Drew rolled his neck. He always knew he wasn’t one of them, but neither did he appreciate being left in the dark. “You could have told me.”
Winston glanced around to make sure they were unobserved, then spoke quietly. “There were six shards of the Scorpion Star, Drew. Two years ago, all six of us touched for an instant, and it was the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt. But now three of us are dead.” Winston leaned in closer, his voice growing more hushed. “What if they weren’t supposed to die? What if everything hinges on Dillon bringing them back, and the six of us coming together again?”
Drew uncomfortably shifted his shoulders, feeling the pull of the stitches on his arm, which wasn’t getting any better.
“The whole has always been greater than the sum of our parts,” Winston continued. “The more of us together, the more our powers multiply. With the way our powers are growing, can you imagine what might happen if the six of us came together now?”
“No, I can’t.” Drew said honestly. “I’m not sure I want to.”
Winston nodded. “Neither does Briscoe.”
THE NEXT INBOUND FROM Miami pulled up to the gate half an hour late. A short break for fueling, luggage, and mechanical Band-Aids, and it would head back to the land of gators and hurricanes. The crowds at the gate, however, made it doubtful that Drew and Winston would get seats.
They waited, eyeing the slow-moving check-in line, casually watching as passengers disembarked the jet in a panicked diaspora to catch whatever flight they were already late for.
So anxious was Drew to get on this flight that he almost missed the exiting passenger with a patch over his eye.
He saw it only for the briefest instant as he scanned the jetway exit, but once his brain registered what he had seen, he double-took to see the man’s back as he strode toward the higher gates.
A dozen denials shot through Drew’s mind. This could not be the same man. He looked taller; he looked leaner; what hair he had left seemed grayer at the temples. But Drew had only encountered him twice. How many men fitting that general description flew out of Miami on any given day? One hundred? Two hundred? How many with a wounded right eye? Drew felt his cool, level demeanor begin to splinter, and he shook Winston hard enough to rattle his chair.
“It’s him! It’s Briscoe—I’m sure of it!” His certainty swelled with his adrenaline.
“What?! Where?”
“There—just passing gate nine—do you see him?”
Their subject carried a leather shoulder bag that bulged like everyone else’s carry-on—but there was an unnerving definition to the bulge, as if whatever it was, was not meant to be jammed into luggage. He turned to enter a bathroom, and again Drew caught a brief glimpse of the bandage over his eye.
“Would you know him if you saw him close up?” Winston asked.
“No question about it. What do we do?”
“What happened to the unshakeable Drew Camden I used to know?”
“I think he’s about to piss his pants.” Drew felt his emotions slingshot back to the scuffle on top of Michael’s coffin, but Winston was there to pick up the slack, and pull both their minds into focus.
“Okay . . . okay, if it’s him, we have to be careful,” Winston said, as they headed toward the restroom.
“Do we storm the bathroom?”
“No—we’re not even sure it’s him yet. We’ll separate—I’ll go to the gift shop on this side of the restroom, you go to the bar on the far side—since it looks like he was headed toward the upper gates. When he comes out he’ll pass one of us—hopefully you—and you’ll get a better look at him. If we’re lucky, he won’t spot us.”
“And then what? We can’t make a move on him here—there are too many exits—too many chances for him to get away.”
“We’ll have to get him alone. Trap him somewhere.”
Then something occurred to Drew. “There might be a way we can trap him,” he said. “Without having to get him alone.”
MARTIN BRISCOE, WHO USUALLY hated air travel, quickly discovered that airports were his friend. Where else could he vanish into a crowd so effectively? The fact that most people were on trajectories that took them hundreds of miles away made it even easier to be anonymous. He could murder someone right there in the restroom, and by the time the body was found, any potential witnesses would be spread anywhere from Anchorage to Auckland. Not that he had any current intentions of homicide—but still, it was nice to know.
Locked in his stall, the toilet flushed as he stepped back. It was one of those automatic johns. The pinnacle of modern technology. He reached into his bag, pulled out the white urn, then opened the cap. His task was to spread Tory Smythe’s ashes to the corners of the earth. And so holding the urn cradled in his left arm, he dipped his right thumb and forefinger in, extracting a pinch of ash.
He turned his eyes upward. “For your glory,” he said aloud, in case the angels got off on praise—which he felt sure they did—although he also knew these were angels of action, not words. Long-winded psalms and the reciting of epistles would inspire impatience. He could sense that about them, so he pared his words of praise down to sound bytes.
Holding his fingertips close to the bowl, he rubbed them together, releasing the dusty ash, then stepped back. The bowl flushed automatically, and one more ration of Tory Smythe’s physical essence was fed back to the Earth. Deep in his mind, at that strange interface, he could feel the glow of the angels’ approval. But still they kept their distance, and he wondered what he had to do to bring them closer.
Perhaps when he was finished, they would come to him. Reward him.
As for Tory Smythe, she had a date with dissolution on a global scale. Even before laying waste to the offices of Eureka Dental, Martin had pulled out all of his savings, and now he had used most of it to purchase air tickets. Dallas was his first stop, then Mexico City, then Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, New Delhi, Tokyo, and a half dozen other ports of call in a massive globe-trotting itinerary. He fancied himself a Phineas Fogg of a new millennium; around the world in twenty-three days. And in each airport he would leave behind another dash of dust, until Tory Smythe had been dispersed more effectively than anyone who had ever lived.
The corners of the Earth. What a cushy assignment! This would more than make up for his failure with Michael Lipranski.
And that wasn’t over, either. He would find that faggot friend of his, and julienne the truth out of him, exacting his revenge in pounds of flesh until he told Martin where Michael’s body was hidden.
But why embitter himself with that now? He had listened to enough motivational tapes in his life to know that negative energy never helped the situation. Best to focus on the task at hand. So he spent a moment tracing his hopscotch flight paths in his mind, until he could see that final destination, when he would stand on the rim of Black Canyon, where he had once stood and watched his wife and son die beneath the flood, and he would hurl the empty urn into the dry bed of the Colorado River.
When he left the restroom, he felt untouchable.
MEXICO CITY WAS CURRENTLY not a hot destination, and his flight was only half full. Although he would have preferred his excursion first class all the way, his funds kept him mostly in coach. When the door closed, he thought he might get both the window and aisle seat to himself—but after the plane left the gate, a black kid, who reeked of travel sweat, changed seats, dropping his ass right next to Martin. Lately Martin’s tolerance for minorities had declined, so he turned his one good eye out of the window as the plane taxied toward the runway, hoping that with any luck the black kid might find another empty seat more inviting. Perhaps it was just the thrill of his journey, but as the plane accelerated toward takeoff, he could feel his skin tingle. The hair on his arms, the skin of his scalp, his cuticles. It was a sensation that was familiar, although he couldn’t quite place where he had felt it before. Then, as the nose of the jet lifted off the runway, it occurred to him the time and place that went
along with that sensation. It was a rose garden in the shadow of Hearst Castle, where one of the self-proclaimed gods held court. His flesh had crawled then as his body hair grew, and he watched roses explode from buds into full bloom in a matter of seconds.
Before the rear landing gear left the earth, he knew who was sitting next to him.
He turned his head, exaggerating the motion to give his left eye a clear sight of the passenger to his right. It was unmistakably Winston Pell, who smiled coldly at him and said, “You need a haircut.”
Martin could only stammer. “You’re dead! You’re supposed to be dead. Like Tory—like Michael and the others. Like Dillon!”
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he said. “Looks like your carry-on doesn’t quite fit under the seat in front of you. Mind telling me what’s inside?”
“Go to hell.”
And then a second face appeared looming over the seat back in front of him. “Well, if it isn’t my buddy the one-eyed Chihuahua killer!” said Drew Camden.
“You both go to hell!” Martin blurted out.
“No,” said Drew, “I believe we’re going to Mexico City.”
By now several surrounding passengers had taken notice of their exchange, but as the plane was still on a steep ascent, no flight attendants stalked the aisle.
“You should get that eye looked at,” said Winston. “It’s infected, isn’t it? Those bacteria must be growing at an incredible rate right now.”
Sure enough, Martin could feel the flesh around his eye burn and his sinuses ache. Around him the gray cloud cover gave way to bright sunlight as they punched through the clouds. But there was another light now; a light deep in Martin’s mind. Light and pain and voices without words.
It was the angels.
They were furious. He was failing them. They wanted action, not praise, not excuses. They wanted his action, they demanded his action.
“Too bad Tory’s not alive,” said Winston. “Infections were her thing, she could have cleaned you up in a sec. Of course, in some ways, she’s still with us, isn’t she?”
“So why don’t you be a nice little psycho, and give us your bag,” said Drew. “Now.”
The pain in his eye grew unbearable, as did the voices, and the light. He unbuckled his seatbelt, pulled the bag out from the seat, and motioned as if to hand the bag over to Winston, but instead climbed on his seat, and leapt over its back to the seat behind him, landing on a very surprised woman. There were loud exclamations from the travelers around him, but he ignored them. He still had a mission, but now that mission had changed.
Drew and Winston came at him, but he evaded their grasp. Wrapping his bag’s strap around his arm, then gripping the bag to his chest, Martin flew down the steeply inclined aisle toward the back. There were few options left to him now. He might be able to handle the Camden kid, but he was no match for Winston Pell. The freakish boy could focus his power into a surge that would shoot his growing infection down the optic nerve, routing his brain. God knew what else he was capable of. So Martin bolted to put distance between them, even if that distance could only be a dozen yards.
The aft flight attendant had seen this coming.
She had heard the escalating argument, and knew that, whatever it was about, no good could come of it—and now they had all left their seats, heading for her. What’s more, the man with the carry-on had a desperate look about him that summoned her gooseflesh. She rose to intercept.
“You’ll all have to find a seat now!” she said, getting between the two teens and the riot-eyed man. “You’re disturbing the other passengers, and are in severe violation of—”
The black teen pushed her out of the way to get at the man, who frantically eyed the hatch.
“This can all be over now!” the black teen told the man with the bag, but the man was surprisingly strong, hurling the kid away hard enough to deliver him across the galley, knocking loose the secured cart which flew out of its niche, and tumbled on the boy.
“I need help back here!” the flight attendant shouted. By now other attendants were already running to join the melee.
The man held his pack high out of reach of the second teen—high enough for the other passengers to get a good look at the bulging, rigid shape inside.
“He’s got a bomb!” someone yelled. The cabin erupted in panic, to the point that the flight attendant wondered if it were true. She hesitated, and rather than deal with the man, decided to fend off his antagonists, because whatever the situation was, they were making it worse. She turned to the black kid, who had just freed himself from beneath the cart.
As Winston rose to his feet, he saw Briscoe swing his bag at Drew’s arm, the urn inside connecting with his injury. Drew wailed in pain. Winston tried to get back into the fight, but the stewardess inserted herself as an obstacle in the narrow galley. She shouted something ridiculous about placing him under FAA arrest, while behind her, Briscoe was tugging mightily on the hatch’s release lever.
“Drew! Stop him!” But Drew was already being hauled up the aisle by a steward, and two other passengers who had had enough.
Winston saw the hatch lever engage, and self-preservation suddenly supplanted all else. He reached up, grabbed a hand rail, and clenched his fist around it as a blast of sudden wind exploded in his painfully popping ears.
It was Drew who had the clearest view.
Eyes still locked on Briscoe even as he was pulled away, Drew saw the handle go down, and the instant the lock disengaged, the door crashed open, and Briscoe was gone, sack and all. At only a mile high, decompression wasn’t explosive, but it was close enough. A wind sucked violently through the cabin, air masks dropped. Drew’s feet flew out from under him and he hooked an arm rest with his good arm. The flight attendant who had first tried to stop them grabbed futilely for purchase, then was ejected into the void. Pressure equalized, but the roar of wind and engines remained.
“Winston!”
But Drew couldn’t even hear his own voice. The jet vibrated as if it would rattle itself apart, and the screams around the cabin began to fade as passengers realized they were not going to die. The sound of the engines changed as the pilot took a new flight plan, slowing airspeed, angling them for descent and a quick airport return.
Winston, just aft of the open door, let go of the handrail, the chilling wind pummeling him, thundering in his ears. He slid to the floor, and put his head in his hands, already feeling the depth of what had been lost.
TUMBLING IN A COLD freefall, Martin Briscoe fought to get control of his plunge. The brilliant blue sky had become a white fog as he hit the clouds, and he could no longer tell up from down. He had looped the strap of his bag twice around his arm before the door opened. But the force of being sucked into the thin atmosphere had torn the strap free from one side of his bag. Now it twisted on a tether. He fought to pull it to his chest, then gripped it tightly.
There was a sound now, even more furious, more demanding than the wind. It was the angels. “There is one deed left to do,” they told him, “the one act that will avenge your family’s death, and will make your life count for something.” He could hear them now so much closer than they had been before, no longer behind a window, but pressing urgently upon his mind. No faces, only voices, light, and shadow. “Do this one last thing, and we can enter this world unchallenged. Dillon will be damned,” they assured him, “and you will be elevated.”
The clouds gave way to clear air, and a flat brown landscape below. Still clutching the bag under his arm, he undid the clasp and reached in. Then he grabbed the lid of the urn, and tore it off.
Tory Smythe’s ashes became a funnel plume escaping the urn, like an unfurling parachute. Her dust billowed into the shredding currents of the wind, and when the urn was empty Briscoe released the pack, letting the wind take it as well.
The deed was done and he could sense the angels’ satisfaction as they prepared for a grand entrance into the world. With the ground less than a tho
usand feet away now, he gloated, and laughed, for the shards were defeated, and the heavens appeased. Then he stretched his arms out wide to receive the earth, and his reward.
18. AN ABUNDANCE OF FISH
* * *
A THOUSAND MILES SOUTH OF DALLAS, A STEEL GATE SEVEN feet thick and weighing seven hundred tons slowly swung open, then slowly swung shut. Once sealed, the chamber was flooded. This water-step lifted even the greatest of ships more than thirty feet before the Pedromiguel Lock released them on their way toward the treacherous Gaillard Cut, Gatun Lake, and the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal.
At midday, ships bottlenecked in Lake Miraflores. Eight of them today—from the sleekest of cruise ships to the rankest rust-bucket freighters. All became equal as they waited for the locks to admit them, one by one.
The gate labored open. A freighter passed into the lock. The gate labored shut. The waters within the lock silently rose.
A small switchback path on the eastern bank of Lake Miraflores zig-zagged its way up the hill, lined with colorful flowers. Thousands of cruise passengers would see it as they passed, comment on how it resembled a great Zorro “Z” on the hillside, and then think themselves clever that they had thought of that.
The garden path, which connected a tiny weather-worn dock to a house further up the hill, was planted by Gabriela Ceballos, who died before she could enjoy it, and was now maintained religiously by her daughter.
Unobserved on that east side of the lake were three Canal Zone residents. The boy at the foot of the path, kicking his feet back and forth at the end of the small dock, the mother, who labored on the garden path, and the grandfather, who sat on the verandah at the head of the path, watching the snare of ships in the lake.
Carlos Ceballos was the patriarch of a family much smaller than it should have been. His fault, really, and his wife’s, for educating their children so well, that three out of four broke out of their familial orbit, leaving Panama completely. But Carlos could never leave home. Even his job as a canal pilot never took him far from home—just from one end of the canal to the other. Still, the glimpses of the world he saw aboard the ships he piloted made him feel like a world traveler. At fifty-five he was one of the most respected canal pilots, and boasted more than twenty thousand trips through the canal. Each time a virgin ship arrived for its first transcanal voyage, Carlos was given the honor of piloting her.