Chapter 31
Caspar was dreaming of horns again.
Car horns. Endless whirring and beeping. Every night since his escape, his dreams had been filled with never-ending quests where he’d been inside Jocasta’s Nissan Xterra, the angel medallion dangling in front of him as the car soared over hills, but never quite reached the road.
But now they had. Now they were coasting over an endless expanse. Cars were honking. They were drifting. Flying.
Wait. Was this a nightmare? Caspar gasped, but didn’t wake. There was something heavy pressing against his chest. Something radiated from the crown of his head down to his toes. Delight. Light. Almost shimmering. Almost smelling like—
Caspar shot up in bed and folded over his waist. He panted as if he’d hit the ground from a high distance. He reached around his back and scraped his fingers across his skin. Something caught in his fingernails. Feathers? He blinked, raking his fingers over his skin again.
Feathers fell onto the bedsheets.
His stomach fluttered.
In his dreams, he’d been flying. He’d been angelic. He was—
“It’s okay to still have nightmares.” Malek’s voice. A hand on his back. “You were in prison a long time.”
“What?”
Malek held up the pillow. It had been split in two, the feathers piling up where Caspar had slept. The sheets were damp. He was damp.
And now, he was shaking.
“Oh. I—”
“It’s okay. Honestly, that car horn outside would make anyone resort to fisticuffs with a pillow.”
Caspar laughed slowly. “If only it was that simple.” When he met Malek’s gaze, he saw concern melted into his expression. Caspar’s fear turned to familiar tension, the kind that had been following him since this mission began—not from prison so much as from his legacy finally catching up to him.
“I just have another headache.”
“And no wonder! With this racket!”
Malek and Caspar both rose from the bed, but only Caspar felt the need to grab a blanket and cover what parts of himself were still visible. Malek gestured out the window to a yellow school bus that took up most of the apartment’s parking lot entrance, its engine idled.
“Who the hell is late for school?”
“Is that…?” Caspar squinted and struggled to see through the glare of the window. “William?”
“Of course it is.” Malek huffed as soon as William confirmed their suspicion and stepped out of the bus. “What the fuck?”
They watched as Katja and Natasha pushed their way through the building’s front doors and waved their arms at William before giving him a hug.
“There’s no way they all planned this.” Caspar struggled against the safety locks on the apartment window, dropping his blanket in the process. He soon gave up and left the bedroom, heading for the balcony door. He was about to step out onto the ledge when Malek called out to him.
“Uh, Caspar…” Malek tossed him the sheet, and Caspar barely had a chance to fling it over his body before he stepped outside, nearly flashing everyone who was looking. Malek wrapped the other blanket around himself as he followed Caspar outside.
“What are you guys doing?” Caspar called down. “William. Katja. Natasha!”
Katja and Natasha flinched as they heard Caspar, but looked around the parking lot and at the front of the apartment complex instead of looking up.
“Above you, Katja,” Malek clarified.
All three of them found Caspar and Malek easily. William waved and gestured to the bus. They could barely hear what he was yelling, but it sounded as if he had said “Free ride.”
“Free ride?” Caspar repeated. Colour drained from his face as he put it all together.
Free ride as in stolen? Shit. While Malek laughed, Caspar ran out the apartment door and down the elevator into the front lobby.
He didn’t care if he was only in a bedsheet; the fact that a sixteen-year-old elemental runaway had stolen a goddamn school bus for their small adventure made his minor nudity the least of their problems.
“Hey, now. Whoa! This is a public area.” Katja chuckled as she obscured her vision with the palm of her hand. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Caspar ignored her and marched right to William. “How did you get this bus?”
“Five-finger discount.” William grinned.
“That’s not the answer I want to hear.”
“What? I’m good with cars. They like me and follow me home.”
“This is a fucking school bus.”
“And all the Toronto schools have a PA day today because of some holiday. No one is gonna miss this, trust me.”
“Oh God.”
When Malek tapped Caspar on the shoulder, he was fully dressed—in messy jeans and a loose T-shirt, but dressed. He handed Caspar his clothing in a ball. Caspar wiggled into his outfit while still making sure to hold the sheet tight against his body.
“Can you believe this?” Caspar asked.
“I believe it. A little unsure about keeping a low profile with this, though.”
“If we drive fast enough, none of that will matter,” William insisted. “And Katja said she could add protection spells, right, Katja?”
Katja blushed a little as Caspar gawked at her. “You endorsed this?”
“Maybe?” Katja shrugged as she pulled out a book from her briefcase. The same occult writing from her briefcase was on the spine and front cover. She flipped through several pages before focusing on a protection sigil that Natasha was working on adding to the bus’s door with a can of spray paint.
“Just how long have you guys been planning this heist?” Caspar asked, referring to the bus again. “And how long were you planning on keeping us out of the loop?”
“Not long. Promise,” Katja said. “But after my car was stolen, I was fucking pissed. So this seemed like a fair trade, in a way. We’ll return the bus after I’ve found my car.”
“And if we don’t find your car?”
“We’ll find it,” William said. “I may have been following some leads when I got this.”
“Leads? Oh, fuck.” Caspar pinched his temple.
When did he become the parent in this situation?
He didn’t want to ask William if he’d been following gargoyles to one of the local chop shops to see if Katja’s car was there because he knew that was exactly what he’d done.
When Caspar looked to Malek, he seemed equally perturbed.
“That was really dangerous,” Malek said. “But since you’re obviously okay, what did you find?”
“I went to a chop shop, but no one seemed to be around, so I tried another I’d heard about when I used to sleep in some construction sites during the winter.
The trail for her car ended near a school, though, where I found this laying around.
” William shrugged and ran a hand through his long hair. “I saw your friend, though.”
“Hmm?” Caspar asked.
“Anthony. At least, I think it was him. I took his photo, and when I showed it to Katja, she knew who he was.” William took out his cell phone and showed Caspar the photo he’d snapped of Anthony in a coat buttoned to his throat as he stepped out of a building.
Caspar tried to read the sign for the building, but it was obscured.
“Yeah. That’s him. What was he doing?”
William shrugged. “Beats me. But I think it was by a funeral home. You know, the place where you get the ashes after someone is cremated?”
Shit. My funeral. Today. Caspar pinched his temples again, suddenly in desperate need of coffee.
Of all the things that could have happened, he supposed this wasn’t the worst. No cop cars seemed to be tailing William, and if he was as good of a thief as Caspar had heard, then maybe they could get away with this.
If not, they would be long gone by the time anyone else caught on to the bus being missing.
Katja was already climbing the bus steps, her heels clicking against the floor. “I still miss my car, but, you know, I think I could get used to this.”
“Yeah,” Natasha said, smirking. “It’s pretty good. Lots of room in the back seat. For both of us.”
“And Malek?” William asked.
Malek tried to hide his smile, but he failed. “I hate how irresponsibly you did this, but… it reminds me of being on tour. And I miss that.”
“So that means I’m the odd one out,” Caspar said. “Well, fine. Since you’re all convinced this is a little field trip, I’ll buy in. But I’m having a shower before we leave and eating a massive breakfast with a gallon of coffee.”
Everyone groaned. William knocked the glove compartment with his hand, sending a pile of moist towelettes tumbling out. “How about this? It’s the bath of runaways, but it works. And we take five minutes to pack some bags and snacks. Sound good?”
“Also,” Natasha said, “it’s probably best to ease up on the coffee. We don’t want to make too many pit stops, you know?”
Caspar sighed. There was no winning with this group. “Fine. But make the five minutes more like ten, the snacks more like breakfast burritos, and when we get there, we’re staying at a hotel. I can pay for that, since, you know, I have a credit card now.”
“Deal.” William extended his hand, along with Katja and Natasha. When Caspar turned to Malek, he pulled him in for a kiss. Caspar nearly dropped his sheet he was so surprised, but Malek caught that, too. The kiss woke him up more than Caspar had anticipated.
“Well, okay,” Caspar said. “You’re all convincing. But I’m having coffee.”
“What about the pit stops?” William complained.
“Well, that’s your fault. Next time, steal a bus with bathrooms.”