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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press
ISBN-10: 1611608317
Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9781611608311
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
The third volume of a Young Adult series set in small-town Arkansas. Mary Lanham learns the magical secrets of her past and confronts an ancient evil. The fate of the whole world hangs in the balance.
After the events of Mary of the Aether and Mary of Shadows, Mary Lanham is on the run, desperate to stay one step ahead of the terrible Devourers who pursue her by the dark of night. She flees through lonely places, following country roads, passing through tiny towns and trying to stay out of the public eye. Meanwhile, back in Chesset, her friends find themselves under attack by Lookers who want to use them as bait to draw Mary home. A trap is sprung, and the whole world watches as universes collide in an explosive showdown that will change everything.
Excerpt
Aiden did his best to fill the open doorway, jamming his hands into his pockets, squaring off his shoulders and fixing a poisonous scowl on his face. To his delight, the man in the pale pink shirt took a step back. The reporters and journalists were annoying, the government goons scary, but this plump, sweaty fellow was nothing more than some low rent private eye, as best he could tell. Aiden had dealt with enough of them in the past couple of months to know the difference. The man drove a nice car, a jet black BMW with tinted windows, but he showed no credentials. Plus, he had an irritating affected persona, all swagger and grim looks, like he’d learned the ropes of his profession from watching old movies.
“Surely you’re not surprised that people are asking questions,” the man said, recovering from his moment of doubt and crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Your connection to the girl is well known.”
“Of course it’s well known,” Aiden said. “That doesn’t mean I have anything to tell you. Do you really think I would withhold information from the reporters and the police and the FBI just to share it with a two-bit gumshoe in an ugly shirt?”
The man blinked and fixed a cool smile on his face. “Gumshoe? Nice. Haven’t heard that one in a long time. Look, there are things I can offer you that those other people cannot. Unlike the reporters, I am not looking to parade the girl before cameras like a carnival freak, and unlike the government, I am not threatened by her powers. I represent certain people who very much want to protect and nurture her.”
“Oh? And who would these certain people be?” Aiden said.
“It is better if I don’t divulge that information out in the open here. However—”
“Well, in that case, you’ll have to excuse me,” Aiden said, reaching for the door. “I’ve got naps to take.”
The man reached into his shirt pocket and produced a small business card, gray cardstock with shiny black letters. He thrust it at Aiden.
“I’m not allowed to take business cards from strangers,” Aiden said.
The man nodded. “I understand,” he said. “My name is Carl Douger. If you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” Aiden said. “I’m not into changing my mind.”
“Still…” Carl flicked his hand and sent the business card sailing over Aiden’s head, through the door and into his living room. “You never know what might develop in the coming weeks.”
“Is that a threat, Carl Douger?”
Carl shook his head and smiled. “Certainly not. But you see what is unfolding in Chesset, and not only in Chesset but around the world. The media circus won’t quiet down anytime soon. The day may come when you are willing to take a risk for the sake of gaining allies.”
“I have allies, thank you very much,” Aiden said. He was tempted to go for the card and fling it back in the man’s face, but he didn’t want to leave the door unblocked.
“Allies? Oh, you mean the girl’s troubled aunt? Yes, I saw her rambling interview on the news. Or perhaps you mean your various high school buddies, the ones who flee from cops and crash vans into gas stations? I saw them on the news, as well. No, I was referring to allies who might actually be able to help, who might have…connections.”
"I don’t want your connections, Carl Douger,” Aiden said. “And I don’t want to see your big pudding face any-more. Good afternoon and goodbye.”
Aiden stepped back, even as the man resumed speaking, and slammed the door in his face. The force of it rattled the windows in the living room and knocked some of his mother’s knick knacks off various shelves. Aiden quickly set the deadbolt and backed across the room. When his foot came down on the business card, he kicked it aside. But somehow that wasn’t satisfying enough, so he stooped down and picked it up, crumpling it in his hand. He tossed the crumpled bit of paper toward the kitchen, but it fell short and landed on his father’s leather recliner.
“Did you answer the door?”
Aiden’s mother calling from upstairs. When he went to the bottom step, he heard the muted sounds of the television. Another news report. Why did she insist on watching them? He had given her far more information than she would ever learn from TV reporters. All the news did was loop the same shaky footage from the night of the fire. A quick shot of Mary sailing through the air, disappearing behind a column of smoke. That was the most overplayed bit of video. It had been analyzed, enhanced and played at every possible speed, backward and forward. There was also another quick bit of video from someone’s phone of the Devourers attacking the constable’s car, but the person who took that one had been so terrified, he hadn’t bothered to aim at the action. There were a few seconds of asphalt, some screams, a quick shot of a vague white shape moving in the corner, another few frames of Mary lunging out of the car then the video ended. Ah, but the hours and hours of airtime they’d managed to fill with those few frames.
“He kept knocking,” Aiden said. “It was driving me crazy.”
“Let them knock,” his mother called back. “Don’t answer the door. They’ll get the message sooner or later that we’ve got nothing else to say.”
“I made him go away. Don’t worry about it.”
“How did you make him go away?”
“With sarcasm and insults,” Aiden replied.
“See, that just provokes people. Next time don’t open the door!”
“Got it, Mom.”
Aiden sighed and started back across the living room. He hated feeling trapped in his own house, but the circus had come to town. Everywhere you went in Chesset the re-porters were camped out, and not just the reporters but hundreds of weirdos from all corners of the world. Aiden went to the kitchen and opened the drawer beside the sink, rifling through the pile of envelopes and papers until he found a small postcard near the bottom. Pulling it out, he gazed at the picture on the front for a long time, an ocean too blue to be real beside a white, sandy beach. He flipped it over and read the single word written there in Mary’s handwriting—Fine. Yes, yes, she was fine, but where was she?
And when would he hear her voice again?
He felt a terrible ache in his chest, and he leaned against the counter, clutching the postcard in both hands. For the thousandth time, he wondered why he hadn’t gone with her. It had all happened so quickly. If he’d had time to think it over, he would have gone. He belonged at her side, helping her, comforting and encouraging. What good was he doing her here in Chesset? He couldn’t even respond to her postcard. He had no idea where to send a reply. He had no way to find her now, even if he tried. Aiden tossed the post-card back into the drawer and slammed it shut with his hip.
A tap at the kitchen window roused him, and he spun around. He saw a face through the glass, half-hidden by the glare of sunlight, and he fumbled toward the utensil drawer for a knife. It wouldn’t be the first time some troublemaker had come sneaking around the side of the house looking for a way in. When Aiden shifted to the side, however, the glare on the window moved, and he saw a pale, pimply and very familiar face framed there. Wide eyes behind thick glasses, a head of sandy hair. Perry waved with one hand and tapped on the glass again with the other.
Aiden grunted unhappily and went to the sink, working at the old rusty window latch. Perry was already mouthing words at him, but Aiden waved him off. It took both hands to get the latch turned, and the window squealed in protest when he opened it.
“What are you doing?” he said, cutting off Perry before he could resume speaking. “Why are you tapping at windows like some kind of kook instead of texting me or coming to the door like normal people?”
Perry gave him an apologetic shrug and a toothy grin. “Sorry. I meant to come to the door, but there was a weird person standing there. I went around behind the garage and came across the side yard, so he wouldn’t see me.”
“There are always weird people lurking around,” Aiden said. “You could’ve come to the back door.”
“Yeah.” Perry adjusted his glasses. “Yeah. It was farther away.” He shook his head and suddenly looked very grave. Stepping back from the window, he beckoned Aiden outside. “Look, you gotta come with me. There’s a problem. A big problem.”
Aiden sighed. There was always some kind of problem in Chesset these days. There was no telling what Perry was talking about, but Aiden didn’t like the way he seemed to be enjoying the madness. Perry and Sofia both made a frustrating combination. Even if nothing had developed between the two of them, they certainly shared a mutual perverse interest in the troubles.
“Just come around to the front door, and I’ll let you in,” Aiden said. “We’ll talk about it.”
“No time, man, no time.” Perry beckoned more frantic-ally. “Come on. I’ll tell you about it on the way. We have to hurry.”
Aiden started to protest, but Perry turned and walked away, still motioning to him. Aiden leaned against the sink and groaned.
“Okay, wait,” he called after Perry. “I’ll come. Hang on.”
Aiden reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. Mother wouldn’t like him going out, and he didn’t want to argue with her about it. But he couldn’t just disappear without telling her something. He quickly sent her a text—Going over to Perry’s 4 a bit be back soon. He hit send, then clambered up onto the sink and pulled himself through the open window. He got his response as soon as he jumped down into the yard—Not a good idea—but he slid the phone back into his pocket, shut the window and started across the yard after Perry.
“I’m probably gonna get yelled at for this,” he said. “It better be worth it.”
But Perry was already moving swiftly toward the garage and didn’t seem to hear him. Aiden hurried to catch up.
“We don’t have to slink around behind the garage,” Aiden said. “We’re not going to get attacked if we walk through the front yard.”
“That guy might still be standing on your porch,” Perry said over his shoulder. “He seemed to be the lingering type. Lingering people are the ones you’ve gotta watch out for. They’ll jump you when you least expect it.”
Aiden glanced toward the front of the house, where the winding driveway worked its way through the unkempt yard. The stranger’s nice BMW was gone, but a dust cloud hung over the end of the driveway, testimony to a sudden, speedy departure.
“Who was he?” Perry asked, pausing at the far corner of the garage. “Didn’t look like a cop.”
“Said his name was Carl Douger,” Aiden said. “I’m guessing he’s some kind of private eye, but, really, who knows? He could be an undercover cop. He could be a re-porter. He could be a lawyer or a Looker or a lunatic, for all I know. Does it matter? They all want the same thing. They want to know where she is.”
Perry hurried away from the garage, headed for the line of trees at the edge of the property.
“Is all the creeping around really necessary?” Aiden said, following him into the shadows beneath the boughs.
“Of course it is, man,” Perry said. “There’re people in vans with cameras cruising up and down the streets at all hours. We can cut through the trees and get to Cholly’s, and they won’t even know we left the house.”
“Fine.”
After the fire, Vera hadn’t bothered to reopen the truck stop. The property was reduced to a bare slab of concrete. Vera herself had skipped town, apparently. Nobody seemed to know where she was. The loss of Lucky’s truck stop was a disappointment for Chesset, but a golden opportunity for Don Cholly to reopen his tiny gas station. And with all the strangers in town, he had more business than ever.
Aiden kicked his way through the underbrush, ducking to keep the low-lying branches out of his face. They picked their way through the forest, moving southeast to intersect with Main Street. Aiden felt his phone vibrate in his pocket—another text message from his mother, angrier and more insistent, no doubt—but he ignored it. He wouldn’t hide in the house all day, no matter how angry she got. It didn’t solve anything, and he wouldn’t be a prisoner of the media.
“So what’d you tell him?” Perry asked.
“What’d I tell who?”
“Pink shirt guy with the black car.”
“Mostly, I just made snide comments and slammed the door in his face,” Aiden said. “It seemed appropriate. If he can’t arrest me or put my face on TV, why bother being polite?”
“That’s awesome,” Perry said with a laugh. “You should’ve thrown something at him, like a piece of rotten fruit, or kicked him in the groin.” This made Perry laugh so hard that he walked right into a tree. His laughter turned into a surprised curse, and his glasses flew off his face.
“The thing is, I’m not actually trying to hurt anyone,” Aiden said.
Perry fumbled around on the ground for his glasses. “You played dumb with the cops. That seemed to work, just pretending like you don’t know anything. They eventually left you alone.”
“I wasn’t playing dumb. I really don’t know where Mary is. That’s the truth. I wish I did. I would go to her right now.”
“But you kind of do know, right? She sent that postcard with the beach on it. That narrows it down.”
“Sure it does,” Aiden replied sarcastically. “There’s only about a million miles of beaches in the world.”
Perry found his glasses and slipped them back on his face, wiping a bit of mud off one of the lenses.
“I’ll bet she’s on St. Thomas.”
“Oh, and where is that?”
“It’s an island somewhere,” Perry said, kicking his way through a net of thorny brush. “Caribbean, maybe. Not sure. My aunt went there on a cruise once, I think.”
“And what makes you think Mary is there?”
“I don’t know.” Perry shrugged. “Call it a hunch. Call it a guess.”
“Well, I’ll bet she’s not on any island,” Aiden said. “I’ll bet she’s never been to the beach. She knows there might be people monitoring my mail, so the picture on the front of the postcard is a ruse to throw them off her trail. That’s what I think. You forget how smart she is.”
“That is pretty tricky,” Perry said. “I wonder where she got a postcard with a picture of a beach on it if she wasn’t near a beach.”
“I’m sure there are ways.” Aiden sighed. “Look, what is the nature of this problem that brought you to my kitchen window?”
“It’s Mullet Williams, man,” Perry said. “I saw him outside of Cholly’s One Stop.”
“Let me guess. He was talking to reporters.”
“Saying all kinds of awful stuff,” Perry said with a vigorous nod. “Lies, man. Accusations. Conspiracy theories and such.”
“That’s not really a new problem,” Aiden said. “Mullet has been blabbing to anyone who will listen since the night of the fire. Mary showed him mercy at Devil’s Den, even after he almost got us all killed, and he hates her for it. Does that make any sense at all, to hate someone for showing mercy? But that’s Mullet Williams.”
Perry started to say something else, but they both heard a snap of twigs somewhere off to the left. Perry swung around and backed up against a tree, and Aiden nearly stumbled right into him. There were a lot of new residents in Chesset who were neither journalists nor law enforcement. Fans, cultists, opportunists, whatever they were, most of them just wanted to be in the place where magic had happened. Chesset had no motels to accommodate them, so many had taken to camping in the forest at night, trying to hide from the rangers who came to shoo them away. During the day, they wandered the small town like ghosts, eyes lifted up, as if Mary might suddenly go streaking through the sky like a comet. None of them had proved to be dangerous, not yet.
Aiden heard another crunch, louder this time. It sounded close, but the trees grew thick here. He couldn’t see anyone. Finally he motioned Perry on, and his friend nodded and resumed walking. They went another dozen steps or so when Aiden heard it again, this time directly behind him. He wheeled around but saw no one there. A squirrel darted across a branch and disappeared into a nest of leaves, but otherwise the forest was utterly still. Perry kept going a bit before realizing Aiden had stopped.
“Is it a bear or a bobcat or is it a person?” Perry asked.
Aiden cupped a hand beside his mouth and called out to the hidden follower. “Okay, whoever you are, just come on out where I can see you. You’re not the first creep to slink around in the forest. It’s getting kind of old, actually.”
For a second, he heard nothing. Then footsteps, coming fast. He tensed, bracing himself, his hands curling into fists.
“What if he has a gun?” Perry whispered in his ear. “Let’s go. We can make it to the road if we…”
But the words died in his mouth when the man stepped out from behind a fat oak tree. An emaciated man, dark circles around his eyes. He had long, scraggly hair, black and greasy, flecked with gray, whiskers on his cheeks and chin. He was filthy, grime caked into the wrinkles of his face, mingling with a sheen of sweat on his forehead to make a muddy soup. Strangely, however, he was dressed in what appeared to be a brand new white t-shirt and gray sweatpants that looked like he’d just pulled them off the rack at a department store.
He stumbled into view and caught himself against a tree, lifting one trembling hand to point at them. He had a haunted look in his eyes, and when he opened his mouth to speak, his lower lip merely quivered. Aiden was used to the weirdos, but this one had a more unsettling look than the others. He felt a little flutter of disquiet in his belly.
“Something’s wrong with him,” Perry said, low and quiet and scared. “His eyes, man. Let’s go.” He grabbed Aiden’s sleeve and gave it a tug.
Aiden eased back but didn’t want to turn away from the man. “All right, guy, why don’t you just stay right there while we walk away, okay? To get the important stuff out of the way, let me inform you that I do not know where Mary is; I do not know the source of her power, and I cannot put you in contact with the mother ship.”
The stranger swallowed and shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. When he finally spoke, his voice was a mere rasp. “Mother ship…mother ship,” he said, as if testing the sound of words. “Not looking for any mother ship.”
“Well, that’s probably for the best then,” Aiden said. “You have a great day, sir, and goodbye.”
Aiden took another step back, and suddenly the stranger moved, lurching away from the tree and gesturing at Aiden with both hands.
“Don’t you know me, boy?” he said, cracked lips pulling back to reveal a mouthful of dirty teeth.
“I’m sure I don’t,” Aiden said. He did not recognize the face, that was clear, but was there something in the voice? He wasn’t sure.
The stranger made a sudden move, one hand sinking into the pocket of his sweatpants.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” the man said. “Allow me to reintroduce myself.”
He drew his hand out of his pocket, clutching some dark thing....
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