Thief of Souls

by Neal Shusterman

  Tourists flocked the palatial grounds around the castle and guest houses, chattering to one another, and taking snapshots, but the doors to every entrance of La Casa Grande—the great castle itself—were closed to visitors.

  A pair of guards were posted on either side of the wrought-iron gates. One of them shifted position, just enough to display the weapon holstered on his waist.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, eyeing Michael and Lourdes as they approached. “The castle is closed until further notice.”

  “We’re here to see Dillon Cole,” said Michael.

  “He’s expecting us,” Lourdes added. “Or at least he should be.”

  The guards reacted instantly, looking to one another, not sure what to do.

  “Are you one of us?”

  “No,” said Winston. “We’re one of him.”

  The guards considered the prospect fearfully. “Yes,” they said, swinging the gates open to admit them. “He has been expecting you.”

  The interior of the castle was spectacularly overdone, from the Louis XIV armoires, to the Ming dynasty vases. The entire castle mocked itself at every turn with self-conscious opulence. Men and women stood at every threshold, like an unofficial security gauntlet, and Lourdes had the distinct feeling they were passing through layer after layer of protection that surrounded Dillon and his inner sanctum. Until finally, a door opened before them, and they stepped from paradise . . . into Hell.

  Michael had hoped to see no more carnage today, but here before his eyes was a room full of people who weren’t much better off than Drew. Michael had to cover his ears from the awful sounds of anguish around him.

  “Madre de Dios!” gasped Lourdes. “What happened here?” Then Michael caught sight of Dillon tending to a woman whose many wounds had left her a bloody mess. Winston and Tory were there, too—both of them as focused as surgeons, as they moved around the room.

  Dillon caught sight of them, but didn’t bother to greet them. “Good. You’re here!” he said, as someone closed the door behind them, pushing them off the threshold and into the room.

  “Michael!” shouted Dillon. “These people here are way too stressed, and it’s getting in the way. Can you do something about it?”

  But Michael could only stand there with his jaw dropped; his own sense of panic infusing the patients like a lightning storm, adding to the chaos.

  “I said, can you do something about it?!”

  Suddenly, Michael realized he had been here before. It was the “emergency-room dream.” Michael would walk through a door, and find himself a surgeon, in the midst of mortal chaos, with absolutely no medical knowledge. His anxiety continued to skyrocket.

  With nothing but dead air from Michael, Dillon turned his attention to Lourdes. “Lourdes, could you do something about their pain?”

  “Wh-what should I do?”

  Across the room, Winston left one patient, and moved on to another. “C’mon, Lourdes,” Winston said. “If we can do this, so can you!”

  The panic in the room continued to build as the patients continued to resonate Michael’s emotional distress. Around him, people began to squirm and scramble to their feet, trying to flee.

  “Michael, stop it!” shouted Tory. “You’re only making it worse!” Michael could feel his own state of terror stab into the hearts of those assembled, creating greater and greater panic. Lately, making bad situations worse had become a specialty of Michael’s. He wasn’t about to let his own shortcomings ruin the efforts of the others, so he spun on his heels, and pushed his way out of the room, slamming the doors closed behind him.

  In the hallway, he leaned against the cold marble balustrade, and sunk to the floor, dropping his head into his hands. Back in Newport Beach, his emotions had been in tight control for so long—but now they flew rabid and reckless.

  Those emotions had snuffed the life out of Drew, who even now grew colder in the backseat of the stolen car. And what would Michael do about that? Send a body bag to Drew’s parents, with his deepest apologies? Somehow, Michael doubted Hallmark had a sentiment for “Sorry I killed your son.”

  From beyond the closed doors, Michael could hear the cries of pain fade away. What was Lourdes doing? he wondered. Putting them to sleep? Was she regulating strained hearts and administering some sort of psychic anesthesia?

  At least she could give them respite from their pain, but for Michael there was no such relief.

  “Something wrong?”

  Michael looked up to see someone leaning against a column a few yards down the hall. Michael pointed to the closed door of Dillon’s little operating room. “Take a look in that madhouse, and ask me again.”

  “I was asking about you.”

  “Nothing wrong with me a nice long coma couldn’t cure.”

  The stranger took a step closer, whistling a tune that seemed familiar, but Michael could not quite place it. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  Then the stranger sat down beside him. “No one with that much trouble in their eyes can be quiet for long.”

  Michael was about to get up and leave, when the stranger began to whistle that tune again. It frustrated Michael that he couldn’t quite place it. He turned and for the first time really saw the stranger’s face. There was something odd about it. His curiosity kept him from leaving.

  “No point in talking,” said Michael. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Poor Michael,” mocked the stranger. “The other shards won’t let you play.”

  Michael bristled. “Who the hell are you, and how do you know my name?”

  “Tory and Winston speak of you so often, I feel as if I already know you. Although you seem far less shifty than they made you out to be.”

  “Shifty? They said I’m shifty?”

  The stranger sat beside him. “Deeply troubled.”

  Michael felt a seed of anger and resentment toward the others begin to take root. And he let it, finding that the resentment felt good. “Yeah, well, they’re the ones who are troubled. Bottomless pits, if you ask me.”

  “Perhaps they’re not the friends you think they are.”

  Michael studied the stranger, trying to divine what he was getting at, but he only grinned, as if he were the one with Michael’s best interests at heart.

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  Michael studied the face a moment longer, until he finally realized what had seemed so strange. “What are you anyway?” Michael asked. “A guy or girl?”

  The stranger shrugged. “Which do you prefer?”

  Michael had to laugh at that. “Neither,” he said.

  “Tell me your troubles. Maybe I can bring you some peace.”

  And although Michael hadn’t cared to discuss it, he found himself spilling his guts into the patient ears of this strange new friend.

  IN THE CROWDED SPACE of the Gothic Study, Dillon, Tory, Lourdes, and Winston worked their curious magic. Dillon set broken bones, and sent the most malignant of tumors into spontaneous remission, while Lourdes doused pain, and steadied the rhythms of failing hearts. Tory set up one sterile field after another, while Winston regenerated organs, limbs, and nerve pathways that had, until now, been irretrievably lost.

  The patients began this triage in terror and confusion, but as the numbers of the healed increased, the fear was subjugated by astonishment. Restored patients became an awed audience, watching as the four worked their wonders on the rest.

  It was over in less than an hour, and when they were done, the room was a joyous gathering of healthy people.

  The doors were swung open wide to let them out.

  “But we don’t want to go!” they clamored. “We want to stay here. With you . . . with all of you!” And so the Happy Campers at the door led them away, to find them all a place in Dillon’s perfect order.

  Winston, Lourdes, and Tory had expected to find nothing but misery once they found Dillon—and although he did show them misery, he had also shown them misery’s end. As the last of th
e new recruits left the room, Michael stepped in, looking pale and oppressed, with Okoya lingering in the shadows, just beyond the door.

  Michael opened his mouth to say something, but Lourdes cut him off.

  “Michael, it was incredible,” she said, throwing her arms around him. “You missed everything!”

  “I knew I affected people, but it was never like that!” said Winston. “The things I was able to do in there . . .”

  “It’s because we’re together,” suggested Tory. “Together we’re greater than the sum of our parts.”

  The others took a moment to consider this, dazzled by the magnitude of the thought. How great were they, really? How much greater could they become?

  Dillon, however, remained unimpressed. “This was just one day’s work. There’ll be more tomorrow,” he said, as he straightened out chairs and benches.

  “But why?” Tory asked. “Why will there be more? Why are we doing this?”

  “Because we can,” offered Lourdes.

  “Not because we can,” said Dillon. “But because we have to . . . . There’s so much I need to tell you, I don’t know where to start.”

  And then, finally, Michael forced out what he had been trying to say since he had ventured into the room. “I know where to start,” he said. There was a lump in his throat, and the words came out muted. “Okoya and I just brought a friend of mine in from the car . . . .”

  “Oh no . . . Drew!” gasped Lourdes.

  “Before we do anything,” Michael said, “I want to give him a decent burial.”

  Dillon regarded Michael curiously. “Burial?”

  “Isn’t that what you normally do with dead people?” Michael spat out.

  “No,” said Dillon. “Actually, it’s not.”

  RUNNING! SPRINTING!

  A nameless runner charging backward through a blind race.

  He could not remember the moment before—all he could do was feel the motion as he moved across an impossible distance. The space around him stretched like a piece of elastic, until it seemed like . . . a tunnel. He was running backward through a tunnel. The journey lasted only a moment longer, and then he awoke with a single thought in his mind, so powerful that he had to speak aloud. It was who he was. It was his name.

  “DREW CAMDEN!” THE SOUND of his own voice woke him, his mind charged and fully alert. He opened his eyes to find himself in the soft light of a strange, octagonal room. The ceiling was inlaid gold, the four-poster bed on which he lay was gold, and soft golden light poured in through windows covered with delicately patterned grills.

  “Welcome to the Celestial Suite.”

  The voice was unfamiliar. Drew sat up, but the speaker had left. Drew only caught a flicker of his red hair as he exited, on his way down the stairs.

  But Michael was there, standing and staring.

  A pang of regret—a pang of sorrow—came to Drew as he recalled the last time they had seen each other, but he chose not to face that. Not now.

  “It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven,” said Drew, throwing his gaze around the Celestial Suite.

  “You may have,” said Michael, “but now you’re here.”

  “What happened?”

  “I killed you,” Michael said. “And Dillon brought you back.”

  There was a pause, as Drew tried to process that bit of information. Finally, Michael said, “Dinner’s at seven. Come on down if you’re hungry.” And he left Drew alone in the eight-sided room, with the faces of more than a dozen statues staring at him, as if waiting to see what he was going to do now.

  11. LIFE IN THE KEY OF D

  * * *

  “LAST YEAR, AFTER YOU ALL LEFT,” DILLON BEGAN, “I FOUND that I could repair as well as I could ruin, and the more I fixed, the better I got.”

  The Billiard Room, like most of the rooms in the castle, had a stone yawn of a fireplace, and walls covered in medieval tapestries. Dillon didn’t have much use for the room, but it was less intimidating than the vaulted expanse of the Assembly Room, which was far too imposing a place to speak of imposing things.

  “Death isn’t an easy thing to reverse,” Dillon explained, “but I’ve had practice.” He didn’t tell them how much practice it had taken. How, at first, he would have to hold corpses in his arms for hours, until the decay gave way to living flesh once more, and their spirits were coaxed back into being. Those were memories better left unshared.

  Michael tried to play a game of pool, but his hands shook so much that he missed the cue ball. “Do you need a license to raise the dead, or is that just for cars and guns?”

  Winston stood at the far end of the room. Although he had gotten taller, he was dwarfed by the statues on either side. “So now you’re in the resurrection business?”

  Dillon grimaced, his mind running to find a less loaded euphemism. “Let’s just say I charge people’s batteries.”

  The thought brought a collective shiver to the room, which made Dillon angry. “Is it so different from what the rest of you have been doing?” He turned to Michael. “I’ve been hearing about strange weather systems in southern California. Is that where you’ve been, Michael?”

  Michael hesitated before hitting the cue ball. “Yeah . . . so?”

  Dillon turned to Tory. “The dropping crime rate in Miami keeps making national news. Somehow I don’t think it’s because of good police work.”

  Tory looked away. “It’s just something that happens,” she said. “It was never intentional.”

  Dillon glanced at Winston and Lourdes, who both looked away, making it clear that they were guilty of some power play as well.

  “You’ve all been out there,” said Dillon. “So don’t act like I’m any different from you.”

  “What you do is . . . bigger,” Tory said.

  Then a voice spoke out from the corner. “Yes—but let’s not be fearful of it. Isn’t that what you’re saying, Dillon?”

  It was Okoya. Until now, Okoya had remained a distant observer. In fact, Dillon had forgotten he was there. Okoya was the only one unfazed, reclining comfortably in a plush lounge chair, as if he were William Randolph Hearst himself. He seemed to carry himself like someone born to royalty: such smooth, elegant composure. Dillon wanted to ask Okoya to leave, but Okoya seemed too much of an ally right now. Instead Dillon turned to the others.

  “Okoya’s right. You can’t let it scare you. There’s enough people acting strangely around here—at least we could treat each other as if we were normal.”

  Winston strode closer. “Don’t you think there’s a reason for them to act strangely? You bring back the dead, you take over a national landmark to play house, and you let all your followers think you’re God at sixteen—”

  “What they think is their problem!” snapped Dillon.

  “No, it’s yours,” Winston said.

  “I don’t see a problem.”

  It was Okoya again. They all turned to him, still reclining in the velvet lounge. His voice was quiet, but commanding. Dillon found himself completely upstaged.

  “It’s human nature to find divinity in anything greater than oneself,” Okoya said. “If they see you as gods, what harm does that do? And besides, their devotion can be used.”

  “I don’t like it,” muttered Winston.

  “Get used to it,” said Okoya. “I would say that your time of hiding is over.”

  Lourdes sauntered closer to Okoya. “You’re pretty accepting of all of this. Aren’t you the least bit surprised, or shocked by what you’ve seen here today?”

  Okoya pulled himself up from the lounge, to face them eye-to-eye. “Acceptance is the advantage of an open mind.”

  “I’m not impressed by your fortune-cookie sentiments, Okoya,” said Winston.

  “All right, then. Maybe I’m so calm about it because I’ve always suspected I’d find myself in the shadow of greatness. And being here with all of you feels like coming home.”

  Dillon pushed his way in front of the others. “And exactly where
is home?”

  “Hualapai Nation,” answered Okoya. “But you already know that.”

  “Somehow,” said Dillon, “I suspect you’re a much longer way from there than you’d care to let on.”

  “I’ve traveled,” Okoya said. “And you’d be wise not to grill someone who comes to you in good faith. It’s a sign of a weak leader.”

  The comment stung Dillon far more than he thought it would—and yet there was something refreshing in it: that after the constant acquiescence of the Happy Campers, here was a personality that actually challenged him. Dillon caught himself grinning, and Okoya returned it. It served to make the others uneasy.

  “You still haven’t told us why you’ve dragged us into this nasty game,” Winston asked him. Dillon broke eye contact with Okoya, and turned back to the others.

  “It’s got to be more than just trauma care,” said Tory.

  “You’re right,” admitted Dillon, “there is more. I called to you . . . I gathered you back together, because it’s the only way to fix what’s gone wrong.”

  Winston took a breath for a loud rebuttal, but his brain must have hooked around what Dillon had said. Winston hesitated for a moment, then spoke in a worried whisper.

  “What do you mean—‘gone wrong’?”

  The other shards had moved closer now, pressing in around the billiard table. Dillon took a deep breath to calm himself.

  “Last week, I swam the Columbia River,” he told them, “and from the moment I climbed out, I felt a shift in the patterns around me . . . . Patterns of the present . . . and the future. Suddenly I felt everyone and everything begin a long spiral toward a very dark place.”

  “You never killed your parasite,” Tory reminded Dillon. “Maybe that’s what you sensed. Maybe that thing has found a way back into this world, and it’s starting to destroy again.”

  “No,” Dillon said. “No—if it came back, I’d know it. This is something different. Maybe something worse.”

  “What could be worse than that?” asked Lourdes.