Thief of Souls

by Neal Shusterman

  “I won’t use people.”

  “It’s about time you started.”

  Okoya had Dillon’s attention now, for the first time since they had arrived at the castle . . . but Dillon’s eyes had settled on something in the corner.

  It was a glass of water . . . only there was no glass. Just water.

  Okoya moved over to the dressing table where the water stood, and leaned against the edge of it, making sure he was in Dillon’s line of sight. As he touched the table, it shook slightly. The water vibrated like a column of Jell-O, but still it stayed together, an indivisible whole.

  “See how wonder surrounds you,” Okoya poked a finger into the side of the water column, and pulled it out, licking his finger. “You are the glue that holds this water together, and your power is growing every day.”

  Then Okoya lunged forward, driving his logic deep into Dillon’s uncertainty. “If you know patterns so well, look at the pattern around you,” challenged Okoya. “If you took things into your own hands, how long until every person in the world knows your name, and knows what you can do? How long until you become the glue that holds the entire world together?”

  Dillon was silent as he considered the glassless glass of water. Okoya asked again. “How long?”

  “Forty-eight days,” whispered Dillon. “Forty-eight days, twelve hours, and nineteen minutes.”

  16. WATER WORKS

  * * *

  DREW CAMDEN LIKENED HIS CONDITION TO THE AFTERMATH of the flu. A weakness in the knees; a lightheaded, uneasy feeling; a sense of nonspecific malaise that accompanied everything he did. It was amazing to him how much there was to adjust to. It seemed almost every aspect of his life was affected. The way he thought, the way he acted, the way he coped with any and every situation, had been carefully woven to accommodate that central strand of his sexuality—but now that that thread had been pulled out, the fabric of his life made no sense. Tasks as simple as turning a doorknob took every last ounce of his concentration, and when he was out among people, the world took on a strange dreamlike tilt. Everything seemed violently new, and potentially dangerous, and his interactions with others were . . . well . . . unsettled.

  There was a girl, for instance. He didn’t know her name, only that he was deeply attracted to her. He struck up a conversation in the hallway with her—small talk, really, just to get her attention. He was even more surprised than she when he looked down to find his hand deep in his pants, holding himself. He felt shock, mortification, and yet found himself laughing uncontrollably, not knowing why. It was just one in a string of unexpected events that had plagued him since Michael had rewired him.

  He had asked Michael about all this, and Michael was unconcerned. “It’s just a transition, it’ll take some time for you to adjust.”

  Michael was, of course, right. Drew would eventually decipher his new neural pathways and discover the person he now was. He just had to weather through this period of discovery.

  Thank goodness for the video camera.

  As official video-biographer, and Dillon’s self-appointed spy, Drew could rely on his job to distract him—a job that put a merciful distance between him and the world that he viewed through the lens. He had recorded quite a few unusual events—definitely videoworthy—and the events only grew stranger day by day.

  Today he was busy cataloguing the new backward flow of the fountain, when he caught sight of Okoya following Dillon back to his suite. Drew might have followed, as well, to eavesdrop, and see what conversations went on between these two most unusual of people, but it was the activities of the others that afternoon that pulled his focus—as it had pulled the focus of so many of the followers.

  Lourdes was in the ballroom putting on what amounted to a puppet show . . . but her puppets were human. She had taken a whole group of devout followers, and turned them into a kickline, shoulders linked and throwing their legs high up into the air, like the Rockettes themselves. They laughed and laughed, as Lourdes manipulated the muscles of their bodies like a row of marionettes. Lourdes laughed, too, and Drew hadn’t been sure whether this show was for the followers’ amusement, or for hers. Either way, it looked wonderful on videotape.

  “Is it difficult to control the actions of so many people at one time?” Drew asked her.

  “Not as long as they’re all doing the same thing,” Lourdes answered, indicating the kick-line. “And it’s easier when they willingly give their bodies over for me to control. Are you getting all this?”

  Drew zoomed in and panned the kick-line of followers, whose laughter was fading as exhaustion began to set in.

  “How long do you think they can go?” Lourdes asked.

  Drew shrugged. “You tell me—you’re the puppet master.”

  Lourdes frowned, unamused by the title. “The interview’s over.” Drew then found his own feet taking Lourdes’s marching orders, carrying him out of the room against his will.

  Drew’s camera next caught Winston in the Rose Garden, a place Winston had initially avoided; but now he seemed to relish the sight of the rosebushes weaving themselves like snakes though the trellises as he sat there, the roses blooming around him in yawnlike bursts. In this festival of roses, Winston held court. It was a cross between a game show and an audience with King Solomon. Some tested his knowledge of minutia, others had specific problems to solve.

  “We’re worried about feeding all these people,” said one of Winston’s flock. “What should we do?”

  “Dig up the lawn beneath my balcony, and seed it with vegetables,” he told them. “You’ll have a full harvest by morning.”

  Drew used his zoom lens on Winston, because Winston had no patience for Drew, and couldn’t be bothered with something as menial as their videologue. And besides, whenever Drew moved too deeply into Winston’s sphere of influence, he could feel his own hair growing, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

  Drew followed Winston’s gaze to the sky, where, to Winston’s irritation, Michael was upstaging him with a host of cloud creations. “That’s all he’s good for,” Winston grumbled to his followers.

  Drew trekked to a clearing on the far side of the castle, where close to one hundred followers lay on their backs, staring up at the clouds. In the center of them, Michael emoted in short, directed bursts. Drew could feel the pulses move through him like Morse code. In this way, Michael carved and molded the clouds. He had whipped the high cirrus into a wispy spiderweb. Now he drew together the puff in its center until a spider could be seen lurking there. Then Michael released his breath as if he had been lifting a heavy weight, and the web above began to dissolve into random vapor once more. His crowd applauded and cheered.

  It was then that Dillon burst out of the castle with Okoya close behind. Drew quickly spun the video-cam to him, zooming in on Dillon’s intensely determined face. Dillon was searching for someone or something, and his mind seemed to race ahead of him like an engine pulling him forward. He stormed past the anti-fountain, which had become a little shrine all its own, and continued on toward the Neptune Pool. There were, no doubt, great wheels of creation turning in his head, as he devised complex, unknowable schemes.

  DREW’S OBSERVATION WAS, IN fact, correct. Dillon’s mind had kicked into overdrive, and was practically burning a path before him. The thoughts Okoya had planted in his mind just a few moments earlier were germinating at the speed of Winston’s Rose Garden.

  You can be the glue that holds together the failing world, Okoya had said, and Dillon knew he was right. He also knew that what he was about to attempt, if it succeeded, would change everything. It would alter the ineffective course of his actions. If he was able to do this, he would no longer be merely treading water.

  In the Neptune Pool, however, there were dozens of people treading water, under Tory’s direction, of course. Tory had finally deigned to satisfy all the followers who kept asking for “cleansing,” which seemed to mean something different for each of them. No matter; she had concocted an impressive little
ritual that was a cross between baptism and synchronized swimming, with her as high priestess.

  As the joyous mobs bobbed blissfully in the water, Dillon strode across the pool deck, and began to run his hands determinedly across the marble railing, and over the statues that surrounded the pool. His strange actions took everyone’s attention away from Tory, and it annoyed her. The pool was her place, and these were her followers. What was Dillon up to?

  Drew shuffled across the wet deck, putting the video camera in Dillon’s face. “Welcome to ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Godlike,’ ” he said. “Here we have Dillon Cole, performing some mystic ritual. Tell us, Dillon, just what are you doing?”

  Dillon put his hand to a column, rubbing his fingers across it. “Trying to get a feeling,” he said.

  “A feeling for what?”

  “The pressure point,” was his enigmatic response.

  Word had begun shooting through the ranks that Dillon was being weird by the pool. In the ad hoc shrines where Michael, Lourdes, and Winston performed their sideshow tricks, people ran past. “Dillon’s doing something,” they shouted breathlessly. “He’s doing something new!”

  Soon the audiences had abandoned the other Shards, hurrying down to the pool to see what was up.

  Dillon hopped the railing on the western edge of the pool deck. The pool’s west side jutted over the edge of the hilltop, so that guests could have an unobstructed view of the Pacific. Dillon fell eight feet as he jumped over the railing, but kept his balance. He turned, and facing the granite block wall that enclosed the pool, he ran his fingers along the weathered stone, and between the cracks.

  Up above, Drew leaned over the railing, looking down on him, camera still rolling. Dillon’s fingers swept back and forth, until he centered in on a single block, and then he dragged his index finger across it in serpentine motions, until stopping on a single spot. He reached down, picked up a stone from the ground, and pounded the spot three times. Clack-clack-clack.

  The sound echoed deep within the structure of the pool.

  “Pressure point?” asked Drew.

  Dillon looked up and called to him. “Get off the pool deck. Tell everyone to get off the pool deck!”

  But by now there were so many people crowding the ledge, and the hillside around him, it seemed impossible to get the mobs moving without some sort of structured retreat. Dillon searched the crowds until finding the other shards, standing impassively twenty yards away, observing him.

  “Lourdes,” he said. “You have to move these people.”

  “I don’t take orders,” she grunted. “Ask nicely.”

  “Please, Lourdes—and do it quick.”

  Lourdes flicked her head, and focused on the crowd. She took a deep breath, bore down, and everyone—everyone—turned and marched away, leaving the area around and above Dillon clear.

  “There,” she said. “You owe me.”

  When the marching had stopped, the ground still trembled like the pounding of a hundred feet . . . . Stones half buried in the hillside began to tumble, and from deep within the structure of the pool came a triplet of sounds growing louder as they repeated. Sounds only barely recognizable as the magnified, mutated clack-clack-clack of Dillon’s stone against the granite block.

  Dillon stumbled backward, focusing all of his attention forward as the pool echoed its resonant frequency through its dense structure, and back to its pressure point, until the granite blocks began to quiver; until the heavy railing began to crumble; until the entire west face of the pool fractured and collapsed in an avalanche of broken granite and marble dust.

  Dillon was engulfed by that thick cloud of dust, and Michael, for one, didn’t have the patience to wait for the dust to settle, so he blew it away.

  What remained brought the crowd to a stunned silence. Drew had to take his eyes from his video-cam to make sure he was indeed seeing what he thought he saw.

  Dillon stood there, amid the rubble. The statues and colonnade above him were gone. So was the deep end of the pool.

  But the water had not moved.

  Like the column of water in his room, the wall of water held its shape, as if the face of the pool were still there. People still treaded water—from where Dillon stood, he could see the soles of their feet through the water that stayed in place, touched by Dillon’s ever-growing power of cohesion.

  It had worked!

  And it hadn’t been any more difficult for Dillon than putting his finger in a dike.

  The other Shards came down to get a better view of the feat, but each brought along their own sprig of sour grapes.

  “Show-off.”

  “That’s called vandalism.”

  “Have you lost your entire mind?”

  “What’s the matter, Dillon—playing Jesus wasn’t good enough for you? Now you have to play Moses, too?”

  Dillon didn’t even hear them. “Pack your things,” he said. “We’re leaving.” He turned to the first Happy Camper he saw. “You! Tell all the others there are to be no more sick or injured brought to us. There are more important things to do now.”

  “Yes, Dillon,” the man said, and hurried off.

  “You!” he said, pointing to another. “I want everyone ready to go by dawn. I’m making it your personal responsibility.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and sped off.

  “You!” he said to another. “We’ll need buses, cars, vans—”

  “Buses have already been chartered, and are on the way,” said a calm, familiar voice. “Enough for everyone.” Dillon turned to see Okoya stepping out from behind a tree.

  The other Shards were fit to be tied.

  “Will someone tell us what the hell is going on?” demanded Winston. “Why are we leaving, and why wasn’t I consulted?”

  “Yeah,” added Tory. “Maybe we like it here.”

  “SHUT UP!” shouted Okoya, putting a brutal end to the questioning. “You’ll do as Dillon says.” And then he softened. “Dillon has your best interests at heart . . . . Don’t you, Dillon?”

  Dillon took in the sight of the other Shards. Just as before, they were standing in isolation; together yet divided. Well, Dillon didn’t know how to change that, but he could still make them work together.

  “You want to be followed? You want to be worshipped? You want to be loved and adored?” Dillon looked at each of them one by one. “Well, you will be. Not by hundreds, but by millions. I’ll make sure of it. All you have to do is work with me, and do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Michael.

  “Somewhere we can put on a show,” was all Dillon said for now. He waited to see their response. They all looked to each other, distrustful, none of them wanting to be the first to acquiesce. It was Okoya who coaxed them into submission. “If an alliance serves everyone’s interest,” Okoya said, “why not take advantage of it?”

  “I thought,” Lourdes said to Dillon, “that you wanted to save the world.”

  “We will,” Dillon answered. “Once we take control of it.”

  Then Winston, for the first time in quite a few confrontations, uncrossed his arms. “I think I can live with that.”

  It was as they headed back for the castle to prepare the exodus, that Okoya leaned over and whispered into Dillon’s ear. “Well done,” he said. “Everything’s exactly where we want it.”

  Dillon couldn’t help but wonder what Okoya meant by “we.”

  Part IV

  A Plummet of Angels

  17. GAMBLERS AND OTHER SHARKS

  * * *

  A BLACK GLASS PYRAMID ROASTED IN THE DESERT SUN.

  From a clear sky, clouds began to fold out from a point in space directly above the pyramid. The many people wandering this end of the Las Vegas Strip took quick notice, wondering where the clouds had come from, and how they had grown so quickly. Then a single bolt of lightning exploded from the sky, striking the very peak of the pyramid, knocking out its electricity.

  Inside
Luxor’s casino, the brightly lit gambling tables were plunged into darkness, but only for an instant.

  One particular croupier stood behind his roulette table in the darkness, yelling, “Nobody panic!”

  Then suddenly, the lights came back on . . . and standing directly before him, staring in his eyes, was a young man with red hair.

  The kid was clearly underage to be in a casino. Around him stood four others, who, like the redheaded kid, were all dressed in shimmering gold silk shirts, and spotless white jeans—and had appeared out of nowhere while the casino was dark. They all wore the faintest hint of a smile, as they looked directly into the roulette croupier’s eyes, as if they knew something he didn’t. He was about to send them away because they were too young to gamble, but instead found himself saying, “Place yout bets,” as if he had no control of his own actions.

  He pushed the wheel, giving it a faster spin, and took the small, white ball in his hand. Various gamblers around the table stacked their chips around the velvet betting board. The redheaded teen and his friends only watched, as he released the ball. The ball hugged the rim, fell toward the wheel, skipped a bit, and landed in a green pocket.

  Double zero.

  Moans were heard around the table. No one had bet it. Few people ever did. The croupier raked in the chips, clearing the board for the next wager.

  Still the redheaded kid and his friends only watched, but now the croupier thought he felt a strange aura, like heat at the edge of a fire. And then, there was the breeze—not just the hotel air-conditioning, but a breeze that seemed to pull down cigarette smoke from the high atrium above, and send it swirling in an eddy around the table.

  “Place your bets!” he said again. He was sure it was just his imagination.

  Bets were placed randomly around the table. Square bets, street bets, columns and lines. The redheaded boy and his friends did not wager. The croupier released the ball, it spun around then bounced in and out of numbers, and found its pocket.