Malus Domestica (60 page)

“Bosons?” Robin was at a loss.

“Bosons are what gives matter mass,” said Wayne. “People call it the God Particle because it’s part of the glue that holds the universe together.”

Gendreau pointed at him,
you win the kewpie doll,
a grin breaking across his face. “Yes! What a clever little boy you are. Yes, among other properties, bosons are what give matter its mass, which is why channeled objects exhibit disproportionately concussive force. We only managed to come up with this theory after years of experimentation with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.”

Wayne blinked.
“That’s
what the LHC is for? You guys are researching
magic?”

“We’re given access to their results in exchange for funding. The LHC was constructed for legitimate scientific research, but during the construction our leadership was made to understand its potential in the world of supernatural sciences, and we’ve …diverted funds in their direction. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Turning, Gendreau marched out several paces away from Lucas and the edge of the parapet, doing an about-face with a swirl of jacket. Sara moved away as well. “Now, if you’ll all take a few steps back, Mr. Tiedeman here can demonstrate the power of channeling.”

Lucas knelt down and picked through the dead leaves until he found something suitable, which turned out to be an acorn, new and green at the tip. He held it up to them as if it were a card trick

(if the audience will please examine the ace of spades and ensure that it has not been altered in any way)

and made an OK with his fingers, the acorn pincered between his thumb and forefinger. This Lucas held for five, ten, fifteen long seconds, his arm beginning to tremble like a weightlifter at the end of his reps. Robin thought he was trying to squeeze it to pieces, but then he spun on his heel and whipped his hand toward one of the coin-op binoculars mounted on the parapet, his tie flapping.

His hand opened up like a pantomimed pistol, his index finger pointed out—
bang bang, my baby shot me down
—and the acorn razored across the air into the teardrop-shaped machine, embedding itself,
ptank!,
in the steel housing. Both eyepieces exploded in unison with sharp crystalline snaps and the whole machine came loose from its pedestal, plummeting over the side. Broken screws tapped across the cement.

The binocular pod smashed open halfway down the bluff, cartwheeling along the rocks through a glitter of quarters.

Gendreau looked up from the gorge even as it continued to tumble down the mountain, scattering change. “I can’t say I approve of unsolicited vandalism, but … impressive as always, gunslinger.”

Kenway whistled.

“Lady Amundson, on the other hand,” the magician said, gesturing to her with his pearl-headed cane, “possesses the Gift of illusions and conjurations. She is the one responsible for this rather anomalous weather.”

“I normally make people hallucinate monsters, but I figured making you see a physical manifestation of your worst phobia might’ve made a bad first impression.” Sara emphasized each point with a sinuous gesture. Illusory snow danced around her hands, transforming into monarch butterflies, which then burst into flames and burned into flakes of ash. “Bedbug monsters, rainbow LSD monsters, monsters made out of tax paperwork (ugh), all kinds of monsters. That’s kinda my thing. Why sublimate when you can intimidate?”

Gendreau cracked a genteel grin. “Your only limit is your imagination, dear.” He gestured at the dog. “Eduardo here, on the other hand, is our resident manipulations expert.”

“Manipulations?” Robin stared. “The dog is psychokinetic?”

“As well as clairvoyant.” Gendreau dug in his jacket pocket and produced a dog treat, wafting the smell of fake bacon up Robin’s nose. He leaned his cane against the parapet and briefly turned away from them. Kneeling in front of the dog, Gendreau held out both fists. “Okay, Eddie, which hand is the dog treat in?”

Eduardo reached up and brushed his left hand with a paw. Gendreau opened it. It was empty.

The dog touched his other hand. It was empty as well.

“Not so clairvoyant after all,” said Wayne.

The pale magician rose into the air, kicking and flailing. “Hey, all right now, Eddie.” Then he was upside-down, pinwheeling his arms like a newbie astronaut on his first day in the Space Station. The tail of Gendreau’s bespoke jacket flapped over the back of his head and several Beggin’ Strips fell out onto the asphalt. “Put me down, or you’ll be sleeping in the car!”

Eduardo ducked underneath Gendreau and snagged one.

“Nice,” laughed Kenway, turning him right-side-up and standing him back on his feet. Gendreau jerked his lapels, straightening his jacket.

Lucas Tiedeman grinned over his shoulder. “Welcome to the A-Team.”

38

T
HE
MAGICIANS
WERE
STAYING
in one of the larger lodges down the hill, a rustic frontier shack full of fragrant cedar furniture, dizzying quilts, and deer heads mounted on the walls. Robin and Wayne watched Kenway help them load the last of their belongings into their vehicle. “We’ve still got the cabin for the week,” Gendreau told her as they crammed luggage into the back of a Chevy Suburban. “But if we don’t survive Cutty’s wrath, it wouldn’t do at all to leave our things here where the normals can find them.”

Robin elbowed Wayne. “I’m so glad they don’t call us Muggles. That would just be too much.” The boy grinned, the white windows flashing on his glasses. “We’re gonna go get your dad, okay?”

He traded the grin for a sad but confident smile. “I know.”

Sara Amundson joined the two of them as Lucas and Kenway hauled the last couple of bags. Robin eyed the horn sticking out of the part in her hair. “What’s with the, uhh…” Robin made an A-OK with her hand, pretending to loop an imaginary unicorn horn on her own head.

“It’s a wig,” said Sara, tugging the horn. Her entire head of hair lifted up to reveal fiery red underneath. She readjusted the pink-white wig, twisting it back down onto her skull. “Last Halloween I went as what I like to call a ‘Murdercorn’ and everybody liked it so much I thought I would do it again this year.”

“Don’t let her lie to you.” Lucas shut the back of the Suburban. “She’s been wearing it ever since.”

Sara lowered her head and jabbed him in the arm with the horn.

He backed away, making the sign of the cross with his fingers. “The Murdercorn is murderous.”

The seven of them piled into the SUV. Gendreau was driving, Lucas sat up front in the passenger seat, and Sara sat in the back with Kenway and Eduardo. A farty funk hung inside the car, the smell of the Taco Bell the magicians had eaten for lunch.

The minute she was nestled in next to them, Robin felt fraudulent by association. She reflected on the past couple of years and the battles and hardships she’d had to endure alone at the hands of America’s witches, and she couldn’t help but feel like the one hardass in a car full of untested rookies. Suddenly the Suburban had the silly yet claustrophobic feel of a clown car.
They’re not taking this seriously enough, including Gendreau,
she thought, looking around at them. Sara gave her a pinched, disaffected smile that didn’t touch her eyes.
It’s a field
trip for them. A woman in a unicorn wig, a cock-eyed dog, and a Quentin Tarantino character.

I’ve got half a mind to tell them to stay in the cabin and let
me
handle Cutty. This is my fight anyway.

A sensation of impending doom came over her, as if she’d bought a ticket on the Titanic.
Robin faced front and buckled her seatbelt.
Isn’t the dog supposed to be the clairvoyant one? What good is a clairvoyant that can’t talk?

Eduardo barked. A pocket watch dangled from his collar, the cover gone, the protective glass cracked.

Pain throbbed in her shoulder, taking her mind off the dog. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and marveled at how sallow her face looked. Her eyes were dark pits in her face, glassy in the watery Tim Burton daylight.

I look like I’m dying of exposure. Donner, party of six!

Gendreau drove them down the mountain, winding back and forth through the switchback and the hairpin curves running across the south slope. The woozy snaking of the top-heavy vehicle turned her medication-and-booze-marinated guts into a churning lava lamp.

When he got to the bottom and passed the office lodge, Gendreau paused at the frontage.

The Subway’s sign glowed yellow in the failing afternoon light. “Last chance. Smoke em if you got em,” he said, looking back and forth down the access road. “Anybody for a last meal?”

Lucas grunted. “Your confidence inspires me.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” grouched Robin. The bourbon was dancing with her Percocet and every reel and sway of the Suburban made her want to throw up. The feeling of her worm-arm-thing curling and flexing gently by her side wasn’t helping.

They crossed the road and headed under the interstate toward Blackfield. Robin peeled back her shirt to uncover the red-black tendril and saw Wayne surreptitiously cower away from it. The sight of him leaning against the window dug deep and left embarrassment.

“Oh my God,” said Sara. “What is
that?”

“According to Gendreau, it’s my new arm.”

Robin picked it up the same way he had, the coil of sausage-flesh draped over her palm like fine jewelry. Not only had it grown another several inches while they were getting ready to leave, but now it was as thick as a finger. “Evidently I absorbed Theresa’s gift for transfiguration when I closed her heart-road, and it’s causing…
something
to grow in its place.” She hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a tendril forever. A six-foot squid tentacle would definitely strain things between her and Kenway for sure.

“There’s
two more of em,”
said Wayne.

Sara leaned forward to see better. “Jeez, they’re braiding together.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Robin thought the intwining tendrils resembled a sort of ponytail made out of Slim Jims. Nausea flopped her stomach back and forth and salty saliva leaked into her mouth.

“Stop the car,” she almost shouted, unbuckling her seatbelt.

Gendreau pulled to the side of the highway and Robin wrenched the side door open, staggering out into the weeds and chalky gravel. She went to her knees on the shoulder of the highway, audienced by a wall of pines and a sun-faded Mike’s Hard Lemonade can. The tentacle under her shirt coiled and flexed. Robin gargled hot vomit into the dry brown grass and then convulsed again, heaving the rest of her stomach’s contents with a splatter.

Exhaustion settled over her and she rested, trying to catch her breath, sucking and blowing wind through a rawhide throat.

Someone got out and before she knew it—or could say otherwise—Kenway was crouching beside her. “You don’t have enough hair to hold out of the way when you puke,” he said, the dull glint of his prosthetic leg peeking out from under his jeans, “but I can at least be there to help you get back up.”

Robin spat and straightened, sitting on her haunches like a samurai at a shrine. Tears tumbled down her face (when had she started to cry?) and she spat again and started to wipe her slimy mouth on the collar of her T-shirt—a thing that people do when they’re not used to being in the polite company of living breathing humanity—but Kenway was there with a wadded-up napkin.

She wiped her face down with all the ceremony of scrubbing bugs off a car fender.

“Other than Heinrich—and I’m not even sure about him—the last person I can remember ever giving half a shit about me died years ago,” she told him, her voice distant and reflective. “Mom was all I ever had. Even in high school.” The wind plucked and pushed at the gaudy paper in her hand. “I don’t know what to do with you, dude. You’re like…a riddle, you know? I feel like you’re a mystery I need to solve. What do you even
see
in me?”

“All those YouTube subscribers,” said Kenway. “What, four, five million people? I’ve never even
met
five million people. There aren’t even that many people living in this town. And you walk around thinking you’re alone in this life.” He shook his head. “You’re a princess that thinks she’s a frog.”

A breathy, sarcastic laugh huffed out of her. “I am
such
a frog. My life is so jacked up, Kenway.” She looked up at him. “Are you sure you want to be a part of it?”

“Am
I a part of it?”

“I’d like you to be. Is that okay?”

His beard separated like stage curtains, uncovering a grin as warm as sunshine. “Yeah. I think I’d like that very much.”

Eduardo came trotting up and sat on the gravel beside her, resting a paw on her thigh. The boggle-eyed dog commiserated with a whine, though coming out of a Boston terrier, it was more of a shrill, hiccupy scrape.

A laugh forced itself through Robin’s lips and she combed a hand through her unruly brown mohawk. The I.D. bracelet the hospital had put around her wrist scuffed across her forehead. She’d forgotten about it. Biting the paper, Robin pulled until it broke, and she held it into the wind, watching it twitch and dance. Her fingers let it fall away and the hoop curled into the afternoon, rolling along the roadside like a tumbleweed.

“I forgot to thank you for coming to my rescue back there in the vineyard.” She squinted into the wind, regarding Kenway’s face. “I didn’t need it—”

“Obviously.”

“—Obviously, but nobody else has ever helped me before.”

He looked at the Suburban, and so did she. The misfit Dog Star magicians (how much that sounded like some dirty-southern-rock band from the Seventies, don’t tell me no lies and keep your hands to yourself) looked back from the front window and the open door, empathy written on their faces.

“You’ve got lots of help now.” Kenway reached out with his big hands and framed her jaw, wiping the tears off her cheeks with hard leather thumbs. “Whether you need it or not.”

Relief tightened her throat and chest, the solace of a long-mourned castaway being picked up by a passing ship.

She put her hand on Kenway’s shoulder and got back to her feet. His hands stayed right where he’d put them, clamped to his own thighs, and she was grateful that he seemed to know the difference between helping her up and being the rock she could lift herself up with.