Ascendant: The Complete Edition

by Richard Denoncourt

  “Of course,” Michael said, looking down at his hands. “I’ve been hearing Harris Kole say that on the radio all my life.”

  Dominic nudged him. “Here, you walk and talk like everybody else, or John Meacham will outcast you, got it? We’re trying to help your sorry ass, God knows why.”

  “I know that,” Michael said, feeling more and more like a scolded child in a room full of adults. “I just don’t get it. You said you wanted to teach me how to protect myself against the men who killed my mother, and now you’re telling me I’m going to learn how to meditate? That’s it?

  Blake crunched a nut with his molars. The noise was really getting on Michael’s nerves. “How many hours do you sleep each night, Mike?”

  “The normal amount, I guess. I don’t know, six, seven hours.”

  “How many of those hours do you actually spend lying awake in bed?”

  “A couple.”

  “Of course.” Blake got up and walked around the desk. “How often did you only get two or three hours a night?”

  “All the time,” Michael said, almost laughing. “I used to work triple shifts for my parents. The dinner shift ended at ten every night and clean up took about two hours, so I’d be in bed by twelve-thirty or one o’clock. Then morning prep started at four in the morning and—”

  “And,” Blake said, “were you ever tired?”

  “Of course. I hated it.”

  Blake and Reggie were staring at Michael now, like scientists waiting for a chemical reaction to take place in a beaker.

  “I’m not asking if you were bored,” Blake said. “That much is obvious. I’m asking if you were ever exhausted from lack of sleep.”

  Michael wrung his hands together as he tried to remember.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably not, I mean, I was always all right if I could just get a few hours.”

  Blake smiled, exposing dark yellow teeth. Over by the window, Reggie let out a sigh and stepped toward the center of the room.

  “This is risky,” he said.

  Blake waved away the comment. “Not if we do it at night. We could take him to the old observatory.” His face brightened. “Let’s get the other boys in on it.”

  “Peter and Eli?” Dominic said, getting up from his chair.

  Now all three of them were standing in front of Michael, arms crossed like men discussing tactics before a battle.

  “Ian Meacham can’t be a part of this,” Reggie said. “He’ll rat us out to his father.”

  Dominic shook his head. “He hates his father. If he sees it as an act of rebellion, he’ll follow along, no questions asked. Weren’t you ever a teenager?”

  “If Peter and Eli even agree in the first place,” Blake said. “They know being outcast is no way to live.”

  Michael watched the men converse, excitement welling in his chest. It was true he didn’t need to sleep that much. If he could use those hours to train his ability, instead of wasting them just lying in bed, then he’d really be getting somewhere.

  “Let’s do it,” Michael said, standing forcefully. “I’m ready to fight.”

  Blake studied Michael for a moment, then looked at Dominic, raised his eyebrows, and sighed.

  “Teenagers,” he said with a dismissive wave. “All right, let’s do it.”

  Chapter 10

  The only light in the darkened hallway came from the stars beyond the window, which trembled as a blast of wind shook the glass.

  William crouched behind the door of the bathroom, where he could see anyone who came up the stairs to his mother’s bedroom. He would always hear the creak of the back door first, and that was how he knew to get into position. Always he felt ashamed afterward, and yet his curiosity got the best of him each time.

  Tonight it was Ian, as usual, wearing a sweatshirt with a hood covering his head. Sometimes other men visited, but Ian came more often than any of the others. Despite the hood, William knew it was Ian by his long legs and big, loose-fitting boots, and the awkward way he walked with one hand in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, the other wielding a flashlight.

  After checking the hallway, Ian went to the bedroom door and knocked twice, softly, so it barely made a sound. The door opened and candlelight from inside dimly lit up his face. He whispered something and was allowed in, and once the door had been shut—the lock clicking firmly into place—William scampered over, favoring his bad foot as he tried not to make a sound, so he could peek through the keyhole.

  He could just see the corner of his mother’s bed and, above it, the bottom corner of the window. Charlotte sat on the bed and looked up at Ian, a bit scared judging by her wide-eyed expression.

  William listened.

  “…outcasted if you ever so much as go near him again,” Ian said, bending over so he could speak into her face.

  Charlotte looked down at the floor and said nothing. With her head tilted downward and to the side like that, and her hair draped over her shoulders and nightgown, she looked the part of a sad little girl getting yelled at by an overbearing father.

  William felt his chest go tight with anger. He grit his teeth.

  “I see how you look at him. Why am I even wasting my time with you, Charlotte? Huh? You should hear how Pete and the rest talk about you. No one wants to be with you except me. They all want Arielle. Even Michael wants Arielle. Don’t you get that?”

  “So if no one wants me,” Charlotte said, “I guess I’m stuck with you. Is that how it is?”

  William lost sight of his mother as Ian blocked the keyhole with his pacing. A shiver ran through him; for a moment he thought Ian would open the door and find him there.

  “I knew getting involved with you was a bad idea from the start,” Ian said. “I don’t need this.”

  He started toward the door. William drew back, ready to bolt down the hallway. Then his mother whispered something that sounded like “Come here,” and the bedsprings made a creaking sound as she got up.

  William peered through the keyhole again. His mother glanced at him—or at least she appeared to; a flash of her dark eyes in his direction—before pulling Ian toward her and kissing him on the lips with a sucking sound.

  A cold, slimy unraveling took place in William’s belly. His mouth went dry as he watched.

  “Blow out the candles,” Ian said.

  The room went dark, and William crept back to his bedroom, his mind stewing with emotions that made his stomach feel sick. His dreams that night were scary ones.

  Chapter 11

  Arielle had loved this song since childhood. She knew every word and could even match the singer’s voice if she put some effort into it. It was “I’m Making Believe” by Ella Fitzgerald and The Ink Spots.

  In the half-lit café, as the music drifted out of the ancient jukebox, she felt herself bobbing up and down along soft waves of calm. It had been a good day. Everything was in harmony in her life. Her talk with Peter had gone well, and he had accepted that she wasn’t ready to take the next step in their relationship.

  “I’m making believe,” she sang as she wiped down the back counter, “that you’re in my arms…”

  A violent rapping noise came at the front door, a set of knuckles against a loose pane of glass that needed to be repaired. Arielle’s breath caught in her throat. It was Warren and Elkin, grinning at her like a couple of teenage punks, probably drunk off moonshine from the still they ran in one of the barns.

  “We’re closed,” she shouted.

  Warren knocked again, slowly and deliberately, eyeing her the whole time without blinking. He was going to break that pane of glass if he kept it up. His face twisted into a sinister smile.

  “Go away,” Arielle said, taking a few steps toward the back door. If they wanted, they could always run around the building and catch up to her. She might as well face them. “Please, just go away.”

  Warren took something out of his pocket. It was starting to get dark outside and she could barely see what he was doing. At this ho
ur, only some of the street lamps were lit. The only light inside the café was the single bulb she kept alive with leftover energy drawn from the generator out back. The bulb cast an eerie light over the glass in the door, making Elkin and Warren seem to shimmer as Warren did something to the door handle that made it rattle. Was he picking the lock?

  The lock clicked and the door swung open. They had a key, those jerks. They must have broken in here one night to make a copy.

  “Hey, hey,” Warren said, strutting past the round tables and corner armchairs in the front, Elkin at his heels. “There’s my girl.”

  “Warren, get out,” Arielle said. “Make me tell you again, and it’s harassment against a woman. You wanna be outcast?”

  He let out a burst of laughter. “Yeah, right. Me? Besides, you ain’t a woman, you’re just a stupid girl.”

  “And you’re just a scumbag.”

  Her lips were trembling. This wasn’t like the other times they gave her trouble. Had Michael’s sudden presence in Gulch changed them somehow? Made them more malicious?

  Warren tipped his head forward and chuckled, a grin plastered across his bony face. His hair, still damp from the rain, spilled around the sides of his head like rattails.

  “Play nice now,” he said.

  Arielle moved toward the back door.

  “Yeah, we’re just customers,” Elkin said in his nasally voice. “How are you gonna make any money treatin’ your patrons with that kind of attitude?”

  Arielle tried to stay calm. She couldn’t let them see how afraid she was. She used a focusing technique Blake had taught her that required being entirely conscious of the space her body took up in the world. If she could concentrate on that space, her mind would automatically loosen and relax.

  It wasn’t working.

  “We’ve come for some food,” Warren said, approaching her instead of taking a seat like a normal customer. Elkin lurched behind him, breathing hard. She could smell the liquor on their breath. “Heat something up for us. Some of your famous bacon should do it.”

  “Come back tomorrow morning. I mean it.”

  “No,” Warren screamed, his face tightening like a hand making a fist. Arielle’s heart fluttered. A tiny bit of urine slipped out of her body, like when she would get scared as a child.

  The song continued on the jukebox, Ella Fitzgerald crooning softly: “And here in the gloom of my lonely room…we’re dancing like we used to do…”

  “Okay,” Arielle said. “I’ll heat something on the burner. Two—two sandwiches. And then promise me you’ll leave.”

  Warren stood halfway between the front and back doors, close enough that he could catch her no matter where she tried to escape.

  “I promise, sweet tits,” he said.

  Arielle turned toward the back door. Warren cleared his throat, a watery sound that made her wince in disgust.

  “You bring that burner out here and light it. I want to watch you work.”

  “And you work good, girl,” Elkin said.

  The stools creaked beneath their weight. They were planning on being here for a while. Arielle considered using telepathy to call out to Dominic, but that was a bad idea; Dominic would tear these men apart, and then he’d be forced to leave town again. Or worse.

  Trying to keep calm, she went through the motions of bringing the cast-iron skillet out to the café counter. She prepared the bread and bacon and began to cook.

  “I gotta take a leak,” Warren said, getting up. “Elkin you keep your eye on her. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Got it, boss,” Elkin said, sipping moonshine from a metal flask that had appeared in his hand.

  Warren eyed Arielle as he walked through the back door into the storage area. He might have been planning on pissing into her juice bottles. It was just the sort of thing he would find amusing. Arielle would have to smell each bottle tomorrow just to make sure.

  When Elkin got up from his stool, bloodshot eyes narrowing at her, she knew something bad was going to happen.

  “Hey, little girl,” he said, creeping around the counter toward her. Arielle tensed but didn’t turn away. She gripped the handle of the skillet, which was burning hot by now.

  Elkin placed his damp, bony hands around her waist and pressed up against her backside. “No need to be so cold to me, Arielle.”

  Feeling his hardness against the cleft of her buttocks, Arielle closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Teeth clenched, she lifted the heated skillet, using a towel to protect her hands, and swung it over her left shoulder.

  It caught Elkin against the cheek with a sizzling sound.

  He roared and fell back as she spun around to face him.

  “You’re a little boy,” Arielle said, bringing to mind the image of Elkin as a shivering, drooling child. She had to draw it up quickly, not from memory but imagination, before she could project it onto him.

  Over the next few seconds he seemed to shrink before her—he, the boy, the image of him as young and weak and small. “You’re seven years old, and you’re afraid because you’ve been beaten, and you hate the beatings so much that you cry about it. You cry, you cry, you cry…”

  And now she was crying, because the emotion she’d had to summon was enough to encompass them both. She could feel his fear—it was pungent, like a bad smell—and it made her feel sorry for him.

  He bent and wilted like paper burning up in a fire until his ass was on the floor. He was propping himself up with one arm, his other hand covering the spot on his face where she had burned him.

  “Hunnnhhh...” he moaned.

  “You cry,” Arielle said, wiping her eyes, “like the coward that you are.”

  Elkin’s face scrunched up miserably as a dark stain spread over the crotch of his pants.

  “No,” he said. “Oh God.”

  The back door burst open and Warren walked through, a hulking figure in the dim light. Arielle lifted the pan over her shoulder. She was ready.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  “You’re scared,” Arielle said, lifting her arms over her face for protection. “You’re scared, you’re terrified.”

  “Your ment powers won’t work on me, bitch,” Warren said, pulling his arm back to swing at her.

  Chig chig. The unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked.

  Warren froze.

  A short, dark figure stood behind him, having just emerged from the back door. The single barrel of a pump-action shotgun crept up behind Warren’s shoulder to kiss his right earlobe with its metal lips.

  “You touch her and I’ll blow your redneck brains against the wall, son.”

  Warren’s scowl was deep enough to pinch his eyebrows into a V. He lifted his arms but otherwise stayed in place.

  “It’s not what you think, Doc. She burned my friend here.”

  “Your friend,” Midas Ford said, “is a witless, wife-beating scumbag who deserves to be taken out back and shot. Much like yourself, I’ll bet.”

  The café was silent except for Elkin’s whiny blubbering. The jukebox had long since quieted.

  “You talk a big game, Doctor,” Warren said. “But in the end it’s all just talk. You know who I work for.”

  “The Devil,” Midas said. “Now take your little friend here and get the hell out of the Cold War Café, and stay out for good. Your kind is no longer welcome here.”

  Warren turned until he was facing the doctor. He was almost a foot taller than the old man, and the disparity in height appeared to give him some confidence, despite the shotgun aimed at his jaw.

  Smirking, he said, “You’re going to pay for this, Doc. You’ll see.”

  “I’m paying for my sins already,” Midas said, scowling like an imp. A hundred deep lines were etched into his brown face. His glasses did nothing to hide the rage in his eyes. “The question is, will I make you pay for yours?”

  Warren sneered at him. “We’ll see.”

  The two men rotated positions until Midas was
shielding Arielle from further harm. Warren kicked Elkin in the shin and hissed for him to get up. Elkin wiped his eyes and nose and pushed himself off the floor, eyeing the shotgun warily.

  “Now you git,” Midas said. “And don’t let me see you in here again.”

  Warren licked his lips. “Too bad you’re the only doctor in this town, Ford, ’cause you’ll need one when I get done with you.”

  Arielle watched them head for the door as Midas tracked them with the shotgun. Warren glanced at Arielle once through the glass and pursed his lips into a kiss. She and Midas kept silent. They waited for the door to close and the sound of footsteps to fade away.

  Midas rested the shotgun on the counter and turned to inspect Arielle.

  “Come here, honey.”

  Arielle rushed into his arms. She wept into the collar of his shirt, comfortable in his old-man smell.

  “They’re going to take the café,” she said.

  “You need to protect yourself first. Those boys have it in for you.”

  “I don’t care about that. But Meacham—he’ll take my café. And no one’s going to stop him.”

  Midas held her at arm’s length and gave her a sad smile.

  “Not if I can help it. Let me drive you home, sweetie.”

  “Okay.”

  He put his arm around her, and together they made their way out of the café.

  Chapter 12

  Over the following weeks, Michael followed the routine Blake had established for him, doing menial labor where he was needed—mostly chopping wood and delivering supplies like drinking water—and meeting in Blake’s office to work with him and Dominic on relaxation techniques. The people of Gulch mostly avoided him, and his interactions with the other boys in the house on Silo Street were timid at best. He still couldn’t figure out why Ian hated him so much.

  Peter and Eli were fans of Michael’s cooking, and he made sure to spoil them at breakfast time in hopes that if his personality couldn’t win them over, his steak and eggs would. It wasn’t easy. He sensed the boys had little respect for him, probably because he was so eager to please them.