by A. Sparrow
“Do you know happen to know why would anyone want to kill you?”
“You guys can’t be cops. Why do you care? Who are you people?”
“We’re just … people. We found out and thought you should know.”
“Yeah, well … the threats kind of stopped a couple months ago.”
“Any idea who threatened you?”
He gave a deep sigh. “Well, I’m pretty sure. He’s … he was … another tennis player. Steven Chen. Went to a high school near mine in Connecticut. Damned good. I mean, top-rated. One of the best in the state. But somehow I always found a way to beat him. I mean it was weird. I wasn’t not even the best player on our team. Just seemed to have his number. Guess I matched up well. He always took it real hard.”
“So then he ends up going to Yale and it was the same thing. First three matches we played, I beat him. Then I knocked him out of the league tournament in the first round. Right before regionals, that’s when the death threats started. I’m pretty sure it was him, but I could never prove it. He ended up losing to some other guy. And right after … I heard he attempted suicide. Overdosed on pills. They pumped his stomach in time to save him. Dumb ass. All over some dumb game. And then … about a month ago … it was weird … I heard he just kind of died. Natural causes, apparently.”
“Nature had nothing to do with it I guarantee you.”
“What? But they just found him dead in his room. The autopsy came up negative, nothing in his system.”
“Of course they didn’t find anything. The people who took him out have got this down to an art.”
“You’re saying he was murdered?”
“No. He probably wanted to go. He just had help. But now he wants to take you with him.”
“But … he’s dead.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You see, in Frelsi—”
Ellen elbowed me. “Don’t confuse him with the details!” she whispered.
“Well, anyhow. We thought you should know. You see … I’m the guy he hired to take you out.”
The kid had this befuddled look on his face, as if he didn’t know whether to be angry or amused. He showed no fear at all, which was a bad sign for his future well-being.
“Why are you telling me? Go tell the cops or something.”
“Because that won’t stop it from happening. If we walk away and you’re still around, he’s gonna send someone else to finish the job, if he doesn’t do it himself.”
“Go!” said Ellen. “Get your ass somewhere safe. Don’t go out. And don’t eat anything that you didn’t cook yourself.”
“Fucking hell! I can’t just go and hide. I’ve got a tournament on Friday. I got finals coming up. I’m not gonna listen to a bunch of any weirdoes that just show up out of the blue, telling me—”
“Jason. This is real,” said Ellen. “You need to take this seriously. Because the guy who hired James. He’s serious. He’ll get it done himself if we back out. And he’ll get it done, alright. We’ve seen him kill with our own eyes.”
The kid’s face got all flushed and red. Beads of sweat mingled with rain drops. “Jesus Christ.” He began to hyperventilate. Our message was finally sinking in.
“What the fuck? Why haven’t you gone to the cops with this?”
“Wouldn’t do any good,” I said, shaking my head.
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because the people who want you dead, they’ve got … special skills.”
“Jesus Christ! What are they? Ninjas?”
“Worse,” I said.
Jason fumbled with the sleeve of his racket.
“Alright. I’ll skip classes the rest of this week. Get the notes from my friends. I’ll pretend I’m sick on Friday. Skip the tournament. I mean, it’s just a freaking game, right?”
I looked at Ellen and smiled. “This kid got into Dartmouth for a reason.”
***
We helped him round up the rest of his soggy balls. As he zipped the bag and strode off down the puddled sidewalk, we stood in the drizzle, watching him go.
“Well, that felt like a good deed,” said Ellen, beaming.
“Not … really,” I said.
“What do you mean? We saved his life.”
“We bought him a couple of days. If the Wendell wants him dead, though, he’ll find a way to get it done. Even if he doesn’t do it himself, he’ll send Nelson or someone we don’t even know about yet. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
Urszula stepped out of the shrubberies in which she had been lurking. “I say we use the boy as bait. Kill anyone who attempts to hurt him. This way, we can eradicate a lot of Frelsian assassins.”
“Not a bad idea. Not something we can do in public, though.”
“You really think Jason would agree to acting as our bait?” said Ellen.
“Who’s asking him for permission?”
A little pizza delivery van came squealing around the corner and pulled up abruptly beside us.
“You James Moody?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” he said. “Got a pizza for you. It’s all paid for.”
The driver slid a box from an insulated sleeve in the front seat, stuck a brown paper bag on top of it and handed it to me.
“Enjoy,” said the delivery guy, before he zoomed away.
I popped open the box. Inside was a large artichoke and olive pizza with a crispy crust.
“Christ. He even knows my favorite toppings.” I stuffed it into a trash can. No one objected.
The iPhone went off with that gypsy jazz ring tone. Minor chords. Chugging guitars. A warped fiddle. It was Wendell, of course. I set it on speaker so the girls could hear.
“Hey. What’s going on? The kid. He’s walking away.”
I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to talk to him. I almost wanted to dash that phone against the pavement and stomp on it.
“Jesus Christ! What’s the deal? Rainy day. Empty street. No witnesses. You guys wasted a perfect opportunity. And … you trashed my pizza?”
“We’re done, Wendell. No more killing.”
There was a long pause.
“You … little … shit. I had a feeling you’d pull this crap. After Montreal.”
“So … what are you gonna do about it?”
“What do you want me to do? Give you a medal?”
A chill ran through me as I remembered his threat to take out Isobel if I didn’t carry out this last task. I didn’t dare bring up the subject, hoping maybe he’d forget. Maybe he would sense that nothing, no amount of negative persuasion would make me change my mind. I was firm in my rejection of his apprenticeship. It was the best I could hope for.
“We won’t use your credit card. Alright? I’ll cut it up.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you do with it. Might as well enjoy yourselves. Get you and your girls something to eat. Better eat while you can. You’re not gonna be around much longer.
“Last meal?”
“Yeah. Probably. Unless, you turn things around right quick, it’s gonna be clear to my bosses that you’re no longer an asset, you’re a security threat. And you know what happens to security threats.”
“You eliminate them?”
“That’s right. So let me offer you one last chance. It’s more than you deserve … but what the hell. So I’ll tell you what … you got till first light tomorrow to get this job done. If you don’t, I’m coming for you, kid. Got that?”
He hung up.
“Don’t listen to him,” said Ellen, touching my arm.
“Don’t worry. I meant what I said. “I’m done.”
“So what do we do now?” said Ellen.
“We choose our battleground,” said Urszula.
Chapter 36: Expedition
Hanover had a curated feel about it, like it was some upscale, money-fueled restoration of an idealized New England town. It didn’t feel like real people lived here, at least not in the town center. Think Disney World. Then aga
in, that could just be my Florida in me talking.
Dartmouth dominated everything. Pieces of campus had metastasized into various houses and buildings sprinkled through the downtown area. Seemed like we found a Dartmouth sign lurking around every corner.
Despite the gentle rain, there were plenty of people hanging around the village center. I studied them like an anthropologist, curious to know who got to live in a place like this, wondering if it had room for someone like me. I kind of doubted it. I had felt more at home in Brynmawr and Luthersburg than here.
We cruised the streets on a dual mission: one, to find a place to make our stand. Two, to replace Wendell’s pizza with one less likely to have Fellstraw as a topping. Fellstraw or not, that artichoke and olive pie of Wendell’s had smelled awful good.
Downtown was out of the question for a showdown—way too much potential for collateral damage. I didn’t care about the fancy shops with their pretty facades, but there were, in fact, too many real and innocent people living here.
Young parents idling with their toddlers in a playground. Grandmas gossiping in front of the post office. Townie teens gathered in the parking lot of an ice cream shop. Wendell may not have cared what happened to them, but I sure did. We needed to find a spot that was a little more isolated and that had a little more room to unleash our spell craft.
We had better luck finding our pizza. The place was called ‘Everything But Anchovies.’ An unfortunate name, because telling me what I couldn’t have only made me want them more. And I didn’t even like anchovies.
We ended up getting sausage and pepperoni because Urszula insisted on meat. This pizza didn’t look half as good as the one Wendell had ordered for us, but at least we knew it was safe to eat. We paid with that black credit card. I figured, why not?
After we ate, me and the girls went on a shopping spree at Talbots and the Hanover Outdoor store. We all got new clothes because what we had been wearing was getting a little ripe and we didn’t have time to mess around with laundry.
We loaded up on all kinds of camping stuff. Fleece pullovers, rain jackets, sleeping bags and pads. Freeze-dried meals. A water purifier. A propane stove.
I didn’t know what conditions we would find ourselves in during the days ahead, or even if there would be any days ahead of us in this world. For all I knew, our current existence might only be measured in hours.
This atmosphere of uncertainty put an edge to our wanderings in the village. Every corner was a potential trap, every person who looked at us funny, a killer.
Our last stop was at a liquor store. I picked up a six pack of Heineken. Ellen got a bottle of Merlot. Urszula—a pint bottle of some kind of fancy schnapps-like crap with little gold flakes floating inside.
And then we were back in the car, searching again for the perfect battleground. We cruised back and forth across campus, weaving through leafy residential areas, across parking lots, past a hockey rink and an old, refurbished mill.
Night fell. Street lights flickered on. Still, we hadn’t found what we were looking for.
“Maybe we should just keep on driving around in random circles,” said Ellen. “That would confuse him.”
“We’re not trying to confuse anybody,” I said. “We’re just trying to gain a tactical advantage.”
“I do not recommend we stay in this vehicle,” said Urszula. “It confines us and the Frelsian can ambush if he detects any pattern to our routing.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Height. Open space. Clear lines of sight.”
“Maybe a church steeple or a clock tower?” said Ellen. “Someplace sturdy and tall?”
“Perhaps,” said Urszula. “If it is surrounded by open ground. A piazza maybe?”
“You’re not gonna find anything like that here,” I said. “But hang on, there was a place we passed when we first got to town that looked … promising.”
I turned back onto campus, cutting across the hill to the athletic complex. The rain had finally stopped and a moon just a sliver short of full was poking through the clouds. A delicious chill was settling over the town. I don’t think the girls appreciated it as much as I did, considering how they bundled themselves up in their fleeces and shells.
I pulled the car into a lot beside one of the subsidiary soccer fields on the outermost fringes of campus. The nearest residential buildings were a block away. There was nothing nearby but a field house and a parking lot. Across the field, was a dark hillside covered in pines.
“What do you think?”
Urszula got out of the car and gazed up into the stands.
“There,” she said, pointing at a press box perched atop the aluminum bleachers. Large windows all around commanded the turf fields below it as well as the parking lot where we stood.
We loaded the gear into our newly purchased backpacks. I strapped my samurai sword in its shipping tube along the side where it would be instantly accessible. We climbed the stands only to find a sturdy padlock dangling from a hasp on the press box door.
“No worries,” said Urszula. She held the tip of the scepter against the laminated steel. It gave a little shudder. The metal shattered into flakes like a tulip dipped in liquid nitrogen.
“Whoa! You go girl,” I said. “I guess you do got your mojo back.”
Inside the press box was a line of tall, swiveling directors’ chairs behind a built-in counter. We had a three hundred sixty degree view all around. The field lights were off but there was plenty of illumination along the access road surrounding it and in the parking lot behind us. No one was gonna be able to sneak up on us.
“So what do you think?” I said. “Is this strategic enough for you?”
“I would have preferred a watchtower on a barren mountain top surrounded by desert. But this will have to do.”
“These walls seem a little flimsy don’t you think?” said Ellen.
“All that matters is that we see him coming,” I said. “I have a feeling this fight isn’t going to be settled with bullets.”
“So what am I doing with this gun in my purse?”
“I’m just saying … you saw what he did to that gun on the train.”
“Way to make me feel useful.”
I reached into my pack and pulled out the gun that old lady in Burlington had given me. I handed it over to her.
Ellen looked at me as if I was covered with green warts. “Oh, great. You tell me guns are useless. So the point of having two is…?”
“Ellen. Who knows? Maybe it’ll come in handy. We need to be prepared for anything. You do know how to use these, right?”
“I’ll figure it out,” said Ellen. “It’s not exactly rocket science.”
I cracked open a beer. I offered some to the girls, but they weren’t in the mood for drinking just yet.
We just sat there in the dark in awkward silence. A light fog began to settle over the field below. So far it wasn’t so bad but if it got any thicker it would mess with our visibility.
The reality and futility of our task began to wear away at whatever bravado I had been able to muster. I don’t know what made me believe we had a chance against Wendell. This was a guy who made his living killing people quick and clean, with methods that bordered on the supernatural. Who was I kidding?
A moth fluttered up and plonked against the window. Silhouetted against the security lights, I watched it crawl across my line of sight, wandering in circles as if it were trying to find a way through the glass.
As I watched, its wings shriveled and reabsorbed into its body. Its legs shortened into stubs. It was like watching a metamorphosis in reverse. It had turned itself from a moth to an inchworm.
A horrified chill tore through me when I realized this could be an agent of Wendell’s come to murder us. But crude, mosaic images of my face flashed from the other side of the glass told me otherwise.
“Holy crap,” I said. “That’s fucking Billy.”
“That bug?” said Ellen. “Oh. But he’s so smal
l.”
“Hang on.”
I pulled my sword from its tube and touched its tip to the glass right against the little larva. I closed my eyes and summoned my will. It took almost no effort at all to get the looseness stirring in my interior. That was a very good sign.
Billy vibrated, transfixed before the point of my blade. His wings grew back and lengthened. His body acquired mass and limbs. He was a moth again, growing larger. Growing fur and teeth. A pug nose. He became a small bat and then a larger one and then one of those giant, tropical fruit bats you see in zoos, the kind that sort of looks like a chihuahua with wings.
“Go!” I said, lowering the sword and Billy leaped into the darkness, swooping and arcing in radical curves low over the street lights.
“So … is he gonna be our lookout?” said Ellen. “How does he even know what to do?”
“Simple,” I said, shrugging. “He’s me.”
Ellen placed her hand over mine, and yanked it away as soon as she made contact.
“Oh my God! You feel cold. You should put on your fleece.”
“Actually … I’m fine. Comfortable.”
She brushed something from my cheek. It dropped onto the table and melted.
“Oh … shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The coldness. It means—”
Ellen’s eyes flared with panic. “No! You can’t conk out on us now! We need you here!”
This woozy, tired feeling came over me. I crossed my arms on the bench and laid my head down. I just had to rest my eyes a bit.
Big mistake. As soon as I did, the Deeps came calling.
***
Something hard and cold pressed against my back. My eyes filled with light. I found myself looking at a sweeping curve of chalky stone.
It took me a long minute to realize I was looking at the ceiling of a domed chamber. Panels of thin, translucent stone separated a convex wall from a busy, open courtyard. A pair of shafts brought the light down from the surface.
My head wouldn’t stop spinning. I lay crumpled, my body a glob of Jell-O, my soul yet to reconnect with its physical manifestation in the Deeps. A resonant and penetrating hum filled the frigid air. Lady An was kneeling on a mat beneath a skylight in the center of the chamber, synchronizing her song with a small circle of women.
This was not Riversong or Rainsong, the only two I had heard sung so far. The cycle had moved on to whatever came next in the ring of sixteen.
I groaned. “Fuck, no. I can’t be here!”