The Faculty Club

The loa mounts the horse: his mind, your body.

A line of the most brilliant people in the world, waiting to cheat death, over and over… And every year, a line of fresh students, clawing past each other to be initiated. What fools! Victims of the world’s most exclusive faculty club. And I’d been queuing up right along with them, placing my head on the chopping block with a big hopeful smile… But I didn’t make the cut, did I? And that’s when Humpty had said, Tell him the joke. Maybe he’ll thank you. Yes-thank you for not taking my body, my life. (But maybe, just for a second, did I feel a crazy pang: what was so wrong with my body anyway?)

I had to get back to Miles and Sarah.

But then I saw him. Across the street, walking toward me with his head forward. The road was perfectly empty, silent except for that figure cutting a quick path in my direction. I tried to scream, but my throat locked up. I was blowing air. I felt it streaming from my lungs, but no sound came out-just a weak hiss.

I took off ru

At the far end of the street, I saw another figure step out of the shadows and come toward me, at the same fast clip. I cut down a side street that ran between two rows of brownstones, beautiful old homes. I hit a patch of black ice and slid wildly, knocking into some trash cans that broke my fall but slammed my arm and shoulder, stinging like hell. Pure adrenaline was driving me now. Somehow I jumped up and kept ru

I did the only thing I could. Without thinking, ru

It was claustrophobic; lightless except for a thin strip of starry night above me.

Then I saw what was waiting for me at the end of the alley, and I realized they hadn’t been chasing me. They’d been herding me.

Three figures stood at the far end of the alley, blocking the path, not moving, waiting.

Between us was an open manhole. A small wisp of water vapor curled from the black circle. They were closing in behind me. I tried to stop but I was ru

I picked myself up. There was a burning in my leg, but I could walk. At first, all I heard was the trickling of water. I shook from adrenaline and cold. I was standing in a small gentle stream. I watched water an inch deep move in a current over my shoes. Every twenty feet or so, grating slits above me let in faint street light.

In that dim glow, I saw the figure, ten yards away, cloaked and hooded, staring at me.

He was tall. There was a slow heaving in his shoulders, a calm low breathing.

He took a step toward me, then paused.

I couldn’t see his face. He said nothing, made no noise.

He took another step forward.

I willed my legs to move. They wouldn’t.

I want to see his face, a crazy voice inside me offered.

Another step. Deliberate. Methodical.

Move, I hissed to myself.

Nothing. Glue legs. Useless, wet, and dead.

The steps came faster then, the stride long and precise. Each step smacking into the thin stream under our feet.

Move. Move!

Now he was charging me.

Without stopping he reached a hand into his cloak, and it came out a moment later with a metallic ping. When his hand returned to his side, there was a long blade pointing down from it.

I moved.

My legs popped out of their paralysis. I took a few steps backward and then turned and ran like hell.

Every step splashed. The water, the stone, the slits of light, it felt like a tomb, and I wondered if I was a ghost who hadn’t gotten the memo yet. My side was screaming-one of those “stitches” you get in high school gym from switching between walking and ru

I didn’t stop. I pushed through the stitch and it went away. But the hooded man was closer. I don’t know if my legs were giving out or if he was warming up, but I heard his splashing steps faster and nearer. His blade must’ve scratched the wall-I heard a ching! Was he raising it? Was that the sound of the blade up over his head? As I ran, what kept coming into my head was an image of Sarah, standing in that shaft of light at the top of her stairs, her eyes brilliant and hazel brown, almost gold, just after she’d been crying. I wanted to see her again. That’s all I knew. I had to get out of this tu

The brain is an amazing thing. It wants to live. You know that garbage about how we use only ten percent? Well, I think that other ninety is roped off for moments like this. I heard everything, saw everything. I ran past a gutter and saw the water ru

I stopped on a dime and threw myself backward, my hurt leg screaming, aiming low for his ankles. It was a direct hit and he went forward over me, his cloak whipping across my face. It smelled musty. I dove toward the drain, kept my head down, and grabbed the inside and pulled myself through.

I fell into a crawl space, deep in water. There was a ladder, and I took it up. I pulled off a panel and threw it hard down into the shaft, onto the head of the figure who was pulling himself through the gutter below. Light poured out through the opening behind the panel, and I dove into it.

My hand came down on a wall to steady myself, and I felt a searing pain. It was a hot water pipe. I was back in the steam tu

Would it have been too much to ask that the panel-not heavy but not light either-might have stu

In the light, I could finally see him. A pointed hood and scarlet robes. His face hidden behind a crude mask carved out of wood. Pointed bark teeth, like some hungry demon. Rough triangular cheeks. The wood painted stark white, with streaks of orange and purple around the eyes and mouth, like an eighty-year-old whore out for one last john.

The Puppet Man, I thought.

Then ping, and the blade was back at his side, pointing down.

He started the relentless walk toward my execution.

I wanted daylight. I cut right and left, found ladders and took them up, and when I couldn’t find a single damn open door I finally saw a panel like the one Humpty had shown me. I pried it off and dove into a smaller tu