by Rob Thurman
But …
No. No buts. I did not want to be thinking this. It wasn’t about what I liked or didn’t like. This was not who I was. I had a bottom line, and my bottom line was survival. It always had been. Tomorrow night, I was taking a car—after Hector searched it for bombs—and my ass was out of there. Homeward bound. Nothing was changing that.
Not to forget that the bastard spy had tried to kill me twice. That wasn’t the sort of thing I let people get away with. My stepfather would stand up and shout, “Testify!” to that, were he not a decomposing pile in an unmarked pauper’s grave.
Well, unmarked by stone. When I was eighteen, I’d tagged it. I’d been drunk, and I had pissed about a gallon on it. Thanks for the memories, Dad.
This unknown son of a bitch had killed Charlie and tried to do the same to me. It didn’t seem right that I wouldn’t be there to kick him in the head one or five times as a great big fucking thank-you for playing.
It didn’t make a difference. I had a whole day to make that decision. Resort to common sense, stick with my commitment to keep my ass in one piece, get back to the Jackson born in blood and the warm embrace of the emotionally sterile state institute. At least, that guy I knew. This new guy was nuts, reckless, and far too concerned with things that weren’t his business.
I’d just completed that thought when the things that weren’t my business shot me in the back.
• • •
Lying flat in the same red earth that the county had buried Boyd in, logic told me that I’d fallen. My mind told me that the ground had reared up and smacked me in the face. “Jackson!” Hector’s hand was on my shoulder, squeezing hard.
I coughed and pushed out the words, “Nothing … you … can … do. Go … get … the … dick.”
He hesitated, then there was the sound of his feet pounding against the dirt as he ran. I continued to stay flat, both to be less of a target and because breathing was agony. I didn’t want to imagine what trying to move would be like. The only part of me that disagreed was my fingers digging into the dirt as the pain crushed my ribs in a massive fist. It ebbed and flowed, the fiery, stabbing ache, and finally focused on the left side of my back.
“Jackson?” Hector was back. Already? It couldn’t have been more than minutes, although the agony in my back was saying bullshit to that—it felt more like seconds in recovery time. Unfortunately, Hector didn’t sound as if he was waving a flag of victory. I felt his hand below my scapula, his fingers probing. “Okay. I got it. The son of a bitch nailed you right over the heart.”
“The same son of a bitch who, I take it, got away.” The pain was the same, but I no longer felt as if my lungs had taken the weekend off. Breathing was easier and talking doable. I appreciated that, because I had something to say. “I asked you for a bulletproof vest. I felt the bullet fine. I didn’t feel the damn proof in it at all.” I pushed up on my hands and knees and groaned at the spike of pain. “Ah, shit. What’s it made out of? Your grandma’s leftover yarn? Christ.”
He hooked his arm under my right one and helped me stagger to my feet before juggling the blob of metal in the palm of his other hand. “It’s a big enough round. Nine-millimeter, same as I use. Without the Kevlar, it wouldn’t have just hit your heart; it would’ve exploded it.”
“I told you the vest was a better choice for me than a gun.” I winced as I tried to straighten. “But I still think someone at the nursing home crocheted the damn thing. It feels like my rib is broken.”
“I’m sure it is.” There wasn’t much sympathy in the pronouncement. I could’ve used more—a whole lot more. “But a cracked or broken rib is a hundred percent better than dead,” he finished matter-of-factly.
“And you didn’t catch the bastard?” I could be wrong. Ghosts could exist. This guy appeared and disappeared at will like one.
“I didn’t even see him, and this isn’t a sniper’s bullet by any stretch of the imagination. He had to be close.” Once I could stand semi-upright and take a step without the threat of being shoved into a Notre Dame bell tower, he let go of my arm.
“I swear, Allgood, if you had been behind me instead of beside me, I’d say you were the shooter. This guy’s goddamn invisible.” I swore out loud and proud with every step I took. I knew … knew I could feel the broken edges of a rib grating against each other.
“You’ve already read me. You know I’m noble and true. Red, white, and blue. Practically Superman, I’m so damn heroic, but apparently, I couldn’t find a killer if you dropped me onto death row at a supermax prison,” he said bitterly.
“I’m lacking in social skills except when it comes to flattering my older female clients, but I have a feeling I should say something here. Something to comfort you in your time of emotional upheaval …” I took one more step, blasphemed against God, his son, and the Virgin Mary as my rib howled again. “Here it is: fuck your emotional upheaval. Be a man, for God’s sake. At least your ass wasn’t shot.”
Strangely enough, that did the trick.
• • •
As Meleah was looking over my X-ray, after giving me a high enough dose of painkillers to have me seeing the world in a new and improved way, Hector was having the base searched. Not for a nine-millimeter—the base was full of them. Anyone who was carrying a gun was carrying a nine-millimeter. Instead, he was having the base searched for Dr. Sloane, and he’d sent two soldiers to Dr. Kessler’s house to bring him in. There was no more pickpocketing, and, while Hector knew I couldn’t do any more readings today—not after the axis of evil I’d already come across—he said he was fine with locking the two scientists up overnight for peace of mind. And if they wanted to trade their chances of being part of a potentially Nobel Prize–winning experiment to press kidnapping charges, he’d like to live long enough to see that day.
Hector, the bitterness faded and his mood improved by my newly enhanced social skills, returned and stood patiently at the foot of my gurney—at least, patiently until I asked Meleah why she wasn’t wrapping my ribs and followed it with the advice that if she caught Hector staring at her ass, she should take it for the compliment it was.
“We don’t wrap broken ribs these days. You read too many old private-detective novels. Move slowly and carefully, and it’ll heal fine on its own.” She glanced at Hector, whose face struggled to pick one emotion from the flood that crossed it. I thought he settled on resignation. “He’s quite the romantic, isn’t he, Hector?”
“He’s something, all right. There’s no getting around that.” He frowned, but it didn’t stick. Sighing, he snorted with visible amusement—or invisible amusement and blatant exasperation. He had the face of an Everest cliff, all granite and ice. It made it hard to tell. Normally, I could read people’s expressions like a mood ring, but not Allgood. He was a challenge. “Just how much pain medicine did you give him?”
“Too much, probably. But considering his reaction to the readings earlier and being shot, along with the bruising and broken rib, I thought he deserved the happy maximum.”
“You hear that, Jackson?” He gave a stinging flick of his finger to my sock-covered toe. “You feeling happy?”
“Happy,” I repeated agreeably. “You can shoot me every day if you give me a barrel of these pills to take home.”
“I don’t think that’ll be an issue. By now, the shooter’s found out that you’re still alive, which means he knows about the Kevlar. If he shoots you again, he’ll go for the head. All the happy pills in the world won’t help you there.” He gave my lower leg a brisk pat and me a large, wolfish grin.
“You’re being shitty, aren’t you?” In all honesty, the pills did make it difficult to tell.
“Yes, I am.” He patted me again.
“Was it the thing I said about Meleah’s ass?”
“You got it in one.”
“Fine. See if I use my social skills to help the romantically challenged again.” I yawned, feeling the room swing up and down, then back and forth. It was a nice sensation, th
e world as my personal hammock. I liked it. “You know, Meleah, you should take sympathy on the man. He hasn’t been laid in eleven months, two weeks, four days, and …” I checked my watch, willing the blurry numbers to coalesce. I stopped when a grip fastened around my ankle and tightened. “Hey.” I gave Hector a poisonous glare. “If I wasn’t doped up to my eyeballs, that might hurt.”
“Trust me, there’s no ‘might’ to it.” But he let go. “Time to get serious, Jackson. I know you haven’t felt this good since you were Mr. December on the Hot Psychics of Atlanta calendar, but I need you to tell me if you’re up for this tomorrow. It’s a long drive to the caverns, and I can’t have you high as a kite if something goes wrong—such as the recording kicking in before we’ve zeroed in on Charlie.”
That was a mental picture that sent the happy packing as fast as a Republican senator who’d knocked up his mistress. Charlie trying to fight through the ether was, as far as I could tell, seconds away from being simultaneous with the cycle of violence spinning into play mode. I thought about it, which wasn’t easy, as my thoughts were distracted more than once by the narcotic haze. Eventually, I locked it down and ran a hand over my face. “I won’t be able to wrestle any of your soldier goons like I did at the quarry. I won’t even be able to take Fujiwara or any of the other geeks, if it comes to that. But I will be able to tell you if—when—Charlie is coming. That’ll give you and your Charlie-busting machine two or three seconds to go to work.”
Then it hit me what he’d said—the location. It was astounding how fast that drugged-up contented feeling vanished.
“The caverns? The cannibal caverns? God, why there? Thackery said Charlie was drawn to you as his brother and me as a psychic link much more than the level of violence imprinted on the ether. Couldn’t you have picked someplace less dangerous? Someplace where we won’t be trying to eat each other?”
And where I didn’t hear little girls crying for their mommy before they were hung up on hooks, lambs to be gutted and drained.
Tender honey chile. Like fresh churned butter, melt on your tongue so tender …
“Ah, Jesus.” I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t enough. I clapped my hand across them, squeezing from temple to temple, trying not to see the curve of metal, the crimson waterfall, the trailing brown waves of hair. “Go away, Hector. Go the fuck away, and don’t come back until it’s time to go tomorrow.”
He didn’t. He explained instead. I wasn’t interested. “We decided it would be best if all elements were optimal. You, me, and the highest level of violence—to be on the safe side. To make certain this time is the last time.”
Certain? Nothing was ever certain. PhDs, my ass. They were all idiots. Every single one of them. And I was nothing more than a piece of their Charlie-busting machine. Something to be used, and the hell with the consequences to me in the process. I was an idiot, too, to have ever thought differently.
“Go away,” I repeated flatly.
This time, he did, his footsteps followed by the lighter ones of Meleah, and I was left alone with thoughts. Many thoughts.
None of which was mine.
18
“I brought you a change of clothes. You can shower here in the infirmary instead of going back to our room. It’s probably safer, limiting your exposure to other personnel as much as we can.” Hector put a meticulously folded pair of jeans and black shirt on the foot of my bed.
I ignored him and took another bite of the pancakes Eden had brought me. Homemade blackberry ones with real maple syrup, not those hockey pucks from the cafeteria. As far as I had determined, she was the single saving grace to this particularly heinous pit of hell. She’d come in the middle of the night with more pain medicine, this time an injection. When I’d asked her when she slept, she’d winked and replied, “When I don’t have special patients. And you’ve been through enough here, Jackson Lee, that you’re labeled permanently special on my list.” She’d patted my arm with her hand, safely covered with a latex glove. “Now, roll over to your side. This goes in your hip.”
“Dr. Guerrera only gave me pills before. Why the needle?” But I’d already been rolling. Pill or injection, the previous pain medicine had worn off, and my rib had been more than ready for more.
“This has something extra to help you sleep. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you weren’t doing any of that.” She’d gone for stern, but the sympathy had washed that away.
I’d returned immediately to lying on my back. “I don’t need that. I don’t need to sleep.” I hadn’t wanted to sleep; that had been closer to the truth. The whispers, the screams, the sounds of chewing, the wicked curve of a hook—they were all more clear when I was asleep.
The sternness had returned, along with a finger shaking the likes of which I hadn’t seen since my granny Rosemary. “I hear you have a big day tomorrow. Riding out to one of those creepy sites.” She’d made a face. “Doing more of your psychic readings. You need your sleep.”
“I’m not doing any more readings. I’m going to help with Charlie tomorrow and then be home, my home, before midnight. No more readings and not another night spent in this hellhole. Dr. Allgood is on his own from now on.” Like I should’ve realized that I’d been all along.
“I don’t blame you one tiny bit. These people have all the compassion of a toad, and I’ve been thinking long and hard about finding another job with people who care, not people who care who they can use.” She’d tilted her head. “Well, you’ll get plenty of sleep tomorrow night, then, and sleep through the next day if you have any sense. You’re positive you don’t want the shot?”
More than. She’d shaken her head. “You’re a stubborn one, but I’ll miss you, Mr. All Seeing Eye.” She’d given me an impish smile and apparently had gone home, slept three hours, and then was up making me the best good-bye pancakes I’d ever eaten.
And which I continued to eat while Allgood went on to annoy me further. I didn’t appreciate reminders of my first episode of gullibility since I was six or seven. “I had three guards on the infirmary door last night. I know you didn’t want to hear it at the time, but I didn’t want you to think I’d leave you without backup until we get you out of here.”
I didn’t say anything as I wiped syrup off my hands and put my gloves back on.
“You didn’t think that, did you?” he demanded.
I took the clothes and stood. “No. I thought about how men were stringy, women were better, but little girls tasted best of all. I thought about how my hooks needed sharpening as they were beginning to blunt on bone. I thought about how once it seemed the winter would never end. But that was when I was hungry. Now my stomach was full, and I hoped the snow never stopped falling.” I headed for the shower room.
“We’re not going there,” Hector said, his voice harsh and guttural. There was a tinge of green to his face from my recital of cannibal Renfrow’s thoughts. Hundreds of years old, but to some people, people like me, they were as clear and sharp as the day his blackened, corrupted brain had spat them out. “I’ve already told Thackery and the others. They didn’t like it, but they didn’t see you there, and none of us can see what you saw. Going back there might be the most logical choice, but it’s not the most humane one. If I can keep my soul intact through all this, I will.” He exhaled. “We’re going to a low-risk site. One at the bottom of the list. It’s a simple family dispute over a fifty-fifty split of a farm in a will. One brother whacked the other over the head with an axe handle. It’s still a murder, has to be, but it’s nothing close to what had happened at the caverns.”
I kept walking. He started to grab my arm as I passed but aborted the motion almost before it began. “I apologize for considering anything else.” The formality of a good man who was finding out that pedestals weren’t healthy things—not for your brother and not for yourself, especially when you tumbled off of yours. “Desperation is no excuse for becoming like the rest of them. I’m sorry, Jackson.”
I paused at the door and took the biggest l
eap of faith of my life. I let myself trust him again, and this time not because of Charlie but because of Hector himself. Abby had told me hundreds of times that people can’t live without trust. They can exist, but they can’t live. I was beginning to see that she was right. Hector had messed up, more than once, but he’d also risked his life to save mine—and more than once on that, too. He wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t any kind of fool in believing I was, either.
I gave a single nod. “All right.” It wasn’t apology accepted, but it was the closest I could come to it. I went on into the shower and closed the door behind me.
Fifteen minutes later, I was out, changed with the shirt over a new Kevlar vest. Hector had said next time it would be a head shot, but it hadn’t stopped him from doing what he could in case I was lucky and a head shot wasn’t practical for my invisible stalker. And wasn’t that some kind of luck? Hoping someone would shoot you in the chest instead of the head. With my damp hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail and with gloves on, I opened the door to see that Meleah had shown up. She was standing next to Hector. Moral support.
“Have you two made up?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, we’re just peachy. Bestest friends.” I dumped my dirty clothes onto the bed. “Hector’s going to braid my hair, and then he’s going to show me his new dollhouse.” All right—trust with a shaky foundation and a razor-sharp defense mechanism, but a modicum of trust was better than none at all. Hector would have to accept it for what it was: the best I could do right now.
“I suppose that means yes.” She smiled. “Are we ready for this, then? To set Charlie free?”
“You’re going?” I asked, admitting to myself that it wasn’t the worst idea I’d heard as Meleah made the argument aloud.
“Every time you and Hector are together at one of these sites, someone is thrown off a roof or nearly drowned,” she noted pointedly. “I think a doctor is mandatory for this trip. And …” She touched the ring hanging on a chain around her neck. “I’d like a chance to say good-bye—to my best friend. My family.”