Fenzy (22 page)

David dived into the antechamber, rolled, and jumped up. Pain told him his broken arm had taken another bang, but he had no time for pain. The portal door stood open. Xander held Toria in his arms and leaned his shoulder against the door, making sure it didn’t shut. David knew that if the door wanted to close, it would no matter what, but he understood his brother’s desire to try.

“Go!” Dad yelled, pressing his back against the hall door.

Xander spun into the portal. He and Toria wavered behind it and dropped out of sight.

The hallway door thumped. Dad jerked forward. It opened a few inches and shut again.

“Dad,” David said, “they’ll follow us over!”

“Grab the other items, Dae. On the bench.”

David snatched up a pair of sandals, a coin, and some kind of whip with strands of leather attached to a wooden handle. “Got them!”

The hallway door jarred open again, and Dad pushed it shut. He sprang forward, tackled David around the waist, and together they sailed into the portal. David’s stomach lurched. Sunlight struck his eyes, and he tumbled over something hard. He felt a sharp yank on his shoulder and realized he was dan-gling over a stone railing. Dad was leaning over it, gripping his wrist.

Above and behind Dad, the portal shimmered. Phemus appeared in the rectangle, frowning down on them. He swiveled his head, and David thought he was looking for the antecham-ber items. The door swung around. Phemus saw it and got his fingers around the edge. They slipped off, and the door filled the portal. The sparkling rectangle broke apart and was gone.

David looked down. He was hanging twenty feet above a stone-paved street. Most of the people in sight were draped in tunics. Several stared up at him. They pointed, directing others to turn and see. Directly below lay the sandals and whip he’d taken from the antechamber. An old man rushed over, picked them up, and shambled off.

“Hey!” David yelled at him.

“I got you,” Dad said.

“I lost the items!”

“That’s okay,” Dad said. “Toria has some, enough to get us home.” He pulled David up and over the railing.

Xander stepped onto the balcony through a doorway, holding Toria’s hand. He looked around. “Are we safe?”

“Away from Phemus and Taksidian, if that’s what you mean,” David said. “As far as safe, who knows?”

“Do you think that was it, Dad, Taksidian’s attack on David?” Xander said. “Is Dae safe now?”

“No,” David said. “You’re not cut.”

Xander rubbed his chin. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Jesse’s dad said I had a gash on my chin when I went back and told him about . . . about you.”

“You could have gotten it afterward,” Dad said. “We can’t let our guard down. Not until we’re positive we’ve changed what you said happens.”

If
we changed it
, David thought, but didn’t say. Instead, he looked around. “Where do you think we are?” he said.

They scanned the area from the balcony. Animals in the streets. Trinket and food vendors. Every structure appeared to be made out of stone, wood, or dried mud. Under the baking sun, the entire scene appeared painted from only hues of tan and beige.

“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Looks Middle Eastern or African. Depending on
when
it is, could be anywhere.”

“Rain’s still coming,” Toria said.

David followed her gaze. A mass of black clouds churned in the far distance. Lightning flashed inside it. Looked to him more like a storm than a simple shower. It made him uneasy.

CHAPTER
forty-nine

Xander pointed his thumb at the room beyond the balcony. “It’s like an apartment in there. Old-looking furniture. I mean, not old for this time, I guess. All rough wood.”

“So,” David said, “what do we do?”

“Wait for the pull,” Dad said. “Then hope Taksidian’s gone when we get home.”

“Well, I hope he is there,” Xander said. “I’m going to
kill
him.”

“Xander,” Dad said.

“I am! Like he said, he’s not playing games anymore. He came right at us, and he wasn’t using that knife to clean under his nails.” He backhanded David’s arm. “Didn’t I tell you something big was coming? I knew Taksidian wasn’t going to play nice for long.”

David scowled. “When did he
ever
play nice? He sent the cops after us, then Phemus and his goon-friends. He stabbed Jesse and
took his finger
. He chained us up—and tried to send us to war! If that’s your idea of nice, remind me never to make you mad.”

“Not me,” Xander said. “Taksidian, and everything he’s done before was sneaky. He got Jesse when he was alone. He got us in Atlantis, where they don’t care. This time, he broke into our house—right through the front door—and came after all of us, Dad too.”

“I agree, Xander,” Dad said. “He just laid all his cards on the table, and he’s not going to stop until either he’s dead . . . or we are.”

“Daddy!” Toria said, grabbing his hand in both of hers. “I’m scared.”

He rubbed his hand over her cheek. “It’s okay, baby. We’ll figure something out.”

David felt as though the storm clouds had filled his head. He wished Dad
had
an answer, not that he
hoped
to find one. He was starting to feel that they were never meant to get through this, that Taksidian was always meant to win. He said, “Maybe we should have done what Grandpa Hank did and left the house.”

“After Mom was taken?” Xander said, instantly angry. “Leave her, you mean?” He shoved David hard enough to knock him down.

David landed on his butt, and his head cracked against a stone railing.

Dad grabbed Xander. “Hey! Hey!”

David rubbed his head and glared up at his brother. “I want her home too!” he yelled. “As much as you do! But look at us now! You heard Dad—Taksidian’s not going to stop till we’re all dead. You, me, Dad . . .
Toria
!”

“You baby!” Xander said. “I ought to—“

“Stop!” Dad said. “This isn’t easy on any of us. It’s the stress. I’m surprised we haven’t bitten each other’s heads off days ago. Now more than ever, we need to be a family.” He cast a sad look at David. “We need to work together.”

Toria dropped down beside David and helped him rub his head. She sniffed, and he realized she was crying. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered between sobs.

He closed his eyes and hated himself. He swallowed, blinked, found his brother’s face. It wasn’t fierce, as he had expected. Xander looked confused and hurt. David said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t,
really
. I don’t know why I said that.”

“I do,” Xander said. He stepped closer and held a hand out to him. David accepted it and stood, and Xander pulled him in and hugged him. He said, “I’m scared too, Dae.”

Toria stood and wrapped her arms around the two of them. Dad joined them, squeezing them all tightly together. As corny as a family hug would have seemed to David under any other circumstance, this time it seemed right. More than right:
neces-sary
. Dad had said it—they were a family, they needed each other. None of them would have made it this far without the others. And David knew without a doubt that they wouldn’t survive another day if they didn’t work as
one
, if they didn’t feel like they
could
hug like this.

The sound of pounding feet in the street broke the moment. They turned to see five men coming toward them. They were dressed like—

“Roman soldiers,” Dad said.

“Rome?” Xander said. “Again?”

The soldiers wore leather body armor, metal helmets, and pleated skirts. They carried swords and spears. Two bran-dished the same kind of whip David had carried here from the antechamber—and lost. In fact, the old man who had taken it was leading the pack of soldiers. He stumbled along, prodded by shoves and cracks of the whips. He protected his head with one arm and held the other extended in front of him. He was pointing at the Kings.

A soldier grabbed the old man and tossed him into the side of a building, then stared up at the balcony. He jabbed a sword at them and yelled, “
Vos totus vestrum! Subsisto qua vos es!
”

“Time to go,” Xander said.

CHAPTER
fifty

The Kings ran through into the shadowy room off the bal-cony. Xander led them to a wooden door and opened it. Steps descended into deeper darkness. Then a door banged open below them, and daylight splashed against the walls, broken by the shadows of moving men.

“Back in!” Xander said. He pushed them into the room and shut the door.

“Here,” Dad said, running to a glassless window. He climbed through and reached back for Toria.

David climbed through, dropping onto a flat roof. Xander ran to the window and swung his leg over the sill.

David turned to see Dad kneeling at the far edge of the roof, peering over. Then he dropped onto his stomach, spun around, and slipped over the edge. David helped his brother out. When he looked again, Toria was gone.

The brothers ran to the edge. Dad and Toria were standing directly below them on another balcony. Dad reached up for David. He rolled onto his stomach and slid backward into Dad’s hands. Xander dropped down beside them.

“I heard the soldiers shouting in the room,” Xander reported.

“Won’t take them long to figure out where we went,” Dad said. He darted through a doorway, and the others followed. A man, woman, and two kids sat at a table, bowls of liquid and chunks of bread in front of each. The man bolted up, knocking his chair backward.

Dad held up his hands. “Sorry, sorry,” he said.

The man yelled and pointed at a door. Dad opened it, and they piled through. A short flight of stairs led to a different street from the one they had seen.

“We’d better keep moving,” David said, starting up the street away from the building whose balcony the portal had dumped them onto.

“Any pull yet?” Xander asked.

“Toria,” Dad said, “let me have the robe. You keep the necklace and ring. If you feel a tug from them, let us know.”

“Looks more like a tunic than a robe,” David said, once Dad had it on.

“No pull yet,” Dad said, lifting the fabric and letting it drop.

“Where are we going then?” Toria said.

“Just walk,” Dad said. “Moving targets are harder to hit.”

The streets were narrow, more alley than avenue. They rose and fell, twisted and turned, seemingly at random. Stone bridges crossed overhead from building to building, adding to the town’s cramped feeling.

They passed bakeries and butcher shops, stonecutters and woodworkers. They stopped to rest in front of a blacksmith. The man pounded on orange-glowing metal. Each strike of his hammer kicked up an explosion of sparks. He stopped, ran a forearm across his brow, and scowled at them. He said, “
Quis operor vos volo
?”

Dad shook his head. “Nothing, thanks.”

The man waved his hammer at them. “
Adepto ex hic, tunc
,” he yelled. “
Vado, vos extrarius canis!”

They hurried away. “Man, what a nice guy,” Xander said.

“I think he called us dogs,” Dad said. “
Canis
is Latin for dog. It’s where we get our
canine
.”

“Does that mean you know where we are?” David asked.

“Somewhere in the Roman Empire, if I had to guess.”

A man ran past them and turned left onto the next street. A group of soldiers on the street trotted by, followed by townsfolk—three or four at a time, then larger crowds.

“Something’s happening,” Xander said.

“We should head the other way then,” David said, looking back past the blacksmith.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Dad said.

Toria squealed. “I feel it!” she said. “The ring, it’s pulling my hand!”

“Let me guess,” David said. “That way.” He pointed to where the people were pouring by.

“Look,” Dad said. The hem of the tunic was fluttering, rising up toward the next street.

“Figures,” Xander said.

“Let’s go,” Dad said. They rounded the corner and joined the flow of human traffic. People were stepping from side streets to join the progression.

“What’s happening?” Toria said.

“Guess we’ll find out,” Dad said. Ahead, the street rose and bent left, preventing them from seeing where the crowd was heading. But a rumble of loud voices told David they were not far away from the attraction.

He looked into a side street as they passed. More people heading their direction, and a woman writing on a wall. He walked on toward the bending street. He said, “Are you sure—“

He stopped. His heart fluttered. It felt like a bird in a cage, beating against his lungs, tickling his stomach. He began trembling.

Dad, Xander, and Toria didn’t notice. They continued walking, starting up the incline toward the bend. David turned around, and on shaky legs returned to the side street. He froze at the intersection. The woman’s back was to him. She wore a flowing brown tunic that might have been fash-ioned from a burlap sack. Something like a towel covered her head. She was using a piece of black coal or chalk to deface the wall of beige stones. But it wasn’t words she was writing. It was a symbol, the top of which he recognized. She stooped to complete the image, then stepped back to assess her work: it was Bob, their family’s cartoon mascot.