Twenty Palaces (16 page)

He reached back through the window and grabbed my arm. His grip was frighteningly strong. He dragged me out the window and onto the roof.

A misty rain had begun to fall. What I'd thought to be a shaft of moonlight was actually a single streetlight. I shoved the pages into my pack.

Jon gasped and clutched his wrist, holding his hand up to the light. The stump of his missing pinkie finger began to visibly throb.
 

Something pushed out of the stump of the old finger like a worm crawling free of the dirt and it only took a moment to realize it was a new finger. Jon gasped again. This was hurting him, but he couldn't repress a huge grin.
 

After a few seconds, it stopped. Jon's finger had grown back. I grabbed his hand and pulled it close.
 

The regenerated finger looked paler than the others, but otherwise it appeared normal. Jon curled and straightened his fingers. They functioned perfectly.

"Holy God," I said. "How does it feel?"

"Fine," Jon said. "But it didn't hurt when I lost it, either." He held up his hand and made a fist. "I can heal anything now, if I have the right food."

"What food is that, Jon?"

He stopped smiling. "You have to go." He lifted me off me feet and held me like a groom carrying a bride across the threshold. Before I could object, Jon stepped off the edge of the roof.

He shifted his arm to support my head. We hit the ground so hard that I thought momentum would wrench me out of his grip and slam me against the pavement, but Jon held on.
 

He released my legs, allowing me to stand. The roof was about ten feet off the ground. How strong were these guys?

Through the kitchen window I could see all the way into the dining room. Macy sat hunched on the floor, facing away from me. Her shoulders trembled as though she was crying.
 

"Get out," Jon said. "Now."

I couldn't read his expression. "I'm here to help you, Jon. There are things you need to know. You're still in danger."

I glanced back into the house. Macy had turned to face us. Blood covered her lips and chin. Her gaze met mine and her eyes widened with shame and horror. She ducked out of the doorway to hide.
 

There, on the floor where she had been crouching, was a bloody human foot.
 

"Oh, no." I felt sick at the sight of it, but I wasn't surprised. I should have been surprised, but I wasn't.
 

Jon grabbed my shoulders and turned me around. "Ray. You're my oldest friend and I love you like a brother. I used to ask my parents to adopt you so you could
be
my brother. Go back to L.A. Go to Chicago or New York. Just get out and don't come back here. Ever."

I backed down the alley. My whole body shuddered with a primal animal dread. Jon was sending me away. Jon was covered in someone else's blood. Jon was eating human flesh.
 

No. No, no, no. I couldn't allow this to continue. Callin was going to have to take the spell off. I would make sure of it.
 

Jon stood there, staring at me. I couldn't stay, but I couldn't abandon him, either. "I'm going to make this right, Jon," I called. "I'm going to make it right for you."

He didn't respond. He just watched me jog down the alley and disappear into the street.

At the sidewalk I slowed to a walk. It would take me at least an hour to walk from here to Aunt Theresa's house and while I still had a little money, I didn't want to throw it away on bus fare. Besides, I needed time to think. I stuffed the blue pages into my backpack and slung it over my shoulder.

But there was one thing I didn't need to think about: I'd told Callin that I wouldn't take Jon's so-called cure away if it meant he'd lose the use of his legs again, but after what I'd just seen, I was ready to do it. Hell, I'd do it gladly. Jon didn't just need to be protected from Annalise and her people, he needed to be saved. I was ready to step in and do it if there were no other volunteers, and there weren't.
 

Was this my life now? Had I somehow gone, in one pivot, from ex-con to... this? I laid my hands against the rough bark of a nearby tree, but there was no comfort in it. It didn't make me feel grounded or sane. My life had gone nuts, and I wasn't sure how I'd get back to the normal world.

Or even if I wanted to. Despite everything I'd seen, I wanted more of it. I wanted more of the world behind the world. It made me feel sick to admit it to myself, but the blue pages in my backpack were worth more to me than diamond. If I studied, went slowly, was careful, I could, maybe have the power of a "peer" whatever that was, and despite everything I'd seen, there was part of me that wanted it.
 

It occurred to me that Echo could have slipped out of the front door and come after me. I took out my ghost knife and glanced up and down the street. There was nothing to see, and I realized I ought to be looking out for Annalise and Callin, too.
 

I picked up the pace, holding the ghost knife so it would stay dry but still be handy, and I had my last steeled glass spell in my pocket.

I was hungry again and my cash was dwindling. I headed home. Karl hadn't been wearing his cheerful face when he came to visit me at the library, but now I knew he wasn't after me because of Echo. With luck, he would be out and I could talk to my aunt alone. Maybe she'd have some food for me.
 

Maybe, in the quiet of my apartment, I could cast more steeled glass cards. I was going to need them, I was sure, and I needed to find time to study Callin's book again.

And how the hell was I supposed to persuade Callin to remove the spell from Jon and the others? At gunpoint? I wasn't sure a gun would give me the leverage I needed to control him. Maybe I should try it at bombpoint instead.
 

During the long walk back to my apartment, I turned the problem over in my head but nothing truly workable presented itself. The only thing that came to mind was that Callin and Annalise had been pretty desperate to get that book back. Maybe I could get the leverage I needed if I threatened to staple the spells to telephone poles around town, or upload them to the internet.
 

It was a bluff, of course. The spells were too dangerous to be shared, but Callin didn't know I felt that way. And the virtue of blackmail was that I wouldn't have to build a goddamn bomb. The real question was whether it would work or not, and whether there was any way at all for me to come through it alive.
 

Once back in my aunt's neighborhood, I walked an extra block to circle around to the alley. With luck, Uncle Karl's car would still be gone. I'd be able to sneak some food into my apartment. I needed food and sleep as much as I needed a better way to blackmail Callin. I also needed a watch; I had no idea what time it was.
 

The misty rain had stopped 15 or 20 minutes before, but the driveway was soft with deep mud. It couldn't have been caused by this misting rain; had someone washed a Mack truck out here?

Then I walked around the high hedges of the neighbor's yard and saw that Karl and Theresa's house was gone. For a moment, I thought I was on the wrong block. All I could see were the houses across the street. But no, this was the right place.

The house had been burned down to its stone foundations. The garage was gone, too. It, and my tiny new home above it, were ashes. The fire fighters were long gone, and there weren't even any neighbors standing around gawking. All this had happened hours ago.

I struck something metal with my foot. It was the tiny bell I had strung beside my door, now charred, dented and missing its clapper.

"Freeze!" a man shouted. "Police."

I froze. I heard several pairs of footsteps approaching, and as they came close, Karl stepped into my line of vision. His expression was grim. This was why my uncle had been hunting for me.

"Uncle Karl, is Aunt Th--"

Karl jammed his nightstick into my stomach. I doubled over and fell to my knees. It wasn't the first time a cop had done that to me, but Karl was damn good at it. More people behind me pushed me down into the muddy gravel and slapped handcuffs on me.

#

I was handcuffed and processed, and they were pretty professional about it, considering. My blue pages, ghost knife and steeled glass cards were confiscated and I was dumped into a holding cell.
 

I sat among the other detainees, feeling my hopes sinking lower and lower. No one would tell me if my aunt was alive or dead, I hadn't done any real good for Jon, and I was back in custody, likely to be charged with arson or worse.

And why shouldn't they? I had led Callin and Annalise to Karl and Theresa's home. I might not have started the fire myself, but it had been my fault.
 

They let me stew in the cell for a few hours, then handcuffed me and brought me to an interrogation room. There was a long, scarred wooden table and chairs, yellow paint on the walls and even a "mirror," just like in the movies. The two detectives with me sat across the table from me, sloppily shuffling papers and looking bored. They had arms a gorilla would envy, but their bellies strained against their shirt buttons. They introduced themselves but I didn't pay attention. To me they were Big and Bigger.
 

They started by asking basic identifying information like my name and address.
 

"What happened to Aunt Theresa?" I asked, breaking in on their routine. "Was she hurt in the fire?"

"We'll be asking the questions here, not you," Big said. "Where were you yesterday afternoon between noon and five p.m.?"

I was irritated. Karl had warned me that my debt wasn't repaid yet, but if I was going to be here, opposite these two cops, with handcuffs on, there was no reason to play at being a nice, cooperative citizen anymore. "I was walking around, wondering how my Aunt Theresa is."

"Son, this isn't a time to be a wiseass," Bigger said. "Now answer the question."

"I told you, I was trying to get an answer about my aunt."

"You want to know?" Bigger said, his eyes moving shiftily to his partner and back to me. "She's in the hospital and she's not doing well. If she dies, you could be charged with accessory--"

"Christ! You guys even lie sloppy. Where's my Uncle?"

"What about this?" Big said. He slid a manila folder across the table and opened it.

The blue pages were inside and so was the ghost knife and the steeled glass. I felt a sudden, startling hunger for them. I wanted that power again. I could feel the ghost knife as though it was part of me. All I had to do was will it into my hand....

No. I didn't want these cops to see magic. I didn't want anyone to know about it.
 

I realized they were staring at me. They'd noticed my reaction to the contents of the folder. I closed my eyes and sat back in my chair. It was too late for a poker face now; the cops knew the papers were important to me.

"Well?" Big asked. "Where did you get those?"

I kept my eyes shut. The allure of those pages was strong, sure, but even stronger was the memory of my aunt embracing me on the steps of her house, or the memory of her lifting that pot of stew with her arthritic hands.

"Where's my uncle?" I asked.

The cops sighed and settled back into their seats. Big closed the manila folder, and I thought he looked a little nervous as he did it. Could he sense the power there?

The door opened and Karl strode inside. He did not look as tall as I remembered, and his weathered face was sunken and shadowy. He looked exhausted.

"Do you know what I lost yesterday, Raymond?" Karl began without any preamble. "Do you know what I lost because I brought you into my home? I lost every picture I ever took of my kids. All of my wife's medications. Every love letter my father wrote to my mother. The rare jazz collection my brother left me in his will. I don't even like jazz, but it was all I had left of him."

Christ, I almost would rather take another night stick to the gut. I laid my face in my hands. "Please," I said. "How is she?"

"She was at the supermarket," Karl said. "She's fine. Did you firebomb my house?"

"No! Never."

"Somebody did. Was it an old buddy from jail, then? Or one of your L.A. crew?"

The urge to blurt out the truth was as strong as my urge to grab up the spells. Didn't Karl deserve to know? I hadn't been able to tell Jon, but maybe the cops would roust Callin out of his hotel, maybe put enough heat on him that he would leave town.
 

Or maybe they'd arrive at his hotel while he was out, search his room and turn up his spell book. What if one of them had cancer or a dying mother? That would mean more spells, more cousins, more... Who knows what?

I shut my eyes again. My uncle deserved some sort of answer, but there was nothing I could tell him.

The door opened again.
 

Callin entered. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and a long coat buttoned up to his neck and he was smiling.

"There you are, lively one!" Callin said.

Karl turned and placed a hand on Callin's chest. Karl was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier but as Karl opened his mouth to order Callin out of the room, I shouted: "Uncle Karl, get back!"

It was already too late. Callin held a handkerchief in front of Karl's face. There was a sigil stitched onto it, but I couldn't see the whole thing.
 

Karl glanced at it, then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. Big lunged out of his chair and slammed his body into Callin's back. Unfortunately for him, Callin had braced for the attack and the detective bounced off him the same way I'd bounced off Annalise.

I stood, turned my back and shut my eyes, mentally
calling
my ghost knife. It landed in my hand, and I cut through the handcuff chain with a quick twist of my wrist. I heard the unmistakable sound of a taser being fired.
 

I spun and grabbed the whole manila folder with the blue pages in it, then ducked low beside the cinderblock wall. With the ghost knife, I cut three quick slashes into the wall.