Betwixt (24 page)

Ondine had to turn away. She was in the middle of a nest of madness, without a way home. She was shaking and weak, but most
of all, she needed to regain control over her own mind. An image of her father dropped into her head.
Look for the strings, Ondine. There are always strings. What was the girl on the stage wearing? Was there a girdle? A shoulder
strap?
She flipped through her memory of the time before the lightning struck, when she had been so out of it. Yes, there had been
a thick belt around the Flame dancer’s middle.
That’s right,
she heard her father say.
Things are as they seem.

Ondine Mason had been raised by a scientist and an architect. One showed her the foundations of things: the beams and pulleys
and flying buttresses that erected and supported wonder; the other taught her about truth.

She shivered and pulled her red scarf closer around her ears.
Fuck it.
She didn’t need to analyze these people. What she needed to do was find Nix, get the keys, and get the hell out of there.
She wished she had her jeans on. Her eyes darted to Moth again. He was touching his face, which wore an expression of controlled
surprise, though she was too far away to tell why. She wondered what was going on between him and that lady. Probably sleeping
with her, Ondine thought grimly. Was there a cult in existence that didn’t have an “initiation”?

Things are as they seem
.

The thought, repeated now as she pulled herself off of the ground, gave her confidence, and a mission. She could see how kids
got sucked in here. They were all — she could only come up with a string of adjectives — glassy, removed, otherworldly, drugged,
beautiful. Yes, they had seemed beautiful. That was the dust. Beauty was seductive; Ondine knew that. So she repeated the
mantra to herself —
Things are as they seem
— as she walked toward Moth and the woman. She needed to find Nix, get her keys. She needed to drive home and figure out
what to do next. She needed to call the police and bust Moth’s ass for everything he’d been doing over the last month. She
was underage
and he had procured alcohol for them. He had taken her to a place where there were drugs. Someone had died. Ondine didn’t
care who else she brought down. All she wanted was for all of the weirdness to end, and for things to go back to the way they
were the day the Masons pulled out of their driveway.

T
IM
B
LEEKER WAS NOW STOOPING OVER
, administering a few more shakes of dust to a nearly asleep Neve. If Nix were crazy, he’d do what came naturally. What came
naturally was to get Neve — little wayward Neve, his best friend’s girlfriend, his old boss’s daughter — home.

He was glad he hadn’t thought much, because as soon as he stepped out of the bank of trees, Bleek turned and came at him,
a knife drawn, as if he were expected. Neve, freed from his grasp, weaved, stumbled, and fell to the darkened ground.

“Well, fancy meeting you here,” Bleek sneered. He flicked his knife back and forth in his hand.

“You.” Nix didn’t know what else to say. Everything had gotten so strange; actions sped up, fast-forwarded. He barely had
time to register the thin curving blade before he jumped out of the way. He felt light, and noticed nothing about what was
around him except for that shining blade in Bleek’s hand, the lattice of silvery green and black behind him, and the dark
moonlit sky. Nix moved his fingers and they trailed through the air as if through oil, as if he could feel every molecule
of oxygen. How very odd, he managed to think before Bleek lunged again. The knife parted the air to Nix’s side.

Everything — the air, the knife, himself, even Bleek — was made of the same substance. Equally solid and weightless, equally
light and dark.

“So now you know.” Bleek punctuated his words with a scowl and a bullying parry. He cut near Nix’s face, close enough for
him to feel the heat of his opponent’s hand near his cheek. Bleek snickered, still lunging, but slicing around Nix, almost
as if he were trying to miss him.

“Now you know the story. The tale. Yes, Dorothy, there are good witches. And bad ones. And ones who are fucked up.” Bleek’s
upper lip was pulled back in a tight grin, revealing a row of glistening sharp teeth, like a rickety fence. “And it’s just
like the real world. Some of us are liked, some aren’t. Some of us get the girls —”

Nix let his eyes flick to Neve, struggling to push herself up, her small hands, heavily ringed, grasping the ground. He looked
back at Bleek.

“And some don’t. Ha!” The older boy lunged, and Nix, taken off guard, leaned back. He felt supple, and he found his head near
the ground, his feet still planted. Had he just done a back bend?

“That’s some Matrix shit you got going there, boy.” Bleek laughed and just as quickly, pulled in the long slender knife and
lodged it inside his jacket. Nix, steadier now, waited for Bleek’s next move. He could hear his own breathing, and Neve’s
next to him, and Bleek’s. Bleek’s was the tiniest bit labored.

“Let me fill you in on a little secret, Nixy. Maybe you weren’t listening when the boss bitch of the silly fay did her welcome-wagon
speech, but you don’t need to waste your energy jumping away from me.” He tapped the knife hidden in his jacket. “I don’t
want to kill you, dumb-ass. In fact, I’d like to be friends. Or did you miss that part?” He advanced, stepping so quickly
that Nix found himself jumping back again. He could smell Bleek’s breath. Liver and onions. He sidestepped to where Neve sat
on the ground, and he crouched, trying to look at her.

“I don’t know why I’m reminding you of this. Maybe because I see a little of myself in you.” Bleek laughed. “Something around
the chin. A certain weakness.” Then he stopped and his face got serious. “Get up.”

Bleek was addressing Neve, but his words had none of the sycophantic cloying Nix had heard earlier on the path. Neve stirred,
but not quickly enough. Bleek kicked her, a brown Timberland nudging the space where her shirt met her low-rider jeans. She
toppled again.

“Look how pathetic she is.” Bleek snorted and smiled.
“Dumb, dumb animal. Stupid bag o’ bones.” He looked up at Nix. “Look. I know you’ve come for her, and since I’m not going
to do anything to stop you, you might as well take her. She’s a dumb bitch anyway.” He paused, grinning. “But she’s mine.
Badapba.
” He nudged her harder. Another half-moon of dirt darkened her white baby tee. “Aren’t you, pet?”

Neve said nothing. Nix, crouching, kept still. Obviously he had missed something.

He tried to breathe without outwardly moving, then spoke softly. “Come on, Neve. Let’s go home.” He grasped her under her
moist armpits and raised her up, ignoring Bleek’s sixth-grade snickering.

“Nix has a crush!”

He balanced Neve, trying to look into her eyes to see what condition her mind was in. They were half closed. Her head bobbed
like a junkie crashing in a bus stop, but her legs were clearly trying to stand. He put an arm under her shoulder and stared
at Bleek, who stood square in the middle of the pathway.

“Move,” Nix said. Anything louder than a whisper and his voice would have felt unused, husky.

Bleek, smiling again, shrugged.

“Why should I?”

Nix considered the question. Then Bleek did something strange. He blew. Like blowing out a candle. A gust of hot, oily
air rushed at Nix and he could smell its rottenness. Neve’s hair blew back.

A strange challenge, but Nix’s mind was taken up with an object coming from the sky. What was it? Coal black, a scribble,
beating, attended by a dark, cold wind. Then, faster than he could even think its name, a bird — a crow — looped from nowhere,
aiming for Bleek’s head. Its claws were black and sharp as barbed wire. Its wings, six feet across. It scratched at Bleek’s
shoulders, his cowed face, and he shriveled in front of Nix, yelling “No!” until he was just a tiny ball, head buried in his
knees.

Nix heard himself speak. “I said move.”

He held Neve while Bleek, shielding his face, crawled to the shelter of a low bush. The crow retreated. Nix stared at the
space where it had been for a moment, wondering what Bleek knew about him that he did not. How long had Bleek been feeding
him dust to keep him quiet? He felt in Ralph Mason’s jacket pocket for what was left of the supply he’d gotten from Moth that
afternoon weeks ago, and tossed it into the forest. He picked up Neve — he had never held her before, or at least not like
this — and noticed how light she was. Were all girls this light? Or was it just her?

“Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s get you home.”

O
NDINE STRODE TOWARD
V
IV AND
M
OTH
, looking neither right nor left. Her stomach spasmed. She desperately wanted to be home.

Things are as they seem, Ondine.
She put one foot in front of the other.

James Motherwell smiled as she approached. His smugness disgusted her, but the anger made her stronger. She set her jaw and
stopped a few paces away, not looking at the woman in the black coat. She did not want to be too close.

“Where’s Nix.” Command, not question. Ondine could feel her teeth baring, her skin stretched tight across her neck.

Moth tilted his head and grinned sheepishly. He stepped toward her then checked himself, as if he knew she would stop him.
The lid of his right eye trembled. It seemed so obvious; she wondered why she had never seen it before: his fear. How he always
put his hands in his pockets when he was nervous. How they bent outward at the wrists, like a boy’s. She noticed his shallow
breathing and the fact that beneath his narrow black jeans his knees were locked. She looked again. His smile was big and
white and charming and dimpled. It telegraphed kindness and sympathy — and worst of all, understanding. It revolted her.

“Hey, Ondine,” Moth beckoned quietly. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Where is Nix?” Desperation tinged her voice. She steeled
herself, trying to fight it, and failed. “Look, just tell me. Please. I just want to go home.”

It hadn’t occurred to her until then that she could be in any real danger. What had happened to the blond boy, despite her
outrage, she had construed as a strange cult ritual gone wrong. The woman at its helm, more dangerous in her misguidedness
than in her person. And Moth had never struck her as particularly violent, just narcissistic and crass. But now she felt her
heart surge and a diffuse, sweaty heat prick the palms of her hands. Ondine was alone. The few strangers around were just
that — strangers. She felt unprotected and small.

“I want to go home.” Her voice emerged a clenched squeak. “Now.”

Moth shook his head and reached out to her, but she flexed her hand and he backed off.

“Listen, Ondine. I don’t know where Nix is right now.” He looked at the older woman as if to know he was doing the right thing.
“I know this is all —”

Her words crashed out.

“No, Moth, you don’t know. You and I are strangers. And after I find Nix and get the hell out of this Hansel and Gretel dust-coated
candy house you’ve brought me to, I don’t ever want to see you again. Unless it’s in court, when I have your ass arrested
for harassment and endangerment. This is bullshit. You and everyone here. I’m a minor. And you …” She took a step
toward him, emboldened by her words. “And you are going to make some murderous maximum-security ape who makes Jeffrey Dahmer
look like the Dalai Lama very happy when I get you locked up.”

She took a breath and was about to turn and head into the forest to look for Nix, when she felt a hand — not Moth’s, no, lighter
than Moth’s, lighter than any hand she’d ever felt — on her shoulder.

The woman’s voice was calm, raspy, almost shiny, if a voice could be that. Despite herself, Ondine turned to face her.
Viv. Her name is Viv.
She looked at her. There was a slight distortion about the woman’s face the girl could not pinpoint.

“Nix is taking the pet who came with Tim Bleeker back to her human home.”

The woman stopped, and Ondine ran through the implications of what she had just told her, true or not.
Tim Bleeker. Tim Bleeker is involved with this.
And the person with him, probably a girl. Probably — the associations were becoming far too incestuous here — Neve.