Chapter 9
Someone Else
The heat was near unbearable. Somehow I’d done it again, scored the crappiest possible car I could get my hands on. I’d stopped in some half-assed town called Ellsworth just over the Wisconsin line and stolen an old Dodge that was sitting overnight in a grocery store parking lot. The reeferhead’s Honda had started making gawdawful grinding noises in southern Minnesota. I tried to make it last, filled it up in Red Wing, but no, it started going into catastrophic failure mode after I crossed the river. This is what happens when you have to choose between buying weed and performing regularly scheduled maintenance, I suppose.
I thought maybe I’d get lucky this time, but I wasn’t. The Dodge was older and the air conditioner didn’t work, which might explain why it was left in a parking lot. It was after midnight, and still pretty damned stifling out. I wished for the millionth time that I had made this little trip in winter, then remembered what winters were like in the upper midwest. Spring would have been the time for this. Or fall.
My shirt was dripping with sweat by the time I hit the first exit ramp in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The home of pretty near nothing, the city of Eau Claire had still somehow managed to attract over sixty thousand people to live within its limits. I’d been here before; I couldn’t see the appeal.
The night was dark, but the yellow light of the moon was in the sky as I rolled through a commercial district. There were a line of little stores and I followed the thoroughfare until I reached Fleet Street, where I turned left. I was going by directions I had memorized before I left Gillette, but they were as fresh in my mind as if I had them with me on a piece of paper. I eased the car down the road, squinting to read the house numbers by the moon and the streetlights.
8453. I stopped when I saw them on the front of a white house, the little bronze numerals barely visible in the dark. I climbed out of the car two blocks down and started to walk back. I felt a grin split my lips and I barely restrained myself from wanting to run.
The house was older, built in the seventies, a little one-floor rambler on a city lot, the grass now overgrown by a week or more, weeds sprouting up all over. The aged wooden siding looked like I’d get splinters just from touching it, and I had a suspicion that the dark lines on the roof meant that this place couldn’t hold its water. A red door was the single spot of color on the exterior and a wooden fence higher than my head partitioned the backyard off, hiding it from view.
I cleared the fence with a jump, felt the shock through my knees as I landed and cursed under my breath. I’d been jumping through a lot of hoops the last few days, had been on the receiving end of some rough luck, and whoever crossed my path next was going to be the recipient of all my frustrations for those setbacks and reversals. It was going to be sweet.
I walked slow, letting my eyes make sure the path in front of me was clear. I could see a light on in the back of the house as I came around the corner, crouched in a defensive posture in case someone was waiting for me out back. It never pays to be surprised.
The back of the house was one long, straight line, and I could see a couple people in the kitchen window, having a conversation. Both were men, one older than the other. The younger one looked to be in his late teens, while the older appeared to be in his forties. Looks could be deceiving, though, because I knew he was at least a millennium old if not older. Franklin Beauregard, he was named. He was the reason I was here.
I ducked under the kitchen window and crawled through the grass on my hands and knees. The wet of the dew was the only coolness I had felt since I left the Honda in Ellsworth. I felt it on my knees and the temporary pleasure of the temperature change gave way to annoyance at getting wet – those fellas inside were really gonna suffer for all this crap.
I stood once I was clear of the window and climbed the step to the back door. I braced myself and took a deep breath before lifting my foot and kicking. I hit the door and felt it splinter as my momentum carried me through, breaking it into four pieces. They should have used a steel door; that would have at least slowed me down as I ripped it from the hinges.
I heard raised voices and the young man who I assumed was Franklin’s son entered the back hallway first. He uttered a cry of warning when he saw me and whipped a fist through the air. I reached out, caught it and tugged him forward, ramming his head into the wall.
I was past him in a half a heartbeat, looking through the narrow kitchen at Beauregard, a smirk on my face. “Hello, Franklin. What brings Omega to Eau Claire, Wisconsin?”
He clasped one hand over the other at his midsection and I watched his face become calm resignation. “As if you don’t know.”
“Oh, I know. I just wanted to hear you say it.” I took two steps toward him. He didn’t move. “Tell me where Site Epsilon is.”
His eyes widened and I watched his aged hands turn white as they clenched each other. “How...?” His face went back to relaxed. “You...are batting at shadows.”
“Nah, I’m batting at the things that cast shadows.” I took another step. “Site Epsilon. Andromeda. Where? Last chance.” I angled a hand toward him in warning. “And don’t even think about coming at me with those—”
His battered jacket burst open, the ripping of the fabric like a thunderclap in the quiet summer eve. I jumped forward and hit him three times in the face before he landed the first attack, a hard bite on my shoulder. I grunted in pain and slammed his head against the wood floor. Two gargantuan snakes extended from his body, one from behind each of his shoulder blades. I snatched a butcher knife from the block next to the sink and cut into the first as it struck at me, splitting the head from its body. It went limp and dropped, flopping on the floor behind him.
I got to my feet, knife in hand as Beauregard struggled to his knees, the remaining snake head giving him license to do so. It extended five feet from his body, keeping out of range of the knife, hissing and striking every time it got close to me. I feinted toward him and it snapped and came at me. I reached out with my free hand and wrapped my arm around it, trapping it in a headlock as I drove the blade through the top of its skull, slicing the head off. Without so much as another sound, it fell still and quiet, and I turned to Franklin, who was on his knees, both snake bodies limp and hanging from his shoulders.
“Andromeda,” I said as I dangled the knife before his eyes. “Would you care to guess what you lose next?”
He bowed his head, and I heard a whisper. “Decorah, Iowa. It’s in Decorah.”
I knelt and dropped the blade to the ground, clucking my tongue. “Why do you have to lie to me, Franklin? It demeans us both.”
“I’m telling the truth.” He looked up at me, his fingers resting on the floor as though he were drawing strength from it.
I reached up and my hand wrapped around his neck, applying only the slightest pressure, forcing him to look me in the eye. “Site Epsilon is not in Decorah, and we both know it. You’ve certainly got an Omega safehouse there, but that ain’t where Andromeda is.” I smiled at him. “So...the hard way, then.”
He gasped as the pain began, my other hand holding him tight on the cheek. “But...you...would have done this anyway...”
“Of course,” I said, my hands holding him as he started to grunt, then let out his first scream. “It’s not like I trust you.” I felt the surge begin as his life, his soul, drained out of him, my hands pressed tightly to his cheeks. His memories flooded into me, into my mind, causing it to swirl, a fresh infusion of life into my brain. I let his body drop to the floor and I stood up, looking down on him in pity. “Now that you’re in here,” I tapped the side of my head, “you can’t lie to me anymore, Franklin.”
I heard something move behind me and I turned. His son (I knew because of his memories now in my head) was stirring, moving from where I had put him down against the wall. I walked to the back door and knelt next to him, flipping the boy over. He still looked young, but I’d put a nice gash on his forehead. His eyelids fluttered and he mumbled something. “Shut up,” I said. I stared at him for a minute, then shook my head, letting out a sigh of impatience. Too young.
“This is your lucky day,” I said as I pressed my hand against his face. Even unconscious, I felt him squirm when the pain started. I held contact for another couple of seconds and then pulled my hand away. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the regularity of his breathing a sign of the mercy I didn’t even know I had in me. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t remember any of this.”