Doc Harrison and the Masks of Galleon Read online

  “I’ll get some mirage.” Meeka rushes toward the stairs.

  Alina was in her persona well past the four hour mark, and her wreath drained her body. It’s also obvious that she jumped clean—no mirage to extend her search. At this point, I doubt she can absorb the drug in time.

  “She can still hear us,” Tommy says, removing his Marine Corps cap and glancing at me.

  The last time I saw that look was back on Flora, when Val died in his arms.

  I get the shakes as I kneel beside him. “Mrs. Carter? It’s Doc. Come on, you need to come home, please.”

  Alina’s eyes roll back in her head.

  Tommy raises his voice. “Sweetheart, listen to him. You got people here who care for you. We’ll get your girl. But first you come home to us.”

  My father leans over, placing his ear near Alina’s mouth. “I don’t think she’s breathing.”

  Meeka charges into the living room with a small pouch. She takes a pinch of mirage powder between her fingers and pushes it into Alina’s mouth—

  Just as Alina’s persona bursts to life. She’s hunched over, panting, as though she’s just run a marathon. Her green aura sparks and flickers as though it’s short-circuiting.

  “Alina, please,” my father cries. “Save yourself.”

  “Thaddeus, I saw him. He has a message for you.”

  My father looks emphatic. “What message?”

  Alina answers, but it’s not her voice—

  It’s Solomon’s:

  “The Masks of Galleon are back… and there’s nothing you can do to stop us!”

  I turn to my father. “What does that mean?”

  Before he can answer, Alina lifts her voice—and it’s her voice. “Thaddeus? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here! Jump back!”

  “I’m trying,” she says, her eyes widening in fear, her voice breaking up.

  “Come on, you can do it,” Tommy says. “You don’t quit. You fight! You do it for your daughter!”

  “I know! I know!” Alina cries as the tears slide down her cheeks. Her lips twist, and she groans in pain. “I’m trying… I’m trying so hard… I don’t want to give up.”

  “Then you don’t!” my father shouts. He balls his hands into fists. “You jump so hard and so fast… you jump like you’ve never jumped before. Pull back that persona. Just pull as hard as you can!”

  Alina releases another groan, and her persona hunches over, rocked now with more pain. She’s trembling hard, gasping, and then glances at us through teary eyes. “I can’t… I want to… wait, no, I won’t give up…”

  I clutch my chest. I can’t bear this.

  I mean, this is Julie’s mom, the nicest lady I’ve ever met. She never complained no matter how many times I bugged her to make chocolate chip cookies or cut her grass or wash her car so I could be around Julie.

  I was like her own son.

  Just yesterday she threw me a belated sixteenth birthday party with pepperoni pizza and my favorite ice cream cake. The rumms we rescued were all there. It was amazing.

  And now here she is… her aura growing dimmer by the second.

  She takes a long, deep breath and tries to steady her voice: “My name is Alina Centennial Carter. I was the mother of Julie, the daughter of Horace and Maichelle, and the former wife of a maniac who deserves to die.”

  We all lose our breaths.

  Tommy, who has his hand on Alina’s neck, glances up and shakes his head.

  Her body is gone.

  Now, in her persona, she’s making her final speech, her depardis, before her persona vanishes forever...

  My throat tightens. There’s no stopping the tears.

  I wonder how Julie will react when she learns her mother died—and she wasn’t even there.

  Alina continues, “A piece of my essence, my immortal, will live on in the essence of Julie Centennial Carter.”

  I frown. Okay, so Julie’s mom has gathered her strongest feelings and memories and collected them into a piece of herself we call an immortal.

  However, there’s no way for Alina to give her immortal to Julie.

  Unless…

  “Doc, I need you to take my immortal and carry it. You find my daughter. You save her from that thing—whatever he’s become. Then you give her my immortal. Promise me.”

  I look to my father for approval, but he’s already hunched over and sobbing.

  Meeka and Steffanie are crying now, too.

  Tommy squeezes my shoulder and nods.

  I face Alina. “Mrs. Carter, I’ll find Julie. I’ll give her your immortal. No matter what it takes.”

  I bow my head, and with my finger I draw a circle around my heart and then cross it.

  A promise made. A promise to be kept.

  CHAPTER THREE

  With everyone still in shock, I slip over to my father and whisper, “Please, we have to talk.”

  I lead him into the hallway, toward his office. Behind us, Zach Smith, our doctor, hurries into the living room.

  My father shuts the door after us. With a shaky hand he slips off his glasses and wipes his cheeks. “Doc…”

  “Dad, I’m going back.”

  “We both are.”

  “Can you say that again?”

  He swallows. “We’re both going back.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But isn’t it too dangerous and the engine’s damaged and, uh, every other excuse you can think of?”

  He takes a deep breath. “You made a promise.”

  I narrow my gaze. “And that changed your mind?”

  He looks insulted. “That’s not enough?”

  “What about the Masks of Galleon?”

  He snorts. “Don’t worry about them.”

  “What are they?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Really. Then why did you look so scared when I told you about the mask?”

  “I didn’t look scared.”

  “Dad, please…”

  “I was just surprised.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what about them coming back?”

  “They’re not.”

  “Maybe they are. Last night I had a dream that I was on the island with Julie, and all these masks were in the clouds. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

  “Look, I’m not sure why you’re seeing those masks.”

  “Dad, you can’t lie, because I know more than you think.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like when I was at the Palladium, I learned about the First Ones and how they supposedly put life on the four seed worlds: Earth, Flora, Halsparr, and Galleon.”

  “Martha told you?”

  “Yeah, and she said we don’t know much about the other planets, but you were the first Floran on Earth.”

  “I guess I was.”

  “So what about Galleon? Have you been there? And what’s up with the masks? Come on. Talk to me.”

  “Look, what you’ve seen… and what Solomon told Alina… he’s just trying to manipulate us again.”

  “Dad, you suck at lying.”

  He thinks a moment and then lifts his voice, his tone growing angrier. “You want the truth? I’m going back because of Solomon. He keeps trying to ruin our lives.”

  Wow. Mr. Level-headed scientist is having a breakdown.

  His eyes grow even wider. He’s losing his breath. “Doc, we’re going back so I can find him—and kill him.”

  I blink. “All right, cool. Let’s go.”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Not whatever. Your father’s planning to commit murder.”

  “Dad, he’s a psycho. I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “I feel like I’m asking for permission.”

  “You’re not like him, Dad. You’ll never be like him.”

  In my mind’s eye, a shirtless man raises a blood-covered knife. He’s pale and bon
y and covered in more blood as he opens his mouth and screams.

  This is Solomon.

  And he’s just murdered my mother.

  I grind my teeth, close my eyes, and give my father a deep hug. “Thanks for helping me.”

  “It’s okay,” he says, returning the hug. “But you’re wrong about me. I wish you were right, but you’re wrong.”

  I pull away. “What’re you talking about?”

  He’s choked up. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Anyway, you don’t worry about a thing. We won’t leave without a good plan. And we’ll find Julie.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Tommy’s got you squared away now, huh?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “And you know we’re supposed to help him round up all those nomads who ran off.”

  “I thought he was getting help from higher up.”

  “We just had a meeting with my team. It’s still too risky to bring in outside assets. It’s our mess, and we need to clean it up ourselves. Come on.”

  Back in the living room, my father talks to Tommy and Zach while I head into the kitchen. Keane’s there, raiding my refrigerator. He looks at me and tosses his feathery brown hair out of his eyes.

  What the hell?

  He’s wearing a jean jacket, a plaid shirt, and black skinny jeans, along with a pair of Chucks that’re about three sizes too big for his feet. I won’t even get into the fake earring or Wayfarer glasses—

  I’ll just say this whole hipster thing looks way worse on him than on an ordinary hipster. He’s like this giraffe trying to be trendy.

  Of course I don’t have the heart to tell him.

  “How’d you get here?” I ask.

  “I hitched a ride with Zach. Do you have any Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice?”

  “You mean juice?”

  “I’m really upset. I need something or I’ll throw up.”

  “There’s soda.”

  He grabs a can of Mountain Dew and shuts the door. “This is just horrible.”

  I nod and glance off toward the living room.

  They’ve already removed Alina’s body. I’m not sure what happens next.

  “So once again you’re right,” I tell Keane. “There are no Gods, only death.”

  He bites his lip. “I wouldn’t say that now.”

  “Then tell me something that makes this all go away. First I was supposed to tell Julie that her father killed my mother. Now I get to tell her that her own mother’s dead.”

  He curses. “I thought we got away from all this.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Maybe in Julie’s case it’s for the better.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “I’m talking about being there when your parent dies... When the bombs went off, my mom and sister were gone.” He snaps his fingers. “But watching my father get sick and then get weaker and weaker…”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “I used to look at him, and the sicker he got, the more it wasn’t him. I kept wanting to see the man I knew before. I’d close my eyes, and there he was. But then you always have to open your eyes, right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Doc, it just kills you, seeing that. They’re dying, but so are you… so Julie got spared all of that.”

  “I guess so.”

  He nods. “Anyway, Meeka told me everything.”

  “She’s not a Julie fan.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “This is not her fault.”

  He raises his palms. “Whatever. So how many immortals you carrying around now?”

  “Just Hollis and Julie’s mom. My dad has my mother’s. I never asked, but is there a limit?”

  “It depends on the person. I once met a guy who told me he had ten, but no one believed him, so I’m guessing it’s less than that.”

  “You don’t know for sure?”

  “No, I never learned a number, plus I’ve never heard of anyone carrying around like thousands of family members. It’s kind of a personal thing, too. It’s not like people go around bragging about it, except for that guy.”

  “Well, my plan is to carry around as few immortals as possible. I thought about carrying my mother’s again, but I still have some issues with her…”

  Keane nods. He knows the story of how my mother had an affair with Solomon before he murdered her.

  I thought she was an angel.

  She was anything but.

  “So you made a promise to give back an immortal, just like Hollis did,” he reminds me.

  As always, the mention of Hollis’s name makes my eyes burn and takes me straight back to the day he died. We’re in the city park, and he’s standing there in his persona with his gray hair pulled back in a ponytail:

  “My name is Hollis Centennial Rafferty. I was a scientist, a husband, a brother, a son, and a man of two worlds. I’m proud of my life, and I will live on in the essence of Docherty Harrison, a young man who knows who he is, where he came from, and what he must do.”

  Not only did Hollis give me his own immortal, which is usually reserved for close family members, but he kept an important promise.

  When my father was abducted and thought he might die, he gave my mother’s immortal to Hollis, a research partner and good friend. Hollis swore he would protect me and pass on that small piece of my mother—

  But that promise cost him his life.

  And when I think about the vow I just made to Alina, I can’t help but think of him, his courage, his loyalty…

  “Did I say something wrong? Keane asks.

  I rub the corners of my eyes. “No, no. I’m okay.”

  “Okay enough to stay here?”

  “Keane, I’m leaving—not that you care.”

  “So you’re not okay. You’re the one who’s insane.”

  “You know what? I’ll never be okay without Julie.”

  “We barely escaped from the Palladium, got attacked by nomads and despers and mawzz, and none of that bothers you? You’re ready for more?”

  I put a hand over my heart. “You’re worried about me? I’m all emotional now.”

  “Ha, you haven’t changed since the day we met. You can’t even see it.”

  “See what?”

  “Julie left. And then her mother died. It’s really, really sad, but it’s her problem. Let her deal with it. No one forced her to go, right? She doesn’t want to be saved.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I grew up where everything’s dead, so I don’t take life for granted, and neither should you, especially after what we’ve been through.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ve been talking to Meeka.”

  “And now I’m talking to you.”

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  “So this is it? This is what’s trending?”

  “Keane, don’t try to sound cool like that.”

  “I am cool.”

  “Not on this planet.”

  “Hey, guys,” Meeka yells from the living room window. “Something’s going on outside!”

  I race from the kitchen with Keane on my heels. We meet up with Steffanie and Meeka in the foyer, and then charge outside.

  A Honda CRV with bumper stickers saying things like “Save the Earth” and “Support Your Local Artist” sits in front of my house. The license plate reads Washington state.

  Whoa. That’s my mother’s car! I mean stepmother’s.

  I mean Grace’s—(first name because I’m still mad at her).

  Six months ago she quit all of her jobs working as an art and pottery teacher. When I asked why, she said she was going back to Seattle to be closer to her aging parents, plus she needed to “find herself.” And now she’s back?

  She stands on the sidewalk, wearing a flowery dress and old cowboy boots—and there’s something new, a purple streak in her long, silver hair.

  She’s struggling with two men dressed in black military gear and matching ball caps. I’ve never s
een them before. Maybe some new guys working for Tommy? The taller guy’s a muscular version of Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. The shorter one’s a cross between SpongeBob and a lumberjack.

  An overturned box of Dunkin’ Donuts lies at their feet, with donuts spilling across the lawn.

  “Hey, hey, hey, what’re you doing to her?” Meeka shouts.

  The taller guy aims his pistol at us—

  And we all freeze and raise our hands.

  “What the hell is this?” I ask. “Grace?”

  “Oh, it’s Grace now and not mom?”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “I thought I’d surprise you—but they surprised me first.”

  She glances to her left—

  As the taller thug shouts, “Where’s Harrison?”

  “Right here,” I answer, trying to sound like a badass.

  “No, kid. I mean your father.”

  “They’re nomads,” Meeka says. “Solomon’s old team.”

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  She glares at the taller guy. “Because I know this fool. He robbed my caravan.”

  “Wow,” Keane says. “Spoiler alert: we’re all dead.”

  Grace gives me a pleading look. “Docherty? Who are these people? What’s going on?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In the state of Florida you can get a learner’s permit when you turn fifteen. It’s pretty easy:

  You take an online course, pay some money, and show your school ID to the smiling clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles (the second happiest place on Earth). They take your picture, give you a card, and bam, you’re learning how to drive fast and furious.

  Of course my ID is fake. So are my birth certificate and Social Security card. Dad says getting those documents was not easy, even with his government connections. And no, I don’t appreciate the illegal alien jokes. So lame.

  Anyway, a few days after I got my permit, I sweet-talked Julie into letting me drive her Mustang GT around the high school parking lot, which is surrounded by trees.

  It was a Sunday afternoon. No cars.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Hey, I didn’t total the car, but it still wasn’t pretty.

  During one of my turns, I lost control, scraped a tree, and smashed off the side view mirror.

  Julie screamed.

  I imagined her eyes turning yellow like she had turned to the dark side of the force and was ready to kill me with lightning shooting from her fingertips.