I Am Phantom (9 page)

“Right
then, let’s go on…”

Ryans
found me the second I stepped out of class.

“I
need to ask you a few questions.”

“You
already did. A few days ago in case you forgot. I have to go to my next class.”

He
got up next to me real close (What was it with him and stepping in my bubble?),
his authority and assured power reminding me a little of my encounter with
Sykes. “I’m not risking the safety of my citizens because one witness has to
get to class.”

“Back
off, pal!” Cody and Matt came from behind and Cody pulled me away from Ryans.

“It’s
okay, guys,” I said before Ryans could break them in half, which is what it
looked like he was about to do. “I’ll meet you later. Seriously.”

Cody
didn’t look like he believed me. Matt looked more than happy to leave.

“Don’t
you have a job besides harassing students?” Cody shot at Ryans as he walked
away.

“This
is my job. Scram,” Ryans said. Cody and Matt left and Ryans turned back to me. “We
weren’t finished. I’m not convinced you simply wandered into the back and
stumbled into Lucius Sykes.”

“I
don’t know what you want me to say. That’s exactly what I did—” Ryans
grabbed my arm and hauled me to the corner of the lobby, beneath a picture of some
wildflowers.

 
Ryans’ lowered his voice. “Cut the crap,
Drake. You don’t look like the stupid type so I’ll give the information to you
straight. Sykes is a catalyst. He will kill someone. Not if, when, and when,
how hard, until we’re standing in the ashes of what he’s done wondering what
the hell just happened. We’re dealing with a man of absolutes.”

“The
police searches weren’t anywhere near Monstaff—”

“That’s
right, clever boy, you keep up with the news.” He stepped back. Hopefully he
finally realized that manhandling somebody you needed information from wasn’t
the best tactic. “I need to know if Sykes said anything to you?”

“He
didn’t say anything to me.”

Ryans
was staring at me with a look that said ‘I don’t believe you’. It was a look I
was growing used to.

 
“Fine. Since you don’t want to tell me
anything we’re going to talk again unless this Sykes case clears up. You may
have nothing to do with it but believe it or not you’re involved.” He whipped
out a small card and wrote something on it. “You remember, you tell me. You
don’t tell me—” His eyes narrowed. “You don’t want me as your enemy,
Drake. We’re friends.”

He
patted me on the arm as if that sealed our newly blossomed friendship and
shoved through the double doors and out to the sidewalk teeming with students.

The
guy was absolutely out of line. There was a bitter taste in my mouth and I
wondered if I should be more worried about Sykes, or police chief Kenneth
Ryans.

Chapter
Seven

Forging
Phantom

As
we moved into October the leaves changed into even more vibrant colors, tossed
around by the colder, snappier air. Dorm doors were plastered with all kinds of
Autumn decorations; real leaves and creative crafts on the girls’ and crappy
computer pictures of pumpkins on the few guys’ who actually tried.

The
campus was as lively as ever even though Lucius Sykes still hadn’t been caught.
Three weeks had passed and his escape had been nearly forgotten. I was
relieved. The few times I’d gone out to look for any sign of him had been halfhearted.
I knew it had been pointless but I had to try. It was also getting harder to
sneak around without drawing suspicion. I had already been stopped and
questioned by the police a couple times, asking what I was doing out and why I
wasn’t on campus. If going on any more nightly escapades then I would need to
find a more incognito way to do it.

“So
let me get this straight,” I said when we were all sitting around in the food
court between classes. “We dress up in costumes, and go around asking for candy?
And this is normal?”

 
We had never celebrated Halloween in
Bhutan. Somehow I don’t think the monks would have appreciated us stomping
around the monastery in costumes.

 
“We don’t go trick or treating anymore,
that’s kid stuff,” Cody said.

“Doesn’t
mean you can’t do it,” Liz mumbled, scribbling something in her notebook.

“Have
you ever celebrated Halloween?” Melanie asked across from me. She was battling
to keep an ice cream cone from dripping on her while Cody shelled out napkins
as fast as he could.

“Not
exactly,” I said. “It wasn’t really a big deal in Bhutan. Besides, there wasn’t
anybody to celebrate it with.”

“Well,
I think you should dress up at least once. Not for trick or treating,” she
added when she saw my face. “My friend’s having a Halloween party, costumes and
everything.”

“Everything?”
Cody pressed. Melanie cocked an eyebrow at his suggestive tone and Liz grinned
wryly.

“Yes,
everything, Cody. There will be alcohol.”

Cody
faked acting shocked. “Melanie! You have a devious side underneath that
authoritative scientific exterior.” Melanie swatted him and Cody laughed.

 
“Not my party,” she said. “I can’t
control what does or doesn’t happen. Just don’t be stupid about it.” Melanie
looked at me. “Want to go?”

            
“Sure. But I don’t have a costume.”

           
“Me either,” Melanie said. “I’m not sure what I’m going to be but you
have a couple of days. What’re you going as, Cody?”

Cody
pointed to his nose and upper lip. His face was almost completely healed apart
from his upper lip and cheek, which were slightly tinted purple “Are you
kidding? Look at this face! I’m going to be Quasimodo.”

“Your
face could be perfectly normal and still pull that off,” I said.

“Shut
up, Drake. Maybe if you’d let those guys hit me a little more it would have
made the effect better.”

“Don’t
say that,” Melanie said seriously and Liz nodded furiously in agreement.
“That’s not funny. What they did was horrible. Thank you for stopping it,
Drake.” What guilt had been from that day was nearly gone, replaced by an
overwhelming sense of rightness. It felt good to help someone.

“No
problem,” I said. Melanie looked at me. Like really, unnervingly, looked at me.

“You’re
sure you’re okay? I know you did something you think is bad but you were
protecting people you cared about. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“That’s
what I told him,” Cody said proudly. “Maybe it wasn’t as clear as that. I had a
busted nose after all.”

“Your
face is fine there, Quasimodo,” Melanie said. Then to Liz, “You’re more than
welcome to come if you want, Liz.” I turned expectantly to her.

“I’d
love to, really,” she said sadly. “But I already promised a friend I’d go to
her party at her place.” She flashed me an apologetic grin.

“Hey,
no problem,” I said. I hoped the disappointment wasn’t too obvious in my voice.

“Maybe
next time,” Melanie said. She stood and cleared her stuff off the table, waving
a casual goodbye. “Class time. I’ll see you two at the party.”

I
was screwed. I had been searching my room for what seemed like an hour, trying
to find something that might work as a costume. What the heck did people dress
up to be scary on Halloween? Monsters? Murderers? Government workers?

All
sounded terrifying. I poked again through my scant clothing, looking for
something that could pass as a costume. My foot hit the red monk’s robe Sonam
had given me. I picked it up and unraveled it. I’d barely looked at it since I
had arrived. Had Sonam expected me to wear it for day-to-day life?

I
could go as a martial arts master or something. That was a thing here, right?
The robe was doing nothing for me in the closet except painfully reminding me
of back home, to my old life. And it was the perfect shade of red, with long
and flowing fabric that stopped at my ankles because I was so tall.

My
cellphone buzzed in my pocket. I’d gotten it a week ago as recommended by my
exchange student advisor. Bad recommendation. Useful, sure, but way annoying
when you’re trying to sleep or do anything else and people won’t stop texting
you. I kept it off most of the time.

I
flipped it open:

U find anything?

Cody

Decision
made, I slipped on the monk’s robe and adjusted it over my shirt. I gently
pushed Sonam’s possible (probable) disdain from my mind and went next door to
Cody’s room.

 
Matt answered the door. He appraised my
costume, shrugged and retreated back to his room.

As
I had expected, Cody’s room lay in disarray. He was sunken into one of the
chairs in front of his T.V., clicking the remote.

“Dude!”
He heaved himself up. “What are you wearing?”

“I’m
going as a martial arts master,” I said.

Cody
felt the fabric. “This thing is cool. Did you get it from Bhutan?”

“The
monks I lived with gave it to me,” I said.

“It
looks good and all, but for a martial arts master you need—” he dove into
his drawer and tossed me a pair of fingerless gloves. “My skinny butt gets cold
all the time. Put those on.”

“I
don’t think martial arts masters wear gloves.”

“They
do when they spend their time punching through brick walls.” I put them both on
and stood in front of his bathroom mirror. The robe fit a little tight around
the chest, and was too short. But it was the best I was going to be able to do
right now.

Cody
patted me on the back. “Looks good, Drake buddy. Almost like a real master.”

“Yeah,”
I said, still absentmindedly recalling back home. “Yeah, it sure does.”

The
party was within walking distance of the dorm. It was being held at Melanie’s
friends’ house, tucked away on one of the many streets lined with student
houses surrounding campus, filled with people still in school or those who, for
some reason, hadn’t wanted to leave.

We
could hear the music almost a block off.

Oh,
how to describe it? It was like a cat trying to cough up a hairball into a
microphone with some vague musical tones thrown in.

Kids
dressed in all kinds of costumes crowded in the yard, some on the porch and
others clogging the door. I saw firemen, Batman, a couple of ninjas. Most were
standing around talking and drinking out of some red cups. Some guys beat each other
with rubbery swords. Another raised his drink at us.

“Awesome!
Karate kid! And dude, nice makeup!”

Cody
grinned and we threaded our way past the crowd at the front door and into the
house where the music was even louder and my eardrums started bleeding. The air
itself seemed charged with throbbing bodies swaying back and forth. Pulsing
lights placed on the edges of the living room threw everything into sharp
focus. Magic wands and ninja swords knocked into each other as people pushed
past.

“So,
what do we do?” I yelled after we had stood at the entrance for a couple of
minutes, unsure of where to go.

“I
don’t know,” Cody yelled back. “Wait, there’s Melanie!” I saw his eyes grow
wide as she spotted us and waved. It took her a minute to push through everybody.
She wore fox ears and a bushy tail on a red one-piece dress. Whiskers had been
painted on her face.

“What
do you think?” She asked. “I couldn’t think of what I wanted to be so my friend
suggested it. I’m a vixen.”

“Yes
you are,” Cody heartily agreed before I elbowed him in the ribs. Melanie didn’t
hear over the music.

“Let
me introduce you to my friends.” She turned for us to follow.

Matt
stared at Cody. “You’re pathetically hopeless. Even I can see that.”

“Agreed,”
I said. “Come on.”

We
followed Melanie to the back of the house where less people stood and the music
wasn’t nearly as loud. A couple of heads followed us in as Melanie waved to a
small group of people mingling around a table filled with drinks.

“Who’s
this?” A short vampire asked when we walked up.

I
took a quick glance around at their costumes. Three girls were vampires, one
witch and a guy werewolf.

“Original,”
Cody commented.

“Cody,
Matt, Drake, these are my friends.” She seemed about to name off all of them,
then decided against it.

“You’ll
learn all their names later. I’ll be back.” And she vanished into the crowd. We
stood awkwardly for a while. The witch hummed under her breath and swayed. Her
eyes were a little out of focus.

“So,”
wolf-boy said. “Some ugly dwarf—”

“Quasimodo,”
Cody said.

“Right,
Quasi a la mode, a mad scientist? And...Jackie Chan, or something.”

“That’s
pretty cool,” a vampire said, feeling the fabric of my sleeve. “Not really
scary, but it’s cool.”

“I
thought you could be anything,” I said. “Do you have to be scary?”

“Um,
no, that is definitely not the point,” the swaying witch wonder slurred. “
I
always dress to be slutty—”

“Have
you tried the punch?” the wolf-boy asked. He pointed to a cauldron on a pumpkin
covered table. People were ladling a colored drink into more of those red cups.

“Try
it,” one vampire pressed.

“Why?”
Matt asked. The vampire threw him a dirty look.

“Because
I made it and it’s good, that’s why.”

“Very
good,” the witch agreed, slopping part of her cup onto Cody. I shrugged.

“Sure,
whatever.” I walked over and ladled some out. Cody did too but Matt hung back
as though smelling something suspicious. I wondered if he had ever tasted
alcohol before. I hadn’t tried any since I was a kid and my parents caught me
trying some Arag, the traditional Bhutanese alcoholic beverage, behind a shop
when I was supposed to be with Sonam. I had kind of lost my curiosity towards
anything alcoholic since then.

 
I took a drink. Vampire girl #1 watched
me. It wasn’t bad. Tangy and sweet with a unique aftertaste.

“Good,”
I said. Wolf-boy and vampire #2 were talking about somebody dating somebody
else, classes they hated, and Sykes escaping. Before I could zero in on that
particular piece of the conversation they had returned to talking trash about
professors.

I
kept drinking. I glanced at Cody to see what he was doing but he was locked
into the conversation and threw in a comment every now and then.

I
had no idea how long we stood there. I drank absentmindedly. Vampire #1
refilled my cup. The punch
was
good,
I wasn’t kidding about that. But after maybe an hour of listening to stupid
stuff and drinking punch I started to feel weird. Dizzy almost. It wasn’t a
really bad feeling. Kind of…kind of nice. I looked over at Cody but he seemed
farther away than he should have been.

“You
okay there, martial arts man?” Vampire #1 asked. She was grinning slightly,
showing her fake fangs.

I
waved my arm. “I’m good.” But my lips were just a tad slow. I could vaguely
hear Melanie’s voice as she pushed her way through the pulsing bodies back
towards us.

“Sorry!
Sorry! Whew! You would never believe what I had to stop. These two guys took a
plastic devil’s pitchfork and were shoving it up—” she stopped as Cody
lightly swayed into her. “What—? Drake?” I was still standing all stoic
as she looked closely at me.

“He’s
fine,” vampire #1 said. She was right. I was
so
very fine. Melanie spotted the cup in my hand and rounded on
vampire girl.