The Book of Joby (115 page)

Joby stalked through Taubolt’s tourist-cluttered streets like an angry shadow, avoiding any eyes that seemed familiar. Muriel’s outrage at the school board had been transparent as she’d made it clear that Joby would be welcome as a waiter at the Heron’s Bowl. But just making the request had been humiliating for him. Hamilton’s obscene maneuver hadn’t just cost him his job. Years of accumulated trust and community standing, not to mention self-esteem, had all been plundered in the instant it had taken that selfish whore to whisper “pervert” to his superiors.

Joby’s hard-fought campaign against Donaldson, and all the other ass-holes who’d made youth itself a crime here, had collapsed almost overnight
once Joby’s own veracity had become suspect. His former compatriots had fallen to quarreling about which of their various pet agendas should take precedence over others now, and within a couple weeks the whole fatigued community had simply thrown up its hands and left the stage to Hamilton and her pet sheriff. Months of effort, once seen by Joby as the culmination of all he’d become here and his crowning gift to the community that had changed his life, were all ashes now, yards short of fulfillment.

Joby was done fighting for “justice.” There was no justice in the world anymore; not even here in Taubolt. The Taubolt he had loved was gone. And maybe it deserved to be, given its complacence against despoilers like Hamilton. He’d spent all summer trying to defend Taubolt’s children, but none of his so-called friends had done more for him than commiserate when Hamilton had made her move.

As Joby stormed down Shea Street toward his rusty car, he couldn’t help recalling the last time he had been this angry—on the streets of Berkeley. Rage haunted both his waking and his sleep now, just as it had after Gypsy’s murder. All the distance he had come since then—all the hurdles he’d surmounted, inside himself as well as out—just to end up right back where he’d started! Without Ben. Without Laura. Without hope, or wish to have hope anymore.
This
was what it all had earned him.

Lunging into his car, Joby slammed it into gear and sent startled pedestrians scattering from the street as he pulled out. What did all these tourists think the sidewalks were for? This wasn’t Main Street, Disneyland. People really drove here! He sped home daring Donaldson’s goons to pull him over now. Joby’d have some magic tricks to show them. What worked on rocks and bugs would doubtless work on cops as well. The image made it possible to smile for the first time in weeks.

As Joby yanked the car into his driveway, he saw GB sitting on the fire-wood box outside his door. The last time he’d seen the boy, GB had been fleeing the school board meeting in tears. For the first time since that night, Joby found himself grudgingly concerned for someone else. They watched each other as he climbed out of the car.

“I’m sorry,” GB said desolately.

“Don’t be,” Joby growled, walking to unlock the door. “You were just used, the way she uses everybody.” As he walked inside, he said, “She had her little ace all ready, anyway. You were just the appetizer.” GB still hovered uncertainly outside. “If you’re comin’ in, come in,” Joby said gruffly as he threw himself down to lie on the couch.

“Hawk’s not here?” GB asked, stepping timidly in after him.

“He’s gone to help out on the Garden Coast,” Joby replied. “Said there was some kind of emergency, though he probably just can’t stand any more of my company.”

GB sat unhappily in Hawk’s favorite chair, picking nervously at the upholstery.

“If it’s any comfort,” Joby told him, “the board’s ‘Dear John’ letter just said I was being let go because I seemed stressed and unhappy in my work.” He snorted mirthlessly. “Knew damn well I’d slap them with a wrongful termination suit faster than you could say, ‘here’s your ass,’ if they’d written down the truth.”

“Donaldson’s gonna start patrolling the shops on Main Street with dogs now,” GB said miserably. “He’s tellin’ that to every kid he busts.”

“Good,” said Joby. “This town chose Hamilton’s Gestapo. They should have it.”

“Nobody chose that, Joby,” GB said. “They just—”

“Yes, they did,” Joby cut him off. “They could have stopped this if they’d really tried. They could have stopped all of it years ago. They just didn’t care that much. I’ve been forcing help on people who never asked me for it. That was my biggest mistake.”

For a while GB just looked at him despondently. Then he said, “Demon attacks are goin’ up. Jake’s managed to fend ’em off so far, but everybody’s talkin’ about goin’ to the Garden Coast for protection if the Cup’s not found soon.” He hesitated. “Maybe you should go there right now, Joby.”

“Why?” said Joby. “I’ve got no cause to run away. What else can they do to me?”

“Lots,” GB said. “If the demons didn’t have it out for you, she’d never have come after you this way.”

“Who? Hamilton?” Joby scoffed. “What’s she got to do with demons? She just took me down because I like the kids she hates.”

“I don’t think so,” said GB. “Someone had to clue these demons in that we were here. Everybody says what a peaceful place this was. When did that begin to change?”

“The year
I
got here, if you want to know the truth,” Joby said darkly.

“Just you?” GB asked. “What about Hamilton?”

Joby thought about it. “Yeah, I guess she came then too. So?”

GB nodded gravely. “And who were Sky and Jupiter after when they got killed?”

“Hamilton.”

“And who brought Donaldson to Taubolt?”

“Hamilton,” Joby breathed, sitting up as chills ran down his arms.

“She’s workin’ for them, Joby,” GB said quietly. “She has been all along.”

“But, there’s no way to
know
that,” Joby said. “You’re just guessing.”

“No, I’m not,” GB said. “She’s one of them. So is Donaldson.”

“What, actual demons?” Joby said, incredulous despite his contempt for them.

“No. Hosts,” GB said. “Demons aren’t anything but air and bad intentions without a physical host. They need the host to make what they want real.”

“How do you know this?” Joby said, wondering if GB were inventing all of it for some reason. “Every person of the blood I know has been talking about demons since October, and I never heard a thing about
hosts.
”

“I didn’t know any of this either until three weeks ago,” GB said bleakly. “When Donaldson questioned me.”

“What! He told you?” Joby said, sure now that GB was lying. But why?

“No,” GB said even more forlornly. “I saw it in his mind.”

“What?”
gasped Joby. “You did . . . what you did to me? To him? But you said—”

“I had no choice!” GB blurted out. “He did it to
me
! I was so scared! He just pried me open, Joby. I couldn’t keep him out, and I was sure he’d know I could see him back and kill me for it! I saw all kinds of things while he was in there, and if he knows . . .”

As GB began to cry, Joby leapt up to shut the cottage door, suddenly fearful of who, or what, might be lurking outside, listening. Then he turned to look back at GB in dawning horror. What the boy was describing was mental rape!

“When they let me go that day . . . I just thought they’d wait to kill me ’til I’d said what they wanted at that meeting,” GB wept. “I’ve been hiding ever since then, expectin’ ’em to find me, and . . . finish it. I’m sorry, Joby. I’m so sorry . . .”

“Hey,” Joby said, coming to place a careful hand on GB’s shoulder, unsure whether it would help or hurt to touch him while he was reliving this. “You did what you could to protect yourself. That’s what I’d have wanted you to do. But that was weeks ago. If they were coming after you, wouldn’t they have tried by now? Maybe you’re okay.”

“I don’t know,” GB said, swiping at his eyes, and dragging himself together. “He
was
pretty busy lookin’ for what he wanted, and . . . and it got
kind of physical,” he added uncomfortably. “So maybe he was too busy to notice me in there lookin’ back. Maybe—”

“Physical how?” Joby cut him off, his fury growing with each ugly revelation.

“It takes contact to get into another person’s mind that way,” GB said grimly. “Keepin’ someone’s arm cranked back works just as well as puttin’ hands together.”

“He tortured you?!”
Joby yelled.
“Physically?”

“They wanted you bad, Joby,” GB said. “That’s why I’ve been sayin’, you gotta go up to that Garden Coast right now.”

“No fucking way!” Joby exclaimed. “I’m not running off and letting them—”

“No!”
GB shouted him down. “Joby, there’s nothing you can do! They’ll just deny it, and they’ve made everyone suspicious of you now. Besides, if I did get lucky, and they don’t know what I saw, they sure will when you go howlin’ back to town with it. You’ll just get me killed for sure! Who you gonna go to, anyway? The cops? The school board? Why not just go to Hamilton?”

“This is fucked,” said Joby, rubbing at his eyes as he began to pace.

“The point is, I know them now,” GB said fiercely. “A lot of ’em anyway. Donaldson’s head was full of their names. You asked me once if I knew what to do about it. Remember? That day we did the dandelion trick? Well, now I do. Now that we know who and where they really are, we can take Taubolt back and make it just the way it used to be. Without their hosts, the demons will be nothin’ but a stink on the wind. Jake and the Council will be able to deal with ’em in an afternoon then. But we’re not just talkin’ about Donaldson and Hamilton. There’s at least twenty or thirty more hosts hidden here in town. We’ve got to get them all at once, and we gotta do it totally
alone,
Joby. We go to anybody else with this, and nine to one, I’m roadkill before sunset. I
need
to know you understand that.”

“I understand it,” Joby said wearily. “I just got too angry to think straight for a minute, but I’m thinking now. So what’s this plan of yours?”

“Good work,” Lucifer said, setting down the list that Kallaystra had brought him.

Was that a compliment?
she thought dryly. He really
must
be hard-pressed.

“Now I need you to find me five adolescent boys. No one
of the blood,
you understand, or known to Joby in the slightest. They must all be ‘ognibs’ as
the vermin call them, and as new to Taubolt as you can find. I’m looking for vivid and violent imaginations, more than usual credulity, and serious delusions of grandeur.”

“As you said,” she smiled sweetly, “adolescent boys,” thinking that any of Taubolt’s numerous computer-gaming freaks would fit the bill quite nicely.

“Your task,” he went on, “will be to convince them there is real magic hidden in Taubolt, and you need their help to save it. You have three weeks, though I’d prefer it sooner. Joby’s still refusing me, but he’s very brittle and could break at any moment. When he does, I don’t want to give him any more time to think than necessary. Think you can handle the pace this time?” he asked severely.

“Of course,” she said frostily. “Coming
out
of hiding is always simpler, especially when half of what I’m telling them is true. Once I’ve shown the magic to them, what’s left for such ready minds to question? How should I describe the help I’m asking for?”

“Tell them that Taubolt’s
fairies,
of which you are one, of course, are threatened by an invasion of demons.” Lucifer smiled at last. “Explain that there’s a spell that will defeat the demons, but it requires five mortal channels.”

“I’ll have them in three
days.
” Kallaystra smirked. “They’ll have had wet dreams that don’t excite them half as much as this will.”

“Explain the dire need for secrecy, of course,” Lucifer added with mock gravity, “and make it clear that great courage will be required, but that they will not be harmed.” His smile returned. “What they don’t know won’t . . . Well, yes it will,” he shrugged happily, “but that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?”

Kallaystra was quite familiar with the spell he meant. “May I ask who these boys will be used to kill?” she asked.

Lucifer glanced toward the list of children she’d just given him, and said, “Why, all the nasty demon hosts in Taubolt, of course. Didn’t I just explain that?”