Alliance

  “Whatever do you mean, old boy?”

  “Maybe they’re related to John Dillinger,” said Will, and then, seeing that Ajay still didn’t get it. “Robbin’ banks?”

  “Oh,” said Ajay, and then he stopped to think about it. “Oh.”

  Nick, showing off when he saw two friends enter the gymnastics room, ended his workout on the high bar with a quadruple somersault dismount onto a nearby pommel horse, where he landed on his hands. Then he backflipped off the horse onto a nearby springboard, tumbled twice in the air, and stuck a landing in a ta-da! posture right in front of them. The burly, compact crew-cut blond looked even more pumped than usual.

  “Hope you brought me my postworkout snack,” said Nick, eyeing Ajay’s backpack.

  “No, but you just received a nine-point-four from the Martian judge,” said Ajay, tossing him a towel.

  “Take a look at this,” said Will, handing Nick the photograph.

  “Whoa,” said Nick, glancing at it. “That is a really antique snap. You know I never really got how you can take a picture in black and white. I mean it’s not like real life is in black and white, right? So what is the camera not seeing?”

  Ajay and Will looked at each other with familiar dismay.

  Ajay just shook his head. “Look at the people in the photograph, you ape,” he said.

  After Nick drew a blank, Will pointed directly at Nepsted. “Look at this guy and tell us what you see.”

  Nick looked closer at it, opening wide and then scrunching up his eyes, while he made a variety of halting sounds, his mind sputtering like a balky outboard engine.

  “First time with the new mouth, Nick?” asked Ajay.

  Nick jumped to his feet and paced: “Wait a second, don’t tell me—dang, I know I know that dude. I’ve seen him before.”

  “Yes, you have,” said Will. “More than a few times—”

  “Got it! Suh-napp!” Nick snapped his fingers and slapped the picture with the back of his hand. “Dude looks exactly like this midget wrestler on TV. Actually, little dude’s not a wrestler, exactly. He’s more like a gangster-manager for another wrestler, one of the heavyweight dudes who’s—air quotes—World Champion, but like the bad guy World Champion—they call them heels—who’s always attackin’ and ambushin’ the good guy World Champion—they call them baby faces if you can believe that. I know, strange, right?”

  “Are you finished hallucinating yet?” asked Ajay.

  “But this little guy wrestles sometimes, too,” said Nick, toweling off. “During their sneak attacks. He’s got some wicked moves and he’s pretty buff for a smallish dude and I’m telling you, this is a dead ringer for—”

  “It’s Nepsted, Nick,” said Will, a little sharper than he’d intended.

  Nick stared at him, then looked at the photo again. “No way. When was this taken?”

  “In 1937,” said Ajay. “Somewhere on campus.”

  “So maybe this is Nepsted’s grandpa, or great grandpappy,” said Nick.

  “Nick, we’re pretty sure this is Nepsted himself,” said Will.

  Nick paused, mouth hanging open, then said calmly, “Yeah I’ll go with that.”

  “And we believe that this other gentleman at the table,” said Ajay, pointing him out in the picture, “is Will’s relentless pursuer, Mr. Hobbes.”

  “Dude, you mean Bonehead? Hold on, hold on,” said Nick, putting his hands on either side of his head. “Wait, wait, dudes, oh my God, this could mean that … Bonehead and Nepsted know each other?”

  “Okay, you’re all caught up now,” said Will, glancing at Ajay.

  “This is big. This is unbelievable. This thing is TIGHT.” Nick paced around, thinking. “And it means midget wrestler dude could be Nepsted’s great-grandson.”

  “Remind me why we needed to find Nick again,” said Ajay, clamping both hands to his forehead like he was holding back a migraine.

  “The squid,” said Will.

  “Right,” said Ajay.

  “What squid?” asked Nick.

  “Your squid. When you got attacked by the paladin statue,” said Will, taking Nick by the shoulders and forcing him to stand still. “Last fall, down in the locker room, when the bear helped you.”

  “Dude, you expect me to forget a thing like that?” asked Nick, pulling away and putting on his sweatshirt.

  “Sit down for a second, Nick,” said Will, guiding him onto a bench.

  “What are you going to do, hypnotize me?” asked Nick, chuckling until he saw the look on their faces.

  “No, that requires a subject with at least a lower primate’s level of intelligence,” said Ajay.

  “I want you to remember another part of this. Think back now,” said Will softly. “You told us that when the bear ran off and the statue fell apart … a giant squid started talking to you.”

  “Did I say that? I did, didn’t I? Okay. Right. Only it wasn’t with words. It was more like thoughts that went right into my head, and I’m not really sure this thing was exactly a squid—”

  “Maybe it was a rabid woodchuck,” said Ajay.

  “No, that wasn’t it,” said Nick, with a faraway look in his eye, moving his arms as he relived it. “It was more like a thousand long pasty dreadlocks came to life underwater, each with a mind of their own, waving around in the air like … living underwater dreadlocks … and I think they’re what killed the statue.”

  “How?” asked Will.

  “By squeezing it to death,” said Nick, squinting. “Which, by the way, saved yours truly’s bacon, lettuce, and tomato. And then all these little ropy dreadlock dudes handed me the phone, and I think they dialed it for me, too. By which time I was totally messed up.”

  “You don’t say,” said Ajay.

  “Which phone?” asked Will.

  “The one on the counter,” said Nick. “Outside the cage.”

  “Nepsted’s cage?”

  Nick nodded. “And when I say dialed, I mean they only had to push the big C in the middle.”

  “And where did the dreadlocks come from?” asked Will.

  “From behind the cage or … through the cage,” said Nick, and then he gasped. “Wait, so you’re saying that if Hobbes is Mr. Bonehead … and he’s in this picture with Nepsted … then Nepsted could be Mutant Squid-Dude?”

  “Something like that,” said Will.

  “Awesome,” said Nick, grabbing the photograph and heading for the door. “I am all over this.”

  They followed Nick downstairs to the vast locker room, nearly empty now that the day was done. Will and Ajay hung back around the nearest corner as Nick approached Nepsted’s equipment cage alone.

  “Are we absolutely sure letting him handle this is a good idea?” whispered Ajay.

  “No,” whispered Will.

  “And the argument in favor?”

  “If Nick really did see Nepsted in Beast Mode, he should be the one to bring it up. Nepsted spooks easily. Better not to confront him with all three of us at once.”

  Ajay whispered back. “If Nepsted leads us to Hobbes, we can’t complain about style points. And Nick is occasionally capable of a certain … persuasiveness.”

  Will remembered something else Nepsted said to him the first time they met:

  “I’m the guy with the keys.”

  Will peeked around the corner and watched Nick bang the bell on the steel counter a few times. “Yo, Nepsted! Need a moment of your time, dude!”

  After a few moments, Nepsted’s squeaky motorized wheelchair rounded a corner into view inside the cage and glided past the deep rows of sports equipment on his side of the counter. His stunted body and withered limbs made him look like an eight-year-old with an adult’s head. His hands were the only other grown-up-sized part of him, and his right one, looking surprisingly powerful, gripped the joystick that drove his chair.


  “Don’t tell me, McLeish,” said Nepsted in his high-pitched, wobbly voice. “You trashed another pair of sweatpants.”

  “I’m not gonna lie to you, man,” said Nick, leaning on the counter and looking him in the eye. “I’m here ’cause I need to talk to you about what went down in this room with us last fall.”

  “No idea what you’re talking about—”

  “The rumble in the shower that ended up in here? The details were a tad fuzzy for me when it went down. Multiple blows to the head, massive concussion, right? All I could remember was that the statue dude drove the bear dude away and it was just about to punch my ticket … when some other dude came right through this cage and saved my life.”

  Nepsted’s large unblinking eyes widened slightly but betrayed no other reaction.

  “How or why this whole deal happened I can’t explain,” said Nick, leaning in and lowering his voice. “But as more details come back to me, you and I need to chat about it.”

  “Why should I?”

  “’Cause I think you’re the only dude who can answer this question: like, dude, WTF, tentacles? I mean, that was you, right? As in, you’re the only dude back there.”

  The left side of Nepsted’s face twitched a couple of times, like he was struggling to decide how to respond. Then he nodded, ever so slightly.

  “So why’d you stick your neck out like that to help me? Or whatever parts of you that was that you stuck out?”

  Nepsted still didn’t answer.

  “Take your time,” said Nick. “I’m hanging out all summer. I’ll camp right here in front of your cage until you feel like talking.”

  “I can’t,” said Nepsted in a strangled voice.

  “That answer is clown shoes, dude—”

  “You don’t know what you’re playing with!” said Nepsted fiercely.

  Nick tried to keep him calm. “Dude, whatever happened, whatever went down around this, whatever kind of trouble you might be in, I promise we can help you.”

  “WE? Who’s WE???!!!”

  Nick didn’t answer but Nepsted saw him glance ever so slightly over his shoulder.

  “You’re not alone out there, are you? Who’s with you? Who is it? COME OUT SO I CAN SEE YOU!”

  Will and Ajay exchanged a worried glance.

  “Show yourselves right now, you cowards, or I’ll never say one word to ANY of you!” shouted Nepsted.

  Will nodded, and then he and Ajay walked around the corner into view.

  “West!” snarled Nepsted. “I should have known he’d put you up to this, McLeish. You haven’t got the brains—”

  “You can shout at us all you like, Happy,” said Will, sliding in front of Nick. “That’s not going to change the fact that we know what we know—”

  “You don’t know ANYTHING!”

  “We know this much,” said Will.

  He held up the black-and-white photograph close to the cage. When Nepsted saw it in Will’s hand, he went completely still, his eyes fixed on the picture.

  “We know, for instance, that this is you,” said Will, pointing to Nepsted in the photo. “And this was taken at the school, so we know you were a student here.”

  Nepsted only blinked at him.

  Then Will pointed to Hobbes in the photo.

  “We also know that, just last year, this guy right here—who should be in a graveyard by now—terrorized my parents and tried to kidnap me by impersonating a federal officer. For all we know, he might even be a federal officer. And you know who he is because you were in the Knights of Charlemagne with him. In 1937.”

  Nepsted seemed genuinely stunned, staring at Will with his eyes stuck wide open.

  “What’s this creep’s real name, Happy? Tell me who he is, how to find him, and what the hell happened to the two of you?”

  Nepsted balled his strong right hand into a fist and banged it down hard on the arm of his wheelchair. On impact, for a brief second, Will thought he saw the fibers and muscles and bones of Nepsted’s hand pulsate apart into a hundred separate strands before they coalesced back into solid flesh. Will glanced around and realized that Nick and Ajay saw it, too. When their eyes widened, Nepsted seemed to realize they’d seen it happen and pulled his hand back, covering it with his left.

  “I can’t tell you anything. You don’t even know the kind of trouble you’re in—”

  “You’ve got that turned around, Happy,” said Will, making an effort to sound calm. “You always try to come off as spooky or mysterious, but here’s what’s changed—after what I’ve been through, you can’t scare me anymore.”

  Nepsted gave an abbreviated, heaving sigh that Will thought might have been a sob.

  “What did they do to you?” asked Will quietly. “Did it have anything to do with something called the Paladin Prophecy?”

  Nepsted put his face in his hands and now the sobs came one after another. Now’s my chance. Will moved closer to the cage, signaling the others to stay quiet.

  “What’s your real name, Happy?” asked Will softly.

  “Raymond,” he whispered, barely moving his lips. “That is, I used to be … Raymond Llewelyn.”

  “What year were you born?” asked Will.

  Nepsted looked up at him, tears streaming down his face. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try me,” said Will.

  “In 1919,” he said.

  Ajay saw Nick trying to silently do the math and nudged him with an elbow.

  “Raymond, I’m only going to ask you this once,” said Will gently, “and I’ll assume you know what I’m talking about: Whose side are you on?”

  Nepsted looked almost disappointed at the question. “Yours,” he whispered.

  “Good to know,” said Will.

  He glanced back at the others, trying to hide his surprise at how unexpectedly easy this had seemed so far. Ajay gestured, urging him to keep pressing their case.

  “Raymond,” said Will. “We have a lot more questions, about Hobbes and the Knights and the Prophecy, and unless you tell us everything, we’ll have to go to the headmaster and the police and anybody else who’ll listen—”

  “And that would be the last mistake you ever make,” he said, all the fight gone from his voice.

  Will held his eyes, softening his tone to sympathy. “Then I guess you’re just going to have to help us.”

  Nepsted turned away and grew restless, rocking from side to side in his chair like a trapped and wounded animal. He made small snorting and clicking noises and random parts of his body bulged alarmingly out of his skin.

  “Uh-oh,” said Nick from the corner of his mouth. “Squid alert.”

  Thin tendrils of pale flesh threaded out from Nepsted’s sleeves and collar, lashing around anxiously, grabbing at equipment on the shelves behind him and objects on the counter in front of him and yanking them to the ground.

  “Dear gussie,” said Ajay, taking a big step back. “We should have brought a tranquilizer gun.”

  “Raymond,” said Will firmly, banging his hands on the cage. “Raymond, look at me. Look at me right now.”

  Nepsted looked up and met his eyes, looking lost, frightened, and hopeless. Will focused and gently pushed a thought picture at him—an image of a lake, clouds, and blue sky—trying to calm him down. Within moments, Nepsted stopped rocking, tendrils retracted, and his body settled back into a solid mass.

  “Tell me what we can do,” said Will, lowering his voice. “You helped Nick last year and that goes a long way toward helping us believe you’re on our side. If that’s true, we need to help each other.”

  Nepsted didn’t respond, frozen with fear. Nick then walked past Will to the cage and put his hands up to show he meant no harm.

  “You’re a prisoner in here, aren’t you, Raymond?” asked Nick with surprising sympathy.

&n
bsp; Nepsted seemed to shrink down even farther into his chair. All the defiance was now gone from his eyes. He nodded.

  “You saved my life here, man,” said Nick simply. “You tell us how we can help you, any way at all, and we’ll do it.”

  Tears rolled out of Nepsted’s eyes. He made no move to hide them or wipe them away, and this time he didn’t look away. Tendrils thrust out of his right hand, snaked out of the cage, and wrapped around Nick’s hand. Nick held on to them, even though Will could see it was creeping him out.

  “I need the key,” said Nepsted in a tiny voice.

  “Which key?” asked Will. “The key to what?”

  The thin white tendrils crept down and grabbed the massive lock on the outside of the door, holding it up so they could see it.

  A long-hasped, heavy-duty security model, to be sure, but far from indestructible.

  Acting on instinct, Will took out the special dark glasses Dave had given him when they first met that allowed him to see creatures and objects from the Never-Was. During the winter, Ajay had cut the original lenses down and refitted them into black metal frames the size of small, retro-nerd granny glasses, then used the glass that was left over to make two identical pairs that Will gave to his friends.

  Taking their cue from Will, Nick and Ajay put on their dark glasses as well, and all three of them leaned down for a closer look at the lock on Nepsted’s equipment cage.

  Which now appeared to be like no lock any of them had ever seen, as big as a man’s fist, with shifting, multilayered plates of impregnable steel wrapped around a central column that looked like it was fashioned from a solid cylindrical diamond, with no visible keyhole or combination wheel. The whole thing pulsated with some kind of faintly green toxic energy.

  “Damn,” said Will.

  “What kind of lock is that?” asked Nick.

  “Unless I very much miss my guess,” whispered Ajay, sounding a little shaken, “one built by the Other Team … with their mysterious and otherworldly aphotic technology.”

  “And where are we supposed to look for this key?” asked Will, turning back to Nepsted.

  “Down deep,” said Nepsted, his voice like sandpaper.