Necromancing the Stone (21 page)

He nodded, putting his notebook away. “I think we’re done here, then,” he said.

We all thanked him, and our group started to break up and head to their respective vehicles.

Bran patted me on the shoulder. “Good work.”

“Thanks. You think it will make the pack back off a bit?”

He scratched his chin. “A few of them, but many don’t trust you, and this might be a little nebulous for them. Until something concrete happens…” He shrugged.

“Great.” I was exhausted and sore, and it kind of felt like I’d done it for nothing.

Bran shifted on his feet. “Before you send them back, do you think you could let her come over and say hi?”

“That’s up to her, but I’ll keep it up a few more minutes. After that, I’m going to have to put them back.” It was either that, or I’d pass out soon.

Bran nodded gratefully and led the she-wolf over to her pack. I started returning the others, making sure to let them know how happy I was with their performance and how thankful we all were. I wasn’t sure if they’d remember that in a few seconds, but it was important to be respectful nonetheless.

Soon it was just the she-wolf and Stanley left over. He came up and gave me a nudge. Apparently, I’d made a friend. The big bull elk wanted to come home with us. His nose felt soft under my fingers as I patted it. “Sure, buddy, but you might have to wait until later, lest we scare the normies.”

He seemed to accept that, as he sauntered off into the forest. I watched him go from my spot on my rock. Warm as it was, I couldn’t help but notice that I sat by myself, while everyone else had formed into knots of people. Family surrounded Brid. The rest of the Council had vamoosed. But not a single person was over by the spooky kid. I kicked myself for the self-pity. It wouldn’t help. Besides, I’d been the loner before. I knew what it was like to sit by myself at a lunch table, trying to pretend that I’d planned it that way. That I was alone on purpose.

James joined me. “You need sleep,” he said. “And food. You’ve been spreading yourself thin.”

“I need a lot of things,” I said.

Ashley came over with Brooke. “Look,” she said, “I have to go—I’m late for an appointment, but I’ll return when I can.” A portal opened up behind her, a kind of swirling mist. Sparrows flew out of it and picked her up. Tiny wings making no noise, they took off and the vortex blipped out of existence.

“Man, she totally knows how to make an exit,” Brooke said.

I pulled on James’s sleeve. “If I don’t go home and sleep soon, I’m going to keel over.” James nodded and took care of it. Sometimes, I didn’t know what I’d do without him. Other times, I wanted to shake him. Good thing this time it was the former. I just didn’t have the energy to shake anyone right now.

18

MR. SANDMAN, BRING ME A DREAM

Douglas had never spent much time in dreamland. In his childhood, sure, but as he’d gotten older, it seemed like his ticket to the place had been revoked. Sleep was a dark and static time when nothing happened. Since he’d died, though, his pass had suddenly become valid again and the conductor was making up for lost time. So once again he found himself dreaming of the past.…

*   *   *

“You’re sure you want to do this, then?” James looked on anxiously from the chair. Though the aging process was certainly slower in James than human children, it had still seemed like he’d only gotten the boy yesterday and now he was teetering into adulthood.

Douglas pushed back his hat with his wrist, avoiding the parts of his hand that were covered with chalk. James handed him his handkerchief, and Douglas used it to swipe at the sweat beading on his forehead. He passed it back and stared at his work. He’d drawn and redrawn the symbols until he was positive that they were exactly right.

“You have doubts?”

James pulled up a chair and sat carefully, trying to not disturb his duster folded over the back of it. The jacket was new, a gift from Douglas, and James was very protective of it. He crossed his legs, his hands folded neatly in his lap. “You know full well that I do.”

“The theory is sound.”

“Theory. The notes you looked at belonged to a man who died trying. As did almost every other reference you found.”

Douglas sat back on his heels. “
Almost every
being the important part of that sentence. They made mistakes—mistakes that I most certainly will not make.”

James studied his nails. “Do you know what
hubris
means, Master?”

“Seeing as how I’ve handled most of your education, it is a safe bet to assume that I am familiar with most of the words in your lexicon.”

“You are purposefully misunderstanding me.”

“Yes, I am.” Douglas stood, wiping his chalky hands on a rag. “Life is a series of calculated risks, James. I happen to think that this one is worth it.”

The
pukis
sighed, his posture straight and even, despite his despondency. “You could at least choose an item that was less … I don’t know. Obvious?”

Douglas took the jade egg off the shelf. He had very few items from his past. This egg and his aunt’s knife were probably the only remnants he still had, if you didn’t count his books. He folded the cool piece of jade into his palm. His heart still squeezed a little when he looked at it. For that feeling alone—something that was becoming more and more rare—he would have kept the egg.

James continued the argument they’d already had several times. “Anyone familiar with fairy tales will figure it out.” He shook his head. “While you’re at it, why don’t you start yelling
fe, fi, fo, fum
and climbing beanstalks?”

“That’s the wrong giant in the wrong fairy tale.”

James threw him a look that said he was missing the point.

Douglas sighed. “Even if they are familiar with it, they would still have to guess that I did it in the first place, and few will fathom that. For most it will be … unthinkable.” The egg remained cold in his hand. “And no other object will do.”

Defeat sagged James’s shoulders. “You’ve made up your mind, then,” he said softly.

“I have,” replied Douglas. “I really have.”

He stepped into the circle and began the rite.

*   *   *

Douglas came to with a start in a chair pulled close to the fireplace. The fire itself was long out, the hearth cold. Minion slept on the rug at his feet, the half-chewed remnants of several pieces of wax fruit spread around him. Douglas sighed. At some point, his life had gone off track. He wasn’t sure
how
, but he was pretty sure the
when
had been when Sam had entered into the equation. But that would be fixed soon, the number refigured to change the outcome.

He just needed a little more time.

19

OUR HOUSE IS A VERY, VERY, VERY FINE HOUSE

My mom called on my way home. She used to call about once a week to check up on me, but since Douglas kidnapped me in the spring, the calls had become more frequent. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said she was worried about me. I sleepily caught her up on what we’d found out. Then I told her James would be stopping by to check her security. I didn’t lecture her or get mad that she’d tried to hide it from me. She was well aware of how I felt about keeping things from each other, even if the intentions were good. We’d had enough of that, I’m sure. But I wasn’t going to shrug off a threat to my family like it was nothing, either. Not after everything that had happened.

I must have fallen asleep in the car shortly after the phone call, because James had to wake me up when we got to the house. Everyone was outside in a ring, shouting. Night had fallen, and despite the tiki torches and the bonfires they’d lit, I couldn’t quite see what was going on, as some of the bigger creatures were on the outside and they had gnomes and gladiators on their shoulders, all of them covered in war paint and chanting, “Two men enter, one man leaves!”

Every bone in my body ached with fatigue, but you can’t just walk past something like that. I walked up to one of the gladiators who had climbed up onto the shoulders of the Minotaur. They’d altered one of those beer hats with the tubes to fit onto his giant bull head. One tube, I assume, went to the Minotaur, and a gladiator was holding the other tightly in his little fist. Since the gladiators only came up to my waist, the Minotaur could easily hold one on its shoulders, even though it was made of marble.

I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, uh—”

“Dave!” he shouted.

“Dave, right. What’s going on?”

“Welcome to the Thundergnome!” he crowed, never taking his eyes off the action.

“Thundergnome?”

He nodded, taking a sip off his beer tube. “Sometimes they don’t like to wait for battle situations to bring in a new gnome, so they do something like this.” He shouted something about the combatants and their parentage. “As a gladiator, I have to say I approve, eh. Maybe after this they’ll give us a go, you think?”

“One can dream,” I said. I thanked him, waving off his offer of the beer tube before moving to the other side of the action to see what was going on.

Once I was able to see, I noticed Frank—at least the shoes looked like his—covered in gnomes, wrestling on the dirt. He appeared to be holding his own. Some things are just so surreal that they don’t even register in your brain as weird. I shrugged and left Frank to his gnome wrestling and went to find my bed.

I’m not quite sure when I passed out, but it was full dark when I got home. My sleep was pretty deep, though. I kept having weird dreams about searching all over the house for glowing chocolate eggs like some sort of demented Easter bunny. Then I had to go to the zoo and put Ling Tsu the panda back to rest, only someone kept moving the zoo. I finally woke up in a sweat sometime midmorning. For a few minutes, I just sat on the edge of my bed, scratching the sleeping head of Taco, who’d curled up in a ball by my feet in the night, and tried to wake up. It didn’t work. I knew it had been a dream—I’d put Ling Tsu the panda back after I’d killed Douglas—but I was having a hard time shaking it. Finally, I pulled on a T-shirt, getting tangled up in a rather embarrassing fashion with my pouch necklace somehow, before yanking on some shorts and stumbling downstairs, Taco padding after me. Though I felt better after my long sleep, I was groggy as all get-out.

I grabbed a soda and a seat at the kitchen table before collapsing facedown. Frank, I noticed after a moment, was doing the exact same thing. James was bustling around the kitchen, chipper and neat as a pin. It was rather obnoxious, really.

“Bad night?” I mumbled at Frank.

He groaned. “Never, ever accept anything out of a gnome’s flask.”

James sniggered.

“Quiet, you.” I poked Frank. “Just ignore smarty-pants over there.”

“No,” Frank said with a sigh. “I should have known better. But I was trying to bond with the guys, you know?”

I did know. When I used to work with Frank at Plumpy’s, he’d done his best to get to know the rest of the crew and fit in. It was kind of adorable in its awkwardness.

“Plus, I lost, like, fifty bucks betting on the gladiator fight after mine, and I can’t get all my face paint off, and Dunaway is coming over after his shift so he can go through our library, and I look like I made out with Rambo.” He twisted his face so I could see the dark smudges of paint under his eyes.

“I hear cold cream does wonders,” James said. “And you should never bet against Dave. He currently holds the title amongst the other gladiators, if I remember correctly.” He sipped his tea. “Maybe you shouldn’t bet. You appear to be a poor judge of character.” Even James’s voice was perky. Morning people are annoying. If he kept smiling and sipping his tea in that jaunty manner, I was going to grab an orange out of the fruit bowl and chuck it at his head.

Frank squeezed his eyes shut against the light streaming into the kitchen. “James, I generally consider that I’m poor at everything. It saves time.”

James frowned over his tea. “That’s no way to look at things.”

I smiled into the crook of my arm. It’s hard to pick on someone when he rolls over like Frank tends to do.

“As long as none of them peed on my sheets again,” I said with a laugh.

“I don’t think they will. I’m pretty sure everything is smoothed over now, so there’s really no reason to add to the long list of awful stuff they’ve been doing. At least I found out how Taco got here. The gladiators ordered him out of a catalog. I think they saw the regime change as a chance to get a long-desired pet.”

James stirred his tea. “Ah yes, that rings a bell. That’s how it came up originally. The gladiators wanted one—something about playing fetch with their stone shields. Wouldn’t work with a dog, but chupacabras have strong jaws.”

“Is that why Douglas didn’t want one?” asked Frank. “He hates fetch?”

James shot him a withering look. “No, he didn’t want one because they disrupt magic. If you let Taco loose on the grounds and aren’t careful, he could bust all the protective wards and who knows what else. They are the rodents of the magical world.”

I took a sip of my soda, thinking. “Wait, Frank, go back a minute, what long list of awful stuff?”

He grimaced. “It’s best if you don’t know.”

“You’re probably right.” I looked around the cheerful kitchen with its perky yellow walls and white curtains, and it really wasn’t helping things. “Ugh, I can’t handle this kitchen anymore. James, I’m beginning to think you painted it this way so none of us would linger, except you did it before we lived here. If anyone needs me, I’ll be on the front porch.”

*   *   *

When Ashley materialized, I was seated at the table on the porch, enjoying the weather and examining the jade egg I’d stashed in my pouch. Even in the summer sun, it was chill to the touch. Ashley wasn’t wearing her standard Catholic schoolgirl chic. Her hair was pulled back into ponytails as usual, but that was the only thing that was the same. Flip-flops, short shorts, and a tank top with what appeared to be a glittery purple unicorn on it took the place of her usual outfit. And she had on purple, heart-shaped sunglasses. It was all very un–Ashley-like.