Archanum Manor Page 3

  “Positive,” I said. “You saw Eli, right? What he’s become? What he did?”

  “I know. I don’t want to believe that, either.” Desiree leaned against the closest lockers. “Well, at least she seems to be all right. Did you get the chance to talk to her?”

  “Yeah,” I said, also stepping away from the door as a student opened it to exit the classroom. “She…she has no memory of me. She has no idea who I am.”

  “How about me?”

  “Yeah, she remembers you. She seems to remember mostly everything else. I assume she has amnesia of the time she spent in the asylum because she thinks she was in the hospital for something. She acknowledged you two have been friends since grade school, but it’s like my time with her was simply erased.”

  “Wasn’t part of your memory erased when you were young?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, you don’t have to blame yourself for what happened to her anymore.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to rationalize.”

  “Did you check out Mr. Gordon’s class?”

  “Some old guy’s teaching it now,” I said, making Desiree laugh for the first time since she arrived on campus.

  “Do you want to stay and go to art?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve had enough. Today was a dumb idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Desiree insisted, grabbing my hand as we left the classroom behind and headed back toward the quad. “Not knowing what happened to Anna was eating you up inside. I could tell. Now you do know, and it’s better than what you thought.”

  “But—”

  “Not perfect, but better. Maybe that’s why you really came to school today.”

  “Maybe,” I said, starting to feel a little better about today’s sequence of events.

  We crossed the quad and strolled past the locker rooms, making our way toward the back entrance of Eastman High, the quicker way to Mr. Gordon’s house. Before reaching the sidewalk, I sent Mr. Gordon a brief text to make sure he was home. He answered a few steps later, giving us the green light to come over.

  “Are we going back tonight?” Desiree asked.

  “I dunno,” I answered, seeing a few guys hanging out across the street in front of Patch Heights, the alternative high school. “I haven’t asked too much about next steps. I’ve mostly been processing the present.”

  “I know, it’s been tough. Though it must be good to see your mom and Richard.”

  As she talked I kept an eye on the guys loitering thirty feet away—seven of them—and then I saw him. And he saw me—Sasha.

  “Isn’t this a nice surprise? Nut Grain, in the flesh,” Sasha said venomously.

  He hadn’t changed: dressed all in black with long black hair, several eyebrow hooks, and standing several inches taller than his white-trash followers.

  “She’s still out of your league.”

  “Shut up, jerk!” Desiree yelled and the group erupted in laughter like a pack of scruffy hyenas.

  I stopped and turned to face the street, face the boy I’d categorized as my nemesis at the beginning of the year. My whole body tingled from déjà vu, but the uncontrollable shaking I’d had every time Sasha spoke to me was gone. He wasn’t my nemesis anymore. He was nothing.

  I stepped into the street.

  “Oliver, don’t,” Desiree said, but it wasn’t a plea this time.

  “Yeah, Oliver, listen to your girlfriend.” Sasha stepped out from the pack of delinquents.

  “Don’t worry,” I called back, but kept my eyes locked on Sasha.

  “I didn’t say it for him, but for you,” Desiree shouted so everyone in the group could clearly hear, and then followed me across the street.

  “If you only knew how many people your screwdriver has killed,” I said, stepping onto the far sidewalk, a dead man’s height from Sasha. “If I had it right now, I’d use it to kill you.”

  “That’s funny,” he said with a smirk. “’Cause I don’t see your brother to back you up this time.” He gestured to Desiree. “Is she gonna slap me around while you hide behind her like the pussy I always took you for?”

  “Don’t talk about Jeremy,” I warned.

  “What, your brother? Or what?”

  I felt my face turn red as a boiling rage rose to the surface. A cool hand touched my forearm and I waited for Desiree to try and diffuse the situation, but she didn’t.

  “I don’t want to be a part of this,” she said. “Please, don’t kill him. And catch up to me when you’re done.” Desiree planted her soft lips on mine, trailed a hand down my cheek, and turned to continue down the sidewalk.

  For a second, I thought one or more of the guys would try and stop her, harass her, something. But no one did. Everyone in the opposing group was momentarily rendered speechless from the confidence in her actions and the frankness of her words. All eyes left her departure and returned to me, standing alone, not sure what to make of me. This included Sasha.

  “I never knew your reason for hating me, but I sure have my reasons for hating you,” I said, breaking the silence. “You were all loud and tough when I was across the street. Well, here I am! Take your best shot!”

  “You’re fuckin’ done, Nut Grain,” Sasha spat and cocked his arm for a right cross.

  I had been waiting for the first strike to slide backwards while concentrating on any incoming object passing through my body like Nicholae had taught me to do with bullets. Sasha’s fist grazed the space where my face should have been from his perspective, but connected with nothing but air. The full-force punch, missing its target, threw him off balance and caused him to stumble forward. I parried to the side to avoid his awkward recovery.

  Everyone else in the group stayed back while he righted himself and puffed out his chest.

  “You think you’re hot shit,” he said and shoved me in the chest with two iron palms.

  I didn’t try to dodge or block his attack, allowing the force to knock me backward into the street, but my balance remained intact.

  “No,” I said. “I’m just not afraid of you anymore. It’s my turn to make you afraid of me.”

  Sasha laughed, signaling to the rest of his pack to follow his lead.

  “That’s rich, Nut Grain.”

  I glanced over at Desiree who was now at least a hundred yards away. Her side of the street was devoid of all other movement. I glanced to my right. No cars were headed in our direction.

  I reached into my jacket and removed the concealed handgun and stuck it directly in Sasha’s face. He immediately threw his hands up in surrender.

  “Whoa, whoa, cool down there, buddy,” he said, backing into his crew as I stepped up onto the sidewalk, the barrel leveled at his third eye. “I was just messin’ around. No hard feelings.”

  “You tormented me from the first day of school. You threatened me. You stabbed me. And for what? No hard feelings?”

  I saw the guy to the far left sneak out his phone, inconspicuously dialing or texting or turning on the camera.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said. “Unless you want your friend’s brain matter splattered all over you. Or maybe, I’ll just shoot you first.”

  The guy dropped his phone into the grass, blazing red with a sheepish expression on his face.

  I turned my attention back to Sasha, seeing his face transform into the teenage Kafka that I’d so desperately wanted to shoot, but who would not allow himself to be so easily killed again.

  The gun grew heavy for my outstretched arms, but it was a satisfying weight—absolute power.

  “You’re not going to mess with me again. You’re not going to mess with my girlfriend,” I said.

  “I swear,” Sasha replied, genuine fear in his eyes. “Or your brother.”

  “My brother’s dead.” I slowly moved my finger to the trigger.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Sasha backed up a few more steps.

  “And he was murdered with your screwdriver.”

  “What?! No...no, I
had nothing to do with it. You have to believe me.”

  “I know it wasn’t you.” I took a step closer.

  Sasha’s spineless goons were spreading out, carefully exiting the blast zone.

  “I was there,” I said. “I watched him die—just like I’m going to watch you die.” And I pulled the trigger.

  The small explosion echoed in the cool, open air. The mighty crack scattered dozens of birds from nearby trees.

  Several of the guys dropped to the ground like dead weights, but not Sasha. He thrashed his arms out in front of his body, closed his eyes, and flexed every muscle trying to withstand the shot. But he was still standing.

  “Oh my God,” one of the guys gasped.

  It took Sasha a few breaths to realize he hadn’t been shot. When he reopened his eyes, he found the suspended bullet staring him down a few inches away from his face. He expelled all of the air from his body and practically deflated as he crumpled to the grass. The bullet dropped with him, bouncing off one leather boot.

  “Am I dead?” he asked, peering up at me as I holstered my weapon.

  “No, but you are to me,” I said and trailed after Desiree with a big silly grin on my face.

  Kafka (2)

  Eli followed Cias, Kafka, and Kafka’s wolf onto the South Los Angeles sidewalk from the black Mercedes limousine they’d been relaxing in during the drive from the Ritz-Carlton. The woman accompanying them remained in the car. She wasn’t bound in any visible way, but seemed to be frozen to her seat, hands clutching one another in her lap. Only her eyes had retained the power to move. Eli had met her only a handful of times before, and remembered it was Oliver’s mother.

  “It’s such an inefficient way to travel,” Kafka complained.

  His wolf strolled ahead of him, head low, ears perked up.

  “One of many inefficiencies in this plane,” Cias said.

  The street was dark, lined with locked, barred, and boarded-up stores. Discarded fliers, magazines, and decaying paper cups littered the sidewalk and spilled into the street. Graffiti laid claim to many beaten-down storefronts and adjoining brick walls. A few cars and vans, literally bumping from the stereo bass, cruised by at or under the marginal speed limit.

  Eli knew he was in the presence of powerful men, but a lifetime of conditioning from living in Southern California kicked in as he stood on this inner city street after dark. He’d driven through neighborhoods like this several times after gigs, but always ensured his doors were locked, windows were rolled up, and music was low enough not to call attention to himself as the only white person in a very not-white part of town.

  A mound of garbage bags and blankets overflowed from a recessed, gated doorway like a makeshift tent of trash. The mound rose and fell like the whole tent was breathing. A black man with a beard as large and unkempt as his afro lay on a cardboard box down the way. An old grocery cart filled to the brim with junk and empty plastic bottles was parked by his head. He wore three or four layers of greasy clothes.

  The whole street smelled of rotten food, oil, and exhaust.

  Eli peeked at his phone and saw that it was just past midnight.

  “Can you see it?” Kafka asked with excitement. “It’s so beautiful and will transform the entire skyline of this city. What was it called again?”

  “Los Angeles,” Eli said. He had not yet mastered traveling back and forth through the planes, relying mostly on Cias’s help.

  “Each city block is much smaller here than in Provex City,” Cias said as Kafka walked ahead of them scanning the hemorrhaging area, from the nearby businesses, across the street, to the closest intersection.

  “Then we’ll combine them—introduce a new standard,” Kafka said, turning back to his two companions.

  The wolf ventured farther into the shadows.

  “Of course we’ll have to rebuild the area because this simply will not do,” Kafka said.

  “There will be opposition,” Cias said. “Buildings are constructed much slower here, piece by piece. There are many rules, regulations, labor unions, government requirements.”

  “Cias, my old friend, that is why I have you,” Kafka said.

  “That’s one helleva big coyote!” a man with a distinct Mexican accent said, stepping out from an alley a few stores away.

  “It’s no coyote—it’s a goddamn wolf!” another man exclaimed.

  “You’ll make all those inconveniences go away,” Kafka said, unfazed by the voices behind him. “I’m sure residents of this community aren’t happy with the state of disrepair I’m seeing around us. They don’t stay here by choice. We can change that. Think of the possibilities. Think of what we did for Provex—”

  “Shoot it!”

  Kafka swung around. A glint from a streetlight reflected off the metal barrel of one shadowed figure’s handgun as he pointed it down at the growling wolf. Before a shot was fired, the man’s outstretched arm lowered in slow jagged movements like he was fighting a losing battle to keep it up.

  “What’re you doin’? Shoot it!”

  “I can’t!” The man with the gun shouted back. “I can’t move my arm!”

  Before another gun was revealed, Kafka appeared at his wolf’s side, placing a hand on the raised fur of its scruff, silencing the guttural warning.

  Cias casually walked after his master, and Eli hesitantly followed. More men were spilling from the shadows of the alley until there was a half-moon gang standing before Kafka.

  “You do not want to shoot Abram,” Kafka said.

  “This beast’s yours?” a guy near the middle said. He was the tallest of the bunch, with a bandana on his head, and tattoos sticking up from his oversized button-down plaid flannel shirt.

  “Yes.”

  “Then take it and get off our street or I’ll put it down. What you say?”

  Kafka patted his wolf on the side, who obediently turned and headed back toward the limousine.

  “I say that would be a big mistake.” Kafka turned his attention to Cias. “Would these men do well in our army?”

  “Your army?” one of the gang members asked sardonically. The rest of them laughed.

  “I’d advise against it,” Cias said. “They’re violent and ruthless, but undisciplined and unpredictable. They should be removed from the neighborhood if you want to rebuild.”

  Their laughter died down.

  “Who’re you to come into our neighborhood and call the shots,” the tall guy said. He pounded on his chest. “I call the shots here, pendejo. Not the likes of some sleazy, prick developer. This is my street—mi barrio—and you can only touch what I allow you to touch. You ain’t in Beverly Hills, son. You’re in my home, and you don’t come and disrespect me in my own home.”

  “That’s where you’re mistaken,” Kafka said. “Because this is no longer your home. It’s mine. And I have a proposition for you—a probationary job to prove your worth to me.”

  “You insulting hijo de puta,” the tall guy said, pulling a semiautomatic handgun from the waistband of his jeans. Sticking the short barrel in Kafka’s face, he continued, “Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you in the face right now?”

  A gunshot rang out from somewhere across the street, hitting the guy threatening Kafka in the upper thigh. He dropped with a cry like a slab of cold beef, as did the gangbanger standing directly behind him.

  “Why?” Kafka asked, playfully. “Because you can’t.”

  The bystanders in the group dropped to squatting positions, but none ran, afraid of more gunfire from a shooter no one could see.

  “To those of you who decide to run, you will be dropped,” Kafka warned. “Now as I was saying, I’m offering you a great opportunity to work for me—on a trial basis, of course.”

  The two shot men on the ground yelled and groaned, bleeding onto the sidewalk. The taller man covered the entrance wound with both hands, but the blood found its way out through his fingers.

  Kafka continued unfazed, “You can help turn this area around. Instead of ter
rorizing the people of this neighborhood, you will be my peacekeepers. You will clean up the trash and bring confidence and stability back to this area. You will remove anyone disruptive from my new home. I want the fear to evaporate from this neighborhood and new businesses to flock here. I will take charge of building and you will take charge of removing the trash. I don’t like trash in my home. Do you understand? Do we have an agreement?”

  Several of the squatting men nodded. The leader with the gaping hole in his leg seethed and breathed heavily, enduring the pain with the air of someone who’d been shot before. He returned an icy stare, offering no acceptance to Kafka’s proposal.

  “My associate here believes you should all be taken out back and shot like rabid dogs,” Kafka said, addressing the group as a whole. “But I have faith in you—I believe you will accomplish what I’ve requested, and you will do so with pride. If you do well, you will be handsomely rewarded. But if not...” He tugged the gang leader to his feet, who swore from the pain of putting pressure on his injured leg. “I hope you trust your associates to do a good job, because your life depends on it.” Addressing the group once more, he pulled up the cuff of his right sleeve to prominently display the wolf-head tattoo and said, “See this? You’ll see it again, and when you do, you’ll know what it represents. You’ll know they’re associates of mine—soldiers in my army. Respect it. Fear it, for if you provoke it, it will bite. You have 24 hours to clean this place up. I’ll be back at that time to either reward you or kill you. The choice is yours.”

  Kafka pulled the limping man back to the limo. The rest of the gang was just beginning to rise when another shot split the night like a thunderclap. The other man who’d been shot in the knee went silent and slumped to the concrete. More yells of panic and disbelieve rippled through the group. The faint wail of a police siren sounded in the distance.

  Kafka guided the gang leader into the back of the black Mercedes limousine, followed by Cias and Eli.