Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (26 page)

“I can handle this,” he said. “And I will.”

“You can’t choose right now to assume your throne,” Wanda Lovejoy said. “Not after what you’ve done.”

“Look what’s happened,” Mr. Makeup said. “Your own son has betrayed us.”

“He’s young and foolish,” Dad said.

His eyes flitted to me. In them I felt reproach. Disappointment. I wanted to shrink away into nothing. My heart nearly did. I’d set out to prove that I could make good choices on my own. Instead, I’d only shown my incompetence. Maybe it was a good thing they’d kept me locked away for so long.

“I’ll take care of it,” Dad said. “You can believe he’ll be punished.”

He stared at the Council, standing up straight and tall. He kept his face solemn and regal. Not a sound came from the crowd. Somewhere above, the air conditioner kicked in and began to hum.

“No!” Wanda Lovejoy said, her face turning angry. “No! You wouldn’t assume your crown ten years ago when we begged you to. You wouldn’t do it four years ago when we needed you to. You certainly can’t do it now!”

“That’s right!” Mr. Makeup said. “It isn’t yours to take up or discard as you please. That’s not how it works.”

“As a matter of fact,” Dad said, “it is mine to do with as I please. It was given to me. You have only governed based on my agreement with you—which I am ready to terminate.”

The pallor of Billy Blake’s face had only deepened, like he’d become worried of something terrible about to happen.

“I think,” he said, “that the king only gains power if it’s given to him by the people. The last king may have given you his throne, but if the people won’t follow you, you have no throne.” He turned and faced the crowd. “What do the people think? Do we let our king assume his power, now? For the sole purpose of saving his son?”

The silence thickened again.

I couldn’t fathom this chain of events. Oh, I could see that Dad thought he was king, and that the Council didn’t want to let him assume power, but I couldn’t imagine it was true. If it was, why hadn’t he taken up his crown before?

And furthermore, he looked absolutely ridiculous.

The people considered Dad. Some of them scowled, but others—like Brock—appeared to ponder hard.

Louise, who stood at the front of the crowd, knelt.

“Power to the king!” she said. She looked at him with an expression of disdainful devotion.

“Louise!” Billy Blake said. “Get up!”

She shook her head and bowed it. “We follow the old ways, and if the king wishes to return, we submit to him.” She glanced up at Dad. “Even if he ignored our pleas for many years.”

Brock, who stood behind Louise, dropped to his knees. Then another female fundamentalist rapper joined him. She bowed her head with reverence, and even closed her eyes.

Another person followed their examples, then another—then a dozen more. It was like when people start a standing ovation, and some of the crowd follows just out of sheer inability not to follow. Before long, about half of the crowd knelt. Then three-fourths.

Notably, not any of the members of the Council.

But Marti did. She dropped to her knees so fast that the sound of them hitting the mat made me flinch. Then, I cringed when she grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm, pulling me to the floor. I glared at her. She didn’t have to be so brutal every time she touched me.

“It seems,” Dad said, “that the people have spoken.”

Wanda Lovejoy looked at him with open contempt. “We’ll see if this is real—if you’ll really be our king, and if the people will support you. How you punish your son will say a great deal about the type of king you will be.”

Billy Blake said, “And if your reign will last more than a minute.”

“I assure you,” Dad said, “that it will.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m here to stay, now.”

Mr. Makeup’s gaze turned to me, his eyes narrow and vicious. “Then punish him. Right now.”

Dad’s gaze turned to me. He pursed is lips and narrowed his eyes, as if deciding exactly what punishment to mete. I wanted to shrink away into nothingness, to disappear from that disappointed stare.

I’d disobeyed him and Mom, and now I understood better why they wouldn’t let me enjoy life the way I wanted—it was a lot more involved than I’d thought it would be.

I know. Crazy, right?

A decision passed through Dad’s eyes, and he stepped toward me. He looked back at the Council.

“Am I your king?” His gaze swept over the crowd, and his voice lifted as if to fill the immensity of the room. “Am I your king?”

The rest of the people in the crowd fell to their knees.

He looked at the Bamboozlers. “I will only punish my son if everyone accepts me as their king.”

Mr. Makeup knelt first. Then Wanda Lovejoy knelt. For the first time, I saw that she had a little bald spot right on the top of her head. Billy Blake knelt last of all, though he kept his chin high.

“So be it,” Dad said, and turned to me, his face solemn. “I must punish you.”

Chapter 47: Punishment for our crimes

Whatever he came up with, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Boy, was I wrong.

-Wanda Lovejoy

My heart pounded so hard I almost didn’t hear Dad pass his judgment. His voice held no leniency, no mercy of a father. Only the careful neutrality of a just ruler.

“You are hereby banished from Intersoc until such a time as you make amends to the society.” He tilted his head to one side. “Both of you. Effective immediately.”

It was better than being skinned alive. I guess.

The crowed murmured in surprise. I couldn’t tell if they thought it was severe enough. I sure did. Did it mean I would return to my life of seclusion? Would Mom and Dad wipe my mind again?

I started to object, but Marti grabbed my hand and dug her fingernails into its back. I yelped and fell silent.

Dad moved so fast it made me jump. He lifted one arm, so the red vials dangled down, and yanked one of them free of its cord. With one twist he unscrewed the lid and poured the red ooze into his hands. In a matter of seconds he drew a zip-door with a spike at each corner. He stood on the opposite side of the tinkling emblem, a lighter in hand, staring at me.

“When I light this, the two of you go through it. And your punishment begins.”

For all I knew, he was banishing me to Antarctica. Or to the deserts of Africa. Or—worst of all—to my bedroom at home.

“Yes, your majesty,” Marti said, lowering her gaze. She tightened her grip on my hand, and dug her nails in. She looked at me and jerked her head at Dad.

“Uh, yes,” I said, bowing my head. “Dad. Uh, your uh, majesty.”

His eyebrows raised just a hint—a far more reproachful stare than I had ever gotten from him, far more effective than anything he and Mom had ever said.

I felt small. Petty. The anger and recent jeers of the people around me felt justified. Shame burned in my face, and my eyes felt full. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.

“One question,” Marti said, with her eyes still down. “Can I go get my purse?”

She pointed toward the corner of the room a hundred feet off, where her traps had gone un-used.

Dad shook his head. “I’ll make sure you get it. Later.”

She looked pained. “But—”

“You’ll get it later.”

She clamped her mouth shut.

He lit the sparkling brink, moving his lighter in a fast circle to the point of each spike. As the flames finished spreading around the emblem, he stood and again gave me that solemn look. Disappointment danced like fire in his vision. I wanted to hide. He gave his head the barest shake as the white sheet of humming light filled the emblem’s space. My heart felt weak. My eyes stung.

I leaped into the agony of zipping, pulling Marti with me.

On the other side, we stumbled onto hard tile. I let go of her hand to catch myself, so my face didn’t hit the floor. She managed to only fall to one knee.

I knelt there on all fours, panting, blinking, hoping Marti couldn’t tell how shook up I was.

We’d zipped to a large room with metal walls and a ceiling of bright fluorescent lights that shone like the sun. The tiles I knelt on had a brown color, but the ones behind me had a black-and-white checkered pattern. People ran in a hundred directions all around us, shouting and dodging past each other.

“Crap!” Marti said.

“What?” I said. I didn’t look at her. I didn’t want her to see the shame in my face. “Where are we?”

“Your dad sent us to the worst place possible.”

I stood, preparing myself for one of the people in the crowd to notice us and do something. But none of them did. Every last one of them wore a dark suit.

“What? Where are we?”

Marti grabbed my arm and moved me three steps forward, not quite into the crisscrossing traffic, but out of the spot we’d zipped into.

“SOaP.”

That didn’t seem so bad, but Agent Maynerd had placed Marti on probation just a few hours before. What would they do when they found out her recent activity?

“Richie!” a woman’s voice called through the crowd.

I scanned the mob of people. It seemed to have already thinned just a little.

“Richie!” the voice repeated. It came from my left.

Mom pushed her way through the people toward me.

I didn’t know whether to cringe or shout for joy. Only three hours before I’d purposefully ignored her, and zipped away from her presence. She probably didn’t have any idea where I’d gone.

How much did she know? What worry had I put her through?

She came to me, her arms wide—vials of brink dangling from the arms of her jacket—and hugged me. She held me tight, kissed my cheeks, and mussed my hair. Again, my eyes burned and my face felt hot. How could she embrace me like this when I’d deliberately defied her? I wanted to apologize, but words caught in my throat. How could I offer regrets for doing such a disrespectful thing?

“Mom,” I said. “There are people around. They’re watching.”

“I’m the only one watching,” Marti said. “And it’s amusing how red you’re turning right now. Hilarious, really.”

Mom laughed and hugged me tighter. I returned the embrace, hoping that maybe it would influence her to let me go sooner. It seemed to work, and she took a step back from me. My apology still caught in my throat.

“Where have you been?” she said. “The place has been going crazy for the last five minutes. What happened? They won’t tell me anything.”

“That’s because you don’t have clearance.”

I began to panic at the voice and its long southern drawl. I’d heard that voice only five minutes before. It was Nick Savage. It had to be.

But no. The source stood half a dozen feet to my left. Not Nick Savage. His brother.

He gave me and Marti a long, serious look. “We know what you’ve been up to.”

Chapter 48: I can’t remember

I swear, it’s like I’m talking to a monkey sometimes.

-Linford B. Maynerd

Agent Maynerd came toward us, a mixture of concern and anger in his eyes. He stopped short of grabbing us as he looked us up and down.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“We’re fine,” Marti said.

“Physically,” I said. “Mentally, I’m a little jacked up.”

He narrowed his eyes at us. “Anyone hurt you?”

I could have told them about any number of instances when I might have gotten injured, or when Marti had hurt me—but decided against it.

“Nope,” Marti said. “No injuries.”

Agent Maynerd narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, as if trying to decide if he believed us or not.

“And your dad?” he said. “Is he okay in that hornet’s nest?”

I shrugged. “He seemed fine.”

“They accepted him as king,” Marti said.

Mom swore under her breath. Agent Maynerd looked surprised and pleased in an angry way.

“About time,” he said.

He turned, and with Mom led us down the hallway in such a solemn silence I knew I’d be dead if the law allowed for the killing of minors. In thirty seconds, we stepped into the control room, with the rows of desks and computers, the wall of monitors, and the glass wall of conference rooms. People sat at most of the desks, focusing on monitors and talking intently into headsets. The entire wall of monitors was black, except for one screen in the center, which inexplicably played a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Mom walked ahead with Agent Maynerd, trying to get him to tell her what was going on. You would have thought he was mad at her, too, for how he glared and didn’t respond.

I tried to talk with Marti, but her sharp look shut me up. I expected Agent Maynerd to separate Marti and I, but he joined us in one of the conference rooms. We sat, Mom at the head, and Marti and I along the side. Agent Maynerd began to pace.

“Do you know what you’ve done, tonight?” he said. “Can you even begin to know?”

All kinds of smart ways to respond came to mind.

Marti nodded. “Where will he go to create the brink?”

Agent Maynerd shook his head. “We’ve deployed as widely as possible.” He turned to us and slammed his hands down on the glass table. His calm demeanor snapped. “You idiots!”

I jumped in surprise. Mom squeaked.

“You should have come to us. You should have told us you had a way to trap him!”

Marti lifted her hands, palms up, and started to talk.

But Agent Maynerd interrupted her. A humongous vein had popped out in his neck.

“Where is he going? Do you know
anything
about where he might go?”

Marti shook her head. “He said nothing to me about that.”

Agent Maynerd looked at me. “And you? Did you see or hear anything tonight that might tell us where he’s going?”

I shook my head, feeling disoriented and quite guilty.

“Think, you fool! Everything depends on finding him.”

I cast my mind back through the night, trying to remember every conversation I’d had with Nick. I couldn’t recall that he’d said anything that might indicate
where
he would blow up the emotion. He’d only ever said he wanted to let the world know about magic and destroy evil. But how? How did he want to do that?