Birthright: Book I of the Temujin Saga (7 page)

Was this it? Was he
finally
going to kiss Crystal Hammond?

::Go for it, kid.::

Alex slowly leaned toward Crystal and his heart skipped a beat as his lips gently brushed against hers. For a moment all they did was touch lips, and Alex wondered if there was anything else he should have been doing. Regardless of his lack of experience, it felt wonderful to him. Nothing, he thought, could ever ruin this moment for him.

::Give her the tongue!::

Alex pulled away. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything.” Crystal leaned in for another kiss.

::What did you stop for?
Kiss her!
::

::Except this time don’t do it like a dead fish.::

::Oh, leave the kid alone. This is awkward enough without you two helping.::

“Who said that?” Alex shouted.

Crystal pulled back. “I didn’t hear anything.”

Alex threw the blanket off and jumped to his feet, looking around for the source of the voices. It was Baxter Franklin and his goons; it had to be. But when he looked around, the park was almost entirely deserted and awash from the torrential downpour. Fat droplets of water dripped from the bill of his cap.

“Who’s there?” he yelled. “This isn’t funny anymore!”

“Alex.” Crystal wrapped the blanket around her like a shawl. “What’s the matter?”

::Don’t be afraid.::

Alex cupped his hands over his ears. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”

Crystal cringed. “Alex, you’re scaring me.”

::Calm down, kid. We’re only here to help you.::

The voices kept coming, and nothing Alex did could block them out. They started to blend together, a cacophonous mishmash of nonsense syllables. He screamed and ran toward town. Crystal called after him, but he could not hear her; the voices in his head drowned out everything else.

*****

Alex ran into the alley behind the post office and leaned against the brick wall. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and his head was spinning. He tilted his head back and let the cool rain pelt his sweating face and wash away the waves of nausea. The voices had stopped, and the alley was blissfully quiet… until he heard another unwanted voice.

“Hey,
loser
,” Baxter called as he rounded the corner. “What’s the matter? Couldn’t get it up?”

Alex pointed a warning finger at the bully. “Stay away from me!”

“Ooooh!”
Baxter held up his hands. “Check it out, guys. Little Alex Walker thinks he’s a tough guy all of a sudden.”

::Take them out, kid.::

Alex squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears. “Shut up! Leave me alone!”

When Alex opened his eyes, Baxter was right on top of him. “What d’ya say, Walker? Should I go show Crystal what a
real
man can do?”

::Shut his mouth.::

“Shut your mouth!” Alex drove his fist into Baxter’s smirking face.

Baxter staggered from the blow and his friends gasped at the unexpected display of courage from the younger boy. When Baxter turned his face back to Alex, he spat out a mouthful of blood, along with one of his front teeth. Alex stared at the broken tooth as the rain washed the blood from it in patches.

::Good shot, kid!::

“I told you to shut up,” Alex huffed.

“You’re
dead
, Walker!” Baxter howled.

He grabbed Alex by the front of his shirt and punched him in the stomach. As Alex fell to the ground, coughing and gasping for air, a shimmer caught his eye. For a moment, he thought he saw three points of yellow light floating in a nearby puddle.

Baxter flipped Alex onto his back and punched him in the face. The other boys joined in the beating, taunting and jeering as they kicked him in the ribs and head.

“Help!” cried Alex in between kicks. “Somebody!”

“Hey, jerkoff!” said a voice behind them.

The bullies ceased their assault and turned. An Asian man in his late teens or early twenties with short, untidy black hair stood at the end of the alley. Unlike them, he appeared totally dry, his gray T-shirt and blue jeans looked as if he’d just stepped outside. Baxter’s friends immediately backed away from Alex, but Baxter stood his ground.

“Why don’t you punks pick on someone your own size?” said the stranger.

“What?” Baxter took a step toward the new arrival, his chest puffed up. “Like
you
?”

“If you think you’ve got the stones.” The man beckoned. “Come get some.”

Baxter lunged forward with a punch, but the stranger sidestepped him and knocked him down with a powerful hook kick to his back. As the bully struck the ground, the stranger turned to the other three boys.

“Anybody else want a piece?”

One of the boys slapped his companions on the back. “C’mon, we can take him. He can’t beat
all
of us.”

The stranger smiled. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

The three youths ran forward, and the stranger adopted a low fighting stance. As the first boy approached, the man dropped and took the boy’s legs out from under him with a low wheel kick. With lightning-fast speed he leaped into the air over the second boy’s head and as the boy passed underneath him lashed out with his legs, striking him in the back with his feet. On the way down, the stranger grabbed the third boy’s shoulders and let the momentum of the fall carry them both to the ground. When the stranger’s back touched the ground, he thrust his foot into the boy’s abdomen and threw him over his head. The bully screamed as he landed face-first in a cluster of trashcans. Greasy, rancid garbage cascaded over him.

Alex clutched his head, feeling warm blood seeping through his fingers. The stranger moved so fast, he seemed a blur to Alex’s cloudy eyes. A sudden movement behind the man caught Alex’s eye. In the dim light, he could just make out the glint of a small blade as Baxter pulled a pocketknife from his jeans.

“Mister, look out!”

The stranger turned, and Baxter snarled as he plunged the blade into the man’s abdomen. He looked down at the blade and then up to the bully’s sneering face. With calm, slow motions, he wrapped his fingers around the hand holding the knife and drew it out of the wound. Baxter’s eyes grew wide as the blade came out clean of blood, coated instead with a glowing yellow substance.

The man placed his thumb against the flat side of the blade and snapped it in two. As the broken blade clattered to the ground, Baxter urinated down his leg.

The stranger leaned in close to the bully’s ear and whispered, “This is the part where you run away, calling for your mommy.”

“Mommy!” Baxter squealed as he scrambled to get away from the stranger, slipping on the wet pavement.

One by one, the other boys followed suit and joined their leader in the retreat. Once they were alone, the stranger walked over to where Alex sat against the wall, his eyes wide and transfixed on his rescuer. A light haze, like steam, rose from where the raindrops touched the man’s skin.

The stranger placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder. It was warm, far too warm. “Are you okay?”

Alex recoiled from the man’s touch, his eyes focused on the glowing wound.

“What?” The stranger looked down at his shirt. “Oh, this? No biggie.”

Slowly, the stranger passed his hand over the hole and, when he pulled away, the wound was gone; even the cloth was seamlessly mended.

“There.” The man smiled. “That’s better.”

Alex pressed his back flatter against the wall and stared at the shirt.

“What’s the matter, kid?”

“Wh-who are you?” asked Alex. “
What
are you?”

“Who am I?” The man seemed taken aback by the question. “You don’t
know
?”

“I don’t think he does,” said another voice from the back of the alley.

Alex flinched and looked toward the source of the voice just as two more men stepped out of the shadows. These men, like the first when he initially appeared, were entirely dry; their clothes were just beginning to show signs of moisture as the rain fell on them. The man on the right was dressed in khaki cargo shorts, a white T-shirt covered by an unbuttoned blue short-sleeved over-shirt, and scuffed white sneakers. He had an athletic build and his medium-length blond hair was a jumbled mess. Black sunglasses covered his eyes.

The dark-skinned man to the left was dressed in blue jeans, a black T-shirt, black leather boots, and a red and black leather jacket. His tight, curly hair was cut short. He sported the slightest growth of beard, light stubble lining his strong jaw. Unlike the other two strangers, he appeared to be older, possibly in his early to mid-thirties.

The older man extended a hand to Alex, who hesitated before taking it, and helped him to his feet. His smoky eyes surveyed the boy’s face.

“He doesn’t seem to have any clue who we are,” he said finally.

“Well, how can that be, Lomaant?” asked the rescuer in the gray shirt.

“I don’t know, Mo,” Lomaant answered.

The blond man removed his glasses and looked at Alex with deep blue eyes. “You look like road kill run over twice, kid.”

Lomaant began brushing mud and litter from Alex’s clothes. “You’re a real jerk, Samrai. You know that?”

Samrai shrugged.

Lomaant picked a wad of chewing gum from Alex’s pants and flicked it at Samrai, who sidestepped it with casual annoyance.

Alex felt claustrophobic between the three strangers. The heat radiating off their bodies was making him dizzy. “Who are you guys?”

“We’re your backup,” said Lomaant.

“My
what
?” Alex looked back and forth from one man to another.

“Why doesn’t he know who we are?” asked Mo again. “I mean, we know all about him.”

Samrai put his sunglasses back on. “Well, we’ve only been marinating in his brain for the past thirteen years, genius. Of course we know who
he
is.”

His brain?
Surely he hadn’t heard that. His head was pounding. The alley went dark as Alex’s eyelids fluttered and he fell, limp as a boned fish. Lomaant caught him and lowered him to the ground gently.

Samrai scoffed, “Got the heart of a lion, this one.”

Lomaant crouched beside Alex and checked his pulse. “He’s all right. He just fainted.”

“We might as well pack our bags and go home right now,” said Samrai.

“That’s
not
an option!” Lomaant stood and plucked Samrai’s glasses off his face to look him in the eyes. “I won’t hear any more of that talk from you. Got that?”

Samrai snatched his glasses back. He waited until Lomaant turned his back and stuck out his tongue.

Mo ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it. “Well, what do we do now?”

Lomaant knelt beside Alex. “Help me pick him up.”

“Why?” Samrai turned and walked toward the end of the alley. “You’re not crippled.”

Mo sighed. “I’ve got him.” He crouched and grabbed the unconscious boy’s ankles. “So what’s the plan, boss?”

Lomaant lifted the boy by the shoulders and led the way out of the alley. “We have to get him out of here before somebody comes looking for the person that kicked the tar out of Baxter and his pals.”

As they walked, Mo tilted his head back and closed his eyes, letting the rain stream down his face. “Man, this rain feels good.”

“Yeah,” said Lomaant. “A little cold, though.”

Chapter Eight

Alex opened his eyes and was instantly blinded by the light over his bed. He closed his eyes and pulled the
Transformers
comforter over his head. Bright spots swam across the insides of his eyelids.

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “It was all a dream. I didn’t really spaz out in front of Crystal Hammond.”

“No. That, you
did
do.”

Alex ripped the covers back and saw the blond man from the alley, Samrai, lounging in a beanbag chair across the room.

“Y-you!”

Samrai gave him a thumbs up. “Nice sheets.”

“How did I get here?”

“We carried you,” said a voice to his left.

Alex turned. The older man, Lomaant, leaned against the wall and gazed out the window at the falling rain. The leather jacket he had been wearing was gone.

He turned to look at Alex. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay.” He rubbed his side tenderly. “My ribs hurt, though.”

“You sustained a lot of bruises,” Lomaant explained. “But nothing’s broken. They also loosened a couple of your teeth, but I wouldn’t worry about it. You were lucky.”

“Yeah, lucky,” said Alex despondently. “If you consider freaking out while your dream girl is trying to kiss you lucky.”

Lomaant shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that either.”

“Sure.” Alex rested his back against the headboard. “
You
wouldn’t. You’re not the one who has to explain what happened.”

“No.” Samrai examined a broken digital clock radio he found in the wastebasket. “Mo’s doing that.”

“What?” cried Alex. “He’s talking to Crystal?”

“No.” Samrai rolled his eyes. He opened the radio and began to poke at the wires with his finger. “He’s talking to the cops and your parents.”

“The cops?”

“Well, sure,” said Lomaant. “We carried you out of an alley unconscious and bleeding. What did you expect would happen?”

Alex covered his head with his pillow and groaned. “Oh, God, my life is over.”

“Not so long as we’re around,” said Lomaant.

Alex pulled the pillow away and stared at the man incredulously. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

Before Lomaant could answer, Samrai tossed the reassembled clock radio to Alex. “There you go, kid. Good as new.”

Alex turned the radio over in his hands. “The display is broken on this. It just stopped telling time.”

“Not anymore,” said Samrai. “Oh, and you’ll have clearer reception now. Your antenna wire was loose.”

“But you didn’t use any tools.”

Samrai shrugged and reached for the Xbox beside the television set. “You’re welcome.”

Alex almost protested, but saw no point in it. The game system had broken down weeks ago and his father flatly refused to buy him another. He’d be mending fences and digging up rocks in the south pasture from now until New Year’s to pay for another one.