CHAPTER 45

IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST VISIT TO THE REDEEMER’S LAW PROJECT, YOU ARE COMING INTO THE STORY ALREADY IN PROGRESS. YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE WILL BE FAR LESS CONFUSING IF YOU USE THE CHAPTER INDEX ON THE RIGHT TO GO BACK TO THE INTRODUCTION. OR AT LEAST TO THE PROLOGUE.

CHAPTER 45

Simon Grove let the woman thud to the floor and dropped to his knees next to her. He peeled his severed finger off his face and waited for a new one to grow. It didn’t –- and for a few frantic minutes Simon tried to reattach the severed bit, holding it to the stump in hopes that it would magically reattach itself. But the stump and the severed finger weren’t quite the same size anymore, so he tried to get the stump to stretch out further, and it did stretch, but then he couldn’t stop it from getting too thin, and he yowled in frustration.

For a few moments he sat on the floor next to the woman and stared at the finger, which had finally stopped twitching.

He slowly brought it to his mouth, placed it on his tongue, and swallowed it.

That made the pain a little better, he thought.

He turned his attention to Diedra, gently reached out and encircled her throat again. He felt the tingle, just a little bit, but at Brenda’s suggestion he’d fed earlier in the evening, taking a delicious blonde hooker. The hooker was a big girl, at least five-ten, taller than Simon, with bee-stung lips and breasts bigger than her head. He hadn’t felt anything that intense or prolonged in months.

“You need to be focused tonight,” Brenda had told him. “You shouldn’t take the chance on getting distracted.”

She was right, of course. If he hadn’t fed so much, hadn’t gotten such a hard, lasting rush, he never would’ve kept it together with the old man and the two morons in the motel. Going for Sinclair tonight was an improvisation, too, and he might otherwise have gotten a little freaked out over the sudden change in plans, but he could still feel the hooker’s blood rush in the small of his back, and he was cool.

Like a cucumber.

No problem.

He hadn’t planned on encountering Matt Sinclair’s lovely little lady tonight, but he knew he could use her. Somehow. He’d think of something. He could just call Brenda and ask.

Diedra’s fading pulse fluttered beneath his fingers, but reluctantly he took his hand away.

# # #

Vessler stopped at a Howard Johnson’s. Matt flickered in by the Jeep’s rear as Vessler got out, and watched over Scott as the older man went in to get a room.

Vessler came back from the office a few minutes later and drove the Jeep around to the back of the motel, then carried Scott inside. Once he lay the boy down on one of the room’s two double beds, he turned off the lights and pulled the door open.

A second later, from the back of the room, Matt said, “All right.” Vessler let the door swing closed and turned the lights back on. Matt stood leaning against the filter.

Vessler walked over to him, and for a second Matt thought he was going to stick out a hand, maybe pat him on the back and say, “Good job, thanks for your help.” Instead he said, “Help me set this up,” and uncoiled the filter’s power cord from a port in the back of the machine.

Matt did what he could to assist, following Vessler’s curt instructions, and shortly the machine hummed and lights on its top console lit up. Vessler pulled the thick umbilicus over to where Scott lay on the bed and attached it again to Scott’s headband. When he did, a few more lights gleamed to life on the filter. Scott didn’t move.

“His jaw’s not broken,” Vessler said, examining Scott’s face. “Thank God. That would have been hard.”

Vessler stood and turned back to Matt. “Look, I’m going to go and get him something to drink, maybe some orange juice. If he wakes up before I get back, talk to him, all right?” Matt nodded, and Vessler moved to the door. “And take off that mask, will you? You’re giving me the creeps.”

He didn’t wait for Matt to do it. The door closed behind him with a slight hydraulic hiss.

Feeling supremely off-balance and disoriented by everything that had happened in the last several hours, Matt went to Scott’s side and sat down on the edge of the bed. Scott made a tiny noise, but didn’t wake up. Reluctantly, Matt took hold of the concealed zipper pull at the back of his neck and unfastened the mask from the suit. He slowly pulled it off. That felt weirder still, given the circumstances, but the air was cool and soothing on his skin.

Vessler returned a few moments later. He stopped just inside the door, as it swung closed, and regarded Matt’s face with open curiosity. “You’re a little younger than I expected.”

Matt couldn’t think of a good comeback, so he kept quiet.

Vessler didn’t respond. He had a paper bag in one hand, and he pulled a can of orange juice out of it, went to Scott’s side and gently touched his face.

“Scott? Scott, can you hear me? Can you wake up?”

The boy’s eyelids twitched and finally opened. The whites of his eyes had turned partly red with ruptured vessels. Weakly, he said, “Sir. I don’t feel very good.”

Vessler nodded. “Here. Drink this. It’ll help.” He propped Scott up with pillows and held the orange juice to his lips. Scott shakily raised one hand and took the can, drank from it. Drank more. Then he glanced over at Matt, and down at Matt’s suit.

“You’re younger than I thought,” he said, and Matt chuckled. Scott continued, “Thank you. I don’t think she was planning to keep me alive for very long.”

“It’s not over yet,” Vessler said sadly. “I need you to tell me where they are. Both of them.”

Scott grimaced, and for a moment Matt thought he’d start crying, but as soon as it had come the grimace faded. Matt was once again impressed by how old Scott Charles seemed to be on the inside.

“All right. I can do it...but, would it be okay if I didn’t get up? If you could read the map, while I stayed here? Lying down?”

“Sure, sure,” Vessler said soothingly. The more time Vessler spent around Scott, Matt thought, the more human he seemed to become. It was a welcome shift.

“I’ll go turn on the map, okay?” Vessler stood up from the bed. “You just tell us where they are.”

Scott nodded and closed his eyes. Vessler went to the filter and tapped in a key sequence, and the LCD map lit up on the big center screen. Scott exhaled deeply, and the lines shifted and flowed, rearranged to show a top-down view of a city street. Watching over Vessler’s shoulder, Matt thought it looked familiar. Suddenly a dime-sized red dot appeared on the screen, inside one of the building outlines.

“He’s...he’s there,” Scott murmured. “Can you see the signature?”

“Bright and clear,” Vessler replied. “Give me just a second to get the location.” Within the filter, a computer database correlated the images of Scott’s psionic input with a state-wide directory. Inside of thirty seconds a set of numbers glowed across the bottom of the screen.

Vessler’s eyes were wide when he looked around at Matt. “That’s Simon Grove. He’s in the LaCroix building.”

Matt felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He said, “Diedra,” grabbed up his mask, and darted inside the darkened bathroom. A wave of frigid air washed out over Vessler as Matt vanished.

# # #

Vessler turned and went back to Scott on the bed. “You’re doing fine,” he said. Scott opened his eyes and smiled feebly. Vessler knew how much it must have been taking out of the boy, in such a weakened state. But he had to ask. He had to know.

“I just need you to do one more. You have to tell me where she is.” Scott nodded again and closed his eyes. A few moments later he exhaled sharply, and the lines on the screen warped and shifted.

# # #

Drenched in sweat and terrified, Matt flickered out of a shadow across the street from the LaCroix and stared up at the window of his apartment. It was lit, but he couldn’t tell from street level whether or not anyone was inside. He’d already checked Diedra’s apartment as well as her office. Both were empty.

The thought of Simon Grove with Diedra made him physically sick. He tried chanting the alphabet backward to himself, but it didn’t help.

Another flicker and he stood on the ledge outside his living room window, and if anyone saw him, to hell with them. He didn’t care.

The living room was empty, but every light burned and the coat closet stood open. Carefully Matt opened the window and stepped through it, his boots noiseless on the carpet.

One of his neighbors, probably a college student, had a stereo going a few doors down the hall, just loud enough so that all Matt could hear was an incessant drumbeat. Aside from that, the apartment remained still and silent. He drew the Glock, one finger tight on the trigger.

Just then there was a rustle and a slide-click that Matt recognized, and he rushed for his bedroom and went into a low roll, knocked the door wide with his shoulder. He tumbled across the floor and came up on one knee next to the bathroom door, the gun ready and covering a blank, open window. Thin ice suddenly coated the nearest portion of his shower curtain as he flickered out.

On the ledge outside the window, which faced away from the street, Matt looked around wildly, his night vision transforming the world about him into crisp, clear images in glowing yellow and green. It only took him seconds to notice the small holes punched into the mortar between the bricks of the building’s wall. They led upward.

The glass of his window crazed with ice patterns as he vanished.

The roof of the LaCroix looked much like a lot of other roofs in the city, covered with a thin layer of gravel and spotted with air-intake housings. The view to the west was blocked by a nearby building, a recently completed twenty-story apartment tower. Matt stared across the thirty-foot gap between the LaCroix and the other building, and was about to flicker out again, when he thought he saw something at the building’s edge. Movement? He walked quickly to the edge of the LaCroix’s roof, still staring.

There. He saw it again.

“Simon?” Matt strove to keep his voice from shaking. It carried well across the space between the buildings, reached up forty feet to the other roof.

There, right at the edge, Simon Grove rose up and stood in plain view.

He was dressed in black, as usual, and wore a long gray raincoat which Matt immediately recognized as his own. That bastard stole my coat!

He looked human—except for his right hand, which he slowly raised to shoulder level. Matt gasped. Simon’s extended fingers wrapped around Diedra’s head as if he were holding an oversized highball, keeping her upright. She wasn’t moving. Bruises and lacerations and blood marred her exquisite face.

Matt didn’t realize he was pointing the Glock at Simon until he found himself sighting on the younger man’s head.

“Diedra!” Matt screamed. “Diedra, can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

“You just put that gun down,” Simon called out, his voice smooth and unhurried. “I’ve got some instructions for you. You’re going to do just what I say, or I’ll drop this bitch over the side.”

Neither he nor Matt moved.

“Hey! Put the fucking gun down!”

Silently Simon lengthened his right forearm, looped two finger tendrils under Diedra’s arms, and stepped forward. Her legs swung free of the roof, suspended two hundred feet above the street below.

Matt eyed the building’s wall. A wide concrete ledge circled the building directly below them, and if Simon dropped her, she’d probably land on it.

Probably.

But that was still a drop of at least ten feet, and Matt could tell she wouldn’t be able to make even an attempt at landing properly. Ten feet was plenty of room to break your neck.

“She’s still breathing, if you’re wondering,” Simon said. “But just barely. We had an argument.”

“You don’t have to involve her in this,” Matt shouted. “Just put her down slowly.”

“Involve her? What’s wrong with you?” Simon’s eyes began to glow white. “Lost your memory? Lost your mind? Do you think she got here on her own? I can’t just turn her loose. Please.”

“Let her go and I won’t hurt you.” The words came out clichéd and ineffectual, and Matt gritted his teeth.

“No, no, no, let’s not go through all this action-movie good-guy bad-guy bullshit here, Matt. I’ve got the girl, and I won’t feel bad at all about dropping her, so put that gun down!”

Even as Simon screamed the last few words he saw Sinclair drop down out of sight behind the low wall surrounding the rooftop. A moment passed, and he was just about to call out something like, “Where’d you go?” when he felt a steely arm clamp around his neck and the cold, hard barrel of Sinclair’s gun jam into his right ear.

Simon didn’t move.

Diedra hung as if suspended from a crane.

“Simon, listen to me.” Sinclair’s voice in his ear. “None of this is necessary. The woman you were with, Brenda Jorden. She’s like us. She’s an augment.”

Simon didn’t answer, didn’t move. A gust of wind blew, and the girl’s feet swayed back and forth.

“She controls people. She’s controlling you. You don’t have to do any of this. If you’ll let me...I can get you to someone who can help you.”

“Take your hands and your gun off me.”

“She’s been playing you, man. Made you a puppet. Led you around by your dick. C’mon, I know you don’t want that.”

Simon slowly turned his head completely around, 180 degrees, until he stared Sinclair in the face. He grinned a little when Sinclair tried not to flinch away. “Understand this, asswipe,” Simon said slowly. “She hasn’t done a damn thing to me except show me that I don’t have to let assholes like you push me around anymore. And I will drop this stupid ni-...ni-... “ He trembled slightly. “I will drop this bitch unless you get away from me.”

Simon swiveled his head back around to the front.

“Please,” Sinclair murmured. “This is pointless. I never did anything to hurt you. The only reason you’re here, the only reason you’re doing this now, is because she told you to do it. This is what she wants, it’s not what you want. We don’t...we don’t have to do this. This is stupid, this whole thing.”

“That’s nice, coming from the guy with the gun. And don’t you even try to tell me what I want. This is not just a threat, cocksucker. I will drop her. Now back the fuck off me.”

“Simon...I don’t want to hurt you, I’ve never wanted to hurt you, this whole time. All I’ve ever wanted to do was talk to you. But I’ll tell you this, and you better believe it. If you drop her, I’ll put a bullet through your head.”

# # #

Simon felt the power humming through Matt Sinclair’s arm like a high-voltage line where it clamped around his neck, and through the mask Sinclair’s breath touched Simon's face, icy cold, and gave him gooseflesh.

For just the tiniest of instants, Simon felt numbing, paralyzing, familiar fear.

But Brenda’s words, Brenda’s message came back to him, and her reassuring fragrance filled him up again, and the heat rose in his blood. He had no reason to feel fear. He was a prince, destined to become a king. Fear was for the weak. And Simon Grove was strong.

In the space of one second he said, “Up yours,” and wrenched forward as the gun went off right behind him, and snapped his fingers away from the girl’s body.

She fell like a brick.

Something like a wrecking ball smashed completely through Simon's shoulder and slammed him down hard onto the roof, and the night sky turned blood red and faded out.


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