Black Knight Read online

  Marc meets my gaze without flinching. Yet I can tell I’ve scored a hit. At the same time I wonder if I’m playing with fire. Marc is one cool customer, I have to grant him that, especially when he answers.

  “You’re not the first person to tell me that,” he replies.

  “Do you live alone?” Chad asks.

  “Yes,” Marc says.

  “I assume you work at night or on the weekends. What do you do with the rest of your time?”

  “Pick up pretty girls.”

  “You can’t think of a single thing that you can do better than anyone else?” Chad asks.

  Marc grins at me. “Pick up pretty girls.”

  “All right,” Chad says, turning to Ora. “I can tell by looking at you that you’ve had a hard life and that you’re probably stronger than the rest of us put together. Is there anything else unique about you?”

  “Unique? I do not know this word,” Ora says.

  “Special,” Chad explains.

  Ora is thoughtful. “I am Chita. That’s the name of my tribe. There are many of us who live in my part of Sudan. But nearby are the Kirus—another tribe. One of their villages borders my village. That makes it a dangerous place to live.”

  “The Chitas and the Kirus don’t get along?” Chad asks.

  “They’re always fighting, always killing each other.”

  “Why?” Chad asks.

  “For land. For cattle, goats, and women.”

  Chad considers before asking his next question. “Do you lead your village when you fight the Kirus? Are you a warrior?”

  Ora stares at him. “I have killed many Kirus since I was a boy.”

  “Do you have guns?” Shira asks. “Any AK-47s?”

  Ora nods. “I have seen that gun you speak of. I have fired it. But now, on both sides, we have no bullets so we fight by hand, or with spears and knives.”

  Shira’s question is shrewd. I know from reading that AK-47s are the most common weapon arms dealers smuggle into Africa. The machine gun is renowned for its reliability. It seldom jams even when dunked in water or coated with mud. It would be the perfect weapon to own in a dusty land like Ora’s.

  Chad appears to think the same as I do. He turns to Shira.

  “It sounds like you know your weapons,” he says.

  “I told you, I’m in the army,” Shira replies.

  “Doesn’t everyone, male and female, have to serve in your army?” Chad asks.

  “For two years. Then, later, we can be called up at any time if our homeland is threatened.”

  Chad speaks carefully. “Have you seen action?”

  Shira hesitates. “Yes.”

  “Interesting,” Chad says.

  A vein on Shira’s head pulses with blood. He’s touched a nerve. “Why do you say that?” she demands.

  Chad raises a reassuring hand. “I meant no offense. I just find it curious that here we’re a group of six teenagers and two of us have been in battle. At least two of us.” He turns to Li. “Tell us about yourself?”

  Li fidgets. “I’m not important. I work long hours in a packaging firm. Sometimes on the weekends I volunteer at a hospital.”

  Chad’s ears perk up. “What do you do at the hospital?”

  “Help take care of the sick.”

  “Are you in training to be a nurse?” Chad asks.

  Li hesitates. “Yes. Or a doctor, I’m not sure.”

  “Li, may I ask a personal question?” Chad says. “I notice the scars on your face and the one on your hand. May I ask where you got them?”

  Clearly Li doesn’t want to answer. Lowering her head, she says quietly, “Bad men beat me.”

  Chad goes to speak and then pauses, glancing at Marc and me. It’s as if we all share the same thought. Li may live in South Korea now but where did she grow up? Besides the scars, she’s extremely short, a sign she suffered from malnutrition at an early age. North Korea, probably the most intolerant place on earth, is well known for starving its population. And its police routinely arrest people for no reason and beat them senseless.

  “Li . . . ,” Chad begins gently.

  “I live in Seoul,” Li interrupts, repeating herself, stopping his questioning—or what to her might feel like an interrogation. Sensitive to her distress, Chad quickly backs off. He turns to me.

  “What makes you special, Jessie?” he asks.

  “My good looks.”

  Chad smiles. “That’s a given. Anything else?”

  I shake my head. “I honestly don’t know. I’m your average teenage girl, spoiled, lazy, but looking forward to starting college. Like Li, I’m interested in medicine. I’m mainly going to take premed classes. But I do sort of have an interest in the occult.”

  Chad blinks. “The occult?”

  I let the remark slip as a feeler of sorts but I don’t get any special buzz back from the group. “I just like to read about weird shit is all. Near-death experiences. Out-of-body travel. Ghosts. Vampires. Reincarnation.”

  “Remember any past lives?” Chad teases.

  “Maybe. Oh, in this life, I have an awesome boyfriend named Jimmy.”

  “Who isn’t here to protect you,” Marc says with just a shade too much enthusiasm.

  I smile sweetly. “Don’t sweat it. I’m pretty good at taking care of myself.”

  “Tell us more,” Chad says, watching me closely, maybe too closely. I remind myself again how intelligent he is. He might guess I’m playing a role.

  I shrug. “There’s nothing else to tell.”

  “Do you live with your parents?” Chad asks.

  “With my mom.”

  “And Jimmy,” Marc mutters, making his own assumptions. “You’ve got one cool mommy.”

  “It’s true my mom’s super cool, but I live in a guesthouse behind the main house,” I say, lying. The reverse is the truth. Jimmy, Lara, Whip, and I live in the main house. My mother likes the guesthouse—she enjoys the privacy, in witch world and the real world.

  “Where are you at in LA?” Marc asks.

  “Santa Monica.”

  Marc nods. “I know the area.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I say.

  Chad glances back and forth between us. He is damn smart; he’s picking up the connection between us, even more clearly than Marc. Yet I can tell my remarks have Marc puzzled.

  “Why don’t you tell us about yourself,” I say to Chad.

  He’s reluctant to let me off the hook but he can see he’s not getting anywhere with me. “Like I said, I have a degree in physics from MIT and I’m going to do my graduate work there. But I’ve also taken a lot of classes in biology, and for a while I was thinking of trying to get into a brand-new PhD program Harvard has just created on the physiology of the brain. I’ve always been obsessed with how the human mind works.”

  “And why yours works so well,” I say. “Come on, let it out. What is your IQ?”

  Chad reddens. “Only assholes brag about their IQs.”

  “A hundred and fifty?” I say. “One sixty-five?”

  He grins. “It’s higher. But it’s not important.”

  “I disagree,” I say. “Maybe it’s very important. You yourself pointed out that Ora and Shira have both been in battle. Li, too—she’s obviously faced down some pretty tough characters in her time. That means at least half our gang has had to claw their way through life. Then we have you, Chad, with your one-in-a-million IQ. You’ve got to admit that can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Exactly what kind of coincidence are we talking about?” Marc asks.

  “Well, we all speak English,” I say.

  Marc waves his hand in dismissal. “Nowadays, with the Internet, everyone speaks English.”

  I stare at him. “I get the impression we’re an extremely capable group. And I don’t just m
ean when it comes to fighting.”

  “You’re talking about survival,” Chad says, intrigued.

  “Exactly,” I reply.

  Marc shakes his head. “I don’t see how Jessie and I fit in.”

  “Sure you do,” I tease. “Any idiot can see how quick you are on your feet. Don’t deny it—you’re a natural-born flirt, among other things. To top it off, you’re courageous.”

  “Huh?” Marc says.

  “Weren’t you the one who just offered to protect me?”

  Marc appears to warm to my idea, or else to my flirting. Still, he frowns and I realize he’s not gotten over his confusion at my insight into his secret life. Frankly, I don’t care, I feel confused myself. Our gang makes for an interesting mix but what does it have to do with what Cleo told me last night?

  The bottom line question is—why have I been abducted and thrust together with five admittedly capable teenagers instead of five powerful witches? The others are certainly exceptional, but put us together in an arena and I could wipe them all out in a minute. I’m not bragging, it’s just the way it is.

  Which means I’m missing something somewhere.

  “Are you saying we’ve been hand picked by a secret branch of the government or an evil corporation to be trained as spies?” Marc asks.

  “Jessie’s just pointing out that our group is special.” Chad comes to my rescue. “What we’re going to do when we reach our destination—how we’re going to be used—I’m sure none of us has any idea.”

  Shaking his head, Marc leans back in his seat. “If you ask me, we’re talking out of our asses. This situation is just too weird. Chances are we’ve been kidnapped by a bunch of aliens. And when we get to their home world, they’re probably going to lock us in a cage and make us fight to the death—just to see who’s the last one standing.”

  “That’s not funny,” Chad says seriously.

  Marc closes his eyes. “I’m just saying I don’t think all of us are going to get out of this alive.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN I WAKE UP THE next morning, I’m back in witch world, back in my bed with Jimmy lying beside me in Santa Monica. The last thing I recall about the real world was searching the cell we were locked in for a possible escape route. But there was no way out.

  There wasn’t any food, either, just plenty of bottled water. The restroom came with a working toilet but there was no shower or towels or blankets. We continued to toss around ideas of what was happening to us, but eventually we started talking in circles and I finally followed Marc’s lead and laid back in my seat and dozed off. At least I think I naturally fell asleep. For all I know our captors gassed our metal cabin.

  Jimmy takes care of Lara in the morning, letting me sleep in, then goes off to his part-time job as a mechanic at a gas station in Venice—one town over. Ordinarily he might take Whip with him—who’s in love with cars and actually helps Jimmy fix whatever’s broken—but Whip’s on vacation with Alexis at Florida’s Disney World. For that matter, Whip’s there with Alex in the real world.

  Whenever Whip’s away, I always worry that someone might spot his tail, but Alexis is pretty clever when it comes to dressing him. The truth be told, just as Jimmy’s a better father than I am a mother, Whip probably has more fun hanging out with Alexis than me. I tell myself it doesn’t bother me but the fact that it has me reassuring myself sort of invalidates my rationalization.

  Whatever, I’m always happy when Whip’s having fun. The kid’s not had exactly an easy life, not with Syn as his mother.

  My mother takes Lara from me at noon and I use the free time to drive out to Pacific Palisades, once again parking down the road from the luxurious home where the Alchemist brought Syn and Kendor—or their earlier incarnations. I sit and stare at the house for an hour, remembering Cleo’s orders to make contact. Hoping the Alchemist will take the initiative and come outside and invite me in, and praying the guy stays away and leaves me alone.

  In the end I don’t knock on the door and I know it’s because I’m scared. But the reality of the situation influences my decision. Definitely something remarkable is going on in the real world and I’m sure I’ll need help soon. But until our “gang of six” gets to where we’re going, I figure I don’t know what kind of help to ask for. So I decide that’s good reason enough to wait, and drive away.

  I don’t go home. Instead, I decide to swing by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to see if I can pick up any information on Marc Simona. I’m almost certain my dreams about him were accurate, and yet I’m not sure if the events I saw happened in witch world or the real world or both. There’s a strong chance it’s the latter. Events in witch world usually reflect what happens in the real world but—and this is a huge but—the reflection isn’t always perfect.

  For example, Marc might have worked as a valet the night of the film’s premiere and hidden away in Silvia’s trunk, but it might have been a ruby bracelet he stole rather than an emerald necklace. And Silvia’s boyfriend might have been an NBA guard rather than an NFL running back. Since my transformation into a witch a month ago in Las Vegas, I’d seen such random differences again and again.

  However—and this is a huge however—occasionally the variations between the two worlds are striking. I don’t run into it too frequently but it happens often enough to keep me on edge.

  In witch world Jimmy and my next-door neighbors were a lovely elderly couple named Betty and James Gardner who went to bed early every night and hardly made a sound. In the real world three young women rented the same house and threw wild parties every Saturday night, and the Gardners were dead.

  From researching the obituary section of old copies of the LA Times newspaper, I knew they’d died two months ago in a traffic accident, which probably meant they would soon die in witch world.

  Probably but not definitely.

  All that was definite was that if you died in witch world you always died in the real world, usually the same day, absolutely within two or three days. That was why the sight of Syn and Kendor had thrown me for such a loop. I’d seen the witch-world version of Syn stab Kendor in the heart, and had watched as Whip had stung Syn in the heart.

  Cleo’s explanation for their return had been bizarre, to say the least, and yet it had rung true to me. All the little clues Kendor had dropped, and all the ones I had picked up watching the dazed couple—Cleo had tied them together in a neat tidy package.

  Yet I still wondered why she’d made that strange remark about me seeing Columbus. I’d just been making a joke but as far as I knew Cleo didn’t joke. And if the Alchemist didn’t waste words, Cleo didn’t either. She’d been trying to tell me something, but what? She’d made it clear that my alpha-omega witch gene would take thousands of years to spring to life. There was no way the gene could come to my rescue in the near future—certainly not in the next few days.

  At the theater, I park in the back lot—which is almost empty in the middle of the day—and hurry to the front. Soon I’m standing on Hollywood Boulevard. I haven’t been to this part of town in years and yet everything looks familiar, as if Marc’s memories have slightly merged with my own. The valet booth is nearby and I immediately recognize his boss, Steve Green, the laid-back Australian with the pregnant wife. He doesn’t look busy and I walk up to him and flash my brightest smile.

  “Hi, I’m Alexis Simms and I work for the LA Times,” I say, using my best friend’s name. It’s an old habit of mine, which grew out of the fact that Alexis almost always uses my name when she’s in a questionable predicament. I continue, “My paper is thinking of doing a personal-interest piece on what it’s like to be a valet for the stars. We’re looking for a single candidate to focus on. I was wondering if you could help me?”

  The man gives a friendly nod while checking me out. “You look a little young to be a reporter,” he says in his thick accent.

  “Want me to run back to m
y car and get my ID?”

  “That won’t be necessary. I can’t imagine many people would be interested in what we do. We park cars for people and later in the night we fetch their cars. It’s mundane work.”

  “Mundane? You’ve got to be joking. Why, in one night, you meet more stars than your average person could hope to meet in ten lifetimes. I think it must be exciting, Mr. . . .”

  “Green, Steve Green. I must admit when I started here, twenty years ago, I got a kick out of the red-carpet nights. But now each premiere is the same to me.” He pauses and laughs. “I’m afraid I’d make a lousy man for your article.”

  “Is there someone else you can recommend? A handsome young guy perhaps. You know the public—you’re nobody unless you have a pretty face.”

  Mr. Green considers. “There’s someone you might want to talk to. His name’s Marc Simona. He’s nineteen, a hard worker, and tons of the starlets stop to flirt with him. Why just the other night Silvia Summer—I’m sure you’ve heard of her—told Marc he should be up on the silver screen. She may have been stroking his ego but I was standing nearby and it sounded like she meant it.”

  “Interesting,” I mutter. In my dream Silvia had acted like Marc could do better than park cars, but she hadn’t said the precise line Mr. Green was quoting. It was possible the man was exaggerating, or else he was repeating Silvia’s remark verbatim as he’d heard it here in witch world—when my dream of Marc had taken place in the real world. In other words, in the real world, Silvia might have said almost the same thing but not quite. Once again the variations between the two dimensions fascinate me, as much as they disturb me.

  Even more critical is when Mr. Green says Marc met Silvia. It was only last night, which means I had dreamed about what Marc was going to do over a week in advance.

  It’s only then that I realize that for the first time in ten nights, I didn’t dream about Marc last night. I suppose there’s no longer any point now that I’m physically with him.

  But no longer any point to whom? Or to what?

  “He sounds like a perfect subject for my article,” I say. “Is Marc working tonight?”