As he meditated, Fon-Rahm saw that his magic was strong. His reservoir of power was full and his connection to Parker, including the tether that bound them to one another, was intact. But something was wrong. Since the battle at Cahill University, Fon-Rahm was no longer able to sense fluctuations in the Nexus the way he once had. Something had changed when Xaru and the other Jinn were destroyed.
Even if no other genies had been freed, Fon-Rahm should at least have been able to detect the waves Vesiroth sent through the Nexus as he gained strength. Yet the first of the Jinn felt nothing. It was like some part of his connection to the Nexus was broken.
If Fon-Rahm had been familiar with human concepts like worrying he might have recognized the sensation he was feeling. The genie was letting his doubts about the future cloud his judgment. He was getting sloppy.
He had to meet Parker by the side of the school soon, so he magically opened his briefcase (a Secret Santa gift from a fellow teacher, another concept that had baffled the all-powerful genie. He had gotten Mrs. Hernstadt socks). If someone were to open the door he had forgotten to lock, he or she would see the first of the Jinn, floating a foot off the ground, conducting a flow of airborne math tests into an open briefcase on his desk.
Someone like, say, Mrs. Pitt, the assistant principal who was standing on the other side of the door with her hand on the knob.
Parker Quarry sat and he waited. These were two of his least favorite activities.
He liked having Fon-Rahm around, he really did, but man, this tether was getting annoying. Parker and Fon-Rahm had to arrange their schedules so they never got more than eighty yards apart and their heads didn’t, you know, explode. The first day, before he had really thought everything through, Parker had wound up eating lunch in the parking lot.
So he sat on the metal bleachers, waiting for office hours to be over so he could stop watching the baseball team field grounders and get on with his life. Theo would’ve been out there, but he had stayed home sick. He hadn’t said a word to Parker since he got back from the professor’s place. Parker hadn’t even had a chance to tell him about their Amazonian adventure yet.
Another dink grounder, another “Attaboy!” from the coach. Parker was bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.
His mind drifted back to the impending arrival of his father. See, this was why he didn’t like to be bored. He knew that he should be happy that his dad was coming back into his life but he just wasn’t. There was too much mistrust. Too much time holding on to it. And thinking like that started to make him angry again. He tried to turn it down.
And then he saw Naomi.
She was on the opposite end of the bleachers, engrossed in her reading. Parker moved a little closer to her. She didn’t notice, so he moved closer still. He bent his neck until his head was at a ninety-degree angle to try to read the cover of her book.
“It’s Moby-Dick,” she said, never taking her eyes from the page.
“Right! Yeah, Moby-Dick. I read it last year.”
“Really. Do you think the whale represents death or do you think it’s symbolic of man’s inability to let go of the past?”
“Um, the first thing?”
“Great. If I need any help with this paper I’ll know who to call.” She put the book away, slung her backpack over her shoulders, and started down the bleachers. Parker went after her.
“I’m Parker. I was at the math club yesterday?”
“I remember.”
“So do I.” Parker knew that was a lame thing to say before it got out of his mouth. He tried a change of tactics. “So, uh, where are you from?”
“Philadelphia. My mom got transferred here.”
“A big-city girl! I knew it. I’m from LA, myself.”
“Wow, that’s fascinating.” She started toward the back of the school.
Parker hesitated. She was going the wrong way, away from Fon-Rahm, pushing the limits of the tether. Still, the place was only so big. As long as Mr. Rommy stayed in his room, they should be fine. “Wait up!” he said before he chased after her.
Just as Mrs. Pitt opened the door to Fon-Rahm’s room her attention was pulled away by two sixth graders tearing through the hall.
“No running in the halls! I’ve told you twice today already, Anthony Derkins!”
At the sound of Mrs. Pitt’s voice the genie snapped out of his trance and became Mr. Rommy once more. The tests hit the ground in a riot of paper just as the assistant principal stepped into the room.
“Mr. Rommy, I was wondering if I could…” Mrs. Pitt trailed off as she looked at the papers covering the floor. The assistant principal was a no-nonsense sixty-five-year-old who had seen just about everything in her decades of work at the New Hampshire middle school.
“Mrs. Pitt. You…startled me.” Fon-Rahm knelt down and began shoveling the papers into the case.
“I can see that. Are you busy? I need a little help moving some boxes and Mr. Coolidge is of course nowhere to be found. I swear that man sees me coming and ducks out the back door.”
The genie frowned. He had to be at the side of the school to meet Parker in a matter of minutes. “I fear I have an appointment I must—”
“It won’t take long.” Mrs. Pitt stood in the open doorway, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose, staring at Fon-Rahm with a look every kid who had ever attended Robert Frost Junior High would recognize with a deep shudder.
Fon-Rahm took his briefcase and followed the vice principal out of the room and toward the front of the school. As long as Parker stayed still, they would be fine.
“Hold on a second!” Parker chased Naomi to the parking lot.
“Why?” she asked.
“I thought maybe we could talk. I know what it’s like to be new here. It takes some getting used to, believe me. I mean, we are way out here in the boonies. All the trees and the nature and the open spaces. Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it seems at first.”
“Did you ever consider that maybe I wanted to move to the sticks?”
“Not really. Who would want to do that?” Parker took another step but stopped dead in his tracks. The low-level buzz in his head had just gotten worse. Fon-Rahm was moving in the other direction.
Naomi scrunched up her face. “You okay?”
“Sure! Sure, I’m okay. It’s…” The headache was getting worse. “Allergies?”
“Okay, I admit that New Hampshire would not be ideal for someone with hay fever. Is that why you can’t play baseball?”
“What? No! I could play baseball if I wanted to.”
“Of course you could! You don’t have to let your physical challenges hold you back.”
This was not going Parker’s way.
Fon-Rahm followed Mrs. Pitt down the stairs and toward the front of the school.
“I really do need to keep this appointment, Mrs. Pitt. I would gladly help you with this task in the morning.”
“No time like the present. It’s just a few new textbooks. It won’t take you ten minutes.”
Fon-Rahm followed Mrs. Pitt around a corner and was confronted with rows and rows of sealed cardboard boxes in stacks that reached almost to the ceiling.
“Twenty minutes, tops.”
Fon-Rahm closed his eyes. His head was really starting to hurt.
Parker tried to put on a brave face. He didn’t know why he wanted to impress this new girl, but he knew he did. She didn’t laugh at his jokes but that made her like just about every other girl on the planet. Why did he suddenly care about this one? Why was he so intrigued by the way one side of her mouth curled up when she was amused?
“Just hold on a second,” he said. He bent over. His head was killing him now.
Naomi stayed where she stood. “I’ve heard that ninety percent of migraines are caused by stress. Are you stressed?”
“Stressed?” Parker looked up through the waves of pain. “Do I look stressed?” She started to smile. Maybe this would be okay, after all.
“Hey, guys. What’s g
oing on?”
It was Reese. Of course. Just when he was finally making some progress.
“Hey,” said Naomi. “You’re Marisa, right?”
Reese was thrilled. Naomi already knew who she was! She had an actual reputation!
“Yes! I mean, everybody calls me Reese. I mean, my friends do. Mainly Parker. And Theo. They’re my friends.”
“You’re in eighth grade, too, right? Somebody told me you were the only one who got through the Mrs. Morrison’s frog dissections without gagging.”
“Yeah, we got a bad batch. They were sort of already rotting? Mrs. Morrison had to stick her head out the window to keep from puking.”
“At least she stopped eating, right?”
“Oh my God! Have you noticed that, too? She keeps a bag of trail mix in her desk and she has M&M’s in her purse.”
“I saw her take a bite out of an M&M! It’s like a whole one was too much for her so she only ate half! Who does that?”
Parker had to step in. He was losing Naomi to Reese. “Yeah, I saw her eating yogurt at lunch!”
The girls just stared at him. His headache got worse.
Fon-Rahm carried yet another box down the hall and into storage. His head was pounding.
“Oh, Mr. Rommy…”
The genie put his head down. “Yes, Mrs. Pitt?”
The vice principal approached with a pile of forms. “There’s a problem with some of your paperwork. It looks like we don’t have a valid address for you.”
Of course they didn’t. Fon-Rahm had thought it unwise to tell the school that he was living in a barn behind Theo Merritt’s house. “I will review the forms as soon as is possible.”
“No hurry. Just whenever you get the chance.” She began to walk away but turned back. “Do me a favor please and leave that last box in Mr. Granson’s office. He’ll want to take a look at those books first thing.”
Of course. Mr. Granson’s office was the last one on the floor. This little trip would stretch Fon-Rahm and Parker’s tether to the absolute limit. Fon-Rahm picked up the final box of books and staggered down the hall, the pain in his head so bad he feared he might pass out. He dropped off the box and hurried past Mrs. Pitt on his way to the side of the building where he hoped Parker would be waiting. As he rushed off, Mrs. Pitt reviewed his file and called after him. “Luc Rommy. What kind of a name is that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“It is Flemish. I am from Belgium. Originally.” It was a story concocted by Reese, Theo, and Parker to cover any strange speech patterns Fon-Rahm might exhibit. Nobody knew anything about Belgium.
Mrs. Pitt nodded. “That explains so much about you.”
“Listen,” Reese said. “My dad just bought this huge TV and I was going to watch this old Carl Sagan DVD. I know it sounds lame, but…”
Naomi grinned. “Are you kidding me? Carl Sagan is hot!”
“Who’s Carl Sagan?” asked Parker. This was really getting away from him.
Reese rolled her eyes. She turned to Naomi. “So, do you want to come over? My mom doesn’t know it, but I have a stash of candy in my room….”
“Let’s do it. My folks both work late, so I’m kind of on my own during the day anyway.”
Parker looked aghast. “You’re going to hang out with Reese? That’ll kill your social life for the rest of the year.”
“Shut up, Parker,” Reese said. “Come on, Naomi. I can ride you double on my bike. It has an electric motor!”
“That’s so cool!”
They started to walk away, excited by all the things they had in common. Reese stopped and turned back to Parker. She knew exactly why he couldn’t follow them. “Are you going to be okay?”
Parker nodded. He would have to go looking for Fon-Rahm. “Yeah. You geeks go on ahead.”
Reese smirked at him and Parker watched the two girls walk off. As soon as they were gone Parker sprinted back toward the school as fast as he could.
Parker and Fon-Rahm met at the school’s side door. As soon as they were together, their headaches vanished completely. They were both out of breath. In between pants Parker asked the genie “And how was your afternoon?”
5
PROFESSOR ELLISON STIFLED A YAWN.
She hadn’t slept since the sad attempt to break into her home. It’s not like the old days, she thought. The Path never would have tried something that halfhearted when Nadir was in charge. Still, an attack was an attack, and it could not be overlooked.
She boiled down the sand that was all that remained of the Path assault team and brewed it into a tea. Then she fed the liquid to her Nevermind Flower and leaned in to listen.
Theo was right in one respect: it would’ve been easier to get usable answers from the intruders if they weren’t dead. She knew they were from the Path, but she had no way of knowing what they were after. Oh well. There was nothing to be done about it now. She needed answers and she wouldn’t get them by wishing she had made different decisions in the past.
The professor’s immense library was quiet, but not quiet enough. When the flower began to whisper, she moved in closer.
The flower had been rare even thousands of years ago, when magic seemed to be everywhere—in the friends she kept, in the soil she stood upon, on the wind she breathed. As far as she knew, this lovely light-purple bloom was the last one in existence. When it died, another piece of the professor’s world would die with it. Once, she and her kind strode the globe like giants. Now she stayed awake in her library, alone, trying desperately to learn what was meant in the pauses between the mystical words of a flower that could speak the memories of the dead.
There! A word, spoken softly but clearly, in that dead language the Path used to communicate with each other. She pulled an ancient tome from her shelves and looked for a reasonable translation.
She coaxed the Nevermind Flower to say it again, slower this time. The voice deepened and stretched, and at last sounded out a word that Professor Ellison had hoped never to hear again.
6
THE PATH MEMBER, NAMELESS TO Vesiroth, gingerly placed a tray of hot tea by the wizard’s side. The servant was a thief and a killer. In order to prove his loyalty and secure his place in the Path, the man in the suit had been ordered to assassinate a random stranger in his native Brazil. He did so without hesitation. He did not fear pain and he was not afraid to die.
The only thing he was afraid of was Vesiroth.
The wizard’s weird child servant was bad enough, but Vesiroth was far worse. The undying sorcerer was known to fly into uncontrolled rages. A servant who made even a small mistake in Vesiroth’s presence might have to go through the rest of his life missing an eye. This man liked both of his eyes where they were, and so he backed carefully out of the room, hoping against hope that he had given the wizard no reason to notice him.
Vesiroth never gave the man a second thought. When the wizard had come across the Path four months ago he had found an organization in complete disarray. It was shockingly easy for him to step in and seize control. Men like this needed to be ruled with an iron fist. Vesiroth was more than happy to provide that service.
He picked up his tea and took a dainty sip, favoring as always the right side of his face, which was an angry mass of burn scars. Vesiroth could have easily healed himself, but he opted to keep his face the way it was. It was a token of all he had lost and a constant reminder of mankind’s capacity for cruelty.
Vesiroth was glued to the constant stream of information displayed on a collection of computers and flat-screen TVs set in a semicircle around him: news, movies, wiki entries, sitcoms, music videos, documentaries, sporting events, ads, cartoons, and everything and anything else the online world had to offer. So much had happened in the last three thousand years! He could sit here for weeks, for months, for decades and still only skim the surface. He was astounded that here, in an abandoned hospital in the middle of Siberia, he had access to so much knowledge. In the old days he’d been forced to search out books. The twe
nty-first century suited the wizard nicely.
“This is so boring!” Duncan threw his head back and moaned. He was poking halfheartedly at an iPad across the room, his chair leaned back and his legs propped up on a table, mowing down untold thousands of zombies in a first-person-shooter game. It was fun at first but it had gotten pretty dull now that he had beaten the game three times. “Can’t we go out and do something?”
“We are in Siberia, Duncan.” Vesiroth never took his eyes off of his flickering screens. “It is not a place known for recreational activities.”
“I know that! I’ve been to Siberia before.” Duncan went morosely back to his zombie slaughter. “I’ve been everywhere before.”
Vesiroth simply tuned the child out. Duncan was a necessary evil. The Path was useful, but they were in essence cannon fodder with a small but handy fleet of planes, boats, and cars. Guns had their limits. If Vesiroth was to succeed he would need magic, and he had found that in his new world, magic was in short supply. Duncan was powerful and easily bought. Vesiroth was willing to overlook Duncan’s…odd condition, but he would have preferred someone a little more conventional.
Duncan tossed the tablet onto the table, stood up, and hopped onto his skateboard. He did a kickflip and rolled over to his boss.
“Just so you know, those guys you sent after your old girlfriend never came back. I think they’re probably toast.”
Vesiroth turned his eyes to a monitor showing a commercial for some kind of cleaning product that promised miraculous stain-removing technology. “Yes, they are most certainly dead.”
“What a waste. She saw that attack coming from a mile away.”
“It was not an attack. Tarinn…” He stopped himself. She was not called Tarinn anymore. In this new age she was Professor Julia Ellison. He would have to remember that. “Professor Ellison is too strong for that at the moment. Those men were sacrificed to probe her defenses for weakness.”
Finders Keepers Page 4
