Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill) Read online

  On top of the table was a large shallow metal box filled with sand, and sitting in the middle of the sand was a fat white pillar candle.

  “Welcome to St. Rhia’s, Tomas,” the man across the table said. “My name is Daniel Bishop.” He held out his hand.

  Tomas took the hand and shook it. Mr. Bishop blinked slowly, then smiled. “Today we’re going to establish the parameters of your pyrokinetic abilities.” His smile got wider. “You’re going to show me what you’ve got.”

  “Yeah, the lady in the other building said you was going to teach me things. I don’t need to learn nothing. I can already burn things up. That’s why I’m here, you know?”

  Mr. Bishop looked amused, as if he’d expected Tomas to say that. “In fact, there’s a great deal you need to learn. You just started Calling Fire—what? A few weeks ago?”

  “About that, yeah.”

  “And you’re fifteen. Your powers are only going to get stronger as you get older. You only think they’re under your control now. They’re not. Soon they’re going to be completely out of control, and somebody is going to get hurt. If you practice now, you’ll have the control you need—later, when it matters.”

  Mr. Bishop sounded serious—more than that, deadly serious. His brown eyes were fixed on Tomas’s face, and the smile was gone. Tomas got the feeling that whatever he said next, it had better not be a lie.

  He thought about the way he’d felt in the bodega when he’d set that gunman on fire. Not at the time—then he’d only been thinking about keeping Rosalita safe. But afterward, when he’d thought about the fact that he’d set someone on fire.

  He thought about the bridal shop. Would he have burned it? What if he’d hurt someone? If he hadn’t burned it, Señor Prestamo would have hurt Mamacita and Rosalita. He wouldn’t have had a choice.

  But—so far—the fire only came when he called it.

  What if—some day—it came whether he called it or not? What if he hurt someone, or even—el dios prohíbe—killed someone by accident?

  “I suppose it don’t hurt nothin’ to see what you got,” he said.

  “Good,” Mr. Bishop said. He sounded relieved, and Tomas had the odd feeling that he’d just passed some kind of test. “Light that,” Mr. Bishop added, nodding toward the candle in the middle of the shallow box of sand.

  This is too easy, Tomas thought to himself. He called up his Fire—

  —and a moment later the candle was a puddle of burning wax in the middle of the box of sand.

  That isn’t fair! Tomas thought in alarm. Three weeks ago he’d lit the kitchen stove without any problems.

  But did you ever try lighting it again after the first day you had your powers? a little voice inside him asked. No. You spent your time burning bigger and bigger things. Getting stronger. Good thing you never tried to light it again after that…

  “I said light it, not blow it to bits,” Mr. Bishop said mildly. The wax soaked sand was burning merrily. “Let’s try again. First, can you put out the fire?”

  “I don’t know,” Tomas said, still staring at the flames in shock. “I never tried.”

  “Well, everyone can’t do everything.” There was a large bag under the table; he pulled out a small fire extinguisher and doused the flames, then set up another candle.

  “Try again.”

  At the end of two hours, Tomas had managed—barely—to keep from completely melting one candle. He’d thought, when he’d come in here, that it was going to be about how big a fire he could light, not how small a one. Now he was just as glad it hadn’t been.

  “That’s a good start,” Mr. Bishop said encouragingly. “I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Tomas said, horrified. Right now he was as exhausted as he’d ever been in his entire life, and all he’d done was stand in front of a table for two hours and try to make very small fires.

  Small controlled fires.

  “Not for as long,” Mr. Bishop said soothingly. “But I think we really need to work on control. And hey, wait until we get to flash-paper. And ice. That’s really going to be fun.” He pulled a garbage bag out of the satchel at his feet and began dumping melted wax and clotted sand into it. When he was done, he handed the bag to Tomas. “Toss this into one of the garbage cans on the way out, will you? And better hurry. You don’t want to be late for lunch.”

  Thursday morning was Tomas’s first day in class, and if not for everything that had happened to him in the last two days—and the fact VeeVee had oh-so-casually mentioned the school held dances in the dining hall every Friday night—he’d be thinking about getting back to the city right now even if he had to walk.

  There were little kids in the same class as him.

  He’d figured school would be just like regular High School back in El Paso; he could sit in the back of the room, blow off the teacher, and skate by. But it wasn’t like that at all.

  For one thing, the class was small. Not thirty or forty kids. Twelve. And they weren’t all his age, either. There were a couple of boys older than he was, a few kids around his own age, but some of them couldn’t be more than ten or eleven—one of the boys looked like he was Rosa’s age. He’d figured he was in the wrong class, until one of the girls his age, Jamilla, told him you got put in classes at St. Rhia’s not because of how old you were, but because of what you knew. That shut him up pretty fast, because no freakin’ way was he as dumb as some ten-year-old. Only the first class of the morning was English—reading and writing—and that had never been his favorite thing. The teacher, Mr. Balinsky, didn’t let him get away with anything, either. Sure, he could sit in the back of the room. But it didn’t help.

  Mr. Balinsky didn’t make any of the assumptions Tomas’s other teachers had, either—like that English was his second language, just to begin with. And he didn’t make fun of him. Every time Tomas started to get confused—or just let his attention wander—Mr. Balinsky was right there pushing him back on track and straightening him out, until Tomas almost started to think it would be easier to actually learn something.

  There was homework—and Tomas already knew from Dottie that getting in extra hours down at the Garage depended on keeping up with his classroom assignments. The only good thing—so far—was that all the school supplies were free, as much as you wanted.

  Algebra class was next. Tomas was relieved to find most of the kids were about his own age there. Well, you couldn’t fix a car without knowing math.

  After that was History and Geography. According to his schedule, it was two mornings a week one week, three mornings a week the other week, alternating with Biology and Chemistry. So today he got a double dose of Mr. Bishop.

  It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, though Tomas saw even less point to History than he did to English. Why learn about a bunch of dead people and some places he was never going to go? But Mr. Bishop talked about them like they were all personal friends of his, so even though Tomas still didn’t like History at the end of the hour—and there was more homework—it didn’t suck as much as it could have.

  After that came another private lesson.

  “How come this place is like this?” Tomas asked, looking around the big echoing room. He was still working with candles—tapers this time. He suspected he was going to get really tired of candles before Mr. Bishop was done with him.

  “You don’t think we built this just for you, do you?” Mr. Bishop said. “All the P-track kids start out here, and believe me, you really want thick walls and a high ceiling when you’re practicing telekinesis or levitation. The soundproofing comes in handy, too, especially when the M-track kids get going, because they use this lab too. And, of course, the fact you can just hose the place down is a real plus.”

  “There’s stuff you’re not tellin’ me,” Tomas accused.

  “There’s a lot I’m not telling you,” Mr. Bishop corrected. “But you haven’t even been here a week yet. You’ll pick up everything you need to know soon enough. Now, are you ready to go
again? Just light the center candle, not all three of them.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know,” Tomas muttered.

  He was really glad to get away at the end of half an hour.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Friday night was the School Dance.

  Dances were held once a week in the Dining Hall, with a combination of live music—provided by the students themselves; there were a couple of different bands here—and dance music from a club-worthy sound system. Nobody had to attend—at first Tomas had thought that this was one of those kind of things where the teachers all stood around and made everybody “socialize’, until Chris set him straight—and nobody was punished by being kept away from it either. You could go or not, and dance or not, just as you liked.

  Tomas was looking forward to it. He was a good dancer and he liked to dance. He figured he had a really good shot at impressing VeeVee with his moves.

  “One thing you gotta remember, Torres,” Chris said to him as they were heading out. “The rules are kind of relaxed on Fridays in the dining hall. So don’t freak.”

  Tomas looked at him, frowning. The two of them were standing in the hallway outside their rooms, getting ready to head over to the dining hall.

  “You know: the rules about not showing off what you’ve got outside the labs,” Chris said. “Well, at the dances, it’s okay to flaunt it a little, so long as everything’s completely under control and nobody’s going to get hurt.”

  “So I’m gonna see what you got tonight?” Tomas asked. Everybody kept telling him everyone here could do freaky things, but so far he hadn’t seen anybody do anything except VeeVee.

  Chris smiled. “Not me. Couldn’t show it to you if I tried. That’s why my folks locked me up in a place like this—only it really was a nuthouse.”

  Tomas stared at him. “They put you away?”

  “Sure they did. They thought I was crazy because I was telling them I could see the future. Well, that got old really fast, so I booked. This place is a lot better. Come on.”

  He turned and walked off down the hall. Tomas hesitated for a moment and then followed him.

  “So… what do they think about you being here?” he asked curiously.

  “They don’t think anything,” Chris said neutrally. “They never knew. They died in a car-crash last year. It was what I was trying to warn them about, but they wouldn’t believe me.”

  The dining hall looked completely different set up for the dance. All the dining tables and benches were stored away, except for the tables along one side of the room that held ice and soft drinks and bottled water, and the row of benches along the other wall to give people a place to sit. The back of the hall had been set up as a performance stage, and the band was already set up and getting into its first set.

  By now Tomas had a nodding acquaintance with half-a-dozen of the guys around his own age in his dorm, but he didn’t really know anybody here. He hadn’t quite made up his mind whether he wanted to or not. Last Sunday night he’d been pretending to sleep on the couch in Mamacita’s living room, waiting until he could sneak out of the house and go off to set a fire for Señor Prestamo. Now it was Friday night, and he was here. And everybody kept acting like being able to make things burst into flames because you pointed at them was normal.

  He glanced around the room, looking for VeeVee, and didn’t spot her. He felt a brief flare of irritation. How was he supposed to impress her if she wasn’t here? He supposed he could get a soda while he was waiting for her to show up, and check out some of the other girls, just to keep in practice. As he skirted the edges of the dance floor—it was already starting to fill up; the band was pretty good—his eye was caught by a flash of pelo rojo—red hair—out on the dance floor. He stopped to look.

  The girl had long red hair, and she wore it loose—the way Tomas liked. Her big gold hoop earrings caught the light as she moved, and from where he was standing, there was absolutely nothing wrong with any part of her. Her tight little T-shirt fit her like it was sprayed-on, and so did her jeans.

  She caught him looking at her, and she smiled at him. Oh yeah, that was definitely one to save for later.

  He made his way over to the drinks. Several of the other boys were gathered around one of the ice-filled buckets. Tomas recognized Johnny Devlin and Kurt Richards.

  Devlin was small and wiry. He read like a banger to Tomas—or at least a wannabe banger; somebody who was used to making trouble. Tomas didn’t think he’d have any trouble taking him if he had too, though. Richards was a different matter. The guy was as big as a house—football-player big—and even his muscles had muscles. They didn’t have any of the same classes, though, so Tomas didn’t know very much about him.

  “Hey, Torres, you want a can a’ pop?” Devlin asked, raising his voice to be heard over the music. Without waiting for an answer, he opened his hand, and suddenly there was a can of soda in it where none had been before. He offered it to Tomas, who took a wary step back.

  Devlin laughed, and Richards plucked the can out of his hand and opened it with a sigh. “Stop playing around, Johnny,” he said mildly. “Tomas hasn’t even been here a week.”

  “Better get used to the place then.” Devlin opened his hand again, and another can appeared in it. He opened this one himself and took a long swallow.

  “Where’d you get that?” Tomas asked. He did his best to keep it frío this time, because guys like Devlin, if they knew they’d rattled you, they never let up.

  “Over there.” Devlin pointed to the far end of the table, several feet away.

  “It’s called “apportation,”“ Richards said, sounding long-suffering. “Teleportation of outside objects.”

  “Yeah, well, why bother when there’s soda right behind you?” Tomas said, pushing past Devlin and grabbing himself a Coke from the bucket on the table right behind him. Richards snickered and Devlin pretended he hadn’t heard.

  “Yeah,” a new voice said. “It’s not like you’re all that special, Johnnyboy.”

  Tomas turned around. A boy who looked maybe a year or so younger than he was stood behind him. He was plump, with long blond hair, and looked like he’d gotten dressed by picking through the Dumpster in back of a Goodwill Store—a plaid flannel shirt open over a stained and faded t-shirt, cargo pants, and work boots. Still, Tomas had already seen that everyone here wore pretty much what they liked, and considering some of the outfits he’d seen in the last two days, he wasn’t going to hold somebody’s clothes against them. Automatically, he moved to make room by the table.

  “Don’t bother,” the new kid said. He reached out his hand, much the way Devlin had, but instead of a can just appearing in it, there was a rustle of ice, and a can floated up out of the bucket, over everybody’s heads, and down into his hand.

  “Kenny Chandler,” he said, popping the top. “Telekinesis. And you’re Tomas Torres, pyrokinetic. That must be really cool.”

  “Yeah,” Tomas said, a little surprised. “It is.”

  It was, he decided. At first he’d just been scared. And then—he realized—he’d been trying not to think about it, just taking one day at a time. But maybe Mr. Bishop was right. Maybe someday he’d be able to stop his fires as well as start them. And at least—as Mr. Bishop also said—they’d be his fires, and not the other way around. “I’d show you, but—”

  “Yeah,” Kenny said, shrugging. “Not here. Maybe someday I can watch you practice, though. Man, you should’a seen me when I started out—Mr. Bishop and me, we were both in full goalie gear—like for hockey, you know?—and we still both got a collection of prime bruises.” Kenny grinned.

  “How long’d it take you to figure things out?” Tomas asked.

  Kenny winced. “Man. Months.”

  Tomas turned his attention back to the dance floor. The hot-looking redhead was still out there, and the floor was starting to fill up now. If he hadn’t been braced for it by Kenny and Devlin, some of the things he saw would have made him think somebody’d found a way to spi
ke the cans of Coke.

  A couple of the dancers were surrounded by of colored lights, like something out of the movies. One or two of the others didn’t quite seem to be touching the floor. And Tomas nearly choked on his Coke when he saw a couple of kids dance up to another pair of dancers… and through them.

  “Half the people out there are illusions,” Kenny said—as quietly as possible under the circumstances. “The M-track kids can tell which ones they are. I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Tomas asked. He knew Mr. Bishop—or Ms. Clifford—or VeeVee, even, would answer questions like these, but for some reason he didn’t want to ask them.

  “I’m psionic but not psychic,” Kenny said. “Telekinesis isn’t like having mental powers. If I was, oh, a telepath like Gordy, or a Sensitive like Aimee, I’d probably have a pretty good idea they weren’t real without touching them. But all the M-track kids can tell.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Between—”

  Just then the music stopped again and everybody applauded and whistled. Tomas looked out over the dancers, trying to decide which ones were real, and which ones were the illusions Kenny said they were. He had a sudden horrified thought. What if the redhead wasn’t real?

  “That girl out there—” he said urgently.

  “Oh, that narrows it down,” Kenny said.

  “The redhead, she real?”

  Kenny looked where Tomas was pointing. “That’s Lalage Chisolm. She’s M-Track. Her parents think this is one of those behavior modification schools for troubled teens.”

  “You know a lot about her.”

  Kenny shrugged. “Everybody knows her. I’m not dumb enough to think I’ve got a chance, you know?”