The Devil's Dream: Book One (24 page)

Matthew sat three
tables to their left, his arms much hairier than they had ever been
in his life, and that same hair growing out from the Polo shirt he
wore. He wore a body suit, looking much more muscular that his
hundred and forty pound frame could ever handle. The wig was a comb
over type, and the glasses he wore gave him age that his muscular
body seemed to be fighting.

Matthew leaned back in
his chair, menu held in front of him, watching them without looking
up. Federal agents littered the place, and a police car sat at the
curb. He didn't plan on taking her, he just wanted to watch, to see
her in person for a bit. He would only get a day with her and that
wasn't enough. It would never, ever be enough. He should have been
sitting in front of her, watching her order, watching her eat,
watching her laugh as they talked. That should have been his place,
but the entire world conspired against him to take it. So now he
watched at a distance.

The pride rose up in
him again, the same thing that put him in a cabin with bullets flying
around him. The pride that would never drown no matter how long he
held it under water. He couldn't suffocate it; he couldn't bury it.
Here, in this restaurant where sizzling steak came out onto the patio
every five minutes, people all around him enjoying their evening with
family and friends, that pride was ready to boil up. Why couldn't he
have her now? Why couldn't he take her away from her husband, who sat
there and didn't even
look
at
her, looking at his own menu instead? All the cops that surrounded
this place, but if she and him were willing to leave, why couldn't
they?

He looked around the
restaurant, making calculations instead of observations. He thought
he saw four cops in the restaurant, wearing street clothes and at a
table together, blending in with the crowd. Plus the car outside.
That made six, all of them most likely carrying nines, and maybe one
forty-five caliber Glock between the six. Radios inside the car that
would probably have another ten police here within two and half
minutes. They had noticed Matthew, even if they'd dismissed him as an
actual patron. No matter how hard the agents at that table laughed,
no matter how obviously they refused to look around the restaurant,
they were watching the people surrounding them. They knew who came,
who went, and they probably communicated through wires on their
person about all they saw. Somewhere, above everything, Allison Moore
watched. Maybe a security camera they were tapped into here or maybe
something else, but Matthew didn't think there was any way she didn't
know exactly what was going on with Rally in public.

You
need to leave.

The part of him that
lived ten years in a cell spoke now. The part that understood his
pride turned the most feared man in the entire country into a strange
story of idiocy. Sitting there in jeans and a plaid shirt with a gas
mask over his face, laughing at a hundred cops as if he had a chance
in hell of doing what he set out to do. Saturday Night Live even ran
skits on him, laughing at his stupidity. All because of the pride
that wanted to show up now, and dare someone to stop him.

This was
his
wife just as it had been
his
son. These people, a part of the same organization that decided years
ago he didn't need his son any longer, were now saying he couldn't be
with his wife. If she agreed to that, if she said she didn't want to
see him, then it wouldn't be a problem. He wouldn't be here. But she
did want to see him. She did want to talk to him. These people were
trying to keep that from happening, trying to keep her from him.

At the same time
Jeffrey Dillan was drinking the last of his vodka, Matthew stood from
his chair, taking a sip of water and placing his menu down. He pushed
the chair under the table and walked from the patio, heading to the
bathroom. In the war between brains and pride, with Matthew, his mind
never really had a chance.

* * *

This would be no
Godfather scene of quiet death and planning. There weren't any
straight lines out of this place, no way to steal her when she came
to the bathroom and simply walk out the front door. No way to kill
those men and women sitting at the table ten feet from her and her
husband. Matthew needed chaos for this, so much that they couldn't
grab Rally if they tried because the world around them was burning
down.

If he took too long,
someone would notice that the burly man who had been about to order
was taking too long in the restaurant. If he took too long, flags
would raise.

He walked past the
hostess booth and into the kitchen. A few heads looked up but no one
said anything. There was food to cook and if someone wanted to look
around the kitchen, it wasn't any of these Mexicans job to question
the person. Matthew looked around, searching for what he needed. He
had maybe three more minutes before he would be noticed, and then
they would come looking for him. Someone, maybe two people at the
table would go to the bathroom, would check in both the men and
women's restrooms to see if the burly man was in there. He had three
minutes to get this done.

His eyes searched for
anything that would create the chaos, the pure damage he needed.
Quickly.

And there they were, as
if God himself had laid everything out for Matthew in a neat, little
package.

He moved past the chef,
who stood at a huge chopping block with a plate of food in front of
him. Matthew grabbed the crème brulee torch currently discarded to
the side, with no one noticing him. He stepped over to a grill,
grabbing a can of spray oil, and finally went back to the chopping
block—four feet tall and solid. He took the bag of powdered sugar
and turned it over.

“What the hell are
you doing?” Someone to his right asked.

Matthew blew into the
powder, and like a massive dandelion, the powder rose into the air.
Can of spray oil in his left hand, and torch in his right, Matthew
pressed the respective buttons on both of them, and fire erupted
through the air in answer, stretching six or seven feet out in front
of him.

The powdered sugar
caught fire, creating a cloud of flames just as the agents hunting
for him entered the double, swinging doors to the kitchen. Matthew
caught a glimpse of the first man, already reaching for his gun, but
his eyes telling the world he knew it was too late. A sweaty smile
appeared on Matthew’s face as he turned his torch to the rest of
the powdered sugar lying on the chopping block, angling it towards
the door where four agents now stood—each of them raising their
weapons to eye level.

Nope.
Too late.

The sugar ignited and
flew off the chopping block, a spray of explosive fire raining down
on the men and women sent in this kitchen to kill him.

They turned into human
torches, their weapons falling to the ground and screams pouring from
their mouths. Dropping to the floor, rolling, but the cloud of fire
still descending on them.

Matthew turned the
torch to the fryers, taking a step back as they exploded in grease
and flames. People were running everywhere, not towards him, but
away, trying their best to escape the inferno he was creating.

Matthew walked out of
the kitchen, people in front of him—trying to dash away—catching
fire from the burning torch he aimed in front of him. Flames were
creeping up the walls now, the entire building heating up, and still
he sprayed the fire forward, out into the dining room.

He saw Rally standing
fifty feet off, at the door to the patio. She hadn't run, hadn't been
grabbed by the police sitting at the curb. She had waited for him.
She knew what this was, that he was here for her, and she had walked
in to greet him. Tears welled in Matthew's eyes as he held flames in
his hands like some kind of mutant. He dropped the torch and
canister, the source of all the madness around him ending, although
too late to stop the raging fire.

Matthew walked forward,
ignoring the people rushing around him, the screams, the people
writhing on the floor in flames. He saw only his wife. The love of
his life. The person he had come for. She wasn't looking around
either, her eyes only on him. Once again, they were together; chaos
running rampant around them but they looked on in peace.

Walking forward, people
blitzing back and forth, Matthew went to his wife.

They stood a foot from
each other, him in makeup that was melting off his face and no longer
wearing glasses. Her, looking as beautiful as the first day he met
her.

"Hi," he
said.

"Hey," she
answered.

Her hand darted forward
as quick as a bee's stinger. The pain opened up in his abdomen like a
molten sun creating itself in the blackest of space—one minute
nothing but calm and the next pain greater than any birthing agony
ever felt. He looked down and a knife stuck out of his stomach,
attached to Rally's hand. He watched as she pushed harder and the
knife sunk deeper. His mouth opened but no noise came. He raised his
eyes to hers; she didn't look away.

"Ral?" He
whispered.

"It's got to end,"
she said, her hand moving again and the knife twisting into a
suffering Matthew hadn't believed possible.

He understood then,
understood everything. She had agreed to come to him, even stayed
while those around her fled and burnt and died. All of it for this,
so that she could stick him with a blade and save everyone else he
would eventually bring down. She hadn't let the cops do it and she
hadn't turned him in. She would kill him herself.

Here, in this strange
restaurant without their son.

The tears that had
welled fell onto Matthew's cheeks.

He raised his hands to
her face, wanting to touch her one last time. He cupped her head and
she didn't turn him away. The knife no longer moved in his gut, and
they looked into each other's eyes like two lovers reunited.

He grabbed her head
between his fingers and with a jerk, snapped her neck. A brief second
of shocked pain crossed her face and then she fell to the ground,
dead.

He looked down at the
knife, no longer attached to anyone else besides him. He left it
there, not wanting the blood to flow freely once he pulled it out,
and staggered from the restaurant.

Allison hadn't called
and Jerry knew why. The television showed him everything that she
couldn't. He knew it wasn't good for her career and he wasn't
completely sure that it could be good for their family.

A video shot from a
helicopter continually replayed across the television. The second
Marley asked what was going on, he turned the television off and
didn't look at it again until she went to bed. He didn't worry that
the helicopter or images would disappear because of the words that
continually wrapped around the screen in bright red letters: Matthew
Brand Strikes Local Restaurant. The producers in those news studios
had
nothing
more
pressing to show.

With his daughter in
bed, kissed and tucked in, he came back to the living room and turned
on the television to look more closely at the wreckage he glimpsed
earlier.

"They still
haven't apprehended him, and the F.B.I. has completely shut down the
city. It's honestly baffling how this one man can continually evade
the government's entire police force. I'm beginning to feel that if
he was in a room with nothing but cops, he'd be the first person to
walk out."

The woman's face showed
on the corner of the television, the rest of the screen filled with
burnt destruction.

"Two F.B.I. agents
were burnt alive today, and from what we've gathered, Brand wasn't
touched at all. I mean, this is a real disaster for the entire
F.B.I.”

It was a disaster for
Allison certainly, but it might mean she came home quicker. It might
mean he had a wife again and Marley a mother...but was that what he
wanted anymore?

In the past month, he
had heard his wife's voice but not seen her face.

In the past month, he
voiced his concern about the effect her absence was having on him, on
their family.

In the past month,
Allison told him all of that would have to wait.

When she came back from
this, either through losing the case or capturing Brand, what would
really change? Was she just going to give up on the career she had
chased her whole life? Was she going to accept that her daughter was
more important than the people she went after? Did he even want to
have that argument with her? Hear her say what he knew she would,
that they had agreed on this years ago and to change the rules now
was unfair. Asking something of her that she wasn't willing to give,
while knowing she wasn't willing to give it, was wrong.

Jerry walked into the
kitchen, opened a drawer and found a notebook and pen. He went back
to the living room and sat in front of the T.V., different people
speaking while the same pictures and videos rolled.

The only thing he had
ever written down for Allison was on cards for holidays.

* * *

I'm trying to remember
how I got to this point. I'd like to know what changed in my mind
that didn't change in yours.

I love you, Allison,
that
hasn't
changed
and I don't think it ever will.

Even with that love, I
can't remain married to you any longer. This is me asking for a
divorce in the shittiest way I think a human can, through a piece of
paper. Maybe I'll get the guts to tell you in person and perhaps this
is just me processing everything. I hope so, but I'm not sure.

We weren't too young to
get married and I won't act like that is what caused this rift. I
understood you when we married. I understood the importance of your
career. I understood that while I wasn't secondary; I wasn't primary.
I understood it and I loved you enough to not care. Being on your
periphery was better than being in anyone else's line of sight.