The Curse of the King by Peter Lerangis

swung his head to look at me, his eyes wide with shock. Before he could bring his arms back through his window, I rammed him with my head. Then I reached for the window button and squeezed as firmly as I could.
    The window slowly rose, trapping the driver’s arms. Hiscurses turned to screams as I switched off the ignition key, trapping the window in position. “Get the rifle!” I yelled.
    Aly was already running toward Mustafa. She grabbed the rifle and yanked downward. With a cry of pain, Mustafa let go. The rifle went clattering to the dirt.
    â€œCass!” I shouted. “Torquin!”
    My feet barely touched the ground as I ran toward the two bodies. Cass was struggling to sit up. “I’m okay,” he said. “Torquin jumped into the path of the bullet. He fell against me.”
    We hunched over Red Beard. His face was covered in dirt and his eyes rolled upward. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth down the side of his cheek. Aly slapped his cheeks, screaming his name. “Don’t die! Torquin, you are not allowed to die!”
    â€œArrrgh, why did he do this?” Cass said.
    I reached into my pocket for the shard. It was so small. If we used it again, we risked losing it.
    â€œDo it, Jack,” Aly said.
    I nodded. Torquin’s bratwurst-sized fingers were twitching. I knelt next to him. I felt the shard growing warm in my palm.
    I brought the shard carefully toward Torquin’s chest. Cass leaned over the big man and said, “Hang in there, dude.”
    Before the shard made contact, Torquin shuddered and sat bolt upright. “Arrrmmgh . . .” he grunted.
    Cass lurched away from him. “Auuu, Torquin, what did you eat for lunch? Dog food?”
    What was left of the shard slipped from my palm, fell against Torquin’s leg, and disappeared in the grass.
    The Massa priest with the bloody forehead had made a run for it. Torquin was thirty yards away, dragging the other priest toward us by his clerical collar.
    But my attention was focused on a patch of pebbles and scraggly grass. “Found it!” I cried out, closing my fingers around the shard.
    It was the size of a pebble and nearly weightless. I could barely feel it in my hand. “What if we lose this?” Cass asked.
    â€œWe can’t afford to,” Aly said. “Put it in a supersafe place. Like, surgically, under your skin.”
    I did the next best thing. I tucked it into my wallet. It wouldn’t get lost there.
    â€œAlive,” Torquin’s voice rasped. He flopped the unconscious priest down in the dirt beside us. A welt the size of a small boulder was growing from the top of his head.
    Proudly, Torquin held up the crowbar. “Set high school record for javelin.”
    â€œYou threw that and actually hit him?” I asked.
    â€œYou went to high school?” Cass asked.
    I looked around. The van driver and Brother Dimitrios were both as unconscious as the crowbar victim. “Okay,time out,” I said. “This is all wrong. So wrong. But before we start yelling at you, Torquin, tell me what exactly happened with you and my dad.”
    â€œSaid hello,” Torquin said. “Asked if he wanted to come. He said no. Frustrating. Torquin asked to borrow phone when he went to bathroom. Took phone. And took car.”
    I took it with two fingers. “So those texts from Dad . . . were from you?”
    Torquin nodded.
    I lowered my voice. “Didn’t he tell you—we’re trying to be captured.”
    â€œUm . . .” Torquin said.
    â€œWhere have you been, Torquin?” Aly said. “You just disappeared on us in New York!”
    â€œAnd is your name really Victor Rafael Quiñones?” Cass said.
    Torquin took a deep breath. Then he belched.
    â€œThat is so gross,” Aly said.
    â€œHappens when Torquin is excited,” Torquin said. “Hate the name Victor.”
    Cass laughed. “I hate my real name,