Ghost Dance

GHOST DANCE

When the mirror swung open there was darkness beyond. He thought that if he tried hard enough his eyes could pierce it, but he didn't want to know what he'd see. In that moment of fear his mind released the image and the door swung shut, closing with a soft
click
.

The glass was a mirror again and Morgan could see the reflection of a woman - but it wasn't Kate. This woman's cheeks were rounder, her eyes a paler, washed-out blue. Her gaze passed over Morgan without seeing him. She was studying herself, mouth squeezed shut as she applied her lipstick.

Morgan noticed the man behind her at the same time she did. He was watching her in the glass. His hair and eyes were the same dark brown that was almost black and though he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Morgan thought he belonged in uniform. He recognised a soldier when he saw one, the tense shoulders and loose arms, aggression held on only a light leash.

The woman gasped, then turned and smiled. Morgan fought the futile urge to shout a warning. This was her killer and she didn't know it and wouldn't realise until it was too late.

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Dedicated to David Bailey, Jon Pollard and Gramsci, who are brilliant friends and - not entirely coincidentally - great cooks. They also had a lovely apartment in San Francisco and were foolish enough to let me stay in it.

An Abaddon Books
^TM
Publication

www.abaddonbooks.com

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ISBN(.mobi): 978-1-84997-222-2

ISBN(.epub): 978-1-84997-223-9

First published in 2010 by Abaddon Books
^TM
, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

Editor: Jonathan Oliver

Cover: Pye Parr

Design: Simon Parr & Luke Preece

Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

The Infernal Game
^TM
created by Rebecca Levene

Copyright © 2010 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

The Infernal Game
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, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

THE INFERNAL GAME

GHOST DANCE

Rebecca Levene

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PROLOGUE

When he looked in the mirror, George W. Bush looked back. The mask was expressionless, blank - the way he felt inside.

He'd laid the guns out on his bed after his mom left for work. There was the Beretta 391 semi-automatic shotgun which he'd stolen from Joshua Heligman's house, from the gun drawer his dad was supposed to keep locked but never did. Joshua had told him about that in Home Room, his pimply face flushed with excitement. Joshua claimed he used to take the gun into the woods and use the rabbits for target practice.

The holster for the Beretta fit on his hip. He slung the Browning A-bolt across his back, where it bulged out the leather of his duster. The material creaked in protest as he moved and released its distinctive smell. Musty - as if the curing hadn't quite halted its decay. He'd stolen the rifle from a freshman whose name he couldn't remember. His parents had given it him for his fifteenth birthday, a present no one would forget.

The two little pea-shooters in his pockets had come from Christine Dunn's house. They didn't have much stopping power, but he was saving them for her. He wanted to imagine her parents' faces when the cops told them their stuck-up little bitch of a daughter had been shot with their own guns. He enjoyed picturing everyone's faces.

The phone rang, but he ignored it. That would be the school secretary wanting to find out where he was. She'd know the answer soon enough.

The sun was bright, the sky flat and the air dead as he walked the half mile to school. Old Mrs Corry stared as he passed, probably trying to guess the face behind the mask. She hadn't spoken to him anyway since the day she found her little kitten's guts smeared all over her microwave door. She'd known it was him, but not been able to prove it. That made him laugh as he passed her and he heard the clacking of her pumps speed to a half jog as she hurried away.

There was no one at the school gates. He'd waited long enough to ensure Mr Atkinson was back inside, no longer lurking to pounce on tardy students. No one would stop him. This was really going to happen.

He'd thought he might experience things differently today of all days, but he couldn't see this place through fresh eyes. He felt the same dull ache of hatred as the doors swung open onto the gloom inside. He squinted, momentarily blind. The squeak of rubber soles on linoleum told him he wasn't alone, and when his eyes cleared he saw Mrs O'Grady striding towards him, red ringlets swaying.

He let her get very close before he drew the Beretta and he waited to see the fear in her eyes before he put a bullet between them. The silencer muffled the retort to a dull
thump
, but he still froze, momentarily stunned by what he'd done. The bullet hole in her forehead was surprisingly small. It looked like that mark - he couldn't remember the name - the red dot that some of the Indian students wore.

When she fell to the floor it was with a thud that startled him out of his paralysis. And there was the blood he'd anticipated, spreading in a scarlet halo around her head. The exit wound would be far larger than the entry and suddenly he wanted to see it. He used his foot to flip her head to the side and the blood leaked on to his shoe, alongside skull fragments and fatty brain matter. There was nothing left of the back of her head.

He expected to feel something. He'd been sure that this, at least, would penetrate the dense fog that softened everything he saw to the same white nothing. But it was... disappointing. Maybe he'd rehearsed it so many times in his mind, he'd already sucked all the marrow from the bones of the experience. Or perhaps he hadn't hated Mrs O'Grady enough.

He flipped her over and saw her face, slack in death. Back again, and there was the mess and the gore. He could smell it too, along with the shit and piss that stained her dress. He left her like that, exit wound exposed, the truth that was the dead meat, not the lie that had been her face.

He moved deeper inside the building, drawing the rifle from his back to join the Beretta in his hand. Now he'd notched up his first kill he didn't have much time left and he had to make it count. He removed the silencer from the Beretta's barrel, wanting to make a noise - to be heard.

Classroom 4B was on the second floor. As he took the stairs two at a time he realised he felt weightless. Was this the elation he'd been waiting for? It hadn't occurred to him that happiness was something so foreign he might not recognise it if he felt it. A kid scampered towards him as he rounded the second curve of the stairs. It was no one he recognised, just some jock senior with a thick neck and dumb eyes. They widened when the boy caught sight of the semi-automatic in his hand.

He took a moment to savour the raw terror in the jock's face and then fired. The trigger was lighter than he'd realised and a hail of bullets shattered the silence before he released the pressure. The senior's body danced and jerked, just like in the movies.

When the bullets stopped the screams started. A door to his left opened then quickly slammed and he knew that the cops would be called very soon - but not soon enough. There was the wooden door to 4B, pitted at the bottom where generations of feet had kicked it open. He added his own toe print, a little memento of his existence that would be lost amidst the bigger legacy he was leaving.

It was Mr Skeet's class. He'd planned it that way. Skeet had once taken him aside and told him that he had a real talent for physics. He'd asked if there were problems at home, if there was anything he wanted to talk about.

There were no problems at home, that
was
the problem. There was only the destructive blandness of it all.

Mr Skeet was the first to die. Then ten more in the first wild volley of bullets. He'd read about other school shootings, and the thing that had shocked him was the survival rate. It seemed to him those other guys hadn't done their research. But he'd read an airport thriller about Navy SEALs once and he knew they never took a kill for granted.

He didn't either. Brittany was bleeding from a wound in her shoulder. It seeped a rich dark blood through the fingers she'd curled protectively against it. When he took a step towards her she said his name and he wondered how she recognised him behind the mask. But he found it gratifying that she did. He
was
memorable - hell, he was unforgettable. He winked at her through the mask as he rested the barrel of the gun against her ear and pulled the trigger.

It became almost mechanical after that, each kill a little less of a high and more of a chore, like the fourth hit of Ecstasy when the pleasure was gone and you were just looking for the energy to go on. When he'd finished there was blood
everywhere
. He placed himself in the middle of it, feet planted in the deepest pool. He lifted a hand to his mask and considered lifting it. But no, the crime-scene photos would be so much more memorable if he was still wearing it. The media would love it. They'd fucking eat it up.

The barrel of the gun scalded him even through the mask as he rested it against his temple. All that heat from the bullets, the transformed kinetic energy. That was something he'd learned in Mr Skeet's class. He took a deep, final breath as his eyes slid shut.

They snapped open again when he heard the footstep behind him. His finger tightened on the trigger of his second weapon as he spun, but the chamber clicked empty and the man just smiled. For a moment he thought this must be his father. The shape of the face was the same, and the wide hazel eyes. But this man was younger, and his father had never worn quite that knowing, cynically amused expression.

The man nodded at the gun in his other hand, the one still pointed at his own temple.

"If you knew where you were going," he said, "you wouldn't be in such a hurry to get there."

The man was waiting for Alex outside the front door of the school. She walked right past him into the bitterly cold Manhattan morning, cellphone pressed to her ear as she made an appointment with her manicurist, only for him to grab her wrist and swing her round to face him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she said, jerking her arm futilely in his grasp. "And while we're on the subject, who the hell do you think you are?"

He was a tall, dark-haired Native American, with a quality of stillness about him so intense that it was hard to tell if he was even breathing. "I'm an agent of the federal government, Miss Keve," he said. "And I'm arresting you. I can put on more of a show if you like. Mirandize you, handcuffs, the works. Or you could just come quietly."

She was so shocked that she let him pull her unresisting down the steps and past the stunted, winter-bald oak trees to the car park out front. It was only when she saw Jenna leaning against her Porsche, eyes unreadable behind dark glasses as she waited for her ride home, that Alex returned to her senses. She dug in her heels, skidding a few inches against the sidewalk before pulling him to a halt.

"Not so fast, Agent Orange," she said. "How about you show me some ID? And how about I get my constitutionally mandated phone call and use to it call my dad? Who, by the way, is a senior 9th circuit judge, in case no one mentioned that to you."

He raised an eyebrow, unperturbed. "Have it your way, kid. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law-" He pitched his voice loud enough to carry across the entire car park. Jenna's head jerked up at the sound, looking shocked when she caught sight of Alex.

"Shut up!" Alex hissed. "I'm coming, OK - just shut the hell up."

The rest of the walk passed in silence, but he didn't release her wrist and she felt eyes on her, boring into the back of her head. Kids at West Village High didn't get arrested. It just wasn't that sort of school.

Alex waited until she was inside his black Ford before she turned to him again. She'd decided on a new tactic, and it required her to look friendly. Her smile was so stiff it made her jaw ache.

"Look, this has to be some mistake," she said. "Why don't you drive me home, have a word with my dad - I'm sure we can clear this all up." She was sure her father would be furious, but dealing with his anger seemed like the least bad option right now.