"What did you mean before, when you said that about my thinking I"ve been here before?" he asked. "And what was that about a group of people who believe...something?"
"You know what?" I gripped his shoulders more tightly than ever. "It"s kind of a long story, and there"s a good chance it may not even be true. But true or not, I still think we"d better go-at the very least to get out of the rain, if not away from Marco."
Will looked up at the ever-darkening ma.s.s of clouds overhead-what we could see of them, through the treetops. Funny how it had rained everywhere else but here.
But not ha-ha funny.
"Okay," he said, and started to follow me as I climbed down from his boulder. "But where do you want to go?"
The deep voice seemed to come out of nowhere.
"May I recommend Tahiti?"
I froze. The blood that Will had thawed with his kiss iced up again.
Because I recognized that voice. I knew who it was even before I turned around and saw him standing in the creek bed, the mouth of an ugly black gun trained on the center of Will"s chest.
"I hear the Polynesian Islands are lovely this time of year," Marco said casually.
The two brothers stared at each other, Marco, down in the creek bed, and Will on the top of his boulder. It was so still, I could hear both of them breathing. At least until lightning coursed across the sky overhead, making me jump-even before it turned everything along the horizon a bright, cardinal red.
Then thunder crashed, and the red disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
"Elle," Will said, in the sudden silence that followed these celestial pyrotechnics. He never took his gaze off Marco. "Go home."
"Yes, Elaine," Marco said, in a voice dripping with malice. "Run home to float some more. There"s nothing you can do here."
I bristled. I knew what Marco meant. That there was nothing Elaine of Astolat could do here.
But that was fine, because I wasn"t Elaine of Astolat, no matter what he might think. And there was plenty Elaine Harrison could do.
"I"m not going anywhere," I said.
Marco feigned that he was touched.
"Aw, how sweet," he said. "She"s going to stay to defend her man."
Will didn"t seem to think it was very sweet, though.
"Elle," he said, in the same voice he"d used that day with Rick, outside Mr. Morton"s cla.s.sroom-a voice that really did sound as if it might belong to a king, it was so filled with outrage over his wishes being disobeyed. "Go home. I"ll meet you there later."
"Uh, no, you won"t, Will," Marco said. "That"s why she"s not budging. She knows as well as I do that you won"t be meeting anyone later."
Another jolt of lightning. Again the sky turned red. Then just as suddenly, thunder turned it gray again.
"Marco," Will said. "This is stupid. You don"t want to do this."
"See, that"s where you"re wrong," Marco said. "I"ve been wanting to do this for a long, long time. You think I didn"t get sick of it, back home? Why can"t you be more like Will? Look at Will, he didn"t flunk shop. Look at Will, he didn"t wreck the car. Look at Will, he"s not skipping cla.s.s to get high behind the Dairy Queen. Look at Will, the Golden Boy. The QB. Mr. Four-Point-Oh, Prom King. I never got it, you know. I never understood why my mom was always harping at me about you. Until now." He switched off the safety on the gun.
"And then," he went on casually, as if we"d all b.u.mped into one another down at Storm Brothers, or something, "she up and marries your dad. Lucky me! Now I get to live with you! Yeah, I get to see up close and personal what I could have been, if I"d applied myself. And as if that"s not enough, guess what? Turns out we"re brothers! Yeah, brothers! Like I didn"t feel completely inadequate before. Now I have to deal with the fact that you and I share a significant amount of DNA. Oh, and that your dad was boffing my mom behind my dad"s back? Yeah, nice one."
"Marco," Will said, in a low, even voice. "Our parents are screwed up, okay? But we don"t have to take that out on each other."
"Don"t we?" Marco laughed without humor. "Gee, that"s big of you, Will. Considering my dad didn"t kill your dad, the way yours did mine. The way I see it, there"s only one way to even up the odds. An eye for an eye."
"If it"s an eye for an eye you want, Marco," I said, my voice shaking, "kill Will"s dad, not Will."
Will threw me a Stay out of this look. But I didn"t care.
"I thought about that," Marco said. "But the thing is, I want the old guy to suffer. And what could hurt more than knowing that his precious golden boy died because of something he did? He"ll have to live with that for the rest of his life, just like I"ll have to live without my dad. That"s what I call an eye for an eye."
"But what"s the point, Marco?" Will wanted to know. "It"s not going to bring your father back."
"No," Marco said, in a voice that sounded entirely reasonable. "It won"t. But it will make me feel a h.e.l.l of a lot better."
"And when you"re in jail?" Will asked evenly. If he was afraid, you couldn"t tell by looking at him. He was standing straight and tall, and his voice didn"t shake a bit. He looked almost...well, kinglike.
And apparently I wasn"t the only person who thought so. Marco couldn"t seem to take his gaze off him.
Which was a good thing. Because it gave me the opportunity to slide down the back of the boulder and reach for the sword I"d left at its base.
"I"ll only go to jail if I get caught," Marco was saying. "And I don"t plan on that happening."
"Oh, right," Will said, with a laugh. "What are you going to do, go on the lam? You don"t even have any money. You blew it all on that stupid Corvette of yours. Which I hope you"re not planning on using as a getaway car, by the way. You won"t get any farther than the Bay Bridge before the cops pull you over. They"re already looking for you, after that stunt you pulled back at the school."
I couldn"t see Marco"s expression, since I was busy unwrapping my dad"s sword from the windbreaker. But he sounded as coolly disinterested as ever.
"I"ll just use your car, then," he said. "And whatever cash I dig out of your wallet after you"re dead. Now come on down from there. You"re giving me a crick in the neck."
"You"ve got problems, Marco," Will said, in a preternaturally calm voice. "You need help. Put down the gun and let"s talk about this."
"It"s too late for talking." Marco was starting to lose his cool. His voice had risen, and not just because the thunder overhead was growing even louder and more menacing. "Get down off that rock, Will, or I"ll shoot your girlfriend in the head. What is she doing back there, anyway? Yo! Lily Maid! Get out from behind there. I"m not kidding. I"ll blow a hole through him, I swear."
I scrambled back up to the top of the boulder, dragging my dad"s sword behind me. No one seemed to notice.
"Marco." Will had spread his hands open wide, appealing to Marco"s better nature...if Marco even had one. "Come on. We"re brothers."
"Aw, now, see." There was real disappointment in Marco"s voice. "Why"d you have to go and remind me? I"m just going to have to shoot you now. And I was going to wait and shoot your girlfriend first, and make you watch." And he raised the gun, closing one eye to take aim. "Oh, well."
"Will!" I cried. "Here!"
And when Will glanced my way, I threw the sword to him, hilt-first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
The gun went off, a muted pop in the deeply forested ravine that Will seemed hardly to notice. The bullet whizzed harmlessly past his head, because he"d stooped to catch the sword. Looking down at what I"d pa.s.sed to him, confusion clouded his face.
"A sword?" He held the blade aloft, still staring at it in confusion, as if to ask, How is this supposed to help me?
He had a point. I mean, what good is a sword against a gun?
Except...
Except that when Will"s fingers wrapped around the hilt, something seemed to...change. I couldn"t put my finger on what, exactly.
Maybe because at that moment, everything changed. It was as if someone had hit the autofocus b.u.t.ton on the world.
Because suddenly, everything seemed brighter-sharper-more colorful. The dark shadows beneath the roots of the trees and at the base of the boulders seemed...well, darker.
And the green of the leaves overhead seemed...greener.
The sword in Will"s hand seemed actually to gleam, the rust spots nowhere near as noticeable as they"d been just a second before.
That"s when I saw that the sky overhead had started to clear up. The ma.s.sive black clouds were rolling away, revealing the dusty pinks and soft lavenders of an Indian summer sunset....
So that was why. I mean, why the minute Will"s fingers closed around that sword hilt, everything suddenly seemed so much...brighter.
Although it didn"t quite explain why Will himself seemed taller, his hair glossier and darker than ever. His shoulders seemed broader, his blue eyes brighter. It was as if he were radiating some kind of inner...
Well, Light. There was no other way to put it.
I shook my head. No. That wasn"t possible. It was just that the storm was pa.s.sing. Or my love for him, candy-coating him in my eyes- Except that didn"t explain Marco"s reaction when Will turned to face him again, holding the sword in front of his body as naturally as if he went around holding swords in front of his body every day of the week.
"Put the gun down, Marco," Will said, in a voice that, like everything else around us, was just slightly different than it had been before-deeper and more self-a.s.sured. More-though I didn"t like to admit it-kinglike than ever.
Which is when Marco, his face as white as the tank top he was wearing, fell to one knee, as if his legs had simply given out beneath him.
Or as if he"d suddenly recognized who it was, exactly, he"d been waving a gun in front of.
"N-no," he said from where he knelt.
I had come to stand just behind Will. When Marco finally lifted his head, it was to glare at me with eyes filled not only with malice, as before, but also with something I"d never seen in them before....
Fear.
"You"re not the Lady of Shalott," he breathed.
I shook my head. None of this made any sense. Except that, in a strange way, it sort of did.
"I never said I was," I reminded him.
"I"ll put the sword down when you put the gun down, Marco," Will said, in that same super-authoritative voice. "Then we can talk this over. Like brothers."
"Brothers!" Marco echoed bitterly. Then he jerked the gun-and his gaze-at me again. "Why"d you have to go and give him a sword?" he shouted. "Only one person is supposed to give him a sword. And it"s not you. It can"t be you! That"s impossible!"
Only those in Arthur"s closest circle can put an end to the dark side"s reign.
"Drop the gun, Marco," Will said. "Now-before someone gets hurt."
I saw Marco"s fingers loosen on the gun handle. It was almost as if he couldn"t not do as Will said.
It was working. He was giving up.
Which was when a blue-jeaned streak burst from the thick woods beside him. A second later, Marco was flat on his back at the bottom of the creek bed, Lance Reynolds sprawled on top of him. Lance"s fingers closed over the hand that clutched the gun...but Marco had let go of it before Lance ever hit him.
"The man said drop the-" Lance went to pull the gun from Marco"s hand, and, seeing it lying harmlessly in a nearby clump of brambles, looked flummoxed. "Oh. Well. Good."
A second later, Jennifer delicately picked her way through the underbrush. She looked at Lance and Marco, then up at Will and me.
"Oh, good," she said, her tinkly little voice filled with satisfaction. "We"re in time. See, Lance? I told you they"d be here."
Beside me, Will slowly lowered the sword, staring at it as if he had only just realized it was there.
Then he raised his dazzled gaze to meet mine, and I saw that his chest was rising and falling as if he had just run...
...Well, two miles through a raging nor"easter.