me out of it.

"Just a little slap," I told him, while I scanned my brain for the proper response. I deserved it. . .no, sounds too guilty. . .happens all the time. . .no, not right either. "I guess he was having a bad day," I finally said. Yeah, a real bad day for him, with a sword at the end of it. No, a Blade at the end.

"A bad day," Mitchner said, and wrote a few notes in his book. "Did Bilby act somewhat strange that day other than the slap?"

"Strange, what do you mean?" I asked. Mitchner fumbled around for the right word.

"Out of it, not concentrating, strange," Mitchner responded. For the first time, I really didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

"Uh, no, what are you talking about?" I asked. Mitchner continued his questions.

"Did you ever see Bilby take illegal drugs?" Bilby and illegal drugs, that was laughable. Bilby was anything other than a druggie; I suspected that he passed fiber whenever he was on the can.

"No," I said.

"Did you see him talk with any known drug dealers?" Now the story was coming out. Clearly they thought that Bilby had gotten in bad with some drug dealers who decided to off him in a "gangland" killing. If they wanted to suspect that, they could suspect that. I certainly wouldn’t help them do their job.

"Yeah, every day in gym class." I said, and then laughed to show it was a joke. Mitchner did not laugh.

"Do you know of any drug dealers that Bilby might have had contact with?" Mitchner asked me. I raked my brains for a dealer to feed to Mitchner, then realized I really didn’t know any. Drug users yes, but most of them were too poor to afford any drugs other than the ones that they used. I saw a few drug dealers at the corners, boys and girls who flashed between equally slimy sneers and smiles towards their marks, resigned to a life of feeding Burrough’s monkey through yellow teeth and green dollar bills for a quick profit and just as quick a loss. I knew their faces, but I didn’t know their names.

"I’m sorry, I can’t help you there," I said, and Mitchner seemed to be satisfied with that. He stood up.

"Well, I guess I will be leaving you now, but I might have to come back," he told me, "One last question for you, though: where were you from about 11:00 to about 2:00 last night?"

"Sleeping," the answer came out naturally, and I didn’t choke it back. Anything else would have sounded fabricated. He nodded, and then looked behind me, slightly pushing me. He pushed back the cushions, and the uncomfortable feeling that I had before came back. He pulled out a sword, flashed with blood and seemingly razor thin, and displayed it for me. I didn’t even bother to explain myself, but simply held out my hands.

"Arrest me," I said, "Hell, I’d arrest myself if I had that."

"I am trying to tell you that I did not kill him." Four hours later, I was sitting in a gray room being interrogated by Mitchner and a balding officer in a tweed suit and a very thick tie.

"Okay," the old man said, "let’s go over the story once again." I rolled my eyes.

"Either you are very deaf or very stupid," I shot back. My temper was mildly hot, now, and this fat fool was making it worse. "I have told you the story four times now."

"And you will tell it four hundred times more, if it takes that long to get it right," Mitchner said just as calmly. "We found Bilby’s blood on that sword and your fingerprints on the blade. Want to explain how they got there?" his mannerisms clearly indicated both the blood and my fingerprints.

"I know you don’t want to hear this, but I…do…not…know," I spaced each of the last four words clearly, "I didn’t even see the sword until you fished it out of the couch." Mitchner paced back and forth.

"Let’s go through this at a different angle," the older officer said, "Have you ever taken illegal drugs?"

"No," I said.

"Have you ever possessed or sold illegal drugs?"

"No," I repeated.

"Have you ever been convicted of a sex crime?"

"Well," I said sarcastically, "there was that time in Munich, but I swear she lied about her age." The cop got into my face hard.

"Now you listen here, you little puke," his breathing was hard and heavy, like steam pumped through cold pipes, and I could smell the lack of a toothbrush on his teeth. "I think you are one of those teenage, psycho punks who gets mad at their teachers for failing them and then kills them. It only goes to your credit that you were above average intelligence enough to plant…" Mitchner put a hand on his partner’s arm, and he fell silent.

"Let’s just say that we believe you," Mitchner said, "Just theoretically, would you have any idea about who would run a sword right through Bilby in the middle of a school gymnasium? Who would even have the motive to do something like this, let alone the sword that you seemingly possess?"

I put my head in my hands and shook it sadly. I could see my life falling down all around me. The truth was there, I knew the truth, and knew just as quickly that the truth would send me to the State Hospital in a straitjacket. A cop in uniform came in and handed something to Mitchner, who nodded and put it right in front of me. The glaring face of Blade almost made me jump.

"When I heard your name, I first through about your lawyer dad, but then I remembered seeing the name somewhere else. It seems our murder suspect is a comic book artist."

"Graphic novelist," I corrected them, but not with much heart. The older cop quickly flipped through Blade number 35, one that I had drawn nearly a year ago.

"Violent stuff, Justin," he said, making a fan sound by rapidly flipping through the pages, as if calling me by my first name indeared me to him. "What is locked up in that head of yours?"

"I guess we’ll find out at your arraignment tomorrow," Mitchner finished for him, then knocked on the door and an officer led me towards the cells. I wondered how long it would take my father to come and find his son a murderer. Worse, he was the creator of a murderer.

When the lonely cell doors closed, that last thought rang home to me. Even if I hadn’t killed Bilby myself, I had created the person…the thing…that had killed another person. Was I any better in justifying myself, however bizarre the circumstances, than the movie producers and the rap artists that make billions of dollars on violence?

I looked up to the sole area of light, and I saw a single red-breasted robin staring down at me, illuminated by the light of a street light. The bird looked down at me, curious at what sort of being would willingly lock itself inside of a concrete box. I had the sudden urge to reach for a pencil and a piece of paper, and for the first time I was frustrated by the lack of either.

The bird flew off suddenly, and I saw a large silhouette in the light. Whirling, I turned and saw Blade again, looking at me. He looked at me with those intense, angry green eyes. "So, we meet again," Blade said, and although I had never heard his voice, it seemed right, it was right. It was a heavy, intense sound, the sound of a man piling all the strength of his body into his voice. "I am sorry that it came to this, but I must."

"Leave your swords around for police to find?" I asked, "Leave my fingerprints on them? Frame me for a murder you committed?" We immediately lapsed into a casual tone, even when talking about murder and death.

Blade shrugged. "I did not leave ‘your’ fingerprints on my sword. Your fingerprints are mine. Even so, this had to happen. You cannot interfere."

"Interfere in what?" I demanded.

"You were always weak, frail. You never let your anger go, never allowed yourself to use your anger. Do you know how frustrating it was to see you sit in your room holding back your anger after another bully beat you up? I could feel it, and I was powerless to do anything while you held me in that fake world of yours."

"Metro," I breathed, walking around my shell. Blade nodded.

"But when you brought me into New York, I knew I could escape. I knew that I could express the anger you never would, but I had to test it. That accountant was a work of genius, I must say."

I was breathing hard, and breathing fast as I realized what I was doing. Talking to a fictional character. I kept my cool. "Blade, I am your creator, and I am telling you that this is wrong. Murder is wrong."

"Murder is nothing but the final step in a long burst of anger you have held in for some time. You could have released it in bits and pieces, but you held it in like a gold horde, and now it has come to this. You have to see the anger through, even if I have to keep you in jail for it."

"Blade, I could die!" I said, and that seemed to catch him off guard for a minute, before he shook his head.

"Not after tonight, you won’t," Blade said, "I’ll make sure that they can never rationally connect you to the murders. Just two more deaths, and the sacrifice will be done." I immediately thought of the preliminary sketches I had done last night, the sketches of Blade chasing down Todd and Diane.

"No, you can’t do that," I told Blade.

"I can, and I must," Blade told me. "You must see the result of your own anger, and be satisfied." He turned and left, and I shouted after him.

"Blade, at least give me a chance to save them," I said. What was I thinking. Saving Todd and Diane? Blade didn’t turn back, but he did stop. I continued. "If I can find them and save them, you won’t kill them." Blade nodded.

"One condition, though," Blade said, "I get a head start," he clicked his hands, and suddenly darkness enfolded me. I knew time had slipped from under my feet, but I wasn’t sure of how much. I heard steps coming down the alley, and a voice.

"All right, Mister Moore," It had a Texas twang to it, and I knew it was not Blade, "You’ve been shouting for the past twenty minutes, and then you go silent on us for the next hour. Now I know you’ve been smoking something, and I mean to have it." I backed up to my bunk, and I felt something small, and hard, I looked briefly, and saw a gun.

"Great, it would have to be the violent approach for you, Blade," I muttered, and the lights went back on again. The cop appeared in front of my cell, opening the door. He wasn’t as fat as Mitchner’s partner, but he was just as old, and he was wearing a blue uniform. I kept the gun to my side, and the shadows apparently kept it well hidden.

The cop gave no sign that he saw my gun, only motioned to me to get out of the shadows. "Keep your hands in the air where I can see them," he ordered me. I quickly pulled the gun from the side and put it to his head.

"Can you see them now, officer?" I asked slowly. "Take out your gun and your radio." The cop complied slowly, but I saw a twinkle in his eyes, a twinkle that said that he didn’t think a kid like me would shoot. I pulled the hammer back and shoved it under his round nose.

"I can blow your nose before you sneeze, so do what I say." I said quietly. The cop saw something different, and he complied quietly. I shoved him into the corner and picked up the gun. I had a stray thought right then that maybe my gun, pulled from wherever Blade got it, might not work. It looked sort of what I would think a gun would look like, but it felt. . .unreal. Too light, as if it was ether and not matter. No matter; this cop’s gun would work just fine.

"We are going to take a walk," I told him. "What is the best way to get out of this building?"

"South exit," he told me. I nodded. I raised both guns threateningly, like a shootist from the Old West. I didn’t want to kill him—hell, I didn’t want to kill anybody except for Blade—but I wanted to get out alive and to stop Blade, and this was the only way. I thought with a smirk on how much that no way out mentality had guided my life. Well, It would guide me out of here.

"Lead the way, keep both hands behind your back nonchalantly, and remember I can have a slug through your head before you can finish a shout." I told him. He led me out, and we both walked slowly, passing the empty cells without another word. I kept my eyes on him, not really noticing the absence of prisoners and inmates. Maybe a slow night, I thought.

We walked down the corridors, and I had put the guns in my pockets to shield them. Nothing more than an cop and a civilian walking through the police station. In reality, he was more in charge. If he ran for help, or worse, if another cop came up from in front or behind, I was in deep trouble. I didn’t even know if I could shoot another person, even if it meant my own life.

If I was nervous, then the cop was downright scared for some reason. Maybe he, too, expected another cop to come up and rescue him, or maybe I looked crazier than I thought I looked. Either way, he led me like a faithful dog to the exit doors at the south, nondescript double doors set at the end of a tight hallway colored in gray. He was about to go through, and I was wondering how I would deal with him, when a familiar figure went through the doors, looking at a file when he looked up and saw the officer, and then his eyes widened when he saw me.

I gave him no chance to do anything, but simply pulled my gun, shoved the other officer to the door, and rammed my elbow into his nose, hard. Blood spurted out, and he collapsed in a heap. I kept my gun on him.

"Don’t do it," I said, indicating his hand slowly itching towards his pocket. I ordered him to slowly expose his gun, and then remove it and put it on the ground. I didn’t pick it up, but I turned him around and the shoved him out the door. Following his steps closely behind.

"Where’s Diane’s house?" I asked him. He didn’t look at me.

"I won’t let you kill her," he said slowly, and I saw his muscles tense. I knew that he would try to jump me if I didn’t do anything soon.

"I am trying to keep her from being killed by Blade," I told him, flushing out the truth quickly. He looked at me over his shoulder, and chuckled.

"Are you trying to tell me that a comic character is killing people?" he asked sarcastically.

"He isn’t real, but he isn’t very laughable either," I responded. "Let’s go. If Diane’s fine, I’ll go in without a struggle. You’ll be able to bust me peaceably. But if I am right, and you try to capture me—which you probably could—then tomorrow you’ll have two more deaths to explain to the press." He was silent for a few seconds. "Well?" I asked.

He walked to a black Ford Taurus, and opened the door. He turned back to face me. "Well?" he asked impatiently, and I jumped into the passenger side. I looked at him, and as a show of faith, dropped both weapons in the back of the car. He looked at me, as if deciding what to do.

"Diane?" I asked, and he started the car.

"You do know that you’re in big trouble, even if we do find this other killer," Mitchner said. We passed the lights in a blur, driving down the cool black asphalt like sailors down a river. "I was about to release you when you assaulted that other officer and then pulled a gun on me. Now you’re going to the slammer however this unfolds."

"I’ll think about that after we’ve saved Diane and Todd," I responded, then thought a moment, "What do you mean, released?"

"That report you saw me reading was the DNA and fingerprint match-up," Mitchner told me, then shrugged, "sorry about lying to you earlier, but I had to bluff you out of something. The fingerprints didn’t match a thing. Not your prints, not any prints. But the second ‘blood stains’ and the sword were even weirder."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. Mitchner continued, but he didn’t seem to notice what I had said.

"We found two sets of blood on the sword, or at least we thought we did. One was Bilby’s, that was obvious, but the other…hell, it wasn’t even blood. More like red ink. We got that first, and I simply thought you had gone over to Jefferson after painting a little, but the fingerprints convinced me."

"And the sword?" I asked.

"Now there was the shitlicker," Mitchner said. The profanity seemed cold, technical, like shitlicker was a technical term that described a quandary in forensics. "The sword was sharper than anything that we had ever seen, and it seemed to be harder as well, but when we took a sample of it to look at…it wasn’t steel, or any other metal. High content of carbon and oxygen."

At first I was concerned by the direction that we were taking. As soon as we hit 8th Street, we headed east, away from the south side and Jefferson High School. I asked him about this.

"Was a surprise to me, as well," he told me. "I thought she would live near El Camino, or even University Hills, but there is a lot more that she hides underneath those designer clothes and that fancy make-up." We continued on, turning north, and then back east, until we had reached the real east side. He pulled up at a particularly drab-looking house. In the light of the highbeams the unmowed yellow grass seemed almost golden. I stepped out of the car, and almost instantly I heard screams and moans in the house.

Mitchner pulled up his pantsleeve, and removed a smaller, nondescript gun from his sock. He could have gotten that gun at any time, I realized. Not stopping for any more thought, I followed him into the house, and was shocked at what I saw. Or rather, I stopped at who I saw.

On the floor, Todd sat screaming and moaning. His left sleeve was damp wet, and his right hand was bloodied. He looked up at us, and his screams continued. I stepped on something, and heard a bone-chilling crack. Looking down, Todd’s severed left hand was underneath my foot. I slammed against the wall, and Mitchner grabbed up the hand. I went down to Todd’s side.

"What happened?" I asked. Todd was nearly incoherent.

"Man…with a sword…Diane and I…grabbed Diane, I tried to help…but he cut off my hand…please help me." Mitchner found the kitchen, and returned with a brown bag that I suspected was full of ice and the hand. I didn’t know that much about medicine, but that much I had caught from watching television doctors.

A young girl came out of a door with gauze and a first aid kit, and I immediately recognized her. Those dark eyes staring out of those equally dark-rimmed glasses were the same ones who met mine after a pummeling from the now one-handed Todd. "You?" I said.

She looked at me, and sniffed. "I do have a name," she said, "It’s Kimberly."

"Kimberly, why are you here?" I asked. She put on the antiseptic and then applied the gauze with a smooth professionalism while she talked.

"Why shouldn’t I live here?" she responded, "this is my home, mine and my sister’s. Diane treats us all like dirt, but she still allows us to occupy the same home that she does." I mouthed Diane’s name silently. Diane and Kimberly. The two looked nowhere alike, save for the dark hair.

"Where’s your mother?" Mitchner asked.

"Diane told her to get out of the house tonight and mom doesn’t have the strength to say no," Kim responded. "I would guess she’s out at a bar. Mom took to the bottle after father died, and Diane hasn’t done much to make her situation better."

I looked at the clock on the opposite wall. Ten o’clock. I didn’t think we had much more time left.

I looked at her serious eyes and knew it would be useless to tell her to call 911. Mitchner spoke up next. "What did the man who did this look like?" he asked. I could have hit him. I could have told him what he looked like.

Kimberly shook her head. "I didn’t get to see him, I heard the door slam open, two screams, and when I got out in here, I found Todd like that." I spoke to Mitchner.

"I know where they went," I said. "The CF&I Factory."

"Why didn’t you tell me to go there first," Mitchner demanded. We heard the sirens coming down the street.

"I think it’s part of the rules," I responded slowly. I wasn’t sure that I understood it myself. "If we went to the CF&I first, we might have found both Todd and Diane dead. We have to play the game by Blade’s rules." Mitchner looked at me like I was crazy, and Kimberly like I was something worse.

"Who’s Blade?" She asked, then her eyes went wide, "Your comic books…oh, you can’t be serious!"

"This is no time for chatter," Mitchner said. "I’ll have five or six cop cars there within fifteen minutes," I rolled my eyes, and he swore. "I suppose this is one of those deals where you have to face him, right?"

I nodded, and then ran out of the door. "Like you said, no time for chatter," I didn’t slow up while I spoke, but I didn’t need to. Mitchner was right on my heels. Surprisingly, Kimberly also came out of the house. She hesitate a minute, then looked down the street. Two ambulances were arriving. She shouted something into the house, then ran after us. Mitchner would not have any of it.

"You are staying here," he told her.

"Says who?" she demanded.

"Says me," Mitchner shot back. "I’m already breaking about a dozen or so rules in taking him. I’m not going to get into it worse." Mitchner didn’t give her any more chance to argue. As soon as I was inside, he floored the gas, sending us shooting out of the driveway, and then into the street towards CF&I, the final battleground.

As soon as we got to the front gates of the steel plant, a security officer halted our car. Mitchner pulled his badge out and stepped out of the car. "Open the gates," he commanded. The security guard yawned deeply.

"What’s this?" The officer had a thick red line straight through the middle of his large forehead; clearly, he had been sleeping in an odd position, likely against the edge of his desk.

"Open the damn gates or I’ll arrest you for impeding an officer," he snapped. The security guard complied, albeit slowly. We finally lost all patience and drove through the gates while they were opening, slamming them the rest of the way.

"Over to the right," I told him, pointing at a steel skeleton of a warehouse. He turned, and we pulled up near it. I got out of the car, sensing an eerie feeling. Although I wasn’t certain, I was sure that this wasn’t the place where I had drawn Blade skewering Todd and Diane.

"All right, kid, now I call back-up," he said. "This is the time to let the pros handle it, kid." Mitchner picked up the mike and started calling headquarters. I knew it was useless to tell him to stop, so I went for the next best thing.

"Give me twenty minutes," I told him, "I can guarantee that the cops won’t get to Diane. I might be able to."

"Kid, I’m not going to risk an innocent life because of your ‘might’," he looked at the steel. "Five minutes," he said. "And I come in after you."

"Fifteen," I responded, "and you can come in after you call."

"Ten," he said, and I nodded. He looked in the back of the car, and lifted up the gun Blade gave me. "This feels almost like the sword we brought in," he muttered, "Too light to be loaded. Too light for reality, in fact."

"Keep it," I told him, "I don’t think I’ll need it." I went in on alone, and this time I knew I was alone when I moved through the steel bars. The fog gently wrapped around my legs like a lost and scared puppy. Blade could never be in here, I thought. I was the only one in this place. The fog increased impossibly as I went towards the end of the building, and it swallowed me whole.

I felt a blast of heat, and suddenly I was in someplace enclosed. Enclosed, and with a surging furnace. I saw two figures beside the source of the heat, a huge vat filled with molten steel. Both figures were recognizable. The tall, domineering Blade with his sword drawn, and a huddled and bound figure beside him. I walked to the side where Diane was, and her eyes opened. She looked startled.

"Please Justin, help me," she said. I tried to remove the ropes that bound her, but they were too tough for me. Blade laughed.

"I never thought you would follow the rules of our game, but now you are here," Blade said. I grabbed a couple of the loops in the rope and dragged Diane to one side, ignoring her shouts and protests. I didn’t stop until she was well out of her way, then I stood up.

"Where are we?" I demanded.

"Why, the testing ground, of course," Blade said, "To be specific, the King smelters near Metro. Your burial ground, and my place of birth." He raised his sword ominously. "Defend yourself," he said.

Now I knew. Blade meant to kill me and enter my world. A world where a man like him, a man who knew only good and evil, not what lay in-between, would be free to use any means to implement his sort of justice. I started to put up my hands, and then stopped.

"No," I said, smiling. Blade looked shocked.

"Do it, or I kill you!" he shouted.

"You couldn’t kill an unarmed man if your life depended on it, which it does." I stood up, and faced him in the eyes. "I’m not going to play a farce, a charade for you. You would kill me in a matter of minutes, Blade. I’m not going to do it."

Blade smiled. "Then die," he said, and swung the sword. I jumped back, just leaving the space where my neck had been empty. Okay, so plan A hadn’t worked. Now what, artist? Blade drove me back, and it suddenly occurred to me where we were. We were in Metro. Metro wasn’t Blade’s town, it was mine. I slowly formed a picture in my mind, picturing every detail in my mind. My back was shoved against the wall, and Blade’s green eyes blazed with triumph.

The arch of his sword seemed too slow, but I wouldn’t question it. Diving between his legs, my hands reached out frantically. It had to be here, it…my hands gripped the hilt, and I smiled. Next time, I would work on being more exact. I whipped quickly around, bringing up the blade in front of me. A second later Blade’s sword rang against it.

I knew how to defeat, him, I saw the entire battle laid out in my mind. I countered Blade’s thrusts again and again, my hands moving as my mind directed, but not in the usual way. Blade’s face took on surprise, and then concern.

"You shouldn’t have brought me here, Blade," I said. I put my sword where his would be, and danced back a few steps. Blade’s sword clanged with more and more frustration in it. "This may be your world, but it is my creation. I am the creator here, Blade, and I can toy with you for however long I want before I kill you."

"And then what, artist," Blade asked, snarling. "You keep going about your sickly pathetic, retentive life until the hatred and the anger that burns within you kills you. Or you explode, and take all those you care about with you. What then, artist? Who will be there to protect you from your own anger, your own actions?"

"Not you, asshole," a voice said, followed by a gunshot. It tore through Blade’s midsection easily, and Blade slumped. I looked over. Mitchner was working on Diane’s knots. He shrugged when his eyes met mine. "I called for backup two seconds ago," Mitchner said, "before I followed you. It’s over," he told Blade. "Drop the sword and put your hands in the air."

"No it isn’t," I said. I looked at Blade, and I felt tears down my cheeks. He looked at me, and his eyes shook with laughter.

"The officer is right," Blade said. "You won, I guess. I’m dead."

"Not yet," I replied, throwing my sword into the hot lava. Mitchner looked at me blankly. "You and I are the same, but we are not one yet." I held out my arms, as if on a crucifix, or preparing to embrace him, which I was.

Blade struggled up, and his eyes acknowledged what I was saying. "You and I will both die," he told me, matter of fact. "That is the price."

"You are wrong in more ways then you know," I responded, and stepped into Blade’s embrace. My lips touched his, and in the next moment my lips were inside of his. I moved ever forward into his body, and my mind was spinning, flying, splintering into a million parts and reforming, combining with Blade’s. I felt the stars, and the last thing I remember was a set of beautiful eyes behind dark glasses, and a bird in a window. Then there was darkness.

I awake, and I feel the cold air. Looking up, I see a full moon staring down at me. The moon feels new. The air feels new. There is nothing that is new to me; I have no past.

Hands pull me to my feet, and a well-dressed but shaken man looks at me with rushed breathing. A part of me knows him, and a part does not. My mind is still forming, jelling into a whole.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"CF&I," he said. I formed the letters in my mouth slowly, "Whatever happened to you blew us out of that other place," he shuddered.

"What happened?" I asked. I knew what happened, but the man took it a different way.

"You…Blade…Justin," Mitchner fumbled for the words. "I don’t know what happened. First Justin drops his sword like a fool, and then Blade stands up and faces him, and the two embrace like they are going to kiss, and then an explosion around us. I still don’t know what to call you, or who you are?" We walk towards his car, and the girl we had fought for was huddled against the door.

"Get me out of here," she said, then screamed when she saw me. I looked in the car’s mirror. A blonde, spiked haired man looked at me. The eyes were what startled me the most. One blue, one green. I touched all my facial features, taking them in.

"Your eyes took me at first," the cop said. "And I don’t know whether you are Blade or Justin or both."

"I am both, and neither," I said. "I am what must be, or else both would have died, and nothing would have come of it. With me, both have died and been reborn in a fashion. Call me Prometheus for now." What sort of name is that? One part of me smirked. I muted it; Prometheus would have to do for now.

"Which way is the airport?" I said, and knew the answer the next minute. I waited for the cop to give me directions.

"The killings have stopped, and there will be no more," I said, "tell them that Blade and Justin died fighting each other."

"They won’t believe a bullshit story like that," he said.

"They won’t have anything else," I responded, and started walking south. The airport lay to the north, but I would have to get beyond the oncoming cops. I could hear their sirens just under the cover of night. I felt a touch of sadness when I thought about the girl that Justin had loved, the first and only girl. It would be better this way, but that didn’t make it any more easy to do.

I left the sad scene, and went on my way. Where I would go, I did not know, but wherever I went I hoped there would be evil to fight and birds to draw. They had to have birds to draw.