Authors: Edward Lazellari
Cody’s stare had gone beyond rude and was bordering on creepy. There was something primal in the glare—as though he could subconsciously smell Luanne’s scent on him.
“Is there something you want to say?” Daniel asked.
Cody reached toward Eljay and snatched Daniel’s sketch pad from her. With a quick snap, he flung it at Daniel. Daniel caught it awkwardly, dropping his corn bread. To his relief, it was his old pad, not the one with the nude. That one was still in Luanne’s bedroom where he’d been working on it the previous night. This pad had the drawings of Luanne fully clothed—well, relatively fully clothed for her—watching television.
Cody took another drag on his cigarette—his eyes said,
Stop staring at my girlfriend.
“Cody, don’t be a jerk,” Luanne scolded. “I only showed you ’cause he made me so pretty. Why don’t you buy it and hang it in your bedroom?”
“I don’t have to buy somethin’ tha’s already mine,” Cody said. He blew smoke at Daniel.
That tiny molecule of reason in Daniel’s brain was back, telling him to shut up and walk back into the house. Instead, he said, “Renderings belong to the artist.” Daniel intended to keep all the drawings of his first lover … no matter how dumb she was.
Cody stood. He was taller than Daniel realized—at least six foot two. He yanked the pad from Daniel’s hands and thumbed through sloppily, ripping out the drawings of Luanne.
Daniel wanted to take a bat to Cody’s head but couldn’t risk it. Worse than getting thrown out of the mobile home park would be cops asking questions. He maintained a neutral expression, drawing on the memory of his lovemaking with the douche bag’s girlfriend just hours earlier. Would that be considered retroactive revenge? he wondered. The glint of defiance in his stare must have unsettled the thug—Cody pulled up his T-shirt to reveal a pistol stuck in his waistband.
“Cody…,” said Luanne.
“What?” he said, eyes locked on Daniel.
“Customers.”
A man and a woman, both emaciated, in unwashed parkas and worn-out sneakers shuffled toward the porch. Their teeth had rotted from neglect, hers more than his. Daniel couldn’t fathom their age … they looked to be in their twenties and their fifties at the same time. Both desperately needed a bath.
Cody covered the pistol. He pulled a tiny ziplock bag filled with white crystals out of a planter beside the loveseat and waved it before the newcomers. The sun glinting off the tiny rocks mesmerized the couple.
“Money?” Cody asked.
The man handed him a crumpled ball of bills. Cody pulled them apart. “You’re short,” he said. The two became agitated and began hopping side to side, like they needed to use the bathroom. Cody and Eljay shot each other shit-eating grins, like kids torturing ants with a magnifying glass.
“Tell you what,” Cody said. “You take missy here over to Kooter’s, and she can ‘work off’ the difference in the back. You catch my drift?”
Both meth drones nodded excitedly. Cody tossed them the bag, which slipped through their fingers and landed on the grass. They scrambled for it like hungry dogs and then slunk off.
Cody turned his attention back to Daniel. “You ever draw another picture of Luanne, I will blow your fuckin’ head off.”
Luanne looked up at the sky swallowing a chuckle, innocent as the day she was born.
2
Daniel should have been scared. But after living with Clyde for much of his life, he just couldn’t get worked up by Cody. Nevertheless, he hid the pad with Luanne’s nude under the bed and adjusted the comforter so that it covered the space. No reason to risk leaving something like that lying around.
Daniel washed up in the bathroom, studying his face in the mirror for signs of facial hair. It was well known back at school that once a guy got laid, his facial hair would start to grow in. He was aware how stupid most of his friends were when it came to biology and relationships, and had to smile at his own gullibility and wishful thinking. Still, a beard or ’stache at the moment would go a long way to hiding his identity on the road. And if he did end up in South America, facial hair was almost a cultural necessity.
Daniel didn’t recognize his eyes anymore. Even though they were the same shape and color, he’d become someone else. His short-cropped hair gave his forehead more altitude. Was that it? He gazed at his own reflection in the mirror, trying to pinpoint exactly what was different. Cody noticed something too when Daniel stood his ground. It scared the cracker enough to make him brandish his weapon.
I’ve got artillery to deal with you mo’ fo’,
it said. Eyes are the windows to the soul, some long-dead writer claimed. Daniel’s soul, if he had one, was sullied. Is that what looked back … having lived thirty years in just thirteen? Was there a stain upon his soul for killing his stepfather—for making love to someone else’s girl? Murder and sex in the space of three days had put some depth into Daniel’s stare. His fourteenth birthday was just a couple months away, but he had already stopped seeing himself as a thirteen-year-old. His eyes had lost their innocence. That’s what Daniel imagined Cody saw … he didn’t expect to find an old soul in a boy’s eyes.
Cody’s Cadillac tried to gain traction on the wet grass with its bald tires. The cracker burned a gallon of gas just trying to get the car to the hard dirt road in front of the trailer. He’d probably do a lot better if his fat cousin got out of the car. What was really stupid was that his hangout was by the general store near the trailer park entrance, and it was only a ten-minute walk. Luanne trotted into the kitchen carrying the remains of Daniel’s abused sketch pad. She was obliviously cheery—an adrenaline junkie that just swallowed a tasty snack.
“You want to sketch me again?” she asked.
“Didn’t you hear Methy McTats?” Daniel said.
“Cody’s just cranky ’cause some kids in the next town started cookin’. He don’t handle competition so good.”
“Just a businessman…” Daniel played along. “He projects that Donald Trump charisma.”
“Funny,” she said sarcastically, handing the pad to him. “That’s what I get for fuckin’ a
little boy
.”
Daniel looked around in a panic.
“Mama’s not here,” she reassured him. “Spent the night at her beau’s.”
“Who fixed the heat?”
“Turns out, the thermostat just needed to be reset.” A devilish grin took over, complete with twinkle.
“Did you … just to…,” Daniel said. His ego just inflated.
Her smile evaporated, replaced by a not-too-pleased-look. “Dang it … I was neked in front of you and all you did was draw me!” she said. “I knew you wasn’t queer! I saw you hidin’ your thing behind the counter. You din’ even try anythin’ while we watched TV … like somethin’s wrong with me!”
“I don’t want to get
thrown out
!” he said through gritted teeth.
“You’re supposed to at least
try
!” she said, like it was the most obvious rule in the universe. “Made me feel like I was ugly or had cooties.” Her expression softened a little and the twinkle came back to her eye. “Ain’t many around here see me or talk to me the way you do, Danny. I came in to tease you last night—get you back for makin’ me feel like shit after I posed. Didn’t plan to…”
Luanne didn’t have the rest of that sentence formed. She gave up on it and shot him her usual suspicious smile.
“Well … I don’t regret it,” she whispered. “Good thing you poked me, too. If you ain’t done nothin’ after I started on you, left me hangin’ on a limb, I woulda told Mama you came onto me anyway. Can’t make a girl feel ugly in her own bed, Danny.”
Luanne’s colloquial vocabulary and one-dimensional pursuits had hidden some of the depth Daniel was seeing in the girl now. She was devious and capable of thinking a step or two ahead. It wasn’t book smarts—it was the intelligence of desperation—the eking out of position among dirt and rocks and people born into the same lot in life. If she’d grown up in a wealthy neighborhood, she might have been the mean girl terrorizing a school of well-groomed boys. She was suddenly more attractive, and no one was more surprised than Daniel. She was worth talking to for more than just a safe place to hide, some meals … or other things.
“You ain’t … uh—
aren’t
ugly,” Daniel said.
“Oh, like, I’m just borderline pretty?” she teased, sidling uncomfortably close to him. “I
just
made your cut.”
“Really,
really
pretty,” he said. She could go far in life—strip club headliner, B movies, Fox News commentator.
“You like my body?”
His armpits were damp—Daniel felt flushed. “I—I
love
your body.” He was in the top 2 percent of his class … How did this simple girl have him stammering?
She walked to her bedroom door and took off her blouse. The vision of her bra straining to contain her bosom shot straight to Daniel’s loins. “I’ll be in our bed—come draw me again.”
Our bed?
Cody’s warning bounced inside Daniel’s head like one of those superballs chucked in an empty tin water tower. God help him if Cody ever found out the full extent of his involvement with Luanne. God help him if Beverly or Colby found out. Essentially, everyone in the world that still liked him would be furious and turn his life into a world of crap. He’d be tossed into the street so fast …
Daniel was mad at Luanne—really mad. Half the problem wouldn’t even exist if she hadn’t shown Cody the damn sketchbook. Then she could have played with him all she wanted. Why would she do that? The right thing to do at that moment was go for a walk in the brisk country air—get Luanne’s scent out of his head. That’s one of the advantages of being in the top two percentile of his class—lots of smarts and an abundance of common sense. Except, his shoes were by the bed.
Their
bed.
“I can still have you thrown you out, queer boy!” Luanne sang from her bedroom, scorning his dawdling.
His loins stirred again at her voice. He walked toward the bedroom, determined to get his sneakers and leave.
How did men ever survive precivilization with everything in the jungle trying to kill them and their penises constantly goading them into stupid decisions?
he thought.
Statistically, husbands died before their wives. That was making more and more sense to Daniel.
Why bother with marriage? Men can live longer without women.
His sneakers jutted out from the corner just under the box spring. On the bed, Luanne lay on her side, head propped up on one arm, completely naked. With her other hand, she drew him with a seductively oscillating finger. Her lips pleaded to be kissed. He walked toward her. In that second, Daniel completely understood why men were willing to die.
CHAPTER 15
RELUCTANT HERO
1
Allyn sat in his study under a reading lamp, turning the scrap of paper with Callum MacDonnell’s number over in his hands. His daughter had found the captain living in New York, the city closest to where they had come into this universe. A news photo of MacDonnell’s NYPD headshot confirmed that it was the right man. Allyn had delayed calling for over a day, unsure of what to say, unsure of his own mind as to what he would do next. The news media wasn’t making things any easier for him, distracting him with many requests for interviews, calling him at all hours, as though their desire to increase their audience to sell more ads for laundry soap and Chevys trumped all other concerns.
The morning’s headline read—
SHEPHERD FINDS LOST LAMBS
This time,
he thought. Prince Danel deserved to be found as well.
Allyn’s desire to serve the prince teetered between his oath to the archduke and his duties to his church and family here. He prayed for guidance, though not exactly sure who to, but hoped the universe would sort it out and get the message to the right deity. Allyn wasn’t sure of what he was afraid of more … that he’d find the boy alive and well or that he wouldn’t. If the boy were already dead, the burden of Allyn’s failure would haunt him to his grave—but he would be free from his pledge and could continue his life and ministry in North Carolina. The wars of far-off places would stay exactly that—far off. Away from his family and the community he loved. Allyn could spread peace and love beyond his small church. With his rediscovered ability to heal, he could do wonders. If the prince were alive, though … well—that was an entirely different matter. He should call MacDonnell either way. Better to know for certain.
Rosemarie had done excellent research. Callum MacDonnell had been in the news recently. His partner had been killed on a call in the South Bronx just a few days ago. Decapitated. It had the earmarks of an Aandor-centered event.
Either that, or criminals in New York have swapped their guns for long swords.
Allyn’s reemergence from the long sleep was no coincidence. They were calling up the reinforcements. Everyone was in danger, not just the prince.
In his gut, Allyn knew the situation could not be simple—the prince raised peacefully in some quiet suburb. Something went wrong. They had all succumbed to the apprentice wizard’s botched magic. Everyone in the party had fallen to their knees in pain, grasping their craniums like balloons filling with too much water. What happened was not meant to be. Their brains were scrambled.
“Wizards,” Allyn whispered to himself in disgust.
He dialed the number slowly. It rang twice before the answering machine picked up—a woman’s voice:
“Hi, you’ve reached Cat, Cal, Bree, and Maggie—we can’t come to the phone right now; you know what to—”
Allyn hung up without leaving a message.
So MacDonnell himself had married and had children. This supported Allyn’s suspicions: everyone’s minds had been affected; the captain would never have consciously betrayed Chryslantha Godwynn. And now, his family here was in danger. This was reason enough to stay out of this conflict. If the captain called to convince him otherwise, Allyn would appeal to the man’s concern for his own family and insist that he was acting in Michelle and Rosemarie’s best interests. A man protected his own first.