The Copper Gauntlet

Havoc padded behind them quietly. His pale eyes kept turning back toward the house and his tongue lolled as though he was hungry.

The others seemed to feel the same sense of foreboding. Tamara looked around with a shiver and summoned up a small ball of fire. It danced along the path to the barn in front of them, lighting up scattered license plates, tires, and cans full of bolts.

Call was glad when they reached the barn, with its red-painted door secured by a huge metal bar. Up close, it was easy to see that the metal had been oiled recently. Aaron set to work lifting aside the bar and sliding the door open.

The old post-and-beam barn was a familiar place to Call. It was where the good cars rested, each under oilskin tarps. It was where he and his dad had spent most of their time when they came down here. Call would bring a stack of books or his Game Boy and sit up in the loft while his father tinkered below.

They were good memories, but right then they felt as hollow as the skeletal landscape of cars outside.

“Upstairs,” he said, and started toward the ladder. He put his foot on the lower rung and almost collapsed as a jolt of pain shot up his leg. He bit down on the noise he wanted to make but caught Aaron’s sympathetic look anyway. He didn’t glance over at Jasper, just reached to pull himself up with his hands, keeping the weight off his leg as much as he could. The others followed.

It was dark in the hayloft and Call blinked around for a moment, blind until Tamara appeared with her ball of fire dancing just over her head like a lightbulb in a cartoon. The other two followed, spreading out in the narrow room. There wasn’t much to it — a desk, a camp stove, and two narrow beds with blankets folded at the bottoms. Everything was incredibly neat, and if Mrs. Tisdale hadn’t told them, Call wouldn’t have guessed that Alastair had been there recently at all.

Jasper flopped down on one of the beds. “Are we going to eat? You know, it’s got to be breaking some law to take me captive and not feed me.”

Tamara sighed, then looked over at Call hopefully. “There’s a stove. Is there any food?”

“Yeah, some. Mostly canned stuff.” Call reached under his dad’s bed for the baskets he kept there. Cans of Chef Boyardee Ravioli, bottles of water, beef jerky, a utility knife, forks, and two large Hershey’s bars.

Call sat on one of the beds with Tamara while Jasper glared from the other one. Aaron efficiently opened several of the cans of ravioli and heated them over the camp stove — kindled with magic — while Tamara spread out a map of the surrounding area she’d found among Alastair’s things and glared at it with her nose wrinkled up thoughtfully.

“Can you read that?” Call asked, peering over her shoulder. He reached for the map. “I think that’s a road.”

She swatted at his hand. “It’s not a road, it’s a river.”

“Actually, it’s a highway,” said Jasper. “Give me that.” He held his hand out. Tamara hesitated.

“Where are you trying to go, anyway?” Jasper asked.

“We were trying to get here,” said Call. “But now, I don’t know.”

“Well, if your dad isn’t here, he must have gone somewhere,” said Aaron, bringing over the heated cans of ravioli. They took them gingerly, wrapping cloth around their hands so as not to get burned. Call passed around forks and they started to eat.

Jasper made a face at the first bite, but then he started shoveling pasta into his mouth.

“Maybe we can get Mrs. Tisdale to tell us something,” Call said, but a cold feeling was settling into his stomach. Alastair was clearly on the run, but where would he go? He didn’t have close friends that Call knew of or any other secret hiding places.