Hyko eyed him. “And lookie here, he decided to make his own damn radio. Something that can’t be compromised. Why? You don’t make your own radio when you trust the radios around you.” Hyko tilted his head and looked into Sir Kendall’s eyes. “Which makes me think he was having the same trouble I was.” Hyko shifted his gaze right. Then left.
Hyko was working it out.
He reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a smartphone. “What was the comic book name? Derangerous, did she say? Derangerous.” He drew a long finger over the window, tapping and sliding and tapping some more. “It’s too insane. Yet not…” He narrowed his eyes, slid his finger along slowly. His face fell into a mask of bewildered concentration. He’d found his comic. A smile spread slowly over his face. He looked up at Sir Kendall. “This is incredible.”
“What?”
Hyko’s astonished gaze fell back down the screen.
“What?” Sir Kendall asked again, trying his best to play Paul.
“I think she may have been telling the truth. I knew things weren’t…normal. But this is…unbelievable.” Hyko sat back and studied the phone, sliding the frames, reading. “This comic. It’s brilliant. I’m Derangerous. Fuck, yeah.” Sometimes he laughed, sometimes he gazed out the window. After a few excruciating minutes, he put down the phone. “Well isn’t this a peck of pickled peppers.”
“What?” Sir Kendall demanded.
Hyko looked at the clock on the mantel. “A little over a day. Seven-forty-six.”
Sir Kendall furrowed his brow, an unbecoming thing he’d seen Paul do. All the better to mask his extreme distress.
“She’s right,” Hyko said. “It explains so much.”
Sir Kendall kept his eyes lowered. He’d expect nothing less; Hyko had a supple and highly flexible criminal mind.
“And you’re an actor. It’s the only thing that makes sense. You know, too, don’t you? You don’t want me knowing I’m in an alternate reality. I understand. A man like me might get ideas. I mean how convenient, really.” He crossed his legs and relaxed back into the chair, looking like a hillbilly warlord prince. “I get out of my last world just days before I destroy it, and my goodness, here’s a clean and shiny new world for me to destroy. The people here do seem a bit…dense.” He paused, as though lost in thought. “Most, anyway. Avon, the creator of my comic book, isn’t dense. She’s obviously brilliant.”
He returned to his smartphone, worked away at the controls, then put it to his ear. “Yes, Avon, please,” he said, winking at Sir Kendall. “Avon, hello…Just a fan. I want you to know, I love your work…yes…oh, yes. What can you tell me about these people?” He smiled. “Of course I have, I just thought…okay, then, I’ll be sure to look for it. You have a fan for life.” He clicked off, staring at the phone with an ecstatic expression.
“Avon,” Hyko said, “shall be my greatest ally.”
What did Hyko have in mind? They only had a day left. But that was how Hyko operated—he got something in his head and he ran with it.
Hyko did more investigating on his phone while Sir Kendall waited. He still had the element of surprise—Hyko still didn’t know he was Sir Kendall.
Suddenly Hyko roared with laughter. “Hah! Denali man! Well this settles it. I’m so much cooler than Sir Kendall it’s not even funny. Sir Kendall is the Denali man.”
Sir Kendall betrayed no emotion. Maybe he was from a TV ad, but he was on the side of the angels. Right now, at least.
Hyko smiled. “She got a two-fer with you, huh? It’s all coming together—the character and the actor who played the character. Now that’s funny.” He snapped his phone shut. “Tell me, Paul, where would a pretty girl keep her magical computer?”
“I dunno,” he said, and then he sat back and glanced in the direction of the office. Hyko would find it anyway; he may as well keep up the appearance of cluelessness.
“Thank you.” Hyko rose and strolled off. He returned with Alix’s laptop, followed by Lindy, who liked to sleep in the office.
Hyko powered up the computer and typed. “Where did she get it? That’s my question. That trashy tigress out there wouldn’t have invented magical code. She’s not capable of it. I’m not seeing anything that looks like…” He shook his head, hunting, hunting. No, I won’t get my answers here. The answers are in that lab in the basement, don’t you think? Have you been down there?”
Sir Kendall swallowed.
Hyko smiled. “Yes, I’ve been in the house. I snuck in and searched it the first night, while you two were ocupado in the kitchen. Looks like I should’ve stayed, but what the hell, I’m here now.” Hyko stood. “Hop to. We’re taking this party downstairs.”
Hyko was right—that’s where the code would’ve come from. Leave it to Hyko to go to the source. At least he didn’t have the book.
Hyko helped Sir Kendall up, and together they went down the basement stairs, Sir Kendall hopping each step, Hyko behind him, holding his shirt to keep him from falling. They headed across the dirty cement floor to the room in the back corner. Hyko creaked open the door to the old computer lab.
It smelled of mold and something sharp—battery acid. Hyko set him on a musty couch and went to work plugging in power cords and trying to fire up the machines. He struggled to rewire things here and there with his compromised hand, while Sir Kendall studied the layout. Five old mini supercomputers had been arranged to form five points around a central desk—a pentagram. Faint markings on the floor. Somebody had tried to wash them away. Good Lord, how had he missed it?
A fan set into the wall whirred to life under Hyko’s clever fingers. He called the hardware store and arranged for a delivery of soldering tools. In the meantime, he tore off the casing of one of the least damaged units and set to stripping and reconnecting wires. There was a certain elegance in the way Hyko used his thumbless hands to grip and maneuver his tools. Here he was, the most dangerous man any world had ever seen, at the height of his powers, working against the clock on the most dangerous weapon he could possibly possess.
It was very nearly operatic. His eyes shone and his snarled hair swung as he went from one machine to another.
Sir Kendall almost hated to stop him, but stop him he would.
He had to save his home world, and he had to save this world, Paul’s world. The notion of saving Paul filled Sir Kendall with a curious sense of purpose. Maybe he was nothingness, doomed to be a flat and entirely monstrous commercial character—the idea put unimaginable pain in Sir Kendall’s heart—but he would save Paul all the same. And Alix, too. Because Paul loved her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Alix smoothed Paul’s hair back from his head. He seemed to be driftng in and out of consciousness. How long had they been in the cage? Twelve hours? Fifteen?
It was morning. The sun had been up for a while. What time did the sun rise? She’d always left details like that up to other people. They would tell her if it was important. She’d been so irresponsible in so many ways.
Paul was sweating profusely. What kind of poison had that madman shot Paul with? A painful immobilization agent, he’d called it.
“Paul,” she said. “Are you awake?”
Nothing.
Even though he was sweating, she suspected he might be cold. With her wrist cuffed to his, and his looped to one of the bars of the cage, she couldn’t take her shirt all the way off, but she’d done the best she could, and draped it partly over his chest. She’d also loosened the one rope she could reach—the one on his wrist. Mostly she just stretched out against him, trying to keep him warm with her body, sometimes scooching down to rub her feet on his. A few hours ago, she’d taken off her socks and gotten them partway onto his feet.
“Alix?”
She shot to attention. “Yes, I’m here.”
Paul sighed his relief. “You’re okay.”
“Of course I’m okay. Are you cold?”
He seemed to consider this for a while, then, “I think so.”
She drew c
loser to him.
“Closer,” he said.
She smushed her body harder to his. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.” More of a breath than a word.
She massaged his bicep with her free hand. “Where?”
“Everywhere. It hurts to move. And everything is so heavy, I can’t get a deep breath.”
“Oh, Paul.”
“It helps that you’re here. It feels good...what you’re doing.”
She rubbed his shoulder with her free arm. “How about this?”
“Yes.”
She would massage what muscles she could reach until her hand fell off. This was all her doing. “I should’ve listened to you,” she said. “It’s my fault you’re in here.”
“I wanted to be in here, Alix.”
“You’re not Sir Kendall.”
“Sir Kendall knows how to fight Hyko,” Paul said. “It’s good that I’m here and he’s out there. We’re allies—you were right. He’s my people. He’s here to help.”
“Paul.” She snuggled closer to keep him warm, feeling so amazed and proud. It was a big thing for him to say that. “We have to get out of here.”
Paul heaved a breath. “I don’t see that happening. Hyko’s not stupid.”
“What about Tonio? When does he come around next?”
Paul shook his head minutely, then winced. Did even that hurt? “He tweaked his back. He’s supposed to call in the morning. When I don’t asnwer...Jesus, I hope he doesn’t come.” He lay there, staring up at the sky. “Too dangerous.”
“Because I brought a murderous lunatic to life.”
“Not intentionally.”
“None of my disasters are intentional.”
“Stop it. Listen.” He curled his fingers around her wrist where they were linked together. “Uh.” He let go.
She bit her lip, wishing she could take on some of his pain. All of his pain.
“I want you to know, what you did, it’s kind of a gift to me,” Paul grated out. “All my life, I rejected Sir Kendall and hated him, but he’s part of me. He’s my pain or my shadow or something. He belongs to me in some crazy way, you know?” Paul turned his head to her. His eyes shone. “All my life I’ve been trying to destroy him. It’s a gift...to have that change. Like a dam inside me got busted up or something.” He winced. “You’re looking at me funny. I’m sure that sounds psycho.”
“No.” All she could think was that he was beautiful. And she kissed him on the cheek.
“When we were fighting and I was hurting him, he used that line of mine—when something hurts, the trick is not minding that it hurts. We have to trust Sir Kendall now.”
She massaged his arm. He was in such pain that it hurt her heart. “You think Sir Kendall can take on Kid Rock in there?” she joked, hoping the humor might help him.
Paul smiled and closed his eyes. His dark lashes were wet, clumped together. “That was so goddamn awesome when you attacked him.”
“It was stupid.” She moved her free hand to his chest, rubbed his pec. “It was impulsive. Seriously, from now on, I’m going to think things through and take responsibility. And be different.”
“No, Alix, I love the way you are.”
“Says the man who kicked me out of martial arts class.”
A silence. She moved her hands to the other side of his chest, hoping to maybe work out the poison Hyko had shot in.
“You were awesome in that class,” he said finally.
“Right.”
“No, you were. You brought so much fun and lightness with you, it made me almost dizzy. Happy. I trained out of misery back then, and you made me want to be normal and not take everything so seriously.” He emitted a breathy little laugh. “I actually started not caring so much. And then I lost a big match.”
“I made you lose a match?”
“No, it was okay. I never had fun. I could’ve used fun then, but I freaked and kicked you out.”
So he’d kicked her out for self-preservation.
“Then I looked for you. Your contact information was completely illegible.”
“Of course,” she said, still fixated on this last bit. She’d harmed him all those years ago, and this week she’d done it again. She thought about what Paul said to her earlier: Of all the people, you had to bring Sir Kendall to life. The whole thing’s just a fun game…who cares about anyone else?
And now Paul might be maimed. Or die.
She’d vowed to change, imagined she had, a little. But could she really? Could she change enough to deserve him? She wondered if it would be best for Paul if she stayed away from him. Is that what a good person would do?
“But now here we are. Because you got a magic computer program and went for the hottest sex slave you could think of,” he said.
“It’s not funny.”
“Sorry. That joke will never get old. Faced with the choice of having anything in the world, Alix, you chose the hottest guy you could think of. The one guy who looks exactly like me.” He laughed, then winced. “Only you messed up by not going for the real thing.”
The silence stretched out. She massaged his shoulder. “That’s not exactly right,” she said finally. “I just wanted a version of you who would want me back. It wasn’t about a sex slave—it was about a you who would want me back. Paul the martial arts teacher, he didn’t want me back. But I figured Sir Kendall would. It was pathetic.”
“Paul the martial arts teacher wanted you back.”
“Which is why you kicked me out,” she said.
“Listen...” he paused, heaved a breath, “understand what I’m telling you.”
“I am,” she said, but only because he seemed agitated. She needed to lighten things up. Then she thought of something. The perfect thing. “After you kicked us out of that class, Karen and I nicknamed you Hardass Paul.”
A glint appeared in his eyes. Good.
She grinned. “We had this whole joke where, whenever we’d get into a really ridiculous, messed-up jam, we’d say, I wonder what Hardass Paul would say about this?“
“I’m so glad you kept the memory of me alive.”
“Whenever we’d do anything stupid—get trapped somewhere or way too drunk or whatever—we’d go, I wonder what Hardass Paul would say.”
“Sounds like Hardass Paul has a lot of opinions.”
“Oh, he does. He’s very bossy. Very, very bossy.”
“Really,” Paul breathed.
She smiled. “And he makes girls take off their bracelets.”
The way he looked at her now, there was something so alive in his eyes—just for a second. He remembered the charge of that moment—she was sure of it.
“What else?” he asked.
She said, “He likes to take over. Just soooo bossy.”
She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation while caged by a madman. Paul watched her eyes. “I think you like bossy.”
She stroked his sweaty hair.
She could tell from his eyes that a wave of pain had crashed over him. She tried to think of something funny to say.
“Look at you, Paul, tied up with ropes and handcuffs to the bottom of a cage. And drugged. And a lunatic on the loose, all because of me.” She touched his cheekbone with the pad of her finger. “I wonder what Hardass Paul would have to say about this?”
Paul didn’t laugh or even smile. “He’d say that he loves you.”
Her heart fell through the ground. Here he was, drugged and half dead because of her. “Paul.”
“It’s what he’d say.”
“Don’t. You can’t.”
He slid his gaze to her. “I can’t love you?”
No, she thought, filled with shame. She wanted to say it back, but it would be like an acceptance. And she didn’t deserve him. “Look at you right now,” she said. “How did you get here?”
“I don’t care how I got here.”
“I care,” she said. “You deserve better.”
He jerked at his chains. “I
’ll say what I deserve. We have a thing—don’t deny it. You ordered me.”
“Like takeout,” she whispered.
“You don’t kiss takeout like that.” He jerked again, though it clearly pained him to move. “You are so full of shit right now, Alix.”
“At least stop moving.” She shifted her body, covering him anew, the best she could without putting weight on him.
“I’ll make you believe.”
“Okay.”
“You’re patronizing me,” he said.
Of course she was. The old Alix would gobble up his affection. She’d drape herself with it and dance around a little. The new Alix loved this man. She kissed him on the cheek. She needed to deserve him.
“That feels good,” he whispered.
“I forgot to tell you, Paul; Jed Clampett called. For Hyko. He wants his hat back.”
He smiled. He liked that. “Joke all you want,” he said. “I’ll make you believe. In us. You’ll believe.”
“Okay,” she said, just to get him calm. But there were some things even Hardass Paul couldn’t make her do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sir Kendall shifted on the nubby fabric of the musty couch in the basement computer lab. He’d give anything to move his arms, even to bend them at the elbow, but his wrists—as well as his ankles—were still handcuffed, roped, bungeed, and duct-taped together, and those bindings were affixed to the chair legs, so that Hyko could leave him alone when he roamed the house gathering tools and things. Hyko might be a madman, but he was no fool.
Sir Kendall had pretended to snooze most of the night, playing Paul’s part, but hour by hour his dread increased as Hyko slowly but surely worked to reverse-engineer the magic code, placing calls to help desks all over the world as he pieced things together. Now it was daytime. Hyko had made them both sandwiches for lunch, releasing Sir Kendall’s hand for eating purposes, but then he’d trussed him back up and returned to work.
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