[Janitors 03] Curse of the Broomstaff (22 page)

Spencer went rigid. How did Aryl know he was an Auran? The Rebels had been trying hard to keep it a secret, but this boy pointed it out like it was common knowledge.

Aryl gestured once more at the wall of tires. “Let’s climb.”

The stout boy leapt past Spencer and clutched onto one of the tires. With surprising agility he started the ascent, not even looking back to see if Spencer would follow. But the boy was too intriguing not to follow. He somehow knew that Spencer was an Auran. He seemed to have a lot of information, and he was willing to part with it. But for some reason he wanted to do it hundreds of feet up.

Spencer cast one last glance toward the sounds where the others fought on. He wasn’t really leaving them. He would just find out what Aryl had to say and be right back. Spencer grabbed the first tire and pulled himself upward.

The climb was strenuous and dizzying. After a few moments, Spencer felt the muscles of his arms and legs begin to shake. He didn’t know how Aryl managed, so swift and confident.

About halfway up, Spencer made the mistake of looking down. From such a terrifying height, the moonlit earth seemed to reel.

“Keep up!” Aryl shouted over his shoulder. But Spencer, suddenly aware of the dangerous fall, seemed to freeze. He wanted to climb higher, but his legs and arms locked up. Trying to forget about the unsteadying elevation, Spencer began focusing on his next move.

Above him was an oversized tractor tire with thick, deep treads. It jutted out from the other tires, making an impassible overhang. The only way Spencer could reach Aryl would be to squeeze through the middle of the big tire and pull himself through. The wind howled past him, tousling his hair and causing him to tremble.

Gripping with both hands, Spencer pulled himself up. He was halfway through the huge tire, his head rising through its center like a rabbit emerging from its hole, when the tire suddenly shifted, its weld to the wall straining under the boy’s weight. A shout escaped his lips, and Aryl turned back for him.

Spencer was stuck now, feeling the tire gradually breaking free, ready to plummet the unfathomable distance.

Aryl backtracked, dropping nimbly toward him. He paused above the tractor tire, reaching down for him.

Spencer risked letting go just long enough to reach for Aryl’s gloved hand. But the distance between them was too far, and if Aryl got any closer, his weight would surely detach the unstable tire.

“Don’t you have a mop on your belt?” Aryl called.

Spencer fumbled for the handles. He’d lost one mop against the Thingamajunk, but Penny always stocked the belts with a backup. He drew the weapon from its U clip and extended the handle toward Aryl. Just as he got a solid grip, the tractor tire groaned and broke away. Spencer’s hand slipped from the mop shaft, and he found himself in a heart-stopping free fall atop the tire.

His hands gripped the dirty tread of the tractor tire like it was some kind of life preserver, his eyes clamped shut. Then his fall came to a jarring halt, nearly throwing Spencer from the tire. He thought for sure he had struck the ground until he opened his eyes.

Aryl had used the mop to lasso the falling tractor tire. He struggled to hold on as Spencer dangled from the world’s largest, most deadly tire swing.

He gasped for breath, unable to believe that Aryl had managed to catch him. Then he screamed again, nearly slipping once more as the tire swing began to sway back and forth. Aryl was whiplashing the tire swing from side to side in an attempt to reconnect Spencer with the wall. He was gathering speed, swinging faster and farther with every move Aryl made.

Then, at the peak of his swing, Aryl jerked the handle just as the mop strings retracted. Spencer was flung upward, as though launched from a slingshot. His grip failed and he separated from the tractor tire.

Had anyone else executed the stunt, Spencer might have died. But Aryl’s move was precise and calculated, perfectly landing Spencer at the very top of the tire wall.

Spencer lay back, closing his eyes and trying to get his head on straight. His clothes and hands were now filthy black from the tire tread, and he wondered when he might get the chance to wash himself clean.

“How’s that for a shortcut?” Aryl’s voice startled Spencer, and his eyes snapped open to find the other boy just summiting.

“I thought I was dead.” Spencer was still panting as he sat up.

The height was staggering. Here, above the howling wind and grunting Thingamajunks, the night was almost serene. Rising moonlight touched the land, and Spencer felt as though he could see forever in any direction.

At such a distance, the moonlit Aurans and Rebels battling below looked no bigger than toy action figures. He hated leaving them behind and convinced himself that he wouldn’t stay long with Aryl. Spencer would get the information he needed and get back to help his friends.

Aryl let him linger in the moment, settling down into a tire beside Spencer. The movement seemed to cause the whole tire mountain to sway beneath them, and Spencer reached out to steady himself.

“Well,” Spencer finally said. “We’re up here now. You want to start by telling me who you are?”

“I’m not that different from you, Spencer,” Aryl said. “Yes, I know your name.” He said it before Spencer realized that he’d never introduced himself to Aryl. “And I know a lot more than that.”

Aryl’s gloved hands reached up, and he cast off the deep hood of his cloak. His hair was trimmed short. In the moonlight, it shimmered as white as the driven snow.

“That’s right, Spencer.” Aryl nodded. “I’m an Auran too. But you probably know me by a different name. They call me a Dark Auran.”

S
pencer lurched sideways in an attempt to get to his feet. The tire mountain wobbled, and he suddenly felt dizzy. “Where’re you going to go?” Aryl said. “We’re quite alone up here.”

Spencer scolded himself for being so rash in his decision to follow Aryl without even really knowing who he was. “That’s why you brought me up here? So I’d have no place to run when I found out what you are?”

“Precisely.” Aryl nodded. “I needed a few undisturbed minutes with a captive audience so I could try to set you straight.”

“I don’t understand,” Spencer said. “V told me that the

Dark Aurans were . . . dead.”

“Lie number one,” said Aryl, “since I’m clearly alive.”

“But why would V lie about that?”

“She lies about a lot of things. Where are they leading you?”

“None of your business,” Spencer said. “You’re trying to fool me. Trying to turn me against them. I fell for this with Garth Hadley. I’m not falling for it again. You’re the dark one. The Aurans said your powers made you evil.” Aryl clicked his tongue. “That’s a bit harsh. You haven’t heard my side of the story.”

They stared at each other for a moment. When Aryl didn’t go on, Spencer followed up with another question.

“What did you do?”

“We stole something from the Aurans,” he said.

“Important information that we didn’t think they could be trusted with.”

“So you’re a thief,” Spencer said. “This isn’t helping your cause.”

“When the Aurans found out what we’d done, they took us by surprise and dragged us out into the middle of the landfill. To an ancient place called the Broomstaff,” Aryl said.

“Broomstaff?”

“It’s an Old English word, mostly obsolete now,” said Aryl. “The modern term is
broomstick.
”

“The Aurans took you to a broomstick?” Spencer said.

If Aryl was making this up, he should have thought through it a little better.

“Not just any broomstick. The Broomstaff was built by the Founding Witches long ago. It has more power than the Dark Aurans combined.” Aryl grimaced at an old memory. “The girls led us there, one hundred and ninety-two years ago. They destroyed us.”

“What did they do to you?” Spencer had to know.

“What happened at the Broomstaff?”

Aryl leaned forward. In the moonlight, Spencer saw a glint of metal around the boy’s neck. Aryl tugged at the collar of his cloak to fully expose what was there. A thin sheet of bronze was bent across his shoulders and fused together just beneath his chin. It was rectangular in shape, and when the boy turned, Spencer could see that there was a smooth handle jutting out the back, like a single spike raised along his spine.

At first, Spencer couldn’t make any sense of it. Why did this strange Auran boy have a sheet of metal welded tightly around him? Spencer took a moment to mentally unfold the piece of metal, trying to envision its original shape before it bent around Aryl’s form. Then it clicked. It wasn’t just an ordinary sheet of metal. It was a dustpan!

“They call it the Pan,” Aryl said, his voice soft and intense. Ancient and weathered, the metal around Aryl’s neck bore countless dents and scratches, each seeming to hold some untold story.

“What does the Pan do?” Spencer didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know. Obviously, the girls had lied about a few things. Spencer still hadn’t decided to trust Aryl, but at least the Dark Auran was giving answers.

“The Pan mutes our powers.” Aryl flicked the metal around his neck, and it echoed in the darkness with a resounding ping. “Makes it so we can’t use any of our Dark Auran abilities unless the other Aurans order us to do so.”

“So, the other boys,” Spencer said. “The other Dark Aurans are still alive too?”

“They’re just like me,” Aryl said with a bitter smile.

“Reduced to hapless puppets. We’re no more than slaves to the other Aurans. The Pan makes us do whatever they command, no questions asked.”

Aryl made it sound terrible, and it was. For him. But perhaps it was for the better. If the Dark Aurans really were evil, if they’d really stolen something that didn’t belong to them, then maybe the girl Aurans had done this to keep the boys in control.

“Why don’t you run?” Spencer asked. “Leave this place forever, so the other Aurans can’t find you?”

Aryl grimaced. “Can’t leave. That’s part of the Panning.

We’re trapped here, doomed to wander this landfill forever.”

“And you’ve been like this for . . .”

“One hundred and ninety-two years,” Aryl said without hesitation. “But who’s counting?”

There was one thing Spencer didn’t understand. “Down in the Valley of Tires,” he said. “I think the other Aurans knew you were behind the attack. Why didn’t they just order you to stop the Thingamajunks?”

“The Aurans can only give me orders when they are holding onto the handle of my Pan.” He grinned rakishly.

“I’ve spent one hundred and ninety-two years making it right near impossible for them to reach me.” He leaned closer to Spencer. “They can take away my powers, but I won’t let them use me to do their bidding.”

“What exactly are your powers?” He was tired of hearing people mention such things without knowing what the Dark Aurans were capable of.

“Same as yours, I imagine,” Aryl answered, “since you’re a boy Auran.”

“I don’t really have powers,” Spencer said. “I’m just the basic-package Auran.”

Aryl chuckled. “You just haven’t figured it all out yet.

I could help you. I could teach you all I know and set you down the path that I walked over a hundred years ago.” Spencer drew back at this. What was Aryl’s path? V had said the Dark Aurans had turned corrupt and used their powers for evil. “I’d rather not know,” Spencer finally said.

“Whatever powers you guys had led to that.” He pointed to the Pan around Aryl’s neck. “I’m here for another reason.”

“You still don’t trust me,” Aryl said. “You think I’m evil.”

“You did lead a stampede of wild Thingamajunks into the Valley of Tires with the intent to trample the Aurans,”

Spencer pointed out. “That doesn’t really seem like something a good guy would do.”

Spencer didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but he suddenly noticed that the sounds of battle had ceased from below. Now, only the wind howled through the tires. “I should go back,” Spencer said, peering over the steep edge. “The others will be looking for me.”

Aryl sighed, his shoulders slumping just slightly in de feat. “I wouldn’t take any chances with them.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the Aurans find out who you really are, they won’t be happy,” Aryl said. “They won’t wait for you to discover your powers. By then you would be too strong. If they find out you’re an Auran, they’ll lead you to the Broomstaff, Spencer. And they’ll Pan you.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Spencer said. “They don’t know I’m an Auran and they’re not going to find out.”

“I found out,” Aryl observed.

Spencer looked at him. “How?”

“It’s amazing what kind of evidence was left behind in that garbage truck you drove in on.” Aryl reached into the depths of his cloak and pulled out a spiral-bound notebook.

“I found Walter’s notes. They were quite telling.” Spencer swallowed hard. He wondered what other important information was hidden among Walter’s Glop recipes and sketches.

“Don’t worry,” Aryl said, hiding the notebook away once more. “I took it before the other Aurans had a chance to scour the vehicle.”

“No problem, then,” Spencer said. “The girls don’t know I’m an Auran, and as long as you keep quiet, they’re never going to find out.”

“Unless they already knew before you came here?” Aryl said.

Spencer scoffed nervously. “That’s ridiculous. How would they . . . ?” He trailed off as he thought of a way. “I guess they could have seen me through Walter’s eyes.

Maybe heard us talking about me being an Auran.” Aryl shook his head. “The Aurans are far too cautious to trust what they see through warlock visions. They would have sent someone in person to make sure.”

The doubt that had been nagging Spencer finally expressed itself as a whisper. “Rho.”

“How much can you trust her?” Aryl said.

Spencer sat up like a dog on point as voices drifted up from the valley below. It was the Aurans and his Rebel friends shouting his name.

“They’re looking for you, mate,” Aryl said. “What’s it going to be? Are you going back to the Aurans? Or are you sticking with me so I can teach you about your powers?” He extended a hand.