First Blood

Book One of the Decter Documents

Written by Mathew N. Honnajan

Note: If this were to be set in the Dresden Files Timeline, it would fall somewhere between the events of White Knight and Small Favor

Chapter 1 (Let's see if we can get it right this time)

The living heartbeat of Chicago pulsed as traffic kept its same monotonous pace. Horns blared and curses heard from the passengers and cars as I strolled by whistling a tune. Ahh the city. I probably walked close to the same pace as most of the cars sans the stop and go motions and the feeling I was idling gas away, and that suited me just fine. It wasn't like I had a car to drive anyway.

I continued down several blocks until I reached my destination: Warrington Chicago High School. Warrington High was built like many schools in the area. Its main building housed three floors with walls made of brick and large windows giving each classroom a generous amount of light, even if it was unwanted. As I joined the throng of students shuffling forward through the main doors the first bell rang throughout the school signaling us students to hurry towards our classrooms. I got to my first block chemistry class without much issue and worked to get my brain to focus on the teacher's lecture and what was necessary to write down in my notes.

Now it can be difficult to focus in any first block class, just ask any student who ever took an early class at any point in their lives, and while most kids are only distracted by their own sleep deprivation, noisy neighbors, various electronics, and (god forbid) the dull voice of a boring teacher, I also struggle with tuning out everyone else's thoughts.

Yeah, I can read minds. It's a minor perk-slash-annoyance of being semi-dammed. I say 'semi-dammed' because I wasn't stupid enough to trade away my soul or anything like that. I was stupid enough, however, to allow a demon into my body. Yes, I made a deal with the devil, and no I don't want to talk about it. The real question you should be asking yourself is 'what's reading minds like?'

It's funny that most people call it mind 'reading'. In my experience, people don't typically think in text, and by that, I mean sane people don't tend to think words to themselves in most situations. It's more like 'mind hearing' or 'mind seeing'. I've stuck with the term 'mind gazing'.

Imagine you're reading a book, and no this isn't someone else's mind, this is your own. I know this goes against what I just stated earlier, but just hear me out. The book represents yourself, both your body and mind: you can open and close it as well as record and recall information from it. You constantly use this book to function because that's who you are. Now imagine listening to an audiotape. The audiotape plays and you are free to listen to it, but you also must keep working in your own book unless you want to find yourself starring into space drooling.

Each audiotape represents a person. People talk to themselves, whether they admit it or not. People also think of images, so with each audiotape imagine a slideshow playing with pictures. Now speed up the audiotape and slideshow considerably since people tend to think faster than they can speak contrary to what other might think. If that weren't complicated enough, people project their emotions as well, often times over their other thoughts. Finally, place the audiotape and slideshow in accordance with a person's location. It's really quite nauseating.

I could still sense people outside the classroom, but that's about as close to an explanation as I can give. I do retain some control though. I can somewhat adjust what I sense of the volume of the audiotapes and the brightness of the slideshows, but it's all hooked up to the same system. If I turn one down, everything else becomes muted as well. It makes it difficult to single out one person short of tuning out the others the same way a person tunes out horrible music. It didn't matter much right now since I didn't care about the thoughts of my classmates anyway.

Chemistry progressed easily enough I supposed. The teacher rattled off on how to properly use a ruler in her class and how to count 'sig figs'. Whatever those were. Right before we left the classroom the teacher gave us a worksheet on what we learned as well as a syllabus to have signed by Friday. It being Wednesday, I was pretty sure I was going to forget.

Following chemistry came psychology. Maybe it's because of the whole mind gazing schtick, but I found psychology interesting. Of course, this meant the class itself seemed to go much faster. The teacher assigned a reading packet with associated worksheets which I promptly stuffed into my backpack with my chemistry syllabus. I did my best to keep them from being crushed underneath my binders and books.

When the bell rang, the class packed up and filed into the hallway. I then turned and exited a door leading outside into a courtyard. Warrington's courtyard was quite large, large enough to seat the half of the school that didn't eat lunch inside the cafeteria anyway. Even though Warrington wasn't a large school in comparison to some other institutions in Chicago, that still meant seating around three hundred students. Cement pathways led to the opposite end with branching pathways extending perpendicular towards other hallways and cutting the grass lawn into square sections. Each grass section fit fifteen to twenty kids and their backpacks comfortably, and the pathways were enough of a divider to allows groups between sections to properly ignore each other. I, being the new transfer students and natural introvert that I was, began walking towards the farthest corner of one such grass section when something caught my attention.

Not far from where I stood, a large muscular boy harassed a much smaller, evidently frailer boy. The harasser must have played football as a lineman or wrestled bears or something, considering both supported being built like a wall. Tall and broad-shouldered with blonde hair and seemingly no neck, he likely weighed three times the weight of the boy in front of him.

The smaller boy in contrast stood short, skinny, and just shy of scrawny. The wide-brimmed glasses didn't help foster confidence nor did the two textbooks and binder in his arms which somehow served to make him seem even smaller.

"Hey, you measly twerp!" shouted the larger boy, "Watch where you're going! You could've tripped me!"

Given the difference in size and weight, I doubted the statement. Nonetheless the boy dubbed twerp stuttered a quick apology, "S-sorry Jeff," and attempted to hurriedly walk around the boy called Jeff. Unfortunately for 'twerp', Jeff moved faster and cut him off.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jeff sneered, puffing out his chest as he loomed over 'twerp'. "You think you can get away with that? Huh? You little bitch?" and with one backhand Jeff knocked both the textbooks and binder from the smaller boy's hands. Before 'twerp' could pick them up, Jeff planted his foot on one of the books. "You're gonna need to learn some respect."

I hate bullies. I mean, I really hate bullies. Speaking as someone who's been both the target and the instigator a few times in his life, I never really understood either the appeal or the goal. Making someone feel like crap just for the sake of it just never sat right with me, and even though it was only the second day of school, I knew I had to do something.

"Hey, come off it," I shouted angrily as I started making my way towards them. So I'm not always too clever with the whole spontaneous wordplay thing, "What do you think you're doing tall, blonde, and stupid? Back off him!"

Jeff, slightly startled that someone said anything, quickly recovered and sneered at me. "Nothing that concerns you, and you should really mind your own business." With that he used one arm to give the other boy a hard shove in the shoulder, sending him stumbling back. The whole time Jeff kept his gaze on me to see my reaction. I guess I gave him what he wanted, because he grinned while I ground my teeth. "Temper, temper," he clucked, still grinning, "You could really get in trouble with that."

I noticed how quiet the courtyard grew and realized students around the courtyard had focused their attention on our confrontation. Frankly, I didn't care. Instead, I took a deep inhale through my nose, trying to calm myself, and concentrated as I opened my mind. I felt the curiosity of spectators, the fear of the smaller boy. I caught glimpses of myself reflected in the minds of those around me, a shorter, leaner kid than the athlete he faced, but I fought to ignore them and singled out Jeff.

I sensed his anger towards me, and his hurt pride that someone, anyone, questioned his authority. As I searched deeper, I found his anger not solely directed towards me, or even the kid he harassed. His anger stemmed from the frustration of repeating failed classes and being treated like an idiot for his shortcoming. With that anger came fear. Fear of losing sports, his only outlet from home. Images of an older man and woman fluttered through with the familiarity I assumed meant they were his parents. The associated emotions weren't positive. The neglect and disappointment he experienced from them combined with his own fear and anger caused him to have resentment towards anyone who had anything he couldn't have. Because why should they have something he couldn't? Why should they experience happiness when there was none left for him?

I closed my mind to where the flooding sensation became nothing more than a trickle in the background. The whole process probably took three seconds. A nice guy would've used this to calm Jeff down, talk some sense into him, and maybe even tell him it's going to be ok.

But I'm not a nice guy.

"I'm just wondering what it takes for someone to be as gutless as you," I retorted. "But, then again, someone too stupid to play sports may also be too dumb to know how to pick a fair fight." Jeff's grin vanished back into an angry snarl.

"Well at least I know not to pick a fight I with a guy I can't beat," he responded coolly while his eyes blazed.

"Yeah, your parents must be proud," I replied with equal coolness.

That did the trick. I watched Jeff's expression change from anger to rage. "Shut the hell up," he shouted as he closed the distance between us.

I saw the right hook the size of a ham coming and ducked it. As an emotionally traumatized teen with some serious issues to work out, I found self-defense to be an excellent outlet during my free time, considering it involved a lot of punching, kicking, and otherwise beating the crap out of punching bags. I could've easily hurt Jeff, but I didn't want to break his bones. I wanted to humiliate him. Besides, I didn't want to get into too much trouble on my second day.

I rose from the duck and threw the base of my palm into Jeff's nose. I didn't use enough force to break it, but it still threw his head back. Then I stepped back and watched Jeff draw his hand to his nose by reflex. When he lowered his hand, it wasn't bleeding, but that wasn't the point. A second later, Jeff blinked. When he blinked again, I, and all the students watching, saw his eyes water. It really wasn't his fault. The tears just came as a natural response to being struck hard on the nose, but that didn't help the fact Jeff appeared to be crying with a full audience watching.

The edge of my mouth curled in a smirk, further enraging him. Jeff stepped forward to close the distance again and readied himself for another punch when a stern voice rang out, "What is going on here?"

We both turned to see a small woman wearing a grey jacket over a buttoned white blouse with grey slacks. A teacher. Her half-crescent glasses reflected flashes of sunlight as she marched towards us, and if her expression was of any indication, she was not amused by our antics. Before anyone could answer she continued, "I think this has gone quite far enough, don't you?" She spoke with authority as she kept her pace of measured steps. When the woman saw Jeff's watery eyes, she focused her stern gaze on me. "I'm not sure who started this scene but gosh darn it I'm going to end it here. You young man need to apologize."

It appeared she already formed her opinion on what happened. My jaw fell open in shock. When I started to argue, she raised her hand to cut me off. "I don't want to hear any of your excuses. Now straighten up and apologize."

This was ridiculous. I turned and faced Jeff who now had the edges of his mouth curled in a small grin until I said, "Gosh, sorry I bopped you on the nose Jeff. That was very insensitive of me."

For whatever reason, he doubted my sincerity, but apparently it was good enough for the teacher because she then turned and spoke to Jeff, "Now you need to accept his apology."

Jeff closed his eyes before looking back at me, forcing a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I accept your apology..."

"Caleb," I supplied.

"Caleb," Jeff finished.

"Good," stated the teacher. "Now shake."

I glanced back at the teacher, but she obviously didn't see the thought running through my mind because she just continued to look at me expectantly. Jeff's smiled became genuine as he stuck out a hand, which by the looks could snap off my hand at the wrist and waited patiently. I swallowed before reaching my hand out tentatively, mentally preparing myself for the pain that was to come.

I was not disappointed. As he gripped, I felt my knuckles and fingers pop. I did my best, but I couldn't prevent a small grunt from escaping my lips. A manly grunt that didn't sound anything like a wimpy whine. Unfortunately, even that served to further incentivize Jeff to crush my hand to bits.

When we broke the 'handshake', the teacher nodded satisfied. "Now that this is all cleared up, I trust you boys will be able to put this matter behind yourselves."

"Yes ma'am," we both answered, trying to look like we learned a proper lesson.

I guess Jeff's innocent look was better than mine, because the teacher's gaze lingered on me before she warned, "If either of you get into any more trouble, there will be consequences." Then she turned her heels and left.

Jeff and I stared each other down. I opened and closed my hand a few times to make sure it still worked. It did, but that didn't mean it was over me letting it shake hands with Jeff. He regarded me for a moment before stating, "This isn't over. You won't always have someone looking over your shoulder to protect you."

"Sure, whatever," I answered. "Buzz off."

Jeff's eyes lingered on me a little longer, as if measuring me. Then he turned around and stalked off. As soon as he went, the surrounding onlookers figured the show was over and turned back to their own conversations as if nothing happened at all.

I turned and almost walked into the kid with the glasses. Standing straight he stood at about my collar bone, which wasn't a compliment given that I'm not even six feet tall. His dirty blonde hair curled down just low enough to start obstructing his bright blue eyes whose size were magnified by his glasses. Combine that with the freckled face and thin frame hidden underneath clothing a couple sizes too large and you get one fairly stereotypical looking nerd. "Hey I'm grateful for you helping me out and all," he began, his words blurring together as he pushed up his glasses, "but are you insane?"

I looked down at him, not that meant to, but it was just hard not to considering our height difference. "Probably just a little more than everyone else," I supplied, caught off-guard by his question, "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know if you realized this," the boy continued as if I didn't answer his first question, "but if the vice principal hadn't intervened, you would've been pounded into a bloody pulp."

Geeze you try to help a guy... "Look I think I can handle myself-"

"Against Jeff maybe" conceded the small fry, "but Jeff has friends. He's merely annoying by himself, but with some of the other guys they can be really awful."

I hadn't really thought of that, but then something else caught my attention, "Wait," I started, "are you saying that teacher was really the vice principal?"

Pipsqueak cocked his head confused, "Yeah duh, that's what I just said." Oh boy. Great first impression there Caleb.

"I'm sorry," I sighed shaking my head, "but what's your name again?"

Fun-sized blinked, "Oh right," he began. "My name is-" and then his eyes widened as he remembered, "Books!" and with that he ran over to where his books had fallen and were temporarily forgotten. I walked over to help him, not wanting to look silly, but by the time I got there he had just about finished placing his binder on top of the stack, so I stood there awkwardly stuffing my hands into my pockets as he finished.

"My name is Andrew," the boy provided as he rose, "Andrew Jorgenson." He seemed to debate whether to try shaking my hand while holding his tower of supplies before deciding against it. "Anyways, I guess I should thank you now, so what's your name?"

"My name's Caleb Decter," I answered.

"Oh! Ok, so did you transfer here this year? I haven't really seen you around before." The kid spoke so fast I worried he wasn't going to take a breath.

"Yeah, this is my first year here." I answered again. At this point in the day, or really just in general, I lacked the motivation to be a sparkling conversationalist.

"Cool," Andrew said, nodding as if I indeed was a sparking conversationalist. "Would you like to sit with me during lunch?"

My original plan had been to sit by myself in a corner and not make too much eye contact with those around me, but I supposed this could be better, "Sure, it's nice to have company."

"I'll say," Andrew agreed, talking as we walked across the courtyard. "It's hard to find good people to hang out with, you know? Everyone seems to have their own problems or reasons not to hang out with you, but you seem like a good person Cal."

His statements surprised me, and when I reached out my senses to glimpse at his mind, I got the impression he didn't say these things for any reason other than that's the way things were, or at least from his perspective. Andrew spoke openly and honestly.

Not knowing how to respond, I glanced at him and said, "Thanks, you seem like a good person too Andrew."

Even through Andrew looked straight ahead, I saw a huge grin break out of his face. "Aww well," he offered sheepishly, "I'm not really big enough to be something else."

I looked him over again as we walked. I didn't say anything but thought to myself when it comes to being good, you're always big enough to be something else. Even though it was a perfectly warm day, I shivered.