Ascendant: The Complete Edition

by Richard Denoncourt

  Blake’s sudden rise in esteem attracted new recruits. Telepathic or not, it didn’t matter; it now appeared that every young man wanted to follow the major. And if Louis Blake was to be their commander, it was fitting that Michael Cairne be their lieutenant.

  Dominic, of course, frightened them.

  By the time the town meeting was held, twenty-four men between the ages of sixteen and twenty-nine had been initiated into Blake’s ranks. They began referring to Michael as “Sir.” He found that he could make them do practically anything he wanted.

  They would come up to him and say things like, “Sir, would you like us to form a clean-up crew and take care of any leftover shell casings around town?”

  Michael would shrug at these odd requests and give responses along the lines of, “Sure, if you want.” He would never get used to giving orders.

  Two days after they put Meacham in jail, Michael used hypnosis to get him to spill everything he knew about the supplies locked in his barn and his plans for taking over Outridge and Lansing. He discovered the man’s plans to commit horrible atrocities. Any men from outlying towns who chose to resist Meacham’s takeover would be hung from lampposts on public streets as an example. Any young women over the age of sixteen were to be paired with Meacham’s men, with Meacham himself deciding on the pairing.

  His ultimate goal had been to combine as many as six of the surrounding mountain towns into a united chiefdom with himself as the big chief and his men as administrators.

  And where did Louis Blake and his men fit in?

  “We were going to kill you,” Meacham said in soft monotone. “We were just waiting for the right time. We had to make you look bad to the people, so they would understand. So they wouldn’t rebel.”

  He stared down at the floor as he spoke, his eyes vacant. Michael had been coming into the jail throughout the day to keep him in his trance. Sometimes Blake would sit and listen to the man, and afterward he would interrogate Michael as to how he had managed such a thing. But Michael didn’t know how to explain it. In truth, all he was really doing was talking to the string in Meacham’s mind and telling it exactly what he wanted.

  “It’s like…” Michael began, sitting across from Blake and Midas Ford, “it’s like I’m talking to a part of him behind the man he became, someone he used to be. Maybe the child version of John Meacham.”

  Blake sat leaning forward, a forgotten cigarette burning in his hand, utterly astounded by what he was hearing. “Unbelievable,” was all he could say.

  Midas Ford shook his head. “It’s not natural. And for it to come so easily—”

  He was interrupted by a loud, hacking cough. Blake propped his elbows on his knees, bent all the way over, the smoke rising into his face. Shaking his head in disappointment, Midas plucked the cigarette out of Blake’s fingers and put it out in a tea mug.

  “There,” Michael said, staring at Blake. “I just saw something.”

  Blake looked at him, his chest shaking as he tried to stifle a cough.

  “What did you see?”

  They leaned closer to Michael, listening.

  “A flash, like an image that leaked out of your mind. You didn’t mean to send it.”

  “What was it, Mike? Say it.”

  Michael’s voice shook a little. “My mother, when she was my age.”

  Blake looked away, wincing as if suddenly awash in shame and guilt.

  “You loved her,” Michael said. “I just felt how much. Only for a second, but it was there. She was beautiful. That’s why you’re killing yourself with these cigarettes. You hate yourself for not saving her life.”

  Blake shot up out of his chair. “You stay out of my mind, Michael. I mean it.”

  Michael peered up at him with an oddly curious expression. “Don’t smoke anymore. You won’t like it. Touching a cigarette to your lips will fill you with disgust from now on.”

  Midas Ford’s living room went quiet. They could hear the wind outside. Michael kept his eyes on Blake, who scoffed as if this were all a bad joke. Smirking at Michael, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes. His hands shook as he brought one to his lips to light it.

  “Go ahead,” Michael said. “Try it.”

  The cigarette shivered. Blake’s face tightened into a grimace as he tried to keep it between his lips to light it. Eyes narrowing with disgust, he looked like a man with a cockroach trapped in his mouth trying hard not to vomit.

  “Pttthhh…”

  His lips expelled the unlit cigarette with enough force to send it flying across the room. He looked back at Michael with a wide grin. His eyes seemed to dance.

  “I don’t want to,” he said, lifting his arms through the air. “I don’t want to smoke it. I’m cured.”

  Surprisingly, Midas kept silent. He didn’t look up at Michael or Blake as he rose from his seat to shuffle into the kitchen.

  “Anyone want a stiff drink?” he called out to them. “I sure do.”

  “Why are you being such a sourpuss?” Blake asked Midas an hour later, leaning back in the armchair and chewing gum with a smacking sound. Michael had already left, but Blake had stayed to coax Midas out of his foul mood. The old doctor was pacing back and forth by the window, the index finger of his right hand making swirls against the hair on his chin.

  “What is it?” Blake said. “You’re doing that thing again, where you play with your chin hair. Come on, be a dear. Tell me.”

  Midas stopped and gave Blake an expectant look. “You remember that boy that came before Michael in the experiments? I believe his number was T1-04. They called him Rico in the lab because he used to make the scientists empty their wallets so he could take their money.”

  Blake shifted in his seat, avoiding his friend’s inquisitive stare. “Uh-huh. I remember.”

  “Rico found he could use telepathy to create a mirrored domination effect. He would take out his own wallet and anyone watching would do the same. Boy was only ten years old.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “I’m saying it was perfectly normal what he was doing. He would hoard the money under his mattress until nightfall, and then he would bribe the security guys—again, using his ability—into bringing snacks back from the vending machine. No matter how much he was punished, he did it again and again.”

  “Michael’s not like that,” Blake said. “He hasn’t shown any inclination, any desire at all, to use his ability for deception.”

  Midas shook his head and looked out the window. “He hasn’t had to. Boy already has an outlet. Since he got here, he’s had training sessions, missions, even a minor coup d’état. But what happens when all of that’s gone? When he no longer has an outlet?”

  “It’ll build up inside of him,” Blake said, staring off into empty space.

  “You remember what happened to Rico?” Midas said.

  Blake shook his head.

  “Of course not. You’d been moved onto a different project by then. Took you away from Claudia, which is one of the reasons you turned traitor. You weren’t there when they removed the vending machines to see what would happen. Rico went crazy.”

  Blake looked up at Midas, his face softening, revealing his confusion. “You never told me this part.”

  Now Midas was the one shaking his head. “I didn’t think much of it until now. Rico knew he was different from us—special somehow. His sense of entitlement shot up until he thought he had god-like powers. When they took out the vending machines and the scientists stopped carrying their wallets into the development centers, Rico started throwing tantrums at night, when he would crave the sugar most. One of those nights, it took four security guards to restrain him. That triggered the episode that killed him, just like all the other Type I’s died after their first episodes. But you know what Rico did before he died?”

  Blake sat leaning forward, his hands clasped together.

  “No,” he said softly. “But I’m sure it was terrible.”

  Midas nodded slowly. “He made
the security guards empty their pockets. One of them, the poor bastard, had a pocketknife. Rico made the man open the blade and saw off his own tongue with it. Then he passed the knife around and the others did the same. They were so quiet while they were doing it that the guards down the hall thought Rico had been put back to bed. When the boy finally died of a brain aneurism, the guards walked out of the room and acted like nothing had happened, even as their mouths poured blood all over the floor.”

  There was a moment of silence in which the shadows in the room seemed to deepen.

  “Why would a ten-year-old boy do something like that?” Blake said.

  Midas gave an ominous half-smile, more a warning than a sign of amusement.

  “Because he could.”

  Chapter 23

  William was having the time of his life without even knowing what he’d done to deserve it.

  Earlier, he’d been trying to force down his lunch—a bowl of oatmeal with grains and berries his mother had prepared for him—when Dominic entered the house carrying a long wooden stick and tossing a ball up and down. For some reason, his mother had been upset by what she saw. Maybe she had thought Dominic would hurt him with the stick.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Dominic?”

  His grin widened. “I’m going to teach the boy how to play baseball.”

  After much arguing, during which William shouted and hopped on his good foot to be released from his nasty lunch so he could learn this new game, his mother gave in and allowed Dominic to take him into the front yard and no further—so she could keep an eye on them, as she had put it.

  They’d been outside for an hour now, William squinting in the sunlight reflecting off the snow, trying to hold the stick—or “bat” as Dominic had called it—high up so he could swing it. Over and over, Dominic tossed the ball at him. William missed every throw for the first twenty minutes, convinced the entire time that Dominic would get angry and leave, but the man kept smiling and telling him it was normal, that he just needed some practice.

  William had never seen Dominic act like this. Usually the man walked around with an angry look on his face, not talking to anybody except Michael and the other boys. It was almost too good to be true; first Michael had become his friend, and now Dominic was his friend, too. What had he done to deserve such a reward?

  William got better with each passing minute. His bad foot never got in the way, either. He didn’t need it to hit the ball.

  “You’re a fast learner,” Dominic said. “A really smart kid.”

  “Like Michael?” William said, grinning.

  Dominic winced a little. William worried he had said something bad. He was always saying dumb things. His mother even told him so.

  “Yeah,” Dominic said finally. “Like Michael. Come on, it’s time for you to go inside.”

  “Can we do this again tomorrow?”

  Dominic’s hand felt warm as he cupped it around the back of William’s head. He gave it a small shake, mussing up his hair.

  “Sure, Will,” he said. “We’ll play every day until you get tired of it. I’ll even teach you how to catch the ball.”

  William had never felt so excited. Then, thinking he finally had something to brag about to the other boys, he did what was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life.

  He told Aidan about it.

  Later, as the boys beat him in an empty parking lot, William felt something go tight inside his skull, like a muscle clenching beneath an enormous weight.

  Aidan grinned like a pale devil as he stomped down on William’s legs and stomach while the other boys watched and laughed. William tried to fight back but there were too many of them. At the exact moment Aidan’s shoe crashed into his mouth, numbing his jaw and lips, William seized upon the tightening sensation. His mind expanded, issuing a wordless cry for help.

  A minute later, his cry was answered.

  “Get away from him,” a woman screamed.

  It was his mother, coming to rescue him. Charlotte appeared as if she had materialized from the dusty air surrounding the boys. She grabbed Aidan’s hair and yanked, bending the boy like a sunflower stalk in a windstorm. She loosed her fist again and again into his back and shoulders, pummeling him, until Aidan cried like a little girl for her to stop.

  The boys ran off, Aidan squealing and holding his face like it was about to detach. Charlotte watched them for a moment. When they were gone, she bent over William to study him, her eyes wide, concerned, full of love. William would have basked in the attention if the pain running along his body hadn’t been so hot and sharp.

  “Here,” his mother said, touching one side of her head. “Let me make it better.”

  Invisible hands extended from his mother’s brain, reaching for the part of him that hurt the most. Though William couldn’t see these abstracted limbs, he could feel their tingling sensation. His response was immediate, beyond his control. Like a bear trap, his mind snapped down on the fingers reaching toward it.

  “William,” his mother said, shooting upright. She gave him a look like all those times she walked in on him doodling on the walls of the house.

  Then her expression changed to one of curiosity.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said again.

  She tried using telepathy once more to connect with him. William’s mind blunted it. He didn’t even mean to do it. Suddenly he was very tired.

  “My son,” she said.

  His mother’s eyes filled with love once more. She kissed him on the forehead. Surprisingly, it made the pain go away.

  Chapter 24

  Michael stepped into the pink house on Silo Street, carrying a sack of potatoes he wanted to give to Arielle. He was startled to see William lying on the couch, right leg up across the cushions, the other hanging down with the heel of his special shoe on the carpet. The boy was covered in dirt and his face was puffy, one of his eyes swollen nearly shut.

  Michael dropped the sack and ran to his side.

  “William, look at me. Are you okay? What happened?”

  He rotated William’s head to get a better look at his face and lifted the boy’s hand off his belly to inspect the damage. There were bloody scrapes and dirty smudges all over his palms.

  “Was it the boys? Aidan and his friends?”

  William nodded, looking up at the ceiling as if too ashamed to meet Michael’s eyes.

  “It’s okay,” Michael said. “I can help you.”

  He focused on the boy’s forehead and what lay beneath the skin and bone.

  You won’t be afraid anymore, William.

  The almost invisible, spider-silk string in William’s head went tight, something Michael had never seen before. It stayed that way, even as he urged it to give in so he could at least relieve some of the boy’s pain. Nothing.

  Michael blinked and swallowed, trying to keep down a sense of helplessness. It wasn’t working. It was like his ability had suddenly abandoned him.

  William turned his head to tell him something. Michael leaned in close.

  “Uncle Dominic taught me to play batball.”

  Michael gave him a sad smile. “Was it fun?”

  The boy nodded, wincing at the pain the movement caused. Michael tried once more to relieve the boy’s discomfort using telepathy. But the thread in William’s mind went tight, apparently an automatic response. That could only mean one thing.

  William was blocking him.

  Michael slid his hands under the boy, intending to lift him so he could deliver him to Midas Ford’s clinic, when a woman’s voice reached his ears.

  “What are you doing?”

  Charlotte stood at the other end of the room, holding a steaming bowl of what smelled like chicken soup. Her hair was down around her shoulders and she wore a white headband to keep it out of her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed and heavy with fatigue.

  “Look at him,” Michael said. “Why don’t you do something about this? He needs help.”

  She walked
past him and set the bowl on the table next to the couch. Then she bent down and put a hand on William’s forehead. Her shirt lifted in the back, exposing a patch of skin, the soft outline of muscle. Michael tore his gaze away.

  “Everything feel okay?” Charlotte asked her son.

  William gave a distant nod.

  Satisfied with the boy’s condition, Charlotte stood up and motioned for Michael to follow her into the next room. Something about her mood seemed off. Michael put himself on guard. He sat at the kitchen table and watched her prepare two mugs of coffee. When she was finished, she set them down on the table and sat close to him—a little too close.

  “Is there something you needed to tell me?” Michael said, grabbing a mug.

  “Yes,” she said and nodded. “This.”

  She slipped her hand up his thigh, over his jeans. Michael was so startled by the sudden movement that his shoulders jerked upward, spilling coffee onto his shirt. The heat bit into his skin.

  “Get your hand off me,” he said.

  “Make me.”

  Michael set the mug down on the table and shook coffee off his fingers, keeping his eyes on Charlotte’s. They were a deep brown color. He remembered that time in the town hall when they had been blue, like Arielle’s, for just a second. Something was definitely off about this girl. He wanted to leave immediately but his curiosity held him in place.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want to know what it’s like.”

  “What what’s like?”

  “Dominance. The kind only you can do. I want to know what it feels like to be your puppet.”

  “This is sick.”

  When he tried to push himself out of the chair, Charlotte gripped his belt and held him in place.

  Let go of me, Michael sent, issuing the command directly at the thread dancing in her mind. He could see it clearly above her eyes, knew exactly how it would respond.