The Art of Madness

by A. J. Mayall

  Joe came back to the bar. “Your food will be here when your business is done.”

  Phoenix stood and took in a long, unsteady breath as he moved to the back of the club, seeing the door flanked by two large men in matching ill-fitting suits. The one on the right had black hair gelled tightly back; the light hitting off the comb marks made it glisten like a vinyl record. He stood tall and stocky, with a square jaw, regarding Phoenix coldly, acknowledging his presence with a nod.

  “What’s your business?”

  “I need to talk to…” He was cut off as the man stepped forward again, eyes glowing red. Phoenix felt a pressure in his temples. Psionic. Phoenix had dealt with them before, but it was never a pleasant experience keeping them pushed out without tapping into his power. He did what he could, willing a decent mental barrier and expanding it until he felt only weight and pressure, but not invasion.

  The psionic curled his upper lip, the pulse on his brow throbbing a bit. “Keeping me out? Not looking good for you. We heard you wanted to talk; what about?”

  “That’s between me and Donatello.”

  “Like hell,” said the other bodyguard, cracking his knuckles. He was shorter, blond and thin, but the fit of the suit showed compact muscle on that frame.

  Phoenix looked him dead in the eyes, “I’m not police or anything; I just need to ask him a few questions.”

  The psionic pressed his will in for information, eyes flaring as he did so. Phoenix stepped back, feeling like a swarm of bees was trying to fly into his head. The detective concentrated, strengthening the wall, but knew if they pushed any harder, he’d be forced to tap into his own power.

  The shorter man clenched his jaw, tensing his body so much, his charcoal gray suit went taut in a few places. He held a hand across the psionic’s chest, pushing him back.

  “Lay off him, you’ll give yourself a headache.”

  “I don’t want this to go bad, fellas,” he said, trying to de-escalate the situation. “This isn’t your business. I’ll let you frisk me; I don’t have any weapons, no Black Card. I just have a few questions, that’s it.” He looked to Joe quickly and back at the two bodyguards.

  “Listen,” started the blond, “go back to the bar, have a nice meal, and leave, huh? You seem like you got a good head on your shoulders.”

  Phoenix could tolerate being threatened; he could understand a mental probe. He could even deal with losing face to the two thugs before him. Patronizing him was, however, off limits.

  Phoenix looked at Joe. A sorrowful expression crossed his face. “I think I’m going to need that meal to go, sir. Could you also add on a chicken Milanese?”

  The blond laughed and placed a hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.” Of course, he had only a moment before he saw the sheen of silvery blue, like an afterimage, around the red-haired man.

  There was a bright flash; Phoenix moved a hand out, and the blond found the world turning inside out. After a strange ticking noise, the armed guard found himself in free-fall, smacking with a meaty crunch into a table before rolling off it. The floor passed in front of him like a cliff face. He looked down, still in shock, falling sideways through the air toward the large, wooden doors which, in turn, opened following a similar flash. The man groaned dully after crashing into the side of a parked car.

  He reached for his gun with one hand while rubbing the confusion from his eyes with the other. His legs shook as he stood, seeing the pavement in front of him. A group of people approached, all standing perpendicular to him. He looked down, standing on the side of a parked car. With a hop, his feet left its surface briefly. He moved to step off the car.

  “I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” Phoenix called out as he advanced quickly.

  The guard looked down at his feet once more, at the fact the ground no longer called to him, and then craned his neck upwards to see Phoenix walking at him.

  “What did you do to me, you freak?!” he said as he pulled his gun and aimed it at the red-haired man. “What did you do?!”

  Phoenix ran out the door and leapt at the man. They wrestled where sidewalk met the side of the parked car. With a quick punch to the face, the thug had dropped his gun. Phoenix was quick to grab it and tossed it on the sidewalk not ten feet away. Anyone who didn’t have gravity turned ninety degrees could have reclaimed it easily.

  The thug rolled, his body pressed on the side of the car. The rear passenger window cracked underfoot, then broke, sending the blond man falling through the car, gripping the door frame and screaming. He felt like he was hanging by his fingertips off the edge of a building.

  “You stay put and I’ll fix gravity for you when I’m done. Otherwise, I have no problem seeing you crash against that building across the road. Has to be a, what, fifty-or sixty-foot drop for you?”

  The blond looked up and grinned, eyes filled with rage. “You’re fucking dead.”

  “You want me to unlock the other door?” Phoenix said as he raised a hand, the energy gathering again in a quick crackling series of snaps, and then his mind was on fire.

  The black-haired guard was behind him, eyes fluctuating between crimson and magenta with his heartbeat. McGee flailed, trying to raise the mental walls once more. He felt a pair of hands on his neck, choking him, phasing out as another took its place. Phoenix staggered to his feet, feeling the hands in his chest now, as he exhaled against his will, the invisible hands around his lungs. He lurched at the psionic thug, hand outstretched like a claw, as two more projected hands moved through the sternum, toward his heart.

  Only instinct left, the detective felt the world lose focus for a moment and then enter into crystal clarity, pushing the energy back, as he was engulfed with the brilliant icy blue arcing energy.

  It was the danger of letting go. He felt the turn of the Earth under him, and the spin of the atoms in the air. The energy of cell phones, the streams of data, everything was connected and became part of his awareness. This is what was added to his instincts all those years ago.

  He reached out toward the source of the power attacking him. Phoenix saw it as a beam of light emanating from deep within the man’s head, focused like a laser on his body. He focused on the light, the wavelength, as the grip around his heart tightened.

  Prism.

  The thought took form in the energy centers of the man’s brain. What had been a strong, focused ray splintered and affected all of Hudson Ave. Phoenix collapsed, trying to re-inflate his squeezed lungs. The psionic screamed, his power now being pulled in a thousand directions, affecting hundreds on a small level instead of one on a large scale.

  In his mind, the psionic had focused on Phoenix’s throat, his lungs, and his heart. He had a clear mental image of them until the man rose and tore his mind apart. The image of his hands unraveled into ribbons. His singular focus was fractured, gripping men, women, and children. Each ribbon split his power further and further, reducing him. He drowned in their faces, and combatting whatever this assault was only made it worse. He felt his power fracture his consciousness and drop him like a sack of potatoes.

  Phoenix staggered. The moment of instinct had passed and his more conscious mind returned to him. He felt the power wane from him, still aware of the effects he inflicted on the two men. Onlookers rubbed their throats uncomfortably, a baby cried in her mother’s arms, and those gathered suffered a coughing fit. McGee panicked, realizing what he had done, and shattered the prism he had placed around the man’s psychic abilities.

  “I’m sorry, oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” he muttered, standing and stepping over the now fallen psionic, who clutched his temples in pain. Phoenix ran and checked on those nearest, making sure they were safe. Had there only been a handful of people, his tactic could have been lethal to them. Luckily, his fragmenting and diluting of the man’s abilities across the hundreds of people in the nearby bars and clubs made it a moment of shared discomfort.

  He turned his attention to the psionic, grabbing
him by the collar and pulling him up with a mutual grunt.

  “You asshole, I could have hurt someone. I was trying to be nice…” He got the man to his feet, the black-haired guard standing shakily, a dopey look on his face before Phoenix reared back and uppercutted him. He fell back through the open doors back into Harley’s. Phoenix shot a glance over at the blond, still under the effects of the altered gravity.

  “Try anything, and I’ll get imaginative on you…” he scowled. He faced the gathered people who had seen the fight, a few with various devices out recording it. It wasn’t something he was willing to deal with. The police were already not pleased with him, and the idea of making it look like he was going after Bellacino’s men wasn’t something he was prepared for.

  McGee sighed and held out a hand, letting the light blue energy open up around it, forming what at first appeared to be a fist-sized gear. It took a moment of concentration, expanding his senses and attuning to the patterns nearby.

  It was how his power worked, patterns and manipulation of them, as far as he knew, considering he had effectively dropped out of training. He focused on the images of himself and the two guards, reading through the nearby data fields, finding every recorded file and tracing them back to home servers. He focused on them and, with a mental grunt, turned the gear in front of him like a door knob.

  He heard a tick and whirr then released the energy. It flowed from him visibly for a few feet before dissipating. He felt the files corrupting in their databases, his senses expanding through networks and leaving havoc in their wake.

  He regretted having to learn this aspect of his power without help; the interconnectedness of the modern age was prime soil for his powers to take root in. If he expanded his mind too far in the various networks, he could lose himself to it, his mind being scattered among the winds. It was a risk he couldn’t take often, and he was glad that in this case, things got fixed quickly.

  He advanced back into Harley’s, nodding to Joe who gave him a wary look, backing away from the bar. The bartender kept his hands in view, although he seemed to be darting his gaze below the counter. Phoenix assumed there was a firearm of some sort.

  “I’m not here to cause trouble in your establishment. I mean you no harm, Joe…” He smiled nervously, ashamed of himself, the bartender’s fear obvious.

  “Take care of your business, sir. You will then leave my bar. Am I understood?” He glared at Phoenix, who sheepishly nodded.

  Phoenix picked up the psionic from the floor, dragging him by his collar toward that closed door. As he approached it, he heard Joe call out.

  “Don’t you fire that thing into my restaurant!”

  McGee blinked and dropped the psionic, who burbled and grunted. He quickly turned back toward the open door, seeing the blond standing on the side of the car, having found a way to get his gun back. He stood there parallel to the ground, aiming the gun from his perspective, up toward his sideways skies through the open doors of Harley’s.

  “Dammit” was all the detective muttered as he quickly held a hand out toward the blond and drew focus inward. He focused on the man’s gravity and simply reversed it.

  For the gunman, one moment he was aiming at the sky and then the world felt topsy-turvy. Falling back in the direction he had come from, he dropped his gun which fell from him to the actual ground, skidding near Joe. He screamed as he flailed, falling toward the detective, and the door leading to the Bellacinos. He had turned himself around at this point, and curled his arms around his head, bracing for impact.

  Phoenix sidestepped the airborne man as he crashed into the swinging doors leading into the dining room where the higher-ups in the Bellacino family sat. The blond man screamed as he flew over their heads and landed hard into the unlit stone fireplace. A sickening crunch was followed by inhuman screams.

  The detective entered, seeing hands reaching for guns. He put his left hand in the air, as his right was dragging in the psionic doorman. His face was a reflection one of total seriousness of the matter at hand.

  “I’m here to talk to Donatello. I did not come here looking to cause problems, but I am not leaving until I talk to him. If I were you, I’d attend to the man stuck to the wall with the broken legs.

  The group looked to the broken man on the wall, bones jutting from his thighs, in panic. The detective, concerned, put his open palm face down and lowered it, the blond slowly descending back to proper gravity.

  “He needs an ambulance,” Phoenix called out, cringing from the sounds emerging from the blond man’s throat.

  Donatello Bellacino stood, middle-aged but with streaks of gray at his temples. His beard was meticulously trimmed. It too, showed a slight salt and pepper to it, which complemented the man’s gray eyes. His stocky frame and body language made him appear taller than he was at five feet, nine inches. He wore a fine black suit, charcoal gray dress shirt, and a white tie. He placed his hands on the lapels of his jacket and looked between the red-haired man who had intruded on his dinner, and his pained bodyguard.

  “Tommy, shut up, we all know you regenerate tissue damage.”

  “I think my pelvis is broken…”

  Donatello dismissed the complaint with a wave. He motioned to the many books of figures on the table and closed them quickly.

  “Take these back to my place. Tommy, too.” He looked down at the bodyguard. “The hell did you do to him?” he inquired, amused and curious.

  Joe pushed past the detective, visibly angry. “I’ll tell you what happened, Donnie. Your goons told me they’d let this guy pass to ask you a couple questions, and then they stop him at the door. Now, I’m not happy with what I saw, but I’ll tell you this. Red here,” he said, thumbing to Phoenix, “didn’t lay a hand on anyone until a hand was put on him, and he took it outside. Only reason Tommy got what he got was he pulled a gun on him. I run a respectable business and I’ve warned you about this shit. I’m glad no one else saw it. Felix and Tommy try that shit one more time, I’m holding you accountable, Donnie. I knew your father and I remember when you…”

  “Joe, if my boys lied to you, they will be dealt with,” Donatello stated simply, turning to look at Tommy.

  Joe took the fallen pistol and put it on the table, then looked to Phoenix. “We’ll talk after you’re done, kid…”

  Tommy moaned, “Guy kept Felix out of his head.”

  “Did you tell Joe, a personal friend, that you would allow someone to visit me, and then lie to him by stopping him at the door, not even announcing it to me?”

  “Boss, it’s not like that. Yeah, we said we’d let the guy see you, but…”

  Donatello crouched, taking the gun from the table and pressed the barrel into one of the slowly closing wounds on his leg where a chunk of bone jutted out. “I’m going to do this twice because Felix doesn’t heal. I have no place in my businesses for people who don’t keep their word, I have no use for people I cannot trust to honor my friends and friends of my family. Joseph Harley is a friend of the family; I’ve been eating here my whole life.” He pressed the barrel in deeper still, making Tommy scream. There was a loud, wet sound with a bright flash as meat exploded on the stone wall. This was repeated several times, Phoenix cringing with each shot.

  “Mr. Bellacino, please…he’s in enough pain…” the detective pleaded. “I only had a few questions.”

  Donatello only acknowledged him indirectly. “Now there is a man whom I am indebted to, whom I do not know. Do you realize this in not in my best interests?” he spat out as he stood, wiping blood from his hands with his pocket kerchief. He looked past Phoenix and to Joe. “My sincerest and most heartfelt apologies, Mr. Harley. This will not happen again.”

  Joe scowled and nodded, heading back to the bar and letting the doors swing close. In the distance, Phoenix heard a click. The front doors had been locked; he only hoped it was to ensure privacy and not to keep him trapped inside.

  Tommy cried out as some of Bellacino’s guests lifted his mangled body and carried him
out through the kitchen. Donatello hurriedly placed the books they had been looking over into briefcases, locking them and passing them to the remaining people, who followed soon after.

  “You have me at a disadvantage. My men lied to you, attacked you without provocation, and you’ve acted as honorably toward my friend and his business when confronted with this as I can imagine. You know who I am, and while you seem familiar, I’m not sure I know you.”

  McGee gestured with an open palm toward the chair across from Donatello, who nodded and made a similar gesture, inviting him to sit. Bellacino smiled a serpentine grin, gesturing to a few of the family-style served dishes in the center of the table. “By all means, join me. The food is good and shouldn’t go to waste. No?”

  Phoenix nodded and sat, piling a small salad pan-seared ravioli on a side plate that had gone unused. The detective sat across from the man, their eyes meeting, and felt nothing but a cold, calculating machine sizing him up.

  “Thanks. Sorry about your bodyguards.” He averted his gaze downwards, his heart was racing, but he had come too far to stop now.

  “They lied to you. Again, who are you and what is your business?”

  McGee looked down at his plate, then met the man’s eyes once more.

  “My name is Phoenix McGee, I’m a private investigator. I believe you have information I need.”

  Donatello took a bite of steak and nodded, leaning forward as he chewed, taking a napkin to dot along the corners of his mouth. “Is that so? What might that be?”

  “Information on some of your employees, about various projects, about some of your companies, your money…”

  Donatello gently spooned up some fettuccine and stabbed through it with a fork, spinning it and slowly bringing it to his mouth, keeping his eye on Phoenix. After he swallowed, he spoke up. “That’s a lot of private information you want from me.”

  He placed his napkin on the table and stood, leaning over the table. “If you were a cop, I’d ask you for a warrant. If my men hadn’t lied to you, and I were not slightly indebted to you as a courtesy, you’d be leaving right now.”