Henchmen (21 page)

“You didn’t like the idea, I take it.”

“It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to be a weapon, but I didn’t want to be his weapon.  I’m sorry about this, but I don’t feel much for your kind.  You’re like shadows to me.  You, personally, have given me a great gift, though.  I would have preferred to kill him myself, but your memories are so vivid and you showed such great panache when you knocked him off the chair. Thank you for watching him die so I could relive it with you.  What became of all this?”

“One of his aides found him the next day and alerted the authorities.  They covered it all up, naturally. Made it sound like he died of natural causes - heart attack, I believe.  His wife ran for his vacant Senate seat and won in a landslide.  She’s been mercilessly pressing her agenda to bring Jesus back to the schools, like that will somehow magically fix all the problems in this country.  The Senator’s aide had snapped a picture of Bedfellow hanging here, and released it on the Internet.  Bedfellow’s family claimed the pictures were faked.  The whole thing eventually blew over and nothing really changed.  There have been allegations Mrs. Bedfellow been taking bribes from a half-dozen interest groups, but nothing’s stuck.  Honestly, she fits right in his old shoes,” I say.

“That is how government works now?” he says.

“Pretty much.  Government of the people by the rich, for the special interests,” I tell him.

“You’re a pessimist at heart, aren’t you?”

“Not a pessimist, a realist,” I say.

“Why do you let them do that?”

“Do what?”

“Take advantage of you?  Walk over you and get away with it?  This man killed your family and you killed him for it.  Why not do it with the rest of them?” He asks me.

“They hold all the cards. They control all the pieces.  Shit, pick your own gaming metaphor.  They’ve got all the mushrooms.  Our leaders run everything.  We can’t fight them.”

“I can.” He looks at me.  “You’ve done me a favor.  Only one other person in millennia has ever let me into their mind.  Only one has shared a memory with me.  Only one tried to help me, and I couldn’t help him in return.  Back when I was worshipped in these parts, I tried to be helpful, but it got so tedious. ‘Please make the crops grow.’ ‘Please let so and so like me.’  The crops wouldn’t grow because these people lived in a damn desert. Make so-and-so like you on your own.  I’m a god of dreams, not a pimp.  And you know what? Not a single damned one of them would ever help me.”

“If you’ve read my mind, you know where to find them.”

“I have read your mind. Thank you for letting me do that.  Let me out, and I’ll happily rip them to pieces,” he says.

“What, because I let you out?”

“Partially.  Partially because I enjoy it.  Partially because they dared to hold me, and tried to turn me into a weapon.  They took part of me and spread it around.  I want those parts back.”

“Okay,” I say.  “I don’t think Eve will take much persuading.”

Bedfellow’s room dissolves around me, and the last thing I see is him hanging there with his purple face and his bright red lingerie. It still makes me smile.

The control room is just as I remember it, and it’s a shock to go from the bright colors of Bedfellow’s room to the grays and blues of the lab.  I know my eyes shouldn’t need to adjust to the change in light because my eyes never left this place, but I still have to blink a couple of times to get my brain back on track.

Dreamer is still in the circle, but his suit has changed to a more modern cut. His hat is gone, and he’s wearing sunglasses.  The changes are not immense - after all, men’s suits don’t change all that much over the years. 

“How did you change clothes so quickly?” I ask him.

“I was never wearing clothes.  I just updated my look based on what I saw in your mind,” he tells me.

Eve is there, watching me.  “Are you OK?” she asks.

“I’m fine,” I say.  “We were just remembering.”

She looks concerned for a moment, like she’s wondering if I’m actually me, or if I’m him, but apparently decides everything’s all right, and touches my arm.  “How’d we do?” she asks.

“Let him out of there and he’ll tear the country apart.  Partially for me, partially for his own vengeance, partially because he just enjoys doing it.”  I look at Dreamer.  “How do we turn all this off?”

“All you have to do is break the circle,” he says.

If you’re thinking this would be the perfect time for something to go wrong, you’re correct.

Before I can walk across the circle, there’s a flicker and fist slams into my gut.  While I’m doubled over another hits the back of my head and I find myself facedown.  I’m staring at the concrete of the floor and fighting back the cold gray mist trying to take over my vision.

It must have followed us down and stayed hidden.  Or maybe it was down here all along.  Hell, I don’t know, and I don’t care.  All I know is I hate these damn things.

I start trying to drag myself forward, and see a flicker out of the corner of my eye just before Eve staggers back.  Immediately another one hits her from another direction.  So we’ve got at least three of the bastards down here.  Eve will be fine – I doubt they could even bruise her. But they can hold her back.

The edge of the circle is only twenty feet away. Standing, I could cover it in seconds.  I try to struggle to my feet. Rising makes me feel nauseous and I get slammed in the kidney for my efforts.  While I’m lying on the ground, I see Dreamer - and he does not look happy.  The shadows are tearing around the room, trying to find a flicker, but they can’t do much.  At my side, lying on the floor is a baseball.

“Break the circle!” Dreamer yells.

“I’m trying, but I can’t get there!” I yell back.

“You don’t have to break it yourself! Anything crossing the line will break it,” he yells back.

At first, my groggy mind spends precious time trying to figure out what a baseball would be doing down here, before it hits me: techies love toys. I also realize that a ball crossing the circle is as good as anything else crossing the circle.  Break the threshold, and the whole thing will collapse.  I say a silent “thank you” to whatever techie smuggled this contraband in here, and make a desperate grab for the ball.  I manage to get my hand on the ball when I see a flicker in front of me.  I grab the ball and pull my arm in as fast as I can and narrowly manage to avoid getting it stomped on.

Behind me, they’ve managed to get Eve on the ground and are flickering around her, kicking her mercilessly.  They seem to have figured out a tactic and are working as a team to keep her occupied.  One will flick in, hit and disappear; then the other hits from the opposite side.

I’ve got one shot at this.  I fling the ball as hard as I can and it sails straight and true toward Dreamer.  He’s got his hand out to catch it.  Then there’s a flicker and the ball bounces off something and rolls under a table.

I’ve got to get to my feet if I’m going to have a chance.  To do that, I’ve got to keep my head, and I’ve got to find a way to slow this guy down a bit.  When the next flicker comes I see a boot headed toward my face and barely manage to intercept it before it breaks my nose.  Without thinking, I pull the foot toward me with my right hand and let my left hand follow the leg up until it hits something squishy.  Lucky, lucky, lucky.  If he’d kicked me with his right leg I would have hit nothing but air, but he kicked with the left and I managed to land a solid blow to his nuts.

If you’ve ever been hit hard in the testicles, you know it hurts.  Even if you don’t have nuts you know that kicking someone in the crotch will take down pretty much anyone.  A glancing blow hurts a lot. A powerful blow will have you lying on the ground crying and wishing you were dead.

I see his face above me, lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing teeth that are much too long.  His knees knock together and he starts dropping.  I get my arms up and start rolling so he doesn’t fall on top of me.  Kenpo doesn’t teach much in the way of ground fighting, but we do have a few tricks up our sleeves.  I send a kick into left knee so he falls away from me, and as soon as he hits the ground I’m on top of him, punching the back of his head for all I’m worth.

One of the guys kicking Eve notices his buddy is down, and next thing I know I’m getting kicked straight backward.  While this sucks for me, it’s a pretty bad tactic on his part.  It took two of those guys to even keep Eve down, and now that she’s down to just one, she’s managed to knock him back long enough to get her feet partially under her.  She’s down on her right knee, left foot on the ground, when there’s a flicker in front of her.  She takes the blow that comes at her like it’s nothing and slams her open palm into the attacker’s balls and squeezes for all she’s worth.

I’m not the one getting hit here, but even I flinch on that one.

The flickering man stops flickering and she uses her other hand to grab his throat.  Then she stands up, holding this guy off the ground by his throat and his balls.  Eve spins to build up some momentum and tosses him directly at the circle.  The remaining flicker man tries to protect the circle just like his buddy did. Unfortunately, the force of a baseball moving at, say, twenty miles per hour, is significantly less than the force of a person moving the same speed.  He flickers in just in time to catch his buddy full on in the chest and they go flying, flip over the railing and slide across the floor.  As the last guy tries to stop himself, he puts moves his arm up over his head and they both slide to a halt just in front of the circle.  I can almost feel their sense of relief.

The last flickering man stretches his arm to get some leverage to get up - and there’s a palpable change in the energy in the room.  Just like when your refrigerator stops working and you only notice the sound it makes because the sound is gone, the energy level in the room drops off to nothing.  It was so pervasive, yet so subtle, I didn’t even notice it until it was gone.

The flickering man’s hand had broken the circle.

Shadows race to Dreamer and disappear into him, and his expression is almost orgasmic.  The last fully functioning flicker man stares up at the God of Dreams above him in abject terror.  He tries to flicker out – he’s willing to leave his comrades, ignore us - anything to get away from the thing above him.

“I don’t think so,” Dreamer says.  “You all have something of mine, and I want it back.”

You know how in movies you can always see energy moving around, or souls being sucked out of things?  In real life, you can’t see anything like that.  Dreamer doesn’t spread his arms out to gather his power. He doesn’t close his eyes, or anything like that.  He just stands there, and the three flicker men clench their fists, grit their teeth and arch their backs in agony for a moment, then collapse into heaps on the floor.

And then it’s over. 

Dreamer smiles, twirls his cane and says, “I think I’d like to leave this place now.  Shall we?”

Eve helps me to my feet and gives me something to lean on as I stagger toward the door.  It’s shut, which is not surprising, but still opens when I put Jessica’s key in the lock. 

As we walk out, Dreamer stops at the doorway and turns around.  A final piece of shadow darts across the floor and flows into him.  He smiles.  “I don’t think I’ll miss this place.  I really must learn to not underestimate your kind in the future.”  And with that he steps into the hallway and the door closes behind him.

“Hold, up a sec,” I say.  “I want to grab that receptionist’s diary.”

Eve shrugs and helps me into the receptionist’s room where Bethany’s corpse still lies.  Dreamer notices the corpse and sighs.  “If I’d known she was still down here, we might have been able to help each other.”

“She didn’t have a key to the room, and she was terrified of you,” Eve says.

“Pity.  I would’ve loved to have someone to talk to,” Dreamer says.

“She died of fear or a heart attack or something a couple of weeks after everyone left,” I say.  “She probably wouldn’t have been a great conversationalist.”

While I’m grabbing Bethany’s diary I glance at the monitor showing the cameras upstairs and mutter “Shit.  We’ve got problems.”

“What?” Eve asks and looks at the monitor.  “Damn.”

On the screen are Jessica and Jacob, both kneeling hands behind their heads, each with a guy in a black balaclava behind them, holding an MP5 at their heads.  The resolution’s really bad, but I’m pretty sure Wilford Saxton is standing between and slightly behind them, calmly watching the elevators.  How the hell did he survive being shot in the head and blown up?

Sometimes your former jobs haunt you forever.

“Friends of yours?” asks Dreamer.

“Well,” I say, “the two on the floor are.  The guy in the middle is old associate.  I don’t know the other two.  Saxton’s bosses must still think they have a chance at containment if they sent such a small force.  They might not know you’re out yet.”

“Well, let’s go take care of the problem,” Dreamer says.

“Yeah. I’ve got a plan.  Here’s how we’re going to do this,” I say.