Mayhem (10 page)

Just as we're leaving the cafeteria for afternoon classes Sasha passes Krystal a note. Krystal reads it and passes it to me. I open it as I'm going down the hall to my government class.

Got some new info, meeting at my house after school.

It was in Sasha's girly handwriting with swirls at the end of every letter and little hearts to dot her
i
's. Man, I'm glad I'm not her teacher and have to read her handwriting on a daily basis.

But throughout the rest of the afternoon I'm curious. Having been getting some answers on my own, I wonder what the girls have come up with. Truth be told, I didn't think they'd been doing any investigating. I mean, Sasha hadn't said anything about astral projecting to the Majestic again, if that's what she'd done to get answers. And we hadn't had any other meetings at the library. So I wonder where this information came from.

And how it would correlate with what I'd learned but kept secret for the past few weeks.

 

“The Majestic 12 was a code name for a secret group of scientists, military leaders and government officials formed in 1947. Rumor was the President put them in place to investigate UFO activity after a couple of suspicious events during that time,” Sasha says, sitting back against the ugliest orange couch I've ever seen.

We're at her house again. We meet there a lot now since her father's out of town. He's been gone since around the same time that Walter Bryant and his son Franklin disappeared. It's no coincidence, there's no such thing as coincidences now. Everything happens for a reason, past and present. It's just a matter of figuring out all the reasons.

So anyway, we gathered here after school because Sasha and Lindsey said they'd come up with some interesting stuff. We didn't have the flash drive from Walter Bryant's office, but we had the papers from his file that was marked Project
S. Sasha had gone back and copied those, thinking they were connected. Now we would see how.

“The government's always doing something undercover,” I say in a not-so-impressed tone. “That's not news.”

Sasha nods, her curly dark hair pulled back by a headband today. “That's true. But what if there was something they were trying to hide? What if they knew about Magicals back then and hid it from the rest of the world?”

“That wouldn't be new either,” Krystal speaks up. She's sitting in a chair that looks like Pop Pop's old recliner when it was new. Nothing in Sasha's house looks over a day old. Like her mother just sat around ordering new stuff all day long.

“Listen to what she's saying, you guys,” Lindsey says, crossing her legs and tucking them beneath her as she sits on the plush dark green carpet. She's wearing black again today. Come to think of it, she'd been wearing black just about every day since that time in the woods when Franklin tried to take Krystal's eyes.

“So there was a committee formed to investigate UFO sightings,” Sasha continues. “The committee was called the Majestic 12. As you recall, Fatima says the Majestic is the land of the magical.”

“How would the President of the United States know there was a magical plane called the Majestic?” Lindsey asks, looking from me to Krystal.

“You think the President was a supernatural?” I ask incredulously.

Sasha shakes her head. “No. But I think they all knew of the magical place and of the supernatural existence here on Earth. I think this committee was selected to cover it up.”

Krystal leans forward, her elbows on her knees. “And how
does this connect to us? How do we, with supernatural powers from a Greek goddess, connect to UFOs?”

“There were never any UFOs,” I say quietly. Suddenly things are clicking into place, like a long-lost memory I never even knew I had. Just like my visit to the Underworld. “Every sighting that was reported was real, but it wasn't UFOs they saw. They were Magicals, things from the Majestic as they appeared on Earth. Just like the things Sasha can see.”

“Exactly!” Sasha says, pointing at me as if I've just answered the daily double on
Jeopardy.

“And every time a mortal reported one of those sightings it was covered up and supposedly being investigated,” Krystal says.

Sasha continues the sentence for her. “By the Majestic 12.”

“Who were most likely Magicals themselves,” Lindsey completes.

“No way,” I say, but I know it's true. I can feel it.

“Jonathan Bryant was a scientist who was also a member of the Majestic 12,” Sasha adds. She's looking around at us like she wants us to put together the pieces that she already has. Krystal and I are following her, but I guess we still need time to actually digest what she's saying.

“Jonathan Bryant was Walter Bryant's father,” Lindsey says.

“Franklin's grandfather,” Krystal whispers.

It feels like we should be sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories on a dark, stormy night. The conversation goes from conspiratorial whispers to surprised gasps to, now, silent contemplation. And don't think it's skipped my attention that Krystal just mentioned her ex-boyfriend, the one who even in death or disappearance is still my competition.

“And that's how Walter Bryant found out about us,” I say
finally, because it makes sense. “The weatherman's son finds out about his father's past work and looks into it himself. He draws a more scientific conclusion and decides to act on it, to profit from it.”

Lindsey nods. “So where's Walter Bryant now? That's what we need to figure out. Because whatever he knows, it's only a matter of time before he sells it to someone else.”

“Have you heard from your father, Sasha?” I ask and receive scathing looks from both Krystal and Lindsey. Sasha just shrugs.

“My mother said Washington State. I don't know what he's doing there. But like you, I'm thinking it has something to do with us and Walter Bryant. My dad knows about us and our power. He knew that Casietta was my Guardian. I guess it's safe to say that what he knows Walter Bryant might know, as well.”

“Do you really think he'd tell him about us? I mean, would he really exploit you, his daughter?”

Sasha looks like Lindsey's question poses just a hint of pain for her. But she's good at hiding her true feelings. I know, she's been doing it since I met her. For instance, she's always tried to act like the fact that her parents basically ignored her didn't bother her. She, for the most part, looks like a normal teenager with a normal life, for a rich girl. But I figure it's got to be tough for her, especially after learning all she did. I mean, how's a girl supposed to react to her housekeeper being her sworn Guardian then disappearing; her father knowing all along that she was supernatural but choosing to hide from it instead of embracing it or helping his daughter get through it; and Mouse, we still don't know his part in all this, and the
big guy doesn't seem in any hurry to tell us. If you ask me, she's handling it all pretty well.

“I don't really know what he's capable of. I wouldn't have thought a parent could hide something like this from their child, but he did. When he looked at me it was as if I was a total stranger, a freak he wished he'd never come across. So I don't think for one minute that our blood ties will stop him from doing whatever he can that's profitable.”

Now that's a shame. But I guess that's why Sasha and I remain good friends. She's got her dysfunctional family and I have mine.

“Fatima said our power comes from what they call a subtle eclipse.” Krystal starts talking. “But Jake's grandfather said it was the storm, that big blizzard that hit the month we were all conceived here in Lincoln.”

“But I wasn't conceived in Lincoln,” Lindsey says. “My parents were never in this town before.”

“And you're four months younger than us,” Sasha says.

“The energy to make mortals supernatural came from the eclipse,” I say as sort of just a gathering of all our facts. I don't want to let on that I have other information. Then I'd have to share the source of that information, and that, I'm definitely not ready to do. But I can't stop. It's like the words are just popping out of my mouth. Like…like someone else is saying them through me.

“The storms, the catastrophic nature of them, the erratic occurrences plaguing scientists throughout the world, just as the UFO sightings did, come from something else.”

“What?” Sasha asks.

“We can only come from one thing, either the eclipse or
the storms. Either way it's the weather, and we know that Styx had control of the moon and the sun,” Krystal says.

“No.” I'm shaking my head for emphasis. “Think about it. The eclipse births the energy, it puts it into the atmosphere, but something else adds to it, pushes the energy to another level entirely.”

“And by doing so it creates what? The Darkness that keeps following us?” Lindsey asks.

“A countermeasure.”

“What in the world are you talking about, Jake?” Sasha asks.

“It's simple.” And I really feel it is. This moment of realization is like a blindfold coming off my eyes. “To every light there is a dark. To every good an evil. To every power an even stronger power.”

“Styx created the eclipse to empower us, to give us tools to fight in her place. And then, another evokes power into the atmosphere to what…dissuade us away from Styx, make us evil?” This is Lindsey, and she's staring directly at me.

Although she's wearing her black, supposedly to keep her from being afflicted with the thoughts of everyone around her, I am not. I wear jeans, tattered at the ends and faded in the bottom and a dark green T-shirt. She's looking at me or rather looking through me with that way she has. Inside I feel like smiling, glad she can see what the others cannot. On the outside I'm a little nervous.

“I think that's it,” I say, standing up and moving toward the window, trying to get out of her line of sight. I don't really know what she's thinking or what she may have seen inside of me. And since I haven't shared with any of them the voice taking up residence inside my head or the fact that I'm
most likely in some way mixed with some dark energy, I don't really want her seeing too much.

“All this work is making me hungry,” Sasha says. “And since Casietta is gone…” A gloomy air seems to hang on her words, but then true to form she smiles through it and stands. “Let's go get pizza.”

“No!” I know I say it too fast and it sounds too urgent, too serious for the mere suggestion of going to get pizza, but I don't want to go. The confrontation with Pace and Mateo the last time I was there is still fresh in my mind. I don't want to risk seeing them and having another burst of power threaten to expose us and continue to confuse me. I really want to be alone, to think about all these new developments. “I mean, I'll pass,” I finish in a much more normal tone.

But the girls are all looking at me; Sasha with her worried look and Lindsey with the questioning one. Krystal has a combination of them both, worried and questioning. Hers is the worst, makes me feel like an idiot ten times over.

“I'll just head home,” I say and start to leave the room, hoping nobody'll try to stop me.

Fat chance, Krystal is right behind me as I approach the front door.

“It's all right, Jake. I mean, they probably won't even be there.”

“They?”

She nods. “Pace and Mateo. Besides they're jerks anyway. You shouldn't let them get the best of you, just ignore them.”

“Like you tried to ignore Alyssa,” I say out of spite. A few months ago Alyssa Turner had her sights set on making Krystal's life hell, and for the most part she succeeded, until Sasha and Krystal both put the braid-haired socialite in her place.

Her lips thin out a little like she's trying to hold back a response. I'm making her angry. But I don't care. At this moment I just don't care. I want to be alone, away from them and their theories and their watchful eyes.

“You shouldn't let them bully you,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I can handle my own problems.” And because I really believe that I turn my back on her and open the door.

“What you do affects us all, Jake. Remember that when you're handling your own problems.”

When I turn back to her she looks different, or maybe I'm looking at her differently. But it's not with the softness and embarrassment that I'm used to feeling toward her. Instead it's with a kind of pity, an I-know-something-you-don't sort of way. “What I do is for me. Now and always.”

Her mouth is open like she wants to say something but can't when I walk away. I don't care what she was going to say or wanted to say. I said what I did and I meant it. Walking down the quiet streets of Sea Point I feel stronger. With every step strength builds in my legs, my arms, the pit of my stomach. I hear a low laughter, more like a cackle, and I look up. He's there, the raven. His eyes are on mine, as always, and I nod, accepting his presence, knowing its meaning.

I walk and he flies with me, just above my head on the right side. He's there, like we're together, a combination, and a deadly force to be reckoned with.

So here
I am again, walking home because I don't have enough money to get on the bus. I do actually, at home in the jar in my old shoe box that's pushed under my bed. That's where I put all the change Dad or Pop Pop tell me to keep when I go to the store, and the one-dollar payments Mrs. Grimbly at the end of my block gives me for coming to her house every Friday morning and taking out her trash. But that's my Get-Out-of-Lincoln fund.

I don't really know what I'm going to do when I'm finally old enough to blow this town, just that I want to be someplace else. College is a good start, and that would make my dad happy. I also thought about joining the armed forces and seeing some of the world. Pop Pop is against that idea, doesn't really believe in our government that much these days. I often wonder if he's talking about the current government or the previous one, since when I first talked about joining the army it was about four years ago. Either way, I guess it doesn't matter, he doesn't want me to become a soldier.

Dad wants me to make something out of myself by getting an education. The girls want me to be a part of their mission to save the world or whatever they think Fatima is trying to tell them. Charon wants me to embrace my dark half.

What do I want? Nobody's ever asked me that question be
fore and up until this point I've been too chicken to ask myself. Now that I've gotten the question out, I still don't know the answer.

The moment I turn the corner taking me out of the Sea Point development there's a breeze that blows right against the back of my neck. I still, then shiver as my eyes search all around me. Something's here.

Not again.

But it's not what I'm thinking. A car comes down the street, in the same direction that I was walking. At first it's speeding down the street, way past the 35 mph speed limit that's clearly posted at the corner. Then it slows down, right next to me.

“Looky what we have here, Mateo,” Pace says in the voice that I'm so totally tired of hearing.

It's been weeks since our last encounter and my subsequent suspension. In that time we've kept a safe distance from each other in school. But we aren't on school property now.

I keep walking, giving them the finger as I go. Guess I could have just ignored them totally, but that wouldn't have worked either. The car stops and they both get out. My heart's thumping loud in my ears because I know what's coming even before Mateo takes the first swing.

His fist lands across the back of my head and I stumble. Pace is right there to play his part, punching me in the stomach. So my head's spinning and my stomach's doing things that aren't normal or supernatural for that matter, just painful as hell. I'm hunched over, praying my legs will keep me standing, when one of them delivers another blow to the side of my jaw. I feel like a cartoon character whirling around in the wind, wondering if there's a circle of birds chirping around my head as I go down. Hitting the ground should have been
hard and unforgiving. Instead I feel weightless, bursts of light exploding behind my eyes.

They're both standing over me now, hurling insults, fists and feet raised to take advantage of me being on the ground. I can't decipher their exact words and don't feel any of the oncoming blows. Instead I feel the pulsating in my biceps, the tensing of my thighs. My temples throb, fingers itch as I stand.

Pace and Mateo back up, one looking tremendously afraid and the other so shocked his eyes look like they're about to pop out of his head. I grab both of them by the front of their shirts, easily lifting them off the ground.

“Holy crap!”

“What the hell are you?”

They're both yelling simultaneously but their words seem slurred and I ignore them. With a slow, jerking motion I send both of them flying across the street, landing on the lawn of another house. Turning my gaze to their car I stare until every window is blown out, glass shattering the sidewalk and street. All four tires fall from the car, rolling lopsidedly down the street.

Across the street Pace and Mateo are struggling to get up. Pace is heading in the opposite direction, Mateo just standing there staring at me. There are two trees planted in that front yard. With a nod of my head they're both uprooted, slamming down one in front of Pace and the other Mateo, trapping them where they stand.

I hear the sirens long before two police cruisers turn the corner, tires screeching, lights glowing.

Run!

The voice doesn't have to tell me twice. Turning, I take off
down the street, cutting between two of the houses and running through the grassy backyards instead of along the open sidewalk where the cops can easily chase me. Later, I would think and rethink this, but for now, about five minutes later I'm running up the front steps to my house. Sasha lived all the way on the other side of Lincoln. A car couldn't have gotten me here this fast. But like I said, I'm too tired and too wound up to continue that line of questioning.

 

When I step through the front door, Pop Pop's the first person I see. He's in his wheelchair tonight, his wrinkled hands resting on the huge wheels. Dressed in his pajamas he looks frail and sick. If I was being completely honest I'd say he's been looking that way since the tornado.

“Hey, Pop Pop.” I try to talk casually and walk past him, but he grabs my arm.

“Take me to my room,” he says.

Now, one thing to know about my grandfather is that he's as independent as he is loyal. He'd never ask anyone to do anything for him that he couldn't very well do for himself, until now. Over the years I've had to watch this disease take from him everything that made him Louis Kramer, that made him a man.

Shrugging, I toe my shoes off, leaving them near the beat-up umbrella stand. After that run my feet are tired and hot. Pop Pop's already turned around in his chair, so I just reach for the handles and start to push. His room's on the first floor, right past the living room. Our house is long and narrow, one hallway that branches off into different rooms. We pass the kitchen and the pantry on our way to his room, also.

At the end of the hallway I turn easily into Pop Pop's room
because a long time ago Dad took the framing off the doors so the wheelchair could fit through. Getting close to the bed, I flip the lock in place so the chair doesn't roll back out the door, since there's a slight slant to the floor in the back rooms. I'm moving around to help Pop Pop out of the chair when one shaky arm reaches out and his hand touches my shoulder.

“They're coming for you, Jakey. They're coming and I don't know if I can stop 'em this time.”

Pop Pop's words are clear and I know he's talking about my powers and possibly Charon. “You know what happened to Uncle William, don't you?”

With his other hand Pop Pop wipes his face. He tries to take a deep breath but ends up coughing out half of it. I reach around and gingerly rub the center of his back like his nurse taught me. This helps to loosen the passageways in the lungs, she said. He's usually on oxygen but gets tired of the tube in his nose and yanks it out sometimes.

“I know he tried to do what he thought was right. He tried to fight, but he just wasn't strong enough.”

“The power gets stronger. Everything is magnified now. I can feel it,” I confide in Pop Pop because I have nobody else to tell. “Sometimes I just feel like it's going to run me over like a freight train.”

“You must control it, make it obey you, not the other way around. That's where William went wrong.”

“Where did he go? Is he still alive?”

“He's in a place I don't reckon I'll ever see. No coming back here for William. I knew that the day he walked out.”

“Were you his Guardian, too?”

Pop Pop shakes his head and plants his hands on the handles of the chair. With slow movements he pulls himself up.
I stand and put a hand behind him to help steady him. He doesn't want me to lift him into bed, we've had that argument too many times before.

“They only told me to keep an eye on you.”

“Why do we need Guardians? I mean, you have no powers, how can you really guard me?”

“Mortal blood and mortal eyes see much more, they said. I know when to warn you, when to teach you and when to step out of the way.”

The way he said those last words had my stomach twisting. “What happens if I no longer have a Guardian? I mean, Casietta was Sasha's Guardian and now she's gone.”

“We not only guard you, but we guard the secret.” He lay down on the pillows, catching his breath. “And that old crotchety Casietta, she's closer than you think,” he adds.

I adjust his pillows and rub his back again. On the stand next to his bed is the oxygen tubing. Without even asking him I pick it up and lace it behind his head, pushing the small tubes to the front of his nose. His blue-gray eyes stare at me, then roll like a child's. In that instant I remember seeing those eyes on a younger version of this man.

“Am I a Vortex, Pop Pop?”

“A what?” he asks looking a little puzzled. “You're a growing boy who's standing in my way. Now back up so I can get under these covers. I'm tired and I gotta get up and go to work tomorrow. Tell your grandma to set the alarm clock.”

I help Pop Pop under the covers, pulling them up to his neck with a weight on my shoulders and a tightening in my heart. Grandma died twelve years ago. Pop Pop's moments of clarity are coming less frequently. The last time Dad met with his doctors that's what they told him would happen eventu
ally. Pop Pop was sixty-nine years old, his birthday is the day after Halloween. “One day earlier and I'd have been a demon by default,” he always joked.

But if my uncle was a Vortex and now me as well, Pop Pop and his jumbled brain might have been closer to the truth than any of us ever knew.

Looking down at his frail body shivering beneath the covers makes me sad. I have so many good memories of him, so many fun times we've shared. I don't know if he remembers them all. But I do and I always will. “Good night, Pop Pop,” I say softly and step away from the bed.

It's when I've turned off his lamp and am close to the door that he starts to cough again. I stop instantly, turning around to see if he's okay. He looks right at me, his gaze penetrating in the dim room.

“You are who you are, Jakey. Don't let anybody tell you any different.”

I nod. It didn't answer my question, one of the many still floating in my head, but it was okay. This was my Pop Pop and I love him no matter what, so it's okay.

“I won't,” I say, not realizing that who I am and what I am are about to be tested.