Bedlam Boyz

by Mercedes Lackey

  For a half second Kayla wanted to run away, but she stopped herself. She didn’t have to run from Nick, not now.

  “Who’s that you’re talkin’ with, Liane?” Nick got out of the car, walking over to them. “Liane, what are you doing with this punkette?”

  Before, just that look would have sent Kayla running, especially without Billy around to keep her from being scared. But now, things are different. Kayla glared back at him. “I’m talking to my friend, bozo. What’s it to you?”

  “Nick.” Liane put her hand on his arm. “Listen, I’ll just be a few minutes. Can I talk to her?”

  She’s asking permission from him. This isn’t right, this really isn’t right. “Liane—”

  “Two minutes. You got an appointment now, remember? Can’t keep people waiting.”

  Kayla pulled Liane a few feet away, closer to a wall. “Liane, what in the hell are you doing? Nick? You’re hanging out with Nick? With that total sleazeball?”

  “It’s not like that,” Liane said, glancing at where Nick was waiting, leaning against the door of the Chevy. “Really. Nick is a cool guy once you get to know him, and he gives me lots of clothes to wear, takes me out to restaurants, buys me jewelry, and we get high all the time. It’s really a lot of fun.”

  “Jesus, Liane, you can’t mean that!”

  “Kayla, you know I hated living up in Suite 230. It was dirty all the time and there was never all that much food to eat. This is so much better. I’m happy now. I’m really happy now.”

  “Come on, Liane, time to go,” Nick said, straightening up and walking toward them.

  “Liane, don’t you want to … I mean, things are working out okay by me. You don’t have to be here—”

  Nick reached out suddenly and grabbed Kayla by her jacket, shoving her against the wall. “Shut your mouth, chickie. Liane knows what she’s doing. She knows what’s good for her.”

  Kayla twisted, trying to get free. Behind Nick, she could see that Liane’s face was pale, her eyes wide.

  I could toast you, slimeball, she thought. I could call up the magic and fry your ass.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw the black boy lying on the bloody apartment floor, twisting in pain.

  No. Not that.

  “Nick, please don’t—” Liane pleaded.

  Nick glanced at her, then let go of Kayla abruptly. “Sure, baby, anything you say,” he said. “Take a hike, chickie, don’t bother us an more.”

  “Kayla, is there a problem?” It was Elizabet, standing a few feet away from them, holding two cups of soda. She surveyed the scene before her calmly, glaring at Nick.

  “It’s really okay,” Liane said. “Kayla, this is what I want. I don’t need your help.”

  “Let’s go, Liane,” Nick said, taking her by the arm and walking with her to his car. He opened the car door for her and gave Kayla a last furious glance. The Chevy screamed away into traffic a few seconds later.

  Elizabet stood quietly next to Kayla. “I’ll call Nichelle downtown,” she said. “I’m sure they can find Nick again, and Liane.”

  “She didn’t want me to help her,” Kayla said. “She didn’t want any help.”

  “Come on, child, let’s go home,” Elizabet said gently.

  Nataniel leaned back in his chair, gazing out at the lights of Las Vegas. It never ceased to amaze him the way the humans squandered so much electricity on this useless display of lights. It certainly was eye-catching, though, and garish, but still beautiful in its own way.

  Such an incredible waste of energy, he thought, like so much about the humans, especially those with the gift of magic. They live their short, useless little lives, never dreaming what they could truly accomplish. Now that would be an accomplishment worthy of an Unseelie prince … to gather the power of all of those untapped resources, guiding it where he will.

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in,” he said sharply.

  Shari entered the room. She bowed, fractionally less than the last time she had approached him, he noted with a hidden smile. Shari, in her own way, was becoming dangerous, he had decided, more questioning, edging toward disobedience. She spoke more often now of when they would return to the Unseelie Court, and he knew that she hated life among the humans, even more than most of his followers.

  Still, she been the first one to follow him of her own free will when he had been cast out of the Unseelie Court. That was worth something, and he would tolerate a small amount of insolence in the remembrance of it.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “The human girl,” Shari said, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice. “The young mage. She’s back in Los Angeles and growing in power even as we speak.”

  “Oh, really?” Nataniel asked, smiling. He wondered briefly how the human child had survived the Unseelie Court, then shrugged. She was alive, and that was all that mattered, that she was powerful enough to return to the human lands of her own will.

  “Razz and his boys, they found her in Los Angeles. She nearly killed one of them with her magic, but apparently healed him afterwards. Several others of their gang disappeared, so they’re still searching the area.

  “I find it a little hard to believe,” Shari continued, a touch of surprise tinged with something else—admiration?—in her voice. “She nearly killed someone and then healed him. Healing an enemy. Can you imagine that?”

  “She’s human, and a healer.” Nataniel shrugged. “She probably can’t bear the pain of others. We’ll change that once we have her here again.” His voice tightened. “Tell the others to prepare for war. Razz has been useful to us, but we can’t let him win this prize. We go to Los Angeles.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Wake up, sleepyhead!” Kayla said, leaning around the edge of the open door. “Come on, Elizabet, time to get up!”

  Elizabet groaned, burying her face in her pillow.

  “Elizabet, it’s almost seven-thirty. You have to get up and drive me to school, remember?” She looks a little tired, Kayla thought. But it’s time to go; I need to get to school!

  “To think that I asked for this,” Elizabet said, her face muffled by the pillow. “I asked them to sign the papers, setting you up as my foster child. I must have been on drugs to do that… .”

  “Elizabet, it’s gonna be great. It’s my first day at the new school!” Kayla sat down on the edge of the bed, watching her expectantly. “Come on, let’s go!”

  “Child,” Elizabet said, slowly getting out of bed and reaching for her bathrobe, “there is one major difference between us that you had better understand. I am a night person. I work the night shift at the station and sleep during the morning. You, on the other hand, are a day person. You go to school in the daytime and sleep at night. As long as you’re not too cheerful in the mornings, we should be able to get along just fine.”

  “Well, there’s one solution that would be really easy. You could buy me a car, since I’ll be able to get my driving permit in a couple months, and then you wouldn’t have to get up early in the morning anymore, right?” Kayla asked hopefully.

  “I’ll think about it,” Elizabet said, but Kayla caught the quick flash of her smile, like a hint of sunlight from behind clouds. “First we’ll have to see how you do in high school,” Elizabet continued, walking to the bathroom. Through the open door, Kayla could hear the sound of water running from the tap and Elizabet splashing water on her face. “Then we can maybe talk about a car.”

  Elizabet emerged from the bathroom drying her face with a towel. “So are you ready for your first day at the new high school?” she asked.

  “You bet!” Kayla said, though suddenly she was much less certain. I think I can deal with it, she thought. She’d thought quite a bit about it over the last three days, what it would be like to be back in school, meeting new kids and teachers. She hadn’t felt nervous at all yesterday when Elizabet had taken her downtown to complete the foster parent paperwork. And then they had driven to the school so Kay
la could register for classes. The school secretary had kept them waiting outside her office for ten minutes, but Elizabet only had to deliver a few seconds of what Kayla privately was starting to think of as The Eyebrow, a stern look that allowed no opposition, before the secretary quickly filed the forms, muttering something about needing Kayla’s transcripts later. So now Kayla was a registered student at Laurel High School. And now, as of this morning, she was totally terrified.

  It won’t be so bad, she tried to tell herself. They’re just kids like me. That thought stopped her. No, not like me. Not anymore. I don’t think any of them can call magic with their hands or heal somebody or hear someone else’s thoughts. I’m different now, totally different.

  As if hearing her thoughts, Elizabet said, “Don’t worry so much, child. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  “Yeah, but what … what if I run into one of Carlos’ guys or something? You don’t seem to be worried about that, but there are a couple of street gangs out there who don’t like me very much, remember?”

  Elizabet walked to her closet, reaching inside for a blouse and skirt. “They did come by,” Elizabet said. “Twice. But they haven’t been back in several days.”

  “What?” Kayla asked, surprised.

  “They came by when you were gone. From what you told me, my guess it that it was when you were in the elven lands. I think time moves a little differently there; you were there for only a few hours, but a week went by for the rest of us. Several boys pulled up in their cars at the foot of the driveway and sat there for a while. They came back, looked around, and always left without causing any trouble.”

  “I wish you’d told me that,” Kayla muttered.

  “I didn’t think it mattered too much,” Elizabet answered. “After all, they haven’t been back in several days. And we have the LAPD keeping an eye on the house, while they get their warrants amd subpoenas together.”

  “But what if they come back?” Kayla asked. “What will we do then?”

  “We’ll deal with it then,” Elizabet said, taking some pantyhose from her dresser drawer. “Go get some breakfast, child,” she continued. “We’ll have to get out of here in the next few minutes if we’re to get you to the school on time.”

  Kayla was lost in her own thoughts as Elizabet drove. I wonder what kind of people I’m going to meet at the school? I wonder if there’s going to be any good teachers? Like that teacher Ramon was telling me about. I wonder if …

  “Stop that, child,” Elizabet said from the driver’s seat, not taking her eyes off the road.

  “Stop what?” Kayla asked, surprised.

  “I can sense the magic around you,” Elizabet said. “When you worry, when you’re not paying attention, you let your magic show. That’s the real danger, child. You can’t lose control of that, not for a minute. At home, you don’t have to worry about it because I’ve taken steps to prevent any magic traces from leaking out. But if anybody is going to find you, it’ll be because of your magic, not because of a street address.”

  “Yeah, right,” Kayla said. She pushed all her worried thoughts away from her, concentrating on calmness, trying to find the burning fire inside her and quiet it down. Chill out in there, she thought, talking to the flickering blue flames as if the magic was a misbehaving child. Just chill out for a while. We’ll probably do magic lessons again tonight. You’ll get to do stuff then.

  In the magic lessons, where Kayla was now learning to “hear” better, that was something that Elizabet had taught her, to think of the magic as a little child, somebody who wouldn’t always do what she wanted but could be convinced if you talked fast enough. Her ability to hear people’s thoughts and talk directly to Elizabet with her mind was getting better, as well. Maybe I’m finally starting to get the hang of this magic thing, she thought, and smiled.

  “Well, here we are,” Elizabet said, pulling into the high school parking lot. “Try not to raise too much hell on your first morning, will you, child?” She smiled at Kayla, who grinned back her. “I’ll be waiting here at the end of your last class,” Elizabet continued, “but now I’m going home and definitely going back to sleep.”

  “See you later,” Kayla said, climbing out of the VW.

  This is a great-looking school, she decided. Twenty million kids all running into their classes. And a few of them even have hair that’s more punked out than mine. Not too many with this kind of cool leather jacket, though.

  Ramon’s jacket. I wonder how he’s doing?

  She felt smugly proud at having achieved black leather superiority over the other students.

  Kayla walked to the school secretary’s office. The gray-haired woman assigned a student worker to escort her to her first class, who also introduced her to the instructor of the English Literature course. The dark-haired man with the handlebar mustache gestured for Kayla to take one of the empty chairs, then continued his detailed explanation of the relationships in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

  Kayla listened in spite of herself, fascinated by the teacher’s command of language and the way he stopped every few minutes to recite a few lines from the play, becoming that character for several seconds, bringing the play to life. “And tomorrow we’ll watch a film version of Romeo and Juliet, and then compare that to West Side Story,” he concluded, just as the bell rang. Kayla blinked, realizing that the hour had gone by without her even noticing it.

  Now all I have to do is figure out how to get to Building 12, Room 3, Kayla thought, gathering up her notebooks. She waited until the rush of students leaving the room had died down a bit before walking out into the hallway.

  “You looked like you were really into that Shakespeare stuff,” someone said from directly behind her.

  Kayla glanced back and saw a young man with an unruly mop of wild red hair. He was grinning at her.

  “Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool,” she said. “Listen, maybe you can help me out. I need to figure out how to get to my next class.”

  “Hey, no problem,” the redhead said. “My name’s Mike, what’s yours?”

  “Kayla,” she said. “Kayla Smith.”

  “Oh, you’ve got Tokugawa next for biology, too,” Mike said, leaning over to look at her class schedule on top of her notebook. “She’s a killer, probably the toughest teacher in the whole school. And you’ve got Wilson for English Grammar after that. Looks like we’ve got pretty much the same schedule, which makes sense if you’re in the Honors program, too.”

  “Honors program?” Kayla said. “I didn’t know Elizabet signed me up for that.”

  “Who’s Elizabet? Your stepmom?”

  “No, my … uh … my guardian. It’s a long story,” she added at his confused look.

  “Yeah, well, tell it to me over lunch. We’d better get ourselves to class.” They walked quickly across the quad to another building, where Mike introduced her to two of his friends, Stephanie and Bert, just before the bell rang to begin biology class. Miss Tokugawa, a tiny Oriental woman, began her lecture on genetics. Kayla realized that Mike was absolutely right: this class was going to be a killer. But an hour later, she knew a lot more about genetics than she had before.

  English Grammar was almost a relief after that, and Kayla was rather pleased when Mrs. Wilson turned out to be a cheerful, exuberant young woman who obviously loved what she was teaching.

  After the class ended, Kayla caught up with Mike and his friends in the hallway. He saw her and smiled. “Hey, Kayla, we’re thinking of going and getting burgers for lunch. Do you want to go?”

  “I thought you needed a lunch pass to leave the school,” Kayla said. “At least, I thought that’s what the secretary told me.”

  “Well, yeah.” Mike shrugged. “Or you could just climb the fence, which is what we usually do. It’s no big deal; they don’t really care all that much. We should all take journalism next semester. That way you get an automatic gate pass. Let’s go, guys.”

  Kayla followed them out the building and around the school aut
o shop to a deserted area of fence. I hope Mike’s right about this. I’d really hate to get busted on my first day at a new school.

  Mike scaled the wire fence with the ease of someone who’s been practicing it for a long time, and Steph and Bert started up as well. Kayla sighed and began pulling herself up the chain links. She jumped down lightly to join the others on the other side. This isn’t too bad, she thought. First day here, already making some friends, some cool guys who aren’t afraid of a little adventure. Though I bet they wouldn’t believe the kind of adventures I’ve had lately.

  “We usually go to the Burger Shack just over there across the street,” Mike said, starting across the wide boulevard.

  “Mike, watch out!” Steph yelled. Mike looked up, too late.

  The oncoming driver slammed on his brakes, but not fast enough.

  He’s going to hit him! He’s going to—

  Mike yelled once, a hoarse sound, and then the blue car hit him, knocking him up the hood of the car. He landed hard against the windshield. The blue car squealed to a stop a few feet further down the road. Mike slid off the hood onto the asphalt, lying very still on the street.

  “Oh, shit …” Kayla was kneeling next to him a minute later. He was still conscious, staring at her, his mouth moving but not making any sound.

  She put her hands on his shoulders and her other vision peeked in a moment later. He’s hurt on the inside, bleeding. No broken bones, but I’d better stop that bleeding. Relief swept through her as she realized that he’d be okay. And then she called the magic out from that tiny safe place where she’d hidden it away from sight, freeing it to run through her. She could feel it skittering down her arms beneath the leather jacket, tickling her hands. She knelt closer over Mike so her body would shield the light, closed her eyes, and let the magic flow through her.