Awoken

by Timothy Miller

  The dollman released him. “The People flee?”

  Michael nodded as he brushed down his rumpled jeans. “That’s what I’ve been saying. I was making a rope so I could get out the window when everyone decided to stop by for a visit and…wait a minute. Did you say Ven?”

  The dollman bobbed his head. “The other name of the Fallen, Awoken. The People must flee.”

  Lina snorted. “Dollman, waystone, stonesong, and now Ven? I’ve been hanging out with you two less than an hour, and already I feel like I need a dictionary. Are you just making these words up as you go along?”

  “I wish,” said Michael. He turned to the dollman. “How close are they? I mean, how much time do we have?”

  The doorbell rang again, followed by a hard knock.

  The dollman glanced fearfully at the door. “The People have no time, Awoken. The Fallen have come. The Ven are here.”

  16

  Out of Time

  The knocking grew louder.

  “No. No. No.” Michael combed his fingers through his tangled hair, and tried to think. This was too soon. “This is all wrong. I was supposed to be gone before they came.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Lina asked. “And what’s a Ven, anyway?”

  “Crows and talking cats with funny eyes, and maybe a couple of psychos in sunglasses, but I’m not actually sure about that part,” Michael answered. He pressed his ear to the door. He could hear Barbara starting down the stairs. “Whatever they are, they scare the daylights out of the dollmen. And a friend of mine warned me about them a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t heard from him since. He just disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Lina repeated softly. “You think these Ven are the ones knocking right now?”

  Michael shot a thumb at the dollman. “He does, too.”

  “So what do we do?” she asked.

  Michael hesitated. What should he do? Diggs had told him the Wiffles would be safer not knowing about the Ven or the dollmen. But Michael had to do something, warn them somehow, or call the police.

  The dollman trotted back to the window and hopped up onto the sill. “The Fallen are the hunters of blood and bone, Awoken. They are death. The People must flee or die.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” said Lina. “Let’s book.”

  Michael shook his head. “I can’t go yet.”

  He reached for the doorknob, and Lina’s hand closed like a vice on his wrist.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Would you two stop grabbing at me all the time?” Michael pried at her fingers, but her skin was hard, wood-like. He felt like tree roots had grown around his arm. “Let go, Lina.”

  “No way. Didn’t you hear the bald monkey? I’m not ready to die just yet. And I need you to get this thing out of my hand. You’re leaving with me, right now.”

  Barbara’s thumping footsteps were halfway down the stairs. Michael had to do something, and fast. His eyes flickered silver, and pieces of the porcelain lamp skittered to the far corners of the room like frightened cockroaches.

  “Let go!”

  Silver fire erupted between Lina’s fingers, and she drew back her hand with a startled yelp.

  Mortified, Michael clamped down on the stonesong, and his eyes faded to brown. “Lina, I didn’t mean to…” He reached tentatively for her wounded hand. “Did I hurt you?”

  Lina jerked her hand out of reach. “Don’t touch me.” Turning her back to him, she joined the dollman at the window. “Go and die, then, see if I care. Come on, Shorty, we’re outta here.”

  The dollman shook his head. “The Awoken must follow. We are the People.”

  Lina made a sour face. “Fine. Then get out of my way.”

  The knocking came again, louder than ever.

  “Barbie!” Karl bellowed.

  “I’m coming,” Barbara hollered. “Get off your lazy rump if you’re in such a hurry!”

  “Lina, wait,” begged Michael.

  He couldn’t let her go. She had the waystone, the key to controlling the stonesong. He needed her at least as much as he needed the dollman.

  “Give me two minutes to call the cops. Then we’ll all leave together.”

  Lina lifted her foot to the sill. “Why should I?”

  Michael bit back the obvious because you need me to get out the waystone. “I just want to call the cops, okay? My foster parents have a phone in their room right down the hall. Please, Lina, give me two minutes.”

  Lina’s scowl softened. “Two minutes. Then I’m gone.”

  “Thank you.” Michael threw open the door and stepped into the hall. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  17

  The Ven’s Grin

  The phone in the Wiffles’ bedroom was dead. Michael slammed down the receiver. There was another phone in the kitchen, but if this one wasn’t working, chances were the other was just as useless. But he had to try.

  He heard Barbara opening the front door before he was halfway to the stairs.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Wiffle?” drawled a familiar voice.

  A prickling chill swept over Michael’s skin. He skidded to a stop at the top of the stairs and squatted, peeking around the banister to look downstairs.

  Karl was up after all. He and Barbara exchanged a glance before he answered the dark-suited man at the door.

  “I’m Karl Wiffle, and this is my wife, Barbara. Can I help you?”

  Smiley grinned from the doorway, a thin black briefcase in his hand. “That depends, amigo. Are you the legal guardians of Michael Stevens?”

  Michael cursed under his breath. To get to the kitchen he’d have to pass right by the door and Smiley. Now what?

  Karl’s lips tightened into a stubborn line. “What’s this all about?”

  “Oh, nothing special,” Smiley said vaguely. “Do you happen to know the current whereabouts of your foster son, Mr. Wiffle?”

  “Michael’s upstairs in his room,” Barbara said. “I just spoke to him.”

  Smiley grinned. “Excellent.”

  “He doesn’t need to know that, Barbie.” Karl puffed out his skinny chest. He looked, for all the world, like an irritated rooster wearing striped pajamas. “You had better start talking, fella. Is Michael in some kind of trouble?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Smiley flipped the briefcase flat-side up, offering the case to the Wiffles like a snack tray at a dinner party. “Have a look for yourself.”

  The Wiffles leaned closer, and the lid sprang open, ejecting a cloud of white vapor directly into their faces. Without a word, the couple collapsed lifelessly to the floor.

  “Made you look,” Smiley exclaimed cheerfully.

  No!

  Michael sprang to his feet. “Leave them alone!”

  Smiley looked up at him and his grin widened. “Or what, amigo?” Tossing the briefcase aside, he waved away the lingering vapor in the air.

  Michael’s eyes flickered. Down in the living room, the TV screen shattered in a shower of silver sparks. “If you’ve hurt them, I’ll…”

  Smiley’s lips peeled back, revealing long, yellow fangs. “You’ll what?” he growled. His shoulders and arms bulged, stretching the fabric of his jacket. Pulling off his sunglasses, he glared up at Michael with mismatched brown and green eyes. “You’ll what?”

  Michael’s mouth went dry. Smiley was a Ven. This was bad. Really, really bad.

  Smiley groaned, and thick hair began to sprout from his cheeks and neck. His stretched jacket split apart, revealing a chest covered by curly black fur. His jaw twisted and cracked, pushing into a short snout.

  Michael spun on his heel and sprinted toward his room. “Lina!”

  18

  Escape

  Michael burst into his bedroom, nearly colliding with Lina.

  “Watch out,” she snapped.

  “Move.” Michael shoved past her to his dresser. Wrapping his arms around the bulky frame, he pulled the dresser a couple
of inches from the wall. “Don’t just stand there. Help me!”

  Lina crossed her arms over her chest. “How? I don’t even know what you’re doing.”

  “He’s coming,” Michael grunted. The dresser moved another inch, stopped, and stubbornly refused to budge another centimeter. “We need to block the door.”

  A long, eerie howl echoed through the house.

  Lina was next to the dresser in a heartbeat. “Move it, muscles.”

  “This thing is heavy. We’ll have to work together.”

  “Shut up.” Lina put her shoulder to the dresser.

  “Lina, I don’t think…”

  The dresser flew across the room, crashing into the door with an explosion of splintered wood and pulverized plaster.

  Lina brushed her hands on her jeans. “What do you think?”

  “What do I think?”

  Michael spat a grimy mix of plaster dust and saliva onto the floor. The dresser completely covered the lower half of the doorway, parts of the shattered frame wedged deeply in the wall. “I think you killed my dresser. How did you… you know what, never mind. Just help me tie these sheets.”

  Quickly, they gathered up his sheets.

  “What happened to the dollman?” Michael asked as he began his first knot.

  Lina began knotting the end of one of the sheets to a bedpost. “He took off right before you came in.”

  Michael bit back a curse. Without the dollman, how was he going to get the waystone out of Lina’s hand?

  “What was that howling?” Lina jerked her knot tight.

  “A Ven, a human one.” Michael tossed the makeshift rope onto his mattress. “Help me drag the bed closer to the window.”

  Lina grabbed a bedpost. “Some guy was howling like that?”

  “No time to explain.” Michael grabbed another bedpost. “We have to get out of here.”

  A clawed hand burst through the door, tearing a two-foot long hole in the paneling as it if were tissue paper. Then a bestial face pressed through the opening. “Hello, Mike,” Smiley snarled.

  Lina screamed.

  Smiley snarled and pushed against the door. The dresser rocked an inch, but then stuck fast, keeping the door from opening.

  Michael pulled on the bed, but he was working alone. “Come on, Lina. The rope won’t reach this far. We have to get closer to the window!”

  Pushing his hairy arms through the door, Smiley dug his claws into the dresser and lifted. The particleboard broke apart in his hands, and he fell back into the hall with a howl of rage. But the damage was done. The makeshift barricade was in ruins.

  Michael let go of the bed and frantically began unknotting the sheet-rope from the bedpost. They were out of time. “Lina, get to the window. I’ll lower you down.”

  Lina didn’t move. Deathly pale, she held the bedpost, staring at the broken door with blank, uncomprehending eyes.

  “Great,” Michael said. He flogged her with the end of the sheet. “Wake up, Lina! There’s a frigging werewolf in the hall!”

  Lina blinked. “Werewolf?”

  Smiley burst through the door, showering them with plaster and paneling. Michael pushed Lina toward the window. His hand touched her arm, and the stonesong surged. Lina’s palm blazed like a supernova, filling the room with a blinding, silver light.

  Smiley howled. Covering his eyes with his forearm, the Ven tripped over the bed and crashed into the wall.

  Michael took his hand away from Lina, and the light died.

  Shaking his head like a confused bear, Smiley pushed himself away from the wall.

  “Come on.” Grabbing the strap of Michael’s backpack, Lina ran toward the window.

  “Lina, are you nu—Whoa!”

  “Hang on, Mike!” Lina leapt out the window, dragging Michael behind her into the night.

  19

  The Hounds

  Shattered glass surrounded Michael in an expanding cloud of debris as he and Lina flew over the deck and into the oak tree.

  Michael felt Lina loose her grip on his pack, and gravity took hold. He tried to grab something, but all he caught were leaves as he fell through the not-so-springy branches. He broke clear of the tree, and landed on his backpack with a muffled thump.

  With far fewer crashing noises, Lina dropped from the leaves and alighted next to him. “You okay?”

  Michael made a face. “Ouch.”

  “You’re okay,” Lina asserted. She pulled him to his feet. “Come on. We gotta move before that thing comes down here after us.”

  “I still need to call the cops.” Michael brushed off the seat of his pants and started toward the driveway. “Mrs. Finche’s house is across the street. We can call from there.”

  “Look out!”

  Lina’s tackle took Michael at the waist, knocking him to the ground. Something zipped by above his head and struck the oak in a shower of sparks.

  Lina sprang off him, and he rolled to his feet. A three-foot long steel rod quivered in the tree beside them, spitting electric-blue sparks from its shaft.

  Next to the garage, Skullface lowered what looked like some kind of harpoon gun. Reversing the weapon so that the barrel faced toward the sky, he pulled another rod from a cylindrical black quiver at his waist and slid the rod into the barrel.

  “This way,” Michael said to Lina.

  He ran for the fence at the back of the yard, making certain he put the oak between them and Skullface’s shock rifle. Mrs. Finche’s house was out. He’d have to find another way to get the Wiffles help.

  The privacy fence was six feet high. Lina hurdled the barrier like a gazelle. Grabbing the top of the fence, Michael did a chin-up, threw one elbow over the top of the barrier, and levered himself the rest of the way over. A clanging crash sounded in the yard behind him, followed by venomous cursing.

  Michael grinned. Skullface must have tripped over the garbage cans. “That should slow him down.”

  Rolling over the top of the fence, he dropped into a vegetable garden watched over by a dozen ceramic gnomes. A few feet away, Lina bounced nervously on her toes.

  “Come on. He’s right behind us.”

  Michael straightened his backpack. They were in the Nelsons’ yard, a snobbish couple he’d met only briefly when he’d first moved in. “Hang on a sec. I’m thinking.”

  The Wiffles needed help, but if he tried to wake the Nelsons they might not answer, or worse, they might think he and Lina were playing some sort of teenage prank.

  “What’s the hold-up?” Lina pressed. “Do you want to get caught?”

  “I have to call the police first,” Michael said. He nodded toward the Nelsons’ house. “The thing is, I don’t know these people all that well. And I don’t want to stand around trying to convince them while a furry beast-man and some guy with an electric harpoon gun are chasing us.”

  Lina began patting frantically at her pockets. Her face screwed up in frustration. “Great. I lost my cell phone.”

  Michael hadn’t even thought of using a cell. He’d never had one. He liked his freedom, and a phone would have just allowed the Wiffles to keep closer tabs on him.

  “We’ll just have to wake up the neighbors.”

  “Fine.” Picking up a garden gnome, Lina jogged toward the house.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling the cops.” Drawing back her arm, she threw the gnome through the Nelsons’ kitchen window. There was a fearful crash. A light flicked on the second floor, and a woman started shouting somewhere inside.

  Brushing the dirt from her hands, Lina turned to Michael. “Problem solved. Now what?”

  Judging by the Nelsons’ cries of alarm, Michael figured Lina was right. If flying, window-breaking garden gnomes didn’t get the police out here in a hurry, nothing would. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Lina followed him out of the yard, down the driveway to the street. There, they took a right, heading east toward the center of town.

  He’d done all he could for the W
iffles. Now, he had to figure out what to do about Lina and the waystone. Without the dollman, there was only one person who might be able to help.

  As they turned down Main Street, Lina asked, “Where are we going?”

  Michael gave her a sour look. They were running hard. He already had an angry stitch in his side, but Lina wasn’t even breathing heavily. “The bridge,” he panted. “I have a…friend… might…help us.”

  Lina smiled impishly. “Want me to slow down?”

  “Very…funny.”

  “Just a suggestion,” Lina said, still smiling. “I thought you boys were supposed to be tough.”

  Michael skidded to a halt.

  Lina went on for a couple of steps, then stopped and came back. “I was just kidding. Anyway, this is no time to be so sensitive.”

  “That’s not it. The stonesong…there’s something…”

  He fumbled as he tried to explain. Since the stonesong’s awakening, the music was a steady hum in his mind, a singular melody he’d learned mostly to ignore. Now, a strange new chord had joined the song, a discordant note that did not belong.

  “Something is wrong,” he whispered. “We’re not alone.”

  They were near the middle of town, a collection of hundred-year-old buildings of red brick separated by narrow alleyways. The stores had closed hours ago, and the streetlights stood scattered along the street. Shadows, dark and menacing, lurked everywhere.

  Lina didn’t waste time asking how he knew such a thing. Moving closer to him, she searched the empty streets and sidewalk through narrowed eyes. “Where?” she whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” he replied. “Hang on a sec. I’m going to try something.”

  Michael’s eyes glowed silver, and he sent stonesong sweeping out from him in all directions. The strange note wasn’t far, scratching continuously at his mind, making it easy to pinpoint the source amidst the hum of concrete.

  His eyes faded to brown, and he pointed to an alley between two office buildings. “There.”

  No sooner had he spoken than five black dogs emerged from the dark alleyway. They were huge, each as large as a full-grown lion, possessing long, wolf-like snouts and muscles bunched like steel cables beneath their dark hides. They spread out as they came, moving toward Lina and Michael in a crescent-shaped pack.