P is for PARKOUR_The Cost To Free Running

http://www.amazon.com/THE-LEGEND-VICTOR-STANDISH-ebook/dp/B0064CKPJ4

Parkour.

The term was coined by Hubert Kounde.

It comes from "parcours du combattant", the classic obstacle course created by the famous naval officer, George Hebert.

The student of parkour is called a "traceur", most likely spun from Parisian slang "tracer" which means "to hurry" or "to move quickly".

In proper French, traceur is an adjective qualifying something that leaves a trace or a trail behind it.

And in UNDER A VOODOO MOON, Victor Standish is leaving a trail of evolved raptors following him as he leads them in a furious display of Parkour.

He meets the ghost of Pere Antoine who reminds him that he must one day pay the cost to free running:

The ghost of Pere Antoine lunged, grabbing me by the scruff of my neck and the back of my belt. “Victor, you cannot come out of this alive. You knew that when you sent your Alice away.”

He spun, swinging me around and around in the humid night air. “Parkour is more than jumping, young man. It is a way of living life, of spending it in the cause of something bigger than you. It is time you live … and die the cost of ‘free’ running!”

With those last words, Pere Antoine hurled me up high into the night. It seemed as if the stars came down to welcome me.

There was a rainbow rift right in front of my body. I passed through it, the ghost-scent of apricots coming to me. And I knew. I knew.

I was never going to see Alice again … or hear her odd British accent.

I loved the way she talked. When she talked to me, there was a living tenderness in her voice. She just let it flow from inside her … as if she owned all the words in the world, and she loved me enough to make them dance for me.

Suddenly, the world re-focused, and I thumped precariously on the ledge of a tall French Quarter building at least thirty feet high if it was an inch. My head spinning, I took in my surroundings.

There!

Not forty feet from this building was Meilori’s.

It might have been on the craters of the moon for all the good it was going to do me. Dozens of raptors were running towards me. Coming at me from both ends of the ledge.

Scrambling right at me from the roof in a horde of scales and fangs. Racing at me from across the near-by roofs. No port of safety.

Except.

In the empty cement courtyard thirty feet below.

I had seen the Sensei make a leap like this and live. But that was onto grass not concrete. And I was no Sensei.

I smiled wide through my labored breathing. No, I was Victor Standish. I pulled up tall despite the pain in my chest. What had Pere Antoine said?

It was time for me to live the cost to “free” running. And to die it as well.
Pere Antoine was right.

Even the harsh Sensei had taught me that Parkour was more than leaping and dodging. It was a way of life. What was its motto?

être et durer ("to be and to last").

George Hebert had changed that motto while rescuing 700 terrified people during the eruption of Mt. Pele : "être fort pour être utile"

("be strong to be useful".)

I looked at the happily crying raptors charging me as they saw I was standing still, apparently trapped. How many terrified street people would these predators eat alive after tonight?

I sucked in a ragged breath. None.

The pain in my chest was worse, stabbing down my left arm. My nose was bleeding more. I couldn’t see clear. Yet, in a way I saw it all crystal clear.

Maybe I wasn’t Captain Sam’s real son, but I could go out as if I were in my death.

The Soyoko had proven that where I would go, they would follow. I smiled like I figured Captain Sam would in this situation.

“Hey, bitches!,” I panted. “Got the balls to follow me?”

I bent slightly at the knees as I faced them and flipped high into the air in a backwards double somersault right off the building.

And oddest thing, I heard the beginning of NIGHTWISH’s “Come Cover Me” in my head. The wind tickled my ears. Man, this was going to hurt so bad!
***

A DOWN HOME CHRISTMAS

So many different kinds of death hunted us this Christmas Eve all through the French Quarter,

I would’ve gotten a headache trying to count them all –

If I already hadn’t had one – to go along with the broken ribs, fingers, and nose.

I looked over at Alice, my ghoul friend,

whose ability to turn to mist had been ripped from her by DayStar.

She sobbed softly, “Victor, our first Christmas together is our last.”

I had taken as many blows for her as I could.

Wasn’t that was Love did? Sacrifice themselves for the one they loved?

Alice had buried the statue of the Madonna and took its shawl. As I had done with the statue of Joseph, taking its robe and hood.

We kneeled beside the wooden manger in the St. Louis Cathedral’s courtyard Nativity Scene.

Right in plain sight of the slowly sniffing and scouting horrors prowling for us.

I didn’t even know some of the monsters hunting us. I knew enough to know Alice and I were goners.

Winged Gahe. Starved Amal. Scaled Soyoko.

And the ghosts, given flesh, fangs, and claws by DayStar, of all the people Alice had eaten over the decades.

Who would have guessed a wisp of a girl like Alice had such an appetite?

I stiffened at the tolling in the distance. I heard the bells, ringing their familiar, mocking refrain :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

Peace. Good Will.

In despair, I bowed my head.

‘There is no peace on earth!,' I said to myself.

'For hate is strong and mocks the song. The innocent die. The helpless cry out. Does anybody hear them?’

The night winds became soft words : ‘You kneel on holy ground and dare to ask that?’

I looked up. I recognized the stern ghost of a priest, a book of prayers or some such in his hands. Alice went as pale as I had ever seen her.

“Pere Antoine!”

He spoke in razored whispers. “For my sins in the Inquisition I am bound to this plane. So Friar Antonio de Sedella is now who I am.”

I saw the self-hate in his eyes. I saw the same look in Alice's.

I looked to the horrors so near. To speak would be to bring them to us.

But I was going to die anyway. Why not die, letting Pere Antoine hear that I believed in him even when he no longer could?

I shook my head and whispered back. “No, before Katrina, you helped me. You’ve helped others before and since.”

The winged Gahe spun at my words, and I blurted out, “With my last words, I say you don’t deserve to be bound here. You are Pere Antoine! You are a ghost of God!”

So many horrors rushed us that I got sick to my stomach. This was going to hurt so bad. Pere Antoine’s head cocked as if he were hearing words spoken into his very mind, and his ghost eyes grew wet.

He gestured, speaking loud :

“Dark Spawns, this is Holy Ground!”

The Shadowlanders must’ve forgotten that in their lust for our deaths. It bought them their own.

Pere Antoine, the prayer book tumbling to the grass, slapped both hands on the shoulders of Alice and me.

A warm tingle cascaded through me. Reality smeared in spirals of fiery, golden stardust as if God were wiping clean a chalkboard.

Sand, not grass, was suddenly beneath our knees. Cutting through me was a cold wind that can only be birthed in the desert.

My mouth got drier than the winds. The manger scene was now real. A young man and a younger woman were looking sheer love at the cooing baby. Outside the stable, high in the night sky, rippled haunting sounds that only angels could sing.

Pere Antoine kneeled beside me.

“God is not dead, nor does He sleep. No matter how dark, He always sees you. You are a special part of His heart, and you are never alone. Due to their very natures, the wrong shall fail. And those who trust prevail.”

The baby locked eyes with mine, His eyes clear and echoing with strange wisdom and delight.

Pere Antoine whispered,

“He wanted you and Alice to have a 'down home' Christmas.”

The baby laughed long and light.

Alice reached over and squeezed my hand. “I was wrong, Victor. Our first Christmas together is THE first Christmas.”

And impossible though it was, the French Quarter bells rang all around us :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

***

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

This is a version I think of as Victor Standish's version : not the tempo, tune, or words you expect. Give it a listen for me. Roland