Alliance

by Mark Frost

  “Great, I can scratch ‘see a wendigo in its native haberdashery’ off my bucket list,” said Nick.

  “Habitat,” said Ajay, annoyed.

  “But I thought you said wendigos came from the Never-Was,” said Elise.

  “They do, but it looked a lot more human than the one I saw before,” said Will, his mind jumping ahead to a conclusion he didn’t even want to consider. “And I think that same thing was following us down in Cahokia—”

  “Now he tells us,” said Elise.

  “I’m not finished … ,” he said, remembering the look in the creature’s eye. “I think it might have been Lyle.”

  “No way,” said Nick.

  “You may be right, Will,” said Brooke, her eyes meeting Will’s. “He kind of looked like that when we saw him escape the hospital.”

  “Only now he’s more … wendigo-ish,” said Will.

  “A lot more,” said Brooke.

  “Dude’s at least six-seven now,” said Nick. “Lyle was six-one. How’s that possible, Professor Peabody?”

  “Jericho said that if a wendigo bites you and you don’t die from it,” said Will, “you could turn into one.”

  “Now I’m sorry I didn’t scream,” said Elise.

  “Okay, if that really was Lyle Crocodile, what’s he doing in a cave?” asked Nick.

  “My guess is he’s living here,” said Ajay. “Think about it from a troglodyte’s perspective. The cave offers shelter, privacy, running water—”

  “A hefty supply of creepy-crawlies to snack on,” said Nick.

  “And a spacious patio to work on his tan,” said Elise.

  “Didn’t look like he’s using that much,” said Nick.

  “These caves could connect to the ones leading to Cahokia,” said Will. “Maybe that’s how he got down there. Maybe he wasn’t following us but just making his rounds.”

  “Do you think he recognized us, Will?” asked Brooke.

  “Hard to say,” said Will. “No way to tell how much he even remembers about who he used to be. Plus we had our lights in his face and he’s used to the dark.”

  “Maybe he recognized our voices,” said Brooke.

  “Maybe,” said Will.

  “You know what would be really bad?” asked Nick, laughing a little. “If he’s like an actual man-eating wendigo now, plus he still has all his old bad-ass Lyle mojo.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you back at the pod,” said Ajay, turning to go.

  Will put up a hand. “Hang on. We don’t know how all these tunnels connect and he does. He might double back and jump us on the way out. We need to stay together.”

  “Excellent point,” said Ajay, immediately turning back to join them.

  “We should keep going,” said Will. “We have to find that Carver.”

  “Shouldn’t we have seen it by now?” asked Ajay.

  “What if Lyle found it and took it back to his … what would you call it? Where he lives?” asked Nick.

  “Pied-à-terre,” said Elise.

  “What if we run into him again?” asked Brooke.

  “He seemed at least as scared of us as we are of him,” said Will. “And if he comes back, we’re pretty capable of handling ourselves at this point, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No doubt,” said Elise.

  “I’m in,” said Nick, flexing his fists. “If Yeti-boy tries to throw down now, I can pound him to a grease spot without worrying what the school says about it.”

  Everyone looked at Ajay, who seemed to have recovered, to see if he objected. “Lead the way, Will,” he said.

  “Be ready,” said Will.

  With their lights forward again, Will edged around the near corner, and then another turn after that led back to the left. The mustiness of the cave transitioned to something ranker, which they traced to a small alcove off to the left.

  “We must be getting close to his lair,” said Will.

  “Well, we are definitely closer to his bathroom,” said Nick.

  “I don’t hear any more breathing,” said Ajay. “Maybe we did scare him off.”

  They moved cautiously around another turn into a long, narrow, high-ceilinged chamber about the size of a house trailer. Another narrow passage led out of the room at the far end. Some primitive effort had been exerted to make the space more livable; stacks of pine branches laid in one corner formed a long bed, and a big flat rock had been set up between two outcroppings as a kind of table. A thin trickle of running water down one wall emptied into a dank, bowl-sized pool in another corner, and near that were the remains of a fire. Near that was a pile of bones, likely small animals that had been killed and eaten.

  “So we found his kitchen, too,” said Nick.

  “All the comforts of home,” said Elise.

  “At least it doesn’t look like he’s eaten any people,” said Will, sifting through the bones with his foot.

  “Maybe they’re not on the menu yet,” said Elise.

  “I hate Lyle’s guts,” said Nick. “But I gotta say even I’m bummed to see him living like this.”

  “Look over here,” said Ajay.

  He was shining his light into a corner at a squalid pile of what looked like rubbish. Will picked up a stick and sifted through it as the others held their lights on the trash—tin cans, strips of fabric, bits of leather and string, and the torn remains of a few ruined books.

  “This has to be Lyle’s crib, dudes,” said Nick, picking up a limp textbook cover. “Half man, half ape and he’s still doing homework.”

  The beam glanced off something in the pile that threw back a bright reflection. Will shoved away the junk around it, reached down, and lifted out the object. A small grilled barrel widened into an elegant silver handle shaped like a pistol grip. Three small raised buttons with strange glyphs on them lined up on the back. Covered with grime, the metal felt smooth, seamless, and unnaturally cold in his hand.

  “This is it,” said Will, showing the others. “So Lyle must have found it when he came back up here.”

  “Amazing he didn’t shoot himself in the face with it,” said Nick.

  “You’re absolutely sure, Will?” asked Brooke. “You’re the only one who’s seen it up close.”

  “This is the Carver, all right,” said Will, turning it in his hand.

  Will saw it from the corner of his eye before he knew what it was: something strange happening in the room behind him. He turned. Elise was being dragged back toward the way they’d come in, her legs kicking and thrashing, but she made no sound, and her face looked distorted as if something Will couldn’t see was covering her mouth. As Nick turned to look, a feathered dart smacked into the back of his shoulder just to the right of his neck.

  “What the hell!” said Nick, turning around, his hand fumbling to find it.

  As he yanked it out, Nick took two steps toward Elise, then stumbled, fell to his knees, staggered, and then collapsed down hard onto the ground. His eyes were open, but he was either out cold or paralyzed.

  Will turned to Brooke beside him and said, “Run!”

  Brooke took off through the small exit at the back of the room behind them. Will took a step to block anyone from following her, his mind ramping up to attack. When he turned, he saw Ajay staring at someone, a man, who walked in past the struggling Elise.

  Ajay dropped his flashlight, his expression glazed and robotic. The eyes of the man staring at him were glowing like hot cinders.

  It was Hobbes. Stark and still, all in black.

  Something he can do with his eyes, Raymond had said about him. He could see it in Ajay’s collapsed, disjointed posture: some form of deadly mind control. Hobbes had Ajay in a vise grip.

  Behind Hobbes, Will saw Elise go slack, and the person grabbing her from behind faded into view.

  Courtney Hodak, wearing nothing but
her mocking grin.

  “Your friends can’t help you, Will,” said Hobbes calmly. “You want to try—I wouldn’t expect less of you—but if you fight or resist me in any way, you’ll watch your friends die. So think carefully.”

  The other two Knights they’d seen in the locker room with Hobbes—Halsted and Davis—stepped into the chamber. The blond one, Halsted, pointed a pistol at him, loaded with another tranquilizer dart. He stopped just outside the range of where Will could reach him before he pulled the trigger. The bigger of the two, Davis, knelt and lifted his arm above the helpless form of Nick on the ground. Davis made a fist, and then his flesh expanded and hardened, gleaming like iron, until it looked as lethal as an anvil poised over Nick’s head.

  And Hobbes, just by staring at Ajay with those uncanny burning eyes, somehow lifted Ajay’s limp body three feet off the ground.

  “Now, very slowly, young man,” said Hobbes, “put the Carver on the ground and kick it to me.”

  Will stood perfectly still. Controlled his breathing so he could think clearly. His mind efficiently ran through his options.

  RULE #43: THE BRAVEST THING IS NOT ALWAYS THE SMARTEST THING.

  Will slowly set the Carver on the ground and slid it toward Hobbes, who knelt down to pick it up, then slipped it into his pocket as casually as if he’d found a set of keys.

  “You’ve caused a lot of trouble for me, Will,” said Hobbes, but he didn’t sound angry. “Leading us to this almost makes up for it.”

  At least Brooke got away, thought Will. And they don’t know what she’s capable of now. That could end very badly for Mr. Hobbes.

  “If you hurt my friends, I don’t care what you do to me,” said Will. “I’ll kill you.”

  Hobbes looked at him with real interest and, Will thought, more than a little sympathy.

  “And no one, especially me, Will, as I hope you come to learn, would blame you for wanting to try,” said Hobbes.

  Hobbes nodded at Halsted, who fired the pistol, and a dart smacked into the meat of his left thigh.

  Will pulled out the dart as the tranquilizer started to work, dropped to his knees, and threw it back at Halsted. Head spinning, his view of Lyle’s wretched chamber grew dim and then vanished.

  BETRAYAL

  He came out of it all at once, as if someone had pulled a blindfold off his eyes. Will stood up quickly, looked around, felt his head clear as the last of the drug wore off.

  A circular room, wooden plank floor, low wooden ceiling, no windows. Whitewashed stone walls. A bare futon on the floor, that’s what he’d been lying on—clean, no sheets—otherwise the room was empty. No, a bottle of water sat beside the bedding, a commercial brand, unopened so he would think it was safe. Maybe it was, but he didn’t touch it.

  A small mirror hung on one wall. He lifted the frame, nothing behind it but stone. He moved to the room’s single wooden door, no handle on the inside. Felt around its edges, put his shoulder to it once, then closed his eyes and used the Grid to analyze it. Thick, substantial, locked—and barred—on the other side.

  No way to get through this without alerting them.

  His watch was gone. All he had in his pockets were his black dice and the stone falcon. No way to know how long he’d been out, or whether it was day or night, or even the same day.

  He closed his eyes and tried to reach Elise. Nothing. A wild spike of anger ran the length of his spine, his power ramping up, urging him to blow this door off its hinges and destroy everything and everyone in his path on the other side.

  He gripped the falcon, felt it turn red hot, then slowed and centered his breathing, closed his eyes. Waited for a sense of calm to return.

  RULE #47: OUT-OF-CONTROL ANGER WILL GET YOU KILLED EVEN QUICKER THAN STUPIDITY.

  Start with the first question: Where am I?

  Will remembered Jericho’s recent advice: “You have more than one mind. Decide which one to listen to. Then it’ll speak to you.”

  Before he had another thought, an unexpected peace came over him, his fury melted away, and Will heard a voice in his head that answered with clarity and reason.

  We’re in the castle.

  It wasn’t Dave or Elise. This felt like a part of himself. Maybe the “higher mind” Jericho had mentioned?

  What does that mean? he asked.

  It means they don’t want to kill us. They’ve kept us alive for a reason.

  What do they want, then?

  Wait. They’ll tell you. That’s why you’re here.

  This voice put him completely at ease: Jericho was right. This was a voice he could trust above any other.

  Will’s eye fell on the mirror and he moved closer to it, peering into the glass. He closed his eyes for a moment, searching inside for the voice’s source. When he opened his eyes, there it was in the mirror. A close reflection, but not an exact one, looking back at him: a slightly different Will. Older and calmer, one who seemed to know more than he did.

  Why show up now? he asked it.

  Because you’re ready to listen. All your friends are still alive, too.

  How do you know?

  These people want something from you. They’re using your friends to convince you to give it to them, and they can’t do that if your friends are dead or injured.

  That makes sense.

  But something else is wrong. Think about it. Ask yourself the right question.

  How did Hobbes know we’d be in the cave?

  Yes. You were careful, you weren’t followed, but they knew anyway. How?

  Someone told them.

  Who told them?

  One of my friends.

  I’m afraid so.

  Will closed his eyes in pain.

  Think back, Will. Has this happened before? Have they ever known what we were going to do before we did it?

  Yes. The other day. Hobbes came looking for us when we found the hospital.

  That’s right. But we were down there a long time. Why didn’t he show up until we found the hospital?

  I don’t know.

  And then Hobbes came to the locker room when we were there, didn’t he?

  Yes, after we spoke to Nepsted.

  That’s right. Why did he wait until after we were done?

  I don’t know that either.

  This has happened before. Last year, when we first arrived.

  Yes. When Lyle came to search our rooms and nearly found my cell phone. As if he knew it was there. He seemed shocked that it wasn’t.

  That’s right.

  And when I was at the medical center getting an MRI, Lyle attacked. He knew I was there then, too. And again, when I went to the cave the first time.

  Yes. It’s been this way since the beginning.

  But who is it? I must have told everybody what we were going to do at some point.

  It’s not clear yet.

  How can I find out?

  We’ll have to wait.

  For what?

  Until one of them comes to us. Tries to convince us to cooperate. They’ll appeal to our feelings, and also our reason. They’ll try to make us see it’s the only way we can save our friends.

  Will didn’t say anything, staring into the glass, his heart pounding.

  Whoever comes first. That will be the one who’s betrayed us.

  Will heard noises outside the door. Locks being opened. Someone coming.

  RULE #35: TRYING TIMES ARE NOT THE TIMES TO STOP TRYING.

  The image in the mirror faded, leaving Will’s younger image. Younger and more vulnerable. Tears forming in his eyes. He wiped them away, trying to erase the emotion from his face before whoever was out there came in.

  The door swung open. Mr. Hobbes—Edgar Snow—walked into the room. Sharklike, cool and confident in his black Windbreaker and cap. Will turned, shocked t
o realize he was almost glad to see him—the man he hated and feared most in the world—because it meant he didn’t have to face what he’d just learned.

  Not just yet.

  Hobbes stopped just inside. When he took off his cap, he looked almost friendly. “How are you feeling, Will?” he asked.

  “What do you want?” said Will coldly.

  Hobbes hesitated. “Just so you know, this isn’t how we wanted this to happen.”

  “I won’t fight you now,” said Will bitterly. “If that makes it any easier for you.”

  “You don’t have to make it easy for anyone but yourself.”

  “Why don’t you tell me how I can do that, Edgar? And which of my friends or family you’ll hurt if I don’t.”

  Hobbes’s eyes went cold, but he covered it with a thin, reptilian smile. “If you’re sincere about cooperating. Showing us where the Carver was, for instance—even inadvertently—was a step in the right direction.”

  Hobbes gestured toward the open door. “After you.”

  Will tried to appear relaxed and confident as he walked through the door. He blinked on his Grid and picked up a heat signature standing motionless ten feet to his left: Courtney.

  Better to not let her know I can see her.

  Will blinked down the Grid as he walked past her down the hall. Hobbes kept his distance behind him.

  “Take the first door to your right, please,” he said.

  Will walked around a bend and through the next open door into a high and wide room. He had to shield his eyes from bright sunlight pouring in through narrow windows on either side of its high, pitched ceiling. Brick walls, exposed beams, wide planked floor, all painted a gleaming, almost blinding, white. Glancing out a window, Will realized he was in the Crag, in a gallery connecting the two towers of the castle.

  A long wooden table ran nearly its entire length, with twenty high-backed chairs. Two place settings had been laid at the far end, with glasses, a selection of drinks on a silver tray, plates of fruit, bread, and cheese. A low, square wooden box rested on the table halfway between him and the food. It looked familiar but he couldn’t place it. Three monitors, fashioned from the same black material as their notebooks, stood on stands near that end of the table.