The Storm King(18)

“They didn’t get Tommy,” Nate said.

“Tom, you’d tell us if you secretly spent your free time leading a band of urchins on a terror campaign, wouldn’t you, buddy?”

“They didn’t get Lindsay, either,” Tom said. “If Adam’s on their list, you’d think she’d be there, too.” The people who’d suffered damages were an odd combination of old friends and enemies. “Maybe there are a lot of vandals, but not enough to get all of us at once? Or maybe they don’t want to mess with a cop, or, you know, Lindsay?”

A slow breaking roll of thunder shuddered from the ceiling.

“Sneaky and smart and totally amoral,” Johnny mused as he poured himself more bourbon. “Dangerous combo, huh, Nate? The makings of a real monster, don’t you think?”

Nate ignored the jab, because he’d just realized something that should have occurred to him half an hour ago. If these vandals were taking a page from his old playbook, then they’d wait until the next storm to carry out more destruction. And the next storm was happening right now.



He worked his arms into his jacket as he got up. Whoever was doing this, they’d already attacked Grams twice. Two broken windows—one at the Union and one at the house on Bonaparte Street.

It was just before nine o’clock, and Nate figured the pub would be safely occupied for hours. That left the house. He wasn’t going to let his grandmother suffer anymore because of him.

“I have to get back to Bonaparte Street,” Nate said. He retrieved his umbrella from the floor. “They might come back.”

“Patrols are running all night monitoring wind damage,” Tom said. “I asked them to keep a special eye out around places vandalized last time, and I added Grams’s house to the list.”

“What happened to ‘no evidence,’ Tom?” Johnny asked. His glass was somehow empty again. “How about ‘jumping to conclusions’?”

“I’m the cautious one, remember?”

“What does that make the rest of us?” Johnny asked.

Tom started to edge his way out of the booth. “I’ll drive you to Grams’s,” he told Nate.

“It’s fine, I’ll walk.” It wasn’t far. Besides, if these vandals were anything like Nate and his friends had been, they’d be on their feet, dipping in and out of darkness on the side streets of the battened-down town. If he was with them in the throes of the storm, Nate had a chance of catching them. Then he could find out what they wanted. Then he could find out what they knew.

“Maybe you haven’t been keeping abreast of current events,” Johnny said. “But it’s pouring out.”

Nate turned to him. “Don’t you remember, Johnny?” He flipped up his jacket collar and smiled. “I like the rain.”





FEET SHATTERED THE puddles behind Nate as he and his friends sprinted for the Night Ship’s barricade. Adam Decker and the others were close.

The town children’s altar of green glow sticks gave the scene ahead an infernal quality, as if the barricade marked not only the division between the Strand and the pier, but the border between this world and another. This thought set a hook in Nate’s mind, distracting him enough that he didn’t notice the boy crouched in front of the shrine until he collided with him.

They tumbled over the sidewalk in a tangle of limbs and phosphorescent batons.

Tom yanked Nate back to his feet. With more difficulty, Johnny helped the other boy off the ground. In the unearthly light, Nate recognized the overweight boy they’d earlier seen being assailed by his mother. He wore a catastrophic rendition of a robot costume. His chest piece was a box studded with corks and stray keyboard pieces. His mask might have begun as a brown paper bag, but it had been pulped by the rain. Past its oatmeal clots Nate recognized the pudgy jowls of Owen Liffey, one of their classmates. The big guy got to his feet, ungainly as a newborn elephant.



Behind them, Adam yelled something indecipherable into the wind.

Nate scrambled over the planks of the barricade. He reached back to help Tom, but found Owen in his place. The sound of the seniors’ rage must have spurred the heavy boy to run, and the Night Ship was the only place to go.

Tom and Johnny followed Owen over the barrier, and the four of them sprinted down the long, battered pier.

“They’re not following,” Johnny shouted after a minute.

“Would you?” Tom asked.

They slowed to a jog. They were halfway down the pier. The storm had obscured the moon, and what light the town cast broke across the waves. Nate felt a spike of vertigo as he crossed the lake’s restless surface.

The reality of what they’d just done began to sink in.

Owen had been bringing up the rear. He was as out of shape as he looked. “What’s going on?” he asked, doubling over from the exertion.

“Running for our lives, obviously,” Johnny said.

“And you came here?”

Nate peered back down the taper of the pier. Shadows shifted in the radiance of the glow sticks. Adam and the others were still there, but appeared unwilling to cross the threshold. Nate hadn’t hesitated. Before April, he’d been as afraid and fascinated by the Night Ship as any other kid in town. But now…

“We have to get out of the rain,” he said.