Cyrus imitated her on the other side, his arm crossing Diana’s on Nolan’s back. She didn’t seem to notice the oozing burns and tarring blood, or care that she was pressing up against it.
“Grab his belt and lift,” she said.
Antigone jumped around front and drove herself like a wedge into the crowd, pushing, shoving, shouldering a path into existence. People began to move before her elbows reached them. Cyrus, Diana, and Nolan followed.
“Nice, Tigs,” Cyrus grunted.
“What’s the fastest way to the hospital?” Antigone asked.
“Not hospital,” Nolan mumbled.
When they reached the bottom of the main stairs, Diana shrugged Nolan off, hooked him onto Antigone, and wiped her wet face on her arm. “The fastest way is to find some nurses. Get him up the steps and wait there.”
She skipped quickly up the stairs and disappeared. Cyrus watched her run. Antigone watched Cyrus watch.
“Come on, Cy.” The two of them lumbered forward. “Don’t forget that you’re not even thirteen. She’s sixteen.”
“What?” Cyrus asked. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Suddenly, Nolan tore himself free and fell onto the stairs. Cyrus and Antigone dropped beside him.
His eyes fluttered open and found Cyrus’s. “Used the keys. I know Phoenix”—he swallowed, writhing—“stole the cloak. His coat. Phoenix’s coat.”
Nolan’s nostrils were flaring, and the veins on his neck flickered above his burnt chest. His eyes sharpened with desperate pain. “The tooth. Like Maxi. Kill me.”
“Nolan, stop it!” Antigone yelled. She leaned over him, holding his face. Nolan began to cry.
“Nikales,” he sobbed. “The thief.” Spreading his arms and legs, he leaned back, gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes.
Diana Boone and two nurses crested the stairs.
Daniel Smith opened his eyes. He didn’t recognize the room. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. He didn’t know if he had been asleep.
He sat up.
Two metallic rods slid out of his nose. Curly cords rattled as he moved. They were taped all over him. He tugged thin receptors out from beneath his fingernails. He reached for his eyelids and peeled off four small pieces of tape. Tiny shaved patches dotted his scalp — each with its own coiling cord dangling down through a grid in the low ceiling. Wincing, he ripped them off in fistfuls.
Working slowly down his body, he freed himself. And then he stood.
He was a lot taller. His arms were longer, and his legs were thicker. His heart was beating slowly. Very slowly. And his eyes — he could see the fibers in the threads in the window curtain as he pulled it back. The sun, low above the water, seemed larger, and its aura clear.
Something, someone was pulling at him from somewhere. He was supposed to leave the room.
Dan turned and walked around his bed to the doorway. His hand twisted the knob and his ears caught the smooth, oily click and slide of the hidden metal tongue.
The hallway was long and the floor was as green as a horsefly’s eyes, tiled with thin rectangular pieces in a herringbone pattern.
Someone needed to be seen.
Dan walked down the hall. He chose a door, and he entered. Dr. Phoenix looked up from behind an enormous desk. Half of his mouth smiled.
“Daniel Smith,” said Phoenix. “Well, don’t you look splendid. And our relationship is beginning to find its proper footing.” His smile grew. “You came when called.” He pushed his thin body up from his chair. His lab coat was as dingy as ever. Beneath it, he was back in his white suit. “You do feel well, I hope? You’re so much improved already. Not all that you will soon be, mind you, but it is a start.”
Something tripped in Daniel’s cotton-candy mind. Anger bubbled up in his chest and overflowed, roaring through him. A white marble bust of a bald man with a large beard rested on a wooden pedestal beside the door. Daniel’s right hand found the back of its stone neck. He lifted it easily, and he threw it.
The bust spun through the air. Dr. Phoenix slipped to one side, and the heavy head crashed onto his desk.
Wood splintered. Papers flew, and glass vials shattered. The head bounced to the floor without its beard, cracked tiles, and split in half.
Breathing evenly, Daniel stared into Dr. Phoenix’s pale, dilating eyes.
“Where’s my mother?”
Dr. Phoenix eyed the rubble on the floor, and another small smile creased his face. “A certain amount of aggression is to be expected after even minor animalian modification, but I must say, you’ve been rather unkind to poor Mr. Darwin, don’t you think? Do please remember that I am your friend.”
“I could kill you right now,” Daniel said. His voice was cold and even. Somewhere deep inside himself, he was surprised. “Take me to her.”
“No, sir, and no, sir,” said Dr. Phoenix. His smile vanished. “You could not kill me, and I will not take you to her.” He looked Daniel up and down.
Clarity wavered. Something was changing.
The white-coated doctor eased back into his chair, and then pointed a long finger across his damaged desk to a chair on the other side.
“Mr. Daniel Smith,” he said. “Such a short time, and I have already made you magnificent. Imagine what I could do in a year.” He sighed. “Look at those legs of yours — thighs swollen with strength, calves of a kangaroo. Envy overwhelms me, my friend. Please, do sit down.”
Daniel stepped behind the chair. He didn’t sit. He was struggling to find his mind. His normal mind. The mind he had been using for twenty years. It was angry, but his anger was … useless, erased, buried deep with unremembered dreams, taped in a cardboard box and forgotten. He shut his eyes, chasing the feeling, not wanting the rage to leave him. Why? Why should he want anger? He didn’t. Not anymore.
“Sit,” Dr. Phoenix said again.
Daniel sat.
The doctor grinned, picking thoughtfully at the gap in his teeth. “People repress themselves,” he said. “They repress their strengths, their potential, their dreams. They close doors. I hate closed doors, Daniel. I open doors. I am an opener of doors, a realizer of potentials, a philanthropianist of human obtainments, a composer of goodnesses and judgments.” He paused. “And I am your friend. Are you mine? I have given you new strengths, Daniel Smith. Will you use them for me? Will you fight for your friend?”
Daniel blinked. The man wasn’t making sense.
“Yes, I am,” said Phoenix.
Yes, he is, thought Daniel. Now I understand. His mind suddenly focused. His image of the thin man in the coat grew bright, as sharp and crisp as ice crystals after fog. He saw intellect. Sacrifice. Love.
“Good,” said Phoenix. “Indeed, I am all of those things.” He smoothed the lapels of his coat. “But every god has a devil. Anger me, disobey me, betray the gifts of my friendship, and you will meet with a storm of wrath greater than any sea can hurl up at the cliffs. In anger, the Phoenix burns. I am Dr. Phoenix. I can become Mr. Ashes.”
He leaned forward, his pale eyes bright. “Soon there will be a funeral with very few guests and very many boxes. You will help me to fill them. Ashes for Mr. Ashes, and then the Phoenix will rise. Our real work will begin.”
No part of Daniel Smith’s mind was listening. Phoenix had mentioned the sea. And cliffs. And anger. Insuppressible memories welled up. Cold, pounding waves. His father’s boat chewed and swallowed by distant rocks. His mother’s unconscious body—
Dr. Phoenix ground his teeth. “Daniel Smith,” he said. “Where have you gone? Leave her. She will never wake up. Come back to me.”
Daniel blinked. He was staring at the strange man who had taunted him and threatened him and climbed inside his head. The man who had kidnapped his mother.