by Scott Mebus
“The bullet’s getting cooler!”
Fritz looked up with alarm.
“We don’t have as much time as I’d hoped,” he said. “But we’ll make it. Come on!”
He urged Clarence forward, leading them down the new passage.
After an anxious half hour or so, they came upon a new juncture, this one better lit and less abandoned-looking. Fritz’s face broke out in a huge smile.
“I know where we are! We’re gonna make it, kiddo!”
Rory could only smile weakly, his hand still clutched around the cooling bullet in his pocket. Fritz hopped down off Clarence and spoke quietly into his rat’s ear. The rat seemed to nod before racing off down the new passage, disappearing into a crack in the wall.
“Where’s he going?” Rory asked, worried.
“I sent him ahead to get some help,” Fritz answered. “When we get back to the surface, we’re going to need to move quickly. I think I know what to do about your sister, and I’m going to need help making it happen. The first order of business is to get out of these tunnels. Come on. We’re not too far from the exit. Pick me up; we’ll move faster.”
Rory reached down and let Fritz hop on his hand. Putting him in his shirt pocket, he proceeded to walk as quickly as he could down the new passage. They moved faster now that they knew where they were going. The only incident of any note was when Fritz noticed a dirty brown rat running alongside them. He had Rory throw a rock at the rodent, which disappeared into the wall.
“What was wrong with the rat?” Rory wanted to know. “Aren’t rats on our side?”
“I don’t know who’s on whose side,” Fritz replied. “I just didn’t like the look of that rat. I think I’ve seen it before.”
Putting the rat behind him, Rory moved as quickly as he could toward the way to the surface.
Sally raced through the small holes under the streets of the city. While scouting the bank for her master, the rat had heard the other rodents whispering about Clarence and his mission, and she had come to see if any of it was true. Sure enough, there was her master’s quarry, far from where they were expected to be. But there was only one exit they could possibly be headed toward. She would reach her master soon, and by the time the boy came up out of the ground, her master would be waiting with his knife in hand. There was still time, if she moved quickly. And swiftly she ran, through the holes and tunnels beneath the earth, toward the assassin waiting patiently above.
22
THE STREET FAIR
The assassin ran up to the corner of Second Avenue and 12th Street, wincing under the glare of the newly risen sun. Turning onto 12th, he pulled in next to a closed-up storefront, hugging the wall. A familiar brown rat ran up from the spot where she’d been waiting, watching to make certain the Light didn’t slip by. Thankfully, he was informed that the boy had not yet emerged. Giving Sally a quick pat of thanks, he barely had time to catch his breath before the manhole cover across the street lifted and slid to the side. He couldn’t believe his good fortune as a boy’s head popped out, blinking in the sunlight. This was his moment, now, before the boy could react and anyone could help him. Putting his hand on the knife under his shirt, he stepped out from the storefront and onto the sidewalk, ready to do his duty.
A hand landed on his shoulder. Jumping in surprise, he leaped around to come face-to-face with Nicholas Stuyvesant. Nicholas smiled, putting up his hands.
“Hey, calm down, it’s just me. I didn’t expect to see you down here. You must have gotten Clarence’s message, too.”
The assassin forced himself to release the knife and nod.
“Look, I don’t want to overwhelm the poor boy,” Nicholas continued. “He’s been through a lot. So do me a favor, will you? Let the rest of the Rattle Watch know that we’re going to meet at my father’s house at midday. I’m not happy about it, believe me, but it’s the only safe place I can think of. I hope the old coot doesn’t ruin everything. Can you pass the message along? Great. See you midday.”
With that, Nicholas turned and crossed the street. The assassin watched him reach down to help Rory up.
“Hey, Rory,” he said. “I’m Nicholas Stuyvesant. I’ve been dying to meet you.”
And the assassin couldn’t do a thing. He’d missed his window. He withdrew around the corner and punched the wall in frustration. He’d been so close! It was too late, he told himself. At least for now. He’d been given strict instructions to do nothing to the Rattle Watch. Kieft had a plan to deal with them, and if the assassin killed Nicholas now, the rest of them might slip away. So the Light lived, for the moment at least. There would be other chances. Kieft would understand. He hoped.
For now, he had another function. Kieft’s plan to catch the Rattle Watch had to be set in motion, and soon. This task would go perfectly, he knew it. None of the watch suspected a thing. Nor did they suspect that one of their own members would be the cause of their downfall. There would be no Nicholas to save them. The assassin would see to that. And if in the confusion he had a chance to finish what he’d started with Rory, then that would be just perfect. All his missed chances would be redeemed then.
Feeling better already, the assassin headed uptown, his mind already on the snare soon to be set.
Rory stared up at the face peering down at him from the street. He didn’t know what to do, until Fritz’s voice floated up.
“It’s all right, Rory. He’s a friend.”
Reassured, Rory allowed himself to be pulled up out of the manhole.
Nicholas smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re okay,” he said.
Rory didn’t answer, all too conscious of the cooling bullet in his pocket. Sensing his discomfort, Nicholas gave him a compassionate look.
“I heard some of the details in the message Clarence gave. Don’t worry; we’ll fix this.”
“I think we should get moving,” Fritz said from his place in Rory’s pocket. “There are eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Let’s talk under the pear tree. No one can eavesdrop on us when we’re under my father’s protection. At least he’s good for that much.”
He led them down the street toward Third Avenue, giving Rory a chance to take in his new companion in the old-fashioned clothing. He seemed not too much older than Rory, though his ancient eyes told a different story. Rory looked down at Fritz, who seemed to understand his confusion.
“I know you don’t know who to trust, Rory,” Fritz said softly. “But Nicholas is an old friend. He’ll help Bridget, I promise.”
Rory had a thought.
“Are you a god?”
Nicholas smiled wryly.
“No. I’m just the son of a god. You’ll meet him later, unfortunately. Just try not to hold him against me.”
Rory looked around at the city as Nicholas spoke. The sun was rising higher and people walked around, opening their stores and walking their dogs. It was Saturday, just a normal weekend morning. Nothing special. Forgetting for a moment the danger he and his sister and all of them were in, he took in a deep lungful of city air. Usually, it tasted like cigarette smoke and car exhaust. Today, it tasted like freshly baked bread and summer. It was Saturday morning on 12th Street, and he was alive.
“Mom,” he said suddenly. “She must be worried.”
“You caught a break there,” Nicholas replied. “One of our friends has been keeping tabs on your house. According to him, your mom left so early she only glanced in your room to make sure there was a lump before leaving. So we have until tonight before you need to get home.”
Rory was glad of that. The last thing he wanted was to scare his mom to death. He checked the bullet again—cooler? Maybe a little. He only hoped these new friends could help Bridget before it was too late.
They reached the corner of Third Avenue and turned north. Glancing ahead, Rory spied an odd sight for the city: a large, beautiful tree sprouting from the pavement on the northeast corner of 13th and Third, its wide branches reaching out to cover the sidewalk and part of
the street in shade. As they came closer, he could see small fruit hanging from its branches, pears waiting to be plucked. None of the people passing under its cool shade gave it a glance, a fact Rory found hard to believe. He pointed it out to Fritz, who didn’t seem surprised.
“Considering that pear tree was knocked down about a hundred and fifty years ago, I’d be surprised if they could see it.”
Nicholas gazed up at the flowering branches fondly.
“I love this old thing. I come here when my father is being especially hard to deal with, which is almost every day. He planted it back in 1647, can you believe that? Brought it back from Holland. This whole area used to be his farm, the Great Bouwerie. That’s farm in Dutch, you know. I was born after he became a god, of course, so I never really lived that life. He won’t stop talking about it, though. Every minute it’s ‘the old days’ this and ‘back in my day’ that. He lives in the past. He even dresses like he did three hundred and fifty years ago!”
Rory glanced at Nicholas’s nineteenth-century outfit but said nothing. Nicholas leaned up against the tree and gestured for Rory to sit under the cool branches.
“I know time is of the essence, but I need to know what happened,” Nicholas said. “So tell me everything.”
Ordinary people streamed by, unaware of the wonders in their midst as Fritz and Rory quickly told their tale. Nicholas’s face grew ashen as the story went on, finally asking to see the bullet. He turned it over in his fingers as Fritz finished up, waiting a moment to take it all in before speaking.
“There’s a bunch of stuff I wanted to talk to you about, Rory. But this takes precedence. I never met Hex, but it doesn’t sound like he is particularly trustworthy. Can we really trust him to give back your sister’s body after you turn that key? Assuming we can find him, of course.”
“What else can I do?” Rory asked miserably. “I want my sister back. Nothing else matters.”
“I understand,” Nicholas said. “I’ve always maintained that the Munsees should be freed. It was mostly Kieft’s plan, after all, to trap them, and any plan of his is bad news in my book. But why go to such lengths?”
“There’s something we’re missing,” Fritz said. “Is there a danger here we don’t know about? What will really happen when Rory disables the Trap?”
“What does Hex really want?” Nicholas asked thoughtfully.
“I don’t care!” Rory said, exploding with frustration. Nobody seemed to care about his sister but him. “We need to save Bridget, and if I have to turn that key a billion times, I’ll do it.”
“Now’s not the time to argue about this,” Fritz said. “The bullet is cooling, and soon the soul will be let free. We don’t know if we’ll find Hex in time.”
“So what do we do?” Nicholas asked.
“Seeing Jason gave me an idea,” Fritz said. “There’s only one man I know who could have made that papier-mâché body.”
Nicholas snapped his fingers.
“Flavio!”
“Who else?” Fritz answered. “So I need to know where the fair is today.”
“Someone is looking out for you, Rory,” Nicholas said, shaking his head in amazement. “The fair is over on First, only two avenues away.”
“Then let’s go,” Fritz said, smiling at their good luck. “I think she has a chance, Rory.”
“A chance for what?” Rory asked, not understanding what they were talking about.
“If we can’t get her back to her body in time,” Nicholas said, “then we’ll have to go with a loaner. Come on.”
Nicholas pulled Rory to his feet, and they went racing east on 13th Street as fast as they could.
A couple of blocks later they came upon the street fair. All of First Avenue was filled with stalls stretching far into the distance. Voices with all kinds of exotic accents flew through the air like bottle rockets, exploding into the ear with the promise of the best Chinese food, Italian meatballs, gyros, chicken skewers, crepes, barbecue, fried dough, hot dogs, or pretzels in the whole wide world. In between the food stands were tables and tents and boxes bursting with clothes, intricate toys that spun and crackled with sparks, international souvenirs like authentic Indian jewelry made on St. Mark’s Place by NYU undergrads and stress balls that you rotated on your palm as you tried to tap into the wisdom of the ancients without getting a cramp. There were New York staples like small copper Statue of Libertys and silver Empire State Buildings, and dozens upon dozens of small backward chairs that promised the massage of a lifetime in only ten minutes. And in and around all these wonders flowed the people. Thousands and thousands of people—eating, buying, ignoring, pushing, wandering, arguing, laughing, daydreaming, browsing, or just stopping short for no reason at all. Block after block, this sea of people and stalls stretched on, twenty times the size of the largest farmers market you ever saw. If you stepped into it anywhere but the edges, you’d swear it went on forever.
Rory didn’t know where the street fairs came from. No one did. They’d pop up out of nowhere, and then after a weekend, or even a single Sunday, the entire fair would disappear overnight, leaving only wrappers and the odd price tag whipping in the wind down the deserted avenue. Then, on some other street somewhere else in the city, the fair would sprout up again, alive this time on Third Avenue or Madison, in Little Italy or Flat-bush, or even Seaman Avenue up in Inwood. Always on the move, often impossible to predict, the fair hopped around the metropolis all summer long.
Nicholas spoke over his shoulder as they made their way through the crowd.
“Do you know how you can tell when the fair is coming?”
Rory shook his head. “No. That’s part of the point, right? At least that’s what my mom says. You hear about it and you go. She loves the whole spontaneous thing.”
“But they bore you?”
“No, it’s not that. But I’ve been coming to these since I was a little kid. They’re kinda old hat now.”
“Old hat, huh?”
Nicholas chuckled to himself. Rory sniffed, offended.
“What?”
“They say you can smell the sweet scent of exotic food in the air a full day before the fair appears. A half a day before, the sound of the hawkers selling their wares drifts by on the wind. An hour or two before, you’ll walk down the street and find yourself taking wide detours around empty sidewalks where the stalls will soon appear. You won’t even know why you’re doing it. You just do.”
“But even that gets predictable after a lifetime, doesn’t it?”
“I’d reserve judgment until after you’ve stepped behind the curtains at the back of the stalls,” said Nicholas.
“But if you step through the curtains, you’d just end up on the sidewalk.”
As he said this, Rory stared at the back of the booth they were passing. An old man sat toward the back of a stall filled with watercolors that showed the city in all its seasons. As Rory watched, the curtain pulled back and a young woman stepped through holding a cup, which she handed to the old man. Behind her, where there should have been sidewalk and storefronts, burned a fire in a cozy living room, with an easy chair and a child playing on the floor. The woman stepped back through the curtain, letting it fall behind her. Nicholas noticed Rory’s astonishment.
“They have to live somewhere, right?”
Rory kept his eyes on the old man as he sipped from his cup.
“Who do?”
“The gypsies.”
Rory opened his mouth to ask about these so-called gypsies when Fritz pointed toward a small stall to their left.
“Here we are.”
Rory stepped into the stall, looking up at the walls as he entered. Colorful masks hung from the metal supports, as did bright piñatas of every make and shape. Donkeys, birds, lions, monkeys, animals of all kinds swung softly from their metal wires. The piñatas, the masks, even the tiny figurines of frogs and fat Buddhas were all made of papier-mâché. A young girl manned the stall. To Rory’s surprise, she looked right at Fritz.
“Another one? What do you want?”
“Is Flavio in?” Fritz asked.
The girl pointed to the flap at the back.
“Go on in and see for yourself.”
Nicholas pushed through the back flap. Rory stepped up to it slowly, feeling the curtain with his hands. It felt normal enough. He pulled it aside, stepping into a warm, welcoming living room with a fireplace, a coffee table, and a long leather couch. Standing on the coffee table flanked by Clarence and another, larger rat was a new cockroach. Fritz let out a cry of astonishment.
“Liv! What are you doing here?”
The new cockroach lifted its helmet to reveal a pretty pink face surrounded by short brown hair. The pretty face, however, was burning with anger.
“Clarence came uptown looking for one of your patrol boys, but I took the message. What are you mixed up in? The clan forbade you to have contact with these people!”
Fritz shouted right back.
“If I didn’t get mixed up in this, as you put it, Rory would be in the clutches of Tom Hill!”
“Instead, his sister pays the price,” she said bitingly.
“You don’t understand,” Fritz began, his face turning red.
“People!” Nicholas broke in. “Please! I don’t want to see anybody get hurt!”
The two cockroaches glared at him, and Nicholas looked sorry he said anything.
“Rory,” Fritz said. “This is my wife, Liv.”
Rory didn’t know what to do, so he inclined his head.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Well done,” Nicholas said, his eyes twinkling. “Very polite.”
“Don’t be cute,” Liv said.
“Of course not, Captain,” Nicholas said, snapping to attention. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Captain?” Rory wondered aloud.
“She’s also my superior,” Fritz explained.
“That’s why she got the bigger rat,” Nicholas said with a straight face.
