Silver and Salt by Rob Thurman

bring him back.
    “Covering our bases,” I confirmed.
    It was a good lesson taught by a bad teacher. Niko tried to forget him, but I didn’t. The lesson was too important.
    Now I wanted all my bases covered. Grendels, werewolves, human monsters…anything could be out there. Most likely was out there. I needed to be ready for anything. Everything.
    “First, we’re not going to kill any people, evil or not.” He was back, Nik. Our Bible-carrying, skinning-the-dead neighbor Junior was forgotten or pretended to be. I didn’t change my mind on that whole shitstorm and push. It had been worse for Niko. I knew if Junior had started to skin him first instead of me, I’d still be sucking my damn thumb. He didn’t want to remember, and that was fine with me. I’d carry the lesson for him.
    “If there are evil people, I’ll take care of them,” he went on, which made me think he actually had forgotten what Junior had done to us, buried it deep and gone. “I’ll put them in the hospital, perhaps, but I’m big enough and know enough to not have to kill them.” That was true now. At seventeen, Nik was often mistaken for twenty. He was six feet tall and muscular but not bulky. Nik wouldn’t know a steroid if it bit him in his ass. His shoulders were broad and his muscles apparent, but lean and subtle in that catlike and dangerous manner people who fought for a living had—like his teachers. He’d been learning every kind of martial art he could since he was ten or twelve. He wouldn’t have to kill someone to be safe.
    It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t quite been there yet, a shame that hadn’t been true three years ago when our neighbor came knocking at our door. I yanked harder at Nik’s braid, glad he seemed to genuinely not remember. It was better for him. He was too good a brother to relive that; amnesia—his best friend.
    “Second,” he was saying, “if your friend Marcus is that worried, although I am positive ghosts don’t exist, tell him to throw salt at it. There’s an extremely long history about salt representing purity, protection, and a talisman against the wicked. If you thought the devil was behind you, you’d throw salt over your left shoulder to drive him away. Naturally, like all mythology, you can’t know what’s true or not.” His lips quirked. “So Marcus should take the information with a grain of salt.”
    That was Niko humor. I wondered if throwing a condiment like pepper or Tabasco sauce at him would cure that. Having neither one, I tried the wadded-up wrapper of my candy bar.
    It didn’t work.
    That night I lay in bed with a butcher knife from the kitchen stuffed under the mattress as always, and I thought about it. I had no problems with what I’d done to the invisible man and how much more I’d do. After all, I had those bases covered now. I knew the possible consequences and the cures for them. I turned over, tangled in my blanket. The blinds were down, but they were old and there were gaps.
    Usually it was Grendels peering through those gaps in between the slats of the blinds. Tonight, it was Mr. Invisible, back lurking in the window, trying for a look. I didn’t know how he’d known Nik was already asleep and it was safe to show up, but he had. I met the hateful glisten of his eyes and yawned, bored. Let him go scare little girls. He didn’t scare me. I’d stood up to him once. I would again. Yawning again, I pulled the covers over my head while Niko shifted, breathing deeply on the mattress that rested on the floor beside mine. I dropped off in less than three minutes and slept like the dead.
    That was as funny as me naming him the invisible man.
     
    Recognize
     
     
    I didn’t work at it. I let him come to me. To balls up, quit following me like a sheep after the shepherd I’d never be. He’d want me alone, of course. Had to be. He knew my schedule by now as well as I did, especially when I was home alone before Nik’s shift at the dojo ended. And it