The Curse of Arkady (25 page)

“Conference,” suggested Jason, leaning over.

“Righto.”

They talked for a few minutes, and then Trent pointed at Bailey. “Three times around the restaurant, making chicken noises as you go.”

“We'll get thrown out!” Bailey stared at him.

“You chose the dare.” Trent sat, unmoved.

“I can't do that.” Bailey glanced around the parlor, which was still fairly full of diners. A sports team of boys their age reigned at two whole tables in one corner although their talk and laughter wasn't loud enough to be disturbing.

Trent just stared at her.

“All right. All right.” Bailey stood slowly. She put her hands back and tightened the scrunchie on her hair, and took a deep breath. Deliberately, she walked to the center of the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said loudly, but not too loudly. “In praise of the barbecued chicken pizza!” And she began to trot around the room, arms bent at her elbows, be-gawking and clucking every few steps.

Trent rolled against Jason, laughing. Jason tried not to explode in mirth but couldn't help it. “Thank goodness we don't have live chickens in here!”

Trent turned red at that. “They'd all be following her!”

Bailey tossed her head, ponytail bobbing. “Begawk! Bock! Bock!”

Diners turned and laughed. Her face got pinker, and the cooks came out of the kitchen, watching curiously. As she drew near the end of her third circle, Bailey threw up her hands and said, “Chicken pizza so great I just had to squawk about it!”

She bowed all around to applause and chuckles, then raced back to their table amid cheers and claps. She poked Trent. “So there!”

“Well done. Your turn.” Unabashed and unflinching, Trent grinned at her and gave her a tiny salute.

Henry looked at her in total awe. “That was great, Bailey. I'd have never thought of anything like that.”

“I am a genius.” Bailey gave another little bow. She leaned over, adding, “And I didn't get us thrown out either!”

Jason looked across the room. “I wouldn't say that.” They all stopped talking as the manager began to approach them. He stopped at their table, envelope in hand.

“I don't know what brought that on, but it was one of the nicest endorsements I've ever had.” He passed the envelope to Bailey and left.

She opened it slowly, then began to giggle.

“What is it?”

“A coupon for a free barbecued chicken pizza! I'll bring Ting when she gets back.” Laughing, Bailey tucked it inside her backpack. “Okay. My turn!” She looked around the table. “Jason,” she announced slowly.

“Rut roh,” commented Trent as Jason sat up straighter.

Ignoring Trent, Bailey continued levelly, “Who would you rather kiss . . . Jennifer or Eleanora?”

Jason's jaw dropped for a moment as he tried to think of an answer. But he didn't have to give one, because he was interrupted.

Henry spluttered. “Eleanora! Jason can't kiss her!” he blurted out. “She's . . . she's . . . she's beautiful. And older. She could . . . she's got Magick . . . she could turn you into a toad if she wanted to, Jason!” He took his glasses off again and rubbed his eyes as if totally embarrassed by his outburst.

He didn't notice the looks they all exchanged round the table. “Calm down,” Bailey said quietly. “It's just a game.” She rolled her eyes as nearby tables looked over curiously, then looked away again and the murmur of other conversations rose around them.

“Actually,” Jason said truthfully, “if I had to kiss anyone right now, it would be you, Bailey. Thank heavens I don't have to!” He grabbed Henry. “Henry, do you know what you just said? Do you?”

Henry's hands shook so his glasses fell to the table with a clatter. His face whitened. “I . . . I . . . I . . .” His words ground to a halt, and they could all see the cords in his neck tighten.

Bailey scooted her chair over. “It's all right, Henry,” she said quietly. “It's all right.”

“I'm not crazy,” he said finally, in a squeaky, forced, and scared voice. It was barely audible.

“No way. None of us are.” Trent picked up his glasses and handed them back.

“You don't know what I mean.”

“Oh, I think we do,” Jason told him. He pitched his voice low so as not to be overheard, whether everyone thought they were still talking about their gaming or not. This was a public place, and they would all do well to be wary. Still, things had to be said. “We all do. We're all Magickers, Henry. And it looks like you still are, too.”

“A . . . a . . . what?”

“Magicker,” Jason, Bailey, and Trent all repeated to him simultaneously.

He looked very pale. Trent nudged a glass of water over to him, saying, “Drink it slowly.”

He did so, every last drop, and looked much better when he set the glass down. “All of you?”

“All of us,” Jason said. “Including you.”

Henry made a sound of utter relief. “Thank goodness,” he added. “I really thought I'd lost it.” He squirmed in his chair. “I wanted to ask about it, you know . . . there are these big, blank spots about the camp which I ought to have known but didn't, even coming home early like I did. And nightmares. I've had some awful nightmares. Not about you guys, though!” He shook his head.

“About Jonnard?”

“How did you . . . well, of course you know. You remember.”

“He stole your Magick, Henry,” Bailey said in a rush. “No one thought you'd ever get it back, so they made you drink this juice drink, called the Draft of Forgetfulness, and they sent you home. But you were stronger than that, and Jason was right all along. He didn't want any of us to forget about you.”

“What did you think?” Henry eyed Jason.

“I never thought they should send you home, and I think you're getting stronger every day. Which is good—and bad.”

“Bad? How?”

Trent tapped the table, talking for Jason. “One, you're not trained well, none of us are, but you've missed a lot, and two, you're in danger because of it.”

“What else could possibly go wrong?” Henry stared in disbelief at them.

Jason felt the hairs at the back of his neck prickle. The scar on his left hand gave a twinge. He moved in his chair, and looked around the mall restaurant. “Plenty,” he began.

“Oh, look,” someone said. “Someone's wearing that werewolf costume from the shop!”

There was a sound of chairs rattling as people moved to look.

He looked.

He stood, grabbing Henry and Bailey by their jackets and yelling for the one friend he couldn't quite reach. “Trent!”

The werewolf-looking creature peered into the windows of the pizza parlor and let out a low, rumbling growl.

“That's no costume.”

“W
OLFJACKAL!” Bailey's face went dead white even as she grabbed up her things.

Jason reached for his crystal as Trent joined the other two, and he searched the room for another way out as the wolfjackal sprang to the doorway, blocking it. He found one, marked Emergency Exit Only, and pulled them all that way, muttering, “If there was ever an Emergency . . .”

No one argued. Henry hit the door's big chrome bar first. His chunky body came to a halt. They piled up behind him. Jason turned and saw the wolfjackal come through the pizza parlor entrance, huge and snarling. A woman turned, looked, and screamed, her voice shrilling through the noise of other diners and the row of game machines in the corner. “It's real! George, it's real!”

The room dissolved into crashes of chairs and screams.

“Go, go, go!”

“I'm trying!” Henry grunted. He struggled to push the heavy bar with Bailey throwing her shoulder against it as well. The two suddenly plunged through, setting off loud alarms everywhere. Lacey poked her head out, squeaking in terror, her tail hanging out, black tuft jerking about. She dove back into safety, only her tuft twitching, as they all stumbled into the back street outside the pizza parlor.

“This way!” Jason spoke a word as he pushed through, and his hand filled with the golden lanternlike illumination from his crystal, and they dashed away, with a growling snarl just a leap behind. He could hear the animal grunt as it gave chase and crashed into the closing door. Above it all, the loud thin alarm of the Emergency Exit shrilled through the air.

“Run,” he yelled, “as fast and hard as you can.”

They didn't need his encouragement.

As golden light from his hand spilled out into the black alley, revealing dark looming shapes from huge trash bins, and skittering paper trash that the October wind swirled about as they raced through, they heard the low, haunting howl of the wolfjackal. It had gotten outside after them.

Henry managed to pant, “I don't remember that. Somehow, you'd think I would!”

They swerved around a low block wall that marked a delivery dock for the back of the big department store that took up most of the space at this part of the mall. Debris scattered about them as they ran. Trent muttered, “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” while the golden light from Jason's crystal spilled out like a fountain from a Fourth of July sparkler. Cars were scattered throughout the lot, parked and empty, and great overhead lights tried to thin the darkness without much success. Their sneakers slapped the ground at a frantic pace, because they knew that no doorway or nook could be ducked into, for the sharp nose of the wolfjackal would not be easily fooled. It was a chase, a chase until someone dropped or was cornered or the wolfjackal could be attacked hard enough to frighten it away.

They swung around the lower edge of the mall and found themselves heading uphill where it was harder to run. They faced less traffic, fewer cars, as the only building they approached was a store that had gone out of business. The building was huge, dominating the whole upper end of the shopping area. It lay in front of them like some petrified giant beast.

Vast store windows were boarded over with plywood nailed securely for protection, decorated only by the trash wrappers clinging to them and the occasional spray-painted graffiti. The quiet in this section of the shopping park made the chase seem more ominous. There would be no unexpected help coming their way.

Bailey wobbled. She bumped shoulders with Henry unsteadily, then turned and threw a desperate look at Jason and Trent. “I can't run much longer . . . not on a stomach full of pizza.”

“Not running is not an option!” Trent shouted back at her. He grabbed her elbow to steady her.

“I . . . can't . . . help it.” She let out a belch of despair and Jason felt badly for her.

The only stand they could make was with one of them shielding and the other attacking. Trent couldn't do it, and Henry had no crystal nor training . . . if his Magick was even strong enough yet to attempt it. That left Bailey and she was good, but he feared her Magick still wouldn't be enough. Although Trent and Henry could grab something, a box or stick and whack away at it. Holding their ground seemed impossible . . . unless. . . .

The sound of tires squealing reached him. He looked out into the empty parking lot of the abandoned store and saw headlights racing closer. A vehicle careened toward them. Teens, accelerating and skidding through the open lot.

Jason swerved abruptly into the loading dock bay, pulling the others in with him. He went to one knee. “Bailey! Shield. Trent, protect Henry.” He cupped his crystal, snuffing out the lantern light. Next to him, Bailey dug under her jacket and sweater, and grabbed her pendant. Its white light flared out and into an umbrella over them. She burped again, rolled her eyes, and said, “Remind me never to eat and run again.” Her shield light flickered, then grew stronger.

Trent drew Henry next to him.

Jason rubbed his crystal gently, calling on the Magicker beacon. He could not feel an answering warmth. “Beacon's off again.”

“It can't be.”

“Well, it is! Someone's either blocking it, or it's gone out or . . .” Words failed him as the wolfjackal sprang onto the asphalt in front of them, crouching, eyes glinting, and ivory fangs gleaming from lips drawn back in a snarl. The beast put his head back in a triumphant howl.

“Yup,” said Henry. “I would have definitely remembered this!”

“Good news,” muttered Trent. “There's only one of 'em.”

Another snarl ripped the air as a second wolfjackal padded around the corner of the building, its skulking body slinking into position next to its pack mate.

“Bad news,” Trent added. “I can't count.” He pulled his crystal out for Bailey's benefit. Dull and opaque even on the best days, it stayed that way now. “Even worse news, I've got the Curse. Crystal is deader than a doornail.” He shoved it back into his sweatshirt pocket and reached for a length of wood, part of a splintered loading pallet, lying against the block wall of the dock. “Grab one, Henry, and make yourself useful.”

Henry took up a thick piece and waved it in his hand like a club. He followed Trent's advice not a moment too soon as both wolfjackals bunched their haunches and then sprang at them!

Jason sent a beam slicing through the air, not unlike a laser sword. It sizzled as he wielded it, white-hot light cutting at the beasts. One wolfjackal yelped and curled about, biting at the beam and snarling. His pack mate hit the ground rolling and came up snapping at Henry and Trent. The creatures' hot breath steamed the cold night air. Trent fenced with one wolfjackal while Henry clubbed at its dancing feet. Bailey held steady, shielding them as well as she could, although the power of the wolfjackals slashed into her barrier again and again.