The Dragon's Tooth Part 16

Antigone smirked. "That's you, Cy. Mr. Graceful. Now stand up."

From his back, Cyrus looked around. They were in a hall. The walls were white stone, the floor was covered with oddly interlacing glistening white tiles, and frosted skylights in the white ceiling were glowing orange with the evening light. White doors with white gla.s.s windows and black numbers lined both walls. Cyrus sat up. Voices trickled down the hallway around them.

"Nolan," he whispered. "You coming up?"

Nolan's face appeared in the hole. "No. I wait here." He sc.r.a.ped the grate closed behind them. "Good luck."

Antigone stood and grabbed Cyrus by the hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Where do we start?" Cyrus whispered.

His sister stepped to the closest door, cracked it open, and stuck her head inside. "n.o.body. You do that side, and we'll work our way down."

Cyrus glanced back down the hall. "I'm not sure about this. We're going to get in trouble."

"Do you care?" Antigone asked.

Cyrus shrugged. "Not really. What can they do?" He opened his first door and peered in. The room was small and, not surprisingly, almost entirely white. A kid with a broken leg suspended from the ceiling was eating noodles and beef off a tray. He looked up.

"Sorry," said Cyrus. "Enjoy your dinner."

"Wait!" The boy bounced in place, nearly toppling his tray. "Hold on. Talk to me. I've been stuck in here for a week, and all sorts of things have been happening. Nothing ever happens around here, but now it is, and no one will talk to me. But you will, right? Tell me what's going on."

Cyrus pulled back, checking the hall. Antigone was apologizing to someone and shutting a door quickly. He stuck his head back into the room. "Tell you what?"

"I heard the nurses talking about Billy Bones. My mom used to tell me he wasn't even real. Was he really murdered? Did Greeves really have his corpse in the Galleria? Did you see him?"

Cyrus nodded.

"Was his whole skeleton tattooed onto his body? Even his face?"

"Yeah," Cyrus said. "But not his face."

The boy nodded, processing this. "And his 'Lytes? Were they tattooed?"

"No." Cyrus smiled. "Not that I know."

"Oh." The boy was disappointed, but not for long. "I can't believe they came at all. Can you imagine? Not me. I'd stay away. And they're Smiths, too. I heard that much, but I wish I knew more about them. Have they killed people? They have to be crazy. And with an ancestor in the Burials, too? It would freak me out. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night." Suddenly, his eyes widened. "Are they with the other Acolytes? Where do they sleep?"

"Down in the Polygon," Cyrus said. "With the Whip Spiders. I really have to go. Good luck with the leg."

"Wait! The Polygon? Is that real, too? I never know what to believe around here. Whip Spiders?"

Cyrus smiled again. Being notorious could work. He winked at the kid in the bed. "You'll meet them soon enough."

"Cyrus Lawrence Smith!" A cold hand clamped onto Cyrus's ear, twisting his head around and forcing his skull against the doorjamb. Mrs. Eldridge's face leaned in close to his, her breath more dill than pickles. He grabbed at her wrist, at the hand twisting his ear, but he couldn't fight it. She bent him lower. "What do you think you're doing here?" she asked quietly. "Where's your sister?"

Cyrus's eyes rolled around the hall. Had Tigs left him? "You're tearing my ear off. Let go!" He bit his lip. His eyes were watering with pain. He tried to find her legs with his feet.

"Smith?" The boy's voice was almost a squeak. "He's one of them? He could have killed me. What does he want?"

Ignoring the kid, Mrs. Eldridge released Cyrus into the hall and shut the door.

Breathing hard, Cyrus ma.s.saged his ear and examined his fingers for blood. How could his ear not be bleeding? How was it still attached?

Mrs. Eldridge crossed her arms, examining him.

"You're nuts," Cyrus said. "Did you have to do that?"

"Boys need hard lines," said Mrs. Eldridge. "Sneaking into the hospital." She shook her head. "The Polygon's not rough enough for you already? If I'm to be responsible for you around here, I'll do what needs done to keep that empty head on your shoulders. Where's Antigone? I always thought you were the dimmest Smith bulb, but you never know with families."

Near the end of the hall, behind Mrs. Eldridge, a door cracked open. "Cyrus!" Antigone whispered. "Get in here! He doesn't look good."

Mrs. Eldridge smacked her lips. "Well, I have my answer then, don't I?" She turned around. "Miss Antigone!"

The door widened, and Cyrus watched his shocked sister step out into the hall.

"Mrs. E?" Antigone asked. Cyrus blinked. His sister sounded relieved to see the woman who'd just tried to souvenir his ear. "Horace doesn't look good. He's gray and barely breathing and hooked up to all sorts of stuff."

Mrs. Eldridge, arms crossed and angry, deflated a little. "I know, doll. I know. He doesn't look good 'cause he isn't. He's the opposite of good. They put all new blood in him twice over-that bullet was a big one, and it spread out and splattered. Now come on. Let's get you two out of here and back to where you belong. I know what I said, and I know what I swore, and if it were up to me, I think I'd shut you two out and stick to it. But with Skelton dead and Horace dying, Rupert didn't give me a choice. I'm your Keeper now, and that's that." She glared at Cyrus. "And you'll be doing as I say, starting now. In the morning, we'll get you proper clothes of your own and get you working. You two have got an impossible lot to learn."

"Yes, ma'am," Antigone said.

"Just tell me how you like your waffles," Cyrus muttered.

eleven.

BED.

WHEN MRS. ELDRIDGE finally rereleased Cyrus and Antigone into the Polygon-she actually stood at the top of the dank stairwell, tsking them all the way down-and the two of them had made their cautious way across the network of planks, through the corked gap in the showers, and through the hole, they found Nolan tucked awkwardly onto a stone bed. His teeth were chattering, his shirt was off, and sweat dripped from swollen mountain ranges of Whip Spider welts. His right arm was twice as thick as his left, and his neck had expanded out past his jaw.

Wheezing, Nolan opened his eyes. "I'm fine," he whispered. "Happened too many times to count. Need to sleep."

Antigone looked at her brother. "We should call someone."

"No." Nolan shook his head, and then managed to point to a thick envelope on the floor. "Was on the door. For you." He squeezed his eyes shut.

"What now?" Cyrus asked, watching Nolan breathe.

Antigone picked up the envelope, ripped it open, and sat down on one of the other stone beds.

Cyrus watched his sister pull out the three defaced photos he'd found in Skelton's camper. Then she tugged out a rectangle of misshapen gla.s.s. His beetle.

"Ow!" Shaking her fingers, she dropped the gla.s.s, kicked it off her foot, and sent it tumbling across the carpet. A small note fluttered out of the envelope and settled on the floor.

"It shocked me," Antigone said, popping her fingers into her mouth. "Who's it from?"

Looking back at Nolan, Cyrus pinched the gla.s.s and dropped it into his pocket before he picked up the note. " 'U left these in the car. Creeps. Made it back. Couple st.i.tches but fine. Heard about you. Sorry. Horace is deliryous. Check in later. Gunner.' " Cyrus looked up. "I'm glad he made it. I wonder what he heard about us."

Antigone laughed. "Maybe that we got stuck in the Polygon. Tomorrow I absolutely need a toothbrush. And a hairbrush." She looked around the room. "And a mirror. And someone who can tell us what's going on with Dan." She shivered, pulling her knees up to her chest. Her eyes settled on Nolan's dripping face. "I really don't want to sleep in here, and I feel like I'm going to cry."

"Well, don't," said Cyrus. "Think of me. How much worse would it be for me if you were crying?"

"It's not like I'm planning on crying. It's just that, well, here we are. And Mrs. Eldridge is the only person we know, and it's not like she's excited to help us. Dan's gone and we don't know if anyone is doing anything about it. Mom's back at the hospital-when will we get another Mom day? Are we even allowed to leave? And we're sleeping in a room with a boy we just met who looks like he's dying, and there are Whip Spiders, and the motel is burned, and who knows what's going to happen tomorrow? This place was supposed to help us." She scrunched her face.

"I think you are planning on crying," said Cyrus. "It's like you're trying to talk yourself into it."

"Dork."

"Girl."

"Oh, shut up." Antigone raised her head. "If you think making me mad is going to keep me from crying, you're dumber than I thought, and you haven't been paying any attention to girls for pretty much your entire life."

"Just trying to make you laugh."

Antigone dropped her forehead onto her arms. "I don't want to laugh right now, Cy. I can't. Honestly, this has been the most traumatic forty-eight hours of my life. Tell me that's not true."

Cyrus pulled in a long, slow breath, and his mind jumped back in time-he couldn't stop it-and an old ache, forever fresh, broke out of its cage inside him. His lungs compressed, his heart tightened, and his ears began to ring. In a shattered second, the temperature of his soul had dropped ten degrees.

"Tigs," he said, breathing carefully. "That's not true."

Nolan sputtered. The grandfather clock on its lumber stilts tocked. The lights of the Polygon buzzed. The little refrigerator hummed. Together, Cyrus and Antigone were far away.

Antigone lifted her head. "You're right," she said. "This is nothing like as awful as that." She sniffed. "This is just another part of that."

The two of them sat, seeing and hearing invisible things, sharing silence.

"I miss Dan," Antigone said.

Cyrus nodded. He missed too many things. His mom's smile. Her laugh. The blackness of her hair. His father's heavy hands and thigh-thick arms that had so easily popped his ten-year-old ribs. The smell of his wind-salted skin.

Dan. Their mother might never look in Cyrus's eyes again, and his father's smile was at the bottom of the sea, but Dan would be back. He had to be. Dan gone for good would be too much. More pressure than Cyrus's lungs could fight.

He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to care. Caring hurt. But not caring would be worse. And then his mind arrived where it always did when the deep ache got out of its cage. Death was real. It was waiting. For him and for everyone he loved and needed. In the end-in one year or in ninety-he would be alone in a cold box, silent, breathless, bloodless, listening to the slow groping of tree roots.

Stupid. He shook his head, wishing he could dig the thoughts out of his ears with his little fingers. He wondered if Antigone thought the same way he did, but he wasn't about to ask. Not ever. She cried, but she always ended with a smile. If she thought things would get better, he should keep his own sour thoughts to himself. He could put the ache back on its leash and drag it behind the old bars. He could renumb the raw, if only for a while.

Across the little room, Antigone sniffed and wiped her eyes. And she smiled.

"We'll get Dan back," she said. "Somehow."

Tight-lipped, Cyrus returned her smile. And then out in the Polygon, the door squealed open and heavy feet found the planks.

"Sir," a girl whispered. "I'd really rather not."

"Fine," a man said. The voice was Rupert's. "Just give them to me and go." The door closed. "h.e.l.lo? Anyone here?"

Cyrus looked at his sister. She shrugged. "All the way back!" he yelled.

When Rupert Greeves ducked beneath the showers, his arms were stacked with folded blankets and towels, capped with three bulbous pillows. He stopped at the hole and leaned in.

"May I?" he asked Antigone.

She nodded.

He stepped inside, filling what was left of the small yellow s.p.a.ce. He was wearing a loose linen shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The neck was unb.u.t.toned low enough that a cl.u.s.ter of bulging old scars were visible on his dark chest. His brows flickered when he saw Nolan, but he focused on Cyrus and Antigone. "I brought you some things, though I see you've found some for yourselves already. Your deposit is listed as paid, but the maid service didn't want to come down. So here I am. Special delivery." He set the pile on the floor.

Antigone smiled. "Thanks."

Cyrus said nothing.

The big man eyed him, scratched his pointed beard, and then twisted his head, looking at the skull-inked photos still dangling from Antigone's fingers.

"Cy found these in Skelton's truck," she said. "Pretty sick. Take them."

Antigone handed over the pictures and watched Greeves thumb through them. He focused on each image without any reaction and then fanned all three out. Cyrus stared at the calloused and battered hands holding the photos. One of Rupert's fingernails was black with old blood.

"There were more," Cyrus said. "Other people. I only took those three."

Rupert nodded. "Unpleasant. I'll have someone collect the others."

"Unpleasant?" Cyrus snorted. "I don't know. I love having a picture of my mom with a skull drawn on her face. And the one of Dan bleeding has a nice note on the back, too."

Antigone slid to her feet. "Ignore him," she said. "It's been a rough day."

"Rough?" Cyrus asked. He wanted to be angry at Greeves, at someone, but he didn't feel up to the effort. He sighed. "That's one way to put it."

Antigone collected herself. "I have a question. Two, if that's all right. Maybe three."

"Maybe twelve," Cyrus muttered.

"Ask," said Rupert. His eyes were on Cyrus. His accented voice had grown an edge.

Antigone looked at Nolan. "You think he's going to be okay?"

Rupert nodded. "Yes. Nolan is always okay."

"Dan," Cyrus said. He had to keep his voice calm. "What are you doing to find our brother? What's happening? Where is he? What do you know?"

The big man straightened, his head nearly grazing the ceiling. "I'm sorry I don't have better news," he said. "Maxi sent him to Phoenix, his handler. They used a small gra.s.s airstrip not far from your motel, and I have a description of their plane. But where Phoenix is right now, I cannot say. In the last ten years, I have flushed him out of dens in Paris, Miami, and Quebec. I've even put a bullet in him. He's not immortal-nor even transmortaled, I suspect-but he has some vile charm about him. Tonight, I have people and"-he paused, rubbing his jaw-"things searching for where he might be. In a few hours, I will be joining them." He raised his eyebrows, turning from Cyrus to Antigone. "What might Daniel have that Phoenix wants? Does he have any particular gifts, strengths, abilities?"