The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (19 page)

I
yank back on the sliding door, but there’s another lock on its
tracks and it won’t budge.

“
Okay,
there are a ton of different beach bars,” Linnie calls as I
head to the bathroom to check if Linnie left a bobby-pin or something
in there that I could use to try to pick the sliding door lock.
Linnie continues, “But, I keep coming back to someplace call Co
Fa gig-nam... Ka Pa… I don’t know how to say it,”
She holds up the book.

I
cross to her and read: Koh Phangan.

Linnie
pulls the book back to look at it, “It says here that it’s
an international ‘backpacker mecca’… that it has a
long string of beach bars… that it’s world famous for
its Full Moon Parties where…”

“
That’s
it!” I say, my already racing heart, accelerating into
jet-speed. “That’s it, you found it.”

“
Really?”
Linnie bounces up and down on her butt. “I found it! Yay! Yay!
I’m so awesome!” She stands to start bouncing on the bed.
“But…wait,” She stills, “How do you know?”

“
The
‘full moon’ part… they said that,” I answer.

“
Who?”
Linnie asks.

“
The…”
I’m trying to decide who to lie about when I realized, I
haven’t told my sister a thing about last night, and she hasn’t
asked, which is so unlike her, it’s astounding. “You
haven’t asked me about last night,” I say.

“
Yeah,”
Linnie plops down into a cross legged position and grabs up the book
intently staring at a page she likely picked at random. “Um,
from the new demon mark, and the blowout between you and Mr.
Seriously Sexy Soldier Boy, I figured it was bad and you’d tell
me when you were ready.” She glances up at me, then quickly
back down.

“
It
wasn’t…
that
bad, I guess…” and, taking the perfect opportunity to
change the subject from ‘who told me about Stephen,’ I
take a seat beside my sister and tell Linnie about the night. First,
about us being kidnaped and manhandled by the foreign deity
menagerie. Then, about finding Nicholas and being put under the
‘invoking love’ spell, which failed. But when I get to
the part where
Räum
took me into his dressing room for our little conversation, then my
big ‘make-out session’ with Jones, I decide to
completely skip telling that part of the night
.
That Jones ‘make-out session’ part is something I’m
determined to forget. I resume my story on the kick-boxing match, the
Kra-Sue, and the deal I struck with Räum.

“
Holy
sheesh! Who knew Nicholas had so much game? He and Cassidy… I
can kind of see it,” Linnie says, with a huge ‘canary ate
the cat’ grin on her face. “So, what happened to Nicholas
and Cassidy?”

“
Good
question,” I say, “And the answer is: your ‘Seriously
Sexy Soldier Boy’ likely doesn’t care. And, even if he
does care, and knew what happened to them, he’s not telling
us.”

“
You
didn’t ask him…” Linnie says.

“
Linnie,
I asked him to treat me like an equal, and he imprisoned me.” I
put my arms out, giving her a ‘get it?’ expression. “It’s
a power struggle, he’s going to control everything I see, hear,
do, and learn.”

“
I
think you’re reading too much into it...” She says, “He
probably just has to do something and locked us in to keep us safe.”

A
hundred angry responses compound in my chest, but I just sigh,
releasing the pressure and giving up. What’s the point, really?
The concept of ‘power struggle’ might just not be one my
sister can fully fathom.

“
So,”
Linnie says with a smile, “You don’t like Mr. ‘
Seriously
Sexy Soldier Boy’?”

“
I
prefer ‘Stupid-Jerk-face,’ and no, I think ‘hate,’
‘detest,’ maybe ‘loath’ better describes what
I feel toward him.”

“
So
you won’t mind if I go after him?” She says, smile huge
on her face and eyes twinkling.

“
That’s
a joke, right? You’re joking?” I say, just in case I
didn’t get my point across, I add, “cue the laughter,
right?”

“
Not
joking,” Linnie says, and then she sighs in a love-sick kind of
way, (or maybe just sick-in-the head kind of way). Linnie continues,
“He’s like, the sexiest man I’ve ever seen. So…
I don’t know, soldier boy-ish. I just want to rip off his—“

“
Stop!
Stop! You’re burning my brain!” I gesture to the door.
“Did you not get the part where he’s a psycho? He.
Imprisoned. Us.”

“
He’s
not a psycho, just, like, militant, you know? And maybe I wouldn’t
mind being imprisoned by him…”

“
Did
you hear that? It was my brain self-destructing because you are being
so gross! Oh, Linnie, you always pick the lamest guys.”

Linnie’s
smile falls from her face. “Thanks,” She snaps, obviously
offended.

“
No,
I mean… yeah, go after him if you want, but don’t get
hurt because he’s a stupid jerk.” I exhale, not sure what
to say. The silence stretches on between us.

I
probably shouldn’t be shocked by how shallow my sister is
acting; all our lives she’s acted stupid when it comes to guys.
But right now is the worst possible time. I mean, does she not
realize the danger we’re in? Sure, I’ve kept the worst
from her, but I just came out of a demon nest… a
demon
nest
.
I take a deep breath and ask what needs to be asked, “So,
you’re probably not going to be so keen on trying to escape
from Jones, are you?”

“
No,
that’s perfect,” Linnie says bouncing up, smiling, and
clapping her hands, “We’ll make him chase us! Just give
me a chance to flirt with him first, and then we’ll make him
chase us.”

Ahem-hem-hem,
no. I was more thinking that the farther away Jones is from me and
this quest, the better. I need to find Stephen and get him to
Madeline pronto, without Stupid Jerk Face treating me like an
‘infuriatingly-ditzy teenager who needs to be kept away from
pointy things’.

I
glance sideward at my sister, seriously bothered that she wants to
turn this quest into some sort of dating game. I consider telling her
the stakes—what will happen if I fail, wiping the smile off her
face; the words form in my mouth: ‘guess what…I might
rot to death,’ but, I don’t let them out.

“
Don’t
even think about trying to leave me behind,” Linnie snaps,
“mythical sibling rivalry vengeance, remember? And that would
include telling Sexy Soldier Boy where you’re going, birdie.
So, forget about it.”

“
I
didn’t even think of it,” I lie.

Linnie
rolls her eyes, “Yeah, okay. Well, don’t.”

“
This
is what we’re going to do,” I say as I grab the book from
Linnie, then the Thai/English translation book and Jones’
notes. Placing the books exactly as I found them beside Jones’
chair, I continue, “When Jones comes back in here…”
I detail my plan to my sister giving her specific instructions.

Linnie
nods like a bobble head as I talk, a smile spreading across her face
as I tell her exactly how we’re going to escape.

****

“
What
exact words did
Räum
use, can you remember? It’s very, very important,” Jones
says, while his pen scratches furiously across his page of notes.

I
keep my focus on the television, which Linnie and I had ‘supposedly’
been watching since Jones locked us in the room. Or that’s the
story we hinted at.

The
man newscaster speaks in Thai, but I can tell what the story is about
as they are showing ‘the video that has changed the world.’

Some
say it’s a fake.

I
know better.

It’s
live footage of Denmark from last summer. The footage is of a man who
was ‘infected with the carrion bird flu’ collapsing. Dirt
cakes his ragged hair. The attack he had obviously survived from the
demonically-infected-ravens that ravaged the people of Denmark and
Sweden last summer left his skin scraped, cut and torn. Between the
scrapes on the skin of his face, he has broken into black boils.

The
video’s sound is muted, but the man obviously screams, though,
only the sound of the Thai news caster is audible.

The
camera moves away from the man, as if its holder backs away but is
still determined to catch the scene.

The
man starts tearing at his face, tearing into the black boils, all the
while screaming. As he tears, the skin of his face rips away, like a
cheap, heated rubber mask. Below the shreds of skin something black
squirms. And as if birthing itself as from the viscous shell that was
the man’s head, a raven crawls out of the tattered remains of
the face.

The
bird frees itself by pulling the remains off with its claws and beak,
and then shakes out its feathers. The moment the bird separates from
its former body, the body dries out, withering in seconds. The video
ends with the raven launching from the ground and the video feed cuts
out.

It’s
horrific.

It’s
also old news. Seen. Talked about internationally. Discredited.
Validated. Discredited again.

The
fact that not a single raven has been seen in Scandinavia in almost a
year, along with the fact that during that time there hasn’t
been an attack or new case of Carrion flu infection worldwide all
adds up to: the world wants to move on. More than anything,
Scandinavia wants to move on; from what I can tell from Albert,
everyone he knows there is tired of the spotlight and wants to lick
their wounds in peace.

“
So
the difference between being infected by a demon and infecting
yourself by drinking demon blood is: if a demon or a
demonically-infected-bird attacks and infects you, that happens to
you? Or, you turn into a lion like Cassidy…?” I whisper
to myself, “But if you drink demon blood you become a
magician?”

The
television blinks off.

“
Hey!”
I protest.

“
Raven!”
Jones barks, “You need to pay attention, what exact words did
Räum use?”

I
inhale slowly. “He said something like…” I pause
as if I’m thinking, “Stephen is off riding elephants
through the northern jungles. But… I think he said it more as
a metaphor than something literal.” I bite my lip, pretending
to think.

Jones
just shakes his head while writing. He doesn’t correct me by
saying, ‘durrr, demons can’t say specific metaphors as it
would be a tantamount to a lie.’ But why correct a… what
was it he called me? Oh yeah… why correct a selfish,
self-centered, immature girl who doesn’t deserve any respect?

Linnie
quivers beside me. I can feel her excitement. The energy of her
wanting to join in our conversation permeates through the air. But,
as she promised, Linnie keeps silent.

“
Continue,”
Jones barks.

“
Well,
then he went off about you guys hiding information from me. He told
me that you deleted The Book of Revelation, from my Bible. Actually,
I wanted to ask you about that,” I say honestly.

When
I pause, Jones again orders, “Continue.”

That
wasn’t predictable. I roll my eyes, but continue with an edited
version of exactly what Räum and I spoke about, only cutting out
the insinuations that Räum made about me being a human ‘evil
incarnate’ (I don’t really feel the need to confirm
Jones’ beliefs about me).

After
the long tedious process of our debriefing concludes (he’s even
worse than Albert), Jones picks up the Thai/English translation book.
Opens it to the back where I know the index is, and then looks up at
me. He asks, “Do you feel any physical or emotional changes
since you were demon marked last night?”

“
Are
you serious? You practically threw me over your shoulder and locked
me in a hotel room without letting me get food or coffee, and we ran
out of water and soda and snacks from the mini fridge. I’m
freaking hungry, I have a massive headache from coffee deprivation,
and yeah, I’m pissed off.”

“
Continue,”
he says.

“
Nope,”
I snap back, “That about sums it up. It’s hard to think
without, you know, my basic needs being met.”

“
And
mine,” Linnie chimes cheerfully. “What have you tried?”
she asks, pointing at the book.