Ascendant: The Complete Edition

by Richard Denoncourt

  Dominic watched from a grove of trees, shaking his head in disappointment. Those who stayed in Gulch would either die or get sold into slavery eventually, no question about it. Anyone that stupid deserved what was coming to them.

  Michael was right about evacuating Gulch. Tomorrow morning, at first light, those who wanted to leave would have one last chance to do so with an army that would protect them. Let Archibald Frugin have the town, see how he liked managing the chaos surely on its way.

  All Dominic needed now was a good night’s rest. Archibald didn’t have the stones to strike against Michael and his soldiers, so no worries there. And by tomorrow afternoon, there would be no one left to attack anyway.

  He turned away from the barns, then stopped and sniffed the air. The heavy scent of woodsmoke had filled it, too pervasive and sour to be a bonfire.

  It reminded him of smoke from a battlefield, and it was coming from the center of town.

  He broke into a sprint toward it.

  Chapter 14

  “Where’d Mike go?” Eli said, looking around the room.

  He was about to pour Ian another shot, but Ian waved away the bottle, spilling some of the whiskey. The men around him howled in protest.

  “That’s alcohol abuse,” someone shouted. “Get it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, shut up,” Ian said, sliding out of his seat. “Where the hell did Michael go? That’s a long-ass piss if I ever heard of one.”

  “Go check outside,” one of the soldiers said.

  Someone plunked a coin into the jukebox, bringing to life a song by Miles Davis. The trumpet, loud and shrill, hit an ominous note. Ian hurried. “Whatever,” he said. “I need some fresh air anyway. Let’s go, Eli.”

  “But I’m drinking with these guys.”

  “Get your fat ass off the seat.”

  “All right, all right.”

  Eli took one more shot of whiskey as he got up to follow Ian outside.

  They stood outside, where it was quiet, the night air dry and warm. A relief from the clammy inside of the café.

  “Nice night, huh?” Eli said.

  “I don’t sense him.”

  “What?”

  “Michael. I don’t sense him, which means he’s blocking us, or something’s wrong.”

  “Could be the booze,” Eli said, swaying slightly on his feet. “You know how it messes with us. It sure messed with me tonight. I didn’t ’spect to get this drunk.”

  Ian shook his head. “Hell, I’m not even buzzed, and I still can’t pick up a signal.”

  “Maybe the cripple’s with him.”

  Ian shoved him, hard. “How many times I gotta tell you to watch it with that spiteful label. He’s a smart kid, all right?”

  Eli laughed. “Fine, fine. Be still, O angry one, and let us go back inside and pound those shots. I’m sure Mike’s fine. He is an ascendant, ain’t he?”

  Ian was biting his lower lip and looking down at the ground.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see if he’s at the house. Maybe he met up with Arielle. We need to make sure.”

  “You know what they’re doing,” Eli said, placing his hands on his hips and making an obscene gesture.

  “Come on, you crazy bastard,” Ian said, waving him along. They made their way across town to Silo Street, Eli singing like the happy drunk that he was, Ian wondering why something about this night felt so wrong.

  Arielle hadn’t come by the café at all, which had been Ian’s first clue that something was up. He figured she was angry at Michael for whatever reason, which could explain why Michael had left so early. Maybe he went to talk to her and fix things.

  But that didn’t explain the tray of bread.

  He’d noticed the lint and dirt on them, despite Michael’s attempt to cover it up by tossing the rolls at the men. Now that Ian had fresh air to think about it, and didn’t have to listen to all those annoying army songs, the pieces were beginning to fall into place. It wasn’t like Arielle to not be able to handle herself in the kitchen. She wouldn’t drop a tray like that.

  A mental projection of what might have happened streamed through Ian’s mind: Arielle spilling a tray of bread buns and not picking them up—but why? Maybe because there was someone standing behind her. Someone intent on making her disappear without raising an alarm.

  And afterward, maybe that same person had placed the rolls back on the tray to cover up what had happened, so Michael wouldn’t become suspicious. So none of them would.

  “I don’t know about this,” Ian said. “Come on, let’s find Mike.”

  He grabbed Eli’s shirt and flung him forward, and a moment later, the two boys were sprinting across Gulch.

  Chapter 15

  At least four buildings in the center of town had been torched. Boughs of black smoke blossomed upward to merge with the dark sky. Blake ran but was stopped by a coughing attack. Maybe tonight would be the night he’d been waiting for—his last on this wretched earth.

  Dominic stopped beside him.

  “Go without me,” Blake said as he hacked blood and phlegm out of his lungs.

  Dominic gave a single nod and fled. Townspeople were running and screaming, a few shouting that this was Blake’s work; that Blake and his men had torched the town to force everyone out.

  A farmer ran toward Blake wielding a knife, a thirst for violence burning in his narrowed eyes.

  “You did this,” he said.

  Blake tripped him, pulled the knife out of his hand, and slammed a fist across his jaw. The man turned to putty on the sidewalk.

  As townspeople watched, mouths agape in shock at what he’d just done, Blake tossed down the knife and shouted, “We’re under attack! Grab weapons! Defend yourselves!”

  They scattered, and the smoke in the air cause the worst coughing fit Blake had ever experienced. When he recovered, he closed his eyes and reached.

  Mike, can you hear me?

  Michael had to be near the Cold War Café. That was where he and his men had planned to be all night, drinking and celebrating despite Blake’s warnings that they should wait until they had reached the NDR. Blake hoped to God that Michael hadn’t consumed any alcohol tonight—that he, Eli, and Ian were sober.

  The café was fifteen minutes away on foot if he was running. But that was the problem. Blake was in no condition to run, not with the smoke making him feel like he was inhaling crushed glass.

  Trying to keep himself composed, he limped up the street as fast as he could, releasing great, shivering coughs flecked with blood.

  Michael, he sent. Wake up!

  I’m your shield. I’m your shield.

  William let the words run through his mind in a loop. He sat against the wall of the darkened living room with his knees up by his chest, the way he’d been instructed by his mother. This wasn’t even their house; it was where Michael lived.

  His devil’s foot, encased in its bulky black boot, was turned slightly inward and ached after just minutes in this cramped position. His mother had instructed him not to move, just to concentrate on the words.

  I’m your shield. I’m your shield.

  Around him the house was so dark, all he could see were two squares of starlight in the windows across the room. That was how his mother had wanted it. She had wanted him to stay in the shadows and focus.

  This was going to be a bad night. And yet he shouldn’t be scared. He was a shield. He had to be brave.

  Light, springy footsteps reached his ears as someone descended the stairs.

  William held his breath.

  Ian reached the front door of their house on Silo Street but didn’t open it. “Do you smell it now?”

  Eli was panting and looking around himself.

  “Burning wood,” he said. “Yeah, I smell it.”

  It was heavier now than before. Ian looked out over the trees at the faint, unmistakable glow of fire in the distance.

  “We’re under attack,” he said. “Gulch is under attack!”

  “Then
let’s get in there and get our guns,” Eli said.

  He pushed Ian aside and grabbed the doorknob. Ian tried to hold him back, because he knew Eli got like this when he was drunk—impulsive, short-sighted, vulnerable in a way Ian would never allow himself to be.

  “Hold on,” Ian said, “My telepathy’s shot to hell. There might be someone—”

  A blast shattered the door into pieces, sending Eli flying backward, over the front steps. He landed on the grass with a wet thump. Ian ducked off to the side and observed what had happened. His friend had been torn apart by a shotgun. Marbles of blood began to seep out of his chest and face, darkening his shirt.

  Eli sputtered and reached for Ian.

  “No!” Ian shouted.

  He rolled out of the way as the dark figure in the doorway sent another blast into the patch of grass right next to him. A chik chik as the attacker chambered a shell.

  Ian’s reaction was immediate. He ducked around the corner of the house, touched fingers to his temples, and focused.

  Nothing. His telepathy had abandoned him. Or he was being blocked.

  William.

  “Don’t move,” a man said behind him, a voice he recognized.

  Ian’s heart leaped into his throat. He clenched his teeth.

  “Put your hands up, Meacham. I got you now.”

  Ian did as he’d been told, swallowing as his stomach seemed to plummet. How could he have let himself be caught off-guard like this? Especially by an ignorant redneck like Warren? He wanted to shout and curse in fury.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Warren said.

  “Spite yourself, you piece of shit.”

  A raspy, grumbling sound came from Warren’s throat. He was laughing. In earlier days, he would have swung at Ian for a remark like that. But the man had changed. He was more patient now, knew exactly what he was doing.

  “Move.”

  Warren prodded him with a gun, probably a pump-action shotgun like the one that had blown through the front door. Ian walked slowly around to the yard. The sight of Eli lying on the ground, bleeding out in the dark, almost enraged him. Almost. He had to contain himself.

  He studied the figure standing on the front step, the one who had shot Eli.

  It was Charlotte, and she was dressed like a man tonight: black sweatpants and a dark, long-sleeved shirt with a utility vest, a belt over her shoulder from which there hung a strip of shotgun shells. Her hair had been pulled back into a tight bun. She held the shotgun at shoulder level and aimed it at him, using perfect form.

  “Why?” Ian said.

  She lifted her eyebrows as if to say, Isn’t it obvious?

  “Only the strong survive out here,” she said. Another chik-chik as she chambered a shell. “If you’re a woman, well—you do what you can.”

  “Wait for me, now,” a man said behind him.

  Ian whipped around to see who had spoken. A silhouette of a man walked across the yard, taking quick, confident steps. Ian watched him, trying to make out his face beneath all that shadow.

  “Remember me?” the man said in a phony, pleasant voice. He ignited a flashlight and shined it up at himself. He carried a bulky weapon strapped over one shoulder. A familiar face, one Ian had never expected to see again. His entire body tensed.

  He had seen this man before, somewhere beyond the mountains—in Praetoria, maybe?

  “You don’t remember, do you?” the man said.

  He came to stand in front of Ian, making sure his grinning face stayed awash with light. Yeah, Ian had definitely seen him before, with his wavy hair and thin, aquiline nose, and those narrowed, intelligent eyes. It was the Type II from Praetoria he had shot a few times in the chest. If only Michael had let him finish the job.

  “I take it by the sudden widening of your eyes that you finally figured it out,” the man said.

  “You—you were dead.”

  The man shook his head. As he did, vivid memories flooded Ian’s mind of that night in the slaver settlement. Dominic had mentioned that the Type II standing before him had to be an agent from the People’s Republic. If that was truly the case, then the attack on Gulch wasn’t a raid or a bandit attack.

  It was much, much worse.

  The man took three steps back and lifted the weapon, and at that moment, seeing the weird, boxy snout of the gun and the hose connecting it to the tank hanging off his right shoulder, Ian suddenly knew from where the flames in the distance had come.

  The man aimed the flamethrower at Ian, the fiery tongue at its tip writhing.

  Something hissed—not the flamethrower at all. Ian winced, recognizing the sound. It had come from the trees across the yard.

  The man dropped to one knee. The flamethrower slipped out of his hands and fell to the grass with a thump. He glanced up at Ian, a frown of confusion and then of anger contorting his face before he toppled onto the grass.

  “No,” Charlotte cried.

  She fired her shotgun into the distance—at a figure standing at the edge of the yard.

  Ian was too stunned to move. The man he had almost killed in Praetoria was now almost certainly dead. A bullet had gone through his neck. He lay on his side, eyes wide open and blank. It had happened so quickly, and Ian had been so ready to die in a burst of flames.

  He ducked as more bullets whizzed across the yard. The person who had saved Ian’s life was firing at the house. By then, Charlotte had disappeared inside and Warren was nowhere in sight.

  Almost immediately, a weight lifted off Ian’s mind. His telepathy was back. Charlotte must have taken her son out through the back door.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, Ian studied the figure jogging across the yard. Was it Michael who had come to save him? Or maybe Dominic?

  No—the man carried a hunting rifle with a scope and a silencer, an odd mix, one of Reggie’s contraptions. But this wasn’t Reggie at all; this person was taller, and Ian recognized the awkward way he kicked his legs forward as he ran.

  “Pete,” he said.

  Peter tossed the rifle away and motioned for Ian to follow him. They ran over to Eli’s side.

  Eli was sputtering from all the blood in his lungs. Even in the dark, with his wounds hidden beneath the shreds of his shirt, Ian could tell he wasn’t going to make it.

  “Apply pressure,” Peter said. “I’ll call Midas.”

  He touched his right temple. His eyes slid shut—and then flew open as a large hand grabbed the front of his shirt.

  “You shouldn’t—have—left,” Eli said, choking on each word, struggling to pull Peter down close to him.

  “I’m sorry,” Peter said, pressing down on the wounds.

  Ian pressed along with him, but it was hopeless. Eli’s mind was fading.

  “What—what are you doing here?” Eli asked Peter.

  “I heard Mike was back,” Peter said. “I wanted to surprise him.”

  As Peter spoke, his mental voice rang out: Midas we need you, Midas we need you in front of our house, Eli’s dying, come quickly…

  Ian shook his head. It was no use.

  “Damn it,” Eli said.

  He faced away from them, squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t have long.

  “Oh, no,” Ian said. A sob broke free, and then he was weeping. “Oh God, Eli. Don’t die.”

  Tears slid down Peter’s cheeks. “Go in peace, brother,” he said, placing a hand over Eli’s heart.

  The words seemed to bring Eli comfort. The skin around his eyes crinkled with affection.

  “Wish—I wish...” he choked. They were his last words.

  Peter and Ian took him into their arms and wept.

  Chapter 16

  There was fire everywhere.

  Smoke poured up into the sky from the glowing buildings set ablaze downtown. Reggie was somewhere inside the burning town hall. That’s what Dominic had heard, anyway. A man had run out, screaming and calling for help, and Dominic had grabbed him and pinned him to the pavement, shouting words into his face, “Is he in there
? Speak to me, is he in there?” The man explained what had happened. Reggie had gone in there to save lives. Reggie and his civic responsibility bullshit.

  When the man with the flamethrower came to the town hall, all he’d had to do was pump the flames in through the front door. He’d brought over a hundred soldiers, and they had poured into the town as soon as the first fires were lit. Men everywhere, dressed in dark uniforms. But now, they littered the street, bodies Dominic and Reggie had scattered like a boot-kicking through a pile of leaves. Reggie had used his pistols to kill dozens of them in minutes.

  Then they lost each other in the smoke.

  “Reggie,” Dominic shouted as he burst into the smoldering hot building. “Reggie, answer me!”

  Smoke entered his lungs immediately. The fire was eating away at the beams, the walls. Windows were bursting outward.

  Bodies lay all around him, charred and stinking. He ignored them, even the ones crawling to get out. They were beyond saving.

  “Reggie,” he screamed.

  A beam collapsed to his right. He was going to die here, and he didn’t even care. As long as he died with Reggie.

  No—he wanted to live with the man, not die with him.

  Flames crept up Dominic’s shirt, licked his face and neck. He didn’t care if all his skin melted off his bones. He buried his nose and mouth in the crook of his elbow and plowed forward through the smoke. He was going to find Reggie or die trying.

  And he did find him, almost certainly too late.

  Outside, Michael’s soldiers watched as Dominic carried Reggie slung over his shoulder. He laid him down across the street from the town hall as a section of its roof collapsed inward with a loud crack.

  “Get Midas Ford,” Dominic screamed. He pointed at a man and a woman. “You two, get the doctor, now.”

  The man frowned at Dominic and held the woman back. Dominic raised his half-burned face and glowered at the man with his good eye. The other one felt like lava.

  “Now, God damn it!”

  Startled, the man and the woman took off down the street toward the clinic.

  Dominic had found Reggie passed out in one of the back rooms. He’d been trying to drag a boy out toward the front. The boy had suffocated to death, probably long before Reggie had gotten to him. Stupid son of a bitch. Reggie was always putting others before himself. Dominic wanted to curse at him, but he couldn’t; he was too busy breathing into the man’s mouth and pumping his chest.