The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage (20 page)

She shoved the microphone in his face. The yellow foam pop protector on the end was stained from her lipstick.

“I don’t need a damn invitation,” Marc said. “He’s my son.”

“Tell ‘er, Marc,” Ray said.

Parapetti shifted her attention to him. “Mister Greene, you’re the editor and publisher of a white-supremacy newspaper, isn’t that right? Are you and Marc Teslowski friends?”

Ray smiled, at her and for the camera. “
The Good Human
is a
Homo sapiens
supremacy newsletter, and if there’s anything wrong with that, we’re in a heap of trouble, and twenty-five-thousand patriotic subscribers might be a little miffed, Ms. Parapetti.” He put his arm around Marc, who cringed a little by reflex. “And hell yes, I’m proud to call this hero of humanity standing next to me my friend.”

Parapetti shifted back to Marc. “Mister Teslowski, are you at all disturbed by the views represented by Mister Greene’s publication and the alleged militia supporting his cause, given that your son is a Sovereign?”

Marc’s neck felt hot. “I’m sick of people assuming my boy is one of those freaks. He was kidnapped. The Sovereigns are holding him against his will. Everyone knows that.”

“Isn’t it true the Sovereign have made no demands connected with the release of Byron Teslowski?” Parapetti rolled the questions out in a well-practiced tone. “Why are they allegedly holding him if they haven’t made any demands?”

Marc had a trick with reporters who pissed him off, which so far meant every reporter he’d ever met. He imagined her getting fucked in the ass while she asked her questions. Not by him. Just fucked in the ass in general.

It helped him feel like he was in a better position than them, made him feel like he was just a little bit superior. It worked quickly.

“I don’t know why,” he snapped. “You’d have a better chance of asking them than I would. But so long as I’m his father and he’s a minor, he belongs with me. With his mother and me. It’s that simple.”

She flipped again. “Mister Greene, isn’t it true that your publication advocates the genocide of the Sovereign people?”

Ray’s jovial expression cooled a touch.

“Ms. Parapetti, you just used what they call an oxymoron.”

“Very clever, Mister Greene. Our viewers will note you didn’t deny it. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that Mister Teslowski’s son actually was a Sovereign. Would you support, as your publication has, that Byron Teslowski, and I quote, be ‘hanged at the crossroads with his own guts for a noose,’ unquote?”

Marc jerked his shoulder out from under Ray’s clenching hand. What the fuck?

Ray’s face was red. “You city reporters, you think you can twist things around, make good people look like monsters?” Marc saw Parapetti blink when spray from Ray’s mouth struck her face, but she didn’t flinch beyond that.

Ray stabbed a finger at the Sovereign demonstrators and their supporters. “There’s your monsters, woman! Why ain’t you asking them anything, with that devil tongue of yours, in that…that harlot’s mouth?”

Ray strode back toward the road. He brought up his hand and extended his middle finger for Parapetti and his crew to see.

Marc followed him automatically. The man might be crazy, but he was his ride, and Marc’s stuff was at his house.

Ray didn’t say anything until they got back in the car. He started the engine and drove up the shoulder as far as he could before parked cars forced him to inch back into traffic, which was still awful.

“Marc, you listen to me,” he growled. “I swear on the grave of my dead wife: the next time me or mine come to that devil’s nest, Doctor motherfucking William Karl Satan Beelzebub Donner himself will know it.”

He rolled down his window, stuck his head out, and screamed at the car he was trying to cut in front of.

“You wanna let me in, jackass?”

Marc looked at Ray.

“That thing she said. You said that about my boy?”

Ray pulled his head back in. He kept his focus on the car in front of him. “What? No, goddamn it. She put words in my mouth. You’ve said it yourself, Marc. Your boy ain’t no Sovereign.” He leaned on the horn. “C’mon!”

Marc nodded slowly. “Right.”

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Eleven

Our plan was to scare the shit out of Eric Finn.

At the very least, we’d send a message that someone was out to get him. In the beginning, it wouldn’t matter if he knew who it was or not. That could come later.

Jason’s folks were gone at least until the weekend, so he felt free to continue using the car. He drove me to the parking lot of Sunrise Import Shop late Wednesday afternoon, where we sat in the parking lot and ate Slim Jims until I spotted Eric Finn leaving work.

“There he is.” I tapped Jason’s shoulder.

“What a loser,” Jason said. Finn got into an old black Mustang that looked like it had come off the assembly line the day before yesterday. “Fuck, nice car, though.”

Finn pulled out of the parking lot. Jason started the Bonneville and followed him.

“Not too close.” I slouched in the seat. I didn’t want him to see that Nate Charters, the freaky kid from the tabloids, was in the car behind him. He might make a connection I didn’t want made just yet.

“I got it,” Jason said with a touch of impatience. “Fuckin’ A Team, dude.”

“Fuckin’ A Team.”

Finn headed down El Toro Boulevard. Jason let a car get between us.

“Don’t lose him,” I said.

“Yeah, right,” Jason said. “I’m gonna lose sight of that.”

He had a point. Finn’s classic car stood out. Turned heads, even.

“Hey, he’s turning into Argyle’s,” Jason said. “What should I do?”

“Uh…” I slouched down even farther in the seat and pulled my hoodie down over my eyes. “Go in. Get behind him.”

“In the takeout line? I’ll have to order!”

“So?”

“So do you have any money?”

I didn’t want to move my head or draw any attention to myself on the off chance that Eric Finn would choose that very moment to glance in his rear view mirror. “Don’t you?”

“Don’t you?”

I groaned. “Dude! Your parents left town for a week or whatever, and they didn’t, like, leave you any fucking money? Seriously?”

Jason giggled. “Nah, dude. I’ve got money. But you totally owe me.”

“Jesus! Fine!”

We were at the menu board. The intercom crackled.

“Welcome to Argyle’s. Can I get you an order of potato cheese cakes today?”

Jason lowered his voice and said to me, “Dude, what do you want?”

I went on automatic. “Argyle Deluxe, with Pony Dip. Twisty fries. Um…an orange soda.”

Jason frowned. “I’m keeping track.”

“Good for you.”

Jason ordered. Up ahead, not even twenty feet away, Eric Finn got his food and pulled out.

“Shit! We’re gonna lose him!”

Jason pulled us up to the takeout window. A bored-looking girl reached out her hand to take his money.

He looked at me instead. “What should I do?”

Finn was waiting at the driveway for traffic to clear so he could merge in. It could happen at any moment.

“Fuck! Let’s just go!”

Jason glanced at the cashier. “Sorry! Not my fault!” He drove through just as Finn merged into traffic.

“Can you get him?”

Jason watched the traffic. “Hang on, dude!”

With a rebel yell, he peeled out into the lane. The Bonneville fishtailed for a split second, and my heart lurched. I realized I had a pretty tight grip on the armrest and forced myself to relax before my extraordinarily thick, sharp fingernails made a mess of the vinyl.

We survived. Finn put two cars between us.

Jason beat a rat-a-tat on the steering wheel with his palms and bounced a little in his seat. He grinned widely. “Heh! We got him.” He looked at me with a face bright with glee. “This is fun, yeah?”

“Yeah.” It kinda was. “But dude, we have to catch up with him. We need to figure out what we’re gonna do.”

Jason peered ahead. “He’s going to Laguna Canyon.”

I sat up a little in the seat. “That’s good, yeah? Fewer chances to lose him.”

“Yeah.”

We were headed west, more or less, but the staggered hills of Laguna Canyon kept the setting sun out of our eyes, mostly. Before long, Laguna Canyon Road would be in twilight.

I’d be able to see just fine—my eyes soaked up light like those fancy paper towels the giant lumberjack hawked on TV soaked up water. I wasn’t sure about Jason, though.

“Hey, are you okay to drive at night?”

“Pshah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just checking.”

“Chill out.” Jason was still grinning. He switched on the radio, but we were already too deep in to the canyon, and it was staticky. “Poop.” He shut it off.

I noticed we now just had a single car separating us from Finn. “Hey, we’re catching up. Don’t let him know we’re following him.”

“I thought we wanted him to know someone was after him?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what we should do. I want to freak him out, but…is it a good idea for him to know it’s us?”

“Dude! We’re making justice, here, remember? Don’t wuss out!”

I glared at him. “I’m not!” I turned back to the road ahead.

We were directly behind Finn’s Ford.

“What happened to the other car?”

“They turned off, back at the art school.”

“Well…put a little space between us, maybe.”

Jason saluted. “
Jawohl, capitan
.”

Jason slowed down a touch. I saw that there were no cars ahead of Finn for a good ways.

Finn gunned it.

“The fuck?” Jason said.

“Go!”

Jason dropped his foot, and the Bonneville lurched forward, closing the distance between us.

Finn braked, hard. My heightened senses registered it a microsecond before Jason. We both yelped. Jason braked and glanced in his rearview mirror. Thankfully, we had a good deal of space on the road behind us, too.

“The fuck,” Jason said again.

“He knows,” I said. “He must know. Fuck.”

Finn gave his brakes a tap and accelerated again. Jason glanced at me.

“What do I do? Should I let him go?”

Let him go?

I felt a wave of heat move up my back. The muscles of my shoulders bunched. I sat all the way up in my seat and yanked the hood off my head.

“No fucking way.”

Jason nodded rapidly. “Yeah. Heh. Yeah.” He closed the distance between the two cars once again, this time leaving enough room to deal with any more funny stuff.

Finn turned on his right turn signal and slowed down.

“He’s gonna turn,” Jason said needlessly.

“What’s up there?” I saw, though. The next place to turn off the road was the vacant gravel lot used for parking during the summer arts festival.

“Oh.” I got it. “Yeah, he’s totally on to us.”

Jason’s face was hard. “Looks like we’re gonna make some justice right here.”

I took a deep breath, let it out, did it again. My legs jumped. My fingers ached. I curled and uncurled them, scraping my fingernails against my palms.

The parking lot was a little higher than the road. Driving by, you couldn’t really see it. No one would be able to see us. And no one else would really have a reason to join our cars up there.

Gravel crunched under the Bonneville’s tires as Jason navigated up the driveway and into the lot.

Finn was already parked. His headlights threw off my night vision, overwhelming my light-sensitive eyes.

Jason stopped and put on the parking brake. He squinted ahead. “He just got out of his car.” He looked at me. “You good? Fueled up?”

My nostrils were flared so much, my upper lip pulled into a sneer. I pulled fast breath in and out of my nose and let my mouth hang open, the better to process scents. I didn’t really have much control over any of that. It was all part of the artificial augmentations I’d inherited from dear old dad.

Right now, though, I wanted it. I needed it. I needed the reminder that I was what I was.

I’d fought monsters. I was bad ass. I was.

“I’m good,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We got out of the car. Finn stepped out of the glare of his car’s headlights, still a good twenty feet away. One good leap, for me.

His voice was calm with just a hint of disgust. “Hey, fuckers. Are you sure, totally sure, that you little shits know what you’re doing?”

I didn’t expect him to get the first word in. It threw me off. Jason glanced at me and picked up the slack.

“Dude, you tried to make me rear-end you. What the hell?”

Finn’s lips twisted. “Right. You’ve been following me, kid.” He looked at me. “I know who you are.”

He knew I was Lina’s boyfriend? This was not going the way I’d imagined it.

“You’re the Sovereign kid,” he said.

I usually corrected that assumption since I didn’t particularly enjoy being lumped in with those guys. Right now, though, it didn’t seem like the smart thing to do. I’d ride it.

“Good for you.” My voice hadn’t cracked for a while by then, but I was inexplicably terrified it would happen now. I was tense, nervous; my breathing wouldn’t calm down. “You watch TV.”

This was the guy. Right here, this was the guy who had tried to rape Lina.

He didn’t seem intimidated. “Why are you here, Sovereign kid? What’s the deal? Little joyride?” He stepped to his right, putting a little distance between us. More importantly, he was no longer directly in front of his headlights. I pivoted as well.

“Justice,” I said.

He regarded me. “We’ve never met…Nick? Right?”

“I thought you said knew me?”

He scowled, spread his arms, let them drop. “I know who you are. Everybody does, kid. Doesn’t mean I actually give a shit.” He looked at Jason and back to me. “Now. Tell me why you and your boyfriend here were following me in that piece of shit Bonneville.”

“I told you.”

He lowered his voice and adopted an exaggerated somber expression to intone, “Justice…” He dropped the look and laughed. “Very impressive, Sovereign boy. Only, like I said, we’ve never met. What’s your damage?”

“Laugh if you want,” I said. “If you know about me, you know what I can do.”