The Book of Joby (10 page)

“What a
loser
he is,” Benjamin muttered. “Joby . . .” Benjamin hesitated, “Why’d you just lie there like that when he hit you?”

Joby felt his cheeks flame. What could he say?
I felt my own punch hit Lindwald’s face?
That sounded stupid even to himself now. He still couldn’t understand what had happened. Had he just imagined it? Was he chicken, like Lindwald said? What if it happened again every time he tried to fight someone?

“Joby?” Benjamin pressed.

Joby’s mind raced to invent some answer that didn’t sound crazy or chicken; but all he could think of was the truth. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Cross my heart,” Ben said.

Joby steeled himself. “Something so strange happened when I hit him, that . . . I don’t know what it was. But—”

“I knew it!” Benjamin blurted out. “He did something to you, didn’t he?”

Joby stared at Benjamin as his thoughts did a sort of flip-flop. He’d spent all afternoon trying to make sense of what had happened, but somehow it had never occurred to him that Lindwald might have
caused
it!

“You went all stiff right after you punched him,” Benjamin said, “and I knew he did something to you—but I couldn’t see what it was.”

Joby was still too amazed by the idea forming in his head to speak.

“Come on, Joby! Trust me!” Ben insisted. “What’d he do?”

“Magic,”
Joby whispered in astonishment.

“What?”
Benjamin asked.

“I know it sounds impossible,” Joby said uncertainly, “but when I hit him,
I
felt
it, just like it was
my
face getting slammed. Everything—even the bleeding. And when I went to hit him again, I felt my own punch before it even reached him.”

Joby braced himself for Benjamin’s ridicule, but all his friend said was, “Whooooa! How’d he do
that
?”

“Benjamin, I got a secret I haven’t even told my mom. I can only tell you if you promise you’ll believe me, no matter what. And that you won’t tell anyone else, ever.”

“Okay.” Benjamin nodded excitedly.

“No matter what?” Joby pressed.

“Even if Lindwald punches me ’til I die,” Benjamin assured him solemnly.

“Okay,” Joby said, “but if I tell you, it’s a sacred oath—like in my book. We’re sword brothers then, forever.”

“Cooool!” Benjamin exclaimed.

Joby spat on his hand. “We must shake on it, Sir Benjamin.”

Benjamin spat in his hand too, and they shook on it. Then they wiped their hands on their pants, and Joby told Benjamin about his dream, and the secret mission for Arthur. Benjamin listened with growing amazement and admiration.

“You
really
went there?” Benjamin enthused when Joby had finished. “Did you have a sword?”

Joby looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so. Just a horse.”

“So, when do we start fighting, Joby?”

“Don’t you get it, Benjamin? We already have! Lindwald works for the
devil
! That’s how he made me feel that punch.
Black magic!
When I hit him, he just said,
What’s a matter, Joby, you hurt yourself on my nose?
He
knew,
Benjamin!
You
made me see it! If he knew, he must have made it happen! Right? And if Lindwald can do magic, he must be working for . . . for
him,
” Joby said, suddenly nervous.

“Lindwald works for the
devil
?”

Joby waved Benjamin quiet. “Don’t go shouting his name like that!”

“What? Lindwald’s?”

“No, you freak! The other one! . . . The
enemy’s
! The
real
enemy!”

“Oh,” Benjamin said, looking abashed. “You mean the dev—”

“Don’t!” Joby urged. “Don’t even say it. We’ll just call him the enemy. Okay?”

Benjamin’s eyes widened, and he looked around nervously. “You think he’s listening, Joby? The . . . enemy? Like, right
now
?”

“I don’t know,” Joby said. “But he could be. Come on. We gotta go home and make a plan, Sir Benjamin. We can’t get caught by surprise again!”

“That idiot!”

Lucifer whirled in fury from the bowl of water on his office desk through which, alerted by the ever-vigilant Williamson, he’d watched the disastrous scene unfold.

“I’m plagued with an endless army of morons!”
he shouted at his office ceiling, then strode to an obsidian obelisk like the one in the conference room, slammed his hand against it, and shouted,
“LINDWALD!”

Instantly, the terrified soul, still guised as a chunky little boy, materialized, cowering in a corner of the large office as far from his employer as possible.

“What’s wrong, Sir?” he quavered.

“Watch!”
Lucifer yelled, thrusting his hand toward the wall behind him, where a screen appeared, flickering bluish green at first, then resolving into images of Joby and Benjamin in the hallway at school. When their entire conversation had been replayed, Lucifer turned to flay Lindwald with his eyes.

“What a hoot, eh, Lindwald?”

“Sir, I—”

“Shut up!”
Lucifer bellowed. “
There is nothing I want more right now than to eviscerate each and every droplet of the mist you’re made of!
All it would take to shatter my restraint is one tiny excuse.”

Trembling visibly, Lindwald seemed almost to merge with the wall behind him.

“I said,
test
him!” Lucifer snarled. “I said,
n-o-t-h-i-n-g m-a-j-o-r
!
I sure as hell
said
nothing
about the blatant use of
power
against him
, did I
!”

Lindwald had become virtually inert with terror.

“Well?” Lucifer demanded.
“Answer me!”

“No, Sir. But it seemed like such a little thing to—”

“ ‘No, Sir’ would have done nicely!”
Lucifer raged. He began to breath deeply, like a giant bellows, gathering the shredded remnants of his patience. When he spoke again, it was at a fraction of his former volume, if no less angrily. “One stupid, self-indulgent bit of braggadocio, and
look
at what you’ve accomplished, Lindwald. Your cover is blown; he’s fully marshaled around his dream of
Arthur
again—which he’d almost forgotten; he even has an ally now! An
ally
! You’re a flaming
genius
!”

Lindwald seemed both surprised and alarmed by the whimper that escaped his own pouty little lips.

“Do you know why you’re not already being filleted for table service, Lindwald?” Lucifer asked in suddenly mild tones infinitely more frightening than his earlier rage.

The shake of Lindwald’s head was barely perceptible.

“Because, as personally satisfying as I might find your immediate destruction, your sudden disappearance now would only confirm their suspicions, and I don’t want that. So I’m sending you back to convince them that you’re nothing after all but a nasty little boy like any other juvenile sociopath they know. Try thinking
obedience
this time.”

After several moments of agonized silence, Lindwald dared to squeak, “How?”

Lucifer merely smiled. “I am not a monster, Lindwald. I understand your limitations. We are not all born to brilliance, so to spare you any further gaffes, I’m sending you back without any special power at all. You needn’t worry about tipping your hand again, because you really will be nothing but the helpless little bully we want them to believe you are. Of course, your . . .
parents,
” he smiled cruelly, “will still have
their
abilities, and I’ll see that they provide the kind of
disciplined
home life required to nurture your success.”

Lindwald looked like he might puke on Lucifer’s elegant gray pile carpet.

Lucifer turned to wander his office pensively. “Your strategy now is to get soundly
thrashed
by these boys. Do you understand? Take care to make it happen naturally and look convincing, but when you’re done I want those two boys to look and feel like heroes . . . while
you
look like the ass you are!” Lucifer turned to face him again. “I’d go now, if I were you. It’s getting late there. We wouldn’t want your
parents
to worry,
would we.
”

This last admonition held fearful implications, but Lindwald needed no prodding. He was gone before Lucifer’s words had left the air.

“Frank? You coming?”

Lost in thought, Frank looked up to find Sidney Mason at his office door.

“The Goldtree Mall meeting. Ten minutes, dude.”

“Oh! Sure. Thanks, Sid. Be right there.”

Sidney left him with a high sign.

Frank stood to gather what he’d need. His mind had been wandering all morning. His sleep the night before had been plagued by that same weird dream: racquetball at the health club. Unable to see the ball or move beyond a snail’s pace, he’d endured the same humiliating defeat on court, then opened his locker to find Joby hiding there, dressed like a girl, lipstick, mascara, and all, sucking his thumb while the laughter of all Frank’s acquaintances grew loud enough to wake him. That was how it always ended. He’d had the dream at least four times already, and wondered more and more anxiously why anyone would dream such sick things about his own son even once?

Juggling cost estimates, design documents, and blueprints, he shoved the whole matter from his mind once again and headed for the conference room. He had a shopping mall to plan, and important people to impress. There was no time to worry about dreams.

Lindwald sat alone, hunched and brooding at a corner of the playground. The pointed animosity of his schoolmates since the fight with Joby meant nothing to him; but the torments he’d been made to endure at “home” each night since that dreadful audience with his master had been all the more horrendous for knowing they’d grow steadily worse until he managed to get “thrashed.” He’d been goading Joby and Benjamin relentlessly, but for some reason the contemptible pissants wouldn’t fight back now.

Looking up, he caught Laura Bayer gazing adoringly at Joby as he played tetherball with Ben.
The guy practically takes her head off with a dodgeball,
Lindwald thought,
and she goes soft for him!
He spat between his feet, and wondered what made abuse such an aphrodisiac. The day after he’d hurt her, Joby had brought Laura a tree frog in a mayonnaise jar tied ’round with a green ribbon, and she’d fawned over the gift as if it were
chocolates
!
Ye gods and little daisies!
It was
insulting
to be in so much trouble over such imbeciles! Nonetheless, if Lindwald didn’t find some convincing way to make them thrash him soon, his so-called
parents
would put scars on the scars he already bore beneath his clothes, which were no less painful for the contrived nature of his boyish seeming flesh.