“I’m fine, strawberry,” he said, more calmly. “But you’ve got to leave. Now.”
“Hey, talk to me. If something’s going on, I want to know. I need to know. Can’t defend a city and protect the innocent from all dangers without—”
“I’m not kidding around here, Evelyn. There are no innocents in danger tonight, but if you don’t leave right now, there will be. Go. And say nothing about this to anyone. Now go.”
“What aren’t you telling me? Garrett, open the door.”
“Sweetness, I am trying to protect you. Now go home, and don’t come back here tonight. In fact, maybe taking a few days off wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”
“On stage? Or off?”
“Both.”
“All these years, it's been you and me. If you can't trust me, who can you trust?”
“Go! I’ll talk to you as soon as I possibly can. I promise.”
“If I don’t hear from you in twenty-four hours, I’ll be back. You know where to find me.” There was more going on here than he was saying. Much more. And Evelyn hated not hearing it, almost as much as she hated leaving him or the Bar exposed to the danger she felt coming on like rain that hadn’t fallen here in ten years. Reluctantly, Evelyn turned on one spiked heel and hurried down the hallway. The eye watched her go, then disappeared again. The door swung tightly shut.
Sixty seconds later, it opened again. Garrett Cole, no longer in his ringleader’s costume, simply dressed in a nondescript black shirt, pants and shoes, exited. He paused in the hallway, then turned and hurriedly strode—didn’t run—the opposite direction.
❈
Regan slumped against the brick wall, fighting for breath. As he gulped in hot, lung-burning air, the dizziness and disorientation started to fade, but much more gradually than he did. Out front, people flooded the street. Nobody had bothered to shut the fire alarm off. With everyone pouring out the front, nobody watched the side alley where Regan gasped like a gutted fish.
“No more,” he whispered, shaking his head slowly with his eyes squeezed shut. “Done. I’m done.”
He didn’t expect an answer, but he got one.
“That’s ‘done?’” The voice seemed to come from everywhere, like somebody had installed surround-sound speakers in his mind. A wave of dizziness and nausea swept through him and he bent double, clenching his teeth together over the bile that burned the roof of his mouth. “That was your best shot? Hate to see your worst one.”
“Dammit, Hans! Don’t—don’t do that!” Regan gasped, trying to get back his breath and make his head stop spinning.
“Sorry. My mistake.” The young man behind Regan seemed to have just appeared out of thin air. He wore tight, rip-kneed black jeans, equally distressed sneakers, and a wide, toothy smile, more predatory than happy. Waist-length white hair flowed around him as if he were submerged in water, gently defying gravity. The translucent teenager actually defied gravity himself: he floated a few inches off the ground so he ‘stood’ eye-level with Regan. Even with the distortion, when he spoke, the edge of sarcastic mockery came through clear as day—but at least it was at a regular speaking-voice level. “This better?”
In any other city, Regan might have found that strange. In this one, it just made him look away as his heart started to pound and stomach twist. “You’re not sorry. You’re never sorry.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get the job done!” His outlines jerked and shook, the air around him filled with what looked like static snow in a bad TV reception, and his voice sounded garbled. “He saw you! He definitely saw you. And so did Evelyn Calliope. And that’s just great. That’s fan-freaking-tastic, Regan. But that’s also fine, because I can still salvage this. Time to move on to—”
“No. It’s over.” Regan spoke to the ground rather than look at the disjointed movements, the distorted voice and ghostly flickering. Then he shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at all the disorienting, nauseating ways reality bent when Hans was around.
“It’s over when I say it is.” Hans tilted his head to the side, looking mildly annoyed. “You could at least look at me when I’m…oh that’s right, you don’t like when I do this, do you?”
“I don’t like any of this.” Regan kept his eyes shut. “And I don’t like you.”
Hans didn’t reply immediately. A couple seconds of silence went by, and at last Regan opened his eyes—to immediately close them again.
“You seem upset,” Hans observed thoughtfully as he floated upside-down. He frowned, rubbing his pale, pointed chin and one sharp cheekbone. “That’s fine, go with that. Use that. Channel that rage. Maybe next time you’ll get it right and Garrett Cole will actually end up dead.”
“It’s over, Hans.” Regan made himself open his eyes and keep them open. “Find someone else to threaten.”
“One job, Regan. You had one—I picked you because you’re basically a ghost, and it takes one to know one. You are Mister Invisible. And what do you do? You let them see you! And when you’re actually visible you kinda stick out with all the scales and junk!” He gradually rotated until he was right-side up again, smile disappearing as he did so, until he was facing Regan with a much more piercing, and more dangerous look. “You know… if I didn’t know better—a lot better—I’d say you actually wanted to get caught.”
Regan said nothing. Then, at last, he shoved himself away from the wall and started walking down the dark, empty alley.
“Hey!” Hans’s voice snapped not from behind him, but from every direction again. Regan shook his head, but kept walking. “Don’t walk away from me. You don’t get to walk away from me.” In an instant he was standing in front of Regan in the alley mouth, as if to prove it.
Regan stopped, head down and arms hanging loosely at his sides. The loose flap of skin hanging around his neck flared out, and his yellow eyes narrowed, vertical pupils enlarging until they were nearly perfectly round. “Get out of my way.”
“Where you going?”
“Home. Away from all this. Away from you. And there’s nothing you can say that will stop me.”
“Yeah? Good luck ever getting out of here without me. I’m your ticket to freedom, fresh air and blue skies, and you know it. Without me… well, you’re a lizard, right? You like it hot.”
Regan’s eyes narrowed further until they became glinting slits. His fingertips spread and curled into hooks, for the first time clearly displaying a hint of claws. A helicopter passed overhead, white column sweeping down across the alley where they stood, like a spotlight across a stage. Regan didn’t move an inch as the blinding light enveloped him, lighting up the edges of his scales and head ridges. In a moment, it moved past him and continued on. But when it was gone, he stood just as steady and calm, without a shiver in his spine.
“Oh,” Hans remarked with the mild raise of one eyebrow, looking surprised and intrigued. “Not so much scared lizard after all. Maybe I actually got myself a dragon.”
“I don’t need you,” Regan said, very quietly. No matter how softly he spoke, Hans would hear him. “We don’t need you. We’ll find our own way. It took us years to get our lives back, and longer to make our own, but we are not afraid anymore. Especially not of you.”
“Funny,” Hans shot back, face hardening into a sharp, calculating stare. “That is not what you were saying a little while ago. That is not what you were saying when you were begging me to save the people you love.”
“We can save ourselves.” His voice grew stronger, and now he was smiling. “When we walk out of here, it’ll be all together, and it won’t be because I killed or betrayed anyone to do it.”
“Dare to dream! Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty. You can’t just—”
“I’m not going to let you destroy everything I have for a chance at escape.” He shook his head. “Maybe I don’t want to escape the life I have. Took me ten years to get it.”
“Yeah? Well—well, good luck hanging onto it!” Regan thought he heard a note of desperation und
er the usual light, flippant sarcasm of Hans’s projected voice. “Because I’ve got the only way out of here! You’ll never make it without me!”
“Worth a shot.” Regan started walking again, and didn’t stop when he reached the mouth of the alley. He passed directly through the flickering, frustrated, ghostly form and kept walking.
“I can still fix this,” Hans murmured, and it almost sounded like he was talking to himself now, trying to reassure himself that he hadn’t lost control of the situation entirely. “I can do anything I want.”
“Good night, Hans.” Regan paused, and let out a soft laugh. Then a deep sigh. “‘We can save ourselves…’ You know something? Until right now… I actually forgot that. Thanks for reminding me.”
Regan stopped dead in his tracks. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.
“I told you I’d save you, and I meant it,” Hans whispered, sending chills down every inch of his scales, and shock waves through his soul. “Just one little favor. That’s all you had to do.”
Regan couldn’t move. The paralysis was complete, except for the pounding of his heart. If he could have sucked in a breath he might have screamed for help. Or maybe he would have breathed fire. The air around him, and the expanses of space and memory and time inside his mind crackled with the energy of a coming storm. He felt the beginnings of change like ripples on a clear pond. A leviathan was stirring beneath the water’s calm surface.
“Now, unlike some people, I keep my promises,” the ghostly boy whispered, looking him in the eye with a steady, calm expression. “So I’m going to do what you couldn’t. I’m going to save us all.”
Slowly, Hans reached out one ghostly finger toward his forehead. As he did, Regan finally found his voice.
“No—don’t!”
Hans’s fingertip was cold. The world as he remembered it was very bright. Then it was gone.
❈
Moments earlier, Evelyn slipped out the rear exit and the heavy metal door locked behind her. She hurried down the steps to the alley’s pavement, trying not to let her heels clang on the metal—before stopping dead in her tracks.
“No—don’t!”
Evelyn looked up sharply to see a thin silhouette framed in the center of the alley mouth. The outline of pointed ears looked vaguely familiar; she remembered the audience member, the spotlight. She could hardly see a thing onstage with those lights, but she thought she’d caught a glimpse of those ears and what looked like scales, and here they were again. And like before, this young man looked… distressed.
“Hey, you all right?”
He didn’t move or react to her at all. Just kept standing straight and still as if he’d just been struck by lightning.
“I said, are you all right? Need some help?”
Regan didn’t reply. He stood with his head tilted all the way back, staring up at the narrow strip of sky between the two dark buildings, not moving, not even blinking. He kept his eyes trained on the dark expanse overhead, as if enraptured by something invisible.
“You hear me?” She approached carefully, glancing up too, to see what had so entranced Regan. Nothing was there but the smoky sky and, beyond that, the barrier.
Regan slowly turned his head to look at Evelyn, face completely blank.
“Yes,” he said faintly, not entirely sure how words fit together. “I… I heard you.”
“Somebody giving you a hard time just now?” She leaned very slightly closer, squinting a little to get a better look at his eyes. Evelyn never liked this thought when it came up, but her home base did operate as a bar and club, she couldn’t be everywhere at once, and she had to consider the possibility that this guy had been drugged. Unfortunately, this particular Parole citizen’s eyes had yellow sclera and vertical pupils like a cat or snake’s—which, given the rest of him, she assumed was normal. She couldn’t tell by looking at him if he was on anything. But he did seem disoriented, that much was clear.
“I… I don’t know.” Regan frowned, looked down at his hands, then up and around at the alley, as if he’d never seen it before. In fact, somebody might have been. His entire body felt pummeled, and there was a strange ringing in his head. He was surprised there wasn’t blood dripping from his ears. His head hurt, his chest hurt from the frantic pounding of his heart, everything hurt. Finally, his eyes rested on Evelyn. “How did I get here?”
“I don’t know,” she said carefully. “Did you come here with someone?”
“I don’t know,” he said, almost in an echo. “I think I’m alone.”
“Did you get separated from someone?”
“I don’t…” he shook his head. Slowly his eyes widened until he wore an expression somewhere between terror and incredible loss. “I think I need help.”
“Tell me what’s going on.” Evelyn slowly stepped closer. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he whispered, voice shaking. He glanced up at her, looking like he wanted to draw back a step, but couldn’t bring himself to move. She stopped moving. “I don’t know anything. I’m trying and there’s nothing. It’s blank, there’s… just nothing? I don’t know how I’m talking right now. I don’t know where these clothes came from. I don’t know my…” he stopped. Stared into space. Evelyn resisted the urge to speak or move; even though he’d frozen in place, she could almost hear his mind racing. She caught a flicker of motion at his mouth; the flash of a forked tongue. “I do know my name. It’s Regan.”
“That’s a great start, Regan.” She almost laughed, somehow overwhelmed with relief for this stranger. After losing everything, at least he still had one thing left. One of the most important. “My name’s Evelyn. Just try to keep breathing, all right?”
“But that’s all. Nothing else!” He sounded like he was starting to panic, and the loose skin hanging around his neck was starting to flare out with every breath. “I don’t know how I got here, or where I was before, or where to go after this, or—”
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, we’re going to figure this out,” she reassured him. “Do you feel like you hit your head on something? Or anything else that might lead to this?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember what I don’t remember.” He stopped. “Hans.”
“What?” She blinked, running the word over in her mind. “Was that a name too?”
“Yeah—but not my name. An important name—you asked if I knew how I lost my memory, and it popped into my head. But that’s everything I know. My name and that name. That’s all.”
Evelyn paused, shooting a look up at the sky. As always, black helicopters thrummed far over their heads, and bright spotlights cut through the smoky Parole sky. When she looked back at Regan, her face was resolved. “All right. Confused and vulnerable isn’t the way you want to spend a night on the street. Especially not these streets. I know you have no reason to trust me, but—”
“I’d rather trust you than stay here,” he said quietly but immediately. “I don’t know where I am, or where to start to find out. Please… anything you can tell me, I need to know.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, tone gentle but unwavering. “I’m not leaving you until we know exactly where you’re from and where your people are. And we start by finding you a safe place—which is easier said than done in Parole, I’ll admit. I’d say just stay at the Emerald Bar, but I think Garrett’s gonna want the place to himself tonight…”
Regan paused. Something about that name was important. “Garrett?”
“Garrett Cole. Manager, Master of Ceremonies…” she paused, as if trying to decide how to explain. “Maybe Parole’s best hope for survival.”
His mouth fell open for a moment, and he looked back at the dark building, which looked perfectly ordinary from where he stood. “This must be one important bar.”
“It is. One of the only free places left in Parole—because Garrett and I keep it that way.”
“Only free places?”
“Yeah,” she hesitated
. “Parole is—it’s a long story. I’ll tell you all you need to know to stay safe, but first we need to get you off the street. Eye in the Sky’s been real nasty about curfew lately.”
“Eye in the Sky?” Regan’s eyes still darted around, manic, and his heart began to pound. “Curfew? Parole, you keep saying that—is that where we are? Is that a place?”
She studied his face for a moment. “You really don’t remember anything about this, do you? Parole, SkEye, any of this?”
He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. He almost laughed, but held it in; whatever came out now would just be hysterical and terrified. “I don’t even know why I’m green, and you’re not.”
“Okay. First priority, get you to shelter—or at least out of this alley.” She gave a firm nod as if she’d decided, resolved, confirmed, and wouldn’t be dissuaded from helping him by anything in the world. It was more reassuring than Regan would have expected. “Bar’s not an option, so we’ll have to think of somewhere else. But tomorrow for sure, I’m taking you to Rose. If anyone can fix this, it’s her.”
“She can tell me who I am?” Regan looked at her with something close to desperation.
“There are a lot of people in Parole who’ve been through terrible things, and Rose has seen just about everything.”
“Good. I hope she can help me. I don’t like this, I don’t like not knowing—I know this is wrong. There’s not supposed to be nothing in my head! I know how to talk, I know that this is called the sidewalk—” He stomped, and she gasped.
“Stop!”
“Sorry!” Regan yelped, picking his foot back up and stumbling back a few steps. “Was that—what did I do?”
“The ground here is… unstable.” She said, much more calmly, though her own heart had just about leaped out of her chest. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but that’s very important. Don’t stomp, or hit the ground hard. Ever. Just walk carefully and look ahead for cracks, and you’ll be fine.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know! It’s what I was saying. I know how to talk and breathe, and my name, but nothing else!” He ran a hand over his scaled head, then looked up at her. “You said yours was Evelyn?”
Chameleon Moon Page 2