Kingdom
Page 28
“Come with me,” Morrison said and Dylan followed him out onto the balcony, waiting for his opportunity. Tiber City spread out before them, beautiful and terrible.
“This is yours for the taking,” Morrison was telling Dylan, his voice low and seductive. “Not just Tiber City, but all the cities of the world. Power. Women. Treasure. Men will call you lord and master and crawl on their bellies before you. From every end of the earth, they will proclaim your glory and herald the dawn of a new age for mankind.”
Dylan said nothing, he only nodded: If he squinted, the lights on the horizon bled together until there was no distinction between anything, just the profane uniformity of 21st-century America. A dark fantasy flashed across his mind: He saw himself in the desert, standing atop the tallest mountain, and all around him people were gathered, crying out exaltations and lamentations, flesh pressed together, arms and hands outstretched; he was ruler and he was lord but Meghan was nowhere to be seen and artifice and fear were the only currencies in this strange land. He would never know the Connection again; he would exist forever on the surface of things, separate from God and his fellow man, utterly alone. But he would be king.
Morrison was right—it was his kingdom for the taking, just as it was his father’s. But like his father, Dylan just didn’t want it.
“Listen to them,” Morrison whispered, “they call your name…”
“It’s not real,” Dylan growled, cutting Morrison off. The vision vanished.
“But it can be,” Morrison was assuring him. “Everything you want, you can have. There are no limits…”
“Did you kill my father?” Dylan asked.
His tone was low but steady and a look of surprise flashed across Morrison’s tan, tight face but then it passed and Morrison seemed to be considering the question. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the wind was blasting so hard the rain was blowing sideways, pelting the two men facing each other on a balcony dozens of stories above Tiber City.
“Did you kill my father?” Dylan repeated, raising his voice and taking a step toward Morrison.
“What does that even matter,” Morrison snarled, raising his voice over the sound of the rain, “when I am offering to make you into a god?”
“Did. You. Kill. My. Father,” Dylan demanded, again, his voice little more than a whisper, barely audible over the rain and the thunder. Lighting cracked over the city, a hard, jagged strike capable of splitting the earth in half.
“Yes, yes,” Morrison was shouting, his tie gone, torn off and flung over the balcony. “I killed your old man. Just like I killed your cunt of a mother. And just like I’ll slit my whore of a daughter’s throat if you don’t join me.”
Morrison paused and then, lowering his voice, added:
“Of course, I’ll wait to do that one until after your son is born. After all, if you won’t join Exodus, perhaps your child will.”
Dylan’s mouth opened but no sound came out, his eyes wide in disbelief. Morrison began to laugh—a mean, bemused chuckle.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Morrison was asking as Dylan’s world slowed, blurred, wobbled. “I thought she had told you. I guess she wanted it to be a surprise…Well, surprise.”
Morrison was laughing as the world snapped back into focus and then Dylan was charging through the rain, swinging at Morrison. He connected with a wild right haymaker, flesh and bone slamming into flesh and bone and Morrison reeled backward, landing against the glass partition with an audible thud. But the glass didn’t break and although his lower lip was busted wide-open, blood teeming onto his oxford button-down shirt, he was still on his feet.
Morrison wiped his lip with the back of his hand and spit blood onto the tile before starting back across the balcony toward Dylan, his eyes radiating hatred. He could feel the Treatment surging through his blood, accelerating his nervous system, the pain inflicted by Dylan’s blows already receding.
“You stupid, stupid boy,” Morrison was shouting as he moved toward Dylan. “I’ll raise your son as my own. Everything I’ve offered to you, he will inherit.”
Morrison lunged at Dylan, and Dylan twisted to the right, toward the railing, and although he moved fast he didn’t move fast enough: Morrison’s fist smashed into his ribs with an audible crack and then Morrison was on him, the old man’s arms like pistons, pounding Dylan’s body with an inhuman fury.
Lightening flashed overhead and there was an explosion in the distance, the sound of a massive transformer blowing, followed seconds later by the frantic moan of sirens. All across Tiber City, the lights began to falter, fade, and Morrison paused, allowing Dylan an opportunity to roll away, across the balcony, but there was nowhere to go and Dylan could only brace himself as Morrison came at him again, grinning like a madman, as he unleashed a fury of jabs.
But the balcony was slick with rain and sweat and before Morrison could land another punch he slipped and a second after Morrison hit the floor Dylan was on top of him, straddling his chest as he rained blows down on the man’s face, pummeling it with a grim determination. He felt Morrison’s nose break—the cartilage bent sideways as Morrison howled with rage, his face a crimson mask.
And then Dylan was wrapping his hands around Morrison’s throat, squeezing so hard he thought he might pass out, the rain and wind strafing the balcony with such fury that Dylan could barely see; his world was a narrow window of blood and rain and the feeling of Michael Morrison’s neck between his hands—slippery with soft mushy veins and a windpipe that felt impossibly fragile—and Dylan kept squeezing, watching Morrison’s face contort, waiting for the end but the end didn’t come: Morrison’s hand shot up, his fist driving into Dylan’s ruined ribcage.
Dylan yelped in agony, his grip on Morrison’s neck broken. Staggering away from the old man, Dylan’s momentum drove him backward until he crashed into the railing. The pain exploded through his entire body, and so when he first saw Meghan appear in the doorway to the office, he thought he was hallucinating. But then Meghan was stepping out onto the balcony, moving through the rain, toward him, her hair getting wet, sticking to her forehead, his blood staining her shirt as he crashed into her arms before collapsing to his knees. Looking up at her, he reached out and put his hand on her stomach, wondering if he would survive this night, wondering if he would ever meet his son—a son! He was going to be a father, and this realization drove him past the pain and back onto his feet just as Morrison was pulling himself off the tile, lunging for Meghan, the man’s face a wreck of crimson and snot and sinew.
Morrison managed a single step toward Meghan before Dylan was on him, hammering him back against the balcony; Morrison’s fingers clawing the wet concrete, seeking traction because he could hear the horrible roar of the city below; he could feel Tiber swell in anticipation; an impatient god, greedy for sacrifice.
Then Dylan hit him again—a direct blow right above the old man’s heart—and
then Morrison was tumbling over the edge of the balcony, slicing through the darkness, and as he fell toward the earth, Michael Morrison wondered if he had a soul.
Epilogue
Central America
Spring 2016
On the first day of spring, three men set out across the desert. They crossed the southern border and continued to push south, scouring the shantytowns for news of the young couple. Most turned away; others just shook their heads and stared at the earth. There were some, however, who took the men aside and offered what information they could—the older denizens of these desert lands knew these men; they remembered when things were different and so they spoke of the girl and the boy: how the girl had long black hair and was clutching her swollen belly; how the boy walked with a limp and held the girl’s hand.
The men asked which way the couple had gone.
The ones willing to help could only point south.
These were not young men and their bones ached from the constant travel, the constant searching; from the wind and the relentless blast of desert sand and stone. But ther
e was no time to rest; other men were hunting the couple as well; dark men who covered their faces and brought tidings of war and famine and civil unrest to these desert lands.
The radio crackled with news of Tiber City burning; of martial law and tanks in the street. The men turned the radio off and pressed ahead.
As they moved through the desert, sightings of the couple intensified; new signs of life were appearing where before, there had been only death. A shadow still lingered in these lands, however, and the men feared they would be too late.
One month after they had set out, the three men found the couple. The child had been born two days earlier in a tiny motel room on the edge of the desert. The girl had insisted on no doctors; on no help: The danger was too great.
The boy answered the door but he was no longer a boy; he was a man and the girl was a woman; their faces hardened by the sand and the wind and the sleepless nights: Months had aged them years but the man’s eyes were still a deep blue, the same blue that was in his child’s eyes, and he held the door open with his left hand; there was gun clenched in his right.
The three men rolled up their sleeves to reveal an identical tattoo etched across each man’s forearm: an asterisk inside of a circle—the symbol of the Order.
“It’s time,” the first man said.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank:
My wife, Whitney, for her love, support, and refusal to accept my bullshit;
Jack O’Connell, for his patience, friendship, and the guidance that made this book possible;
My mother and father, who believed in me;
Robert Cording, for the discussions that sparked this book;
Colin Heffernan, for always listening and reading;
John Heffernan, for his insights and early support;
Karina Rollins, for her killer early edits;
Sean Moran, for the early read and great music;
Rebecca Smith, for helping bring this story to life; and
My son Lochlain, for giving me a reason.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Tiber City Calling or Bio-Punks on Zinc
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Acknowledgements