Infinity Son(2)
Brighton pointlessly stares back, as if his eyes will swirl with stars and comets if he tries hard enough.
“Sorry to bother you.” I drag Brighton down the steps, laughing. “You thought you could lie about having powers, like your eyes are some fake ID?”
Brighton ignores me and points to a fire escape. “Let’s sneak up, get some exclusive footage.”
“What? No. Dude, it’s a party. Who’s going to care about that?”
“Might be a ritual.”
“It’s not our business. I’m not going up there.”
He detaches the camera from the tripod. “Okay.”
I check the time on my phone. “It’s our birthday in fifteen minutes, let’s just hang.”
Brighton stares at the rooftop. “Give me five minutes. This could be good for CONY.”
I sit on the curb with his tripod. “I can’t control you.”
“Five minutes,” Brighton says again as he climbs the fire escape. “And stop slouching!”
Not everyone cares about stiff posture or toned muscles. Some of us camouflage our scrawny bodies in baggy shirts and slouch, just waiting for the day when we can fold into ourselves and vanish completely.
I can’t beat the Instagram impulse while I’m waiting for Brighton, so I hop online. My favorite wildlife videographer pops up first. She captures phoenixes—birds of fire that resurrect—in all their glory. Her latest is a video of a blaze tempest phoenix flying into a storm in Brazil. I scroll to find the fitness dude whose abs I’ve become very familiar with the past couple months, and even though I’m playing around with his workout plan, I’m nowhere near looking like him or the dozen other gym bros I follow. His motivating caption isn’t doing it for me tonight, so I put my phone away and try to breathe in the real world.
This block party is everything.
There are children running on air and people grilling food with sunlight beaming out of their palms. I hope Nicholas Creekwell, the first dude I ever legit liked, is celebrating in his own little way tonight. He was my lab partner, and he loves chemistry so much he’s going to pursue alchemy lessons for potion brewing in college. He was good-looking and better company and surprised the hell out of me when he dematerialized the door of my busted locker so I could get my calculator for my algebra midterm. I kept Nicholas’s secret from everyone, especially Brighton, but even though he trusted me, he claimed he wasn’t ready for a relationship, so we stayed friends. Can’t help but wonder if things would’ve been different if I had a six-pack going for me.
Someone’s selling these beautiful silver binoculars. I’d love to drop bank on a nice pair, but Ma will be the first to remind me that college textbooks don’t pay for themselves. Especially since she’s still caught up paying Dad’s mountainous medical bills from an experimental trial with blood alchemy that made his bone cancer worse before he died in March. Dad was fascinated by the stars and looking forward to the Crowned Dreamer himself. Maybe I’ll get to see the full marvel of this constellation when I’m older and can afford binoculars, and Dad will see it in another life, if you believe in that kind of thing.
Heeled boots pounding the gravel catch my attention, and I turn away from the tent to find a twentysomething woman approaching. Sweat glistens like she’s been running for blocks. She’s wearing an ill-fitting blazer that’s missing a sleeve, and her arm looks sunburnt compared to her pale face; not exactly dressed for a late-night jog. Two figures are pursuing her from the air. One is a girl who’s about ten feet above the ground, and the other is a boy who’s being carried by winds that are sweeping up all sorts of trash as he passes.
I jump to my feet and backpedal from whatever is about to go down. I turn to the fire escape, where Brighton is four stories high. “Brighton, come back!”
The woman trips against the curb and slams into the concrete. I should stop being a punk and help her, but fear has a tighter grip and pins me to the wall. She stands and grabs the pole of the tent, and it glows orange. White fire runs up her arm as if she’s been doused in gasoline and set alight. The canopy stands no chance—a mountain of fire bounces to the other nearby tents. This pandemonium definitely isn’t going to help how people view celestials as dangerous.
Someone grips my shoulder, and I drop the tripod.
“You okay?” Brighton asks. He was quick getting down here.
I catch my breath. “Let’s go.”
“Wait a sec.” Brighton is spellbound by the mayhem and holds up his camera.
“You’re kidding.” I grab his arm, but Brighton breaks free.
“I got to document this.”
“The hell you do.”
For someone who was our school’s salutatorian, Brighton can be pretty damn stupid. If he were anyone else, I would straight ditch. This is why I don’t have it in me to be a hero like I used to pretend. I want to live too much to risk my own life. But Brighton dreams of getting this kind of action for his series. Most of the celestials in the area are smarter, not sticking around to see how this will play out. Some are teleporting so quickly I would’ve missed them if I’d blinked.
The figures in the air break out of shadow and into the moonlight, the Spell Walker emblem on their power-proof vests glistening like the constellation that inspired their name.