Like the others before it, this outburst lasted only a moment, but it left Gigi’s face an embarrassing shade of red. Blake knew what was coming next.
“You gave him this money, huh?” Gigi said, studying Blake. “You’re his rich daddy? How much more you got? Enough to pay the rest of his debt? Nice hat, by the way, shit fuck. Don’t you know it’s rude to wear a hat inside a fine establishment like this?”
“That was all the money,” Blake said. “He’s my son. I’m giving it to him because he promised to pay off his debt and leave the fighting behind.”
“Well, you should have brought more, Daddy-o,” Gigi said, stuffing the envelope into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “His debt’s fifteen, though I think I’ll round it up to twenty since you’re putting me through all this trouble. My time is worth money, you know. Anyhoo, I suppose you had better get the rest. I’ll wait here with your disappointing—spiteful shit-ass!—excuse for a son while you fetch the remainder. Go on, now. If you’re not back in twenty minutes, I’ll gladly shoot him. Maybe I’ll be doing you a favor.”
Blake’s eyes roved over the scene in front of him, the armed bodyguards, the bartender in the back, the people seated across from the bar. Of every detail he picked out and stored concretely in his memory, the one that stood out the most was the bartender’s frowning face.
Blake wanted to smile. This was his sort of place, after all.
“Well?” Gigi said, stepping aside to let Blake exit. “I don’t have all night, Daddy-o.”
“I guess I’ll be on my way,” Blake said. He tilted his head so the hat’s brim would cover most of his face, like a sheriff in one of those western movies.
Clean up, he sent to Dominic, though his mouth never moved and his vocal cords never vibrated. I’ll meet you around the corner.
I’ll be as quiet as I can, Dominic replied.
“I don’t like the look of you, old man,” Gigi said, sounding more serious now. “Lying sack of shit! I think you’re hiding something from me. If I find out that’s the case, you’re in for it, understand me?” He motioned for one of his men to search Blake.
Blake rose from his chair, glowering at the approaching bodyguard. “I wouldn’t do that.”
The bodyguard reached into his suit jacket and kept his hand there. “Boss?” the man said.
Gigi motioned for the bodyguard to stand back. “You’re not from these parts, are you?” he told Blake. “You’re on Murcielo territory. You know that, right?”
“You got your fight, and you got your money,” Blake replied. “So, if you don’t mind, we’ll be on our way. Any resistance will be met by force, and I know neither of us wants that.”
He spoke with the calm, sharp-edged authority that only decades of military command could instill in a man. Gigi must have noticed this. He squinted at Blake as he considered his next words.
“You’re from the Eastlands,” he said. “I knew I detected an accent. You see, I used to work for the Fatherland Security Department. We would get foreigners in there, wasteland types like you, sometimes. I’d know that accent anywhere. Boy oh boy, Daddy-o, you could be in big troub—”
Before Gigi could finish his sentence, Blake whipped him in the throat with rigid fingers while pulling his pistol from its holster with his free hand. He swung around the fat man to put him in a headlock.
The bodyguards had their weapons out in a flash, but by then, Blake’s pistol had found a home nestled against Gigi’s right temple.
“I’ll shoot him,” Blake said, “and none of you will get paid. Think about that.”
The bodyguards watched their boss for guidance. This wasn’t an everyday encounter for them. Not even close. Few people in this city would dare challenge a man of Gigi’s stature in the Murcielo family.
Squinting at the bodyguards, Blake attuned himself to the strings dancing in their minds. If any came up with a bright idea, like trying to shoot him in the head, he would sense it.
Dominic was smirking at Gigi’s men. “I would do what he says.”
Locked in Blake’s arms, Gigi struggled to speak. “Wh—who are you? Spite, spite!”
“Dominic,” Blake said, ignoring the squirming man. “Relieve these men of their weapons.”
“None of you move,” a voice boomed behind Blake, followed by the chik-chik of a pump-action shotgun chambering a round.
The bartender.
He’s going for it, Blake sent.
The guy has a serious set of balls on him, Dominic sent back.
“Any of you sonsabitches fires a shot in my bar, and I’ll be paintin’ the wall with your childhood memories, you feel me?” the bartender said, levelling the shotgun at Blake and Gigi.
The overhead lights blinked, darkening the bar for a split second. Blake breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing actually wrong with the lights; it was simply his perception of the lights that was different. That, and his perception of a few other things, like sound, physical sensation, smell—you know, nothing important, he thought, wanting to laugh.
Dominic had disappeared. The spot in which he’d been standing was empty now except for the toppled chair.
Blake knew better than to move. This trick worked better when he let it wash over him like a drug. Already, he could feel his awareness of time narrowing.
“Where the hell’d he go?” one of the bodyguards said.
The bar was quiet now except for Gigi’s whimpers. Everyone was searching for Dominic, trying to solve the mystery. A man couldn’t just disappear like that.
Low, sinister laughter filled the bar, the chuckles of a killer toying with his prey. It sounded like it was coming from above. The bodyguards lifted their heads toward the empty ceiling. Then one fell to his knees, a strangled cry erupting from his throat.
The shotgun went off, only now it was pointing up at the ceiling. The bartender let out a gasp as his arm was grabbed and further twisted—by nobody, apparently—and the shotgun went spinning through the air.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a hand reached out and caught the shotgun.
Dominic appeared, holding the weapon. He was at least eight feet away from the bartender. Impressive. But then again, Blake had always been impressed by his best student.
“Here’s what’s going to happen now,” Dominic said.
The bodyguards weren’t too bright, apparently. The one closest to Dominic swung the pistol around to aim at him. The shotgun went off in Dominic’s hand without hesitation, blowing off the man’s fingers and sending the pistol across the room.
The blast put a hole in the back wall, sending plaster and brick particles into the air. Gigi coughed as the dust entered his throat.
“Oh, shit,” Blake said.
When the particles entered his nose and lungs, it felt immediately like an explosion had gone off in his chest. He coughed like he’d never coughed in his entire life.
Dominic winced at the sound.
“You need to quit smoking,” he said above the levelled shotgun.
“My bar,” the bartender said. “Dominic, you son of a bitch. Look what you did to my bar.”
“Nothing money can’t fix.”
Dominic flipped a wheezing, shivering Gigi onto his back and searched his pockets. Blake, still coughing, was trying to keep his gun steadily trained on the bodyguards, one of whom kept glancing at the pistol on the floor like he thought he could still be a hero. His partner gripped his wounded hand, moaning through clenched teeth. Served him right for being foolish.
“Tell these men,” Blake told Gigi through hacking coughs, “to stand down.”
“Do it,” Gigi told his men, gasping for breath. “Spite, spite, wrath!”
Dominic found what he was looking for, held up the envelope stuffed with bills, and tossed it to the bartender.
“This should cover the repairs.”
“You’re ments, aren’t you?” the bartender said, stuffing the envelope down the front of his pants. “You should be arrested.”
�
��Not today,” Dominic said, aiming the shotgun at the bodyguard whose eyes continued to flirt with the pistol on the floor.
Dominic flashed out of view, the pistol disappeared, and then he was standing right back where he’d been a moment earlier.
“Do your thing,” he told Blake, slipping the pistol into the back of his jeans.
Blake had finally stopped coughing, though his lungs still felt like they were full of crushed glass. He pounded his rib cage a few times and cleared his throat, wanting desperately to smoke a cigarette. Funny how a cigarette could make him feel so good after a coughing spell.
Blake’s right hand trembled as he lifted it. Caging his fingers, he brought it up to the side of his head and pressed the tips against his temple. The movement itself was unnecessary, but the gesture helped him focus. He had taught this same trick to his men back in his military days. It seemed so long ago now, like centuries.
When Blake saw he had the full attention of everyone present—including the wounded bodyguard clutching his ragged hand and whimpering—he began to speak.
“You’ll go to sleep…” Blake said, lacing his voice with a power he hadn’t used this way in a long time. “And when you wake up, you won’t remember any of this.”
Dominic touched the side of his own head. His voice eased itself into Blake’s skull like a cool gust of wind. God, he missed battle telepathy. Blake was having more fun than he’d had in years.
Again, Dominic sent. With me.
“Go to sleep,” Blake repeated, relying heavily on Dominic’s support. He’d gotten rusty over the years. “And when you wake up, you won’t remember any of this.”
Gigi’s eyes slid shut as he fell against a toppled chair, blissfully asleep and snoring even as he tumbled. The bodyguards and the bartender followed suit. Their bodies wilted to the ground, followed by the people at the tables, whose bodies slumped over the furniture.
Dominic tore off a piece of fabric from Gigi’s pant leg, fashioning a tourniquet to keep the wounded bodyguard from bleeding to death. He gave Blake a nod, and they got out of there.
They reached Blake’s car after ten minutes of walking, only to find FSD officers inspecting it.
“Ah, damn,” Blake said.
Dominic frowned. “You have another one, right?”
“Don’t worry. Weisman has people all over the city who can set us up. Come on, we’ll walk there. It’s safer than driving, anyway.”
They were walking along an empty back street when Dominic grabbed Blake’s arm and spun him around.
“You know,” he said. “This shit only happens to me when you show your face. Whatever it is you came here for, I’m only helping for the cash. Then we’re done. For good.”
Blake scanned his surroundings. They were alone except for a scattering of drunks and prostitutes fading in and out of view as they passed beneath the streetlamps. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Dominic.
“Come back to Gulch.”
“With John Meacham as mayor? What the hell makes you think I would even consider that?”
A massive screen flashed to life at the end of the street, perched atop a tall, triangular edifice. They could see it over the shorter buildings in the forefront.
Dominic and Blake stared at the rectangle of light, which had begun to play a video. Several seconds of propaganda passed—the Republic’s banners and flags waving triumphantly in the wind; a simple farmer tilting his smiling, sunlit face to the sky; a young Harold Targin Kole standing heroically at the edge of a cliff, surveying the lands he had conquered, his body tall and lean, his face the bookish visage of an ambitious student.
These were followed by video clips of his son Harris giving fiery speeches, helping factory workers fix complex machines, providing farmers with crucial advice on how best to develop their crops—all staged, of course.
Louis Blake stood transfixed by the sight, his mind flooding with bittersweet memories of a time when this sort of thing had excited him, had made him proud to be a soldier for the WDPRA. Those days were long gone.
“Things haven’t changed,” he said in a low voice.
“This can’t be good,” Dominic said.
The video changed to a news segment. Dominic’s face appeared—a mug shot taken when he was in his mid-twenties. The broadcaster began to explain the details of the night’s disaster back at the bar.
“That was quick,” Blake said. “Kole’s media has gotten better.”
“…with new technology designed by the One President Harris Kole himself, we were able to alter this photograph to show how Dominic Scalazzo has aged…” The picture changed slightly so his face looked more worn around the edges, his hair a bit thinner. “And also to apply the bruises and swollen areas witnesses claim to have seen.” The face took on a battered quality that was strikingly similar to his present state.
“Spiteful pricks,” Dominic said, and spit on the sidewalk before turning to Blake. “So, Louis, what brings you to this fine country?”
Chapter 12
Uncle Sal woke up Saturday night after two days of lying in bed.
The Lanza family was lucky he was on vacation and didn’t have to report to work until Monday. That, of course, raised another issue. What if Sal ratted them out once he woke up?
Michael spoke to his father about using his savings to get them past the border. Terry Lanza told him to stop being ridiculous. This was their home, their business, and they weren’t going to throw it away to go scavenge some blighted wasteland.
“Hey, Sal,” Terry said, leaning over his brother. “Sally, you hear me?”
He slapped the man’s cheeks, which were covered in black stubble. Sal’s eyes were wide open and blank, like he was brain dead. The tiny thread in his mind had been still for a while. Michael could see it when he concentrated hard enough. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he was terrified to find out.
What if he was one of them? What else could explain it?
“He’s not going to wake up,” Michael said.
His father’s thick black eyebrows clenched in suspicion. “How do you know that?”
“Trust me.”
Finally, there was nothing else to do.
Terry called the Fatherland Security Department. Ten minutes later, a half-dozen men in suits and a dozen police officers filled the restaurant. They took Sal out on a stretcher through the back door as he gazed up at nothing.
They combed the restaurant and the upstairs apartment for evidence of foul play. Michael worried they would find the loose floorboard in his room and his tin box of money. It was illegal to save cash that way—citizens were required to deposit all savings into a state-owned bank.
He lucked out. They didn’t find a thing.
When the FSD agents were done searching, the interviews began.
“What is your full name?”
“Michael Lanza. No middle name.”
A scribble on a pad of paper. The man was well-groomed and dressed in a clean suit. He wore a badge on the lapel of his jacket featuring a tiny photograph of Harris Kole’s face turned upward in a heroic pose. They all wore it.
“You say your uncle showed up on your doorstep last night complaining of a headache?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, sir?”
Michael swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“So how do you explain the footprint on the bedroom door?”
Michael blinked at the man, stunned he hadn’t thought of that before. His feet had been dirty after walking down the hallway barefoot. He’d cleaned up every trace of that night’s events—except that damned, cartoonish footprint on the bedroom door.
“Uncle Sal was—after we put him to bed, he started acting wild. He locked the door and started throwing furniture around, so we had to kick it down. The door, I mean.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Me, sir. My father was going to do it, but he has bad knees.”
“Mm-hmm.”
More scribbles. The man was f
rowning at his pad. Then he looked up.
“Are you familiar with telepathy?”
Michael stiffened. “It’s the ability to read minds,” he said, before adding quickly, “I think.”
The agent nodded, letting his brazen eyes roam all over Michael’s face, like a spotlight tracking a fugitive in the dark. Michael lowered his gaze.
“I’m going to give you some advice before we begin this next session.” The agent leaned in. “Don’t lie to us. Really. It’ll only make things worse. You’ve heard of the Tank, right?”
Michael gave a solemn nod.
“Well…” He removed a metal case from the pocket of his suit jacket, plucked out a thin brown cigarette, and lit it, puffing twice before he spoke. It smelled like cinnamon and something sweeter, more pungent. “It’s not a fun place. You’ve probably heard the stories. I’m not authorized to tell you if they’re true or not, but I will tell you one thing.” Blowing smoke through the side of his mouth, he leaned in again. “A pathetic little teenaged nobody like you wouldn’t survive a day in there. You’d be screaming for your mommy before sundown.”
Fear lit up inside Michael like cold fire. He began to take shallow breaths.
“You understand me, Mike?”
The man was smiling. His teeth were yellow behind the smoke. Nodding, Michael joined his hands together on the table.
“Are you a—a—”
“A ment?” the agent said, sitting back. “Afraid not.” The cigarette crackled as he drew on it. He twisted to shout over his shoulder. “Harrelson…”
A toilet flushed in the back of the restaurant. Michael heard the bathroom door click open and then shut. He expected to see another agent come strutting down the hallway into the dining room. Instead, he was surprised by the sight of a boy barely older than himself, wearing a featureless black shirt, matching pants, and scuffed boots that looked too big for his feet. The boy’s head was shaved, and he was blind. He had to feel around with his hands to find his way.
“Over here,” the agent said. “Come on. Don’t make me wait again.”
The boy’s head turned slowly, almost mechanically, to face them. Michael shivered at the sight of those milky eyes. They didn’t seem human.
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