The Sopaths (11 page)

“Sure I can. I don’t care who else he loves.”

“And you’re not jealous of his love for Clark and Dreda?”

“They don’t want to have sex with him.”

“Point taken,” Bunty said. “But what about me? I do want to have sex with him.”

Nefer gazed thoughtfully at her. “And you’re helping me. I don’t understand that.”

“Maybe I think that if he had sex with you, then the challenge would be gone and you’d lose interest and go away.”

“Bunty!” Abner protested.

Nefer shook her head. “Wouldn’t work. I’d want him to keep fucking and fucking me all the time.”

“I’m not going to do that!” Abner said.

“I know,” Nefer said. “But at least this way I can be close to you.”

“You can be close to him by being close to Clark and Dreda,” Bunty said. “If he knows you’ll be protecting them from harm, he’ll value you more.”

The girl pondered, working it out. “That’s right. He’d kill me if I did anything bad to you or them, but if I help them, maybe he’ll like me.”

Abner saw his opportunity. “Maybe I will,” he agreed.

“Via that avenue you can be Dreda’s friend,” Bunty said. “Perhaps not one to be completely trusted, but there are different types of friends.”

Nefer stood there, mulling it over. Then tears started rolling down her face. “I—can—be. A friend.”

Dreda put her arms around Nefer. Then the others closed in, and they were a close group with Nefer in the center. It was similar to their nightly grief sessions, but this was a kind of joy.

After a moment they separated. “Here is another truth,” Bunty said to Nefer. “When you pretend long enough, you can come to accept it as a kind of reality. To be what you pretend to be. You will never have a conscience or feel remorse, but as long as you act as if you do, you can have the benefits they bring. Including survival.”

“I pretend at home,” Nefer said. “But they don’t know.”

“We
do
know,” Abner said. The girl was a consummate little actress emulating normal feelings she lacked, but was committed in her fashion. “That’s the difference.”

Nefer was still working it out. “So I don’t have to fu—to have sex with you to make you like me. I just have to act like a normal.”

“That’s it,” Abner agreed. “Now I can say it: I do like you, Nefer. Some. Maybe the way I might like a vicious guard dog, but as long as I know it is loyal to me, I like it.”

She shook her head, bemused. “Weird.”

The others laughed.

CHAPTER 6

“Understand,” Abner said grimly. “We’re not doing this because we like violence or killing, but because the criminals are trying to kill us and we have to be rid of them. We want them to conclude that this section of town is simply too dangerous for them to operate freely, so they will go elsewhere and leave us alone.”

“We know, daddy,” Dreda said. “It’s like killing sopaths.”

“Exactly. We are using Nefer because she can best do the job, not because we prefer her to you.”

“We know,” Clark said. “She doesn’t mind killing.”

“This is dangerous. We could both get killed. If so--”

“We know,” Bunty said. “If you die, I will look for another man in Pariah, to maintain the family.” She paused, then added “But please don’t die.”

“I’ll certainly try. I love you.”

Bunty paused again, opened her mouth, then dissolved into tears. They all clustered together, sharing another grief session, only this one was for him. In case he died. Bunty had tried to pass the prospect off incidentally, but gotten overwhelmed. They had all experienced the awful loss of their families, and didn’t want it to happen again. And the fact was they did love each other, and the children. Their assembly as a
de facto
family might have been haphazard, but it had become quite real emotionally and practically.

Then Bunty was kissing him passionately. The children departed, letting her savagely seduce him. They understood.

That night he went out alone, fetched the wagon with the mine, and quietly wheeled it along the dark street. The heavy load was covered by a tarpaulin; it could have been anything from potatoes to children. They had considered a fancier camouflage, but concluded that it was pointless; the gangsters would quickly check it regardless. This needed to be brutally fast. He did not head directly to his destination, and checked everything around him to be sure no one was watching.

Nefer appeared, stepping from the shadow. “I have it, Mr. Slate.”

“Not yet. It’s heavy.”

“Haul it to the low hill beyond the site. Then I’ll ride it down.”

“Nefer, it’s a bomb!”

“It won’t go off until I pull the plug.” That was her way of describing the catch mechanism they had used to secure the mine. It was armed, but stifled; removal of that catch would set it off.

He did not argue further. He hauled the wagon along, and she paced him, peering around to be sure they were alone. He was highly conscious of the bomb, because they had packed it with kerosene-soaked wood chips and newspaper, hoping that it would set a fire when it went off. They did not want it going off prematurely.

In due course they were on the hill. A slight slope led down to the gangster’s center of operations. “My turn,” Nefer said, putting her hand on his on the handle.

“Remember, when you activate it, you will have perhaps ten seconds to get well away before it detonates,” he reminded her. “It doesn’t have a proper timing mechanism. Do it and run.”

“I got it, Mr. Slate. Kiss me.”

It was part of her price. He squatted before her, put his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her on the mouth. She pressed her lips into his, savoring it. She was good at kissing. She was behaving, but he knew she still wanted to seduce him if she could.

He broke the kiss and released her. “I love you,” she said. Then she lifted the handle, faced the target house and started walking. She had no trouble hauling the wagon behind her, because of the slope.

Abner moved behind a tree and watched. His heart was pounding from the danger and perhaps something else. It was all up to Nefer now, as it had been with the pedophile.

She proceeded resolutely down the street. When she approached the house, a man intercepted her. Abner could hear his challenge in the quiet night. “Who are you?”

“I’m a sopath,” Nefer replied boldly, continuing to move forward. “News is you need runners. I brought my wagon, so I can carry a full load. Just give me the stuff and the addresses and the money.”

The man paced her. “Not so fast, little so-bitch. What’s under that tarp?”

“Its just a box for holding the stuff. I don’t want to lose any. Where’s the stash?”

But he was suspicious. “What’s there? It stinks of kerosene.”

She accelerated her pace, drawing close to the house. “Well so do you, creep.”

“Hey, we got a smartass!” the man called.

Immediately several other men emerged from the house, surrounding them. One of them ripped the tarpaulin off, exposing the wooden box with its packing. The kerosene odor intensified. Abner could almost smell it from his distant vantage. In another moment they would discern the nature of this package.

Nefer reached inside and yanked off the protective tie, activating the bomb. She bolted away.

“Grab her!” the first man cried, apparently not catching on to the danger they were in.

The man closest to Nefer reached out to snag her as she passed him. She brought her head down and bit his hand.

“Yow!” he bellowed, grabbing for her again. He caught her and hauled her into him.

The bomb detonated. It was a splendid explosion. The blast hurled the men outward, set their clothing on fire, and ignited the overhanging roof of the house. The man holding Nefer seemed to leap through the air, carrying her with him. His body was inadvertently shielding her from both the blast and the flames.

Then they fell, and both lay still as the fire spread across the house.

Abner was running toward them before he knew it. He saw Nefer’s slight body pinned under that of the man. He hauled the man off her, then picked her up and carried her away. No one tried to stop him; they were all unconscious or dazed.

He halted only when he was well clear of the burning house, panting with the effort. Nefer lay in his arms, inert. Was she alive or dead?

“Oh, Nefer!” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to get caught like that! You were so brave! I’ll never forgive myself if you die!”

She did not react. Then, chiding himself for his foolishness, he lifted her head to his face and kissed her with the passion of guilt and fear.

Now she responded, weakly. “You kissed me.”

“I did,” he agreed, relieved. This was the first time he had kissed her of his own volition. “You were unconscious.”

“Like kissing the princess awake.”

“Like that,” he agreed. “Are you all right? Can you walk?”

“I don’t know. I feel woozy and sort of bruised.”

“You were too near the explosion. That man landed on you, although his body shielded you from the flames. Oh, Nefer, I’m so glad you made it!”

“So am I.” She looked sharply at him, her wooziness dissipating. “You could have left me there.”

“They would have killed you!”

“Yes. Saved you some trouble. You know I still want to get you into my pants.”

“And you know I won’t do it.”

Again that calculating look. “Are you sure, Mister Slate?”

He had to be painfully honest. “No. Call me Abner; I think you have earned it.”

She was pleased. “Gee. Thanks, Abner.” Then she got serious. “You could have been sure, if you’d let me die. It would have been easy.”

“Not for me. I have a soul and a conscience. I couldn’t let you die if I could prevent it.”

“And maybe you want me, a little.”

He was supposed to play her along, not cutting off her hope, so that she would continue to help him. Was that really all there was to it? “Maybe.”

“And as you said, if you pretend long enough, you can maybe start being what you pretend to be.”

She had him in a neat trap. There
was
a guilty twinge of desire. She had become more of a person to him, less of a sopath. She was playing him as he was playing her. “Maybe by the time I’m ready to let you seduce me, you’ll have developed a conscience and won’t do it.” The subtext there was that she would never develop a conscience, and his capitulation was similarly unlikely.

“Maybe,” she agreed, satisfied. She was still a child and some things escaped her. All she saw was the chance she might succeed. He was deceiving her in her expectation, not his actual words. That was perhaps a fair compromise.

Nefer remained weak and dizzy, so he carried her back to her home. “You’ll tell your family something,” he said. “You need several days of rest.”

“I do. Kiss me again, Abner.”

He kissed her, feeling her passion again, appalled at himself for the temptation to respond to it, and then let her fade into the shadow.

Abner returned home. “We took it out,” he reported. “Nefer did it, really. I owe her, and she knows it. I’m letting her call me Abner. We’re using each other, but I can’t be sure who is winning.”

“We do play a dangerous game, in more than one respect,” Bunty said. “With luck this will finish our association with her.”

“With luck,” he agreed, not believing it. For one thing, he now owed her two get out of jail free cards.

Abner abruptly lost his job. Someone had sent his employer a note connecting him to a supposedly malign Pariah organization, and that was enough to promote a spot layoff. He could neither prevent the layoff nor prove the accusations were untrue. Paranoia was rampant, and he was just another casualty. The criminals had found another way to score.

“We can get by,” Bunty said. “My job will sustain us.” But they both knew that would only delay their bankruptcy.

“Pariah,” Clark said. “They need recruiters.”

Abner nodded. He put in an application.

News came down immediately from the national pariah office, as though they had anticipated his need. Maybe it was common among Pariah activists. They needed a traveling organizer, and he was a prime prospect. But there might be danger.

They hardly hesitated. Abner took the job. They decided to sell the house, buy a motor home, and travel as a family. That would get them out of their neighborhood while doing Pariah some good. Between the war with the criminals and his joblessness, this had become an awkward neighborhood to live in. It was summer, so school for the children was not a problem.

They got busy quietly organizing for the change of lifestyle. Abner discussed it with other Pariah members, arranging for another person to take over the local reins. They would not give up the campaign, but would be more cautious than Abner had been.

His caution was justified. Several days later Nefer appeared at his house. Bunty let her in the front door. She was coated in ashes and her hair was wild. “Mister Slate, I need your help.”

Abner exchanged a fleeting glance with Bunty. That formal address was surely significant. “What is it?”

“The crooks must’ve recognized me. They fire-bombed my house. I got my folks out, but I can’t stay with them any more.”

Clark and Dreda had joined them. “Why?” Clark asked.

“Because I’m dead.”

“You mean they will kill you, now that they have identified you and failed the first time?” Bunty asked.

“No. It’s complicated. Damn!” She looked confused, not able to speak coherently. It was getting to her.

Bunty looked meaningfully at Abner. He responded by going to Nefer, picking her up, then sitting in the easy chair, holding her close on his lap, her head against his chest. “Take your time,” he told her.

She melted, much as a real girl would. Her lack of a conscience did not affect her need for comfort, and he was perhaps the only one who could provide it. Then she talked. “I was out scouting around. Crooks are like sopaths; you can’t trust them. So I was alert. I heard something, so I sneaked around to watch without being seen. Someone was pouring water or something behind our house. It was a girl about my size. Then I saw a flash, and realized what it was: kerosene. They sent a sopath to firebomb my house, the same way as we firebombed theirs. It was another warning. They are striking back. They don’t care if I live or die, they just want me to stop bothering them.”

She paused, collecting her thoughts. Abner held her close and stroked her hair. He saw Dreda nod approvingly: he was pacifying the sopath. “True,” he agreed. “But that was not the whole of it.”

“It was too late to stop the fire,” Nefer continued. “But not too late to act. I ran up behind her and stabbed her through the back. Then I heaved her into the fire. Then I ran around, went inside where it wasn’t burning yet, and screamed to my folks to wake up, the house was burning. I really made a racket. I got them up and out. Then I told them: the firebombing was because of me, and they wouldn’t be safe as long as I lived. So I had to be dead. I told them how I caught the girl who set the fire and threw her into it. She had to be me, burned to death, and they had to accept that. So they would be left alone. They looked at the fire and believed. I left them and came here. Mister Slate, I need you to get me out of here, somehow, where I’ll never be recognized.”

“Yes you do,” Abner agreed.

“We can do it,” Bunty said. “We are about to travel.”

“I didn’t mean you had to be with me,” Nefer said. “I meant to put me in an orphanage or something where I’ll be anonymous and safe. I can’t do that myself, but maybe Pariah could.”

“No local orphanage would take you,” Bunty said. “You’re a sopath. They’ll be alert for that.”

“Some other town, then, where they don’t know about sopaths.”

Clark and Dreda laughed. The whole world knew about sopaths by now. But they had to do something for her.

A look passed around the family. The children nodded. Bunty pursed her lips, but nodded also.

“We’ll take you,” Abner said. “We owe you.”

“You owe me a get out of jail free card,” Nefer said. “Only I want to be put
in
jail, to save my hide and leave my folks safe. I owe them that.”

And the girl did honor the deals she made, not from conscience but because she had learned that it paid in the long term to do so. She had to make it safe for her family.

“That’s a rational assessment,” Bunty said. “But we’re not entirely rational. We have consciences. You incurred this problem because you helped us fight the criminals. We’ll take care of you.”

“But you know I want to--” Nefer shrugged. “You know what I want.” She gazed at Abner, letting her longing show. Her desire for him seemed to have intensified rather than faded. He reminded himself again that as a sopath she lacked natural restraints. She was a child, but it was naked lust she felt.