five 
five CYRUS PEERED INTO the charred remains of his old room. Behind him, Antigone was still yelling for Dan. They had both lapped the motel and had looked inside the Red Baron and in every burnt and unburnt room that they could get into. Without the walkway, a lot of the second story wasn’t an option.
Cyrus was dizzy with heat and hunger and nervousness. Dan wouldn’t just go away. He could be with the police. It was possible. But he would have left a note.
Memories from the night before were jumbled, but clear enough when it came to Dan. He’d been there. Alive. Angry. And sorry. He’d even apologized for giving Cyrus’s room to Skelton.
The image of a burnt body tucked beneath a slumping wall slid into Cyrus’s mind, and he quickly forced it away. He shook his head. They wouldn’t find a body because Dan wasn’t dead. He hadn’t been in the fire.
Cyrus stepped back from his doorway. Throwing up was a very real possibility, but stomach acid and ash were all he had inside him. Breathing slowly, trying to calm his gut, he turned around.
Horace was leaning against the yellow truck, checking his watch. “He’s not here,” the lawyer said. “I told you already. I made a thorough search before waking you. As he was your legal guardian, I had hoped to speak with him.”
“Not was,” Antigone said. “Is. He is our legal guardian.” She was angry, flushed beneath the soot, which meant that she was worried. Cyrus watched his sister tuck back her hair and cross her arms. “We have to eat, Cy. He’s probably talking to the police. Let’s leave him a note and go.”
Chewing his lip, Cyrus scanned the ruin. Unless they wanted to eat waffle batter and drink from puddles, they needed to go somewhere. The waffle batter wouldn’t even be an option soon.
He turned back to the lawyer, pieces of the previous night shuffling in his head. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
Horace raised his brows. “No. I knew something was going to happen. I knew Skelton’s old brotherhood was on his trail, and I knew that he intended to die. That is what I knew. I did not know that there would be a fire or such damage done to your property. As for what I know now, I know that Skelton has given you an object that some very dangerous gentlemen would like to possess for themselves, that we three are desperately hungry, and that there are legal matters that will require my—and your—attention immediately. Time, as I have already said, is short.”
Cyrus spat a gray glop into the rubble.
Horace checked his watch again and tucked it back into his pocket. “And after speaking with police and hospital administrators early this morning, I know that there were three fatalities in addition to William Skelton, and none of them was your brother. I know what the thugs were after, but not how many of them there were or which ones were in attendance.”
“I only saw four,” Antigone said. “One was called Pug.”
“Ah, yes,” said Horace. “Pug. Thanks to his own terrible life choices, he has passed on. I wish I could pity him.”
Cyrus looked at his sister. He could hear the first explosion and see the tongues of fire, the evaporating glass, the slender man who’d trapped them beside Skelton’s body. “They talked about a doctor. And there was one called Maxi.”
“Maxi?” Horace blinked slowly, looking from Cyrus to Antigone. “How much did Daniel know?”
Antigone shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“Did you tell him what Skelton had done? Did he know what you’d been given?”
Cyrus reached for his pocket. “You mean the keys? No. I don’t think so.”
Horace sighed. “Well, his ignorance may be some little protection.”
Antigone looked at her brother, cocked her head, and turned back to Horace. “This is about keys? They burned down the motel and killed Skelton for a key ring?”
“Yes,” Horace said. “They did. And for what is on that ring. Although I’m sure an overarching mean-spiritedness played into their motivation as well. And forgive me if I point out the terribly obvious, but as they didn’t actually get the keys, we can expect them to make further efforts.”
“Keys!” Antigone yelled. She walked toward her brother. “Cy! I told you to give them back. What were you thinking?”
Cyrus stepped backward, raising both hands. He didn’t want his sister angry. Especially not now. “Hold on! I tried, Tigs. I did!”
Antigone stopped in front of him and raised a pair of vicious eyebrows.
“He didn’t want them,” Cyrus said. “He made me keep them.”
Horace snorted loudly. “Mr. Cyrus, I may be a lawyer, but I was a witness to the event, and I know the truth.” Again pulling out his watch, he flipped open its face and pressed down a small knob. “Mr. Skelton offered you the keys. He did not force them on you.” The watch went back into his pocket. “And the gift was, if I recall—and I do—accompanied by a string of rather morbid admonitions and dark metaphysical threats.” He glanced back at the road.
“Why didn’t you take the keys?” Antigone asked the lawyer. “You knew they were dangerous, and you let a kid take them?”
Horace nodded. “Yes. Another reason why I am grateful to your brother for his rashness. I prefer this circumstance to that one.”
He looked at Cyrus and smiled grimly.
“Now, I’ve called my car, and it’s just around the corner. I have stretched and torn the boundaries of professional courtesy in this rather unusual situation, but I cannot remain in this place any longer than I have already. As Skelton’s lawyer, I am an obvious target at this point, as I am bound to have information about the location of the keys. I must move to safer territory. You come with me to a brief explanatory breakfast, or you do not.” Turning, he looked back at the road. “If you come, I can explain more to you about the nature of what you have been given, and who will be coming to collect it. If you do not, it is unlikely that we will ever see each other again, and I will consider your inheritance null and void.”
A very low and extremely wide black sedan swooped around the corner and bounced into the parking lot.
Horace hurried toward it. “Leave a note if you like,” he called. “But come now.”
Antigone glared at Cyrus. “I’m leaving a note. Don’t get in that car until I’m back. Got me?” She poked him in the chest and began jogging toward the courtyard.
Cyrus watched his sister leave. He watched a tall, lean driver in a black suit open the rear door for Horace and the stout little lawyer slide himself in. And he waited, leaning against the old wooden camper on the back of the yellow truck.
The camper.
Cyrus’s heart skipped, and he straightened. The wooden planks ran horizontally above the truck’s bed. Some sort of earwax-colored sealant was flaking off around the seams and above every knot in the wood. He’d seen the same stuff on old sailboats. There were no windows. Dragging his fingers down the side, Cyrus moved to the rear of the truck and stopped in front of a narrow door. A small T-shaped knob with a center keyhole had been snapped down and was dangling from a crushed spring.
Holding his breath, Cyrus tugged open the door and looked into the dim light of a dank and stale cave.
The floor and wheel wells were covered in a heavy carpet, which was in turn covered with filthy blankets, cardboard boxes, empty whiskey bottles, a cracked milk crate, tattered books, a stained pillow, and used tissues. Glass from a small skylight had melted out and rehardened in the carpet. The space smelled like wet dog.
He leaned in.
Photos lined one side of the camper. They were hung neatly, in two parallel rows of ten. Most of them were black-and-white. All of them were of faces, and over the top of each face, drawn crudely in blue ink, there was a skull. Just beneath the ceiling, the whole wall had been labeled with black sticker lettering:
GUILT
“Okay.” Cyrus exhaled slowly. “This is creepy.” He looked back over his shoulder. The black sedan was idling. Horace wasn’t visible.
Cyrus climbed into the camper and knelt in front of the photos. Men. Women. Happy. Serious. Young. Old. All hidden behind skeletal scribbling. But there was a woman’s face near the end of the second row with only half a blue skull. White hair spread out on a starched hospital pillow. Eyes were closed in sleep.
Catherine Smith.
“No.” Cyrus tried to swallow, but his throat slammed shut. That was his mother’s halo of hair. Those were her closed eyes. Gulping, he snatched the picture off the wall. He wanted to crumple it, but he couldn’t do that to her. He looked up, eyes racing over the others. Top left. Second from the end. Blond hair in one of the few color shots. Eyes smiling behind a mask of ink, barely visible teeth and a prominent nose. The ocean and its cliffs were visible over his father’s shoulder.
Antigone had the same picture in one of her albums.
Cyrus reached for it and stopped. Something else was tucked behind it, another photo. Pinching the white corner of a Polaroid, he slid it out.
The picture had been taken in the camper. Daniel’s head was lolling against the bottom row of skull photos. Blood had dried on his forehead.
Slowly, stunned, Cyrus turned the image over in his hands. Someone had scrawled on the back.
Ashes, ashes, you all fall down.
“Cy!” Antigone’s voice jerked at him. Tugging down his father’s picture, he slid out of the dim camper and into the sunlight, eyes watering in the brightness. Antigone was storming toward him, fists clenched, mouth open.
“Jeepers, Cy!” Flustered, relieved, Antigone brushed back her hair and then hit Cyrus in the chest. “No disappearing!” Blinking, he stepped backward. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. “If you disappear, too, I’ll take your scalp.”
The sky seemed to slip out of place as Cyrus looked up, fighting to breathe, fighting to keep hot, angry eyes from overflowing. Fear, with all its enormous weight, pressed down on his chest and slid through his ribs, filling him, stifling his lungs. In his hands, the three photos felt as heavy as tombstones. His sister took them.
“What?” Antigone asked. “What are these supposed—” She stopped. Cyrus turned away, numb, unwilling to watch his sister’s face. His legs somehow carried him to the waiting car.
The drive was hardly quiet. It was a big car, with two backseats facing each other. Even though the seats were wider than some couches, Antigone was right next to Cyrus and she couldn’t hold still. She yelled at Horace. She demanded a phone. She demanded the police. But by the time the Archer had disappeared around a bend, Cyrus heard none of it and he ignored her thumping. His forehead was resting against his window, bouncing with the road. While his fingertips mindlessly tracked the blistered braille around his neck, his eyes were racing through the drainage ditch, skimming over gravel, faded soda cans, plastic jugs, and cattails and grass and scum-spotted puddles. Just like his life. He had no answers. He had no control. He couldn’t make anything happen, and he couldn’t stop anything from happening. And only one kind of anything ever happened. He was a paper cup in the surf, a bulb of kelp torn up and thrown onto the beach, thrown all the way to Wisconsin.
Dan was gone. Why? There were people who would happily kill for the keys in Cyrus’s pocket. An old man—his godfather?—had been murdered for them in Cyrus’s room. Did those killers think Dan had them? That he knew where they were?
Another home was gone.
Lifting his head slightly, Cyrus let his skull thump back against the window. He shouldn’t have taken the keys. Skelton would be just as dead either way. The Archer would be just as burnt. But Dan would be stressing out about the motel and food and clothes and showers. He would be here, coming to breakfast.
Straightening his leg, Cyrus dug the key ring out of his pocket. Antigone grew quiet. Horace, perched on his broad leather seat with his back to the driver, adjusted his glasses.
Cyrus slid his finger through the center ring and let the weight dangle from his hand.
“If these are what they want, who do I give them to?” he asked. “The guy called Maxi? Do you know how to find him?”
Antigone looked at Horace. The little lawyer pursed his lips. The driver’s eyes flitted up in the rearview mirror.
Horace cleared his throat. “No, thank God. I do not.”
Antigone turned to her brother. Cyrus was expecting anger in his sister’s eyes, but he didn’t find it. Her eyes were like he remembered his mother’s being whenever he’d gotten hurt—which had been often. She wasn’t angry. She was in pain.
Blinking, Cyrus looked at the keys in his hand. “I’m sorry, Tigs. I didn’t know. I couldn’t.”
“I know.” Antigone tucked back her hair and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I would have kept them, too, Cy. You know I would have.”
Horace slid forward, onto the edge of his seat. Reaching out, he set one hand on Cyrus’s knee, and one hand on Antigone’s. “I am going to say something that may initially be perceived as wildly insensitive.” He coughed politely. “There are worse things in this world than your current circumstances. And an entire flock of those worse things—I do profoundly believe this to be the truth—would now be under way if the gentleman called Maxi was now in possession of what you, Mr. Cyrus, have been given. Worse for you, worse for all of us.” He sat up. “Ah, breakfast. And well earned, too.”
The car swung off the road, bouncing to a stop. Cyrus opened the heavy door and stepped out into a gravel parking lot and the sticky morning heat.
Antigone followed him, slamming the door behind her. Horace was already hurrying toward a low green-and-yellow building lined with murky windows. Behind it, tangles of brush were swallowing barbed-wire fencing, where a single cow was rubbing its shoulder against a sighing fence post. On top of the building, a large, flaking plywood sign spelled out PATS’ in hand-painted letters.
Antigone kicked a rock and watched it bounce away. “I couldn’t eat anything right now. Especially not here. Do you think they have a phone?”
“Who knows,” said Cyrus. The two of them moved toward the door. “Do you think it’s owned by someone named Pats? Or is there more than one Pat?”
Horace had stopped at the door. Pulling it open, he stepped to the side and smiled. “Mr. Cyrus, I wouldn’t have thought that you would be one to notice—or care about—an apostrophe.”
Cyrus glared at him.
“Right. Well, there are two Pats,” Horace said. “And this place belongs to both of them.”
Inside, Horace hustled all the way down to the far end of the long, dim dining room and squeezed into a corner booth.
Antigone looked around, irritated. “This place is a hole. Do you see a phone, Cy?”
Cyrus shook his head.
An enormous woman rocked toward them between two rows of yellow booths. “I don’t know about ‘hole,’ honey.” She winked. “Some people call it heaven.” Turning to Cyrus, she pointed to the far end. “Go ahead and join your little friend in the corner. I’ll be right back. Menus on the table.” She nodded at Antigone. “Little lady can follow me if she needs a phone.”
The woman made her way around a small counter lined with stools, and then back toward the sizzling grill. Antigone hurried after her.
Cyrus inhaled long and hard. The dining room was full of the sounds and smells of bacon frying and diced potatoes hopping in the grease. Only a few booths held customers, and they were all men, each of them alone with their newspapers and toothpicks and trucker hats and coffee cups and grease-stained knuckles. The photo of Dan had wiped away Cyrus’s hunger, but the power of the smells brought it roaring back. His mouth was watering and his stomach was ringing hollow bells. Cyrus’s body needed to eat, and that angered him. Dan was gone. Taken. He shouldn’t eat. He shouldn’t smell. He should be gone, too.
In his daze, Cyrus nodded at the other customers as he passed, but their return nods were better, more practiced, exchanging respect with only the slightest lift of the head and a glance from unblinking eyes.
Cyrus slid into the corner booth beneath a low-hanging lamp with a dead bulb. The key ring dug into one leg; the lightning bug glass dug into the other. His neck burned, and his wrist itched. From across the table, John Horace Lawney leaned forward, tenting his fingers. “What will you have?”
“Anything,” Cyrus muttered. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to adjust the contents of his pockets. “Dirt. I don’t care.”
The large woman was lumbering toward them with what looked like a pint of carrot juice. Horace flashed her a wide smile. She smiled back. According to the plastic rectangle on her shirt, her name was Pat.
“You dolls ready?” she asked. “What can I get ya? I can tell you right now that you’ve never had waffles as mean as what we sling. You’ll be full till Christmas.”
Cyrus’s stomach seethed, and he groaned. He made himself look up. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that waffles …”
Pat shrugged. “Don’t you worry about it. You’re not a waffle kid. Well, you can’t go wrong on this menu, no matter where you settle. And wherever you settle, it’s gonna be on the house. This breakfast is on Pat and Pat. It’s gotta be hard, your place burning down.” She hesitated. “You are the Archer kids, aren’t you?”
Cyrus looked at his sooty hands and then back up at the big woman. “Yeah. No water at the motel right now. No showers.”
She patted Cyrus on the shoulder. “Well, you kids ever need to eat, tell Dan to bring you on by.”
Cyrus nodded.
Horace rose to his feet. “Madam,” he said. “Pat, we are ready to order.” He handed her the menus. “Do you squeeze your own orange juice?”
“I stomp the oranges myself.”
“Where are the oranges grown?”
“You know,” Pat said. “I couldn’t say. But they’re orange, they’re sweet, and they come with peels.”
“Right.” Horace rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. “We’ll have a large pitcher of fresh-squeezed, a pot of coffee, two plates of links, one of patties, half a pound of bacon, eight eggs scrambled with your sharpest cheddar, diced ham, tomatoes, mushrooms, chopped—fresh, not frozen—spinach, black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. Four fried eggs, not too runny, and half a loaf of wheat toast. And hashed browns. A pile of them. Oh, and with gratitude for your offer, I will be picking up the tab nonetheless.”
He sat down, raised his eyebrows, and looked at Cyrus. “Will that do?” he asked.
Cyrus blinked. “I thought we were in a hurry.”
“Oh, we were. We are. In part so that we could have time for this.” Horace smiled. “Always breakfast like a man condemned. One never knows what a day may bring.” He nodded at the waitress.
“Okay then,” she said, tucking the menus under one arm while she scribbled notes on a tiny pad. “We are hungry, aren’t we? Big Pat will be happy. He never likes an empty grill.” Dropping the pad into her apron pocket, she turned and moseyed slowly away, the floor creaking beneath her.
Horace sipped his carrot juice, leaned back, and rubbed his jaw. Fine black-and-white stubble rasped against his palm.
Cyrus stared at him. “Tell me how to get Dan back.”
Horace pursed his lips. “That’s a difficult question.”
“I have lots of questions,” Cyrus said. “Not that you’ll have any answers.” He leaned forward. “What’s so special about the keys? Who was Skelton? How do you know he was our godfather, and what exactly did he leave us besides a lot of trouble?”
Horace sighed. “Should we wait for your sister?”
“No,” said Cyrus. “Start with the keys. What’s the deal? They turn things on, don’t they? Our sign never worked, not until Skelton touched it. And I had a broken record player, too. That’s it, right? The keys turn things on.” He looked at the dead lamp above him. Glancing at Horace, he reached up and wriggled the bulb. Nothing. He lowered his arm. Ridiculous. He was going crazy.
“Guess not,” he muttered.
“Well …,” said Horace.
The lightbulb blinked and buzzed. But it wasn’t alone. Every booth in the diner had its own dangling lamp, and half of them—running down the length of the room—had been out. Now, in unison, they pulsed dimly, sputtered, and came to life.
“It appears,” said the lawyer, “that you have your answer. But only part of it.”
Cyrus frantically tugged the keys free of his pocket and dropped them loudly onto the table.
Horace groaned. “Without meaning to be paranoid, I cannot advise leaving them visible. Remember Skelton’s warnings.”
Cyrus swung a glance over the room. Antigone was coming. And none of the men in trucker hats seemed to have noticed a thing. He would be more nervous with the keys back in his pocket. He scratched at his itching wrist and looked down, surprised. He couldn’t feel his nails, and his wrist seemed swollen. But it didn’t look swollen. It looked soot-covered and grubby. He poked at it. His fingertip stopped short of his skin, but he was definitely touching something—something soft and very smooth.
“What is it?” Horace asked. “What are you doing?”
Cyrus didn’t answer. He ran his hand over his blistered neck, remembering Skelton’s liquid arms holding the glowing hot necklace in the dark. He’d torn it off. And then it had … he focused on his wrist. It was … he didn’t know what it was. Carefully, he pinched his nails around the soft, invisible bulge, and he tugged.
Antigone slid into the booth next to Cyrus. “They said Dan didn’t qualify as a missing person yet, but I told them about the picture and now they’re sending someone right out. They’ll come by here first, and then the motel. Cyrus! What is that?”
Every head in the diner turned, but Cyrus didn’t notice. He was unwinding a snake—now visible—from around his wrist. Slender, silver, smooth, it twisted around his fingers and slid its own tail into its mouth. As it did, it disappeared.
Horace chuckled. “Little Patricia, I am very glad to see you. Or not, as the case may be.”
“What’s going on?” Antigone asked. “Cy, a snake? Is that what he put around your neck?”
Cyrus nodded, and he blindly pulled the snake free of its own tail. Visible again, he let it slither through his palms. After a moment, it wound itself tight around his fingers, ate its tail, and again disappeared. Pulling it free, Cyrus tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck. “And it burned me, Tigs. There are blisters.”
Antigone leaned forward, squinting. “You have a little snake brand all the way around, Cy. A blister for every scale. Jeez. That could scar. I can even see the head on your collarbone.” She looked at Horace. “What is this thing?”
Horace smiled. “She’s a patrik, the one family of serpent permitted to roam free in Ireland. This is the only specimen I have ever seen. Skelton called her Patricia, and she must have been quite hot from the flames to have burned you. She will not eat or sleep, she can become invisible when she swallows her own tail, she will breed only once, and she will not die, though she is quite deadly.”
Antigone slid away. Cyrus looked up, startled. The snake was now twisting around his forearm.
“Oh, not deadly to you, Mr. Cyrus,” Horace said. “Or to anyone to whom you might give her. Deadly to the one who attempts to remove her from you. She is venomous and can become quite large in anger. If you were to die without passing her on to another—God forbid—she would remain with your bones until the end of the world.”
“Patricia,” Cyrus said quietly. “She doesn’t like to be visible, does she?”
“How is this possible?” Antigone asked. “You seriously want us to believe that that snake won’t die?”
“Trust your own eyes,” Horace said. “Or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me what you believe, and we don’t have time to marvel at natural or even transnatural wonders.” He leaned forward. “Cyrus, please, slide her through the key ring and then place her around your neck. She will be quite useful to you.”
Gently, Cyrus unwound the snake and tried to feed her through the ring. Without balking, she shot through and twisted quickly back, searching for her tail. Using both hands, Cyrus raised her to his neck and let her cool body slide around his blistered throat. The keys clicked high against his sternum.
“Wow.” Antigone blinked. “They’re invisible, too, Cy.”
“Really?” Cyrus lifted the keys, trying to squint down his nose. “Do you think they’re too heavy for her?”
Horace shook his head. “She’s fine. And now, despite every distraction, please try to listen. It is, of course, good and proper that you have called the police about Daniel. But as your brother was taken by William Skelton’s former comrades—people with distastefully inhuman abilities—I must tell you that the police haven’t the faintest shred of a chance of finding him, alive or dead. Excuse my blunt insensitivity.”
Cyrus clenched his fists. He’d seen the fireballs. He’d seen how the dark shapes had moved outside the motel—everything had been so quick and fluid and effortless, like cats. Wolves, maybe. One had even jumped over the truck. “We should trade,” he said. “I don’t care if we use the cops. Find the Maxi guy and tell him I don’t want the keys. Tell him to let Dan go.”
Horace leaned over the table, his voice sinking to a harsh whisper. “I am here to help you two. I am. Truly. But know this. I will have no part in any action that intentionally places”—he nodded toward Cyrus’s throat—“what you have in their hands. You cannot understand the many ways the master of the men you saw has already worked to reinvent and mutilate humanity—humanness—itself. Give him what he wants, and … well, suggest it again, and I walk out the door.”
Cyrus looked at his sister. She set her fists on the table. His own hands drifted to his neck and the cool body around it. Horace straightened and moved on.
“But I am not without suggestions. In fact, I believe I am able to solve all of your current problems. You are in desperate need of allies.” He looked from Cyrus to Antigone and back again. “Skelton was an outlaw and a rogue, but he was also a member of an extremely private global community.”
“It couldn’t be a nice one if they let him in,” said Cyrus.
Horace raised a finger. “Skelton’s membership was by birth, and he was never successfully expelled—due mainly to my efforts—and several highly organized attempts were made. The Order of Brendan, as it is called, is—in its current vision—an international community of exploration. In reality, things are never quite so simple as a committee-approved vision statement, but that’s not relevant at the moment. Once, the O of B was an empire. Now it could perhaps be best described as an extremely wealthy global chain of sovereign city-states called Estates. Members—citizens, if it helps to think of them that way—have access to resources that boggle and defy imagination. Your godfather, a member of sufficient rank in the O of B, knew that he was going to die. And for a number of reasons, it was his desire that the two of you stand as his heirs. But no member can pass inheritance to anyone outside the global membership of the Order. Thanks to my sleepless night, the necessary paperwork was filed before Skelton was declared dead by this county’s noble and competent EMTs, and you two, Cyrus and Antigone Smith, were named as his Acolytes in the Order of Brendan.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Antigone said. “And I’m not sure I care right now.”
Horace raised his left hand. “It means that—should you appear and accept the appointment—you will be initiate members in the Order with the opportunity for advancement. That was Skelton’s entire purpose in coming here. He has made you eligible to inherit the entirety of his estate, which, contrary to his personal appearance and style of life, is uniquely … valuable. In addition, the cost of your memberships, as well as the cost of all food, board, training, placement, and material supplies, will be paid by Mr. Skelton’s estate, of which, of course, I am the executor.” He raised his eyebrows. “This is a terrific opportunity for a pair of underprivileged siblings, one which will never come to you again. If you accept the appointment, your woes—your homelessness, your motel-lessness, your malnutrition, and your poverty—will all be over.”
Cyrus opened his mouth, but Horace raised his hand and barged on. “Of course, of course, you don’t care about money at the moment. Daniel’s situation is your highest priority. The police are on their way. You have a photo and a nickname—Maxi—to provide as leads. But I can swear to you as solemnly as a judge—they will not find him. And if you run into police custody, then what does tomorrow bring you? Foster care? An orphanage? Of course, such care won’t last long. Your brother is missing, taken by men you cannot begin to comprehend, and you two will be their next targets. You’ve got something they will kill for as soon as smile. Unlike the police, the Order knows these enemies of yours and has the tools to hunt them. They have real strength, real power, and they will go to the ends of the earth to protect their members.
“Accepting this appointment won’t simply bring money. It’s the best chance you have at keeping blood in your veins and in your brother’s. It won’t be easy. The Order has high standards for their members and, quite honestly, I’m not sure you can meet them. I do not know of a time when children of your station and education have ever been named as Acolytes. Of course, I am a lawyer—the best the Order’s got—and it’ll be my job to help you succeed, and short of that, to help the right people think that you have. In the end, it’s often the same thing.”
Cyrus picked up a knife and rapped it on the table. “Excuse me?”
“Finally,” Horace said, ignoring Cyrus and inflating his lungs, “here is my last morsel of information to contribute: Your father was a member.”
Cyrus stopped. “What?”
Horace nodded. “For a while.”
“Our mother?” Antigone asked.
“No,” Horace said. “She was not.” He pursed his lips.
Cyrus shifted in his seat. “I don’t care who was a member.”
“Mr. Cyrus, I’m not sure you understand—” Horace began.
“I get it,” said Cyrus. “The bad guys are going to come for us. When they do, I’ll give them these.” He tapped invisible keys. “And they’ll give us Dan. We’re not going anywhere until we get Dan. Talk to us then.”
John Horace Lawney sighed. “Mr. Cyrus, you present yourselves as Skelton’s successors now, today, and receive the help and protection and assets available to you, or not at all. Ever.” Leaning forward, Horace groped for the keys with a thick finger. “The keys,” he said quietly, “are valuable enough.” He paused, having found what he wanted. “But this—” With the click of a small hinge, the black tooth appeared in the air, impervious to the snake’s charm. It was darker than a shard of midnight, and its edge swallowed light. “Mr. Cyrus, how many ways can a living man be changed by someone with knives and drugs and the secret sorceries of flesh mixing—the words and chants that make ape ape and dog dog and man man? Do you know? How much vandalism can a victim withstand before Death finally frees him from his captor?” Horace paused, eyes sharpening, lips tight. Cyrus swallowed, unable to look away. The lawyer’s voice sank into a whisper. “How many ways can a man be changed when death is no obstacle? No release. No escape. Cyrus Smith, this tooth can raise and rule the dead. And while you possess it, you cannot die. When Skelton placed it in your hand, he stepped into his grave. Better that you step into yours than trade it away—even for your brother.” Horace straightened, sighed, sipped his carrot juice, and looked down the length of the diner. “Ah, breakfast,” he said. “Pat comes bearing the wealth of plow and pasture.”
Cyrus stared at the tooth. He didn’t want to touch it, and he didn’t want the sheath open. Antigone reached out and snapped it shut, locking eyes with Cyrus. The sheath, and with it the tooth, vanished.
The little lawyer leaned back in the booth. His attention was entirely focused on the large waitress with platter-lined arms.
Raise the dead? Cyrus didn’t believe it. No way. But ice still crawled beneath his skin, and his feet felt cold and lifeless. What kind of dead? Fresh, unrotten dead? Lost at sea, swallowed by the salt water and all its creatures dead? His father dead?
“Pat, you are angelic.” Horace grinned as plates of steaming food slid onto the table, followed by a pot of coffee and a chipped pitcher of orange juice.
“Enjoy, now,” said Pat, drifting away. “Hoot and holler if you need anything else.”
Cyrus reached for his neck, and his fingers found the tooth’s cool sheath. Raise the dead? Not just record players and lightbulbs and neon signs. The dead.
Smiling, Mr. Lawney folded a stack of bacon into his cheek and pointed greasy fingers at Cyrus. “According to the laws likely to be applied in this situation, you have fourteen hours and forty-four minutes from the administration of the oath to present yourselves and be acknowledged as Acolytes and initiate members. And that,” he added, “doesn’t leave you much time.” He tugged his fat silver watch out of his vest, slapped it onto the tabletop, and began to count, bobbing his head and chewing loudly as he did. “Boiling things down to the bone, that now leaves two hours and fifty-three minutes to present yourselves at Ashtown—the Order’s nearest Estate.”
Cyrus looked at his sister. He wanted her to say something. His stomach banged out a muffled drumroll, and he stared at the sausages.
Breathing deeply, Antigone looked up, tucking back her hair. “Cy, as soon as we talk to the police, we should go. More help won’t hurt. Money won’t hurt, either. I don’t know if that tooth does anything, but money does a lot.” She turned to Horace. “How far is this place?”
“With my driver,” Horace said, “we can be there in two hours.”
Cyrus shook his head. “Tigs, I don’t care about money. I care about Dan and Mom and … us.”
“We don’t have anything, Cyrus,” Antigone said. “Nowhere to live, no way to pay Mom’s bills. If Dan’s hurt …”
“No,” Cyrus said. “He’s coming back.”
Antigone bit her lip. “If Dan’s hurt when he comes back, how are we going to take care of him? And Mom? And find a place to live? If they want a ransom for Dan, how will we pay it? If this Order means money and a place to stay and people to help find Dan, then we should go. It’s not that far. Staying here, just waiting, trying to survive in the Archer, that would be selfish. It’s time for us to do something, Cy. There’s no one else.”
Cyrus leaned his elbows onto the table, grinding his eyes against the heels of his hands. This wasn’t happening. None of it. “Antigone, I can’t. It’s home.” He looked up. “You go. You get the money and the help. I’ll stay at the motel in case Dan comes back.”
Antigone shook her head. “The cops would put you in a home.”
“They wouldn’t find me. Do you really think they could? There’s an old camper in the woods just a couple miles from the motel. I could keep an eye on things from there. I could stay in barns.”
“Cyrus,” Antigone said quietly. “You’re my brother. For now, we’re it. The whole family. I’m not leaving you. We should go, but I won’t unless you do. Now decide. If you stay, I’ll stay. I’ll camp in barns with you or sleep in the swimming pool with the tires. If the cops catch us and put us in a home, oh well. If we go to this place, Ashville, we go together.”
“Ashtown,” Horace said.
Antigone shrugged and finally took her first bite, turning slowly away from Cyrus. “Why fourteen hours and forty-four minutes?” she asked.
Horace smiled, scooping eggs onto his plate. “Because, on the Feast of St. Brendan the Navigator, that is exactly how long daylight falls on the spire of the Ashtown Galleria, from sunup to sundown. Less importantly, but significant nonetheless, 1444 is also the year the Order decided not to prevent new European exploration of the Americas.”
Cyrus wasn’t listening. He couldn’t even see the table in front of him. When he was nine, he’d fallen off a cliff and dropped twenty feet into a tide pool. Now, again, he could feel the ground sliding away beneath him, rock that he’d trusted pulling free and dropping with him. Familiar fear surged through him, throbbing in his teeth. Then, he’d known where he would land. Now, he had no idea. He only knew that he was falling and that grabbing at the cliff wasn’t going to help.
“Okay.” His own voice sounded distant. “Okay. We can go.” He blinked, and Antigone swam into view. “We should get the money. And whatever help we can.”
“You sure, Cy?” Antigone’s eyes were wide, her face serious.
Cyrus nodded.
“Bravo,” said Horace. “In that case, I recommend that you eat what you can. A long day awaits you. We’ll be off in the next twenty minutes.”
Cyrus ran his hand around his neck, tracing soft, invisible scales. His feet were bouncing. His fall had turned into a leap. He was diving toward who knew what, away from what he knew well. Fear wasn’t fading.
“Who’s Maxi?” he asked, and he could hear the waver in his own voice. “I want to know who’s after us.”
Footsteps rattled down the diner, and Cyrus looked up. A small man was approaching in an extremely baggy police uniform. Even without the soot and the goggles and the darkness, Cyrus recognized the small man’s sharp face and his wide, smiling mouth.
His thick hair had been pushed straight back. High on his throat, against tight, pale skin, a thick scar completely encircled his neck. His tiny teeth were bleached white, but gapped and worn to nubs. The corners of his eyes were jaundiced, muddy with yellow around faded brown irises.
“My name is Maximilien Robespierre.” His accented voice was smooth, childish. He winked at Antigone and bowed. “But we are all friends and comrades. Please to call me Maxi.”