“That’s one way to stop,” I muttered to myself. Soft laughter trickled up my throat. “That’s one way to stop.” Maybe the laughter was actually sobs. It was hard to tell.
Eh, Jerome. What do you think of that driving?
No return thought came from the necklace. Jerome had been quiet ever since I’d started on the return journey back to Lusteer. “Jerome, you body stealing bastard, what do you have to say for yourself?” I shouted.
Florence leaned over me. “Rune, are you okay? What happened to you?”
She probably thought I was crazy. I giggled to myself. She was probably right. The laughter hurt my chest but I couldn’t stop.
“Stay with me. I’ll call an ambulance.” She took her phone from her pocket.
An ambulance. That would mean a hospital, drugs, maybe an operation. Jo didn’t have the time for that. “No ambulance.”
“Rune, you are injured, you need help.” She dialed.
I reached up and smacked the phone out of her hand. It skidded across the street. I rolled onto my stomach, then pushed myself onto one knee. I embraced the river of pain that flowed through me. Better that than the gray nothingness I had experience earlier. The pain meant I was alive.
“What is your emergency?” The voice came from the phone lying on the street.
Florence and I both looked at the phone.
“No ambulance,” I repeated.
Florence picked up the phone and held it to her ear.
I pushed myself fully to my feet.
“Sorry to have taken your time,” Florence said. “Misdial.”
“Are you sure? I can hear an alarm,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.
“Just a car alarm going off down the street.” Florence ended the call.
I staggered and fell against the car. Florence rushed over to grab me. I nodded at the scooter. “Could you get that for me?”
Florence lifted the Vespa onto two wheels and rolled it off the street, placing it next to her bike. She used her toe to pull out the side stand, then wobbled it into a standing position. “It’s looking a bit worse than the last time I saw it,” she said.
“Aren’t we all.”
“What happened?” Florence asked.
The car alarm shut off. “Should we leave a note?”
Florence bent down and rubbed the spot where I’d crashed into. “Barely a dent. Should be fine.”
I smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to be a goodie two shoes?”
“What about me would make you think that? The motorcycle, the dyed red hair?” Florence wrapped her arm around my back. “Lean on me.”
I transferred my weight from the car and onto Florence. She braced herself and held firm. I tried to support myself as much as possible, but my legs barely worked. “You are stronger than you look.”
“Don’t underestimate the so-called weaker sex.”
I remembered Jace smashing the crowbar across my face. “Believe me, I won’t.”
Florence took hesitant steps up the path. I leaned into her, gasping with each step, my legs awkwardly stabbing forward beneath me.
She pushed open the door to Ten-two and guided me inside. “Is the front door ever locked?”
“Don’t let Tyler or Pete hear that kind of talk,” I told her. “They’ll think you have capitalist leanings.”
Florence paused at the base of the stairs, and I took the opportunity to give her a break from carrying me by grabbing hold of the banister. It creaked alarmingly but held.
“Should we set up a bed down here or will you make it up to the top floor?” Florence asked.
“I’ll make it. Just give me a moment to regather my breath.”
Florence pushed my chin to the side to examine the gash on my cheek. “Nasty. Let me guess—I should see the other guy.”
I snorted out a laugh. “The other guy is from the so-called weaker sex, and she’s in pristine state.”
“Whatever you are up to, you are in over your head.”
“Way over.” Time was ticking, and neither the fight with Jace or Jerome had helped Jo. “I’ve no choice though.”
She nodded. “Ready?” She offered me a shoulder.
“I think I can get up with just the banisters.” The second staircase was too narrow for two people abreast so I’d need to get myself up that one at least.
She nodded and stayed behind me as I clambered up. My legs had regained some strength, but even so, the banister swayed and creaked under my weight.
“Careful,” Florence said from behind me.
“I think the banister is in more danger than me.”
“That’s what I meant. Careful you don’t break it.”
The second set of stairs wasn’t as wobbly so my progress became easier, and I made it up to the top floor without incident.
The instant we walked in, Alex sprung to his feet. “You have her, oh.”
I realized that, for an instant, he’d thought Florence was Jo. “Not yet.” I stumbled across to my bed and sat down.
I wanted to tell Alex it would be all right, that I’d rescue Jo the next time, but how could I? My attempt to retrieve her had been an abject failure, and I had no reason to think a second attempt would work better. Hugo Yarley and Jace were both determined that the elemental inside Jo emerge and take control.
“What happened to you?” Alex noticed my injuries.
“Long story.”
“Which you are going to tell?” He raised a hand. “No, don’t bother. You’ll just lie about it.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. I lay down on the bed, twisting onto my side, facing outward. “Did you make any progress?” I had failed utterly; he might have done better.
“I’m still working on it.”
Florence looked from Alex to me. “What’s going on here?” She glanced across at Jo’s empty bed. “Where’s Jo?”
I twisted onto my back. “We’ll save her yet.”
“From where.”
“From...” My eyes closed.
“Rune. Where is she?”
I felt a shaking, and opened my eyes to see Florence standing over me. “She’s...” My eyes drifted shut again.
“Alex,” Florence said. “Where’s your sister? The last time we talked, you told me that Rune was doing a good job of taking care of you. I need to know if that is no longer true.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What doesn’t matter?” Florence asked.
“Our bloody living arrangements don’t matter with everything else going on.”
“Explain what’s going on,” she said.
“I’m off,” Alex said. A door slammed shut.
I felt myself shaken again.
“Where’s Jo?” Florence demanded. “Where’s the girl you are supposed to be taking care of?”
Her voice was coming from the other end of a long dark tunnel. I tried to concentrate on what she was asking, but I couldn’t.
Weariness took me.
Chapter 26
Thursday 13:15
I blinked my eyes open. I jerked upright as the memories flooded back, then I saw Jo sitting on her bed. “I just had the worse nightm—” I realized it wasn’t Jo sitting there, it was Florence. I jumped to my feet.
Light streamed through the windows. “Why did you let me sleep this long?” Jo was fighting for her life, and I had slept into the afternoon.
“I tried to wake you several times,” Florence said. “In the end, it seemed best to let you sleep through. You are moving rather sprightly, considering you could barely walk last night.”
I felt surprisingly strong. I touched my cheek, then the ribs on my left side. No pain. The long sleep had helped, of course, but I should have still felt battered and bruised. “Where’s Alex?”
“He left last night and hasn’t come back,” she said. “Can you tell me where Jo Collier is?”
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I am working. My job is to make su
re that the children of Lusteer are cared for. If you don’t know where she is, should we call the police?”
Should I consider going to the police? Most of the force was in the gangsters’ pockets, and even if I found a non-crooked cop, what could humans do against shades like Jace or Yarley? Not to mention that Jo only had hours left. I’d barely have time to explain the situation if I went to the cops. “Calling the police won’t do any good.”
Florence walked over to the indoor soccer ball, picked it up and bounced it on the floor. “And if I insist?”
Florence’s purple-red hair was all mushed up, she wore no makeup, and still she looked mighty attractive. Even if I didn’t have time to think such thoughts.
“Talk to them if you want,” I said. “It won’t make a difference. They’re already somewhat involved. Talk to Connor Duffy if you don’t believe me.”
“Duffy? He’s not real police.”
“In this case, he’s more qualified than anyone else on the force.”
“So you aren’t going to tell me what’s going on?”
I shook my head.
“You are forcing my hand.”
She meant she had to put in a report about Alex and Jo. When that happened, her department would take them from me and return them to Gorlam’s. I couldn’t spare any energy worrying about that. “Do what you have to do.”
“I want to believe you are a good guy, Rune,” she said. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“You better go, Florence. Thanks for everything.”
She dropped the ball, and it bounced several times before rolling under Jo’s bed. She walked past me, then paused at the door. “I hope you know what you are doing.”
So did I. I went to the door and watched her take the last few steps down the first set of stairs, then listened to her descend to the ground floor. I waited for a few moments to give her time to leave, then I followed her down.
I was heading out the front door when a shout from the living room stopped me. I stuck my head in. Tyler and Pete were sitting on the couch.
Pete paused their movie. “Come in here,” he demanded.
“Can’t right now. World to save, girl to rescue, you know how it is.”
“Just get in here,” Tyler said.
I went inside.
“Sit down,” Pete said.
“I really can’t stop.” The truth was, though I knew I had to do something, I didn’t have the faintest idea what that was going to be.
Tyler squirmed across to the edge of the couch and patted the cushion between them. “Sit your fat ass down there.”
I sighed and sat. “I’ll have you know I have a shapely ass.”
“Is that what she told you?” Pete asked.
“Who told me?”
“We heard you last night,” Pete said. “Sounded like you carried a girl up to your room.”
“Oh, that.” I smiled. “Actually, she was carrying me.”
Tyler winked. “You go, girl.”
I laughed. “Beelzebub, but the two of you know how to cheer me up.” Even though I knew it would be short-lived, it was nice to feel a spark of joy. “That your secret power?”
“We couldn’t admit to such a thing,” Tyler said.
Pete shook his head seriously. “It’s impossible, in fact. If we admitted to it, it would no longer be a secret power, would it?”
“True that.” I looked at the paused TV screen. The scene was close to the one that was shown in Transkey by Jerome many eons ago. “You watching this again?”
“Again.” Pete reached behind me and clipped Tyler across the back of the head. “Can you believe some people haven’t watched it previously?”
“Part One was boring,” Tyler said defensively. “And I already read the book.”
Pete shook his head. “So he was going to miss out on the brilliant climax to the whole franchise. How stupid is that?”
“It’s also the principle of the thing,” Tyler said. “The studios broke the movie into two just to make more money.”
“Dude, we’re illegally streaming. The studio’s not making any money from us.” Pete shook his head. “Idiot.”
“It’s still not right,” Tyler muttered under his breath. Then, he thought of something else. “Plus, I thought the horcruxes were stupid in the last book. Why did they even need them?”
“Dude, it’s not about the actual horcruxes, it’s about what they represent,” Pete said.
I shook my head. “No, they couldn’t kill Voldemort until they destroyed the horcruxes.”
“Yes, of course,” Pete said. “But, more importantly, the heroes also had to grow enough to be able to beat Voldemort.”
“Neville Longbottom killed Nagini, the last horcrux.” I said that just because Neville was my favorite character. I thought about how I had rolled up to Burgundy’s with no plan and had gotten the living hell kicked out of me by Jace. “So Harry Potter couldn’t just show up to Voldemort’s residence and expect to win. He had to prove himself ready.”
“Exactly,” Pete said. “More important than the horcruxes were the steps that Harry and his friends had to go through before he was ready to face the dark lord. It’s the same in any story. Same in real life too.”
“So, if one was interested in an attractive girl, say,” Tyler said. “One shouldn’t just go up to her, one should first battle personal demons. You, know, work on self improvement, go to the gym.”
Pete poked Tyler in the bicep. “You? In the gym?”
“I wasn’t talking about me.”
Pete poked him again. “With your spaghetti arms, you’d be laughed out of the place.”
Tyler stood. “No, I wouldn’t. I can do a press up. Well, not a whole one, but a half one.”
“There’s no such thing as half a press up,” Pete said. “It’s indivisible, like truth or peace.”
“They are not truly indivisible,” Tyler said. “You can have more peace or less peace. Same with truth.”
I stood, skirted around Tyler, and exited. They had lost themselves in the argument, so they barely noticed my leaving.
At the front door, I paused, thinking about what I needed to defeat Yarley and Jace. Unfortunately, I didn’t think there were any horcruxes to find in this instance. But there had to be something, some way I could tilt my odds of succeeding from zero odds to some odds.
I didn’t have a clue what that something could be. Not yet.
Chapter 27
Thursday 14:20
“Hey!” I shouted, storming into Flavini’s fishing tackle shop.
To my surprise, he wasn’t alone. Several customers looked up at my shout. I had always been there after closing when it was just him, and I had sort of assumed that the shop was effectively a façade.
Flavini stood behind his counter, unsmiling. “When I told you not to come back I was serious.”
“You owe me.” I grabbed hold of the necklace in my fist, ignoring the way the barbs bit into my hand and the back of my neck. “This almost got me killed.”
“What’s going on here?” one of the customers asked, a big man with a thick beard.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” I asked Flavini.
“I told you I don’t want to talk to you,” he said.
“You know what’s at stake. I’m not leaving until you help me.”
I felt a grab at my shoulder and jerked away, but the bearded man had caught a firm hold on my jacket. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Sounds like you are threatening this nice old man.”
“He’s not a nice old man. Believe me, you don’t want to get in the middle of this.”
The bearded man gave me a shake. “Punk, you threatening me now?”
I looked at Flavini. “Tell him we know each other.”
“The kid keeps coming around here, usually at night when no one is around,” Flavini said.
“Is that right?” The bearded man gave me another shake. “Should I call the police?”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Flavini said.
The bearded man dragged me across the shop floor. “Hey!” I shouted. My heels scraped across the floor as I struggled to get my feet set. I grabbed for a shelf, but only managed to knock over some boxes. He pushed me against the door, and it dinged open.
“Ray, wait,” Flavini said.
Finally.
Ray twisted his head around to look back at Flavini.
“Careful with that one. He thinks he’s special.”
The customers laughed.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“What are you going to do about it?” Flavini asked.
My mouth opened, then closed again. Whatever about using my magic to fight shades, I certainly couldn’t use it here against humans like Ray no matter how ugly his beard was.
“That’s what I thought.” Flavini nodded to Ray who gave me an almighty shove. I went flying through the doors and landed on my back on the tarmac outside.
“And stay away,” Ray said, returning inside.
I got gingerly to my feet, rubbing my backside. Not too far away, a group of teens were watching me. One said something to the others, and they all snickered.
What now? I wondered. Do I go to face Voldemort without finding the horcruxes? What hope did I have against Jace and Yarley if a middle aged dufus named Ray could throw me around like a rag doll?
“No!” I exclaimed out loud. Across the street the group of teens laughed again. “I will claim the horcruxes because I am Neville Longbottom, prince of Griffindor!” I shouted across at them.
Their laughter died. That’s right, kids, I thought. I’m not pathetic, I’m crazy. Crazy like a fox.
I would return to Burgundy’s with no hope and no plan if it came to that. But I had time yet, and Flavini wasn’t going to get rid of me that easy.
I pushed open the door and walked back inside. All eyes turned toward me. Ray, leaning on the counter across from Flavini, straightened. “Oh, no. He can’t be that stupid.”
“I’m just getting started.” I walked to a nearby shelf and grabbed a pile of clothes and threw them to the floor.
“How many times am I going to have to kick you out?” Ray asked.
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