Bloodcrier: The Complete Two-Book Series

by Richard Denoncourt

  “You wouldn’t do that, either,” Hampton said. He lost his smile, appearing more serious now.

  “Don’t tell me what I wouldn’t do,” Keagan countered. “I didn’t get this far by showing mercy to my enemies.”

  “You’ve killed innocent men before,” Hampton said, approaching Keagan. Each step was slow and measured. “But that doesn’t define you. I’ve killed my share of young boys in battle. Teenagers just following orders, conditioned since birth to think Harris Kole was the only true god humanity had ever known. The only cause worth defending. Their ghosts will haunt me until the day I die. Just as the ghosts haunt you.”

  “Get out of my head, Dean,” Keagan said. “You don’t know me, so don’t pretend to. I won’t ask again before I shoot one of your men. Why are you here?”

  Dean Hampton stopped a few feet shy of Keagan.

  “I’m here for you,” Hampton said, sounding less condescending and more like he was reassuring Keagan. As if the war between them had never existed, and they were old buddies catching up on current events. “Simon, you know as well as I do that we could just walk right on out of here, anytime we choose. Safely, with every single one of these prisoners in tow. But there are bigger causes out there, which you know nothing about. The war between the People’s Republic and New Dallas has been cold for many years, but the tide is shifting.

  “Almost twenty years ago, Harris Kole and his military scientists made a breakthrough in their experiments on telepathy. Something that had been unthinkable throughout human history—a way to weaponize human emotion and turn the mind into a weapon of mass destruction.”

  Keagan’s fascination steadily grew, his arm dropping with each word Hampton spoke. Finally, he lowered the weapon.

  Dean’s smile returned, only now it held a note of sadness.

  “Thank you, Simon,” he said with a grateful nod.

  “Don’t thank me,” Keagan said. “It’s him, isn’t it? Michael. He’s the breakthrough.”

  Hampton stepped aside, turning to take in the sight of so many minds held under a spell more incredible than words could describe.

  “The day of reckoning is right around the corner,” Dean said. “We can inspire these men, but we can’t give them the courage to fight back. You have to do that. Because if a man like you can turn against the Republic, then the future we’re trying to build will finally have its foundation.”

  “If you can freeze these men’s minds—like puppets,” Keagan stressed to rub it in, “then why not have them rise as one, right now, and take over this camp?”

  Hampton nodded, as if taking the thought under consideration. “It might work,” he said, “but they would still be puppets. Only now, they’d be serving a different master. And that’s all we could ever expect them to amount to. Puppets and servants.”

  Keagan holstered his pistol. “I know what you have planned. It’s never going to happen. They’re too physically weak and malnourished. My men have guns, and no reason to hold back should your silly fantasy come true. Do you want more ghosts to haunt you?”

  “All I ask is you keep an open mind,” Hampton said.

  Was that a joke?

  “I’ll think about it,” Keagan said. “Go ahead and make your next move.”

  Hampton glanced past Keagan’s shoes to the floor.

  “You dropped your breakfast, Warden,” he said.

  Utterly confused by the shift in conversation, Keagan turned to see what Dean could possibly be talking about.

  The sudden shift jolted him.

  Sound came crashing back into the mess hall—a cacophony of trays being scraped, water being slurped, and tables creaking as men shifted in their seats.

  “Warden Keagan,” one of his officers said, staring down at the spilled eggs and cornbread. “Would you like me to fetch you another meal?”

  The men in the mess hall had woken up, continuing where they had left off as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The officer who had spilled his water frantically dabbed at his wet shirt with a napkin. Against the walls, guards slouched and stole glances at their wristwatches. The prisoners eagerly finished their meals, picking the last few crumbs off their trays, many even licking the surfaces for those last bits of vital nourishment.

  Keagan scanned the room for the one man who appeared to be missing.

  But Dean Hampton was gone.

  The morning’s interrogations yielded nothing of value.

  His latest prisoner, chained shirtless to the ceiling like the others, even saw fit to give Keagan advice, as if Dean Hampton’s words flowed through him.

  “The end is coming, Warden Colonel,” the man had said. “You should take all your men and get out of here. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  “Is that a threat?” Keagan asked. He brandished the picana, which failed to summon any visible fear in the man’s composure.

  “No, sir.” The man gave his head a steady, confident shake. “What I could I possibly do? I’m just one man.”

  One man of many, Keagan thought. Under one mind…

  Not bothering to use the picana, he released the prisoner back into the population and canceled the rest of his morning interrogations. On his way out of the basement, a soldier ran up to him.

  “Warden Colonel,” he said, saluting. “The general has asked to meet you here, outside HQ, in one hour.”

  “I was just on my way to see him,” Keagan said.

  Now was the time. The general had to know what they were dealing with here.

  “He was very clear, sir. Said to meet him in one hour. Outside HQ.”

  “Why not in his office? Did he say? And why in one hour? Why not now?”

  The soldier shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me something like that, sir. But he looked serious.”

  Changing course—away from Halsidier’s office and toward the garage, heart hammering as he suppressed the urge to run—Keagan thought of Andrea and Sarah.

  What if all this time, his fear of Andrea leaving him had been wrong? What if he was the one who might never return to his family?

  He drove out of camp. Ten minutes later, he brought the truck to a sliding halt in front of the officers’ residential quarters. The two soldiers standing guard outside the front doors saluted at Keagan’s approach.

  “Has anyone, besides men in uniform, left this building today?” Keagan asked.

  “No, sir. All women and children are accounted for inside.”

  Keagan ran upstairs. Panting by the time he arrived, he took a moment before entering his apartment to catch his breath and gather his thoughts.

  She isn’t going to like it, but there’s no other way…

  Suddenly, Andrea opened the door, holding Sarah.

  “I thought that was you,” she said. “Come in.”

  She hadn’t bothered to ask what was wrong. She already knew.

  “Andrea, listen to me,” Keagan said when they were seated in the living room. He hunched forward on the armchair to place his hands on his wife’s knees. “Don’t be afraid. Our men are no match for these people. It’ll all be over soon.”

  “Then why are you still with them?” Andrea asked.

  She sounded desperate, but also at the end of her patience. Sensing she had already made up her mind, Keagan spoke rapidly, trying to explain.

  “I can’t abandon my men,” he said. “There’s no telling what Halsidier will make them do.”

  “He’s the one, isn’t he?” Andrea asked. “He’ll kill all those prisoners as soon as he gets the chance.”

  “Yes. You’re right, honey.”

  “And you want to stick around when that happens?”

  “I might be able to stop it.”

  Sighing, Andrea shook her head.

  Bored with her parent’s conversation, probably hungry as it was nearing lunchtime, Sarah began to fuss. Keagan took his little girl into his arms, then kissed her.

  “You have to trust me,” Keagan said. “I just need one more day.”
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  “To do what? Do you even know?”

  “I’m meeting the general in less than an hour. I’ll know what he has planned then.”

  “Simon…”

  Andrea grabbed Sarah—taking her back a bit more aggressively than Keagan approved of, as if his wife had already drawn a line between them, splitting their family into two opposing sides, Keagan alone on his.

  “I love you, and I know you love us,” Andrea continued, “which is why I’ve made my decision, because you won’t. Because I know the last thing you want is for us to be in danger.”

  “The last thing I want is to lose you.”

  “I’m going to call her,” Andrea said, ignoring his pleas. “Arielle, I mean. I’m going to go with her, and I’m taking Sarah. We’ll be safe with them.”

  “Andrea, please…”

  As she rose to her feet, his wife seemed to loom over Keagan when she spoke her next words with the authority of a four-star general addressing a lowly lieutenant.

  “Be back here in two hours. Give whatever orders you need to give. The camp is going to have to survive without you. Any longer than that, and I can’t promise we’ll be here.”

  She took Sarah into the kitchen.

  There would be no convincing her otherwise. Keagan became acutely aware he didn’t even have a plan—not to mention the “solution” he supposedly represented—which would ensure a better outcome for his family.

  “I’ll be back,” he told Andrea.

  She ignored him, Sarah reaching over her mother’s shoulder for her father.

  I’ll be back, baby girl. Daddy’s coming back. I promise.

  And then Keagan was running out of the building, on his way to meet the general.

  12

  “Warden Colonel,” General Halsidier said with an unusually warm smile, having emerged flanked by two guards from the HQ building to meet Keagan as planned. The general’s request to meet outside was still a mystery to Keagan, but it couldn’t be good. “How go the interrogations?”

  Without an ounce of shame, Keagan flat-out lied to the general. “Wrapping them up today, sir. I’m confident I’ve developed an effective strategy…”

  “Save me the officer mumbo-jumbo, Simon. Walk with me. Talk with me.”

  Strolling alongside the general, the guards trailing behind them, Keagan tried not to be charmed by Halsidier’s good humor. All militaristic bearing cast aside, they might have been two friends out on a leisurely walk.

  But Halsidier was no friend. From the corner of his eye, Keagan caught the general licking his lips, his eyes alight with whatever agenda spun inside his twisted mind.

  Selarix.

  The general was still taking it, though he seemed to have gotten better at controlling its mania-inducing effects. On the outside, anyway.

  “If I may ask…” Keagan said.

  Halsidier gave a good-natured chuckle. “Ask away, my friend. Ask away.”

  “Where are we going, sir? I was headed to your office when Private Keller said you wanted to meet outside.”

  “My words exactly, Simon.”

  Why does he keep saying my name?

  A sense of dread twisted Keagan’s stomach. Suddenly, he felt like a man being led to the gallows to be hanged.

  The feeling grew worse—the twisting sensation forming a tight, sickening knot in his stomach—when Halsidier abruptly turned and dismissed the two guards.

  “That’ll be all for now,” he ordered. “The men are talking.”

  Clearly not expecting this, they glanced at each other quickly then nodded once at Halsidier.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Watching them retrace their steps in the opposite direction, Keagan imagined waiting until they were out of sight before pulling out his gun and shooting Halsidier in his fiendish, grinning face.

  “Sir…” Keagan said, attempting a feeble joke. “Why do I feel like I’m about to be a guinea pig in your camp-reduction plan?”

  “That would imply it’s an experiment,” Halsidier countered, resuming his walk, “but I’m not testing a theory, Simon. And you’re no prisoner of mine. Once the reduction plan is complete, we’ll be done with this bullshit assignment, and you’ll be on your way back to the Republic and whatever cushy desk job they have in store for a man of your caliber.”

  “If I remember correctly,” Keagan said, “there should be a nice, quiet prison cell waiting for me, and a labor camp with two spots for my wife and daughter.”

  Halsidier waved his concern aside. “The things I say when I’m angry… Pay no mind to that. Harris Kole would throw me into a labor camp if he found out I’d locked up one of his best men. One of his most loyal men.”

  Keagan tried to think positively. It was a good sign, at least, that Halsidier had not relieved him of his pistol. Maybe this was meant to be a friendly chat about their future.

  “Sir…” Keagan said. “Why are we heading toward the main gate?”

  Reaching into his pocket, Halsidier’s rustled what sounded like a set of keys. They came to a stop by the massive garage that held several of the camp’s trucks.

  One of the garage doors had been left open.

  “See that one right there?” Halsidier said, thrusting his chin at a light gray vehicle that looked sportier than the others, its wheels significantly larger and more rugged, the cargo area reinforced with bulletproof plating.

  “Your truck,” Keagan said. “I see it well.”

  Halsidier pulled his hand out of his pocket, then handed Keagan a set of keys.

  “I want you to get into that truck right now. Then I want you to head back to the officer quarters, pick up your wife, daughter, and anything you might need for a nice, long drive. You, my friend, are going back to the People’s Republic with your beautiful little family to live out the rest of your days overseeing a nice, quiet detainment center.”

  Speechless, Keagan studied the keys, almost dropping them in his surprised state. He wanted nothing more than to do as the general asked.

  “General Halsidier,” Keagan said, staring steadfastly into the man’s eyes, “I didn’t get this far by being stupid. This is obviously a test of my loyalty—to you, to the Republic, to the post I’ve been assigned by the One President. I cannot, and will not, abandon my assignment or my post.”

  He extended his hand to return the general’s keys. Surprisingly, shaking his head in what appeared to be frustration, Halsidier grabbed the keys and roughly jammed them into Keagan’s pants pocket.

  “Listen to me, you coward,” Halsidier growled, thrusting his reddening face only inches away from Keagan’s. “Ever since I came to this stinking pit out in the middle of this godforsaken wasteland, I’ve watched you coddle and encourage these men, prisoner and soldier alike. You think I don’t know they like and even respect you? You think I don’t know they fear me, each and every one counting down the days until my pointless, bullshit consulting assignment ends? You may not know this, but there is no going back to the Republic—not for me, anyway. Not until we grab every gun in this place, along with every man with a pulse, and complete the mission Harris Kole has been obsessed with since your sweet, young wife was still in grade school getting fucked by her history teacher.”

  “How dare you,” Keagan snarled.

  “Thattaboy,” Halsidier said, smiling wickedly. “Maybe you’re not as much of a coward as I thought. But know this…” The smile melted into the toxic scowl from before. “I will not continue my mission in the Eastlands with you as my right-hand man. You’ll get us all killed.”

  “Then demote me,” Keagan said. “You have the authority. Say I screwed up.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to say. You allowed that fat officer to be shot. You were the one who allowed the prisoner to wander the camp during lockdown. It won’t get you tossed into a prison cell, Simon. No, what a waste of such talent! You might just find yourself pushing paperwork for a couple of years, no big deal. Trust me, if it weren’t for your impressive, likely fraudule
nt, academic record and your faggot high-ranking father, I would do much worse. But the last thing I need is for word to get out I somehow disrupted your illustrious ascension through the ranks of our military.”

  By now, the general’s face was so red, his words laced with such thick poison, Keagan found it almost impossible to believe this was a trick or a test.

  His rage was genuine. Halsidier hated him with every living cell in his body.

  “If I get in that truck,” Keagan said, “how would you possibly explain that to the men?”

  “Easy. You think I didn’t consider that? You couldn’t handle the pressure. Maybe it was that ment boy’s influence on your weak mind. Who cares? A man of your status wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences for very long. Take the offer while you still can. Just wait until I’m out of sight, then do me a favor and get the fuck out of here so I can take care of this camp, head east, and find that spiteful boy.”

  That boy… There could only be one…

  Narrowing his eyes, feeling like he was back in the interrogation rooms, Keagan took a threatening step toward the shorter general. Halsidier flashed him a look both resentful and surprised.

  “What boy?” Keagan asked. “Do you mean Michael?”

  Halsidier cocked his head. “Yes, Michael Cairne. How the hell do you know about him?”

  “Back at the FSD,” Keagan lied, “I heard two senior Party members talking about him. They said he’d been part of some sort of experiment on telepathy. Kole’s been searching for him.”

  “Yes…” Halsidier said, drawing out the word. “What else did they say?”

  He hasn’t made the connection.

  Apparently, the general hadn’t advanced this far in his career on brains, but cruelty alone. Finding it hard to believe Halsidier was this shortsighted, Keagan chose his next words carefully.

  “Not much else,” he said, cautiously weaving his next lie—a lie even he found impressive, despite what Andrea had said about her husband being a terrible liar. “But I can tell you this. During one of my interrogations this morning, a prisoner admitted he overheard Dean Hampton and Marshall Towne talking late one night, outside the huts.”