The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage (24 page)

I shuddered.

“If my dad’s all-the-way nuts,” I said, “then I’m fucked. I’ll do whatever my mom wants. I’ll go live with the fucking Sovereigns.”

“With that Byron dude.”

“Yeah.”

“That guy was a pussy,” Jason said.

I had to laugh. “You caught him at a bad time.”

He laughed, too. “Fucker was up your ass since grade school, but he finds out he’s a Sovereign and it’s all, ‘Oh, Nate, let’s be friends, and hey, can you save me from the crazy mad-scientist guy?’" Jason snorted. “I don’t care what he can do. Dude’s a pussy.”

I let it go. I wasn’t sure if Byron had done the right thing for himself. I just knew it wasn’t the right thing for me.

I’d spent my whole life wishing I could be a normal kid. Just because I now knew there was no chance of that didn’t mean I wanted to throw in with people who insisted on being treated differently. That was nuts.

We got to Kirby Lake, which is about a mile up in the mountains east of Los Angeles, around eight o’clock. There was snow on the curbs and street corners.

“It’s gonna be cold out there.” I had my sweatshirt and a jacket, but for shoes I’d just thrown on my high top sneakers. They were canvas; I’d have to watch I didn’t get them wet.

“Took forever to get up here,” Jason groused. “Which way to this guy’s house?”

I told him, and he got us there, a woodsy street where the houses were nearly obscured by the trees around and between them.

I didn’t see Denver’s van in his driveway. Just some old junky sportscar. I knew that couldn’t be his.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“I don’t think he’s home.”

“Oh.”

I thought about it. “Hold on.”

I got out of the car. It was even colder than I’d expected. Snow on the ground, a mile above sea level—I should be a weatherman.

I knocked on the front door. I noticed a fence of painted wood between his house and the one to the right; it looked new and out of place. The big luxury car in the driveway next door looked new, too.

I knew that my dad sometimes hung out at Denver’s in the colder months. I hoped the rich new neighbors hadn’t spooked him off.

I knocked again.

Nothing.

There was no one home.

Where would Denver Colorado go, first thing in the morning?

I walked back to the car and got in.

“He’s not home. Let’s hang out.”

Jason huffed. “Dude, I can’t.”

“Just a few minutes.”

“No. It took, like, way longer to get up here than I thought it would. My parents are coming home today, remember? I have to get back before they do.” He blinked. “Fuck, I have to get back before they call to tell me they’re at the airport.”

“When’s that?”

“Like, eleven-thirty.”

“Oh.”

Given the morning traffic Jason would hit, that wasn’t a lot of time.

“Nate. Dude,” he said. “You should just come back with me.”

“Huh? No way!”

“Look, man. We came up here; dude’s not home. It’s a sign. You should just…play it like your mom wants to.”

I stared at him. “What’d you do with my friend?”

He shook his head. “Seriously, dude. I mean…last night…all the trouble you’re already in…you said it yourself: this guy will probably call your mother as soon as he sees you anyway, right?”

“But I’ll have—"

“Just come home, Nate.”

I didn’t need hypersenses to know that Jason was concerned about me. Worried, even. It warmed me.

But to go back now, when Denver Colorado was probably just out buying donuts or something…worse, to have to face my mother when she figured out I had skipped out and come here, just like last time…to have to eat crow and put myself in her hands…

No way.

“I’ll have all that time,” I said, “from when he calls her until she gets here. I can, like, plead my case, or whatever.”

He shook his head. “I gotta go.”

“I gotta stay.”

He looked exasperated. “Dude, I can’t just leave you up here!”

I shook my head. “It’s cool, Jase. Seriously. You’ve gone above and beyond. Go.”

He looked miserable. “I gotta.”

“It’s cool.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’ll hang out. I’ll wait. Denver will show up; I’ll surprise him, piss him off, we’ll have a few laughs, shoot some hoops, whatever, my mom’ll come up, we’ll go to dinner…” I grinned at him. “It’ll be great.”

“You should come with me.”

Now I did clasp him on the shoulder. It was as awkward as I’d guessed, and I let go quickly. “Nope.” I got out of the car. “Thanks, dude. I owe you fifty billion favors.”

“Fuckin’ right you do.” He looked up at Denver’s house, then back at me. “Be careful. You have change to call your mom, just in case your guy doesn’t come around?”

I nodded. “I learned my lesson from yesterday.”

That made him laugh, but there wasn’t much joy in it. “Like hell.”

“Oh, hey, I get it. Nice one. Subtle.” I tapped the roof. “I’ll call you when I get back.”

“All right. Late.”

“Late.” I shut the passenger door. Jason pulled out and was lost from sight pretty quickly. The Bonneville’s exhaust made my nose run.

Plus, it was fucking cold.

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Fifteen

I hung out at Denver’s for about twenty minutes. Whenever I heard a car coming, I turned my back on the road and acted like I had just knocked on the door. I didn’t want anyone to wonder why the funny-looking teenager was hanging around the crippled sculptor’s house, and hey, by the way, didn’t he look like that freaky Nate Charters from
The Weekly World News
?

I started to think Denver wasn’t coming back any time soon.

It was going to look kinda weird if any of those passing cars came back the other way and still saw me there.

I sniffed, and my nostrils cleared for a breath or two. The air was cold across my sinuses.

It carried a message, too.

It was him.

My father. He’d been here.

I wanted to slap myself on the forehead. He’d been here. Right there, pretty much right where I’d been loitering.

How long ago?

I didn’t have a reliable frame of reference for my dad’s scent. It was like my own, in a way, but more pungent, riper. If I had a better idea of how much stronger, I might be able to guess how long ago he’d been there. As it was, though, I didn’t even want to guess. The olfactory messages were too vague, confusing.

But he had been there.

On a whim, I slipped around the left side of the house. I found Denver’s trashcans under an overhang of wooden planks coming off the roof.

I glanced toward the street. Nothing. My ears didn’t detect any traffic. The few fir trees between the street and my position might obscure me, too.

I took the metal lid off one of the trashcans. It was almost full inside, but right on top was a white trash bag, the right size for, like, a kitchen trashcan.

I’d taken out the trash enough times to recognize the bag was the same brand that my mother bought. It seemed fresh; it was still a little puffy from captured air from when it had been tied shut.

The FBI went through people’s trash to find counterfeiters and killers and stuff. Would I be able to learn anything from Denver Colorado’s trash?

I really hated trash. Because of my sniffer.

Whatever. I untied the bag.

Yep. Smelled like old garbage. I gagged and flinched automatically.

The thing with my crazy senses, though, is that once I’ve experienced the, I don’t know, the big picture—the “mighty brush” version of things—if I concentrate a little, I can kind of separate things out. Sort of like putting each of the sounds, or in this case scents, in their own little boxes in my brain, so I could get past the really strong stuff and focus on sorting out the rest.

I scrunched up my face, took a couple of big breaths through my mouth, and turned back to the trash.

Bam.

Ratty, filthy, shitty old clothes under some scraps that looked like the crap you scrape off your dinner plate. A flannel shirt. A pair of dark blue slacks, like what a workman (or Eric Finn, said a dark part of my brain) would wear. A torn-up, frayed cable-knit sweater.

It all totally reeked of my dad.

These were my dad’s clothes. Or, I guess, they had been.

This was just like a cop show. I giggled a little, putting the “crime scene” together in my head. Andrew Charters had been here, recently, and when he left, he was either naked or dressed in new clothes…or at the very least, different clothes from the ones he’d had on when he arrived.

That meant something.

What?

I deflated a little. Really, all it had to mean was that every now and then, Denver probably picked up some discards at the Goodwill or wherever, and my dad swapped them for the clothes he’d worn sleeping in the woods for the last however long.

So this “evidence” told me my dad, wherever he was, didn’t look as homeless as he probably usually did.

That didn’t really help me for shit.

Fuck, but those clothes were filthy. I didn’t really want to touch them, but I felt like it would be stupid to not investigate a little more of the trash.

I snuck back toward the front of the house and found a fallen branch about as long as my forearm. Perfect.

I stripped the leaves off, which left a sappy, green smell on my hands that, given the circumstances, I could hardly mind. Back at the trashcan, I poked through the clothes and moved them to one side.

Under the shirt was a semi-transparent plastic produce bag like you get at the grocery store. It was full of hair. Knotted, clumpy, long, salt-and-pepper hair.

“Holy…”

I forgot about how gross everything was and snatched the bag out of the trash can with my bare hands. I yanked it open. My father’s scent hit me like heat from an open oven.

I coughed. My throat clenched up. It wasn’t a terrible smell—it was too familiar, too much like me to be flat-out offensive—but it was so strong! My eyes watered.

I remembered the one and only time I’d seen my father, a little less than a year ago, not more than a few blocks from where I was standing, at my grandmother’s cabin. He’d had a beard that looked like it had jumped off of Grizzly Adams, rolled around in a pigsty, and then latched onto my dad’s face. His hair had been long and tangled, all, what’s it called, dreadlocks, like a reggae guy.

All that hair. It was mostly in the bag in my hand now.

Denver Colorado had given my dad a haircut.

And bought him clothes.

That probably didn’t happen too often, based on how the guy had looked when I saw him last year.

Why had it happened…when? Yesterday?

The fresh trash bag cinched it. My dad had been here yesterday.

I put the hair bag back in the trash and put the lid back on the can, thinking.

Where were they, now? When were they coming back?

I sighed. I couldn’t wait here forever. It was almost nine o’clock. By now, my mother was up, and pissed. She may have called Denver already. She may be on her way up here—she knew I wanted to find my dad, and where else but here would I go?

I was lousy at running away. I kept going to the same place. But hell, that was where the action was always going to be, apparently.

Point was, I couldn’t just stand around outside Denver Colorado’s house. Someone would notice. There was no
not
noticing me.

Frowning, I threw my sweatshirt hood over my head and, lacking any other direction, walked back to the front of the house.

Once again, I noticed the funky new wooden fence between Denver’s place and his neighbor’s. It needed about three winter freezes before it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

I stuck out like a sore thumb, too.

Nine o’clock. No Denver, no Andrew Charters, and my mother was probably on her way here right now, driving like the devil. Maybe she’d catch the same traffic Jason was worried about, but she’d be here eventually.

Maybe they were in town? If my dad had fresh clothes, a shave, a haircut, he’d look like anybody. He didn’t share my unusual features. Maybe they were just having breakfast?

I didn’t really want to be noticed, but with my hood up, maybe I could just skirt through town. It wasn’t far. It was kind of on the way to my grandmother’s empty cabin, too, and I had a key.

The more I hung around Denver’s place, the more paranoid I got. He and my dad had to be around. Close. It was just a matter of finding them.

I had a plan. Walk through town. If I didn’t see them, go to the cabin, let myself in, call Denver’s house. If he wasn’t there, leave a message. Wait.

Either he’d call, or my mother would show up. My mother was going to show up eventually. And it would be warm, or warmer, at the cabin.

I had a plan. Okay.

I started up the street, head down, past new-fence neighbor’s house.

A door opened. A woman’s voice called out.

“Hey. You waiting for somebody?”

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Sixteen

I very nearly ignored the woman. My hood was up; I had a good stride going. I could have kept on walking.

I should have.

It might sound strange, but when she called to me, I got the exact same feeling in my gut and up my spine that I did when my mother caught me doing something I shouldn’t. A hands-in-the-cookie-jar jolt that stopped me cold.

I looked to the left, keeping my head down as much as I could. The woman standing in the open door of the house next to Denver’s place didn’t look like anyone’s mother.

She was older, sure…maybe in her thirties, I guess. She was tall, and slender. She wore those stupid furry suede boots girls like and a black turtleneck tucked into blue jeans. Her hair was dark brown, straight, and just touched her shoulders. Her eyes were very dark, and her face had lots of angles, like the Nagel painting on the cover of
Rio
, but, I don’t know…harder. Not in a bad way, though.

She grinned before she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just noticed you hanging around Denver’s place.”

“Um, yeah.” I kept my head down. “He’s a family friend.”