“So it is.”
But I immediately agreed with Cody once we stepped outside and the cold clamped my lungs. Our breath hung under the outdoor lights and my cheeks were dulled numb after a few minutes. We walked side-by-side, snow crunching beneath our boots and pale moonlight illuminating untouched glistening hilltops all around the backyard where we walked.
Everything was beautifully quiet, almost like Bhutan after the day had gone to sleep. No car lights or street lamps or any of the night noises I had grown used to, and enjoyed, about Queensbury after dark.
Melanie suddenly gained purpose in her stride and pulled ahead of us, leading us down to a storage shed for vehicles separate from the rest of the house.
“We really enjoyed your presents, Drake,” she said, stopping in front of the shed doors. I caught the restrained smile in her voice. “I enjoyed them so much more than Cody or Matt’s.”
“Shut up,” I mumbled. “I’m going to use the ‘I’m a wanted vigilante’ excuse to explain why I forgot your presents. You’ll get them later. I promise.”
“But in the meantime—” She waited until Matt unlocked the padlock on the door and slid it open. “—we all pitched in to get you this.”
There, beautifully gleaming as though it had just rolled out of the shop, was a motorcycle.
“No way,” I breathed. “You guys did not buy me this. This is too much.”
“It was the cheapest one we could find—” Matt cut off suddenly as though Cody had elbowed him.
I stepped towards it, hand outstretched as though it would disappear at any moment, and ran my hand along the painted lettering: Iron Eagle. Everything looked brand new, from the compact handlebars to the sleek paint job.
“I’m sure running all over the city is great for your cardio and all,” Cody said. “But this will make it so much easier.”
“It really would.” I imagined me ripping down streets, screaming around corner and gunning it into the night. Which…was not what I was going for. “Guys, I love it, but Phantom’s all about subtly, and roaring around town on this would kind of scream ‘look at me’.”
“Not to worry.” Cody straddled the motorcycle, pulled it upright and hit the ignition. I covered my ears, expecting the sound to tear through the shed. There was nothing. Only a shudder and quiet rumbling sound deep within the engine.
Cody grinned. “Purrs like a kitten.” He revved it but the sound only grew a little bit. I doubt they could hear it outside the shed. “Matt, Melanie and I put our magic touch on this.”
“All three of us,” Matt reiterated.
“Yes, I actually got to touch this project, unlike a certain water molecule materializer I know of…”
Melanie pulled something else out of her coat before a one sided argument could occur.
“Part two.”
“Another one? Isn’t a motorcycle enough?”
Melanie adjusted the contraption in her hand and prodded it. “Not when you’re off risking your life it’s not. Especially if—if I can get this to work—this—come on—would help. Cody, where’s the switch—oh!”
A quiet SNAP! came from her hand and a thin, nearly invisible wire shot into the rafters and latched there.
“Perfect,” Melanie said proudly, as if she had planned to do that. “This was my designs that Cody helped me finish.” She smiled gratefully at him. “A little side project to keep me occupied when I wasn’t studying.”
“Is it a grappling line?”
Matt swiped the thing out of her hand. “Precisely. Thin, compact, clips onto the sleeve of the costume and can support five times your weight. Supposedly.” He pressed a button and the line dropped and retracted. “And it can pull you up if you’re too lazy to climb.”
“Or injured,” I suggested.
Matt considered this. “Or that. But what is important is that you won’t have a situation where you will be stuck again.” I took the grapple with one hand and aimed it up again. There was an indention on the handle perfectly shaped for my finger and I pressed it. Another SNAP! and the line grew taunt when it hit the wood.
“Left side to go up,” Cody said. I braced myself and pressed the left button. I shot up and hung there ten feet off the ground, looking down at them.
“And down? How do I go down?”
“Uh…we haven’t really figured that out yet,” Cody admitted.
“What?”
“Kidding, kidding. Right side. Gently.” I pressed it, lowered to the ground, retracted the line and punched Cody in the arm.
“Thanks for all of this, guys. You have no idea what this means to me.”
“There is one more thing,” Melanie said. “I wrote to your parents and had them send this.” She pulled out a framed photograph from her jacket. I took it. It was a picture of all the monastery kids crowded in front of my parents, all with giant grins on their faces. Sonam stood beside them, smiling in his own reserved sort of way. Beneath all of this was my mom’s cursive hand:
“Happy Holidays, Drake! We are so proud of you. Best wishes for the New Year!
—Love, Mom, Dad, Sonam, your family in Bhutan
A single tear dropped onto the picture. It took me a moment to realize it was mine.
“Crap,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. “This is—” But I couldn’t finish. I think they knew how I felt because Melanie gave me a hug. She nodded for Cody to join. He did, and grabbed Matt.
We stood there shivering, my eyes bristling with frozen tears. I thought of all the problems still back in Queensbury. Of Sykes and school and the whole world I felt was out for Phantom’s blood. Would my parents be proud of what I’d done or ashamed to call me their son. I didn’t have the answer, and maybe I didn’t want to know. But for a moment, with my friends here and my family’s love in my hand, it felt like they’d be happy after all.
We decided to go back inside before Cody froze to death. He and Melanie drifted farther and farther behind. I heard Melanie giggle and stopped Matt from going back to join them. He looked confusedly at me as though trying to figure out why I had stopped him.
“Was the motorcycle your idea?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little much for a gift?”
“Have you seen my family? I can afford it. Think of it as a job perk.”
“Fair enough.”
For a minute there was nothing but the whisper of snowflakes brushing against our faces and murmuring voices behind us.
“So what’s up with your dad?” I asked. Wow, that came off blunt. Might of well have said, ‘your dad think’s you’re wasting your life’ and get it over with.
Matt kicked a small snow pile. “He wishes I were more athletic and less smart. He thinks I act awkward around people and that I can’t make more friends.”
His dad was right, and so wrong. Sure, Matt was awkward, but once you got past that there was a genuinely good kid under there.
“Have you even shown him anything you’ve made?”
Matt shook his head.
“Not once?”
Matt shook his head again. “He doesn’t care about it. That’s why I almost tried out for the Queensbury football team. I thought maybe he’d want to talk to me more if I did that.”
“I don’t think trying out for the team would have worked,” I said.
“You don’t think that would have gotten his approval?”
“I think the team would have clobbered you and there’d be nothing left to approve of. Your strengths lie in other areas, Matt. Without Cody and your designs I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Matt looked at me. I realized how little he actually looked people in the eye. His gaze lingered as though thanking me. Then it dropped again.
“You shouldn’t be so clumsy. Then my designs wouldn’t have to protect you.”
I would have smarted back but a snowball hit me in the back of the head.
Matt and I stopped in to Cody’s room the next morning. Melanie had already left late la
st night. Cody was up earlier than we expected. He stood in front of his dresser mirror adjusting his shirt.
“We wanted to know what you thought about doing today,” I said. “Matt told me sledding is really fun.”
Cody absentmindedly messed with his hair. He glanced at his stuff already packed beside him, then scratched his nose. He looked embarrassed.
“Yeah…about that…I think I’m going to head out of here pretty soon.”
“Head out? We don’t have to be back at school for a week. You have a job to get back to?”
“No, nothing like that. There’s family and I’m just going back a little early. I’m—meeting someone.”
I wanted to see him sweat. “Yeah? Who?”
He mumbled something and Matt made a face. “What?”
“Melanie. We’re going to lunch in her hometown.”
He looked relieved, almost as if divulging a huge secret that just happened to be the most blatantly obvious thing for the last few months.
I tried to stop grinning. “A date?”
“We’re just meeting up.”
“A date, then.”
“No! No, just as friends.”
My grin grew.
“What time are you picking her up?”
“Noon, actually—it’s not a date, Drake! Sheesh!”
I cocked an eyebrow at Matt. Cody continued fiddling with his shirt in the dresser mirror and shooting glances at us.
“A date,” I said.
“A date,” he agreed.
“You have been acting weirder than usual around her,” Matt said.
“Thanks, Matt. So yeah, I’m sorry I won’t be able to join you.” He stopped fidgeting with his clothes. “Drake—you don’t—you don’t think I’m being insensitive do you?”
That threw me off. “Insensitive? How’s that?”
“I mean, I know you’re dating Liz and all, but you’re off fighting bad guys and you have us for backup and then if her and I start dating and things work out—”
I stopped him. “Honestly, it would make me feel a little more normal. At least I’ll have some part of regular society to come back to other than your crazy computers and scanners and stuff.”
“You mean it?”
I clapped him on one skinny shoulder. “Of course. Don’t worry about it.” This seemed to cheer Cody up a lot. I had no idea he had been so nervous about my approval. And I was telling the truth. It would make me feel normal. About as normal as anyone who dressed in a costume after dark and ran around punching people could feel.
I woke up early Christmas day. I couldn’t help it. The hallways were uncharacteristically chilly, the windows frosted with ice. There was something nice about the silence; how it was still full of the happy memories of a family together. I went downstairs to raid the fridge. Matt was in the kitchen. He had his laptop on the island in front of him. His other hand gripped a glass of orange juice.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
“I found where Sykes lives,” he said. I paused as I opened the refrigerator door. Sometimes Matt made me wonder who was more obsessed with finding Sykes. I mean, my drive to find Sykes was strong, but even I gave it a rest when I was on vacation.
Matt looked up at me from over the laptop screen. “Do you want to know where?”
“You think he’s there?”
Matt shrugged. “Possibly. Maybe. Probably not.” The way he sounded, it was as if the man wasn’t a deranged maniac. “The home where he grew up is in Ashwood, about two hours from here.”
“So what do you want to do? Chances are Sykes is still in Queensbury. What would we gain by going to his house?”
“His mother still lives there. She wouldn’t want to talk to us, but there might be something there that could help us figure out what Sykes is up to. There has to be.”
I held up my hands as I took a seat beside him. “Whoa, you’re talking about breaking and entering. Into a person’s house who, technically, hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“You brought your costume, right?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t suddenly make breaking and entering a good idea.”
Matt pushed the laptop aside and looked me in the eye. Again. He was getting really good at that, and I was proud of him. “What do you know about Sykes and Project Midnight?”
“Not much more than you do—”
“Right. And I don’t know much. And neither does Cody or Melanie or anybody else, really, if what I see on the live feed is correct. We do know he’s like you, we know he kills without mercy and we know he’s not as active as a man with his skill set should be if he wanted to stop Project Midnight.”
“I would expect a man with his skillset to be hiding, just like he is. He pops his head up and they’ll nab him.”
I saw the flaw in that logic even before Matt said, “He’s ‘popped his head up’ a few times and nobody’s even come close to stopping him. Not even you. All I’m saying is this is a chance to find out something more. Something we could use against him or a clue to what he’s doing.”
The opportunity was very tempting. Of course there was absolutely no guarantee that any clues of value were there anymore, not to mention the whole breaking and entering thing that was eating at me. But…what was worse: breaking and entering to find out more about a deadly criminal, or letting innocent people die because I couldn’t stop the man. The people were counting on me, and so far I had let them down. Disastrously so.
Matt could see he had won me over. He pushed his chair back and hopped up.
“Garage. Five minutes. We can be back before this evening.”
We hadn’t expected to run into Jack. He was bent down by one of the cars, polishing the rims on one of the tires, his back to us. I froze in the doorway. Matt stopped for a second, then entered.
“Jack, you have the day off. You shouldn’t be working.”
“Pot calling the kettle black, Matthew. Where would you two be going off to this early? And on Christmas?”
“I forgot to buy presents,” I said, surprised at how easily the lie came to me. Then again, it wasn’t technically a lie. “Matt told me there were some great stores in Ashtown I could buy some.”
Jack nodded, wiping his hands on a rag. “There are indeed. Unfortunately they’d be closed since today’s Christmas.”
Crap. Scratch that lie. Matt jumped to my rescue.
“We need to use the car, Jack. We’ll be back in a few hours.” Jack glanced between the two of us. A slow smile lit up his face.
“Don’t you two look guilty! Can’t whatever you’re doing wait until tomorrow?”
“No.”
“All right then.” Jack opened the passenger’s side door. “Come on.”
This wasn’t going to work. Breaking in entering was bad enough without having an audience there.
“I can drive, Jack,” Matt said indignantly. “I built a prototype machine to turn ocean waves into energy, I think I can figure out how to steer a car.”
“It’s not about how smart you are, Matthew. My job is to drive you places, and, in doing that, keep you safe. You know, I overheard the most peculiar conversation in the kitchen earlier, and it wouldn’t be right to go through with something like that without a chaperone.”
We were so busted. Thinking back, that was pretty dumb talking about doing something illegal in the middle of the freaking kitchen. Brilliant, Drake, brilliant.
Matt didn’t look as perturbed as I did. Jack turned to me.
“Drake, did Matthew tell you what I did before I became the Warner’s chauffer and general maintenance man?”
“Um…no, sir, he didn’t.”
Jack nodded satisfactorily. “Good. I can keep secrets and I’m sure whatever it is you’re doing, you have a good reason for it.” His face softened. “Matthew, please let me drive you. We don’t have to tell your father about this. Remember the fifth grade, when you got back that bully at school by attaching rockets to his—”
“Okay,” Matt said
quickly.
“Or when I covered for you when you decided to—how did you put it?—‘liberate the guinea pigs from their oppressive—”
“Okay, Jack, we’ll let you drive us,” Matt said. He sighed and slid into the back seat. I reluctantly followed him. “But drop us off at the town center. You can go do whatever you need to.”
“Of course, Matthew.” He got into the driver’s seat and pulled out the front. “But don’t let me hear sirens.”
Maybe we should have done this, I don’t know, at night. Here I was in broad (gray?) daylight, trying to break into a woman’s house.
Merry Christmas?
“You’re sure Sykes won’t be here?” I asked again.
There was silence from Matt, a mile away, sitting inside the only coffee shop crazy enough to be open on Christmas. Then, “I don’t know.”
Great. That made everything ten times better. Fortunately, Jack hadn’t asked any more questions on the drive over. I was still apprehensive but Matt seemed to trust him and if I was going to get any answers here then I would have to risk it. When I had asked where Jack had learned to be so secretive Matt had replied, “Let’s just say that there were times when I was younger when I needed a little extra protection. We come from wealth. Jack was hired to make sure I stayed safe.”
The neighborhood was empty. I hadn’t dared put on the Phantom costume once Jack had gotten involved, opting instead for my all-concealing black hoodie and jeans. I kept the mask.
The outside of Sykes’ house had no Christmas decorations. The icicles hung like fangs from the gutters and the windows were dark. I decided to try a back window.
“No car in the driveway,” I said. “I hope she’s not home.”
I snuck around back and tried a side window. Locked. I tried another. Same. Finally, I found one that opened. I took a deep breath and crawled inside.
I shut the window as soon as I was inside, and then crouched, listening for any noise. The house was dead silent.
But it turns out somebody was home. I could tell from the light from the living room casting everything in a harsh half-light.
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