My Friends Are Dead People (23 page)

“
Jacoby, where are they
going?” asked Katie.

“
I told Lin and Murlie to
stay at Hess’s perch in Main for the last hours of
Halloween.”

“
What about Franky? He
went by himself.”

“
Henry is safe with his
relatives.”

I was the last one to make it down the hill.
It was hard to not break down again walking past Kala’s grave. It
made me question the purpose of my own life and who I was as a
human being. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how to look for the
answer.

“
Who killed Kala?” I said
to Jacoby, nearly walking into him.

“
Jesse . . .” He didn’t
look like he wanted to tell me. “Jack did.”

“
So, Jack
is
real?”

“
He always
was.”

“
Who was fighting
him?”

“
No one. The ‘battle
sounds’ that the nomis heard was the sounds of Jack
killing–”

“
But the tortics were
there. So, he only killed Kala? Not the tortics? Why
didn’t–”

“
He did. Five were
killed.”

We all got quiet as we considered the deaths
of the five tortics. But if Jack was able to kill five tortics,
then it was going to be extremely difficult for Dorian to defeat
him.

“
Was Lorseria one of
them?” I asked.

“
No. I don’t think he was
here.”

I thought for a moment. “Why would Jack come
here and kill Kala?”

“
I am not sure. There
isn’t any good reason to kill a menala. However, he has killed two
already.”

My welgo saw us from the alley and came
over.

“
Duma, I want you to go
back to Ray’s,” said Jacoby.

She put her head against his chest, forcing
him to stop walking.

“
I understand your
concern, but you can’t do much here.”

Jacoby moved around her.

“
Are we going home?” I
said.

“
Not right
now.”

“
Are we going after
him?”

“
No. We’re going to
protect the only two menalas left.”

I glanced at Dorian. “Who’s the other
one?”

“
The other one is Meesi
Kel. She has been seen around Morocco a lot lately. We’ll be
starting there. She might not be aware of what’s going on, so we
have to find her quickly. I’m assuming the tortics are trying to
find her right now.”

“
The tortics? They want to
kill the menalas, too?”

“
No, only Jack. But
because they now know Jack is killing off the menalas, they’ll want
to use Meesi to lure him in. This leaves us with only one option:
to find her and get her to a safe place. Alright, you two, wait
here. We’ll be a few minutes.”

Jacoby and Dorian walked over to a small
shop at the corner, where a chubby warlock was waiting for them. As
soon as they went in, a lanky man in a sports jacket stepped out,
carrying two suitcases and a woman’s purse. There was a glint of
excitement in his eyes. He threw the suitcases into the back of a
truck and drove away.

“
Go home, Duma,” I said to
my welgo, who was pacing anxiously in-between Katie and me. “Do
what Jacoby told you. He doesn’t want you here.”

Duma fixed her eyes on me.

“
Do you have something you
want to tell me?”

Duma opened her mouth wide.

“
What is it?” I forgot
that she couldn’t talk. “Is it important? Because we don’t
have–”

Duma opened her mouth.

“
What do you think she
knows?” Katie asked me.

I wondered the same thing. What could Duma
have seen that I haven’t?

“
Duma, you see something?”
asked Katie.

Duma opened her mouth.

“
In Germany? . . .
No.”

“
Did you see the tortics?”
I asked.

Duma opened her mouth immediately.

“
Where?”

Duma paced anxiously between us.

“
At the beach?” said
Katie.

Duma kept her mouth closed as she gaped at
Katie.

“
You left the beach?” I
said, surprised.

She opened her mouth again.

“
Where then?”

“
On the water?” tried
Katie. “You saw them on the water?”

Duma signaled yes twice.

“
You saw them heading
here? So they knew Jack was planning to kill Kala.”

Duma kept her mouth open.

“
Jesse, I don’t get why
she wants to tell us this. We know this already.”

“
But now we know the
tortics knew about it beforehand.”

Duma paced again.

“
She wants us to ask more
questions,” I said.

Duma stopped and peered at me keenly.

“
Okay . . . uhmm . . . did
you follow them?”

Duma just stood there, waiting for a better
question.

“
You see something else?”
asked Katie urgently as she noticed Jacoby and Dorian talking to
the warlock outside.

Duma opened her mouth with a crazed look in
her eyes. I knew exactly the next question to ask.

“
Jack? You saw
Jack?”

Duma opened her mouth as wide as she could.
I never noticed how many flat teeth she had until then. There must
have been at least fifty.

“
What did he look like–” I
stopped short. “Was he headed over here?”

She opened her mouth.

“
Did you see him in
Germany? . . . Somewhere else?”

She said yes.

“
Where? Uhmm . . . in
Europe? Italy? No. Uhmm . . . Spain, France, Ireland–”

She opened wide.

“
In Ireland?” said
Katie.

We both rushed over to Dorian and Jacoby and
told them everything we just learned. They took the news coolly.
But we all knew it was a big deal. Duma had seen Jack. She was the
only living halloween to have ever seem him.

Jacoby shook the warlock’s hand. “Thank you,
Hal. Send me some tomorrow.”

“
Sure thing, Jacoby,” said
Hal. His belly was big and round; his cheeks were pudgy and rosy.
He vaguely resembled a walrus.

“
I’m just glad to get rid
of some of these cans. Everyone thinks there’s something’s crawling
inside them. You ever hear about minalips in cans? I have no idea
how anyone could think they could get inside. They’re too
big.”

“
We have to go, Kevin –
Hal,” corrected Jacoby.

“
Yeah, sorry about the
sudden name change. Well, you heard my brother, Tim – I mean Hallen
– say he thought I should change my name. I guess it is better to
not keep your human name.”

Katie stared straight at the man.

“
Hello, there,” said
Hal.

“
You’re supposed to have a
purpose?” she asked strangely.

“
Katie, we have to go,”
announced Jacoby.

That didn’t stop Hal. “Oh, are you talking
about the door?”

He closed the door so all of us could see
it. There was a board nailed to it.

THE SHOP OF

HAL’S TCL CAN

Do I have a
purpose?

“
I don’t know why my
brother carved that. I know it means something. He’s a smart
educated fella. He wouldn’t write something like that at random. Do
I have a purpose? What do you think?”

“
No,” said
Katie.

“
How about you?” Hal asked
me.

“
Maybe,” I
said.

“
Well, I think I have a
purpose. I wish I could have asked him before he left what the
‘TCL’ stands for. All I can come up with is Tim Candy Lane. After
all this time I’ve been asking him to make me a sign with my shop’s
name, he puts in the wrong name. He’s a weird one, my brother. And
a bully, even to this day, when I can overpower him as a warlock.
He just got married to a pretty redhead. Another thing I don’t get
is, he said he wants me to call her Hale now, not Jane. And she’s
not a samhain.”

Hal chuckled.

“
There’s a strange bunch
of beans for you. So where are you all from?”

“
San Diego.”

“
I love that city. Hallen
has a home there.”

“
So, you really don’t know
why he wrote that?” I asked.

“
When he comes back, I’ll
ask him. All I know is my name is now Hal, his is Hallen, and his
wife’s is Hale. Crazy thing is–”

“
Hal, I wish we could stay
and chat,” Jacoby interrupted, “but we really need to get
going.”

“
Okay, just come back and
visit me. . . .”

Hal kept talking to us until we were out of
his sight. I was definitely going to go back next year. There was
something mysterious going on there.

“
Thanks, Duma,” said
Jacoby on the deserted street. “Get to Ray’s. You told us
everything we needed to know.”

Duma strode up a toppled building and
disappeared into a cloud of dust.

“
Jesse, eyes,” said
Jacoby. This time he didn’t grab my hand.

The psyclin was more mentally strenuous
without hand contact, causing a mild headache and a sensation of
soreness throughout my body. We had traveled to a barren patch in
the woods.

“
Where are we?” I asked,
squinting at the splintered sunlight filtering through the dusty
woods.

“
The Amatola Mountains in
South Africa,” said Jacoby.

“
Is it
morning?”

He didn’t respond. I looked down at Katie’s
watch.

10:30 PM

One hour and thirty minutes. That was enough
time for us to find Meesi and take her and Dorian to a safe place.
However, how long could they keep her at this place? I was just
glad Dorian and Jacoby were special halloweens who lived more than
one day a year. This meant that I could hang out with them
tomorrow.

Dorian stared down into a pile of broken
branches at a colorful parrot scuttling in the dirt. He placed his
hand on the bird, and it flipped upright and flew off.

“
It is an yslas curse,”
informed Dorian.

“
Apparently everyone has
decided to come out this Halloween,” remarked Jacoby.

“
What’s an ‘ee-las’?” I
fumbled with the name.

“
An ‘ees – lásk’ is a
halloween who dwells in the southern hemisphere, mainly Antarctica.
Very powerful and proud. However, their arrogant nature is not of
importance at the moment–” Jacoby left us and strode deep into the
woods. Dorian had gone, too.

“
Where are they going?” I
said.

“
Maybe they heard
something?” suggested Katie.

Then loud crackling was heard all around us.
Hundreds of tall white shapes were moving through the tall pine
trees. Moments later, the desolate clearing was filled with
unfamiliar creatures until Katie and I could barely move.

They were pure white and wore white fur
coats. Their heads were big and round, shaped like tires. One of
the taller ones poked Katie in the head with a large finger, and
she swatted it away like it was a fly. He did it again, and she hit
him harder. The third time Dorian psyclined between them.

“
You okay?” he asked her,
his head bowed.

Katie nodded. Dorian turned to the yslas,
whose head was two or three feet above his own.

“
We don’t mean to disturb
you–”

“
Look at me when you
speak,” said the white samhain. When he talked, cold breaths of
blue air drifted out of his mouth.

Another yslas spoke. “Cosqué, it’s a
menala.”

“
Are you the one with the
deadly curse?” inquired Cosqué.

Dorian kept his head lowered without
responding.

“
He would look at you,
Cosqué, if he wasn’t that menala.”

An anxious stir rolled over the yslas clan.
Jacoby was moving through.

“
Jacoby, who is this?”
asked Cosqué the second he arrived.

“
This is Dorian,” he said
and turned to Katie and me. “Tell them you’re not here to start any
trouble.”

Cosqué looked down at Katie, who scowled
back at him.

“
My name is Cosqué,” he
told her. “And yours?”

“
I’m not telling you my
name!” she protested bitterly. “If you touch me again, I’m going
punch you!”

“
Cosqué, this is Katie,”
introduced Jacoby. He turned to me with a sigh.

“
Don’t befriend them,” I
told Jacoby. “He was bothering Katie. He probably wants to pull out
her brain and look at it.”

“
And this is Jesse,” he
added sourly.

Was Jacoby ashamed of us?

“
We’re searching for
Jack,” said Cosqué. “A human friend of mine has informed me that
Jack has killed his samhain son, Kala. We thought we’d see Forlin
about what happened. Do you know why Jack showed
himself?”

“
He’s going after the
menalas,” answered Jacoby.

“
Do you know where they
are?”

“
One is standing before
you. And the other one is in Morocco.”

Dorian sat down, causing a few yslas to
murmur and step a foot away from him.

“
We are tired of all these
deaths, both human and samhain,” said Cosqué. “We plan to find Jack
and kill him.”