Gatekeepers (3 page)

But when he emerged from the secret doorway on the second floor, he found Xander and Toria hiding in the short hall, peer-ing around the corner toward the grand staircase. Voices drifted up from the foyer.

“I told you,” Dad was saying, “you can't search my house. Your warrant or whatever this is limits you to
serving
eviction papers, not
enforcing
them.”

“We're not evicting you, sir,” a voice said. “We're taking you in for assaulting a police officer.”

“Assault? I didn't touch you until you bumped into my hand, trying to come into my house without my permission or the authority to do so. Wait, wait, wait . . . my kids are in the house. You can't take me. It will leave them alone.”

“Then call them down,” another voice said. “We'll take them with us.”

“Kids, stay where you are!” Dad called.

Xander held up his hand and gave David a quiet, “Shhh.” Then he looked past David, hope and worry on his face. “Where is she?” he whispered. “Tell me you found her, Dae.”

David shook his head. “General Grant recognized me. I had to run, like you did. I didn't even get to the tent you told me about. But, Xander . . .” He gripped his brother's arm. “I saw the message she left.”

Love for his mother and disappointment at not finding her welled up from his chest. It dried his mouth and wetted his eyes. So, the emotional numbness had been only temporary, he thought. It was like getting punched in the arm so hard you couldn't feel it for a while.

Xander's sadness showed in his eyes, but he nodded and smiled.
Trying to be the big brother, the brave one
, David thought.

Toria whispered, “Who are you talking about? Mom? What message?”

“I'll tell you later,” Xander said. “Now
shhh
.” He looked at David and nodded his head toward the voices. “They've been going at it like that for a while. Dad read the court papers, something about the house being unfit to live in.”

“I agree,” David said.

Xander scowled at him. “They weren't supposed to get us out of the house, just serve the papers.”

“So why don't they just go away, then?”

“Dad asked how much Taksidian paid them to get us out of the house, and that
really
ticked them off. Now they want to take him to jail.”

Taksidian's deep voice rolled like thunder up the stairs. “Officers,” he said, “Mr. King is correct. You can't take him and leave the children here alone.”

Why would Taksidian be pleading their case?

But that wasn't what the man had in mind. The next thing he said was, “Why don't I go get them for you?”

Toria took a step back. Her hand clasped David's.

“Hey,” Dad said loudly. “He can't—”

“Sir!” a cop said. “We're handling this. Bill, take Mr. King out to the car.”

“No! You can't do this!” Dad yelled.

There was a lot of banging going on down there. David imagined his dad, hands cuffed behind him, getting pulled backward out the door while he kicked out at the cops, at Taksidian. His heels would be striking the floor, hitting the door frame.

Xander started around the corner. David pulled his hand out of Toria's and reached for him. His fingers brushed his brother's shirt, then got a grip on his waistband.

Jerked to a stop, Xander snapped his head around. He was what Mom would have called fightin' mad.

David shook his head. “You'll just make it worse.”

“They're taking Dad.”

“But you heard him. He wants us to stay here. They'll just take you too. Then where will we be?”

Xander looked from David to Toria. Something in her expression softened his. He flipped a stray strand of hair off her face with his finger and said, “It'll be okay, Toria. Don't worry.”

She lowered her head. “First Mom, now Dad.”

Below, Taksidian said, “Just give me five minutes.”

“Can't let you do that, Mr. Taksidian,” the remaining cop said. “It's not your house, sir.”

David expected the man to say
Not yet
. . . but what he did say was worse.

“But, Officer Benson,” Taksidian said, “there's no place they can hide where I can't find them.”

Xander looked over his shoulder at David, his eyes wide.

Outside, Dad was still yelling. David heard their names, but the words were being snatched away by the breeze and the trees and the distance as the cop pulled their father away from the house.

Taksidian wasn't finished. He said, “In the interest of the children's welfare, officer, I can make it worth your while.”

“Step outside, sir,” Officer Benson said.

David thought the cop sounded angry. Maybe after Dad's accusation of the cops taking money to help Taksidian, this new attempt at a bribe had—finally—grated on the cop's sense of duty.

Slow footsteps echoed downstairs, moving from the foyer to the hollow-sounding planks of the front porch.

“Alexander King, David King, Victoria King,” the cop hollered, obviously reading their names. “Last chance to come now.” He waited. “We'll return with a court order to remove you by force, if necessary. It's for your own safety.”

Silence. Then: “We'll send a car back to wait outside tonight. If you change your minds, go out to the officers. They'll take care of you.”

His footsteps took him to the porch. The door closed.

CHAPTER

four

T
UESDAY,7.33 P.M

“Now what?” David said.

Above them, something creaked. Their eyes lifted to the ceiling.

“I'm scared,” Toria said.

“Just the house settling,” Xander said.

His eyes found David's: Xander didn't believe it, and nei-ther did David.

“What if they do come back to take us out by force?”

David said. “They might board the house up or change the locks.”

“I think that'll take some time.” Xander licked his lips. “Probably easier now that they arrested Dad. But they can't do anything tonight, no way. I'm more worried about—” He stopped, his eyes dropping to Toria.

“What?” she said. “What are you more worried about?”

“Nothing.” He peered around the corner, then walked into the second floor's main hallway and to the top of the stairs.

Toria and David followed him. The foyer was empty, the door was closed.

David thought about how wind always blew into the antechamber after they'd returned from one of the worlds. It pulled everything that belonged to that world back through the door. Something like that had just happened in the foyer. The cops and Taksidian had blown in and taken Dad. But Dad belonged
here
. It wasn't right that they could just take him. The house felt emptier without him—not just one person emptier, but like it had been abandoned for centuries, an ancient tomb.

David felt Toria's hand grab his again. He saw that she also clasped Xander's hand. She looked up at him. “Can you guys sleep in my room tonight? Please?”

David nodded.

Xander said, “Good idea. David, let's go get our stuff. Toria, go clear your floor to make room for us.”

They walked hand in hand to Toria's door and released her into her room. Then the boys approached the chair that David had jammed under the linen closet door handle to keep Clayton from coming back through. It was a solid piece of furniture, with spindles that rose from the rear of the seat and ended in a heavy top rail.

David leaned his ear to the door. “I don't hear anything,” he whispered.

“How long ago did you send him back?”

“Right before I ran to find you,” David said.

“So, what, a half hour?” Xander said. “If he was going to come back tonight, he'd have done it already. He must have gone back to the locker and left. Maybe he'll wake up tomorrow thinking it was a dream.”

“Fat chance.” David reached for the chair, but Xander stopped him.

His brother glanced back toward Toria's room, then gestured for David to follow him into their room. As soon as they were both inside, he said, “You didn't see Mom?”

David shook his head. “They shot at me again. Xander, they almost got me this time.”

“Like they
didn't
before?”

“How are we supposed to get her, when they keep trying to kill us?”

“We gotta find a way. Maybe we're missing something.” He moved to his bed and gathered up his pillow and blanket.

David went to his bed. He picked up his pillow and, with one gimp arm, struggled to get the blanket as well.

“Here,” Xander said. He tugged off the blanket.

“Thanks. Xander, what you said before, about something worrying you more than the cops coming back . . . ?”

Xander turned, the bedding pressed to his chest with his arms. It made him look like a little kid. “Taksidian,” he said. “That guy's not done with us.”

“You mean
tonight
?” David closed his eyes. When were they going to get a break? He was exhausted, and he didn't like that being scared was becoming a normal feeling for him.

“I don't know,” Xander said. “But I don't think I'm going to get much sleep.” He walked into the hall.

At the door, David spotted Xander's mobile phone on the dresser. “Hey,” he said, picking it up. “Does Dad have his cell?”

“Usually does.”

David flipped the phone open and thumbed a speed-dial number. He listened to the rings on the other end and walked closer to Xander.

“Xan—” Dad's voice said.

Thumps and scratching noises came through to David's ear, then another voice said, “This is Officer Benson. Is this Alexander?”

In the background Dad yelled, “Xander, stay there!

Don't—”

David flipped the phone closed. “Oops,” he said. “I think the cop just took the phone from Dad.”

Xander shrugged. “They would have taken it anyway, at the station. So much for that.” He turned away.

“Wait,” David said. He pushed the phone into his back pocket. He wanted it close, in case Dad called. He eased the chair away from the linen closet and opened the door enough to peer in. He said, “I should go through.”

“Why?”

“Make sure everything's okay.”

“That kid knows about the portal,” Xander said. “That's not okay.”

“We gotta know we can use it, if we have to. You know,
before
we have to.”

“What do you think he did, lock it? If he did, and you went through, how would you get back?”

“Taksidian did,” David reminded him. “He was in the locker, then went back, without the locker door opening and closing. Must be a way.”

“You don't know it,” Xander said.

“I can try to figure it out,” David said. “If I don't come back in twenty minutes or so, come get me.”

Xander scrunched his face. “Go through?”

“No, come to the school and get me out. I don't know,” David said. “It may be our only way out, if . . .” He didn't even want to say it. “If Taksidian comes back.”

Xander eyed the door up and down as though sizing up an opponent. “All right,” he said, dropping the bedding on the floor. “Just there and back. Make sure there's nothing weird.”

David opened the door further. He frowned at the interior: shelves of towels and sheets, only enough room to stand in front of them. What if Clayton
had
done some-thing to the locker, something more than locking it? He pictured a fire in it, himself materializing in the flames and unable to get out.

“If you don't want to . . .” Xander said.

David swallowed, feeling the spit slide down his tightened throat. He stepped in and pulled the door closed behind him.

In the darkness, the walls closed in. The floor flexed, buck-ling under his weight. Metal popped. A scream reached his ears. Had he done that? No . . . not him. Maybe the screech of metal.

The front wall pushed in on him. He cracked his head on the back metal. Something
had
happened to the locker. It was crushed, somehow smaller. If it got any smaller, he'd . . . he'd
implode
, just be crushed with the locker. He elbowed his cast into the side wall and shoved his good arm forward. His hand touched cloth, softness under it.

That scream again—human—followed by sobs, a wretched weeping. Someone sniffed.

David whispered, “Clayton?”

A gasp, more sniffing. “D-D-David?” Fear and panic were in his voice.

David raised his hand. He found a face, wet and gooey. Gross. He wiped it away on his pants. He said, “Clayton, what are you doing in here?”

“You . . . you put me here!”

“I mean,
still
? Why didn't you leave?”

“I . . . I can't!” Clayton said. “I can't get out. And . . . I thought I heard . . .
noises
.”

Could he really not find the little tab on the latch assembly that released the door catch? The kid must have been pretty shaken up, zipping into David's house and back again to the locker. True, it was disorienting, but
that
much? Maybe Clayton thought David had sent him someplace else, like a grave.

David had another thought: he had teleported to a place where another person already was. He remembered what his brother had said when he suggested to Xander that they both go through the locker-linen closet portal at the same time: “In
The Fly
, two life forms ended up all mixed together.”

What if he and
Clayton
had melded together?

Oh, man!

But that hadn't happened. They'd wound up in the same tight place, but separate and whole. He hoped. He patted his chest, neck, face. No extra parts. Nothing missing.

Clayton said, “What kind of tricks are you pulling on me! What's happening?”

“Clayton, calm down.”