The Paladin Prophecy

  Todd stumbled a few steps toward him and collapsed face-first. Jericho’s gaze settled on Nick and Will, the only uninjured bodies in the room. His eyes flashed with anger.

  “McLeish, you chuckwagon, what the hell are you doing here?”

  Nick and Will grabbed hands and pretended they were stretching.

  “Just stretching out my roomie, Coach,” said Nick.

  “What happened?” asked Jericho.

  “Not real sure, Coach, we just came in,” said Will. “But if I had to guess … it looks like they overtrained.”

  COACH JERICHO

  Coach Jericho took them into the hall and chewed them out for two minutes. The man could cuss like a drill sergeant, but they both stuck to their story. When the coach realized this was going nowhere, he dismissed Nick and walked Will to a room down the hall. It was carpeted, hushed, and three of its walls held massive trophy cases. Jericho didn’t speak as Will looked around. Every competitive sport imaginable was represented. There were cups and medals, ribbons, and trophies going back nearly a hundred years.

  “These all your teams, Coach?” asked Will.

  “Wiseass,” said Jericho. “What does it tell you?”

  “That they’ve always been competitive. For a bunch of over-privileged jerks.”

  “Tradition. Tradition and history,” said Jericho. “Dishonor the past, and you disgrace the present and destroy the future. Where’d you come from?”

  “California.”

  “I know that. Where you’d come from?”

  “I don’t know,” said Will honestly.

  “Kids show up here full of ego, self-importance, and the foolishness of the culture that raised them. It’s not their fault. If they leave here that way, that’s our fault.”

  Will realized, with surprise, that he felt comfortable speaking openly to Jericho. Beneath his fierce appearance and temperament, the man seemed to be a straight shooter.

  “I’m on board with that,” said Will.

  Jericho moved closer, his eyes focused on Will’s. “All that matters once you’re here is what you have inside and how well you listen to what it wants to teach you. Learn that and you harmonize with Wak’an. The Great Mystery. Then you’ll know where you come from.”

  Jericho’s dark eyes stared into him like an X-ray. The hairs on Will’s arms stood on end.

  “Mysteries reveal purpose,” said Jericho, calm and conversational. “Life without purpose is its own punishment. You ever think about your purpose?”

  “I have lately.”

  Jericho walked over to a large globe on a stand, turning it as he spoke. “One of our purposes, collectively, is to serve as the guardians of our world.”

  Now he’s starting to sound like Dave, thought Will as he followed him.

  “Do you know how terrible it is to watch your civilization lose its way?” asked Jericho.

  “I’m sorry, you’re talking about …?”

  “My people. Our beliefs, gods, culture. All that’s gone now,” said Jericho. “We know every civilization gives way to another. Every animal, every species, yields to one that takes its place. Impermanence. That’s reality.”

  “So I’ve been told,” said Will, thinking of Sangren’s lecture.

  “But that doesn’t mean you just surrender to evil. We can’t afford ‘you’ and ‘I’ anymore. Red, white, black, yellow—those distinctions no longer matter.” Jericho gave the globe a spin; all the colors blended into one. “We’re all one people or we’re not going to make it. You think there weren’t others before us? You bet there were. Before even my people walked this ground. Long before. Right here.”

  Will felt the room go alarmingly still. “You mean … in Wisconsin?”

  “They weren’t like us,” said Jericho as he stopped the globe. “But the same dangers destroyed them: Madness. Distraction. Disharmony. Societies catch diseases, too. Why do you think that is?”

  “I have no idea,” said Will.

  Jericho opened a carved wooden box on a shelf beside one of the trophy cases. He took out a bundle of four round sticks, with groups of feathers attached to the ends. He made some small circular gestures with them as he looked at Will.

  “Because no one’s immune; imperfection’s part of being alive,” said Jericho. “What this world needs isn’t new ideas. What it needs is old wisdom. If you develop your vision, you’ll see a way forward. Become a warrior in the fight between dark and light. Do you have a favorite animal?”

  “I’ve never really thought about it,” said Will, mystified.

  “Think about it. Look for an animal in your dreams,” he said, lightly touching the feathers to Will’s forehead. “Then tell me if you dream of bears … or weasels.”

  * * *

  “Bears or weasels?” asked Nick. “Give me a freakin’ break.”

  “That’s what he said,” said Will.

  They were trudging back to campus after finishing their workout, afternoon light fading fast. The wind had picked up, smacking them in the face, a different kind of cold. Dark clouds bunched on the western horizon and a deep barometric disturbance was massing in the air. The pressure was falling fast; heavy weather was headed their way, maybe the first winter storm of Will’s life.

  “Weasel Holes, now weasels?” said Nick. “That’s so random. I mean, why not monkeys or chickens?”

  “He said weasels are the only animals that kill more than they need to survive,” said Will. “They kill because they like it.”

  “Okay, that sucks,” said Nick. “Speaking of weasels, you think Todd ratted us out? Does Jericho know we’re the ones who kicked his team’s butt?”

  “I don’t think Todd would want to admit it, do you?”

  “Don’t know,” said Nick. “Never been in that situation.”

  “Seriously? How many fights have you had?” asked Will.

  “Including today? Thirty-one.”

  Will stopped in his tracks. “You’ve had thirty-one fights?! And you’re undefeated? Thirty-one to zero.”

  Nick shrugged, a little embarrassed, as they walked on. “Dude, there’s no point being in a fight if you’re gonna lose. You didn’t grow up in my neighborhood. Townies learn to throw down before they can walk. My dad says I clocked a four-year-old from my crib when he tried to steal my blankie. How many you had?”

  Will stuttered, “Uh, fights? Besides that one? None.”

  “You never had to fight, moving around as much as you did?”

  “I’ve had to outrun a few guys,” said Will.

  Nick gave him a fist bump. “That works, brother.”

  “I just had no idea you were such a hard-core badass,” said Will.

  “Let’s keep it that way,” said Nick, lowering his voice. “That’s the first scrap I’ve been in since I got here. I promised Pop I’d change my ways. He hears about this he’ll freakin’ kill me.”

  “I’m sorry you got mixed up in it, then.”

  “Naw, don’t be. Truth is, I miss letting the beast loose,” said Nick, shadow boxing. “Not that I went looking for trouble, but in my world when guys hear you’re a gymnast? You might as well be a florist who’s into ballroom dancing.”

  “How’d you learn to … bounce around like that?”

  “Started gymnastics when I was five,” said Nick. “The same year Pop got me into boxing. Then wrestling. Then tae kwon do and karate … later on aikido and kung fu … wing chun for defense … and recently this Brazilian jujitsu style, capoeira, that’s the total bomb.”

  “Damn. No wonder you never learned how to run,” said Will. “How’d your mom feel about it?”

  Nick looked away. “My mom died when I was five.”

  Will stopped. “I’m really sorry, Nick.”

  Nick nodded. “Thanks. I’m still pretty bummed out about it myself.”

  “Any brothers or sisters?”

  “Just me and Pop.”

  A security guard drove by and waved as they reached the quad.

  “So how’d
you end up at the Center?” asked Will.

  “Got the invite after I won gold at the New England high school gymnastics finals,” said Nick. “Which was kinda unusual, seeing how I was in eighth grade.”

  “I’d say so,” said Will. “Which event?”

  Nick shrugged again modestly. “All of ’em.”

  Will’s eyes bugged out. “All of them? So you really are on athletic scholarship.”

  “Dude, look around,” said Nick. “We couldn’t afford this joint without it. My dad’s a motorman for the MTA. He takes a train to work so he can drive a frickin’ train. Kind of guy who never gets the dirt out from under his fingernails, you know? So who says the only kind of luck you have is bad?”

  “I hear that.”

  “Dude, case you ain’t noticed, I’m not exactly the sharpest Crayola in the box. I can’t even spell dyslexia. I thought ADHD was some kind of plasma screen.”

  Will laughed so hard he doubled over.

  “But the day I get a college scholarship, nobody’s laughing,” said Nick, looking around at the ivy-covered halls. “A real college, not some juco vocational joint. Big Ten, Ivy League, ACC. That’s our plan, Pops and me, and we’re stickin’ to it.”

  Will found Nick’s story hard to square with what he’d heard about the Center’s imposing academic standards. Could athletic ability mean that much in their selection process? And if so, why?

  “I should talk,” said Nick. “You run like a freakin’ antelope. That how you got here?”

  “No. Something to do with a test I took,” said Will vaguely. Will stopped under a streetlamp a block from Greenwood Hall. He wanted to tell Nick everything, all the rest of what he’d been through, what had happened to his parents, the things Jericho had just told him, Dave’s tour of the Hierarchy and the Never-Was. Keeping all these secrets straight made his head feel like it might split in half. And Nick was the right guy to trust, an honest, good-hearted scrapper from the wrong side of the tracks. Will wanted him as a friend more than ever.

  Do I really need any more convincing? The guy just launched himself into a one-sided stomping and saved my rear end. And, by the way, he hits like a dump truck.

  But Rule #5 floated into his head like a tile in the eight ball: TRUST NO ONE. And this time it pissed Will off.

  Why did my parents discourage me from making friends? Why tell me I could never trust anyone outside our family? Why work so hard to isolate me from people?

  “You’re the real deal, Nick,” said Will. “I don’t know how to thank you for helping me. I mean that. I don’t know how.”

  Nick seemed almost bashful. “No big thing, Chilly Will. I’m sure you’d’a done the same for me.”

  “I’d want to, but I’m not sure I could pull it off,” said Will.

  “You could always run for help,” said Nick with a crooked grin.

  “I think I’ve got all the help I need right here,” said Will. “Nick, I’m pretty sure Todd and most of those guys are part of the Knights. I dropped mask and knights on Todd while we were talking, and he flinched like I hit him with a rock.”

  “Awesome work,” said Nick, and gave Will a high five. “What’s our next move? Do we blow the whistle on these bad boys?”

  “Not without proof, something that totally nails them to the Black Caps,” said Will, looking over at the lights burning in Greenwood Hall. “So we need to do something totally illegal.”

  Nick got a very serious look. “I’m all over that.”

  “We’re going to search Lyle’s quarters,” said Will.

  They tried calling him from the house phone in the lobby. No answer. Then they knocked on Lyle’s door. “Think he’s in there?” asked Will.

  “You know the old saying,” said Nick. “Keep your friends close and your enemies dead and buried in the basement.”

  Nick turned the knob; they looked at each other in surprise when it opened.

  “Lyle?” said Nick, calling inside. “You in the house, buddy?”

  They moved into the wood-paneled inspection room. Empty. Nick knocked on the inner door. “Yoo-hoo, Marshal Lyle!”

  No response. Nick tried the door. Locked. He took a device from his pocket and picked the lock in less than five seconds, then smiled sheepishly at Will.

  “Kind of a neighborhood skill,” he said.

  They entered Lyle’s suite. The front room centered on an L-shaped desk lined with six monitors showing views from security cameras around Greenwood Hall. A bookshelf filled with rows of twelve-inch spiral notebooks stood against one wall. Above that, a metal rack screwed into the wall held sealed plastic containers. Will found one with his name labeled on it and saw his iPhone and laptop inside.

  Nick opened the door to Lyle’s bedroom and switched on the light. He recoiled from something inside. Will joined him and caught a whiff of foul air.

  “You ever smell anything that disgusting before?” asked Nick.

  “Three times now,” said Will, stepping inside. When the monsters show up.

  “Either he stuffed a dead fish with rotten eggs marinated in raw sewage,” said Nick, “or this dipstick needs a shower worse than anyone on the planet.”

  Will tracked the smell to the bedroom closet. He opened the door. Behind a rack of clothes, Nick uncovered a poster-sized sheet of superthin metal attached to the wall, embossed with rows of small, indecipherable glyphs. When Nick waved a hand near it, the closest glyphs lit up, illuminated from within.

  “What the hell is this thing?” asked Nick.

  “No idea,” said Will. He snapped a picture of it with his phone camera.

  Sticking out from under a pile of Lyle’s stuff deeper in the closet was the corner of a trunk made of high-tech black carbon fiber. “Check this out,” Nick said.

  He pulled the trunk into the open. It was rectangular, fairly shallow, with a handle on top. Will leaned over to look at it and his eyes started burning.

  “That smell’s coming from here,” said Will.

  “Let’s leave him a note: ‘Dude, bad news: Your ferrets died. Buy some Lysol.’ ”

  They had to cover their noses and mouths against the stink. Will undid the catch and opened the lid. Inside were neat rows of black mesh containers in three sizes: some the size of matchboxes, others shaped like thermoses, others long and skinny like spaghetti boxes. All had more of the strange glyphs on them.

  Nick reached for one of the thermoses and something jumped at him inside it with enough force to dent the mesh. “What the hell,” he said, yanking his hand away.

  Will slammed the trunk shut and kicked it into place. “We’re out of here.”

  Nick followed him back into the office. “What’s in those canisters?”

  “I’m not sure, but I saw a Black Cap carrying one outside my house in Ojai.”

  “Maybe we should ask him.” Nick pointed at one of the monitors on Lyle’s desk.

  Lyle Ogilvy had just stepped inside the building.

  They dashed outside and made it into the hallway as Lyle came around the corner. He looked deathly pale, his eyes red and strained. His winter coat increased his bulk, and he had a thick wool scarf wrapped around his neck. He carried a paper bag that was soaked at the bottom, greasy liquid oozing through the seams. Strangest of all, instead of shooting them the evil eye, Lyle didn’t even look at them.

  “Hey, Lyle, how’s it going?” asked Nick.

  Lyle stopped and turned. He barely seemed to register they were there. He walked into his office, quietly closed the door, and locked it from inside.

  “What is up with Uncle Fester?” said Nick softly, spooked.

  “Beats me,” said Will. “Looks like he’s got the flu. Let’s go talk to Ajay. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  “I’ll make a food run,” said Nick, heading for the door. “Chinese takeout?”

  “Yes,” said Will.

  FLASH

  It was five-thirty when Will entered their pod. Ajay sat at the table scarfing a bowl of cereal. Wi
ll filled him in about Todd and the other seniors on the cross-country team and the likelihood that they might be the Knights. He also told him about what he and Nick had just found in Lyle’s closet.

  “What’s in those containers?” asked Ajay.

  “I think it’s more of the … you know,” said Will, suddenly self-conscious.

  “Monsters?” said Ajay, his eyes widening. “You know, Will, I want to believe everything you’ve told us, but you’re the only one who’s seen any of them so far.”

  “If you’re lucky, that won’t change,” said Will.

  “Well, I have a lot to show you, too,” said Ajay, taking his dish to the kitchen. “Meet me in my room. Bring your tablet.”

  Will hurried to his room. His tablet sat up on his desk, a screen saver of the crest floating in a liquid blue field. He stopped when it dissolved to black, then faded up on a replica of his room. A young man sat at the desk with his back to Will, working at his tablet.

  The figure turned. It was Will’s syn-app, fully fleshed. He had the same face, hair, and clothes as Will, except for a different-color shirt, light gray to Will’s blue. Then—after the syn-app saw Will—his shirt changed color to match his exactly.

  It was like looking in a mirror, but not quite. The figure appeared smooth around the edges, slightly vague, like a nearly finished sketch. Computer Will met Will’s eye and smiled, as if he had been waiting for him.

  The syn-app waved. Will hesitated, then waved back. He thought about asking the figure to stand, so thrown by this eerie thing that he felt the syn-app needed to move so he could reach his real tablet. “Will” stood and stepped away from the desk, smiling agreeably and awaiting Will’s next instruction.

  Did he just hear me think that?

  “Okay, that’s a little creepy,” said Will. “Shut down.”

  “Would you like me to run a system security check, Will?” asked Will in a spooky simulation of his own voice.

  “Not right now—”

  “I highly recommend you let me perform a—”

  “I said not now. Shut down.”

  “Will” snapped his fingers and the screen went black. The legs folded into the frame and the tablet settled down flat on the desk. Will warily picked it up. Holding it like a ticking bomb, he hurried to Ajay’s room, knocked, announced himself, and heard Ajay open the locks before the door opened.