Luminous Part 17

"I do," Joseph said finally. "I give exactly one d.a.m.n." He glared again, rubbing the stud in his ear and fingering its smooth green stone. "Care to guess whose?"

Tender frowned and slipped a hand through hidden ooze and over the hilt.

"Are you threatening me, Red Man?"

He said only, "I am Joseph Crow."

It was not a correction, or another veiled threat; it was as if the bare-chested man were summoning courage or something bigger. More. Tender drew out his pitted sword and held it between him and the flames. Black sludge ran, secreting out the blade's pores to hiss, bubbling, onto the hot coals. The smell in the tent changed from white sage to sick.

Joseph held up two shriveled things on strings: shrunken claws-eagle talons-that he waved above the smoke. Raising his head, he tipped back his chin, nostrils flaring with a deep inhale. He pierced the black points through the scars on both b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

He screamed without surprise, a rictus of the familiar, a groan of endurance. Tender stepped back. The sharp nails fished around, jutting points of tented flesh. Meat hooks beneath the skin. They burst like bloodworms out of Joseph Crow's chest.

The wounds poured, bleeding freely. Joseph's eyes rolled back in his head as he swayed in pain, or ecstasy, or both.

As he leaned back, the thongs attaching pole to claws to skin pulled taut. Belt hooks of chest flesh yawned, but held him upright. Tender could see Joseph's black gums against his gnashing white teeth.

"I am Joseph Crow."

Each word pushed a fresh cough of blood onto his chest, streaming to slide under his belt and soak into his jeans. He spread his arms back as if he might fall; a spectral image superimposed itself, flaring out of the smoke. The slicked-back hair smoothed into a crest of feathers, his bear chest blending into stag legs. Hawk eyes blinked, cat-reflective, and huge black wings flapped for balance, whipping through the wan image of arms.

Wind and sparks and stinging ash beat at Tender, who shielded his eyes with one hand.

"I am Joseph Crow"-the creature's voice rolled like thunder-"and all that I am may oppose you here."

Tender blinked against the rain of debris. Bits of stone and dirt pelted the sword and stuck.

"Screw this," he muttered, and lowered his blade, sliding it back into its sheath and retreating from the totem knight.

Tender blew through the hide walls as if they were mist, wondering whether he was as afraid or if he'd just seen too many animals at once, like at the zoo.

He hated the zoo, what he remembered of it. No one ever knew how many bars there were on each cage, no one had even bothered to count. Animals behind bars, pacing, stinking . . . contained. Uncontrollable. Intolerable.

Tender knew all about cages.

He'd pa.s.sed through eight other outcrops in the Flow before he realized his mistake. "d.a.m.n," Tender muttered. Joseph Crow had seen the sword. Tender had left the job undone and he'd most likely be barred from Joseph's part of the Flow. It was only a matter of time before the freak job squealed to Sissy. He couldn't let that happen.

Fortunately, Joe would need time to recover. He wouldn't be able to get a message out until then. Tender had other alternatives for just such an occasion and he'd been saving one for a rainy day.

Tender smiled to himself. He was actually looking forward to this . . .

SHE looked better. One eye swollen, the other somewhere hidden, the Watcher stared resolutely at the computer screen, fingers flying over the keys. The cold blue light outlined Sissy's face, making her look more skeletal than Consuela usually did. After the initial fear at finding her bedroom empty, Consuela found Sissy in her dark office, working. Sissy had turned off the lights, plunging the wide bas.e.m.e.nt room into mourning.

"I'm back," Consuela whispered.

"I know," Sissy said. "You're safe?"

"I am."

"Good," she said with an ember of warmth. "Find anything?"

The question was an uncomfortable one. What could she say?

"Maybe," Consuela admitted. "No hints as to what happened, but V and I noticed that Killian's family had gone."

Sissy stopped typing and spoke into her shoulder without turning around.

"Why did you go to the O'Sheas'?" she asked.

Consuela slid into her usual chair, trying to catch Sissy's one eye. They said nothing about what had happened between them; it was as if the incident hadn't happened at all and was verboten to speak of now. That hurt and Consuela moved around it uncomfortably.

"It was the last place I'd seen the Yad," she said uneasily. "I thought, maybe, there'd be . . . I don't know. Something." All her words were suddenly awkward, fragile. "The O'Sheas are moving."

"Correction," said Sissy. "Killian is moving. His parents both mysteriously died in their sleep. The police suspect carbon monoxide poisoning, but that wouldn't account for little Killian being found safe and sound the next morning. There's going to be an insurance investigation." She sounded quivery and tired, the afterburn of grief. "I doubt they're going to find that there was a protective ward drawn around his crib." She swept her flawless hair back from her cheek; it had dried in enviable, sculpted curls. "He's going to live with his legal guardians and I'll have to track him down again. Without the Yad's wards . . ." A sniffle threatened to stutter her sentence, but she got it under control. "Killian's vulnerable and Yehudah knew it."

Consuela nodded. "I saw the note. Why one hundred twenty-six? "

"Seven times eighteen," Sissy said automatically. "A lot of his power was based on Hebraic numerology. It's not unusual; Abacus works on similar principles, although Chang's specialty is crunching numbers to calculate probability." Consuela squirmed. Unaware, Sissy continued to find comfort in talking, her words growing rapid as her single eye burned. "He can triangulate our a.s.signments back in the real world-mathematically predict events and outcomes-all by finding the inherent significance of numbers. Yehudah said everything has a sum since every letter in Hebrew has its own numeric value." She paused, then recited: "Know the name, know its number, know the thing."

Sissy watched her own fingers tap the keys as if they were separate, living things. "The word for 'life' in Hebrew is chai," she said. "The two letters that spell it are numbers eight and ten. Eight plus ten is eighteen. Eighteen equals 'life.'" Sissy made an effort to look Consuela squarely in the face. "I'm eighteen. Doing one hundred and twenty six separate wards would increase the protective life force by a sacred number. The Yad figured that it would make Killian's room impenetrable from harm." She sounded defeated.

"Even from carbon monoxide poisoning," Consuela said. "It saved the boy's life."

"But not his own." Sissy's face grew hard again, the harsh light carving deep, ugly lines by her mouth. "Yehudah suspected something. That's why he went to increase the wards." She swiveled her seat back and forth. "Maybe something that was meant for Killian got his parents instead?" she mused. "Maybe it got Yehudah or maybe it's been after us all along."

Consuela fidgeted in her chair. Should she tell Sissy about Tender? What could she say? V was right-without proof, accusing Tender would just add paranoia. If he was trying to get rid of them, one by one, why did he try to get Consuela to leave voluntarily? Was Tender really capable of killing people? She didn't think so. She was caught in silent dread.

Sissy picked up her phone and slammed it down. "I wish Abacus would answer already," she said. "I'm worried . . ." She let the rest drift off, unspoken. Consuela knew what she was thinking; she herself had been thinking the same thing. What if Abacus couldn't answer?

Sissy yawned and knuckled her empty socket. "Oh G.o.d, I've got to collapse," she said. "I just don't want to dream."

Consuela gave her shoulder a small squeeze.

"Don't drink," she said. "At least, don't drink alone." Consuela tried to inject a little humor as she headed for the door. "I'll be back soon and we can play angels again."

Sissy watched her go. "You'd better."

Consuela nodded and closed the door.

THERE was a knock on the inside of her bathroom.

"May I come in?"

It was V. Consuela looked up from the mess on her floor. "Sure."

He walked over to Consuela, who was hunched over a pile of papers, books, pens, pins, paper clips, binders, notebooks, mugs, stray photos, bookmarks, string, and loose gadgets. She was inspecting a screwdriver.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Consuela put the tool down. "Trying to figure out what's the one thing I have that can cross over," she said. "It was one of the last things the Yad told me about, and I thought that I should at least know what mine was." She played with the topaz cross on its chain. She'd hoped that the necklace would have been the key-somehow linking her back to her world, her parents-but so far, nothing. She let it fall against her skin. It felt like her last, desperate attempt to go back was slipping through her fingers.

"Can you take me home?" she whispered.

V sighed. "If I could, right this moment, I would. You know I would."

She stared at the screwdriver. "I told Sissy about the O'Sheas, but she already knew. Now she thinks that something was after Killian and got the parents or the Yad instead." Consuela shook her head sadly. "I didn't know what to say."

V nodded. "I understand," he said as he settled himself onto her pink carpet, fiddling with a red paper clip. "I had an interesting conversation with Joseph Crow," he said darkly. The metallic hum trilled, * Eerie/Ominous/ Saying nothing *, while his true voice continued, "I can't find Wish. Sissy couldn't find Maddy. Abacus is out somewhere," he said, nodding to her. "The Watcher's a wreck and Nikki . . ." V cast his eyes to the ceiling. She heard it before he said it.

* Nikki's dead. *

"Nikki's dead," he said, taking the screwdriver from her hand. "But you're safe," he concluded, his accompaniment adding, * There's still time. *

Consuela was too aware of his fingers on hers. Was it alarm or excitement that made her heart jump? It didn't mean anything! She swore he could see the pulse beating in her wrist. When had she become such a vulnerable, fleshy thing?

He tugged her to stand. "Come on," he said. "I came to show you something and I wanted to see what you think."

"Why me?" Consuela asked.

V grimaced. "Because you seem pretty smart until you say dumb things like that," he retorted.

Her voice flatlined. "'Excuse me?"

"Please tell me you're not one of those girls who thinks they're stupid or pretends to be so just they can hear compliments all day long," he shot back.

Consuela arched her eyebrows, taking back her hand. "Issues much?" she said.

V let go, surprised. "Sorry," he said. "Pet peeve. I have four sisters and they all play dumb. It isn't cute." She rubbed her wrist where he had touched it.

He had the grace to look ashamed, then glanced over his wide shoulder at her. "You have any brothers or sisters?" he asked.

"Nope," Consuela said, sliding her cross on its chain. "Just my mom, dad, and me."

"Well, you're lucky," he said roughly. "At least there's not as many to miss."

He stopped in front of her full-length mirror and offered his hand, which she took with a boldness that was becoming familiar. "Now keep in contact," he advised. "Don't let go."

And with that, he stepped them through the mirror and beyond.

She'd hoped to see what was in the rumored Mirror Realm, but stumbled, surprised, into a blindingly bright hall with hardly a gasp in between.

They'd exited on the flip side of a large looking gla.s.s that had been left propped by a metal door. The floor was anonymous linoleum tile. The door was industrial-grade with a little gla.s.s window, crisscrossed with wire. Consuela peered through it, seeing nothing but white.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I think it's Tender's," V said quietly. "Tender's place in the Flow." They exchanged looks. Consuela opened the door.

Instead of a room, there was a vacuum cloud-a formless, white nothingness and a chair. It was a cheap chair, metal-framed and plastic-cushioned, the exact bruised-red-orange color of summer tomatoes. The seat was scuffed a little with a slight tear on one corner; a few plastic threads stuck out of an L-shaped hole. Consuela nudged it; it moved easily even though she had the impression that it should have been bolted to the floor.

V circled it warily, trying to make out anything in the eerie dreamscape.

"This is weird," he muttered in his low ba.s.s.

* Unusual. * Creepy. * the violins trilled.

"Really?" Consuela said. "It doesn't seem much weirder than Abacus's place."

"That's different," V said. "Abacus made it that way once he was here; 'the power of possibility,' he called it. He was always a little out there. But when we first come over, the scene freezes in exactly the same way as we left it, down to the dust. I don't see how anything could be like this in the real world."

"Maybe he made this?" Consuela frowned again, thinking of chairs. "He feeds on the Flow," she said. "And he can make things appear."

"He eats," V said, still searching. "And he makes illusions. This is real." He knocked the chair. "Or, as real as it ever was, which is why this doesn't make sense."

She paused, not wanting to argue, but she kept thinking about Quantum-Abacus had made something real out of the Flow. And Tender worked closely with Abacus. If Tender could make something real, what might it be?

V crossed his arms in frustration. "It's not even like a fog machine," he complained, and waved his hand through the air, but nothing swirled or moved. "See?" V kept his hands out like feelers. "But it still smells like him-feels like him-traces of it, anyway. Can you sense it?"

Consuela tried to. "No. Sorry." She stood in front of the chair again, the one solid thing in the vaporous room. She stroked the frame, aluminum and cool.

"There's only one thing for it," she said simply. "We'll have to try it out." Consuela gestured to V. "You want to?"

* No. *

"Do you?" * Bones. * Both voices were terrified.

She gathered the strength from her mother-of-pearl soul.

"I guess I will," she said, and before she could hesitate, sat.

* DON'T! *

The last thread of electric warning hung in the air.

Consuela waited, but she only sat in a slightly creaky, uncomfortable chair surrounded by nothing in all directions. She blinked up at V.

"Oh well," she said. "I guess that was pointless."

* Daring. * Brave. *

The correction hung between them. She inspected her cuticles in order not to betray that she kept overhearing his innermost thoughts. He found her brave. That was something. Consuela tried a smile, but his next unsung word stopped her.

* Beautiful, * he all but said.

She froze, thoughts reeling. How could someone like V find me beautiful? Okay, maybe as Bones . . . She wouldn't deny that in her Flow form she was amazing-even Tender thought so-but now? Like this? V was something from a magazine ad, someone for tweens to fawn over at a comfortable, glossy distance.

But she couldn't correct him without admitting what she'd heard. And, knowing that it was his secret voice, what he said was irrefutably true.

Her heart beat thick in her throat. Was it really him or just a compulsion of the Flow? Did he even know what he was feeling? Thinking? Did she?