by Jeff Altabef
Halfway to the car, he looks back toward the mansion for what he expects will be the last time.
His parents are gone, the door shut.
His eyes focus on a square piece of marble toward the right of the door. Two twisted muskets in a circle are carved into it—The Order of the Twisted Muskets. He has lived with that carving his whole life and never asked about it. Now he knows what it means and wishes he had never seen the symbol or learned of the secretive group.
He squeezes into the car and sinks into the soft leather seats.
“Juliet, are you okay? Where have you gone?” Troy stands over me.
I shake my head to clear away the vision of Blake. “I’m fine. I must have taken a little catnap.”
I don’t tell him about the vision. I’m not keeping secrets; it’s just that I don’t want to talk about it.
I wash the City from my face, and a weird sensation whisks through my head, as if someone’s tickling my brain with a feather.
Sicheii’s weathered voice rings in my mind. “A Chosen needs help. Find him.”
“Argh! You started all this.” I mutter to myself because it’s not really Sicheii’s voice I hear. He’s dead, gone forever.
The tickle becomes a super-annoying itch, so I dry my face, leave the bathroom, and swat Troy on the leg. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
He points to the NCIS rerun on TV. “I want to see who did it. It’s almost over.”
“One of the Chosen is close. We should find him. He needs our help.”
Troy stretches and lopes toward the door. “How do you know he’s in trouble?”
“I don’t know. I just have this feeling that won’t go away.”
“Who are we looking for?”
We start down the stairs. “Beats me.”
I’ve seen Blake and Akari in the dream visions. The third is a mystery and I have a feeling we need to find the mystery.
“Cool. We’re hunting Spirit Walkers. Which way? The City’s kinda big.”
“No kidding.”
He shrugs. “A direction would be nice. I’m just saying.”
“Out there somewhere.” We stroll past Stuart, who’s sitting at his desk. He hides his face behind a paperback as we pass, yet I can feel his eyes follow us. He gives me the creeps.
When we reach the street, I say, “Let’s wander.”
Troy smiles. “It’s like you’re dowsing for water, only you’re looking for Spirit Walkers instead.”
“Dowsing?”
“Sure. Your grandfather told me about it. Dowsers channel the water spirit. Usually they use two sticks that form a Y, hold them with only their thumbs and index fingers, and let the water spirit pull the sticks toward an underground spring. Maybe we should get some sticks.” He starts to search the ground by a tree.
“Come on.” I pull his arm. “Sticks aren’t going to help. Hopefully, we can dowse quickly because I have a hunch he’s in trouble.” My pulse quickens, and I start to speed-walk, turning at corners that feel right. I can’t lose a Chosen now, not before we’ve even met.
We reach 14th Street, which is wide and busy, jammed with men in business suits, mothers with strollers, and college students jogging. They’re all rushing as if they’re late to get somewhere important.
A stabbing pain burns through my head, as though someone’s stuck a needle through my temple. I stop in front of a pub called The Blarney Stone and peer inside. A long wooden bar stretches to the right and tables to the left. A cluster of people stand at the far end of the bar watching a soccer match on the flat screen in the corner—a river of red shirts with one blue buoy floating in the middle.
The pain vanishes, and I turn toward Troy. “Don’t ask me how I know, but this is the place.”
“Great.” He opens the door, and we drift into the bar.
No one pays any attention to us. They’re all watching the soccer match between Manchester United and Chelsea. The bar obviously supports Manchester United—a Red Devils banner hangs behind the bartender along with two signed Manchester United jerseys in glass cases.
Everyone in the bar wears a red shirt except for the lone Chelsea supporter. He stands a few inches taller than those around him, with an old blue Chelsea jersey stretched over his wide shoulders. He’s around my age, with sandy hair parted to one side, a strong jaw and blue-gray eyes. His nose, bent slightly to the right, probably didn’t heal properly after being broken, which only adds to his rugged good looks. He leans against the bar with strong, well-muscled arms, and looks comfortable, as if he’s spent a lot of time in pubs.
I nudge Troy as a pint of beer travels down the length of the bar and into the stranger’s waiting hand. His eyes never leave the flat screen as he chugs the entire beer in one messy gulp.
Troy smirks. “Can you do that?”
“You’ve seen me use telekinesis before.”
Troy chuckles. “No, I mean chug a beer that fast. It has to be his special ability.”
I stomp down on his foot.
“Oww! That hurt.” He shakes his leg.
“Don’t be a baby.”
“Are you sure he’s in trouble. It doesn’t seem like he needs our help.”
“Wait for it.”
Tied at one, they’re in the 85th minute of the match. All eyes are glued on the flat screen; even the bartender hasn’t looked our way. When a blue striker dashes past the defense, the bar collectively moans, and the energy turns volcanic.
The soccer ball finds the top right corner of the Manchester net.
The Chelsea supporter pumps his hands in the air, and shouts, “Gooooooaaal! Goooooaaaal!” The glass he’s holding liquefies and melts down his arm.
The rest of the place groans and starts cursing at him.
A wicked grin flickers across his face as he jumps onto the bar. He wobbles as he lands and starts chanting with slurred words and in an accent I just begin to understand when he starts his second chorus:
Carefree, wherever we may be,
We are the famous CFC,
And we don’t give a crap,
Whoever you may be,
‘Cos we are the famous CFC.
The bartender shouts at him, “Get down from there, boy! I knew I shouldn’t have let a Chelscum Blue supporter in the bar.”
Two beefy men stalk toward the Chosen. They look like brothers with identical scowls on their long faces. “We’ll get him down and teach him a lesson. No one shows us up in our place.”
Glass shatters, and a middle-aged guy in the back holds a broken bottle by the neck. He’s all sharp angles and bones. His eyes pinch together and gleam dangerously as he elbows his way toward the front of the mob.
The bartender grabs a baseball bat.
The Chelsea fan stops chanting and bellows, “It’ll take more than a dozen Manure Red Hooligans to take me down, mates!”
“There’s fifteen of us, you git!” shouts someone from the back.
“Oh, that could be a problem.” He slurs his words and hops off the bar. “Still I’m willing... to give it a... go.” He lifts his hands into fists with his back to the bar.
The bartender moves behind him with the bat raised, and the two brothers poise to leap at him. The man with the broken bottle sidles next to them, his mind full of anger and hate. He wants to kill.
Troy and I dart forward. We jump in between the Chelsea fan and the broken beer bottle. I keep my eyes glued on the jagged glass.
The sneer on the man’s face deepens. One of the brothers slaps his shoulder, and he doesn’t let go. The man tries to shrug him off, but the other brother grabs his elbow.
Troy smiles at the bartender. “Thanks for keeping an eye on our cousin. He escaped from the psychiatric hospital today. We’d better take him back. They’re looking for him.” He lifts his hand to his temple and rotates his finger in a circle.
The bartender lowers the bat. “You’d better get him out of here or he’s gonna leave in pieces.”
Some of the anger dissipates from t
he mob. The two brothers pull the man with the bottle backward and the rest step to the side and create a clear path to the door.
I grab one of the Chosen’s arms and Troy grabs the other.
“Wait a minute,” he protests, but we hold him steady as we drag him toward the door. “The match isn’t over yet.”
“It is for you.” I grab a beaten-up backpack from the end of the bar that I assume is his.
He shouts over his shoulder as we leave. “I’ll be back for the next match. Save me a spot!”
Troy hails a cab and I push the Chosen into the back with us.
“What do you guys want? I’m not into any kinky stuff,” he says.
“We’re taking you to the Inn.”
“Oh, you’re one of the Freaky Four.” He holds out his hand. “My name’s Connor.”
“I’m Juliet.” I shake his hand.
“Hey, you guys aren’t Manhole supporters are you? Cause I’m getting out if you are, and the world can piss off.”
“We’re from Arizona,” says Troy, as if that answers the question.
“Oh.” Connor smiles at me, closes his eyes, and drops his head on my shoulder. When the cab screeches to a stop in front of the Inn, we wrestle him out of the car, loop his arms over our shoulders and half drag, half lift him into the hotel.
Stuart pops up from his desk. “Oh my, my, my. You’ve found another one in your party. Mr. Long Sword. Yes, he most definitely is Mr. Long Sword.”
“His name is Connor,” I say as we drag him to the elevator.
“I’d ask what happened to him, but the smell gives him away. Yes, it certainly does.” Stuart bats the air in front of his face and wrinkles his nose. “He’s brought the entire brewery back with him, hasn’t he now? Me, I never touch the stuff. Well, not never—I do have a weakness for a Pina Colada now and again, always before dinner and never more than two. I collect the umbrellas. I have a nice assortment now. Sometimes I imagine miniature people caught in a rainstorm.” He flutters his fingers in the air seemingly making believe they’re raindrops.
We leave the elevator and Stuart unlocks the door, the one with the twisted long swords carved into it. Connor’s rooms look the same as mine, except pictures of the River Thames and Hampton Court Palace are hung on his bedroom wall instead of my red rock formations. We toss him on the bed, and I drop his rucksack on the floor.
He rolls over and starts snoring.
“Great.” Troy scowls. “I hope we’re not going to need him. He’s useless.”
I shoot him a half smile, half shrug. “Maybe he only drinks during soccer matches.”
Troy shakes his head. “No one chugs like that without a ton of experience. Look at him. He’s a hopeless drunk.”
I know Troy’s thinking about his father, a nasty drunk whom Troy has had to rescue from bars back home.
Still, I look at Connor and hope he’s wrong. Just meeting another Chosen has lifted my spirits. Even though I know there are others out there like myself, now I’ve met one. They are real... and there are two more.
Connor melted that glass in his hand, which means he can liquefy solids. I can hear thoughts and possess animals. Akari creates fire, and Blake can harness the wind. Those abilities have to count for something.
The Deltites will have skills of their own, which will probably be stronger than ours, but still, a faint sense of hope flutters through me for the first time since I’ve started this journey.
I glance around the rooms and get the uneasy notion that something is missing, and then I realize he doesn’t have another book. It would have been on his bed like it was for me.
I swallow hard, and the feeling of isolation returns.
I grab Troy’s hand to chase it away.
Troy and I reach New Beginnings headquarters five minutes before midnight.
Already out front, Landon leans against a white van with the NB logo on the side. He grins when he spots us. “So, did I send you to the place you wanted?”
I’m purposively vague. “You started us in the right direction, thanks.”
He shoots me a piercing look. He wants to know more, but he doesn’t ask. Our week has only started, so he’s giving us time to tell him what we’re up to when we’re ready.
A man and woman, both in their early twenties, bound out of NB. The woman is the same one who manned the office earlier in the day. Her dreadlocks sway as she springs forward.
Landon introduces us. “I think you met Tara this afternoon in the office.”
She smiles and we all shake hands.
The man has short black hair, huge shoulders, pitch-black eyes, and wears a black Batman T-shirt. Tattoos cover both his arms and neck, turning his body into a giant canvas. A hoop earring dangles from his left ear and a long cross hangs from the right.
He’s terrifying. I can’t imagine someone looking scarier, but when he smiles the illusion shatters, and he’s all sugar. His voice is soft and filled with sweetness, sounding nothing like I would have guessed.
“My name’s Frankie. Welcome to the family. Any friend of Black Bear’s is a friend of mine.” He extends a massive fist the size of an anvil, which we bump in turn. A distractingly white aura surrounds him like a cloak.
Landon opens the back door to the van. “Frankie’s been in charge of our outreach program for five years now. Everyone on the street knows him.”
Frankie and Tara sit up front, and I squeeze in the back between Landon and Troy, feeling a little like the inside of a taco.
“Not everyone, Bear, but we’re making progress.” Frankie starts the van with a rumble. “We’re happy to have you guys on board. Let’s do some good.”
Tara turns to face us. “We’re going to cruise around some of the projects in the Bronx. A lot of kids up there have no place to stay. They spend nights in stairwells or on park benches or at Uncle ACE’s.”
“What’s Uncle ACE’s?” asks Troy.
“Oh, that’s right, you guys are newbies. The A, C, and E subway lines run all night. Kids will curl up on a bench. It’s dangerous though—anyone can prey on them.”
A chill whips through me. I remember the subway car from earlier in the day. How can someone sleep in that?
The van turns north on the West Side Highway. Skyscrapers with golden Trump signs tower over the road to our right.
My mouth must have dropped because Landon says, “New York City has the greatest concentration of millionaires in the US and, even with all that wealth there are well over 20,000 homeless youth in the City, and it’s only getting worse.”
The statistics overwhelm me and my face burns. “So many kids. We don’t have a homeless problem back home.”
“You’d be surprised. Homelessness has a way of sneaking by you unless you pay attention,” Landon points out the window as we rumble north. “St. John the Divine is on 112th and Central Park West. You can’t see it from here, but it’s my favorite church in the City. I think it’s the largest in the world, but a massive fire damaged it over a decade ago and the church is still under construction today. If you guys have time, you’ll want to check it out.” He hands Troy a thin paperback. “I brought this for you. It describes the Native American influences on this part of the country.”
“Cool.” Troy slips the book into his back pocket.
“We’re going to three projects in the Bronx—Soundview, Milbrook, and Marble Hill,” Tara tells us. “They’re all basically the same. First stop is Marble Hill. Frankie used to live there.”
“I did many things in Marble Hill, but very little living.” He’s not boasting. Sadness weighs down his words, as if he regrets how he spent his time there.
The van pulls to a stop on 230th Street in front of a towering brick apartment building that stretches fifteen stories high. We pile out and find other similar buildings that form a vast courtyard with a small park in the center.
Frankie frowns. “There’s crime at these sites. People know us, so we’re usually okay. Just make sure you guys stick with us.
Don’t go wandering off.”
Troy and I happily agree, but I have to suppress a smile. Frankie is huge, and Landon can no doubt take care of himself, but I’m still stronger, faster, and more dangerous than the two of them combined.
Troy shoots me a sly grin and winks at me.
“So what do we do?” I ask.
“Tonight, we’re just hanging out,” answers Landon. “They’re used to seeing us at these projects, so kids will stop over and see what’s up. We’re building trust. Sometimes they share the latest rumors, which helps us figure out what’s going on and who needs help.”
A group of three teenage guys notice us and saunter over. All three wear grungy T-shirts, baggy shorts, and baseball caps with wide, flat bills. The tallest of the three walks in front and smirks when he gets close. “Hey, it’s the fresh start team.”
Frankie’s voice rises and falls with amusement. “Come on, Amare, you know better than that.”
Amare sticks out his fist for a bump with Frankie and beams him a bright smile. “I’m just giving you some grief. Don’t get all up in my face about it. How’s life, Smoky and the Bear?”
“I quit smoking six months ago,” says Frankie. “You should do the same.”
Amare shrugs. “I’m not worried about dying from cancer. I’ll never live that long.” He glances at Troy and then at me. “Who’s the new blood?”
Landon nods at us. “That’s my cousin, Troy, and his friend, Juliet.”
He studies Troy for a second. “Nice braid. How goes it, Little Cub?”
Troy stands taller and puffs out his chest. “Little Cub? I’m bigger than you.”
“Yeah, but he’s Black Bear, so you gotta be Little Cub.”
Amare chuckles and so does Troy. We all fist bump and Amare introduces his two friends, Jalen and Pete.
“You guys want something to eat?” asks Tara. “I’ve got PB&J sandwiches in the van.”
Jalen and Pete grab one, but Amare passes.
He pulls Frankie off to the side and whispers, but my hearing is super-sharp so I can hear what he says. “JJ has got some problems. He’s sleeping in the stairwell at his mom’s building. His stepdad tossed him out. I think he’s ready for some help. Come back....”
