Shadow Train (12 page)

Beet's and Benji's faces lit up, but Josh didn't look impressed.

“Look, Nass. I've been biting my tongue for a long time with this magic crap, but don't you think enough is enough? I mean, we've got real problems to deal with. Somebody almost killed our friend. Emory is in Benton right now barely hanging on to his life, Raph is gone, Chin is almost dead, and we're sitting here scheming about how to gather up the pieces of a magic crystal? Come on, it's ridiculous.”

“I know it sounds nuts, but think about the way Raphael disappeared,” Nass said. “Think about that crazy, ghostly train, man. Whether we want to accept it or not—whether we even believe it—there's supernatural stuff going on here. Now, we need to get Raphael back, and we think we can do it. All you guys have to do is give me your pieces of the ring. Zhai is gathering up the pieces the Toppers have, then we're going to put them together and—”

“Stop right there!” Josh interrupted, outraged. “You're just going to hand our pieces of the ring over to Zhai?”

“No—I'm not
giving
them to him,” Nass said. “I'm going to hold on to ours, he's going to have the ones from the Toppers, and then we're going to put them together.”

“I see,” Josh said. “And has it ever occurred to you that it might be kind of a stupid idea to trust the leader of our enemies, when he and his friends just beat Emory into a coma?”

Nass closed his eyes for a second, focusing his energy on staying calm. “Josh, I think if Raph were here—”

“Well, I got news for you, Nass,” Josh cut him off again, his voice rising. “Raph's
not
here. And who are you to tell us what he would want, anyway? You've been a Flatliner—what? A few months? Who died and made you the boss?”

“I'm not trying to be the boss,” Nass said mildly. “I'm just trying to—”

“To get all the pieces of the ring for yourself?” Josh broke in again. “I can see that.” Now he was shouting. “I'll tell you what. You're not getting mine, and you can't tell us what to do!”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Nass countered. “You got a better idea?”

“I suggest,”
Josh said firmly, “that we get some new leadership. I propose that we vote on it right now.” He glanced around the table at his friends. “You vote for me and the first thing I'll do is find Rick Banfield, challenge him to a fight, and put him in a hospital bed right next to Emory. That should be our priority—honor. Survival. Revenge. Not messing around with some stupid pieces of broken glass.”

As Nass looked at Josh, the knowing kicked in, and he was able to see beyond his friend's paler-than-usual skin and the dark circles under his eyes. He saw the sleepless nights, the tears, the guilt he'd felt that he'd been out with his girlfriend, Beth, on Valentine's night instead of at his best friend's side. All this came to Nass in a flash of realization, and instantly diffused the ticking bomb of irritation that was about to explode within him. But understanding Josh's point of view didn't change the situation. Josh was about to take control of the Flatliners and lead them down a very dangerous path, and Nass couldn't let that happen.

“I'm nominating myself for leader of the Flatliners,” Josh continued. “Anyone want to run against me?” He looked at Beet.

“Not me,” Beet said quickly. “I don't want to be the leader.”

Benji just shook his head and gnawed nervously on the straw from his Coke.

Josh looked at Nass next, and Nass sighed heavily.

“I think we should all just work together until we get Raph back,” he said. “But if you insist on being the leader and dragging us into a war, then all right, Josh. I'll run against you.”

“See, that's how I can tell you're not really a Flatliner, Nass,” Josh said coldly. “If you were, you'd realize we're already at war.”

Josh's eyes were locked onto Nass's, and Nass wouldn't let himself look away.

“Okay,” Nass said. “Let's vote.”

“All in favor of me?” Josh said.

Beet raised his hand. “Sorry, Nass, but Josh is right,” he said. “We gotta get revenge—for Emory.”

Josh's hand was already up. All eyes drifted to Benji.

“Benji, think of Emory,” Josh said.

“Think of Raphael,” Nass countered. “If we don't work together to get Zhai's shards, we'll never get him back.”

“We don't know that,” Josh said.

Benji drummed his fingers on the table. “Well . . . I think we should try to work with Zhai to get Raph back,” he said slowly, and then gave Nass an apologetic glance. “But Josh has been a Flatliner longer than you. He has seniority. Plus, we gotta stand up to Rick. Sorry, Nass.” And Benji raised his hand.

“Three to one,” Josh said. “I win.”

Nass stood up from the table, his shoulders slumped, too frustrated to sit anymore. It was like everything was unraveling around him. He knew going into the meeting that tempers were flaring and it might be tough to keep the peace, but he never thought it would turn out like this.

With Nass on his feet, the rest of the guys rose, too, sensing that the meeting was over. They stood next to the table in a loose circle.

“Congrats, man,” Nass said. “I hope you'll be the wise leader these guys deserve, and I'll follow you, too. To the death, just like the Wu-de says. But I'm telling you, a war with the Toppers right now won't help Emory recover, and it won't help get Raphael back, either.”

“No. It'll get us back our honor and our pride,” Josh said. “It'll allow us to walk around town without having to look over our shoulders and without having to worry about our brothers and our sisters and our friends. Maybe if you had to worry about your family's safety you'd get it. Except, oh yeah—Clarisse is hooking up with Rick, isn't she? She's safe.”

At this revelation, Nass looked stunned. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“Yeah, that's right,” Josh said. “Beet and Benji saw them parked down by Make-Out Lake—as if you didn't know.”

“I didn't,” said Nass.

“Anyway,” Josh went on, “you're best buddies with Zhai now. You're practically half Topper yourself.”

Finally, Nass couldn't take it anymore. He shoved Josh. Josh shoved him back, causing him to stumble backward and knock over a chair. Nass was just getting ready to lay into him again when he heard a shout from behind the bar.

“Hey!” It was Rudy, the owner of Rack 'Em—and he looked pissed off. “I ask one thing of you guys: no trouble in my place, then I come out and find you all acting like a bunch of animals? Get out.”

There was a heavy silence, and then the guys started trudging toward the door—Benji first, then Beet, then Josh. Nass was the last to go.

“Hey, look, we're really sorry,” he said.

“Come back next week—if you can act like human beings,” Rudy snapped. “Out.”

Outside, a fitful breeze met the Flatliners. The sky was full of wispy gray clouds that seemed on the verge of breaking up to a blue sky—but didn't. The Flatliners lingered on the wide front stoop of the bar for a moment, unsure of what to do. Josh was the first to depart, striking off across the parking lot alone.

Benji and Beet exchanged a couple of low words, and then Benji approached Nass. “You were right in there,” he said. “Raph would want us to work this out.” He dug into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out his ring shard, and handed it to Nass.

“I'll get you mine, too,” Beet promised. “Just don't tell Josh, all right? He's taking this whole Emory thing pretty hard.”

Nass gazed down at the shard in his hand, looking desperately for a spark or a glimmer—any hint that there was still some magic left in it—but there was nothing. It remained dead and gray.

“Later, Nass,” Beet said over his shoulder as he and Benji departed.

Nass stood alone for a long moment, gazing across the empty parking lot at the bare, brown skeletons of trees that bordered the abandoned railroad tracks, at the implacable emptiness of the sky, and then he too started walking. He passed an old Pepsi can and booted it as hard as he could, watching it clatter lamely across the blacktop—but it didn't make him feel any better. He walked all the way home as fast as he could, trying to use the motion and the exertion to burn off the anger and frustration he was feeling, all the while examining his problems in his mind, turning them over, twisting them around, groping for solutions that simply weren't there.

By time he was home, his foul mood was finally beginning to subside—until he reached the walkway leading up to his building and looked up. The first thing he saw was his chest of drawers sitting under a big, leafless maple tree. All the rest of his family's furniture was there too. His mother was pacing back and forth and shouting at his father in Spanish. His dad stood with one hand against the tree's trunk, leaning on it as if it were the only thing in the world that was keeping him from falling to the earth and never rising again. Clarisse was carrying a cardboard box from the porch of the building and putting it with a stack of other boxes, near the rest of the family's possessions.

Nass stared at the scene in utter disgust and disbelief. It seemed impossible that it could be real. All this time he'd never thought it would happen; he'd been certain something would save them. But now, his nightmare had come true. On top of everything else that had happened, his family was being evicted.

Chapter 9

Standing in the center of the tiled floor
in the largest of the three upstairs bathrooms in Orias Morrow's house, Aimee gazed into the full-length mirror. She wore only her bra and panties, and her hair was tied back from her face with a silk scarf. Her skin was smooth and radiant and, now that her hair was back to its natural blond, it was the perfect color for her deep blue eyes. The delicacies Orias constantly shipped in from all over the world—foie gras, white truffles, Alaskan king crab, Japanese Kobe beef, succulent blue lobster—had helped Aimee to regain the weight she'd lost while at boarding school, and her body was firm and beautifully toned. But she wasn't really looking at her appearance. She was looking at her technique.

Knees bent, hips tilted forward, arms relaxed yet firm, body erect, she went through the movements of the form, then began practicing her strikes over and over, counting silently with each one:
yut, yee, sarm, say, ng, look, chut, bart, gau, sap,
then again on the left side.
Yut, yee, sarm. . .
It didn't seem strange to her that she was counting in Chinese, nor did it trouble her that she couldn't remember who had first taught her the moves she was practicing. All she knew was that if she wanted to find her mother and bring her home, it was important to train each and every day.

Aside from this, she kept no other secrets from Orias. She had surrendered her will to him completely, the way a baby helplessly abandons himself to the protection of his mother's arms—except for this. Except for the one hour a day that she went into the bathroom, locked the door, and practiced her kung fu.

The strangest part was that when she was there practicing, locked in the bathroom alone, she sometimes felt a presence there with her, guiding her, correcting her, silently whispering encouragement, somewhere in the recesses of her mind. Today, the feeling was stronger than ever.

Keep your elbows in. Good. Feet parallel. Watch your centerline . . . very nice.

She didn't think much about who or what this presence might be. The truth was, she didn't think very hard about anything these days. She just drifted, slipping from moment to moment with the same effortless abandon with which she was now able to slip through space.

Actually, this thoughtless existence was an incredible relief. Sometimes, when Aimee remembered the person she'd been before Orias came into her life, she found that girl to be completely baffling. All the angst, the rebellion, the aching need for freedom, the thirst for truth—all those things seemed like such a waste of energy to her now. She had Orias, and he was wonderful. Her father and brother finally approved of her and maybe even loved her. She enjoyed her classes when Orias insisted that she go to school. And she looked forward to a day when she and Orias could be together completely, as husband and wife—as they had been the first time she'd teleported and had seen her future, ending up in that red tent, alone with him, on the top of the temple.

Just as she had surrendered her will to him, she would have been happy to surrender her body as well. When he kissed her and stroked her hair, when he looked into her eyes and held her close, she wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything else in her life. But Orias was careful. He let it go only so far and no further. She had his love and his respect, he told her, and he protected her as if she were made of spun glass, insisting that they wait until their wedding day. Even though she desired him, that was also a relief. And now there seemed to be nothing to be upset about, nothing to fear, nothing to hide.

Of course, she still needed to find her mother, but the urgency of the quest had dimmed. She knew where her mother was—in Middleburg, sometime in the 1800—as unbelievable as it seemed. Judging from the picture Aimee had found while helping Miss Pembrook, her history teacher, with some research, Emily Banfield was perfectly happy living back in the olden days, as if she belonged there. But Aimee missed her terribly and would go there and retrieve her just as soon as her teleportation skills had developed enough.

The only thing that troubled Aimee these days was her recurring nightmare about the angry man locked up in the tower that stood imposingly at the rear of Orias's house. In her dreams, the man was pounding on the door demanding to be released, and with each dream he got more frantic, more insistent, and more enraged—but she always woke up before she could see his face. When she told Orias, he assured her that it was nothing, just a bad dream and, comforted, she would fall asleep again in his arms. The nightmare was coming less frequently now, and so was that vague, unsettling feeling that haunted her almost constantly—the feeling that she'd lost someone very precious to her, someone besides her mother, someone she needed desperately, someone who had once meant the world to her—except that she couldn't quite remember who it was.

One by one, those troubles had also dissipated, until finally only this one quirk remained. Aimee loved the times that she spent locked in the bathroom, training with the invisible teacher who seemed to speak inside her mind . . .

Again. Yut, yee, sarm . . .

Suddenly, a pounding on the door jolted her from the focus her training required.

“Aimee, what's taking so long?” Orias demanded, clearly trying to contain his irritation.

“Be out in a minute,” she answered sweetly.

“We're going to be late, you know,” he said. “We're supposed to be at your house for dinner in fifteen minutes. Your father made it clear that it's very important.”

“Yeah, okay. I'm about to hop in the shower,” Aimee said.

For a moment he was silent and then, barely covering his exasperation, he said, “Fine. But please hurry. I'm not in the mood for a lecture from Jack.” Then, after a moment, she heard his footsteps retreating down the hall.

Aimee made eye contact with herself in the mirror and then performed one last ferocious kick. Her foot made a whistling sound as it shot through the air, and she froze there, balanced on one leg, her body stretched out parallel to the floor, her foot hovering inches away from the spot on the mirror where her face had been just seconds before. If her reflection had been an opponent, she could have smashed it, she thought with satisfaction.

Yes,
came the voice of her unknown teacher.
When the time comes, you will be ready.

She retracted her kick, stood up straight, and, placing the fist of one hand in the palm of the other, she bowed to her reflection.

“Doh je,”
she said quietly. She knew that was Cantonese for “thank you,” although she didn't know how she knew.

Orias was knocking on the door again. She was surprised. She hadn't heard his footsteps returning. “Aimee,” he said, his irritation growing.

“I'm hurrying,” she said pleasantly. She wiped the sweat from her brow with a washcloth and turned on the shower.

* * *

Dalton, her grandmother, and Zhai Shao were at Master Chin's bedside. Dalton didn't know Chin very well, but she knew that her friend Raphael had loved him dearly, and her grandmother had known him and thought highly of him for years. It broke her heart to see the old man suffering so much.

She and Zhai exchanged a glance as Lily Rose took the fresh poultice she and Dalton had prepared and moved to the head of the bed. The second she pulled the old poultice away, the fetid odor of disease filled the room, and Dalton was disturbed to see that the skin around the two puncture wounds in Master Chin's neck was gray and marbled with the dark, branching red lines of infected veins.

Zhai's eyes widened, too, when he saw the wound.

“Is he . . . ?” Zhai began, but he was interrupted by a loud moan that escaped his teacher's lips as he thrashed beneath the covers.

“He'll be all right,” Lily Rose said sternly. “If he stops doing harm to himself. He needs to lie still, but the pain from the venom is too much. Dalton, go around the other side of the bed and swab his brow with a cool, wet cloth.”

Dalton did as she was told, gently wiping the sweat from Chin's forehead. She could feel the heat of the fever beneath the cloth, and she could see his eyes snapping back and forth beneath their lids. As his body twitched, he spoke, his speech guttural and mumbled:
“Yut . . . yee . . . sarm . . . say . . . ng . . .”

“I think he's trying to tell us something,” Dalton said.

Zhai shook his head and squinted down at his teacher, perplexed. “It's Cantonese Chinese. He's . . . counting,” he said.

“Either way, what he needs is to rest,” Lily Rose said. “Go on home now, Zhai, and thanks for your help. Close the door behind you.”

Zhai started to leave, then hesitated in the doorway. “That Flatliner, Emory,” he said. “Do you think with your healing ability, maybe you could . . . ?”

Lily Rose shook her head sadly. “I already went to see that boy in the hospital,” she said, her voice a low, somber drawl. “There are some things I can fix, and some I can't.”

Zhai seemed to deflate a bit at this news, but he managed a smile and a little wave before exiting.

As soon as he was gone, Dalton felt her grandmother's unusual eyes settling on her. Those insistent, probing eyes were two different colors—one amber and one blue—and there was no mistaking their power and no arguing with their wisdom.

“What?” Dalton asked, a little defensively.

“You know what I'm going to say. Chin needs rest, Dalton,” Lily Rose said gently. “We've tried herbs. We've tried prayer. I can't make him get the rest he needs. Only you can do that. I need you to do it now.”

Dalton sighed heavily and sat down in the antique chair near the foot of the bed. She'd known this day was coming, ever since that first time, so many years ago, when she'd first opened up the copy of
The Good Book
her grandma had given her. She'd expected a little poem, a piece of folksy wisdom, or one of the mysterious axioms that her grandmother was always imparting to her. Instead, she had found a song.

It wasn't in the form of regular musical notation (even at the age of seven, she'd already been in the church choir for two years and had learned to read music). The page she was looking at was blank. She was stunned and delighted, however, when the book actually sang to her. She remembered looking for the switch that would turn it off and on, as if it were a toy, but there was none. It was just a book—but she heard the melody loud and clear. It was a simple melody, and as she hummed along with it, she thought it was perhaps the most beautiful music she'd ever heard. She hummed it again and then she had started to sing, making up words as she went. She was amazed that so simple and so exquisite a melody hadn't been discovered by a hundred songwriters over the years. It seemed to her like the perfect tune every composer throughout time had tried but failed to capture.

The next day when she'd gone to school, she'd heard the melody everywhere, and lyrics came easily to her mind to fit whatever the circumstances were. It wasn't just that the music was stuck in her head for days (although it certainly was). It was repeated everywhere—in the twitter of the birds, in the laughter of the other children as they played, in the wind and the rain and the leaves that skipped down the street in front of her grandmother's comfortable old house. Variations and harmonies of it came from the engine of the plane flying high above, from the insects that chirped and buzzed in the deep grasses outside of the playground, from the bass notes of a lawnmower grumbling in the distance. The footsteps of her scampering playmates formed the percussion and the gentle whisper of the wind through the trees played the strings.

That Sunday in church Dalton was to sing a solo, a gospel version of “How Great Thou Art.” But in the instant of anticipation before she began, when all those devout eyes were trained upon her, when the pianist's fingers hung suspended above the keys waiting for her to begin and the only sounds were the occasional cough and shuffle of the faithful, something within Dalton said,
Sing the other song.
And she had.

The result wasn't at all what she expected—although in truth, she hadn't known what to expect. During the first half of the thirty-second song, a radiant smile budded on each parishioner's face. By the time it was finished, their eyes had drifted closed, their necks had gone limp. When the last note faded from her throat, no one clapped or shouted amen. In fact, there was no movement, no reaction from the congregation at all. The only sound was a faint snore coming from a heavyset man named Mr. Barnes who sat in the back row of pews. Everyone, every last person in the church, had fallen asleep, except for herself and her grandma.

Little Dalton had stood there stunned, looking around with a rising sense of confusion, when one by one, the congregants began to wake up. Each of them was smiling, grinning broadly, as if they were bubbling over with so much joy that their mouths were simply powerless to contain it. They started clapping and one by one they got to their feet to give Dalton a standing ovation.