Rogue (7 page)

His heart ached, lying to her face so brazenly. A few months earlier, he'd been more than half in love with her. He had to remind himself, almost continually, that Brooke's betrayal could easily have killed him and all of his friends, more than a few times, and probably had already killed their former roommate, Ronnie Murso.

That lethal memory prompted Will to summon up the thought-form of a thick steel wall shielding his mind as they spoke. He knew that it shut her out completely; all she had to go on was what he told her, and how he sold it. He'd always been good at hiding his feelings, by necessity, but he still couldn't tell if she completely bought it.

To close the deal, he took both her hands in his, his eyes locked onto hers.

“However you feel about it…whatever you decide to do, you need to keep this a secret from the others. Is that asking too much?”

She lowered her gaze, simulating a turmoil so convincing that he half hoped it was real. Then she looked up at him, eyes alight with sincerity and confusion.

“I really want to believe you, Will…This is so much to take in. Can you give me some time, or is that too much to ask?”

Time enough to go back to Franklin and find out how they wanted her to respond.

“I understand completely,” he said. “Take all the time you need.”

They both stood and he gave her a heartfelt hug, trying to ignore what the warmth of her body made him feel. As she kissed him on the cheek and went off to her room, Will had few doubts that she'd bought the story. He had a much harder time convincing himself that what she still made him feel meant nothing to him.

After going out for a run the next morning—and using his speed to make sure that no one could have followed him—Will was the last to arrive at Jericho's old oak behind the field house. Coach Jericho, tall and as severe as a blade in his black sweats, quickly led them deeper into the cover of the forest, then kept watch as Will told Nick and Ajay what he'd revealed to Elise the night before.

The moment he finished, Ajay jumped into Will's arms and bear-hugged him. Nick rushed in after him and picked them both up off the ground. Will saw tears in Ajay's eyes, while Nick just kept his closed tight.

“Yes, yes!” said Nick.

“Okay, okay,” said Will, the air squeezed out of him. “Don't crush me.”

“I knew it, I knew it,” said Ajay to Nick. “I told you we could count on him.”

“Correction, I told
you
that,” said Nick, arguing at close range on either side of Will.

“Baloney, I trusted Will more than you. I never stopped believing in—”

“You're completely cracked, Ajay.”

“Nick, I can't breathe,” said Will, trying to disengage.

“Don't fight over him, you goofballs,” said Elise, prying them apart. “Save it for the bad guys.”

“So what are we going to do, Will? How do we respond?” asked Ajay as he finally stepped back. “Are you contemplating a full frontal assault, or something more devious and far less suicidal?”

“Hey, why isn't Brooke here?” asked Nick.

Will glanced at Elise. “I didn't ask her to come.”

“So you told her already?” asked Ajay.

“No,” said Will, certain his unease was showing. “And it's important that none of us says a word about this to her right now. She's doesn't know, and she doesn't need to know, and it needs to stay that way.”

“That's quite a lot to ask us to take on faith alone, Will,” said Ajay, puzzled. “Why?”

“Because she can't be trusted.” Coach Jericho spoke behind them, startling them all.

“But
why
?” asked Nick.

“Because,”
said Jericho bluntly, “Brooke's been working for them since the moment you all got here. She sold the rest of you out from day one. Her father's a Knight, inner circle, always has been. Like father, like daughter. She went rogue.”

Nick was shocked, Ajay looked stricken, and Elise banged a fist into a tree, her face coiled in anger. Will hated seeing them suffer like this.

Ira Jericho stepped closer, his sharp features taut and imperious, staring down at them. “Don't give me that hurt face, West. They need to know. What they don't know
can
kill them.”

“Maybe you're right,” mumbled Will.

“Why does
he
know about it?” asked Elise, nodding at Jericho.

“I told him first,” said Will sheepishly.

“Before
me
?” Elise looked wounded.

“Get over it, sister,” said Jericho, giving her his death stare.

“Excuse me?” asked Nick, flaring up in her defense. “You can't talk to her like that.”

“From this point forward, nobody here gets to think of themselves first anymore. In other words, you can't be teenagers anymore. You don't have that luxury, and you might never have it again. Will went this whole time without telling you any of this and that saved your lives.”

His three roommates glanced at Will, looking slightly ashamed.

“How do you think he managed to do that? Forget about your precious little feelings, and check your damn egos at the door. From now on, if any one of you breaks this trust between you, the rest of you are going to die. Can I make that any clearer for you?”

Elise shook her head, eyes downcast.

After a moment, Nick spoke first. “Wow, Coach, I…I didn't even know you could talk that long.”

“I realize that you're the track coach here and everything, but if you don't mind my asking, sir,” said Ajay. “Who
are
you?”

“Good question. I mean, are you like, what, from the CIA or something?” asked Nick.

Jericho closed his eyes and shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “In words even you might understand, McLeish: I'm the best chance you have to make it to your next birthday.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Nick, nodding thoughtfully. “I can work with that.”

“I can explain,” said Will, taking something from his pocket. “I told you I had a friend who'd been helping me. The one who told me about the portals and the Knights, and he gave me these glasses.”

“I take it you're referring to your allegedly dead helicopter pilot?” asked Ajay, looking up and to the left as he accessed his memory.

“That's right,” said Will. “Except there's nothing alleged about him. Elise met him, sort of.”

“Dave,” said Elise.

“And was this prior to or
after
the wendigo yanked Dave into the Never-Was?” asked Ajay.

“After.” Elise nodded. “Brooke saw him, too.”

“Correct,” said Will. “Just before that, Dave told me I was going to meet someone at school who could help me get through this. So…”

Will turned to Coach Jericho, holding out his arms as if presenting him to the others. Jericho, playing along, gave him a slight salute.

“Yes, I see,” said Ajay. “But if you don't mind elaborating, sir, what exactly is your connection to Will's ongoing…situation?”

Jericho sighed and shook his head.

“I do apologize for persisting with my line of inquiry, sir,” said Ajay, fidgeting with his hands. “But as our modest little group's unofficial custodian of Keeping Things Straight, it would be tremendously helpful for all of us, really, to have some small notion of how you fit in.”

Jericho looked at Will again, who shrugged apologetically. “I guess you ought to tell them.”

“First, okay, I've heard all the stories students throw around about me,” said Jericho, annoyed. “For starters? I am
not
the great-great-grandson of Crazy Horse.”

“Aww.” Nick looked disappointed.

“I'm the great-great-
great-
grandson of Crazy Horse,” said Jericho, holding up three fingers. “I get pretty chapped you chuckleheads never get that right.”

“I
knew
it,” said Nick, turning to Ajay, asking for a high five. “I told you, didn't I?”

“And what does this admittedly remarkable family tree of yours mean as far as we're concerned, exactly?” asked Ajay.

Jericho moved to the edge of the deep woods. He spoke softly, barely above a whisper, never taking his eyes off the forest.

“This was our home, for a long time, more than ten thousand years. The stories say that early on my people learned something of what you've all seen down below here.”

“What did they do about it?” asked Elise.

“There wasn't much they could do. There was dark power there, but it seemed to be latent, sleeping. So those in my lineage have always been charged with…keeping watch, in case any part of it woke up. But that tradition was lost, for a few generations, after my people were moved off the land.”

“During which time—making an educated guess—Old Man Ian Cornish and his family came to town,” said Ajay.

“That's right,” said Jericho.

“And much hilarity ensued,” said Elise dryly.

“So, wait, you're telling us you're like the last in a whole line of these shaman dudes,” said Nick, scrunching up his forehead.

Jericho turned to look at them, but his voice sounded far away. “Living on the reservation, they had to hide it to survive. Times changed. Suppress your own talents long enough, gradually they fall away. We moved into cities.

“My grandfather was a car mechanic at a garage in St. Paul. My father ran track in college, then taught social studies at a public school. But they both knew our family's history, and once I was old enough, they told me all about it. How they'd had to keep this tradition hidden for almost a century. Easier to stay alive that way.

“But times were changing again. My generation was looking back at what used to be, realizing how much we'd lost. I was almost your age when I decided to try and train in the old ways.”

“How?” asked Ajay.

“Had to track down this crazy old coot. Lived alone in a yurt way out in the Black Hills. Medicine man, about ninety-five years old. Not a healthy ninety-five; he was half deaf, half blind, with skin like an alligator and mean as a snake. A few of my people told me he was the last one left who could teach me to walk the path. Didn't have indoor plumbing or two cents to his name, but I knew instantly he carried himself with more dignity than any man I'd ever met.

“At first he wouldn't even talk to me. Pretended he couldn't hear, kept telling me to leave. So I just slept on the ground, right there in front of his yurt. Took six months to convince him I was serious before he'd say a word.”

“So he became your teacher,” said Elise quietly.

“And I assume he taught you…a number of mythical—that is to say,
traditional
—skills,” said Ajay, eyeing the small leather pouch around Jericho's neck. “Shamanistically speaking.”

“That's right.” Jericho looked up at them again.

“Skills such as…”

“After a few years he told me what was down deep below this ground,” said Jericho, ignoring Ajay's invitation to elaborate. “And the need for having someone, one of our people, to man this post. He decided that since I'd arrived when I did, it meant I was the one to do it. I've been here ever since, over twenty years.”

“Coach,” said Nick sincerely, “what you just shared with us is like so totally super-powerful, and I don't even know what most of it means, but personally? All this time I thought you were just like this regular coach dude, and I'm just really way super super super sorry if I was ever a dick to you.”

“What do you mean ‘if'?” said Jericho.

“Well said, Nick,” said Ajay. “Heartfelt and completely incomprehensible.”

“You think I enjoy this gig?” said Jericho, looking angry. “Giving up my chance for a normal life, stuck babysitting the spoiled brats of the ruling class so I can keep watch over an old pile of bones?”

“So you're not like bitter or anything, are you, Coach?” asked Nick.

Jericho sighed heavily and leaned back against a tree. “I'm only telling you this because if I don't live through what's ahead of us, I'd like to know that somebody alive somewhere knows my story.”

“That's presuming
we
live through it,” said Ajay.

“How can we stop them, Will?” asked Elise.

“Yeah, dude, what's the plan?”

“Once I'm sure I've completely gained his trust, I'll get my grandfather to lead me to the Carver,” said Will. “I'm going to steal it, and then we're all going in to bring back Dave.”

“We're going into the Never-Was?” asked Elise, staring at him.

“Yes.”

“Wait, what?” said Nick.

“All of us?” asked Ajay, wincing.

“Don't even start with that,” said Nick, holding up a hand.

“Do you have the slightest idea what it's like in that place, Will, or where Dave might be if we get there?” asked Elise.

“Yes to the first question, and as far as I know it's more dangerous than I can even describe,” said Will. “No to the second. I have no idea where he is.”

“How do we know he's even still alive?” asked Nick.

“He wasn't alive when I met him,” said Will.

“Say what?”

“What he means is there's no way they can kill him since he's already dead,” said Jericho.

“What he said,” said Will.

“But why?” asked Elise, with a penetrating stare. “Why are we trying to find Dave?”

“Because I believe the Knights and the Other Team—those things we saw down below—are about to make their move. They're going to use those monsters to launch a full-scale invasion at us any day now. And by that I don't mean just
us
—I mean our
world.
According to the Hierarchy, these things plan to wipe human beings off the map and take over again, and if they're right about that…our best and only chance to stop them starts and ends with Dave.”