Chapter Seventeen #3
Zacharov staggers away from me, stricken.
He looks toward Anton, and for a moment I think he’s going to ask something that will doom me.
Then he lurches abruptly against the hinge of one of the stalls and, stumbling back, bangs his head against the hand dryer.
He gasps soundlessly and slides down the wall, hand knotting in his shirt like he is trying to grasp his chest.
We watch him as his eyes close. His mouth gapes once more, like he’s trying for a last gasp of air.
Zacharov’s not a bad con man himself.
“What did you do?” Grandad shouts. “Undo it, Cassel. Whatever you’ve done—” My grandfather looks at me like he doesn’t know me.
“Shut up, old man,” Anton says, punching the stall behind Grandad’s head.
I want to snap at Anton, but there’s no time. Lack of blowback’s going to give me away.
I concentrate on transforming myself. I picture a blade coming toward my own head, try to feel the impulse to work the work that danger feeds.
I have to freak myself out. I think of Lila, and me with a knife standing over her. I imagine raising the blade and feel the full weight of horror and self-loathing. The false memory still has the power to terrify me.
I actually jerk my hand a tiny bit in response, and then I feel my flesh go malleable. I imagine my father’s hand in place of my own. I picture his blunt fingers and rough calluses.
My father’s hand to go with his suit.
A small transformation. A little change. One that I hope will have minimal blowback.
A ripple runs through my flesh. I concentrate on taking a step toward the wall, but my foot feels like it’s spreading out, melting.
Anton reaches into his coat and flips open a butterfly knife. It twirls in his fingers, as bright as the scales of a fish. He leans over Zacharov and carefully cuts the pin from his tie. “Everything’s going to be different now,” he says, slipping the Resurrection diamond into his pocket.
Anton turns toward me, still holding the knife, and suddenly this seems like a terrible, terrible plan.
“I’m sure you don’t remember,” Anton says, his voice low. “But you made me an amulet. Don’t even think about trying to work me.”
As if I could do anything but fall to my knees as my body twists and contorts.
Through blurry, changing vision, I see my grandfather crouching near Zacharov.
My limbs change, fins rising on my skin, and fifth and sixth arms banging into the wall.
My head thrashes back and forth. My tongue forks.
Everything cramps as the bones wrench themselves out of their sockets.
My eyes become a thousand eyes, blinking together at the painted ceiling.
I tell myself it will be over soon, but it goes on and on and on.
Anton walks toward Grandad. “You’re a loyal worker, so it makes me sad to have to do this.”
“Stop right there,” Grandad says.
Anton shakes his head. “I’m glad Philip doesn’t have to watch. He wouldn’t understand, but I think you do, old man. A leader’s got to be careful who gets to tell stories about him.”
I try to turn over, but my legs are hooves and they clatter against the tiles. I don’t know how to work them. I try to shout, but my voice isn’t my own—there’s a birdlike whistle in it, probably from the beak hardening on my face.
“Good-bye,” Anton says to my grandfather. “I’m about to become a legend.”
Someone bangs on the door. The knife stops, hovering in front of Grandad’s throat.
“It’s me,” Barron says from the other side. “Open up.”
“Let me open the door,” says Grandad. “Put away the knife. If I’m loyal to anyone, it’s this boy here. And if you want him loyal to you, you’ll be careful.”
“Anton,” I say from the floor. It’s hard to form the words with my curling tongue. “Door!”
Anton looks at me, slings the knife back into its sheath, and opens the door.
I concentrate on moving my transformed hand into the pocket of my pants.
Barron takes a few stiff steps into the room, then staggers forward, like he was pushed from behind.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” a girl’s voice calls. Lila is wearing a red dress as tight as it is short. Her only accessory is the huge silver gun gleaming in the fluorescent lights. The door swings shut behind her. The gun sure looks real. And she’s pointing it straight at Anton.
Anton’s lips part, like he’s going to say her name, but no words come out.
“You heard me,” she says.
“He killed your father,” Anton says, pointing the closed knife at me. “It wasn’t me. It was him.”
Her gaze shifts to where Zacharov’s body is resting, and the barrel of the gun wavers.
I reach under my jacket, hoping that my fingers stay fingerlike long enough to be usable. My tongue is working again. “You don’t understand. I never meant—”
“I’m tired of your excuses,” she says, leveling the gun at me. Her hand is shaking. “You didn’t know what you were doing. You don’t remember. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
She doesn’t sound like she’s pretending.
I try to stand. “Lila—”
“Shut up, Cassel,” she says, and shoots me.
Blood spatters cover my shirt.
I gasp like a fish.
As my eyes close, I hear Grandad choke out my name.
There’s nothing like a gunshot to make you the life of the party.