As he was setting down the book, someone grabbed his wrist.
Erwin didn’t yell, but it was a near thing. He twisted around to peer over the edge of the bunk. There was just enough light to see that there was an arm coming up out of the floor.
“Da fuck?”
Erwin pulled hard, twisting, trying to break the hold on his wrist, but the angle was bad and whoever—whatever—it was, was strong. A moment later, the tip of another hand popped up through the floor. With a motion like someone pulling themselves out of a swimming pool, it gripped the concrete and pulled.
A woman’s head rose up through the concrete. She let go of Erwin’s wrist and, pushing against the concrete, muscled her torso up out of the floor. She pulled her legs up—nice legs, Erwin thought disjointedly—and stood.
“Hello, Erwin.”
He squinted forward, then leaned back with a sigh. “Ah, shit. It’s you, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” Carolyn said. “What are you doing in here? It took me forever to track you down.”
Erwin thought of mentioning that he might have asked her the same thing, but decided against it. “Eh,” he said, sitting up. “You know how it is. I kind of roughed a guy up a little bit. Nothing much, just a couple cracked teeth, but”—shrug, spit—“he took offense.”
Carolyn furrowed her brow, confused. “I don’t see why that’s such a big deal. It’s part of your shtick, right?”
“This particular guy was the president.” Seeing the look on her face, he added, “The new one. Not the head.”
“Oh.” She thought about this for a couple of seconds. “Why’d you hit him?”
“He kept squirming. I was afraid the gun was gonna go off.”
“Gun? Did you kill him?”
“Nah, just the teeth. Plus I held him hostage for, like, three or four hours.”
“Oh. What happened then?”
“He caved. I knew he would.” Erwin spat in his cup. “Pussy.”
“What do you mean, ‘caved’?”
“Well,” Erwin said, “I was kinda blackmailing him. I told him if he didn’t launch a couple of missiles, I was gonna spray his brains over all the nice woodwork. He thought about it for a little while, and then he launched ’em.”
“At who?”
“Well…you.”
“Really? Me? Why?”
Erwin sat up on his bunk and turned to look at her face. His eyes were adjusting to the dark. “That Steve kid told me what he was gonna do if our air raid didn’t work. Which, you know, obviously it didn’t. I gave it a week after that to see if he could convince you to un-fuck stuff, but no change.” Erwin paused. “Did he really go through with it? The Everclear and…you know.”
“The lighter,” Carolyn said. “Yeah. He did.”
“Damn.” Erwin was quiet for a moment. “Well…whether he had or not, it was obvious it didn’t work. I couldn’t see that we had much else left to try. The president didn’t agree, though. He said he was ‘exploring other options.’ Maybe. But I’m pretty sure he was just worried about getting reelected.” Erwin shrugged. “After a while I got sick of arguing about it.”
Carolyn stared at him. “So you blew up Mount Char? You nuked it?”
“I blew up what?”
“Come again?”
“You said I blew up…‘Mount Char’?”
“Did I?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” She smiled a little.
“Yeah, I’m lost.”
“What? Oh. Sorry. When we were kids, me and Steve used to have all these nicknames for things. Secret names, you know, the way kids have. We even drew a map. Scabby Flats and Cat Splash Creek and like that. Mount Char was Father’s house.”
“Any particular reason?”
“You know, I don’t—” She snapped her fingers. “Actually, I do remember. Steve told you about Father, right?”
“Some.”
“Bear in mind, back then, we thought Father was just a regular guy. You’d see him outside every so often, but he never really socialized. I get it now—boy, do I ever—but at the time it was weird. People would invite old Mr. Black to come hang out, have a beer, but he always said the same thing: ‘I’ll be along once I get a good char on this pork.’ Every time. The grown-ups made fun of him for it. And his house was on top of a pretty steep hill. So to Steve and me, his place was Mount Char. Back before the Library and…all the other stuff. When we were just kids and…you know…everything was OK.” Carolyn smiled. To Erwin she looked wistful but not especially unhappy. Then she snapped back to herself. “Well, it made sense at the time. I wonder what made me think of that now. I haven’t called it that in ages.”
“I dunno,” Erwin said, even though he thought he might have a guess.
“And you blew it up? Nuked it?”
“Kinda, yeah.” Erwin looked at her. “You didn’t notice? They was all direct hits. Twenty megatons, total. You could see the mushroom cloud two states away.”
“Sorry, no. I must have missed it.” She gave him an apologetic look. “I’ve been really busy.”
“ ’s OK.” Erwin’s brow wrinkled. “I figured you was here to kill me. Revenge or whatever. But maybe that ain’t it.”
“Kill you? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What, then?”
“I’m here to offer you a job, Erwin.”
“Come again?”
“You’ve already been a big help. And there’s plenty more to be done.”
“Thanks, but I’ve kinda had my fill of shooting people.”
“That’s not what I had in mind. Well, maybe not never, but it wouldn’t be the main point.”
“What, then?”
“Odds and ends. Errands. Things I’m not good at.”
“Such as?”
“The first thing I had in mind is that I want you to look for a dog.”
“A dog? There’s fucking dogs everywhere.”
“No, I mean a particular dog. I really need to find him—I promised—but me and dogs don’t get along.”
“Oh. Which one?”
“His name’s Petey. He’s a cocker spaniel.”
“I don’t know no cocker spaniels named Petey.”
“Probably he’s also dead.”
Long pause. “Are you fucking with me?”
“I would never, ever do that, Erwin.”
Then, from the stainless-steel toilet, a man’s voice. “Sheee would not. Carolyn like you.”
“What the fuck?”
“That’s my brother. His name is Michael.” Then, softly, “His English isn’t great, but he’s trying. Be patient, OK?”
“Yeah, sure,” Erwin whispered back. Then, in a normal voice, “Well, I’ll be happy to look around the cell, but if he ain’t in here I prolly won’t be much help.” He jerked a thumb at the cell door. “That’s locked, ya know.”
“Don’t be thick, Erwin. Of course I’ll get you out. I’ll do that even if you don’t take the job—I certainly owe you that much. But there are other benefits as well. I could teach you things.”
“Things?”
She nodded. “Interesting things. Lots of them, actually. I have a library now.”
He chewed this over for a second. “Maybe you’d start by telling me what the fuck you did at that bank? How you made them tellers be so helpful?”
“Sure, if you—”
The man’s voice again, rapid-fire blabber in some language Erwin didn’t recognize.
“Cha guay,” Carolyn said.
“Aru penh ta—”
“Cha guay,” Carolyn said, more firmly this time. The toilet fell silent.
“What was that all about?”
“He says they’re coming.”
Erwin heard a rumbling out in the hall, a huge noise, like the sound the World Trade Center towers made when they collapsed. Then, screams. Through the window slit, he saw a cloud of gray dust rolling down the hall.
Carolyn grimaced. “Decide now, Erwin. I’ll do whatever you
like, but I really do need to go. Are you coming?”
Erwin thought about it for about half a second. “Fuck yeah. Sign me up.”
“Do you need to bring anything?”
“Nope. Well”—he grabbed the Evanovich—“just this.”
Carolyn smiled. “You’re going to fit right in. Here, take my hand.”
Erwin did. Out in the hall he heard a groan of wrenching steel. “So…you said ‘they’re coming.’ Who’s ‘they’?”
“I’m not completely sure yet. My Father had enemies. Some of them are my enemies too, now. They’ve begun to move against me.”
“Dangerous folks? Dangerous like you, I mean?”
“Some of them, yeah.”
“Hmmm.”
“Don’t worry,” Carolyn said. “I have a plan.”
Acknowledgments
Over the years I’ve received help and encouragement from more people than I have room to list. Every single bit of it was appreciated. If you don’t see your name here but should, I apologize.
First and foremost, my wife, Heather, is a really, really good first reader. She sees when something isn’t working and she’s not scared to kick my ass until I see it too. Every writer should be so lucky.
I attended the Taos Toolbox writing workshop in 2011. That experience has been a huge influence on everything I’ve written since, and I recommend it unreservedly to all aspiring fantasists. I am grateful to all my fellow attendees for their thoughtful and honest feedback on the first couple of chapters. Jim Strickland, Fiona Lehn, and Carole Ann Moleti later went so far as to provide feedback on a full draft. The instructors, Walter Jon Williams and Nancy Kress, are gifted teachers and generous people. Thank you all.
The community of writers—internet and physical—is solid and supportive. I’ve lost track of the number of times that I’ve been given lengthy and detailed critiques by people I’ve never met and probably will never meet. Online resources such as absolutewrite.com and sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com have also been especially helpful to me. Check out Jim MacDonald’s “Learn Writing with Uncle Jim” thread on absolutewrite.com in particular. There are also a lot of industry professionals out there who volunteer their expertise via blogs, interviews, and whatnot to teach aspiring writers how not to shoot themselves in the foot as badly or as often as they otherwise might.
My buddy Lt. Col. Jason Barnhill, PhD, has read every single one of my unpublished manuscripts over the years. He was polite and supportive even back when I was struggling to make the leap from soul-wrenchingly godawful to merely terrible. Thanks, dude—next time I see you, dinner’s on me.
Brett Meyer and Steven Wright read and provided feedback on an early draft of the manuscript. Thanks, guys!
My agent, Caitlin Blasdell, is both a dazzlingly effective professional and also an unfailingly pleasant and gracious person. Years before I was a client, she sent me a really nice this-won’t-do-but-try-me-with-your-next-one note that was enormously encouraging at the time and is still much appreciated. She smoothed out the rough edges of this manuscript and generally saved me from myself in a variety of ways. I’m lucky to know her. Thanks, Caitlin!
Last, but most definitely not least, as an aspiring writer I would occasionally daydream about what the process of professional publication would be like. The answer is: it’s great. My editor, Julian Pavia, and the other folks I’ve dealt with at Crown have impressed me in one way or another with every single communication. Thanks, guys—it’s been a privilege and a real pleasure.
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