Part 21 (1/2)

It took Eric a moment to realize where they were. By then Danny had pulled free.

”You got your three thousand bucks,” said Danny. ”And you're in your home town. Go home, wash off that blood. Get seen by witnesses. n.o.body's going to be looking for the mysterious thumb-biter around here, but if they do, you've got an alibi-you can't possibly have done the thumb-biting because fifteen minutes later you were seen two hundred miles away.”

”You lying sack of s.h.i.+t,” said Eric. ”You tricked me.”

”It's what I do,” said Danny. ”Just remember that when you're spending three thousand bucks of my trickery.”

Eric still looked furious, but he was calming down. ”I can't let my family see the money or it's gone.”

”How about if you let them see a thousand bucks of the money because you want to help them live a little better for a while.”

Eric grinned. ”They'd just drink it up.”

”What'll you you do with it?” asked Danny. do with it?” asked Danny.

”New clothes. A bus ticket. And then I'll eat and drink the rest till I have to start begging again.”

Danny admired his self-knowledge. ”Then thanks, Eric. For watching out for me for a few days. I learned a lot from you.”

”And you're a freakin' Houdini. I didn't learn s.h.i.+t from you.”

Danny grinned and waved and then he was gone.

He had gated himself to Parry McCluer High School a couple of miles away on a hill overlooking Buena Vista. He had come to the woods above the school several times in his ventures out of the Family compound and watched all the drowther kids-the teams practicing in the ball field, the kids coming to and going from the buses and cars in the parking lot. The faculty. He knew the place would be empty this time of night. And it was full of computers.

He gated himself inside the foyer, and then into the office. The computers were off. Danny turned one on, waited for it to boot up. Then he googlemapped the address of Marion and Leslie Silverman on Highway 68 near Yellow Springs, Ohio, where it was called Xenia Avenue. He used the satellite mode to zero in on their house. It was a good-sized farm, surrounded by fields, but with housing developments close by to the east.

Danny tried to imagine a ground-level view of what he was seeing. Could he really do this-jump somewhere that he had never been, just from a Google Maps satellite picture? What if he only gated himself inside the computer and everything blew up?

He had made a lot of jumps to places he had never seen before during his jaunts outside the Family compound, but they had only been jumps of a mile or two or five. And he had made them without thinking, without even knowing he was doing it; it was all just part of running to him, running really fast and wanting to get places, see things. He didn't even know what he wanted to see. That's how he first got to Parry McCluer High School, skipping clear over Buena Vista itself. But come to think of it, he probably saw saw the hillside where he ended up before he ever jumped. the hillside where he ended up before he ever jumped.

Well, if I can't get there in one gate, I can get there in a few dozen. Or a few hundred. It's not as if I have to pay pay for these gates. for these gates.

He closed his eyes, picturing the tree-lined driveway leading from Xenia Avenue up to the house. Thinking of the address. Thinking of the names.

Then he made a gate, and he was there. In the driveway in the middle of the night. Snow everywhere that hadn't been shoveled, but the sky was clear. Danny walked to the street. Brookside Drive should meet the other side of Xenia just a rod or two north of the Silvermans' driveway, and there it was.

Danny walked back to the gate he had just made and returned through it to the office at Parry McCluer. He zeroed out the browser history and then cleared out all the cookies and all the temp files. Then he uninstalled the browser itself. It took a while, but he figured he had done all he could to make it so n.o.body could find out that the last thing the browser had shown was a certain address in Ohio.

Then he was back through the gate to the Silvermans' driveway. He wasn't going to wake them up in the middle of the night. He made his way to the barn, which was heated by the bodies of a couple of dozen cows, and curled up in a corner to sleep.

11.

SERVANT OF S s.p.a.cETIME.

Marion and Leslie Silverman were old enough that all of their own kids were grown and gone. The day Danny arrived there, Leslie-Mrs. Silverman-proudly showed him the pictures of five little families on the top of the upright piano. Danny was inept enough to ask, ”Are any of them Orphans?”

Leslie raised her eyebrows. ”Don't you think that if any of them were, they'd all be?”

In a moment, Danny realized how it had sounded to her. ”I meant, are they mages... like you.”

”I have no idea what you're talking about,” said Leslie, looking truly puzzled.

”Have we taken in the wrong stray?” asked Marion from the kitchen, where he was making pies.

”He thinks one of us is dead,” said Leslie. ”Or both of us.”

”No,” said Danny. ”I just thought... Stone told me...”

”Now he thinks that he can talk to rocks,” she called out to her husband. ”What do you think, Marion, is he a keeper? Or a discard?”

Danny was completely baffled. They had brought him into the house the moment Leslie found him in the barn-before dawn, because apparently the cows got testy if they weren't milked every day at the same time, and it was a very early time. He had a.s.sumed they knew exactly what and who he was. But no, apparently they took all all strays into the house. strays into the house.

”Look, call Stone,” said Danny. ”He sent me here.”

”Now I'm supposed to talk to rocks,” said Leslie. ”Marion, what did you put in those omelets? Am I going to start hallucinating, too?”

”Only if you forgot to take your meds, darlin'!” Marion called back. ”Now hush, please, I can't have any emotion going on when I make the crusts or they won't be flaky and delicious.”

”I'm yelling to be heard, not because I'm angry.”

”Yelling's yelling,” called Marion. ”We're scaring the dough.”

”So he makes the pies, and you milk the cows?” asked Danny, changing the subject since it was apparent they were bent on pretending not to know anything about magery or why Danny had come here. Unless they weren't pretending, in which case this was some elaborate hoax Stone had pulled. At least Danny could give Stone credit for sending him to such a hospitable couple.

”We each do what we like most,” said Leslie, ”or if it's a job that has to be done and we both hate it, then whoever hates it least. Or we trade off. I'm milking because I'm an early riser, and he's pies because pies don't like me so the crust never behaves.”

”I thought maybe because you both have names that could be either male or female, you got all mixed up on men's work and women's work,” said Danny. He smiled and started to laugh, thinking he was being kind of funny and clever.

Apparently not.

”Sorry,” he said.

”Don't know what for,” said Leslie.

”Should I leave now?” asked Danny.

”Heavens no,” said Leslie. ”We've hardly started to get to know you.”

”I just seem to be saying everything wrong,” said Danny.

”Not at all,” said Leslie. ”Where did you get such an idea?”

”I didn't just happen to come here, I had your address. Your names. I didn't just make it up. I'm not a vagrant.”

”I'm so relieved,” said Leslie. ”To know you came here on purpose-well, that eases my mind no end.”