Read Online Gatekeepers by Robert Liparulo - Free Book Online Page B

heavy crash rattled the door as the person inside kicked it.
    â€œXander!” David yelled.
    Xander was already leaning over him to brace his arms against the back of the chair, which in turn pressed against the door. The handle shook, and the door rattled under the impact of another kick.
    While David watched, the shoes appeared to evaporate. They lost their shape and melded with the blackness around them. A feather-light breeze touched his face . . . was gone . . . then blew out from under the door again. In time with the pulsing breeze, the flashlight beam stuttered. It didn’t flick on and off, but seemed to be consumed by the draft. Between flickers, the shoes disappeared.
    David panned the light back and forth along the empty floor, while Xander continued leaning his weight into the door.
    Finally David said, “He’s gone.”
    â€œYou sure?”
    â€œPretty much.” He scooted away and stood.
    The front door creaked open.

CHAPTER
    seventeen
    W EDNESDAY, 1.23 A.M.
    Jim Taksidian stepped out of the locker. The school hallway was dark. The only light came from the moon through the windows. He leaned backward, stretching his spine. He bent, pulled up his right pant leg, and slipped his knife into the sheath strapped there. He straightened and ran his fingers through his long hair, smoothing it and tucking it behind his ears. He turned back to the locker. It looked just like all the others. But of course it wasn’t, just as the house wasn’t like any other house.
    He shut the locker door and touched the little plate riveted to it: 119. Good to know the number, finally.
    He walked around the corner and down the hall. His foot-steps were silent on the tiled floor. His fingers massaged the heavy scar on the back of his right hand. Even after all these years, it still ached: sometimes it merely throbbed in time with his heartbeat, but occasionally it felt like a white-hot wire pressed into his flesh.
    He welcomed the pain. It reminded him of the injury, the last time anyone had spilled his blood. The prince’s guards had fought valiantly. They had nearly killed him, in fact. But in the end, it was they—and the prince—who had paid the ferryman. Taksidian had survived, and he had accidentally discovered the portal that brought him to the house. From assassin to king , he thought, thinking of the fortune he had amassed since then. Not a bad trade.
    He pushed through the double doors at the end of the corridor and turned left. He stopped beside the glass exit doors and punched in the code that would reactivate the school’s security system, giving him thirty seconds to leave. It never stopped amazing him, what people would tell for the right amount of money. Slipping the janitor two hundred bucks had bought him unimpeded access to the school, day or night.
    He pushed through the doors into the central courtyard. The air was crisp, turning his breath into plumes of mist. He gazed up at the half moon, the same one he’d wondered about as a young man, before the rise of the Roman Empire. He strolled across the grass toward the boy waiting for him on a picnic table. The boy was young: not yet a teenager, but close. He had his feet propped on a bicycle, rocking it back and forth.
    â€œWell?” the boy said.
    Taksidian scanned the dark windows of the school, the for-est beyond, and the parking lot. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his black overcoat and withdrew a wad of cash, peeled off a few bills and held them out. His eyes wandered the sky; watching the boy accepting the money was just so . . . crass , like witnessing a dog devour a rabbit.
    â€œHey,” the boy said, “you’re short.”
    Taksidian turned his eyes on him. He stared until all of the boy’s confidence had drained away like blood from a slaughtered pig.
    The boy lowered his eyes. “I mean . . . it’s just . . .”
    Taksidian’s voice was deep and flat. “The closet