Orphan of Mythcorp (24 page)

“
That explains it,” Ava quipped. She
tossed my inexplicably soiled blanket back over my head and started
walking away. “Take a cold shower and get to class. No more
excuses.”

I tumbled out of bed (after making sure it
would be a cool thing to do first). “No new excuses. No need. The
old ones are still perfectly acceptable. I was beaten and the pain
prevents me from concentrating on class. And look,” I grabbed Miss
Little’s note from my stand, “an official nurses excuse. See, it’s
got her John Hancock and everything. Complete with little hearts
above the ‘i’.”

Ava shot a pillow at me before heading out
the door. Castor was waiting for me. For what, I had no idea. But
he was looking at me with his spooky spook peepers, so I popped a
B-drop. I’d found the bag of lovely’s on my bed-stand, to my
intense joy. A few minutes later Castor dissolved to a mere wisp of
spectral vapors.

Ten minutes after that I was making myself a
peanut butter and cucumber sandwich in the kitchen, trying for the
tenth time not to crinkle my nose at the lingering stench of
formaldehyde, when I heard them behind me. I swiveled slam-bang
quick, bearing the knife that was still covered in a gob of peanuty
sweetness. Fortunately I did not have to use it.

“
Ash.” I breathed easy again. “You
scared the crap out of me. You here for a textbook?”

The tyke didn’t say a word, only stood
there gazing into my peepers. I showed him my back.
Oh no you don’t. You are not going to Mesmerize
me.
The sandwich got finished, got eaten. When it was
all gone, and when there was no more mess left to clean up, I
sighed and finally turned around.

“
What are you looking at?” keeping my
peepers away from his.

Ash strode forward, hands locked together in
front. “Why would you do that?”

“
Um, I was hungry?”

I braved a look down in the general direction
of Ash’s face. His lips were doing something funny. Maybe he was
experiencing some kind of emotion.

Without a word Ash turned and walked out of
Camelot.

I was left there, utterly, stunningly,
ball-shrinkingly alone. My hands were jittering again, making the
cane go all whiz-bang tap-tap-tap on the wood floor. The buzz going
on from the b-drop was not enough. I wandered over to my
nightstand, downed a second. Five minutes later I was mellow as
Pooh Bear with a jar of fresh honey.

I limped over to the other side of Camelot,
to where Ash and his boys spent so much time whispering. Something
I hadn’t noticed before: the walls here were plastered with pencil
art.

“
Holy crap.” Every single sheet boasted
a depiction of Ash. A few displayed the little wonder in class,
teaching, while others showed him arrayed in sunshine, a halo about
his head. There was even one drawing, by Mrs. Rogers, of Ash
standing on a gravestone with Mythcorp rising behind
him.

“
I’m going to be sick.”

Fortunately the drugs had shut down my gag
reflex. Colors emanated from the grays and whites of the drawings,
so that they were all as brilliant as rainbows. As I was gazing
(probably like a total dolt) at the Mythcorp-gravestone-Ash
picture, something obvious occurred to me.

He wants to reopen Mythcorp; maybe even
become its president.

How much of a dum-dum was I that I hadn’t
realized this before?

“
Hey yo,” said the drawing of Ash. “You
have our paper?” His lips, red as apples, were moving but he didn’t
sound like himself. More like if he’d swallowed those apples and
was trying to speak without realizing he’d swallowed those apples.
I laughed.

“
Hey,” someone grabbed my shoulder.
Confusion rushed through me, lost its rush as I saw Damien’s main
crony, Keenan, a punk with a temper as short as his hair. He was
bald.

“
You’re not Ash.”

Keenan and another black dude stared at me.
“Lookit his eyes. He’s flyin’. Yo, Morgan? Where. Is. Our.
Money?”

I tapped my cane, pleased to see how steady
my hands were now. “Right, the money. Hang on.” I sauntered over to
my nightstand, slid the bottom drawer out.

After setting it upside down on my cot, I
slipped three Benjamin’s out from the rubber band tacked to the
underside. I stood up too quickly. Colors swirled around me like
birdies. I closed my peepers. While recovering, I made a mental
note to find a new hiding place for my stash. I handed the
Benjamin’s to Keenan.

Keenan and his nameless crony turned and
headed for the door.

“
Oh! I’m supposed to ask you
something.” What was it Ash had wanted me to do? It came to me in a
flash. My shoulder-angel fought with my shoulder-devil as I wavered
between telling them what Ash wanted them to do, and letting the
shrimp suffer. But he was already pissed at me. Best not to add
fuel to the fire. God knew what Ash would do if I screwed him out
of his muscle help.

So, of course, I told them. Cowards are often
survivors.

They agreed at least to tell Damien about the
deal going down tonight. Before they reached the door, a fire alarm
started warbling. I could see it in the neon orange and firehouse
red smoke plumes suddenly wafting around Camelot.

“
What the hell?” Keenan wondered. “Come
on, let’s beat it,” Nameless Crony said.

Nameless Crony grabbed the doorknob. He’d
turned it halfway when the door flew open, sending him sprawling
onto his back, conked out. Keenan backed away as Nimrod entered
Camelot.

Oh man.

We locked peepers (me and the Mighty Hunter,
not me and Keenan; that would’ve been a smidge silly). I recoiled,
slammed into a wall.

“
Who are you?” Keenan wanted to know.
“Hey!” he leapt forward to shove Nimrod. The Hunter sidestepped him
and with a single kick slammed Keenan to the floor. As Keenan
struggled to rise behind him, Nimrod stomped my way, brandishing a
sick-stick. His were heavy footsteps, the kind Robocop
makes.

“
It wasn’t me,” I pleaded, slithering
further back along that dang wall. “If this is about Sanson, I
didn’t hurt him. A spook possessed me,
made
me hurt him!”

I tripped on a coat rack and, buggered knee
of no help whatsoever, went down in a heap.

Nimrod bore down on me, raising the
sick-stick. I could almost feel my welts cringing at the sight of
it. He was five feet away, looming large and not just in a
fatty-patty kind of way. The sick-stick arced down, making an
unholy whistling sound.

“
I told you it wasn’t me! It was
Castor. Castor made me do it. Please—”

Either he’d killed me with one swoop, or
Nimrod had paused in his time-to-bash-Morgan’s-brains-in stampede.
I opened my peepers to see which it was. He was standing over me,
weapon still raised but not all lathered up with my brain matter,
which was a really good sign. Of course, I might’ve been
hallucinating.

“
Castor?” Nimrod asked. “Castor, the
Iconocop?”

“
Yes?”

God, let that be the right answer.

Nimrod lowered his weapon. “You see Castor’s
ghost? How? Who gave you that gift?”

“
I don’t know. I just could always see
spooks, ah, ghosts. But they didn’t used to take over.”

While speaking, I was twisting the crow-head
of the cane, all sneaky-like so the purple peepers faced Nimrod.
Wasn’t I just the cleverest kid on the block? Nimrod was silent a
few ticks. Waiting for something? Deciding something? Who knew what
was going on in his noodle.

I was about to spew a lie, a sly story to
distract him while I pressed the button, when Nimrod hammered my
arm with his boot. The cane fell out of my grasp as I screamed.

Nimrod hoisted me by my flannel, tearing it.
Like a cartoon he hurled me up against the wall, reshaping the
drywall into a perfect Morgan-impression. I was still high so I
didn’t feel much save for the warm trickle of freshly released red
stuff.

“
Just like Knox,” the Hunter snarled.
“Down to the last scrap of DNA.” He flung me back down before
spitting on me. “Think you can best
me
? Think I survived the War and the Purge and
Knox’s crusade and the mute demon by dumb luck?”

I was staring into his peepers. “Step back
now.” A Mesmer command. Three words, just like the way the original
Morai did it. Nimrod stepped back as his face got all funny
looking. Keeping our peepers locked, I struggled to my feet,
leaning on my cane. “Stay right there.”

I crept back. Baby steps, keeping our
peepers locked. His hands were flicking around and his feet were
not as motionless as I would’ve liked. He was fighting the Mesmer,
and I wasn’t strong enough to restrain
his
will for long.

After a near fatal stumble over Nameless
Crony’s conked-out body, I reached the doorway. I bounded down the
steps as fast as a cripple could, and turned to exit through the
back doors. A fat chrome chain had been padlocked through the
handles. I exhaled deeply. “Well, that’s a definite violation of
the fire exit codes.”

The halls were empty now, all the students
having vamoosed as soon as the alarm had warbled. So I turned and
headed the opposite way. Nimrod was already crashing down the
stairs. As I passed in a rush I said “Hold up, nimrod.”

He stopped, but only for a couple of ticks.
After that he was barreling down the hall behind me and it was
every cripple for himself.

The alarms were still crying when I stretched
the cane out to my right (still running, mind; I was not completely
daft) and pressed the no-no-but-oh-yes button. Amethyst lightning
sizzled out of the crow eyes. I danced my hand around for better
sizzle-Nimrod coverage. Curses roared behind me. But the lightning
was not as brilliant as it had once been, and by the sound of
footsteps and unabated curses, it was clear Nimrod had not quite
been sizzled to death.

The hall spun. Colors blurred and mixed,
creating new hues. Cold sweat bled from my flesh.

While hobbling along, I braved a peek over my
shoulder. “Ah crap,” I gasped. Nimrod was right on my tail, wisps
of smoke curling off of his bearskin cloak—and not a spook in sight
to take over. I was going to have to outsmart the Hunter all by
myself.

The front doors were in sight. Going out
there where all the teachers and students were currently hanging
about might get Nimrod off my back. But he’d just find another
chance to attack, and I did not want to live with the constant
threat of a Nimrod-pummeling. So I turned left, shoved on the door
to the basement. The MYTHCORP manuscript had explained that the
cane could not only emit energy, but absorb and store it as
well—which meant if I siphoned enough energy from, say, a circuit
breaker box, I might be able to charge it enough to finally fry the
big kook.

Great barreling waves of heat blasted into me
as I opened the doors. But Nimrod at my back was an excellent
propellant. I shoved forward, down the steps into the
sauna/basement. Sweat sprouted all over me like magic. At the
bottom of the steps I cast my peepers about in search of the
circuit breakers.

Furnaces to my right, a locked door to my
left. “Dummit.”

I strode down a concrete walkway. Sounds
erupted from up ahead, strange footsteps. My pace slowed. I paused.
A look back showed a Nimrod-shaped figure shuffling through the
haze towards me. Stupid Pellinore! Why’d he have to go and destroy
the AC system. Mysterious footsteps ahead, Mighty Hunter behind:
better to brave the unknown than to face the dangerous known,
especially when that ‘known’ wants your blood.

I let the cane go first, guiding me like its
folding cousins guide blind people. Steam mixed with sweat,
morphing with the doojee already in my system and mucking me up
bad.

Faces in the swirling steam.

“
Oh man,” I said, swiping globs of
water from my brow, “I should’ve just said no.”

I was walking up to a turn, careful to avoid
touching the hot pipes lathered in thick blue paint, when a clatter
brought me up. I backtracked and ducked behind a metal shelving
unit loaded with pipe wrenches and various rusty tools.

The clattering of falling pipes echoed
through the basement. As I sat cringing, I held the cane in front
of me, finger at the ready near the button. If anyone so much as
peeped through the mist, I’d—

“
Geroff!”

That sounded like Nimrod.

Grunts and grinding, metal on metal. I stood
and strode into the haze: my sudden bravery had nothing to do with
the nasty black spider I’d noticed lurking in a web near my
head.

I ran, around the corner, past those burning
pipes, through the haze down another walkway until I was deep in
the unknown. A smidge niche between two metal boxes hid me while I
listened to another clatter. Wheezing, pumper struggling to keep
up. Someone was running, only it didn’t sound human, more like the
scampering of some great beastie.

“
Come on!” someone screamed, and the
scampering ceased.

“
Oh man,” I whispered. “Marie? I could
really use your help right about now.” I’d send her out to see what
was going on while having Castor search for the circuit
boxes.

Only then—dum-dum that I was—did I realize
that I was hiding between the very things I’d come down here to
find. I turned round, opened one of the boxes. It was loaded with
about thirty circuit breakers. But no exposed wires like the old
school fuse boxes you see in the flicks. Pressing the cane’s
crow-head to the box accomplished nothing. So I twisted the head
and withdrew the sword.