Hunt: An Urban Faery Tale (The Faery Chronicles Book 1)

by Leslie Claire Walker

  “There’s a party at Zoe’s,” she said. “Costumes and everything.”

  Costumes? Could be cool. Could be lame. But at Zoe’s? Wasn’t she Britt’s twin? Ugh. Also, would she let a freak like him in the door?

  Amy waved, and he watched her walk off to class until she blended in with the rest of the crowd in the hall. He didn’t know what might happen between now and then, but he would make that date if it killed him.

  Also, he had two minutes to get downstairs and to the other side of the school to make it to gym. Which he did, barely. He suffered through it (no pull-ups, thank God), and through study hall.

  He turned in his Grendel-the-Outcast treatise at the start of last period, and opened his copy of Beowulf to the announced unintelligible page printed in Middle English. The smell of the old book made him want to sneeze.

  At the front of the room, Mrs. Cahill warbled on and on about the Value of the Unusual. She wore her red dress with the tiny white polka dots—looking at it always gave him a headache.

  Ashley Benning, she of the brown nose and the front row, got tapped to read aloud first. All he could see of her was the back of her gray turtleneck and her mass of brown curls pulled back with a clip. She had one of those voices where everything she said might as well have gone down a well, so he couldn’t make out any particular word, just the choppy cadence. Mrs. Cahill stopped her every sentence or two to explain a point or write something on the blackboard in a furious scrape of chalk.

  Kevin tamped all of that down to a dull roar. He couldn’t have focused if he’d wanted to, since it took all of his brain power to count the number of minutes until the bell.

  He’d never wanted out of someplace so much. On one hand, he couldn’t stop thinking about Amy and the way her body felt against his, the way she tasted. On the other, he needed to think about his dad, and Simone, and why a Faery King whom he’d never met and would’ve been just fine not meeting ever would want to screw up his life and steal him away.

  He had to figure out what to do about all of it, and he didn’t have much time. Lust and fear bubbled in his belly. He could almost throw up. Almost.

  Kevin snapped to Mrs. Cahill looming over him. And to her not-amused glare. She tapped her manicured nails on the hardcover back of the book she held.

  “Having some difficulty joining us today, Mr. Landon?”

  The rest of the class snickered, especially Ashley Benning. Ha, ha, ha.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She bent over his desk and gazed at him for a moment with sympathy that, thank God, no one else saw. He felt bone-tired of seeing that look and the gleeful, gossipy face nearly everyone else around there showed him.

  He wished he’d stayed out of school the whole day. Or all week. Long enough for someone else to fuck up bad enough to divert all the attention from him.

  He could excuse himself now. Mrs. Cahill would let him go, but she’d know why he asked. And maybe half the class would guess. He wasn’t a coward. He wouldn’t run away.

  The moment passed. Mrs. Cahill pointed at his book. “Please read the next three paragraphs, Kevin.”

  He mutilated the Middle English. When Mrs. Cahill turned her back, he stole a glance at the clock.

  Mrs. Cahill spoke without looking at him. “The bell will ring when it’s time to go, Mr. Landon.”

  Woman had eyes in the back of her head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Continue reading.”

  He did, painfully. Until a knock sounded on the door.

  Mr. Nance, the counselor, poked his head inside. “I need Kevin.”

  Mrs. Cahill grinned. “Saving him from a fate worse than death?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Mr. Nance crooked a finger at Kevin.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KEVIN STARTED TO get up from his desk.

  “Bring your stuff,” Mr. Nance said.

  Not a good sign. What had he done wrong? No—what had he done to get caught? And wouldn’t someone from the principal’s office have come to get him if he’d broken the rules?

  He shoved his English books into his backpack and followed Mr. Nance to his office. As hard as he tried, Kevin couldn’t get a vibe from the guy. Nance hadn’t said a word since they’d left Mrs. Cahill’s room. The click of the counselor’s dress shoes and the squeak of his own sneakers on the tile echoed in the hall, punctuated by stray bits of lecture from the few open-door classrooms they passed. The counselor waved at the secretary in the front office, a lady who wore a navy suit and peered at Nance and Kevin through her rhinestone-encrusted bifocals.

  Nance’s office looked the same as it had the last time. Neat stacks of papers all over the desk and credenza, in no order Kevin could figure. One time, he’d heard that Nance had a secret filing system so no one could sneak a peek at his student records. Paranoid and delusional.

  The bookcase hadn’t been dusted in a thousand years. A half-dead ivy sat on top, trailers with as many brown as green leaves hanging down over the sides of the shelves. There was exactly one piece of art, on the back wall: an oil painting of a bunch of guys riding horses through the air, in formation like a flock of geese. All of them appeared to be kings. The dude at the head of the line shone like he had a star in his chest. The brass plaque on the frame read The Wild Hunt.

  All the spit in Kevin’s mouth dried up. It was the same picture he’d seen on his father’s computer the night of the party.

  Mr. Nance closed the door and cocked his head at one of the red vinyl guest chairs. Kevin sat.

  “We couldn’t get ahold of your father this morning when we called to find out why you weren’t in class,” Nance said.

  No kidding.

  “So I’ll need a note from you.”

  Note. The kind your parents sent to school with you to excuse an absence.

  He kept his face as blank as possible, knowing Nance would pick up on any expression of guilt, no matter how small. And worried that he wouldn’t be able to help himself.

  What could he say to buy more time?

  “My dad has been real busy lately. He forgot to write it for me,” he said.

  “He’s busy dealing with the fallout from your busy weekend, no doubt.” The counselor laced his fingers together and rested his hands in his lap.

  Kevin sighed. “Someone put up a neon sign with all the gory details?”

  “We got a call from an officer bright and early this morning,” Mr. Nance said. “He told us what happened, that you are a—how did they say it?—a person of interest in their investigation. The staff was informed.”

  A person of interest? Informed? The King had really upped the ante. It wouldn’t matter whether someone else did something bigger and stupider. Nothing was going to eclipse this. Not now, and maybe not ever. It took everything Kevin had to stay in the chair. To keep still.

  “Your classmates are another story.”

  “Only takes two people to start a rumor,” Kevin said.

  “Just so. But I think this will all blow over.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “My main concern, Kevin, is that if it doesn’t blow over soon enough, it might affect your ability to get the scholarship you need for college.”

  “Huh?” Kevin scrambled. He hadn’t been actually accused of anything. No matter what Oscar said, he just couldn’t imagine…but it could happen. He could lose his chance at everything he’d worked so hard for. Jesus.

  “How?” he asked.

  “They will do background checks,” Mr. Nance said. “And when they do, they may find out about this incident. They may decline to extend an offer.”

  Kevin shook his head. “But how can they do that if I haven’t done anything wrong?”

  “There are other candidates vying for the same money who don’t have a murder hanging over them, Kevin.”

  For the first time, he understood that people hadn’t been staring at him or talking about him like he was some freak because they heard he had something to do with a dead girl. They were wondering if he
’d done it. If he’d killed her.

  The hairs on his arms stood up. He felt sick to his stomach. “Holy shit.”

  “Just so,” Mr. Nance said.

  Kevin’s legs twitched.

  “You look like you’re about five seconds from bolting out of here,” Mr. Nance said. “Calm down.”

  How could he possibly calm down at a time like this?

  “Did you do it, Kevin?”

  Kevin’s jaw dropped.

  “I have to ask.” Mr. Nance bent forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “Or, actually, I don’t. I could just patronize you like any other adult in this office might do. I could speak some platitude about how everything will be all right and send you back to class. My eyes would brim with sympathy, like Mrs. Cahill’s. How would that be?”

  “How did you know Mrs. Cah—”

  “Please, Kevin. A person wouldd have to be willfully blind to miss her fakery. She behaves that way with everyone. Didn’t you know?”

  Kevin hadn’t thought much about it. He also hadn’t thought much about—but guessed now—that there must be some law that forbade Nance from asking, the same way you couldn’t ask people about their religion or whether they were gay. He could say something about that, see what Nance did. Or he could just answer the question.

  If he teed off the counselor, he could kiss what little chance for a scholarship he had left goodbye.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t do it.”

  Nance nodded as if he’d expected that answer—and believed it. Kevin needed that: To be believed. He had a feeling that from here on out, that kind of thing would be in short supply. He couldn’t actually say the cops weren’t real and that they had some elaborate plan to ruin his rep, could he?

  “I’ll do what I can to help you,” Nance said. “Make some calls. Talk with my connections.”

  Kevin took that deep breath, finally. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll still need that note,” Mr. Nance said.

  “When?” Kevin asked.

  “Now.”

  “How about tomorrow morning, first thing?” That would give him a chance to write up something. Forge his dad’s signature.

  “No.”

  “I was sick,” Kevin said.

  “You cut class.”

  Kevin didn’t say a word. If you got caught lying, never confirm or deny.

  “Were you doing drugs? Did you shoplift anything? Do anything else illegal?” Nance asked.

  All the crazy questions. If Kevin had been doing that stuff, it’s not like he would never admit it. But he felt compelled again to answer. If he didn’t, he still had everything to lose. “No.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To the movies. Two hours in the anonymous dark with popcorn and car chases.”

  Nance sighed. “You know, I met your father once. At the open house last year.”

  There had been a spaghetti supper and parent-teacher conferences. His dad had been drunk.

  “He’s not going to produce an excuse for you,” Nance said. “It’s probably the last thing on his mind.”

  Nance had no idea. And no, his dad wouldn’t write the note. The counselor had to know what Kevin planned to do. And that was a problem from which Kevin saw no exit.

  Mr. Nance pulled a sheet of notebook paper from his drawer and wrote. Kevin read it upside down.

  To Whom It May Concern:

  Kevin was unable to attend all of his classes on Tuesday morning, October 28th, because of a bout of food poisoning.

  Franklin Landon

  “Good enough?” Mr. Nance asked.

  To get him fired, sure. “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because, once upon a time, I was just like you.”

  Kevin sincerely doubted that. “What’s the catch?”

  “That you stay on the straight-and-narrow, get into a good college, go there, and graduate,” Mr. Nance said. “Do you think you can do that?”

  What were the odds he could stay out of trouble? “I hope so.”

  “Don’t hope, Kevin. Do it.”

  Kevin nodded.

  “I’m going to send this note to admin. It’ll go in your file. They won’t try to contact your father again.”

  A good thing. “Thanks, Mr. Nance.”

  “You’re welcome. You also have my permission to skip the last ten minutes of Mrs. Cahill’s class.” Mr. Nance shuffled the papers on his desk. Their session was over.

  Kevin stood up. It occurred to him that what Mr. Nance had done didn’t just put him at risk that someone in admin would find out. What if Kevin ratted him out?

  “How come you trust me with this?” he asked.

  Mr. Nance met his gaze. “Like I said, I was just like you. My father…well, my father never won any awards for parent of the year.”

  Kevin tried not to blanch at that. He might resent the hell out of his dad, but right now worry trumped that. Worry that he might die. That even if Kevin figured out a way to help him, he might never be the same. Right now the only thing that mattered was that his dad was all he had.

  No matter how bad it was, Kevin loved him.

  Mr. Nance meant well. He showed his sympathy differently than Mrs. Cahill, but deep down it felt the same to Kevin. Humiliating.

  He forced himself to say something polite. “Thank you again, Mr. Nance.”

  “You try hard, Kevin. You do your best. You’ll make it. You’ll get to college.”

  “Yes, sir.” Just as soon as he saved his father’s life and figured out how to generally elude the Faery King. Yeah, right.

  “Just so,” Mr. Nance said. “Remember one thing, Kevin. If you have any more problems, my door is always open.”

  That was that.

  And the door was actually open behind them. The girl from the party, the one with the eyebrow ring—it had to be the same girl—marched in like she owned the place. Her eyes were red, white, and hazel, like she’d been crying.

  She sounded stopped up when she spoke. “They did it again, Mr. Nance. Fuckers.”

  “Just so,” Nance said, by way of agreement.

  Kevin looked from one to the other. The girl had the counselor’s full attention, and she his.

  Time for an unobtrusive exit. He couldn’t help overhearing a few words as he slipped out.

  “Language, Ms. Kinsey. What did you do in retaliation?”

  “Egged their lockers,” she said. “From the inside.”

  “And how did you do that?” Mr. Nance asked.

  Kevin wanted to know, too.

  Ms. Kinsey shrugged. “I broke into them.”

  Heh. If only she had managed a logic-defying magic trick instead. Then he wouldn’t be the only one around here with superpowers.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  KEVIN WENT BY THE FRONT door of the main building after last bell, looking for Rude. Who was there like he said he would be, cradling a brown paper lunch sack close to his body to protect it from the exiting hordes. With the doors opening and closing so much, the outdoor chill seeped in and the temperature where they stood dropped a good ten degrees inside a couple of minutes. A cold front had blown in while they’d been in class.

  It didn’t hold a candle to the icy fear Kevin felt. Out there on the curb, his dad would be waiting.

  He nodded at the lunch sack. “That the something important?”

  “It is. I had to skip study hall to make it.” Rude handed it over.

  The sack felt heavier than it looked. Kevin started to open it, but stopped at the caution on Rude’s face.

  “Not yet, dude. Not until I tell you what’s in there and what it’s for,” Rude said. “I know I said before that I’m around if you need me, but that’s not exactly true tonight. And tonight might be crucial.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

  Rude chuckled. It was a tired laugh. “I’ll be with Oscar.”

  “Paying the price. What’s that mean, exactly?”

  “I’ll be okay, if you’re wondering. I’ll just b
e incommunicado for a few hours.”

  “C’mon, man. Why won’t you tell me?”

  “In the hall with a thousand eavesdroppers?” Rude asked. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Straight out of the padded room, man.”

  “I’ll call you when I’m home.”

  Kevin could live with that. “So what’s the big surprise in the bag?”

  “It’s a charm, like the one I told you about, the one Oscar taught me.”

  Kevin peered into the bag and saw a large, polished river rock, the same kind as lined the yard where Rude hung out and smoked. No wonder the thing felt heavy.

  “I didn’t think it would be a thing,” Kevin said. “The charm, I mean. I thought it would be something you said.”

  “That’s an incantation, dude. A whole other animal.”

  Whatever. Either one equaled magic. “So what do I do with this? Bash my dad over the head with it if he gets out of hand?”

  Rude rolled his eyes. “Hold it in your hand and think at it.”

  “Think at it?” He had to be kidding.

  Apparently not. “Forget, that’s what you think. As in, your dad will forget whatever you need him to. It’ll set off the charm, which will give you some time to get the hell outta Dodge if you need to.”

  “Cool.” Kevin shrugged out of his backpack and unzipped the small, front pocket.

  Rude shook his head. “Slip it in your pocket, dude. Keep it on you. That way you’ll have it if you need it, and it won’t be on the other side of the house.”

  Kevin bowed to the über-logic. The thing made a nice bulge that he could just cover with his sweatshirt if he pulled it down far enough. “I sure hope my dad doesn’t ask me if there’s a sock in my pocket or if I’m just happy to see him.”

  “If he does, use your sarcasm superpowers,” Rude said. “Leave no trace, remember?”

  “I do.” Kevin stretched out a hand.

  Rude clasped it, pulled him in, and thumped him on the back. “Do me a favor tonight and don’t go out.”

  Unbelievable. “First it’s ‘don’t go home’. Now it’s ‘don’t go out’. Which is it?”

  “If you’re going investigating, I want to go with you. You need someone to watch your back.”