Shadow Train

by J. Gabriel Gates

  Anyway, he would have found it almost impossible to get through the aftermath of the explosion without her. He had been so enraged and so devastated at losing the ring that he’d wanted to destroy Middleburg and everything else in his path. If the explosion hadn’t drained his strength, he would have gone on a monstrous rampage. But Aimee had been amazing—unaffected by the blast and so solicitous, so genuinely concerned about him. She had gone home with him, put him to bed, and cared for him for three days and nights, until he started coming around.

  That’s when she’d started staying with him, insisting that he needed her, but even when he got better, she avoided going back to the Banfield house. That should have bothered Orias. If it were anyone else, their constant presence would have felt like an awful invasion of privacy, but with Aimee it was different. Everything was different.

  The truth was that even once he got over the effects of the blast and was able to think more clearly, he still liked having her in his life. He wanted her for as long as he could have her.

  And Orias Morrow was accustomed to getting everything he wanted.

  * * *

  In her continuing efforts to avoid Rick, Maggie had arrived at school as the first bell rang, just in time to make it to first-period study hall, which was held in the auditorium. Dalton, who sat next to her, already had her history book open.

  Some things had changed—besides class schedules—since Maggie had raised her voice at the homecoming dance and destroyed the gymnasium. She and Dalton now had a few classes together and the icy situation between them had thawed considerably since Maggie had insisted on helping the Flatliners search for Raphael. The thing they had most in common, and probably what they liked best about each other, was that neither of them hesitated for one second to say what she thought.

  Maggie hardly ever saw her old friends anymore, including the other cheerleaders, Lisa Marie and Bobbi Jean, and it wasn’t only that she no longer had that much in common with them. Spending time with them would have meant hanging out with the jocks—and that would have meant seeing Rick. She was about to ask Dalton about one of their homework assignments when she saw Aimee coming in. She nodded in Aimee’s direction.

  “He dropped her off again this morning,” she said when Dalton looked up and followed her gaze.

  “Orias?” Dalton asked.

  Maggie nodded. “I saw them as I came in. Kissing.” After a moment she added, “Does she ever mention Raphael?” She almost dreaded to hear the answer.

  “No.” Dalton shook her head. “And if I mention him, she acts like she doesn’t know who I’m talking about—most of the time.”

  “Really?” In spite of trying not to allow it, Maggie’s hopes rose just a little. It wasn’t clear to Maggie exactly what Orias was doing in Middleburg, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea for Aimee to be practically living with him. She still felt guilty that she hadn’t tried to help Aimee that day in the auditorium, when Orias had taken Aimee’s hand and filled her aura with his strange energy—but she couldn’t help being glad that Aimee showed every sign of having gotten over Raphael.

  “You really like him, don’t you?” asked Dalton. For the first time, Maggie heard real sympathy in her voice.

  Maggie gave a little shrug. “Everybody likes Raphael,” she replied.

  Dalton reacted to Maggie’s noncommittal response with one of her trademark “yeah right” looks. That was another reason their friendship had blossomed over the last few months: nothing got past Dalton.

  But now, Maggie fell silent as Aimee took the seat next to her.

  “What about you, Aimee?” Dalton said. “You used to like him, right?”

  The second bell saved Aimee from answering right away. “Who?” she asked when the clanging stopped. She took off her coat, threw it over the back of the chair in front of her, and balanced her notebook and purse on her lap. She had neither books nor backpack.

  “Raphael,” Dalton said, and when Aimee just looked blank and remained silent, she added, “Raphael Kain, Flatliner bad boy that you hung out with all during the play?”

  “Oh—him,” Aimee said. “He’s okay, I guess.”

  Mr. Brighton, their study hall teacher as well as their drama instructor, didn’t verbally call the roll; he sent an attendance roster around for everyone to sign. And he wasn’t strict about the no-talking rule, as long as it related to homework and didn’t get too rowdy. The three girls signed the attendance sheet and passed it on. Maggie turned her history book to the same page Dalton had open.

  “Aimee . . . what’s wrong with you?” Dalton whispered. “You know you and Raphael had a major thing. During the play you guys were—”

  Aimee interrupted again, as if she didn’t want to be reminded. “Right—the play,” she said. “Yeah, I guess. But then the play was over and whatever I thought I felt for—for that boy—that was over too.”

  Dalton frowned and Maggie could tell she wasn’t buying it. “But you went to the homecoming dance with him,” Dalton argued.

  Aimee’s brow furrowed slightly as if she was trying to remember. “I guess . . . I did,” she said vaguely. “I don’t know why. My dad says I was just going through my rebellious stage. Anyway, then I met Orias,” she finished, as if that explained everything.

  None of them noticed Mr. Brighton approaching. “Okay, girls,” he said softly, glancing down at the open books. “Are we talking American history, or the history of who likes who at Middleburg High? Aimee, do you need to borrow a book from someone?”

  She looked at him, her expression dreamy. “Yes, thanks,” she said pleasantly. “I must have forgotten mine.”

  * * *

  It was time for Friday morning classes to start, but Nass wasn’t at school; he was driving, on his way to Benton. As he drove, he looked at his cell phone for perhaps the fifth time, and then reminded himself that it was dead. Agent Hackett had taken it from him when he locked him in the police station, and when he got it back, the battery was spent. He wished desperately that it was working so he could call and check in with Beet, the only other Flatliner with a cell phone, but he didn’t have a car charger. He’d just have to wait until he got to Benton to find out what was going on.

  When he finally arrived the sun was up. Its bright, clear golden rays soared through the trees, streaking across a pale blue sky. It looked to Nass like the banner proclaiming the arrival of an early spring, but the beauty around him made the sickening worry and exhaustion he felt even worse.

  When Nass had first moved to Middleburg, Benton had been the location of the nearest walk-in clinic and a pretty lame one at that. With the recent opening of the Benton Regional Medical Center, however, the town now boasted a full-fledged hospital, complete with an ER, an intensive-care unit, and an outpatient surgery wing—at least according to the sign. The place even smelled new, Nass noticed as the automatic doors slid open, ushering him inside. But he didn’t take more than a second to look at the décor of the place. He was already hurrying up to an information desk when he caught sight of Beet pacing in a pastel-colored waiting area with furniture covered in a thick, plastic floral motif. He glanced around and saw that the rest of the Flatliners were there, too, all of them sitting silently together with downcast eyes.

  And then he saw Emory’s family sitting in the corner. His sister, Haylee, was wearing a fancy dress and crying quietly while her mother cradled her in her arms. His father just stared at the far wall, looking completely rigid and empty, like a wooden carving of himself instead of a real person. Myka sat a little ways away from everyone else with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes closed.

  Benji was the first to notice Nass, and he nudged Josh with his elbow, causing him to look up. When Josh saw Nass, he stood and hurried over to him.

  “What’s going on?” Nass asked, and he followed as Josh led him across the lobby, away
from everyone else.

  “It’s Emory,” Josh explained. “He got jumped.”

  “Is it bad? I mean, it must be bad or he wouldn’t be here, but—he’s going to be okay, right?”

  Josh raised his gaze to meet Nass’s. There weren’t tears in his eyes; instead they were filled with a cold, hard pain.

  “They don’t know,” Josh said quietly. “I guess he has brain swelling from the beating. They did some kind of surgery to relieve the pressure, but they’re not sure . . .”

  In the silence that followed those words, Nass’s gaze slipped down to the brand-new polished floor at his feet. He wished his body could slump down there, too. He suddenly felt a crippling exhaustion, as if every overtaxed cell of his body would give way, his bones would crumble, his muscles would melt, his brain would seize up, and he would fall down and sleep for a thousand years. His wasn’t an exhaustion of the body. It was exhaustion of the soul.

  But as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t collapse now. He had to stay strong for the rest of the Flatliners, for Emory and his family. He forced himself to speak again. “What happened?”

  Josh repeated what Myka had told the Flatliners and the police.

  “So it was Rick?”

  “Myka didn’t actually see the fight, but it had to be him, obviously,” Josh said. “The cops supposedly went to talk to him. They told Emory’s dad he was out of town.”

  “When are they going to know about Emory?”

  “I guess he’s in no condition to be moved, so they’re bringing in some neurosurgeon from Topeka to perform another emergency surgery. He hasn’t been conscious since it happened.”

  Nass only shook his head. There was nothing he could say.

  “Myka was with him while they were waiting for the ambulance, and I asked her how bad it looked.” Josh’s lip quivered for a moment, and he paused and regained his composure. “It’s bad.”

  Nass looked over at his friends, all of them sitting in chairs in the waiting area, their faces wracked with misery. He thought of Emory, lying in the hospital room, fighting for his life. He thought of Rick Banfield, wherever he was, probably plotting another horrific attack. And soon, Agent Hackett would leave and the Topper companies would start bulldozing the Flats, leaving the Flatliners and their families on the streets. All these thoughts hit him once, like the scattershot from a shotgun, and as the sting of their impressions receded only one thought remained: Where is Raphael Kain?

  Chapter 5

  Feng Xu was not in a pleasant mood. The journey from the Zhanjiang naval base in southern China to Cuba had been miserable. Although the People’s Liberation Army submarine he’d ridden on had been the flagship of the fleet (and vaguely and pleasurably snake-like in shape), his quarters had been cramped and dank, and the trip had dragged on far too long for his liking. The journey from Havana to Cape Coral, Florida, on the cigarette boat had been pleasant enough, though. Feng Xu had enjoyed skimming across all that clear, azure water and breathing the rich, primordial-smelling, brine-filled air. But the rest of the trip, from Cape Coral to Middleburg, Kansas, in the back of a black Lincoln Town Car, had been as dull as it was tiring, a blur of gray skies, drizzling rain, and dismal small towns punctuated only by a seemingly endless series of brightly lit signs for American fast-food restaurants and gas stations. If this was all his enemies had to offer—greasy beef sandwiches, French fries, and petrol—Feng Xu had thought, then retrieving the treasure he had sought for so long would be easier than he’d imagined.

  Now, at last, the illustrious leader of the Order of the Black Snake had reached his destination—the Order’s makeshift base, set within a drafty, abandoned brick factory building. Before him stood the two most senior, most trusted, and most powerful members of his brotherhood—and yet both had failed miserably. They held their derbies in their hands and stared subserviently down at the cracked concrete floor, literally trembling before him.

  “I remember when I found the two of you,” Feng Xu said slowly, practicing his English. “Two brothers—one twelve, one fourteen. So smart, so eager, so full of promise . . .” he shook his head sadly. “If I had known then how you would fail me, I would have fed you to the Snake God before the whole assembly.”

  The taller one, the eldest, winced at his words as if at a blow, but Feng Xu continued: “But no. You would not have been worthy food for our lord,” he said softly. “Likely you would have given our master indigestion.”

  The four men who stood behind Feng Xu laughed. They were dressed identically to the two brothers he had sent ahead to Middleburg—in the same suits and the same derby hats.

  Feng Xu allowed himself a smile. He stood tall, with his arms at his sides, as if he were standing at attention, but he was completely relaxed. In fact, it was only in moments like this that he felt truly at ease. He was enjoying himself.

  “In honor of the potential that those two bright-eyed young pupils displayed so many years ago, I will allow you the honor of deciding which of you will pay for your incompetence and which will live. So tell me: who will sacrifice himself to our lord, the Black Snake?”

  The taller brother stepped forward first; the shorter one, who had a fresh scar on one cheek, hesitated for a second, and then he stepped forward, too.

  Feng Xu smiled again and stepped up to the shorter brother who, if Xu remembered correctly, was the younger one. “Ah, you let your brother step forward first. Good for you. There is some selfishness left in you after all. The selfish man is predictable, reliable. I can work with a selfish man. As long as you hold his fate in your hands, he remains utterly true. But a man who cleaves to so-called loftier ideals . . .” Feng Xu clucked his tongue at the taller brother. “Such a man is as unreliable as a drunken rat. And as such, he is good for only one thing—snake food.”

  Feng Xu laughed, and his men laughed as well, in the very same manner. All the while, Xu watched the taller brother, watched his face grow pale, his brow beading with sweat, his teeth beginning to clench. Xu waited patiently for him to lash out, eager for the fun, and when it happened, he was ready.

  The condemned man dropped his hat and whipped out his double daggers, stabbing them both at Feng Xu’s eyes. It was a particularly bad move. Since the blades were close together, Xu was able to parry them both with a single Tan Sau, then gather up both the man’s arms with a Huen Sau, and snap both his elbows with a quick but ferocious arm-break. It was as simple as trapping the arms then striking the elbow with his forearm, with a sharp shift of the hips. The brother screamed in agony, and both knives fell from his hands. Before they had hit the ground, Feng Xu had snapped his opponent’s left knee with a stomp kick and blinded him with the Bite of the Snake—a single finger strike to both eyes.

  The result was devastating, Feng Xu thought with businesslike satisfaction: only a single second had elapsed from the moment the man pulled his knives until he was reduced to a crumpled, trembling mass of broken limbs and bloody tears.

  Feng Xu gazed down at him for a long moment, as he gently wiped the blood from his right hand with a black silk handkerchief he’d pulled from his suit pocket. When one became a master of the Venom of the Fang fighting style, the reward was not a sash or a belt or a silly American-style trophy—it was a set of steel fingernails, implanted on the middle two fingers of each hand. It was these nails, the Fangs of the Snake, that Feng Xu had used to blind his opponent.

  Now came the fun part. The shadows of the rusted machinery, broken-down conveyer belts, old smelting ovens, and rotten crates began to coalesce, then to slither, moving slowly but inexorably toward the blind and squealing sacrifice Feng Xu had prepared. By the time the form reached him, it was visible for what it was: a great black cobra.

  All the men of the Order watched in rapt silence as the blind man on the ground shrieked, begged, and cried, as first one leg, then the other, then his entire lower half, then his whole torso
, was swallowed up by the giant, shadow-black serpent. Finally, only one hand was left visible, its fingers wriggling strangely in the same gesture as a child would use to wave goodbye. Then in one more chomp, the hand was gone too. The Snake God rose up then, over their heads, coiling itself and flaring out its hood as if poised to strike its next victim, and everyone—including Feng Xu—bowed subserviently.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Feng Xu watched the surviving brother to see if any rebellious thoughts might be coursing through his mind. Fighting off his shock, the man hesitated only for a second before he too bowed before the Black Snake God.

  The snake hissed once, a sharp sound that seemed to cut to the bone, and then in one swift blink it was gone, disappearing as if it had never been there at all.

  Feng Xu rose and smoothed out his shirt, making sure that there was no blood staining it from his short-lived fight, and then he looked around, gauging the morale and the loyalty of his remaining men. They were all looking at him as he expected they would be, with the perfect mixture of awe, fear, hatred, and admiration—even the scar-faced brother.

  “Very well, gentlemen,” Feng Xu said in his usual businesslike fashion. “I believe we have a treasure to find.”

  He knew from his latest briefing that the ring had been shattered and the shards scattered throughout Middleburg, but that prospect didn’t concern him at all. It was simply a matter of gathering them together again. And he had a feeling he knew exactly where to begin.

  * * *

  Friday after school, Zhai, Maggie, and Master Chin marched together through the Middleburg tunnels, toward the mystical railroad roundhouse they called the Wheel of Illusion. In his pocket, Zhai’s fingers closed on the three pieces of the shattered crystal ring that he’d managed to round up. One was his, and the others belonged to Dax Avery and Michael Ponder, two of the Toppers. Zhai had tried to reach Rick, Bran, and the Cunningham brothers last night after he’d seen Violet Anderson’s tapestry, but Rick and Bran hadn’t answered their phones, and D’von Cunningham had told Zhai that they weren’t following his orders anymore; they reported to Rick now.