Desolation

Milo took a moment. “Sure,” he said.

“I can, of course, see the family resemblance immediately,” said Novak. “Some of my officers, I’m afraid to say, are not so attentive to detail. They may have questions for you.”

“I’m sure there’s no need to bother them,” Milo said.

Novak nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. We like to mind our own business here. I trust you will do the same.”

“Naturally,” said Milo.

“Of course,” said Amber.

Novak adjusted his gun belt, and nodded to them. “Very nice to meet you, and welcome to Desolation Hill.”

“Thanks,” said Milo.

Novak walked to his car, went to get in, but paused. “One of my officers alerted me to some bikers on the edge of town,” he said. “They have anything to do with you?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, okay then. Have a nice day.” He nodded again, got in his car, and they watched him drive away.

“So what do you think of the place?” Milo asked.

“I haven’t decided,” said Amber. “People here are weird. They’re downright rude to me and they’re overly polite with each other. That Novak guy is a little creepy, and I don’t have a clue what this festival is about, but already it’s annoying the crap out of me. Plus, every second that goes by I just want to shift. It’s actually uncomfortable to stay normal.”

“It’s worth it, though,” said Milo.

“Yeah,” she said, a little grudgingly. “I really like this whole barrier thing they’ve got going on. What are we going to do on Wednesday? We can’t leave town – the Hounds will be on us the moment we try.”

“I thought they didn’t intimidate you.”

“Are you nuts? Of course they do. I just said that because they were freaking me out.”

“We’re not leaving,” said Milo. “We can’t be escorted out, either – that’d be like delivering ourselves straight to them. We’ll check out early, find an out-of-the-way place to park that’s still within the town limits, and camp out till Saturday. We keep our heads down, ignore anything to do with their festival, and we’ll be fine.”

“And in the meantime,” said Amber, “we find out who put up that barrier. It’s got to be someone like us, right? Someone hiding from a demon?”

“Maybe.”

“If we can talk to whoever’s behind it, maybe we can make a barrier of our own. You’d be able to do something like that, wouldn’t you?”

Milo frowned. “Me? I know nothing about this kind of thing.”

“Well, yeah, but you know the basics.”

“What basics, Amber? I know the lore. I know some of the traditions. I don’t know how to do anything. Buxton knows, not me, and he’s too busy setting up a new life for himself to come up here and give us advice.”

“Well … maybe we won’t need him. Maybe whoever put up the barrier will show us what we have to do.”

“I guess it’s possible.”

She gave him a disapproving frown. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“I hate to break it to you, Amber, but neither do you.”

(#ulink_84e30b38-4d23-5b9e-8458-090e62d6c9ba)

AUSTIN COOKE RAN.

He ran from his house on Brookfield Road all the way past the school, past the corner store that was always closed on Sundays, and up towards the fire station, where they kept the single engine that had never, in Austin’s memory, been used for any fire-based emergencies. The volunteer fire fighters brought it out every once in a while and parked it at the top of Beacon Way, the only pedestrian street in Desolation Hill, and they held pancake breakfasts for fund-raising and such, but they’d never had to put out any actual fires – at least not to Austin’s knowledge.

Once the picture of the smiling Dalmatian on the fire-station door came into view, Austin veered left, taking the narrow alley behind the church. His feet splashed in puddles. His sneakers, brand new for his twelfth birthday, got wet and dirty and he didn’t care.

With his breath coming in huge, whooping gulps and a stitch in his side sliding in like a serrated knife, Austin burst from the alley on to the sidewalk on Main Street and turned right, dodging an old lady and sprinting for the square. A beat-up old van trundled by. Up ahead he could hear laughter. A lot of laughter.

Three of them – Cole Blancard, Marco Mabb and Jamie Hillock. Mabb was the biggest and Hillock had the nastiest laugh, but Cole Blancard was the worst. Cole dealt out his punishments with a seriousness that set him apart from the others. Where their faces would twist with sadistic amusement, his would go strangely blank, like he was an impartial observer to whatever degrading activity he was spearheading. His eyes frightened Austin most of all, though. They were dull eyes. Intelligent, in their way, but dull. Cole had a shark’s eyes.

Austin waited for a car to pass, then ran across the street, on to the square. They heard him coming, and turned. Hillock laughed and punched Mabb in the arm and Mabb laughed and returned the favour. Cole didn’t laugh. He only smiled, his tongue caught between his teeth. He had a large handful of paper slips.

Austin staggered to a halt. He didn’t dare get any closer. He’d run all this way to stop them, even though he knew there was nothing he could do once he got here.

The ballot box was old and wooden. It had a slot an inch wide. Cole Blancard turned away from Austin and stuffed all those paper slips through that slot, and Austin felt a new and unfamiliar terror rising within him. Panic scratched at his thoughts with sharp fingers and squeezed his heart with cold hands. Mabb and Hillock took fistfuls of paper slips from their pockets, gave them over, and Cole jammed them in, too.

A few slips fell and the breeze played with them, brought them all the way to the scaffolding outside the Municipal Building. The three older boys didn’t seem to mind. When they were done, they walked towards Austin, forcing him to move out of their way. Mabb and Hillock sniggered as they passed, but Cole stopped so close that Austin could see every detail of the purple birthmark that stretched from Cole’s collar to his jaw.

“Counting, counting, one, two, three,” Cole said, and rammed his shoulder into Austin’s.

Austin stood there while they walked off, their laughter turning the afternoon ugly. One of those slips scuttled across the ground and Austin stepped on it, pinned it in place.

He reached down, picked it up, turned it over and read his own name.

(#ulink_95af4b82-1618-5019-95ce-86c347140f65)

THE VAN WAS OLD and rattled and rolled, coughed and spluttered like it was about to give up and lie down and play dead, but of course it defied expectations, like it always did, and it got them to Desolation Hill with its oil-leaking mechanical heart still beating. That was close to a 4,000-mile journey. Kelly had to admit she was impressed. She thought they’d have to abandon the charming heap of junk somewhere around Wyoming, and pool what little money they had to buy something equally cheap but far less charming to take them the rest of the way.

“I think you owe someone an apology,” Warrick said smugly.

Kelly sighed. “Sorry, van,” she said. “Next time I’ll have more faith in your awesome ability to keep going. There were times, it is true, when I doubted this ability. Uphill, especially. Even, to be honest, sometimes downhill. You have proven me wrong.”

“Now swear everlasting allegiance.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Ronnie,” Warrick called, “she won’t swear everlasting allegiance to the van.”

“Kelly,” said Ronnie from behind the wheel, “you promised.”

“I promised when I didn’t think the van would make it,” said Kelly. “Promises don’t count when you don’t think you’ll ever have to keep them.”