Orphan of Mythcorp (18 page)

She giggled and then seemed to reconsider her
reaction, because her face got all serious and gloomy. “Yes, I am a
girl. What of it?”

“
Help me get in tight with Lexi. I’ll
do whatever you want. I’ll even confess to beating up Kant.” I had
no intention of confessing any such thing. But you do and say what
it takes to get the job done.

“
That Goth chick? Why? You like
her?”

“
Hey!” Mr. Dodds was sauntering down
the hall towards us. “Get to class, you two.” There was a pause in
his giddy-up when he noticed that one of us was a Morai. “What do
you think you’re doing out of class?”

“
Meet me at our stairs after school,”
Ava whispered before turning round to face Dodds.

I snuck away, having the distinct
advantage of not being a Morai. When I looked back, Mr. Dodds was
leading her down the hall. I couldn’t help but wonder;
How long till Ash asks me to deal with the
Iconocops?

Three o’clock rolled around. I was standing
at my locker. It was only now dawning on my pea-brain that I had
agreed to meet Ava for help, but that if I did, I’d lose my second
chance with Lexi. If I went outside to try my hand at wooing her
under the Willow tree, I’d be standing Ava up, and how would I get
her help then? But if I didn’t go for Lexi now, I’d have to explain
to Ash why.

“
Ah, screw it.”

Misty and Missy happened to be walking by,
and they gave me their best sneers. I turned and made my way
through the crowd to the Morai stairwell with the whispered word
‘Zombie’ wafting behind me.

Ava opened up and crept down the steps at
3:17. Her white braid swayed as she scoped out the halls. “It’s
clear,” I assured her. “So, I have to ask. Why are you helping
me?”

She shrugged. This whole shrugging deal was
really starting to bug me. “We all agree we owe you one. But
still,” and here she sauntered up to me so that I could smell her
apple or peach or whatever perfume, “why are you all like slam-bang
interested in this Lexi kook?”

I shrugged. “She’s . . . hot, and stuff. I
like her sexy . . . wristbands.” And Suave-o returns.

Ava laughed. “Right. Well, whatever the
reason, you can’t just waltz up to a girl while she’s eating with
her girlfriends. That’s a real dum-dum thing to do. You need to
catch her alone. Bring her a gift. Something Gothy. Something
that’ll make her feel dynamite. Here,” she handed me a slip of
paper. “Gift ideas.” Ava turned to head up the steps in such a rush
that her ponytail slapped me. “Remember, approach her when she’s
alone and act all whiz-bang-like when you do. Night Charles.”

“
Charles.” I liked hearing my name come
from her lips.

I was heading for the front doors, head down,
perusing Ava’s list, when the padlocks on all the lockers to my
left and right shuddered. A thunderous boom followed. Seconds later
I heard the distinct patter of someone scampering up the basement
stairs. I jogged a few paces, rounded the corner. To my left lay
the stairwell to the furnace room, the detectors and front doors
ahead. Gray smoke billowed out of the stairwell. The pattering grew
louder, faster. Someone was racing the smoke. I was beginning to
retreat, leaning towards the doors to escape the growing smog, when
a Morai burst from the cloud.

“
Stay back!” George the Iconocop roared
at me as he withdrew his sick-stick and clocked the Morai. I fled
through the doors before he hit the floor. I wanted no part of
this; I had a date to prepare for.

It was still pouring out when I reached the
back doors of the school. I peaked inside while chill rain dribbled
down my back. The chill was a relief though; I was burning up. You
could almost see steam percolating off my flesh.

The peek inside through the spanking new
doors revealed the single row of nighty-night fluorescents,
flickering. It made my guts go all shivery. I tried the door
handle. Nothing.

‘
Too bad you can’t just waltz through
the wall like me,’ Castor boasted, waltzing through the wall. ‘Ooh,
you don’t look so good, kind of like you swallowed vomit and want
to sick it up now. Is that how you feel, Morgan, like some twisted
freak who’s just—’

“
Shut up,” I fell to my knees, stomach
clenching.

‘
Oh yeah, here we go,’ Castor rejoiced.
‘That’s it, skinny-minnie, chuck it up. Spew them spongy food-bits,
blow them chunks, hurl your lunch, sling that chow-mien, recycle
them giblets. Yeah!’

That dang-blasted spook.

I turned from the fresh puddle that had
formerly been my last meal (whenever that had been), and stood
leaning against the glass door. While massaging my leg, a thought
sparkled inside my noodle. I stood up straight, conquering aches
and pains.

“
Yeah, that should work. Thanks
Dex.”

Five feet from the door seemed like a wise
enough distance.

Hindsight is a wondrous thing.

I raised the cripple-stick, or rather cane (I
was going to have to start calling it what everyone else did and
not use the Morai slang) and directed its purple peepers at the
doorknobs. ‘What are you doing?’ Marie asked. ‘Whoa, hold on. I
know you are not going to do that. That’s something Knox would do
and—’ she trailed off.

“
Like Knox, huh?” I smirked.

Thumb slid down to the button on the back of
the silver crow-head. Slight pressure didn’t do jack. I pressed
harder. Still nothing. “Okay, this is getting annoying—”

SIZZLE-ZAP

The cane recoiled violently as a stream of
purple lightning scythed from its peepers. As I adjusted my aim,
the stream screamed from the top of the doors down to the knobs.
You could hear raindrops hiss as they encountered the
fire-bolt.

Thumb eased back. Man-made lightning died and
stunning silence took up its scream.

Smoke wafted off the doorknobs as I
approached. As I kicked the doors the welts on my back writhed and
opened up. Fortunately the metal knobs and locks had melted, so the
doors flew in on the first try. It was a beautiful thing.

And then, crossing the threshold, vision
blurred, head went all airy, and I crumpled.

The whine of someone pleading broke my beauty
sleep. I didn’t open my peepers, not at first; my noodle was
gyrating inside my skull, threatening to break loose, explode and
kablam all over the place—and then how cool would I be? I could
feel beefy hands under my armpits.

“
You can’t do this!” someone was
yelling. It sounded like Galahad.

‘
Stop it! Leave him alone,’ Marie
screamed. Castor added: ‘They are gonna mess you up.’

Man oh man. I had Morai
and
spooks worrying their heads off.
Though touching, it wasn’t doing me a fat lot of good.

A metal door slammed and the Morai
protestations ceased. With an effort I raised my head, opened my
peepers. Should’ve kept them shuttered. Wes was dragging me down a
flight of concrete steps in a stairwell darker than a blind man’s
dream.

The Iconocop propped me up against a wall at
the bottom of the stairs. Squeezed his face inside my territorial
bubble. “Save yourself some pain, boy, and tell me where you
were.”

His breath smelled like dog crap. I gagged.
“It’s one A.M. Don’t you ever go home?”

‘
Why do you always have to goad them?’
Marie groaned.

Wes snorted, drew out a pair of scissors.
This was getting heavy. “I knew—I knew you manfacs were going to be
trouble.” He punctuated ‘trouble’ by tapping my nose with the
scissors. “I told the GC legislature that you people would be more
trouble than you were worth. But did they listen?” he sighed,
proceeded to slice my shirt open. “Me, and George and Mentkowski
have been trading night shifts, because we just knew—”

Wes trailed off as he yanked my shirt clear
of my torso, noticing the welts on my back. “Well, looky here. You
just make friends everywhere you go, don’t you. Turn around,
orphan.” Before I could turn around or even offer one of my
not-so-clever retorts, Wes whipped me around and positioned my
hands so that I was hanging from some heavy-duty ceiling
conduit.

I was seeing double of everything. Sauna-like
heat tore sweat beads from my body: I was pretty sure I was going
to drop dead any moment now. So when the Iconocop undid his belt
and slowly drew it out of his pant loops . . . well, let’s just I
wasn’t interested in seeing how this was all going to play out.

Dropping to my knees turned out to be the
dumbest idea yet. When I leaned forward, ragged and wheezing, Wes
smacked that belt across my exposed back.

Now, being whipped is one thing, but having
your fresh welts whipped is a whole other ball of ear wax. I
yelped. The yelp-echoes kept me company for a long time down in the
basement. Wes strung my hands back over the conduit again. “Don’t
move.” By the weak light of a single bulb I could see beads of
sweat rolling off his nose.

“
Front or back, orphan? One or the
other.”

I swallowed. “Why either?”

“
Excuse me?” still all up in my
face.

“
You said if I acted up,” my voice
cracking, “you’d send me packing to the Home.”

He stepped back, snorted. The Iconocop was
kind enough to raise his belt so that I could have a better look at
it. Embedded in the black leather were two rows of chrome prongs,
like mini pyramids all coming to sharp points.

Now what kind of sadistic manufacturer would
make such an obvious torture device?

The second and third chest-lashes were done
with zeal equal to the first, but didn’t sting quite as much. Well,
apples and oranges, sure as sure, but at least I wasn’t going to
have welts on my welts. On the fourth strike (after wincing and
biting back a whimper) I pleaded, “Why don’t you send me back to
the Home?”

Whiz-bang-like I had another two snaky
bruises growing on my chest. Sweat dribbled over the fleshy speed
bumps. “Send me back Home,” I screamed. “Send me home, please.”

Slap-slash-slap. My chest was starting to
look like a road map of hell. Even my peepers were sweating. “Why
don’t you send me—”

“
Because I can’t!” Wes boomed. “They
won’t let me.” He struck me again with that unholy belt. “I tried
them all; mayor, governor, Senator frigging Montaigne. I even went
all the way up to the cats in DC.”

Mind you, he did not stop beating me during
his explanation.

“
You know what they told me, orphan?
You know what the U.S. government told me when I asked them to take
you and your albino manfacs back?”

A pause in the abuse. Was he actually waiting
for me to answer?

He started beating me harder, his fury
coming with holy-moly swings of the belt. “They told me that the
Home was closed. That it was
my
job now to keep you in line until your eighteenth
birthdays!”

He sagged, dropped his belt. I slumped to the
floor, shaking. “What . . . happens now?” Twenty long ticks clicked
by. I sweated ten beads for every tick.

“
They didn’t say.” Stating this aloud
seemed to piss Wes off, because he retrieved his belt and bore down
on me. With his chem-shades and stiff kooky saunter he seemed like
some kind of terminator.

I curled into a ball and took the pain. But
boy was I going to get my come-up. I was beginning to understand
why some of the Morai were so intent on avenging their parents.

A sort of quasi-consciousness lent me
sufficient strength to stumble along beside Wes as he dragged me up
the stairs and out into the hall. Galahad was there on the other
side of the door. His mouth was agape (though I’m not entirely
certain what a ‘gape’ is).

“
Are you alright . . . holy krit!” He
turned to Wes and started pummeling him with his itty-bitty fists.
“What did you do to him?”

“
Go away, G,” I groaned. He seemed hurt
by this, but followed us anyway.

In addition to the fresh bruises forming on
my chest as we made our way to the nurse’s office, the spastic
fluorescents were making me queasy. Wes shoved me up against the
wall and removed his ring of keys. While he was picking out the
correct one, Galahad inspected my wounds. I could see that he was
about to cry—which made me want to dig the Iconocop’s peepers out
with a spoon.

Key found, Wes lugged me into the nurse’s
office and deposited me on a cot, the same cot I’d woken up on
after being attacked by Nimrod. The circle of life.

Wes dragged a kicking and screaming Galahad
back out and then, standing all big and bad in the doorway, looked
at me. “Enjoy the heat, orphan. You have your pal Pellinore to
thank for that. Nurse Little will see to your wounds in the
morning. Tata.”

I was favored with the cries of Galahad as he
was taken away, his complaints growing fainter and fainter until
silence was my only company. I mean that, too; it was dead silent.
Even the constant drone of the AC was gone—thanks to Pellinore,
apparently.

A search of the darkened nurse’s station
rewarded me with the discovery of a tube of ointment. I wasn’t
completely sure what it was for, but it was cool and minimized the
discomfort of my welts. I tried the doors but they were all locked,
besides, it hurt to walk without my cane. So, eventually finding a
position that squashed only two wounds, I slept.

Light was streaming in through the open
window when I woke. I tried to sit up but found my hands cuffed to
the cot. “What the?”

“
Oh good, you’re awake.” Miss Little
looked delicious in her skinny jeans. All she needed was a white
nurses cap and she’d be the living embodiment of every boy’s
fantasy (and probably some girls too). “Sorry about those,”
pointing at my shackles. “The Iconocops insisted. How are you
feeling? I gave you some morphine.”