“You should come up to the attic,” Jax replied shortly. “Axel’s got your family tree plotted all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci. Ever wonder why Mona Lisa looks so mellow?”
“It’s not just the sunglasses,” Mrs. Opus went on with a frown. “Your cheeks are sunken, your skin is pasty, like you just got out of jail.” She turned from the photograph to her son. “You’re too skinny. And your eyes …” She glanced away quickly, wary of his power to hypnotize. “They’re bloodshot, and there are bags under them the size of suitcases.”
He checked his reflection in the hall mirror. She was right, of course, but what did she expect? He was at school all day, struggling to avoid the spotlight. He had even taken the extraordinary step of implanting post-hypnotic suggestions in kids who wouldn’t stop staring at him: “You’ve got more important things to worry about than Jack Magnus. It’s like the guy doesn’t even exist.” The plan had backfired. Now he had to keep one eye out for people who might plow him over in the hall because they simply didn’t see him. A girl named Carissa was sent to the principal’s office for insisting he was absent from a class when she was sitting three desks away from him.
He had no friends because he couldn’t risk other people finding out who and what he was. Felicity was kind of nice, but she was more of a stalker than a companion. She was too nosy and, mostly, too smart. She already knew there was something up with him — nobody went to the dentist so often. Anyway, he had no time for her. There was his after-school job at the Quackenbush estate, where he was cramming ninety-six years of memories into his twelve-year-old skull — the mental equivalent of trying to fit fifty pounds of potato salad into a five-pound container. Then dinner, homework, and an hour of sandman training from Braintree. When that was done, he would fall into bed and sleep like the dead until it was time to wake up and start the rat race all over again.
So he was looking a little tired and stressed-out. Shocker.
Mom wasn’t just nagging. She was genuinely worried. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you in this state.”
“Come on, Mom, it’s your first Saturday night out with Dad since we left the city. I’m not going to drop dead in the time it takes for you guys to have dinner and see a movie.”
She would not be distracted. “Maybe you should give up this after-school thing. I think it’s wearing you down.”
“We’ve been through this already,” Jax retorted, a little impatiently. “We’re going to need the money going forward.”
“Your father and I still work. Nothing is worth sacrificing your health.”
There was the squeal of tires in the driveway, and the sound of running feet on the walk. The door was flung wide to reveal a manic and pink-faced Braintree, his white shirt splattered red with blood.
Jax was instantly alert. “Axel, what’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” Mrs. Opus cut in from where she was standing by the window. “He wrecked his car. The whole fender’s bashed in.”
“You’re bleeding!” Jax exclaimed.
“It’s nothing.” Braintree headed for the attic stairs. “I just have to — freshen up,” he mumbled under his breath.
Mom checked her watch. “I’m going to be late. There’s leftover Chinese food in the fridge.” She paused at the door and hissed, “Do not drive with that man!”
Jax watched her out the door, and then scrambled up the stairs. “Axel, what’s going on? Do you need to see a doctor?”
“Forget the accident.” Braintree was in the bathroom, washing the crusted blood from his face. “God knows the other person has. I just heard from Evelyn Lolis.”
“That’s great — isn’t it?”
Breathlessly, the old man filled Jax in on the strange call over the throwaway phone. “She was very nervous, and not making a lot of sense.” He pulled off the stained shirt and buttoned himself into a fresh one. “I’m going to go into the city and help her.”
“I’ll go with you,” Jax said immediately.
“Absolutely not!” Braintree exclaimed. “This could be a trap!”
“Then why are you going?” Jax challenged.
“Because she needs me. And I have reason to believe she’s been in contact with at least one other kidnapped sandman. She wouldn’t have had this phone number unless she’d gotten it from somebody else.”
The Sandman’s Guild resembled a comedy routine at times, with Braintree lecturing about honesty to his band of petty crooks who were never going to change. But his devotion to his hypnotists was ironclad and 100 percent noble. Whatever the old man had to face tonight, Jax was determined that he would not face it alone.
“Come on, Axel — they’re my sandmen, too. They saved my life in New York. Let me return the favor.”
“It’s out of the question,” Braintree said stubbornly. “You’re too important to the future.” He headed for the stairs.
Jax blocked his way. “You’re not going without me.”
“Step aside,” the old man ordered.
“Forget it.”
Braintree stood glaring at him, and Jax felt the first stirring of someone trying to climb into his head.
His mentor was hypnotizing him!
“Come on, Axel,” Jax said peevishly. “Cut it out!”
But Braintree continued his assault, determined to protect Jax from what might lie ahead.
There was only one way to fight back. He mustered the strength from the Opus and Sparks genes inside him, and unleashed his gaze, his pale blue eyes darkening by the second.
Braintree blinked, taken aback by the strength of the counterattack. Then he ramped up his own assault. The battle raged like an arm-wrestling match, fought with mental energy. Advantage shifted back and forth, enormous force, all in total silence. Jax had tried, and failed, to bend the old man many times throughout the course of their training together. According to Braintree himself, Jax’s gift was the greater one by far. The only difference between them was experience. But in the past weeks working with Quackenbush, Jax had clocked more time in the mesmeric link than many hypnotists spent in a lifetime. The gap in know-how was closing.
Jax bore down, his eyes like a magnifying lens, concentrating all his power into a single white-hot point on his adversary’s forehead. He had never before felt himself forcefully penetrating the mind of another. But then again, he had never had a subject resist with such strength and skill.
And then he was in, and the PIP image was growing in his field of vision. It took much longer than usual for it to resolve into a clear picture of himself as the old man saw him. But he had done it. Braintree was his. He knew a moment of triumph. He had been told what a powerful hypnotist he was, yet this was the first time he’d ever succeeded in hypnotizing anyone powerful.
The heady feeling soon deserted him in a wave of guilt. He had outmuscled his mentor and friend — Axel, who had saved his life and his parents’, too; Axel, who had put his own affairs on hold in order to go into hiding with the Opuses and train their son. This was some reward for his devotion!
Never mind that. This is for Axel’s own good. No way can you let him go into danger alone.
But the old man was right about one thing: Whether this was a trap or not, Evelyn Lolis needed their help. They couldn’t abandon her. The Sandman’s Guild looked after its own.
“You’re about to drive into the Bronx to help Evelyn Lolis,” Jax intoned. “It may seem like there’s somebody else in the car with you, but don’t worry, you’re really by yourself.” He remembered his mother’s words, and added, “Oh, yeah, and you’re driving really carefully. Okay, now when I flash the lights, you’ll wake up, feeling refreshed and confident about the job you have to do. You’ll remember nothing of this conversation. And you won’t see me at all.” Hard experience at school had taught him that it was easy to make himself invisible. He just had to remember to keep out of Axel’s way.
He flicked the light switch off and on quickly, then followed Braintree out to his car. To
o late, he remembered that he hadn’t left a note for his parents.
With any luck, we’ll be back before they get home from their movie.
There was an anxious moment when Braintree began backing out of the driveway before Jax had gotten into the car, but he managed to stuff himself into the backseat just in time.
Of course he didn’t wait for you to get in, Jax berated himself. He doesn’t even know you’re with him. He resolved to stay more focused around the hypnotized Braintree. He couldn’t control the danger that might be awaiting them in the Bronx. But it would be a tragedy not to get there at all because of a stupid mistake.
Braintree was a very conscientious driver on the hour-and-a-half trip to the Bronx. The old man kept two hands on the wheel, checked his mirrors constantly, and talked to the voice on his GPS. His only other conversation was with the absent Evelyn Lolis.
“Hang in there, Evelyn. I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there soon.”
As the neat homes and subdivisions of the suburbs morphed into the urban landscape of the Bronx, Jax felt his stomach tightening. He was in hiding, fearing for his life and the lives of his family. Why would he deliberately place himself back in the line of fire in what might very well turn out to be a trap? This was Sentia’s city, Mako’s city. The closer they got to the corner of Eighty-Ninth and Crummel, the louder the alarm bells rang in his ears.
The streets grew narrower, darker, and apartment buildings gave way to tenements and, finally, old warehouses with broken windows and security gates spray-painted with graffiti. The streets were deserted. Two of every three streetlights were out, so the shadows loomed long and dark on the pavement.
The 1999 Avenger lurched up to the curb and parked behind an ancient pickup truck. Alert, Jax jumped out before Braintree locked the car. He followed his mentor over broken pavement, across the street to where a sign declared: CAISTER & SONS, QUALITY MEATS. The hypnotic command was holding. The old man seemed oblivious to Jax’s presence, even though his gaze panned across him several times. It felt odd to be totally ignored by someone who normally had a comment for every occasion.
Hugging the dirty brick of the building, Jax watched as Braintree tried to call Lolis. Her number rang and rang, but there was no answer. Finally, the old man headed into the building. There was a padlock on the heavy steel door, but it was hanging open and seemed to be broken.
The whole thing screamed setup, Jax thought, his hair standing on the back of his neck. He fought the wild impulse to wake Braintree and get the two of them out of there. But what would that solve? Lolis was still missing, and others, too. The key to finding them seemed to lie somewhere in this warehouse.
Boldly, the old man ventured into the gloom of the building, navigating by the light of his cell phone. There were six concrete steps directly ahead, leading up to a set of heavy double doors.
Acting on pure instinct, Jax hung back, keeping well hidden. If this really did turn out to be a trap, the last thing that made any sense was for both of them to be ambushed and caught. The best way he could help Braintree was by acting as his secret backup.
With a sinking heart, he took stock of himself. He hadn’t thought to bring a baseball bat, or even a Swiss Army knife. Some backup he was going to be! If worst came to worst, at least he’d be free to call the police. And, as Braintree often reminded him, he was never without one weapon, a formidable one. He was a sandman.
When Braintree opened the double doors, Jax felt a blast of cold air coming down the stairs at him. Braintree slipped inside, and the doors shut automatically behind him.
Jax became aware of two things: (1) The cold was gone, and (2) so was even the faintest hint of any light. Without Braintree’s phone, and too far inside the building to catch any glow from the street, he was suddenly enveloped in thick, suffocating blackness. He knew a panic more basic than his fear that this might be a trap. There was no door, there were no stairs, not even a warehouse. He was suspended in intergalactic space, not knowing which way was up.
Calm down! he ordered himself. You’re no use to anybody if you lose it!
It was distant, but somewhere in the darkness ahead of him there was the sound of a scuffle, and muffled voices.
Axel! He had to reach his mentor. Desperately, he sprang forward. At least, he thought it was forward. He was flying completely blind, and was shocked beyond belief when he stubbed his toe on the bottom step and fell forward up the stairs. The blow to his face stunned him briefly, and he hung there, clutching the cement, willing himself not to scream in pain. If whoever was inside knew he was there, he would be no use to Braintree.
Recovering at last, he crept to the top on hands and knees until he could feel the heavy double doors in front of him. Wide rubber weather stripping lined the bottom, and no light came through the cracks. He could hear the murmur of voices, but it was impossible to make out what anybody was saying.
Reaching up and fumbling against the door, he found the handles, and hoisted himself to his feet. His knees throbbed. They would probably be black and blue tomorrow — if there was a tomorrow.
He eased the door open just a crack and peered inside, feeling the frigid air waft across his face. There was some illumination, but not much, like a building left in security mode, operating only every fourth light. The room was huge, a vast refrigerator, hung with large beef carcasses, and smelling of meat and blood. The space was dominated by a long and elaborate conveyor system of hooks designed to carry the carcasses in a long row up to an elevated butchering platform.
A voice rasped, “I asked you a question! Where is Jackson Opus?”
The voice was distant, and distorted by echo in the cold, open room. Jax struggled to locate the source of the sound. At last he saw movement on the platform. He squinted through the imperfect light and could just make out four figures standing up there. Three of them wore ski masks; the fourth, their prisoner, was Braintree.
The old man answered with another question. “Where’s Evelyn Lolis?”
A cruel laugh. “Did you really expect her to be here waiting for you?”
So there it was. A trap. And they had walked right in the door.
“Answer me, Grandpa! It’s a long way to the floor! Where’s Jackson Opus!”
“Nowhere you could find him,” Braintree snapped back.
Not unless you spot me sneaking in the door, Jax thought, crawling on his belly into the shadows, taking cover behind the control console for the conveyor.
Another voice said, “What are you wasting your time for? Bend him!”
“I can’t take the risk that he’ll bend us! Come on, man! I want an address!”
“Gettysburg,” said Braintree.
“Gettysburg?”
“Right,” said Braintree. “Now that was an address.”
The next sound was unmistakable, even at a distance — the smack of fist on flesh. Jax flinched as if he himself had been hit. He had to do something to take the heat off Braintree. And fast.
Heart pounding, he hugged the control console, feeling urgently for the power switch. He found the largest button and, breathing a silent “Oh, please,” dared to press it.
A warning Klaxon sounded twice, and then the system clattered into operation. Meat carcasses marched across the floor, and then began to rise toward the butchering platform. Startled shouts rang from above, and flashlight beams cut the gloom. In alarm, Jax reflected that he’d succeeded in taking the attention off his mentor. But in the process, he’d sacrificed something very important. The bad guys now knew that Braintree was not alone. How was he going to reach the old man and get him away from here?
Without thinking — because he never would have done it if he’d thought it over — he took a running start, jumped high, and clamped his arms around a moving beef carcass. The thing was cold, and covered in white, slippery fat, but he hung on for dear life. As it carried him across the factory floor, the carcass also hid him from the probing flashlight beams.
When the hoist began
to lift the side of beef up toward the platform, Jax knew he had passed the point of no return. He was thinking now, and none of it was very good. What was he going to do when he got up there?
As the carcass rose, Jax got a close-up view of the frantic action on the platform. The three enemies in ski masks were sweeping the space with their flashlights, searching in vain for the phantom intruder. One of them, the biggest, had an iron grip on Braintree. As Jax heaved into view, the hulk’s eyes widened inside the eyeholes, and he blurted, “Dopus!”
Jax flinched. There was only one person who called him that — Wilson DeVries, who had made his life miserable at Sentia. Even in this crazy position, he felt an extra stab of fear. Was Mako here, too?
Wilson threw Braintree down to the floor of the platform and picked up a meat gaff, a long pole with a hook-like blade on the end. “I’m going to do Dr. Mako a big favor, right here, right now!” He lunged forward at Jax.
Desperately, Jax dug his fingernails into the fatty meat and twisted his body away from the lethal blade. It dug into the meat barely an inch to the left of Jax’s torso.
With a howl of outrage, Wilson retrieved the blade and braced himself for a second attack.
“Wilson —” Jax breathed.
Startled at being identified, Wilson interrupted his motion and made the mistake of staring directly at Jackson Opus.
If there had ever been a time for mesmerism to go quickly, this was it. Jax poured everything he had into his hypnotic gaze. Hurry up! The mechanism was taking him across the platform. In another few seconds, he’d be out of range!
Come on!
And there it was, a PIP image from Wilson, faint but unmistakable — Jax on the meat hook.
I’ve got him!
He blurted out his instructions. “Take the stick and knock your buddies off the platform!”
Obediently, the burly Wilson swung the gaff handle at knee level. His two accomplices toppled off the platform down to the hard floor below. Too late, Jax realized that Braintree was also in the line of fire. The pole struck the old man across both calves, and he tumbled over the side.