Boy watched, fascinated, as the lines reached the kneeling man. His body twitched, he gasped. He seemed lit up like a firework display.
Neither woman saw anything unusual at all. They carried on praying as if everything was normal. As soon as he noticed this, Boy felt an entirely novel sensation, as if he had been looking at a picture upside-down and had suddenly seen it right way up for the first time. There was far more to life than he had suspected. There was power beyond imagination. He could feel it prickle at the edges of his being, a tiny hint of the potential surging underfoot.
Boy took a ragged breath. He could feel his body starting to shut down. He hadn’t had any feeling below the waist since he’d first regained consciousness, and the constant headache had increased its assault during the couple of hours it had taken them to get him out of the hospital, wake up the preacher and get to the church. He could feel himself losing the fight with the part of him that had taken control when he’d killed Pop. It was over, either way. He was about to die. What did any of it matter?
It’s a curious fact of human nature that, for some individuals, when death comes—even when all hope seems completely lost—there still remains an instinctive, raging desire to live. As the energy continued to flow, Boy called out to it with all of the strength he had left, what little of it there was. He slumped forward and fell out of the wheelchair, hitting the ground hard. He heard Mom gasp. Even Loretta shut up for a blessed moment. Jesse gasped too, but it was a sound of shock and disbelief. The energy pouring into him had been abruptly cut off. He turned in confusion and watched the dying child, lying twisted on the polished floor.
Boy’s face was a ghastly gray white, his hair plastered to his forehead with cold sweat. He managed to slide his arms over his head and put both palms flat onto the floor. The instant he did so, the lines of energy—which had pulsed away from the altar toward him—raced up to his fingertips and entered his body like a million miniature lightning strikes.
Loretta started rapidly crossing herself as Boy’s body twisted and writhed. Rev. Jesse looked on aghast, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. Mom sat perfectly still, her eyes shining with tears as she looked on.
The energy flow lasted for about fifteen seconds. That was how long it took for Boy to die and be reborn into his new life. The color returned to his face, his body seemed almost to shine with an inner light as he pushed himself up from the floor and dragged his body over to the nearest chair, leaning against it. His legs were still useless, but he no longer cared. The throb of the headache had stopped abruptly. He may have been a crippled twelve-year-old boy, but at that moment he knew for an absolute certainty, he was the most powerful being on the planet. He started to laugh.
Loretta finally found her voice again.
“It’s a miracle,” she said, but she sounded a little dubious, looking over at Rev. Jesse, who was sitting on the altar steps, breathing heavily, gaping like a beached fish. It was hardly how she’d imagined it. Other healings—like Joe’s asthma, or Amy’s bowel problems—had only occurred after much laying on of hands by Rev. Jesse, accompanied by a great deal of loud praying and praising. This time, the preacher hadn’t even gotten around to touching the boy. Still, a miracle was a miracle, right? She raised her hands, palms up.
“Hallelujah” she said, her voice slightly watery at first, but strengthening as she repeated the familiar words. “Hallelujah, praise Jesus, praise the Lord.”
The boy looked her way. Her throat dried up a little. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. She didn’t like it one little bit, no sir. She made herself look away, turning her head heavenward.
“Hallelujah,” she said again. “hallelu-,”
She stopped suddenly. Her throat closed as if a vice had been applied to it and was being rapidly tightened. She took a short breath, then another. The third attempt failed as no air could make its way through the passages which had squeezed together inside her neck. Her hands fluttered in panic and she looked left and right for help. Rev. Jesse seemed to have lost any ability to move or think. The boy’s mother was smiling and crying, her eyes fixed on the miracle of her son, back from the brink of death.
Loretta took a few stumbling steps toward the woman, but before she got halfway there, the edges of her vision beginning to fog, her neck suddenly snapped and her head jerked back. For a second, her body stood there. From the front, she gave the illusion of being headless—it was only from behind that her head was visible, hanging like a heavy bag of shopping between her shoulder blades. Her lifeless body fell heavily, landing directly in front of Rev. Jesse.
Her body’s last unconscious action—evacuating her capacious bowels—finally galvanized the young preacher into action. He got up, and stepping over the corpse, walked over to Boy, stopping a few feet away.
“Give it back,” he said, his voice trembling with indignation. “That’s power sent by God for his true ministers and you have no right. You have no right. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!”
His voice was shrill and bordering on hysterical. Boy started to laugh at the comical sight of the red-faced apoplectic preacher almost dancing with rage in front of him. But he tired of it quickly and reached out a hand. He felt his awareness race toward the direction his hand indicated. He thought of what he wanted to happen.
Rev. Jesse screamed in pain and clasped both hands to his head. Blood began to stream from his nose.
“Sorry,” said Boy. “First try. Think that might have been a bit clumsy. Still,” he waved a hand at Loretta’s corpse, “it could’ve been worse. Now, be quiet a moment.”
The preacher moved his hands slowly away from his head as the pain receded to an almost bearable level.
“What do you want?” he managed to say.
“The money,” said Boy, simply. “All of it.” He looked around the huge building, its opulent furnishings, thirty-foot high stained glass windows and state of the art sound system. “Who bankrolled you? You’re a little young to be living in a mansion.”
Jesse looked to one side as if thinking, then spoke up.
“Donations, mostly,” he said, “charity - aaaagh!” his hands flew up to his face as his nose shattered spontaneously, as if a heavyweight boxer had landed the perfect jab. Without gloves.
“The truth, please,” said Boy, calmly. “Strange as it may sound, I seem to know when you’re lying to me. So don’t test me again. I’m guessing Daddy has a few dollars, right?”
The tears streamed down the preacher’s face as he held a silk handkerchief to his ruined nose. His voice had a strange, pinched nasal sound to it when he spoke again.
“Well, yes, of course. I had help. No shame in that. My father wants to help do God’s work, he wants to help me bring the light of Jesus back to—.”
“Spare me the sales pitch,” said Boy, “just take me to him.”
“I can’t just—.” The Reverend Jesse Newman stopped and looked at Boy. “Ok,” he said in a small voice.
Mom stood up, her smile faltering a little.
“Go start the car,” Boy commanded. “Jesse here will help me into my wheelchair and bring me out.”
Mom hesitated. She looked at her son. Alive. Conscious. Speaking. She went to him, knelt and took his hand. She opened her mouth to say his name, but he suddenly squeezed her hand hard enough to make her yelp in pain.
“Don’t say it,” he said. “That’s not my name. He’s dead. That’s not who I am any more. Now, go and get the fucking car.”
Chapter 26
Las Vegas
Present Day
Dawn in Las Vegas was fairly spectacular, but criminally under-appreciated. No one went to Vegas for the view, and those few vacationers who were still awake were in no condition to appreciate the various shades of orange, yellow and red that crept across the desert, illuminating Red Rock Canyon in a blaze of color. The windows of the massive hotels reflected the splendor of nature, and despite their size, looked comparatively insignificant and temporary. A few workers driving, or walking toward the
Strip to start cleaning up the mess from the night before stopped for a moment to drink in the sight, but most had stopped truly seeing it, after their first few dozen weary journeys.
Westlake was in the belly of a helicopter looking at maps of Mexico City. He didn’t know it was dawn, just that it was 5:37am by his watch and he’d been told he would arrive at Las Vegas just before 6am.
His team had flown in to Vegas the night before, with instructions to meet him at the airport, 7:30am sharp. Westlake had to pick up Walter Ford first. He had little time for Ford, dismissing him as a lightweight pleasure-seeker who didn’t like to get his hands dirty. But, to make this mission a success, the man’s talent for temporarily re-shaping faces was a necessity.
Twenty minutes after the chopper had landed, Westlake pushed the buzzer on Walt’s door. He waited and then buzzed again. After a couple of minutes, he picked up a handful of stones and threw them at the master bedroom window. Nothing. The security guard’s hut had a good view of Westlake as he threw another handful of stones. The guard had responded to the Secret Service ID as expected, but even a minimum pay grunt might start to wonder what was going on.
He walked back to the front door, then—just as he passed behind a palm tree—took two quick steps and launched himself lithely up to the top of the fence, boosting himself over it and landing with virtually no noise on the hard-packed earth on the other side. He unholstered his Glock in a smooth motion so practiced it had become automatic.
The sliding door leading into the house from the yard was unlocked. Westlake wasn’t surprised. Unlike his neighbors, Walter Ford could rip apart an intruder with a gesture. Without even bothering getting out of bed. Other Manna users were often similarly relaxed about their home security arrangements.
The house was cool. No one lived without AC in Las Vegas, and August had been hot, with highs of 118F causing roads to bubble and tourists to dehydrate and end up in hospital at the rate of dozens a day.
Westlake opened the fridge. Fresh salad and lots of beer.
“Ford?” he called. “Ford? It’s Westlake. Come down, you have work to do.” Mason had called ahead, but apparently the old fool wasn’t answering his phone. Westlake had been told to shoot him in the kneecaps once he was done, as punishment for his lack of communication. Ford was to be instructed that he wasn’t allowed to use Manna to fix it for twelve hours. That was gonna hurt. Westlake smiled.
“Ok, I’m coming up. If you’ve been drinking, time to get sober.”
Still no response. Westlake started to consider the possibility that Ford was sick. This worried him a little. Not that he gave a soft shit whether the man died in a pool of his own vomit. Just as long as he wasn’t infectious. Any illness that Manna couldn’t deal with would have to be very serious. Westlake had certainly never heard of one.
He nudged open the door of the master bedroom with the toe of one steel-capped shoe. He flicked on the light. Ford was asleep, his satin sheets covering his lazy, privileged, pampered body. Westlake snorted in contempt.
“Get up, Ford, and stop wasting my time.”
The sheet continued to rise and fall in a maddeningly constant rhythm that denoted deep sleep. Westlake walked over and pulled the sheet away, ready to fire a round into the pillow, just to scare the crap out of the time-wasting fraud.
The body turned as the sheet came away and Westlake found himself looking at something close enough to Walt to give him pause, yet strange enough that he immediately thumbed the safety off on the Glock.
The thing on the bed—a homunculus, it must be, although probably the best Westlake had ever seen—turned onto its back and grinned at the intruder. The grin revealed a line of small stones and pebbles arranged in a symmetrical way to approximate teeth. Uncharacteristically, Westlake hesitated, thrown off-balance by that grin.
The creature’s hand shot out and grabbed his genitals, squeezing with inhuman strength. Westlake fired and the homunculus collapsed into a pile of dirt that ruined the sheets and the Persian rug beside the bed. Westlake stood for a second longer, seemingly considering what to do next. Then, satisfied that his only option—considering one of his testicles was sliding down his leg while the other was just a flattened lump of gristle—was to pass out, he did so.
From New York, Mason watched the homunculus fall apart and Westlake hit the floor. He said nothing, but his right eyebrow twitched slightly. He picked up his phone and dialed another Las Vegas number.
“Barrington,” he whispered. “Go to Walter Ford’s house. Make sure your Manna reserves are topped up. You’ll find Westlake there. He needs some medical attention, then he needs a new face. It would seem Ford is unavailable.”
He listened for a moment while watching Westlake as he showed signs of regaining consciousness. The man was obviously in absolute agony, barely moving as he tried to sit up. That’s what came of insufficient preparation.
“What’s that?” he whispered. “Oh, no hurry. Give it an hour.” An hour would be long enough for Westlake to remember to prepare better in future.
Mason couldn’t remember the last time someone had left his organization and lived. When he thought about it, he realized that was because it was yet to happen. Uncharacteristically brave of Walter Ford. He would turn his attention to tracking him down, once they’d found Meera Patel.
***
Westlake was two hours late meeting his team. He said nothing other than the code sentence and response and they knew better than to ask. There was no pain after Barrington had used Manna to treat his injuries and he had betrayed no anger at being made to wait before being healed. Westlake’s face was now that of Seb Varden’s, but his people had been very carefully picked and extensively trained. Not one of the five men or three women said anything or betrayed any surprise at their leader’s appearance. They just followed him to the waiting helicopter and awaited instructions.
Westlake briefed the unit during the flight to Mexico City. The chopper displayed no livery or numbers giving away its identity, but its cruising speed of over two hundred miles per hour put it in a small but elite group. The fuel tank was slightly bigger than standard, meaning they wouldn’t have to stop en route, but the payoff was a slower flight. In all, they were in the air for eight hours. Six hours sleep—all of them used it, as regular sleep was a rare luxury while on a mission—thirty minutes for food, then a comprehensive briefing before landing.
By the time the chopper came to rest at a little-used military facility just outside Mexico City, all members of the unit were clear as to their roles and objective. Meera Patel was to be captured alive, and Westlake—with Varden’s face—was the best chance of achieving that objective. Every team member had a cellphone which doubled as a walkie-talkie, with the unit’s channel constantly open, relaying information to the invisible earpieces they all wore. All were armed with silenced weapons, three of them also carried briefcases containing quick-to-assemble sniper guns, equipped with fast-acting tranquilizer darts.
Changed into civilian clothes, and arriving in separate taxis, some alone, others paired up, Westlake’s elite unit of killers checked into hotels, guesthouses and hostels picked out in advance. Their locations circled the area where Meera Patel’s singing voice had been detected. On both occasions, the alarm had been triggered in the morning. Each of them went to bed early.
Dawn next day saw the team take their places, loosely covering an area of three square miles. Mason’s program would instantly notify each of them when triggered, so they could move into place, keeping their distance, ready to act if Westlake’s approach should fail. He had warned them that the actual Sebastian Varden might be in play. If so, three team members were to engage Varden while the rest extracted Patel. If they got very lucky indeed, Varden wouldn’t be involved. Westlake resented relying on luck, but he knew this part of the equation was out of his hands.
The first three days passed without incident.
On day four, they got very lucky indeed.
Chapter 27
An hour after Kate left, the door opened and Seb walked in. Mee threw her arms around him and they stood like that for a few minutes, saying nothing.
Finally, Seb pulled away, looked at Mee and kissed her.
“Tequila?” he said, tasting it on her.
“Bit early for that,” she said. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“Yeah, you’re funny,” he said.
“Seven days,” she said, as she opened the cupboard and got the beans.
“I know,” he said. “Seemed like an hour or so to me.”
He looked at the table as Mee went through the calming ritual of grinding beans, boiling water, warming the pot and letting it steep for a few minutes before pouring. He could have just used Manna and saved the time, but he appreciated the importance of maintaining some activities regular humans indulged in.
There were two glasses on the table.
“Company?” he said.
“Kate,” said Mee, pouring two mugfuls and sitting down. Seb sat where Kate had been sitting for most of the night. He held the mug to his nose and savored the smell of the freshly ground beans. Somehow, knowing that some genuine effort had gone into making it, knowing the beans had been grown on nearby hills, picked, dried, roasted, then ground and brewed in a process repeated millions of times every day…well, it made it taste better. Seb knew it couldn’t taste better in reality, but that didn’t stop him from believing it did.
Mee sat opposite and sipped her coffee.
“She knows,” she said. “I told her everything. It can’t just be you and me against the world anymore. If you can’t stop yourself disappearing, we need to talk about Mason.”
Seb looked at her. She was never afraid of confronting problems. Being held captive by Mason’s people, having her finger cut off, thinking she would never see Seb again—and would live the rest of her life as the prisoner of the coldest bastard she’d ever come across—it had all added up to the most terrifying experience of her life. But she had no hesitation in bringing up his name, no thought of avoiding thinking about the man who had caused her such pain. Seb loved her for that.
World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine Page 18
