The Paladin Prophecy

  Will pushed the glasses up on his head, struggling to make sense out of madness. Somehow, somewhere, he found a string of logic:

  They’re related to the things that chased me in the hills. Monsters somehow set loose from the same twisted nightmare realm—what did Dave call it? The Never-Was.

  Then Will remembered where he’d seen creatures like these. Devilish monsters attacking airplanes in flight. It didn’t make any more sense than the rest of it but there it was, from an old cartoon set in World War II:

  Gremlins.

  Will turned to the window and saw his reflection in the glass. And something else. Someone else—inside his reflection—staring back at him.

  A girl. Somehow she was out there; he felt her presence. Trying to say something to him.

  The plane jolted, and the dark glasses dropped down over Will’s eyes again.

  A gremlin was pressed against the other side of the glass, staring at him with its blank white eyes. It pointed a talon at him, opened its mouth in an evil grin, and drew a finger along its throat. Then the thing gripped either side of the window and reared back, ready to thrust its horn straight through the glass. Will recoiled.

  Something grabbed the loathsome beast from behind before it could strike. A hand closed around the creature’s horn and yanked it away from the window. Dave was outside, standing on the wing. As the creature bucked furiously, Dave flung the thing out into space and out of sight, its limbs flailing.

  Dave tossed a salute at Will, then drew a long-barreled sidearm from a holster under his jacket, some kind of hybrid handgun/rifle. He walked farther out on the wing, working to keep his balance but eerily unaffected by altitude, temperature, air speed, and every other principle of physical science that should destroy anyone in these circumstances.

  Anyone human.

  Dave stopped halfway to the engine, raised the gun, and opened fire on the hideous swarm. Bursts of light shot out the barrel, ripping holes clean through the creatures. One after another, they fell away into darkness.

  Will watched through the window, his jaw hanging open.

  The last two gremlins whipped around and launched themselves at Dave like missiles. He fanned the hammer, blasting one in midair, and it tumbled into the void. The survivor landed on Dave’s right shoulder. Pincers snapping, it scrabbled around to the back of Dave’s neck. He twisted after it but couldn’t grab hold as it worked itself into position to stab its horn into the base of Dave’s skull.

  Dave holstered his weapon. He staggered to the front edge of the wing, dropped to his knees, and lay flat. Grabbing the wing, with one powerful thrust he drew up his knees and planted his boots on the wing’s tapered rim. Struggling against ferocious g-forces, Dave slowly straightened his legs until he stood pointed straight ahead, parallel to the wing, leaning into the wind like a ski jumper. The creature on Dave’s neck hung on desperately, unable to strike, pinned by the crushing wind.

  Finding his balance, Dave turned 180 degrees until he faced skyward. The gremlin clung to him, fighting the pull from the engine’s intake draft directly below. Then with a silent scream the gremlin was sucked down into the whirling grill of the jet’s turbine. The engine stuttered and the whole wing flapped like a startled bird.

  Will’s stomach flipped over. He ripped the glasses off and held his head in his heads, gripped by feverish vertigo.

  This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening!

  He wiped sickly sweat off his forehead and forced himself to look outside. Dave was standing on the wing. He walked over to Will’s window. Will watched through spread fingers, unwilling to let go of his head, afraid it might splinter into pieces.

  Dave peered in at Will. He looked tired and annoyed. He held up two fingers in front of the glass and said something Will couldn’t hear. He didn’t have to: “That’s two.”

  Dave shook his head, and then shot straight up into the clouds, out of sight, like he’d been launched from a cannon. Will yanked the shade down over the window, closed his eyes, and tried to imagine he was someone else, somewhere else.

  Anyone, anywhere.

  He’d had a good look at the round patch on the back of Dave’s jacket and tried to settle his mind by thinking about that. Three things inside it: The outline of that animal he’d seen was a red kangaroo. Beside it was a drawing of the helmeted head of a knight. The third was a silhouette of a helicopter. Printed above it was the word ANZAC.

  And although he couldn’t see her, that girl was still looking at him. From inside his mind. Her haunting eyes asking him a silent question:

  Are you Awake?

  DAN MCBRIDE

  They landed in Denver forty minutes later without further incident. No one said a word as they shuffled off, grateful to be back on earth. Will’s next flight was delayed an hour by the storm. That gave him time to cover his tracks.

  He found another airline with a nearly empty midnight flight to Phoenix. He handed the tired ticket agent his boarding pass to Chicago and pushed a mind picture at her—of a pass for the Phoenix flight. Then another of his name on her computer’s passenger list. She checked him in. He wandered away.

  He did the same thing in reverse before boarding his flight to Chicago: the agent voided his name from the manifest. “Pushing pictures” was getting easier; this time he felt tired, but not drained. Once in his seat, Will put on the dark glasses and scanned the plane. All clear. With any luck, whoever was tracking him would think he’d taken the flight to Phoenix.

  Within minutes, beyond exhausted, Will surrendered to a thick, dreamless sleep. He didn’t stir for hours, until he felt the landing gear drop as they descended into Chicago.

  Central standard time: 5:45 a.m. Will entered an empty O’Hare terminal. At baggage claim, an older white-haired man held up a message board: MR. WEST spelled in moveable type. He spotted Will, gave a wave, and started forward.

  “Is that you, Will?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dan McBride, from the Center. I’m a colleague of Dr. Robbins. A genuine pleasure to meet you.”

  McBride locked eyes in a friendly, benevolent way. He stood six feet tall, upright and spry. His ruddy face looked as weathered and lined as that of a man in his seventies, but he moved with the energy of someone half that age. His handshake crushed Will’s hand; he squeezed back defensively to avoid wincing.

  “May I take your bag? And are you expecting any others?”

  “No, sir, that’s it,” said Will, handing over his bag.

  “We can move right along, then. The car’s just outside.”

  McBride gestured to the doors and took the lead. He walked with a noticeable limp—a knee or hip problem—but powered through it as if he considered physical pain a minor inconvenience. Will heard the tart, astringent flavors of New England in his clipped and proper phrasing.

  “How are you feeling?” asked McBride, as if he really wanted to know. “Rough night?”

  “Does it show?”

  “I’ll wager most of your fellow passengers were business travelers, rushing to another meeting. At the risk of sounding like an academic fuddy-duddy, Will, the red-eye has always symbolized for me how worship of money makes us behave with utter contempt for our own humanity.”

  Will stared at him.

  “That may have sounded a bit obtuse after a sleepless night on a plane.”

  “I understood you,” said Will. “I just don’t hear people talk like that much.”

  “Now, Will, plenty of folks on the West Coast speak perfectly good English.”

  “Yeah, but it’d be more like, ‘The red-eye, dude—that blows chunks.’ ”

  McBride laughed agreeably. It was still dark outside as they exited. A wall of cold walloped Will, bypassing his thin cotton sweats as if they weren’t there. He inhaled sharply and his nostrils froze.

  “We’re in the grip of an early cold snap,” said McBride. “You’re not used to this sort of thing in California either.”

  “Is it a
lways like this?”

  “No, no, no. For the next five months it’s usually much worse.”

  “What’s the temperature?”

  “As we drove in this morning, a balmy twelve degrees.”

  Will couldn’t believe it: “Twelve?”

  “Walk quickly; it’ll get the blood flowing.”

  Will felt paralyzed. He’d never been in temperatures below thirty-six degrees before. He had trouble making his lips move. “I’m sorry, people actually live in weather like this?”

  “I will now be the first, and far from the last, to recite one of my favorite canards about midwestern winters: They build character. Fiddlesticks. But, adaptable creatures that we are, you’ll acclimate with a speed that will amaze you.”

  A blue Ford Flex stood at the curb, the Center’s coat of arms on its side. An immense man in a fur coat and matching hat popped open the rear gate and came toward them like a building on wheels. He wore a big, irresistible smile. His wide, flat nose seemed to cover half his face. He took Will’s bag and swung it into the back.

  “Say hello to Eloni, Will,” said McBride.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Will.

  Eloni smiled broadly and cradled Will’s hand in both of his, which felt like the world’s largest catcher’s mitt. Thankfully, he didn’t squeeze. Will’s bones would have been crushed to pulp.

  “Brother, your hand’s an ice cube. I got the heater running. Get in before you freeze. Never been in cold like this, huh?”

  “Not even close.”

  Eloni chuckled, a rumble deep in his chest. Moving nimbly for such a huge man, he opened the rear door and gestured Will inside. “I know how you feel, Mr. West,” said Eloni.

  “Eloni is from American Samoa,” said McBride.

  “Closest to snow I’d ever seen was a snow cone,” said Eloni.

  Will hopped into the SUV’s toasty interior. The seat felt plush and heated. Will pressed himself into its embrace and tried to stop shivering. Eloni moved to the driver’s seat, while McBride climbed in beside Will.

  “It’s just coming up on six-fifteen, Will. We have a two-and-a-half-hour drive ahead. I thought we’d have breakfast on the way. Eloni, a stop at Popski’s is in order.”

  McBride had a nice habit of rubbing his hands together when he spoke, then clapping them once to punctuate things, as if in constant prospect of improved circumstances.

  “Popski’s it is, sir.”

  Eloni guided them into the flow of early-morning traffic. The cabin felt as snug, safe, and still as a bank vault. As the heated seat returned feeling to his body, Will felt his troubles melt away. McBride’s gracious hospitality gave him the same comfort of unqualified support he’d felt from Dr. Robbins.

  Which boded well, Will thought, for where he was headed. No regrets, so far, about his decision.

  #19: WHEN EVERYTHING GOES WRONG, TREAT DISASTER AS A WAY TO WAKE UP.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, they were huddled in a red leather window booth in a stainless-steel railroad-car diner called Popski’s. It sat on a frontage road, a stone’s throw from the interstate, surrounded by 18-wheelers. A feast crowded the table in front of them: stacks of pancakes as thick as paperback novels and laden with melting butter and hot syrup; a platter of perfectly fried eggs and fat, pungent sausages; waffles so big a toddler could have used them as snowshoes, smothered with plump blueberries; a pile of crisp, sizzling bacon; pitchers of fresh-squeezed orange juice; and pots of strong black coffee.

  Will ate with a desperate craving. Every bite tasted better than any version of these foods he’d ever eaten, as if Popski’s was the place where they’d invented breakfast and no one had improved on it.

  “This place is unbelievable,” said Will finally.

  “The legend of Popski’s is known far and wide,” said McBride, “to every wayfarer who travels these lonesome roads.”

  “We say that a meal at Popski’s,” said Eloni, “can revive the dead.”

  Eloni gave out an astonishing belch that made them laugh. Will tried to match it, and they laughed even harder. When he pushed his empty plate away, stuffed and satisfied, Will felt indeed as if he’d come halfway back to life.

  Eloni paid the bill and McBride led the way back to the car. Properly fortified, Will felt less assaulted by the cold as they stepped outside, just as the sun peeked over the horizon to the east. He stopped to take in the austere beauty of the unfamiliar landscape, a flat, featureless gray-brown plain stretching to the horizon in every direction. It made Ojai seem like the Garden of Eden.

  It had been only twenty-four hours since the last sunrise. In his own room, in his parents’ little house, in a distant region of the country, in what now seemed an entirely different life. Will couldn’t keep the loss and sorrow from his eyes.

  “Not the easiest day for you in recent memory, I imagine,” said McBride. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”

  “What state are we in?” Will asked, changing the subject.

  “Northern Illinois,” said McBride. “We’ll be in Wisconsin shortly. It’s always wise to know what state you’re in, isn’t it?”

  Will thought that over. “It’s good to be alive,” he said under his breath.

  Within minutes they were back on the highway, heading north by northwest.

  “Do you teach at the Center, Mr. McBride?” asked Will.

  “Thirty years now. American history, nineteenth-century. My particular subject is Ralph Waldo Emerson. You’re an athlete, aren’t you?”

  “Cross-country.”

  “Terrific. That’ll give you the stamina for any sport. We encourage students to play as many sports as possible.”

  “I don’t really know what to expect. This all happened pretty suddenly.”

  “So I’m given to understand. Whatever the circumstances, if you’ll forgive me for dispensing advice, here you are: a new day. And you must make the most of it.”

  “That sounds like something my dad would say.”

  “I assume we should regard that as a good thing,” said McBride.

  Will didn’t try to mask the sadness in his eyes before he looked away. McBride kept his gaze on Will, steady and kind.

  “I know how hard leaving home can be,” said McBride. “I was fourteen when I first boarded. Filled me with uncertainty, fear of the unknown. This may sound odd, but if you’re able, Will, don’t push these feelings away. Embrace them. They’re yours, and part of you. They’re here to teach you some of what you’ve come to learn.”

  “What would that be?”

  “That’s a question only you can answer. And probably not for some time.”

  They rode in silence. The landscape changed when they left the interstate for a smaller, two-lane highway. The road began to ramble through gently rolling hills covered with hardwood forests. Will’s mind wandered back to the events on the airplane, landing again on the image he’d seen on the back of Dave’s jacket.

  “What does ANZAC mean?” asked Will.

  “ANZAC?” asked McBride, puzzled. “What made you think of that?”

  “Something I read on the plane,” said Will.

  “ANZAC is an acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. An expeditionary task force from both countries. Formed in World War One.”

  “Does it still exist?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Will saw McBride and Eloni exchange a look.

  “Not even sure why I thought of it, to be honest,” said Will.

  At quarter past nine, they left the highway for local roads. Eloni executed a bewildering number of turns. Will caught a glimpse of the small town he’d seen online—New Brighton Township—and his senses sharpened. From there, the road threaded through hills dotted with distant barns and farmhouses. When they turned onto a long straightaway, Will recognized the wooded lane leading to the school that he’d seen in Robbins’s tour.

  “Have a look, Will,” said McBride.

  McBride slid open a moonroo
f overhead. The trees were all stripped of leaves, but even their bare branches formed a thick canopy over the road.

  “American elms and red oaks. Legend has it they were planted by the region’s first people, the Lakota Sioux, to mark their sacred ground. Most are between three and four hundred years old, roughly the same age as our country. They were saplings when Washington and his men camped at Valley Forge.”

  At the end of the tree-lined drive, they stopped in front of a traffic gate beside a stone guardhouse. A large man in a tan uniform stepped out. Slightly shorter and less stout, the guard might otherwise have been Eloni’s twin brother. The two spoke in low tones, in a language Will didn’t understand—Samoan, he assumed.

  “Say hello to my cousin Natano,” said Eloni.

  “Hey, how’s it going, Mr. West?” said Natano. “Welcome to the Center.”

  Will returned his wave and saw that Natano wore a holstered automatic on his belt. Natano raised the gate, and Eloni drove through.

  After cresting a short rise, they eased down toward a broad, bowl-shaped valley. Through the bare trees, Will got his first glimpse of the Center for Integrated Learning. The photographs he’d seen had not exaggerated its beauty; if anything, the campus looked even more perfect to the naked eye. Bright sun, clear blue skies, and glistening ivy gave the buildings of the main quadrangle a glossy glow. In the clipped hedges and pristine landscaping, not one blade of grass looked out of place. Through the commons between buildings, dozens of students moved along the graceful walkways. A flagpole stood in its center, flying an outsized Stars and Stripes that flapped taut in a steady breeze.

  Will felt the same eerie sensation he’d experienced while looking at the website: He belonged here.

  “Straight to Stone House, please, Eloni,” said McBride.

  They followed the road as it curved away from campus, past a broad gravel parking lot filled with cars, a fleet of SUVs, and school buses in silver and navy blue. Around the parking lot stood an assortment of smaller buildings bustling with activity, a vibrant, self-supporting community.

  “These house our infrastructure,” said McBride. “Laundry, kitchens, communications, transportation, power plants, and so forth.”