Awoken (4 page)

“What the—?!”

Silvery metal surrounded the jewel that was now embedded in her palm, spreading thread-thin tendrils of the metal into her skin like tiny roots.

“Holy crap on a plate!”

She clawed at the diamond, scraping the jewel with her fingernails until blood welled and hot pain shot up her arm. Neither the jewel nor silver came free.

Lina screamed.

Michael peeked out of the brush to check the street. No police cars, that was good. No pedestrians either, even better.

He stepped out of the brush in one smooth motion. The cement sidewalk hummed under his feet. He ignored the music while he brushed the clinging twigs and leaves from his shirt, then started walking.

Keeping an eye out for the flashing lights of a police car, he tried to walk nonchalantly. The girl, Lina, hadn’t liked him very much. She might really tell the cops about the fountain, even if the admission would make her sound like a nut. Plus, Billy had messed up his hand pretty good.

He rubbed his cheek. The skin didn’t
feel
hard enough to break someone’s hand. The incident had to have something to do with the stonesong. Rock-hard skin, silver eyes, dollmen in his room, exploding statues—things were getting a little too much like a
Supernatural
episode for comfort. Time to get some advice, and from someone who wouldn’t dismiss his wild story as the delusional ravings of an unbalanced orphan. Time to talk to Diggs. The drifter’s camp was down next to the river by the old Main Street bridge. If he hurried, he could be there within the hour.

The hot sun beat down on him as he walked. Before long, sweat covered his forehead and dampened his armpits. “Should have worn shorts.”

Suddenly, he felt an uncomfortable itch between his shoulder blades. He searched the street behind him. Empty. But he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling he was being watched. Maybe he was getting paranoid.

Just then, he noticed a black cat sitting in the branches of an elm tree just ahead. The cat was staring right at him, and so was the large crow perched on the branch beside the feline. The animals sat so close that fur brushed feather, but neither reacted to the proximity of the other.

The hairs on the back of Michael’s neck gave a nervous prickle. “Okay. Even by my recently rising standards, that’s creepy.”

He kept walking, and was a dozen yards from the tree when the crow took flight with an explosive burst of flapping wings.

“Good riddance.”

Michael glanced at the cat as he passed under the tree, and his breath caught in his throat. The cat’s eyes were two different colors. One green, the other brown.

You will know them by their colors, green of moss, and brown of soil. One of each, you must beware
.

Green and brown, the colors of the Ven.

“No frigging way.”

Staring down at him with its mismatched eyes, the cat opened its mouth and hissed, “
Pry-mare-eeeee
.”

Michael ran.

Pry-mare-eeeee
.

The impossible voice of the black cat echoing in his ears, Michael ran.

Dollmen were sneaking into his room at night. He was turning into a silver-eyed freak who could break statues with his mind. And now he found out the Ven were talking devil cats that hung out with crows and had mismatched eyes. He needed help. He needed to find Diggs.

The sidewalk sang under his slapping heels, and the stonesong inside him reached out for the music. He fought the music. He wasn’t sure how, but he pulled the stonesong back, keeping the power inside and away from the concrete. The stonesong was stubborn, refusing to be reined in for long before surging out again.

He jumped the curb and tore across an intersection. Diggs’s camp was just a few blocks ahead. He hoped he could hold on that long. Mastering the stonesong was like grasping a greasy eel—a slippery task, and distracting.

A horn blared in his ears. He twisted to his right, and saw a black sedan bearing down upon him at reckless speed. The car was so close he could make out the green, tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the mirror. There was no time to dodge.

A gnarled hand snatched his collar and yanked him from the car’s path. The black sedan never slowed. Tires squealing, the car careened around the next corner without signaling and disappeared.

The shaggy man who’d saved Michael gave a disgusted grunt. “Blasted Sunday drivers,” he complained. “They see about as well as a blind rhino, and are twice as dangerous. You okay, Mike?”

“Diggs,” Michael breathed. “It’s you.”

Diggs bowed at the waist. “In the flesh.”

Despite the heat, the wiry drifter was wearing jeans and a worn corduroy jacket. His snowy white hair was in a long ponytail that reached down to his lower back, and a steel belt buckle in the shape of a jaguar head adorned his waist. His eyes were a piercing blue and sparkled with a youth at odds with his tanned, weathered face.

“Thanks a lot, man,” Michael said with feeling. “I almost bought it.”

Diggs grinned. “Crudely spoken, but accurate, I’d say.”

Like Michael, Diggs had only been staying in Flintville a couple of weeks. He was a drifter, a migrant handyman who’d put down shallow roots here for reasons only he could know. They’d met at the library and hit it off immediately. The life of a homeless vagabond held a strange appeal for Michael, who couldn’t remember having a permanent home himself. As for Diggs, he seemed delighted to have someone to talk with. Camping out by the river hadn’t made the man many friends in Flintville.

When the vagabond wasn’t fishing or reading, he would pick up the odd job to “pay the bills.” He was a true jack-of-all-trades, and seemed to know a bit about everything worth knowing. Fixing cars, landscaping, dish washing—he attacked all the tasks with the same air of general good humor.

“I would have thought you’d have guessed who saved you,” Diggs remarked mischievously. “Nobody else around here likes you enough to pull your butt out of traffic.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Diggs’s smile faltered. “Your mouth is bleeding.”

Michael put a finger to his lip and winced. Billy must have given him the cut. He hadn’t even noticed. “Diggs, you have to help me,” he said in a rush. “There was a talking cat, and the fountain broke, and the music…the music is everywhere! The noise won’t stop!”

“Whoa, Mike. Settle down for a second.”

“I can’t settle down!” Michael stomped his foot on the humming pavement. “Can you hear that? No? Well, I can. And guess what else? Little white men are running around killing talking cats, and crawling through my window into my room at night. The mermaid is dead, and Billy’s got a busted hand. Do you get what I’m telling you? I’m totally losing it, man!”

“What are you talking…?” Diggs’s eyes grew wide. “Little men came into your room? Did they give you anything? Did they make you drink from a stone cup?”

“Yes. I was in my bed and…” Michael trailed off, taking a long step back from the drifter. “How did you know about the cup, Diggs?”

“Mike, listen—”

“Don’t touch me!” Michael backed away even further. “Did you already know about the dollmen? Did you?”

“Shhh,” Diggs hissed. “Lower your voice, and let me explain.”

Anger surged through Michael, and flickers of silver light began to bleed from his sneakers into the concrete around his shoes. “Explain? You want to explain?” A manhole cover up the street popped into the air like a champagne cork. “How can you explain this?”

Diggs darted forward. Grabbing Michael’s shirt, he lifted him from the street and flung him onto the grass.

The stonesong’s connection to the pavement broke like an overextended rubber band. Michael struggled not to vomit. The sudden break made his head ache, and his stomach was churning madly.

Eyes blazing, Diggs jabbed his finger into the center of Michael’s chest. “You are going to calm down. Otherwise, I’m going to drag you down to the river and throw you in. Understand me?”

Michael gulped. He’d never seen Diggs like this, so angry, so…wild.

“Just because I know about the People doesn’t mean I had anything to do with what is happening to you,” Diggs snarled. “I can explain, Mike, even help you. But you have to listen to me. Do you understand?”

Michael gave a shaky nod. “Sorry, Diggs. I just…” He scrubbed his face with his palm. “I don’t know. I guess all this is starting to freak me out.”

Diggs’s threatening demeanor softened. “You’re not the only one, kid.” He helped Michael to his feet. “I never expected this either. The People…I had no idea they’d come here looking for you. They came last night?”

“Yes. They gave me something to drink. Ever since—”

“You’ve been able to fuse with rock,” Diggs finished. “I know. The stonesong’s in you all right.”

Michael’s jaw dropped. “You know about that? Does that mean you have the stonesong, too?”

Diggs chuckled. “No. You’ve a rare talent, Mike. That’s why the People, the ones you call the dollmen, have been looking for you. Their mission seems to have been to bring your talent to full potential.” He gestured to the dislodged manhole cover. “That was reckless, by the way. You shouldn’t use the stonesong so carelessly. Its power is dangerous.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Michael replied sarcastically. “It’s not like I did it on purpose. You should see the fountain at the park.”

“The one with the mermaid?”

“Not anymore.”

Diggs threw up his hands. “Are you crazy? What if someone saw you?”

“Umm…”

“You’re not serious. Someone saw you use the stonesong?”

Michael crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t get a manual with this, Diggs. I can’t control what I do. That’s why I need to undo whatever the dollmen did to me. Can you help me?”

Diggs’s shaggy eyebrows pinched together. “I’ve been helping the People for some time now, but I’m not one of them. I know rather a bit about the stonesong, but by no means everything. Sorry.”

“What am I gonna do, Diggs? The stonesong keeps trying to grab onto rock, like at the park. I can’t control it.”

“What do you mean? The waystone is supposed to…” Diggs frowned. “Where’s your waystone?”

“My what?”

“A jewel that acts like a filter, or an antenna. The waystone prevents the stonesong from lashing out, gives you control. The People must have given you one.”

“I don’t think so.”

“They must have. Think, Mike—a jewel mounted in a setting of silver earthbone, covered in baked clay, shaped in a necklace or bracelet most likely.”

“You mean this necklace?” asked Michael, reached toward his throat. “Hey! Where’d it go?”

Diggs paled. “You lost the waystone? Bells and hells, Mike! Without the necklace, the stonesong will try to fuse with every rock you come across.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“The understatement of the year,” said Diggs. “The stonesong is just waking up, and you’re already having trouble with control. In a couple of months, you’re going to be ten times as strong. You’ll be a walking earthquake by the end of the summer.”

“That really doesn’t sound good at all.” Michael thought for a moment. “I had the necklace this morning. I must have lost it in the park, probably when Billy took a swing at me.”

Diggs scratched at his scraggily whiskers. “Then that’s where we’ll start looking.”

“Okay. What about the cat?”

“What cat?”

Michael took a deep breath. “Okay. This is going to sound nuts. But on my way here, I saw a black cat sitting in a tree with a crow. The crow left, but then the cat…well, it called me a name or something.”

The blood drained from Diggs’s face. “Tell me the cat didn’t have green and brown eyes, Mike. Please, tell me the cat didn’t have green and brown eyes.”

A cloud drifted over the sun, covering them in foreboding shadow.

Michael shivered. “The dollman warned me about something, Diggs. The cat was a Ven, wasn’t it?”

Diggs’s eyes looked haunted. “They come in many forms. The cat is one of their lesser creations, a tracker. So was the crow. Where and when did you see them?”

“A couple of blocks back, maybe five minutes ago. The cat called me a ‘primer’ or ‘pee-merry.’”

“Primary?”

“That might have been the word.”

Diggs cursed under his breath. “Worse than I imagined. You had better go home, Mike. Keep out of sight. I’ll contact you as soon as I can.”

“Back home? I need your help.”

Diggs took a small medicine bottle from his coat pocket and popped off the cap. “That’s what I’m trying to do, Mike.” Pouring two white pills from the bottle, he tossed them into his mouth and swallowed them dry. “You lie low while I try to find the waystone and contact the People. With Ven so close, we have to be careful. And don’t tell anyone about any of this, especially your foster parents. Bad enough that Ven has noticed you; the less your guardians know, the safer they will be.”

Michael scowled. “So I’m just supposed to chill at my house while you go out dollman hunting? What kind of plan is that?”

“The kind that keeps you breathing.” Diggs walked away. “The People and I have been dodging Ven trackers awhile now. We know what to look for, and what to avoid. You know squat. Try to stay on the grass until you’ve had more practice with the stonesong. I’ll contact you when it’s safe. And, Mike, be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

Somewhere nearby, a crow cawed, then another, and another, filling the air with raucous racket.

Diggs looked up at the sky, and then at Michael. “To run.”

Equinox held the plastic shaker poised above the tropic-warm water, tapping one, two, three times. He watched the blue and orange fish closely as they sluggishly pecked at the yellowish, uneven flakes. The fish appeared distracted today, uncertain in their feeding. They acted almost as if their primitive minds had noted their master’s mood.

“Do you feel something amiss, little ones? You seem rather agitated. Is it possible you somehow sense my own emotional state?”

Unlikely, but then the fishes’ proximity to his experiments could not be ignored. Despite exhaustive precautions, they might have been exposed at some point. The possibility bore looking into.