Until the Beginning by Amy Plum
“Wait a minute,” Whit says, looking as shocked as I feel. “You never mentioned any of that last part before!”
“I didn’t need to,” says Avery, “because you’re going to make damned sure that this thing works. Then all those nasty consequences just disappear.”
“And what about our other agreements?” Whit asks.
“Such as?”
“The promise that for each dose of serum sold by you on the market, you will provide one free dose to the underprivileged in developing countries.”
“We can speak about that issue later. I might not want to sell any of the drug at all. As I have always maintained, the main concern here is my own longevity. If the drug works on me, then I will consider its possible distribution later.”
“But . . . ,” Whit starts.
Avery strides past him and opens the door. “Please join us,” he says, and two guards step into the room. “Since I’m counting on Dr. Canfield to monitor my vital signs while I am ‘dead’”—and he uses his fingers for quotation marks—“I have asked a couple of my men to personally accompany you wherever you wish to go. Within my house, that is. You can grab a meal in the kitchen. And you each have a room assigned to you if you need to rest. Mi casa su casa: You are my honored guests. How’s that sound to you?”
Not waiting for a response, he claps his hands and rubs them together expectantly. “Good, good. Men, please take a seat. Everyone, please excuse me while I change.” He goes to the back of the room and steps behind a screen, while the two guards pull out chairs and, laying their guns across their laps, sit down. Whit walks past me and, pulling a mortar and pestle out of a cabinet, begins grinding the herbs and minerals together. I want to jump on him, beat him with my fists, shake him until he turns into the old Whit I knew . . . not this cold, emotionless monster.
I glance at the guards and see that one is staring holes through me. Something looks familiar about him. His gaze locked on mine, he pulls aside his jacket to show me a bandaged upper arm. My heart drops. It’s the man I shot in Salt Lake City.
Avery steps out from behind the curtain wearing paper clothes: blue pants and a short-sleeved shirt. He notices my stare-down with the guard. “Ah yes. You recognize Mr. O’Donnell, Juneau. I thought since you were already acquainted, I would ask him to be your personal escort.”
O’Donnell’s lips curl into a cruel smile. But Whit interrupts this tender moment by calling my name. I walk over to see what he wants. “It’s time, Juneau. Remember, you’re doing this for your clan.” He pauses and, for the first time today, he looks me in the eyes.
“Give me your hand,” he says, and picks up a scalpel.
38
MILES
THE NIGHT IS SO DARK THAT I TAKE MY CHANCES on someone driving up behind me and walk in the middle of the road. At least I’ll have some hope of spotting a dangerous predator before it has a chance to attack. Poe grips my left shoulder as we walk, and his raven talons pinch enough to give me a double dose of alertness.
It takes us around twenty minutes to get to the fence, and probably another fifteen minutes of walking back and forth along it before I decide it’s electrified. The part that crosses the road looks like a swinging gate, and a yard or so in front of it is a pole with an intercom.
I’m a good way off the road, trying to see if there are any trees close enough to the gate that I might be able to climb over (there aren’t), when I see headlights coming. Poe flaps down from my shoulder as I duck behind some undergrowth to hide. A car pulls up to the intercom. The window comes down, and the driver pushes a button. “Yes?” a tinny voice says.
“Dr. Canfield,” the driver answers, and the gate swings slowly open. This is my chance, I think, as I sprint toward the gate, hunching over as I get near. The car is waiting for the gate to open wide enough, and I scramble up behind its back bumper as it begins to drive through. Staying low, I follow it through the gate, and immediately head for some trees off to my right. I hide there and watch the car pull into a parking garage. The driver gets out and jogs over to the front door, letting himself in without knocking or ringing a bell. The good doctor has obviously been here before.
I judge the distance between myself and the house, and secure my crossbow for another run. Since my face-to-face with the tiger, I’ve kept it slung across my back. This time I’ll be ready if something or someone attacks. But I wonder if I will actually be able to shoot a person, if things really come down to it. I remember how Juneau aimed for the guards’ arms back in Salt Lake City, and reassure myself that I would be capable of shooting if I weren’t aiming to kill. But honestly, unless someone was attacking me, I’m not sure I could even go that far.
I’ve been in one fight in my entire life, and that was when I saw one of my middle-school friends get punched by a bully. I remember the rage I felt—the blinding red fury that came over me at the big-kid-hurting-little-kid injustice of it. If I can channel that, then I might be able to shoot someone. These people are keeping Juneau’s clan captive, and the guns they’re toting make my crossbow look like a slingshot. They’re the big kids, and I’m definitely the little kid in this case. Even so, I think I’ll opt for hiding as my first line of defense.
There is a light on over the mansion’s front porch. A decorative fountain the size of one of those aboveground swimming pools sits lit up in the middle of the drive, a massive sculpture of two stags fighting perched in the middle. The road winds in a circle around it. I make my way toward the fountain, scrambling from tree to tree, until all that’s left between me and it are a few yards of grass.
I take the last stretch standing up, running as if my life depends on it, which, in fact, it does. Because just before I reach it, two guards walk around the side of the house from the barracks. I hit the ground and crawl the last yard, then crouch behind the outer rim of the fountain, which is just tall enough to hide me. I wait, wondering if they saw me, until I hear the front door slam. After a few seconds I inch my head up to see the coast is clear. I scramble to my feet and crouch-run the rest of the way to my destination: the thick hedges that border the front porch. There’s just enough room for me between the hedge and the porch, and I wedge myself in and lie down.
My heart feels like it’s going to pound its way right out of my chest. For the first time I seriously doubt the wisdom of this rescue mission. If those guys had seen me hiding behind the fountain, they could have walked right over and filled me full of bullets. And—bam—I would be dead. After days of angsting about my immortality, I’m suddenly wishing that the Rite had given me bulletproof skin as well.
The night isn’t cold, but I’m shaking from my second near-death experience of the day. Who do I think I am, anyway, to think I can take on someone’s private army?
Stop! I command myself. I can’t keep thinking like this, or I’m going to psych myself out. And what good’s that going to do me?
What have I got to work with? A crossbow, a map, a flashlight, and a lighter. Oh, and a towel. Fat lot of good that’s going to do me.
What else do I have? I hear a flapping noise and Poe lands on the porch three feet above me. He perches on the edge, peering down at me as if to say, “What the hell are you doing down there?”
Okay . . . I’ve got a raven. And—oh, right, I almost forgot—I’m magic. Not that I know what I can do with that besides figure out how a certain girl is feeling, see visions in fire, and read a bird’s mind.
I close my eyes and try to let go . . . to dislodge the panic inside me. What good is being able to communicate with all of nature if I can’t even beam a message to Juneau? I have a huge beef with Gaia, or whoever it is who came up with the Yara rules.
After a while, I calm down enough to feel twigs sticking into my back, smell the piney scent of whatever kind of bush I’m lying under, and hear mean-sounding rough-guy laughter coming from the guards’ barracks. My eyes have adjusted to the dark, and I raise my head cautiously to have a look around.
The front of the hou
Then all of a sudden, I remember Juneau’s electronics-frying trick. She said she imagined heat or fire or something in order to fry my phone. And then she imagined moisture to flood the spark plugs on my car. A lightbulb must fit into the “fry-able” category. Might as well give it a shot.
I peer up at the bulb, visible inside its glass fixture. In my mind I focus on the filament, fragile and thin like a thread. And as I slow my breath and feel the buzz of the Yara kick in, I imagine a flame underneath it, heating it, messing with the electrical current. I keep this up until—pop—the filament explodes and the light is suddenly extinguished.
No. Way.
I can’t believe I just detonated a lightbulb with mere thoughts. It might sound ridiculous, but I suddenly feel all-powerful. I could join the X-Men. Like SuperNatureGuy. Or the Yara Avenger.
And then I stop. I realize what I’ve just done. Yes, I plugged into the Yara to Read Juneau’s emotions, to Read what the ranch looked like in the campfire, and to Read Poe’s memory. But what I just did doesn’t fit under the category of Reading. I just Conjured. I “manipulated nature,” as Juneau described it. And from what she said, only she, her mom, and Whit were able to do that.
Oh my God, I can Conjure, I think with amazement. That means I must have a whole arsenal of weapons at my disposal. If I just knew what they were. What did Juneau Conjure? The cell phone fry, the levitating rocks, turning invisible, she got Poe to do stuff for her, too . . . what else? I can’t remember. But I’m buzzing with excitement and fear and awe and don’t know if the tingling all over my body is the Yara or a huge adrenaline rush owing to the fact that the rules of nature no longer apply to me.
No time to think about it now. Juneau’s been in the house for about an hour, and I need to find out if a diversion’s going to help her or hurt her. It’s time to find out just what Avery’s doing in there.
I jump up to the now-dark porch and begin the surveillance phase of my not-quite-yet-a-plan.
39
JUNEAU
“THAT IS ONE NASTY-LOOKING CONCOCTION,” says Avery, glancing with disgust at the spoonful of the Rite elixir . . . Amrit. “But, hell, I figure I’ve eaten every kind of wild animal hunted by man; a little girl’s blood mixed with rocks and plants won’t kill me. At least not permanently.” He chuckles at his joke.
Whit hands him a glass of water, and Avery raises it like he’s making a toast. “Well, here goes everything,” he says. “Bottom’s up!” He sticks the spoon of elixir in his mouth, swallows every last drop, and then follows it quickly with the glass of water. I watch his Adam’s apple move up and down as he drinks the whole glass, and then holds it back up to Whit for a refill.
“That stuff’s downright vile,” he says, wiping his mouth with his arm and making a face like he’s bitten a sour apple. “And you got every single person in your clan to take it?”
“Every person over twenty,” Whit confirms.
“Well, here’s to you,” Avery says, and drinks down the second glass of water. He hands Whit the glass, and then lies back down on the bed, while the doctor fiddles with the devices attached to the billionaire rancher. There are silver disks attached to wires stuck all over his chest, head, arms, and legs, and a black cuff around his arm. These are all connected to machines that are beeping and making up-and-down lines that measure, I suppose, Avery’s blood pressure, heart rate, and other vital signs.
“Do you want me to give you something for pain or nausea?” the doctor asks.
Avery turns the question on Whit. “Do your people take anything?”
Whit shakes his head.
“Then no,” the rancher says. “I want conditions to be the same as they are for you. Can’t take the risk that one small change might mess up the whole process.”
Whit can’t help but look at me at this point.
“But all of the conditions aren’t the same,” I find myself saying.
“What’s different?” Avery says, crooking his neck so that he can see me.
I pause and glance at Whit, whose face is a blank page. “We surround the head with candles and prepare the body with minerals, herbs, and precious stones. We sing, and the children dance,” I say. “Vows are taken, and sacred words are spoken.”
“Yeah, well, I know a sacred word, too. ‘Bullshit.’ That’s what you and your clan have been swallowing along with your priceless elixir for the last three decades. Whit here told me the whole story. You all served as a field trial for the drug, and like with any religion, your leader kept you pacified by lies and spiritual juju.”
I turn to Whit, who is rubbing his forehead with his fingers. Once again, I want to slap him halfway to Antarctica, but that would give Avery the pleasure of knowing he had upset me. I fight to pull a blank expression over my shock and turn to leave.
“Where you think you’re going?” my assigned guard, O’Donnell, grunts.
“My job’s over. And your boss said something about food.”
“No one’s leaving until I say they are!” Avery bellows, and the electronic beeping kicks up a notch as the doctor tells him to calm down.
I have to leave this room. I can’t stand being this close to Whit anymore without wanting to hurt him. I eye the scalpel that Whit used to cut my palm—it’s lying on the counter where he left it. Since I abandoned my crossbow and knife in my dad’s hut, everything has looked like a weapon to me—the silver tongs Avery used to pick up ice, the metal poker standing next to the fake fireplace in the trophy room—everything sharp or heavy or potentially lethal has been calling out to me.
Being unarmed in this situation reminds me of the defenselessness I felt in my old nightmares about surprise brigand attacks. But in those dreams I found the closest weapon I could and fought them. I don’t have that option now. Because Avery has a hostage, and I don’t dare do a thing until I know Badger is safely back with his family.
But that doesn’t mean the scalpel can’t come in handy later on. I lean back against the counter, positioning myself directly in front of the instrument, and slide my arm back toward it. My eyes flicker to the guards. O’Donnell watches me with a smirk on his face.
Just then Avery lets out an anguished cry, and the guards are on their feet, looking his way. I grab the scalpel, retract its blade, and slip it into my back pocket. By the time O’Donnell looks back at me, the deed is done, and I’m making my way to Avery’s side. He’s holding his stomach and cursing loudly, using word combinations I never knew existed.
“Stomach pain is a typical reaction to the drug,” Whit reassures him as the beeping noise and wavy lines go berserk. My old mentor looks back at me with a question on his face, and I shake my head. He knows I can ease the pain. But he’d have to shoot me to get me to do it. The song I sing while I’m in my trance, the way I touch the person’s face, arms, and feet, the aromatic plants I hold under their nose—they all help to ease the suffering. But if Avery says he doesn’t want any juju, well, by Gaia I’m not going to give it to him.
Retreating to a corner of the room, I sit on the floor and glance up at the clock. Avery’s got a good half hour of intense pain before him, and I feel like enjoying every minute of it. I lay my head against the wall and close my eyes and think about Miles back at our camp at the top of the mountain. I hope he’s forgiven me for leaving him behind. He’s probably fast asleep, snuggled under the blanket on the tent floor. What I wouldn’t give to be back there with him, just for a moment.
40
MILES
CROUCHING IN THE DARKNESS OF THE PORCH, I peer through a window that looks into an office. Everything is made of wood and leather: The room is like a set for Masterpiece Theatre. For a minute, I’m tempted to break in and use the phone or even the computer sitting on the leathe
The police probably already know Avery, and would laugh it off. Hell, he probably owns the local precinct anyway.
Scenarios pass through my mind like action-movie trailers. I need a better plan. Something that’s not going to end up looking like a scene from Kill Bill.
Moving through the hedges to the left, I look in on a bedroom. Although the light’s on, no one’s in there and nothing is out of place—it looks unused. I don’t dare turn the corner to follow along the back of the house, since I’m pretty sure I could be seen from the barracks if I did. So, shuffling behind the hedges I head back to the porch the way I came, passing the office and a huge front hallway complete with winding marble staircase.
To the right of the hallway is this vast library-looking room, with taxidermied heads of every sort of animal you can think of. I move from window to window, getting a full view.
There’s a big fireplace, complete with fake fire glowing inside the hearth. Though bookcases line the walls, there are very few actual books. Instead, the shelves are filled with guns, knives, and other hunting objects placed on little stands like they’re works of art. At the far side, there’s a door, and through the next window I see that it opens into a long hallway with doorways on either side. The door across from the library leads to a multi-car garage. A Hummer, a Rolls-Royce, and the doctor’s sedan are parked inside. Outside is the ATV I saw Juneau arrive in with Whit and the guards.
I make my way around the side of the garage, and see that the house continues behind it. The only window on that side looks into a kind of den-looking space. The lights are off, but by the glow of a cable box I make out an enormous flat-screen TV.
And I don’t dare go farther, since the barracks are just down the hill from the back of the house. I step back and look up at the second floor. It is dark, except in the corner room above the den, directly above me, where a soft light glows from the window.