The New Kid (14 page)

“What do you mean by that?” asked Natalie. Then she gasped. “Do you think he’s—?”

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” said Will.

He looked closely at Jason. The kid had charisma for sure, he practically oozed it. He was wearing absurdly expensive jeans and shoes and on his wrist was a Rolex with too many diamonds on it. In fact all the kids in the group sported ridiculously expensive watches and jewelry and seemed more attractive, more muscular, more intense than the other kids at Harrisburg High. Will figured this clique was a good place to start. They were laughing and tossing knowing looks back and forth, acting like they owned not only the food court but the whole mall. They were the princes and princesses, and everyone else just a lowly serf. Will cocked his head and listened to the girl next to Jason tittering. Her name, Rudy said, was Janie Talooee and she was going on about last night’s rave.

“It was beyond amazing, it was . . . transcendental. Rage is a two plus one. Not as bomb as you, of course, Jason, but his place is so awesome and the margaritas were locked. That guy is so dialed in it’s scary.”

Will knew he’d picked up the scent. Like just about everybody Will had five senses: touch, sight, smell, hearing, tasting. And like most others he also had a sixth sense, intuition. But unlike almost anyone else Will also had a unique seventh sense, a way of picking up meta-communications all around him, the unspoken, nonverbal communications that occurred between people, animals, and even plants. Minute chemicals emitted and exchanged, atmospheric alterations, and subtle but readable body language cues. And his seventh sense was picking up all kinds of things, unspoken communication between the members of this clique that said they were up to no good.

Will turned to Rudy and Natalie and spoke in a hushed tone.

“This guy Rage they’re talking about, how do I meet him?”

“You don’t,” said Rudy, his brow furrowing.

“Don’t be overly dramatic, Rudy,” said Natalie. “Rage is just some skanked-out older dude who deals drugs—well, at least most kids think he does—and throws these legendary parties. Supposedly he has this ridiculously huge temper. That’s why they call him ‘Rage.’”

“How do I get invited to one of his parties?” asked Will.

“Duh. Not possible. Might as well try and break into Fort Knox,” said Rudy.

“‘Not possible’ doesn’t track with me,” said Will. “This Jason guy, what’s he into? What’s he like?”

“All I know is he gets any girl he wants, drives a brand-new cherry red, tricked-out, amped-up turbocharged Mazda RX-8, and has the meanest killshot I’ve ever seen on
Demon Hunter
.”

A small smile crossed Will’s face.

“Then that’s how I’ll nail his ass to the wall.” Will dug in his pocket and then fanned out three hundred-dollar bills. “He wins, he gets the Benjamins. I win, we party in the house of Rage.”

Rudy acted as emissary, boasting to Jason and his crew that Will could kick Jason’s butt on
Demon Hunter
and laying out the wager of money vs. party invite. It was a challenge that cut to the bone in Jason’s ego and within minutes the kids were all jamming into a place in the mall called Rex’s Game World. As Jason led his posse back to the gaming area, a small friendly looking man smiled at Will from behind the counter.

“Will Hunter? Is that you?”

Will looked at the guy. It was Rex Farmer, and he wore his usual tie-dyed T-shirt and suspenders that held up his linen pants. Rex was short and fit and had an inviting smile and bright brown eyes. He came out from behind the counter and shook Will’s hand. Will smiled at him.

“Hey Rex, what’d you do, move your shop up here from Greenhaven?” Will had first met Rex at his little hole-in-the-wall gamer shop in North Carolina.

“Better’n that. I’m a franchise now!” beamed Rex. “Got seven shops, all over the country. Just opened this one.”

Will was surprised that Rex’s business had taken off. His old place had been a dump and he always seemed on the brink of going under because Rex had a head for games but not money.

“You kids are spending more dough on games every year. You’re making me a rich man!” Rex punched Will playfully on the arm.

Will gave Rex a high five and smiled at him again.

“It’s cool to see you, man. You’re looking great.” Will wasn’t just being polite. Rex had lost weight and had a tan.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Will. Give ’em hell!”

Rex laughed as he patted Will affectionately on the shoulder and watched with his bright eyes as Will, Natalie, and Rudy joined Jason and his sneering posse. In seconds both Will and Jason were wired up to a couple of joysticks and huge LCD monitors. Will’s three hundred-dollar bills were folded lengthwise and arranged in a triangle. The two groups of kids exchanged threatening looks. This was a total smackdown.

Jason jumped in first, and chose the gatehammer.
Excellent weapon choice
, thought Will to himself, and they watched as Jason’s man kicked open a door and entered a stone-walled reception room where he was greeted by a smiling angelic young woman who offered him a mug of beverage. To drink or not drink? Jason tilted the joystick and his man kicked the legs out from underneath the false angel, who suddenly grew fangs and leathery wings and breathed fire as the goblet shattered to the floor, the liquid burning a hole that quickly spread across the room. Jason used the gatehammer to pulverize the demon girl and then pulled a cord on his jacket. As the floor fell away he parachuted down into a larger chamber.
Will had to admit Jason was good. He got all the way down to level four before being blindsided by a chameleon-like wizard demon who sprayed him with toxic wasps that quickly ate his arms off. Jason set his joystick down and stared hard at Will as if to say “Just try and top that, sucker.”

Will began his turn, holding himself so casually that Rudy thought for sure he was going to get wasted by the first pack of demondogs on level two. But, using the deathfork he’d packed, Will’s player dispatched the howling, snarling, biting demondogs as if they were annoying fruit flies. Jason began to sweat. He could swear he saw Will stifling a yawn as he descended down to level three via the blood tunnel, his player now arriving in some kind of crude temple or tomb where he encountered a hulking, two-headed demon armed with ax saws. Will seemed to know exactly what the demon was thinking, anticipating his every move and cutting him down with the blade of his own cache of weapons, pulling out a chaosglove to confuse the beast and then strangling him with a whipsnake until his head exploded, spewing blue brains against the walls. Then Will descended down to level four, quickly dispatching the same chameleon-like wizard demon and his toxic wasps who had offed Jason’s player. Will’s player then descended down to level five and Will paused the game. It had taken Will half the time to get to level five that it took Jason to get down to level four. And Will’s man was still standing. The kids had never seen anything like it.

“I could go on, but what’s the point?” smiled Will. “Maybe we can play some other time. After you catch up on your skills, anyway. Now about that party invite. . . .”

“There’s a kickback going down this Friday night after the homecoming game,” Jason said angrily. He was so livid his hands shook as he took out a pen and, grabbing Rudy’s wrist, angrily scrawled an address on Rudy’s arm.

“Ow! That hurts!”

“It’s gonna hurt worse if you don’t sit still and shut up,” said Jason as he finished writing the address, cruelly adding an unnecessary exclamation point on the end that drew blood.

 

The reason the game was so effortless for Will could be best described by the old phrase “been there, done that.” Will had actually
been
to those places, or modern versions of them, and fought those demons in the real world, and the memories of his exploits were burned so firmly in his consciousness that he could never forget even a single moment. After his first successful battle with a demon when he was fourteen, Will used his 172 IQ to design a video game and, submitting it to the top electronic gaming company in Silicon Valley, swiftly secured a long term contract to develop
Demon Hunter
and thereby assuring his and his mother’s financial security for ten lifetimes.

His mother never questioned the money that came in, believing—or making the appearance of believing anyway—that the income was from “investments” that Edward had made in high tech companies on Will’s behalf many years ago. Will reinvested so much of the profits that he became a major stockholder in the company and so was able to pull strings to make sure his mother’s marketing job at one of the company’s subsidiaries took her wherever Will decided they needed to move. As for Gerald, he was eager for any kind of cash coming into the household, so though he bitched about not having access to it, let alone control of it, he nonetheless rode the gravy train and accepted money willingly when and if it was offered.

Will was the one who controlled the approximately eighty million dollars in the accounts but he spent very little on himself, preferring instead to spend lavishly on the research, development, and manufacture of weaponry. Chasing and fighting demons was expensive. He didn’t care all that much for material things anyway; all he really wanted was to put his broken family back together. To do that
meant he had to find his father, and he’d gladly spend every last nickel he had—and more—in order to accomplish that goal.

 

Having been humiliated in front of his friends, Jason looked pissed off, but then a calm settled over him, like he was saying to himself, okay, you won this little battle, but I’m going to win the war. Smiling a sickeningly confident smile at Will, Jason waved goodbye, and then he and his crew turned on their heels and marched out of Rex’s. Rudy let out a low whistle.

“Dude, you absolutely smoked him, that was so awesome!”

“I’ve had practice,” said Will. Then Rudy danced around in that funny way of his, waving his arms in the air like an orangutan.

Will reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“No victory dances just yet, Rudy. And remember, this isn’t a game, this whole thing is dangerous, more dangerous than you could ever imagine. If you should happen to see some . . . things, I guarantee it’s not gonna be pretty.”

Will’s warning was like a blanket of gloom tossed over poor Rudy, who shut down and slumped his shoulders. Then he and Natalie followed Will out of Rex’s. When they caught up to Will he spoke in a low serious voice.

“We’ve got an invite now. A key to a door. But I’ll tell you right now it’s probably not a door you want to walk through.” Natalie and Rudy were about to protest but Will held up a hand. They said nothing. Will was glad he’d laid down the law. He was going to this fellow Rage’s place, but for him it wasn’t going to be a party. It was going to be yet another step in a long and painfully violent war.

T
he Harrisburg High School football stadium was lit up and rocking as the band played the Mustang fight song. Sharon Mitchell was conspicuously absent from her duty as head cheerleader but the fans didn’t seem to mind. After all, the Mustangs were ahead 34-3 as the first half wound down. Will, Natalie, and Rudy sat high in the stands not far from the stoners and Goths, who acted like attending the game was some kind of punishment. The truth was most kids weren’t there to see the game but to be seen as they strutted their designer jeans and shoes and hoodies.

Rudy was wolfing down hotdogs like they were going out of style. Will had one himself and immediately wished he’d abstained; they never agreed with him and he began to feel crappy. Natalie, too, was feeling a bit strange. She touched the side of her head, which ached. Were her ears ringing, or was it just loud in the stadium? She breathed deeply, hoping it wasn’t what she feared.

At half-time the lights dimmed. After a corny skit by the drill team and some goofy members of the drama club the band played the school anthem, some lame fireworks were set off, and then a spotlight hit the new homecoming float as it entered the stadium.
Once the float had circled the stadium it came to rest in front of the student section and the P.A. announcer, his mike shrieking with feedback, proclaimed that Sharon Mitchell was the new homecoming queen. Lo and behold, there she was on the float, dressed up in a white gown looking pure and regal as she waved and batted her eyelashes and smiled, revealing her dazzlingly white teeth. She was cruelly beautiful and she knew it. She had this sly grin on her face like she knew every male from ten to eighty in the stadium wanted to jump her bones.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Natalie.

That makes two of us
, thought Will,
but it’s not Sharon, it’s the hot dog
. Will’s stomach was doing backflips and he was starting to sweat. Sharon’s eyes searched the stands until she found Will and locked in on him. She waved with the tips of her fingers as though casting a love spell. Then she used one of her white-gloved hands to blow him a kiss.

“Now I know I’m gonna be sick,” said Natalie. She glared at Sharon Mitchell, then stared at Will, who was impassive, as though having homecoming queens fawn over him was an everyday occurrence.

“What is it with you and girls anyway? What is it they find so . . . irresistible?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” said Will. “I don’t really pay attention to stuff like that.”

Of course he was lying, he knew good and well the effect he had on girls, and grown women, too. Everywhere he went they checked him out with their eyes. They all sensed something, something that Will had been fighting to deny his whole life: that he had a bad boy aura about him. Everyone knew that girls dug bad boys. Except Will didn’t think of himself as bad, he thought of himself as one of the good guys, a guy you could trust, a guy who would help you out if you got in a jam. What did all those women and girls know that he didn’t?