World Walker 1: The World Walker (23 page)

"Off-balance," said Seb2. "Sweep your-"

But Seb was already doing it as pure self-preserving reflexes took over. Continuing the momentum started on his duck to the left, he put his left hand on the carpet and used it to steady himself as he swept his right leg into the feet of the unbalanced Blondie. With his weight already shifted by trying to avoid the fallen giant, the man crashed heavily to the floor.

"The neck," said Seb2. "I don't know the medical term for it, but you need to punch him on-"

"Got it," said Seb, moving forwards. He had rarely been a violent man, so he could only assume the moral center of his brain was one of the areas no longer in action as he punched Blondie in the side of his neck below his ear. His body immediately went slack.

Two down.

The paramedic wasn't a threat and was backing away. Broken nose was a different prospect. As soon as Seb had kicked Blondie's legs from under him, Broken nose had gone for his pocket. When Seb looked up, he saw something shooting toward him from Broken Nose's outstretched hand.
 

"Move to - " said Seb2, then "no! Wait, don't move. It's a taser."

It was closer now and Seb saw that Seb2 was right. Two wires snaked toward his chest, sparks already slowly moving between the barbed contact points.

"It's going to hit me!"

"I know," said Seb2, "hold still, and try very hard not to bite your tongue."

Seb braced himself as the hooked metal pierced his skin. There was a brief flare of pain. Then the sparks raced away from him, back down the lines. Straight into Broken Nose's hand. He danced like some bizarre slowed-down footage from a children's show; a wooden puppet controlled by a hyperactive three-year old, his limbs twitching and jerking, lips pulled back from his teeth and blood spurting from his mouth where he had bitten down on his tongue. After less than two seconds of frenzied twitching at 50,000 volts, he collapsed, jerked once more and was still.

"Ouch," said Seb2. Time seemed to speed up slightly as the danger receded and Seb turned to the paramedic, who'd backed up against the wall and looked very pale.

"And what am I supposed to do with you?" said Seb. The paramedic hesitated for a moment, glanced at the hypodermic in his hand, then stabbed it into his own thigh and emptied the contents into his bloodstream. He sat down.

"One," said the paramedic, "two...th..." As his head rolled forward, his shoulders slumped and his body fell sideways. After a short pause, he started snoring.

"Smart," said Seb2. "Now let's go find-,"

"Walt!" said Seb and turned and sprinted back into the corridor, vaulting the unconscious giant.

***

Walt admitted to himself that he was tempted. Sonia was beautiful, sensuous and achingly available. He hadn't had sex for four days, and 80 years' experience of his over-developed libido meant he was ready to rectify the omission. But the contents of his pants no longer ruled the roost - once you knew you could get all the sex you wanted, you realized not every opportunity had to be quite so eagerly grasped. And his brain was telegraphing clearly the message that Ms. Svetlana had an agenda beyond seducing him.

"Who are you, really?" he said. "Why are you here?"

She took a step toward him, one hand gently cupping a perfectly formed breast.

"Wrong question," she said. "You should be asking 'what', not 'who.'"

Although his resolve wasn't wavering, Walt couldn't help but enjoy the fantasy unfolding in front of him.

"As you wish," he said. "So, Ms. Svetlana, what are you?"

She smiled and took a step closer.

"A diversion," she said.

Walt hesitated, then cursed and turned for the door. He had expected others to be interested in Seb - a surge of power like that would be felt by outliers such as himself worldwide. But he hadn't expected anyone so soon. And he had no idea who this woman was, which faction she belonged to, if any. He reached out for the handle, then gasped in pain as the metal stretched, then wrapped itself around his wrist, pulling him against the door.

Sonia smiled at him and shook her head.

"There's really no rush, Walter," she said. "We're only just getting to know each other."

Walt considered much of his manipulation of Manna close to an art form. He was proud of the creatures he could bring into being and often took minutes to slowly craft an intricate creation, either for his own amusement or to terrify a User who wouldn't comply with his request to leave town. So on one level it hurt his pride to do what he did next. On another level, it was pure expedience. He couldn't afford to lose Seb. The personal consequences didn't bear thinking about.

Ignoring the pain in his wrist and turning away from the smiling centerfold leaning against his desk, he looked toward the huge bookcase. It wasn't there because Walt was an avid reader. It also wasn't the kind of bookcase designed to impress guests with his intellectual credentials. It was there because books are made of paper. And paper, as Walt had discovered over many decades of experimentation, was his favorite medium.
 

Nearly three hundred books flew off the shelves toward the middle of the room, each one opening as it did so. Spines twisted and ripped as pages tore themselves out. In a whirlwind of motion, the air crackling with power, the shreds of paper and cardboard packed themselves tightly together into a mass which thickened and grew. Within a few seconds, the whirling mass had taken on a recognizable shape - a huge hand, crudely made but unmistakable, twice the size of the woman it swooped toward, its huge fingers opening as it approached. Sonia offered no resistance as the giant fist enclosed her and she disappeared from view.
 

Walt didn't waste any time once he had imprisoned her, immediately turning his attention to the metal holding him in place. He looked down at it - antique iron, not only practical and strong, but also one of those interior designer touches intended to lend the casino an air of opulence. Under his gaze the iron softened and became malleable, sliding away from his skin before reforming itself as a door handle. As he put his hand out to turn it, he darted a final look over his shoulder. The enormous fist held its captive firmly - no need to hurry back, she would be his guest for as long as he deemed necessary.

His hand closed over thin air. The handle had gone. He looked at the door disbelievingly. It seemed to have merged organically with the wall on either side. No hinges held it in place, the oak just melted into the plaster of the wall.

 
A low chuckle sounded from behind him. He turned. As he did so, the hand exploded into a million pieces. The word 'exploded' didn't do it justice - it was more like thousands of tiny fingers had simultaneously grabbed individual pieces of paper and neatly ripped them two or three times within a fraction of a second. The naked body enclosed within was hard to make out for a few seconds as a cloud of confetti drifted down around her like snow. When the flakes had settled, she shook her head ruefully and waggled a finger at Walt.

"And we could have had such fun," she said. As she took a step forward, her dress snaked up her legs and neatly peeled itself back onto her skin. "Your party tricks might scare the neophytes, but I left kindergarten a very, very long time ago."

She raised her hands. Any hint of flirtatiousness had gone. Her gaze was blank, pitiless. Tendrils of black smoke curled around her hands before focusing into something harder and stronger. Some of the paper around her sparked into flame and her hair crackled with energy. Walt had a sudden conviction that the next few seconds would be his last. He still couldn't help but be impressed by her, whoever she was. He hadn't seen such power in a long time. Lesser men might have closed their eyes. Not Walt.

***

Seb stopped in the corridor. He had no idea which way to go. He felt/heard/touched a crackle of raw energy coming from his right. The door at the end of the corridor glowed like a heat source looked at with a thermal imaging camera. He ran toward it. As he got closer, he realized the door wasn't right - no handle, no way in.

"Don't stop," said Seb2 as he put his shoulder to the door and plowed into it. The sudden lack of resistance when he had been expecting solid oak was a shock; he stumbled as he came through the door. It felt like running from a car to a house in a violent rain storm. His body was pummeled by tiny specks of force, smacking against his skin. Then he was through.

The stunning woman from the Blackjack table was in the middle of the room, surrounded by small fires. Seb felt Walt's presence beside him as he half-fell through the doorway. He stepped in front of him, just as black lightning arced from her fingertips. Time began to slow again, but there was nowhere to move unless he was willing to let Walt take the blast.

"Oh, shit," said Seb2 as the darkness reached Seb and engulfed his body.

In the room's center, Sonia's eyes widened as the situation changed. She and Walt both saw what happened during the next 5.6 seconds. For the first 2.7 seconds, Seb's body took the full force of the attack and reacted as any organic matter would if suddenly exposed to a burst of tightly-directed heat. The skin peeled away from his face and hands, his flesh bubbled, boiled, melted and shriveled to cling to his skeleton.

Walt decided he would never eat ribs again.
 

The next 2.9 seconds reversed the process. Seb's body sizzled like bacon on a griddle as the blackened flesh sloughed off and fell to the floor. Red, bloody, raw muscle grew back, followed by skin, hair and clothes. Sonia had the ringside view as Seb's face rebuilt itself around his teeth, which had been pretty much the only recognizably human feature left on top of his spinal cord. The final touch was his eyes, pushing back into his empty sockets with a slightly wet plopping sound.

There was a moment's silence.

Sonia moved first, spinning around and sprinting for the wall behind her. She jumped as she approached it and sailed through as if it had been an open window rather than 2cm plaster, 3cm boarding and 15cm solid brick. Outside the building, 23 floors above the street, she spread her arms and legs as gravity did its job and pulled her toward the sidewalk. Her skin darkened and stretched as she fell. Anyone looking up would have seen a dark shadow in a dark sky, nothing more. A skein of flesh flowed from her spreadeagled hands to her feet and - as her limbs continued to stretch, bones hollowing as they grew - her descent slowed significantly. She moved her left foot upwards and her body turned right gliding away from the casino. She spotted a low building four blocks away and headed for it. At the last moment, she turned into the wind and wrenched her body into an upright position, dropping onto the roof with no more impact than a medium-sized bird.
 

Chapter 23

Las Vegas

The sign outside advertised it as a Gentleman's Club, which Seb could only assume was meant ironically. He had always associated the word 'gentleman' with Alistair Cooke, the presenter of Masterpiece Theatre in the late 80s and early 90s. It was one of the few programs the occupants of the children's home were allowed to watch and Seb had always been fascinated by the well-dressed, well-spoken, well-mannered presenter. Seb looked around the table in the private booth the hostess had led them to. Three women were sat with him, two of them topless. The topless ones were kissing each other while the third one had one hand sliding suggestively up and down a champagne glass, the other hand between her legs as she looked first at the girls, then at Seb.
Nope, just can't see Alistair Cooke fitting into this picture.

Walt came back with a bottle of fine bourbon, a woman on each arm. They squeezed into the booth. Seb was drinking beer. A cold beer really seemed to hit the spot when you'd just had your entire body burned to a crisp by a beautiful naked Georgian witch.

"Ladies," said Walt, "give us a few minutes. I need to talk to my friend." The women started to leave.

"Go have a drink on us," he called after them, then sat down and poured a shot of bourbon to go with Seb's beer.

"Gotta tell you, son, I've never seen anything quite like that. Hell of a thing," said Walt, knocking back his first shot then refilling his glass. "What did you do back there?"

"You do that, too, right?" said Seb, still slightly in shock from what had happened. He should be dead - again - but his body seemed to be able to take any amount of damage and recover. Seb2 was right, he couldn't be killed. "Heal, I mean. You can heal yourself."

"Yes I can," said Walt, draining his third shot. He started to pour another, then grabbed a champagne glass, tossed what was left in it over his shoulder and filled it with bourbon before taking a long swallow. He smiled. "But what you did was incredible."

He edged closer to Seb and put his hand on his shoulder. His hand was shaking slightly. Seb couldn't decide if he was scared or excited. Both, probably.

"I heal, sure," said Walt. "I've been beaten up, shot, knifed. Even had a hand taken off with a machete one time." He laughed and waved a perfectly whole and healthy hand at Seb. "It didn't take."

"So we can both do it," said Seb. "It's part of using Manna."

"Well, yes and no," said Walt, encouraging Seb to drink faster. Seb felt impossibly, fantastically alive. He drank.

"Thing is," said Walt, "anyone who Uses has some kind of accelerated healing. Some more than others. At one end of the scale, a broken arm might heal in days rather than weeks. When I was shot, they picked seven bullets out of my stomach and chest. I should have died within hours. Now I don't have a single scar to show for it."

"So your power is like mine," said Seb.

"Hardly," said Walt. "I thought I was a bit of a prodigy, but you just knocked me off my perch, big time. It took me six days to recover. Six
days
. You didn't even take six
seconds.
You were burned alive, Seb, I saw your bones, your skull. I don't even know how what I just saw is possible, but here you are, sitting next to me, good as new. Thing is-." He hesitated as if unsure.