He reached under the narrow slot in the bottom of the wire mesh, but could go no further than his elbow, the hole only as large as a mail drop-slot. He withdrew and paced around to the side, taking note of the box by the moonlight: a door, simple brass-handle with no lock, a padlock further up the door clamped it shut, practical and unsophisticated. There was probably a deadbolt inside. The cashier would throw the deadbolt while working; when done, step out, padlock the door and go.
He could break the padlock, but not without waking up the entire Saloon. There was no way to lever the lock apart, which meant he would have to hammer at it. If he hadn’t already done so, Jack would certainly hide the tickets. Then either he would die with Jack, or Oversight would die with Kreiger. Or Quince would find the tickets first, and Alex would lose Oversight all the same, her doom an eternity as the property of Leland Call-Me-Sir-Or-Mister Quince, his chattel, his love slave, his whore.
No! There has to be a way to get the tickets. Think, dammit!
Staring at the door, he noticed the hinged latch the padlock secured. The lock was solid steel, but the latch was held in place with only three nails. Nails, not bolts or screws, but nails, one already loose, head no longer flush with the tired, tarnished metal.
Don’t break the lock; break the latch!
Alex pressed the angled end of the pry bar above the latch, blade flush to the surface and lined up with the deliberate care of a sharpshooter. He twice slid the tip of the pry bar towards the latch, making sure his aim was dead on before gripping the bar with both hands and backing it up a few inches, eyes tracing the invisible track.
And with a sudden, violent thrust, he slammed the pry bar under the metal latch, gouging through the old wood and halting only for the nails. A couple twists with the pry bar and it fell away. The door to the ticket booth was open!
Under the counter was a single drawer, the wood worn and crusted with furniture wax. Inside, Alex found a standard cash drawer, empty but for a buffalo nickel, a safety pin, two pearl buttons, thirty dimes in an old snap-purse, and an envelope with the word TICKETS in blocky print.
For a moment, all Alex could think to do was stare in disbelief. Could I be this lucky? Could it be this easy? But before he thought too long on either question, he remembered Oversight. He could save her now; he could save all of them now.
A grin spread across his face as he opened the envelope.
Then the tickets exploded.
It was like holding a firecracker, the suddenness of the explosion reducing the shriek in his throat to a startled gasp as he fell backwards and slipped to the floor. He brought his hands up near his face, terrified of what he might see. Excuse me, but did you happen to see any of my fingers go flying by?
Miraculously, all ten digits were still there, their movements nerveless and slow, stiff, stinging numbness. Something dark covered his fingers, made the skin sticky.
That isn’t blood, is it?
Adrenaline abandoned him, leaving him faint, his muscles rubbery. Around him, blasted bits of once-tickets were pasted everywhere like confetti smeared with a bright blue gunk; the same gunk staining his hands, his shirt, his face and hair.
“Dye-pack,” he mumbled, grabbing the word from some distant pigeonhole in his memory. In case of a bank robbery, the teller would hand over a special pack of twenty-dollar bills with the money. The pack would explode with permanent ink, staining the bills and the would-be-thief and making both easy to identify. Dye-pack.
So now he was a thief, stained and peppered with the remnants of his objective—decoys, most likely—permanently marked for his crude effort at thievery and betrayal. Forget reasons or explanations; they were meaningless. And once the others arrived—how could they not hear the explosion of the dye-pack or him collapsing on the floor like a fool—they would know, too. Quince was a traitor and Alex his lackey, the slack-jawed fall guy too dim to comprehend that he was being used and had been from the start.
A hand covered in bright blue dye took up the pry bar, gripping it so tightly that the corners of the steel cut into his skin. There was only one way left to settle this. Only one. Secrecy was lost to him now. Honor too. There was no going back, not now or ever.
Alex climbed to his feet, feeling returning to his fingers in the form of meaningless pain. A red misty haze descended over his eyes, clarifying his senses and turning anguish into rage. There was a reckoning to be had, oh yes; a reckoning with everyone who thought him a fool and a chump. Quince would pay. Jack too. Jack pretended at friendship, but he never trusted any of them. Not at all. Why else hide fake tickets trapped with a dye-pack? Jack didn’t trust them, so why should he or any of the rest of them trust Jack? If he was right about nothing else, Leland Quince was right about that. Jack and Jack alone came to this place by choice. The rest of them should not be trapped here with him. The red knew exactly what to do.
Alex started up the steps, pry bar gripped tightly in his fist, intent on making Jack give up the tickets and let them leave.
And as for Leland Call-Me-Sir-Or-Mister Quince, well, he might just find out if he could deal with a bar of steel driven through his skull.
* * *
The businessman stood in the doorway, the landing lit with the sickly yellow light from the single lamp behind him. He wore a pair of silk pajama pants, the product of an exclusive clothier that cost more than Alex could make in a day of painting houses; where he found them was anyone’s guess. Behind him, Oversight sat with her back to the wall, legs drawn up, arms crossed over her knees, a sheet stolen from Leland’s bed wrapped tightly around herself. She stared ahead angrily, her expression frustrated.
Seeing her from the landing, Alex’s grip on the pry bar tightened, his fingers screaming though he could not hear. The red mist that descended across his eyes filled his ears as well, dampening the sound until only hate came through; hate and a wishful sound like crunching bones.
“What the hell happened?” Quince whispered harshly. He was about to step out when he saw the steel bar in Alex’s hand. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t pry the tickets out of him. And what happened to your face?”
Alex could only imagine how he must look, emerging from the darkness with a pry bar pointing directly at Leland Quince, hair swept up into a demon’s mane, face stained in random swirls of blue like a berserker charging the killing ground. His eyes narrowed and the red haze became a seam of blood, Leland caught within the hellish sea, drowning. “I’m going to get the tickets,” he said, his words a hiss in the darkness. “And I’m going to trade them for Oversight.”
Quince breathed a low sigh. “That’s the plan—”
“No,” Alex interrupted. “I’m dealing with Kreiger directly, now.”
Leland Quince pressed his hands against the jamb, blocking the doorway with his body, muscles tensing as though he intended to force the walls apart. His head cocked to one side, eyes narrowing. “Are you trying to cut me out of my deal?
“It’s not your deal,” Alex answered quietly, pry bar in both hands like a sword. “She doesn’t belong to you. She never did and she never will.”
“I’m about done screwing around—”
“This isn’t a game!” he screamed.
“Alex?” Lindsay stared from the doorway, watching as he prepared to cleave the businessman’s skull in two with a pry bar.
“It’s okay, Lindsay. Go back to sleep.” His voice sounded harsh, a deep, rasping croak as he choked upon anger and indecision. What would she think if she came a step closer and saw Oversight, the same woman she played catch with earlier today, sitting half-naked in Mr. Quince’s room? What did she think of him—like a big brother to her—as he prepared to murder Mr. Quince? Would she understand that he was doing this for all of them? Was that even true? Or was he just a silly boy, love-struck and misguided, mistaking sex for love and ready to destroy everything in pursuit of his error?
The red haze faded, and he saw himself from the outside, seeing what she was seeing, what
they were all seeing: a lunatic with a desperate weapon gibbering about secret deals with a madman, Neanderthals grunting and posturing across the waterhole. Not me, he thought desperately. This cannot be me.
“Alex?”
He turned to her, the little girl still there, still watching, still waiting for the Alex she knew to come to his senses, to remember who he really was.
The point of the pry bar sagged, and for the first time since picking it up, Alex felt the weight of the weapon, and the anguish in his fingers, a throbbing, pulsing agony.
But some courses cannot be undone.
“You little bastard,” Quince growled. “I put this whole thing together. Not you. You couldn’t have done a thing without me. I practically held your hand the entire way. Whatever Kreiger might have led you to believe, you can forget it. I made my deal first. You want Oversight, you get me the tickets.”
“I am not your possession,” Oversight said quietly.
Quince turned on her, her meager protest melting beneath his stare. “This is what you want isn’t it, Alex? Don’t bother lying. I know. I’ve spent my life finding the chinks in a man’s armor, and yours is big enough to drive a post through. I picked up on it the very first day we met: your noble sensibilities. And the raw nerve at the center of that open wound is that sweet piece of ass right there. But she doesn’t love you. Don’t you get that? Why would she? She’s mine! She may not even realize it herself, but it’s true. Whatever the two of you did, she did it because it served my ends. Or did you honestly believe you could impress her with your ridiculous drivel, your tales of the bayou?”
Alex stepped back, not believing—not wanting to believe—but knowing what the businessman said could be true. And that whisper of a doubt was echoed in Oversight’s eyes even as she protested her innocence. “Alex, don’t listen—”
“Shut up!” Quince screamed. “Have you forgotten why you were sent here?”
Oversight did not answer except with silence.
“That’s right. So tell him you don’t love him. Tell him you slept with him because I told you to.”
She started to shake her head no, but could not look at Alex’s face, could not look into his eyes, or risk seeing his pain.
“Forget it,” Leland snarled, turning to Alex. “I already told you, I only want to go home. I’ll make Kreiger give her to you, you have my word. Girlfriend, lover, wife, soul mate, whatever. I just want the tickets so I can go home. Help me get them, and everything you wanted can still be yours.”
Ellen had joined Lindsay at the doorway, but kept back, afraid.
Yet in spite of everything, Alex was not afraid. Maybe he should have been. Leland Quince might never be more dangerous than right now, cornered and desperate and clearly insane. The veneer of Leland’s polish had worn through to the hard, violent heart beneath—one unafraid of maiming or destroying in pursuit of its ends. But Alex knew exactly what he had to do. There was only one way to end this. His soul be damned, Leland Call-Me-Sir-Or-Mister Quince would not have his way this time. The pry bar rose, tip trained upon the businessman’s naked chest.
Leland glared, lip curling into a snarl. “You’ve already made your share of mistakes tonight, Alex. That was your last.”
Behind him, shadows flexed as a chameleon of colors and fabricated textures scuttled forward to heel at Leland’s feet, some kind of a misshapen primate with massive jaws and reptilian eyes, slits of black in pools of dead white, its skin sloughing in huge, ugly peels like softened clay. Its mouth gaped, a chasm of blackened teeth that looked capable of grinding rock into dust, filling the night with a deep, reverberant hum like the sizzling breath from a blast furnace. There was a stench in the air like urine and rot.
“Alex, go! Please!” Oversight begged, rushing to the door. “He’ll kill you!”
“That’s right, Alex,” Quince said, voice dropping to a whisper. “Listen to the lady. She wasn’t the only thing Kreiger gave me.”
The creature growled, eyes flexing, holding Alex in the cold, blue-white beams like distant corpse lights. Alex found a part of him begging to drop the pry bar and run; run like hell! But the red haze had returned, tightening his grip, judging the distance to the monster’s knotted skull and wondering if it would split as easily as he imagined a human’s would.
“Alex! Please!” Oversight shouted, “Just get out of here! You can’t fight him!”
“I won’t leave you.”
“Forget about me, Alex. I don’t love you!” she shrieked.
Alex felt his entire body jerk back as if she had raised a hand to strike him. “But—”
“I don’t love you. Forget about what happened earlier and just go! Go now!”
Alex turned away, not because she told him to, or because she said she did not love him, or even because of the monster writhing at Leland’s feet like some demon familiar. None of that mattered. None of it. All that mattered were the tickets. They would solve everything. With the tickets, Leland Quince would be normal again. And so would Oversight. So would everything. The tickets were a way out, a way for all of them to be free from the madness.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, unsure if he had actually spoken the words or merely thought them to himself. He staggered towards the other bedroom, his muscles like machine pistons powered beyond the point of capacity, ready to split open in a horrible burst of scalding rage. The point of no return, he thought with eerie calm. There’s no turning back now. Not ever.
“Jack! Give me the tickets!”
He pushed past Ellen and Lindsay, his gaze glancing across the little girl’s eyes. I’m sorry, he thought. I’m so sorry. You don’t understand and I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to, but I can’t let this happen. This isn’t our game; it isn’t a game at all. We don’t belong here. Only the Caretakers do, and I won’t allow us to die for them.
“Jack!”
“This won’t work, Alex,” Jack said from the spiral stair, his secret sanctum, his coward’s retreat.
“Give me the tickets, Jack.”
“If Quince doesn’t betray you, Kreiger will. What reasons do either have for honoring any deals they might make with you?”
“Kreiger will honor our agreement. I can force him to.” The argument sounded empty, but when doesn’t hope. “I can’t let him have her like this, and I can’t free her without the tickets. She has to be free from all of this, Jack. Just like I do. Like we all do. We’re not yours to play with. We’re not the spoils of war. This isn’t about us, but we’re the ones with everything to lose, and the only thing any of us has to win is our crummy lives. We’re risking everything for your little game, Jack. Enough is enough. Now give me the tickets.”
“I won’t give Kreiger the Nexus,” Jack said, “for the same reason I won’t give you the tickets.”
“Even if you succeed, one of us will be trapped here,” Alex said. “You know that.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t care?”
“I don’t have a choice. And neither do you.”
“I do have a choice!” Alex shouted, pry bar swinging in a ferocious arc that caught the birdcage atop the crate and sent it flying. It smashed with a reverberant clang and a scatter of hollow, clattering sounds, the remnants of whatever had died there long ago. “We all have a choice.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Stop it!” Alex swung again, the bar clanging against the iron stairs, the vibration threatening to jar the weapon from his fingers. His grip tightened, small jewels of blood from his palms making the metal slippery, difficult to hold. “Stop talking like you have the answers! You don’t! You don’t have a clue! If you had any idea at all, you’d know that five tickets aren’t enough to send us all home. Someone has to be left behind.”
“I know,” Jack said.
“Well you have no right to choose! You’re not God!”
“Neither are you.”
“Just give me the tickets!” Alex screamed.
“They’re alrea
dy gone. I fed them into the Jabberwock—the computer,” Jack said. “The only way to get them out is for me to write the stories. Until I complete them and release you from this world, the tickets don’t exist. Schrödinger’s cat; without a definitive form, they don’t exist. It was the only way to keep them safe from Kreiger. And from you.”
“You never trusted us?”
Jack shook his head.
Alex leaped at the steps, the pry bar making another wild arc that only narrowly missed the Caretaker’s head. Jack stumbled backwards and slipped, the bar passing inches from his skull as he fell. It clanged against the center pole like a fire bell, and jarred loose from Alex’s battered hands just as Jack slid into him, sending both of them into a heap at the base of the spiral stair.
Alex untangled himself, orienting immediately upon the pry bar. He snatched it up and turned on the Caretaker.
“Leave him alone!” Ellen screamed.
“You’re no different than us, Ellen,” Alex shouted back. “You have nothing to gain by him succeeding, and everything to lose if he fails.”
“Shut up! You don’t know everything! None of us do.”
“I know the tickets are in the computer,” Alex said icily. “Kreiger can have that, instead.”
He started towards the stairs and stopped, a horrifying snarl from above, a deep growl like a dragon stalking its prey.
Nail!
The Guardian’s muscles stood out like cables, eyes burning crimson in the dark, but it saw neither the Caretaker nor Alex, fixated upon something else, something the others were only just realizing was there. The air turned faintly putrid, like something forgotten and left to rot.
The Dust Eater.
THE DUST EATER
The Dust Eater hated the Nexus. He had heard stories—who in the Wasteland had not? The Nexus was paradise, the Promised Land, Nirvana, Elysium.
But it was none of these things.
The Nexus was wet!
Water clung to him with every breath, smothering him, drowning him. And the colors, too many, too complex; overwhelming; it made his skin hurt, his eyes ache. Air should be dry. The world should be dust and shadows. And the only textures should be grit and sand.
The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) Page 28