Jacob was nodding, staring. Nix found himself wanting to believe Morgan, too. She was so — he searched for the word. Convincing. She was so convincing, he realized. No matter which role she played.
There was a confused shaking of hands, and Morgan and Jacob Clowes hugged, as if they had known each other for years, and within a matter of seconds the old man was walking off toward the road, the only evidence of him in the mounting dark a flashlight skipping over the grass and darkening foliage ahead of him. Nix could only whisper.
“Morgan. What’s going on?”
“We’re going to find her. We’re going to find her, wherever she is. Bleek is taking her somewhere. Moth already told us that. So we’re going to follow her.” She paused, her silvery voice finally quiet. “Moth will know where to go.”
Nix could hardly see her anymore in the gathering darkness, but he could feel her eyes on him, staring.
“Moth,” Nix called out, half whispering. “Moth.”
No one answered.
“He’s disappeared.” Morgan’s voice was flat. “He’s testing us. That’s why he grabbed me. Now this.” Her voice had gained in intensity and Nix felt afraid. Then it lowered to an eerie whisper.
“You’re the only one who knows how to find Bleek. You’re the only one who knows where he’s gone. You’re the ringer.”
Nix was quiet for a moment, his head tight, as if he were underwater. Test? Why would Moth be testing them? Wasn’t he supposed to be helping them? Wasn’t he their guide?
“The tunnels,” Morgan said. “Maybe he took her to the tunnels.”
“The Shanghai Tunnels?” He stopped. “I need to talk to Evie.” Though he could not see his companion’s face any longer in the dark, he knew she was listening. “Nothing can happen tonight. It’s too late and too dark. I need to find Evie and talk to her and find out exactly where Bleek might be taking Neve.” He paused again. Morgan was silent. “Evie will know.”
“Do you want me to come?”
The eagerness in Morgan’s voice grated at him, but Nix reminded himself that they were in this together. They were a ring; that’s what Moth had called them.
“No. You go to the Krak and then home and see what you can find out from K.A. Evie wouldn’t want to talk about it in front of someone she doesn’t know, and for both of us to go would be” — he hadn’t thought of it this way, but it was true — “it would be suspicious.”
Her short, low laugh cut through the dark. “Suspicious. Oh yeah. That.”
Nix didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t yet sure if he believed anything Moth had said. He squinted, trying to locate Morgan’s shape.
“I’ll talk to my brother.” Her voice was still a little hoarse, but the sarcasm was gone. “Call me tomorrow. Early. Wherever you’re going, I’m going.”
Somehow Nix doubted this, but he nodded in assent, forgetting she couldn’t see him.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said quietly, but Morgan was already gone.
CHAPTER 20
MOTH STILL KNEW THE WAY. It had been four years since he had last buzzed the second floor apartment tucked into a back lane in Southeast with the red front door and no name on the buzzer, but he knew the way even now, in the dark. He parked his motorcycle — a beaten-up Kawasaki he’d bought from an old biker in Olympia — on the side of the concrete, sixties-modern apartment building and for a moment stood outside the red door wondering whether he really should ring. It was forbidden to contact the rare ones who’d received the pass to stay — and die — in the human world. Wicklings weren’t cutters, but they were still weak, since their death would result in more pain in the world.
Besides, it was late. Moth had ridden around the city awhile, trying to figure out what to do after he’d left Morgan and Nix in the park. He wasn’t proud of what he’d done to Morgan, but he had had no choice. As soon as he heard it was Jacob Clowes approaching, he had crept away and sprinted down the hill. He couldn’t risk leaking to Bleek where his meeting place was. Nor was it a good idea for Jacob to know that Morgan and Nix were associated with someone who’d spent time in jail. Whatever happened in the coming year, it was most important that everything in the changelings’ lives appear to be progressing normally. He’d already screwed up with Ondine and wasn’t going to take any chances with Morgan and Nix.
He had known, but also not known, that this was where he’d end up. The saguaro cactus that stood like a guard by the door was still there, he noticed, as was the sign, written in a neat, slanted hand, that reminded visitors to REMOVE YOUR SHOES, PLEASE — though it had faded in the intervening years since he’d last seen Raphael Inman.
Moth knew his old guide had left Portland after the fiasco with Bleek and the bust down in Eugene. Once Moth had started retraining in earnest, he learned from Viv that Raphael had chosen to remain in the human world, even if it meant being branded a wickling. He returned to New York to work on his art, then came back to teach at Reed a year ago. He lived a human life. Lonely and hermetic, terrified, Moth was sure, about his impending fate, guilty for robbing his corpa of consciousness and a life, but human — aging all the while.
He rang the doorbell and waited, unable to control a slight shaking in his right leg, a nervousness and restlessness that had accompanied him since he was a kid. He could hear Viv now: Stop, Moth! Get control of yourself. Master it before it masters you. Or variations on the theme: One must not fidget. It wastes fay energy. Or his personal favorite: It’s called bruxism. It has a name. If you grind your teeth, get a night guard.
A man’s voice, crackling out of a plastic intercom, surprised him.
“Yes?”
“Raphael?”
“This is Raphael. Who’s there?”
“Raphael, it’s James … Motherwell.”
There was a pause and the buzzer sounded. Moth tried to gauge whether it sounded angry — could a buzzer sound angry? — but he couldn’t. Raphael had always been inscrutable to him. Why would it be any different now?
He opened the door and bounded the short flight of stairs up to the second floor. Raphael was on the landing, the door to his apartment open. Not smiling, but not angry either. His face — still generous, big-eyed, smooth-skinned — wore the intensely calm expression of someone trying very hard to be at peace. The only change was that he had aged. Moth had expected it. He knew it was what happened to those who stayed. They got old, fast. He himself had already started to experience it. Raphael’s black hair was now softly silver; his bright, excitable demeanor more solemn, more thoughtful. Clear, plastic-rimmed glasses magnified hazel eyes and crinkled lids. Though the man, Moth surmised, couldn’t have been older than forty, he looked middle-aged. He stood in the hall, wearing a long-sleeved gray T-shirt, his hands in faded jeans pockets, his head cocked. Finally he spoke. Moth thought he could detect the faintest whiff of cinnamon Altoids.
“You know you’re not supposed to be here.”
He nodded. “I’m still working on the lemma. I didn’t exactly receive traditional training.” Raphael smiled and Moth remembered that he had once liked his old guide. “Do you still see Viv?”
“She drops in occasionally.” He squinted. “I am a wickling after all. She has to monitor my whereabouts. But you know that.” He looked behind him and then again at Moth. “Would you like to come in?”
It was odd, this formality, with the man whom he had once felt — wished — was family. That’s what it had been like between them, their small ring: he, Raphael, and Bleek. Two brothers and a father. Except Bleek — poor, mistreated Bleek, talented Bleek, clever Bleek — was the favored son.
“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” Moth announced at the door. “But this is important. I have to ask you a question.”
Raphael nodded. “You can do it here. We’re alone.”
For some reason Moth longed to touch the man standing in front of him. Not in a sensual way. He just wanted some of that calm.
“I need to know where Bleek is. I know you’re not in
it anymore; I know you’re not even supposed to be speaking to me. But you know him. I mean, you knew him. And he’s endangering my ring. I’m a guide now. I want to go through the exidis. You know there’s only one way —”
Raphael eyed the younger man. His face had lost its softness and was now just hollow and sad. He lifted a hand out of his jeans pocket and scratched a day-old-stubbled cheek.
“You’re prepared to eliminate him?”
“I am. It has to be now. Bleek is hunting. My ring — there’s a ringer in Portland and he knows the girl. He sees her death and he’s intent on saving her. I know Bleek is using it as a way to lure him into the limina. He’s going to use him somehow. There’s no other explanation. I have to stop him. Or else … or else I can’t —” Moth looked at his black boots and suddenly thought how small they looked, how silly and contrived compared to the manly easiness of the person facing him. “You know what I can’t do. Raphael, I don’t want to stay. I’m not a cutter. I want to go to Novala. I want to go through the exidis.”
Raphael shook his head, his face saggier now, and shifted his eyes to a glass-block window in the stairwell. “You don’t know anything, Moth. You won’t know what you’ll decide until you’re there making the decision. Don’t overstep yourself.” He looked back at the boy. “That’s always been your problem.”
“I know I didn’t listen before, but I’m different now. I —”
“I don’t need an explanation.” He sighed. “I’m not involved anymore.”
“But —” Moth felt liquid fear spread down his legs. He was shaking. “Please. This is my only chance.” He looked at his old guide. “I was your responsibility.”
The wickling’s face dropped then and he stared vacantly in front of him. Then he covered his eyes with his hands and for a moment just stood there.
“Raphael, I know you felt protective of Bleek, but he’s a cutter now. He’s evil. He wants to harm us. All of us.”
Moth knew it might be overstepping his bounds to insinuate danger, but he felt trapped and didn’t know what else to do. Raphael rubbed his eyes and shook his head.
“Of course. Yes. I’ve been waiting for this. It’s the last thing I have to do. Now I’ll be released.” He scratched at his arm and continued to stare in front of him. “Okay,” he continued, and opened the door wider. Moth saw a low couch, plants near the windows, a coffee table, and pictures. Pictures everywhere. On the walls, stacked against doorjambs, in rolls on the floor.
“Come in. We have to talk. I have to tell you some things.”
Raphael met Moth’s eyes.
“About where Bleek is?” He looked around hungrily. So this was what it was like … after.
“That, too.” The man started toward what Moth imagined was a kitchen. Then he stopped and turned, the distance between them seeming to lend him strength. “And a lot of other things you know nothing about. I’m going to make some coffee. Want some?”
Moth shook his head.
“Well, I do. We’re going to be here for a while. There’s a lot to explain.”
NIX WAS LOST. It wasn’t the darkness; he’d walked almost every trail in Forest Park a hundred times when he lived in the squat. It was something else. A kind of confusion brought on by everything that had happened to him since he’d last been there. It was as if his vision itself had changed. On dust he’d been single-minded, focused on getting from here to there. Only the departure and the arrival were important. The road, with its lights and constant heartbreaks, with the loneliness he wore along with that same coat, those same boots, Nix wanted to pass by as quickly as possible. So he found shortcuts and memorized his goat path, blinders secure, head down.
Now the darkness opened up around him, revealing a world he had slowly shut down since he was a child. He remembered: this was what it had been like to see, before he had trained himself not to.
The sky cleared and a half-full moon appeared, hung like a pendant above the hills. He walked. Minutes, hours later — he didn’t have a clear sense which — he caught the reflection of something on a branch, a white piece of something, toilet paper. He was near a camp. He stopped and listened and thought he heard the tinkle of a girl’s laugh. He moved toward it and saw the glow of a fire reflecting on leaves. He whistled the warning tune Finn had taught him, then he was walking through the last scrim of trees, and Finn, in red long johns and flip-flops, was heading toward him, thin arms outstretched.
“Nix, man, where’ve you been? We’ve been worried sick about you, dude.” Finn clapped his old friend on the back and then hugged him tight. Had Finn always hugged him? He still wasn’t accustomed to being touched.
He let Finn disengage first, then nodded and smiled to Evelyn, who was crouching near the edge of the squat, her hands full of suds, washing dishes out of a plastic washtub. She waved and smiled and Nix nodded back.
“I’ve been around.” He put his arm on Finn’s shoulder and smiled. “Getting my shit together. Miss you though, man. How’re you?”
Finn shrugged and grinned. “Not bad. Evie got a job at Borders and we’ve pretty much just been saving money. Mac and cheese like every night. We want to get a place. And I’m thinking of going back to school. Engineering or computers or something. But hey — sit down.” Finn pointed to a camp chair near the fire. “Want some tea or hot chocolate or something? Swiss Miss, dude. Little marshmallows —”
“No, no.” Nix laughed. “That’s all right.” He shook his head, still nervous but feeling calmer. The fire crackled and warmed him, and he realized how tired he was, and tried to remember when the last time was that he had slept. Yesterday? The day before? Did he — they — even need sleep?
Finn settled in beside him on a log, mug in hand. “It’s like I can’t go to bed without a cup of the Miss. Totally weird. Addicted.” He winked at Nix. “Not anymore though, I gather. For you.”
Nix shook his head. “No.”
For a moment Finn’s eyes sharpened and Nix realized he was testing the truth of his statement. Then his gaze softened and he smiled and took a sip of his cocoa.
“Hey, Evie!”
Evelyn Schmidt, a somewhat shy, dark-haired girl with plump arms and sloping shoulders and a supple, curvy waist protruding slightly over tight jeans, looked up from her washing.
“Come over and join us, babe.”
“All right.” She hiked up her jeans, dried her hands on her thighs, and picked her way over to the boys, joining Finn on the log, a little behind him. “Good to see you, Nix.” She nodded at the boy and he smiled back.
“You too, Evie.”
Nix breathed deeply and exhaled. He might as well start now.
“Listen.” He looked both of his old friends in the eyes before he started. “I know I’ve been less than dependable in the last while, but I’m cleaned up and, well, there’s something going on and I need your help.”
Neither Finn nor Evelyn spoke, but they were quiet, and he took it as a sign that they were willing to listen.
“Neve Clowes is missing.”
He was looking at Evie when he said it and the expression on her face — eyes wide and sad, but more than that, afraid — confirmed to Nix that he had come to the right place.
“I came straight here because I knew that you’d be able to help.” He leaned in closer to the couple. “Evie, I knew you’d be able to help me find her.”
Evelyn moved her eyes to Finn. After a moment, he nodded.
She looked back at Nix. “It’s Bleek.” Her voice was whisper soft, tinged by fear. “She’s been hanging out with Tim Bleeker.” A sharper note edged in. “Oh, I should have spoken to her. I should have —” Her dark eyes were searching the ground in front of her, and Finn reached a hand over to his girlfriend’s knee to comfort her.
“Baby, it’s not your fault. You know that. Neve has her own free will.”
“You don’t understand, Finn. It’s not like that. Bleek is, is different. Powerful. He … he makes you want to.”
Nix eased in,
careful not to break his gaze from the dark-haired girl. He needed her to know they could trust him.
“It’s okay. I know how Tim Bleeker works. And I can help Neve. I just need to find out where she is.”
Evelyn looked up, startled, then focused her eyes on the firelit ground.
“Help her?”
“Yeah. I don’t know, man. I’m not sure Neve Clowes wants to be helped,” Finn said.
“No, she does, she does,” Evelyn corrected him.
“Listen,” Nix resumed, “you know he’s going to take her wherever it was he took you. You know,” he continued, “he’s going to do to her whatever he tried to do to you. He’s going to finish it. Evie,” he said again when she still wouldn’t answer him, “she’s already been gone a whole day.”
Evelyn suddenly looked up. “A day? That’s more than enough time.” She shook her head vigorously and there were the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
Finn took one of her freckled hands. “If you don’t want to —”
But the girl seemed to have found her courage. “No. He’s not going to do it again. Not to her. She’s what, sixteen? Jesus.” She swallowed and lifted her chin, looking directly at Nix. “He’s in the tunnels. The Shanghai Tunnels? Under downtown? That’s where they are. I know it. That’s where he took me.”
The tunnels, he thought. That’s what Morgan said.
Evelyn’s mouth was tight and there were standing tears in her eyes but she wasn’t crying. Nix could see it. She was too angry. “There’s an entrance down on First, right across from the river. It’s in the men’s room of a shit-hole bar down there. Some guy’s name. Danny’s, I think it was called. There’s a door in the floor in the men’s bathroom and that’s the entrance we used. I know there are other ones, but that’s the only one that I know of and there are so many drunks and junkies in there that no one cares whether you never come out of the bathroom.”
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