The Twelve-Fingered Boy (19 page)

The first hotel we find, I can't get behind the receptionist's eyes. I come at her from every angle, but no dice. She's not as smooth as Jack, but she's just as impenetrable— like craggy, porous rock. Wolf-boy's father had been as defended, or more. He was steel to her rock. What are they feeding these people up here?

I feel like a dragonfly spattering itself against a windshield, going at her like that. I don't have time to wave Jack away before he steps up and starts the scam.

He holds out his library card.

“What is this?”

“We have reservations, under…” He glances at me. “Horace Booth.”

“This isn't a library, kid. It's a hotel. And you've got to be at least eighteen to check into a room.” She glances at me. I'm trying to crack her noggin like an egg. But it's not egg-shelled. It's stone.

“What are you two trying to pull here? Where's your mom? Your dad?”

Jack's not stupid. Those are words he's learned to fear.

“Just kidding!” Jack chirps and dashes off across the lobby. I follow. The woman stares at us, shaking her head and reaching for a telephone.

There's no percentage in waiting around to see who she's calling. I run hard, pumping my arms, right on Jack's heels. He's a fast little dude, Jack is.

We're down the street in a flash, taking the first turn we can find and throwing ourselves against the wall in a caricature of fleeing heroes.

“That was close.”

“What happened?”

“I couldn't get in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her head. I couldn't get in. She was too strong. Like you.” Jack thinks about this for a moment. Then he says, “Well, I guess we better try again.”

I sit down on the curb, between cars.

“What are we doing?”

“What do you mean? We're trying to get someplace to stay.”

“No.” I put my head in my hands. “I mean what are we doing here?”

Jack sits down next to me, saying nothing.

I sigh. “I'm just tired of moving. Quincrux's watchers could be anywhere. We can never know. We'll never be totally safe.” I bite my lip and then say what we'd been trying to ignore since Chattahoochee. “He shot that trucker. Killed him just to force us to stop.”

“We didn't pull the trigger,” Jack said.

“No, but we could've saved him.”

Jack shakes his head. “No, that man was doomed the minute he saw us. And Quincrux. How did he do that?”

“What?”

“Get in the old clerk. It's like he programmed the old man to look for us.” He cursed softly under his breath. “You see how he never put down the phone? Creepy.”

I want to explain that Quincrux could open the hood of anyone and tinker around inside. “Maybe Quincrux had to have some sort of connection with the guy to keep control.”

“Maybe. But how did the old guy know us?”

“It's like when he commanded me to not remember. For some people, it's like a mental computer virus he's left behind, maybe. Quincrux plants one of
his
memories, and when they see us, recognize us…”

“The program activates, doesn't it? Oh god.”

We will never be safe.

I leave that unspoken between us. Jack knows. I know.

Nothing left to do but run and hide. “We need to find a beach town where we'll be somewhat anonymous and settle down.”

Jack shakes his head. “We can't, and you know it. The longer we stay someplace, the more likely Quincrux will find us.”

“We don't know that, really. We don't know anything about him, or the witch. We don't know what they want or who they work for. Or how much money or power they have in the real world.”

“We know they've got enough power to control people. If they can read minds, they'll find us.”

I don't reply. He's right, but I'm tired of running.

“I had a vision last night.”

That just popped out there. My mouth moves in mysterious ways.

Jack looks at me like I'm some kind of deep-sea creature floating to the surface, gelatinous and strange.

“Don't look at me like that, man. I didn't ask for any of this.” I tap the fingernail of his sixth finger. “Just like you didn't ask for it.”

I go ahead and lay out what I saw. Finding Vig and Coco. Seeing the black hole to the north. The bad vibes I got from it.

“I wondered why you weren't as eager to get to Maryland, why you bought us tickets to here.” Jack looks at me sharply. “We're landlocked, you know. No practicing.”

“Yeah. I'm sorry. I just…” I don't know how to say it other than just to say it. “I got scared. It's black to the north. There's no human light. No indication of… of the illumination of people.”

Jack looks at me in the watery, unwavering way he has. Not judgmental, just considering. And waiting.

“Whatever is up there … whatever is causing that great black hole … it nearly killed Quincrux. And whatever I've learned, I'm nothing compared to him. So, yeah … I'm scared.”

Again, silence. We stay that way a long while.

“Well, we can stay here for a couple of days.” Jack claps an over-fingered hand on my shoulder. “But we've got to find somewhere to stay, and it's getting late. How much money do we have left?”

We have maybe three hundred dollars.

“Why don't we hit a few stores before they close and then try another hotel,” I say. I look down the street. This part of Raleigh is crowded with big office buildings interspersed with motels, hotels, and chain restaurants. The sun slants in the afternoon sky, giving trees and buildings a warm haze even in the cold. In a couple hours it'll be dark. It's easier to make folks see what I want them to see when it's dark. I don't know why.

“Sure,” Jack says. “Let's make some money.”

We cross the road, navigating the traffic, and enter the Kwik Mart. The store smells like incense, tobacco, and stale beer. Jack grabs a pack of gum and a couple sodas, puts them on the counter. The cashier, a fat, hairy biker with full sleeve tats, is wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a gigantic black raven. He turns away from a small television blaring wrestling and raises his eyebrow at Jack.

I go in, a full dive. It's like diving into a pool and finding all the water has been drained. It's like slamming into a brick wall, his mind is so strong.

Jack holds up a one-dollar bill, like we've done so many times before.

“That'll be three twenty-nine.”

Jack's face clouds, and he glances at me.

I make another run at the biker, giving it all I've got. For a second I feel like I'm slipping behind the curtains, beyond the veil of sight. But I hear a buzzing, and then … inexplicably… I sense tectonic plates shifting, and something massive stirs, uncoils. A presence.

I think of Wolf-boy's father in the pharmacy, his head like a steel door.

During my vision I was suffused by Coco, by Vig. This feels like I'm witnessing someone—or something— suffuse the biker. Blackness pushes in on the edges of my vision, and my arms break out in goosebumps. I shiver.

The biker glances at me, blinks, and then turns back to Jack.

“That ain't gonna cut it, son.”

Jack sheepishly pulls out more money, takes his change, and we leave.

“Don't.”

“What?”

“Don't ask. I don't know what happened in there. Something is wrong. I felt—”

“Your nose is bleeding.”

“What?”

I dig a handkerchief out of my backpack and wipe up the blood. It's just a little. Not too much.

Did the ability wear off? I felt like Quincrux opened a door in my mind, but could it have been temporary? Could I have lost it? The idea scares me. And thrills me. To be just a kid again. That's something…

“Wait a sec.”

I turn around and go back into the store. The burly man glances up from the wrestling and raises a caterpillarlike eyebrow.

“Excuse me, sir.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What is it? Can't you see I'm busy here?” He gestures at the little TV set perched beside the register, nestled in among the cigarettes.

He doesn't look particularly busy to me, but he looks crotchety enough that I'm not going to push it too far.

“Just one question. Are you from Maryland?”

“No. Born in Philly.”

“But your shirt…”

“Yeah. Lived in Baltimore for a couple months last year with my old lady. Edgar Allen Poe's two-hundredth birthday or something like that. What's it to ya?”

“Oh, nothing. Just settling a bet with my brother.”

“Well, if there was money on it, you gonna split it with me?”

I laugh, because that's what it feels like I should do. After a moment, the biker laughs too, his bearded face splitting into a craggy grin. I wave and go back out to where Jack's waiting on the sidewalk.

“He lived in Baltimore last year.”

Jack opens his mouth and then shuts it. He gives me a look like he's waiting to hear the rest. Quite the nonverbal communicator, he is.

“Baltimore is in Maryland, Jack.”

“I know that. So?”

“I think there's some kind of connection between Maryland and not being able to … you know…”

Jack doesn't like talking about my abilities. He might be as ashamed of what I can do as he is of his hands.

“How could that be? I mean, why would that prevent you from doing…” He waves his hand in the air. “Your thing?”

“For a second I felt something weird. Like he had a rider.”

“A rider?”

“Someone was already occupying the space where I was trying to go. Or something.”

Just saying it gives me shivers.

“Hold up. Or something? What does that mean?”

“I don't know. When I got a little bit in, it just felt … foreign.”

I can't really express what happens when I go inside someone, and Jack can only understand the shockwaves he can generate and his many, many fingers. All this mentalist stuff bothers him, it's so removed from the body.

His understanding is locked up. Rooted in the flesh.

Incarcerado.

I sigh, put my hands on my hips. “Just trust me, man. Someone—something—else was there. Not controlling, just riding in the background. Watching.”

Jack's quiet, looking at me closely.

Eventually he says, “I don't like how you say that.”

“I don't know what to tell you, man. I didn't get any warm and fuzzies from whatever it was. That's all.”

“I'm thinking we don't need to go any closer to Maryland.”

I remember Quincrux's conversation with Ilsa. How he said at full strength he could make the whole yard of Casimir, all of the boys there, kill one another if he wished. The more I know now, the more I believe him. But he was recovering from the “incident in Maryland.”

Now, if I were a hero, I'd set off trying to figure out what the darkness to the north is. I'd solve the mystery of the entity behind the biker's eyes. Behind Wolf-boy's father's eyes.

Screw that.

I should have realized that if Quincrux doesn't want to tangle with what's in Maryland, I sure as hell shouldn't get close to it. I fought Quincrux as hard as I could, and he cut through me like warm butter.

It doesn't take a mind reader to realize that going north isn't the best idea after all.

But we can't keep running forever. I just can't do it, squatting in condos, tricking hotel attendants into thinking we've got reservations and credit cards. I don't like it. I'd rather be back at Casimir. You know where you stand in juvie, and there's always a bed and three squares— which is more than could be said for even Holly Pines. For a moment I'm overcome with an intense anger at Jack, this kid who came and disrupted my sweet life there. It wasn't the best joint in the world, but it was safe, it was comfortable. I knew where I stood. I belonged there.

Ah, crap.

Jack's looking at me, head cocked and eyes wide, in the way that reminds me so much of my little dude. Of Vig. And my anger dissipates. Slowly. Slowly. But it goes.

“Maybe you're right.” I'm quiet for a while, rubbing my chin. “We'll head back south. At least folks down there speak right.”

He laughs, an easy laugh. I think back to what he was like when he first came to Casimir Pulaski. How locked off he was. How he would barely smile, or talk, or do anything. And now he's laughing.

We take a street to the right, backtracking, maybe one turn too early, heading back to the train station. Late afternoon now, light angled and beginning to turn golden. There's a nip to the air, and our hoodies are welcome. We pass a couple of blocks of pretty nice houses—nicer than anything in Holly Pines, but that ain't saying much—and up comes a chatter and hollering of voices. Boys' voices, teens maybe, not far away.

Jack looks at me, and I shrug. “Let's check it out.”

Take a turn on the next block and there's a small empty lot, brown and green and golden in the light, with a handful of boys and girls—teens and younger—swarmed in the dust tossed from their restless feet on the sneaker-packed dirt.

“Here they are,” the largest boy, easily my height, calls. “Now we got even teams!” He hefts a Wiffle bat and whips it around in an excited circle. “Come on, guys!”

I grin at Jack and he returns it, shucking off his backpack and leaving it on the ground, and the other kids don't realize they don't know us until we're standing among them and pulling back our hoods.

“All right,” says the largest and obvious chieftain of the kids, “Now that Phil and Greg are here…”

“That's not Phil,” says a girl. Smiling funny as she says it, as if she's in on the joke. I wink at her.

“Huh?” Chief spins around, looks at us. “What the…?” He scans the road, the neighborhood, and looks back at us. “Who're you?”