The Paladin Prophecy

  The screen went dead.

  “Dad. Oh my God. Oh my God.” Please don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him, please let him be okay.

  Too stunned to move, Will gazed at the poster on his wall. THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ORDERLY MIND.

  Listen. No matter what’s happened, you have to do exactly what he’s telling you. The way he taught you: rationally, systematically, ferociously. Now.

  Start by asking the right questions: When did this happen?

  Tuesday, November 7, 8:17 a.m. While I was in history class. Dad sent his last real texts before I got to school: RUN, WILL. DON’T STOP. Every text after 8:17 was either coerced or sent by the men I saw in Dad’s hotel room. They’re working with the ones who’ve chased me all day. The ones who’ve done something to my mother.

  But why? What do they want from us?

  Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw movement in the back window. He grabbed a rock paperweight from his desk, a birthday gift engraved with a single word: VERITAS. He whirled and pegged it at the window. It punched a hole through the glass and clipped something that spun and fluttered to the roof.

  Will hurried to the window. Lying on the shingles outside, in a sharp rectangle of light, was the little white-breasted blackbird. It twitched once or twice, then lay still. The sight of the small pathetic creature pierced Will’s soul. He opened the broken window, gathered the still-warm bird in his hands, and brought it inside.

  A puff of smoke rose from the center of the bird’s chest; it smelled acrid, almost electrical. Looking closely, Will noticed an irregular line under the bird’s chest feathers, a seam where smoke continued to leak.

  Will grabbed his Swiss Army knife from the desk, opened a blade, and pressed it against the seam until he felt it give. Something small, black, and insubstantial—like a shadow—flew out of the widening crack. Startled, Will leaned away; the shadow veered out the back window and vanished.

  Will pried the crack apart. Inside he found no flesh or blood, sinew or bone. Only wires and circuits. The bird was some kind of complex machine. And its cold blank eye looked a lot like a camera lens—

  There was a sharp knock at his door. The doorknob turned. “Will, honey, are you all right?” asked Belinda just outside. “I heard something break.”

  “I dropped a glass,” he said. He stood motionless, waiting for the door to open against the chair and give away that he’d blocked it. “I’m just cleaning up.”

  She paused. “As long as you’re all right. Be careful. Dinner’s ready.”

  He listened as she moved down the stairs, then grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom and folded it around the bird. As he came back into his bedroom, he heard a car outside. Through the window that looked toward the front of the house, he saw a familiar set of headlights coming slowly down the street.

  It was Dad’s car, but after viewing that video, Will had no idea who would be behind the wheel.

  That decided it. They’d rehearsed the drill as a family countless times: two minutes to drop everything and run. Will threw first-aid supplies into his kit bag, then hurried to the bedroom and pulled out his cross-country duffel. He dropped the kit bag in with some clothes: jeans, T-shirts, his best sweater, a bomber jacket, underwear, and socks. His iPhone, iPod, MacBook, power cords, sunglasses, and the bird in the towel went in as well. He set the wedding photo of his parents on top. He grabbed a hundred and forty-three bucks—emergency savings—from a hidden slot in his desk and tossed in the Swiss Army knife.

  #77: THE SWISS ARMY DOESN’T AMOUNT TO MUCH, BUT NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT THEIR KNIFE.

  He added the worn notebook with the black marbled cover; over the years, he’d collected Dad’s rules in it. He pulled Lillian Robbins’s business card from the school packet, memorized her number, then stuck it into his wallet. He stuffed the packet into the bag with his wallet and passport, and zipped it shut.

  Will crouched by the front window as Dad’s battered Volvo station wagon rolled to a stop in front of their house. The passenger and back doors opened, and three men wearing black caps exited. The driver’s side door opened, and Jordan West stepped out. The Black Caps surrounded him as he looked up at the house.

  Is that really Dad, Will thought, or does he have a scar on his neck like Mom?

  As Will watched, one of the men brought out a steel carbon-fiber canister the size of a thermos, just like the one Will had seen that morning in the window of the black sedan. Another shoved Jordan toward the house. Jordan turned and pushed the man away, and that’s when Will knew in his heart that the man he was looking at was still his father: He’s only cooperating because they told him I’m here. Whatever they did to Mom, they haven’t done it to him yet.

  Will took five seconds to look around his room. At every possession he’d cherished enough to keep through fifteen years of life with his parents.

  Remember what Dad said: “I’ll come for you.”

  Will had to believe that now. He stepped silently to the broken window. As he heard the front door open below, Will slung the duffel over his shoulder and climbed onto the roof.

  “Do whatever you need to do to stay alive.”

  Will swung over the edge of the roof and lowered himself, hanging on to a downspout. Keeping away from the windows, he dropped silently to the ground. He figured he had three minutes, at most, before the strangers made their way upstairs and forced open his bedroom door.

  LEAVING SHANGRI-LA

  Out the back gate and onto the road, Will ran into the welcome cover of darkness. He started his stopwatch and then booked it toward town for the second time that day. No limits. Even faster than this morning. Faster than ever. Running for your life is a hell of a motivator.

  Three minutes to get a head start.

  #2: STAY FOCUSED ON THE TASK AT HAND.

  They’d get into their cars and spread out to look for him. If they missed him, Belinda could notify the cops: Post an Amber Alert about a missing kid and you can roll out the army, navy, air force, and marines, as well as local police. They might even set up roadblocks at both roads leading out of Ojai Valley. How long before that happened?

  Half an hour at most. He might reach the western exit on foot by then, although if he stayed in the open, they’d eventually find him. But these people didn’t really know him and that was his advantage. They had no idea—and maybe he didn’t yet, either—just how resourceful and determined Will West could actually be.

  Trust your instincts and training. Hold nothing back.

  He swung the duffel off his shoulder, pulled out his iPhone as he ran, and punched in the number that he’d memorized. She answered on the third ring.

  “Lillian Robbins.”

  “Dr. Robbins, it’s Will West.”

  “Hello, Will. You sound a little out of breath.”

  “I’m out on a run at the moment.”

  “Always helps to clear your head, doesn’t it?”

  “Sometimes more than others,” said Will.

  “How was the rest of your day?” she asked.

  “You were right—I’ve had a lot to think about.”

  “So how can I help? Do you have any questions?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Where are you now?”

  “In my car, driving back to the Center. I flew out this afternoon and landed here about an hour ago.”

  So much for hitching a ride out of Dodge with the doctor.

  “How quickly do you think I could start?” asked Will.

  “At the Center? Does that mean you’re accepting?”

  “Yes.”

  Will reached the end of the road where it dead-ended into the hills. He turned left and flew down the slope toward town, picking up speed, even faster than he’d run that morning.

  Where’s Spooky Hot Rod Dude now that I really need a lift?

  “First let me say, Will, that I am really pleased,” Dr. Robbins said. “And to properly answer your question, our next semester begins in January. We’d encourage you to transfer t
hen.”

  “This is going to sound a little strange.”

  “Try me.”

  “I’d like to start tomorrow.” All he heard was his own breathing as he sprinted down the hill. He lowered the phone, powered around a corner, then brought it back up: “I told you it would sound strange.”

  “I’ve heard stranger,” she said. “But not many. So you’d like to transfer in effective immediately.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Well, we have your transcripts. I assume your parents are on board; this is a family decision?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “They’ve signed the consent forms, filled out all your paperwork?”

  Note to self: Next free moment, forge their signatures. “I have them with me.”

  In the distance, Will heard the deep bass purr of an approaching helicopter. Then sirens. He looked at the stopwatch: Four minutes. That was fast. Cops would be all over Ojai soon, then the Ventura sheriff and CHP. Unless I stay ahead of them.

  “You also mentioned that you’d pay my travel expenses,” he said.

  “That I did.”

  “So if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to catch a flight tonight.”

  She hesitated. “Will, is everything all right on your end?”

  Will hesitated, too. “That needs to be part of the longer conversation you wanted us to have.”

  He had reached the edge of town in record time, skirting the north end of the business district, all the shops closed for the evening. He stopped a moment and leaned back against a wall on a dark side street and took a deep breath. By her silence, he sensed she needed more convincing.

  “You helped me today,” he said quietly. “Helped me realize that I need a … really, really big change in my life.”

  Another pause.

  “I didn’t ask for this,” Will continued. “This morning I didn’t even know the Center existed. You came looking for me. So what difference does it make if I start tomorrow or seven weeks from now?”

  “It doesn’t make any difference, Will. It’s just …” She trailed off.

  Time to play his last card.

  “By the way, about that test in September? They gave us three hours to finish, and I spent at most twenty minutes on it. The truth is, I wasn’t even trying.”

  Will heard the helicopter droning closer, making a sweep toward town.

  “And what’s up with the fingerprints and DNA sample you took this morning with your magic chalkboard? You want to tell me why a school needs that?”

  “Is that what you think it was?”

  “I’m saying I don’t care what it was. You want me there, and my answer is yes. I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t really need this.”

  “Tell me what you need … exactly.”

  “A plane ticket. From the closest airport that’ll get me there. Right now.”

  She paused, then said, “I want to help, Will, but I need to talk to the headmaster’s office. Can I call you back in five?”

  “Yes.”

  She clicked off. More sirens wailed in the distance, drawing in from three directions. He had stopped across from the local taxi office, a small company that serviced the Valley and ran shuttles to southland airports. Their storefront was lit up inside, but empty. A yellow minivan with the company’s logo sat at the curb.

  The white-hot beam of the helicopter’s eye-in-the-sky flicked over buildings and the tops of trees a block away. Will broke from cover and crossed the street to the taxi company. An old-fashioned bell jingled as he entered.

  A stocky Latin guy with a billy-goat beard walked out of a back room. Elaborate tattoos peeked out from his sleeves and neckline: barbed wire, the edge of what looked like feathered wings, the tip of a spear. The embroidered name tag on his company polo shirt read NANDO.

  “That’s a sound you don’t forget,” said Nando. “You don’t want to be tracked by one o’ those bogeys.”

  Will unglued himself from the wall and stepped to the counter, smiling harmlessly, trying to channel his best inner chess club nerd.

  “Boy. Yeah. Really,” said Will. “What’s up with that? Hi.”

  Nando looked him up and down. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Good, good. So, uh, how much is it for a ride to the airport?”

  “LAX is forty dollars; Santa Barbara, twenty. Which one you need?”

  Will held up his phone. “I’m waiting to find out. Would it be okay if we left now and I told you which one on the way?”

  “No, man. That’s totally uncool.”

  “How come?”

  Nando crossed his arms and pointed to either side: “Different directions, dude.”

  “But I’ll know before we have to decide which way to turn.”

  “If it’s LAX, I just quoted you the four-passenger price. But we’re not supposed to launch that ride without a full cabin.”

  “Is anyone else going to LAX?”

  “Not right now.”

  Nando stood his ground, expressionless and unyielding as an Easter Island rock head. He even looked like one. The sirens were getting louder.

  “What’s the one-passenger price?” asked Will.

  “You take math? What’s four times forty, bro?”

  “I get your point. I could give you sixty-five.” Almost half his entire reserve.

  “Wouldn’t hardly pay for the gas, my friend.”

  “See, the thing is, I just found out my dad was in a really bad accident, so I got to get a flight out tonight and I’m just waiting for Mom to figure out which airport and call me back.”

  Nando paused, skeptical. “So where is he now? Your dad.”

  “Intensive care. In San Francisco. That’s where it happened.”

  Nando frowned. “Sorry, little dude. That totally sucks.”

  A police car—siren howling, lights flashing—zipped by outside. Will pretended to bury his face in his sleeve and hide a tear, turning away from the window. His iPhone rang. He looked at the screen: DAD.

  “That your moms?” asked Nando.

  “No. Wrong number.” He put the phone in his pocket and kept a hand on it.

  “I just work here, a’ight? The boss man’s in Palm Springs tonight.”

  “So?”

  “So screw company policy, holmes. We gotta get you to an airport.”

  Nando grabbed keys from under the counter and led the way to the door. Will followed him outside, scanning the street for pursuers. Nando pressed a key fob and the minivan’s side door slid open. Will hopped in back and sank down in the nearest seat. Nando climbed behind the wheel and fired up the engine.

  “What’s your name?” asked Nando.

  “Will. Will West.”

  “Will. Trying to help your pops while he’s lying there all messed up in some distant city? That’s awesome.”

  “Thanks, Nando.”

  “I love my pops, too, man. And if I knew he was like shot or stabbed or taken down on some kind of bogus weapons charge, I would do whatever it took, just like you, to be by his side.”

  Nando steered away from the curb. As they turned onto the highway leading west out of town, two more patrol cars raced by, sirens wailing.

  “Man, what is up with the po-po in our sleepy town tonight? We brought our baby girls up here from Oxnard to get away from junk like this, know what I mean?”

  Will noticed a photo of a sturdy young woman holding two chubby babies in a glittered frame on the dash. A jiggly plastic hula dancer and a pair of fuzzy black dice hung from the rear-view mirror, which glowed in the dark.

  “Yes, I do,” said Will.

  “I got some Chumash in me, from my momma’s side. You know, the Indians? This used to be our hang, so no wonder, right? Love this town, man. It’s paradise. They shot this movie up here, long time ago, ’cause they said it looked like that place, what’s it called … that old group did the song ’bout that biker dude and his old lady.”

  “Shangri-la,” said Will.

&nb
sp; Nando snapped his fingers. “The Shangri-Las! My boyfriend’s back and there’s gonna be trouble—”

  “Hey-na, hey-na—”

  “And in the movie, Shangri-la is this mystical valley with this tribe of blissed-out ancient dudes who all look thirty-five. Except you find out they’re all like five hundred ’cause they don’t ever stress or freak out about nothin’.”

  “It’s from a book called Lost Horizon,” Will said. “My dad told me about it when we moved here. That’s the name of the movie, too.”

  “I gotta check that out. You think it’s on DVD?”

  Will’s phone rang. He looked at the incoming number: Dr. Robbins’s cell.

  “That your moms?” asked Nando.

  “Yes,” said Will, and answered, “I’m here.”

  “There’s a flight from Santa Barbara to Denver at eight forty-five,” said Robbins. “That’s the only way I can get you out tonight. Can you make that one?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll have a ticket in your name waiting at the counter.”

  “Thank you, really. You have no idea—”

  “It gets in at eleven. We’re still working on a red-eye from Denver to Chicago, but I’ll have that by the time you reach the airport. A car and driver will meet you in baggage claim at O’Hare in the morning … and, Will?”

  “Yes?”

  “The headmaster and I both want to discuss this, in detail, when you arrive.”

  “Of course. I’ll see you then.”

  “Have a safe trip,” she said.

  Robbins ended the call, but before he hung up, Will added, for Nando’s benefit, “Love you, Mom. Always and forever.”

  “Which way we headed?” asked Nando.

  “Santa Barbara. Eight-forty-five flight.”