The New Kid (18 page)

 

Rudy pouted and sulked the whole way home. Will didn’t need to say another word; the look on his face spoke volumes. Rudy was in deep doo-doo. Any other time he might have tried to joke his way out of it but tonight was different. It wasn’t just the beer he’d sipped, it was more. He felt stronger, like instead of crushing his shoulders like it usually did, the world held out wild promise for his young life. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel bad about not listening to Will, he just wasn’t sure what the big deal was. Natalie was fine. Nothing had happened. What was Will’s problem? Maybe Will wasn’t as different from the rest of the meatheads at school as Rudy had thought.

He put in his iPod and listened to some Blood Eyes, a metal band whose lyrics Will would clearly disapprove of.
Well, tough beans
, thought Rudy,
Will can’t hear it. Besides, I can listen to whatever I want to.
The night rushed by in a dark haze as Rudy stared out the window. When Will pulled up to his house he got out and slammed the door.

“Later, Will. See ya, Natalie.”

“Rudy,” Will called out.

Rudy turned around.

“Sorry I got on your case. Everybody makes mistakes,” said Will.

“Yeah, sure. No worries, Will.”

“I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that,” said Will.

“Hey, I screwed up. I would have done the same thing if I were you. It’s cool.”

Rudy smiled and did his little signature dance to placate Will and Natalie, then headed for the side door of his house. Will waited for Rudy to reach the door, then made a U-turn and drove toward Natalie’s house.

Rudy’s hand was on the doorknob and he kept it there, standing frozen like a statue, until he heard Will’s car fading in the distance. Then he removed his hand, backed up, and waited in the shadows. He closed his eyes and heard a ringing in his ears. Then the voice said his name.
Rudy
. And again.
Rudy
. And again.
Rudy
. Then Rudy thought about his uncle Walter and how he’d been so angry at him for teasing him when he was younger. He imagined killing Walter with a five iron, splitting his head open like a cantaloupe. And as Rudy’s heart rate increased, he reached over and wrapped his hand around the stem of one of his mother’s Gold Medal roses, and a thorn sank into his thumb. He withdrew his hand. A tiny drop of ruby blood glistened. In a few moments a dark van pulled up and the Goth girl from the party stepped out and gave Rudy the finger. He was shocked, unsure what he was supposed to do. But then she smiled, revealing a huge gap between her front teeth that she’d bridged with a silver skull spacer with diamond eyes. Rudy returned the smile, ran over, and got in the van, squeezing his thumb, smiling at his drop of blood.

 

Will pulled up in front of Natalie’s place and put his EVO in park, and Natalie reached over and turned the key, shutting the engine down. Will stared at his hands on the steering wheel.

“I guess this means you want to talk, huh?” he said.

Natalie nodded.

“You’ve got some explaining to do. And not about the demons. I have never in my life, except in the movies, seen anyone move as fast as you did down in that sewer, Will. And you seemed, I don’t know, bigger and stronger than usual. What’s up with that?”

Will stared out the window. How could he explain something he himself didn’t understand? How could he tell her who he was when he asked himself that very same question every day when he got up and looked in the mirror?

“It’s . . . complicated,” he said.

“And you don’t think I’m smart enough to understand,” she bristled.

“No, that’s not it. The truth is, I’m not even all that sure I understand it—what’s happened to me, who I am. So trying to explain it would be futile. I will tell you two things. My puberty was . . . interesting. And I’m still . . . evolving.”

Natalie nodded slowly, accepting for now Will’s inability to articulate his complex existence. She knew he was different from any other boy she’d ever known. She wouldn’t push. Instead she sighed as she looked out the window at her front porch where a tungsten light was blazing.

“My dad’s gonna be so pissed I’m home this late. You think you could loan me that stick thing of yours you used tonight?”

“Um, I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“I was kidding. You really
made
that thing?”

“Yeah. That one, and others.”

“You must be some kind of genius, Will.”

“I have . . . gifts.”

“You certainly do.”

”Natalie, I’m sorry. I should never have even thought about letting you get involved in this . . . conflict.”

“But I am involved, Will. I have been since the day they took Emily. And by the looks of it we’ll all be involved soon enough. You
have to help me find Emily. I know she’s with them. I can only hope that she hasn’t . . .
become
one of them. She’s not like that, she wouldn’t . . . but. . . .” Natalie’s voice trailed off into hopelessness.

“His power is great, Natalie. He’s not easy to resist.”

“But we will find her, won’t we?”

Will wanted to tell her that he wasn’t going to let her go any further, that he was barring her right this moment, that she’d have to watch from the sidelines—no forays into the underworld. But he knew she was so adamant about finding her sister Emily that if tonight hadn’t deterred her, mere words wouldn’t either. So he played it safe.

“I’ll do everything I can, I promise you that,” he said.

Natalie then did something that surprised and shocked them both; she leaned over and gave Will a brief gentle kiss on his cheek. It was something she did almost instinctively, just a way of saying thank you. But the currents that flowed between them were so powerful that the innocent kiss felt like so much more. Flustered, Natalie opened her door and got out. Neither of them said another word. Will watched until she was safely inside her house and then drove off, his heart singing.

 

As Will drove home he got down to business, replaying the evening’s events in his mind. He’d made some good moves: getting invited to the party, kicking some serious ass, finding the demon they called Rage. He wasn’t far from his goal, he could feel it. But he’d miscalculated by involving Natalie and Rudy. As good as it was to have real friends for a change, tonight they’d slowed him down. Having Natalie get hurt kept him from going after his goal. And Rudy was a nice goofy kid but he proved tonight he couldn’t be counted on.

Will would have to give Natalie and Rudy some bogus busywork to keep them occupied while he set about finding Rage again and this time tailing the creature until he led him to the Lord of Darkness.
It was critical for him to locate the Dark Lord’s lair. It was his chance to discover the location of his father, for one, and possibly a clue to the location of the third power rod. He knew the Dark Lord had the second power rod, and of course he had one, so whoever got a hold of the third would have a great advantage. Will was determined to find it first. He opened the window and breathed in the night air. He felt as though the stakes in the game were steadily rising. If he didn’t keep the pressure on, if he didn’t make real headway soon, he feared he might be tasting defeat instead of victory.

He pulled his EVO into the garage, got out, glanced around, then went into the house. Had he been more thorough in his visual search he might have caught a glimpse of the yellow eyes peering up out of the ornamental well in his mother’s garden. The creature let out a hiss, climbed out of the well, and then circled the house twice, breathing in Will’s scent before departing into the dark night, as fleet as a gust of wind.

 

Will stood mutely, watching as his mother gently attended to Gerald. How in the world she could endure the stink was anybody’s guess; Gerald had fired off a volley of slow warblers and the room was thick with his stench. He’d sucked down a six-pack of beer and fallen asleep in his La-Z-Boy while watching inane reality TV, his highly unoriginal nightly ritual. April took the remote control from his slack hand and turned off the TV, covered Gerald with an afghan, picked up his empty beer cans, and dimmed the lights. When she turned and saw Will she was jolted but calmed herself down and put a finger to her lips indicating Will should stay silent. He followed her into the kitchen where she poured him a glass of milk and offered him a cookie from the Winnie the Pooh cookie jar he’d been getting cookies from since he was a little kid.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome, Willie.” Besides his dad she was the only one on the planet who got away with calling him Willie.

She tousled his hair, then put some water on to boil for her drink of choice, chamomile tea. She sat and smiled up at Will.

“How’s your new school? Are you moving toward any of the goals you’ve set for yourself?”

“The school’s okay. Good, really. The kids are just like everywhere else. And yeah, I’m getting closer to my goals every day. These cookies are great. I like it when you use chocolate chunks instead of chips.”

“I know, that’s why I made them that way.”

They had these conversations every time they moved somewhere new. Even though Will was reasonably certain his mother had no idea what his alter ego was up to, a small part of him thought—or maybe just hoped—that perhaps she knew everything, that she was silently rooting for him in his quest, and that she only pretended otherwise because it was easier and less painful for both of them. But the softness in her eyes spoke only of love, not of worry, so how could she possibly know anything? He wondered if she still missed his father as much as he did. They’d frequently avoided talking about him for months, even years at a time, but now seemed as good a time as any to broach the subject.

“Mom, can I ask you a question?”

“You can always talk to me, Willie, you know that.”

“Let’s say, hypothetically, if Edward . . . if Dad were to come back. . . .”

The keening whistle of the tea kettle cut Will off and his mother stood up quickly, took the kettle off the gas, and started pouring the boiling water into her mug.

“Will, we’ve been over this a thousand times. It’s been eight years, he’s not coming back. Your father’s never coming back.”

“Okay, I hear you, I know what you’re saying and maybe, probably I guess, you’re right. But let’s just say he did. . . .”

“He’s not.”

“Right. I get that you’re totally convinced of that. But can we just do the ‘what if’ thing here? Can we look at the concept hypothetically?”

April let out an exasperated breath. “Whatever you want, Willie.”

“Alright, then let’s say, by some weird and wacky miracle he did come back. Let’s say he walked right through that door right now. What would you say to him?”

April’s eyes were suddenly wet from welling tears. She took a sip of her tea and then spoke in a calm soft voice.

“I would tell him he missed seeing one of the most remarkable things any father could ever see: He missed watching his boy grow into an amazing young man.”

Will had a lump in his throat and couldn’t help but feel his mother’s pain heaped upon his own. But he pressed on because he had to know.

“Would you still love him? I mean, if he came back, would you still?”

She spoke now so softly that Will could barely hear her voice.

“I will always love your father, Willie. Until the day I die.” She dabbed at the tear that had escaped the corner of her eye and Will placed a hand on her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. He hated making her upset but he had needed to know.

“Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know. I gotta check on something in my darkroom.”

Will went downstairs and moved through his light locks and into his secret room where everything was already powered up. He rewound the drive that captured the sensing devices he’d planted around town, and then fast-forwarded the file until he saw a large powerful signal that indicated a creature had been right outside his house. It didn’t make him happy that it had been so close but it wasn’t unusual.

“Bingo. Now where did you go?” whispered Will to the screen as he gripped the side of the desk so hard his knuckles went white. He
watched the blip move swiftly across the screen, completely off the grid of the town of Harrisburg.

“So you’re outside city limits, it appears,” said Will. He watched the screen for a few more moments. When the blip didn’t return, he highlighted the entire area outside the city limits and saved the image on his screen. Then he headed back upstairs. His mother was still in the kitchen and she smiled at him.

“I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Mom.”

“Goodnight, Will. Sleep tight. Sweet dreams.”

Climbing the stairs Will realized he was weary from the night’s testosterone-charged roller coaster ride. Battles like that always wore him out physically and emotionally so he would likely sleep tight. But his dreams were rarely sweet.

 

In her own bed Natalie had rolled back and forth hugging her pillow, grasping at sleep and hoping she would dream of Will, not the horrible things she’d seen that night. She closed her eyes and mentally painted Will’s picture on the back of her eyelids but she couldn’t hold on to his image. When she did drop down into sleep the dreams she had were chaotic and frightful, invaded by hoards of flying demons, skeletons with wings, and eyes that burned with hate. She fought to release herself from their terrifying grip but as she sweated and tossed and turned she became entangled in her sheets and dreamt of being caught in a spider’s web, a giant arachnid hovering over her, spinning, weaving, using its huge legs to cinch her tighter and tighter until she could hardly breathe. The dream changed abruptly and Natalie’s body went slack and still.

In her new dream—Emily’s dream—Natalie walked with Emily and at first it was harmonious and benign. Natalie felt that her twin was safe. But then the dream changed, as dreams always do, and they were running through a tunnel, eyes frantic, hands scraped, noses bleeding. They were running toward a dim light at the end of the tunnel; not the breathtaking light of the afterlife, but a silver
sphere, a tiny light, elusive, like the light a fairy might give off while flying. The light moved and Natalie’s heart pumped rapidly in her breast as she felt her sister’s fear. They stumbled, fell, then scrambled up and over some rocks toward the light. Then they burst through an opening. The dream became hazy, liquid and vague, and then the light went out.