Gatekeepers

  Footsteps clomped heavily on the porch steps.

  Xander backhanded David in the arm. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get to the other side of the stairs before they get to the windows.”

  David reached back for Toria, but she was already rising. They darted past the staircase and the railing that overlooked the foyer. Where the wall started again, opposite Toria’s bed-room, they dropped to the floor. Xander looked around the corner and through the railing to the front door.

  Toria nudged David. She said, “Why did Xander want us on this side of the stairs? Aren’t there more hiding places on the other side? We could go up to the third floor.”

  “Xander,” David said. “Toria doesn’t know about the closet.”

  With all their discussion of the closet-to-locker portal, let alone their use of it, it was difficult to believe it had remained a secret.

  Xander smiled at her. “If we have to run, you’re in for a big surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises,” she said.

  Xander shook his head. “Then you live in the wrong house.” He turned his attention back to the front door.

  Something banged down on the porch. There was a squeak, somehow different from the weather vane, which had been reaching David’s ears every now and then since he’d awakened.

  He rose on his knees to see the front door over his brother’s head. A shadow moved over the tall, narrow windows. Both he and Xander pulled back.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Toria said.

  “Can you hold it?” David said.

  She bit her lower lip and shook her head.

  “Make it fast, Tor,” Xander said.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  David jumped and grabbed Xander’s shirt again. “They’re knocking?” he said.

  “Pounding,” Xander corrected.

  “Taksidian can’t expect us to answer.”

  “David,” Toria called quietly. She was standing in front of the bathroom, pointing at the chair in the hallway. “What’s that doing there?”

  Xander swung his head around. “Don’t touch it,” he said. “It’s part of the surprise. Go, if you have to. Hurry.”

  “And don’t flush,” David said.

  Toria made a face and disappeared into the bathroom.

  The pounding on the door continued.

  “What if it’s the cops?” David said.

  “We’re still not answering.”

  The door handle rattled.

  Now David’s stomach tightened and rolled. It felt like one of the cannonballs he had recently seen.

  Somebody spoke, the deep voice of a man. David could hear the rhythm, but he could not make out the words. A second voice, quieter, responded.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  “Hello?” the deep voice called. “Anybody in there?”

  David said, “I don’t think that’s Taksidian.”

  “I don’t care who it is,” Xander said. “It’s after one in the morning, we’re alone, and people are out to get us.”

  A thump followed by scraping echoed from the door.

  “What’s that?” David said. His fear was morphing into panic.

  “They’re trying to break in,” Xander said.

  The boys scrambled up and headed down the hall. Xander stopped and reversed so quickly, David lost his grip on his brother’s T-shirt.

  “What—?” he said, then he saw the toy rifle Xander had left on the floor.

  Xander snatched it up, hefting it in his hands.

  “Wish it was real,” David said.

  Toria came out of the bathroom.

  “We’re leaving,” Xander told her. He pointed at David.

  “You go first. Get out of the locker as fast as you can. I’ll send Toria next.”

  Thinking of Clayton’s experience, David said, “I can open the door for her from the outside, when I hear her come through.”

  “Come through?” Looking up at them, Toria’s eyes were big and scared. “What locker? Where are we—?”

  Xander put his hands on her shoulders and leaned his face close to hers. “The people outside are trying to break in. Just trust us, okay?”

  David watched her searching for reassurance in Xander’s eyes. She must have seen it: her features softened, and she nodded.

  Something banged against the front door—not a knock. But David realized with some relief it wasn’t the door crashing open, either.

  David and Xander looked at each other, drawing strength from one other.

  “Okay,” David said. He gripped the closet door handle as Xander bent to pull the chair away. Under David’s hand, the handle moved—all by itself. He lunged at Xander, knocking him away from the chair. The toy rifle clattered away.

  Xander hit the wall, and they both went down.

  “What are you doing?” Xander said.

  “There’s someone in the closet!” David said. “Where’s the flashlight?” He spotted it on the floor on the far side of the grand staircase. He planted one hand on Xander’s chest and pushed himself up. He ran past the foyer and the stairs, certain the door would burst open.

  He grabbed the light and ran back. Toria saw him coming and flattened herself against the wall. David dropped to his knees, then flat on his stomach, in front of the chair. He switched on the flashlight and shined it beneath the door: shoes! They were black. They shifted apart as their owner adjusted his stance. The right one rose out of the light. A heavy crash rattled the door as the person inside kicked it.

  “Xander!” David yelled.

  Xander was already leaning over him to brace his arms against the back of the chair, which in turn pressed against the door. The handle shook, and the door rattled under the impact of another kick.

  While David watched, the shoes appeared to evaporate. They lost their shape and melded with the blackness around them. A feather-light breeze touched his face . . . was gone . . . then blew out from under the door again. In time with the pulsing breeze, the flashlight beam stuttered. It didn’t flick on and off, but seemed to be consumed by the draft. Between flickers, the shoes disappeared.

  David panned the light back and forth along the empty floor, while Xander continued leaning his weight into the door.

  Finally David said, “He’s gone.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty much.” He scooted away and stood.

  The front door creaked open.

  CHAPTER

  seventeen

  WEDNESDAY, 1.23 A.M.

  Jim Taksidian stepped out of the locker. The school hallway was dark. The only light came from the moon through the windows. He leaned backward, stretching his spine. He bent, pulled up his right pant leg, and slipped his knife into the sheath strapped there. He straightened and ran his fingers through his long hair, smoothing it and tucking it behind his ears. He turned back to the locker. It looked just like all the others. But of course it wasn’t, just as the house wasn’t like any other house.

  He shut the locker door and touched the little plate riveted to it: 119. Good to know the number, finally.

  He walked around the corner and down the hall. His foot-steps were silent on the tiled floor. His fingers massaged the heavy scar on the back of his right hand. Even after all these years, it still ached: sometimes it merely throbbed in time with his heartbeat, but occasionally it felt like a white-hot wire pressed into his flesh.

  He welcomed the pain. It reminded him of the injury, the last time anyone had spilled his blood. The prince’s guards had fought valiantly. They had nearly killed him, in fact. But in the end, it was they—and the prince—who had paid the ferryman. Taksidian had survived, and he had accidentally discovered the portal that brought him to the house. From assassin to king, he thought, thinking of the fortune he had amassed since then. Not a bad trade.

  He pushed through the double doors at the end of the corridor and turned left. He stopped beside the glass exit doors and punched in the code that would reactivate the school’s security system, givi
ng him thirty seconds to leave. It never stopped amazing him, what people would tell for the right amount of money. Slipping the janitor two hundred bucks had bought him unimpeded access to the school, day or night.

  He pushed through the doors into the central courtyard. The air was crisp, turning his breath into plumes of mist. He gazed up at the half moon, the same one he’d wondered about as a young man, before the rise of the Roman Empire. He strolled across the grass toward the boy waiting for him on a picnic table. The boy was young: not yet a teenager, but close. He had his feet propped on a bicycle, rocking it back and forth.

  “Well?” the boy said.

  Taksidian scanned the dark windows of the school, the for-est beyond, and the parking lot. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his black overcoat and withdrew a wad of cash, peeled off a few bills and held them out. His eyes wandered the sky; watching the boy accepting the money was just so . . . crass, like witnessing a dog devour a rabbit.

  “Hey,” the boy said, “you’re short.”

  Taksidian turned his eyes on him. He stared until all of the boy’s confidence had drained away like blood from a slaughtered pig.

  The boy lowered his eyes. “I mean . . . it’s just . . .”

  Taksidian’s voice was deep and flat. “The closet door was locked.”

  “What?” The boy’s eyes went wide. “You couldn’t get in? How was I to know? It was open before.” His tone had risen, panicked now—not for the money, but for what Taksidian might do to him for wasting his time.

  Fear was an emotion Taksidian appreciated in others. It had serviced him well over the years. He ran the thick, sharp fingernail of his index finger over his bottom lip.

  The boy stared at it.

  Taksidian reached out. His fingernail grazed the boy’s skin as he flicked a lock of hair off the boy’s forehead. “What scares you?” he asked.

  “What do you mean, what scares me?”

  Taksidian stared into his eyes. “What haunts your nightmares?”

  The boy melted under Taksidian’s gaze. He said, “Vampires.” He swallowed. “Snakes.”

  Taksidian leaned close. He whispered, “The deadliest snake in the world is the Inland Taipan. A single bite contains enough venom to kill a hundred full-grown humans. But it’s a puppy dog . . . compared to me.” He let his breath wash over the boy’s face, then he backed away. “As for vampires, they have nightmares about me.”

  He let that sink in, then said, “Do you understand?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Forget about the Kings and their house. Forget about the locker. Forget about me.”

  The kid was shivering, but Taksidian was sure it had nothing to do with the cold.

  He smiled. “Of course, if you learn anything else, I want to know about it.”

  The child nodded again.

  Taksidian turned away, then spun back around. He leaned over and ran a fingernail along the side of one of the bicycle’s tires. “What did you say your name is again?”

  “C-C-Clayton.”

  The tire popped.

  Taksidian smiled. “That’s so you have plenty of time walking home to think about what I said.”

  CHAPTER

  eighteen

  WEDNESDAY, 1.23 A.M

  The door downstairs thunked open. Footsteps moved from the porch into the foyer.

  David’s eyes jumped to Xander, leaning against the closet door. He heard Toria pull in a breath, and he clamped his hand over her mouth before she could scream.

  Eeek-eeek. A squeak like the weather vane, but this came from downstairs. The chandelier hanging over the foyer came on.

  Someone said, “Shut the door, Keal. Don’t want our friend outside to wander in.”

  A voice smooth as a sports announcer’s said, “I thought you said he was only watching.”

  The other man mumbled something David couldn’t make out. The door closed.

  The smooth voice called, “Hello? Anyone home?”

  “What do we do?” David whispered, so quietly even his own ears didn’t hear.

  Xander nodded at the linen closet door.

  “No,” David said, louder. “Taksidian—or someone—just went through. He’ll be there.”

  “Then we have to use one of the doors upstairs, one of the time portals.”

  Toria pulled David’s hand off her mouth. “I don’t want to,” she whispered. “I don’t want to go through a portal.”

  David couldn’t blame her, with all the stories she’d heard from him and Xander.

  Xander pushed himself off the closet door and put his face in front of hers. “We have to,” he said. “These people want to take us away. Then who will rescue Mom?”

  A voice came at them from the foyer. It was fragile and quavery, as though the speaker were sitting on a paint shaker. “I can hear you,” the voice said. “I’m not the bad guy. I’m here to help.”

  Toria’s eyebrows shot up, and she smiled.

  Xander frowned. “What else would he say? ‘Come on down so I can kill you’?”

  David heard that same eeek-eeek again. He got a crazy vision of a pirate standing in the foyer, his wooden leg squeaking every time he moved. In this house, he wouldn’t be surprised if the person downstairs actually turned out to be a pirate.

  “I know about the portals,” the shaky voice continued.

  “See?” Xander said. “Has to be one of Taksidian’s men.”

  “I know that one of you saved a little girl in World War II.”

  Xander’s eyes flashed wide. He gaped at David.

  David’s lips moved, but they found no words. Finally he said, “How . . . ?”

  “Huh?” Toria said. Her face reflected complete bafflement.

  “What little girl?”

  David started for the grand staircase.

  “Dae, no!” Xander grabbed his arm.

  “Taksidian can’t know that,” David said. “Only you, me, and Dad.”

  Xander thought about it. He released David’s arm and stood.

  David took a step, and his brother grabbed him again.

  Xander said, “Be ready to run.”

  David said, “Straight upstairs, right?”

  “Right.” Xander gave Toria a firm look.

  David walked slowly, willing that ferret in his chest to settle down. He took a deep breath and stepped up to the banister that overlooked the foyer. A big black man stood, staring up at him. He was standing behind an ancient geezer in a wheel-chair. The old man was mostly bald, except for a cloud of white hair circling around from one temple to the other. He had a thick silver mustache and eyes so blue David could see them sparkle, even from a floor away.

  The old man spotted him and squinted. His lips pushed into a radiant smile.

  David felt hope rush through him, as though his blood had warmed by a couple degrees: the man had the kindest face he had ever seen.

  “I should have known,” the old man said. He shifted in his chair to smile up at the guy standing behind him. “I should have known.” He started coughing. It was a wheezy, raggedy sound.

  The other man put his hand on the old man’s back. He leaned around to watch his face as he coughed. He said, “Jesse? Jesse, you all right?”

  The old man—Jesse—fluttered a scrawny hand in the air. When he looked up at David again, his eyes were wet. He said, “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you again . . . David.”

  David took a step back and bumped into his brother.

  “And you! Xander.”

  David said, “How do you know us?”

  The wrinkles on Jesse’s face rippled and hardened in a posture of concentration. He said, “Let’s just say that I have met you.”

  Toria stepped up to the banister.

  Jesse said, “Oh . . . and who is this?” He wheeled his chair back for a better look. One of the wheels creaked. Eeek-eeek.

  Toria told him her name.

  Xander said, “How do you know David and me, but not our sister?”
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  “It’s a long story, and I hope to have the time to tell it.” He glanced around. “Please tell your parents I’m here.”

  “They—” Xander started, then stopped. “What are you doing breaking into our house?”

  “I’m sorry about that,” the old man said. “We wanted to call, but information gave us a 626 area code. That’s not around here.”

  “That’s our old number,” David said. “In Pasadena. We just moved in.”

  The old man nodded. “Information didn’t give a new one. We drove straight from the airport. I . . . I wanted to get here as soon as possible.”

  Xander said, “So you just barged in?”

  Jesse looked up at them sheepishly. “Keal did knock.”

  “Well, you can just wheel yourself right back—”

  David elbowed his brother in the ribs. Hard.

  Xander yelped.

  David whispered, “There’s something about him, Xander, can’t you tell? I think he’s on our side.”

  “Dae, they broke in!”

  The two boys looked over the handrail. Jesse was grinning as though he was the guest of honor at a surprise party.

  “Who are you?” Xander said.

  “Name’s Jesse. This is my friend Keal.”

  Xander leaned against the railing. “I heard, but who are you?”

  “Unless I’ve miscalculated . . .” Jesse closed one eye as though he were struggling through a math problem. “I’m your great-great-uncle.”

  CHAPTER

  nineteen

  WEDNESDAY, 1.27 A.M.

  David, Xander, and Toria stared down at the old man. They looked at one another.

  “Come on,” Xander said. He slapped David’s arm, grabbed his sister, and practically carried her down the hallway, out of sight of the intruders.

  David’s gaze connected with Jesse’s. Something about the kindness David saw in the old man’s face made him want to return it, however vague and unsupported by action it was. He held up his index finger. He said, “Be right back.”

  “Take your time,” Jesse said.

  When David reached Xander and Toria, he said, “I like him.”

  “You don’t know him,” Xander whispered. “If we’re related, how come we’ve never met him before? How come we’ve never even heard of him?”