"How fast brilliance fades," Alex noted.
Peeking out the window at the paparazzi kenneled behind the Gladstones' gates, Tonya added her two cents. "And how are we going to get out of here without being hassled by a million people? And that's not even counting my parents."
Cam's phone rang again. Beth. The first thing out of her mouth was, "How are you guys going to get out to Endicott? It's too far to bike."
Cam groaned. Alex laughed. Tonya, who hadn't overheard Beth's end of the convo, was wringing her hands, and droning, "We've got to find Marleigh. And I have to be the one to save her. It's the only way I can prove how concerned I am about her safety and happiness. Kevin's gonna tell everyone I planned the whole thing. He'll totally trash me. I'll be sent away—if not to prison, then to that prep school that might as well have barbed wire and bars—"
"Put a sock in it, Tonya," Alex commanded. The desperate girls' soliloquy was making it hard for her to pick up Beth's voice. She guessed Cam had just asked her if she had any transportation ideas, because, tuning back in again, Alex heard Beth say, "Sure. Got brooms?"
"Yeah—and black capes and pointed hats," Cam replied dryly. "We've got about an hour to do this thing."
"Have you eaten yet?" her best bud asked.
"No," Alex shouted. "Tell her to send over a pizza."
Beth heard her. "Talk about mojo! That's just what I was thinking," she responded gleefully. "Just make sure it's from Pie in the Sky, and my friend—Jason— delivers it. Just try and remember his name—"
"E-lis-a-beth!" Cam broke her name into four distinct syllables. "We've got to get to that garage fast. This is not the time for a hookup."
"C'mon, Cam, give me some credit. I might not be your twin…" She paused for effect, "But I was just thinking, Jason could drive into Tonya's with a pie and—ta-da!—drive out with you guys. I'm pretty sure he's working tonight. And don't jump down my throat, but I know he'd do anything you asked."
Alex grabbed the phone again. "Brainstorm!" she shouted to Beth. "We owe you big-time."
"Yeah?" Beth laughed. "Think you can get Marleigh's autograph for me? I mean, if she's not too busy escaping. And," she added somberly, "if she's still... alive."
"Maybe we should have notified the police," Cam whispered to Alex as they and Tonya hunkered down between racks of warm pizza in the back of Jason Weissman's delivery van.
"Too late now," Alex reminded her.
Peering out the back window, Cam caught a glimpse of the old sergeant and the young policewoman. They were both watching the van pull away. Cam ducked down again. When she next looked out, a minute later it seemed, the pair and their black-and-white police car were gone.
Beth's estimate was on the money. They were bumping down Endicott, a seedy no-lane dirt road, twenty minutes later, and, shortly after that, stopping at the corner of Webster.
"I wish I could wait for you guys," Jason apologized as they piled out of the van. "How are you going to get home?" he asked.
"We'll call her dad," Alex came up with a quick answer.
"Thanks for getting us out of there without the paparazzi suspecting. That was really cool," Cam said sincerely.
Jason still hadn't gotten over the shock of seeing double. "Well, good luck," he said, not sure which Cam he was talking to.
The deserted filling station was a few yards away. All crumbling cement, boarded-up windows, and rusted pumps, it was nearly hidden behind a web of thorny vines and bushes. In short, to Cam's delight and amazement, it looked just like she had pictured it.
"I can see why the place is deserted," Alex commented as they picked their way through the tangled underbrush. "There're no houses, no people, no cars around. The only thing new here," she noted, reaching the shabby building, "is this."
A gleaming lock bolted the front door.
Cam tugged at it, to no avail.
"We don't even know if she's really in there," Tonya whined, anxiously looking over her shoulder.
"No, I guess the shiny, new combination lock is to keep out squirrels and raccoons," Alex murmured.
"Oh, it's a combination lock," Tonya cried, eyeing it now. "I'm pretty good at opening those."
While Tonya twirled the lock, listening intently for the right combo, Cam and Alex crept around to the side of the building and tried to pry a board off one of the windows.
The wood, old and rotten as it was, wouldn't budge—except to inflict splinters and cuts, of which neither girl wanted to be the first to complain.
"Is she even in there?" Cam asked, frustrated.
Alex rapped on the boards, calling Marleigh's name.
Cam stared at the unyielding plywood. "She's there!" she whispered, tugging at Alex's arm. "I can see her, through that little space in the boards."
Alex was impressed. The window's got no spaces or knotholes. It's your mojo to the rescue again. What do you see?"
"Marleigh," Cam answered, "but she's not moving. She's gagged and blindfolded and tied to a chair."
"Gagged? I knew it," Alex exclaimed. "That's why I couldn't make out the words."
"You heard her?" Cam demanded. "That means she's alive!"
"I heard something, but it was muffled." She put her face close to the decaying wood. "Hi," she called awkwardly.
"Marleigh!" Cam pushed Alex out of the way. "We're here to rescue you. Hang on. We've just got to break through this window."
"You shoved me," Alex complained.
"I'm sorry, but you were all, 'Hi,' like we have time to chat."
Alex sneered. "Scorch it. The board. Scorch it, Cam. Use that flamethrower power of yours to get us in."
"I'm not sure I can," Cam whispered.
"It worked with that picture on your wall," Alex reminded her.
"Yeah, but I was really, really angry at you then. I mean, red-hot raging, burning mad."
"Well then, you spoiled rotten brat, you pathetically clueless boneheaded geek, loser—"
"Shut up!" Cam ordered, steaming.
"Don't waste your batteries on me. The window. Do the window," Alex ordered.
"But what if the whole place catches on fire before we get her out?"
"Melt the nails! Do something!"
Unexpectedly, Cam grabbed Alex's hand. "You, too," she said. "Stare at them, you rancid, lame... I don't know!"
"Speaking of lame," Alex cracked, "you don't even have a decent supply of insults. Remind me to share—"
"Shut up and stare," Cam ordered.
Two nails had begun to heat up. A third, the one Alex finally focused on, was wiggling violently.
Then, ping!
"Duck!" Alex hollered as the bottom nail flew off.
"Get back!" Cam commanded as the top two nails melted, dripping molten metal down the front of the boarded-up window.
They tugged off the plywood. "Should we get Tonya?" Cam asked.
"No time," Alex insisted, scrambling to climb through the broken window.
Marleigh Cooper was a mess. When Cam finally made it inside, with Alex's grudging help, she had to stop herself from gasping.
The beautiful young singer's face was gaunt, streaked with tears, and mottled pink and white as though she'd had an outbreak of hives. Her once-flawless blond mane hung matted and greasy. Despite the tumble of fast-food cartons on the floor around her feet, Marleigh looked painfully thin and weak.
One of the ropes that held her to the chair was tied around her neck. Marleigh's pale skin was black and blue under the grimy cord.
If she had struggled any harder, Alex thought, she might have injured her windpipe, and never been able to sing again.
Or, Cam returned the thought, she might have strangled herself.
An orange flare poured through the busted window, a final blaze of dying sunlight. "Leave her blindfold alone," Cam told Alex. "Just until it gets a little darker out. She's probably been blindfolded for days. The light might hurt her eyes."
"Yes," Marleigh agreed in a pitiful whisper after Cam took the gag
off. "Please, just untie me. Please."
Alex worked at the ropes as Cam whipped out her cell phone. The only thing that stopped her from calling the police was Tonya. If the cops came now, Cam and Alex would have to spill everything they knew: Ratting out Tonya in front of Marleigh was something neither of them could do. So Cam speed-dialed her home. "Oh, no. I can't believe it. No one's there," she said as the voice mail picked up. "Okay, I can deal. I'll call a cab."
She was punching in 411, Alex was kneeling behind Marleigh, freeing the grateful girl's ankles, when Tonya gave a bloodcurdling scream and rushed through the front door.
She was about to say something—when she spotted Marleigh. Tonya gasped, and fell to her knees. "It's me, Marleigh. Tonya Gladstone. Oh, please forgive me. I'm so sorry. I only wanted you to like me—"
The still-blindfolded singer reached out her newly freed hands. Her wrists were painfully discolored from the pinch of the ropes. "Tonya?"
As the bedraggled victim tried to comfort the girl who'd planned her kidnapping, Alex heard an unsettling noise. So did Tonya, who suddenly remembered why she'd come flying in.
"It's him!" she said, belatedly remembering to whisper. "Kevin! He just
pulled up on his motorcycle. He's gonna tell. Then everyone will know..."
Alex didn't need to hear the rest. She ran outside.
Chapter 34 — Face-off
A craggy-faced boy wearing a dangling skull earring was a few yards away from the building. "Who are you?" he called, shutting his noisy motorcycle and climbing off. "What are you doing here?"
He came toward her, swaggering, sneering. Alex saw a shadow fall across him. She looked up. In the fading twilight, she found the tree branch that shaded his angry face. It was big and high, and would certainly do serious damage if it crashed down. But it wasn't directly above him anymore. He'd walked past it.
Kevin stopped suddenly, still out of range. "What's going on?" he shouted, looking pathetically confused. "Hey, how many of you are there?"
Alex figured, rightly, that Cam had bolted out of the filling station after her. But would she see the problem?
She didn't want to take a chance and just communicate telepathically with Cam. Too dangerous. "That humongous branch," she hissed, not taking her eyes of Kevin, hoping Cam heard her. "I think I can get it to break and fall but it might miss him. He's got to move back about a foot."
"Can you really do that?" Cam whispered behind her.
Alex wasn't sure. Would she have to hold Cam's hand to borrow some mojo? She didn't have an incantation for this one—should she try to make up some weird rhyme? She hated how unpredictable her newfound gifts were. Could she pull this off just by wanting it to happen, concentrating hard enough?
Alex made a snap decision. Where had Camryn been when she'd sent that basketball hurtling into Ina's mouth or the peanut-butter sticky spoon flying at Beeson's thick skull? She hadn't known Cam existed back then. She hadn't met Doc yet.
"If he'd just back up about a foot," she murmured.
"Speaking of foot," Cam said, with sudden, undisguised delight.
What seemed like a second later, the toe of Kevin's sneaker sent up a suspicious smoke signal. Then it exploded in flame. They boy yelped and grabbed his ankle, hopping around, frantically trying to blow out the hotfoot Cam had obviously sent his way.
He hopped backward, Alex saw with glee.
She focused on the branch with all her might. She squinted and chanted silently, Fall, fall, fall, please don't stall.
Then suddenly, Cam's hand was on her back, sending an awesome chill down her spine. There was a creaking noise as the branch swayed, and then an earsplitting crack a moment before it plummeted.
"Bull's-eye!" Cam hollered as Kevin went down. "I did it."
"You did what?" Alex demanded.
"I stared at him, I locked eyes with him, that's what."
"I made the branch fall," Alex reminded her.
"You guys got him!" Tonya had raced out of the service station after them.
"Let's not waste time arguing who did what," Cam told Alex. Turning to Tonya, the said, "Stay here and holler if he moves, okay?"
"But I'm the one who's supposed to save Marleigh!" Tonya bawled.
"Yeah, but you're the best screamer we've got, so you've got to guard Kevin for a minute, just until we finish untying her." Cam was multitasking like mad, connecting with the taxi company, when Alex followed her back into the garage.
They stopped dead in their tracks.
Marleigh was right where she'd been before—only not just blindfolded. The gag was back in her mouth and her hands and feet were bound again. Her head had fallen back, as though she were unconscious.
"I felt the neck cords were a bit brutal," a man's deep voice said. "So I didn't replace those."
Alex and Cam spun around. Sitting on a rusty stool, in front of what was left of the station's counter, was a hulking, bearded man in a turtleneck sweater. His pant legs, Alex noticed, were tucked into a pair of thick boots far too heavy for summer.
Cam's eyes began to sting as she stared at the intruder. Alex's ears felt blocked, as if she were wearing earmuffs. "Who are you?" she asked, her own voice echoing in her head. "How'd you get in here?"
"You were at Big Sky, near the Ferris wheel, right?" Cam asked, squinting at him. "You're Mr. Sot Naht, aren't you?"
"How perceptive you are." The big man chuckled. But you've got it backward, I'm afraid."
The boots, Alex thought, a vague recollection nagging at her suddenly tired brain. "Where did you come from?" she asked, her voice breaking embarrassingly.
"The question I should think," the man said slowly, smiling a smart-alecky smile, "is where did you come from?"
His glittering black eyes pinned Cam. Instinctively, she covered her own eyes. "Good reflexes," the stranger noted.
Cam felt the blood drain from her head. Woozy, she almost collapsed. Her phone went clattering to the floor as she grabbed the back of Marleigh's chair for balance.
Alex, too, felt lightheaded. With great effort, she tried to remember what it was about the man's boots that gnawed at her weary mind. Then, all at once, it came to her
Though he looked nothing like Beeson, she knew: "You're the one Lucinda and Evan were talking about, aren't you?" she asked, stunned. "You're the one who was looking for me at the trailer. You stomped right through the floor."
"What are you doing here? What do you want?" Cam asked.
But the man was staring at Alex now. "What is that abomination you're wearing?" he bellowed, pointing at Evan's gift. "That tawdry trinket." Then he turned back to Cam. "Where are your necklaces?" he roared.
"The chain's busted," Cam stammered, unable to help herself from answering. "I broke it accidentally."
"What necklace?" Alex asked.
The man shook his head disapprovingly. "She would be heartbroken if she knew."
"Who?" Alex asked, her mouth dry as dust.
"Your mother!" the man replied, angrily gnashing his teeth. "I have a message from her."
"My mother is dead," Alex told him defiantly.
"Who is she? Where is she?" Cam asked.
"She lives. And needs you. And only I can take you to her—"
"In a pig's eye, buster!" The beautiful young officer who'd stood guard at Tonya's gates crashed through the door, her gun in two hands, pointing at the invader. "Hold it right there!"
"Ileana, my dear. How well you look." The huge man stood and bowed gallantly.
"The Council has decreed that you must appear in person," the policewoman barked at him. "Let's get going."
"But you've done a marvelous job," he crooned lazily. "These children are exceptional. My compliments."
"Let's go, move it!" the officer insisted. "My partner and I are empowered to take you into custody—"
"Karsh?" he thundered. "My old friend?" He emphasized the word old, then laughed meanly. "Your partner, is he?"
"Yes," the officer called Ileana sa
id. "He's waiting for you outside. I'll join you in a moment. I need a word with these reckless children."
"Very well," the big man said cordially, but his dark eyes glittered with danger.
Alex and Cam could hear him calling to the older man as he stepped outside. "Ah, Karsh, we meet again, you decrepit old warlock. I see your eyebrows have mended. I'd gladly set fire to your feet this time, if we were not in the presence of the fledglings."
T*Witches: The Power of Two Page 19
