Shards

by F. J. R. Titchenell

  Easily, as if we’d done something like this only yesterday, The Old Man slipped a dry, reassuring kitchen match into my right hand, and with a practiced flick of my thumbnail, I lit it.

  Ben didn’t run from me, not the way a sensible gasoline-soaked person would have.

  “Get out of the way, Benji,” The Old Man snapped at him. “Take a look at your woman and tell me that monster doesn’t deserve to die.”

  Ben seemed to be having a difficult time with the looking-at-me part. It took a few seconds for my pounding brain to consider the way my shredded clothes must have been hanging off of me. But he held The Old Man’s gaze just fine.

  “Of course he does!” Ben shouted. “But there are more important things than what he deserves! If we kill him, the Slivers win, and we all die! If you gave a damn about Prospero or Mina, you’d care about that!”

  “You want to pretend their treaties mean anything?” The Old Man laughed grimly, reopening the matchbook. “Fine, I’ll do it if that makes you feel better.”

  “We need him alive!” Ben insisted, still standing fast between Robbie and The Old Man and me. “If it looks like Sam’s going to blow us off and let him keep walking around after this, I swear, I’ll kill him myself. But right now he’s our only shot at avoiding a losing, two-front war. Right, Mina?”

  I couldn’t answer questions. I couldn’t think about anything other than how to get closer to Robbie to sate the murderous throbbing in my head and chest.

  I stared at the floor, at the puddle of gasoline spreading from Robbie’s twitching form across the perfectly flat stage, the little ripples that shuddered across it from under Ben’s still dripping shirt, where the flammable coating connected them.

  Where the flammable coating connected them.

  The instant that detail clicked into place, the fear returned. Sane, beautiful, rational fear of losing my ally, my friend, in a sudden, unstoppable inferno.

  I blew out the match in my suddenly shaking fingers.

  “Right,” I agreed.

  The Old Man went for another match, but I knocked the book out of his hand and into the puddle.

  “Don’t follow us,” I warned him, then picked up my glasses, wiped them off, and looked back at my Network. They all looked a great deal more than shell-shocked, but their triumph was returning. Except . . .

  “Where’s Haley?” I asked.

  Haley tapped me on the shoulder from behind and handed me a long piece of light fabric. Scrooge’s nightshirt.

  “For the walk,” she explained.

  “Thanks.” I pulled it over my tattered clothes and gathered the things from my bag, while she cleared a bunch of Poet mascot masks out of one of the old shopping carts the stage crew used for moving props, and helped Ben and Kevin hoist Robbie into it, wires and all. Robbie made the call to the Council with all his stolen theatrical talent, and we left The Old Man in the empty auditorium, looking both furious and crestfallen. I didn’t glance back to acknowledge his shouted prediction that we’d regret this.

  “Mina,” Aldo began tentatively as we both walked at the front of the cart into the night air, the rest of my Network behind us. The switch for the wires sat safely in his hands. “Just in case you were wondering, what I said, I wasn’t in my right mind. I mean, obviously, I wasn’t in—”

  “I know I’m not always the most understanding friend,” I stopped him. “I’m sorry.”

  He still looked painfully guilty, and I tried to think of another way to tell him that there was nothing I could imagine he was capable of doing that would ever make me turn on him.

  I couldn’t quite form the words. It had been a particularly difficult night. Assuming Robbie and I were both right about how Dad would respond to our delivery, I was going to have a lot of better nights ahead to find how to say it just right, to say a lot of things just right.

  “The envelopes I gave you?” I reminded Aldo, and he nodded. “Burn them for me. I’d rather tell people myself, when I’m ready.”

  Aldo gave me a weak smile and nodded again.

  26.

  Leverage

  Ben

  We could see lights on in the back room of Foxfire Collectibles through the glass front door. The Splinter Council. There were no guards out front, maybe because they didn’t want to draw any negative attention, maybe because they were arrogant enough to believe nothing like this could happen. Either way, we were going to give them a rude awakening.

  “Are you guys ready?” I asked.

  They all nodded. Sitting in the shopping cart, wrapped in copper wiring tied to the car battery, the Splinter pretending to be Robbie York made a noise of dissent through his gag.

  “Do you all remember your lines?” Haley asked.

  “Are the lines really necessary?” Courtney asked.

  “Of course they are,” Mina said. “They prove we now offer a unified front against them.”

  “And they sound pretty creepy,” Julie confirmed.

  “So, are we ready?” I asked again.

  I looked to the group, catching their nods and their nervous, but hopeful, faces. Before tonight we were just a group of scattered individuals with a goal. Whether we liked it or not, defeating Robbie York put us all in this battle for the long haul. Mina smiled at me hopefully. That was all I needed.

  I pulled the cheap, plastic Prospero Poets mask over my face. The others followed suit; Mina, Aldo, Julie, and Courtney favoring tragedy, while Greg, Haley, Kevin, and myself wore comedy. The masks didn’t do much for anonymity, their big, open mouths showing off most of the bottom halves of our faces (like the Splinters didn’t know who we were anyway), but like Mina said, they did show we were united.

  Besides, it felt good to be the ones wearing false faces for once.

  The glass door gave way with a shattering roar when I swung the sledgehammer through it. Mina and Aldo darted through with flamethrowers held high, unlocking and opening what was left of the doorframe to let us through, Kevin and Greg holding up the rear as they pushed the cart with Robbie in it.

  A thin, middle-aged man with a moustache wearing a postman’s uniform ran out of the backroom to meet us, one of his hands transformed into a deadly-looking claw.

  “BACK OFF, HERMES!” Mina roared. “Slowly.”

  “Mina, this is highly un—”

  Mina cut him off, motioning to the backroom with her unlit flamethrower. “I want to speak to my father.”

  I could see he wanted to argue, but a couple flamethrowers aimed threateningly are usually pretty good at shutting people up. The unlit Molotov cocktails that Haley and Courtney had were icing on the cake.

  “Crazy bitch,” Hermes muttered, shaking his head as he walked into the backroom. We followed closely. He let off a long call of chittering pops, presumably warning those inside of what was happening. Mina ran up behind him, clocking him on the back of the head with her flamethrower. He fell to the floor of the backroom in a heap.

  “Was that necessary?” I asked.

  “No,” Mina said. I couldn’t help smiling.

  There were fourteen of them gathered around a large gaming table in the backroom of Foxfire Collectibles. Most of them had transformed into those anonymous, gray faces with the bulging black eyes by the time we got back there, trying to hide their identities. There were enough familiar faces hiding in the crowd who hadn’t had the time to change; my math teacher, Ms. Velasquez, Alexei Smith, Mina’s dad, even Madison Holland standing off to the side looking terribly put upon.

  Hermes stepped around the table, getting behind Alexei and Mr. Todd.

  “They—” he began, cut off when Mr. Todd put a hand on top of his claw. Some brief communication must have passed between them because Hermes quickly backed off.

  “I understand,” he said, stepping aside.

  “Hello, Mina, Ben,” Mr. Todd said, nodding at us. “Robbie.”

  “Hey,” Robbie said weakly from the shopping cart.

  “I’m guessing we have you two and your friends
to thank for calling this meeting tonight?” Mr. Todd said.

  Mina looked to Haley. “Now?”

  “It’s your show,” Haley said, comfortingly.

  Mina took a deep breath. It was fascinating, seeing this girl who could unhesitatingly fight off inhuman monsters with whatever she could get her hands on suffering from stage fright, but we had worked out this routine on the walk over as a way to ‘shock and awe’ the Splinters. I knew she wouldn’t disappoint.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Splinter Council, we come here tonight with a message for you,” Mina started.

  “You have failed,” I said, tightening my grip on the sledgehammer.

  “You sent a warrior out into the world to kill the hunters of Prospero,” Courtney said.

  “And we bring him before you in chains. Well, exposed copper wire and a car battery to be precise, but you know what I mean; for you guys it might as well be the same thing,” Aldo said.

  Mina shot him a glare for breaking from the script. Aldo sheepishly said, “Sorry.”

  “You thought that you could destroy resistance in this town with one stupid, desperate act,” Greg said.

  “But you were wrong!” Julie said perkily. “As long as you folks call this town home, we’ll be here to stop ya!”

  “We will fight you with our every last breath, and we will never give up,” Kevin said.

  “And if you even think about infiltrating us, or driving a wedge between us, we will destroy you,” Haley said. I could see a wicked grin forming underneath her mask as she quickly left the script. “Just like we destroyed Madison.”

  This was new to me. I looked to Haley for confirmation, but she was too busy blowing Madison a taunting kiss. Madison snarled bestially, lunging around the table for Haley.

  “YOU BITCH! WE MADE A DEAL!” Madison shrieked as her arms and legs contorted into violent, vicious-looking weapons. Three members of the Council grabbed her, trying to hold her back.

  Haley lit a lighter beneath the wick of her Molotov cocktail and threatened, “Just give me one reason. One good reason to burn this place down and, so help me, I will.”

  Mr. Todd got up from the table calmly, and placed a hand on the back of Madison’s head. Briefly I could see his fingers disappearing into her skull with an unsettling crackling and snapping sound. She calmed down, going almost limp as her limbs transformed back to normal.

  “Now, I don’t think any of us want to end this night in a burn unit,” Mr. Todd said, then looking at Madison threateningly, “Do we?”

  She shook her head, fearful. “No, sir.”

  “Good,” Mr. Todd said. “It seems like my daughter—”

  “I’m not your daughter,” Mina spat.

  “Okay . . . it seems like Mina and her friends have gone through a lot of trouble to meet with us tonight, and as they’re the ones with the torches and pitchforks, I think we’re all better off letting them have their say instead of doing anything we’ll regret,” he said firmly. He tried to sound unconcerned, but by the way he addressed that more to his people than ours, I could tell we’d gotten his attention.

  “If you think we’re your biggest problem, you’re wrong,” Greg continued.

  “Last summer, a rogue group of Splinters, whose members included Billy Crane and the Splinter–Haley Perkins, tried to incite a war between your people and ours,” Kevin said.

  “They’re still here. They tried to kidnap me, and they have almost certainly taken more people in this town from under your noses,” Courtney said.

  “A revolution is forming. They wanna upset the applecart. They wanna take us over, not like you guys,” Julie said. “Not that we’re callin’ you good guys or anything.”

  “But, as much as we don’t like it, at the moment we’d prefer the devil we know to the devil we don’t. So tonight we come bearing a gift,” Aldo said.

  Haley slapped the side of the cart theatrically. “Robbie York, ladies and gentlemen! He sings, he dances, he acts! He’s also a skilled psychic serial killer who has really been trying, and failing, to kill Mina over the past few months!”

  “He also talks too much,” I said. “Tonight, when he was trying to kill us all, he admitted to us that he was working with the Slivers—”

  “Slivers?” someone on the Council asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “The rogue Splinters? The bad guys worse than you? It’s a creepy sounding name and we got the flamethrowers. Will you let me finish?”

  “Of course,” Alexei said.

  I continued. “He admitted that he was working with the Slivers against not only us, but you too, because the Slivers are more willing to give him and his kind a better deal in the coming revolution.”

  “Bullshit!” Robbie cried out from the cart, frantic. “Alexei, Sammy, guys . . . they’re trying to turn you against me!”

  Mr. Todd and the others at the table looked skeptical at my claim. I tried to sound casual when I said, “If you don’t believe me, read his mind. You can do that, can’t you?”

  Alexei raised an eyebrow, curious. “Well, Robert, if you’re telling the truth . . .”

  “Alexei, you know me!” Robbie pleaded. “Sam! Who was it who smacked down those new kids who accused you of going too human on us? They laughed when you said ‘hands off my daughter,’ but I respected that! Would I ever—”

  In a flash, Alexei was over the table, then behind us, slowly thrusting his fingers into Robbie’s skull as he pled and screamed his innocence, and finally gave way to an inhuman roar of anguish. Soon enough, Alexei pulled his fingers free. His face looked shaken and unsteady.

  “These children, they speak the truth,” he said. “You really made a mess of that school. A very naughty boy you are.”

  Alexei pushed the cart past us into the middle of the room, and we let him pass without trouble. Robbie was practically sobbing as he took in the angry glares and whispers from the Splinter Council.

  Finally, Mr. Todd looked to Mina, lingering for a moment to take in what could be seen of her bruises and hastily covered, ruined clothes. “Thank you, all of you, for this service. You are free to go. You have my every assurance that none of you will be harmed for your involvement in what happened tonight.”

  Greg laughed sarcastically. I don’t think any of us really believed it.

  “I have something else to say,” Mina said.

  “By all means,” Mr. Todd replied.

  “What happened here changes nothing. I will still dedicate my every waking moment to stopping what you monsters are doing. However, due to the greater threat that the Slivers pose, I am going to dedicate my energies toward eliminating them. So long as you do not get in my way while I am doing this, I will not focus on interfering with your . . . less malevolent, if still sinister activities. Do I make myself clear?”

  Mr. Todd sighed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You know I’m not a fan of your meddling, Mina. I know the answer to this question already, but on the off-chance this is the one time you’d answer differently, is there anything I can say to talk you out of this?”

  “No,” Mina said unhesitatingly.

  “It was worth asking,” Mr. Todd said, sighing again. “Well, I’d rather have you helping us than against us.”

  I could see Mina narrow her eyes behind the mask. “I am not helping you. I am doing this because they are a greater threat to mankind. Once their threat has been extinguished, we’re back to business as usual. Do I make myself clear?”

  Mr. Todd smiled when he got up from his seat. “Let the games begin! Now, if I could kindly ask you all to leave right now, we’re going to have to have a conversation with Mr. York here. Don’t worry, the old human model will be back in school after Winter Break, but if you want to sleep a wink tonight, I highly recommend leaving this room in the next two minutes.”

  As if for emphasis, Alexei tipped the cart holding Robbie onto the floor. Robbie screamed and fought, transforming to try and get out of the coil of wire, but three council members we
re quickly on him, pinning him down.

  Mr. Todd was good to his word. No one stopped us from leaving the store, the sounds of Robbie’s screams and tearing flesh following us as we went.

  I was glad that The Soda Fountain of Youth was open late on Fridays. Assuming we lived through the night, the plan had been to meet up there afterward to lick our wounds and celebrate. Since we were about as wounded and tired as we’d expected to be, their open doors and cheap Christmas decorations called to us like the promised land.

  Our waitress looked at us oddly as she served our burgers and malts. I didn’t blame her. We were loud, laughing and sharing stories, bloodied and bruised and covered in the slimy, dusty castoff of dissolving Splinter (and, in my case, gasoline). She’d asked us when we first came in if we were all right. Aldo joked that we had come back from a fight club.

  This got her to keep a respectful distance from our table.

  “We need a name,” Greg said, toying with the miniature Christmas tree in the middle of our table.

  “A name?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah, if we’re gonna be a team of badass Splinter hunters, we need something to call ourselves. Something to strike fear into the hearts of any inter-dimensional asshole we come across,” Greg continued.

  “Something more cohesive than ‘The Network’ might be appropriate,” Mina agreed. “If we’re planning to work in closer contact with each other.”

  “The Resistance?” Courtney suggested. “It’s classic. It will never go out of style.”

  “Clichéd,” Greg said, shaking his head.

  “The Poets?” Haley said as she tapped one of the masks set down on the table.

  “It’s not exactly fear-inspirin’, Hales,” Julie said.

  “No . . . but can we keep the masks?” Haley asked, smiling. “They really seemed to add something, I think.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Mina said.

  “The Carpenters? You know, for taking out Splinters?” I suggested, stealing a glance at the large Christmas tree over by the jukebox, making sure the present I’d stashed beneath it earlier this afternoon was still there. It was.