The Shadow Arts by Damien Love

Author:Damien Love [Love, Damien]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2020-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

XXIII.

DEAD MAN TALKING

The drizzle became a mist over the country. Alex’s grandfather kept up a largely meaningless conversation with Harry, mostly, Alex suspected, just to get the dead man’s mind working. Harry was still having trouble with his memory.

Alex let them talk, more focused on scanning the roads around them using the wavering overhead images coming to him from his flier. They seemed safe, so far.

He hated lying, but he was sure his grandfather was wrong. The old man had said as much, more than once—his thinking wasn’t clear. There was something wrong with him, Alex was increasingly sure. With his grandfather’s concentration waning, and with Harry . . . being in whatever state Harry was in, Alex had taken the decision, to protect them all.

With his flier, he could watch for anyone following, anything waiting around the bend. It was eating up his energy, but the more he used the machine, the more he understood how to control it. It could prove useful in whatever lay ahead. Then, once it was all over, once he was out of this deranged dream life, he would give it up and get rid of it.

He would.

Before long, in his high mental view, he spotted the hotel, the busier roads beyond. Arriving at a crossroads, his grandfather hesitated over the way to go.

“It’s left, I think,” Alex said.

“Think you’re right, Alex.”

In the small lobby, the old man and Harry called a car rental company, then gave the hotel’s bemused owner details about where to find the wrecked Citröen, and instructions for having a local garage transport it to Albert in Paris, along with extra cash not to ask questions.

Alex’s grandfather slapped his hands in satisfaction. “So: car’s on its way, they’ll fix us an early lunch, and lunch’ll do us good.”

The small dining room felt more like someone’s home than a hotel. They took a table by large windows that framed a panoramic view across the valley, the world vibrating in shades of green beneath bulging clouds so dark they were almost blue.

Look out your window. Alex sat thinking about Kenzie’s last message, still not understanding it at all.

It was barely nine in the morning. The place was almost empty, just one other couple finishing breakfast in the corner. “I propose,” Alex’s grandfather said happily, examining the menu, “we make the most of this. Nice big lunch. I’m hungry, and we need the energy. Now, this trout sounds rather delicious, eh?”

Alex tried to relax. The coast seemed clear, anyway. He had the flier perched on the hotel roof and flicked his mind across the bridge into it every few minutes, turning it on and off. After a while, he realized that, with a slight increase of effort, he could keep a small part of his consciousness active in the machine without having to focus entirely upon it: a kind of standby mode, like keeping a finger tapping. He recalled something his grandfather had said, about sectioning off the mind. This must have been what he’d meant.

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