by N. D. Wilson
Antigone flopped onto her face. “Now you’ve done it. No more smoking in the library.” She pulled her blankets over her head. “Turn off the light.”
Cyrus set down the card with the lightning bug, clicked the lamp off, and sat bouncing his knees in the dark.
“How can you sleep right now?” he asked.
“I can’t,” Antigone muttered.
Sighing, Cyrus rocked back onto his bed and stared at the dimly golden ceiling.
“Whatever it is you’re tapping,” Antigone said, “feel free to stop.”
“What?” Cyrus asked. “I’m not tapping anything.”
He held his breath and listened. Someone, something, was tapping. Faintly, beyond the window. Three taps. Scrape. Three more. Scrape.
Antigone sat up. “That’s really not you?”
Cyrus shook his head. Both of them slipped out of their beds and crept toward the window. When they were on their knees, with noses above the sill, Cyrus hooked one finger in the curtain and peeled it back.
A large, dark shape was moving slowly through the parking lot, sweeping the white cane of a blind man in front of him. He reached the yellow truck, felt it with his hand, and then kept coming, finally stopping six feet from the pair of motel room doors. He was wearing an enormous coat and a heavy stocking cap pulled down snug around his scalp. Two large ears stuck out from the sides of his head like a pair of skin satellite dishes. His eyes weren’t covered, but they were closed. He tapped the ground and turned his head from side to side, listening. Then he sniffed at the air with a flattened and crooked nose. His jaw was broad but uneven, visibly scarred even in the dim golden light. His long, slender cane was in his left hand, tip down, and he began bouncing it slowly beneath the weight of his arm.
“What’s he doing?” Antigone whispered. “He’s not really blind, is he?”
Cyrus put his finger to his lips.
“He can’t be,” Antigone said. “He walked right to Skelton’s room.” She nudged her brother. “Open the door. See what he wants.”
Cyrus looked at her. “Yeah, right,” he whispered. “You’re crazy.”
“He’s blind. He might need help.” Antigone tried to stand, but Cyrus grabbed on to her wrist. The blind man had pulled something out of his coat.
“Gun,” Cyrus said. “Gun!” He forced Antigone back onto her knees. Four short, gaping barrels — two on top of two — all big enough to fire golf balls. Pistol-gripped. Black. Ruthless. An extra handle stuck out to the side of the bundle of barrels. A small cylindrical tank was screwed into the back of the gun above the man’s grip.
Cyrus’s mind was frozen. His nails were digging into his sister’s arm. Should he yell? Should he warn Skelton?
The man tapped his rod on the ground three times. Six inches from Cyrus’s face, a shape slid past the window toward room 111. And another.
Antigone was trying to shake her arm free. Cyrus let go. He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t blinking.
The blind man stepped forward, raised a heavy arm, and cracked the butt of his gun against the door to 111.
“Bones!” the man yelled. “Friend Billy! Give it up. The good doctor doesn’t take kindly to thieves.”
Cyrus gasped, finally breathing. He pushed his sister away from the window. “Call the cops. Go!”
Antigone dropped to the carpet and crawled away.
Skelton’s voice drifted through the wall. “That you, Pug? Maxi’s letting you do the talking now? Come on in. I’ll get the door.”
The floor under Cyrus’s knees shivered, a high-pitched whine vibrated the glass in front of him, and the door to 111 exploded off its hinges. The big man slammed into the nose of the truck before spinning up onto the roof of the wooden camper.
Smoke snaked out into the golden parking lot. For a moment, the world was still. The blind man’s legs kicked slowly on the asphalt. His arms were draped on the old truck’s bumper and his head lolled against its grille, blood dripping from his nose and lips. His hat was gone. His cane was shattered.
Turning his back to the window, Cyrus slid down beneath the sill.
“Yes,” Antigone said. Her eyes were on him, peering up between the beds. “An explosion. And guns. That’s what I said. The Archer Motel, room one-eleven. No, I won’t hold.”
She hung up. For a moment, Cyrus, breathless, stared into his sister’s frightened eyes, and then William Skelton’s voice roared through the wall.
“Come kill the killer!” he shouted. Something heavy crashed to the floor. “Betray the traitor. Rob the thief! Who wants to die with Billy Bones?”
Antigone dropped to the carpet beside Cyrus and lifted the curtain.
“Is he dead?” she asked. “Did Skelton kill him?” Her voice was low, but her body was shaking.
Cyrus swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said. His sister was hanging on to his leg. He could barely feel it. “I don’t know,” he said again. “Don’t know.” Stop it. He blinked, trying to clear his head. He couldn’t be like this. This was how animals became roadkill. He had to do something. Wake up. Should they get under the beds? Should they run?
“Come on now, lads!” Skelton bellowed. “I know you can take more than that. Or can’t the doctor’s puppets kill an old man?”
Cyrus pulled himself back up to the windowsill. The blind man was on the ground beneath the yellow truck’s bumper. He wasn’t dead. His left arm still held a piece of his broken cane. His right hand still gripped his gun. He raised it slowly.
There was no sound of gunfire, no exploding black powder. Each of his barrels belched a burning white sphere, corkscrewing forward, braiding flame, tracing spirals in the air like racing sparklers.
Two tall shapes leapt into view, moving quickly, smoothly, more like animals than people. One vaulted easily over the truck. The other jumped onto the top of the camper, landing in a crouch. Both were wearing tinted goggles, both were hip-firing searing white flame. Another, shorter shape stepped out from behind the truck.
Four men, each with four barrels, filled the air with swirling magnesium and sulfur. Flaming spheres, infant meteors, exploded against the doorjamb, the wall, the window, and poured through the door into 111. White fire erupted into sizzling rings. The walls shook. The window in front of Cyrus warped and wobbled as pale rivers of flame raced across its surface.
Cyrus couldn’t look away. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe in the sudden heat. He didn’t feel Antigone’s hands. He didn’t hear her screaming at him to get down. Not until she threw an arm around his neck and slammed him onto his back.
Blinking, he watched his sister sprawl across him, covering her head with her arms, trying to cover him with her body.
He watched the ceiling boil and crack. The walls surged and split, and Antigone’s shelves avalanched to the ground. The first flames crept into the room.
A high-pitched whine was building somewhere — piercing, painful. Cyrus pushed his sister off, grabbed her wrist, and tried to crawl toward the bathroom. The bathtub. They needed water. His sister’s books were burning. Her photo albums.
Boom.
The noise was simple enough, big enough, fundamental enough that all the other noises became part of it.
Cyrus felt his bones ripple like rubber as he fell. His gut twisted and flipped. The closet mirror ran down into the carpet. The glass in the big picture window liquefied and collapsed, splashing on the sill.
A moment’s slice later, the sound was gone and the window had refrozen, paralyzed in its fountain before hitting the floor.
Cyrus lay gasping, gripping his sister’s tense arms, watching fire dance on the wall, listening to distant sirens.
No more shouting. No more belching guns. He pulled, crawling for water.
Antigone pulled back.
“No!” she yelled. “Up, Cy! Out!” Reaching her feet, she dragged him toward the door.
“Your stuff,” Cyrus said. He tore his hands free and stood, hunching in the smoke. “Get your stuff.”
“I will, I will,” she said. The top third of the wall was in flames. “We have to get Skelton out!”
Cyrus forced his sister away from the room’s door and pressed his eye against the peephole. The glass had dripped out.
“Are they gone?” Antigone whispered.
“Maybe,” Cyrus said.
“Just go,” Antigone said. “Go!”
Wrapping his hand in the hem of his shirt, Cyrus jerked quickly on the sizzling doorknob, and the two of them staggered into charred air. The blind man — limbs impossibly bent — lay motionless beneath the truck’s bumper. A second rag-dolled body drooped off the edge of the camper. A third was facedown behind the rear wheel.
Flames surrounded the doorway to 111 and were roaring on the walkway above. Inside 111, Cyrus’s bed was on fire, the walls were scorched and flickering, and huge pieces of the ceiling had collapsed. Beneath one cracked slab of blackened drywall, they could see the bottoms of two cowboy boots.
Without saying anything, Cyrus and Antigone jumped through the doorway, kicked through the smoldering pile, and each grabbed a leg. The shins bent easily.
Billy Bones groaned in pain. “No,” he said. “Don’t pull.”
Cyrus dropped the boot.
“Tigs, let go,” he said. “His legs are broken.”
“Not broken,” Billy said. “Not—”
Both kids tore into the pile, quickly clearing the old man’s body. He was wearing a burnt and smoking blue jumpsuit, and his face was soot-covered around a pair of flight goggles. The glass lenses had melted and were hanging from the bottom rims like icicles. Two canisters were strapped on his shoulders and pinned beneath him. A cracked silver tube laced with copper wire stuck out from under his arm like the barrel of a leaf blower. Oil oozed out of its mouth.
The old man licked his charcoal lips and smiled. His teeth were gone. “Killed Pug,” he said. “The others? Maxi? Where’s Maxi? He won’t die.”
The ceiling was crackling like pinecones. Antigone coughed and pulled her shirt collar up over her mouth and nose.
Billy Bones looked at her, and then at Cyrus. “Didn’t break—” He paused to breathe, and his eyes shut. “Not every promise. Your father—”
Antigone slid her hands under the old man’s shoulder. “We have to get you out of here. Cy, try gripping under his arms.”
“No,” the old man said. “No! Listen! I have no secrets.” His voice was fading, drowned out by the popping of burning shelves, the loud breathing of flames. “Cyrus, my hands. To my neck. Hurry.” Cyrus looked at his sister. Antigone nodded. Cyrus grabbed Skelton’s wrists in the rubble. His arms were soft, boneless, like socks full of mud. As Cyrus lifted, the old man groaned, and then sobbed. Cyrus hesitated.
“Don’t stop. Don’t.” With a final motion, Cyrus forced Skelton’s hands to his throat. The old man’s fingers moved, and in the darkness, Cyrus saw a thick necklace come free. It was glowing silver. “Yours now,” Skelton said.
Cyrus blinked, confused. Antigone leaned in and took over.
She raised the old man’s hands to her brother’s neck. The necklace — the thing — suddenly moved, twisting between Skelton’s hands. “Use her,” Skelton said. “She was your father’s once.”
Heat seared against Cyrus’s skin and slithered tight around his neck. Yelping, gasping, he reached for it.
“No!” Skelton yelled. “No! Defend what I give you. With your souls.” His voice died. The thing around Cyrus’s neck was only warm now, metallic but soft, scaled, as thick as a small rope.
“Cyrus,” Antigone said, leaning close to the old man’s face. “Cyrus.”
William Skelton’s voice sank below a whisper. “Smiths. Beekeepers. Trust. Nolan.”
“Brother Bones. So dramatic in life, so he should be in death, yes?”
A man, slight, dressed in close-fitting black, stepped through the charred doorway. His accented voice was smooth despite the smoke. A four-barreled gun dangled in his left hand. Flames from the wall licked his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“What does the dying man give to the little ones, eh?” he asked cheerfully. “William, what should their sweet souls be defending?” He cocked his head, listening. “Has he met with friend Death already?”
Grabbing Antigone, Cyrus slid away on his knees. The man moved toward them through the rubble as Cyrus scrambled to his feet. A bright smile full of very tiny teeth sparkled in the man’s soot-covered face. His eyes were ringed with a pair of empty goggles. His hair, an ashen tangle, stood out around his small head.
“Children, please remain,” he said. “I cannot find what I need. Can it be that the famous Billy Bones no longer holds it?” He pointed his gun at Skelton’s body. “If he was still keeping his charm, I would not expect to see him in such condition.”
A slab of ceiling collapsed onto Cyrus’s bed, and flaming shards sprayed around the room. Smoke swallowed everything. Coughing, Cyrus tucked his face into his arms. His eyes were blinking acid.
The man hadn’t moved. “What did old Skelton give the ducklings?” He raised his gun. “Tell your uncle Maxi.”
Cyrus couldn’t think in the smoke, without air. His brain was on fire. His lungs were bursting. Antigone squeezed his arm tight.
“Cy! Tigs! Where are you?” Dan, barefoot, wearing only a pair of sweatpants, appeared beside the truck.
Without looking, the man swung his gun over his shoulder and sent a pair of twisting fireballs spiraling through the smoke above the truck and into the trees across the road.
Spitting into his shirt, Cyrus pulled his sister. The gun didn’t matter. Smoke mattered. Fire mattered. The two of them staggered toward the man, toward the crumbling doorway. Cyrus was ready for an impact. For a struggle. For a fireball in his stomach.
Instead, they shot through the doorway, careened into the truck, and tripped over the dead man’s legs. Dan’s arms wrapped around them and they were surrounded by cool, moving air. There were stars again. Lights were flashing. The world was full of sirens.
Bigger arms than Dan’s picked Cyrus up and tore him free of his sister. He could hear her yelling. She wanted to go back in. But even louder voices were shouting orders and diesel engines were throbbing and red lights were whirling and someone was wrapping something cool and wet around Cyrus’s face, pressing a mask over his mouth.
A fireman set Cyrus down on the hood of a police car. “Stay here! The paramedics will check you.” And the man was gone.
Cyrus tore his mask off. A skyscraper of smoke was rising from the Archer. The rooftop was an angry mob of bonfires. He slid down to unsteady feet, but the oxygen had cleared his head. Where was Tigs? Where was Dan?
Men with masks were carrying a body out of 111. Cyrus slapped at his pocket. No keys. Did he care? He tore off the thing around his neck, but it twisted in his hand, winding itself tight around his wrist. It didn’t matter. The door to 110 was still open, and his sister’s pictures were worth more than a dead old man’s keys or charms. They were all going to burn — his father, his mother, every trace of another lifetime, another home in another world.
Cyrus was suddenly moving, tripping on hoses, pinballing through big men in helmets and yellow suits, running toward the roar of growing flames and a fading past.
Earth turned, twisting its shadowed back out of darkness, dragging a continent into dawn. The Archer Motel had changed. The potholes in the parking lot were brimming with water and skimmed with ash. In places, polyester curtains had melted into the asphalt. The second-story walkway had collapsed, and half of the second story had collapsed with it. Rooms were open to the morning air, missing their exterior walls like compartments in a scorched dollhouse, revealing burnt mattresses, blackened dressers, and the occasional melted television. Webs of yellow tape surrounded it all.
The Golden Lady, dim in the daylight, still glowed.
The sun was ready with summer heat, and the sky was clear. As the sun climbed, the motel’s soaked ruin and the puddled parking lot
began to steam, releasing the stink of burnt paint and carpet and curtains into the morning.
In the courtyard, a door was cracked open. Behind it, sprawling sideways across a queen bed, Cyrus and Antigone were sleeping.
Cyrus’s hair was singed in places, and his skin glistened with a mixture of soot and sweat. A patterned ring of tiny blisters stood out around his neck.
Antigone slept with her filthy arms around a small mound of film tins and photo albums. Two cameras, both minus their glass lenses, were perched on top. Her projector, now little better than a pile of melted black plastic, sat on the floor beside the bed.
The door swung open. A little man with tired eyes, half-moon glasses, and a rumpled gray suit stepped into the room. He coughed loudly. “Excuse me. Pardon. Become wakeful!” He thumped his fist on the wall.
Cyrus stretched slowly, groaning. His eyes fluttered open and rested on the little man in the doorway. He blinked, slowly processing what he was seeing, and then he sat up quickly. He shouldn’t have. Someone had inflated his head and filled his lungs with ashtrays. His eyebrows were going to explode, his eyes felt like they’d been replaced with steel wool, and his mouth was overflowing with the taste of burnt tire.
“Sorry,” the little man said. “My condolences on the motel. You were insured?”
Cyrus shoved his knuckles into his eyes and then grabbed on to his eyebrows to keep his forehead on. He snorted, he hacked, he roared, scraping at the smoked phlegm inside him. Dropping his hands, he spat on the carpet and opened his eyes. The walls bent and wobbled. Why was he in Dan’s room? He shouldn’t have spat. Not on the floor. Dan would yell. He looked around for a tissue. No tissue. No Dan. Just the little man from last night and Antigone curled up like a snail shell.
Last night.
The firemen had been angry with him. Dan had been angry. He couldn’t remember how it had ended, but Antigone’s arms were full of pictures. He must have made it into her room. Or she had. He dug his hand into his pockets. Key ring in one. A thick, misshapen square of glass in the other. The glass sent a buzz into his fingertips. Lightning bug. The paper card was gone.
Squinting, Cyrus looked up. “Where’s Dan?”