by Amy Lane
Burton charged down the fire escape of the old brick warehouse at full speed, the heat forgotten in his need to be on the ground, in that alleyway before Smarmy Dance Guy got Ernie into the dark and shadows where military ops guys could do worse things.
By the time Burton got down the stairs, the sounds coming from the shadows were both intimate and nonconsensual—and the three gorillas with guns were nowhere to be seen.
“Mm… no. No. Not you. You’re not good—”
“C’mon, club boy—you put out for everybody. You’re legendary—”
“Who’re you? You’re not good. Don’t touch me. It feels like bugs when you touch me!”
The scream came from the pit of the boy’s stomach, but the next sound made Burton sick to his.
A crunch, a scuffle, and a low moan of mortal pain, and Burton could not run fast enough. His heart started beating in two more breaths when Ernie’s voice—a low, dreamy tenor—echoed out of the alleyway.
“Stop touching me with bugs!”
Jesus, kid, what did you take?
Burton crashed into the alleyway, pistol drawn and laser sight active, while his eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness.
Club Kid was down in a crumpled pile in the corner of the alley. His body was twitching, but Burton thought maybe that wouldn’t last long. Ernie stood panting in the center of the three operatives, crouched, jeans sliding down his hips and his hands out in front of him in a classic martial arts pose. Burton would have found it laughable, like a little kid faking karate, but two of the assailants were bleeding and one was cradling his arm.
The kid had bought himself some time with the element of surprise, but there were two laser lights dotting him, one in center mass and one on his head.
Burton took out the headshot shooter first and the center-mass guy next, through the head, both of them, and had the gun aimed at the guy who couldn’t draw before the bodies hit the floor.
“Corduroy Company,” the man barked. “I’m going for my ID.”
“So I’m not supposed to shoot you because you’re a merc?” Burton asked, undeterred. “That club bunny with the mushed brain didn’t get to pull his stupidity card. What are you doing here?”
“Man, you should know! We got hired by the US military—this here’s a high-priority target!”
“When’d the contract come through?” Burton asked.
“Two days ago—apparently the guy assigned to the kid didn’t follow through.”
“The guy assigned to the target thought the job was hinky and wasn’t taking a life without asking any goddamned questions,” Burton snapped, feeling grumpy. Two kills defending this kid? Three if you counted the club bunny with his nose through his brain, but Burton had no way of knowing if that had been the Corduroy mercenaries or the kid himself. “And look what you made me do.”
Mr. Corduroy Company rolled his eyes. “We take orders, soldier—I don’t know how you get to have a conscience.”
Burton felt his brain and his chest go cold. He was going to have to kill this guy method-like, without any more talk, because there was no reasoning with him.
“Wait,” Ernie said, holding up his hand. He practically wafted to where the mercenary stood.
“You broke my fucking wrist,” Merc snarled.
“You’re a bad man,” the boy told him, eyes wide. Gently he laid his hand on the merc’s wrist through his jacket, then shuddered and dropped his hand. “Bad through and through,” he told Burton with a shrug. His shoulders drooped dejectedly, and he moved to Burton’s other side.
He was well out of the line of fire when Burton dropped the final Corduroy mercenary, his silencer loud in the late-night air.
“WHERE ARE we going, Cruller?” the boy asked five minutes later.
Burton wasn’t taking the easy route—he’d left his sniper rifle bolted to the top of the building, prints and all. First things first, and the first thing was to force the kid up the fire escape in front of him in a minute and a half so Burton could disassemble the rifle and they could beat a hasty retreat through the inside of the building.
“What’d you call me? And move your ass before I kick you up there myself!”
“It’s five stories,” the kid said mildly. “Nobody heard. That’s why the dance club is out here in the warehouse district.”
Burton growled and glared balefully at the kid’s back, wondering if sheer irritation would make him move any faster. “So noted. Now what did you call me?”
“Cruller. It’s your donut. The kind with the glaze but not the flavor,” he recited dutifully.
“You didn’t even see me that day,” Burton muttered, breathing a sigh of relief when they finally broke through to the roof.
“Yes, but you’re very definitely good. It radiates. That is a big gun. What are you going to do with that big gun? Why didn’t you just pick off the bug-touching guys with that? I was scared, you know. They were going to kill me.”
“They disappeared,” Burton muttered, getting on his knees and using the air drill to unbolt the base of the gun. “I couldn’t see them to shoot. And they were going to kill you—you’re lucky to still be alive.”
“Mm.” The kid nodded and then sat down bonelessly, like a cat flopping on a carpet, and closed his eyes while Burton worked.
“Did you take out Mr. Date-Raping Octopus Hands?” Burton asked into the silence, because the question was making him crazy.
“No,” Ernie said sadly. “He would have left after I yelled. He was bad, but… there’s bad that can be fixed and there’s those guys you killed. He could have been fixed. Those other guys are just bugs.”
Burton shuddered and clamped the case shut. “Fair enough. C’mon, Ernie, you and me need to get out of this bug-ridden town before those fuckers get you.”
“Who’s going to feed my cats?” Ernie asked—but he was following Burton without question, which was nice.
“How about half of Albuquerque?” Burton was taking the steps two at a time, and he wished fervently that Ernie could keep up with him. “That was every stray cat in the residential district!”
Ernie let out a laugh that should have been on a playground. “But I know all their names!” he said plaintively.
“I’ll make arrangements,” Burton told him, mind already going to the phone calls he’d have to make to take care of the matter.
“Really? Okay, Cruller—you are a good guy!”
“Burton.” Cruller could haunt a guy through four branches of the military. Burton had seen it happen.
“Cruller,” the boy said, the stubbornness a surprise when the tone was so amiable.
“Get a move on,” Burton snapped. “I got transport three blocks down, but we don’t know how many more Corduroys we’ve got on our tail.”
“Mm….” Ernie seemed to shut down then, his eyes going to half-mast, his body doing what Burton asked, but not at triple time. Finally they were in Burton’s white Tahoe, heading west.
“Ernie!” Burton snapped, and Ernie’s eyes popped open.
“Yessir.”
“Keep awake!”
“I was. You said you didn’t know how many Corduroys were there. Two. There were two more in one of the apartments we passed. They were getting upset.” He sighed sadly. “Do you think they’ll miss their friends?”
“Yes,” Burton said, thinking about the four bodies in the alleyway. “I think all of them are going to be missed, which is why we need to be in California in less than six hours.”
“What’s in California?” Ernie asked.
“Haven, I hope.”
“Mm… that’s nice. We need to stay in a hotel first, though.”
Burton did a double take before gluing his eyes back on the road.
“I’m sorry?”
“You need to call your boss, and then you need to call your friends, and you need to get to know me.”
“Why in the world would I want to do that?” Burton snarled.
“I don’t know—you’re the on
e who’s screaming with need.”
“I’m screaming with frustration is what I’m doing—”
“Well, that too. It’s okay, Cruller. A crappy hotel will be fine. But at ten o’clock I need to sleep, so maybe find something soon.”
Burton could see the sun flirting with the horizon in his rearview mirror. “Damn—where did that time go? It’s almost six in the morning!”
“It was five when the killing started,” Ernie said sadly. “I don’t want to think about it. Tell me when you find the hotel.”
And then he closed his eyes and checked out. Just… checked out. No amount of calling his name made him open his eyes, and no attempts at conversation stirred him.
Burton screamed, long and satisfyingly, after five minutes of trying to get his attention, and still the kid didn’t even interrupt his breathing.
“God,” Burton muttered to himself. “My God. What am I going to tell my boss?”
And that got the kid’s attention. “You’re going to tell him you walked away, Cruller. Because if you didn’t, the Corduroy people will be after you too.”
Burton blinked and checked on him again.
He hadn’t even opened his eyes.
Jesus.
Fucking Jesus.
Who was this kid?
Meet the Moon
BURTON YAWNED and looked at the clock on the dash. Seven o’clock.
It was true; he could drive straight through to Victoriana and be there in another three hours—but, maddeningly enough, Ernie was right.
Burton wanted to talk to his boss first, and it would be nice of him to offer a heads-up to the people in Victoriana. Yeah, Ace owed him a few, but Burton had been raised to be polite.
Besides, Ace would be fine with it, but Sonny always needed a little warning, and Burton didn’t want to piss Sonny off. Idly he thought back to his interactions with the laconic Ace and the highly unstable Sonny Daye and wondered if Ernie would think they were “good” or “full of bugs.”
“Good,” Ernie mumbled, turning sideways in the seat and curling up like a little kid. The Tahoe came fully loaded, and Burton hit the passenger seat adjustments to tilt the thing back and make Ernie more comfortable. “Like you,” he said happily. “I’m hungry. I usually eat at the bakery by now. Stop, get some food, find a room. Your friends will be there tomorrow morning.”
Burton snorted. Yeah, sure, a hotel room was probably a good idea—there was a Motel 6 at the next turnoff and he had cash—but he wasn’t planning to spend more than a few hours there.
The thought had no sooner crossed his mind than Ernie chuckled, like he knew something Burton didn’t.
“Goddammit!” The fine hairs on the back of Burton’s neck stood up. “Why are you laughing like that?”
He knew when the kid’s eyes opened.
“I’m a pretty good lay,” Ernie murmured. “You’re going to want to take more time than that.”
“So help me, I will wreck the car.” The idea was preposterous. Burton had urges—he knew them for what they were. But he’d never taken a man to his bed, and he certainly wasn’t going to do so now, in the middle of a failed op and the… the frickin’ mystery that was Ernie Caulfield.
“That’d be a shame,” Ernie said, sitting up and readjusting the seat. “I think I wouldn’t mind you touching me.”
Burton growled. “You’re stoned. It’s not happening.”
Ernie gurgled happily. “Nope. Wore off before….” His voice dropped. “Before the Corduroy guys thing.” He sighed. “I… I wish it lasted longer. That would… it would have been nice to be stoned when that happened.”
“Why?” Burton wanted his wits as sharp as possible when shit was going down.
“Don’t feel so much. The X or the pot takes over, and it… it muffles shit. All the bad shit—hell, even the good shit’s bad when there’s too much of it. I… I really wish it had all been muffled when the bad shit went.” He whimpered. “The club guy grabbed my dick. That… that wasn’t pleasant.”
“Not the first time it happened,” Burton wagered.
“It’s better when I want it,” Ernie said dispiritedly. “I mean, got lots I didn’t want, but some of it I wanted. I didn’t want that.”
“Why do you take it when you don’t want it?” he asked, curious. So many pictures of Ernie naked with other people. Always with the same dreamy expression, like he wasn’t really there.
“’Cause you can ride it,” Ernie said, eyes closed. “Like, ride their endorphins like you ride the drugs. Both ways suck, but one way you’re not alone. Until I found the club. That was perfect.”
A week ago Burton would have dismissed what Ernie was talking about out of hand. But Ernie had unnerved him, pretty much from the beginning, and he found himself flirting with the possibility, the outright probability of the impossible thing that Ernie was in his head.
“Maybe be somewhere without so many people?” Burton suggested. Hell, even if the kid was simply agoraphobic, the self-medication he was talking about wasn’t good for him.
“They can find me in the empty.” Ernie pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around his shins, which spoke well of his flexibility, since he was using the seat belt. “But now they found me in the city, and I don’t know what to do.”
And then Lee Burton, once in Marine special ops, now in special division covert ops, soldier, assassin, all-around logical guy, found himself making the rashest of promises.
“I’m taking you someplace safe,” he said. “Someplace not even my boss knows about. You tell me why people are after you, and I’ll find a way to make it stop. I swear.”
Ernie looked at him sideways from his big brown eyes. “Why would you do that? We haven’t even rented the hotel room yet.” He stared back out into the desert moodily. “Everybody wants sex first.”
“Kid, I’m not in it for sex—”
Ernie snorted derisively.
“I was supposed to kill you, you understand? I am a finely trained killing machine—I’m great at it. But I don’t kill club bunnies or witchy little bakers or kids who feed all the stray cats in downtown Albuquerque. I kill bad men—and somebody put you on my list, and on Corduroy’s list, and for all I know on the CIA’s list, and Jesus, you probably have a fucking SEAL team hunting down your scrawny ass, and I want to know why! My boss didn’t like this op and I don’t like it, and I’m going to find out who tried to make me a murderer.”
“But aren’t you—”
“Like you said, kid. It matters if I want it. I kill bad men who like to kill innocent people. I don’t kill innocent people who are hunted by bad men.”
Ernie hmmed, appearing to be thinking very carefully. “You still want me,” he breathed. “This is your exit. There’s a donut shop down past the motel. Let’s go there first.”
Burton hesitated to ask, because like this kid would know, right?
“They have crullers,” Ernie murmured, looking sublimely happy.
“How do you do that?” Burton asked bluntly. He’d been all ready to go for the donut question, but seriously, how did this kid keep reading his mind?
“I’m not usually so good at it,” Ernie said, looking down at his tennis shoes on Burton’s upholstery and picking at the stitching. “But your mind is very clear. I think it’s because of that assassin thing. You need to be totally focused. So it’s like reading something etched in stone. But most people aren’t like that. I just get fuzzy sorts of auras. I… I wish I’d learned how to tamp down on it when I had the chance.”
“You had the chance to learn how to use this… this thing in your head?” Burton wasn’t sure how he was going to tell Jason Constance that their target was psychic, and that was probably why he was the target—but he was really interested in why that made someone want him dead.
“Yeah.” Ernie sighed again, like this was the heaviest concept on the planet. “But they didn’t want me to make it stop or quiet it down. They just wanted me to tell them who was good and who was bad.�
��
This was interesting.
“What did they do then?”
Ernie’s face fell. “They hurt the good people to see if it would make them bad. And sometimes it would.”
Burton sucked in air. It sounded like something illegal. It sounded like behavior modification—of the most monstrous type.
It sounded like a reason to kill a dreamy kid who just wanted to get stoned enough to stay in his own head. “Donuts,” he said grimly. “You and me need some sugar before I call my boss, and then we need to talk about what’s next.”
“Okay, Cruller.” The kid closed his eyes happily. “You can ask me anything you want after donuts. But maybe make sure we get a king-sized bed for that other thing—”
“Ain’t happening.”
Ernie’s laughter tinkled, low and charming, and Burton wondered exactly what sort of pictures he was painting in the kid’s mind.
It would be nice if Burton knew himself, wouldn’t it!
“IT’S NOT as good as yours,” Burton blurted after his first cruller.
Ernie looked up from his cream-filled and grinned. “I’m good at the bakery,” he admitted proudly, and then his shoulders slumped and he looked tired and dispirited. “Good to be good at something.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask…. “Your high school grades were so good,” Burton said, because this had been bothering him. “But they dropped in the last semester, and you didn’t even go to college. What happened?”
Ernie frowned at him. “That’s all my file says? My grades were good and then they slipped?”
“Says your folks died in a car wreck, and you didn’t do well in foster care,” Burton told him cautiously and was unprepared for Ernie to stand up, face crumpling as he fought tears.
“Didn’t do well?” he demanded. “Didn’t do well? Jesus—that’s all you know about me? There’s so much truth missing, it’s like you only know me as the lie.” He turned toward the exit, entire posture screaming about storming out into the strange city of Cletus, and Burton couldn’t let him.
