Painless//Part 3

Painless//Part 3

We don't realize that Dan and Tony are missing for, I'm guessing, about twenty minutes after they disappear. I'm shocked that I could ignore Tony for that long, until I realize it's more that I'm used to having him around all the time. I'd never expect him not to be there.

"I thought they were walking behind you!"

"No, man, I was in the back. I figured they were up ahead or something."

"Dan lurks and Tony is little, so I thought they must around here somewhere…."

"Well, apparently not," says Geof, exasperated. "Goddamnit. Who knows what the hell Dan's getting up to? Probably he ran off and Tony followed him."

We ring both of them, but neither answers.

"Think he's on top a building again?" Arc says quietly. Geof pulls a face and tugs at his short hair. I'm not sure whether he's angry or concerned—I don't think he knows which he is, either. Their relationship is every bit as dodgy as mine is with Nolan, though they're much more civil face-to-face.

"If he is, Tony won't be with him," I say. "He's terrified of heights." I thought he looked troubled earlier, when Dan was whispering in his ear; Tony's emotions are always painted clearly on his face. I think maybe Dan has confided in him, once or twice, subjects of a dark nature. And Tony being Tony, he'd never say a word to the rest of us. Too loyal.

"Maybe we should split up—" Arc starts, but Nolan interrupts him.

"No. We don't have to. Let's just backtrack. I'll be able to spot either of them from anywhere. Particularly Dan," he says.

"Oh?"

He turns on me with the serious look that means we're done dicking around for the night. His scent-print, usually akin to an orange squirt to the eye, acquires the fiery tang and potency of a citrus liquor. He spreads his arms in a gesture of frustration.

"He's got a fucking three-foot halo of light around his head. Now come on."

Nolan jogs off with a curse-muttering Geof not far behind. Arc and I hesitate, for reasons both different and the same, and then follow suit.

"What's he talking about?"

"Danforth sees auras or some shit," I explain. We weave around trashcans and through pools of yellow streetlight, our footsteps sounding rhythm against the brick row-houses. "To him, Dan looks like a medieval painting of Jesus."

Arc swears. "Christ."

"Exactly."

Damn, but that kid is fast, and he's got stamina. Maybe I should take up swimming. Geof's long legs let him keep up with Nolan while Arc and I try to make up for our lost milliseconds. I can tell Arc is slowing down a bit for me. I've never been fast, let alone agile. You're a frickin' rock, Vic said once, in more ways than one.

This late at night (or perhaps I should say this early in the morning) we're about the only thing around, our heavy breathing magnified in the quietest hour of the inner city. The VanHanson Clock Tower is visible from here, towering against the orange light-polluted sky, and its iron roman numerals read close to four. The brightly lit clock face watches over us as Nolan dashes down alleyways and streets I'm sure we never walked tonight.

When we hit Basker Street, I realize where he's going.

Saint Joan Cathedral is one of the oldest buildings in Glory. Made of dirty gray slabs of stone and liberally covered in flying buttresses, gargoyles, and the like, its sole redeeming quality is the stained-glass windows, which have survived from the eighteenth century. The church keeps them lit from within at night like glowing messages of salvation and damnation, in neither of which I have any desire to take part.

Nolan and Geof are standing on the sidewalk by the steps, necks craned skyward.

"There," Nolan says, pointing at the cathedral steeple.

"Whatever Nolan sees, he looks like a blob to me," Geof adds. "Probably to you, too."

Nonetheless, a bit of searching and squinting is all it takes to find the ghostly figure seated upon the cross's left arm.

"So where's Tony?"

"Don't know, maybe he went to find us."

I take out my cell phone and try calling him again. He still doesn't answer, but I can hear his ringtone coming from somewhere nearby. Somewhere up.

It seems like yesterday we had the world our way
But some say we're headed for destruction whoa oh yeah…

We follow the sound around the corner. About twenty feet up, I can see shoes poking over a ledge.

"Damn, I bet this is where he climbed up," Arc says, noting the ledges and indentations on the wall, all of which would make for an easy ascent.

"Where they did," I say, and start climbing. The others follow.

The stone is cold despite the previous summer day's heat, proof that night has complete control over her domain. Heavy, too, and not just in a physical manner. This place is saturated with despair and solemn hymns—no wonder Dan was attracted to it.

The first real ledge is only a few feet wide and contains a small black shape that is rather too large to be a cat.

"Tony."

He starts, however softly I spoke, and uncurls from his little ball.

"Oh. Oh. Hayden. Thank you for finding us—"

"I found you," comes Nolan's voice from just below me. "Keep climbing, dipshit, I can't cling to this wall all night, nor do I like seeing ass every time I look up."

And Geof. "Yeah."

And Arc. "Ditto."

I climb onto the ledge. Nolan and Geof join us, and Arc leans on it from a lower spot on the wall. There's little room between us and even littler room between us and certain painful injury.

"Sorry I didn't answer your calls," Tony says, still slightly breathless. "I just…I tried to follow Dan up here without thinking and all of a sudden I was too high. I panicked and couldn't go up or down either way."

"Why'd he run off, anyway?" Geof asks.

Tony hugs his legs closer and says, "I don't know. He wouldn't talk to me. It was all I could do to keep up with him."

Wind laden with exhaust fumes whips our hair around and threatens to send us tumbling over the edge. No telling what that cross is doing, or how steady it is even without Dan's unbalanced weight on it.

"Well, we have to go up after him. You want someone to help you down?" I say, offering him my hand. He takes it and cautiously gets to his feet, eyes everywhere but on the ground below.

But he says, "I can't just stand around doing nothing. I'll…I'll go with you."

"You're sure?"

"He's sure."

Nolan is already eight feet above us, scaling the wall like a rock-climber. Or a freckled Spiderman, but I'd rather not juxtapose my arch rival with my childhood hero.

A song drifts down from the steeple in what is unmistakably Dan's voice, which almost always tastes like salty seawater and tonight has a tang of powdered sugar:

"Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home

I looked over Jordan, and I what did I see
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me
Coming for to carry me home."