CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY GORDON KORMAN
COPYRIGHT
The doorman hadn’t seen another human being for two solid hours when the stretch limousine whispered up to the curb. Visitors were uncommon at four in the morning, even in New York City. Three tall figures got out of the back, their faces shadowed by the upturned collars of their jackets.
“It’s a no-parking zone,” the doorman told them, but got no answer. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
In reply, the tallest of the three stepped directly in front of him, his features suddenly illuminated in the streetlight — a hawk nose, striking brows, and piercing black eyes. His name was Dr. Elias Mako.
“You are very calm and relaxed,” he said in a mellow tone.
Entranced by Mako’s mesmerizing gaze, the doorman was surprised to note that, yes, he was calm, and so relaxed that he had to recline against the pole that held up the awning. What a pleasant feeling! Normally, a building-security employee should be suspicious of newcomers at this hour. But not these three. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what their business here might be, but he was sure it was necessary.
“You will go behind the desk, and you will hand over the superintendent’s key to apartment 7J,” Mako went on. “You will remember nothing of us, or this conversation.”
The doorman did as he was told, absurdly happy to be of service to these fine people.
Mako and his companions rode the elevator to the seventh floor and moved silently along the carpeted corridor to the apartment they sought.
“Remember,” Mako cautioned, “your job is to take care of the mother and father. Leave the boy to me.”
“I’m not afraid of Jackson Dopus!” muttered Wilson DeVries, who, at fifteen years old, was nearly as tall as Mako.
“You should be,” Mako replied, casting a cold grimace on his student. “We all should be. Jackson Opus is the nexus of the two greatest bloodlines in hypnotic history. And his power grows stronger every day. He alone can stand in the way of our plans.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” put in DeRon Marcus, the third member of the team. He too was a pupil of Mako’s at the Sentia Institute. “They won’t know what hit them.”
Mako frowned. “A little less bragging, please. I would never take the extraordinary step we’re about to take if it weren’t absolutely necessary.” He slipped the key in the lock and opened the door.
Even by the dim light coming in from the hallway, it was apparent that the apartment was empty. No furniture, no window dressings, no people.
Mako was shocked, but his tone remained even. “This is … disappointing.”
Wilson cursed under his breath. “The gutless wonder took off!”
DeRon’s confidence melted away. “What happens now?”
Sentia’s founder and director walked slowly around the perimeter of the living room, as if searching for an explanation from the bare walls. “Where are you, Jackson Opus?”
The walls had no reply.
Mako knew he would find the answer sooner or later — even if it meant doing some damage in the process.
The blade sang by Jax’s ear and grazed the padding on his shoulder. Another quarter inch and it would have taken his head off. He gritted his teeth and parried the next blow, then lashed out with his own weapon, going for a stab at the chest. But his opponent was too quick for him. He danced away, and came back strong.
The next thing Jax knew, the sword was slicing straight for his throat, and he felt the end was near. At the last second, he flailed blindly with his own weapon. There was a clash of metal on metal, and somehow the thrust was swept aside. But the battle was not going well. That was plain. Sensing the tide turning, his adversary pressed his advantage, growing more aggressive with every move. Jax fought back with all his skill but still found himself backing up, giving ground, his breath heaving in his chest, sweat stinging his eyes.
When his back bumped up against the wall, there was nowhere else to retreat.
The game was up.
“Okay, okay!” he gasped. “I give!”
But the enemy was unwilling to leave it at that. One final thrust, and Jax felt the end of the foil pressing against his stomach. Angrily, he flipped up his fencing mask and barked, “Really, man? Back off!”
Too late, he saw the fleeting vision of himself standing there in full fencing gear, mask raised. It was like a picture-in-picture image from a TV, and Jax knew better than anyone what it signified. No sword could match the power of Jackson Opus’s remarkable eyes. By flipping up his mask and glaring at Gary Northrop, he had accidentally hypnotized the boy.
Just a few months before, Jax would have had no idea what he was seeing. It had taken Dr. Elias Mako and his Sentia Institute to explain it to him. A mesmeric link had formed between Jax and Gary. In a way, part of Jax was inside his opponent’s head, peering at himself through Gary’s eyes.
Still masked and in full gear, Gary began to reverse across the gym, heading for the exit, heels first.
“What are you doing?” Jax asked in bewilderment as his opponent passed between other fencers, almost getting skewered a couple of times. He kept on going, right through the half-court basketball game on the other side of the gym.
Then Jax remembered. His exact words had been Back off. To a subject under hypnotic control, that was nothing less than a specific instruction. Gary was backing off.
“It’s okay, man, I didn’t mean it!” But by this time, the subject was lost in the shouts of the game and the percussion of the basketball on the hardwood floor. He retreated, straight out the door of the gym, a bounce pass twanging his foil as he shuffled by.
Jax started after him, pulling down his mask as he ran. No sense looking at the guy again. All subjects were different, but it was obvious that Gary was easily “bent.” Much of the science of hypnotism was unknown, even by Dr. Mako, who was the world’s foremost authority on the subject. How long would Gary keep going? Who knew? He wasn’t going to backpedal around the world, but the effect might not wear off until he found himself out in traffic somewhere.
Anything that happened to the guy would be 100 percent Jax’s fault.
He caught up with Gary, who was half-buried in the flower bed on the front lawn of Haywood Middle School. He’d fallen over a plaster garden gnome and was thrashing around, still trying to back up. His white fencing uniform was caked with damp black soil.
Jax rushed over and helped him to his feet. It was only recently that he’d discovered he was a mind-bender. He was just learning to control the effects of his powers.
“It’s okay, Gary,” he said. “You can stop now.”
But Gary was deep in his trance, kicking up dirt as he scrambled to withdraw.
With a sigh, Jax flipped his mask up again, and also Gary’s, to make sure there was eye contact. Jax had the old Opus family trait of eyes that changed color, ranging from pale green to deep purple. At that moment, he was passing from charcoal gray into royal blue. Obviously, he wasn??
?t going to get away with a shortcut here. In order to release Gary from the last command, he would have to be re-hypnotized, this time by the book.
“You will stop backing off,” he said when the PIP image reappeared. Gary’s struggles ceased abruptly. “When I count to three, you’ll wake up in a happy and relaxed mood. You’ll remember nothing about this — especially the part with me in it. Oh, yeah — and there’s a worm on your shoulder. Go get yourself cleaned up. One, two, three.”
Gary popped up and disappeared inside the school, leaving a trail of black earth and mashed chrysanthemums behind.
Jax exhaled in relief. The last thing he needed was for the Haywood staff to think that Jackson Opus was the cause of anything peculiar. That was the whole reason he’d dragged his parents to this Connecticut town, seventy-seven miles away from everything they knew and cared about in New York City. It was also why he was no longer Jackson Opus. Here in Haywood, he went by the name Jack Magnus. It was all part of an elaborate story — one that had turned his life and the lives of his family upside down. This was the hypnotist’s version of the Witness Protection Program. They were hiding out here — hiding from the evil intentions of Dr. Elias Mako.
Jax had started out as the Sentia Institute’s brightest star — but all that had turned sour when he’d refused to go along with Mako’s plan to use mass hypnotism to rig a presidential election. The director didn’t like to be told no. In fact, he’d tried to murder Jax’s parents and had very nearly succeeded in killing Jax as well.
A mesmeric homicide attempt left no evidence, so there was no way to go to the police. A hypnotist was always armed with an invisible weapon. You could be defeated before you guessed that you were in a fight. Police could provide zero protection from such a threat. They probably couldn’t be persuaded that the danger even existed.
The Opuses’ only solution had been to vanish.
In the gym, Coach Riley regarded the returning Jax disapprovingly. “Gotta work harder, Magnus. Northrop was all over you. Your stamina has to improve if you want to make this team.”
“I will, Coach.” Jax promised. He had very little interest in fencing. He’d only chosen the sport because he’d have to wear the mask. Anything to keep his treacherous multicolored eyes from doing any damage.
And I couldn’t even get that right, he told himself bitterly.
He cast an envious glance at the basketball game. That was his sport, and he was pretty good at it, too. But he’d played back in New York. Dr. Mako would know that. And while no one could monitor every seventh-grade basketball game in the country, it never paid to underestimate Dr. Mako.
The locker room was a scene of raucous towel-snapping and laughter as the team made fun of the hapless Gary, who was still shaking soil out of his hair.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he said for the umpteenth time. He turned his attention to Jax. “You were there, Jack! How did I end up in the mud?”
Jax shrugged. “Beats me. You just went. I figured you needed some air or something.”
Gary clung to this theory like a drowning man. “I needed some air, so chill out!”
That was one of the things Jax had learned when Dr. Mako had been his mentor, not his mortal enemy: After a hypnotic experience, most subjects filled in the blanks in their memories naturally enough. It was a lot easier than wrapping their minds around the idea that something truly paranormal had taken place.
As soon as Jax’s fencing mask came off, a pair of dark sunglasses went on. He wore these all day, even in class. It was a sore point with the Haywood faculty, who suspected that he was either arrogant or asleep behind those shades. The real reason, of course, was to keep his ever-changing eyes and their power away from innocent bystanders. His homeroom teacher, Mr. Isaacs, called him the movie star, and it was definitely not a compliment. If his fellow students thought he was a conceited jerk, well, then so be it. It was better than the whole school backing up into a mud bog, like Gary. Jax was here to hide, not to be elected Mr. Popularity. And, anyway, no one in this one-horse town could ever be a best friend like Tommy Cicerelli, whom he’d left behind in New York. He’d had to cut all ties with the guy, for safety’s sake, and Tommy’s own protection.
Of all the miserable things he’d had to do because of Elias Mako, that one was still the toughest.
Every time Jax approached their two-bedroom rental home on Gardenia Street, the calamity that had befallen the Opuses was laid out before him like a bad dream. It was a long way from their luxury doorman apartment building to this ramshackle house, with its sagging shutters, peeling paint, and missing roof tiles. When the rain blew in from the west, the family had to organize a bucket brigade. The plumbing was in constant conversation with the radiators, and the walls and floors hadn’t been painted and refinished since General Eisenhower was a cadet.
Inside, Mrs. Opus — now Mrs. Magnus — sat in the dingy living room, holding her head as if it were about to fall off and roll across the threadbare carpet.
“What’s wrong, Mom? Another migraine?”
In answer, she gestured straight up with her thumb. From above came a long, loud bubbling noise that vibrated through the entire house.
“Axel’s just gargling,” Jax tried to explain. “He says there’s a lot of mold in the attic, so he’s trying to keep his throat clear.”
“It sounds like someone’s strangling him up there,” she said, near tears. “I swear, one of these days it’s going to be me!”
The gurgling ended in a cascade of spitting, which was followed by a crisp, “Ahhhhh!”
“Mom …” Jax was reproachful. “He saved your life. He saved all our lives. And he moved into the attic because he’s trying to help us now.”
“I know,” she said, abashed. “But why can’t he do it from a decent distance? You’re not home for his morning exercises! He shakes his feet — his ankles must be made of rubber!” Mrs. Opus was actually Dr. Opus, a chiropractor with a bustling New York practice. She’d been forced to abandon that in favor of a position as a bookkeeper for a local bakery. “No one should have to live like this.”
“We’ve been through this a million times,” her son explained patiently. “When it comes to hypnotism, he’s the one person who can stand up to Mako. And he can help me develop my skills to the point where I can do it, too. I know it’s hard with him living in the attic. But if we’re ever going to get our lives back, this is the way it has to be.”
Heavy, creaking footfalls could be heard on the stairs. Mrs. Opus cringed with each one. And then he was with them in the living room — a slight, sixty-something-year-old man with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. He smelled of mouthwash and mothballs. His face was lined, but his expression was open and friendly. There was an almost childlike playfulness about him. In fact, he was a brilliant man, a powerful mind-bender on a par with Dr. Mako himself.
His name was Axel Braintree, and he was the founder of the Sandman’s Guild, an association of fellow hypnotists that was about as different from the Sentia Institute as it was possible to be.
“Ah, Jax — I trust you learned things in school today.”
Jax reflected on his fencing experience. He’d definitely learned when not to flip up his mask. “You might say that.”
There was a key in the lock, and the door opened to admit Jax’s father. Trading his career as the manager of a Manhattan Bentley dealership for a lowest-man-on-the-totem-pole job selling used cars had been a crushing blow for Ashton Opus. Today, though, there was a spring in his step, and he was all smiles.
“I sold that Chevy Silverado today,” he announced proudly. “You remember the buyer, Jax — you went with us on the test-drive. Well, today he signed on the dotted line.”
“Gee, that’s great, Dad.” Jax tried to sound enthusiastic, yet under Braintree’s accusing eye, he found it hard. He kept his mouth shut — no way was he going to deprive his father of the triumph of his first sale in the new job.
After dinner, Jax was
loading the dishwasher when Braintree cornered him in the kitchen. “You went along for the test-drive?” he probed. “Are you sure that’s all you did?”
Jax shrugged his innocence. “It was three days ago.”
“That’s not the meat of the coconut,” the old man persisted.
Jax relented. There was no sense fighting him. Braintree knew everything. He was spooky that way.
“Okay, okay, I bent the guy. I implanted a post-hypnotic suggestion that he had to have the Silverado. I set up a forty-eight-hour trigger before it kicked in so it wouldn’t look suspicious.” Jax spread his hands in a pleading gesture. “What’s the harm in helping out my dad after all the misery I’ve put him through?”
“No harm at all,” Braintree agreed gravely, “except maybe to the man who might have been looking for a Mini Cooper and drove out with a giant pickup.”
Jax flushed, and his eyes darkened two shades of blue. He’d thought only of boosting his father’s confidence. He hadn’t considered the buyer at all, beyond the fact that he needed a vehicle and now he had one.
Braintree always assumed a grandfatherly air when he was about to preach. “Hypnotism is not hard for a sandman. It comes naturally to us. What is hard is resisting the temptation to use our power to make life easier for ourselves. Each morning you wake up, and everything you could possibly want is within your grasp. Can’t afford that flat-screen TV? You can bend the salesperson into lowering the price. A nickel sounds reasonable. Or you could pay full price. You just have to stop at the bank, where a mesmerized teller will let you withdraw the money from an account you don’t have. Failed that math test? A little eye contact with the teacher — that’s not an F; that’s an A. Need a date for the sock hop? How about the head cheerleader? She doesn’t know it yet, but she really likes you.”
“What’s a sock hop? How old are you, Axel?”
“You see my point, though?”
“Yeah, I get it,” Jax conceded. “You’re not talking to your Sandman’s Guild here.”
“That’s exactly who I’m talking to,” the old man returned. “You just proved that. If you use your ability for personal advantage — even if it’s just to move up three places in line at a movie theater — it’s no different than Elias Mako trying to steal a presidential election.”