Fenzy (26 page)
“What are you going to do, cut Taksidian with it? Hit him over the head?” That really wasn’t such a bad idea. Time would have no problem taking him if he were unconscious.
“You ever see a
Fistful of Dollars
?”
“That old Clint Eastwood western?” David said. “Sure, but . . . “ Xander looked at him slyly. “Pull up your shirt.”
S
ATURDAY
, 2:12
P. M
.
Mom looked at the knife blade sticking through the gap in the door. It was pushing into the back of the latch that locked Taksidian between the walls.
Bam! Bam!
“He’s pounding it through,” she said.
“He must have found a piece of wood in there,” Dad said. “He’s using it like a hammer.” He rubbed her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, the latch is really screwed in. It can’t—“
Bam!
A screw came an inch out of the wall.
Bam! Bam!
Two inches . . . and another screw joined it.
“Ed!”
Dad pushed on it with his hands. The blade disappeared and came right back, slicing into Dad’s fingers. He yanked his hands away. The blade quickly found the latch again and—
Bam!
—knocked the screws farther out.
Dad spun and pressed his back against the wall-like door. The pounding stopped.
Mom leaned over the lock. “It’s gone,” she whispered.
The blade broke through the door, an inch from Dad’s head.
Mom screamed, and Dad jumped away.
Xander’s voice reached them: “Mom! Mom! What’s happening?”
“Stay there, Xander!” Dad yelled back.
“Yes!” Taksidian said. “Stay there, Xander. I’m taking care of everything.” He laughed.
Bam!
The latch rattled, barely clinging to the wall. Mom realized that one more hit, and it would fly off. She slapped the door. “Stop it!” she yelled.
Taksidian did what she expected him to do: he plunged the knife blade through the door again—high up, near the place she’d slapped. She grabbed the tip, coming at it from the top, away from its sharp edge. She felt it slip through her fingers, and it disappeared, leaving a hole that looked like a vending machine’s coin slot.
Dad ran to a pile of wood and snatched up a six-foot length of two-by-four. He returned and wedged it between the floor and the lock.
Bam!
The hasp flew off—and the door crashed open, hard enough to send the end of the two-by-four into Dad’s nose. He stumbled back.
“Ed!” Mom yelled. She stepped toward him, then started to spin back toward the door. Taksidian grabbed her from behind, and she screamed, a loud, long wail of anguish.
S
ATURDAY, AT THE SAME TIME
Toria stretched up as high as the seat belt would let her. She and Keal had just turned onto Main Street, heading home. “Hurry,” she said.
“You said Taksidian was alone?” Keal said.
“
Now
he is,” Toria said. “I told you, me and Daddy got Phemus to follow me.” When she had last looked, the big guy was still pounding away at the inside of the locker. It was shaking more than ever, because it had pulled out a little bit from the wall.
“But you didn’t see anyone else in the house?” Keal said. “No other people like Phemus?”
Toria shook her head. “Daddy said they were going to trick Taksidian and lock him in the room between the walls.”
“I hope he . . . “ Keal’s voice faded. He squinted out the windshield. His mouth dropped open.
Toria looked. A man was walking on the side of the road, taking big long strides, swinging his arms. He wore a hospital gown. The back of it was mostly open; it was closed in only one place, barely covering his rear end.
They cruised past, and Toria yelled, “Keal, stop! It’s Jesse!”
Keal slammed on the brakes. “It can’t be, sweetie,” he said, turning to look. “He’s in the hospital, and besides, he can’t—“
The rear door opened, and Jesse’s grinning face leaned in.
“—walk,” Keal finished weakly.
Jesse hopped in. “Where we going?” he said.
S
ATURDAY, AT THE SAME TIME
“Mom!” David yelled. He watched Xander fumbling with the padlock on their side of the wall, and crowded up behind him.
Xander pushed him back. “No, Dae!” he said. “Stay here.” He got the lock off, and when he stepped back to swing the door around, David rushed through. Xander grabbed at him. “David!”
David ran between the walls and out the other side. Without slowing, he assessed the situation: Taksidian was standing ten feet away, his back toward David. He held Mom from behind—David could see her hair and legs, how she was strug-gling. Dad was facing them, his legs bent, his arms held out like a wrestler facing an opponent. David could tell he was looking for an angle of attack, a way to dart in and grab Mom.
David leaped. He landed on Taksidian’s back. One arm wrapped across the man’s face; the other cocked back and drove a fist into Taksidian’s skull. He seized a handful of hair and yanked. Taksidian’s head snapped backward.
Dad rushed in. Taksidian’s knife flashed out, making him jump back. Dad dropped to the floor, got a hold of Mom’s ankles, and pulled her down, out of Taksidian’s grasp.
Taksidian switched the blade to his left hand and raised it high. It was pointed at David. He plunged it down toward David.
Xander grabbed Taksidian’s arm, halting the blade an inch from David’s neck.
David angled away from it, and Taksidian’s other hand reached around, pinning David’s head to Taksidian’s shoulder. The shoulder lowered, and David felt himself flipping up, over, and around. When he came down, he was where Mom had been: directly in front of Taksidian, his back pressed against the man.
David thrashed, but Taksidian’s arm was an iron strap. It crossed like a seat belt over his shoulder, the right side of his chest, to his left hip—where the man’s fingernails dug into David’s flesh. David twisted and froze in pain.
He craned his neck and glanced back in time to see Taksidian’s elbow sail into Xander’s face. His brother stumbled away, losing his grip on Taksidian’s arm.
Taksidian swung around and backed into the corner formed by the two hallways. His arm was pressed so tightly over him, David’s breath became fast and wheezy.
Taksidian positioned the blade a foot from David’s heart, ready to plunge it in.
“Stop!” Dad yelled. He was kneeling beside Mom, who was lying on the floor. They were just inside the main hall-way, between Taksidian and the grand staircase. Xander was in the shorter hall, between Taksidian and the false walls. He pressed a hand against the wall and stood. The other hand covered his chin. Blood poured out from under it.
“Let him go,” Dad said, looking fierce enough to bite Taksidian’s head clean off. He dragged the back of his hand across his own face, smearing the blood that was seeping out of his nostrils. “You don’t have much time.”
David noticed: Taksidian’s overcoat was fluttering toward the false walls, the stairs to the third floor, and the portal that had opened to pull him in. The man’s long, kinky hair whipped around his head, snapped straight toward the portal, then flittered around again.
“Boy,” Taksidian said to Xander. “Shut that door.”
“Don’t, Xander!” Dad said.
Taksidian’s voice boomed in David’s ear: “You seem to for-get who’s holding all the cards!” With that, the blade flashed in front of David’s face, and he felt a sharp pinch on his cheek. Taksidian was holding the tip of his knife there. David cried out before he could stop himself.
Panic rippled across Dad’s face. “Wait!” Gritting his teeth, he said, “Do it, Xander.”
Xander moved to the door in the false wall and swung it closed.
The pull on Taksidian settled a bit, but not much. The man moved the blade back into position over David’s heart.
“Shutting the door’s not going to help,” Dad said, rising. He helped Mom to her feet. “You don’t belong in this time.
As long as you’re in this house, the pull’s going to keep get-ting stronger.”
As if to prove Dad’s point, Taksidian’s coat sprang out from his body. He jerked forward. He leaned back, and his boots slid across the floor a few inches. He leaned farther, pulling David back with him, and stopped moving.
“Move out of my way!” he yelled at Mom and Dad.
Dad squared his shoulders. He said, “Come over here, Xander.”
Xander stooped and snatched up a two-by-four. He edged along the wall until he stood beside his parents. The three of them formed a human barricade across the hallway, blocking Taksidian’s escape.
“What are you doing?” Taksidian said. “You care so little for this one, that you defy me?“ He dug his nails into David’s hip, causing him to scream.
Mom cried out, “No . . . please!” She held shaking hands toward them, and David could tell she was mentally pulling the knife away from her son.
“We can’t let you take him,” Dad said.
“Then back away,” Taksidian answered. “Clear the way to the door, and you can have this whelp.”
Dad raised his arms, crossing them over Mom’s and Xander’s chests. Together, they backed away a step.
Taksidian pushed David forward, staying right behind him. The knife hovered over his heart. “More,” the man said. “More!” He was starting to panic.
David’s family took another step back. Their bodies still blocked the path to the stairs.
“Very clever, trapping me between the walls,” Taksidian said. “Holding me here long enough for Time to sniff me out. But it’s not going to work. If you want this boy to see today’s sunset, you’d better get out of my way.” He screamed: “
Completely
out of my way!
Right now!”
“Let him go,” Dad said.
“As soon as I see a clear route to the front door, I’ll release him.” Taksidian paused, then added, “You have my word.”
“Which means nothing,” Dad said. But he nodded and dropped his arms. “Let him leave, Gee, Xander. There will be other days.” He backed past the stairs. Mom went with him.
Only Xander stood between Taksidian and the front door. He held the two-by-four in both hands, crossed over his chest like a rifle. “No,” Xander said. “It almost has him. We can’t let him leave.”
“Xander,” Dad said. “Son, step back.”
“Boy, if Time takes me,” Taksidian said, “your brother’s coming along for the ride.”
Xander stood his ground.
“I do not make idle threats,” Taksidian said. His hair and coat were going crazy, whipping and flapping, snapping as though caught in a hurricane. “
Look
at David!” More digging into his hip, more screams. “It will be the last time!”
Xander did, staring deep into David’s eyes. He backed up to Mom and Dad.
Taksidian pushed David along in front of him. His move-ments were jittery and sharp. David could tell he was fighting the pull with every muscle. His knife hand shook violently, bringing the tip of the blade within an inch of David’s chest. They reached the top of the stairs and stopped.
“Let him go!” Xander yelled. “Just let him go and run. Get out of here!”
“I did promise to release him, didn’t I?” Taksidian said. “But I never said in what condition.”
Dad‘s eyes sprang wide. “
Noooo
!”
Taksidian plunged the knife into David’s heart.
That is, he tried to. The blade struck David’s chest and bounced off. At the same time—probably planning to push his corpse into the family as he fled down the stairs—Tak-sidian relaxed his grip.
David rolled out of his arms and fell. He landed on his back on the floor, so close to Taksidian, one of the man’s boots was between his knees.
Taksidian’s shocked expression made David grin. He raised his shirt, revealing the metal plate over the left side of his chest. A chain around his neck held it in place.
“You!” Taksidian said. He bent to finish the job.
“Too late!” David said, pointing at the ceiling.
Taksidian swung his head around to see.
Directly over him, the ceiling was cracking, breaking apart. The pieces disappeared into a portal shimmering just beyond the ever-increasing hole. Taksidian turned and leaped down the stairs. But he never touched down. He floated, suspended in air. As fast as he would have gone down, he went up. He leveled into a horizontal position and smacked against the ceiling across the hole. He was too long to go through: his head and his heels extended beyond the opening.
The knife fell out of his hand and stuck into the floor by David’s thigh.
Taksidian bore his teeth at the Kings and screamed—not in fear, but in fury. His hands gripped the outside of the hole. He strained, pulling himself away from the hole.