Meacham was breathing heavily, his face a shade paler than before. Warren bared his teeth at Blake, poised to spring forward and attack. But he didn’t. He knew better.
“You’re gonna pay for that,” Warren said. It was his favorite threat.
“No,” Meacham said, reaching out to stop him. “Not worth your effort.”
“Son of a bitch,” Warren said, pivoting toward the window to brood.
Louis Blake stood, watching John Meacham and his men. It had been a long time since he’d used a pusher. It felt good despite the slowly approaching migraine that would plague him all night. Already, it was settling its cold weight on his skull.
“I apologize,” Meacham said, rubbing his knuckles. “I was way out of line, and I shouldn’t have hit you.”
Amused, Blake scoffed. “During the war, I once had the enemy tie me to a wooden pole and whip me for three days straight. They threw their own shit at me so my wounds would get infected. And you know what I did when I finally escaped?”
The men in the room watched him, waiting to hear his next words. It was so quiet Blake could hear the wind rustling the leaves outside. Reaching into his coat, he took out his cigarettes and lit one as he spoke. He savored it for a moment. The smoke kissed his lungs like an old lover, and he was glad he’d purchase a carton off the most recent caravan. Ashamed at his own impulsiveness, but glad all the same.
“I came back to their base with a few of my telepathic operatives. We implanted a command into their brains to make them believe they’d been buried alive with nothing more than a walkie-talkie, which was actually a tape recorder. Over the next few days, they gave us a years’ worth of tactical information—hidden bases, planned strikes, everything we needed.
“When we went back to collect the survivors, we found every single man dead by his own hand. They had sliced their own necks open with rocks so they could die.”
Blake dropped the cigarette onto the carpet and made his way to the door, his footsteps loud against the floorboards. Swiveling to study the men, he blew smoke from his mouth as he addressed them.
“You men aren’t my enemy. But you come after me or any of my boys, and we’ll just have to see what secrets you spill. Enjoy the rest of your Scotch.”
He closed the door softly behind him.
Chapter 18
The candle threw soft light over the two naked figures lying on the bed.
Charlotte lay half on top of Ian Meacham, breathing softly and tracing a fingertip along his chest. Ian lay on his back, chest rising and falling as he stared up at the ceiling. They were both covered in sweat, and the windows had become foggy from their heated bodies.
“Did you like it?” she said.
Ian spoke without taking his eyes off the ceiling. “I don’t know. Did you like doing it with Michael?”
“We talked about this. Your father wanted me to get close to him.”
“Is that what ‘close’ means to you? Sleeping with him?”
“I didn’t sleep with him. I told you that five times.”
“You were going to. It’s the same thing.”
Charlotte got off the bed, breasts swishing from side to side. Ian didn’t like their heaviness. They reminded him of William, with his twisted foot, and how Charlotte had once nursed him in public like the other mothers in town, inspiring the strangest sexual fantasies he’d ever experienced in his youth.
“Tell me about the sex,” Charlotte said. “How was I?”
“It was weird. I still knew it was you the whole time.”
“Of course you did, because I told you I’d be—”
“No.” Abruptly, he sat up, scanning her naked body. She didn’t cover herself. It was like she didn’t even notice she was naked, or she didn’t care. “It was something else. You were still aggressive. Like you always are.”
“Hmm.” Charlotte’s lips gathered into a pensive pout. “Want to try it again?”
Ian lifted one eyebrow. “Now? I don’t even know why I’m helping you with this.”
“Because you can’t resist me.”
He shook his head.
“Who do you want me to be this time?” Charlotte asked.
Ian’s eyes narrowed as he thought about it. He had to admit helping Charlotte practice for whatever this was—it had its benefits. And it was better than being cut off from sex completely like she’d threatened.
“Be Rachel,” he said. “The redhead who works at the bakery. And I want you to knock on the door and come in like you’re bringing me a muffin, or something like that. Just to see how convincing you are.”
Charlotte made a tsk sound with her tongue. “You’re disgusting, you know that? She’s old enough to be your mother.”
She started toward the door, buttocks trembling with each step, a sight that got him back into the mood.
“Why are you practicing this, anyway?” he said.
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder, shaking her hips suggestively. “Are you complaining?”
“No, I just—never mind.”
“That’s more like it.”
Ian lay back and watched. He admired Charlotte’s body as she made her way to the door. Admired it even more as it began to change shape and color before his eyes.
“Incredible,” he whispered.
Chapter 19
“You should learn telepathic communication,” Blake proposed to Michael one night, while they were sitting and talking inside The Matinee. “I know a place where it’ll be a bit easier to learn.”
“Right now?” Michael asked, sitting forward in his chair as if to express his willingness to jump out of it and follow Blake at a moment’s notice.
Blake chuckled, then went quiet again. He had been acting strange lately, almost as if he were anticipating an event he couldn’t share with anyone. Like a man who knew the world was about to end, and because of that, he found himself carefree, without a single worry because soon everyone—and their worries—would be utterly wiped from existence. He almost looked content.
The following morning, before breakfast, he took Michael to the hydro-electric power station perched atop a cliff to the east of Gulch, where a thin waterfall dropped more than three hundred feet and gave electricity to the entire town. They didn’t hike there—no way in hell would Blake have been able to breathe his way through such an ordeal. Instead, they took an old rusted Jeep. Blake whistled as he drove.
Michael could barely sit still as they sped past trees up the steep, rocky road to the top of the falls. Once they arrived, he practically leaped out of the vehicle and ran to the cliff’s edge, his eyes widening at the view of the basin-like meadow that sprawled out in front of him, sandwiched between two cliffsides. Never in his life had he witnessed such natural beauty. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
The powerhouse complex consisted of a wood-and-concrete building with white sides. In it resided the facility manager, a generator, and a transformer plant. The main building sat quietly over the waterfall and the box canyon beneath it. Blake mentioned that a century and a half earlier, it had supplied power to a local mine. Now, it was the town’s best-kept secret—indeed a precious resource that could potentially make them a target and had to be protected at any cost.
There had been three armed guards patrolling the road and the building’s perimeter. Blake had approached them one by one. He did nothing more than speak to them politely.
“Go take a walk,” he’d said.
Michael knew that tone of voice. He watched what happened next.
The guard was a simple farmer with familiar face who lived in town, probably just doing a shift at his other job, working for John Meacham. He had blinked several times at Blake as if waking from a strange dream. Then, he’d simply shrugged as if to say, No big deal. In this way, without breaking a sweat, Blake sent away all three of the guards—not by controlling their minds, but by a power of suggestion that only a telepath of his level could reach.
“That was awesome,” Michael
said.
“In times of need,” was all Blake said in response.
“So, you’re able to control—”
“Careful,” Blake said. “That word is controversial. I only suggested a different course of action for those men. A more mindful individual would have laughed in my face.”
“What about the people inside the station? Won’t they see us?”
Blake took a deep breath, clearly enjoying the fresh mountain air. They could hear the waterfall hissing off the edge of the cliff. Michael wondered why such an inconvenient spot—all the way up here—had been chosen for him.
“Don’t worry about anyone but yourself,” Blake said. “Follow me.”
They headed toward the edge of the cliff, where Michael was once again confronted by the stunning view of the box canyon and meadow. Only a piece of Gulch was visible, the buildings like tiny toy houses in the distance, and Michael found himself nearly lifting his arms as he breathed, as if to fly over that incredible stretch of land between him and town.
“It’s ugly,” Blake said.
Michael’s breath caught in his throat. Had he heard the old man correctly?
“Ugly?” Michael said. “What do you—I mean, how could you possibly…”
“No, not the scenery. I mean it’s an ugly business, what we do. Sneaking around like this.”
“Is that why you brought me up here?” Michael said. “To get as far away from town as possible? Wait, no—that doesn’t make sense. There are people up here. Townspeople. Why didn’t we just go out into the woods?”
Blake turned to him. “I’m going to duct tape your mouth shut, then I want you to talk to me.”
Michael just stared—the old, lined face, which would surely split into a grin at any moment now to reveal Blake’s inappropriate sense of humor. But he didn’t smile; he only gazed at Michael with those foggy eyes.
“Don’t fight me on this,” Blake said, a hand entering the inside pocket of his jacket. “You wanted to learn.”
“Yeah, but…” Warily, Michael watched his movements.
“Trust me,” Blake said, producing a nearly depleted roll of duct tape. He scratched around its surface to find the cutoff point.
Michael trusted the man. If anyone in this world actually wanted to help him—and had succeeded in doing so until now—it was Louis Blake.
But…duct tape? Seriously?
When Michael’s mouth had been sealed shut, Blake positioned him toward the edge of the cliff.
“We’re going to practice some techniques to make you more aware of the present moment. This should help you unlock the voice inside your head. To transmit it. Are you with me so far?”
“Mn-hmm,” Michael said, his voice coming out muffled.
“Then close your eyes, and follow my words.”
It wasn’t easy. Over the next ten minutes, Blake issue the same advice in a dozen different forms. He spoke in his telepathic voice.
Your thoughts wander. Pull yourself back to your breaths.
I want pure mental stillness, so I can sense it like I can smell the mist coming off the waterfall.
You’re thinking. Don’t think. Just feel.
At one point, Michael wanted to rip off the duct tape, whirl around, and accuse Blake of reading his thoughts, which the old man had explicitly stated was an impossible thing for any telepath to do. Blake must have sensed the turmoil inside Michael, because he issued his strictest advice yet.
If your mind can’t exist in the present moment, it will fail at combat telepathy.
Michael sighed, shook his head, and kept breathing. He kept focusing on his breaths. In, out, in, out. It was as boring as watching a wall of paint dry in the sun. Ten minutes went by. It felt like an hour.
Your mental voice wants to defeat you.
Another ten minutes went by. They were going to miss breakfast altogether. The paint wasn’t even close to dry.
There is victory in silence.
Yet another ten minutes went by. Michael sensed, in a distant way, that he had to pee.
Then, something shifted.
Michael once more imagined a wall of white paint drying in the sun. He saw—with the kind of fascination one might feel on a mild hallucinogenic drug—the way the light flung its yellowish tint across the sheet of hardening white paint, making it sparkle. The image was so vivid behind his eyelids he felt he could reach out and smear the paint with his finger.
He opened his eyes. The landscape radiated color more intensely than before. This time, Michael felt his mind send invisible tendrils across the land, weaving them through the forest, making them crawl up the sides of cliffs like vines. He became one with the soil, the leaves, and the rock.
Good, Blake sent. Your mind is quiet and still.
Michael breathed out heavily as if to say, Thank God, finally. His eyes dried in the wind, and he blinked to find cold tears kissing his eyelids. He brought himself back to his breaths.
Every day, Blake sent, we walk around immersed in a waterfall of our own thoughts. It gushes over us, cold as ice, drowning us, invading our senses.
The combat telepath cannot function within this space. It’s too loud, too cold, too torrential inside that waterfall. He may be a killer, but deep down, he is a gentle soul capable of watching moss breathe on a rock’s surface—of becoming one with that moss.
Just when Michael thought Blake was beginning to sound ridiculous, the old man summed up his advice neatly.
Find the space behind the waterfall. Live in that space.
When it’s time to strike, you will leap into the waterfall and emerge unscathed on the other side. You will not fall with the water. You will fly with the birds.
Michael felt hands grabbing his arms. Not just one pair of hands, but two. Blinking away the dryness, he edged sideways to see who was restraining him. He found Dominic, grinning at him behind his left shoulder, and Blake, frowning sympathetically behind his right.
“Better scream for help,” Dominic said. “But no one’ll hear you through that duct tape.”
Michael resisted. His limbs were no longer under his control. They must have used a telepathic trick to make him go weak. Or the meditation had sapped away his resolve. Dominic and Blake easily dragged him to the edge of the cliff, where the sudden emptiness in front of him felt so expansive it threatened to swallow him up forever.
He let out a muffled shout as they tossed him over the edge.
No, he wanted to scream. What are you doing?
The words remained trapped in his mind as he soared through the cool mountain air. His arms flailed, his body tipped. The world rushed up to meet him. Even now, it came across as wild and rugged and beautiful. The rush of the waterfall filled his ears. His heart hammered in his chest, and he could hear it despite the sounds of wind and water.
He was going to die.
The small pond formed by the waterfall wasn’t in the right spot. Would it have mattered? The water appeared shallow. It might not have broken his fall anyway.
Panicking, he screamed through the duct tape.
Help!
Gravity made his body tip in such a way that his legs were above his head. Landing this way would break his neck first. At least it would be quick.
Please help! Somebody!
He slammed into the grass with an anticlimactic thump.
And then he opened his eyes.
“Push it out,” Blake was shouting at Dominic, who had fallen to his knees.
Michael tried to make sense of the scene. He was still alive, for one, which meant the fall had been an illusion caused by Blake, maybe with support from Dominic. But it had come at a cost.
Blake was staggering, gripping his head. From the way he was wincing, he was obviously in a great deal of pain. Dominic had suffered the worst of whatever had happened—he was bent over on his knees, clasping his ears as if to protect them from a ship’s blowhorn sounding only inches away from his head. Yet, the only noise he could hear was the whispering of the breez
e and the sighs of the waterfall nearby.
Michael watched them in stunned silence. Then it occurred to him that his mouth was still sealed with duct tape. He ripped it off.
“What did you do?” he asked. “I know it—it wasn’t real, but…”
Dominic pushed up, shooting Michael a murderous glare.
“You probably scared the shit out of the entire town,” he said.
“No chance,” Blake said, waving away Dominic’s concern. “We’re too far. It didn’t reach.”
“What didn’t reach?” Michael asked.
Blake slipped his pack of cigarettes out of his jacket packet. He spoke as he lit one up and put it to his mouth. “Congratulations…” When he puffed on the cigarette, his entire body seemed to settle. “When you screamed for help, you did it telepathically.”
“And recklessly,” Dominic said, “though I can’t say that’s your fault.” He gave Blake a furious look. “Gulch isn’t that far away, old man.”
Blake nodded. “It was risky, but let’s see if it worked.”
They studied Michael.
What? Michael sent.
Blake smiled. Dominic shrugged.
“Congrats,” Dominic said, turning toward the path leading to Gulch. “Now let’s go get breakfast.”
As they were driving back to town—Dominic having chosen to ride a small, rusty ATV he had borrowed from Reggie—Michael learned how to have a full telepathic conversation. Not once did he or Blake open their mouths.
Something’s bothering you, Blake sent.
Michael shook his head. I’m excited. I’m glad you taught me this.
Still. Something’s eating at you. Is it your brother? I’m sorry for your loss, Michael. I hope you know it wasn’t your fault.
It’s not that.
You can tell me. Is someone here in Gulch giving you trouble?
Michael was silent for a moment.
You’ll learn, Blake sent, how to sense shifts in peoples’ emotions. For example, I know I just hit the nail on the head. One of our people is bothering you. Making you feel threatened. Is it Warren? Elkin? Blake glanced at him, eyebrow raised. Is it a girl?
Ascendant- Nation of Nowhere Page 12
