The Fate Merchant

Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This is a first draft.  I'm posting the chapters as I write them.  Please excuse any typos or dropped words.  Thanks for reading!

Regarding the new cover, thanks to Enrico Wloch for the image of the camera, and to David Stott for the image of the prints.

Chapter 1

     The punk in the black hoodie flicked open his switchblade, and Jasper Kravitz silently cursed his decision to leave the apartment and go to the supermarket.  He'd had three perfectly good reasons to stay in bed: it was Sunday, it was overcast and drizzly, and Chuck Norris was dispensing squinty-eyed justice from 10am to 8pm on AMC. 

     In retrospect, he was certain that if he'd applied himself he could've whipped up a meal using the impressive collection of half-empty condiment and sauce bottles cluttering his fridge.  A ketchup and mayonnaise shake, for instance, might have been surprisingly delicious and refreshing.  If he survived this, he would make it a point to experiment a little more in the kitchen.  He would also stop taking shortcuts through narrow, dimly lit alleys.

     The punk stood in the middle of the alley.  Behind him, the old man he'd been kicking lay in the fetal position next to a pile of garbage bags.  Jasper craned his neck, trying to see if he was alive or dead, and then stumbled backwards as the sneering punk lunged, the blade slicing the air inches from his stomach. 

     Jasper fumbled inside his grocery bag, pulled out a large pouch of frozen peas, and as the punk lunged a second time, he swung it -- a desperate, windmilling motion that caught the punk under the jaw and snapped his head back. Jasper quickly slammed the bag down on the punk's wrist, and the knife fell from his stunned fingers and clattered on the ground.

     Jasper scooped it up.  He'd seen a knife fight on television, once.  The two men had spent nearly a minute circling each other in a sort of half-crouch, their knives held in their right hands, their left hands making tiny "Come get me" gestures.

     He did this.

     The punk turned and ran.

     Jasper straightened up, his heart hammering his chest.  He wondered if this was how Chuck Norris felt on a daily basis.  Strong.  Imposing.  Lethal.  It was a new sensation for him.  At five foot five, 135 pounds, Jasper would never have described himself as intimidating.  In fact, he'd never needed to describe himself.  Other people had always been more than willing to take care of that for him.  'Wastrel' was his new favorite.  It had come from his mother.

     The old man groaned.  Jasper ran to him and kneeled.  He lay curled on his side, his liver-spotted hands balled into fists and pressed to his chest.  If Jasper had to guess, he would've said the man was in his seventies.  He was thin, his skin grey and tight, and Jasper had the feeling that if he touched his cheek the skin would crumble like the dusty pages of some ancient manuscript.  Blood trickled from his mouth, staining his silver goatee and the collar of his windbreaker. 

     "Can you stand?"

     The man opened his eyes and looked up at Jasper.  He squinted, and bushy grey eyebrows bunched in the middle of his forehead like angry caterpillars.  "You," the man whispered.  He reached up and beckoned to Jasper, urging him closer, his eyes widening and filling with wonder. 

     Jasper bent forward and felt the man's bony fingers prod his chin, the tip of his nose, his cheeks, felt him squeeze his shoulder.

     "Not going to lie, sir.  You're weirding me out," Jasper said.

     The man lowered his arm and laughed, a phlegmy rumble that rolled up from his chest.  "Just wanted to make sure I'm not seeing things."  He dipped a hand into the right pocket of his windbreaker and pulled out a set of keys.  "Here."