Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill) Read online

  Tomas was staring at her as if she’d grown an extra head.

  “Oh, yeah, pachuco,” VeeVee said. “There is serious money involved here. And even more scary: serious brains.” She shrugged and smiled. “Upstairs in the Dining Hall is where we have concerts and dances. And “lights-out” in the dorms doesn’t mean “curfew’, it just means if you’re gonna do something noisy, take it here so everyone else can sleep. There’s a skater park I didn’t show you yet—you don’t skate, do you?”

  He shook his head, looking as if she’d just hit him with something large and heavy. He probably hadn’t looked this stunned when he’d been arrested, VeeVee thought. Considering that had been less than 48 hours ago, Tomas Torres had received a large number of big shocks in a short time.

  “Then you won’t care,” she decided. “What do you do?”

  His mouth opened and shut a couple of times. Finally a strangled “—cars—” came out.

  She facepalmed. “OK, then I got one more thing to show you. It’s a long walk, though.” She grinned, maybe a little cruelly. A barrio boy might not have a good idea of just how long a long walk was. “You better be up for it.”

  Tomas just glared at her. She knew perfectly well he’d never admit weakness to someone like her. She’d known enough Hispanic boys to know the mindset, and Tomas seemed to be about as “old school” as they came. And so she was determined to make him stretch his legs and maybe get a little out of breath.

  “See,” she said, as he puffed a little, determined to keep up and not let her know it was an effort. “Thing is, there’s money here, like I said, but this isn’t like some fancy-schmancy prep school either. I mean, not everybody’s going to college. So you learn how to use your powers, and you learn you aren’t alone, and then if you aren’t going to college, you learn how to make a living. And I mean a living, not starving in a fast-food or mega-mart job.”

  She didn’t say why. If he thought about it, the answer would be obvious. People with powers like his—and hers—faced temptations all the time. And being stuck in a burger-joint, or behind a cash-register—well, when you were trying to figure out how to pay the bills and eat, it made the road Tomas had started down look real attractive.

  Ms. Llewellyn was nothing if not pragmatic. Anyone who left here, if they weren’t college-bound, would be able to buy one of those big screen TVs he’d seen in the Student Union for themselves out of what they could make honestly. And not every kid here at St. Rhia’s was college material. Ria Llewellyn knew this. The point was to train young mages and psi-talents in how to safely master their abilities, not prepare them for a life of crime. And so there was what even VeeVee callously referred to as the “Bonehead Track”—the vocational courses. But, as with everything else here, they were vocational courses with a difference.

  They might call it wood-shop class in the catalog, but it was a full apprenticeship with a professional cabinetmaker. There was an accredited course in home heating and air-conditioning repair and installation—which included, according to Mr. Fred, a section on removing the Portal to Hell from your furnace (VeeVee still wasn’t sure whether this part was tongue-in-cheek or not). There was another in TV and appliance repair, and one on computer repair—and the sections on exorcising the baneful spirits from all three, VeeVee knew from personal experience, were not tongue-in-cheek.

  And there was “Auto Shop.”

  This course was taught by a tiny blonde woman named Dottie Davies, who had been recruited from a place called “Fairgrove Industries.” Fairgrove made race cars, and not just turnkey check-book racers either. Real race cars, of the sort that ran at La Mans and Petite La Mans, and Dottie had been one of the chief mechanics there. Dottie didn’t just teach people how to repair vehicles, she taught them how to rebuild them.

  That was obviously where Tomas was going to end up, because even on only a couple of hours’ acquaintance, Tomas didn’t strike VeeVee as the college-bound type.

  The route Tomas would probably be taking every day was a well-traveled dirt road that wound down through the grounds towards County 6, and St. Rhia’s next-door neighbor.

  A junkyard.

  A very, very special junkyard.

  The “Auto Shop” class took junkers and turned them into working cars, then sold them. Every student in the class had their hours logged, and the proceeds from the sales of the cars were distributed in the form of credit on the basis of hours logged. The credit went towards “buying” your own junker, and the parts, so you could build yourself a set of wheels of your very own.

  VeeVee led Tomas up to the high chain-link fence that surrounded the yard. They walked along it until they came to the gate—unlocked and open at this time of day—and then walked through. She’d watched his eyes when he saw the big new industrial garage and the old, the very old, junkyard with its 1920s Art Deco garage and former gas station, and she grabbed him by the elbow before he could start wandering off down the seemingly endless rows of lovingly parked junkers. He barely noticed.

  Towing him mercilessly in her wake, VeeVee hauled him in through the side door of the industrial garage. As she expected at this hour, class was in session, and the place was awash with sound—tools on metal, banging, the roar of a welding-torch, and over it all, the blare of rap music.

  Five sets of eyes turned in their direction.

  The owner of one of those sets of eyes turned off her torch and slapped the mute button for the shop-wide stereo system.

  “Folks, this is a new student, Tomas Torres, and he’s a Firestarter.” As Tomas goggled at VeeVee’s bald statement, she turned back to him. “Tomas, this is auto-shop class. And that—” she pointed to the person peeling off her welding helmet, a graying blonde no taller than VeeVee was, “—is the instructor. Dottie Davies.”

  “She’s a girl?” Tomas blurted.

  “You could say that, if you didn’t want to get to be much older than you are now,” Dottie said. “Know anything about cars, homeboy?”

  “Uh—” Tomas goggled at Dottie, who briskly shoved him towards a bench with a gloved hand.

  “There. Carburetor rebuild, ‘57 Chevy, should be a piece of cake. Show me what you can do.”

  Tomas still had that cartoon-stunned look on his face, but it didn’t affect his abilities. His hands moved surely among the parts and the tools in a way that looked as arcane as anything VeeVee could do. Dottie watched silently over his shoulder, saying nothing, eyes thoughtful. After a moment, Aaron Clark and Brian Walker—the latter a drawling tow-headed backwoods kid from Appalachia, the former a square-built black boy from Atlanta—sidled over to watch too.

  After about fifteen minutes, Dottie put a hand on Tomas’s shoulder, making him jump. “That’ll do, homie. You’re in.” She grinned, and slapped his back hard enough to make him stagger a little. “Tell Ms Clifford. For the next three years or so, your ass is mine. Now, you finish that rebuild while these two knuckleheads watch.” She gave the other two a sidelong, amused look. “On the whole, boys, you’ll discover knowing what you’re doing rather than trying to intuit stuff from the way the parts are shaped tends to work better.”

  “Well, what do you think?” VeeVee said.

  Auto Shop class was over—she didn’t think she could have pried Tomas out of the garage with heavy machinery, and so she hadn’t tried—and the students were cleaning up, putting away their tools and getting ready for dinner. “Think you’re going to like it here?”

  He’d been smiling and easy with the other bolt-heads, but now she saw him hesitate, and visibly remind himself he wasn’t supposed to want to be here.

  “It’s still a prison, rubia,” he said.

  “Fine,” she said. “Come on and have dinner, then.”

  The next morning, Tomas went to see Ms. Clifford.

  He wasn’t looking forward to it at all. Que linda rubia had told him Sarah Clifford was the school Guidance Councilor, who would set up his class schedule. What he knew for sure was that he wanted to spend every minu
te down at the garage and no time anywhere else. Dottie Davies might be a crazy smack-talking old lady, but Tomas liked her already, and she spoke his language. Cars.

  Ms. Clifford was another matter. He’d met her kind before, back in El Paso. Social Workers who didn’t have a clue, who figured any problems you had were all your own fault. She take one look at him and probably tell him he’d have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get what he wanted, because that was what her kind always did.

  But that wasn’t what happened at all.

  He’d been supposed to go to her office right after breakfast. He’d deliberately made sure to arrive fifteen minutes late.

  She hadn’t been angry. She’d been reading a book when he came in, and she just waved toward a chair. “Tomas. It’s good to see you. My name is Sarah Clifford.”

  “Yeah,” he said rudely, flopping into a chair and putting his feet up on the cushions. “I know.”

  At that point he’d expected a lecture on manners—and to be told to put his feet on the floor—but Ms. Sarah Clifford just smiled. “Good. Now. You’re going to be with us for the next three years—as you already know. I’ve got your transcripts from El Paso, so I’ve got a pretty good idea of where you need to go academically.”

  Tomas slouched even further down in his seat. “I don’t need to go to school.”

  Ms. Clifford actually looked sympathetic, which he was sure was a complete act.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to at least need a High School Diploma, or a GED—that’s a General Equivalency Diploma, which means you’ve passed a test that means you know everything you would have learned in High School. You’ll need one or the other in order to get your mechanic’s license, which involves passing the mechanic’s course we offer here and getting both a regular drivers’ license and your Class III driver’s license as well. And it’s a condition of your probation, so we can’t really skate on that.”

  Tomas sneered. This was going about the way he’d expected. They were going to promise him that if he behaved he’d be let to go back down to the garage someday.

  But Ms. Clifford’s next words took the wind right out of his sails.

  “Now, Dottie’s already talked to me about putting you in Auto Shop, so we’ll be scheduling your other classes around that. And VeeVee’s explained to you that we train Gifts and Talents here, so you’ll also be working with Daniel Bishop. Mr. Bishop trains our psionic students.”

  Tomas blinked. “I can start at the garage now?” he said suspiciously.

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Ms. Clifford said, smiling. “Auto Shop meets from one-thirty to four down at the junkyard during the week, and you can work out additional time with Señora Davies, but that’s up to the two of you.”

  “Why?” he said bluntly.

  “Because that’s what you want to do,” Ms. Clifford said. “And Dottie says you’re good with cars.”

  Tomas shook his head, baffled. “Why do you care what I want?” he blurted.

  Ms. Clifford leaned forward. “It’s easier that way,” she said confidentially. “I know you don’t want to be here, Tomas, but the reason you’re here is because you can do something few people can. And with an ability like that, it just makes sense we should try to work with you and not against you.”

  “So because I can start fires, I get what I want?” Tomas said belligerently.

  “No,” Ms. Clifford said firmly. “The purpose of this school is to teach you about your Talent and prepare you to live with it for the rest of your life. So why shouldn’t you spend your life doing something you like?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Tomas said stubbornly.

  “It will,” Ms. Clifford promised. “Okay. In addition to the academic courses and the vocational courses, you’ll be taking P-track courses. “P” stands for “Psionic.” Your instructor will be Daniel Bishop. Mr. Bishop also teaches History, so you’ll be seeing a lot of him. When we’re done here, you need to go down to the P-lab and see him.”

  “He start fires, too?”

  Ms. Clifford shook her head, smiling. “You’re our first Firestarter.”

  Tomas frowned. “No, I saw that—VeeVee, she set herself on fire yesterday.”

  “Yes, she did,” Ms. Clifford said calmly. “But VeeVee is a Witch, not a pyrokinetic. Her powers come from magic. You were born with yours.”

  “Is everybody here crazy?” Tomas asked desperately. “Witches, and—There ain’t no such things as Witches, mujer!”

  “St. Rhiannon’s is a school for young people with abilities that others don’t have. Sometimes those abilities come from magic. Sometimes they come from the powers of the mind: psionics. Often they look very much alike, but they need to be trained differently.”

  “I still think you’re all crazy,” Tomas muttered.

  “Well, I can’t help that,” Ms. Clifford said calmly. She didn’t seem to be particularly upset about it, or even offended. “I know this is a lot to take in all at once. Most people live out their entire lives without ever finding out about these other kinds of people—much less discovering they’re one of these people themselves.”

  Tomas thought about it. He’d like to be mad at Ms. Clifford, but somehow she wasn’t giving him anything to be mad at. Okay, going to classes sucked, but he was going to get to spend hours every day down at the garage. And—

  “What’s this Bishop culo going to do with me?”

  “Well, today he wants to find out about your abilities, and what you can already do with them. Then he’s going to teach you how to do what you do… better.”

  Better, huh? That sounded interesting, Tomas thought warily. “Okay. I guess we’re done here,” he said.

  “All right then. If you have any problems that need fixing, you can tell VeeVee, or you can tell me. We can probably work something out.”

  “You think so, eh?” Tomas said, getting to his feet.

  “My job is to solve problems, Tomas. Usually I can,” Ms. Clifford said. “Here’s your class schedule. If you don’t know where all the rooms are, just ask anyone. Chris Shackleford is your Residential Assistant—you’ve already met him, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’d met Shackleford last night—a freaky Goth kid; he even wore makeup—but he’d been helpful without being pushy, getting Tomas’s new computer set up and running without any fuss.

  “You can ask him about anything you need to get your room set up, and he or VeeVee can show you where the storage rooms are. You can probably get it painted over the weekend.”

  “Yeah. Thanks,” Tomas said reluctantly. He took the sheet of paper, folded it over several times, and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans without looking at it.

  “It was nice to meet you,” Ms. Clifford said.

  Tomas had the weird feeling she actually meant it.

  When he walked out of the building, VeeVee was waiting for him.

  “What are you doing here?” Tomas snapped. He felt a little irritated, as if she was checking up on him. And partly, he’d been all set to get into some kind of fight with Ms. Clifford, and it just hadn’t happened, and he still wasn’t sure why.

  VeeVee had been smiling until he spoke. Now she frowned, her eyes flashing dangerously, and Tomas kicked himself mentally. If there was one person in this whole place he wanted to get on his side—well, besides Dottie Davies—it was VeeVee. And now he’d gotten her mad at him.

  “Oh, waiting for you, of course! Because you can’t be let out alone without a keeper!” she huffed right back. “Excuse me for thinking you might not be able to find the P-lab by yourself on your first real day here!” She turned away, blonde ponytail swinging.

  “Aw, chica, don’t be like that,” Tomas said. “I was just… Hey, I know what. After I get done with this psychic guy, maybe you’d like to help me pick out some colors for my room, hey?”

  ““Psionic,” not “psychic,”“ VeeVee said. “And I’ll be in class this afternoon—and you’ll probably be down at the garage—but
after dinner, sure.”

  “So it’s a date?” Tomas said eagerly.

  “No,” VeeVee said. “But I’ll help you choose paint colors.”

  “Here you go,” VeeVee said, stopping at the door of yet another of the red brick bunker buildings. “Good luck,” she added mysteriously.

  Tomas regarded the building as VeeVee walked off. It looked just like all of the dorm buildings, with one exception: all of the ground-floor windows had been bricked up, and the regular metal door with the glass pane had been replaced with a new solid metal door. Oh, he thought to himself, this don’t look good.

  But he wasn’t a coward. He opened the door and went inside.

  Extensive renovations had been done inside the building as well. It was now one giant room—there was no second floor any more—with very thick walls. The second-floor windows were barred inside as well as out, and Tomas could see that the walls were at least three feet thick. The walls were unpainted cinderblock, and the floor was a solid slab of new concrete.

  “Nothing in here to burn at all, so we’re perfectly safe,” a cheerful voice said. “Come on in. Oh, and bolt the door behind you, please.”

  In the center of the room—several yards away—stood a large grey metal table, and behind the table was—Tomas guessed—Mr. Bishop.

  He didn’t look like a scary guy. Young, Anglo, wearing a polo shirt and sneakers and jeans. He looked like all of the stupid smug rich white guys Tomas had seen by the dozens on the infrequent occasions that he’d ventured downtown back in New York, except that they’d always looked at him as if they were either scared of him or mad at him—like his dark skin and do-rag meant he wasn’t entitled to breathe the same air as them. This Bishop guy looked at Tomas as if the two of them were just the same, and Tomas wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.

  The door swung shut behind Tomas with a bank-vault clang. He looked around and found the bolt Mr. Bishop was talking about—an actual metal bar, designed to drop into brackets in the door and the frame. When it was in place, nobody would be able to open the door from the outside, though all anyone would have to do to get out would be to lift the bolt free. That reassured him a little. He dropped it into its brackets and walked over to the table.