It wasn’t in the form of regular musical notation (even at the age of seven, she’d already been in the church choir for two years and had learned to read music). The page she was looking at was blank. She was stunned and delighted, however, when the book actually sang to her. She remembered looking for the switch that would turn it off and on, as if it were a toy, but there was none. It was just a book—but she heard the melody loud and clear. It was a simple melody, and as she hummed along with it, she thought it was perhaps the most beautiful music she’d ever heard. She hummed it again and then she had started to sing, making up words as she went. She was amazed that so simple and so exquisite a melody hadn’t been discovered by a hundred songwriters over the years. It seemed to her like the perfect tune every composer throughout time had tried but failed to capture.
The next day when she’d gone to school, she’d heard the melody everywhere, and lyrics came easily to her mind to fit whatever the circumstances were. It wasn’t just that the music was stuck in her head for days (although it certainly was). It was repeated everywhere—in the twitter of the birds, in the laughter of the other children as they played, in the wind and the rain and the leaves that skipped down the street in front of her grandmother’s comfortable old house. Variations and harmonies of it came from the engine of the plane flying high above, from the insects that chirped and buzzed in the deep grasses outside of the playground, from the bass notes of a lawnmower grumbling in the distance. The footsteps of her scampering playmates formed the percussion and the gentle whisper of the wind through the trees played the strings.
That Sunday in church Dalton was to sing a solo, a gospel version of “How Great Thou Art.” But in the instant of anticipation before she began, when all those devout eyes were trained upon her, when the pianist’s fingers hung suspended above the keys waiting for her to begin and the only sounds were the occasional cough and shuffle of the faithful, something within Dalton said, Sing the other song. And she had.
The result wasn’t at all what she expected—although in truth, she hadn’t known what to expect. During the first half of the thirty-second song, a radiant smile budded on each parishioner’s face. By the time it was finished, their eyes had drifted closed, their necks had gone limp. When the last note faded from her throat, no one clapped or shouted amen. In fact, there was no movement, no reaction from the congregation at all. The only sound was a faint snore coming from a heavyset man named Mr. Barnes who sat in the back row of pews. Everyone, every last person in the church, had fallen asleep, except for herself and her grandma.
Little Dalton had stood there stunned, looking around with a rising sense of confusion, when one by one, the congregants began to wake up. Each of them was smiling, grinning broadly, as if they were bubbling over with so much joy that their mouths were simply powerless to contain it. They started clapping and one by one they got to their feet to give Dalton a standing ovation.
She’d asked her grandmother about it when they got home that evening.
“That’s the Song of Peace,” Lily Rose told her. “What a mighty fine song it is! And you sing it better than anyone, sugar plum.” That was all the old woman had ever said on the subject.
Dalton had consulted The Good Book a few times in the ensuing years, looking for answers to all kinds of questions, but it never showed her anything else. Her grandmother was always asking her to sing the song for people—for the geezers at Middleburg Retirement Park, for the kids at the nursery school, and of course for the church—anywhere people might be in need of a little solace and rest. She tried to arrange a tour, so that Dalton could perform at all the churches in the area, and she was always urging Dalton to practice her singing. Dalton knew her grandmother’s dream for her was to be a famous recording artist, sharing her talent and that special, mysterious song with the world, but Dalton had always resisted. For a while she wanted to be a lawyer, then a dental hygienist. Lately, she’d been thinking of going into architecture. She was open to doing just about anything, except being a singer.
It wasn’t that her first performance of the song had freaked her out or anything like that. It was simply that no other songs she sang could compare to the one she’d learned from The Good Book. Singing them was like eating dry rice cakes when you knew you could be feasting on a porterhouse steak. She was always hesitant to sing the Song of Peace, and only did it when she couldn’t talk her grandma out of it. She never told anyone why, or even admitted it to herself, but the truth was, deep down in her soul she wasn’t sure she was worthy to perform that glorious, transcendent song.
“I don’t know if I can do it, Grandma. I haven’t sung it in so long,” she protested now.
Lily Rose came over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re scared, honey bun,” she said. “But that venom old Master Chin got a dose of is powerful stuff, and even in someone as strong as he is, it moves fast. Faster than all the herbs and poultices and magic and prayers we have. The only chance he has is to go into a deep, deep sleep—so deep that his heart almost stops beating. Then the venom will stop spreading, and we might be able to save him. But if you don’t sing for him, Dalton, he is going to die.”
Lily Rose’s age-worn face was as kind as ever, but there was such gravity in her extraordinary eyes that it filled Dalton with alarm.
Dalton looked from her grandmother to Master Chin, who was still twitching, sweating, and muttering in his sleep, and she sighed. She hardly ever cried, but she felt like she might now.
“I know, darlin’,” her grandmother soothed. “There’s nothing in the world scarier than your own power. But I’ll tell you a little secret: the only thing scarier than using it is not using it.”
Dalton felt her grandmother take her hand and squeeze. She felt the old woman’s thin, loose skin; her swollen, knobby knuckles; and most of all the strength and vitality that Lily Rose still had, despite her age.
And, Dalton suddenly realized, the greatest fear she had wasn’t of her own power or her singing or how it might affect people. Most of all, she feared letting her grandmother down and not living up to the beautiful, saintly, unattainable example she’d always set.
“You’re good enough, Dalton. Always have been, always will be,” Lily Rose said simply, as if she could read her mind. “You can do it—and you must.”
She squeezed Dalton’s hand once more, then turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her.
As soon as she was gone Dalton moved closer to Master Chin’s bedside and gazed down at him as he tossed fitfully, his brow furrowed and sweaty. Taking a deep, slow breath and closing her eyes, Dalton began the song.
Outside, the birds went silent as if they didn’t want to miss even one exquisite note. The melody washed over Dalton, lifting her up with each soaring phrase. Lyrics came to her in a language she didn’t understand, and yet they soothed her as they seemed now to soothe Master Chin. The sound of her own voice gave her goose bumps.
And when she looked down, Master Chin had settled into deep and peaceful sleep, with a placid smile on his face.
* * *
The Toppers sat around a large round table in Spinnacle’s VIP area in chairs made of sleek, burnished steel with black leather cushions. The floors were of polished hardwood. Expensive abstract paintings graced the walls and fine silk curtains framed a huge picture window that looked out across the barren winter fields north of town. A deepening twilight seemed to descend upon them through the skylights above, its luminous purple fading fast to the desolate blackness of night.
Once, this place and all its sophistication and luxury had been a symbolic refuge for the Toppers—the one place in town where their Flatliner enemies could never follow them simply because they couldn’t afford it. That had never bothered Zhai before. Now he felt like he was in enemy territory.
Normally, the guys would have been laughing and joking around, but now they all wa
ited, staring at each other in stony silence.
Zhai glanced at his watch. Seven-ten, and still Rick hadn’t shown up. The way things looked, none of the other guys would say a word until he did.
Just as that thought crossed Zhai’s mind, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the steps to the second floor, and a moment later Rick entered the room with Bran a few feet behind him. Zhai noticed something different about their demeanors at once. Rick’s usual arrogant grin was even more brazen and cockier than he’d ever seen it. Bran, on the other hand, looked exhausted and nervous. If Zhai had believed in vampires, he might have thought that Rick was growing more powerful by sucking away the lifeblood of his best friend.
“Hey,” all the guys said to Rick and Bran, almost in unison. Bran returned the greetings, but Rick remained silent as he took his usual place in the corner, slumped into his chair and put his size-thirteen feet up on the table.
Zhai cleared his throat. “Okay, thanks for coming, guys. It’s been a while since we all hung out like this, huh?”
His icebreaker was met with an awkward silence, so he continued. “Look, I know some of you are pissed that I’ve been helping the Flatliners look for Raphael Kain, and I get that. I really do. But what you all need to understand is that whatever problems we’ve had, Raphael and I are bound by the Wu-de. That means we’re brothers, training under Master Chin, no matter what our differences are. So even though he’s sworn himself to be my enemy, I’m obligated to look for him. Besides, think about it: if I help bring him back, that’s also the best way to end our feud with the Flatliners. Raphael can’t keep hating us if we save his life, right?”
Michael Ponder was the first to speak up. “Even if we agree,” he said, “how do you expect to save his life or find him or whatever? He got hit by a train in case you forgot. And he got vaporized. We all saw it. He’s gone, Zhai. And good riddance.”
Some of the other guys nodded.
Zhai tried a new tack. “All right, look—I’m not asking you to agree with me or even understand where I’m coming from. All I’m asking is that you let me borrow the little pieces of broken crystal you picked up from the tracks after Raphael got hit. I’ll even buy them from you, if you want.”
“Why?” Cle’von Cunningham asked. “What are you doing with them?” He didn’t seem angry or concerned, just mildly curious.
“Well . . . okay, this may sound strange,” Zhai said. “But . . . the thing is, those guys are looking for them—the guys in the Derby hats we saw that night, with the snake. If they get hold of them, something bad is going to happen. They already attacked us—Master Chin and me. And Chin got hurt—badly. ”
“So we won’t give the pieces to those guys,” D’von said. “But that doesn’t mean we should give them to you. Unless you need them for something.”
“Yeah,” Cle’von agreed. “Why exactly do you need them?” Everyone looked at Zhai.
A waitress came in with a pitcher of water and put it on the table. Sensing the tension in the room, she turned quickly and walked out.
Rick took his feet off the table and leaned forward in his seat. It was the first time he’d moved during the conversation. “He wants to use them to find Raphael Kain,” Rick said, his eyes burning into Zhai’s. Zhai noticed a greater intensity about him than usual, and it was unnerving. It was all Zhai could do to keep from looking away.
“Is that right?” Michael Ponder asked, his tone verging on outrage. “Is that why you want them?”
Zhai looked around the table at his friends. He felt them all slipping away from him, like a tide receding from a deserted beach, leaving him stranded, alone.
“Yes,” he said simply. “We all saw what happened during the blizzard. There are things going on in Middleburg. Crazy things. Supernatural things. Those guys in the hats belong to a cult called the Order of the Black Snake—Obies for short. And Master Chin said that if we don’t bring Raphael back and keep the crystal shards away from them, we’re all going to be in very serious trouble.”
“And he knows this how?” Rick asked smugly.
Zhai hesitated. “There are these tapestries,” he explained. “Maggie’s mom does them—”
D’von blurted out a big, deep laugh, cutting Zhai off. “That crazy old broad who leaves her house about once every three years?” Cle’von laughed too and all the other guys joined in, except Bran. He sat there the whole time, perfectly still, taking everything in, as if his slightest movement would cause the whole world to shatter.
“No,” Zhai argued. “You need to listen. She’s not crazy. She works on the tapestries all the time—that’s why she never goes anywhere. They’re important—they have some kind of strange power. Maggie’s mom draws all the designs and then embroiders them—and they show the history of Middleburg. And its future.”
“Zhai, come on!” Dax Avery scoffed. “You sound as crazy as old lady Anderson. This is ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Zhai asked. “You all saw what happened that night. The giant snake, the Obies, Orias, Aimee, the train—and what about that thing Maggie did? All that power that came out of her when she put the homecoming crown on her head and went after the cobra? You guys can’t deny that you saw it.” Zhai’s voice rose with desperation on each word.
“Sorry, man,” D’von said, and Zhai couldn’t believe how much in denial they were. “Those Flatliners are blabbing all over school about how they’re going to kick our asses for beating up their friend. And we’re supposed to help them? Gimme a break! It’s not happening.”
All the Toppers looked at Rick to make sure he was in agreement, and then they nodded, too.
Coming into this meeting, Zhai believed that the friendship and respect he shared with the Toppers would be enough to convince them give him the shards. Now, he saw that the regard they’d once had for him was nothing compared to their hatred for the Flatliners—and their fear of Rick.
“I’m still your leader,” Zhai said sternly. He stood and looked around at each of them, one by one. “And I’m ordering each of you to bring me your piece of the ring—by nine tonight.”
Something in his tone—true authority, he thought, perhaps a gift of Shen—was making them take him seriously. They all looked like little kids who’d just been yelled at by their parents—except Rick, who was chuckling.
“Something funny, Rick?” Zhai asked.
“Yeah,” Rick said, slowly coming to his feet. “It’s funny that you still think you’re the leader here.”
The energy in the room changed as the group, frozen in silence, waited to see how Zhai would respond to Rick’s challenge.
“I seem to remember that the last time we talked about leadership, I beat you down in your backyard. So, yes, I am the leader,” Zhai said, fighting to stay calm.
“You betrayed every one of us the minute you started looking for Kain,” Rick snapped. “You’re a traitor, Zhai. I’m the leader now.”
Zhai glanced around the table, gauging the reactions of the other Toppers. They were all staring down at the table cloth, avoiding eye contact with him. The only one who looked back at him was Bran, but he still had that wild, vacant expression in his eyes.
“The law of the Toppers says you can only become the new leader by beating the current leader in a fight,” Zhai said.
“Let’s do it,” Rick said, already rolling up his sleeves. “And we can make it even more interesting.”
“How?” Zhai asked.
“You win,” Rick said. “And the guys will all give you their pieces of that useless broken glass.” He looked at the others for confirmation. “Isn’t that right?”
They all nodded but kept silent. Rick smiled lazily, enjoying himself. “If I win, I get control of the Toppers and all the pieces of that stupid ring—which I will then grind into dust. So if it’s true—if that is the way to find Raphael�
��we’ll never have to look at his miserable face again.” He chuckled again, and it sounded guttural, almost unnatural. “Deal?”
Zhai stared at Rick. There was something different about him, but Zhai couldn’t figure out what it was. Was he bigger somehow? Maybe. Cockier? Definitely. Whatever it was, it gave Zhai an uncharacteristic feeling of dread. Still, this might be his only chance to gather up the shards of the ring and, by extension, his only chance to save Middleburg from the Obies.
“Deal,” Zhai said.
Chapter 10
Finally, Raphael couldn’t take it any longer. He’d napped in the big leather command chair for hours, gone through his kung fu form no less than ten times, and done pushups on the cab’s ancient-looking floorboards until his muscles trembled. He’d even tried to decipher the strange markings on the train’s gauges. When every other option was exhausted, he’d stared out at the billows of fog whooshing past the windshield until he felt like he was being hypnotized.
But still, the train continued its inexorable and meteoric forward motion. It didn’t slow or speed up or turn. And the fog didn’t abate or change, not even for an instant. Though he was rocketing toward some unknown destination, Raphael felt like he was in an eerie state of suspension.
He had no clue how much time had passed—minutes, hours, or days. He was leaning toward days, although strangely enough, he was neither hungry nor thirsty. For hours, he’d obsessed over what might be going on in Middleburg and how he might get back there, but after a while he’d simply decided it was out of his control and pushed it out of his mind. He was terribly bored for a long time, but eventually that receded, too, leaving him pleasantly vacant, neither happy nor sad, neither relaxed nor anxious, utterly devoid of expectation.
He’d also given up trying to guess where the train might end up. For all he knew, it would go on like this forever. The thought terrified him at first, but now he was strangely okay with it.
This feeling of complete surrender reminded him of his Master Chin’s qigong training, and he immediately settled down in the leather armchair and began to meditate.
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