by R. T. Lowe
Kayla suddenly understood her time as a Drestianite had reached its final chapter. She’d infiltrated the Drestianites and worked her way into Lofton’s inner circle to uncover his weakness when she should have known all along his only vulnerability was the Belus, and now that the Belus had a name, she needed to find him. The Order, she was sure, had no clue the Belus was a freshman at Portland College; it was, after all, rudderless, divided, and defined by petty conflicts among its leaders and cynicism over the purpose of its mission. Felix would change all that if she could get to him in time. Assuming of course, Lofton didn’t kill him.
“Personally?” Lynch asked Lofton, breathing out slowly through his nose. “If you think this kid’s the Belus, send me. I won’t risk anything. I’ll take Natalie and Iphi. We’ll kill him before he even knows we’re there.”
Lofton stared at Lynch until he lowered his eyes again, nostrils flaring. “I’ll return to Portland after the rally,” Lofton told him.
Lynch crossed his arms and turned to the window, his jaw flexing in knots of veined muscle, like a bull’s as it enters the matador’s arena.
“What a shame the Protectors found themselves in the midst of your test,” Devory remarked, apparently an attempt to defuse the tension in the car.
“Pity there weren’t more,” Lofton replied, one side of his mouth curling up at the corner.
Despite Lofton’s aggravatingly consistent pleasantness, which Kayla believed to be wholly insincere, his intense hatred of the Protectors afforded a rare glimpse into his true nature, a cold fury he didn’t try to hide, not even from middling Drestianites like Kayla. A rumor had swirled about late last year that Lofton had flown into a rage at the news of a Drestianite found dead in Prague. Apparently she was quite young and very pretty, and not that it mattered any more, but Kayla had considered the possibility she was the girl’s replacement and her recent promotion had as much to do with the girl’s untimely death as her own illusionist talents. Despite the rumors, Kayla had a very difficult time imagining Lofton in a rage. He wasn’t known to have a temper, and not even the gossipy Jalen could attest to any confirmed sighting of Lofton losing his cool.
“What about the girl?” Jalen asked.
“Her name’s Allison,” Kayla answered. She had to proceed as if nothing was amiss. Just say what you would normally say, she told herself. If she said anything out of character or kept unusually quiet, Lofton would sense it. “Felix’s friend from high school. Only child. Parents died when she was six or seven. Foster kid. Clearly a Sourceror from the way she handled that Protector.” She looked at Lofton. “Do you want me to talk to her? I could bring her in.”
“Not necessary,” Lofton said with a shake of his head. “They appear to be a team. Where Felix goes, Allison will follow.”
“Unless it’s the other way around,” Kayla pointed out, wondering what Lofton meant. A hint he would let Felix live? Allison too? Or was he going to kill them both?
Lofton held Kayla’s gaze for a moment, then he gave her an inscrutable smile and stared out his window, his thoughts, as ever, a mystery to her.
Chapter 23
Return to No-Man’s-Land
Matted with discarded newspapers and other refuse, the chain link fence sagged in the back of the decrepit row house at the end of the block, a street straddling the southern fringes of no-man’s-land.
“This is it?” Felix whispered to Allison as they climbed over the padlocked gate and moved stealthily across cracked concrete toward the house, a two story box, the clapboard an ugly moss-covered brown the color of vomit. He gazed up at a pair of turkey vultures riding the winds high overhead, circling slowly. He shuddered, hoping it wasn’t an omen. Of all the people Felix knew, Caitlin deserved a future. Not this. Not this.
Allison nodded, eyes burning, and pointed at a door that may have once been red but had long since succumbed to sun and mold. “She’s in there!”
Felix had recalled Zara’s words (‘And sometimes your abilities reveal themselves in times of stress—in times of need.’) as Allison had pushed his Wrangler to its limits, not stopping for anything, cutting a path through the winding streets like she’d been here a thousand times before. Allison was experiencing Caitlin’s pain as though it was her own, and she knew Caitlin was inside the house. She knew it, and she felt it, and when she’d told Felix “it was like Caitlin was a part of her,” he took it literally. It defied logic, but Allison was a Sourceror, and every Sourceror, according to Zara, was unique.
“You still feel her, right?” Felix asked with trepidation. From the moment they’d barreled out of the library, he’d feared Allison would lose her connection to Caitlin, but during the drive, Allison had repeatedly grimaced and gasped in pain, running her fingers over her throat, struggling to swallow. “She’s not—?”
“She’s alive,” Allison said adamantly, taking note of the dread in his eyes. “She’s hurting. And scared. Let’s do this.”
He nodded, casting a brief glance at the house next door. It was quiet, its back yard littered with children’s toys and a collection of gutted machines, car parts, Felix thought, though he wasn’t sure. He exhaled and tested the knob. Locked.
“Knock it down,” Allison urged in a soft voice. “I’ll go first. I’ll find her.”
Carefully, Felix pushed the door in, using his mind, attempting to silently break off the hinges. It shrieked and groaned like a sinking ship descending into the depths of an ocean trench.
“Just do it!” Allison hissed, flinching back at the sound.
With a thought, Felix wrenched the door out of its frame—the three sets of tarnished brass hinges clinging to jagged strips of wood—and flung it to the ground behind them.
Allison was already inside, bolting through a windowless galley kitchen, the air thick with the rancid smell of spoiled dairy and dankness.
“Another step and she loses the stool!” a voice shrieked.
Allison skidded abruptly and banged into a wall of cabinets at the end of the kitchen, turning to a doorway on their right. Felix came flying up and crashed into Allison before regaining his balance and looking over her shoulder into the room.
Caitlin was balancing precariously on a step stool, her shirt and bra shredded and pulled down around her midsection, bite marks scarring her tanned skin from neck to shoulder on both sides. Blood streaked her breasts and stomach, staining red the clothes bunched at her waist. Rope, thick and frayed, threaded through a ringed pulley on the ceiling, one end burning scarlet across her throat, the other cinched around her wrists, yanking up hard, forcing her to lean slightly forward, her shoulders on the verge of hyperextending.
Instinctively, Felix made a quick move to push past Allison and a man appeared from behind Caitlin, shouting shrilly, “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” Tall and nearly emaciated, he was naked except for a pair of tight white underwear, a blistery purple rash covering his body like angry swirling storm clouds. His face was round and boyish, almost pudgy, as if his cheeks had stolen the stores of fat that should have been distributed throughout the rest of his lanky frame. He placed a bare foot on the stool and Felix understood the threat. One small nudge and the stool would no longer support Caitlin’s weight. The rope would tighten around her throat, snapping her neck in a heartbeat.
The man laughed maniacally, sweat sliding down his soft adolescent’s face. “I’m in control here!” he screamed, his voice cracking, spittle spraying from his mouth. “I’m in control! Do what I say! Do what I say!”
Caitlin gave a low moan and her eyes fluttered open, red and wild with fear. Her gaze moved to the doorway and her eyes bulged with recognition. “He…he,” she began, the rope reducing her voice to painful rasps, “he’s going to eat me.” She sobbed convulsively, trembling, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “He said he’s going to eat me alive!” she wailed.
Felix could feel Allison’s body tense. He stared at the stool and gauged the distance, thinking he could get to Caitlin before the stool slipped away
from the reach of her toes. Or could he? Maybe not with Allison in his way. He leaned forward with his chest, brushing against Allison’s back, trying to communicate he wanted her to step aside. Allison stood solid, unmoving.
“Stay where you are!” the man shrieked at them. An old farmhouse table stood in the corner by a window with the blinds pulled down past the sill, the hard wooden chairs stacked in a row along the wall. Curling his long fingers around the top of the chair beside him, he snapped off a horizontal supporting bar from the backrest, squawking with pleasure when he realized nails poked through on one end. Keeping his foot on the stool, he brandished his weapon threateningly, screaming, “I’ll kill you too! I’ll eat you! I’ll eat you all! I’ll eat your fucking livers!”
Allison sprang for him.
He kicked the stool out from under Caitlin.
She dropped.
Felix lunged and caught her before the rope went taut, holding her up by the hips, keeping slack in the rope.
The man raised the club over his head and screamed, swinging it down with barbaric ferocity, the nails glinting menacingly in the dull light of the room.
It slammed into Allison’s upraised hand, her palm squeezing it dead center on the smooth part of the wood. The man, appearing surprised, pulled back on it, but Allison didn’t budge. She gave it a sharp tug and as he lurched forward she hit him square in the face, stunning him. He squinted and she hit him again, opening up gashes over both eyes. He tried using both hands to wrestle his weapon from Allison’s grip and she slammed her fist into his nose, shattering it with a sound that reminded Felix of the time Harper’s Caffeine Hut mug fell from their table and broke on the floor. She released the club and he lost his balance, stumbling back, blood gushing in torrents down his face.
“C’mon!” Allison screamed, stepping toward him. “You like hurting girls? You like hurting girls, you piece of shit?”
He swung the club, his face purple and distorted with rage and hatred, the wood whistling through the musty air.
Allison ducked under it and delivered a savage blow to his jaw that caused his head to snap back against the wall. His panicked eyes flickered to the doorway, searching for an escape route. Allison slid a half step to the side, standing directly in his path. He flung himself at her with a recklessness borne of desperation and another fist, like a hammer, smashed into his mouth, shattering teeth. The club fell from his hand with a thud, rattling down harmlessly to the floor. He stared at Allison, his tongue lolling thickly, licking at his ruined lips, his underwear growing dark as urine trickled down his spindly, blistered legs, pooling under him. He charged Allison and she knocked him off his feet with a perfectly grooved compact right weighted like a battering ram, dropping him to the floor. He flailed and flopped clumsily onto his back, crying in agony, screaming obscenities.
Caitlin felt almost weightless in Felix’s arms, crying in great heaving sobs like a frightened child awakening from a nightmare and finding comfort in the arms of her father. He held tight, trusting Allison—Allison the Sourceror—would finish what she’d started.
Allison stood over the man—coughing up blood, clawing at the floor with his huge and strangely disproportionate hands as if attempting to dig his way out—and screamed down at his face, “You like biting my friend? Huh? Answer me! You like biting my friend?”
“I’ll eat you!” the man shouted defiantly, blood and spit fountaining with each word. “I’ll eat you! I’ll eat your fucking heart, you fucking whore!”
Allison’s seething anger was breaking through the remaining remnants of her self-restraint, and it seemed to ripple off of her in waves, roiling the air around her like gasoline vapors waiting for a spark to set them off. The man continued with his profanity laced tirade. Then he called her a cunt. That was the spark. Allison roared with fury and stomped her foot down on his mouth, the heel of her boot crunching through teeth and bone and passing through to the wood beneath his skull, cracking the floorboard, splitting it down the middle across the length of the room.
Felix had seen his fair share of gore in recent months, and this was among the worst. He watched Allison shaking her leg to extract the boot that had become lodged in the man’s face, and he realized, with a numbing sense of dismay, it didn’t even provoke a reaction. He felt nothing. More gore. More death. Just another day.
“Don’t look,” Felix cautioned Caitlin, turning her so she couldn’t see what Allison had done to her captor’s face. He glanced up at the pulley and yanked out the ring screwed into the plaster, then set Caitlin on her feet, keeping a hand around her arm, afraid she would topple over if he let go. “You’re safe now,” he said, gently lifting the noose over her head. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you. You’re safe.” She buried her face in his chest, sobbing softly, clinging desperately to him. Allison came over and untied her wrists, draping her jacket over her shoulders, and together, they held her for a long time, telling her she was safe. That the man couldn’t hurt her anymore. That she had nothing to fear.
“I think she’s asleep,” Allison whispered to Felix after some time had passed.
He nodded, seeing her eyes were closed, her breathing steady.
Allison, her face still flushed with anger, looked at Felix over the top of Caitlin’s head. “We need to get her to a hospital. That asshole bit her.”
“Sick fuck,” Felix muttered furiously, scooping her up off the floor. He wrinkled his face in disgust at the dead man. “Should we leave him or should I ash him?”
“Ash him,” Allison answered immediately. “I don’t want to hear anyone talking about this fuck. Whoever he was, he doesn’t deserve to be remembered. Erase him.”
Cradling Caitlin in one arm, Felix nodded and pointed toward the body, raising him up and igniting the man’s sodden underwear, spreading the fire across his pestilential skin, whipping the flames around him, smothering him. The heat drank the moisture from the shriveling body, hissing and crackling, melting the skin, exposing flesh and the bones in his hands and feet. Felix increased the temperature (keeping the fire low to prevent the house from going up in smoke) and the flames burned brilliantly, lighting up the room in shimmering waves of red and violet, licking at the bones beneath the vanishing flesh. Allison stood unflinchingly beside Felix, watching the body disappear within the flames. As the inferno devoured the bones, the hissing and crackling diminished in volume, softening, becoming less frequent. Then it stopped altogether. Felix extinguished the fire and the room darkened as if a storm cloud had settled over the house. The air was heavy with the stench of burned flesh and a thick gray smoke that drifted toward the kitchen, drawn by the opening in the back of the house. What little remained of the shrieking man with the blistery rash—a scattering of ashes—drifted down and tumbled along the floor, gathering around the legs of the stool.
“You think he was a tester?” Felix asked, covering his mouth and nose.
Allison shrugged and coughed into her fist. “Who knows? Maybe he was just a psycho. You hear that shit he was babbling? ”
“I guess it doesn’t matter.”
Allison shook her head. “Guess not.”
Chapter 24
The Rose Bowl
Like every actor he’d ever been acquainted with, Dirk Rathman had always wondered what it was like to be a rock star, to stand on stage like Mick Jagger or Bruce Springsteen and stir a crowd into a screaming frenzy with a note, a lyric, a simple strum of his guitar. With the midday sun shining down on the Rose Bowl, 70,000 hostile faces stared back at him, shouting insults, cursing at him, threatening to drag him off the stage. This was not, he thought listlessly, what he’d imagined for his rock star debut.
They had come to see him, the man single-handedly responsible for turning the ERA from a fringe movement popular with college kids and aging hippies to a political juggernaut that had sparked the public’s imagination. But Dirk was the undercard today. He wasn’t here in his capacity as Chief Spokesperson, or international box office superstar,
or the lead in Mesmerizer Jolie, the soon-to-be mega franchise set to begin filming in March. Dirk was here for one thing, to introduce Lofton Ashfield—which he had done to the pounding bass of Fall Out Boy’s Centuries ringing in his ears. Now he stood off to the side, yielding center stage to perhaps the most hated man in America.
The crowd had laughed, at first, thinking it had to be a joke. Lofton, after all, was the living, breathing incarnation of everything the ERA hated and fought against: a billionaire industrialist controlling the means of production, a man who had reaped the benefits of a corrupt and morally bankrupt political system. In the eyes of the rank-and-file ERA members, what Lofton possessed, he had stolen, if not outright, then on the backs of the ‘little people’, the common folk, the laborers who worked like slaves so men like Lofton could collect yachts and palaces. The laughter had soon faded with the realization it wasn’t a stunt, replaced by righteous fury, and the collective anger of the near rioting crowd threatened to sweep them off the stage.
Then Lofton spoke. Nothing important to start. Just a greeting, a simple ‘hello’. The crowd quieted, Lofton’s words dissipating their anger and frustration, and soon they were settling into the rhythm of his speech, nodding and swaying as if they were at a concert, and Lofton was the rock star.
Dirk had expected this. When Lofton spoke, you listened—you believed.
“The government,” Lofton began after concluding his introductory pleasantries, “has broken its social contract. It no longer serves the people, it serves interests, and those interests are not aligned with the safety, prosperity, and welfare of our society. The President and our leaders in Congress are beholden to these interests, who in turn, ensure they remain in power. This, my friends, is about to change.”