The Deavys (16 page)

“It doesn't matter!” She broke into a run. “They're coming!”

That was enough to make all of them turn. Sure enough, a squad of cops was making its way in their direction. Thankfully, the crowd at this end of the increasingly narrow street was so tightly packed that people and creatures spilled off the sidewalk onto the street and left no room for vehicles. Having been given the description of the murderous children by a decidedly biased—and shivering—goblin, the local authorities were hot on their heels.

“There!” Raising a hand, Simwan pointed excitedly. The crack that separated two tall buildings at the end of the street was now visible just ahead. Panting hard, he broke into a final sprint.

Would their pursuers follow? There was only one way to find out.

N/Ice was first through, effortlessly flattening herself to the thickness of a pane of glass as she slipped into the constricted opening. Rose followed, with Amber right behind her. Just as Simwan took the opposite of a deep breath and prepared to follow his sisters, a heavy hand clamped down on his left shoulder.

“Gotcha! Don't fight it, kid, we only want to—”

A ball of fur swollen to the size of a giant pumpkin landed on Simwan's right shoulder and hissed at the startled cop. Not only was it swollen to the size of a giant pumpkin, it looked exactly
like
a giant pumpkin—or to be more exact, a fuzzy yellow jack-o'-lantern with eyes of blazing brimstone. The sight was enough to make the startled policeman momentarily release his grip.

Release it just long enough to allow Simwan to slip into the opening between the two buildings. Working his way sideways, he scuttled through until he finally lost his balance and fell.

Right out onto Fifth Avenue, where his waiting sisters clustered anxiously around him.

“Simwan, are you all right?” Rose asked uneasily.

“Did they hurt you?” Amber was searching her brother for signs of harm.

“Are you in one piece?” N/Ice asked, knowing that now that they were back in the Ord part of the city she couldn't let herself stretch completely around her brother in the healing arc that was one of her sorceral specialties.

Picking himself off the pavement, he dusted himself off and looked back the way he had come. The crack between the two buildings was unchanged. Putting one eye to it, he could just make out a bevy of blue-clad shapes gesticulating and flailing futilely at the far end. But none were coming through.

Near his lower legs a familiar black shape, tail twitching back and forth, was also peering into the crack. “I think we're safe now,” Pithfwid murmured softly. “We're no longer in their precinct.”

Relieved at their narrow (in every sense of the word) escape, the four of them turned and found themselves contemplating the thickly treed, mysterious expanse of Central Park that lay across the street.

Across Fifth Avenue, the bold green upthrust triangles of slender evergreens mixed with golden- and brown-leaved deciduous oaks and sycamores that were in the process of sacrificing their leaves to autumn. Somewhere in those thickly treed depths, if the small goblin was to be believed, lay the lair of the Crub. Somewhere in there, they would find the Truth, the means for restoring their mother to health—and quite possibly a number of things they did not want to find.

Pulling out the map Trish had given them, he checked it once, then folded it as best he could and clumsily shoved it back into his pocket. There were spells for many things, he knew, but no one, not even a grand sorcerer, had yet come up with one that would allow a paper map to be easily and correctly refolded once it had been opened.

“We might as well start looking here, at the south end of the park,” he told his sisters. “The nearest proper entrance is just down from where we are now, on 66th Street, by the zoo.”

Rose immediately clapped her hands together. “Super! While we're asking questions, we can have a look at the animals.”

Her brother eyed her sternly. “We're here to look for the Truth, Rose. Not monkeys and bears.”

Amber poo-pooed his concern. “If we don't know where to look, that means we need to look everywhere, and consider every possibility. Who knows? Maybe the Crub hides out in the zoo.”

“Yeah, right,” Simwan agreed sarcastically. “In his own cage, up front and out in the open where everyone can see him. With a big identification sign on the bars. ‘Giant Wizard Rat of Evil Mien and Wicked Intent—Do Not Feed or Speak To.'”

N/Ice rested a calming hand on his arm. “Rose and Amber are right, brother. The Crub may not dwell in the zoo, but that doesn't mean those who do are ignorant of his whereabouts. Remember what Aunt Grace told us once: ‘It never hurts to ask the monkey.'”

Seeking support, Simwan looked down at the cat sitting quietly by his feet. “Pithfwid?”

Wise yellow eyes peered back up at him. “It might help.”

Outvoted, Simwan gave in with a sigh of resignation. “All right—we'll start searching at the zoo.” He wagged a warning finger. “But no casual gossiping with the animals; some Ord might see us.”

“Deal,” declared Rose.

“We'll only talk to the monkeys,” Amber added.

“Better yet, we'll let you do it, 'cause you'll have instant rapport,” N/Ice finished.

“I suppose I could—hey, wait a minute.” He frowned as the deeper import of his half-a-sister's maybe-compliment started to sink in. But it was too late for him to voice a comeback—the Deavy coubet was already racing for the crosswalk at 66th Street. All he could do was hurry and follow Pithfwid, grinding his teeth as he did so.

The crowd on the street had momentarily thinned when something black and nebulous oozed out of the crack that barely separated two towering apartment buildings. It looked like a lost patch of smoke. Passing by, an elderly man in overcoat and hat paused curiously. He thought it peculiar that instead of rising, the smoke puff seemed to be hovering in one place, unaffected even by the occasional blast of wind. Warily leaning toward it, he took a single, cautious sniff.

His eyes bulged and began to water. Despite the chill midday air, sweat immediately broke out on his forehead and cheeks. Both hands clutched at his throat as he began to choke. Alarmed at the sight, other concerned pedestrians stopped and tried to render what aid they could as the man collapsed to the pavement, kicking and twitching. Pulling out their cell phones, two women dialed 911.

Seconds later the unfortunate businessman's back arched in a rictus of pain. Stepping out of the rapidly gathering crowd, a male nurse just starting his lunch break immediately began to administer CPR. None of it mattered. By the time the paramedics arrived, the man was dead, his heart stilled for good.

With all of the attention focused on the dying businessman, no one noticed the feathery tendrils of what looked like black smoke drifting lazily across Fifth Avenue in the general direction of Central Park.

XIV

Between the chilly, damp, breezy weather and the fact that it was nearly noon on what was still a school day in Manhattan, the Central Park Zoo was largely empty. A few couples, children accompanied by single parents or nannies, and the occasional tourist were the only people other than employees that the Deavy brood encountered as they paid to enter. In the distance, the Delacorte Music Clock, with its activated mechanical animals, was just finishing up playing “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.” As the youngsters passed through the entry gate, the clock launched into an appropriate tinkly version of “Ding Dong Dell.”

Once inside, they headed for the habitat that was home to a troop of white-faced langurs. Larger than Pithfwid but smaller than N/Ice, the primates were active, intelligent, and curious. After making sure that any other visitors were out of earshot, Rose leaned as far forward as she could to offer a mature female a handful of peanuts. Seeing this, several other adults and curious infants gathered around. Palm out, the troop's lead female chittered excitedly at the Deavy girls.

“Don't push,” Rose instructed the chattering younger monkeys, careful to employ the correct dialect.

“Oh, well, that makes it easier,” replied the senior female in words the Deavys knew well. She swiveled around on her backside, her long tail flicking out of the way. “Hey, didn't you hear what the human said? No shoving in back!” Accepting the peanuts from Rose, she swallowed some while passing the majority along to her squabbling relatives. “Where do you cultured kids hail from?”

“Clearsight,” Amber told her. “Pennsylvania.”

The langur matriarch nodded as she shelled a peanut. “Any Kandy there?”

The three girls exchanged a glance. “We don't have any candy,” Amber replied apologetically. “Only peanuts. But if you want candy …”

“No, no, sister no-tail.” The langur exposed sharp white teeth. “We're
from
Kandy. It's a district in central Sri Lanka. Since you can speak proper langur, I was just wondering if you knew anyone from home.”

Simwan shrugged diffidently. “We don't get out of Pennsylvania much.”

“Too bad. You'd like Kandy.” She held up an empty shell. “Nice nuts. Thanks. Something I can do for you?”

Leaning closer to the bars, N/Ice lowered her voice until it was barely audible. “Someone's stolen the Truth, and we're looking for it.”

The langur nodded knowingly. “Someone's always trying to steal the tooth. That's why it's kept under guard in Kandy.”

Simwan sighed. “Not Buddha's tooth. The
Truth
. It was stored in a bottle in Mr. Gemimmel's drugstore and we've come to get it back. The Crub stole it.”

Abruptly, the monkey habitat went as silent as it had ever been, as silent as on the day when its reconstruction had been finished but before its denizens had been transferred back in. In fact, for just an instant, the entire zoo went dead quiet. None of the other human visitors remarked on the astounding coincidence because none were trained to pay attention to such things. But the Deavys noticed it. Darn right they did.

After what was after all only a second or two, bellows and cries, chirpings and hootings, barking and growling resumed—though with an undercurrent of unease only the most sensitive could detect. Simwan noticed the subtle change, and it caused him to scrutinize his immediate surroundings with more concern than previously.

Not coincidentally, every one of the other langurs had fled, disappearing among the rocks, trees, and ravines of their habitat. Only the matriarch remained, facing the visitors who had uttered the unmentionable name. She eyed them up and down from beneath her bushy white brows, her manner and tone deadly serious and anything but monkey-comical.

“You're either very brave or very stupid children, and I can tell that you're not stupid. One doesn't speak lightly of the Crub, much less go looking for it.”

N/Ice straightened and, confident no other visitors were looking in her direction, emitted a brief golden flash. “
We
do. We promised to get the Truth back, we
have
to get the Truth back, and we're going to follow through on our promise.”

“To save our woods, restore the health of our mother, and preserve our town,” Amber underlined.

The senior female scratched her head, then her butt. “You are really determined, aren't you?” She sighed sadly. “Yes, I can see that you are. A pity. It's so rare to find humans one can talk with. Most of the time we don't even try; we just sit back and laugh at their antics and at the silly faces they make. It's enough to make one wish the whole species would just devolve.” Leaning forward, she stuck her face between two of the bars.

“If you insist on pursuing this to what is likely to be an unhappy end for every one of you, I will go ahead and tell you where you can find the Crub.” She looked around apprehensively. “But I don't want my tribe brought into it, understand? Anything you hear, you didn't get from me.”

Simwan nodded gravely. “Understood.”

“All right then.” The matriarch sat back. “But it's going to cost you. Go over there, empty that, and bring the contents to me.”

It took them a few minutes to drain the peanut dispenser of its entire stock. As soon as this had been transferred to the langur habitat, one double handful at a time, the senior female once again moved as close to her new confidants as the metal barrier would permit.

“Hearken to me, balding cousins. The Crub dwells underground, in a deep, terrible place somewhere in the upper reaches of the park. I don't know exactly where, except that it lies to the north of the Reservoir. Never been there myself. They don't let us out much. In fact, they don't let us out at all. But there have been some mice come through this way, and the occasional snake. They're always looking to steal food from the different habitats. Occasionally we corner one, and in return for not eating it, we use it to catch up on the news.”

Simwan quickly fumbled for his map. The girls crowded around as he ran a finger over the lower half. “See, we're down here, in the south end of the park.” Pushing his finger up the map, he quickly located the huge reservoir, moved on to the park's northern boundary. “We can just go back outside and take a bus up to 110th Street. When we get off, we'll be on the park's northern boundary.”

The matriarch was shaking her head, her words slightly slurred because her mouth was full of freshly shelled peanuts. “Huh-uh, humans. Won't work that way. If you go that route, all you'll see is what Ord-folk see: just the park and its proper Ord places. According to what I've been told, the only way to get to the Crub's den is to follow a Path of Singular Significance straight through the park from south to north. There are parts of the park that Ords never see, never experience, and can't get to. The lair of the Crub lies in one of them.”

Simwan nodded slowly. “But you don't know exactly where in the northern section it resides?”

“Afraid I can't help you there.” Rising on her hind legs, the matriarch picked up a double handful of peanuts and started to walk away from the barrier. “Like I said, they don't let us out. So I've never been on that path myself. And if I could, I wouldn't, and you shouldn't.” Looking back over her shoulder, she left them with five final words. “Watch out for the testudines.”

“Hey, wait! Come back,” Amber yelled. Their sole source of information ignored them as the primary primate sauntered languorously in the direction of her offspring and a quiet place to munch what she had scooped from the hoard. As soon as she was out of easy biting range, the mob of drooling langurs who had been tensely awaiting her departure descended on the remaining peanuts. Howls and screeching pierced the air as shells, nuts, and not a few hanks of fur flew in all directions. The excessive commotion drew the attention of a frowning zookeeper, persuading the Deavys to leave lest they be questioned about the disruption.

Wandering around the zoo, they debated how best to proceed.

“‘A path of singular significance,' she called it.” Rose was so deep in thought she didn't even glance up at the pair of tall, time-killing young men who passed them headed in the other direction.

“All we can do is head north and keep a lookout for visible signs and symbols,” Amber pointed out reasonably.

“And invisible ones, maybe,” suggested N/Ice.

“We'll find it.” Simwan felt it incumbent on him to be positive. “If the monkeys could pick up that much information without even leaving their habitat, then we ought to be able to do better, since we can go anywhere in the park that we want to.”

“That's right.” Amber's spirits rose. “And once we've found this Crub's burrow, we'll step on in and take back the Truth.”

“And leave its owner with a firm warning never to return to Clearsight,” Rose concluded staunchly. “Right, Pithfwid?”

Pithfwid nodded. “Well, let's get going. The Truth comes only to those who seek it.”

With their everyday, run-of-the-mill black cat trotting along between them, the Deavy coubet and brother exited the zoo through its front gate.

Then the weather turned and they were forced to take shelter halfway between the zoo and the Rumsey Playfield. Tired of being pushed and shoved up against one another, the irritated clouds overhead had set to arguing violently. The result of their infighting was a cold, steady rain that came down hard as the Deavys ducked for cover beneath one of the many weather shelters that dotted the park.

In the northeastern United States, thunderstorms were most common in the summer, but were not unknown at other times. One was passing overhead now. Bursts of lightning illuminated the park grounds and thrust the trees into skeletal relief. By this time, anyone with any sense had fled for the safety of anywhere that wasn't exposed to the elements. The storm was violent enough to make Simwan wonder if it had been summoned forth by the Crub itself. But while lightning crackled all around them, none of it struck near the simple three-sided shelter under which they were huddling.

It was not long before the embedded storm cell moved off to the northeast and the downpour gave way to light, intermittent rain. While sufficient to keep most would-be joggers and bicyclists indoors, it was not nearly bad enough to prevent the Deavy offspring from continuing on their way.

Most Ords had some idea where lightning went (into the ground) and what subsequently happened to it (it dissipates). But it took sharp-eyed non-Ords like the Deavy coubet to spot what happens to the thunder. Like the lightning that gives it birth, thunder almost always rolls away to fade into the distance. Only the occasional rare outburst takes the shape of a disarmingly small plant. Very rarely did an Ord ever accidentally stumble over a thunderweed.

N/Ice was especially adept at locating the sudden, explosive growths. They tended to appear in the midst of dense clusters of other vegetation, locales that made them even harder to find. Having picked a small bouquet, she amused herself by giving each gray-green branch a liberating kiss before tossing it into the air.

“Will you quit that?” Pulling one of her music player's earplugs from her ear, Rose snapped at her sister.

By way of reply, N/Ice stuck out her tongue, kissed another thunderweed, and tossed it high into the sky. At the apex of its arc, it dissolved away in a clap of rolling thunder. An Ord standing that close to such a detonation would have been deafened. Not so for the Deavys. Some of the learning games they had engaged in when younger were louder than any dissipating thunderweed.

Rose and Amber only relaxed when N/Ice had tossed away the last of the blooming thunderclaps.

To get to the central part of Central Park, they had to pass between two bodies of water: the Lake, as it was straightforwardly known, and the much smaller Conservatory Water. Though it was hard to make out shapes through the damp mist that alternated with the light rain, Simwan thought he saw only a couple of other hardy (more likely foolhardy) individuals. One was exercising a horse. The other, some rich resident's thoroughly miserable-looking servant, was walking a pair of dogs. The twin poodles pulling at their respective leashes were clad in designer rain gear that the speculating coubet quickly decided held higher price tags than the entire clothing budget for the average family of four.

One didn't see such displays of blatant ostentation in rural Pennsylvania. This being none of his business, Simwan had decided to ignore the dogs and their owner when the two pampered pooches began to snarl and drag their sopping-wet walker in his direction—and in Pithfwid's.

The cat ignored them until they were very close. Straining at their restraints, they snapped and snarled, eager to take a bite out of the lone black cat.

“I'm terribly sorry.” The poor servant charged with walking his master's pets struggled to hold back the dogs and prevent them from assaulting the youngsters' cat. He yanked hard on the two leashes. “Don't worry about it.” Simwan raised his voice slightly to make himself heard above the rain. “Happens all the time.”

While the servant was focused on Simwan and Simwan was looking back at the servant, Pithfwid finally deigned to recognize the snarling dogs with a glance in their direction. It was a fleeting glance, very brief indeed. For barely a second or two, unseen by the walker, the cat's eyes trebled in size and turned bright crimson, the vertical pupils flashing both fire and threat. Simultaneously, a remarkably deep yowl emerged from Pithfwid's throat. Half of this lay below the range of human hearing—right where the growl of a hungry jaguar might be.

The two poodles backed up so fast they skidded on the wet pavement in their haste to take cover behind the legs of their handler. Distracted from the apology he was delivering to Simwan, the man looked down at them and frowned uncertainly.

“That's odd. What's got into them?” He bent toward the dogs. “Mitzy, Fritzy—did you see something?”