Deader Still

21

I stopped by our booth long enough to throw the picture in front of Connor. He was still trying to figure out what was so important in it when I took off at a run through the crowds and toward the stall where the Brothers Heron were set up. I heard him cry out behind me, “Kid, wait,” but I didn’t turn back. I was too pissed off.

When I spied the quaint old gypsy wagon, all three of the brothers were busy rearranging their wares on the tables in front of it. The older, balding one, Marten, looked up and smiled at me at first, but it faded in an instant when he saw that I was running toward the three of them. I was cruising now and people were getting out of my way. Before Marten could warn his brothers, I leapt up over their table, tackling the weakest-looking one, Lanford. He had been the one I’d spied in the photos. There had been no mistaking his gawky features in the background of Connor’s pictures.

“What the hell did you release out there?” I shouted. I scrabbled onto my knees and sat on his chest, pinning him down. I pulled off one of my gloves. “You tell me, or so help me God, I’ll rip it out of your mind.”

I could feel the electricity swirling in me. The more emotional I got, the harder it was to control my power, but right now I didn’t care. I had only dragged information out of one other person before—Faisal Bane, the leader of the now-defunct Sectarians—and it had left me a gibbering idiot afterward. I was willing to take that chance here if I had to.

If I’d had a chance, that was. Two hands grabbed the sides of my shoulders and lifted me like I weighed nothing. Julius had me completely under his control, like I was a prize in one of those claw vending-machine games. He set me on my feet. Then, before I could move, he wrapped one of his meat hooks around each of my arms to restrain me.

“I don’t think you want to be attacking my brother,” he said.

Marten reached up and patted Julius on the shoulder.

Lanford slowly got back on his feet, but he was visibly shaken. Despite the odds turning totally in his favor, he was still afraid.

“Do you know what the penalty is for bringing crypto-zoological contraband into the tristate area?” I shouted at him.

Lanford shook his head. I didn’t know what the penalty was either, specifically, but at least I knew it was illegal.

“Did you bring a chupaca—” I started to say, but Marten stepped around behind me and shoved his hand over my mouth.

“That will be quite enough of that on the show floor,” he whispered, leaning in. “We don’t need you screaming that out.” His face softened and he gave me his best huckster smile. “We’re not bad people, Simon, but it’s true we sometimes do bad things. Or bad things happen to us. It’s the curse of being born Romnichal, sadly. Still, we can’t have you drawing attention to us.”

I wanted to shout into his hand or at least bite it, but I decided to conserve my energy for now. I could feel my power coursing wild through my body, and I needed to calm myself down. My fingers were starting to glow with power.

Marten grabbed my left arm by the sleeve of my coat, careful not to touch my hand as he pulled my other glove off.

“Very interesting,” he said. Lanford stepped closer.

Marten flipped my hand over, palm up, and looked over at his skinny brother.

“Lanny? Will you do the honors?”

Reluctantly, Lanny leaned over my hand. I closed it into a fist, but Julius put the squeeze on my arms and Marten pried my hand back open. Lanford ran one of his bony fingers across my palm, hovering over the various lines in my hand.

When he was done, he turned to Marten and nodded. His voice was solemn. “He’s marked.”

Marked? I thought. What the hell are they talking about? The only thing I saw on the palm of my hand was a sliver of graphite under the skin from when I had accidentally jabbed a pencil tip into it when I was twelve.

“Do you think so?” Marten asked with a hiss of sarcasm toward his brother. “What? Did you think his hand was glowing just for fun?”

“Hey,” I heard Connor yelling from far off in the crowd. “Get your goddamn hands off my partner.”

Julius’s meaty grip on my arms tightened painfully. Marten looked into my eyes as if he was studying me. I tried to look away, but it was no use.

“Such a pity,” he said, disappointed. “Would that there was more time and we were meeting under more auspicious circumstances . . . Still, we can’t have you hounding us, can we?”

Marten raised his free hand up to my face, the pinkie and index finger extended and practically touching my eyeballs. I struggled to pull my head away, but Julius’s chest pressed against the back of my head, making it impossible to move. Marten then muttered something barely resembling a language, and all of a sudden I felt like I wanted to throw up.

Julius let go of me, and I was surprised to find that I couldn’t stand. I fell to the floor, gagging. I turned my head to the left and saw Connor arriving just on the other side of their tables.

The Brothers Heron stepped over my body, heading toward their wagon.

“Time to pull the old Baba Yaga, boys,” Marten said. Lanford and Julius looked at each other, total “is he serious” looks on their faces. They decided that their brother was indeed serious and made short work of stuffing themselves through the doorway of the gypsy wagon, Julius barely fitting. Marten backed up the steps. “We’re really not bad guys, honest.”

He pulled the door shut as he backed in, and smoke started pouring off the tiny wooden wagon, forming voluminous black clouds. It reminded me of those black snake fireworks I’d had as a kid. Cloud after cloud of black smoke rolled off it and rose toward the convention center ceiling high overhead. When it cleared, the entire gypsy wagon had vanished.

A few of the people who had stopped to watch applauded the spectacle, most likely convinced they were seeing some kind of staged Comic Con event.

Connor helped me up. I choked on the last of the smoke, but thankfully the sickening sensation in my stomach was gone.

“You okay, kid?”

I nodded, winded and unable to speak.

“Those guys had something to do with the chupacabra?” he asked.

I nodded again.

“I kinda figured that after you left me back at the booth playing ‘Where’s Lanford?’ with the crime scene photo.”

Finally my throat cleared enough that I could speak.

“Those douche bags are what gives gypsies an evil name, you know that?” I said. “Evil.”

“One of them actually looked like he was evil-eyeing you,” Connor said, looking me over. He put his hands on my face and pried my eyes open to examine them. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, then stopped myself. “Hold on.” The stomach pain had passed and the smoke inhalation too, but I somehow felt . . . off. I walked over to the table of goods the brothers had left behind as a result of their hasty exit.

I scooped up one of the totems at random with my bare hands. I pushed my power into it and . . . nothing. I threw it down and grabbed a deck of Tarot cards. Nothing. I scooped up several items at once, trying to roll my power into them.

All nothing.

“Kid?”

“My power,” I said. “It’s gone.” Then, as an afterthought, “I hate Illinois gypsies.”