“Now, you listen to me,” he said. “Those boys probably won’t come back from their mission alive. But if they do, I want you to work your magic. I’ve seen the way my son looks at you, and my men, even Dominic, as queer as he is. You’ve got a gift, and it goes beyond your beauty. You’re a natural piece of ass, a gift to the eyes and pricks of all men. Use it to give me what I want.”
She clenched her teeth to hold back a sob. When she spoke, it was in a whisper almost lost to the popping and crackling of the flames.
“Get another girl to do your dirty work.”
“Not gonna happen,” Meacham said, pouring himself another glass of his expensive whiskey. “It has to be you.”
“But why?”
He tipped the glass into his mouth, emptying it in a single swallow.
“Because I said so.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “You told me you had a foolproof plan to make it look like rape. Is that still true?”
Her voice trembled. “Yes.”
“Then do it. Hell, you might even get lucky. Maybe he won’t come back at all. But if he does, and you don’t do as I say, I’ll make Arielle disappear. And your little boy, too. You can’t imagine what slavers do to boys his age. What they make them do for a living.”
Charlotte closed her eyes and turned away from him. She was suddenly very dizzy.
“If Louis Blake finds out…” she started to say. But then again, Blake was in jail at this very moment. How much could he possibly do? “Or Dominic…”
“Blake’s dying. What, you didn’t know that?” he said in response to Charlotte’s look of utter shock. “He coughed up blood in the town hall.”
The door opened and Warren and Elkin walked in. They stood on either side of Charlotte, staring down at her with those ugly, sunburned faces.
“You do this for me,” John Meacham said, pouring himself another drink. “And you’ll be the wealthiest woman in this town. You name it, you’ll have it. Unlimited access to the caravans, your choice of any man to call your husband”—Elkin wagged his eyebrows at her and Warren smirked upon hearing those words—“whatever your little heart desires. All you have to do is help me get rid of that boy, understand?”
Charlotte swallowed a dreadful feeling.
“Thattagirl,” Meacham said. “Warren, drive her home.”
“No,” Charlotte said, already on her way out the door. “I’ll walk.”
Chapter 2
At two in the morning, the boys went through the plan for the hundredth time.
Dominic sketched a masterful portrait of each of the three women they had been entrusted to bring back, adjusted for the length of time they’d been away. Arielle made her own minor adjustments, though it was clear Dominic’s memory was razor sharp.
A telepathic report came from Louis Blake that he was doing well, and that jail wasn’t so bad, though he might have been saying that just to make them feel better. He wished them luck and urged the boys to focus on their survival above all else. He also warned that there would be hell to pay when they got back, regardless of their success.
The boys took naps in the afternoon, using self-induced hypnosis to make sure they could sleep. It didn’t work on Michael; he stayed awake, studying the drawings and maps.
Dominic retired to his own bedroom and found Reggie there, waiting for him with a hunting rifle slung across his back and two semi-automatic pistols in holsters hanging at his sides. Reggie was wearing a long-sleeved collared shirt tucked into cargo pants, and there was a few days’ worth of blond stubble on his face.
“Thought I’d come along,” he said.
“Not happening,” Dominic said, walking past him to draw the shades on the window. People in Gulch knew about him and Reggie, but it still made him feel ashamed.
“I’m an expert with a rifle,” Reggie said. “You need me there in case the crap hits the fan.”
Dominic spun on him. “I don’t need you dying on me. You’re not even a telepath.”
“Telepathy,” Reggie said like he wanted to spit. “You guys think you’re such hot shots. I can shoot the eye out of an eagle flying a hundred meters away. Can you do that? No, I didn’t think so.”
Dominic gave him a cold look. Reggie had been getting on his nerves lately with his neediness and his attempts at sensitivity. He was always trying to save people, always trying to make things right.
“I care about you,” Reggie said. “I’ll watch over you, no matter what happens.”
A harsh, quick sigh from Dominic. “You’re such a queer sometimes.”
Reggie blinked and stepped back. The words had clearly hurt him more than Dominic had intended. He bit back the urge to apologize. This was why he was better off alone; Dominic had no idea how to navigate these situations.
“I’m not doing this with you,” Dominic said. “No way in hell. So you just—you just stay back, be a professional.”
“A professional what? Asshole? Like you?”
Dominic grabbed the supply bag he’d come to retrieve and made for the door.
“Why are you so afraid of connecting with people? Is it because of what happened to your brother?”
Dominic stopped at the door. He turned, lifted the supply bag, and tossed it hard enough to send Reggie crashing back against the wall.
“You want to come?” Dominic said, spitting on the floor. “Then you can carry my bags, bitch.”
He whipped the door open and stormed out, not surprised to hear Reggie’s footsteps right behind him. What a pansy.
They ate dinner cold out by the barns, where Meacham had left the truck he’d promised them. The truck he hoped would take them to their deaths. It was seven o’clock in the evening. Almost time to go.
The truck had four-wheel drive and was equipped for outings in the mountains as well as in the desert. With Midas Ford’s help, they disguised it to look like a slaver van, the sort that would blend in perfectly at Praetoria. Everyone involved in the mission was dressed in the simple, brown wool shirts and pants of a slave—except for Dominic and Eli, who were both dressed like slavers, complete with skull, bone, and snake tattoos drawn all over their arms.
Dominic drove with Eli sitting in the front seat so he could telepathically scan for any unsavory individuals that might be lurking out on the road, waiting to ambush them. Michael, Ian, Peter, and Reggie sat in the back with hunting rifles hidden beneath their seats, just in case.
The ride felt like the longest Michael had ever taken. He spent the time fondling a small silver pendant Arielle had given him, shaped like a four-leaf clover. He hadn’t expected a personal good-bye from her. That morning, in the garage of his house on Silo Street, a soft knock had sounded at the door. He’d been alone, double-checking his pack for the hundredth time, when Arielle had come into the garage, hands stuffed into the pockets of a denim jacket.
“Michael,” she said.
“Arielle, what are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to say I appreciate this. You risking your life to—well, to save people you don’t even know.”
He lifted his pack and set it on one shoulder. “They mean a lot to you.”
She nodded. “They were my friends. Everybody loved them.”
“We’ll bring them back. Dominic’s coming. He’s an amazing fighter. His skills are just—”
She shushed him and stepped toward him until she was an arm’s length away. Her eyes were heavy with an emotion he couldn’t name.
“What is it?” he said.
She shrugged and looked down at her right hand, which had risen out of her jacket pocket. The fingers unclasped to show him the silvery pendant, with its four stubby leaves, that gleamed in the light of the garage.
“There’s a real clover inside it,” she said. “I preserved it in silver. For good luck.”
He took it and studied it for a moment, then slipped it into the pocket of his jeans.
“Thank you,” he said, and there was an uncomfortable pause before he found the
will to speak again. “Arielle, look, what happened with me and your sister—actually, last night she tried—”
She shushed him again, shaking her head like words could change nothing.
“I know what happened last night. Charlotte cried about it for an hour. I don’t like seeing her in pain, but I think you did the right thing. I know why you did it, too.”
Michael’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I did it because I thought—”
“You’re getting stronger,” she interrupted. “That’s why.”
She was smiling a little, like he was some sort of pet project that had exceeded her expectations. Michael wanted nothing more than to kiss that smile away—harshly, so she would know how it made him feel. But he couldn’t muster the courage. Arielle was a different sort of mission, one for which he wasn’t prepared.
“I guess I’ll see you when I get back,” he said.
“You better.”
They walked out of the garage together, and Michael watched her climb onto her bicycle. Before riding away into the evening, she looked back at him once more.
“The past won’t matter when you come back.” And then, with a wink: “Clean slate, right?”
He had only nodded in silence. That phrase stuck in his mind during the whole ride to Praetoria.
Clean slate. Like nothing had ever happened with Charlotte to make things weird between him and Arielle.
When they finally arrived at the outskirts of Praetoria, Dominic shut off the truck’s headlights and drove off the road toward the wiry bushes behind the faded billboard where they’d hidden with Arielle only days before. Parked behind the billboard, the truck would be invisible to anyone passing down the road. Eli closed his eyes and did a quick scan of the landscape. There was no one around for miles.
Dominic gathered them in a huddle and they went over the plan once more.
Chapter 3
In the heart of Praetoria, Roman was more than a chieftain—he was a king.
The man was fat beyond any reasonable standard, even for a ruler who did little more than order other people around. He sat back against a plush red sofa in a building that had once been a natural history museum. The display cases were empty, and there were still dark spots where ancient artifacts had once sat. In the corner there hung the giant artificial skull of a T-Rex that had been too big and worthless for raiders and scavengers to steal. Roman, who had liked it so much because of the power and hunger it stood for, had ordered his slaves to hang it from the ceiling tilted back as if the creature was about to swallow the entire room.
He stared at it now as he sat back chewing on a piece of meat from a platter one of his slaves had brought him. Dressed in a fine robe, his arms, legs, and grotesquely obese head were all shaved clean of any hair. The man hated hair, even his own; he saw it as beastly and unsanitary. Massive folds of flesh hung from his chin. He looked like an oversized baby in most ways except for the features of his face, which were small and angry. And when he spoke, it was with the deep voice of a baritone.
“Dietrich, play me a song—the one I like about being bad.”
Dietrich Werner lay across an old chaise lounge in the center of the room, an unconscious whore draped over him. He nodded once and closed his eyes, then extended his telepathic reach toward the chieftain and concentrated all of his mental energies on reproducing Michael Jackson’s “I’m Bad.” He could sense Roman’s giddiness, hear the way he was snapping his fingers and stamping his heavy feet against the ground. Dietrich’s memory of the song was accurate, as all of them were. He had a gift for this sort of thing.
When the song ended, Dietrich inhaled sharply and opened his eyes. He watched his boss sit back and sigh with pleasure, body shivering in the light of the fire. The room was mostly dark except for where Roman’s bodyguards stood around fires crackling inside metal bins. The prostitute draped over Dietrich was a dancer who called herself “Cherry Life” on stage. She had passed out almost naked on top of him after shooting a dose of high-grade Seraphim into her veins. Three other advisers from Roman’s cabinet were sprawled out on couches and armchairs, kissing and fondling slave girls and drinking whiskey. Dietrich passed his gaze over them. Was he becoming like these men? Passive and stupid and easily satisfied by whores and drugs and violence?
He prayed not. This gig wasn’t so bad, though, and he wanted to keep it a bit longer. But Harris Kole was a man who expected results, and if he didn’t get them soon, Dietrich Werner might as well escape into the radioactive ruins of Old New York and stay in hiding the rest of his life. It would be a lot safer fending off mutants and cannibals than having Kole’s men hunting him. At least that’s what people said.
That reminded him of something.
With a soft grunt, he pushed the slave girl off of him and watched her land with a slap-thump, arms and legs flopping. Roman saw this and burst out laughing, and the motion made his fat, pockmarked face jiggle.
“Gotta take a leak,” Dietrich said, stretching and making his way toward the back door.
“Make it quick,” Roman said. “I want to hear another song when you get back.”
Dietrich yawned as the effects of the drug began to wear off. He didn’t go for Seraphim, despite the calm euphoria it induced. He preferred Vitrex instead, a stimulant that made you want to dance on the surface of the sun. He didn’t feel that way now. Instead he felt like crushing someone’s rib cage with a sledgehammer. As relaxed as Seraphim made you feel, it had one hell of a withdrawal effect.
Dietrich Werner was not a tall man, though he wasn’t short either. In fact, anything said about his physical description was no more a fact than a matter of opinion. His hair, kept short and neatly parted along one side, was wavy at the tips, though some might have said it was completely straight. He liked to think he would never stand out in a crowd—a survival advantage for someone in his line of work.
He was also a Type II telepath, one of the very few.
“Because I’m bad,” he sang, unzipping his fly as he emerged from the building into the freshness of a clear night. Three guards wearing leather armor looked at him and nodded. “Out for a piss, boys. Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag containing a chalky brown powder. He tossed it over, the last of his Vitrex for the night. “Enjoy.”
One of the guards caught it, inspected it, and shot Dietrich a wide grin. The three guards turned away to better see their prize in the streetlight, and Dietrich took the opportunity to slide through an alleyway between two crumbling apartment buildings mostly used by squatters. A rope ladder hung down one side, and he had to feel around for it in the dark. He did a quick scan to make sure he hadn’t been followed and began to climb.
The effort left him out of breath. He was forty-two, not a young man by any standard, but still, his physical frailty bothered him, as it had since he was a kid.
When he got to the roof, he looked out over Praetoria and its bonfires and wild gatherings in the streets. Days in this ruined city were taxing, even with the slaves doing all the hard work, and people made up for it by partying all night, drinking and consuming drugs that made Vitrex look like instant coffee. At night, the city always looked like it was being sacked by barbarians, complete with the cacophony of bottles breaking, rifles discharging, motorcycles growling. Dietrich hated it; he wanted to be back home, back in New Sancta City, sipping martinis with the other FSD agents.
The transmitter was well hidden. He had to push aside a pile of trash to expose the plastic tarp that kept the device dry during the occasional rainstorm. It was a sophisticated device unlike anything he’d ever seen east of the Line, and as valuable as a dozen slaves, maybe more if you could find the right buyer.
Green light washed over his face as the touchscreen lit up. He tapped in his identification number and picked up the receiver. Not a whole lot different from a telephone, except it used a satellite to bounce its signal back home. The receiver was cold and greasy against his ear. It smelled like human shit.
> He heard static, followed by a series of clicks. At the right moment, he tapped a red circle five times on the corner of the screen. He waited a full minute before a man’s voice came in over the receiver.
“Bronze Eagle, confirm.”
“This is Bronze Eagle, reporting at one”—he looked at his watch—“forty-three, mountain time. Night four hundred and twenty-seven working undercover for Roman Sellatius in Praetoria. Current operational status same as last week’s report. No changes in military strength or numbers. Still no word on Louis Blake or any of the other targets on our list.”
He took a deep breath and added, “Sorry,” before putting down the receiver and ending the transmission.
The words TRANSMISSION RECORDED blinked three times before the screen went dark and the machine turned off with a fading hum. He caught the faint smell of chemicals. This little device would explode if the wrong person tampered with it.
He spread the tarp over the transmitter and covered it back up with trash, then sat for a minute to think. There was a lot on his mind these days. That blubbery piece of shit, Roman, wanted to expand his reach into the mountains, despite his lack of manpower and resources. He was becoming increasingly frustrated, and Dietrich, his right hand man and only Type II telepath in Roman’s regime, was stuck in the middle of the shit storm. Dealing with the man’s war council was in itself a full-time job.
Dietrich dug into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes and was about to light one when he felt a ripple at the edge of his perception. He jumped to his feet. Yes, he knew exactly what this was.
Telepathic dampening. A Type II trying not to be seen or heard.
Climbing down the rope ladder, Dietrich admitted to himself that he hadn’t been this excited in years. Finally a worthy opponent, maybe more than one.
He ran straight to Nero Street, home to Praetoria’s largest whorehouse, The Emperor’s Palace, where the majority of the female slaves were kept, banged, bought, and sold. Sex was the city’s main industry, and as a result, the Palace was probably the largest whorehouse for a thousand miles. If the intruders were after old friends that had been captured or sold into slavery, Nero Street was where they’d go. It was just a theory, but why else would they come?
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