I put away my knife and draw my pistol. Then I look, really look, at the scene around me. The dead man. The nearly naked old man on the floor in front of me with pieces of skin missing. Blood staining the wood floor. I think about Niobe. How she would see this scene. How she would see me. How she would look at me.
I return the gun to its holster. “Congratulations. You get to retire. Tell Flint to expect my resignation later.”
“He’ll never let you live. Not after this.”
“Yes, I think he will. I’ll be much more talkative after death. It would look so very bad for the Silver Helix and the government. Ta.” And I lock the door behind me as I leave.
I look like an S&M drag queen sashaying down the street. I need to change and make preparations. If Drake can’t control his power I’m going to need protection. As for finding him . . . well, if he’s blown, that won’t be a problem.
A Hard Rain Is A’Going to Fall
Victor Mián
“DOLORES, CHÉRIE! THERE YOU are.”
Already elevated, Dolores’s heartbeat seemed to stumble in her chest at the voice behind her. Having one’s name called by Alicia Nshombo was always cause for concern. Even when she had just hung a medal around one’s neck in front of the global media and the adoring populace of Kongoville.
She turned. The corridors of Mobutu’s erstwhile palace were bright and airy, belying the compound’s fortresslike construction. High windows let late-morning sunlight pour in to raise a glow from whitewashed walls. Native flowers burst from vases in niches like static explosions of color. Floral-patterned carpets ran along a floor of royal blue glazed tiles.
Dolores was lost. She had been on her way to an assignation with Tom Weathers after escaping the great public fete.
Alicia moved toward her at a purposeful waddle. Continuing the motif she wore the same dress printed with Congolese blooms that she had at the ceremony at which she had made Dolores and Tom Heroes of the People’s Paradise, in the proudest moment of Dolores’s young life.
The large woman was alone. Clearly she felt no need of bodyguards. Rumor said she was herself an ace, with the power to transform into a leopard. Whatever the truth, no one who feared death, or pain, would dare attempt to harm the president’s sister here in the palace.
Alicia hugged Dolores around the waist with a big arm. Dolores felt sweat soak through the white jumpsuit she wore to her skin. The smell of violets almost overwhelmed her.
“Your state has need of you, my Angel of Mercy,” Alicia said. Though not whispering she spoke at a low volume for her: she had a bellow like a bull hippo at need. “There is a man you must heal for us. You must tell no one. Do you understand?”
Dolores nodded. The president and his sister—and Tom, dear Tom!—had brought order to the anarchy of Central Africa. With order came the need for discipline. The heart of discipline was obedience.
Alicia led her up broad stairs, to a room on the second story. Dolores smelled harsh cigar smoke before they even entered the room.
It looked like a study. Shelves of books, their dark covers age-cracked, lined the walls. The floor was hardwood with a Persian rug laid on it. A fan circled lazily beneath the high ceiling.
A man sat smoking in a leather chair. Dolores gasped. Half the hair on his round head and his beard had been burned away; it amazed her he wasn’t literally smoldering. What of his plump pallid face wasn’t black or glaring red was gouged bloody. He wore loose blue hospital-style trousers. Bandages wrapped his lumpy upper body. His blood had soaked them through and was actually beginning to run.
Blood-crust concealed one eye. The other glared madly at her.
Dolores swayed. He must have been in terrible pain. It amazed her he was able to remain conscious, let alone sit in a chair and puff a cigar.
Alicia clucked and shook her head. “You shouldn’t smoke,” she said in English. “It is bad for you.”
The man barked a laugh, then groaned. “I’ll take my bloody chances,” he rasped in what Dolores thought was an English accent.
Alicia frowned and shook her head. She looked to Dolores. Dolores pressed her mouth to a line and nodded.
She knew what she had to do. All she had to do was steel herself to do it.
As she approached she could feel heat beating from his body as if still radiating from his burns. He must be burning up with fever, she thought. That, at least, would not affect her. Any tissue damage infection might have done would transfer to her; the pathogens themselves would not.
There was something repellent about him. Yet he suffered. It went beyond orders, now, even from Alicia. God had given her this gift, this curse. She could not withhold it. She was the Angel of Mercy; she was Our Lady of Pain.
She drew in a deep breath and stepped forward.
As always it hit her hard. As always it was bad. She ground her teeth against a scream.
“Ahh, Christ,” he said. “That’s good. That’s good, girl.”
His head lolled on his thick neck. He grinned up at her. “At least you won’t need to grow your bloody arms back this time, eh?”
Cold shot through the fire that enveloped her. She stepped back. Instantly it was as if a furnace door had been shut. Dolores’s cheeks felt sunburned; she felt blood run from gashes in her face and body. The torment dulled to an ache; no longer was his pain being loaded directly into her nervous system.
Recognition came like a slap. “I saw you!” she exclaimed in French.
“Speak English, bitch,” he rasped. “Why did you stop?”
“You were there! I saw you.”
Wild-eyed she looked at Alicia. “Why do you stop, child?” the woman asked.
“He’s the enemy! He was there with those men in the Ijaw village where—where they chopped the boy’s arms off!”
The injured man barked a laugh. “Too bloody right I was. People’s Paradise wanted Niger Delta oil, didn’t they? Needed an excuse to go to war with the whole world at their backs, didn’t they? So it’s play both sides, now, Butch Dagon, innit? For dirty work, I’m your man. Bloody Nigerians thought I was theirs, but it was your dirt I was doing all along. So get back here, girl, and finish what you started. I earned it, right enough!”
Through a curtain of hot tears Dolores looked to Alicia. Knew she would deny the man’s words, damn his lies.
Instead, Alicia smiled encouragingly and made urgent hand motions for Dolores to continue.
Dolores turned and walked out. “Wait!” she heard Dagon bellow. “Get bloody back here!”
She went left down the hall, back in the direction Alicia had led her. Hot tears fogged her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.
“Don’t fucking walk away from me!” Dagon shouted. “That bloody lion buggered me right up. You’re a healer. Heal me.”
She refused to look back. Guilt tore her, and the sense of duty. I cannot bear to heal such a creature, she thought.
“Heal me, damn you to hell! Bitch!”
Behind her she heard a sound unlike anything she had heard before. Half rustle, half gurgle. A breeze blew past her down the hallway.
She spun.
A monster crouched there. A great mound of fur-covered muscle. Half its fur was burned away; great red and char-black wounds had broken open and begun to seep. Its eyes were bloodshot.
A pointed maw opened. Jagged yellow teeth filled it. The monster vented a squealing snarl and charged.
Dolores stood frozen. As the horror gathered itself to leap upon her the hallway lit with dazzling white radiance. Heat hit her left side.