
Previous Books in the DEAD MAN series...
Face of Evil by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin
Ring of Knives by James Daniels
Hell in Heaven by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin
The Dead Woman by David McAfee
The Blood Mesa by James Reasoner
Kill Them All by Harry Shannon
Within
Copyright © 2011 by Adventures in Television, Inc.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
All Rights Reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover art by Carl Graves
Published by 47North
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN13: 9781612187662
ISBN10: 1612187668
Within
By
"Sorry, ma'am---we don't take checks."
"You don't, ah, take---?" The young woman looked up, worried, pen poised in her hand.
"No." The smirking clerk behind the grocery-store counter jabbed her fat finger at a scrap of paper taped to her cash register. "See the sign? Right there: No Checks. Plain English."
Matt Cahill, standing in the back of the checkout line, frowned. The clerk's comment was out of line. First of all, the handwritten sign (which actually said No Check's) was practically buried under a blizzard of Post-its, memos, notices, and fliers. Second, a good ol' boy with oiled hair and a bolo tie had been allowed to pay by check only moments before. But most of all, the "plain English" comment seemed intended to embarrass the young woman with the caramel-colored skin and soft, foreign accent.
"So no check..." she said nervously, patting the checkbook. "But I hev, ah, no credit card?"
The cashier folded her arms over her chest. "Guess you'll just have to pay with cash, then."
"Kesh. Yah." Her accent seemed almost Russian. Matt couldn't place it. He watched with interest as the woman took out a wallet and began pulling out crumpled bills, which she flattened and set on the stack of coupons already in front of her. "Here is...some kesh? But I don't think..." Desperately she snapped open her wallet's change pocket and poured out some quarters and dimes, which she set on top of the cash. It wasn't nearly enough.
"Looks like you better put some o' that stuff back where you got it, huh?" the clerk said with satisfaction.
"But I..." She threw a panicky look at the pile of milk, eggs, fruit, and baby formula that had gathered at the end of the counter. Bit her lip. Hesitated, then reluctantly picked up a bag of apples.
"No need," Matt said, and laid down a fifty-dollar bill.
The young woman stared at it in surprise, then looked up at him. She shook her head vigorously. "No, I kennot accept..."
"Sure you can." Matt touched her elbow. "It's okay." Actually, the fifty was supposed to last him 'til the following week---but what the hell.
Something in his voice must have reassured her. Her voice softened. "You are sure?" she asked.
Looking at her, Matt realized for the first time that she had large, moss-green eyes flecked with amber. They were so rich and warm that he began to feel tongue-tied. She looked, he decided, like the wide-eyed Afghan war refugee who had graced the cover of a famous National Geographic when he was a kid. He'd cut that photo out, kept it on his bedroom wall for years---mesmerized by her wide-eyed beauty. "Yeah, really," he said, finding his voice. "It's fine."
The woman sucked her full lips in, thought about it for a moment, then gave a short, grateful nod. "I will beckpay you?" she asked under her breath.
Matt smiled. "If you like."
"Yah. I thenk you so much, ah..."
"Matt."
"Matthew." She swallowed, did a quick calculation. Said quietly, "You are not from here, Matthew."
"No."
"You will give me your address, then? Matthew?" The effect of her green eyes, and the way she repeated his name, made Matt's blood rise.
"Sure. I've got a card. It's outside, with my bike."
"I will wait for you outside, then, Matthew. And, so you know?" She touched his wrist lightly. "My name? Is Roma."
Quickly she picked up her bags and walked out the door. Her every move was lithe, graceful. Catlike.
Feeling a telltale prickle at the base of his neck, he turned to see the cashier glaring at him.
"Do you have a purchase, sir?" she demanded.
Matt looked down at his red plastic basket, which was filled with hamburger meat, frozen pizzas, and a dozen other items that were supposed to get him through the week. Then he looked at the four bucks he'd gotten back in change.
Not gonna happen.
He took out of the basket a single can of Hormel chili and a twenty-four-ounce Bud Light. "That'll do it for today," he said, and watched her turn as red as a chameleon. He laid down the cash, bagged the beer, and picked up the can of chili.
"You know," the clerk said, jabbing her finger at another handwritten Post-it, "we've got a policy about leaving unpurchased items at the register."
"Well, make an exception for me," Matt said. "Just like you made an exception to your check-writing policy for that old fart with the bolo."
The cashier's jaw dropped. "That was Judge Thompson, for your information. He's lived in this town for fifty years!"
"And he still can't read?"
The cashier slapped her big hands on the counter and had just begun educating Matt when she was cut off by a loud shriek.
Matt shoved through the glass door. There in front of him, the girl with the accent was sprawled on the pavement. She gave an agonized cry. Her groceries were spilled everywhere. Her right ankle was twisted upward, and Matt saw that it was entwined by one end of a thin chain about nine feet long.
The other end of the chain was in the fist of a goateed young guy in camouflage army fatigues and jacket. He wore a black knit cap embroidered with a Confederate flag, and he was grinning wildly.
"Lookit here, boys---I just caught me a raghead trout!"
Approving laughter from his three friends. Matt took them in at a glance: all three were dressed in camo as well---not the crisp fatigues of the newly enlisted, but the wornout army-surplus gear that was the preferred uniform of deer hunters in small Michigan towns like the one Matt was in. The biggest guy was bald, wore white-and-black winter camo, sunglasses, and a dark neoprene face mask. He sat watching from behind the wheel of a big black ATV.
The other two were skinny, with patchy red beards, and had a yellowish, smoker's tinge to their skin. They looked like twins. They were both playing kick the can with a container of green beans that had fallen from the woman's bags.
"Reel her in, Keith!" one shouted.
"I'm tryin'," the Goatee said, laughing, giving the chain a tug, "but she's a fighter! Must weigh a hundred twenty at the---"
The rest of his sentence was lost when a can of Hormel chili, going about seventy miles an hour, hit him square in the mouth. Keith let out a muffled grunt, dropped the chain, and fell back onto his butt.
"What the fuck...?"
"Look what that bastard done to Keith!"
Matt wasn't listening. He was at the woman's side, helping her up. She was terrified, gasping in pain. When he lifted her, he saw that her palms were bloodied from her fall.
"Got to get you to a hospital," he said.
Her green eyes were huge with fear. She yelled something in a language he didn't understand, then, pulling away, cried out, "Behind---behind you!"
Matt spun just in time to see something metal flashing at his face. He raised an arm defensively and a steel ball bearing the size of a golf ball whipped around his wrist, trailing a thin chain that led to the hand of one of the redbearded twins.
A split second later he was yanked off balance by the twin, who was a lot stronger than he looked.
A fierce humming sound: Matt twisted his head to see the second twin slinging a similar chain in a glinting wheel above his head. He released it---there was a flash of steel and a metallic whisper as the links shot forward like a striking snake---and Matt felt the ball bearing slam into his thigh with the force of a hammer.
Matt stumbled, and the first twin gave the chain on his wrist a sharp jerk, slinging him to the ground, where he rolled once and came to rest at the wheel of a motorcycle.
Which was lucky. The motorcycle was Matt's: an old Yamaha bought with money he'd earned from chopping eight cords of wood. Attached to its seat were two saddlebags and a three-foot-long object wrapped in bound canvas. In a single movement, Matt unbuckled a leather strap and pulled the canvas package off the bike.
And not a moment too soon: the first twin immediately started dragging Matt away from the bike, while the second, giving a rebel yell, spun and flung his humming chain a second time.
A second before the ball bearing would have punched a hole in his skull, Matt raised the long canvas package up, gripping the wooden handle that extended a few inches from one end. The chain wrapped around the object with an insectile whine, and when the second twin gave it a jerk, the chain slithered free, ripping the canvas wrapping off.
Revealing an ax.
The ax was beautiful: its head was more than seventy years old, had been forged by Matt's grandfather from the iron of a meteorite that had ripped through his barn one Christmas Eve. The handle was a perfectly balanced slant of blond oak that Matt had cut himself. The head and handle fit together in a lucky-number-seven shape that fit his grip perfectly. It was his livelihood, his one heirloom, and the only work of art he would ever own.
And it came in handy in situations like this.
In a heartbeat, Matt slapped his bound wrist to the ground and swung the ax with his free hand. The blade chopped effortlessly through the thin chain and bit deeply into the macadam. Matt stood. When the second twin slung his chain again, a strange calmness came over Matt, and it seemed to him he could see the ball bearing snaking toward him in slow motion.
He swung the ax like it was a Louisville Slugger. His aim was true: the ax head sliced the bearing off, and the thin chain rattled harmlessly past.
Painfully---his leg hurt like hell---Matt limped toward his two assailants, holding the ax. "All right," he panted. "Can we end this? Or do you two bastards still want to dance?"
The yellow-skinned twins backed away from him, their eyes wide with hate and fear. "Keith," they yelled. "Keith!"
Matt had no idea why they'd call out their goateed friend's name until he heard a whunk to his right. He glanced over and saw a perfectly round, inch-wide hole that had been punched into an El Dorado's silver door. He turned back toward the grocery store and saw why.
Keith was standing behind the retreating twins, grinning. His lip was split from the Hormel can, and his teeth and chin were slick with blood. In his hands, he held a slingshot. It wasn't a wooden, whittled, Tom Sawyer sort of slingshot, either, but a deadly tactical deal with a grooved pistol grip and fluorescent yellow, tubular latex bands. These bands were, at that moment, being stretched back by Keith's right hand, which clasped the next ball bearing within a leather release pouch.
Matt's gut clenched. He held up a hand. "Don't," he said.
"Kiss off, bitch." Keith pulled the leather pouch all the way back to his squinting right eye and released.
But not before Roma---with a loud shout---had thrown herself against his shoulder.
There was a wet crunch, and the twin to Matt's left jerked forward and spat out all his teeth. He stared down at them in confusion and dropped to his knees, as if to pick them up. He swayed there for a second, then flopped face forward onto the street---revealing a bloody hole at the base of his skull.
Everything started happening at once.
The still-standing twin shrieked out his brother's name and ran to him. The big bald guy in the winter camo and sunglasses gunned the ATV. It lurched forward and swung right up next to Keith and the remaining twin. Baldy ripped down his neoprene face mask and shouted, "Load him up now, load him the fuck up." The two followed his instructions, screaming that they were "gonna revenge us on that motherfucker."
In the meantime, Roma ran across the street to where Matt stood frozen in his tracks and grabbed his hand. "We have to go!" she cried.
Matt's head was spinning. "I think...I think we need to wait for the police...fill out a report or---"
"No! We have to go now."
Matt was about to argue about the legality of leaving the scene when he caught a better look at Baldy. He was still wearing the sunglasses, but now that he had ripped down his face mask---and turned his way---Matt could see that his white skin was laced with hundreds of inflamed red veins that pulsed across his face like the interlocking grooves of a jigsaw puzzle.
Matt knew what that meant: time to get gone.
"C'mon," he said, and pulled her back to the Yamaha. He quickly strapped the ax to the back, got on, keyed in, and gunned it.
"Climb on," he said.
She hesitated, looked back over her shoulder at the huge, black ATV. Matt noticed for the first time that it had an armored grill studded on top with a row of steel spikes the size and shape of rhino horns. Its tires were massive, with a three-inch-deep slanting tread. Painted over its grill were evil-looking slit eyes above jagged fangs. And below that, in red letters, was the word "RAHOWA."
What the hell did that mean?
He didn't have time to figure it out. Everyone had climbed into the ATV, and Baldy twisted the wheel and hit the gas. It shot forward---straight for Matt and Roma.
Roma didn't hesitate. She leapt onto the Yamaha's backseat and wrapped her arms around Matt's chest. As she did, he wrenched the handlebar to the right and slued onto the sidewalk. He let the throttle out, peeling forward in a cloud of scorched rubber just as the ATV rammed into the rusty Buick Century he'd put between them. It hit the Buick so hard that it knocked the front half up onto the sidewalk, where it crashed into the storefront where Matt and Roma had been only a moment before. The store's display window shattered into long blades of glass and clashed to the pavement.
Matt roared down the sidewalk, heading for the intersection. As he approached it, he heard a screeching sound behind him and glanced back. Baldy had wrenched the ATV in reverse, to little effect. Matt saw that the stainless-steel spikes lining its hood had gouged deeply into the Buick's frame, and when the ATV tried to pull back out onto the street, it had pulled the Buick with it. Baldy, Keith, and the upright twin were all screaming and trying to pry the vehicles apart.
Good luck with that, Matt thought, seeing how deeply the spikes were embedded. And then, with a chill that prickled the hairs on his neck: That could have been us.
At the intersection he took a right and pulled away from the fray. Thought of something. Turning back to Roma he asked, "Where exactly are we going?"
"My home, please."
"Sure. And where's that?"
"It has no address. But if you listen? I will take you there."
He nodded, let the throttle out. Her arms tightened around his chest, and they were off.
Matt followed Roma's directions, and together they sped through the small town. I didn't take long. The town of Wittman had a population of only four thousand.
Matt had arrived that morning, looked around a bit. Every other storefront in the downtown was closed. The ones that were open consisted of the Jewelry Loan, the VCR-Repair Shop, the Pro-Life Bookstore, a grocery/gas station, an antique store that specialized in bladeless pocketknives and Ku Klux Klan memorabilia, and a dingy diner called The Cosmopolitan. There were also, directly across from each other, a liquor store that sold guns and a gun store that sold liquor. The town's main function, Matt guessed, was to ensure that every fall hunter and winter snowmobiler was fully equipped with ammo, antifreeze, a Bible, a bottle, a Hot Pocket, and a Glock.
Halfway out of town, Matt asked Roma over the Yamaha's roar who the thugs had been and why they'd attacked her. But she didn't respond.
Matt let it go---for now. Christ, she'd basically killed one of them, saving Matt's life in the process. He thought back to the redbearded twin's look of bewilderment as he saw his ivories take flight. Thought of the brother's rage and Keith's Kiss off bitch. These were not people who would forgive and forget. Once he returned Roma to her home, he was going to have to get out of the county by nightfall. Especially considering what he'd seen in the face of the big guy, Baldy.
The irregular grid of red veins pulsing across the thug's face had put Matt on high alert, but it hadn't horrified him. He was too used to it by now. In fact, he'd been seeing such sights regularly for the past nine months.
Almost a year before, while skiing with a friend, Matt had been buried in an avalanche. He was given up for dead, but his body was eventually recovered three months later--- frozen solid beneath a bank of snow. It wasn't until the coroner made the first cut for his autopsy that the truth came to light: Matt was alive.
He had survived a three-month deep freeze!
Matt's doctors couldn't explain his complete recovery, although they tried, as did psychics, celebrities, scientists, and talk-show hosts. For a few news cycles, Matt was the man of the hour: he'd turned down endless invitations for interviews, special appearances, guest slots on late-night talk shows. He'd even had Ripley's Believe It or Not! banging on his door.
And yet not one of the millions who read the newspapers or watched the reports on TV knew the strangest fact about Matt's miraculous resurrection. Once he was out of the hospital, he began to see things that no one else did: certain people seemed to be afflicted with rot, decay, disease, and disintegration. People who looked perfectly healthy to everyone else looked like lepers to Matt. And worst of all, the rot he saw (and smelled) proved time and again to be only a harbinger of evil things to come. Every decomposing person he had seen had gone on to commit some act of destruction: mass murder, mindless mayhem, arson, robbery, rape. After his season on ice, Matt had received forewarning of all kinds of human carnage---often in connection with a shadowy jokester who identified himself only as Mr. Dark. Half the time, Matt suspected that he'd been given a second chance at life to discover and prevent evil disasters from destroying innocent lives.
The other half, Matt suspected that he was just bat-shit crazy.
Which theory was right? Only time would tell. But until it did, Matt had learned to steer clear of infected souls when he had the chance---and fight like hell when he didn't.
But in this case, retreat seemed the best possible option, and he had no trouble committing to it. Especially with the strange young woman sitting behind him, her thighs pressing against his, her arms locked around his chest, her chin resting on his shoulder.
Left, here, she told him. Now right. And right again. Now we drive for long time.
He liked the sound of her voice in his ear, the low, mysterious accent purring instructions over the throb of the Yamaha's cylinders. Following her directions, they left the outskirts of Wittman behind and passed a scattering of seed stores, shuttered farmers' markets, and dilapidated antique "shoppes." The low cloud cover made evening come early, and a misty rain began to fall. Matt slowed down a little, concerned about the roads.
Roma might have been concerned, too, because she edged closer, put her chin against the back of his jaw, and for the first time in ten minutes, spoke to him.
"I am sorry for this...this trouble I have caused to you."
He shook his head. "You saved my life back there, Roma."
For a few moments there was only the thrum of the motor and the hiss of rubber on wet blacktop. The mist slid down Matt's neck and pooled in the hollows of his throat. "Can I ask, Matthew, why you come to this place?"
"To meet someone."
A slight pause. Her chin settled on his shoulder. Then: "A friend?"
"No. I've never met him. But I read a book he wrote."
"Aha. And he knew you were coming?"
"No."
"You live near here? From nearby?"
"No. My home's on the West Coast."
"Ah. West Coast." Thought about that. "So you..."
"Traveled three thousand miles to meet him."
"I see." Even though she didn't. "It must have been a good book he wrote, this man."
Not quite, Matt thought. But he didn't say it. The book had been, hands down, the worst piece of shit he'd ever read.
"You should leave tonight, Matthew. For you to stay here? It would not be safe."
"I know." If her lips brushed his earlobe one more time, he was probably going to drive off the road. He had to do something, anything, to get his mind off her. "About those guys who attacked us," he began.
"Go left here," she said immediately.
Matt slowed. The two-lane road through the woods was intersected by a gravel path that wound up a steep hill. An old wooden sign by the side of the road indicated that the path led to the "WITTMAN SKI RESORT," but the paint was peeling and the words were badly faded. Nailed to the signpost, a much newer, diamond-shaped, hazard-red sign had been posted:
PRIVATE PROPERTY
KEEP OFF
TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT
By order of Owner,
Charles Kingman
Matt came to a stop, staring at the sign.
"It is all right, Matthew. You can go. This is my home."
"Charles Kingman," Matt said, staring at the sign as the engine idled. "You know him?"
"Of course."
"How?"
She leaned forward, trying to catch his gaze with her green eyes. "We are married, Charles and myself. For the last six months. Why?"
He finally turned toward her. Gave her a long look. "The author I mentioned? The one I came all this way to meet?"
"Yah?"
"Is your husband."
The narrow gravel road was about a quarter of a mile long, and they had to stop a few hundred yards in. Roma had patted him sharply on the back and told him to pull over. When he did, she slipped off the bike and walked cautiously forward, her hands outstretched before her like a sleepwalker. Suddenly she stopped and rested her hands on something invisible, midair. She walked sideways to the nearest tree and unhooked whatever it was with a great deal of effort. Then there was a whisper in the leaves that lay scattered on the road, and she waved him through. He walked the bike forward, looking down. As he passed her, he caught sight of a thin black wire lying on the ground, extending to a second tree on the opposite side. Then she lifted it behind him and reattached it to the first tree. It hung invisibly in the air, exactly neck height.
A trip wire.
If she hadn't stopped him in time, it would have easily taken his head off.
Jesus.
A few seconds later she came back to the bike.
"Is okay now."
"Why do you keep a line strung over the path like that?"
She slung a long leg over the leather seat behind him, scootched forward until the insides of her thighs pressed against his buttocks. Locked her arms around his chest.
Ignoring his question.
He let the throttle out. They eased carefully over a bridge that spanned a creek, the old boards whump-whump-whumping beneath the wheels. "I bet it's been ages since someone tried to sell you Amway," he said.
"Am...way?"
"You know, like door-to-door salesmen, selling... Actually, I have no idea what Amway is." If the joke could have fallen flatter, he didn't know how. "I just mean, the sign, the trip wire, the long driveway...it probably cuts down on your visitors, right?"
"We don't, ah, get out so much."
"Homebodies, huh? You and Charles?" Glanced back at her. If he were married to this woman, he wouldn't get out much, either.
"Y-yes." A strange hesitation. "Charles and myself." Carelessly: "And the rest."
The rest? He was curious. "You two have kids?" Curious, because he'd seen the photo of Charles Kingman on the dustcover to his book. And the idea of that man with this beauty...
"Kids? No." She pressed her cheek into his shoulder. "Go on, Matthew. Is not far now."
The woods thinned as they followed the path. They rounded a corner, and all of a sudden Matt could see the east face of the big hill and how the trees had been cleared away to make two decent ski runs. At the top of the hill he could see what looked to be an old-style lodge, and an honest-to-God ski lift went from it to the bottom of the hill, where it led to three ramshackle buildings that looked like places where you could get skis, rent lockers, and maybe buy lunch. It looked like a nice little setup.
Three things struck Matt as odd, though. The first was that, up at the top of the hill, a ten-foot chain-link fence had been erected to surround the lodge. It cut right across the top face of the ski runs, making them pretty much unusable.
Second, even though there was no snow on the ground and the ski runs were wrecked by the fence, the parking lot they now were passing was full of old beat-up pickups, and there were dozens of tents erected around the ramshackle buildings at the base of the hill. Matt saw a few dozen men, all in camo, many of them carrying branches toward a big bonfire woodpile. All of them stopped to stare as Matt drove past.
The third thing was that, as they passed the men and the bonfire pile, Roma leaned into him again, pressed her cheek against his jaw, and said, "Drive faster, please."
So he did.
"Problem?" he asked. But again, she didn't answer, which didn't surprise him a bit by now. As the path wove back into the woods, he glimpsed at his rearview mirror and saw one of the men drop his load of wood and point in their direction. Then the pines swallowed them up, and he was gone.
A few minutes of steep zigzagging and they reached the fence. Matt pulled up in front of it and stared at in surprise. It had looked kind of thrown together from the bottom of the hill, but up close he could see that it was actually a double fence, both of them chain link, fifteen feet tall, with barbed wire at the top. There was about five feet of space between the two fences, and it was filled with three large coils of razor ribbon. A red triangular sign on the fence said "HIGH VOLTAGE HAZARD" and had a pictogram of a stick figure being blown backward by a lightning bolt.
"Wait here, Matthew."
The center of the fence had a sliding entry gate, also of chain link. Next to it was a touch pad and speaker that emitted a red light that blinked at steady intervals. Roma approached it and tapped its keypad. There was a pause, and then the gate slid sideways with a grinding sound.
Roma stepped in and waved him onward.
Again Matt walked the bike forward, looking around as he did.
On either side of the gate were twin towers of scaffolding, topped with camouflaged deer blinds. The deer blinds were covered with branches and brush. As he looked at the one to his left, he saw a large hunk of brushy debris separate itself from the rest and lean over to watch him pass. It appeared to have two brushy arms. Which appeared to be holding a brushy AK-47.
Matt let his gaze drop from the guy in the ghillie suit and glanced ahead. The entire property---about two acres---was ringed with the electric double fence, and every thirty feet or so a large halogen lamp crowned a fifteen-foot fence post. Strangely, all the halogen lights were facing outward. And each of them was accompanied by a thin black box that also faced outward.
Surveillance cameras.
The property itself was filled with a mishmash of tin sheds and construction materials. Everywhere you looked there were pallets of bricks, bundles of tin sheets, troughs of plaster, buckets of screws, and great stacked rafts of plywood and particle board.
And then there was the lodge.
Clearly, it had once been nice. Built in a seventies retro style, it had a steep, peaked roof and a large second-story wooden deck where skiers could sip hot chocolate and take in a view of the slopes. On the left side of the deck was an angular turret with a peaked roof, and on the right the ski lift was anchored to a large concrete base that snugged right up against the deck. Below the deck was the first-floor entrance, which was flanked by stone pillars and dark wooden beams to give the place an alpine accent. It looked like it had once been a fun place to spend a snowy Saturday afternoon.
But those days were long gone.
The front entrance was now screened by hanging plastic camo curtains. The second-floor deck's guardrail had been buttressed by large, interlocking sheets of tin, with slits cut into them just wide enough to allow for a sight line---or the muzzle of an AK-47. The windows were likewise covered with tin sheets. The turret bristled with outward-facing flood lamps, a red-blinking security box, and two satellite dishes. The peaked roof of the turret had been cut away and replaced with a circular row of six-foot-high white PVC piping, over which hung a thick canopy of camo netting. A shadow moved within it---there seemed to be someone up there.
Squinting to get a better look, one of Matt's eyes was momentarily blinded by a red flash. It was gone as soon as it had arrived. Matt put a hand to his eye, and when he drew it away, just for a second, he saw the crimson dot of a laser sight play along his thumb. Then it slid off into nothingness and was gone.
Matt's jaw locked as he looked around at the compound. Anyone else would be amazed at what had been done to such a good piece of property. But not Matt. He had read Charles Kingman's god-awful book. So he was not surprised in the least.
"Nice little place," Matt said, getting off the bike.
Roma gave him a lopsided smile. "But too much, ah, construction, yes? Please, Matthew, follow me. My husband and brothers, they will be so pleased to meet you."
Matt followed her up onto the porch. It creaked, sagging beneath his step. "Did you say 'brothers'?" he asked, looking around. The camo netting darkened the front entryway, but Matt could see that the original wooden door had been replaced by a steel doublewide portal. Tin sheets had been hammered into the wall around it, as if to make the entryway fireproof. A small intercom box was screwed into one of them.
"Two brothers, yes," she said, pushing the intercom button. "Half brothers, really. Jasha and Arkady. They are visiting from Russia."
"Can't wait to meet them."
"So don't wait, Matthew." Again, the mysterious smile, the gold-flecked eyes that glinted even in the darkness. "See, to your right? This is Jasha."
Matt turned his head and was startled to see a huge guy about eighteen inches away from his elbow. How had he missed him?
Jasha was enormous. His arms were the size of Matt's thighs. His thighs were the size of Matt's torso. His head wasn't that much smaller than a basketball and was crowned with a perfectly round bowl cut that hung in front of his eyes. He was sitting on a two-foot section of a tree trunk, slowly dismantling an Uzi.
He didn't look up at them.
"Jasha, my big teddy bear." Roma stepped lightly over to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She didn't even have to bend down to do it. He leaned into the kiss but kept his eyes on his work.
Then Roma whispered something in his big ear in a language Matt didn't understand.
Jasha paused momentarily, and then began reassembling the Uzi.
"Nice to meet you," Matt said. "I'm Matt."
No response. Jasha's eyes never flicked up from beneath the shaggy-dog bowl cut, and his banana-sized fingers never stopped their business of deftly rotating screws the size of cloves.
Roma walked back to the door.
"Jasha does not, ah, talk English so well? And is very shy. But such a big heart. But my brother Arkady, he speak English very well now. So well, is hard to understand him sometimes."
That made no sense to Matt. "Why would it be hard..."
"You will see." And she reached for the handle of the steel door.
Before she could turn the latch, it rotated on its own and the door slid open.
The hallway beyond was dim, but Matt took in the figure beyond in an instant.
White face.
Black lips.
Big nose.
Evil clown eyes.
Mr. Dark.
Matt lunged at the deranged clown in the doorway. Throwing himself in front of Roma, he grabbed the apparition by the collar of its surprisingly solid T-shirt and slammed him against the steel door.
"Matthew, no!" Roma shrieked from behind him.
"Roma---run!" Matt pulled the squawking figure off the door and slammed him right back. "He's dangerous! Get back!"
"Matthew, is not dangerous---is my brother Arkady!"
Matt paused, and then three things happened that convinced him to let go. First, he noticed that, aside from the clown makeup, the guy he'd grabbed was a lot shorter and pudgier---not to mention more solid---than past apparitions of Mr. Dark. Second, the black-and-white clown makeup was smearing where Matt's knuckles had grazed his chin and lip. Third, with no warning whatsoever, Jasha had silently crossed the porch, driven his shoulder into Matt's rib cage, and crushed him against the wall.
Pinned, Matt gasped for breath like a beached whale.
"Matthew..." Over Jasha's shoulder, Roma looked at him in amazement. "Why...?"
Sucking air, Matt looked from her face to Jasha's, to the outraged figure in the doorway. He swallowed. "Sorry," he said. No way to explain what he'd just done---so he said the first thing that popped into his head. "So sorry. I...I've just got this thing about clowns."
"Well is that not being the shizit?" the guy in whiteface said in a thick Russian accent. He stepped out of the doorway toward Matt, glaring at him.
Matt squinted. "What?"
"Player-hating fool come to flex on myself?" The guy took a wide stance. His hands flew into gang signs. "Clown Loco G give as good as he get, yes? Be looking close, bitch." He hoisted his crotch. "I am a world-class melon smuggla, titty juggla, and not hesitating to bust a cap in your ass, whoop whoop."
Matt stared at him. Then at Roma.
"My brother Arkady," she said, rolling her eyes, "is bigtime juggalo. You know, fan of ICP? The musical band---"
"Insane Clown Posse," Matt finished. "Yeah. I know about 'em." Thinking, Jesus Christ, what next?
As it turned out, what was next was a brief tour of the lodge. Roma told Matt that her husband was always in his study before dinner and that she'd introduce him. So Matt followed as she led him through the entryway, past what would have originally been a visiting area with a large fireplace, then up a large staircase and down a hallway to the turreted study.
Everywhere he looked, Matt felt the carpenter in him cringe. The crown molding that had lined the entryway had been ripped off so that thick twists of electrical cord and cable could be stapled into the walls. They roped through the visiting area and wove between the maple banisters of the stairway like black snakes. The visiting area had been converted from a cozy common room to a makeshift armory. A display cabinet with mullioned windows was loaded with boxes of ammo. A row of tenpenny nails had been pounded into one wall, and from each one hung a semiautomatic rifle. Two large wooden crates lay on the floor, overflowing with pink packing foam. On the lids, in red block letters, were the words "WARNING: EXPLOSIVES: HANDLE WITH CARE." From a hat rack hung three black, rubber-snouted gas masks, looking for all the word like S and M gear for pigs. Leaning in a corner were two completely illegal pump-action sawed-off shotguns. And lying in a long inset in the far wall---which had probably been built to hold a row of crystal or china--- was what appeared to be a bazooka.
From one end of it, hanging by a nylon strap, was a Dora the Explorer car seat.
My God, Matt thought. Where am I?
As they crossed the parlor, Matt asked Roma if he'd entered into a war zone without knowing it. She didn't turn, just smiled tightly. Of course, she may not have heard him, what with the whine of a Skilsaw coming from the kitchen, and Arkady following close on his heels, rapping the lyrics to ICP's "Santa's a Fat Bitch."
Walking up the stairs, Matt stumbled. Each step was littered with brass ammo casings, shotgun shells, pacifiers, and a squeaky rubber teething giraffe.
At the top of the steps, they turned down a hallway and were passed by two young guys with crew cuts. Both wore black cargo pants with Glocks strapped to their waists. Both had shield-shaped badges on their chests embroidered with a white fist; both had black armbands split with the insignia of a red lightning bolt.
And yet, they were still practically kids: had acne and nervous eyes. One had a faux-hawk and was attempting to grow a mustache. The other was bare armed under his bulletproof vest. Tattooed along his big triceps in two-inch letters was the word "RAHOWA."
Both said hi to Roma as they approached, but when they saw Matt their eyes widened and they grew silent.
Roma stopped at a door at the end of the hall. She rapped on it lightly.
"Yes?" came the muffled voice.
She turned to Matt shyly and whispered, "Wait here, Matthew." She stepped inside and shut the door behind her.
Matt heard low voices, but he couldn't make out what was being said. He looked back down the hall and saw that the two guys they'd passed were still watching him. Faux-Hawk acknowledged him with the slightest upward tilt of his chin. The other guy had folded his tattooed guns across his chest and was openly glaring at Matt.
Have to remember to give him a low score on the hospitality survey, Matt thought. Then the door creaked open, and Roma gestured for Matt to follow her.
He did.
The turret room had clearly been intended to be an office, and it still was. Its rounded walls were lined with built-in shelves. A dark cherry wood desk was in front of the window, and a lean old man stood behind it, extending his gnarled fingers in Matt's direction.
"Young man, allow me to shake your hand. Roma told me of the service you performed today, and I am honored---honored!---to make your acquaintance. I am Charles Kingman."
"Matt Cahill."
As Matt shook Kingman's hand, he got a closeup look at the guy he'd traveled three thousand miles to meet.
He wasn't exactly impressed.
Charles Kingman looked like a de-shelled turtle. He was scrawny and bald, with a beak-like nose and thin lips. Between them was a small, gray postage-stamp mustache that had gone out of style around 1939. He was about thirty years older than his beautiful wife, and a wattle of loose skin hung beneath his chin. He wore a faded corduroy jacket with suede on the elbows, which was probably supposed to make him look professorial. His eyes were gray and sharp and searching behind thin, wire-rim glasses. Matt couldn't shake the sense that Kingman bore a strong resemblance to someone he'd seen recently.
The old guy was still pumping his hand. "Clearly, Mr. Cahill, I owe you more than I can ever repay! Apparently, Roma's escorts abandoned her when she needed them most. If not for your timely intervention..."
"No problem," Matt said, wondering when he'd get his hand back. "I just did what anyone would have done."
"Not so, not so!" Kingman's grip was like iron for a guy his age. "True valor is a rare commodity these days, very rare! Though not surprising in your case, considering your, ah, features..." He finally released Matt's hand. But now his eyes were flicking compulsively from Matt's forehead to his ears and chin and back again.
"Features, yes, yes, yes." He spun around, picked something off his table that looked like a medieval torture device. It consisted of a metal hoop about nine inches across. Attached to the hoop by big bolts were four connected metal bands, which crossed each other in a dome shape above the hoop. Kingman carried it around the desk, toward Matt. "Surely you won't mind if I..."
"Uh, what's that?" Matt asked, taking a step backward.
"Won't take a second." And before Matt could register what had just happened, Kingman had slipped the device over his head. The metal hoop was cool against Matt's brow. Biting his tongue in concentration, the old man turned the bolts until it was snug.
"Aha...yes, of course..." While Kingman's left hand held the caliper in place, his right stroked the top of Matt's head.
Matt pulled back immediately, freaked out by the device, the stroking. But Kingman didn't seem to notice. The old man was beaming. "All twenty-seven brain organs in fine fettle, and my caliper registers a brow-to-nose ratio of one to one-point-seven percent!"
"What a relief," Matt said, barely able to contain his irritation.
"Isn't it?" Smiling, Kingman set the device back on his desk. "I'm sure you were confident in your phrenology, but the fact is, you never know. I had a fellow worked for me for years, always claiming that he came from one hundred percent Austrian stock. I finally took his measurements, and what do you know? His brow-to-nose ratio was one-point-eight to point-nine. And this is someone that I had entrusted with the keys to my heavy equipment!"
Kingman's wattle swayed as he shook his head in amazement. "One just never knows, until scientific principles are applied." His gray eyes flicked brightly back to Matt's. "But never fear: your measurements are well within the acceptable margins: clearly, you have nothing to worry about."
"Clearly. Thanks for the, uh..."---Matt barely avoided saying load of horseshit---"...for the analysis, Mr. Kingman. But, now, if you'll give me a few minutes of your time, I've got some questions for you. You see, I'm familiar with your work."
"Oh, really?" Kingman was clearly delighted. He gestured for Matt to sit in a worn leather chair, and he returned to his seat on the other side of the desk, giving Roma a quick look as he did. "Some tea, my dear?"
"Of course."
Matt sat, watching Roma sway out the door. She had a feline grace that was mesmerizing.
"Lovely woman, your wife," he said quietly.
"She should be. She has cost me much, yes, much."
Matt looked back to Kingman, confused by the strange response.
But he had moved on. "So tell me---to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Oh, right." Matt pressed the palms of his hands together. This was going to take some explaining. "It started, I guess, when I read your book."
"Aha!" Kingman crowed, clapping his hands and settling back in his seat. "Of course! Nine hundred forty-seven copies sold since the first printing, as of January of this year! Not bad, eh?"
"Uh...no," Matt said, resisting the urge to point out that the book's cover page had showed the first printing to be in the mid-eighties. "Anyway, a month ago I came across a reference to your book. Once I found a copy and read it, there was one chapter in particular that I couldn't put down. It--- it really intrigued me, you see, this one chapter, intrigued me so much that I knew a letter wouldn't do it. I knew I'd have to come out here in person and ask you to explain---"
"Stop."
He stopped. Kingman's eyes had closed, and he smilingly held up an open palm toward Matt. "Stop, stop, stop. Say no more. I know exactly the chapter you're talking about, and I have no problem what so ever justifying my conclusions. It's the most controversial one in the book: Chapter Eleven: The Jewish Conspiracy Unveiled."
"That's actually not---"
"True, the Rothschilds are no longer the force they were, but---"
"That's not---"
"But the very idea that the International Money Fund is not a cat's-paw for a global consortium of Semitic bankers..."
And he was off. Matt looked away, biting his tongue hard to keep from telling Kingman to shut the fuck up, that he was an idiot, that Matt hadn't come three thousand miles to hear him spew racist bullshit.
Not that he hadn't expected it. Kingman's book, The Aryan's Lament, was a crazy quilt of contradictory conspiracy theories about how various non-Aryan racial groups had orchestrated just about every war, recession, depression, assassination, and natural disaster on record. It also included a supposed history of the Aryan race, which gave serious consideration to the Nazi theory that Aryans alone were not descended from apes, but had fallen, fully formed, into ancient Norway, frozen like TV dinners in the heart of an icy meteor. And of course there had been a thick, thick chapter on phrenology, with lots of comparisons of brow ridges and nose/chin ratios, accompanied by many a helpful diagram.
In short, it was full of shit.
And not new shit, either. Growing up, Matt had been exposed to plenty of prejudices and petty hatreds. When two Vietnamese boys started attending his junior high, there had been a lot of kids who'd called them gooks behind their backs and said that they should get the hell beat out of them "for what they did to our guys in 'Nam."
Matt hadn't really known what to think. They did look different from anyone else in the school. But as for these two teens being responsible for fifty thousand American dead, the idea didn't really resonate. Not to mention that the only vet he knew personally was his buddy's uncle Dwayne, a grizzled, tobacco-spitting jackass who had lost both legs in 'Nam while trying to take a drunken crap down his own mortar tube. It was hard to see how Nguyen and Tran were responsible for that.
Still, Matt had been tempted to side with his friends just to fit in, and might have done so, when by total chance, his dad---to console him for failing to get tickets to the sold-out opening night of Jurassic Park---had spent seventy-five cents to buy him a secondhand copy of Mack Bolan: Executioner #38 at a newsstand.
At the time, Matt thought this was a pretty sorry consolation prize, but he'd taken it home anyway, gone to his room, flopped onto his bed, opened the front cover---and fell into a world he never knew existed.
To a twelve-year-old, Mack Bolan was the consummate badass. He had done it all. A sniper with ninetyseven confirmed kills in various Vietnam battle theaters? Check. Master sergeant with lethal proficiency with a .460 Weatherby? Check. Scourge of Mafiosi who had killed his dad and whoreified his sister? Double check.
Matt began hunting down other Executioner books and discovered that Mack Bolan had another side, too. He liked kids. He even liked Vietnamese kids, and in one issue, he took a couple of them under his wing and treated them kindly---when he wasn't ventilating the baddies. He didn't call them gook, chink, or slant---and he had fought in 'Nam! So why should Matt not give Tran and Nguyen the benefit of the doubt? He couldn't think of one good reason. So he decided that, given a choice between siding with the Dwaynes of the world or the Mack Bolans, he'd choose the Executioner.
Eighteen years had passed since then, and he still felt the same way---in fact, he still had his well-thumbed copy of The Executioner #38 tucked away in his rucksack---one of the very few personal items he'd allowed himself when he packed. It meant something to him, that book...It reminded him of his dad, for one. And just holding it brought him back to spending rainy Sunday afternoons reading in his tree house and living on a strict diet of BBQ potato chips while he washed down each page with a swallow of Schweppes ginger ale. Bliss.
"...wealth that the Jews had amassed from stealing the mighty treasure of the Knights Templar!"
Matt blinked, returning to Earth. He'd forgotten that Kingman was still raving.
"This theory---though widely accepted now, of course--- was met with disbelief when I first published it in Aryan's Lament. My critics claimed that---"
"Actually," Matt interjected quickly, "that's not the chapter I meant."
Kingman paused. "It isn't?" He seemed bewildered. "Well, it...it can't have been the phrenology chapter: those standards are long established..."
Among dipshits worldwide, Matt thought. But he didn't say it. What he said was, "No, it wasn't that one, either. It was actually the epilogue that I wanted to talk to you about."
"Ah, yes. The epilogue." Kingman drummed his fingers on the desk. His face had gone neutral, but his eyes burned with a crafty light. "That epilogue doesn't appear in any edition but the first, you know."
"I didn't know that," Matt said.
"Yes. It was excised in the second and third editions, at my editor's request. Just didn't seem...ah...of a piece with the rest of the book."
"Well, it does sort of---stand out," Matt said, choosing his words carefully.
"In what way?" The tone of the interview had changed. Kingman was no longer blathering joyfully about eight-hundred-year-old conspiracies. Now he was watchful, alert. Matt could feel Kingman's sharp gray eyes burrowing into his own, and for the first time he realized how much he'd put himself in this nut job's power: surrounded by his blackclad crew, his electric fence. Bazookas on shelves and all that. He might be in great danger, Matt realized. But he had come all this way. He couldn't back down.
"If I can explain, Mr. Kingman?" He settled back into his chair, pressed the palms of his hands together. "The way I read your epilogue in Aryan's Lament is that it's a---well, like a parable of sorts."
Kingman stroked his bristly gray postage stamp. "Proceed."
"Well, as you know, in this epilogue, this parable, a young guy---you call him Charles---is buried alive in a crypt. The black kids in his high school don't appreciate his...his original ideas, and so they find a way to lock him in a crypt on Halloween."
"Yes."
"And he eventually escapes the following morning, but after he's been buried, he can see things that no one else sees: he sees scabs and boils on the faces of those who want to hurt him. He smells rot on those who are plotting against him."
"That's right."
"In fact, Charles realizes that ever since he left the tomb, he's had a second shadow following him wherever he goes, only it doesn't always do what he does. He names it Shadewell, and after a while, he starts to talk to it."
"Yes."
"And then, after a while, it starts to talk back."
Kingman was nodding, his arms crossed, his gray eyes bright and watchful.
"Shadewell tells him to do all kinds of terrible things... to start rumors that destroy people's reputations, to steal from those who trust him, things like that. And he does these things. But then...at the end of the parable, Shadewell whispers to him that he should kill his girlfriend, that he should burn her alive. And all of a sudden, Charles realizes that it's gone too far, that he has to get rid of the shadow. And he does. But there's no description of how he does it in the parable. All it says is something like, 'Making use of a dark rite found in an ancient book, Charles gained control over the malicious spirit that had sought to control him.' But in the book, you never describe the rite he uses!" Matt settled back, put his hands flat on his thighs. "Mr. Kingman, I've wanted to know for a long time now what that rite was. I was hoping you could tell me."
Finished, he looked at Kingman expectantly.
"Well, well." The old turtle settled back in his seat, closed his eyes, and picked at a melanoma forming on his mottled scalp. "Of all the reasons that people have sought me out, this is the first time it's been for literary criticism." The eyes opened, locked on Matt. Kingman's thin lips hinged upward at the ends in an enigmatic smile.
"I'm not criticizing the story you wrote," Matt said quickly. "I'm just..." He paused. "I'm just curious about the rite."
"Any particular reason?"
Matt sighed. Kingman was cornering him. He was going to have to take a chance with him and tell the truth. "I had this idea that the parable maybe wasn't entirely fictional. That maybe it---or something like it---had actually happened."
"Aha." The gray postage stamp twitched. "And what would lead you to that conclusion?"
Matt stared at him, thinking, You have to be kidding. "Well, the parable does end by saying that 'Charles' uses this mysterious rite a number of times to make the shadow do his bidding, right? He makes the shadow bring him money, and fame. Ultimately, the shadow helps him assemble a big militia of over a hundred soldiers called the White Aryan Caucasian Fist of God. Over time, this militia is strengthened and empowered by regular applications of this rite."
"And...?"
"And White Aryan Caucasian Fist of God was, I think, the name of the militia which you claim to have started. At least, it was, according to the author's profile on the book's back flap."
A flash of teeth. "Was and is. And until recently, we were still nearly one hundred strong!"
"Right." Thinking, What does "until recently" mean? Matt decided not to ask. There was only one thing he needed from Kingman, and that was information on Mr. Dark---if he had any. Which was a big if.
Matt gave Kingman an open look. "So you tell me...am I on to something? Or did I just drive three thousand miles for nothing?"
The old guy held his unblinking gaze for two, three, four seconds, and then let out a short, rasping laugh. "You didn't come all this way for nothing," he said reassuringly. "Roma's tea is famous in these parts. Come in, my dear--- come in!"
The wild hope that had briefly flared in Matt's chest was quickly extinguished. He turned around impatiently. Roma had entered the room, bearing a tray that held two china cups and what looked to be an old-fashioned pewter samovar. The steam rising from its spout obscured her features---all but the slanted green eyes, which cut briefly toward Matt as she passed him. As she crossed to Kingman's desk and leaned over to set down the heavy tray, Matt's pulse started to beat like a drum at the base of his throat.
"Remarkable, isn't she?"
Embarrassed, Matt glanced quickly back to Kingman, who he now realized had been watching his reaction. He began stammering out something, but Kingman held up his hand, palm out. "No need to apologize," he laughed. "Roma is beautiful, is she not? You said so yourself earlier."
Mortified, Matt clenched his jaw and glanced guiltily at Roma. But she was just standing at the corner of Kingman's desk, impossibly at ease, hands clasped modestly before her and eyes demurely downcast. The faint smile on her lips was unreadable, could have been shyness, satisfaction, shame--- or contempt. Or all four.
"How much"---and here Kingman walked from behind his desk over to Roma---"How much would you pay for such a woman, Matt?"
"Pay?" Matt couldn't believe what he'd just heard.
"Yes, pay. How much would you pay?" Kingman stood right next to Roma, arms crossed, giving her a satisfactory look-over, like a coin collector inspecting a buffalo nickel with a valuable defect. "You'd be surprised what Roma has cost me. Two thousand dollars I paid to a marriage broker to winnow down the field of potential brides, then three thousand more to cover the introductory visit, another thousand for the visa, two and a half for various bribes to Kamchatkan officials, then four more to pay for the plane tickets for her and her two brothers, whom she refused to leave behind. So: twelve thousand five hundred dollars, all in all." With a rasping chuckle, he ran a liver-spotted finger along her biceps. "What do you think, Matt? Was she worth it?"
"Worth it?" Matt's throat felt dry. He still couldn't believe Kingman was talking about his wife like she was a secondhand camera he'd bought on eBay. But he had to respond. "Hell, yes," he said. "Mr. Kingman, I'd say, all things considered, you got the deal of the century."
Roma's enigmatic smile didn't change at his words, but her eyes, which had been downcast to the floor, rose slightly. Not enough to meet Matt's gaze, but just enough to claim the middle distance between them. The barometric pressure in the room shifted. As did Matt's pulse.
"The deal of the century, eh?" Kingman, agitated, had begun to pace. "But you haven't yet heard how much she actually cost me, have you? The twelve thousand dollars, yes? But that is nothing. That's just money. I could care less about the money." He gave a short, barking laugh. "No, Roma was far more expensive than that, weren't you, my love? Ultimately, she cost me my army, which has jeopardized the entire Rahowa."
That word again. "You'll have to explain that last part," Matt said.
Kingman looked at him in disbelief. "Don't tell me that you are unfamiliar with the works of Ben Klassen?"
Matt raised his eyebrows and turned up the palms of his hands, as if to say, Sorry.
Kingman sighed. "Rahowa is a made up word for a very real concept. And that concept is that we are heading inexorably toward a worldwide racial holy war, or Rahowa."
Matt stared at him. Kingman didn't blink. Apparently, he was serious.
"Aha." It was either that or You must be fucking kidding me. Aha won out, but not by much. "And how," Matt said, trying to connect the dots, "and how did Roma jeopardize your winning this...war?"
Now it was Kingman's turn to look at Matt like he was an idiot. "Well, look at her, Matt," he said, as if speaking to a five-year-old. "What's the first thing you see?"
So Matt had to look at her again, like she was a piece of meat. And he really couldn't tell what he saw first: he was overwhelmed by the immediacy of her full lips, high brow, tigerish eyes, long neck, and the harp-shaped hips that joined a slim waist to endless legs.
"Well," Matt said, "she's beautiful, I guess."
Kingman rolled his eyes and made a gah of exasperation. "Her skin, Matt, her skin. Do you notice anything about it?"
This was getting unbearable. "It's...ah...smooth?"
"Of course it's smooth, but what about its color?"
Matt closed his eyes and focused on not choking Kingman. "What about it?"
"Well, isn't it obvious?" Kingman had stepped into Matt's space, raising his voice. "You've opined that Roma is beautiful. But in your learned opinion, is she Aryan?"
Matt opened his mouth, then closed it. Tried to massage away the approaching migraine. "I have no idea."
"Of course you don't! And neither do any of the seventyeight fools who believe that I spent twenty years assembling the most formidable militia in Michigan only to miscegenate." He spat the word out like a live coal. "She"---he jabbed a finger at Roma---"has cost me my army!"
Roma just stared at the floor. She could have been carved in wax.
Matt struggled to find something to say to this nut job. "Your, uh, numbers still seem pretty strong to me." He pointed out the window. "We passed a few dozen of your guys on the way up the forest path."
"Of course you did. But do you see them now? Of course you don't. And why is that?" Kingman's eyes nearly crossed in fury. "Because they have quit the White Aryan Caucasian Fist of God! They are AWOL! They are deserters! All because of her, seventyeight of the best militia in Michigan have turned traitor!"
He flung his teacup at the wall, where it shattered in a brown spray.
A stunned silence from everyone in the room. Jesus, this guy is unhinged. Matt felt the need to calm the old guy down before he popped a vein.
"Well, 'traitor' seems a little strong," Matt said. "I mean, you're clearly still...ah...coexisting, right? You and the prodigal seventyeight?"
Now it was Kingman's turn to look amazed. "Didn't you see the fence?"
Matt stared at him. For a second he didn't understand. Then he did. And when he did, the skin on his arms lifted into goose bumps and the hair at the base of his neck prickled.
Holy fuck.
"Wait a minute. Mr. Kingman..." Matt struggled to keep his voice even. "Are you saying that that electric fence is...is the only thing keeping those seventyeight 'deserters' out? That you and her and the handful of people in here are... are---" He groped for the right phrase.
"Under siege?" Kingman smiled grimly. "That is exactly what I'm telling you, Matt."
Footsteps behind him, coming fast.
Matt turned to see the militiaman with the faux-hawk stride past him, holding an open laptop. He was followed by Jasha and the guy with the RAHOWA tat.
"Sir, Alastair wants to talk to you."
"Later, Walton."
"Sir? You're going to want to hear this."
A pause. The old man's crafty eyes shuttled back and forth between the soldier and Matt. He wiped a line of spittle from the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb.
"Well, by all means, then." Kingman pointed to his desk. The soldier crossed to it, set the laptop down, and stepped back.
Matt took a sharp breath, felt his heart lunge within his chest. The laptop's screen showed the red-fissured face of Baldy.
"Well, Alastair." Kingman stood imperiously in front of the screen, his hands clenched behind his back. "You've been busy this morning. I hear you had your army of deserters attack my wife."
Baldy gave a nasty smile. "You should thank us, old man. We were just upholding the law. Doesn't your wife know that public displays of affection are illegal here in the US of A?"
Kingman tensed. "What are you talking about?"
"Didn't she tell you?" Enjoying this. "That sweet brown thing musta came down with one bad case of jungle fever. She had her tongue about halfway down a guy's throat when we caught sight of them."
"What...what guy?"
"The guy standing right next to you."
Kingman's mottled face snapped toward Matt.
"Lying," Roma hissed, crossing quickly to Kingman. "He is lying to you, my love, I swear."
"And that buck had his hand so far up her skirt, we all thought he was givin' her a free exam, so naturally we had to---"
Kingman slapped his hand down onto the keyboard with a clatter, and the connection was broken. He stood there, staring at the "Call Disconnected" message, his chest rising and falling, his breath whistling harshly in his beak.
Suddenly an IM notification appeared at the bottom of the screen.
"Charles," Roma whispered, "don't---"
He hit a button. Five words appeared on the screen:

BY MIDNIGHT
TONIGHT
OR ELSE

Kingman slammed down the laptop lid. He stared at it for a minute, then looked up at Matt. His eyes a little too wide. His smile a little too tight. Said, "You must be awfully tired from your trip, Mr. Cahill."
Matt didn't like the paranoid light in his eyes. He also didn't like the red fissures that were spreading across Kingman's face, dividing and subdividing it into a red grid. "Well, actually, I'm feeling pretty rested. Should be, ah, getting on my way."
"Nonsense. It's getting dark out. Likely to rain again. You'll spend the night with us! I insist."
From behind, Matt felt a big hand grab his arm just above the elbow, and another slap heavily onto his shoulder.
Matt had never taken a martial arts class, but he'd seen this predicament play out dozens of times on TV, and the hero's response was always the same: with his free arm he'd reach behind himself, grab his attacker by the scruff of the neck, and then bend forward, flinging the thug over his shoulder onto the floor. So Matt tried doing that.
Unfortunately, he quickly discovered that what worked for Shatner, Selleck, Norris, and Hasselhoff didn't necessarily transfer to reality.
In short, TV had lied to him.
While Matt did manage to reach back and grab a hunk of Jasha's hair, all Jasha had to do then was grab Matt's wrist and wrench it back even farther, while knocking the back of Matt's knee with the front of his own. In less than a second, Matt was kneeling helplessly on the floor, his hands pinned behind him, praying that Jasha didn't exert the single pound of pressure it would take to dislocate both arms at the socket.
He didn't. But he did twist them sharply, switching Matt's gaze from Roma's horrified face to Kingman's reptilian, red-veined mask.
"Kingman, I never touched her---I swear."
"I'm sure you do." His tortoisey head bobbed up and down. "And I have no qualms about relying on the words of a man of honor. So all that's left, at this point, is for me to confirm that you are a man of honor. Walton?"
The militiaman with the faux-hawk stepped behind Matt and pulled Matt's wallet out of his back pocket.
"Got it, sir."
"Good. A background check, immediately."
"Yes, sir."
"And what happens 'til then?" Matt panted, humiliated. "We all just stay here? Or do you have a dungeon where you can conveniently dump me?"
"Dungeon?" Kingman's eyes crinkled shut and he gave a snort of laughter. "Perish the thought. You're our guest. You'll keep your bag, your ax. And while we do our due diligence, you'll be escorted by Jasha, Walton, and Sig to the White Aryan Caucasian Fist of God's penthouse suite."
Matt had guessed that "penthouse suite" meant the attic. But he realized he was wrong when Jasha firmly guided him back into the hall and then out onto the second-story deck. Just how wrong he'd been didn't become clear to him until Jasha led him to the ski lift and pushed him firmly into a sky chair.
"Gotta be honest, guys," Matt said. "I totally forgot to bring my snowboard."
"Not gonna need no snowboard where you're goin'," said the militiaman with the RAHOWA tat---whose name was Sig, apparently. He tossed Matt the ax and backpack, then opened the ski lift's control box. "Now, a parachute? That's another matter." And he flipped a switch.
Immediately, the sky chair jerked away, pulled down the hill by a steel cable that fed into the rusting carousel wheel grinding to life above the militiamen's heads.
As the sky chair pulled away from the wooden deck, the ground dropped steeply away beneath it. In three seconds he was ten feet above the slope. In five seconds he was fifteen feet above the slope. In ten, there was nothing between him and the muddy slope but twenty feet of air.
And that's when Sig flipped the switch again.
The rusty carousel wheel stopped grinding.
The cable stopped sliding.
The sky chair stopped moving. Or rather, it stopped traveling down the hill. It was still moving plenty, rocking back and forth like a pendulum as Matt clung to it for dear life.
"Yeah, that'll about do 'er," Sig said with satisfaction. "Guess I better run that background check, like Mr. Kingman said. In the meantime, Mr. Cahill? Enjoy the view."
And he walked back into the house, followed by Jasha.
Which left Walton. The kid settled into a wooden Adirondack chair with a grunt. He set a high-powered rifle over his knees and glared down the hill toward the dozens of men who, in the late evening light, were building a bonfire.
"So how's the dental and vision plan here?" Matt asked.
Walton didn't say anything.
"Measured any craniums lately?"
Nothing.
"I've got an idea," Matt said. "How 'bout we compare lists of our favorite chapters in The Aryan's Lament."
Beneath the shades, Walton's jaw began to work. "Seein' as you're a prisoner of the White Aryan Caucasian Fist of God? I'd shut the hell up if I were you."
Matt snorted with derision.
Walton hopped out of his seat. "Something funny, Cahill? Spit it out!"
Matt held up a hand. "Look, I was just trying to get a handle on your group's name, is all. Kind of a mouthful."
"Our name, huh? Well, laugh it up, bud." Walton, pacing, ran a hand over his faux-hawk. "White Aryan Caucasian Fist of God. I bet you think it's a triple redundancy, right? But it's not. It's a matter of necessity, our name is."
"It is, huh?"
"Damn straight. We came by it gradual. At first we was just the Aryan Fist of God. Nice and simple. Looked good on the Web page, and people liked it. We was pleased as hell when our Internet membership went up to seven hundred. And them was dues-payin' members, every one of 'em! Then we took a closer look, saw that more 'n half of them fuckers listed their home country as India and Pakistan. Scroll down the list, and every other goddamn name on our roster was Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong. Turns out you don't have to be white to be Aryan! Who the hell knew, right? So then we changed it to White Aryan Fist of God. That about did for most of them snake charmers, but there was still a dozen or so was albino---it's commoner than you'd think---and them twelve ragheads, they kept orderin' shirts and hats, and goin' on our Web site, postin' photos of their mutant asses and givin' opinions on magic-carpet ridin' or whatever the fuck else they wanted to talk about, and, well, as you can imagine, it just did shit for morale around here. So finally we named it White Aryan Caucasian Fist of God. That there was the nail in the coffin for the yoga brigade. Only it was right about then when he"---and here his voice dropped to a belligerent whisper---"he went on that trip, and came back...came back with, you know, her." He sat back down, crossed his arms. "I got the lecture---we all did---about her hometown bein' from where all white people come from and all that. I ain't no PhD, but all I can say is, things ain't been the same since. And now I gotta sit here and babysit your sorry ass."
"Sorry about that," Matt said, confused by that last part but not caring enough to ask for clarification. "It wasn't exactly my idea. You should've brought something to read."
Walton snorted. "Ain't never read a book in my life."
Matt smirked. "Right."
"No joke."
Matt looked at him more closely. Twilight shadowed his features, but the kid seemed dead serious. "That a fact?"
Shrugging. "Dropped out of school when I was fifteen. Wasn't no good at it. Got my letters mixed up every time I tried to read." Staring at his feet. "Worked a bunch of shitty jobs, slept in the back of my truck for a year. Then Mr. Kingman, he took me in. Gave me a job, three squares a day, a gun, training. Taught me all about my Aryan heritage. Gave me the only gift I ever got from anyone. See this here?"
Matt squinted. Walton had turned the back of his right hand to Matt. He was pointing to a large, chunky ring on his right index finger.
"A ring?"
"Not just any ring. Got a skull on it, with garnets for eyes. And it says 'RAHOWA' on the side. Worth a lot of money, this is."
I bet, Matt thought. He'd seen junk like that in head shops on sale for twelve bucks. The word garnet always had two Ts and was followed by a copyright sign. "So that ring's why you're here?"
"No." Walton slapped his hands down on the Adirondack armrests. "I'm here because for the first time in my life I'm worth something to somebody."
Matt stared at him, then looked down at the ground swaying gently far beneath his feet. He felt a little seasick. A few comebacks came to mind, but what was the point? Suddenly his contempt for the kid dissolved into pity. Matt came from a small town, too, but his home was like Seattle compared to Wittman. Matt thought of the rusted-out trailer parks he'd passed on the way in, tried to imagine what it would have been like, growing up in a home where you were never given a single thing, going to a school where shame over your disability made you drop out. Then, when you're rootless, without hope, living out of a truck, some published "author" comes along and tells you there's a secret about you that no one knows: that you're not only as good as everyone else, you're superior...special...chosen. And all you have to do to embrace your destiny is put on a ring, get a gun, move in, eat up, and get ready for the racial holy war.
Hell, Matt thought. When you've got nothing else going for you...
"Hey, Walt." Sig had appeared. "I can't get the Internet to work. Would you take a look?"
"Yeah, okay." Walton got up, walked passed Sig. "Keep an eye on him, though," he said, jabbing his thumb at Matt. "I don't wanna be the one to tell Mr. Kingman that he busted his head tryin' to climb down."
"Sure, sure," Sig said, watching him leave. When the deck door shut, Sig watched it for a second, and then slowly, slowly turned to Matt.
And just like that, Matt knew he was in trouble.
"Havin' a good time, bud?"
"Absolutely." Matt noticed that Sig was carrying a duffel bag. For some reason, he knew this was bad news.
"You givin' my buddy Walt flack?" Sig swaggered up to the control console and leaned against it with a deliberate casualness.
"Nope."
"Hope not. You two get your panties in a twist, and I'll have to separate you. Put you to bed. Sing you a lullaby." He looked over his shoulder. Seeing no one, he put his hand casually on the control panel. He gave Matt a weird, lopsided grin. "Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?"
Matt stared at him. "Not...really."
"Well, too goddamn bad. I gotta do something to keep myself awake. So here goes." And he made an ah-ah-ah-ahem sound, like an opera singer getting ready for rehearsal.
Matt wasn't liking any of this. And that was before he heard the song.

Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

When he sang the word rock, Sig flicked the switch on and off, and Matt's sky chair lurched forward and then jerked backward, nearly spilling him off the wooden-slatted seat.
"Hey!" Matt yelled, "Cut it out!"
But Sig just kept singing.

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come Cahill, cradle and all.

On the final word, Sig quickly flipped the switch on and off again three times. The still-rocking chair snapped back and forth so wildly that Matt fell out---and the only thing keeping him from the muddy slope twenty feet below was the fact that his left hand snagged the cold aluminum bar that served as the sky chair's footrest. He clung to it, feet sweeping the air, clutching his ax in his free hand.
Matt's heart pounded like a trip-hammer. "What the hell are you doing?" he yelled.
"What's it look like, Matt?" Sig drawled as he flipped the Airlift switch back into the on position and climbed into the first available sky chair. "I'm switching sides. I'm gonna join the winning team. And you're gonna be my peace offerin', just to make sure I get a warm welcome."
Matt watched in horror as their sky chairs creaked away from the lodge and over the electric fence that protected Kingman's camp from the rebel militia. His right arm ached painfully as he twisted in the cold night breeze. He attempted a one-armed pull-up and gave up immediately with a gasp. Not gonna happen.
"Hot damn!" Sig crowed from the sky chair swaying fifteen feet behind Matt's. "That didn't take long! Lookit them swarm! And they even brought their puppy dogs with 'em!"
Matt craned his neck to look down the slope. His heart nearly stopped as he saw the headlamps of a big ATV come to life. With a roar, the vehicle began climbing the steep slope toward them, followed by four barking pit bulls.
"I hear they only feed them pits every three days, Matt," Sig cackled. "How long you think it takes for them to strip a fella to the bone?"
A fury released in Matt, white hot at its core.
"Let's find out," he said, and switched hands so that his left gripped the cold footrest bar, freeing his right.
Sig shook his head, grinning. "Can't say's I see much of an improvement there, Cahill. After all, your right hand's probably the strongest."
"It is," Matt gasped, picking up the ax with his free hand. "See?"
And he flung the ax.
With a shout, Sig recoiled from the humming disk of wood and iron that slashed toward him through the darkness.
The moon glinted off the spinning blade as it sailed harmlessly over the militiaman's head.
But Matt hadn't been aiming for Sig.
CHANK!
The blade bit deeply into the thin aluminum brace that connected the sky chair to its cable.
Chopped it in half.
With a loud squeal, the sky chair seat went from horizontal to vertical.
With a louder squeal, Sig toppled off and fell shrieking to the muddy slope twenty feet below them.
He didn't go alone. Agitated by his fall, the cable joggled wildly---too wildly for Matt's sweat-slick hand. Seconds later his fingers slid free of the footrest bar, and he, too, plummeted toward the hill below.
Ka-THUNK.
The bad news was that Matt fell twenty feet onto a mudslick slope.
The good news was that that the ski slope was rated "black diamond," and was so steep that instead of breaking Matt's back, it merely knocked the wind out of him.
The bad news was that as soon as he hit its steep, slushy surface, Matt began to slide helplessly toward the blazing eyes of the ATV below, which lit the backs of the four charging, snarling pit bulls.
Gasping, Matt clawed helplessly for purchase, to no avail. The barking was getting closer.
Come on, come on!
Flipping onto his stomach, Mattjammed his fingers into the ground, digging ten furrows in the soft, slick earth. He began to slow.
Thank God. He groaned in relief.
But the groan morphed into a shout of surprise as Sig, sliding past him, snagged his ankle, dragging Matt down faster toward the brightening glare of the ATV.
"Sig, what the hell are you doing---?"
"Thought that was obvious," Sig laughed over the rabid barking, his free right hand lifting up a familiar slant of blond wood, topped with an iron blade. "I'm gonna chop you into Kibbles 'n Bits."
He had Matt's ax!
"Wrong answer." As Sig slammed the blade down, Matt jerked his leg back. With a wet kutch sound the blade missed Matt's ankle by six inches------and chopped off Sig's left hand at the wrist.
Sig's eyes bugged and he let out a scream as Matt grabbed the ax handle and pounded the sole of his Carhartt against Sig's forehead, driving him down the slope and into the snarling shadows of the four pits.
Matt struggled awkwardly to his feet. The ATV headlights nearly blinded him, but he could see enough to tell that two of the pit bulls had begun dismantling Sig, whose screams were swiftly devolving into wet gurgles.
But the other two dogs had taken a pass on the onehanded militiaman.
Were midair.
Were on him.
Massive jaws clamped onto Matt's elbow. He kicked the beast in the gut and it released with a grunt. Pulled the ax free and lifted it just in time for the second dog's jaws to snap onto the wooden handle. The dog's face was so close to Matt's that its wet nose brushed his own. Matt slung the ax to the side, flinging the dog back down the slope.
Crunch.
Followed by panicked yelps.
He whipped around. The ATV had ploughed over both Sig and the dogs that fed on him and was now just twenty feet away and closing fast.
Matt tried to run but he could barely stand. The slope was too steep, too muddy.
Fifteen feet.
Ten.
Five.
The roar was ungodly. The blaze of its lights was like looking into the sun.
But suddenly, that bright blaze silhouetted a thin black strip that seemed to drop down out of nowhere. Matt stared at it stupidly as the ATV bore down on him. And only when he heard the words "Be grabbing on, bee-otch" did he realize what it was (a chain), and what to do (grab it---now).
He did.
Immediately, he was hauled off his feet. He looked down to see the black, spiked, RAHOWA'd hood of the ATV roar harmlessly beneath him. Baldy's jigsaw face gaped in amazement to see Matt levitate out of harm's way. As he passed above, Matt drove the steel toe of his Carhartt into the guy's brow and watched his head snap backward. The ATV slewed off to the side and began the long sideways slide down the black-diamond slope.
Matt looked up. He was rising swiftly toward the sky chair, in which two shadows awaited, one small and one huge. The huge one silently pulled on the slim chain that Matt clutched, hand-over-hand lifting Matt up with no more effort than a fisherman reeling in a small perch.
Squatting next to him, his painted black lips peeled back in delight, Arkady, the smaller shadow, let out a woodpecker laugh and chanted, "Busting rhymes like a chef break eggs, I am having mad skills like a frat got kegs. Yo, G, be speaking truth: Jasha and me, we saved ya like a savior, right?"
"Word," Matt said, grinning, as he rose toward the stars.
As the sky chair was pulled by the squealing cable back toward the lodge, Matt's eyes left the welcome sight of the half dozen militiamen gathered around the control box, their sniper scopes scouring the hillside, and turned to his two companions.
Jasha, the silent giant, took up the entire sky chair, and the cable groaned beneath his weight. Matt, panting with fatigue, sat on one of his huge thighs like a kid in Santa's lap.
Arkady perched on the sky chair's armrest, his eyes bright with chaos, his grin a white, maniacal slit separating the black-painted lips. His thick blond dreads gave off a funky cocktail of greasepaint, ganja, and something brown.
"I want to...thank you guys," Matt panted. "Wish I had something to give you, but I'm broke as a joke." Jeez, he thought. He's even got me rhyming now.
"No need, my brutha in arms. 'Cause we just paying you back for playing it straight up for our little sis, right, Jasha?"
Jasha, his eyes covered by his bowl cut, said nothing. Then he did. Or rather, his lips moved, though no sound came out.
But Arkady didn't have any trouble understanding him. He nodded and rattled off something in Russian. Jasha then pulled a necklace off his neck and held it toward Matt.
"My bro, he be wishing to give you something."
Matt looked closer. It was a long loop of leather with a three-inch bear claw hanging from it. He took it, felt the tip of the claw. Razor sharp. "Thanks," he said. "But why the
gift?"
"Is not a gift, yo? Is being like a trade."
Matt looked from Arkady to Jasha. "A trade? For what?"
"My brother, he is wanting your ankle bracelet."
"Ankle bracelet?" Matt stared at him blankly. "I don't wear a..." He looked down.
And almost threw up.
Wrapped tightly around his ankle, ragged and red, was Sig's hand.
"It seems I owe you an apology, Matt."
"Please." Matt held up a still-shaking hand, blocking out Charles Kingman's face, which he couldn't bear to look at. "No apologies necessary." His voice was thick was sarcasm. He winced as Roma, who was sitting next to him on the bed, wiped the blood off his brow with a wet towel.
"If it's any consolation, Sig's defection was completely unforeseeable. He was one of my most trusted---"
"Oh, give me a break." Matt lowered his hand, glared at Kingman. "It isn't a consolation. I'm not consoled, Chuck. I talked to that freak for five minutes, and I wouldn't have trusted him to take out my garbage. You want to give me consolation? Pick up the fucking phone, call 911, and get some police out here so I can get the hell out without getting shot or run over or eaten alive. Or is that too much to ask?
"Unfortunately"---Kingman pursed his pointy lips and steepled his fingers---"it is."
Matt stared at him in disbelief. "What?!"
Kingman sighed heavily. "You see, as of fifteen minutes ago, Alastair activated a scrambler, so we have lost the ability to access the Internet or make cell phone calls."
Matt couldn't think of anything to say. He just sat there, feeling his heart start to pound like he was still back on the hill with the ATV bearing down on him. "So what's the game plan?"
"I'm glad you asked." Kingman sat down next to Matt, setting an open laptop on his knee. "This is the game plan."
The laptop screen was split into four quadrants, each of which contained a live video feed. In the upper right-hand corner of each was an all-caps digital identifier. THOR's quadrant showed a dim, grainy view of branches being slowly pushed aside by a gloved hand. LOKI's quadrant showed a worm's-eye view of a sun-bleached deadfall being crawled over by someone with Mylar boots. ODIN's showed a night-vision view from halfway up a tree. And FREYA's showed the muzzle of an AK-47 brushing aside prickly loops of wild raspberry brambles.
"Four of our best remaining militia," Kingman said proudly, gesturing to the screen. "Each one a master of invisible reconnaissance. All of them sent out by me through a secret opening in the electric barrier to steal covertly past Alastair's forces, make their way into town, and alert the authorities. I expect them to fulfill their directive by dawn."
"Sure. Great." Matt kneaded his temples with one hand. What a fucking nightmare. Then something occurred to him. A separate set of words he'd seen on that very laptop, just before everything went to hell.
He looked up. "So, Charles---you said 'by dawn,' right? How's that jibe with the message that Alastair sent you an hour ago---the one that said 'BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT OR ELSE'?"
Matt had seen footage before of sharks, how before they went in for the first bite, a nictitating membrane slid over their eyes to protect them from blood and viscera. Something weirdly similar happened to Kingman as his eyes glazed over. His reassuring smile became tight, became fake. Slowly his ancient head rotated 'til it faced Roma.
"Roma, my dear, I'd like to speak to Mr. Cahill privately now."
Without a word, she stood up and strode lithely out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Matt stared wistfully after her, already missing her gentle touch, her humanizing presence.
Once the door had closed, Kingman set the laptop on the bed, rose to his feet, and began to pace.
"Alastair's message, Mr. Cahill, is simply a bluff. My forces may have deserted, but they would not dare attack the compound. They simply need time to process the fact that Roma's presence here is not a rejection of my life's work, but its fulfillment. Which is obvious, when you understand her actual ancestry." He paused and gestured toward Matt with a professorial gesture. "Let me ask you this: do you remember the section in my book where I explained the origin of the Aryan race?"
"I think I may have skipped that chapter."
"Pity. In it, I clarify a common misconception; namely, that all Aryans are merely "white people." In fact, Aryans are those who are directly descended from the Ob-Ugrians, the Uralic branch of the Indo-European family tree. The Ob-Ugrians migrated to Europe from northeastern Siberia. They conquered wherever they went, going as far west as Ireland and Iceland and as far south as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India. In all these places they subjugated the lesser races and created great works of art and architecture and mighty civilizations."
"Is that a fact." Matt's head was beginning to pound. Keep him talking. "So you're saying that all the people from Dublin to Tehran are Aryan?"
"Were Aryan, Matt---were, until they intermingled with the blood of Picts, Huns, Semites, and Subcontinentals, and so bastardized their pure bloodline through miscegenation. A process that I, in choosing my bride, have chosen to reverse."
Matt just stared at him. "And how do you reverse..."
"Would it surprise you to know that lovely Roma is not only Aryan, but a princess of the proto-Aryan Nivkh tribe? That she was born in the northeastern tip of Russia, on Sakhalin Island at the mouth of the Amur River, the very cradle of Aryanism? That she herself, at the age of seventeen, on May Day, like her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother before her, was ritually married to Ursus Major, the Great Bear god? Making her, in essence, a goddess of Aryanism?" Behind his rimless glasses, Kingman's eyes gleamed with madness, and spittle had collected in the corner of his mouth. The red, wormlike fissures beneath his skin squirmed and darkened with every word.
But the word ritual stuck in Matt's head. "Wait a minute," he said, a terrible idea dawning in his mind. "Does this marry-the-bear ceremony you're talking about have anything to do with the last chapter in your book? The one I asked you about earlier?"
The terrapin head bobbed eagerly. "Of course. Where else should an Aryan soul seek purification, other than in the very crucible of Aryanism...which is nothing less than the body of an Aryan goddess?" His face was fissured like a jigsaw.
Matt's head was spinning. Was Kingman saying what he thought he was saying? "So you're saying...that the way 'Charles' got Shadewell to stop haunting him...was to... ah...hook up with a white chick?"
Kingman snorted, shook his head in dismissal. "Oh, Mr. Cahill, I'm disappointed. You're as dense as the rest. I did not say 'hook up.' I said, 'He purified his spirit in the crucible of her Aryanism.'"
"Right." Whatever that meant. "So that's what Alastair wants? To do a little purifying in her crucible himself?"
Kingman's features hardened with a fury alloyed with panic. "That traitor..." he spat. "Does not understand...does not appreciate...He would take the godhead herself---she who was married to Ursus Major---and---and---" He paused. Seemed to notice that Matt was still there, was listening closely. "Well, anyway." His thin lips clamped shut. He crossed to the bed, snatched up the laptop. "I don't expect you'd understand. Some truths can only be grasped by the select few---those who have studied a lifetime, have sought, have suffered for such secret knowledge---the true believers, in other words. And I don't think you're a member of that club, Mr. Cahill."
"I'm afraid not," Matt said. Thank God.
Kingman went to the door. "As I said, I fully expect the authorities to be here by morning, at which point you're welcome to go. But until then, I'm going to have to ask that you remain in your room. In a militarized zone such as this, it's not safe for a civilian to wander around unattended. I'm sure you understand."
"Of course," Matt said.
"Well, then. Good night."
"Good night." You demented shithead.
Matt lay on the bed in the darkness for a long time, aching, missing Roma's cool touch. Wondering what it'd be like to kiss those full lips, to run his hands through her thick black hair. To see those gold-flecked, moss-green eyes staring up at him...
Aroused, he shifted his position only to have the fantasy dissolve as a dozen new bruises revealed themselves. The bone of his hip. The ball of his heel. The pad of his left thumb. His left collarbone. His right ring finger. His tailbone. His sternum. His skull.
Jesus...So fucked up.
He put his face in his hands. His palms grew hot, then wet.
His lust, mixed with pain, guilt, and fear, had somehow transformed into a cocktail of regret for his lost life, his lost love.
How he missed his wife!
Janey.
It took him by surprise, the overwhelming surge of sorrow. How incomplete he felt without her. Since she had died, he had been haunted by the idea that not only had he lost her, but he had lost a huge part of himself, had somehow erased every moment that the two of them had shared. They had gone to San Francisco together on their honeymoon, had wandered Fisherman's Wharf in the rain, taking photos of Alcatraz, fending off the seafood sellers, tearing off steaming pieces of a sourdough from Boudin's. They had ridden (and swiftly abandoned) a trolley car, laughing all the way back to the hotel over what a god-awful grinding, screeching, jerking, slow, surly, expensive, and tourist-swamped ride it had been. They'd stood on the beach, holding hands and watching the waves lift into a mist that rose above the lush ferns while the seals barked.
All these things were gone now. Sure, they still existed in his head...But so did Yoda. So did Zorro. So did E.T., and the Na'vi, and every other unreal, made-up thing he'd ever heard of. And now she was just like them, permanently demoted from a person to a memory, and forced to share ranks with the Fonz and Limp Bizkit and Ewoks and whatever the fuck else was in his head, slowly receding and distorting with time, until the real Janey was lost forever, and all he was left with was the faded, faulty outline of what once had been his only love. And in the meantime, he was left with the unshakeable sense that he was becoming less real, too: going from a normal guy with a normal job and normal relationships to a nightmare-haunted loner who rode the highways with an unexplainable psychic power and a bloody ax. Sometimes he looked into the mirror and was terrified at the face looking back at him. If he were to bump into Janey tomorrow, would she even recognize him? He couldn't say for sure. And that uncertainty sickened him.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...
Matt sat up (ouch). Listened.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...
There it was again. The unmistakable sound of moaning...coming from somewhere above him.
He stood up. Was there actually another floor to the lodge, above the second? He didn't think so. But there probably was an attic.
Matt walked softly over to the door and turned the handle. It wasn't locked. The door opened with a soft squeal.
He poked his head out. The hallway was deserted. But there, at the far end, a trapdoor in the ceiling had been opened, and a retractable ladder extended from the trap to within a foot of the floor. A dim, flickering light came from above.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh...
Matt slipped out of his room and crept silently down the hall. He stood at the base of the ladder, listening to soft grunts coming from above. He really, really didn't want to go up there. But what if someone were in trouble? He wouldn't put anything past Kingman and his brain-dead troops. What if they'd kidnapped some woman? Some kid?
That did it. He put his foot on the lowest rung, grabbed the sides of the ladder, and cautiously climbed up.
When he got to the top, his head slowly lifted above the attic floor. Rafters, cobwebs, and cardboard boxes blocking his view. A weird green-and-blue light played against the slanted beams of the ceiling. He now could hear a strange metallic creaking noise as well.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...
His heart pounding, Matt hoisted his knees (ouch) onto the planked floor, then rose to his feet. A rack of old clothes was in his way. He walked around it, toward the green light.
What the hell?!
An old bed on a metal frame was set up against the far wall. And someone was tied down to it---but not the damsel in distress that he'd pictured. No damsel he knew had arms as big as his thighs and a basketball-sized head...
But Jasha did.
Matt stared in bewilderment at the huge Russian, whose face was flushed and whose eyes were clenched shut. Sweat beaded his brow. His arms and legs were handcuffed to the iron bed frame, and he tossed and turned feverishly, groaning in his sleep.
Matt looked for the light source, found it, and wished he hadn't. On a small table next to the bed frame, five greenish-blue flames flickered from the tops of a weird black candle. It had a misshapen base and five curved tapers, one thicker and shorter than the rest.
Matt's eyes got big. Could that be...?
He took a step closer.
Yep. No doubt about it.
Sig's hand. It had been dipped in pitch, laid in a ceramic bowl, and set on fire. The greenish witch-flames that rose from it bathed Jasha's writhing in a sick, unsteady light.
"Matthew?"
Matt jumped about a foot off the ground and spun around to see Roma standing by the clothing rack, a plate of food in her hand.
"Roma! What...?"
"So sorry." With eyes downcast and the faintest of smiles on her lips, she eased past Matt and sat herself on a crate between Jasha and the slow-burning hand. "Did Jasha wake you?"
Matt said no, but that he'd come up to investigate the noises he'd heard. Roma didn't seem to be paying attention. She leaned over the huge man and whispered softly in a language Matt didn't recognize. Then she took a damp napkin and wiped Jasha's eyes, his brow.
Matt felt a tinge of jealousy. Maybe more than a tinge. "Some candle you've got there," he said. "Not sure if your lighting system's exactly up to code."
She didn't acknowledge the joke. Which made it seem all the lamer.
"Is difficult time for him," she said. "For Jasha. Every autumn is so, like you see. But it passes." She lifted his head with effort and put a glass of water to his lips. He drank a little, coughed, and drank some more. His eyes never opened.
Matt stepped closer. "So, if he's this sick, why isn't he at a hospital?"
She flexed her lower lip in a way that was at once a shrug, an acknowledgment, and a deferral. "Because he is not sick, Matthew."
"Not sick? Look at him! He's fighting something."
"His nature," she said. And took some blueberries off the plate and pressed them between his thick lips. He ate them greedily, gnashing them between his oversized teeth.
Matt couldn't figure out what she was talking about, but for some reason it reminded him of his conversation with Kingman.
"I had a talk with your husband," Matt said.
"Oh?" She didn't seem interested.
"He's fond of you all right, but half the time I can't tell what he's talking about. He seems quite taken with the fact that you were married to a bear at some point."
"Ah. Yes." A smile flicked across her full lips, and her eyes edged in his direction, almost---but not quite---making contact. "An old custom in our village. Every May. A young girl, picked by---how do you say---lottery? Wearing a crown of flowers? And given to Urso, the spirit of the woods. To wed the Great Bear. For to bring luck and good crops to the village, you see?"
"Sure. But what's the bear get out of it?"
"Someone to love," she said, again ignoring the joke.
"So what, do they have a trained bear?"
She laughed. "No, Matthew. Is a boy pretending to be a bear."
"Aha. Sweet. Though I guess it's proof that magical marriages don't last much longer than real ones nowadays."
She looked at him, raised an eyebrow.
"I mean, you're obviously not still with him. The boy, whoever he was."
"But"---placing the last blueberry between his sharp teeth---"it was Jasha."
Matt felt a little lightheaded. He felt like there was something going on that he should be catching but wasn't. His mind wanted to tell him something, but his brain kept getting in the way.
He shook his head. He couldn't think of anything clever to say, so he just said what he'd been wanting to ask for the past hour. "Roma, why are you with these people?"
A pause. Now she slid a chunk of something silver and shiny between Jasha's lips. "Have you ever been to Kamchatka, Matthew?"
"No."
She nodded, easing another slick piece into the big guy's maw. "Then you would, I think, not understand." She gave him a third.
Matt looked closer. "Are you feeding him raw fish?"
She flashed him a nervous smile. "Is a delicacy, where we come from." She wiped her hands quickly, as if to hide the evidence. "But to answer your question? Jasha and Arkady were in trouble with...some people. People of influence. Coming here as I did, through the matchmaking service? It was the only way to protect them, to provide a new life for them. And for my child." And here she placed her hand on her belly.
Matt hadn't realized. Then he remembered the baby formula that she had been buying earlier. He had to ask: "Is Charles the father?"
She gave him a looked that needed no interpretation: No.
Chewed on that.
She gestured around them, seemed eager to change the subject. "This room we are now in? Will be the baby's nursery. Charles gave me a little money to decorate it and buy some toys."
"Nice." Matt looked around. It wasn't nice. Kingman could apparently pay three thousand dollars for a bazooka, but when it came to providing for his child, it looked like he'd given Roma whatever change he'd found between the cushions of his White Aryan Caucasian couch.
Still, she had obviously tried to do the best she could. She'd gotten a third-or fourth-hand crib with white spots on the headboard where stickers had been applied and peeled off by the previous owners. It was also missing vertical slats in two separate places, and she'd replaced these with what looked to be pieces cut from a plastic broom handle. On the wall above the crib she'd taped pages from a parenting magazine that showed letters from the alphabet, a smiling baby's face, and a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh.
A faded Detroit Tigers comforter lay on the floor, next to a cardboard box of plastic toys so old that they could have been hand-me-downs when Matt was a baby. For lack of anything better to do he fished around in the box, lifting a few pieces out as he did. There was an old Fisher-Price garage, and a wood-and-plastic vacuum cleaner that would make a popping sound when pushed. There were several plastic dolls with blank eyes and no clothes, and a threadbare sock monkey. Then he pulled out what looked like an orange clock with a drawstring. It had a ring of animal pictures on its face instead of numbers.
"That one, I don't know what it does," Roma confessed.
"This?" Matt looked closer at it. "This is a Mattel See 'n Say. I haven't seen one of these since I was really little---like, four, maybe---and it would have been old then. Who knows? It might actually be worth something. Maybe you could sell it on eBay." And use the profits to leave this shithole for good, Matt thought.
"Yes, eBay, sure." Roma looked away from Matt as if she'd read his mind. "But how does it, ah, work?"
"Oh, right. I'll show you." He pulled back the drawstring. With a click-click-click-click, the plastic central arrow swung around until it pointed to a picture of a horse. A warped recorded voice from within said, "This is the sound a horse makes: Neigh! Neigh! Neigh!" He pulled the string again. Click-click-click-click. Again the arrow spun, until it pointed to another picture. "This is the sound a dog makes: Rarf! Rarf! Rarf!"
"Yes, I see," Roma said.
"You could do shadow puppets to go along with the See 'n Say, using this." Matt pointed to a dusty 1970s slide-show carousel that was sitting on a box. He took the plug, found an outlet.
"Shadow puppets?"
"Yeah, like, with your hands. But you need a projection." Matt hit the on button. The carousel clattered and came to life.
Clack. Its bright eye projected a slide on the wall above the crib: it showed the lodge in happier times---three pit bulls sunning themselves and chasing their tails in the grass.
"I didn't realize there were slides in here," Matt said.
Roma clapped her hands together, said that her child might like the picture and to leave it there.
Matt nodded, moved by her simplicity. "Sure." He sat down across from her, at the foot of Jasha's bed. He had to take action to protect this woman, her unborn child, and himself. "Roma, I need your help. I want to leave this place tonight. Charles told me there was a secret opening in the electric fence. Do you know where it is?"
She hesitated, then gave a short nod.
"I want you to show it to me. And I want my ax back, and my backpack. I'm not sure who took them when I was reeled back onto the deck, but someone did. I can't leave this place without them---especially my ax. Can you help me?
A moment of indecision, in which the carousel again clacked and showed more pictures of romping dogs under a darkening sky.
"Roma! Roma, where are you?" Charles Kingman's quavering voice came wafting up from below and shattered the stillness.
Roma stood immediately, gathered the plate and the glass. "Of course, Matthew, I will help you. I know where they took your ax, your bag. After I attend to Charles, I will get them for you and put them in your room."
"Good. Thanks."
"Let me go down the stairs first, to make sure no one is there."
"No problem."
She moved past him, around the clothes rack, to the trapdoor. He caught her scent as she passed: sweet and strange and somehow feral, like lavender mingled with the faint musk of the wet earth in spring...
Clack.
He turned. The slide show had changed again, showing the pit bulls playing in the grass from a different angle. From the new angle, Matt could see picnic tables set up, and militiamen and their fat girlfriends sitting at them, drinking beer and eating off paper plates while smoke wafted lazily through the darkening evening air.
Jasha groaned and twisted fitfully. The black hand sputtered in its bowl, making shadows bend. Downstairs, Matt could hear Kingman's quaking agitation and the low sound of Roma's soothing response. Matt wondered if it was too soon to get out of the creepy attic.
Clack.
The slide-show carousel clicked again, this time showing a scene at nightfall. No more plastic plates, but plenty of beer in evidence as dozens of militiamen stood laughing in front of a bonfire at full blaze, lifting their cans in salute. The fire was at least twelve feet high and so bright that the white-hot heart of it caused the picture to overexpose, reducing the fire image to a blinding patch of white with a few indistinct shadows at its center.
Matt looked away from the photo. Something about it made him uneasy. Roma's newborn could probably do without that slide projected over the crib.
His hand itched for his ax. Downstairs, he could no longer hear any voices. Roma had probably retrieved his stuff by now. Definitely time to head down.
Clack.
Keep going, a voice in his head said, but Matt couldn't help but glimpse back.
The latest slide showed laughing men gathered around the fire and one sloshing an arc of gasoline from a square red gas can toward the blaze, which had died down to half strength------enough so that it was no longer an overexposed blur, and the darkness at its heart was no longer shapeless.
Matt froze in his tracks, staring at the projection. Felt the back of his throat close. His palms flash with the damp ache of horror.
The dark shape within the fire...
It was a log of some kind.
A weirdly shaped log.
It had to be.
It---
Clack.
Matt gasped.
The shape was not a log.
The shape was a woman.
The shape was a woman with blackened skin and blazing hair, a woman who strained against the steel pole to which she'd been tied, her mouth open in midcry, her eyes rolling white and as mad as a mare's, her clothes incandescent, her head haloed in yellow points of flame.
Click-click-click-click.
Matt's gaze snapped down. For no reason whatsoever, the See 'n Say on the crate had rattled to life, the plastic arrow whirling around in a circle until it came to rest on a pig picture. The warped, distorted voice that warbled out of it in half time was barely recognizable as human.
"This...is the sound...a hog makes," it said.
But what followed was not the grunt of a pig. It was the ear-shattering shriek of a woman being burned alive, and it went on, and on, and on...
Matt clamped his hands to his ears, bounded to the crate, grabbed the possessed toy, and flung it against the wall, where it shattered into a hundred pieces. As soon as it did, the oily green flame rising off the blackened hand flared up with a tearing sound. It rose three, four, five feet above the bowl in a roaring tongue of fire, then split into a Y-shaped blaze that morphed into the slant-eyed visage of a hook-nosed clown, jaws agape in laughter.
Matt staggered backward, his mind reeling.
Where else should an Aryan soul seek purification, than in the very crucible of Aryanism?
The tongue of flame grew thinner, grew blacker, and resolved itself into a helix of smoke with a sudden whoof.
Ahhhhhhhhh...
From the bed, Jasha groaned, blindly lunging against his bonds, eyes rolled back into his skull.
But Matt wasn't there to hear it. Matt was already past the clothes rack, was down the ladder, was in the hall. He dropped to the floor gasping, nearly broke his ankle. Rose unsteadily, expecting chaos, but didn't get it.
The hall was strangely silent.
Well, almost silent. From Kingman's study at the opposite end of the hall came the hiss of urgent whispers.
Could Roma still be talking to Kingman? Wouldn't he have heard the shrieking upstairs? Wouldn't she?
None of it made sense to Matt. No surprise there: his brain felt as useless as a blown fuse.
What had he just seen? Had it even happened?
As he crept down the hall, Matt was dimly aware that he was probably in shock. People who see a photo of a woman being burned alive should not be walking silently down halls. They should be weeping or freaking out or shouting at the top of their lungs. But he couldn't do any of those things. Because he now knew what the purpose was of the pyre being built at the base of the hill.
He knew what "BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT OR ELSE" meant.
He knew what was in store for Roma if he didn't find a way to save her.
And he knew he'd have only one shot at doing so, and if he failed, they would both be ashes by morning.
Closer now to Kingman's study, Matt could begin to make out snatches of the old man's hoarse whispers.
"...not much time left, but listen! Listen to me..."
Was he still talking to Roma? Clenching his fists, Matt positioned himself by the cracked door and peered in. He saw Kingman from behind, his scabby scalp hovering above a tatty red robe.
"...'course I know what the alternative is! But she's... proto-Aryan princess!...of the Bear...how can we just..."
Matt's fists unclenched slightly. Kingman was talking about Roma, not to her. Unless she was in the room, listening silently?
A pause. Matt waited. Matt couldn't hear another voice, but clearly there had been one, because Kingman strode agitatedly out of view, saying, "You think I don't know that? You think I don't want my army back? My beautiful, magnificent, army...Fist of God..." He almost sobbed the last few words.
Matt eased the door open an inch to get a better view. He could see Kingman again. The old man was leaning against a strip of wall between two bookshelves; his palms and forehead were pressed into the wallpaper as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. He looked exhausted.
Another silence.
Then: "Don't...don't you dare patronize me!" Kingman jerked his face back from the wall, staring at his shadow, which the lamp behind him cast upon it. "I'm fully aware..."
Matt eased the door open another two inches. He could now see more than half of the room. No one was standing near Kingman.
Who the fuck was he speaking to?
"Oh, go ahead. Yes, you think you're so smart," Kingman sputtered, backing up, jabbing a finger at his shadow. "But I'm not lost yet! She gives me strength! Power! She renews me! Shares my bed!" Hunched over, Kingman pounded his chest with his fist, shouting at the wall and the black shape on it.
Matt cracked the door open another two inches. He now could see the far window, which reflected the entire room.
There was no one else in it.
Kingman was alone.
"Laugh all you want, you bastard! But I cannot...I will not burn her!" Kingman grabbed a book off his desk and flung it against the wall before him. "She's not like the rest. She's not! And I will not be bullied...I will not..." He covered his ears with his hands, shook his head fiercely. "Oh, goddamn you...!" Kingman staggered backward, as if standing in a gale, and then threw himself against the wall before him. His clawlike fingers grabbed a scrolling tip of wallpaper and ripped it off in one long sheet. He flung it to the floor. Now nothing remained on the drywall before him but his shadow.
"You can't make me..." the old man wheezed, backing up, clutching his chest with one hand while he jabbed a finger at the wall with the other. "You cannot make me..."
The skin on Matt's arms lifted into gooseflesh. Jesus Christ. He's talking to his shadow! Matt took a careful step backward. Guy is fucking nuts.
And then something happened that shocked Matt so completely he couldn't process it at first. It was a simple thing. Kingman spun away from the wall, his face haggard, his eyes glazed, and staggered over to a low mantel to grab a half-filled decanter of amber liquid, which he shakily poured into a shot glass.
There was nothing unusual about what Kingman did.
What was unusual was that even though he'd walked away, his shadow remained on the wall.
Matt stared, wide-eyed, feeling his chest tighten 'til he couldn't draw a breath.
The shadow didn't move.
And yet it did. Because it wasn't completely motionless. It swayed slightly. Very near the shadow, the drywall had a long, diagonal crack. The shadow's shoulder wasn't touching the crack. But then it was. But then it wasn't.
Matt forced himself to breathe, to take a step backward. He fought off a creeping, dreamlike paralysis that threatened to freeze him in his tracks like a headlight-blinded deer.
Got to get out of here, he thought, stepping away from the cracked door---but not before he saw the shadow slide down the drywall, spill onto the carpet, and glide, like an oil slick, toward Kingman.
Got to get out of here now.
Even if it meant leaving his backpack, his ax.
But wait: hadn't Roma said she'd put those things in his room?
Moving fast now, he backtracked down the hall toward the room they'd left him in. He pushed open the door--- and there, on his bed, waiting for him like two old friends, were his backpack and ax.
Bingo.
Matt slung the backpack over his shoulder and grabbed the ax. He felt better immediately. The smooth grain of the handle was warm and dry in his palm, and the panic in his breast vanished.
Then he noticed something else: Roma had set Kingman's open laptop on his bed as well. But why? Had she wanted him to know where to find her?
He picked it up to take a look. The screen was still split into four quadrants, each showing a separate live video feed from the cameras carried by Thor, Loki, Odin, and Freya.
But none of the feeds showed Roma's location. Two were dark, while the other two just showed...
Matt blinked. Could that be...?
He peered closer. Snorted in disbelief.
Yep, it was.
Bare breasts, that is.
The lucky bearer of the Loki camera was clearly lying on his back somewhere. His video cam was pointed upward at the interlocking branches of overhead pine trees. The pines, however, were for the most part obscured by the halfnaked commando bouncing up and down above him. Her camo jacket was open, and her baby-doll T-shirt was rucked up to her collarbone. The feed showed his hands rising up and massaging her full breasts, plucking at the dark nipples. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing hard. As Matt watched, she threw her head back, brow furrowed, and said, "Fuck, yes."
Meanwhile, Freya's feed showed the flushed face of a supine militiaman, his bristly jaw slack with pleasure.
Despite the horror of the past few minutes, the sheer innocence of the cam-recorded tryst almost made him laugh. He was glad someone in this godforsaken place had something better to do than commit murder, practice black magic, and measure craniums. The transported look on the young woman's face reminded him of better days that he'd once enjoyed, and might again---if he could find Roma and get her to guide him out of this compound to wherever these lovers frolicked. He gazed enviously at the image of the healthy young woman astride her companion, her face lifted against the night, with a full moon above her shoulder.
Full moon? Matt did a double take. When he'd been in the sky chair, he'd seen the moon, and it was a crescent.
Looked closer.
That full moon wasn't a moon.
It was a face.
"Oh my God," he said.
Baldy's white, vein-laced face loomed out of the darkness above Freya's shoulder. She didn't notice. But Loki did: Matt saw the soldier's eyes get big. He gave a muffled yell of panic at the same time that Baldy's huge fists slipped a black wire around Freya's neck and lifted her up, up, gagging---revealing the full breasts, the pale belly, the triangular thatch, the thrashing thighs, the kicking black combat boots.
Suddenly Thor and Odin's feeds flashed to life, showing dozens of bodies in motion, swiftly approaching the compound's electric fence.
He glanced down at the laptop's clock: midnight.
Time's up.
Matt threw down the laptop, raced into the hallway, and at the top of his lungs, yelled, "Here they come!"
In two minutes the entire compound was roused, and its staff---which by now included nine militiamen, Kingman, Arkady, and Roma---had assembled in the downstairs armory. And in that two minutes, every single halogen light along the compound's perimeter had been blown out with rifle fire.
In five minutes, the Fist of God's members were armed, armored, ammo'd up, and reporting to battle stations throughout the first floor. From outside came the ominous snarl of chainsaws biting into tree trunks beyond the fence.
And in eight minutes, a booming, amped-up voice came thundering from the direction of the front gate.
"WE'RE HERE, OLD MAN. COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!"
Charles Kingman stepped out onto the lodge's porch with Arkady and three other militiamen. Matt followed, his heart pounding. He'd tossed aside his backpack and slipped a bulletproof vest over his denim shirt. In his left hand he held a Glock. In his right was the ax.
So bright: Matt blinked, squinted against the harsh glare that bathed the porch.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw that thirty feet beyond the electric fence's main gate, the huge headlights of a familiar ATV were focused on them like the eyes of a giant predator. The ambient light from the halogens picked up the gleaming row of steel spikes on the ATV's hood, the fanged maw, RAHOWA.
Clutching a rifle, Kingman walked stiffly up to the camo-covered chain link that screened in the porch and peered out.
"What do you want, Alastair?" he shouted.
"YOU KNOW WHAT I WANT, OLD MAN. WE GOT THE PYRE. WE GOT THE GAS. ALL WE NEED NOW IS THE GIRL."
A sharp intake of breath behind Matt. He glanced around. Roma was standing behind him, her hands pressed to her belly, her eyes wide with fear.
"Never," Kingman croaked, his voice shaking with rage. "Not this one. I will not give her up. How many times have I told you? She is proto-Aryan, married in May to the Ursus---"
Alastair didn't wait for him to finish.
"I DIDN'T COME EMPTY-HANDED, OLD MAN. I'M PREPARED TO TRADE PRISONERS."
"Trade...?" Kingman seemed at a loss. Then he understood, and his voice rose to a hysterical pitch. "You release my scouts immediately! They are your brothers in arms, Alastair! I forbid you to harm them!"
This drew ragged laughter from the rank of traitors in the darkness beyond the fence. Christ, thought Matt, sounds like a lot of them.
"Hmm." Alastair was no longer using the bullhorn. He seemed to be mulling it over. "Well, now that you say it like that---all authoritative-like---goddamn, but it's awful hard to say no. You sure can be convincing when ya wanna be. God knows I spent my entire life bein' convinced of all kinds of shit you said...Dad."
Oh my God, Matt thought. That's all that was missing. He gripped his ax more tightly. Alastair's last sentence was spoken with a deep fury. Clearly, these two had major issues with each other.
Alastair cleared his throat. "Anyway. I'm more 'n willin' to let bygones be bygones. So here's your weak-ass foot soldiers. Don't never say I didn't give you nothin'."
There was movement out beyond the fence's main gate.
Matt peered through the camouflaged chain link.
Slowly, the silhouettes of four figures staggered single file in front of the ATV. Their hands were bound, and they were all linked together by a long strap, like prisoners on a chain gang.
Kingman gave a sharp intake of breath when he saw them. "If you've hurt them, Alastair..."
"Naw, old man, see for yourself. They're just a little soggy is all."
The figures staggered away from the ATV and toward the gate, each linked to the others by a six-foot cord. They appeared to be gagged. As they approached the fence, Matt could see that they were indeed soaked. While their features were still shadowed, their clothes were clearly black and stuck to their skin, which gleamed. Their hair was plastered to their heads. They looked like they'd been dragged through a creek. And probably had been.
"Get a move on, you four," Alastair said. "G'won home like the ass-whipped bitches you are."
Walter stepped up nervously behind Kingman. "Sir, the fence is live! If they touch it---!"
Another kid next to him said, "Sir, they're gonna want us to turn off the juice. That's why they're doin' this."
Kingman nodded. "The electricity stays on. But we will open the gate to let those four enter."
"Sir!"
"We will open the gate," Kingman hissed, turning on him. "But as soon as they're through, close it up. And shoot anyone who tries to follow them."
"Yes, sir."
Walter flicked open the control panel and tapped in a code.
There was a hum.
A loud click.
And then the electrified gate began to rattle back on its steel track.
The four prisoners stumbled forward, muffled groans coming from behind their gags. They came within fifteen feet of the gate.
Then ten.
Five.
The breeze shifted, began blowing toward Matt and the rest from the direction of the ATV. Matt got a whiff of something he didn't like. It could be coming from the ATV...
The four reached the open gate.
Or not. He sniffed again.
The first two staggered through the gate, followed by the third, followed by the fourth. Bound together, they all approached with shuffling steps.
"Shut it," Kingman hissed.
Walter's fingers clattered over the control panel.
Immediately the gate began to rattle shut. Everyone on the porch tensed, every muzzle was lifted...But the ATV stayed where it was, its engine thrumming powerfully, its exhaust drifting toward the compound along with the smell of...
"Oh Jesus," Matt said.
A flame flared to life between the ATV headlights. It grew until it encompassed a fiery bolt. Hidden hands slid it into the drawn wire of a crossbow.
Matt threw himself against the chain link, shouting, shouting to the prisoners, "Get down! Get down!"
"The hell are you doing?" Kingman roared, grabbing Matt by the elbow.
Matt shook him off. "Can't you smell it? They're doused in---"
The crossbow released with a fwick.
"---gas!"
The flaming bolt flashed through the chain-link fence and hit the nearest scout square in the back. There was an incredible whoomf, and he exploded into a twisting, screaming ball of fire. A line of flame shot along the strap connecting him to the nearest prisoner, who immediately whoomfed into a second fireball, and so (whoomf) ignited the wailing third, who (whoomf) lit the shrieking fourth.
"No!" With a strangled cry, Kingman made a lunge for the steps---only to have Matt grab him by the collar and jerk him backward. As soon as he did, splinters erupted from the porch pillar that Kingman had been standing next to only moment before.
"Let me go," Kingman yelled, struggling. "We've got to help them!"
"No fucking way," Matt said, looking out at the four screaming figures, engulfed in flames, that were rolling on the ground. "There's only one way to help them now." He looked meaningfully at Arkady. The clown's painted eyes met Matt's, and in that instant, they understood each other.
"Do it," Matt said.
Arkady lifted the AK-47 to his shoulder, sighted, and squeezed off four chattering bursts.
The screaming ended as abruptly as it had begun. Only now a new sound had taken its place: a familiar, highpitched, grinding sound.
"The chainsaws again," Walter said hoarsely. "But what're they...?"
Suddenly the mosquito whining of the saws cut out entirely.
The silence that followed was filled with a slow, splintering crack, then a stuttering groan that grew louder and louder. Matt turned to see a darkness detach itself from a greater darkness: a great pine came crashing down, flattening a section of the electrified double fence in an explosion of sparks.
Immediately the ATV launched forward, roaring over the downed fence. Behind it, a half dozen other glowing headlights lit up like malevolent eyes, and three more ATVs shot forward to join the first, rolling over the felled tree trunk and snapping off branches as they came.
And in their wake, charging forward with a rebel yell, came dozens of howling soldiers.
"Get back!" Matt yelled. "Get back in the house! Now!"
They didn't need much encouraging. Kingman grabbed Roma by the arm and pulled her through the doorway, while three militiamen followed. In the meantime, Arkady swung his AK-47 around the corner of the tin sheeting and pulled the trigger. The weapon crackled, and a line of fire stitched across the yard into the first rank of the marauders. Three of themjerked backward with shouts of pain and flipped into the dust.
"You, too, inside! You, too!" Arkady shoved Matt into the house with his elbow as he reached for another clip.
"All of us," Matt said, and reached for his arm---too late. Arkadyjammed his thumb into three of the control panel's buttons, and the metal door immediately started rumbling shut.
"Arkady!" Matt yelled.
"Is being no problem, dawg," the juggalo said, slapping another clip into his semiautomatic. His eyes were fever bright with anticipation, and his painted skeleton teeth grinned. "Clown loco is busting a nut in their melons, no? Word is bond, G."
And the door slammed shut.
Jesus, Matt thought. Who are these people?
Matt tried to pry the door open, but there was no latch and he didn't know how to work the inside control panel. Outside, he could hear the roar of ATVs and the clatter of bullets puncturing tin.
He ran into the armory. One of the militiamen had taken the bazooka off the wall and was hoisting it onto his shoulder. Another two had ripped the lid off a crate and were pulling out large ordnance to put into it.
"Roma---go upstairs!" As she moved toward the steps, Matt ran up to a plywood covered window and looked through the muzzle slit.
Even though the halogens were blown out, the night was illuminated by the strobe-like flash of automatic gunfire. Matt saw soldiers swarming the yard chaotically, while in their midst stood Arkady, his painted face roaring with laughter as he wielded an AK in one hand, and---dear God, was that a meat cleaver?---in the other. Matt watched in amazement as, whooping with delight, Arkady squeezed off a round to the right, then to the left, then slung the cleaver in a wide arc that put about a foot of distance between a militiaman's chin and his Adam's apple.
A sudden, blinding glare of headlamps: the ATV had pulled up just a few dozen yards away, facing the window. What was Baldy up to? Matt couldn't tell, but he knew how to find out. He squeezed four blind shots out the window slit, then sprinted past the crew that was cursing over how difficult a bazooka was to load. Might have wanted to practice that once or twice before tonight, he thought, running up the stairway and catching up to Roma at the landing halfway between the first and second floors. There, as he remembered, was another window. The two of them breathlessly peered through it, into the yard below.
The first thing Matt noticed was that Arkady was gone. He could still hear automatic fire, but now it was coming from the other side of the house. The second thing he noticed was that the blinding glare was indeed from the ATV, which Baldy had parked facing the downstairs armory window. The third thing was that Baldy, too, had invested in a bazooka, but he and his fellow militiaman had apparently put a few hours in at the range learning how to use the fucking thing.
As Matt watched in horror, Baldy steadied the wide tube on his shoulder, peered through the sight, and pulled the trigger. There was a loud pffft, and a jag of white smoke shot from the back of the barrel like a misfiring bottle rocket. Then what looked to be a shooting star snapped from the mouth of the gun toward the house.
"Incoming!" Matt shouted to the guys below, then shoved Roma onto the stairs leading up to the second floor and threw his body on top of hers.
The explosion was cosmic.
The force of it nearly burst Matt's eardrums, and the wall of fire that shot up from the first floor scorched his back as it rolled overhead. When it had passed, Matt peeled himself off of Roma and saw that all the wallpaper had ignited. The stairwell had vanished, and Matt and Roma were trapped in a tunnel of fire.
Coughing from the smoke, Matt and Roma struggled to their feet, deafened by the explosion, the roaring flames, and the crack and chatter of ammunition cooking in the inferno below. The heat was incredible, was coming at them from every direction.
Without a moment's hesitation, Matt pushed her up the stairs, gritting his teeth as the hair on his arms was singed off and the skin beneath began to burn.
It wasn't much better at the top of the stairway. There, too, the wave of fire that had rolled up from below had ignited the wallpaper and drywall. The carpet smoked, and each entrance they ran past revealed rooms filled with the crawling fog of tear gas or the disco glitter of flying glass.
All but one: the trapdoor to the attic.
Even then, Matt balked. Suddenly the idea of being cooked alive, or shot, or gassed, seemed almost preferable to reentering that black space where he'd seen the slide show of past atrocities and glimpsed Mr. Dark's visage in a ribbon of green flame...
And yet, when Roma grabbed hold of the retractable ladder and hauled herself up, Matt knew he had no choice.
He followed.
To be in the attic again was both better and much, much worse. It was better because the attic was not on fire (yet), though it was quickly filling with smoke and heating up. It was worse because of what was chained to the bed.
Jasha looked terrible. And not terrible in a geez-this-guy's-got-swine-flu sort of way, but in a geez-this-guy's-about-to-spontaneously-combust way. His pale skin was now a bruised, mottled purple, and his eyes were rolled back into his skull. His hands were clenching and unclenching, and his whole body was soaked in sweat. He writhed in agony, he groaned, he roared.
"Roma, what's wrong with him?"
Roma didn't answer. Rushing to his side, she pulled a key out of her pocket and began fumbling with his cuffs, crying, "Jasha, oh my Jasha!"
In a few seconds the cuffs were off, and she grabbed his big head and pulled him upright, whispering to him urgently in a language Matt couldn't fathom. She pressed her lips to his, and suddenly his pupils rolled into place and his breath became more even. Seeing her for the first time, he put his huge mitts gently against her cheeks and pulled her to him in a very unbrotherly kiss.
Matt stared. What the fuck?
The attic had two windows, one behind Jasha and one behind Matt. The one behind Matt suddenly flooded with light. The hair on Matt's neck prickled with foreboding. Shoving aside a stack of boxes, he pushed his way to the lit window and looked out.
"Oh my God."
Three stories below, the flood lamps of the RAHOWA ATV were tilted upward toward the attic, and Baldy was once again hunching against the tube of his bazooka, eyeing the window through the sight on his scope.
"Roma! Get him---get out the window! Open the window and get him out!"
She didn't question him---the tone of his voice, the look in his eye was enough. In seconds, she had flung the other window open and crawled out. Holding Jasha's hand, she pulled the staggering giant after her, and when his oversized ass got stuck in the window, Matt threw his shoulder against it with all his might. That---and the shockwave of the second bazooka round hitting the other side of the house---did the trick.
Again the cataclysmic BOOM, an unstoppable, onrushing tide of heat and light...and the three of them were flung out of the attic and onto the roof.
Both the angle and length of the Swiss-chalet-style roof were asymmetrical. The south side of the roof slanted at a gentle cant all the way down to within four feet of the ground, beneath which had been raked a big pile of leaves. The north side of the roof cut downward at a vertigo-inducing angle and then simply ended, asymmetrically, fifteen feet above the ground, with nothing between roof and holly bush but ten feet of ramshackle scaffolding that had been wrapped in canvas tarp.
Unfortunately, Matt, Roma, and Jasha had piled out on the north side of the roof.
As soon as they were out, Matt heard Roma scream. He grabbed on to Jasha's arm as the big guy started to tumble helplessly down, and---keeping the ax lifted high above so as not to accidentally decapitate his ally---pulled himself over Jasha to try to help Roma. He landed hard on his knees and threw himself forward, yelling her name and grabbing for her wrist, her ankle, her hair---anything.
In vain. His fingers brushed hers briefly, he saw her green eyes widen in terror, and then she fell off the roof.
Matt caught himself just in time at the roof's edge, but then Jasha crashed into him from behind, and he followed Roma.
Spinning in free fall, Matt saw a series of snapshot-like images of what happened next. He saw Roma fall five feet, hit with a grunt the wooden planks of the scaffold's top platform, then roll off that and slide down ten feet of tarp, landing, finally, face-first in a holly bush.
Which was pretty much what happened to him, but with more cursing.
It hurt. A lot. But his neck still moved, and his back still worked, and he could move his limbs (barely). Matt rolled painfully over just in time to see Jasha---who had been clutching the last row of shingles---fall onto the scaffolding, crash through the boards of its top platform, and disappear behind the tarp. Then came a deep, painful thud that he could feel in the soles of his feet as he struggled to get vertical.
That had to hurt.
But it didn't kill him: the agonized bellowing from behind the tarp proved that the big Russian wasn't dead, just sicker, more injured, and madder than ever.
Matt looked around, dazed, to find Roma and did. The good news was that, by the flickering light of the flaming house, he could see that, like him, she, too, was alive, was upright, and looked to have survived with nothing worse than bruises and scratches. The bad news was that both of her arms were twisted behind her back by the skinny, redbearded skag whose twin had bought it back at the grocery.
And there were six more guys behind him.
"Well, I'll be goddamned," Red said, flashing his nicotine-stained choppers. "Shake a strange tree and a strange fruit falls! How ya' doin', bitch?"
Roma shrieked as he hoisted her arms up painfully behind her back, and then shoved her, facedown, over a big air-conditioning unit that butted up against the tarped scaffolding.
"Who's up for a slice of dark meat, boys?"
A cheer from the rest. Matt reached down for his ax, but just as his fingers reached the handle, a black jackboot kicked it away and a thick arm wrapped around his throat. He was jerked upright, couldn't take a breath.
Matt hoped briefly that Jasha might come out and mop up the bastards, but the bellowing from behind the tarp proved that he was in no shape to come to the rescue. Though the sheer volume of his roaring was enough to catch Red's attention. He jerked his head toward the scaffold and yelled, "Listen up, boys: first one to bring me that fat fuck's head has got dibs on sloppy seconds with this one."
Six ear-splitting whoops as the soldiers ripped hatchets and Ka-Bar knives from their belts and tore through the tarp.
"Jasha!" Roma cried. "No!"
Matt jerked forward, but the guy behind him had him in an iron choke hold. Points of light bloomed and faded before Matt's eyes. His vision blurring, he saw Red roughly pin Roma's face to the AC with one hand and pull at her dress with the other. Laughing at Matt's predicament. "Long time no see, bud!" he crowed. "But fair's fair, right? She killed my brother, and I'm gonna kill hers."
Just for the hell of it, Matt spent the last few molecules of oxygen at his disposal croaking out, "He's not her brother."
Red's brow furrowed in confusion as the six men within the scaffold began to shout in panic, and Jasha's roaring deepened and deepened until it reverberated in Matt's chest like a tolling bell.
"The fuck is that?" Confused, Red glanced up at the tarp, then down at the thrashing girl beneath him. "Steady, Brown Sugar." He lifted and banged her face into the AC. Said, "Wanna hear a joke? What's a foreign bitch like you got in common with a well-cooked sirloin? Give up?" Hoisted her dress up above her hips. "You're both pink inside."
Then it happened.
The roaring rose like the rage of a god. It swallowed six separate screams of panic, and then the tarp exploded in a blizzard of shredded canvas, shattered aluminum bars, a hunk of hair, a hand, a head. The entire rickety contraption of the scaffolding flew apart as from its depths charged the dark, shaggy shape of a giant Kodiak bear.
The beast was a black blur as it lunged forward, roaring, its blunt muzzle cracked open impossibly wide.
Matt couldn't believe his eyes.
The arm around his neck loosened.
Red staggered backward, releasing Roma to gape in shock at the shaggy monster that reared up before him to its full ten-foot height and swung a paw that looked like a catcher's mitt outfitted with three-inch fishhooks.
All five claws caught Red's jaw on the upsweep. His neck and head were instantly replaced by what looked like three feet of black yarn.
Red's body flew nine feet into the air, flipped, and landed in the mud. Militiamen scattered, screaming, as pieces of his face and frontal cortex pitter-pattered down like chunky rain. Then two soldiers turned, lifted their AKs, and burned a clip wildly in the bear's direction.
But it had moved. It was fast---really fast---for something so big. It shot forward on trunk-like legs, the hump of its back raised in a black crest, like a razorback's. Its huge head snapped forward, engulfed the head of the first shooter, shook and flung him---sans head---into the body of the second. When the second guy tried to scramble away on all fours, the bear came even with him and drove a paw into the middle of his body. It sounded like a stepped-on bag of pretzels.
By now, Matt was released entirely. He spun around to see the goateed hick with the black knit cap embroidered with the Confederate flag. It was the same guy who'd used him for target practice with the tactical slingshot outside the grocery. What was his name? Matt couldn't remember. All he knew was that now the guy was much better armed: in each hand he held a gleaming .357 Magnum.
"Hi, Matt," he said, raising both weapons toward Matt's chest. "Bye, Matt!"
And he blew Matt away.
Both slugs hit Matt at the same time. Both felt like simultaneous sledgehammer strikes. Both pounded him off his feet and sent him flying backward.
Matt's vision went black while he was airborne, but he could hear Roma cry out his name, could feel himself skid to a stop in the mud.
I'm dead, he thought. Again.
But should a dead man's chest hurt as much as his did?
Should a dead man be drawing such painful breaths?
He opened his eyes and saw his Kevlarjacket rising and falling with two big smoking holes in its armor.
Alive!
He rolled over, got his knees under him, tried to rise. Not happening. He grabbed a root for support. The smooth wood slipped perfectly into the groove of his palm.
It wasn't a root.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG.
A roar of fury.
Matt rose and turned. The Confederate (what was his name?) had put four fat slugs into the bear. The beast had twisted around, bellowing, but when it started forward toward the shooter, its leg gave out.
The Confederate walked toward it coolly, weapons raised. But as he came even with Roma, he swung one of the guns around and pressed the muzzle against her forehead.
"Sayonara, you goddamn chimp."
Suddenly Matt remembered his name.
"Keith! Hey, Keith---catch."
Keith turned just in time to hear it whispering toward him, to see it flash through the darkness. His brow briefly wrinkled in confusion to see its outer iron edge glimmer red in the flame light thrown by the burning house.
Then the ax struck him with a thwack, exactly where Matt had aimed: square in the center of his Confederate flag. Both of his guns fell to the ground. Keith's body followed, even as his head, like Dixie, seceded.
Things seemed to go in fast-forward for Matt after that: much faster, but also more disconnected. Matt got his ax back and then was rolling on the ground. He was rolling because someone was shooting at him. He got trampled by three people fleeing something. One of those three got too close to the Kodiak and there was a lot of screaming. Matt tripped over a severed leg, which may or may not have belonged to the screaming person. A small ATV rolled past him with a flaming bolt stuck in one tire. No one was driving the ATV, but Arkady was crouched on its hood, swinging his blood-spattered meat cleaver, laughing, his dreads flying. Then part of the house collapsed, sending out a cloud of red sparks that stung like bee stings wherever they landed. Out of nowhere, a militiaman Matt hadn't seen whacked him from behind with a rifle butt. Matt fell, and when he rolled over he was looking into the muzzle of the rifle. There was a crack, and the militiaman's head snapped sideways. He keeled over. Then came Walton, the faux-hawk kid who'd never read a book, holding his smoking gun and pulling Matt to his feet. He was saying something to Matt.
What was he saying? Matt focused on his lips.
"...got the old man cornered! Come on! Come on! Any longer an' it'll be too late!"
And then Matt was running after Walton to help Kingman. He couldn't have said why. In the back of his head was a faint, calm voice saying, What the hell do you care about Charles Kingman? If these skinhead idiots want to butcher each other, let them.
And yet, Walton had saved his life. And also, the weird logic of the battlefield dictated that he aid those on his side and fight those who were not. It made no sense, but he did it anyway. It didn't seem to him that he had a choice. He didn't even think about it. He just ran after Walton to help the mad, murderous racist Charles Kingman.
Kingman needed a lot of help. He was cornered in a part of the yard that sloped down toward a still-standing section of the electric fence. There he stood on a small pile of two-byfours, blinded by the headlamps of the huge RAHOWA ATV that was circling him. Turning slowly, he screamed his defiance at Alastair, who crouched behind the ATV wheel while another militiaman stood behind him.
Kingman had a gun but no bullets. He seemed unaware of this and punctuated his rant with frequent trigger pulls, which unleashed nothing worse than an anemic click-click-click.
The guy behind Alastair was armed, too---with the same crossbow that had incinerated Kingman's four scouts earlier. But he had ammo as well. He had a quiver full of pitch-dipped bolts and what looked to be a vintage Zippo lighter. While Alastair circled Kingman, the archer behind him fitted a bolt, lit it, and let it fly.
The flaming bolt whooshed within six inches of Kingman's face, making him fall backward in surprise. It skidded off the top of an oil drum, ricocheted over the fence, and vanished into the darkness. The archer and Alastair both whooped with laughter.
Matt glanced around, hoping for backup. There was none. The house was engulfed in crackling flames and was beginning to lean dangerously. Shadows darted here and there, but they were no one Matt knew. From the other side of the house, he heard a familiar roar. He couldn't see any sign of Arkady or Roma.
They were on their own.
"Follow me!"
Matt followed Walton to a row of oil drums close to the action. Before Matt could stop him, Walton yelled over the top, "Back off, Alastair---or I'll blow your head off!"
"Don't tell him---just do it," Matt hissed.
"Can't," Walton whispered back. "Out of ammo."
"Oh, fuck."
Predictably, Alastair and the archer had turned at the sound of Walton's ultimatum. Predictably, the archer slid another bolt into his crossbow, touched the tip to his lighter, and turned it their way.
"Get down!" Walton said. "Get down behind the oil drum."
"Walton," Matt said, gritting his teeth, "just think of what you just said."
A beat. Then: "Oh shit."
"Right." Matt looked over the top of the drum just in time to see the archer line up his eye with the crossbow sight. "Run!" And he bolted to the side at the same time that the archer pulled the trigger.
Fwick.
Matt wasn't looking at the drum when it exploded, so he had no idea what happened to Walton. Had the kid jumped away in time? Or had he been cooked in the oily burst of heat that lit up the night and sent Matt sprawling into the mud?
Matt didn't know, and at this rate, it was possible he would never find out. All he had time to think about was how fast the huge ATV with the steel rhino horns shot forward as soon as the oil drum blew, sweeping around the far side (probably to finish off Walton) before heading for him.
By then, of course, he was up and running. He made for the only high ground in sight: the heap of two-by-fours on which Kingman was standing.
He made it to the top, panting, just as the ATV rounded the drums and turned the glare of its headlamps onto him. Squinting into the light, he could see the archer, in silhouette, pulling another bolt from his quiver.
"Well, by God, it's Matthew Cahill!" Kingman slapped his shoulder like they'd just run into each other at a charity golf outing. "Good to see you! What a night! Isn't it glorious, Matt! And to think that we lived to see it come!"
"'It'?" Matt said, not understanding. "What's 'it'?"
"Why, the RAHOWA, of course! The final standoff between the chosen and the forsaken, the enlightened and the ignorant, the good and the evil! The RAHOWA, Matt---it's finally arrived!"
Matt's mind blanked at the sheer incomprehensibility of the statement, and he was saved from responding by a soft but audible fwick.
Kingman jerked backward with a grunt. He looked stupidly at the flaming bolt sticking out of his left shoulder. Then his gaping mouth closed and his eyes narrowed. He turned toward Matt and said---with an astonishingly steady voice---"Do you know what makes a man a success in this world, Matt?"
Smelling the hair-singeing funk of scorched flesh, Matt said no.
"The will to power." Slowly, Kingman wrapped his right hand around the flaming bolt. "I had it, Matt. Remember that." And with the sound of tearing muscle, he ripped the bolt out of his body. Held it aloft. Waved it at the ATV.
"You'll have to do better than that, you clueless bastard! You're no son of mine! You're no---"
Fwick. WHACK.
Suddenly, a flaming bolt was jutting out of Kingman's forehead like a unicorn horn. He jerked backward, eyes rolling back into his skull. His jaw fell open, and he collapsed onto his back, still clutching the first fiery bolt.
Alastair gunned the ATV. "Hold on!" he yelled to his archer, who gripped the back of his seat. "Cahill? This here's for what you done to our brother in arms. Prepare to meet your maker!" And the ATV shot forward.
Matt's first impulse was to run---but he stifled it. Because he'd grown up in the country. He knew ATVs. He knew that this oversized job was a Kawasaki Brute Force and had its tank in the back and a clearance of about fifteen inches... more than enough room for what he intended to do. But he couldn't do it standing on a pile of two-by-fours. On a pile of two-by-fours he'd just get mowed down.
But on the muddy ground? That was a whole different story.
Matt charged the ATV.
As it roared closer, he cleared the woodpile. Gripping his ax in both hands, he took a final look at the gleaming row of steel horns, eyes, fangs, RAHOWA---and then he extended his right leg and fell back on his left, like a batter sliding into home.
It worked. The mud was slick, and he slid smoothly under the ATV as it shot harmlessly above him. As it passed, he thrust upward with the ax with all his strength and heard the blade bite into the undercarriage with a chink.
Unable to stop in time, the ATV crashed up and over the woodpile where Matt had been standing only moments before, then made a furious U-turn.
Matt followed it, running back onto the woodpile, looking for the traces of the ATV's passing. He found it: a thin spray of wetness darkening the pine two-by-fours, from where he'd chopped its tank.
"Lock 'n' load," Alastair bellowed, his great white head crevassed with hellish fissures. Behind him, the archer slid another bolt into his crossbow and lit it.
Matt reached down and tried to pull the flaming arrow from Kingman's hand. Amazingly, even in death, his grip was too fierce to pry it free.
"Comin' for you this time, Cahill," Alastair yelled, gunning the ATV forward. "Gonna burn your ass alive!"
"Wanna bet?" Matt put his foot on Kingman's face, grabbed the flaming arrow jutting out of his head, and ripped it free. Then he threw himself to his knees and jammed the fiery bolt into the gas-streaked wood.
The result was immediate.
A hot blue flame flared to life and shot forward, following the spray of the leaking tank down the woodpile and into the mud. The fiery ribbon flashed past the approaching ATV, gaining speed. The archer craned his neck around to watch it sweep behind them, following their tracks in a tight U-turn, and then hungrily rush after the leaking tank, snaking across the mud, getting closer, closer...
The archer dropped his crossbow and slapped Alastair furiously on the shoulder, gesturing behind them. Baldy took one look and then surged, panic-stricken, to his feet. They both crouched to jump free of the vehicle at the very second that the blue ribbon of flame reached the leaking tank.
KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
There were actually two explosions: a smaller and a larger. When the smaller hit, Matt saw the four big ATV wheels shoot off in opposite directions, saw the hood levitate twenty feet in the air, saw the seat eject as if from a nose-diving F-14. He saw a black-and-red ball of fire that consumed vehicle and drivers alike, and then surged outward in every direction in a second explosion, twice as loud as the first---one that seemed to wipe out the compound, the slope it sat on, the woods that surrounded it, and the stars that glared at it from above. One that blew Matt backward in an inescapable wave of heat and light, followed by a surging tide of darkness.
His dreams were scattered, overlapping, inchoate. And they melted, as the song goes, like cake in the rain.
Matt blinked. Large wet drops were splashing on his forehead, his cheekbones, his chin. Cool water pooled in his ears and the hollow of his neck. It was not unpleasant.
Breathing in the campfire smell of charred wood, he turned his head stiffly to see the smoldering ruin that had been the compound. Part of it had fallen. Part of it hadn't. All of it had burned. Some of it was still burning, and glowing orange lines of fire squiggled slowly like worms through the blackened, smoking beams of what had once been a decent little lodge.
There were other smells, less pleasant. Like a cookout where the cook left the meat unattended.
Matt painfully got to his feet. He didn't ever remember being this sore. Shuffled a few steps forward and nearly tripped over his own ax. His back ached so badly that it took about two minutes to pick it up. When he was done, he began a slow, halting circuit of the house.
It was still dark, though the eastern tree line was lined in gray and the faintest rim of pink. By the light of the crescent moon and the smoldering house, Matt began counting bodies. By the time he'd circled the compound, he was up to thirty-two, give or take a few partials here and there. He didn't find any sign of Roma, Walton, or Arcady, or the big bear that had been Jasha. He would have assumed that he'd dreamed that part, if not for the state of some of the bodies he passed.
But he did find his bike, and he did find his bag. Not wanting to attract attention, he rolled the bike over the downed fence and quietly walked it through the woods, avoiding the pathway he'd come up on.
Big drops fell from the pine boughs, slowly soaking his hair and clothes. He didn't mind. Burned out, Matt welcomed the rain's cool touch and the light mist that it pulled from the earth as he passed between the red-barked trunks.
Christ. What a fiasco.
So many dead...And for what? What had he learned? Only that Charles Kingman, buried alive (as Matt had been), and haunted afterward (as Matt was), had tried to fend off the murderous temptations of his shadow-self by willfully descending into a paranoid, arrogant fantasy of superiority and hate, which spread like a contagion fed by poverty, ignorance, and pseudoscience, culminating finally in the ritual holocaust that he had originally sought to avoid.
So: had Matt actually accomplished anything here tonight?
He doubted it. But maybe there was a lesson here somewhere. Now that he saw to what insane depths Kingman's pride had taken him, he would remember that his search for a cure---his hunt for a way to forever purge himself of Mr. Dark's hateful presence---could never come at the expense of another, no matter how tempting the idea might be. That path was a one-way ticket to the hell he'd just stumbled out of, and having visited it once, Matt vowed never to return.
Lightheaded, Matt paused to catch his breath, to let his sore body rest a moment. He pressed his singed brow against a pine trunk and welcomed the clean, wet, rough rasp of the bark.
Matt breathed in. Froze.
Suddenly, the air smelled, tasted different. Along with the wet-pine scent, he inhaled the strong odor of wet fur.
Instantly knew he was not alone.
The hairs on his neck prickling, Matt slowly turned around.
There, between two large tree trunks, silhouetted against the dawn light, was the black hulk of a gigantic bear. It crouched silently on all fours, watching him intently. Standing at its side, equally still, was the cleaver-clutching shadow of a short man with dreads. Astride the shaggy beast was a third and final shadow: slim, with flowing hair that fell over her shoulders, down to her waist.
How was it that, shadowed and featureless as all three were, their eyes glowed gold and green?
Was it just a trick of the light?
"Matthew." Roma's voice, low and assured.
Matt swallowed. His heart pounded in his chest, but not with fear, exactly. It took him a moment to identify the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. But then it fell into place. It was awe he felt. Awe for the three of them. For her especially.
"Matthew?"
He licked his chapped lips. How to address her? She had told him her name was Roma. But clearly there was more to her than met the eye. Much more.
"Who...are you?" he said.
She shifted slightly, so that the dawn light illuminated half of her face. "I am myself. I am the Bride of the Bear." She ran a hand across Jasha's rugged coat.
"Uh-huh." Digested that. "But how did he...did you two...ah..." Overwhelmed, he couldn't formulate a coherent thought. He knew he knew nothing. He knew he needed to know everything. But where to begin?
"Matthew."
"Yes?"
"You have not, I think, been to Kamchatka?"
"No."
"Right." She nodded, and he thought he could detect on her full lips a smile, both sad and strange. "So trust me? You would not understand."
He opened his mouth, and closed it. "Okay."
She held out her hand. "Approach me," she said.
He did. And as he did, he felt a weird emotion that was halfway between exhilaration and terror. Each step took him closer, until he was even with the great bear's head, looking up at her. The smell of wet fur was overwhelming. It mingled with the scent of black earth, of pine needles, of wet fern---and of her naked body. As he got closer, he could see that the dress she had been wearing had burned off. Her long hair covered her full breasts, and Jasha's shaggy crest covered what lay beneath her belly. But it could not cover the scent of her. A green scent.
Roma's outstretched hand stroked the line of his jaw. "Thank you, Matthew, for saving me."
"Sure. Sure, it was nothing."
"It was not nothing to me." She leaned down slowly and pressed her full lips to his brow. Kissed him, softly.
The Kodiak let out a low warning growl that made Matt's stomach flip.
Roma slowly pulled away. Whispered, "Good luck on your journey, Matthew."
At the first touch of her lips, all soreness had drained from his body. At her blessing, a rejuvenating energy had flooded every limb. And yet, he needed more than that. Much more.
"Roma?"
"Yes?"
"I..." He swallowed nervously. "I need more than luck. I need information. And I think...I think that you could help me, if you wanted to."
Dawn light shafted through the trees, illuminating the sheen of her black hair, the swell of one breast, the way her right hand buried itself in her husband's black mane.
"It is dawn, Matthew. Our kind must go. You understand."
"No, actually. No, I don't."
"But you will."
Slowly, Jasha backed up, pressing past a series of wet boughs that fell between Matt and them as they edged back into the darkness.
"Please!" Matt took a step forward, his desperation rising. "I'm haunted, too, like Kingman was! I don't want to make the same mistakes! How can I fight Mr. Dark? Give me something. Anything."
Jasha and Roma had already vanished into the encompassing darkness. But the short, dreadlocked clown hesitated beneath an uplifted bough. Turned back toward Matt.
"His weakness, bitch? Is...ah...how do you say? Wagering."
Matt cocked his head, confused. "I'm sorry?"
"He likes to gamble, bitch. To bet."
Matt's mind raced. "Who does?"
Arkady gave a skeletal grin, equal parts menace and mischief. "Who do you think, bitch? Who do you think?"
And he, too, disappeared in the darkness, leaving Matt standing in the glade to watch the rising sun slowly banish every shadow.
At the foot of the hill, Matt found the road, and it felt good to hear his wheels crackle the gravel and begin putting distance between himself and Kingman's smoking compound.
A few miles along, Matt swerved carefully around something that he at first thought was a dead snake, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a soggy, discarded black-and-red armband. A hundred yards farther on he passed a badge embroidered with a white fist, with strands of stitching trailing from it like hair on a corpse. He half expected a brass ring with a big fake garnet to be next, and so he wasn't disappointed when one appeared, glittering in the mud where it'd been thrown.
He cautiously rounded a hairpin curve. There, up ahead, he saw a figure walking along the side of the road. Even before he pulled even with him, Matt recognized the hunched shoulders, the clenched fists, the unruly faux-hawk.
Matt's bike puttered in neutral, and he pulled up alongside Walton.
"Wet day for a walk."
"Wet day for a ride."
He had a point there.
"Looks like you lost some gear back there, Walton."
Walton shook his head, stooped a little more in the wet wind, putting one foot after the other. "I'm done with all that shit. Seems like you gotta be a PhD to understand anything about it. And even if you do, it's just FUBAR." He shot Matt a quick glance. "You know what that means, right?"
"Fucked up beyond all recognition," Matt said.
Nodding. "There ya go. Like I said, I'm done with it all, for good. If I ever hear someone shootin' off about racial this or Aryan that, it'll be too soon."
Matt walked his bike alongside the kid in silence for a while, then decided to ask it. "So where you heading?"
"Town. Bus station. Gonna catch the eleven fifteen."'
"To where?"
"Far as I can get from this pissant pocket of the world. Got a hundred and fifteen dollars in my pocket, and I'm gonna spend every dime of it. I hear the Missouri Ozarks got short winters and pretty girls."
Matt nodded. "I've heard that, too. If you wanna hop on, I could give you a lift to the station."
"Nah. Only a mile or two more. I wanna walk out of this town on my own steam, if that makes any sense."
"It does," Matt said, feeling some respect for the kid for the first time. And that made him think of something. "Hold up." He stopped, and the kid did, too. Matt slid his backpack off the rear seat. Unzipped a pocket and took out his wallet. He extracted a twenty-dollar bill that he kept for emergencies.
"What's that?" Walton said in surprise.
"Bookmark." Matt then took out, from the very bottom of his backpack, a worn paperback. He opened its creased cover and flipped through its dog-eared pages until he got about halfway through. He inserted the twenty between pages, closed it, and handed it to Walton.
Walton looked at it in surprise. Read the title aloud: "The Executioner: #38." He looked up, squinting. "What's this?" he asked.
"It's called a book. If you read the words in the order they're written in, Missouri will come a lot sooner. And I've got it on good authority that those Ozark girls admire the bookish types."
Walton snorted. "Let's hope not." He looked over the slim volume. "Still and all, I thank you for it. I'll do my best to read it."
"Good." Matt revved the bike. "Good luck to you, Walton."
"You too, bud."
Matt gave him a final nod, then pulled away. It felt good to feel the engine throb to life. He let out the throttle, heading for the bright country ahead.
THE END
James Daniels is a labor organization attorney who performed Shakespeare in London, received a Grammy nomination for his audio book narration, and wrote the hard-boiled noir mystery Ghost Bride. He and his family live in the Midwest.
The following is an excerpt from
Fire and Ice
By
Pete McCray was in Nitko's security office dumping sugar into a cup of coffee when Kevin Radowski marched in and shot him five times in the chest. McCray dropped to the tile floor facedown, knocking his ceramic coffee mug and the glass sugar dispenser off the table in the process. The blood oozing from his body mingled with the hot coffee and the sugar granules, creating a ghastly stew that, remarkably, smelled like grape jelly. Kevin finished him off with a shot to the back of the head.
"Have a nice day," Kevin said, tipping his Nitko cap to the fallen officer.
Kevin had grown up in one of the shitty little company houses on the dirt road behind the plant. He'd had a happy childhood, mostly, but on a shelf somewhere in the deepest, darkest recesses of his subconscious cellar stood a row of Mason jars marked Bathtime with Mama. All of these jars were filled with splish-splash warmth and joy, with Mr. Bubble and toy boats and a rubber dinosaur named Roscoe.
All of them, that is, except one.
In this one particularly cloudy sample, two-year-old Kevin did something horrible, something vile and disgusting and practically unforgivable.
But he was only two, after all. He thought massaging Mama's back with poo-poo was a good thing. He did it while she rinsed her hair, and she told him it felt oh so good. But when she looked in the mirror and discovered what Kevin had actually done to her, she cursed and shouted and violently beat his tender little ass raw with the palm of her hand.
It was the last time he ever took a bath with Mama, and the painful memory was repressed almost immediately.
Despite the nightmares and frequent bouts of constipation related to his grave mistake as a toddler, Kevin Radowski did well in school and managed to project an appearance of normalcy. In tenth grade he even tried out and made the baseball team. Some of the guys started calling him K-Rad that year, using the great major league infielder Alex Rodriguez---A-Rod---as inspiration.
The nickname stuck.
K-Rad graduated from high school with a B average, but he lacked focus and discipline and flunked out of college after two semesters. That's when he started working for Nitko. That was twelve years ago.
K-Rad had never been arrested, had never been in any trouble with the law, and had obtained a Florida concealedweapons permit with no problem. He owned a pair of Berettas, the M9 model used by the U.S. military and scores of police agencies, and he owned two twenty-round magazines and a silencer and a LaserMax for each pistol. He went to the firing range every chance he got. It was his hobby. It excited him in ways that a woman couldn't.
He grabbed Officer McCray's pistol and cell phone and shoved the items into his backpack. He knew the silenced gunshots from his Berettas would attract very little attention. Nitko was a noisy place, even in the offices. Booms and clanks and whistles and horns, electric motors blending product and pneumatic pumps sucking it through the presses and into packaging machines, forklifts whining and ventilation fans humming and every other kind of noise pollution imaginable filtered in from the production area all day every day. And on top of all that, many of the frontoffice employees listened to music through earbuds while they worked at their computers. An army tank could blast through the front door and they wouldn't know it.
K-Rad locked the security office door, poured himself a cup of coffee, and waited. In a little over an hour, the real fun would begin.
Matthew Cahill rose with the sun, grabbed his ax from his backpack, and walked outside. Behind the doublewide mobile home there were pieces of oak branches and sections of trunk cut into eighteen-inch lengths with a chainsaw. The wood appeared to have been thrown haphazardly from the back of a truck, and someone with a log splitter could have come over and turned it all into stackable firewood in a few hours. The job would take Matt a lot longer, but if he came out early for a while every morning, he should be able to finish in a week. That was the plan.
He positioned the largest piece of trunk roughly in the center of the mess and used it for a chopping block. He hefted a log onto the block, came down hard with his grandfather's razor-sharp ax head, and split the formidable chunk of hardwood into two pieces with a single swing. He split those two pieces in half, grabbed another log, and repeated the process.
It was a hazy, humid, late-summer dawn, and Matt soon worked up a thick lather of sweat. He peeled his shirt off, wiped his face with it, and kept chopping. How Janey had loved to watch him swing that ax. She would stand on the deck with a cup of coffee and watch the splinters and sweat droplets fly, and when he finished she would often attack him in the bedroom before he had a chance to shower. She would drop to her knees and lick the salty skin on his inner thighs. She drove him crazy when she did that, and what she did next could only be described as magic. Matt would never love another woman the way he loved Janey. He knew in his heart that he would not.
He looked over and saw her standing there with a white ceramic coffee mug, and for an instant he was back in Deerpark, Washington, and his beloved was still alive. He shook his head, squinted, and focused. It was Shelly Potts, of course, standing there in her pink bathrobe, and this was Copperhead Springs, Florida.
Copperhead Springs had a Walmart and a community college and a single-screen movie theater built in the twenties. The U.S. Army had housed troops there during World War II, and some of the barracks along the river had since been torn down and others converted to condos. There was a tattoo parlor and a barbershop and a two-story motor lodge painted flamingo pink.
Matt had struck up a conversation with Shelly a few nights ago in a bar and grill called the Retro. Matt said he needed work, Shelly said she knew of a temporary opening, and one thing led to another. Shelly seemed to enjoy his company, in and out of bed, knowing he would eventually be moving on. The temporary job she helped him get was at her own place of employment, a hundred-degree metal oven disguised as a chemical plant called Nitko. Today would be his third and final day.
Shelly had a towel wrapped around her head, and her face looked freshly scrubbed.
"Hey, sexy. Come on in and I'll fix you some breakfast."
"Sounds good," Matt said. "I'll just grab a quick shower first."
Shelly laughed. "I was going to suggest that."
Matt bathed and put on a fresh pair of Wranglers and a clean white T-shirt. He walked to the kitchen. A glass of orange juice, six strips of bacon, and a stack of pancakes waited for him at the table.
"Looks great," Matt said. He sat down and slathered the pancakes with butter and squeezed some syrup on them from a plastic bottle. Shelly brought him a hot cup of coffee.
Matt had ridden into Florida on a Greyhound and had seen a billboard advertising Nitko Chemicals just south of Palm Coast on Interstate 95. The smiling man on the sign had ulcers the size of quarters all over his face, shiny rotten boils oozing with green pus. Matt could see it. Others could not.
Two years ago, a ski slope avalanche had buried Matt alive, and he spent three months in an icy grave. When he started thawing in the morgue, the doctor performing the autopsy discovered he had a pulse. Everyone called it a miracle. He made a full recovery, but soon after the accident a mysterious entity named Mr. Dark started frequenting his nightmares and waking moments alike. Everything this ghastly doctor of doom touched turned to rancid decay, and Matt had somehow acquired the ability to see it. Mr. Dark had obviously set up shop in Copperhead Springs--- at Nitko, specifically---and Matt wanted to know why.
So far, he didn't have a clue.
"Eat up," Shelly said. "We need to get going in a few minutes."
Matt took a bite from the pancake stack and washed it down with some coffee. There was something very satisfying about being here with Shelly, yet something disturbing as well. She projected a genuine warmth Matt hadn't experienced in a long time, but occasionally she would stare into the distance as though entranced by some faraway vision. Matt wanted to know what it was she saw, but every time he brought it up she changed the subject.
She brewed another pot of coffee and filled a thermos with it. She wore jeans and steel-toed boots and a chambray work shirt. Her dark brown ponytail dangled from the back of a red Nitko ball cap. She sat at the table across from Matt.
"I can't believe it's Wednesday already," she said. "So what are your plans, Mr. Matthew Cahill? You just going to wander around aimlessly forever?"
Matt had been traveling around the country for a while now. For the last few weeks, he'd been sleeping under the stars, bathing at filling-station restrooms, and dining on beans and Spam and bologna sandwiches.
"What makes you think my wandering is aimless?" he said.
"Ah. Let me guess. You're searching for your soul. You're trying to find the true meaning of life."
"Or the true meaning of death," Matt said. He took a bite of bacon.
"Ever think about settling down?"
"Sometimes."
"You might be able to get on permanent at the plant. I know for a fact there's an opening in Waterbase. One of the guys there got fired last week. It's hard work, but the pay sucks."
Matt grinned at Shelly's joke, but the thought of signing on full-time at Nitko made his stomach tighten. Shelly had driven him there Monday morning and had led him up a set of concrete stairs and in through one of the loadingdock doors. Sweat beaded on his forehead almost immediately. Huge electric ventilation fans hummed high on the corrugated steel walls, but they didn't move enough air to cool the building much and they didn't adequately lift the blanket of chemical fumes. Shelly guided him through a labyrinth of industrial shelving stacked twenty feet high with cardboard boxes, five-gallon jugs, and fifty-five-gallon drums. Some of the containers were marked with labels that said, "Fire," others with labels that said, "Ice." Fire and Ice were Nitko's flagship fountain solutions, Shelly had told him. They were top-of-the-line cleaning products for the printing industry, considered to be the gold standard worldwide since the midsixties. Fire was acidic and the color and clarity of orange soda, while Ice was alkaline and a shade or two darker than Windex.
In the distance electric motors whirred and pneumatic pumps pulsed and human beings shouted instructions at one another. Forklifts darted to and fro like confused squirrels, picking up pallets of product here and dropping them off there.
Matt and Shelly made it through the maze to the north side of the building, where there was an employee break room and men's and women's locker rooms and a Kronos electronic time clock. Shelly swiped her badge, and from there she took Matt to Human Resources and then to the main production area to talk to the foreman. The air was even hotter there, the fumes thicker and the din exponentially louder. The workers' grim expressions spoke volumes. Stories of missed opportunities and unfulfilled dreams, of being stuck in a long and arduous never-ending journey to nowhere.
The conditions were horrible, the pay obscene. Matt felt sorry for Shelly and everyone else who depended on Nitko for a paycheck. Anyone unlucky enough to be born in Copperhead Springs stood a good chance of ending up in that hellhole, and it just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. No, Matt had no intention of working there permanently, but he did want to extend his job as a temp. He needed to find the reason behind that rotting face on the billboard.
He sipped his juice. "I like you a lot," he said, "but I have to be honest with you. I'm just not ready to settle down yet."
Matt saw Shelly's hand tighten around her coffee cup. The muscles flared in her wrist and then relaxed, some battle surrendered without a fight.
"Typical man," Shelly said. "Unable to commit. Come on. Let's go to work."
An administrative assistant who worked in Human Resources stood at the cluster of vending machines outside the security office, trying to decide which brand of soda to buy.
K-Rad stood behind her.
The woman's name was Kelsey Froman. K-Rad had known her since elementary school. She'd been a homely little girl---thick glasses, metal braces that made her breath smell like the lid of a sardine can, hair the color of dirt. Cruel little monsters that they were, the other children nicknamed poor Kelsey Froman Frog Man, and they bullied her and teased her and reduced her to tears almost every day of fifth grade. She had blossomed at some point, though, and had morphed from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. Now she had a great body and a killer smile and contact lenses that brought out the blue in her eyes. Her long brown hair was expensively styled and streaked with highlights the color of bourbon. K-Rad had asked her out for a drink one time, and she had stifled a laugh and made up a lame story about her cousin being in town. Her loss.
Pepsi or Mountain Dew? Which one would it be? Kelsey Froman chose Mountain Dew. K-Rad's favorite! She pressed the button, and her selection clattered to the receiving tray. When she bent over to retrieve it, K-Rad blasted a hole the size of silver dollar through the left cheek of her shapely ass. She fell to her hands and knees and retched, like a cat trying to cough up a hair ball. K-Rad lifted the back of her skirt, positioned the Beretta's muzzle between her legs, and fired twice. She fell to the floor and stared blankly at the bottom of the drink machine. K-Rad opened the Mountain Dew and chugged it.
"Have a nice day, Frog Man," he said, and walked on.

