Fenzy by Robert Liparulo Page A

David turned to gape at the hole in the windshield, which had broken into tiny squares that had somehow stayed together.
    “Well,” Keal said, “if the dagger got pulled back, then it wasn’t away from the house long enough to reset the pull. That’s good to know.”
    “Why?” David said.
    “Because when Phemus or Taksidian goes away, we know he won’t be back for a while. And another thing . . . “ He smiled. “There’s no way Phemus is still in the house.” He marched toward the front door. “Come on.”
    Xander looked at David, then at the hole in the windshield. He said, “This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

CHAPTER

twenty-three

    F RIDAY , 3:30 P. M .
    David sat sideways on the closed lid of the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. He had his arm propped up on the counter beside the sink, and Keal was carefully unwrapping the Ace bandage Dad had wrapped around the disintegrating cast the other day.
    “Ow,” he groaned.
    “Sorry,” Keal said. “You said you think you broke it again?”
    “Yeah,” David said. “When I was sliding down a hill in the Alps. I shoved it into the snow.”
    “What’d you do that for?”
    “To keep from going over a cliff.”
    Keal grimaced and nodded.
    David smiled a little. Only in this house, only after all the crazy things they’ve done, could his explanation not have sounded completely insane.
    Keal poked at the arm while watching David’s expression. “I’m afraid you’re right,” he said. “You did break it again.”
    “You’re a nurse,” David said. “Can’t you fix it?”
    “I can’t reset it. Need a hospital for that. And a new cast.”
    David shook his head. “Last time we saw a doctor, he accused Dad of hurting us.”
    “Because of a broken arm?”
    “Dad thinks Taksidian got to him,” David said, feeling the heat of anger radiate in his chest. “He’d do anything to get us out of the house.”
    “David,” Keal said, pushing his finger into a hole that went straight through the cast. “What’s this?”
    “That’s from a Carthaginian soldier’s pike. He tried to impale me,” David said. “But that didn’t hurt. What hurt are all the times I hit it against trees and the ground and walls and doors.”
    “That’ll do it,” Keal said. “Fresh breaks are easy to re-break or knock out of alignment.”
    David winced at a bolt of pain that felt like wire running up the center of his arm. He fought the urge to pull his arm away. He was trembling all over, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. A tear rolled down his cheek.
    Keal gave him a sad look. “Those painkillers I gave you should have kicked in by now.”
    “Maybe I didn’t take enough,” David said.
    “I can’t give you any more.”
    “That’s okay,” David said. “I’ll be all right after you stop messing with it.” And take a long, hot bath , he thought. Followed by, oh, eighteen hours of sleep .
    “This doesn’t look good,” Keal said. “You have to find a way to stop banging it, whether we get it reset and recast or not.” He stopped unraveling the bandage and looked at David, a mixture of puzzlement and concern creasing his brow. His frown was deep, and all David could do was frown back. Then Keal’s face softened, and his lips bent up at the corners. Soon, he was showing David a full set of teeth.
    David got it: the craziness of it all. The dozen wounds he’d suffered and how he’d suffered them. No, no— when and where he’d suffered them. The Alps during Hannibal’s march over them. A Civil War battlefield. A French village during World War II . . . the list went on and on. Before he realized it, he was smiling too. And laughing.
    Keal added his booming laughter. Their voices bounced around the bathroom like music from a symphony orchestra.
    “What so funny?” Xander said. He’d gone to take a shower in Mom and Dad’s bathroom, and now he stood in the door-way rubbing a towel over his hair, another towel tied around his