Bron smiled weakly and told himself, Enjoy it while it lasts. She'll junk you soon enough.
Chapter 4
Discovered
"The day comes when each of us must gaze into the face of evil. I only pray that I do not see it when I am looking into a mirror."
— Olivia Hernandez
How do you tell someone that they're not human? Olivia wondered.
There was no easy way to reveal that kind of information. Ancient laws among the Ael governed what she could tell him and how she could tell.
She let Bron drive through Ivins, passing picturesque housing developments where rock walls encircled sandstone-colored homes with tile roofs. The landscaping was often natural-with cactuses, Joshua trees, palms, and desert bushes that featured tiny leaves and huge yellow blossoms. While each development conserved water by avoiding lawns, they all had ponds with waterfalls and streams and water springing up out of the ground, as if to demonstrate their wealth by how much water they could waste.
At Highway 89, they turned south into Saint George. Olivia seldom traveled into town. It was too dangerous. Two million tourists passed through each year, off to see the wonders at Zion Canyon, or Bryce, or Moab. Some of them would be masaak. Most of those masaak would be Draghouls.
She directed Bron to an outlet store where he selected a backpack that happened to have a little pocket for his iPod.
Olivia asked, "What kind of iPod do you have?" Most kids at Tuacahn had a shuffle at least.
He shrugged as if it didn't matter.
Olivia studied him. He didn't have one. The Stillmans had been so damned cheap. She brushed back a few strands of blonde hair. "You'll need a Touch if you're going to be cool, along with a cell phone, and a laptop."
She hadn't considered all of the accouterments that a teenager required. This was going to cost. Her bank account wasn't bottomless. Three years ago she'd had nearly fifty thousand in savings. The recession had eaten through all but ten of it.
Olivia set her teeth, remembering something another masaak had taught her, an old man called "The Preacher." He'd said, "In order to give something away, one must first possess it. The virtue of largesse becomes strained in poverty."
A lot of virtues become strained when one is in want, Olivia thought.
Because of his battered clothing, Bron had probably never been considered "cool." He had been an orphan, a wanderer, rejected by those who were supposed to love him, damaged by the system that was supposed to protect him and provide for his needs.
Damn it, Olivia thought. Every kid deserves better than that.
She studied his face, hope warring with skepticism. Yeah, here was a kid who was used to getting nothing. "Okay, we'll go to the electronics store, but clothes come first."
The dress code at school didn't allow for much of a selection, but Olivia bought him some underwear, and then looked for a couple of outfits for the weekends.
As they shopped, Bron couldn't help but notice several women, their faces completely plain and free of makeup, their hair all braided and tucked back in an identical style. They wore modest dresses in solid shades of blue or green.
"It's not polite to stare," Olivia said. "Those are polygamists. You'll see a lot of them here in Saint George. They live in little towns nearby—Colorado City, Orderville, and such. They come to shop or go to the doctors."
"Are there any at our school?"
"They have their own schools," Olivia said. "They keep to themselves."
Bron picked out an outfit to wear home, some new running shoes, a shirt.
"Of all the pants you can wear at school," Olivia said, "the Dickies are the most expensive." She grabbed him five pair. "You are now officially as cool as your clothes can make you. But there's more to your appearance than clothes. For example, we could do something about your hair...."
"My hair?"
"Yeah," she squinted, trying to envision him with a new look. His hair was dark brown, almost black—an odd color among humans. But among the masaak—both the Ael and the Draghouls—it was the norm. Olivia lightened her own hair every two weeks, in an effort to camouflage herself. He'd need to do it, too. "You game?"
"I don't know," he said. He looked miserable.
"Tell you what, we'll ask the stylist to make you look as hot as Zak Efron. If you don't like it, you can change it back."
He nodded, but hung his head as if he was about to get whipped.
So the next stop was a styling salon where she had his hair cut, bleached to a pale blonde, and then streaked with black. When she finished, she talked Bron into getting his left ear pierced, and let him pick out an earring—a $90 black quartz stud—to complete the disguise.
He looked like a rock star. She gave him a fist bump. Between clothes, accessories and hair, she was up to $800 for the day so far. That didn't seem too bad.
Saint George was small enough that it didn't have a huge selection of electronics stores. Best Buy was going to have to do. She had him drive.
As he did, she asked, "So have you given any thought to which clubs youll join?" He shot her a vacant stare. "You asked how people will know whether you're hot at school? The answer is, by the clubs you join. You don't have to audition to get into Tuacahn, but you do for most of the clubs. So if you want to sing, you audition for the Madrigals. If you want to play guitar, you join the Small Band Club. The most talented students make it into three or more clubs. Auditions start Tuesday."
She left the rest unsaid. Bron peered forward with a certain dread. Olivia knew that it wasn't just that this was a strange school, it was a strange school. Everyone in it was some kind of band nerd or theater geek. It put a lot of pressure on new kids, but the pressure drove them to excel.
"You nervous?" Olivia asked.
Bron nodded.
"Don't worry. There's a lot of competition, but most kids have more hope than skill, more delusions of grandeur than real talent. You'll do well."
"What makes you think so?" he asked.
She smiled secretively. "I can spot talent."
Bron gritted his teeth. "When you say that they have 'more delusions than talent,' I'm worried that it sounds like me."
"Everyone worries a little," Olivia said, trying to ease his tensions. "If you just want to have fun, some clubs are easy to get into. For example, everyone joins the Star Wars club."
"I don't know much about Star Wars," Bron admitted. "I think Spock is cool."
Olivia smiled. "It's not so much a 'Star Wars' club as a movie-appreciation club. They watch films and critique the acting, directing, and writing. Mostly they eat a lot of snacks and have fun."
Bron nodded. "Sounds easy."
Olivia had Bron take the freeway to Washington, past the signs that invited them to see the dinosaur tracks at Johnson Farm. Bron grew excited about the prospect of seeing real dinosaur tracks, but Olivia wanted to make this a quick stop.
At Best Buy she picked up an iPad Touch and a 3G cell phone for just under $400 dollars. The computer took a little more time.
She imagined that Bron would want to compose on his computer, and her favorite program for that was Finale. Apple had a similar program, Garage Band, but it wasn't as robust, and it cost more.
Still, most kids considered the Apple to be cooler. But was it worth $500 to have an apple glowing on the back of his screen?
She glanced to her left out of long habit and spotted an elderly man staring at her. With him were four teenagers—three boys and a girl. All five were masaak.
The Ael would never travel in a pack like that, Olivia knew. They had to be Draghouls.
Instantly Olivia's heart began to pound and her throat went dry. In all her life, she'd only seen five other masaaks, and the Draghouls had never spotted her. Now, here was a pack of her ancient enemies.
Had she been alone, she might have escaped their notice. But one teen was pointing to Bron, whispering in the ear of the elderly man.
He was the pack leader, Olivia knew. The teens had
to be acolytes, training in his dark ways.
Immediately the Draghouls strode toward them. The old man's eyes fixed on Olivia, the eyes of a hunter that has spotted prey. His face was determined. He walked with a rolling gait, like a trained martial artist.
Olivia turned to Bron and said softly, "Some people are coming to talk to us. No matter what, don't you dare speak to them! Remember, you're a king, a cruel and sadistic king."
She glanced in his eyes, tried to make sure that he understood her warning, and squeezed his right bicep.
He gave her a questioning look, then a smile spread across his lips, and he raised his chin proudly. Olivia turned to meet the Draghouls.
The leader halted ten feet away, raised his left hand, and made his display. A suction cup suddenly showed briefly at the tip of each finger.
If Bron noticed, he did not gasp, as Olivia expected that he would. From that she surmised that he had been looking at the people's faces, perhaps distracted by the girl, who was quite attractive, with long dark hair tinted purple.
Olivia raised her chin, mirrored the expression of the killer before her, and flashed her sizraels.
I'm their master, she told herself, and these people are beneath me. She hoped that they believed the act. Her life depended upon it.
One teenage boy, a little younger than Bron, spoke. He had blond streaks in his hair and wore a stylish shirt and gold chains. "Bron?" the boy asked. "Bron Jones? Is that you?"
Olivia shot the boy a contemptuous gaze. "You are mistaken, acolyte." She glanced at the old man and warned, "Keep your charge in line. Acolytes should not speak unless spoken to."
Their leader looked back and forth between Olivia and Bron, clearly worried. Olivia hoped that the Draghouls would believe her act. Their leader was trained to attack a feral masaak on sight, but Bron... confused him, possibly even unnerved him.
"Who are you?" their leader demanded.
"That's Bron Jones," the acolyte affirmed. "We were in a group home together, up near Nephi."
So, Olivia realized, the boy had also been a nightingale.
Their leader looked to Bron for confirmation. Olivia gave Bron a warning glance. With his hair freshly cut and dyed, wearing his new outfit, she almost didn't recognize him from earlier in the day. She hoped that even the Draghoul boy might feel unsure.
Bron glared at the boy. "You are mistaken," he said, deepening his voice. "If we had met, I would remember."
Their leader's face paled, and he licked his lips. Bron's manner unnerved him. He turned to Olivia. "And who are you?" he demanded again.
Olivia wasn't sure of Draghoul etiquette. They were a military organization. Did they share names, ranks? She feared that she knew too little to fake it.
Their leader recognized her as a feral, someone who had not been spawned by their vaunted breeding program. Yet even feral masaaks could be of great value to the Draghouls, if they converted. She had to convince him that she was a convert, or at least a poppet—an Ael whose memories had been hollowed out and replaced with Draghoul propaganda.
She saw uncertainty in the stranger's countenance. Bron had the strong shoulders of a Draghoul lord, the jutting chin, the perfect symmetry to his face. He was too beautiful to be a feral.
"When the serpent roars," Olivia said on a hunch, "do not the foxes scatter?" She had all but announced that Bron was of royal lineage, comparing him to a dragon, the ancient symbol for their shadow lord.
The elderly leader recoiled as if he had been slapped. He bowed. "Forgive me, my...." He waited for Bron to insert a title.
The teens shied back en masse, as if Bron might lash out.
Now Olivia dismissed them. She glanced down at the Toshiba. "So this one does not please you, my lord?" she asked Bron.
"No," he said imperiously, "it does not please me."
The Draghouls immediately sped for an exit, and Olivia stood, heart pounding in her throat, and fought the urge to grab onto Bron for support.
When the pack was out the door, Bron whispered savagely, "Who the hell were those people?"
Olivia turned to Bron, peered into his face. "You knew one of the boys? He was in foster care, too?"
"Yes," Bron said. "His name is Riley O'Hare—only...."
"What?"
"He looked different from when I knew him," Bron said. "It's like ... he joined the Nazis or something."
"What do you mean?" she demanded. She was shaking, in shock, and she could feel her face drain of blood. He shook his head, as if he couldn't explain. "What did you see when you looked into his eyes?"
"It was like a different person staring out at me," Bron said. "It was like rage, and hunger and... madness all rolled into one."
Olivia nodded.
"But he wasn't that way as a child?"
"Hell, no!"
He'd seen the face of a Draghoul, she realized. "Nazis," she chuckled. "You don't know how close you are to being right." Except that a Nazi would have been so much easier to handle.
Olivia's head was spinning. Bron was a Draghoul by birth, she had suspected, and she rightfully feared that the Draghouls would come to collect their nightingale. From the ages of the teens she had just seen, she expected that a visit was overdue. Riley had obviously been collected.
Had they come searching for Bron?
She couldn't imagine how they'd know where to look. Besides, there had been surprise in the enemys' faces. No, it was all just a coincidence.
Something that her mother used to say came to mind. If you play games of chance, chance will betray you in the end. That's what had happened. Each time she'd ever gone to the city, it was a game of chance, and now it had caught up with her.
Yet even if she'd bumped into the Draghouls by coincidence, she worried that this sighting would get reported, and the Draghouls' attention would be drawn to this area.
She found herself struggling for breath, as if a garrote was tightening around her throat.
"Are they some kind of cult?" Bron asked. "Are they polygamists?"
Olivia considered the mating habits of Draghoul males. She couldn't explain the truth—not here, not now, so she said, "A cult? Yes—something like that."
Chapter 5
Gunfire
"I discovered too early in life that the only thrill greater than that of the hunt, comes from being the hunted."
— Bron Jones
Blair Kardashian shook with excitement as he punched the numbers into his cell phone. It had only been a few minutes since his encounter in Best Buy, and he had to report a sighting of two masaaks. Humans outnumbered the masaaks by well over 200,000 to one. To spot a masaak every five years was not uncommon. To spot two in a day was nearly unprecedented. It had been a good forty years since he'd last collected two masaaks at once.
In the back seat, Riley said, "I've got a bad feeling about this. That really looks like Bron. Maybe he's been captured. Maybe he's possessed."
Blair glanced at Riley, then pressed the Send button, and sat staring at the door of the Best Buy, in case the masaaks tried to escape.
Inside the store, Olivia pulled a Kleenex from her purse and wiped her fingerprints from the Toshiba, rubbing frantically.
Bron stared in surprise. "What are you doing?"
She handed him the items they had already picked out—the cell phone and iPod. "Go put those back. We can't buy anything here today."
Bron thought he knew why, but he couldn't believe that she would be that afraid. "Why not?"
"We don't want to leave an electronic signature leading them back to our house," she said. She pleaded. "You don't know who those people are.... Bron, they'll be waiting for us outside. They're probably already contacting their superiors...."
Bron felt stunned. "I don't get it. What's going on?"
Olivia shook her head roughly. "There's no time to explain. Just come with me!" She grabbed the two items, dusted off her fingerprints from the packaging, and tossed them behind a computer. She took Bron's hand and pulled him tow
ard the door, racing as fast as she could.
Bron wasn't sure if he should follow. He's never been around anyone more paranoid than Melvina Stillman, but he thought, Man this chick is out there!
Olivia hit the front door at a near run, and they exited into the stabbing daylight....
The phone beeped three times before Blair's contact picked up. For security reasons, Blair didn't know the man's name. The contact asked, "Blair?"
At that instant, the two masaaks hurried from the store. Blair prodded a young acolyte, who raised his own cell phone and began snapping pictures.
"We may have a situation," Blair reported. "I've spotted two masaaks in an electronics shop in Saint George, Utah. One is an adult female—of feral heritage. The other is obviously of superior breeding, a young man."
Every instinct told Blair that he should accost these two, capture them before they had a chance to escape, but he dared not attack, lest the young man be a Draghoul lord. Blair couldn't even stop them as they hopped into a Honda CRY.
The contact pondered for a long moment. Blair almost worried that he'd left the phone, but Blair could hear steady breathing and fingers clacking on a computer's keyboard....
Bron slid into his seat.
"Fasten your seatbelt," Olivia warned as she turned the key. Bron was still buckling in when she urged, "Open the glove compartment. Hand me the gun."
"What?" he yelped.
"Give me the gun—" Olivia urged. "And the spare clip!"
Bron hit the latch. The glove compartment dropped open. Sure enough, he found a pistol there, on top of two paper bags. He took it carefully, afraid it might discharge. He'd never touched a handgun before. "Is this thing loaded?"
"It wouldn't be any use if it wasn't," Olivia said. Her face was pale, drawn into a frown. She grabbed the gun and set it in her lap. Her hands shook. "Get me the spare clip."
"What are you doing with a gun?"
"Mike bought it for me, to shoot at coyotes or intruders."
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