Convicted

by Kim Fielding

  “How do these people know where to look? Do they have a list of places Larry and I stayed?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Looking chagrined, Kurt blew out a puff of air. “Sorry. It’s not you I’m mad at.”

  The interchange with the clerk started off as unpleasantly as Des had expected, although at least it confirmed that he had nothing to do with the burglary. He couldn’t possibly have been a good enough actor to feign such outrage over damage to the motel. But the little man’s huff was no match for Kurt’s foul mood. Soon the local deputies arrived, and when one turned out to be a white woman and the other black man, Des almost laughed. The cops were polite. Kind, even. Kurt fed them an embroidered version of the road-trip-with-Irish-friend tale he’d given to the waitress, and the deputies ate it up. In fact, they kept apologizing to Des for treating a guest so poorly. “I promise you,” the woman said, “all Americans aren’t like that. Most of us are good, upstanding citizens.” Des deserved a bloody Oscar for keeping a straight face over that.

  In the end, the cops concluded that some stranger had probably driven through town in search of things to steal. They weren’t optimistic about catching anyone but promised to file a report. They also gave directions to the nearest store for replacing their items, in a town half an hour north.

  “Walmart?” Des read as they pulled into a parking lot. “What’s that?”

  “Jesus,” Kurt mumbled under his breath. Des had no idea why.

  It was a huge store, stocked with almost everything imaginable, and Kurt let Des browse the entire thing. That was fun. Des grabbed books and packages of snack foods, and he laughed when Kurt grumbled over the cheap quality of the clothing. “Still loads better than that bloody prison jumpsuit.”

  “I guess.”

  After shopping they ate Chinese food and, at Des’s suggestion, had ice cream for dessert. Ice cream! He hadn’t had that in almost twenty years, and it was even better than he remembered. Then Kurt found a pay phone and called his boss, who apparently had nothing useful to say.

  “Does he know how the thief knows where we are?” Des asked as they started the return drive to Roebuck Springs.

  “No. Or at least that’s what he says.”

  “How can you stand to work for someone who lies to you?” The question made Des wince as he recalled his recent epiphanies about Larry.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he has a reason to lie sometimes. He plans things out about ten steps ahead of the rest of us, and things usually work out well for him. I just have to trust he’s on the right side. He’s the one who convinced me to join the Bureau when I wasn’t much more than a junkie.”

  That was interesting. Des had assumed Kurt had independently made his decision to join, maybe as one step along the path of making better decisions. “He just came up to you and told you to become an agent?”

  “Almost. I was barely holding myself together, just enough to hang on to a job at a convenience store. I’d have a couple of drinks before work, sneak a few more during the shift, and then pop pills when I got home. Townsend used to come in to buy cigarettes, and he’d talk to me a little. Ask a lot of questions. Believe it or not, I’m not usually much of a talker—”

  Des laughed. “I believe it.”

  “Yeah. But Townsend has a way of pulling things out of you. Hell, a lot of the time he knows shit even if you didn’t tell him. About six months in, he offered me a job. I thought he was kidding at first. But… he wasn’t.”

  Although Des still felt uneasy about Townsend, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He turned on the radio, fiddled with the tuning until he found something that made Kurt smile, and then relaxed back in his seat. In a way, he was grateful for the burglary. It gave him something to think about other than the scene in the cemetery. Other than the insight into his own culpability.

  A couple of days later, they were searching the last of the outbuildings—the combined pump house and mechanics’ shed—when Kurt shouted triumphantly. He’d crammed himself into a narrow space behind a rusting piece of equipment and beside an empty wooden shelving unit that sagged severely. “Got a hit! Come here.”

  Useless as always, Des had been systematically dismantling and reassembling three ballpoint pens he’d stolen from the motel office. He’d used up all the ink from one of them already, doodling little cartoons onto the wooden walls: animals, people, trees, houses, silly little scenes. Now he dropped the pens and rushed to Kurt’s side.

  The shelving was in the way, but after Kurt and Des pushed with all their strength, its collapse created a space big enough for Kurt to work. He used a hammer to pound and tear at the wall, creating a hole, and then shined his flashlight inside. He swore.

  “It’s not there?” Des’s heart raced, and he kept checking over his shoulder as if Larry might be lurking nearby.

  “It is.” Kurt set down his tools and peeled off one of the cheap T-shirts he’d bought at Walmart.

  Despite the tension of the moment, Des was distracted by the revealed skin. It was lovely. Kurt was all wiry muscles and sinuous veins, and although the air was a bit chilly, a few droplets of sweat beaded on his nape. Des wanted to lick them away.

  “Not the time for it, Desmond.”

  “What?” Kurt gave him an irritated look.

  “Nothing. Sorry.”

  Kurt wrapped his hand in the shirt, reached into the hole, and slowly pulled back. He was holding a cedar cube roughly four inches on each side. The wood, once pinkish-orange, had aged to silvery gray, but the weird figures burned into it remained clear: little squiggles that seemed to move if you didn’t look straight at them.

  Des lurched to the opposite side of the room and vomited onto the crumbing concrete floor.

  By the time he’d recovered and rinsed his mouth with a swig of bottled water, Kurt had wrapped the box completely in the shirt and retrieved his tools. “First we need to get the fuck out of here, and then I’ll destroy this. We’ll be sleeping in Arkansas tonight.” He made a face as if there was something distasteful about that.

  Des didn’t want to see the box again; it brought up too many memories of horrific things he’d seen. No. Of horrific things he’d done. Larry had asked him to do these things and had lied about why, but Des chose to do them. Screams. Crying. The scent of fresh blood in the air, cloying and metallic.

  He was grateful that Kurt was the one who carried the wrapped box as they left the building and, later, kept it on his lap in the car. First, though, they stopped at the second cottage, where Kurt did a quick wash and put on a new shirt while Des tossed their newly purchased belongings into the Walmart suitcases and tucked them into the back seat. Des then checked them out of the travel lodge, sliding the key across the counter at the pleased-looking clerk. Des couldn’t stop himself from glaring at the man.

  “You know, racism’s an ugly thing. Thinking yourself superior to other people just because of the color of your skin or where your ancestors came from, that makes you ugly too.” He was going to end on that, but he realized it was nothing more than an insult. He could do better, couldn’t he?

  He looked the scowling clerk in the eyes. “I’m sorry. That was mean. I’m sorry someone hurt you or raised you wrong. I reckon you feel frustrated, maybe wishing your life had turned out differently, and I’m sorry for that as well—believe me, I know the feeling. I’ll tell you, though: hate shrivels the heart and burns you from inside. I think if you find a way to let go of it, you’ll be happier.”

  “Fuck you,” the clerk said. But there was no heat in it, and his gaze was uncertain.

  Des smiled at him. “Good luck to you.”

  Kurt drove until after nightfall before pulling off the highway and into a dense forest, traveling on a series of progressively smaller and bumpier roads. Des thought they might be lost, yet Kurt seemed confident. Finally, as if he’d received some hidden signal, Kurt stopped the car. He kept the engine running, with the headlights cutting into the gloom. They got out of the car, Kurt cradling
the shirt-covered box in his hands.

  For a few minutes he simply stood there, half illuminated by the headlight beam, half in shadow, staring at nothing Des could see. Something did a constant rush and tumble nearby, sending shivers down Des’s spine. “What’s that noise?” he asked, just loud enough to be heard over the idling motor.

  “Mississippi River.” Kurt jerked his chin forward, in the direction the car faced. Des couldn’t see the river but he could smell it, muddy and alive, like a great creature emerging from the Earth’s depths to slither across the land. He wondered what creatures lived in that river and in these woods—the sort of creatures the Bureau dealt with—and he shivered. Maybe he’d ask Kurt later.

  “Why are we here?”

  “To destroy the box.”

  “It’s bloody spooky here.”

  Kurt glanced at him over his shoulder. “It’s best done where I can draw on the power of the four elements. The river’s pretty damned powerful.” He shrugged. “And nobody’s likely to be spying on us here.”

  “Are you certain you know how to get rid of the thing without killing us or anyone else?” Larry had never mentioned destruction of the boxes, of course.

  “I’ve been briefed on it.”

  Lovely.

  As Des watched, Kurt carefully uncovered the box, tossed the T-shirt wrap onto the gravel road, and placed the box in a shallow puddle left by the earlier rain. He removed a small item from his front pocket; leaning close, Des saw that it was a matchbox. Kurt took out a single match and then began to recite some words in a singsong voice, repeating the same passage over and over.

  Des didn’t recognize the words or the language, but it made the hair on his nape rise and his skin tingle. A bitter taste settled on his tongue, remaining no matter how often he swallowed. His cock hardened, which was uncomfortable and strange and would have been embarrassing if Kurt had noticed. Among the trees, far past the beam of the headlights, things seemed to be moving. Like smoke or a roiling mist, except Des was certain that these things were alive. And he did not want to see them.

  It was the most terrifying experience of Des’s life, even worse than being captured by the Bureau, hearing Larry die, and being certain he was next. Yet Kurt remained strong-voiced and straight-backed, staring into the forest as if daring it to fight him.

  Suddenly the unlit match in Kurt’s fingers burst into flame. Des lurched back, startled, but Kurt didn’t move. He kept on chanting as the flame grew stronger and stronger, much brighter than a match should burn. Des had to squint. And then Kurt shouted one more word and tossed the match into the puddle.

  The water burned as if it were oil or gasoline, and although the box didn’t move, it seemed to be actively resisting the flames. Standing along the roadside in a wavering line was every man, woman, and child that Des had murdered, each of them exquisitely distinct yet insubstantial. Larry was there too, staring expressionlessly at Des and lifting one hand to gesture coolly, the same motion he’d made whenever he wanted Des to lift or move something heavy.

  Des’s legs shook. He was supposed to obey Larry’s command—or the command of whatever it was that impersonated him—and kick the box out of the puddle, saving it from the flames. Then, he knew, all the power that thrummed through the air would settle within him. He could overcome Kurt, take the car, and zoom away. Disabling the bloody tracking device would be easy with the magic running through him. He would be free. He could find the rest of the boxes. He could finish the plans Larry had begun, and then—

  “Stop it!” Des cried. “I won’t do that!”

  Kurt swung around to stare at him in shock, and as the puddle burned more fiercely, the flames overcame the box and destroyed it immediately.

  The fire rapidly died out, leaving Kurt and Des in the glare of the headlights with the Mississippi River calling out from beyond the trees.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Logically, the events of the past couple of days should have caused Kurt stress. And they did. He was particularly concerned about Des, who’d had some sort of crisis in the woods before staggering to the car and collapsing into the passenger seat. He’d fallen asleep even before Kurt was buckled in. Now Des’s snores punctuated the hum of the engine, the beat of the wipers, and the swoosh of the tires on damp pavement.

  Kurt thought about his parents, who were from a small town in Phillips County, in the heart of the Arkansas Delta. They’d never spoken much about their past except to say that both sides of the family rejected them after the couple ran off to California and married. There’d been no reason for them to return, not even after the threats of prison and violence had faded. So to Kurt, Arkansas was a mythical place where true love was rejected and where people like him weren’t supposed to even exist. So maybe it was no wonder that, as he crossed the border into Arkansas for the first time in his life, it was with tense shoulders and a tight chest.

  Also, he was really fucking exhausted.

  At least tonight they’d sleep farther west than his ancestral homelands, in a little town called Demeter. According to Des and the briefing files, he and Krane had spent two weeks there in a rented mobile home. It was the first place they’d used one of the boxes, killing four patrons inside a bar. Everyone else in the establishment had survived, although they’d been traumatized. After Demeter, Krane and Des had moved around in Arkansas and Oklahoma, killing eight more people along the way before being caught in Kansas.

  But now Krane was long dead, one box was destroyed, and Des was fast asleep in Kurt’s car.

  Demeter was too small for lodgings, so Kurt continued along the highway for several miles until he came to a larger town with a bland chain hotel. Des didn’t wake up when Kurt parked the car near the lobby, so Kurt let him sleep while he went in to request a room. “Two beds,” he told the friendly young man at the desk—firmly, but with regrets. He’d enjoyed sharing a bed with Des despite the temptation to do more than sleep.

  He moved the car, parked, and carried their bags into the room, all without Des waking. Kurt finally gave him a hard shake, making Des alert enough to stumble blearily into the room, where he stood blinking and yawning near the dresser.

  “Get into bed,” Kurt said gently.

  After a few slow flutters of his eyelids, Des shuffled to the closest bed and fell onto it without bothering to pull back the bedspread. He fell immediately asleep, still fully clothed.

  Kurt had lengthy notes to write up. With a sigh, he started up the coffee maker, pulled off Des’s shoes, and settled in with his notebook and pen.

  Kurt woke to the scents of coffee and sausage. He sat up in bed to find Des grinning as he set a plate on the coffee table. “They have free breakfast. Wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I brought you a bit of everything.”

  They’d missed dinner the previous night, and Kurt was ravenous. He hopped out of bed, crossed to the coffee table and armchairs, and set on the food like a starving wolf, heedless of the sugar and fat. Man, his diet had gone to shit on this mission. He was going to have to put in a lot of extra laps when he returned, and Edge was going to totally kick his ass on the track.

  Only when his plate was clean did Kurt address Des, who sat in the other chair with his hands on his lap. “Want to tell me about last night?”

  Des looked down. “Not really.”

  But he must have known this was inevitable. All Kurt had to do was wait him out, and Kurt was good at that. After a few minutes of silence, Des began to fidget, his fingers tapping and his knee jerking, until finally he sighed and looked up. “You’re good at the… the magic shite.”

  “Part of my training.”

  “Bureau training must be intense.”

  “You have no idea, man,” Kurt said with a chuckle. Months of exercise and study and very little sleep, being pushed beyond reasonable limits to learn strange concepts and react to the unimaginable. It had made boot camp seem like kindergarten. Except Kurt hadn’t hated it. Newly sober, he reveled in the chance to feel competent and to w
ork toward a goal he believed in. But that wasn’t the point right now. “What happened to you last night?”

  “I….” Des laced his fingers together and gazed at his restless thumbs. “I’m not sure. The box… called to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wanted me to save it. I know that sounds stupid. How can a chunk of wood want anything? But it did. Larry was there—only I know it wasn’t really him. And all the people I killed were there and they were….” Des shivered violently before continuing. “I thought that if I saved the box, I’d be incredibly powerful. And I’d be free of prison forever. Is that true?”

  Kurt was so busy processing the implication of these words that he didn’t answer. Instead, after a few moments he asked a question. “Did Krane take blood from you?”

  “Blood?”

  “The stuff in your veins, Des. Did he cut you or use a syringe?”

  “No.”

  Des appeared genuinely mystified, but Kurt was going to push for an answer anyway—until another thought struck him. It didn’t have to be blood, did it? The briefing papers had said blood, but he knew from his training that when it came to magic, sometimes other body fluids worked just as well. “Your come.”

  “What?”

  “When you fucked, did he collect your semen?”

  The crease between Des’s eyebrows deepened and then his cheeks took on a slight flush. “He…. He liked to work me with his hand while he fucked me. After I finished he’d hurry to the bathroom, sometimes even without coming himself. I thought it might be a cleanliness issue. He was weird about some of those things.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Kurt growled. The Bureau had assumed Krane used his own essences, because that was the usual way with wizards. It hadn’t occurred to any of them that Des had been so directly involved.

  “What does this mean?” Des had shrunk back against the chair cushions and the blush had faded, leaving him ashy white. “What did he do?”