Zhai felt weightless as he left his father’s study, hurried down the steps, and went out the back door of the house. The sickening revelation he’d just experienced filled him with fear—fear most of all for his father, but also for his family, and for the rest of Middleburg, too. Because if the Obies were capable of completely controlling a man as dutiful as his father, then how could the rest of them even stand a chance? But Zhai thrust these thoughts from his mind. He had other things to worry about now; his wasn’t the only crisis happening in Middleburg.
He passed the pool and the pool house and followed the path through a row of stately fir trees. Behind them, at the rear of the property and out of sight of the main house, the old guest house came into view. Although Lotus sometimes talked about turning it into a photo studio or a greenhouse, she hadn’t mentioned it lately and it hadn’t been used in ages. Zhai didn’t think his stepmother or his sister would notice that the Torrez family had moved in, and his father never came here. A tall young man was laboring in the doorway, sweat dripping down his face as he tried to move a heavy chest of drawers that seemed to be wedged in the entry.
“Dang . . . thing . . . is stuck . . . ” Beet Ingram said, grunting out every word.
Whoever was holding the other end of the dresser moved, changing the angle, and Beet stumbled through the doorway, his thick, white-knuckled fingers still clutching the heavy piece of furniture.
Inside, Nass was setting the other end of the dresser down and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt. The rest of his family was there, too—his mom, Amelia; his dad, Raul; and Clarisse, Nass’s friend from L.A. Benji was also there, stacking boxes in one corner of the room. They all beamed at Zhai as he came in.
“Oh, Zhai, we are so grateful!” Amelia Torrez said, charging Zhai with her arms wide, ready for a tearful embrace. “You are a hero, you know that? A heroic person. When they talk about doing to your neighbors how you want to be treated, they’re talking about you! We just thank you so much!”
She grabbed Zhai in a big bear hug. He patted her on the back for a moment and then gently pulled away. Raul Torrez was already shaking his hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “Don’t worry, Zhai. We’ll pay you rent, and we’ll be out as soon as we find a place. And thank your mom and dad for us.”
Zhai forced himself to smile. “No need to pay rent, and stay as long as you want, okay? I’m just glad to help,” he said, hoping that by the time he had to mention it to his dad and Lotus, he’d have figured out what to tell them. He wished he’d been able to tell his father, but their conversation hadn’t exactly gone as planned, and telling Lotus was out of the question. He’d just have to keep it a secret for as long as possible and hope Nass and his family would find a place soon.
He glanced at Nass and saw something like pride in his face. And it made sense, Zhai realized suddenly. Six months ago, who could have imagined a family from the Flats living on the Shao property? But it was the right thing to do, Zhai knew, the natural thing. And that was all because he and Nass had put their egos aside to look for Raphael together. Their friendship hadn’t come easily and it had taken work, but they had achieved it. It was something they could both be proud of.
“Just make sure you go in and out through the back gate,” Zhai said. “My stepmom doesn’t want people walking around in the backyard. She’s kind of militant about her plants.”
Everyone nodded in agreement including Beet, who was still red-faced from moving the dresser. Looking around, Zhai ran through his mental roster of Flatliners. Someone was missing, besides Emory.
“Where’s Josh?” he asked.
The remaining Flatliners exchanged a glance before Nass answered. “With Emory, at the hospital,” he said. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute while these guys unpack?”
“Sure.”
Zhai led the way out to the back gate, where Beet’s dad’s borrowed pickup truck sat half unloaded.
“Thanks again,” Nass began, but Zhai waved his words away.
“Forget it,” he said.
Nass took a small cardboard box out of his pocket. “What should we do with the shards?” he asked. “Should we each keep our own stash or put them all in one place for safekeeping?”
Zhai looked down at the box in Nass’s hand. This was another example of the trust that had grown between them, that Nass would trust him enough to keep all their ring shards together.
“I think it’s best if we each keep our own for now,” he said. “That way if the Obies come looking for them, they aren’t all together.”
“Cool,” Nass said. “I agree. You talk to the Toppers about theirs yet?”
Zhai nodded. “Yeah—but it didn’t go too well. I’ve got five pieces—mine, Maggie’s, Dax’s, Mike’s, and Master Chin’s, but that’s it. There’s a chance I might be able to get the rest, but . . .”
“But?” Nass prompted.
“But I’m going to have to fight Rick for leadership of the Toppers—and for the shards.”
Nass nodded slowly, taking in Zhai’s ominous words. “Things didn’t go too well with our guys, either,” he said. “Josh is furious about what happened to Emory, and he wants revenge. He wants to fight Rick, too. The other guys gave me their pieces of the ring, but he wouldn’t give me his. So—you gonna fight Rick?”
“I don’t see any other choice.”
“When?”
“Saturday,” Zhai said.
“Don’t worry—you can take him,” Nass said. But Zhai could tell from the look on his face that he was worried. And, Zhai realized, it was probably the first time in his life that he, too, was worried about a fight. More than worried, in fact. He was downright scared.
* * *
Orias Morrow lay floundering in a murky swamp of foul, black dreams. His father was there as he was every night, badgering and belittling him.
Foolish boy! Weak, pathetic half-breed! You had the ring! You had the key to making this world ours! You let it slip through your fingers, and you will pay for that! When I am free, I will reach inside you, grab your intestines, and drag you down to the Pit, where you will scream for all eternity! Then you will know why no one has ever dared to deceive me! Then you will know the true cost of your betrayal!
As he did every night, Orias relived the moment when the ring had shattered. In maddening slow motion, he saw the oncoming locomotive. It wasn’t really a train, of course—Orias knew enough about the nature of things to understand that. It was a transport, a beam of energy like an arc of electricity, emanating from and returning to the All.
But the mortal apparatus of the human brain is a funny thing. Its main function is to process everything it takes in and repackage it in such a way as to be comprehended—thus, to the mortals present, and even to Orias with his half-human brain, the pure vibratory energy they had witnessed had manifested not as a nebulous blast of transcendent radiance, but as something familiar, something expected: a train.
Why had it struck that miserable ghetto urchin, Raphael Kain? And why, when it struck him, had the ring shattered? The artifact was supposed to be a pure relic of the All and thus incorruptible, indestructible. How, then, when everything was within Orias’s grasp, had it all slipped away?
Next, his dreams turned to his future, to his fate. He saw himself growing old, but not as humans age. Each year for him was like a generation for the mortals around him. And yet, his perception of time was tied to his life span, not to a mortal’s. Thus, in what seemed to him like a minute, two mortal days passed. In what seemed like a week, more than half a year would plunge irretrievably into the past. By the time he had experienced the equivalent of a human year, sweet, perfect Aimee would already be past the flower of her youth, entering the wilt of old age and the approaching decay of death.
He had not told her of his conundrum—this cruel quirk of relative perception was too much for most mortal minds to comprehend—but it haunted him day and night. He faced the prospect that before he knew it, everyone around him would have died of old age. From one week to the next, new friends would become old, and old friends would die. He had been through it all, eon after eon, but that was before he’d met Aimee and fallen in love with her. And yes, he loved her with a love he’d never thought possible. He could admit it in his dreams.
Of course, he had lied to Aimee about his age, as he was lying to her about everything except his feelings for her. He was hundreds of years old and still had hundreds more to go. In his current persona, he had chosen to be nineteen in order to establish a relationship with her. Now he felt like the world around him was made of sand. It was slipping through an hourglass before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Nothing, unless he had the ring. With the ring came the power not only to move through time, but to manipulate it. With practice (he saw in his dream) he would be able to narrow the gap between his aging and Aimee’s, stretching out her life span, conferring a measure of immortality on her. Then, once he knew he could keep her by his side forever, he would use the ring to open the gates to the Dark Territory.
He would lead his kin, the Irin, the Watchers, the mighty fallen angels, out of the darkness below and set them free to ravish and pillage the earth with neither human nor divine obstruction. With the power of the ring he would also control the Wheel and the celestial staircase, so that not even the exalted angels could come through to interfere with his rule. The Irin masses would adore him as their savior, and he would reign for a blissful near-eternity with Aimee at his side.
He stirred in his sleep, waking enough to remember that the ring was broken, lost forever, and without it the door to the Dark Territory would remain firmly closed. Orias would be damned to face the millennia alone, watching as everything he came to love slipped away.
As he drifted back to sleep his father’s voice cut into his dreams again, echoing with vicious mockery. Oh no, my son. You will not have millennia to suffer in this place. I will see to that. I will be free sooner than you think. Then you will waste away in the blackest, hottest, vilest corner of the Pit. Soon, my boy. Soon . . .
With a start Orias came fully awake, his hands lashing out as if his father was hovering above him, Oberon’s handsome yet eyeless face inches from his own. He sat up, terrified, but found he was alone in his bedroom, a room shrouded in shadows. Exhaling in relief, he looked to his left, at the bed he’d had moved into his room for Aimee, to make sure she was safe and well. It was empty.
Instantly he was on his feet. “Aimee?” he called. “Aimee!” He hurried into the hall and headed toward the bathroom. As he expected, a yellow light glowed from beneath the door. She was locking herself in his damned bathroom more and more lately, and he had no idea what to make of it. He had used his energy to bind her to him, but to break her connection with the Kain boy something stronger had been needed: the waters of the River Lethe, which flowed through the Dark Territory. All the angels—both exalted and fallen—knew it as the River of Forgetfulness. Orias added a drop of water from it to her tea each day, and it worked. She had forgotten Raphael Kain altogether.
Lethe Water had been used for eons in the Valley of Light when the exalted angels gave humans a cup full of the stuff, a dose large enough to wipe away all their memories of a previous life before the soul’s reincarnation, or before their journey further into the light. Orias didn’t want Aimee to forget her entire identity—the innocence of her soul, her logical way of looking at things and her sweet, steadfast hope that she could somehow help him find redemption—all the attributes that made her who she was. He just wanted to make sure she forgot the Kain boy. But he had to be careful. Too much of it over an extended period of time had been known to make humans go crazy. So he put only one drop of the water in each beverage or fruit cup he made for her, but already she seemed to be experiencing some undesired side effects. This bathroom thing was particularly concerning, given her ability to slip. What if she locked herself in there, then suddenly remembered that Raphael was lost somewhere in time and space? What if she decided to slip away and look for him? She could get lost, and Orias might never see her again.
“Aimee, you have to stop this.” He reached for the door, surprised to find that it wasn’t closed and locked as usual. This time when he pushed on it, it drifted open easily.
It was just as he had feared. The room was empty.
“Aimee?” he called with rising desperation. “AIMEE!”
After the echo of his shouts died away he paused, took a deep breath, and focused his energy, using his superior Nephilim senses to search out her whereabouts. What he heard was the faint screek of metal twisting against metal. The turning of a doorknob.
A trumpet blast of terror rang through his brain, and he shot down the hall—not running across the floorboards or even hovering above them, but rocketing in midair, down the hall and up the spiral staircase, up to the candlelit anteroom that stood outside the tower bedroom where he had imprisoned his father.
Aimee stood before the heavy wooden door in a thin white nightgown, her eyes closed. Her delicate white hand rested on the doorknob and she was slowly, slowly twisting it. The door itself made no sound—Orias’s magic had ensured that—but it was twitching, bowing, shuddering violently in its frame as the furious fallen angel trapped inside battered against it, desperate to be let out.
“AIMEE, NO!” Orias bellowed, and he shot forward through the air and shoved her away from the door, so hard that she hit the wall beside it with enough force to crack the plaster. He got to the door just in time. As it came unlatched he managed to slam it shut again. Instantly, the tumult behind it subsided.
He should have realized that Aimee would have the power to break through his spell and open the door. Clearly, Oberon did, Orias thought as he snapped the deadbolt back into place.
A soft moaning sound drew his attention, and he saw Aimee was slumped against the wall, blinking in pain and confusion.
“Orias, what . . . what happened?” she asked. There were tears in her eyes, and when she reached up and touched the back of her head, her fingers came away bloody.
Orias hurried to her and helped her up.
“You were walking in your sleep, I think,” he told her. “Aimee, you must never open that door. Never. Do you understand me? Never!”
“You . . . you hurt me!” she said with childlike indignation, struggling to get away from him. He scooped her up into his arms and held her closer.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I never want to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Let me go. Put me down or I’m going to slip home!”
Hastily, Orias set Aimee back on her feet. She looked at the door to the tower room, then back at him.
“What’s in there?” she asked quietly. “What’s behind that door?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing important.”
“Then why is it locked?” When he didn’t answer she added, “Please tell me what’s in there. I don’t want any secrets between us.”
He sighed. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” he said, gently taking her hand. “Let’s go down to the kitchen, my sweet. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, and I’ll tell you everything.”
* * *
Early Wednesday morning, Zhai held Kate’s hand as they walked up the steps of Middleburg High with Dalton, Maggie, and Lily Rose. They all went through the doors, down the hall, and into the attendance office, to the desk where the principal’s secretary sat.
“Hello there, Darleen,” said Lily Rose. Mrs. Burns looked up from a stack of files, but the harried expression on her face disappeared as soon as she saw the small, sweet woman in the fancy lavender hat standing before her. Lily Rose was wearing her church clothes this morning, which, Zhai knew, meant that she considered this an important event.
“Morning, Lily Rose,” Mrs. Burns replied. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine,” Lily Rose told her as she took Kate’s hand and pulled her forward. “Darleen Burns, this is Miss Kate Dineen. Kate, this is Mrs. Burns. Kate is new in the area, recently moved here from Ireland, and she needs to sign up for classes.” Lily Rose looked at Kate. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
But Kate was completely distracted. Amanda, one of Li’s friends, was working as student office assistant that morning, and she was standing at a big, outdated dinosaur of a Xerox machine, copying permission slips for some upcoming event. Kate was staring at the machine in wide-eyed wonder as it rattled and hummed and spat out more and more identical sheets of paper while the light from the machine’s scanner flashed back and forth beneath the closed copier lid.
“Kate?” Lily Rose repeated, but the girl remained mesmerized.
“Kate,” Zhai said, squeezing her hand.
At last they got her attention. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she said. “I was tryin’ to count how many pages that printing press is puttin’ out—one hundred and seventeen, and it’s still going!”
Mrs. Burns looked at the copier, then back to Kate and cleared her throat. “Yes, well, that’s what it’s there for. Welcome to Middleburg, Kate. Are your parents with you?”
Kate shook her head. “No ma’am.”
“I assume you have all the necessary documentation you’ll need to enroll. Student visa? Birth certificate?” Mrs. Burns asked.
Kate looked uncertainly at Lily Rose.
“Darleen, you see—Kate is a dear family friend,” Lily Rose said with a smile. “She’s a stranger in a strange land, as they say, and all she wants is to learn. Now, if I’m not mistaken there are laws that say all children must be in school. There must be some way to get her signed up while she’s waiting for her paperwork to get here—isn’t there?”
As Lily Rose spoke, she reached out and placed her hand gently over the secretary’s. Mrs. Burns hesitated for a moment, then blinked and looked at Kate as if seeing her anew. Sighing heavily, she opened the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen, and set them on the counter just as the first bell rang.
“Well . . . I guess so,” she said uncertainly. Lily Rose patted her hand again, and she passed the paper and pen to Kate. “Fill out this form to the best of your ability,” she instructed Kate. “I’ll get you set up to take the placement test, then I’ll get with Mr. Innis to decide what classes you’ll be taking.”
Kate beamed with happiness as she picked up the pen. “Oh, aye—indeed I will, and I thank you.”
Zhai watched over her shoulder as she began, and he was amazed at her perfect, ornate penmanship.
“All right, Lily Rose,” said Mrs. Burns. “I’ll take it from here. The rest of you kids need to get on to class. I’m not writing late passes for all of you.”
“Bye, Kate,” Dalton said, eyeing her curiously. “We’ll see you at lunch.”
“Good luck on the placement test,” Maggie added.
Zhai quickly put a hand on Kate’s waist and gave her a small, sideways hug as she continued to fill out the form. “Have a good first day,” he whispered. “If you need me, I’ll be right down the hall.” He headed for the door but hesitated in the threshold to look back at her. It was always so hard to tear himself away from Kate.
He saw Lily Rose smile at Mrs. Burns. “Thank you so much, Darleen. You always were such a helpful girl. We haven’t seen you in church in a long time, you know. The choir sure could use that big alto voice of yours.”
Mrs. Burns smiled back at her. “I’ll drop in one of these Sundays.”
Lily Rose nodded, satisfied, and headed for the door, but she paused to look at the old railroad map and the admonition that hung on the wall next to it:
Keep out of the railroad tunnels
And stay off the tracks
Don’t go into the train graveyard
Zhai was caught by the look of dread that settled on her face, which turned ashen. Small beads of perspiration formed in a thin line across her brow.
“What is it, Lily Rose?” he asked. “Are you okay? Is it Master Chin?”
She shook her head as if to dispel whatever thought was troubling her. “No, he’s still the same,” she said. “One of my ladies from the missionary society is sitting with him this morning. It’s nothing, son. Don’t you worry about it.” The old woman’s strange mismatched eyes seemed to stare through the tattered, framed map and into other worlds. “You know, my grandfather was a conductor on that railroad. When I was a little girl, we used to play around those tracks, even though we weren’t supposed to. I know all you kids do the same. You can learn a lot by exploring those tunnels. Just be careful, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am. We will.”
Mrs. Burns had already gone back to her files, and Kate was still focused on filling out her form. Lily Rose smiled at Zhai once more, and he held the door open for her as she left the office. In spite of her smile, she still looked worried.
* * *
Nass crossed the lunchroom at Josh’s side, a little light-headed. Although he was tired, the feeling didn’t come from spending an uncomfortable night on the sofa in Zhai’s guest house and it wasn’t his concern for Emory, either. What he was feeling was anxiety, which had started when Josh had taken him aside at his locker before school.
“I called Emory’s mom this morning,” he’d said. “He’s still not awake.” Josh was pale and tense. His eyes were bloodshot and his voice had no expression. Nass thought he looked like he was about to snap. “I know we haven’t exactly gotten along lately, but . . . me and the guys are going to Benton after school to see him. You in?”
“Of course,” Nass said.
Josh nodded. He seemed relieved. That, at least, was a good sign. Maybe they could put their differences aside after all. “I’m going to challenge Rick at lunch today,” Josh said. A tiny glimmer of fear surfaced in his eyes, but it disappeared immediately, replaced by icy resolve.
Nass wanted to try to persuade him not to go up against Rick, but the knowing kicked in, telling him that nothing he could say would talk Josh out of it. Instead, he gave him an encouraging slap on the shoulder. “You can take him. Just remember the stuff Raph taught us.”
Josh didn’t look convinced, but Nass knew he wasn’t going to back down. “Will you go with me?” he asked.
Nass smiled. “You know I will, man. ‘Even unto death,’ right?”
And so it happened that ten minutes into the lunch period Josh crossed the room with Nass at his side. Their Flatliner brothers stood near their table, waiting for the summit that was about to take place, ready to charge into the melee if a fight erupted.
Josh’s pace was quick and steady as he marched to the head of the Topper table and stopped to look down at Rick, who took another bite of his quesadilla, slowly chewed it and swallowed it before acknowledging Josh’s presence.
“Can I help you?” Rick asked at last, mockingly polite.
“Yeah,” Josh said. “You can help me by joining Emory in the hospital in Benton.”
“Oh, and let me guess, you’re going to send me there, right?” Rick said, and a few of the Toppers snickered. Nass noticed that only Bran Goheen remained silent.
“That’s right,” Josh said. “You and me, after school, down by the tracks.”
Rick’s guttural laughter came out in a series of low grunts. “I don’t know. The last time I fought someone as pitiful as you, it wasn’t much of a challenge.”
Josh rocked forward onto the balls of his feet as if to strike out at Rick, but Nass quickly grabbed his arm.
“You know the Wu-de, Rick,” Josh said through clenched teeth. “This is an official challenge. You don’t fight me, your honor is ruined. And believe me, I’ll tell everyone in school you were a coward. I’ll make posters. I’ll put it on the damn morning announcements.”
Rick laughed again. Nass had never seen him so non-confrontational, but he suspected it was only because his passive mockery was pissing Josh off more than a thousand insults could have.
Bran rose to his feet. “Fight me,” he said and then looked at Rick. “You already have the thing with Zhai coming up, Rick. You can’t be wasting energy on this.” He turned to Josh again. “I’ll fight you.”
Josh was already shaking his head. “You weren’t there the night Emory got hurt. Rick was. He’s the one I want.”
Rick sneered. “Bran’s right. Why should I waste my time beating up a loser like you?”
It happened so fast Nass didn’t have a chance to stop him. Josh slapped Rick across the face—hard—and the sound of the blow echoed through the lunchroom like a gunshot. What followed was pure chaos. Rick sprang to his feet as Bran tried to hold him back.
“Rick—no!” Bran shouted. “This isn’t the time, man! Not here! Not at school!”
Nass was also trying to pull Josh away as Rick’s backup of Toppers rose, getting ready to jump in. He knew from experience that if Principal Innis got into the situation, things would go much worse for the Flatliners than for the Toppers. But only a few seconds later, he heard the voice he’d dreaded.
“Break it up, boys! Down to my office—now!” From the scowl on Innis’s round, normally happy face it was clear he was fed up.
It didn’t take the knowing to tell him what was in his future, Nass thought as he shuffled out with Josh, Rick, and Bran. He was in for another miserable suspension and his mom was going to be plenty pissed.
As they walked, Rick sidled up to Josh. “Saturday night—the tracks outside the North tunnel,” Rick hissed. “Eight o’clock. You can be my warm-up before I break your buddy Zhai.”
Nass repressed a groan, and the refrain that had rung through his mind so often over the last few months repeated itself once more.
Where is Raphael?