Betwixt (37 page)

“How could you —”

“You’re sick,” Nix whispered. Moth only stared.

“So what explains it, Nix? Huh? A second ago Morgan wasn’t going to die. But right now, she will, even if I have to doom both
of us. And you know it. You can see it. I know you can. I swear I’ll do it. You’re that important, Nix. You’re a ringer. You
guarantee our making it through. Otherwise we’re stuck. Larva with brains, bound for the grave. That’s all we are.”

“Nix, please —”

Morgan was choking against the blade and slowly the fire around her lessened. Nix knew he was being convinced.

“We have the ability to plug into the godhead. That is fay. Each of us knows it. Morgan knows it — has known it since she
was a child. You know it, Nix. You’ve been inhabited, endowed. You out of everyone. This is your burden and your responsibility.
This world is not all there is —”

“No!” Nix cried. “I can’t —”

He turned on his heel to run when a beam of light hit his eyes, temporarily blinding him. He raised a hand to shield his face
and heard a familiar, raspy voice blow toward him in the rising wind and rain.

“Nix? Is that you?”

He dropped his hand. He heard Morgan behind him, calling. Then she abruptly stopped.

“Jacob?”

“Nix … Nix!” An agitation moved toward him and there was Jacob Clowes’s raincoat-covered midriff, lit by the reflection of
the flashlight, now skipping around, checking the faces of the people behind Nix.

“Morgan D’Amici?”

“Mr. Clowes —”

“Have you spoken to your brother? Is he home from camp?”

For a moment Nix was confused. Why was Jacob Clowes in the park? Why did he have a flashlight? Before he could think further,
Morgan answered. Her voice was calm and polite, as if meeting in the park at dusk in the rain were the most normal thing in
the world. As if Moth hadn’t just been holding a knife to her throat.

“Yes, Mr. Clowes …” Only a slight tremor betrayed her. “He’s home. He’s there now. I was just … we were just meeting here.
We were going to the movies. We’re all going to the movies.”

Jacob obviously didn’t care about movies or anything else. His voice was high-pitched. “Do you know if he’s spoken to Neve?”

“Not that I know of. Wait — yeah, I remember him saying he called her cell but it was off.”

“Oh my god.” Jacob’s voice broke. “Oh my god. Nix.” Jacob turned. “Have you seen her? Has she called you?”

“I haven’t seen her since … since this morning. With you. I — I thought everything was —”

“Neve is missing. She’s gone somewhere. We had an appointment. She said she was going to the Krak, to meet K.A. I called and
she’s not there and I can’t — I can’t reach her. Her cell — oh, god.” Nix felt a desperate hand on his sleeve. “Please, you’ve
got to help me. She left around noon. She said she’d be back in two hours. After we saw you. She … I don’t know. I took a
nap and when I woke up she was gone. I called her cell but she never picked up, and she hasn’t come home. Nix.” Jacob was
pulling on him now, shaking his arm. “You have to help me.”

He felt Morgan beside him, moving toward the older man.

“Mr. Clowes, I work at Krakatoa. I can ask the manager.”

“The police, they can’t do anything yet. I came up here thinking I’d find someone who knew her. This guy — Tim Bleeker. Do
you know him?”

“I’ve seen him around,” Morgan answered.

“I thought some of her friends might know where to find him. Like K.A. K.A. knows where she goes —”

“Yes, yes. Of course he does.” Nix noticed Morgan’s pale white hand squeezing and smoothing Clowes’s arm. He himself couldn’t
have reached out that way to the old man.

“Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

When Jacob spoke his voice cracked. “No. I don’t. I just — I didn’t want to know about it — what was happening to her. I didn’t
want to see it. Now —”

Morgan’s face bowed and Nix could see the girl willing him to believe. “It’s not too late, Mr. Clowes. It’s just been a few
hours. We’ll find Neve. Go home. Nix and I will call K.A. and get started tracking her down. We’ll call you when we have a
plan. In the meantime,” — she looked at Nix as if getting his confirmation, and then turned back — “you go home. Talk to your
wife, call the police, and we’ll call you in an hour or so, when we have more information.”

Jacob was nodding, staring. Nix found himself wanting to believe Morgan, too. She was so — he searched for the word. Convincing.
She was so convincing, he realized. No matter which role she played.

There was a confused shaking of hands, and Morgan and Jacob Clowes hugged, as if they had known each other for years, and
within a matter of seconds the old man was walking off toward the road, the only evidence of him in the mounting dark a flashlight
skipping over the grass and darkening foliage ahead of him. Nix could only whisper.

“Morgan. What’s going on?”

“We’re going to find her. We’re going to find her, wherever she is. Bleek is taking her somewhere. Moth already told us that.
So we’re going to follow her.” She paused, her silvery voice finally quiet. “Moth will know where to go.”

Nix could hardly see her anymore in the gathering darkness, but he could feel her eyes on him, staring.

“Moth,” Nix called out, half whispering. “Moth.”

No one answered.

“He’s disappeared.” Morgan’s voice was flat. “He’s testing us. That’s why he grabbed me. Now this.” Her voice had gained in
intensity and Nix felt afraid. Then it lowered to an eerie whisper.

“You’re the only one who knows how to find Bleek. You’re the only one who knows where he’s gone. You’re the ringer.”

Nix was quiet for a moment, his head tight, as if he were underwater. Test? Why would Moth be testing them? Wasn’t he supposed
to be helping them? Wasn’t he their guide?

“The tunnels,” Morgan said. “Maybe he took her to the tunnels.”

“The Shanghai Tunnels?” He stopped. “I need to talk to Evie.” Though he could not see his companion’s face any longer in the
dark, he knew she was listening. “Nothing can happen tonight. It’s too late and too dark. I need to find Evie and talk to
her and find out exactly where Bleek might be taking Neve.” He paused again. Morgan was silent. “Evie will know.”

“Do you want me to come?”

The eagerness in Morgan’s voice grated at him, but Nix reminded himself that they were in this together. They were a ring;
that’s what Moth had called them.

“No. You go to the Krak and then home and see what you can find out from K.A. Evie wouldn’t want to talk about it in front
of someone she doesn’t know, and for both of us to go would be” — he hadn’t thought of it this way, but it was true — “it
would be suspicious.”

Her short, low laugh cut through the dark. “Suspicious. Oh yeah. That.”

Nix didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t yet sure if he believed anything Moth had said. He squinted, trying to locate Morgan’s
shape.

“I’ll talk to my brother.” Her voice was still a little hoarse, but the sarcasm was gone. “Call me tomorrow. Early. Wherever
you’re going, I’m going.”

Somehow Nix doubted this, but he nodded in assent, forgetting she couldn’t see him.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said quietly, but Morgan was already gone.

M
OTH STILL KNEW THE WAY.
It had been four years since he had last buzzed the second floor apartment tucked into a back lane in Southeast with the
red front door and no name on the buzzer, but he knew the way even now, in the dark. He parked his motorcycle — a beaten-up
Kawasaki he’d bought from an old biker in Olympia — on the side of the concrete, sixties-modern apartment building and for
a moment stood outside the red door wondering whether he really should ring. It was forbidden to contact the rare ones who’d
received the pass to stay — and die — in the human world. Wicklings weren’t cutters, but they were still weak, since their
death would result in more pain in the world.

Besides, it was late. Moth had ridden around the city awhile, trying to figure out what to do after he’d left Morgan and Nix
in the park. He wasn’t proud of what he’d done to Morgan, but he had had no choice. As soon as he heard it was Jacob Clowes
approaching, he had crept away and sprinted down the hill. He
couldn’t risk leaking to Bleek where his meeting place was. Nor was it a good idea for Jacob to know that Morgan and Nix were
associated with someone who’d spent time in jail. Whatever happened in the coming year, it was most important that everything
in the changelings’ lives appear to be progressing normally. He’d already screwed up with Ondine and wasn’t going to take
any chances with Morgan and Nix.

He had known, but also not known, that this was where he’d end up. The saguaro cactus that stood like a guard by the door
was still there, he noticed, as was the sign, written in a neat, slanted hand, that reminded visitors to
REMOVE YOUR SHOES
,
PLEASE
— though it had faded in the intervening years since he’d last seen Raphael Inman.

Moth knew his old guide had left Portland after the fiasco with Bleek and the bust down in Eugene. Once Moth had started retraining
in earnest, he learned from Viv that Raphael had chosen to remain in the human world, even if it meant being branded a wickling.
He returned to New York to work on his art, then came back to teach at Reed a year ago. He lived a human life. Lonely and
hermetic, terrified, Moth was sure, about his impending fate, guilty for robbing his corpa of consciousness and a life, but
human — aging all the while.

He rang the doorbell and waited, unable to control a slight shaking in his right leg, a nervousness and restlessness that
had accompanied him since he was a kid. He could hear Viv now:
Stop, Moth! Get control of yourself. Master it before it masters you.
Or variations on the theme:
One must not fidget. It wastes fay energy.
Or his personal favorite:
It’s called bruxism. It has a name. If you grind your teeth, get a night guard.

A man’s voice, crackling out of a plastic intercom, surprised him.

“Yes?”

“Raphael?”

“This is Raphael. Who’s there?”

“Raphael, it’s James … Motherwell.”

There was a pause and the buzzer sounded. Moth tried to gauge whether it sounded angry — could a buzzer sound angry? — but
he couldn’t. Raphael had always been inscrutable to him. Why would it be any different now?

He opened the door and bounded the short flight of stairs up to the second floor. Raphael was on the landing, the door to
his apartment open. Not smiling, but not angry either. His face — still generous, big-eyed, smooth-skinned — wore the intensely
calm expression of someone trying very hard to be at peace. The only change was that he had aged. Moth had expected it. He
knew it was what happened to those who stayed. They got old, fast. He himself had already started to experience it. Raphael’s
black hair was now softly silver; his bright, excitable demeanor more solemn, more thoughtful. Clear, plastic-rimmed glasses
magnified hazel eyes and crinkled lids. Though
the man, Moth surmised, couldn’t have been older than forty, he looked middle-aged. He stood in the hall, wearing a long-sleeved
gray T-shirt, his hands in faded jeans pockets, his head cocked. Finally he spoke. Moth thought he could detect the faintest
whiff of cinnamon Altoids.

“You know you’re not supposed to be here.”

He nodded. “I’m still working on the lemma. I didn’t exactly receive traditional training.” Raphael smiled and Moth remembered
that he had once liked his old guide. “Do you still see Viv?”

“She drops in occasionally.” He squinted. “I am a wickling after all. She has to monitor my whereabouts. But you know that.”
He looked behind him and then again at Moth. “Would you like to come in?”

It was odd, this formality, with the man whom he had once felt — wished — was family. That’s what it had been like between
them, their small ring: he, Raphael, and Bleek. Two brothers and a father. Except Bleek — poor, mistreated Bleek, talented
Bleek, clever Bleek — was the favored son.

“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” Moth announced at the door. “But this is important. I have to ask you a question.”

Raphael nodded. “You can do it here. We’re alone.”

For some reason Moth longed to touch the man standing in front of him. Not in a sensual way. He just wanted some of that calm.

“I need to know where Bleek is. I know you’re not in it anymore; I know you’re not even supposed to be speaking to me. But
you know him. I mean, you knew him. And he’s endangering my ring. I’m a guide now. I want to go through the exidis. You know
there’s only one way —”

Raphael eyed the younger man. His face had lost its softness and was now just hollow and sad. He lifted a hand out of his
jeans pocket and scratched a day-old-stubbled cheek.

“You’re prepared to eliminate him?”

“I am. It has to be now. Bleek is hunting. My ring — there’s a ringer in Portland and he knows the girl. He sees her death
and he’s intent on saving her. I know Bleek is using it as a way to lure him into the limina. He’s going to use him somehow.
There’s no other explanation. I have to stop him. Or else … or else I can’t —” Moth looked at his black boots and suddenly
thought how small they looked, how silly and contrived compared to the manly easiness of the person facing him. “You know
what I can’t do. Raphael, I don’t want to stay. I’m not a cutter. I want to go to Novala. I want to go through the exidis.”

Raphael shook his head, his face saggier now, and shifted his eyes to a glass-block window in the stairwell. “You don’t know
anything, Moth. You won’t know what you’ll decide until you’re there making the decision. Don’t overstep yourself.” He looked
back at the boy. “That’s always been your problem.”

“I know I didn’t listen before, but I’m different now. I —”

“I don’t need an explanation.” He sighed. “I’m not involved anymore.”

“But —” Moth felt liquid fear spread down his legs. He was shaking. “Please. This is my only chance.” He looked at his old
guide. “I was
your
responsibility.”