Dust City (26 page)

I’ve arrived at Siobhan’s apartment, where she lives with Gram. Seeing myself from the outside, I can believe what folks say. I’m a beast. I’m a wolf at the door. Wet nostrils flaring, muscles on my back straining through torn clothes. Broomlike hair blossoming from my cuffs, doing nothing to conceal long, leathery fingers tipped with claws (or what’s left of them, at least). Hot slaver foams between clenched teeth, dripping over my rubbery lips. I look like an animal.

There’s a twitch inside me. I remember now: Eden. Fiona. Karl and Ludwig. Richard. Faelynn. Skinner—and what he did to himself.

What am
I
about to do? To Siobhan and Gram, a girl and her grandmother. Like father, like son.

The twitch is drowned out. There’s nothing inside me but irrational anger. I’ve no control. I have to battle this. I inhale sharp, ragged breaths. I’m convulsing. My paw—cosmically huge in this elven place—reaches for the door. I tear the knob out of the wood, leaving a wound I can see through.
The scent of incense filters out. A dull smash of my shoulder and the door crumbles like bread.

Siobhan’s lying asleep, swaddled in bloodred blankets. I’m on the verge of lunging. This can’t be my fate. It can’t be. I’m not a murderer.

I hear the click of loose joints, the creak of loose wood. It’s Gram, crooked as a winter willow, wrapped in a black housecoat and elven slippers. She looks confused.

“Henry?”

Behind her is a window. The fire escape. There’s another way. I can fix this.

The primitive bloodlust takes hold, and I lunge at her—but the moment my father described has come—the one moment I’m in control again. If I recognize it, I can use it.

Gram screams, and my brain sends a desperate message to my legs. I push sideways, veering into the glass, crashing through, spinning over the black metal, falling into the dark.

Motes of light hover like dust. They gather in wriggling caterpillars of light, crawling into shapes. A hand, a wing . . .

Faelynn floats down, humming her lullaby. She’s real enough to touch. Her face is like a sun, brighter and brighter until she swallows me up in brilliant blue light.

This must be where they went. A distant land where winged creatures, luminous and divine, take care of everything.

I can only hope it’s real.

42

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

THE LIGHT HURTS, SO I KEEP MY EYES SHUT. I SNIFF INSTEAD, BUT THERE’S
only an empty scent. Wherever I am, it reeks of sterility. I try pricking up my ears.

“Henry?”

“See his ears? They twitched.”

I recognize that voice.

“I think he’s awake.”

I recognize that one, too. Gravel and honey. My senses are returning. I can smell things again. I smell nutmeg. Old coal and applesauce. Peppermint and stale sweat. Cherry blossoms.

“Henry?”

It stings, but I open my eyes. All I see are hints of the real world. Everything is sideways. Because I’m lying down. In a strange bed. My big feet (as always) are hanging over the end.

“How do you feel?”

“Henry?”

“Why won’t he say something?”

“Can you speak?”

“I think so,” I tell them, but my throat’s coarse and full of phlegm. I cough it up and spit sideways, over a silver railing.

“Gross!”

“Woah there, big guy, if you’re gonna start puking, give us fair warning, huh?”

I
must
be dead. That sounds like—

“Jack?”

“I’m right here.” I feel a little pink hand patting my forearm. “Guess you sorta saved my life. When Skinner kicked it, the spell was broken. Thanks for that.” Jack’s face comes into cloudy focus. Sly, boyish, full of mischief. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” he says.

“I’m not dead?”

He grins at me. “You think heaven looks like the wolf ward at City General?”

“Who told you I was going to heaven?”

“You’re
alive
—and thanks to you and your girl, so am I.”

“Fiona?”

“She’s right here.”

Other faces emerge from the glare. They orbit me like planets. Siobhan, Mrs. L, Detective White, Fiona. “Glad to have you back,” she says.

“What happened?”

“You’ve been unconscious for days now,” Mrs. L tells me. “We’ve all been waiting.”

Fiona places her paw over mine. “You’re kind of a hero.”

“I am?”

“Well, we both are, actually.”

“I certainly don’t feel like one.”

White leans on my bed. “When we scraped you outta that alley, we found a roll of film in your pocket.”

I look at Fiona. “The one you gave me.”

White tosses a newspaper onto my chest. “Check it out. All thanks to you two.” On the front page there’s a photograph of me, taken in this room while I was still out. Fiona’s standing beside me, holding my paw, gazing at my face (she’s a hell of a lot more photogenic than I am). The headline says: W
OLFISH
Y
OUTHS
U
NCOVER
C
ONSPIRACY
.
White taps the page with her finger.

“Nimbus Thaumaturgical,” she says. “The whole company is under investigation. As we speak, the police are digging up the deadwood forest out east.”

“What about the—” I’m not even sure what to call them. “The
animals
. The experiments. There was a fox called Jerry.”

White shakes her head. “We found them, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything we can do about it. Nimbus threw all their science at turning them into those things. It’s doubtful there’s enough magic left—in the ground, in the trees,
anywhere
—to change them back.”

I remember how noble they looked, pacing in their cages. Pure and regal. Blood memories come to life. But it’s hardly any comfort.

I turn to Siobhan. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

She smiles. “You gave Gram a scare, but she claims she
enjoyed
it. Says it was like being the heroine of her very own fairytale.”

I have to laugh at that. Like I said when I first met her, it’s hard not to like that old woman. “And what about Roy?” I ask Fiona. “Is he okay?”

“I told you,” she answers. “Guys like Roy always pull through.” She leans in, nearly nuzzling my face. “Actually,” she whispers, “he gave me express instructions. As soon as you come around, he wants to see you.”

“I’m not sure,” says Mrs. L, “it’s such a good idea for Henry to be up and moving around right away.”

Siobhan shrugs. “Don’t worry. Jack can steal us a wheelchair.”

Roy’s lounging on his hospital bed like an emperor, limbs spilling over the railing on either side. There’s a shunt taped into his arm, but otherwise he looks like his old self. Spread across his lap are two expansive trays, each covered with plastic bowls full of peas and carrots and an unidentifiable mash. Fiona parks me at the foot of his bed.

“Hank-man,” he growls. “You came back to us.”

“Hi, Roy.” I wring my paws together in my lap. If I weren’t sitting on my tail, it’d be dipping very low right about now.

“Relax,” he says. “All I wanted to say is this: no hard feelings.” He rips into a crusty dinner roll, nodding as he
chews. “I mean it,” he assures me, spraying a blizzard of crumbs all the way to his feet. “Bygones, right? Let’em be.”

“You mean that?” This is not the Roy I remember. Something’s changed. I sort of imagined he summoned me here so he could pummel me back into a coma. I would’ve taken it, too. I deserve some kind of payback after what I did to him. And there’s nothing Roy relishes more than a plate of icy revenge. But then I figure it out. “You don’t remember what happened, do you?”

“’Course I do. You nearly killed me. But no big deal.” He waves away any offense with a glass of orange juice. It spills a yellow glop on his propped-up pillows. “Turns out it was exactly what I needed.”

“Excuse me?”

He looks to his sister. “Bring him around, Fifi.”

“Fifi?”

Her eyes shoot daggers at me. “It’s what
my mother
calls me,” she says. “Roy gets special dispensation cuz he’s my brother.
You,
one the other hand”—she pokes the back of my neck—“are
not
a relation.”

“Hey,” says Roy, “I was talking here?” As soon as I’m within reach, he snatches my wrist, squeezing until the bones creak. I assume this has all been a trick. He’s been lulling me closer, calculating his revenge the whole time. But then I see his face isn’t slung with its usual scowl. His eyes are wide and innocent.

“I wasn’t out the whole time,” he says. “Now and again, I
came around.” He fills himself with a long breath. “This one night, I woke up and everything was dark. The only light was coming from way down the hall. Emergency lights, I figured. But they were weird colors, blue and green and gold.” If he was trying to draw me in, he’s succeeded. I prick up my ears. “The light was moving,” he tells me. “Moving all over, spreading like a fire. It was getting brighter, too, coming down the hall. And I admit it, I was scared. The light came right up and then around the corner, right in through the doorway.” He pulls me even closer. “Do you know what it was?”

I don’t have to guess. I saw the very same thing.

“I don’t know,” I lie. “What was it?”

“A fairy, Hank-man, a
real
fairy. She was here.
Right here
—floating right over my bed. She came here to see me.
Me—
a big dumb wolf. Can you believe it?”

Fiona looms over my shoulder. “Tell him, Henry. It was all a crazy dream, right? I mean, you and me saw first-hand what really—”

“
No-no-no.
” Roy wags his head with a little of his old rage. “I know all about what you saw and what you found—Skinner and the nixies and the dust-makers and all that. And sure, maybe that’s all true, but I know what I saw was real. It was no dream. And you know what that means? That means they never got rid of
all
of them.” He looks up, searching the air around the room. “Me,” he says softly. “She came to visit
me
—Roy Sarlat. And she’s still out there, I guess. Lookin’ out for me.”

“Who knows? Maybe you’re right.”

Fiona flicks the back of my head. “Don’t encourage him.”

Roy’s still lost in his memory. His eyes go glassy, and his grip on my wrist loosens a little, though he’s not ready to let me go. “You know what she said to me? She said, ‘What do you want?’ That’s all. ‘What do you want?’ And I thought, ‘This is it—this is my once-in-a-lifetime chance.’ So I thought about it real hard for a real long time, and in the end it was easy. I want things to get better, Hank-man. And that’s what I told her. She turned to me and said, ‘Then you know what you have to do.’ So I said to her, ‘Yeah, I think I do know.’ I gotta treat folks better, stop throwing my weight around so much.” He yanks me closer. His lips are flecked with crumbs. “And you know what I told her then? You know what I said to her?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘I gotta be more like Henry.’ That’s what I told her. I even said your name. She smiled at me and she waved her wand, and
all this dust
came out. I mean, the real deal, the true pure stuff. And the next thing I knew the lights were back on and I was wide awake.” He throws an apple into his mouth and chomps it whole.

Fiona sighs. “Who woulda thought my big lug of a brother was blessed with such a vivid imagination?”

Roy lets go of my wrist, patting it with the gentleness of a child. “I guess that’s why I wanted to see you. If it wasn’t for you landing me in this place, I never would’ve met my fairy godmother.”

43

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SPECIES

IF YOU LOOK AT IT FROM THE TOP OF SEAWAY HILL, THE DEADWOOD FOREST IS
vast. Thousands of trees strain up from the earth, yearning toward Eden. Seeing them now—uprooted, lying prone on flatbed trucks, cordoned off by the garish yellow of police tape—it seems so obvious. All those trees are the final remnants of the old magic.

This morning, the newspapers reported that the assets of Nimbus Thaumaturgical have been frozen. It’s unlikely their new slate of fairydust will ever leave the warehouse. There’s even speculation that the company will file for bankruptcy in the coming weeks. They say it’s only a question of time. So it seems things are really going to change. There’s one thing, however, that’s still the same.

I turn away from the deadwoods and face the prison. Loping up to the gates, I’m watched by the guards, who glare at me with leery eyes.

Dad comes out in chains. The same two globs I remember lock him to the chair on the far side of the glass.

“Hi, Dad.”

He smiles. His face fissures into a million cracks. “I heard about what you did.”

“I didn’t do much.”

“A lot of guys in here carry around hefty scores they’d like to settle with Skinner. Nearly all of them wanted him dead—I know
I
did. But none of us could figure out how to get it done.” He taps the glass with one claw. “You made me a hero in here. I’m the pop of the kid who killed Skinner.”

“Actually—”

“Don’t spoil it for me, son. That dwarf was a cancer, and now he’s gone. That’s cuz of you.”

“Maybe.”

“Things’re gonna change now. You’ll see.”

I press my palm to the glass. “They aren’t changing the way I thought they would.”

Dad doesn’t say anything, but he knows what I mean. “They halved my sentence, at least.”

“You told me they’d let you go. If it turned out you were telling the truth.”

He gives me a watery, apologetic smile. “They have to be cautious. Like it or not, I’m still a wolf. We come with a reputation, one that goes way back.”

“A blood memory.”

He laughs through his snout. “That’s a poetic way of putting it.”

“So how long?” I ask him. “How long before they stop being cautious?”

“They’re going to give me a retrial, in light of all the new evidence they’re digging up. There’s a good chance I’ll be out of here in a couple years’ time.”

“A couple years?”

“Even if I wasn’t in control that night, it was still these claws and these teeth that killed those folks.”

I nod, and for a moment we both sit in silence.

“I know how it was now,” I tell him. “There was nothing you could do, was there?”