The Storm King(96)

“What’d you use?” Nate asked. His tongue felt three times its normal width, and he had to speak slowly. “Kind of rough around the edges.”

“A little bleach, a dash of nail polish remover, and you’ve got yourself the makings of some halfway decent chloroform. Vet school wasn’t a total waste of time, huh? I think I gave you enough to knock out an elephant. You’re lucky you’re not in a coma.”

Nate didn’t feel lucky. He was sure there was a reason why, across from him, Pete pretended to be unconscious. The lights flickered.

“I turned on the generator,” Owen said. “Thing’s worth its weight in gold.”

“How’s Johnny?” Nate didn’t know what Owen had planned for him, but he suspected it was something worth delaying.

“Should be fine. The hospital says he’s in surgery. Rehab’s going to be a bitch, but what can you do? The Empire’s a mess. You ever been in a room with two hundred annoyed tourists? How was the funeral?”

Heartbreaking, unmooring, devastating by every conceivable metric.

“Pretty much what you’d expect.”

“Hmm,” Owen said. He stretched his arm absentmindedly. Muscles from his abs to trapezius to forearm all flexed impressively. He was built more formidably than even Adam Decker had been in his prime. “Should’ve gone. I feel bad about that.” He glanced briefly at Pete before turning back to Nate. “I’m sorry about all this. For what it’s worth, I didn’t see it coming, either. Though, I gotta say, I was surprised how easy it was.” Something was specked across Owen’s chest. White clumps clung to his skin like wet snow. “The Storm King himself. Taken down with a little kitchen sink knockout juice. Only human after all.”



“You’re not going to make me ask, are you?” Nate tilted his head to Pete Corso.

“Oh, jeez.” Owen sat crossed-legged on the floor across from him. Close, but out of range from kicks and head butts. Owen wasn’t taking any chances with Nate, only human or not. “These kids. We were never this bad. First they almost kill me by slicing my brake lines, then last night two of them break in. Caught them right here in the basement. I clocked this guy.” He pointed to Pete. “The girl made it back to the kitchen, but it’s not like I could let her leave.”

“Maura Jeffers.”

“That her name? I’d have asked the kid, but he’s been out cold. Dosed him with the chloroform before I went out to help Johnny. Maybe I gave him too much.”

“You killed her.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to. You know what it’s like when it takes over. The anger. I was so goddamn angry. She was in my house. My own basement! Once she saw everything, she had to go no matter what.”

“Why are you keeping Pete alive?”

“You know his name, too? How’ve you been in town for like, a day, and already know more than me? You’re something else, Nate, I swear.”

“I bet you know lots of things I don’t know, Owen.”

“Anyway, our boy—Pete?—he and his buddies are obviously the ones setting fires and destroying cars and breaking windows all over town. Since I’ve got him here, I want to know everything he knows. What are they after? What do they know? They’re dangerous to us, Nate. All of us. They know what we did back then. And think of all the pain they’re causing. Someone’s got to put a stop to it. You remember the equations of pain?”



No matter how much he wanted to, Nate could never forget that. If that wall in the woman’s basement ensured anything, it was this.

“Somebody’s got to keep them balanced. Just like you always said.”

“We were kids, O. Stupid, selfish kids. We caused more pain than we avenged. We made things worse, not better.”

“You don’t mean that.” Owen frowned at him.

“We should have stuck to video games and girls and keggers in the woods.”

“No.” Owen shook his head. He grabbed a fist of his own hair. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say.” He stood and started pacing back and forth. The ferocious light from the fluorescents exiled every shadow from the room, and in their brightness, Nate noticed something on Owen’s back. His vision was improving, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Smooth shapes rose from the man’s skin as if it were embossed.

“Your back.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” Owen ran a hand over the ridges that bubbled from his flank. He turned so that Nate could see the extent of the scarring. There were dozens of marks carved from his shoulders to his iliac crest. Twin tracks of close two-inch stripes like the gills of a strange fish. “Mom did that. One cut for every week I weighed over three hundred. She was always the worst, but at first even I didn’t think she’d do it. But you always said there’s no way to tell what people are capable of. Dad did nothing, of course. Actually, that’s not true. He helped hold me down. But he paid for it. Mom pays a little more every day.”

“You never told us.”

“Did I have to? We were supposed to be friends. You should have known. You always knew when something happened to Johnny. You’d say, ‘What happened, buddy? And who do we have to punish?’ It was the same with Tom and Lucy. It was like they were a part of you. You knew whenever Tom got a hangnail or Lucy had some girl roll her eyes at her in the locker room. But you never knew with me. You never even asked.”