Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (7 page)

“And maybe,” she said, “I should kick your teeth in so you’ll tell me about the brink.”

I narrowed my eyes and turned away. “Holy cow, relax.”

She grabbed my shoulder and yanked me around to face her. It was almost like those movies where someone turns someone else around, then pulls them close to kiss them. Only, with her other hand she didn’t draw me in.

She smacked me.

Hard. Right across the cheek. My face stung. My neck hurt even more from how my head jerked to one side.

“This is no time for games. This is serious business. You’ve gotten mixed up in something bigger than you can imagine. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll sabotage your shot at the Best Young Entertainer of the Year award.” She leaned in close to my face, again. “I’ll
sabotage
you. Understand?”

I stared at her, not particularly enjoying my first encounter with Marti “I’ll give you whiplash one way or another” Walker.

“I’d like to know,” I said, “if there’s going to be further bodily harm done to me. If so, I’d like to sit down for it.”

She glared at me, whipped a phone out of her purse, and hammered away on the screen with her thumbs for a second, then shoved the phone back into her purse.

“Van Bender,” she said. Her tone said that very soon I could get smacked again. “Let me tell you something very important, and I want you to listen closely, because I’m only going to say it once. And your life could depend on it. The lives of a lot of people could depend on it. Got it?”

I nodded. Once.

“Good.” She leaned in close, so I could smell her minty breath as she continued. She had freckles across her nose, which she’d tried to cover with make-up. “Nick Savage is part of a secret gang of dark musicians bent on taking over the world. It’s likely that tonight you’ve done something to help them.”

She paused to let it sink in. But the only thing that sank in was that if anyone seemed like a dark musician, it was her—what with the shaking and the smacking.

And besides, Nick had warned me this would happen. He’d said that people didn’t understand that he’d changed.

Who to believe?

There wasn’t much point in pretending he hadn’t come in and talked to me. Maybe by fessing up I could learn more—because if there was one thing I lacked at that point, it was information. I needed a lot more of it, and wanted to look as innocent as a babe.

“He was here,” I said. “He came before my show, and gave me a little device he called a Cask. I’d never seen one before.”

She shook her head and glowered. “I told them we should come to you. I told them six months ago. What else did Nick do or say?”

I moved away from her, around the couch, and sat. She followed, and sat next to me.

“Keep talking,” she said, in the same way detectives say the same words to suspects during an interrogation. She leveled a finger at my chest. “Or I’ll sabotage you.”

I rolled my eyes. She didn’t have a chance to win that award over me. She was a huge star, but I was huger.

“I took the Cask onstage with me. I thought he was just playing a joke.”

“This is no joke.”

I rubbed my neck. “So I can tell. During intermission, he swapped the wooden part out for a new one and cast a spell that rejuvenated my body. When I finished the concert ten minutes ago, I came back here. He took the Cask, and left.”

She closed her eyes, shook her head, and sighed. “You let him take the emotion?”

I started to defend myself, but she leaned in close, her eyes intense.

“What else did he say?”

“Uh, he said lots of things. Used a pretty large number of words. You know, like people tend to do when they talk.”

“Did he say anything specific?”

“He said he’d changed his ways. That you all think he’s a terrible person, but that he’s changed. He’s not like that, anymore.”

She shrugged and waved the comment off. “He’s lying.”

“He said you would say that.”

Her back stiffened and she lifted an eyebrow. “Oh really? Well don’t believe him—because if you do, it’ll be really bad news for you.”

I considered standing and stepping away, but instead slid back along the couch. “He said he wanted to use the emotion to make brink that could defeat the Solar Flare. He also said he wanted the world to know about brink.”

She sucked in her breath through bared teeth. It made her look like a vampire ready to strike. With what I’d seen so far that night, I wasn’t about to take any chances. So I jerked to my feet and stepped back. She followed, and reached out to me. I dodged and started to turn, but she was too fast for me. Or rather, she was more desperate than me. If I’d known she was so serious about all this, I’d have moved faster.

She yanked me close, again. Her face took up my entire field of view. Her scent of apples and mint filled my nose. I could have just leaned over two inches and kissed her.

But why would I want to do that?

Exactly. I wouldn’t.

I hadn’t ever even kissed Sandra, as much as I would have liked to. Despite Mom’s lectures against such things.

“Did he say,” she said, “how he planned to do that?”

I shook my head, careful to keep my face from moving closer to hers. “Not a word.”

She narrowed her eyes and stared at me for a moment before shoving me away.

“We should get you to SOaP. Not that it will fix things. The damage is done. There may be nothing else we can do until he comes back to you, again.”

She stepped back and took from her purse a vial almost identical to Nick’s container of brink, except hers was light blue. She unscrewed the cap and poured brink into the palm of one hand, then closed her hand.

She turned her back toward me and raised her closed fist to the air. She opened her palm, and began to draw a circle in the air, starting at the top and moving counterclockwise. The brink hung in the air and tinkled. When she’d finished drawing the circle, she drew a squiggly line from the top of the circle to the bottom.

“What does this spell do?” I said.

The last of the brink had rubbed off her hand into the air. She turned to look at me as she reached into her pocket.

“I’m going to make sure it’s safe to go to SOaP.”

She withdrew from her pocket a pink lighter with Hello Kitty stamped on both sides. As she turned back to the spell, she lifted the lighter and flicked her thumb. The lighter sparked, but didn’t light.

“Nick Savage said a good lighter is important,” I said. “You never want it to—”

She turned back to me, her face annoyed, her mouth opening to talk. But at that exact moment Mom entered the dressing room—without even knocking. As usual.

I didn’t even have a chance to feel guilty about what was going on—and what had gone on—because as usual, she totally freaked out.

Then I about freaked out, because Kurt came in with her. And Sandra followed.

Chapter 13: Surprise! Mom embarrasses me in front of my friends

I’m not a huge fan of crowded rooms. Especially when there’s an angry mom present. See the crap I put up with for Richie?

-Sandra Montoya

Mom’s eyes moved from me to Marti to the spell—and widened with understanding.

Sandra’s gaze went from me to Marti to me to Marti.

I hadn’t been alone with Sandra since we were just twelve. Suddenly here I was, alone with another girl in my dressing room.

“No!” Mom said. She leaped toward Marti and me. “Don’t you dare light that!”

“Marti Walker?” Sandra said. She pointed in her accustomed manner, lifting a hand and turning it upside down. “The CMI was
Marti Walker
?”

Kurt paled. His mouth gaped then curled as if he’d eaten a rotten fish. “Marti
freaking
Walker?”

I stepped out of Mom’s way, toward Sandra. Marti began to object to Mom’s mad dash by crying out. She actually moved in front of Mom and held her hands out. With a grunt, Mom shouldered her aside like a football player throwing a block, shoving Marti away from the brink.

“Mrs. Van Bender!” Marti said. “Let me explain.

Mom huffed and puffed. Her face turned red and she tried to speak, but seemed to fail because of anger. She stepped in front of the brink, as if to separate us from where it hung, tinkling and sparkling.

Sandra’s brow furrowed and her mouth hung open. She had a dark complexion, and long brown hair. “Really?
Marti Walker
?”

“No, no,” I said. “The CMI wasn’t Marti Walker. She just got here a minute ago.”

“Who was it, then?” Kurt said. His light brown hair was sculpted into a pointed wave all the way down the center of his head.

“Who are these people?” Marti said. “What’s going on here?”

“Who am I?” Sandra said. She stepped away from me and over to Marti, back straight, head tall. “Who am I? I’ll tell you who—”

“Stop!”

I jumped at Mom’s shout. She still stood there, trembling, glaring at us. Keeping Marti away from the brink.

Marti and Sandra each took a step back. Marti gave Sandra a dark look, and Sandra lifted her eyebrows at Marti. Kurt seemed to want to meld into the floor.

“Richie David Van Bender,” Mom said, “what’s going on here? Not only are you alone with a girl in your dressing room—”

“Mom!”

“—but you’re also doing brink?”

“Holy crap, Mom. Chill out.”

I didn’t really care so much that she was upset, but worried more about what Sandra thought of this. It wasn’t like Sandra and I were a thing, but we’d been best friends since kindergarten, and all through my cancer she’d been the only friend to stick around when my hair fell out. She’d visited me everyday. Nothing had changed when I hit it big. She was my best friend, and had been ever since I could remember.

I glanced at Sandra. She looked surprisingly serene, as if she’d managed to calm her emotions.

“Mrs. Van Bender,” Marti said, “I can explain everything. I’m from SOaP.”

Mom’s eyes grew wider and her face reddened deeper. She moved close to Marti and pointed past her, to the open door.

“Get out of here! Get out of my son’s dressing room!”

“Mom!”

“I can explain everything,” Marti said.

“Get out!”

“Holy crap, Mom!”

“It’s very important!” Marti said.

“I don’t want you anywhere near my son! Out!”

“Stop!” I shouted.

They both fell silent and turned to me. Kurt and Sandra had stepped back, close to the door, and looked at each other in confusion. Dumbfounded, I shook my head, my mouth gaping as I looked at Mom.

“Does everyone,” I said, “know about brink but me?”

Kurt raised a hand. “Uh, I don’t.”

Mom came toward me. “How long has this been going on?”

I lifted my hands helplessly. “Mom, you’re acting like I’m hooked on drugs. What’s the big deal?”

She shook her head. “This is far worse than drugs, Richie.”

“I beg to differ,” said Marti. “Mrs. Van Bender, if you’ll just let me explain.”

Mom rounded on her, raising a forefinger to her face. “You stay away from my son. You and all the rest of SOaP. You understand me?”

“Mrs. Van—”

“Get out!”

I’d seen Mom mad several times—like the time when I was in the hospital and removed my heart-rate monitor so the machine thought I was dead, and she came in and I didn’t respond to her. I just lay there, holding my breath, staring off into space with a blank expression.

Yeah, that didn’t go over too well.

I admit it wasn’t a nice thing to do. I immediately felt bad and apologized profusely. Promised never to do anything like that again. And I didn’t. But that didn’t keep her from getting justifiably irate.

Well, she seemed just as mad, now.

Marti stepped back, nodding and pulling her phone out of her purse. She pointed at me as she headed for the door.

“Okay, Mrs. Van Bender. I’ll leave. But he’s mixed up in things. It’s too late to do a mind wipe. He’s involved with the Sunbeams, and you can’t turn back time.”

“Out!”

The volume of sheer hysteria in the shout made me jump. Sandra actually squeaked in surprise.

Marti gave me a desperate and angry look, started to jam her thumbs into her phone without looking at it, and backed out.

“Mom,” I said, looking at her, “you know about brink?”

She slammed the door and turned to me. The brink behind her had started to fade. The tinkling had grown quieter.

“How long has this been going on?”

I shook my head and spread my hands wide. “I met Nick before the show.”

Mom sucked in her breath. “Too long. This is going to require a more sophisticated mind wiping.”

“What?” I said.

She shook her head. “We’re getting out of here.”

Chapter 14: Puke in a bag

Ah, yes, the motion sickness. Bane of my life. Richie’s greatest source of amusement.

-Elizabeth Van Bender

I wanted to know what she meant by “mind wiping,” but Mom grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the door. Sandra and Kurt watched in confusion. I wished I could explain everything to Sandra and Kurt insofar as I understood it, but Mom pulled me away.

Two minutes later, we sat facing each other in the enclosed helicopter as the blades spun. The pilot sat in his seat, silent, adjusting controls on the panel. Outside, around the perimeter of the well-lit helipad, fans cheered and waved, but three rows of security guards kept them back.

“You know about all that stuff?” I said to her.

“What stuff?”

I waved my hand. “That glowy, shiny stuff.”

I didn’t want to name brink because of the pilot. All our over-ear headsets, with microphones in front of our mouths, were linked.

She just stared. Although I was in trouble for the first time since trying to meet Bobby Fretboard, I felt alive, like I was finally actually a rock star. I wanted to learn more about brink, even despite the apparent danger of at all.

“Are you going to tell me anything?” I said. “Because if you were, now would sure be a really fantastic time.”