“Tell you what,” said Danny. “There’s the gun. There’s a box of ammo. You want to be safe from him, you get some of those rubber gloves from the janitorial closet, you do what you got to do. I’m not going to kill him, but I don’t care if you do.”
“No, man, no,” said Rico. “Come on, José, I’ve got your back, man, I’m not going to hurt you, just put the money back, take that gun, shoot this kid. You save my life, see? I know how to treat my friends.”
“We brought him a bunch of jewelry and electronics to sell,” said Danny, “and you saw how he treated us.”
“We’re friends, José!” insisted Rico. “Pull me back into the room, kid. I mean it, you can have all that money, you can take back the stuff, just get me my arms back.”
Then Rico’s eyes grew wide. “Who’s got my hands!” he demanded. “Something’s grabbing my hands!” Then he screamed.
Danny had no idea what was happening to Rico’s hands. Was Eric doing something? Or was there a dog out there? Or a raccoon? Or was Rico just faking it? Danny needed to get back to Eric in case there was something hurting him outside.
“I’m going now,” said Danny. “I’m taking only the fair price for the goods and George’s medical bills. I’m leaving the goods. I didn’t cheat Rico, I didn’t steal from him. When I get out there I’m going to count to ten, then I’ll push his arms back into this room. You can take the money here and get out. Or you can shoot his ass. Or both. I recommend both.”
José stood up and walked out of the room.
“I guess he doesn’t want the money or you dead, you lucky bastard,” said Danny to Rico.
Then José came back into the room, pulling on a rubber glove.
“No! Oh, no, no, man!” cried Rico.
Danny gated back out to the garden.
Eric had twisted himself into position to gnaw on Rico’s right thumb. It was spouting blood, which was pouring out of Eric’s mouth. He had a feral look in his eyes, like one of Zog’s hawks, hyper-alert but utterly soulless.
“You got to stop that,” said Danny. “If I touch you while you’re touching him, he gets free. Let go of him. Stop it.”
But it was like Eric didn’t hear him. He was growling like a dog, like a bear. Then he fell backward and spat out the thumb. And spat again and again, trying to get the blood out of his mouth.
“That was ugly,” said Danny. “But fair.”
Then he heard a gunshot. It was muffled and faraway, on account of having taken place inside the store a couple of doors down.
Danny didn’t touch Rico’s arms. Instead, using his newfound skill, he pulled the gate away, drawing it over the arms until no part of them remained visible.
“I made it through the gate,” said Eric with a grin.
“Yeah, so I see,” said Danny.
“And I feel a lot better.”
“You shouldn’t have moved. He probably broke your ribs, he might’ve broken your back.”
“I don’t think so,” said Eric. “I mean, that’s how it felt right after he did it, but now I feel kind of better.” Eric got to his feet. “In fact, I feel great. Except maybe I hurt my jaw taking off his thumb.”
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“I don’t want that asshole ever holding a baseball bat again,” said Eric. “You hadn’t got rid of his hands, I was taking the other thumb, too.”
Danny held out the three thousand dollars. “I think I cheated him, if you’re okay. I mean, a thousand of this was for the goods we sold him, but the other two thousand were for your medical expenses.”
“You kidding? He owed us at least five. So you gave him a discount. Let’s say his thumb was worth a thousand. He’s still a thou ahead.”
“I think he’s dead,” said Danny.
“You killed him?”
“No,” said Danny. “I was just an accomplice before the fact. I think José just shot him.”
“None of our business,” said Eric. “And you saved my ass, man. You’re the one who told me he’d do that, and I didn’t believe you. I’m the streetwise guy, right? And you’re the one who knew.”
“You knew, too,” said Danny. “You just didn’t want to believe it.”
“My life as a burglar is over,” said Eric.
“Glad to hear it,” said Danny. “Now let’s take the money and get out of here.”
“Um,” said Eric.
“What?”
“Maybe after that gunshot we shouldn’t be seen walking down this street away from the store.”
“Well, I’m not going toward the store,” said Danny. “Who knows but what José would shoot us, too, if he saw us? If he hasn’t already got himself halfway to Union Station.”
“Get your head in gear,” said Eric. “You just proved you can get me through one of your gate things alive. So let’s get back to Stone’s house.”
“No,” said Danny.
“What do you mean? You can do it, it’s easy.”
“You’re not going back there,” said Danny. “And neither am I.”
“The hell I’m not!”
“You’re covered in the blood of a murdered man,” said Danny. “You’re not tracking any of it into Stone’s house. You’ve got three thousand bucks, you’re going to get yourself into a restroom and wash up as best you can and then you’re getting out of DC and back on the road.”
“My stuff’s in Stone’s house!”
“So is mine, and it’s all worthless, you can replace all you left behind for a hundred bucks,” said Danny.
“I’m going back there whether you take me or not,” said Eric. “You tell me I’m not the boss of you? Well, you’re not the boss of me, either.”
Danny sighed. “Okay, fair enough. I’ll take you back there, and then I’ll go. Because I’m not bringing any of this down on Stone’s head.”
“Fair enough. Once I get my stuff and wash up and all that, I’m going too. I promise.”
Danny figured he probably meant it. For the moment. But then he’d decide to stay a few more days. And he’d start bragging about taking a man’s thumb in a fight. And since the cops would be looking for whoever bit off Rico’s thumb and left it in a garden a couple of doors down, there was a better-than-decent chance it would lead the cops to Stone’s door sooner or later.
“Give me your hand,” said Danny. “Hold tight so you don’t get stuck in between like Rico did.”
Eric got a sudden look of fear in his eyes. “You’re not going to leave me partway, are you?”
Danny rolled his eyes. “You hold on to me, then,” he said. “Hug me like your mama so you go through when I do.”
“I think I’ll walk,” said Eric.
“I saved your life,” said Danny. “You think I’m going to hurt you now?”
Eric thought about this. “How come you gave me all the money? How do I know you aren’t going to kill me and take it back?”
“The money was always for you,” said Danny. “Don’t you think I could gate my way into any bank vault in the world and get all the money I want?”
Now Eric got angry. “Why didn’t you say so! Why did we go through all this burglary shit and this crap with Rico if you could just get nice clean money!”
“Dye packs,” said Danny. “Serial numbers on FBI lists. I’ve seen cop shows. Come on, I did your plan and I got you paid and I got you out of there before he could beat you any more than he already did. Come on.” Danny held out his arms like he was going to hug a long-lost brother.
Eric stepped into his embrace and wrapped his arms tightly around Danny. “You’re the best thing ever happened to me, kid,” said Eric.
“I know,” said Danny.
Then he gated them back to the place where they had met, behind the shops near the Lexington Wal-Mart. It was just starting to snow.
It took Eric a moment to realize where they were. By then Danny had pulled free.
“You got your three thousand bucks,” said Danny. “And you’re in your home town. Go
home, wash off that blood. Get seen by witnesses. Nobody’s going to be looking for the mysterious thumb-biter around here, but if they do, you’ve got an alibi—you can’t possibly have done the thumb-biting because fifteen minutes later you were seen two hundred miles away.”
“You lying sack of shit,” said Eric. “You tricked me.”
“It’s what I do,” said Danny. “Just remember that when you’re spending three thousand bucks of my trickery.”
Eric still looked furious, but he was calming down. “I can’t let my family see the money or it’s gone.”
“How about if you let them see a thousand bucks of the money because you want to help them live a little better for a while.”
Eric grinned. “They’d just drink it up.”
“What’ll you do with it?” asked Danny.
“New clothes. A bus ticket. And then I’ll eat and drink the rest till I have to start begging again.”
Danny admired his self-knowledge. “Then thanks, Eric. For watching out for me for a few days. I learned a lot from you.”
“And you’re a freakin’ Houdini. I didn’t learn shit from you.”
Danny grinned and waved and then he was gone.
He had gated himself to Parry McCluer High School a couple of miles away on a hill overlooking Buena Vista. He had come to the woods above the school several times in his ventures out of the Family compound and watched all the drowther kids—the teams practicing in the ball field, the kids coming to and going from the buses and cars in the parking lot. The faculty. He knew the place would be empty this time of night. And it was full of computers.
He gated himself inside the foyer, and then into the office. The computers were off. Danny turned one on, waited for it to boot up. Then he googlemapped the address of Marion and Leslie Silverman on Highway 68 near Yellow Springs, Ohio, where it was called Xenia Avenue. He used the satellite mode to zero in on their house. It was a good-sized farm, surrounded by fields, but with housing developments close by to the east.
Danny tried to imagine a ground-level view of what he was seeing. Could he really do this—jump somewhere that he had never been, just from a Google Maps satellite picture? What if he only gated himself inside the computer and everything blew up?
He had made a lot of jumps to places he had never seen before during his jaunts outside the Family compound, but they had only been jumps of a mile or two or five. And he had made them without thinking, without even knowing he was doing it; it was all just part of running to him, running really fast and wanting to get places, see things. He didn’t even know what he wanted to see. That’s how he first got to Parry McCluer High School, skipping clear over Buena Vista itself. But come to think of it, he probably saw the hillside where he ended up before he ever jumped.
Well, if I can’t get there in one gate, I can get there in a few dozen. Or a few hundred. It’s not as if I have to pay for these gates.
He closed his eyes, picturing the tree-lined driveway leading from Xenia Avenue up to the house. Thinking of the address. Thinking of the names.
Then he made a gate, and he was there. In the driveway in the middle of the night. Snow everywhere that hadn’t been shoveled, but the sky was clear. Danny walked to the street. Brookside Drive should meet the other side of Xenia just a rod or two north of the Silvermans’ driveway, and there it was.
Danny walked back to the gate he had just made and returned through it to the office at Parry McCluer. He zeroed out the browser history and then cleared out all the cookies and all the temp files. Then he uninstalled the browser itself. It took a while, but he figured he had done all he could to make it so nobody could find out that the last thing the browser had shown was a certain address in Ohio.
Then he was back through the gate to the Silvermans’ driveway. He wasn’t going to wake them up in the middle of the night. He made his way to the barn, which was heated by the bodies of a couple of dozen cows, and curled up in a corner to sleep.
11
SERVANT OF SPACETIME
Marion and Leslie Silverman were old enough that all of their own kids were grown and gone. The day Danny arrived there, Leslie—Mrs. Silverman—proudly showed him the pictures of five little families on the top of the upright piano. Danny was inept enough to ask, “Are any of them Orphans?”
Leslie raised her eyebrows. “Don’t you think that if any of them were, they’d all be?”
In a moment, Danny realized how it had sounded to her. “I meant, are they mages … like you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Leslie, looking truly puzzled.
“Have we taken in the wrong stray?” asked Marion from the kitchen, where he was making pies.
“He thinks one of us is dead,” said Leslie. “Or both of us.”
“No,” said Danny. “I just thought … Stone told me…”
“Now he thinks that he can talk to rocks,” she called out to her husband. “What do you think, Marion, is he a keeper? Or a discard?”
Danny was completely baffled. They had brought him into the house the moment Leslie found him in the barn—before dawn, because apparently the cows got testy if they weren’t milked every day at the same time, and it was a very early time. He had assumed they knew exactly what and who he was. But no, apparently they took all strays into the house.
“Look, call Stone,” said Danny. “He sent me here.”
“Now I’m supposed to talk to rocks,” said Leslie. “Marion, what did you put in those omelets? Am I going to start hallucinating, too?”
“Only if you forgot to take your meds, darlin’!” Marion called back. “Now hush, please, I can’t have any emotion going on when I make the crusts or they won’t be flaky and delicious.”
“I’m yelling to be heard, not because I’m angry.”
“Yelling’s yelling,” called Marion. “We’re scaring the dough.”
“So he makes the pies, and you milk the cows?” asked Danny, changing the subject since it was apparent they were bent on pretending not to know anything about magery or why Danny had come here. Unless they weren’t pretending, in which case this was some elaborate hoax Stone had pulled. At least Danny could give Stone credit for sending him to such a hospitable couple.
“We each do what we like most,” said Leslie, “or if it’s a job that has to be done and we both hate it, then whoever hates it least. Or we trade off. I’m milking because I’m an early riser, and he’s pies because pies don’t like me so the crust never behaves.”
“I thought maybe because you both have names that could be either male or female, you got all mixed up on men’s work and women’s work,” said Danny. He smiled and started to laugh, thinking he was being kind of funny and clever.
Apparently not.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t know what for,” said Leslie.
“Should I leave now?” asked Danny.
“Heavens no,” said Leslie. “We’ve hardly started to get to know you.”
“I just seem to be saying everything wrong,” said Danny.
“Not at all,” said Leslie. “Where did you get such an idea?”
“I didn’t just happen to come here, I had your address. Your names. I didn’t just make it up. I’m not a vagrant.”
“I’m so relieved,” said Leslie. “To know you came here on purpose—well, that eases my mind no end.”
Was there irony in what she said? Danny couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t read these people the way he could read the Aunts. It was more like trying to understand what Mama and Baba were getting at when they talked over his head. He understood all the words, he just had no clue what was going on. The Aunts said what they meant. Or at least they meant what they said.
No, they didn’t, Danny realized. He simply had known them longer and had practice figuring out what they meant.
So he sat and thought for a moment. “You’re just careful, aren’t you?” said Danny. “Because you don’t know if I’m a trap.”
&
nbsp; “I know what a trap looks like, darlin’,” said Leslie. “At least, the kind we use for mice that get confused and think they’re welcome inside the house. If you’re a trap, I wonder what we’d use for bait, and where we’d put it.”
“How about I put myself in a trap so you know I’m not one?” said Danny.
He gated from the chair he was sitting in to one across the room.
Leslie turned and looked at him in his new location, shaking her head. “Well, you’ve certainly proven that you trust me.”
“If I were a spy from any of the Families, would I do that?”
“If you had a brain in your head, would you do that?” she retorted.
“Well, I certainly proved that you know what mages are, because you didn’t start screaming and carrying on when I gated across the room.”
“I can’t scream and carry on,” said Leslie. “Marion is making pies.”
“Didn’t you get a message from Stone about me?” asked Danny.
There was no more pretense she didn’t know who Stone was. “Apparently you got here faster than the internet can send mail.”
“I don’t think Stone knew I was going right that moment. I left in kind of a hurry, on account of I was involved in something stupid and illegal, and I didn’t check in with Stone.”
“Stupid and illegal,” said Leslie. “So you act as your own character reference, apparently.”
“I’m an excellent burglar,” said Danny, “but not a very good negotiator with insane criminal persons who just broke my stupid greedy friend’s ribs with a baseball bat.”
“Am I going to have to warn my neighbors to lock their windows and doors at night while you’re here?”
“Are you serious?” asked Danny. “They can’t keep me out if I want to get in. I’m not here as a burglar. I’m here as a student.”
“I’d suggest you learn farming at an agricultural college somewhere, darlin’, on account of we’re not really serious farmers. It’s kind of a hobby.”
Danny sighed. “Have you got a television?” At least he could amuse himself, if they did.
“No, I’m sorry, we got rid of the old black-and-white years ago.”
The Lost Gate Page 20
