“Pleeease,” he said. “The only risk is viruses and phishing attacks from the Old Ones, and those are blatantly obvious. If your email asks you to log in when you aren’t expecting it to or someone instant-messages you and asks for money or your GPS coordinates, you just ignore it.”
I turned my head to look at Hypatia, who wore the fervent expression of a true believer.
“I thought you said the Chaperone could track us with them.”
“I didn’t say that. I said it’s a risk, and it is a risk. Good cybersecurity begins with good habits.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my seat, thankful that at least we were almost there.
* * *
The Tomahawk County Public Library was not what I expected. Instead of the quaint brick building I’d been envisioning in my head, it was a sleek modernist construction of angular stainless steel and huge sheets of glass, complete with a built-in coffee franchise I dearly wished was still open. The bus parked at the outer edge of the lot, and the driver threw the doors open with a grunt.
“You kids do what you gotta do. I’m going to go fill up, and we can be off. Shouldn’t take me more than twenty or thirty minutes,” she said.
“This thing folds space-time so it can travel at ridiculous speeds, but it still burns gas?” I asked.
“That’s a stupid question,” the driver said, marking the mileage down in a tattered notebook. “Runs on diesel.”
“Oh,” I said. “That should have been obvious.”
She grunted in what I supposed was agreement.
Once the bus had left us, the library somehow seemed a lot less welcoming. In the dark, there was a certain foreboding presence about the place. I sniffed deeply, checking the air, but detected nothing apart from a faint whiff of roasted coffee beans. “She’s supposed to be in a dumpster in back,” I said.
There were three huge rusty dumpsters arranged in a line behind the library. One was green and filled with bags of paper, cleaning supply containers, and other recyclable materials. The second had a lot of food waste, soggy paper cups, and all the gently used coffee grounds you could ever wish for. The third held a small bed, alongside a comfy-looking wingback chair, complete with a tiny bookshelf and reading light. A framed needlepoint stuck to a spotlessly clean metal wall read, DUMPSTER SWEET DUMPSTER. There was a smell of potpourri in the air.
“This must be her dumpster,” said Warner Goss, boy genius.
“She’s not here,” Hypatia said, almost as observantly.
“Maybe she’s still inside,” I said. We tried the back door to the library and found it locked. I made my quantum agar bracelet into a simple lock-picking kit, and we were inside about thirty seconds later.
Next to the door, a security terminal glowed feebly. Its screen read, DISABLED. “Either they don’t turn on the alarm at night or she’s in here somewhere,” I said.
“It could be the Old One you said was looking for her,” Warner said.
I gripped my gravitational disruptor in my pocket, confirming it was ready to go, not that it could do much more than slow down an Old One. Just in case, I switched it to 100 percent power, which was disabled for students who didn’t know how to reprogram their weapons (aka not me).
Inside we were greeted by a smattering of security lights and cameras. There was a level of silence in the room most libraries can only dream of attaining during the day. Around us, tall stacks of books loomed in the darkness, creating dim canyons of near blackness between them. We crept slowly up an aisle lined with cookbooks and how-to guides for everything from building a deck to tending a garden. Despite the drab carpet silencing our footsteps, it felt like we were generating an amazing clatter by breathing and occasionally brushing against a protruding book.
At the end of the aisle, we found ourselves in an open space with electronic card catalogs, an information desk, a coin-operated copy machine, and several banks of computer terminals, all but one dark. A few additional security lights and the secondary glow of the parking lot coming in the front windows made the area slightly less foreboding. I rushed over to the lit computer.
On the screen was the email I’d sent earlier that day, which read, We’ll be there tonight. Sincerely, Meddler.
“It’s her, Darleeen,” I whispered to my friends. Warner was about to offer what was probably another brilliant deduction when something clanged faintly behind us. The sound must have come from somewhere behind the circulation desk. We crept closer, and a wave of anxiety fell over me. Something didn’t feel right. Every instinct told me I was walking into a trap, but what else was there to do?
The ventilation system kicked on, startling me when it tousled my hair and ruffled my shirt. A bit of movement caught my eye. One of the security cameras was swiveling to follow our progress across the lobby. No, that wasn’t correct . . . Every security camera was following us. I spied at least three, and each of them was trained in our direction, panning slowly along with us. I should have been worried, but I wasn’t. My instincts had stopped screaming at me, and I was feeling a lot better about things. I wondered if I should point the cameras out to Warner and Hypatia.
Nothing to worry about, I told myself calmly. Just need to get through this.
As if to confirm my fears were unfounded, I detected the first whiff of baked bread in the air.
Hugely relieved, I strolled straight to the door behind the circulation desk, pushed it open, and found Darleeen sitting at a tiny table in a brightly lit break room, chewing up the unpopped kernels from a discarded bag of microwave kettle corn. She was dressed in a library janitor’s uniform with her thick braids bound together above her head with a large metal binder clip.
“Hey, you,” she said with a final crunch as I entered. She saw me looking at the bag. “Best thing I could find. I don’t want to make it too obvious that I’ve been hanging around, and they’re pretty good about locking up the coffee shop.”
“But not the back door?” I asked.
“They are, but it opens for those little access cards. Librarians are easy to pickpocket. It’s the cardigans.”
Warner and Hypatia sidled in behind me, surveying the tiny break room.
She grinned widely. “Twinkle Toes! Goldilocks! The gang’s all here. Wish you’d brought Slim, too. He was kinda cute.”
Warner grunted, displeased either at being called Twinkle Toes or at not being afforded the “cute” designation.
“Shut that door,” Darleeen said. “We don’t want the light getting out. The cops drive by every night about this time. Mind if I finish my dinner?”
“We brought a school bus, and the driver is getting gas now, so we have a few minutes,” Warner said.
Hypatia closed the door and walked over to one of the vending machines. “You want anything?”
Darleeen frowned. “I already tried, but I can only get my arm about halfway to those cookies on the bottom row before the lid inside closes. Tried shaking it, too, but it’s all in there pretty good. It’s almost like they don’t want people grabbing things out of there.”
“Have you tried money?” Hypatia asked.
“Oh, yeah! Money works every time!” Darleeen said, leaping to her feet. “I spent my last buck a couple days ago, so I guess I got myself into a nonmonetary frame of mind.”
While Hypatia and Darleeen chattered about which vending machine snacks had the best-tasting artificial preservatives, I took another look around the room. My sense of dread was creeping back, and my mind was racing. What was bugging me? There was this weird feeling of faint panic in the back of my mind that I just couldn’t shake.
There’s no rush. Relax.
I surveyed the room, looking for any detail that might be alarming me. Darleeen had a ratty green bag on the table next to a cup of coffee and a copy of Country Living magazine locked in a red plastic binder. Elsewhere in the room were a microwave, a few cha
irs, a soda vending machine alongside the snack machine Darleeen and Hypatia were browsing, a coffee maker that was turned on and about half empty, and a mini fridge decorated with a Post-it note that read STOP STEALING MY FOOD in all capital letters.
“What is it?” Warner asked me quietly.
“Huh?”
“Something’s got you worried. What’s up?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “Just feeling wary. How long do you think the bus will be?”
“Not sure. Couple more minutes,” he said. “You sure you’re okay?”
There was a moment where I again considered mentioning the cameras in the lobby, but that hadn’t been a big deal or anything.
He doesn’t want to hear about that.
“Yeah,” I said.
Out of curiosity and general restlessness, I pulled open the fridge and discovered a single Tupperware container filled to the brim with something furry and blue, covered lightly with plastic wrap and stinking to high heaven. Warner’s face twisted in disgust, and Hypatia coughed faintly.
Darleeen stopped discussing the chemical composition of chocolate mini cookies for a moment. “That moldy thing was going to be my dinner tomorrow if you all hadn’t turned up. Oh! Buy those! Captain’s Wafers! Sounds important!”
Relief washed over me. I’d been picking up the smell! Of course something stinky would trigger sudden anxiety when I was worried about running into the Old Ones.
Simple, silly paranoia. Perfectly normal.
When I shut the door, I saw someone else had written on the Post-it, but in much smaller writing. It said, Sorry. A girl’s gotta eat.
Finally, I was able to think clearly again. Darleeen had retrieved her Captain’s Wafers and was sitting at the table, munching happily and offering up detailed commentary on the subtler points of the crackers’ flavor profile between bites.
I wondered what we should do next. I didn’t want to spend one unnecessary minute in Tomahawk County.
My friends should go outside and wait for the bus.
“Hypatia, you and Warner go back out the way we came and wait for the bus. Tap on the front window when it gets here,” I said.
Hypatia stood, but Warner didn’t move. “We’ll hear it in here for sure,” he said.
He was right, but I had to get them out, have them wait. “You’ll see it coming before we hear it. We don’t have any time to waste. We’ll be out as soon as she’s done eating. Go on!” I gave him a light shove in the right direction, which seemed to get the message across.
After they’d left, I sat down with Darleeen, shoving my hands into my pockets.
“Something you wanna talk about?” she asked.
“Huh?”
She dangled her half-empty packet of crackers between her thumb and forefinger. “Crackers are portable. We could go with them, but you want to stick around. What’s eating you?”
“There’s trouble coming,” I said on a whim. I hadn’t really meant it, but I was suddenly sure I was correct.
“Yeah?” Darleeen asked, not looking all that concerned.
“Do you know which of your former sisters is hunting you?” I asked, pulling my gravitational disruptor out of my pocket and peering at the door. It was open a sliver, but I couldn’t see anything moving in the lobby. Darleeen and I were alone.
I realized again that something was wrong, but it was nothing to worry about. I just needed to relax, let go, and say what comes naturally.
“I told you,” she said with a shrug, “I don’t remember my own name, let alone any of theirs. Probably not one of the big dogs. Whoever it is, she’s close. You’re right about that. She’s been zeroing in on me for days. I’ll feel about a million times better when I’m a few hundred miles away and can use some of my old tricks again. Talking to people is such an inefficient way of getting what I want. Such a pain.”
Hearing one of the Old Ones had been closing in didn’t really surprise me, but it’s always good to be prepared. I opened the settings menu on my disruptor and cranked it up to 200 percent power. I needed to be ready for anything. The disruptor beeped angrily and displayed a message that said, DO NOT FIRE. POWER CONVERSION OVERLOAD WILL CAUSE FATAL CORE RUPTURE. DO NOT FIRE.
Nothing to worry about. Maybe a bomb will come in handy.
“What’s it matter, anyway?” Darleeen asked.
“Doesn’t matter at all,” I said, feeling calm again as I laid the disruptor on my lap, but without taking my finger off the trigger.
Her dark eyes narrowed slightly. “Seems like it matters. You asked which of my former sisters is after me, and now you’ve got your little ray gun ready to go. I’m not bamboozling you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I know that,” I said truthfully. I was sure she meant me no harm.
Darleeen pursed her lips. “You know something I don’t, Nikola?”
I was about to say no when I realized I did know something important. Something she wanted to know, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I realized I just needed to relax, and let the words come on their own.
“Yeah,” I said.
She leaned back in her chair and slipped a cracker into her mouth whole, chomping down on it. “Well, go on. No need for theatrics.”
All the pieces were fitting together. I finally knew what I was trying to remember. As soon as I relaxed, the information just came to me. “I know who’s hunting you. Do you remember Jakki?”
Darleeen’s cool exterior disappeared in a heartbeat. She sat up straight; her wide eyes bloomed wider. She was scared, and it was funny, in a way. I had to suppress a giggle.
Darleeen looked around the break room as I had done a few minutes before. “Jakki—how do you know that name?”
“I just know,” I said. “It’s hard to explain. You remember her now, don’t you? Queen Mother, you called her. You swore fealty. Eternal loyalty. You must remember.”
I must have had a frog in my throat because my voice suddenly sounded older, more melodic and confident than my normal speaking tone. It actually sounded a little better, I thought.
Darleeen was really scared now, and I couldn’t help but giggle a little. When I laughed, she shot to her feet, the chair sliding back into the wall. Once again I saw her true form hiding behind her earthly appearance. She was going to evaporate, to escape into the dark places. She had no business going there. She was not welcome there anymore! Just the thought of it infuriated me. I gripped the disruptor and laid it on the table, carefully so as not to accidentally press the trigger . . . not yet.
“Stay where you are. Sit. This toy is set to overload. It will take out the whole building. You’re nowhere near strong enough to survive it.”
Darleeen did not sit, but she grew more solid. “Nikola, listen. She’s gotten in your head. She’s powerful. She can do it from almost anywhere. As soon as you said her name . . . Oh god, I’d never have asked for help if I’d known she—”
Darleeen would have protected me? A likely story. A lie!
“Oh, will you shut up, please?” I said. “You can’t hold your tongue, can you? That has always been your problem. You can’t just shut up and listen.”
“Nikola, you’re strong. I felt it before. You’re different. Push her out. You can—”
“Do you want to know your name? Your True Name?” I asked.
That shut her up.
“I can tell you, if you like. At least you’ll remember yourself at the end. Consider it a parting gift.”
“No!” she said, terrified. “Jakki! No! The girl didn’t do anything. You’ll break her mind if you do it. They can’t handle—”
I didn’t know why she was calling me Jakki, but I didn’t hate the name. Ever meet someone that looks like a Biff but their actual name is Skyler? I wanted to think about it more, but Darleeen was still going on and on about me not hurting someone .
. . or someone not hurting me. It was hard to understand—kind of like she was talking about both at the same time.
Then I remembered. She was talking about that girl’s mind. Worried I was going to ruin it. I had to laugh again. “Darling, seriously. What is the point of preserving something disposable?” I asked her. “It will all be over for both of you soon. Does it matter if I make a mess in the process? Not one bit.”
Well, right away Darleeen was blubbering and pleading for mercy and yadda yadda yadda, offering me her life in exchange, as if her life had worth. Offering me my own property as a trade. Insulting. Best to just to get it over with and end them both.
So I told Darleeen her name.
The feeling was different from inside a human. The normally straightforward, subtle transfer was disgustingly . . . biological. Revolting.
Darleeen had been right; just sharing her name tore the girl’s mind apart. I had to use it all, force it through a door far too narrow to admit it without breaking. But it went, and Darleeen received it, not that she could have refused. Her face quivered and contorted as it began to take hold. I could see her memories returning—it wouldn’t take long. I waited. Once she was restored to her full self, I knew I could finally end her and her troublesome name.
“What are you doing?” the boy asked. “What’s wrong with Darleeen?”
When had he come back? I didn’t look up.
Darleeen tried to send him away, stupid thing, but she was far too weak to do anything more than gibber.
The boy was touching my shoulder. My hand tensed on the weapon. Not yet, it hadn’t taken hold completely yet. The name had to die with her, or I’d have to deal with it again and again. Why hadn’t I just killed her outright in the first place?
“Leave!” I commanded him. “I’m sparing you for the moment. Get out!”
“Nikola,” the boy said. “Think about why you’re doing this. Really think about it for a second.”
What a stupid question. “I’m cleaning up a mess. Taking out the garbage.”
“What mess?” he wanted to know. “Why?”
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