The Deadliest Bite

“Jasmine.” He reached out to touch my bare shoulder where a piece of my shirt had ripped away. I shivered, laughed lightly. Only he could get a rise out of me after I’d nearly been stoned to death by a fal ing ceiling and then thrashed soundly by a forest. “Are you al right?” he asked.

“Yuh,” I answered. I touched my tongue, which was so sore it hadn’t wanted to make the S sound so I could reply to Vayl with a “Yes.” It was bleeding and slightly swol en. I must’ve bitten it during the landing.

Vayl sighed with relief. Then he said, “Aaron? Raoul? Did you make it?”

“We’re fine,” said Raoul.

“I need a knife!” Aaron replied. He’d already made it to his feet and was scouting for rips in his father’s cel . Though some of the bones that formed its structure had broken in the fal , the membrane itself remained horribly intact.

“Let us do this,” Vayl said as he helped me to my feet.

When Aaron started to protest I added, “We’re pretty handy with weapons. It would be a shame if you sliced half of your fingers off and bled to death at your moment of triumph, now, wouldn’t it?” First, however—“I’ve gotta talk to Aaron Senior.”

Vayl held out his hand. “Let us free him and see if he is in the mood to converse then, shal we?” I nodded, pul ing my bolo and giving it to him as we approached the corner of the cel where Raoul and Aaron were already standing.

Aaron went into a crouch and said gently, “We’re gonna get you out, Dad. Just go to the other side of the cel for a second, okay?”

In the moonlight that shone down through the broken treetops we saw the shadow inside the box move to its opposite end. Vayl made three quick cuts and a flap the size of a doggy door fel down inside the horror room.

The smel that wafted out gagged us, backing us al off a step or two. Then Aaron Junior’s dad came rocketing out of that place so fast that I could see the air flowing off his shoulders just as if he were a race car barreling down the track.

“Get back here right this minute, you ungrateful bastard!” I yel ed.

He swooped down and hovered in front of me, his grin showing a huge gap between his front teeth. “Forgive me. You can’t imagine how awful it’s been being cooped up in there al this time.”

“Wel , you’re about to be free forever,” Raoul told him.

“Except,” I added. Everyone paused to look at me. “The cowboy, Zel Culver. Did you know him?

I mean, did you meet him in the Thin or anything?”

Aaron Senior shook his bald head. “I didn’t meet any cowboys. Not anybody at al , real y, after they had the cel assembled. Except”—he nodded toward our group—“you people, the one time I was al owed out.”

I pul ed the Rocenz from my belt. “Does this look familiar?”

“No.”

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. I was missing something. Senior was important, or Granny May wouldn’t have made her suggestion in the first place. And then I had a thought. “Does the number twenty- three mean anything to you?”

He shrugged. “That’s the mystery tattoo.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wel .” He jerked his head back toward his cel . “Lots of those wal s came from parts of people that had been tattooed. To keep myself from going crazy I numbered them. Number twenty-three never made sense to me, so I always thought of it as the mystery tattoo.” I glanced at Vayl, whose eyes reflected the same excitement I felt building in my gut. “Show us,” he demanded.

Senior led us into the horror chamber and obediently pointed out a stretched bit of yel owed leathery skin covered with the words the soul splits, with a ragged tear and nothing after the comma.

“See?” he said. “The soul splits. Whatever fol ows that last S looks to have been cut off and left,” he sighed, “with the rest of the body.”

I just stared, because when Senior had said “The soul splits,” the Rocenz had warmed in my hand like cheese in a microwave. “Vayl, we—” I swal owed, grossed out by my next words before I had to say them. “We need that tattoo.”

He cut the piece away from its anchors, the ripping sound the knife made as it freed its second prisoner of the day making me wince. When he was done he folded the patch neatly inside his handkerchief. And then handed it to me.

Ugh. I bolted out of the chamber, fol owed closely by Vayl. Senior had left the minute he knew he was no longer needed. He was hovering beside Junior, talking quietly to his namesake as Raoul watched them with a look of regret that spel ed out just how long they had left together. As I moved toward my Spirit Guide I rebelted the Rocenz and tucked the tattoo inside my jacket pocket. The one that zipped, so I wouldn’t lose it. Or worse, accidental y stick my hand in there and feel it. By the time I’d stowed everything safely I’d moved within earshot of Aaron Junior and his dad.

“You’re going to be free now,” Aaron was saying. “Don’t get caught in the Thin again. Go straight toward, I don’t know, I’ve heard there’s a light or something.” Senior had started to shake. “Don’t worry. I’l fly like a rocket ship. I won’t even look back. Or down. Or to the side, because there are scary things in the dark with eyes that glow a sort of purply red—”

Raoul cleared his throat. “You’l see the Path clearly as soon as the Way opens for you. Stay on it. It’s that easy.”

Now Senior looked like he wanted to hug everyone. “Oh! Thank you al so much!” Junior brushed tears from his eyes. “Be careful, Dad.”

“Of course!”

“And say hi to Grandpa for me.”