The Liminal People (20 page)

“Yeah, from a distance. Isn't that how your faggot power works? Never have to move in and do the damage personally?”

“So it's powers we're talking about now, eh?” He stops walking for a second to concentrate. He explodes the table to my right into so much kindling. “That's mine. What's yours? Aside from making people throw up, I mean?”

“I kick punk rapists' asses for a living. And your little boom-boom show don't mean shit to me.” He's stopped moving. He's trying to use his powers. I counted before. Three-second delay from when he stopped walking to when the table exploded. Tingle in my chest. He wants to explode my heart. I grab a bowl off another table and tag him in the head.

“Eyes open, Rajesh. I want you to see this ass kicking coming.” He wipes the spicy curry off his head and is about to charge me when he stops of his own accord.

“Wait. I recognize you now. You're the bloke in the limo, with that little skank's parents. I didn't know you were one of us.”

I'm trying hard to let the “us” part go so I can gain information. It's the only reason he's still alive, after that bullshit attempt at blowing my heart out of chest cavity. “If you weren't after me, then why blow the car?”

“Talk to Alia,” Rajesh says with a more casual demeanor. He thinks he's got nothing to worry about. “She said taking out the parents would leave the girl no place else to go. Is that her, holding the doors tight?”

“You geniuses ever think about the repercussions of getting someone like ‘us' really mad at you?”

“Yet to meet a fucker I can't make jam out of, you included, geezer. No offense, old timer.”

“You are an offense,” I say loudly. “Plus you're thicker than a post. You're two seconds from dead, asking,‘Are we there yet?'”

“Look, you want the one who gave the order to blow you up, go talk to Alia. If you can find her. You want to scrap one-on-one, stop bitching and bring it. I'm tired of your mouth, grandpa.”

“You killed the only woman I ever loved. Die now.” He throws a chair at me before I can get the seizure I wanted started. Seizures are too complicated. I should've just clenched all his muscles. Too late. He's on me.

He's borrowed a page from my book, trying to keep me from concentrating. I'm up against a wall, and he's ramming his shoulder into my ribs. But now I've got his head. I go nuts, grow bone spikes out of his collarbone. If they're painful, he doesn't show it. He just tosses me halfway across the restaurant. I land hard, but he's still a little discombobulated. He's got two powers, like Tamara. He can make things explode, and he's superhumanly strong. Knew there'd be a catch.

Rajesh explodes the air in front of me. It doesn't hurt, just a distraction. I catch the stool he throws but miss his charging into my sternum again. This time he's smart. He doesn't stay with me. Just knocks me back to where I was sitting before. Luckily, I'm still holding the stool, because when he starts exploding the restaurant stereo equipment around me I need something to brush it all away with. He thinks I don't see him circling behind me. I dehydrate him almost completely so he knows who he's dealing with.

Doesn't stop him from ramming me in the back again, though. He's like a damn bull. He didn't drink any water; there's just more to him than I thought. I slowed him down but didn't dehydrate him fully. He thinks he's slick. It's punches now, only each one is prefaced with an air explosion. I can take them. I can take them all day. He doesn't realize it. He's never boxed; he doesn't know how to take a punch, how to bring a sucker in, get him worn out from throwing his own punches then make him wish his momma never squeezed him out.

I take everything the young buck has to offer. He explodes bones, organs, air, limbs, every piece of me he can. He uses those hands like tenderizers and tries to make mincemeat out of my face, my chest, my groin, my ribs, and my back. I give him just enough resistance to keep him going. What damage he does, I heal swiftly. After all, I am a healer. We wreck the restaurant entirely before moving it to the kitchen. He tries to shove my face into hot oil. That I can't allow. I duck under and tip him so his hand goes in instead. He screams in a tongue he hasn't spoken in since childhood. That's some serious deep-fried pain. A pain so big he can't concentrate. No concentration equals no powers. He's mine.

I make his flesh like putty, reach into his chest and grab his ribs with my hands. All of a sudden the pain of a crispy-fried hand is nothing. I keep his pain receptors wide open as I lift the big boy over my head. Just as his ribs break, I throw him back into the restaurant proper. He can barely move. I'm tired of physical combat. I calcify his skin, shrivel his testicles to the size of raisins, evacuate his bladder and intestines and start a slow buildup of fluid in his lungs.

“Alia . . . ,” he manages to get out.

“What about her?”

“It wasn't my fault. It was Alia.” He's spitting up something green and black.

“We all make choices in our lives though, don't we, buddy?”

“I can help you. I'll tell you everything you need to know about her.”

“Will she be at the Bender party in Soho tomorrow night?” Fucker actually tries to stall. I break three of his vertebrae and make his bone marrow allergic to his blood type. “Will-she-be-at-the-Bender-party-tomorrow-night?”

“Yes, oh God, Yes!”

“Then what the fuck do I need you for?”

“You can't see her. You don't know what she looks like!”

“Forgot so soon about the girl whose mother and father you killed? She knows what your lady's face is all about. Again, I don't need you.”

“No! She doesn't!” Problem. I'm thinking. “No one does.”

“Prentis, the dog girl. She knows.” I hate the level of questioning in my voice.

“No, she doesn't! Alia wouldn't trust her to take out the garbage, let alone with her real face. She doesn't trust anyone.”

“But she trusts you? You're muscle, not confidant. You're overplaying your hand, 'jeshi.”

“No! Don't kill me.” I'm not even trying to make him cry. “I wasn't supposed to see. She sleeps alone 'cause she can't maintain the illusion when she's asleep. I had to deliver some money to her one time. I guess she was tired. She was sleeping in her living room. I saw her! I saw her!”

“So you woke her up and she let you live? Bullshit!”

“I snuck out!” he screams. His nerve endings begin to grow out of his fingers. I'm fucking with his insides like a vicar on a whore. “I snuck out. I knew she'd kill me. I snuck out. I knocked on the door hard when I came back. I swear. She looked different then. Like she always does. I swear I saw her.”

“So here's a question, boom boy. And take your time answering . . . it's your only reprieve from drowning in your own waste. All this girl does is make illusions. Images you know aren't real. Meanwhile, you blow things up. Plus, she's a woman, and we both know how you really feel about women. So how is it you end up taking orders from this Alia chick?”

“Fuck you, you arrogant prick.”

“Ah, see, now you're tasting your own mucus and blood again. Keep it civil and I'll give you a decent death,” I lie. “Now answer my question.”

“You've never met her.” Is that a laugh through the grimace of pain? I have to hold back from sending multiple blood clots to his brain. “It's not images, it's not illusions. When she's got you in her grip, when she holds your brain it's not illusions . . . it's reality. I've seen her put a guy in fire and watched his skin boil. Her imaginary swords draw blood. Fuck, the only way I know you're not her is I just left her. She runs everything around her. She's like her own planet, complete with her own gravity. . . .”

“So why does she want me so bad?” I've been so focused on my torture thing that I didn't feel Tamara come in. Her steps are delayed, like she's approaching a wounded animal. I want to reach out to her, tell her there's nothing to worry about. That I've got her. But she gets stronger with each step, and I realize it's not my place.

“Why? Why all this killing and intimidation? What makes me so special?”

I can tell he wants to say something dirty and nasty. But his bloodshot eyes look at mine and see what I want. He speaks plainly.

“She thinks that with you, she'd actually be able to do all the things she makes people think. She calls you her retarded sister. . . .” Tamara spits at the idea. “She says you were meant to work together. That's why she was so angry when you turned her down. She took it personal. I'm nothing to her. Prentis, less than nothing. But you . . . your parents were in the way. That's all. The way she said it, she said it like no one would notice. No one would care.”

“I care.” She's trembling with rage. Everything around us begins to tremble as well. Her telekinesis is fusing with her emotional state. I almost let my focus slip when I imagine the possibilities of that. “What about Prentis?”

“What about her? You've seen Alia with her. She does whatever Alia says. The only time Alia lets her do or say anything is when she wants to make fun of her or put her down.”

“And you and Prentis?” I have to ask. He gives me another look, shakes his head vigorously. He knows what's coming. To push him along I twist his calf so tightly it begins to atrophy.

“Oh God! Yes, I did it. Alia gave her to me.”

“
Gave
her to you?” Tamara's shaking had stopped for a moment, only to start up again when Rajesh spoke. “How are you
given
another human being?”

“You don't understand! Neither one of you pricks understands. When you're around Alia, she can give you whatever you want. She looks in your mind, and your best desire, or your worst fear, that's what she can offer you. I wanted women, lots of them. I didn't know if she was making me look different, or them look different. Or if I was with anyone at all. It could've all been in my head. The first few times I had Prentis, she made me think that she was her, that Prentis was Alia. I didn't . . . I didn't know.”

“He's lying!” Tamara shouts loud enough in his mind to reverberate through his body. “He knew Alia wouldn't sleep with him. He resented that she was trying to pass off Prentis as her, so . . . oh my God, you vulgar fucking creature, you . . . raped her until she bled, and you liked it.”

“Get out of here now, Tamara.” She looks at me harshly. I can't return it. Hang around Nordeen long enough you'll meet some sport rapists. The type that makes this pool of physical and mental sickness at my feet seem like a romantic. To keep the peace, I've had to sit through more than a few of their glory-day stories as they tried to convince my boss to switch from hash trading to bonded child chattel, to slavery. If he did take it on, Nordeen was smart enough to keep it from me. Maybe he caught wind of my emotions when they spoke. At least I had the filter of words. Tamara just experienced the situation from the rapist's perspective. Even disheveled and powerless, this fucker is toxic.

“I can't have you doing my killings for me.” She's trying to use logic as the whole building around us shakes with her rage.

“You're mad right now. You think taking this asshole out will make you feel better. It won't. Only thing that'll make you feel remotely sane again is knowing that what happened to you won't happen to someone else. That's not him, that's the queen bitch, Alia. You take this sap out, you'll be questioning yourself all your tomorrows.” Truth is, I can't stop her if she's committed. So I think of offering praise to Samantha's cult god when the building stops shaking. She looks at me, nods, and leaves.

“Please, I helped, yeah? I told you everything, right? Don't be a bastard, come on, help a guy out. I was confused yeah? Didn't know what was going on, for real. I'll change.” I can barely understand him through his crying.

“Shh, relax. This isn't going to hurt.” I start flooding his brain with heroin levels of dopamine. “I'm going to heal you now.” And I do. His entire body. From the hurts I've imposed to every hereditary defect that would've caused even an ounce of pain in his late eighties. I turn him into an ultimate specimen of humanity, of liminal humanity even. He can't believe his luck. Then he sees me smile.

I start again by exploding every one of his taste buds. I burn his liver and intestines with lactic acid, turn his stomach into a Swiss cheese–like membrane and fill it with the remains of his bone marrow. Just before I increase the pressure in his eye sockets until vision becomes unbearable, I dry out his eardrum, making balance an impossible notion. I regrow the bone spikes from his neck, legs, and arms almost as an afterthought. By the time I'm finished with him, he uses his last remaining power to explode his own head.

I walk from the restaurant to the early evening. Across the way, Tamara sits sobbing on the bench where I left her. Fourteen years old. I hadn't done this much at her age. Mac ran the town, really just the high school, but that was it. He held court over all the local teenagers and the poor teachers associated with the school, but there were no global conspiracies, no murder of parents to get what he wanted. And all I did was follow behind him, tending to every bump and scrape that he might have. I wouldn't have been able to handle what this girl is facing.

“It's over,” I tell her, petting her hair.

“I want you to know.” She moves my hand only so that she can look in my eyes. “I don't think of you as my dog. My killer. I know what my responsibility is. When the time comes, I promise I won't let you down.”

“I know.”