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Page 12

 

  “‘Love is the finest and foulest thing in the world. It will drive a man to greatness even while driving him into despair. ’” Clarence proclaimed. “To quote the famous philosopher . . . ”

  “Which famous philosopher?” asked Mikey.

  “If I knew, I would have told you. ”

  Mikey knew both the fine and foul sides of love. It was his love of Allie that had lifted him up from darkness; letting him see a better way than the way of the monster. But once that love took hold, it also left a fear in him, which always lingered in the back of his mind, and made him intensely jealous. It was the fear of losing her.

  “Love turns a heart to crystal,” said Mikey. “Much more valuable, but much more fragile. ”

  Clarence put down his bottle. “Who said that?”

  “I did,” said Mikey. “Just now. ”

  Clarence raised his Everlost eyebrow. “You oughta be a poet. ”

  Mikey was very pleased with himself. It had been a long time since anyone complimented him on anything he said or did.

  “How’s this?” Clarence said, and then he held up his Everlost hand, moving it before him as if the words were written in the air. “The face that launched a thousand ships . . . never heard of hurricane season. ”

  Clarence laughed so hard it made Mikey laugh too. They were still laughing when the policemen came across the weedy field toward them—or more accurately toward Clarence, since they couldn’t see Mikey, or the cage that held him.

  “Looks like you’re having quite a party,” the bigger of the two men said. “Wish I could be in there with you. ” Then the two smirked to each other.

  Mikey’s first thought was that they had been skinjacked, until he realized that “in there with you” meant in Clarence’s head. They took him for a lunatic talking to himself.

  “I’m sorry but this here is private property,” said the larger officer, clearly the leader of the two. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave. ”

  “You’re renting!” shouted Mikey. “Tell them you’re renting this place. They won’t be able to kick you out until they check. ”

  “You shut up!” shouted Clarence. “I don’t need a freak like you telling me what to do!”

  It was the wrong thing to say, because the officer thought that Clarence was talking to him. The man calmly reached his hand down to the hilt of his baton, and the other officer unsnapped the strap on his holster. “Now, none of us wants an incident,” said the lead officer. “We could arrest you for trespassing, but it would be easier for everyone if you just moved on. You understand?”

  “I’m renting,” said Clarence. “Four hundred bucks a month. Check it out with my landlord if you don’t believe me. ”

  The officers looked to each other, then back at the dilapidated farmhouse, which, from their point of view probably wouldn’t be worth four dollars a month, much less four hundred.

  Clarence glanced at Mikey, more resentful than thankful, then took a couple of steps toward the officers, staggering as he went. Mikey figured Clarence was drunk most of the time Mikey had been in the cage—but he’d never seen Clarence stumbling drunk.

  “Go on—get out of here, and maybe I’ll pretend this harassment never happened. ”

  “Tell you what,” said the lead officer. “Come with us, we’ll check out your story, and if it’s true, we will bring you back here, no harm no foul. ”

  “I got rights,” Clarence said, “and I believe you are violating them right now. ”

  “That’s why you’re coming with us voluntarily,” said the second cop, speaking up for the first time.

  The lead cop agreed. “Easier for everyone that way. ”

  If Clarence was taken away, Mikey knew he would be stuck here. The thought of rotting in a cage until someone found him and freed him was more than he could bear.

  “Throw me the key to the padlock!” said Mikey.

  “No way I’m doing that!”

  “Pardon me?” said the lead officer.

  “Throw me the key!” said Mikey. “And I’ll help you. I won’t run away, I promise!”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” said Clarence.

  “Trust us?” said the second officer. “Since you are the one allegedly trespassing, I don’t think you have much of a choice. ”

  “Throw me the key!”

  “I got this under control!” said Clarence. “Nobody’s gonna—” Then Clarence stumbled once more, then fell to his knee—and to everyone’s surprise he rose quickly and soberly, holding the shotgun, which had been lying forgotten in the tall grass.

  “Clarence, no!” yelled Mikey.

  Clarence swung it to the lead cop before he could pull out his weapon.

  “Hands in the air!” Clarence ordered. The younger cop fumbled for his weapon. “Drop it or I’ll shoot,” Clarence said, very firmly.

  The second cop quickly threw his weapon to the ground. “Okay, okay, okay—I dropped it, see? I dropped it!”

  The lead cop never showed fear, though. “Sir. Put the weapon down. No one needs to get hurt. ”

  “Oh! So now I’m ‘sir’?” screeched Clarence, in that two-toned siren voice of his. “I might only have one usable hand in this world but I can still pull a trigger!” With his finger on the trigger and the barrel of the shotgun resting across his ruined arm, he kept his aim straight at the lead cop’s chest.

  “All these years being chased from place to place, not able to be anywhere, not allowed to have a life. Well, from now on, I’m not going anywhere unless I want to! I’m done getting thrown around. I should . . . I should . . . ”

  “Clarence,” begged Mikey, “you’re making it worse. You’re going get yourself killed. . . . ”

  “I don’t care!” he screeched. “I don’t care. Because if I do—”

  Then in the blink of an eye, the lead officer pulled out his own weapon and fired.

  The blast caught Clarence in the chest, his whole body twisted, and the shotgun flew like it had been launched skyward.

  “NO!”

  But the officers couldn’t hear Mikey. Clarence wailed in pain, fell to the ground, and the officers were on him. Although the living world was a blur to Mikey, he could see that there was a lot of blood. Clarence writhed on the ground, while the second officer radioed in for an ambulance.

  The first officer knelt down, trying his best to staunch the flow of blood. “Crazy old man, why did you have to go and do that?”

  “M-m-monster in the cage,” Clarence said. “Monster kid in the cage. ”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said the officer.

  Mikey rattled the bars. “Clarence, the key!”

  “Lousy kid,” mumbled Clarence. “Don’t think of no one but yourself. ” Then, with his ruined hand he reached into his pocket.

  “Easy, old man!” said the officer. As far as the officer was concerned, the suspect had gone from dangerous lunatic to wounded victim, and he was doing his best as an officer of the law to comfort him. He saw the old man reach a ruined stub of a hand into a pocket but the hand came out empty. Still, he swung his arm, grimacing in pain, as if he was throwing something that the officer couldn’t see.

  “Stop moving,” the officer told him. “An ambulance will be here soon. ”

  “Go on,” said Clarence. “Go back to hell or wherever it is you’re from. ”

  “Calm down. You’re just making it worse,” said the officer.

  Meanwhile, in Everlost, Mikey watched the key fling from Clarence’s hand, and spin end over end, making an arc in the air . . . but the throw was wild. Mikey reached through the cage as far as he could, but it was no use. The key landed on the ground more than ten yards away, and although Mikey grew a tentacle that stretched toward it, he wasn’t fast enough. The key sank into the living world, beginning a long journey to the center of the earth.

  The ambulance came and took Clarence away. He had fallen silent long before it arrived. Still, Mikey knew
he wasn’t dead—at least not yet. He knew, because Mikey would have seen his soul leave his body. Clarence, as frail as he looked, was a fighter, holding on to life, refusing to give up the ghost. It was a rare kind of strength, perhaps the same strength that left him a scar wraith to begin with. Mikey had to admire the kind of willpower that could defy mortality.

  Once the ambulance and the police cars were gone, Mikey was alone, and knew he would be alone for a long time.

  When he was a monster, he used to set out soul traps, not unlike this cage. He would snare unsuspecting Afterlights in his traps, and sometimes he would go a long time without checking if a trap had sprung. He hadn’t cared if a soul was trapped there for weeks or months, and he showed neither mercy nor remorse when the souls were finally brought before him.

  “Find out what they can do, and make them do it,” he would tell Pinhead, his second in command. If a soul was useful, then he or she would become part of the McGill’s crew. If the soul had no skills he needed, it would be strung up in the hold and stored like a side of beef. And now Mikey was caught in a trap himself, without even a prospect of a monster to come around to enslave him.

  “Serves you right,” Allie would have said, if she were here. She would call it “universal justice,” or something annoying like that, and Mikey would grumble at her bitterly, but all the while he would know that she was right. You reap what you sow in Everlost just as in the living world, and Mikey McGill had sown some pretty nasty weeds.

  Above him, storm clouds gathered in the living world, and it began to pour. Of course, Mikey didn’t get wet. The living world rain passed through him, tickling his insides but nothing more. It was just another way for life to mock him.

  Well, if Allie was right, and the universe was a place of justice, he understood why Clarence’s key flew so far off course. It was because he had lied to Clarence. Mikey didn’t have any intention of helping him. If he had been able to open the padlock, remove the chain, and pry the spring-loaded trap apart, Mikey would have bolted without looking back.

  Mikey could accept that his actions could have an effect on the world, and on his own destiny—but could his intentions have an effect too? Could he be tried and convicted not because of the things he did, but because of the things he planned to do? They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but bad intentions could certainly get one there faster, couldn’t they?

  He had no way of knowing if being trapped in this cage was merely bad luck, or some judgment from beyond . . . but either way, the result was the same: Mikey McGill was forced to think about who he was, what he had done, and who he might be, if he ever was freed from that cage. He knew he would never be entirely virtuous, but he also knew that there was enough virtue in him to make Allie love him. Perhaps his path back to her would have to be paved with good intentions . . . which meant not all good intentions paved a road to hell—so there was still some hope for Mikey, in this world, and maybe even the next.