"Vincenzo threatened to kill Elzie," Des tells him. "Along with everybody else Josh cares about. Unless Josh kills Congressman Householder."
Cory shakes his head. "That doesn't even begin to make sense."
Des tells him everything else Vincenzo said.
Cory rubs at his face. "Crap. This is worse than I thought." He looks to Auntie Min. "You have any thoughts on who else is behind this?"
She shakes her head.
"Okay," he says. "We've got our work cut out for us. We need to clean this place up as though we were never here."
I know he means we have to do something with Tomás's body, but I don't know what it means for Theo.
"You should know," Des says, "that The Wild Surf are waiting for Tomás in the parking lot below—along with their driver."
Cory nods. "But first things first. Let's get Chaingang fixed up."
"What are you going to do?" Auntie Min asks as he leaves Tomás's side and walks over to where Des and I are with Theo.
There's a worried tone in her voice, which makes me wonder if I should be feeling even more freaked out than I already am.
"Relax," he tells us. "I'm Coyote Clan. We've got lots of tricks up our sleeve."
"I know," Auntie Min says. "That's what worries me."
He waves her off with a casual motion of his hand. "I've done this a thousand times."
"Done what?"
He grins at me. "Taken a walk into somebody else's head."
"Oh, come on, seriously, dude?" Des says. "You expect us to believe you're going to just walk into Chaingang's brain?"
"After all you've seen, this you can't accept?"
"So anything can happen?" Des says. "Is that what I'm supposed to believe?"
"I don't go inside him physically," Cory explains. "We call it dreamwalking, which means I can visit his spirit in the place he goes when his body's asleep. The dreamlands are part of the otherworld, and everybody goes there at some point or another. You just don't usually remember your visits. Time spent there gets all messed up with the actual dreams you have. But when a cousin like me is a character in one of your dreams, you're usually not dreaming. You're in the shifting part of the otherworld, where anything can happen, and you're actually talking to a cousin."
I guess the fact that neither Des nor I look like we really get it makes him continue.
"Okay, it's like with your friend Erik. You don't think I really took him into the otherworld, do you?"
"Didn't you?" I say.
"Of course not. I took him into a dream of the otherworld. He only thought he was having all those experiences."
"But he was all messed up when I saw him in school—caked in dust, his clothes all dirty and torn."
Cory gives that coyote grin of his. "Oh, that. I just had him roll around in the service lane behind his place until I thought he looked like somebody who'd been having a rough time out in the mountains. The whole time he was rolling around out there, he was dreaming that he was scrabbling around in the mountain dirt and rocks."
"Theo's not going to get hurt," I start.
"Of course not," Cory breaks in. "He's one of us. I'd never treat him like that. I'm just going into his head to have a conversation with him. Tell him it's time to wake up so we can get this show on the road."
"You be careful," Auntie Min warns as Cory kneels down beside Des and me.
"Careful's my middle name," Cory says.
He winks at me as he reaches out with a finger to touch the spot between Theo's eyebrows. Maybe it's my imagination, but I swear there's a little spark of light when the pad of his finger makes contact. Then Cory's eyes roll up in his head, showing their whites.
I'm thinking his wide-open blank gaze is pretty much the creepisest thing I've ever seen when the coyote head takes the place of his human features and he vanishes from sight.
"Dude," Des breathes from beside me.
I look to Auntie Min. "This is safe, right? Nobody's going to get hurt?"
"It should be fine," she says, but she doesn't look entirely convinced.
Josh
I land on Vincenzo's back when I come out of the passageway into the otherworld, ready to tear him to shreds. But he shrugs me off before my claws can dig in, flipping me over his head like I'm still a kid, not a hundred and eighty pounds of mountain lion. There's no grass to land on. There's just the empty space on the other side of the cliff edge. The waves pounding on the rocks below.
Vincenzo snatches me out of the air, one hand grabbing me by the nape of the neck, the other backhanding me along the side of my head. He's so strong that my ears ring from the blow. My gaze fills with stars and I can't think. I can't do much of anything, except hang limp in his iron grip.
"Didn't think you'd have the balls, kid," he says. "Not that you ever had a chance."
I'm still stunned, but the mountain lion has me growling deep in my chest as I start to recover from the blow.
Vincenzo gives me a shake. It feels like my brain is being rattled around in my skull, bouncing off the bone. When he's done I hang limp once more, dangling from his hand. The mountain lion takes a weak swipe at him. He gives me another hard shake.
"You see?" he says. "You're nothing special. The Thunders never sent you—I don't care what anybody says. All you are is some freak of nature."
He's right. It's what I've been trying to tell anyone who'll listen, ever since all of this began.
"I can see in your eyes that you agree." He gives me another shake when he doesn't get a response. "Don't you?"
It's hard with his hand holding me up over the edge of the cliff by the scruff of my neck, but I give him an awkward nod.
"I thought I could use your death to send a message," Vincenzo says, "but you're not even useful for that, are you?"
I move my head to let him know I'm listening before he gives me another rattling shake.
This seriously sucks, but I've no one to blame but myself.
What the hell was I thinking?
Chaingang couldn't take him. Cory and Tomás couldn't do it together. Sure, I have the benefit of a more powerful Wildling shape than any of them, but that's turning out to not be so much of an advantage.
I'm such an idiot. All I was trying to do was stop him from hurting Elzie and Mom. Instead I just threw away any chance I might have had to stop him. Vincenzo's had me so outclassed from the beginning, it's pathetic. My going after him was like a heavyweight being attacked by a lightweight. David going hand-to-hand with Goliath instead of doing the smart thing and taking the giant out from a distance with his trusty slingshot.
I blew it and now everybody's going to die, starting with me.
Chaingang
There weren't a lot of things Grandma could afford, but one bill she always paid right smack on time was the cable bill. She had her favourites, but there was plenty of time between soaps and game shows for J-Dog and me to watch the stuff we liked. The pair of us grew up watching a lot of TV—old and new.
One of our favourites was The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—back when Will Smith was still an up-and-comer and hadn't yet made any movies or albums. The idea that some black kid from the 'hood could end up living in a Beverly Hills mansion was a real kick to me and my brother, considering how we had to make do growing up in the Orchards with our grandma. Her place was a long way from the crack house that we'd be stuck in if our mother were still alive, but it couldn't hold a candle to the Fresh Prince's crib.
The thing that's got me thinking about all of this is that I'm standing in the vast marbled foyer of a mansion. I swear the ceiling goes up thirty feet. Suspended from it is a huge chandelier made up of thousands of sparkling crystals. A big stairway comes curving down to meet the marble. Everything smells fresh and clean, like somebody just washed the floor.
I've no idea what I'm doing here, how I got here or who this place belongs to. I glance behind me at a pair of tall oak doors, which I guess I must have walked through to get inside.
Any minute,
somebody's going to come along and throw me out.
Or call the cops.
Or both.
But the place is silent except for the ticking of a big wooden grandfather clock standing against the wall to my right. There's a small table beside it with envelopes scattered across its polished surface.
The owner's mail, I guess.
I walk over and pick up an envelope. It's addressed to Mr. & Mrs. T.Washington.
I stare at it for a long moment before I pick up the next one. This one's a bill, and it's addressed to Theodore Washington.
I look around the foyer again.
You have got to be shitting me. This is my place?
I rub a hand across my head, looking for the bump I must have gotten when I banged my head and lost my memory.
There's nothing there. Just my head, the stubble telling me it's due for a shave.
So I didn't smash my head. But this doesn't make a lick of sense. I know I'm a member of the Ocean Avers. That my brother runs the gang. That my grandma lives in the Orchards, in a little clapboard house with next to no yard, and an asshole next door whose lane is so full of car parts you have to walk across the dirt of his front yard to reach the door.
So where does this place fit in? How did I get here?
And who the hell is Mrs. Washington?
Besides the stairs going up to a second floor, a large archway on my right leads into a fancy living room that's just as unfamiliar as everything else. Past the stairway and the grandfather clock, a corridor runs off deeper into the house. On the other side of the archway is a closed wooden door, beautifully carved with mythical creatures.
I walk over and try the knob. The door opens into a movie geek's wet dream. It's like a miniature movie theatre with a couple of rows of big plush chairs facing a screen that takes up almost the entire wall. There's a wet bar in the corner with a phone on the gleaming bar top. An answering machine sits beside the phone with a blinking red light.
When I push Play, a familiar voice comes from the little speaker.
"Hey, honey," Marina says. "I'm running a little late. If I'm not back by five, could you heat the oven to three-fifty and put in the enchiladas that Rosa Maria said she'd leave in the fridge? Love ya."
Click. The message is over.
I push Play and listen to it again while I look behind the bar at the rows of liquor bottles. I just might have to break my own rules and have a stiff drink because this is starting to freak me out now.
Marina Lopez is Mrs. Washington?
Why don't I know that?
I turn away from the bar and that's when I see the guy sitting in the front row of those big plush chairs, head back on the seat, staring up at the blank screen like he's watching a movie. He wasn't there when I first came in, and he doesn't turn around as I walk down to the front of the chairs. I get an uneasy prickle in the nape of my neck when I can finally see his face. He waits until I'm standing right in front of him before he winks and tips a finger against his brow.
"I know you," I say.
And I do. I just can't remember from where, or even what his name is.
"Of course you do," he says.
I wait, but he doesn't go on. He just sits there, checking me out with this mild gaze that doesn't fool me for a minute. He's not big and he's at a disadvantage, sitting while I'm standing up. Under normal circumstances, I'm pretty sure I could take him, no problem. But there's an intensity about him like a coiled spring that, when it snaps, snaps hard.
I need to know more about him. Who he is, why he's here.
And more important, if he can explain how I got here.
"I can't remember your name," I say.
"That happens."
"Or how we met."
He nods. "That, too."
He's not going to make this easy. I feel like pulling him up by the front of his shirt and slapping some answers out of him. Except that's what J-Dog would do. Me, I can be reasonable for as long as it takes. Unless he pulls a gun or takes a swing at me. Then all bets are off.
So I smile and nod right back at him.
"I was hoping maybe you could help me out with that," I say.
His gaze settles on mine.
"What's the last thing you do remember?" he asks.
"That's easy. I …"
My voice trails off because I've got nothing. I know all kinds of things. I know my own name. Where I came from, how I grew up, the school I go to, though I don't so much attend classes as sit outside on a picnic table and let the days go by.
But an actual incident? A real memory of something I did?
I guess it shows on my face.
"Yeah," he says. "I thought as much."
I take a breath to steady the unfamiliar jolt of anxiety that's flooding me.
"You know what's going on, right?" I say.
"I do."
"So tell me."
He nods, but he doesn't say anything for a long moment. I keep studying his face. I'm sure I know him, but I still can't figure out from where.
"Normally," he says finally, "we're supposed to ease into this kind of thing. Go too fast and the mind can get so messed up it might never come back. But we're already a couple of steps behind as it is. We don't have the luxury of taking our time to work this through."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I know. And maybe you never will. But let's give it a shot anyway."
"Any chance you could start talking English?"
"Do you trust me?" he asks.
I shake my head, but the thing is, I kind of do. I don't know why.
He stands up and waves to the chairs. "Grab yourself a seat."
"I'll just stand, if it's all the same to you."
"If you want my help, you'll sit."
With him on his feet, I still tower over him. My sitting will put him at the advantage and that's not how I roll. The first thing you learn on the street, in school, in juvie: never give up an advantage, no matter how small.
He folds his arms and waits.
"Just tell me what's going on," I say.
He shakes his head. "It doesn't work that way."
I want to argue, but I can tell he's got no give in this. If I want answers, I have to play it his way.
So I sit. Reluctantly—and I make sure he knows it—but I sit.
"Now what?" I ask.
He leans a hand on my armrest so that his head's close to mine.
"This is either going to hurt for a moment," he says, "or it'll hurt forever."
"What are you—"
I don't even see where the knife comes from before it's in his free hand. I start to ward off the blow, but I'm way too slow.
The blade punches into my skull, right between my eyes.
My head explodes with white light and pain.
When the black wave comes rolling over me I sink into it with relief.
Josh
It's funny, the things that go through your head when the guy who's going to kill you is looking you right in the eye. Vincenzo's about to snap my neck like he did with Tomás, and all I can think about is hanging in Des's garage one afternoon and him insisting we should each make out a bucket list—write down all the things we want to do before we die.
"Yeah, yeah, dude," he said. "I get it. All things considered, we've got years to go. But you see all those guys at school with no direction and we know where they're going to end up. That's not going to be us. If we've got something to shoot for, we've got a shot of making something out of our lives." He grinned. "Or at least we'll have a damn good time trying."
So we made out our lists. Goofy, typical stuff.
Lose my virginity. Check.
Jam with The Wild Surf. A half-check there, because at least I did get to meet them.
Win the X Games in L.A. and get a bunch of product endorsements. Des has at least come close, winning a few local comps, though no one's throwing money at him yet.
But most things are still sitting there on thos
e lists.
The headline tour. Except we still haven't even had our first gig. The band doesn't even have a name.
Backpack through Europe.
Go to Hawaii and surf with Marina—or at least, go along to lend her moral support because those waves would kill me.
Make it to the Olympics like Shaun White.
Wrestle a kangaroo in Australia. Okay, that was Des's, but he made me put it on my list, too.
It went on, some serious, some just a couple of guys taking the piss out of each other. The wilder those lists got, the harder we laughed.
We managed to fill a couple of pages. A lot of the stuff was never going to happen, but the possibility was always there.
Except not anymore. Not for me.
Vincenzo is saying something to me, but I can't even hear him. I just want this to be over with. I look anywhere but at him. Movement catches my eye overhead and I track a red-tailed hawk until it's out of sight. It makes me think of los tíos.
Boy, did they make the wrong call about me.
If that hawk's one of los tíos, he's probably flying back to the others to tell them that whatever they thought they'd seen in me wasn't there, and they'd better get back to looking for someone else.
Vincenzo gives me another shake and I realize he's been telling me to change back to my human shape. That suits me just fine. I'd rather die the way I came into this world. The only thing being a Wildling has ever done is bring me grief.
As soon as I change, he throws me onto the ground. I can hardly think straight—but even if I'd had plans to get away, I'd never pull one of them off because he's on me as soon as I'm down. His bare foot presses down on my chest—not hard enough to crush it, but hard enough so that I can't grab a real breath or get out from under it.
"This is better," Vincenzo says. "It will be so much more satisfying to kill you when you look like what you really are: a five-fingered pretender."
Past his face I see that damn hawk is back, circling directly above us like a vulture waiting on his dinner. I wish it would either fly down and save the day, or screw off and leave me alone. The way it is, it looks too much like a big fat "I told you so." Because I can remember another hawk in the barrio, warning me off when I went to follow Vincenzo—back before I even knew who he was.