Messenger of Fear (Messenger of Fear 1)

“We must go,” Messenger said.

“Go? But aren’t we going to deal with Kayla?”

He shook his head. “She has already been . . . dealt with. This new thing—”

“She hasn’t been dealt with,” I said hotly. “She hasn’t had anything happen to her. You put Liam and Emma through hell for nothing. Okay, not nothing, but they were good people, not a wicked, manipulative bitch like Kayla.”

His answer was sharp and angry. “Be silent, or you will regret your careless words later.”

And then, in the usual Messenger style, we were gone from Samantha Early’s school. Though not from her story.

I would learn more of Samantha and Kayla, much more, and I would cry bitter tears over that final chapter.

15

THE NEXT THING I SAW WAS A CAGE WITH chipped-paint steel bars. That cage was large enough to contain eight long steel tables bolted to the bare concrete floor, a television mounted on one wall, two filthy, open cinderblock-walled bathroom areas. It was also large enough to comfortably hold three dozen men, and was at the moment holding twice that number.

The men ranged in age from their fifties down to their teens. Each was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, though there were variations within narrow limits: Some wore the jumpsuit with sleeves down to cover track marks; others wore the sleeves rolled up to show off tattoos. Some had their zippers down to their navels; others had peeled the top off entirely to let it hang loose; still others were zipped up tight.

It was not difficult to see that the dayroom of the Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez was divided along racial lines. African Americans occupied the closest tables, Latinos took the next group, and white prisoners, many sporting Nazi tattoos, were farthest away and smallest in number.

Food had been served. Bologna on white bread, canned peaches, something that might once have been broccoli. Men ate with plastic forks, their shoulders hunched forward, their heads low over their food. The room was earsplittingly loud from the television, which showed a mixed martial arts match that earned catcalls, groans, and shouts, as well as a more generalized yelling, guffawing, and even, here and there, unimpressive attempts at singing or rapping.

Messenger stepped through the bars. I watched him as he did it, suspecting he would do so, and wanting to observe closely to better understand just how he performed this particular bit of magic. But again, it was as if my eyes were simply not adapted to seeing what was happening before them. The closest I could come to describing it is to say that the bars seemed to avoid Messenger.

He motioned me forward, and though I had by that point walked through more than one solid object, I hesitated. I might be invisible to the inmates, but that was a knowledge that did not reach down with so much certainty that it could easily override my natural caution. Put plainly: the men in there frightened me. It was a mundane, real-world, and thus all the more compelling fear, different from the fear of the supernatural evoked by something like the Game Master.

But when Messenger jerked his head impatiently, I followed, and my fear of the men distracted me so that I scarcely noticed that I was once more suspending the laws of physics and passing through case-hardened steel bars.

Messenger moved on to stand across from a particular young man, an African American, maybe seventeen but maybe fifteen, it was hard to tell. He was tall but not muscular, good-looking without rising to the level of handsome. His most notable feature were his eyes, which were large and luminous, a light brown at odds with his dark skin.

He was afraid. He was shaking. He was chewing the bologna sandwich in a dry mouth, mechanically working his jaws, as two men, one to either side, leaned in far too close, pressing muscular biceps against him. Squeezing him and looking past the boy to wink at each other, to laugh conspiratorially.

“His name is Manolo,” Messenger said.

“He’s too young to be in here.”

“Yes. But even the young are sent here when they are accused of murder.”

I looked at Manolo with new eyes, searching for something to connect with that most terrible of crimes. Murder? He was a scared boy.

“You going to eat them peaches, boy?” one of the thugs asked.

Manolo couldn’t speak—his mouth was full—so he nodded yes and hunched closer around his food.

“Hear that, G? This young man wishes to eat his peaches.”

“Huh.”

The first inmate stuck his hand out to Manolo. “I’m Andrews. What they call you?”

Manolo stared at the hand, then reluctantly shook it. “Manolo.”

“Oh, that is a weak handshake, little brother. That is a limp handshake, Mamomo. Yeah.”

“Manolo.”

“Yeah. Mamomo. That’s what I said.”