Outcasts (28 page)

We exited at the tenth floor, and I congratulated Nuts on his elevator. He said, “Meh. Need to safely increase the velocity,” and slowly descended out of sight. My Devotees waited with the door open, allowing the remaining sunlight into our hall.

“Master, your presence is required on the roof.”

My heart sank. “Walter?”

“Yes Master. Walter.”

He could have texted but we reserved cell usage for absolute necessities. Nuts ran our cell signals to multiple towers and satellites, disguising numbers and routing through daisy-chained servers across the globe, but the threat persisted. The Americans would lock onto them eventually.

Even if they didn’t, Carter’s computer hacker would. That was an absolute certainty. PuckDaddy. Our constant scourge.

“How is your shoulder, Master?”

I answered, “Hurts a little less each hour. Should be fine in a couple days.”

“Do you require anything now?”

“I’m fine. Andy? Need anything?”

“Food,” Andy answered. Quietly. My Devotees were gorgeous, and Andy had trouble not staring. Later I would explain that the women were weak-minded, sacrificing everything to enter into the Father’s service, chasing unrealistic fantasies. Nothing about them was substantial. Like the Warriors, these wounded women needed a lifetime of therapy.

“Food. Good idea. Grab us some fruit, please. And chocolate.”

She turned quickly to obey. Andy perked up when she returned with Hershey bars.

We trudged up the remaining eighteen floors. The roof. Why always the roof? I wasn’t a Leaper like Walter. By the time we attained the peak, the sun had been hidden by ocean. Andy panted and groaned and ached.

The view. This spectacular view from the open-aired sky lounge. I still wasn’t immune. Los Angeles went
forever
. In all directions. The Sanctuary was a city (a dark one) inside a city that never ended. From this perch, Walter and the Father could hop onto the nearby sky scrapers. The ones which still stood.

Walter reclined on a chair set in the grass, smoking a cheap cigar, boots crossed on the coffee table. But it was not Walter who stopped us short.

Andy caught his breath with a hiss. “Hannah. Hannah Walker?”

A girl sat near Walter, serenely surveying us without emotion. I hadn’t seen her in months. Hannah had been a classmate of Andy’s in a former life. Lovers, if the rumors were true. She was very pretty. No, that’s not the word. She was…attention grabbing. Sexy. Trim, muscular, curvy. And melted.

She wore a thousand dollars worth of scant clothing, breezy white fabric, essentially an immodest robe, like she didn’t want the material to touch her more than necessary. Her back was straight. Legs crossed. High-heels. Short blonde hair pulled back and spiked, like a flame. Her face displayed extensively burnt flesh and skin grafts. Blue eyes that didn’t blink.

“Hello Andy,” she said with a raw voice. “I remember your name.”

“I remember you too,” he answered. He lowered carefully into the chair next to her. “A little.”

“You were…” she started but trailed off, like chasing a dream remnant. “You…”

“We were friends.”

“
Are
friends. Still.”

Andy smiled. He was a good-looking kid. “Are friends.”

Walter and I shared a glance. What the heck? He shrugged.

She asked, “Have you seen Chase?”

“Chase? Who is…hang on. I know Chase.”

“I search for him.”

“Me too.”

“You do??”

Andy rubbed his eyes. Then his temples. “…I think.”

“We can search together!”

Walter spoke, an insulting, casual sneer. “Andy. Hey stupid. You’re looking for the Outlaw.”

“But…”

“The Outlaw.”

I was confused. I wanted to ask, aren’t they the same person? Are we hiding that? Walter shook his head and indicated the adjacent chair. I sat. He told me, “I decided to simplify things for Babington. His head ‘bout exploded two nights ago, when I…explained things. Besides. We don’t need these two white wackos getting too friendly. Keep’em apart.”

“She smells like gasoline still.”

“Yeah,” he barked a laugh. “She’d be fun, sept for that. I like crazy ass women. But that smell.”

“Why’d you bring her?”

“Found her. Up north. Maybe she can help.”

Because I felt reckless, because I disliked Walter so intensely, I suggested innocently, “Should I put Mary on speakerphone?”

The effect happened instantaneously. His grip on the chair’s arm tightened and the wood splintered. He ground teeth on the cigar for a brief moment, and he grumbled, “Don’t need that bitch.”

“Are you sure? The Father prefers-”

Walter banged his boot on the table, startling us all. Andy winced.

“Okay. Let’s talk.”

Hannah stood. “I’m going to look for Chase.”

“Sit down.”

She turned on him. So fast, half a heartbeat, verging on violence. Eyes flashing, fingers like talons, skin pebbling into rock. Walter, caught off guard, nearly fell out of his chair, inhaling too much smoke and ash. Coughing, eyes streaming with tears, he held up his hands. Universal symbol for Calm Down.

He was no fool; the girl should not be trifled with. Hannah Walker had been carefully and intentionally rebuilt by the Father himself, providing her with an unheard of complete blood exchange. And other things he only hinted at. Then she’d marinated in the disease for months and months, much longer than usual. She’d awoken a physical freak, a miniature colossus.

When the Father first released her into the Sanctuary, she’d
destroyed
a pod of Warriors. Twice Chosen stupid enough to provoke the cheerleader. Her nails acted as razors. So much blood. Evisceration wasn’t strong enough a word. Afterwards, the street looked as though human bodies had detonated from internal pressure. After viewing the massacre, Nuts began building steel claws that day.

If she and Walter fought…I didn’t know who’d win.

“Let me try that again,” Walter choked with a grin, hands still raised, palms out. “Let’s all talk.
Please
.”

“About what?”

I said, “We know you’re very intelligent, Hannah.”

“We wanna find Chase. Jus’ like you.”

Her face softened. Literally. “You do?”

Andy Babington said, “Chase?”

Walter continued, “Honestly. We do. We want to find Chase. We want to help. Both of you.”

She sat, anger diffused, storm passed. “How do I help?”

“I’m not sure yet. Andy…Andy? Andy!” Walter kicked the table again, getting the boy’s attention off Hannah’s outfit. “Andy, tell us what happened last night.”

“Last night?”

“You went to Compton. Looking for Chase.”

“I remember.

“And?”

“I found him.”

Walter bolted upright, cigar forgotten. “You
found
him??”

“You did?” Hannah clapped her hands. “Good for you!”

“I found him,” Andy nodded. “Him and the girl kicker.”

Walter and I shared another look. We had the Outlaw
and
his girlfriend
and
the Shooter in our hands. All of them. Now lost. We hoped the Father never found out.

Walter asked the ridiculous question. “Did you kill either?”

“No.”

“Damn it.”

“They hurt me. And took away my…I hate him.”

Hannah Walker stretched her arms wide and yawned. “You hate Chase?”

“I hate him.”

“Why?”

“Just do. …I think.”

I asked, “Do you know where they went?”

Andy had been watching Hannah, and so he yawned too. “Where who went?”

“Chase and the Shooter.”

“The Shooter?”

Walter snarled, “The kicker, Babington. Focus. The kicker.”

“What about her?”

He stood up and flung the cigar over the railing. “This is some stupid…”

He stopped.

We all stopped.

The Father was here. Somewhere close. I sensed him. So did the others. He felt like a thunderstorm. Like a change in barometric pressure. Involuntarily I began to tremble.

He stood in the penthouse doorway. Watching. A darker shade of shadow.

Hannah shrieked in delight and ran to him. A little girl finding her daddy returned from war. I was stunned. She
hugged
him. He
allowed
her. Never seen that. He toyed with her hair, pulling back the short dirty-blonde flames.

“Hello little candle,” he said. “I hope you’ve been a good girl?”

“Oh yes. The very best.”

He stepped into our lantern light. Death himself, Dracula in appearance. His visage had grown more grim, his skin pallor closer to matching his gray hair. As always, he wore a duster and leaned on the staff. “If it isn’t the Three Musketeers.”

I stood and bowed to him. Reluctantly, Walter followed suit and gave a perfunctory nod. The Father offered me his hand and I took it. Such strength! Such power radiated. Like shaking hands with a redwood. Like shaking hands with the San Gabriel Mountain. With the earth’s core.

A persistent slipstream at the tower’s peak caught strands of his hair, the only malleable part of his person. “Hello Andy.”

Andy Babington swallowed and stood and nodded and sat again, like a fish flopping, no eye contact. The virus hadn’t had enough time to affect significant changes within Andy’s body, but the Father’s presence cowed him like he’d developed sensory receptors.

The Father continued, “I’m surprised to see you awake, son. I…assumed…you’d be asleep for months. In fact…” He turned to stare at Walter. “…I ordered it.”

The gears turning in Walter’s brain were almost audible. He’d woken Andy prematurely. He’d disobeyed orders. Insubordination, pure and simple. He chafed under the Father’s control. Strained against him, wanting to be independent, autonomous, have complete command. Could this be the time? To overthrow the Father? Even kill him? The old man appeared so slow and frail. Maybe…

The Father read his thoughts.

The Father
Moved
.

Moved as though he stepped outside of time. The governing laws of physics did not apply. He’d outlived them, outgrown their shackles. The wooden coffee table exploded. The Father’s staff shattered it. Or else he used telepathy, it happened that fast. The staff cracked Walter in the face, a sound of metal on rock.

Walter woke up on the floor. His jaw broken. Blood trickling from his lips. He spit out a shattered tooth. Maybe two.

“I invested resources beyond your imagination into Andy Babington,” the Father said, standing still, an old man again, as though he hadn’t moved. “He will die now. Most likely.”

Andy was crying. Hannah frowned at him with bewilderment and…disgust?

The Father turned to me. The blood drained from my face. He said, “Tell me about your efforts to recapture the girl.”

“The…girl?”

“After she boarded the raft with the ogre, Tank Ware. Regale me with your progress towards locating her.”

I stayed silent. Close to hyperventilating.

He continued, “The raft is small, yes? Couldn’t have gone far? No food? No water? Had to beach somewhere nearby, correct?”

My chest heaved. My neck and shoulder throbbed. I’d failed. I’d made zero effort.

“Or did you come home and…sleep.”

“I…” I wheezed. His presence suffocated me. “I slept.”

“Do you see?” He raised his left hand, hard as steel, and set it on my purple shoulder. “Do you understand?”

“Do-do I understand?”

“Do you understand why your name is Kid?”

“Because…because I’m not good at this.”

“Exactly.” He gave me a gentle squeeze, almost fatherly, sending lightning strikes up and down my torso and deep into my shoulder. He let go. Tears formed in my eyes. “At least you’re honest.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“I have located the girl. No thanks to you.”

Hannah spoke up, “Located who?”

“Katie Lopez, baby.”

“I know Katie!”

“Yes you do. Would you like to help retrieve her?”

“Yes!” Hannah clapped her hands again. Old cheerleader habit? “She and I are friends. She can help find Chase.”

“Yes,” the Father said, his voice picking up hints of a ravenous hunger. “Yes. She will help find Chase.”

“I will go,” she said.

Eager for redemption, I asked, “Shall I go fetch Katie?”

“No, son. You can barely feed yourself.”

Walter spoke, his lips unmoving. “Where is she?”

“West. With the ogre, taking shelter on a beach.”

“With the ogre?”

“Will that be a problem?”

“No sir. Do you think the Outlaw knows her location?”

“I’m not positive, Walter. But I doubt it. Neither Katie nor the ogre appears to have a working phone. They spent the day in a picnic shelter, scavenging food and avoiding discovery.”

Walter finally stood, holding his jaw in place. He healed at a truly prodigious rate and might be whole before morning. “I’ll get her.”

“Yes Walter,” the Father nodded. “Yes you will. I run short on time. The world is ripe for the plucking. And if I get my hands on that boy…that mysterious magical magnificent boy…it will all be ours.”

“And the ogre?”

“If possible, leave him alive. This globe has a more appealing future with him stomping all over it.”

“Yes Father.”

“Take Hannah with you. Should be like having the power of hell at your disposal. I’ll have Katie Lopez’s exact location forwarded to your phone. And Walter, let nothing stop you. My surgeons are prepped for her arrival.”

I woke up at four in the morning on a blanket beside Miss Pauline’s couch. She really needed to vacuum. Above me, Samantha snored faintly on the scratchy plaid cushions. Her arm was draped off the couch’s side and rested on my shoulder.

Yesterday had been eerily quiet. We’d followed Miss Pauline, and painted, cleaned, swept, listened to her many meetings, and played with her many unofficially adopted neighborhood kids. Miss Pauline was uncomplicated; she worked and she loved and she wielded power through those two avenues and dispensed wisdom along the way.

“How is this helping defeat the Chemist??” Samantha had hissed at me, holding fistfuls of discarded plastic grocery bags. We both wore sunglasses and hats pulled down.